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strategy I employ in my fantasy novels is to implicate the reader, to tweak their moral pieties, and then to jam them the best I can. My fantasy novels are all about the perils of moral outrage, the tragedy of willing the suffering of others in the name of some moral verity, and yet I regularly receive hate mail from morally outraged readers who think I deserve to suffer—fear and shame, in most cases, but sometimes death—for having written whatever it is they think I’ve written.
The blog wars were a demonstration of a different sort. The idea, basically, was to show how the fascistic impulse, like fantasy, appeals to a variety of inborn cognitive conceits. Far from a historical anomaly, fascism is an expression of our common humanity. We are all fascists, in our way, allergic to complexity, suspicious of difference, willing to sacrifice strangers on the altar of self-serving abstractions. We all want to master our natural and social environments. Public school is filled with little Hitlers—and so is the web.
And this, I wanted to show, is the rub. Before the web, we either kept our self-aggrandizing, essentializing instincts to ourselves or risked exposing them to the contradiction of our neighbours. Now, search engines assure that we never need run critical gauntlets absent ready-made rationalizations. Now we can indulge our cognitive shortcomings, endlessly justify our fears and hatreds and resentments. Now we can believe with the grain our stone-age selves. The argumentative advantage of the fascist is not so different from the narrative advantage of the fantasist: fascism, like fantasy, cues cognitive heuristics that once proved invaluable to our ancestors. To varying degrees, our brains are prone to interpret the world through a fascistic lens. The web dispenses fascistic talking points and canards and ad hominems for free—whatever we need to keep our clown costumes intact, all the while thunderously declaring ourselves angels. Left. Right. It really doesn’t matter. Humans are bigots, prone to strip away complexity and nuance—the very things required to solve modern social problems—to better indulge our sense of moral superiority.
For me, Theodore Beale (aka, Vox Day) and Benjanun Sriduangkaew (aka, acrackedmoon) demonstrated a moral version of the Dunning-Kruger effect, how the bigger the clown, the more inclined they are to think themselves angels. My strategy with Beale was simply to show the buffoonery that lay at the heart of his noxious set of views. And he eventually obliged, explaining why, despite the way his claims epitomize bias, he could nevertheless declare himself the winner of the magical belief lottery:
Oh, I don’t know. Out of nearly 7 billion people, I’m fortunate to be in the top 1% in the planet with regards to health, wealth, looks, brains, athleticism, and nationality. My wife is slender, beautiful, lovable, loyal, fertile, and funny. I meet good people who seem to enjoy my company everywhere I go.
He. Just. Is. Superior.
A king clown, you could say, lucky, by grace of God.
Benjanun Sriduangkaew, on the other hand, posed more of a challenge, since she was, when all was said and done, a troll in addition to a clown. In hindsight, however, I actually regard my blog war with her as the far more successful one simply because she was so successful. My schtick, remember, is to show people how they are the Mad Fanatic in some measure, large or small. Even though Sriduangkaew’s tactics consisted of little more than name-calling, even though her condemnations were based on reading the first six pages of my first book, a very large number of ‘progressive’ individuals were only too happy to join in, and to viscerally demonstrate the way moral outrage cares nothing for reasons or casualties. What’s a false positive when traitors are in our midst? All that mattered was that I was one of them according to so-and-so. I would point out over and over how they were simply making my argument for me, demonstrating how moral groupthink deteriorates into punishing strangers, and feeling self-righteous afterward. I would receive tens of thousands of hits on my posts, and less than a dozen clicks on the links I provided citing the relevant research. It was nothing short of phantasmagorical. I was, in some pathetic, cultural backwoods way, the target of a witch-hunt.
(The only thing I regret is that several of my friends became entangled, some jumping ship out fear (sending me ‘please relent’ letters), others, like Peter Watts, for the sin of calling the insanity insanity.)
It’s worth noting in passing that some Three Pound Brain regulars actually tried to get Beale and Sriduangkaew together. Beale, after all, actually held the views she so viciously attributed to me, Morgan, and others. He was the real deal—openly racist and misogynistic—and his blog had more followers than all of her targets combined. Sriduangkaew, on the other hand, was about as close to Beale’s man-hating feminist caricature as any feminist could be. But… nothing. Like competing predators on the savannah, they circled on opposite sides of the herd, smelling one another, certainly, but never letting their gaze wander from their true prey. It was as if, despite the wildly divergent content of their views, they recognized they were the same.
So here we stand a couple of years after the fray. Sriduangkaew, as it turns out, was every bit as troubled as she sounded, and caused others far, far more grief than she ever caused me. Beale, on other hand, has been kind enough to demonstrate yet another one of my points with his recent attempt to suborn the Hugos. Stories of individuals gaming the Hugos are notorious, so in a sense the only thing that makes Beale’s gerrymandering remarkable is the extremity of his views. How? people want to know. How could someone so ridiculously bigoted come to possess any influence in our ‘enlightened’ day and age?
Here we come to the final, and perhaps most problematic moral clown in this sad and comedic tale: the Humanities Academic.
I’m guessing that a good number of you reading this credit some English professor with transforming you into a ‘critical thinker.’ Too bad there’s no such thing. This is what makes the Humanities Academic a particularly pernicious Mad Fanatic: they convince clowns—that is, humans like you and me—that we need not be clowns. They convince cohort after cohort of young, optimistic souls that buying into a different set of flattering conceits amounts to washing the make-up off, thereby transcending the untutored ‘masses’ (or what more honest generations called the rabble). And this is what makes their particular circus act so pernicious: they frame assumptive moral superiority—ingroup elitism—as the result of hard won openness, and then proceed to judge accordingly.
So consider what Philip Sandifer, “a PhD in English with no small amount of training in postmodernism” thinks of Beale’s Hugo shenanigans:
To be frank, it means that traditional sci-fi/fantasy fandom does not have any legitimacy right now. Period. A community that can be this effectively controlled by someone who thinks black people are subhuman and who has called for acid attacks on feminists is not one whose awards have any sort of cultural validity. That sort of thing doesn’t happen to functional communities. And the fact that it has just happened to the oldest and most venerable award in the sci-fi/fantasy community makes it unambiguously clear that traditional sci-fi/fantasy fandom is not fit for purpose. Simply put, this is past the point where phrases like “bad apples” can still be applied. As long as supporters of Theodore Beale hold sufficient influence in traditional fandom to have this sort of impact, traditional fandom is a fatally poisoned well. The fact that a majority of voices in fandom are disgusted by it doesn’t matter. The damage has already been done at the point where the list of nominees is 68% controlled by fascists.
The problem, Sandifer argues, is institutional. Beale’s antics demonstrate that the institution of fandom is all but dead. The implication is that the science fiction and fantasy community ought to be ashamed, that it needs to gird its loins, clean up its act.
Many of you, I’m sure, find Sandifer’s point almost painfully obvious. Perhaps you’re thinking those rumours about Bakker being a closet this or that must be true. I am just another clown, after all. But catch that moral reflex, if you can, because if you give in, you will be unable—as a matter of empirical fact—to consider the issue rationally.
There’s a far less clownish (ingroupish) way to look at this imbroglio.
Let’s say, for a moment, that readership is more important than ‘fandom’ by far. Let’s say, for a moment, that the Hugos are no more or less meaningful than any other ingroup award, just another mechanism that a certain bunch of clowns uses to confer prestige on those members who best exemplify their self-regarding values—a poor man’s Oscars, say.
And let’s suppose that the real problem facing the arts community lies in the impact of technology on cultural and political groupishness, on the way the internet and preference-parsing algorithms continue to ratchet buyers and sellers into ever more intricately tuned relationships. Let’s suppose, just for instance, that so-called literary works no longer reach dissenting audiences, and so only serve to reinforce the values of readers…
That precious few of us are being challenged anymore—at least not by writing.
The communicative habitat of the human being is changing more radically than at any time in history, period. The old modes of literary dissemination are dead or dying, and with them all the simplistic assumptions of our literary past. If writing that matters is writing that challenges, the writing that matters most has to be writing that avoids the ‘preference funnel,’ writing that falls into the hands of those who can be outraged. The only writing that matters, in other words, is writing that manages to span significant ingroup boundaries.
If this is the case, then Beale has merely shown us that science fiction and fantasy actually matter, that as a writer, your voice can still reach people who can (and likely will) be offended… as well as swayed, unsettled, or any of the things Humanities clowns claim writing should do.
Think about it. Why bother writing stories with progressive values for progressives only, that is, unless moral entertainment is largely what you’re interested in? You gotta admit, this is pretty much the sum of what passes for ‘literary’ nowadays.
Everyone’s crooked is someone else’s straight—that’s the dilemma. Since all moral interpretations are fundamentally underdetermined, there is no rational or evidential means to compel moral consensus. Pretty much anything can be argued when it comes to questions of value. There will always be Beales and Sriduangkaews, individuals adept at rationalizing our bigotries—always. And guess what? the internet has made them as accessible as fucking Wal-Mart. This is what makes engaging them so important. Of course Beale needs to be exposed—but not for the benefit of people who already despise his values. Such ‘exposure’ amounts to nothing more than clapping one another on the back. He needs to be exposed in the eyes of his own constituents, actual or potential. The fact that the paths leading to bigotry run downhill makes the project of building stairs all the more crucial.
‘Legitimacy,’ Sandifer says. Legitimacy for whom? For the likeminded—who else? But that, my well-educated friend, is the sound-proofed legitimacy of the Booker, or the National Book Awards—which is to say, the legitimacy of the irrelevant, the socially inert. The last thing this accelerating world needs is more ingroup ejaculate. The fact that Beale managed to pull this little coup is proof positive that science fiction and fantasy matter, that we dwell in a rare corner of culture where the battle of ideas is for… fucking… real.
And you feel ashamed.
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Hudson Terminal Detail
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Next: Stipulations...The PLA is long overdue for a complete overhaul. We’ve been saying it for years, and so has the PLA. Leading China military scholars of today all agree. The PLA is an outdated, unwieldy force that belies a growing technical prowess. I am not the first to note the PLA’s glaring issues vis-à-vis fighting and winning wars; Dennis Blasko has already made many excellent points in his article earlier this year.
The chief issues can be boiled down to this: If the PLA wants to fight and be effective, it needs to enable a joint operational command environment, reform defense acquisition, reduce the role of its ground forces, and rein in regional parochialism. Of course, this premise is based not on its often vague and tepid stated goals – “defend Chinese sovereign interests.” Rather, we should look deeper to the strategic signaling indicating its military intent over the last ten years. Greater global power projection, humanitarian aid, anti-piracy participation, among other objectives (the creation of the carrier notwithstanding). If the PLA wants to do the things it seems to want to do, it needs to change.
Aside from the ground forces issue, the United States faced similar problems (albeit of a different degree and scale) before the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act (or the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, or, “GNA”).
Until 1986, each service maintained their own logistics, doctrine, and planning apparatus independent of the others, causing a costly redundancy and duplication of effort. Operational authority was directed from the president, through the Secretary of Defense, down through the services to operational units, mired in a bureaucratic game of telephone resulting in a grossly unwieldy military. GNA abolished the operational distinctions between different services and allowed national command authorities – the president and secretary of defense – to exercise direct operational control over combatant commands, regional or mission-defined areas of responsibility. To put it bluntly, GNA cut out the operational middle-man, simplified the chain of command, and allowed the defense establish to benefit from a more centralized acquisition and logistics structure.
China watchers have long been expecting a structural reform of the Chinese military à la GNA since the revolution in military affairs (RMA). PLA scholars have called for it, and have publicly debated the merits of instituting a true joint operational command modeled on the United States and GNA. It’s no surprise that PLA scholars hold this model as an end-goal, it has proven its effectiveness through three wars, countless humanitarian aid operations, and in power projection and deterrence. It is occasionally hinted at in the Chinese press, and every year or so one China analyst or another will claim that it will happen “in the next few years.” It’s been the “next few years” for the last ten. It only takes a mere hint of military reform to engender a flurry of articles and mass speculation, and almost without exception every article will mention a GNA-like PLA reform on the horizon, stating “this time will be different!” And disappointment often follows.
This time could be different.
In many ways, the process of “Goldwater-Nicholizing” the Chinese military began in earnest two decades ago, likely an intended side-effect of “informatization.” A vaguely defined Chinese military term that is part “network-centric warfare” and “integrated C4ISR,” “informatization” has been a rallying cry for the PLA since the mid-nineties. Executed as a series of technical modernization and policy initiatives, informatization is responsible in large part for the profusion of spectrum management, communications, network, telecom, and space-based communications research undertaken presumably in striving for better integrated joint operations. Under the auspices of better integration and command and control between regions and services, the PLA has laid the groundwork necessary to enable joint command, even if it did not yet have the political will to make it a de jure reality.
Political Will
China has slowly been attempting to garner the political will to make these changes. One of the key obstacles to any sort of deep reform is resistance from the primary stakeholders. Getting buy-in from top generals, admirals, and the semi-independent military regions is a critical factor in any Chinese military reform effort, but much more so when you are talking about the kind of deeper restructuring a GNA-like effort would require. As many potential reforms primarily aim to reduce the size and influence of the army and, as a consequence, reduce the number of billets for general officers, any deep-seated reforms will undoubtedly meet powerful resistance from the PLA.
The PLA does not conform to American notions of a civilian-led military. China analysts would do well to keep in mind that the Chinese military is a division of the Chinese national leadership structure, existing alongside but not necessarily equal to the Chinese government and the communist party, the other two divisions.
In that regard, to the PRC paramount leader Xi Jinping, support of the military is essential, and to lose that support would be a serious limit to if not a total check on power. To quote Mao, “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” That rings as true in modern China as it did in 1949. One could make a strong case that the full legitimacy of the president of China is not complete until he officially chairs the central military commission. Jiang Zemin held on to it after the supposed power transfer to Hu Jintao in 2002, and Deng Xiaoping maintained the status of paramount leader in part by maintaining that position. To that end, upsetting middle and senior-level officers, many of whom are far more familiar with military region superiors, local militias, and local party officials, is a dangerous move. Parochialism, in that regard, is also a serious obstacle to reform. It is also a potential threat. The shantouzhuyi, or “mountain top-ism,” the phenomena of Chinese officers and soldiers owing loyalty more to individuals than the paramount leader, state, or party, is still rife within the PLA. The fractured military region system, where officers and soldiers can spend their entire career within a small geographic area, amplifies this trend. Xi surely knows to tread lightly where the PLA is concerned and exercising caution against changing too much, too fast is the most prudent course of action. This requires a unique blend of “salami slicing” shifts in capability and organization with punctuated periods of broader change.
In classic Chinese “bottom-up, top-down” strategy, the PLA has pursued a number of baseline capabilities over a wide front (bottom-up) while sporadically implementing centralized, structural changes to policy, leadership, and command (top-down). Chinese leaders have taken the long view for baseline capability development while taking a very short view for organization structure. The “top-down, bottom-up” approach combines a substantive slow burn process with a series of showy front-pieces.
“Bottom-up” efforts, vis-à-vis military reform, have been defined by a series of technical initiatives such as informatization and integrated C4ISR, usually pushed through select CMC committees, funding programs like the 863 and 973 programs, and key research institutes. This technical foundation is intrinsically inclusive and integrative, acting as enabling factors that allow the administration a freer hand in implementing deeper reforms.
“Top-down” efforts, however, are more visible changes implemented within a shorter time frame. These efforts often serve more as strategic signaling than an earnest attempt at meaningful reform. Troop drawdowns, establishing an East China Sea ADIZ, anti-corruption purges, establishing a national security commission, creating a national military reform committee, and establishing new cyber units are all examples that have taken place in just the last few years alone. That is not to say that these actions don’t have any practical benefit or effect change, they clearly do, but they primarily act as a tool to reemphasize party control. All of this illustrates an indisputable fact: the Party controls the gun. The key question that remains is who the leadership intends as the audience.
Expeditionary Power
Many are clearly directed at foreign powers: Japan with the ADIZ, the United States with its cyber units. The anti-corruption purges, the NSC, and establishing the reform committee all seem to be directed at the PLA itself, however. Like Deng Xiaoping before him, Xi is asserting his authority over the military, thereby incentivizing compliance and commitment to compromise. Xi has made it very clear in his military actions that he intends to develop China as an expeditionary power, one that can project military force around the globe and can hold its own. Secondly, Xi means to remind the world that China controls neighboring maritime territory. To that end, “Goldwater-Nicholization” of the PLA is crucial, and the “top-down” efforts of the past few years may well be some of the painful methods to achieve it.
The process of transforming the PLA into the GNA model actually started decades ago. The slow process of informatization punctuated by occasional minor changes in structure have built an agonizingly slow roadmap to the present day. And one could make the case that the PLA is, in fact, already a joint-forces power, if in name only. The General Staff Department (equivalent to the U.S. Pentagon), maintains a “unified/joint command center” with bureaus designated for each service branch, information operations, and special operations. The military regions themselves, although headed by an army general, are staffed at the leadership level by PLAN fleet commanders and PLAAF officers. The PLA service-wide performs joint-service exercises on a routine basis, and many mid-career technical academies and service colleges are attended by personnel from every service.
In the PLA, there are no specifically designated “joint headquarters,” rather, the army HQ at the national and regional levels act as the de facto joint headquarters for relevant echelons. Like many things in China, however, there is the law, there is convention, and then there is reality, and they are seldom the same thing. The PLA acts as a joint force, under Chinese conventions, with a Soviet structure, using American-derived doctrine. What looks like four services is in fact a bloated Army with seven petty kings in seven petty kingdoms, an underdeveloped Navy, an Air force with no clear purpose or direction, and an independent Army branch with a monopoly on nuclear missiles. This Frankenstein has grown in fits and starts, with policy mismatched to its technical capability, overall goals, and personnel proficiency. The upcoming reform is likely intended as a series of initiatives that when taken together form a dramatic “reboot,” where policy, doctrine, personnel, structure, and technical capability can be matched and managed far more easily as a coherent whole.
Any change equal to the magnitude of Goldwater-Nicholization of the PLA is like moving mountains and herding cats all at once. Contrary to the popular imagination, Xi does not rule China alone – at best it is an oligarchy with a cult of personality, at worst it is a series of feuding cliques. Although it may happen behind closed doors, there is likely massive debate, much handwringing, and shaking of fists with regards to large-scale military reform despite a seemingly unified consensus. Xi could very well be patient and is waiting out the current cadres that occupy senior positions, focusing his energy on the following generation. This is certainly possible. Given recent overseas aggression and a newfound international assertiveness, Chairman Xi is a leader with an international – and some would say expansionist – agenda, one that needs a strong military modeled on proven doctrine and capable of fulfilling key objectives. It is not likely that he will wait. Like many Chinese changes, though, it will happen almost painfully slow, likely in phases, applying the very familiar “salami slicing” strategy to organization change management.
If recent events are any indication, Xi is clearing the way for the deep reform that has |
e (Warp)
“Incomplete without surface noise.” Those four words comprised the liner notes for Rob Brown and Sean Booth’s third album. Released as Tri Repetae++ in the U.S., the full-length found the duo moving well beyond ambient music into a sound including grinding beats and machine-driven textures.
Released: November 6, 1995
The Black Dog – Spanners (Warp)
One of the leaders of the IDM scene, this British trio’s album served up heady rhythms and beats that were unafraid to go above and beyond the norm for the time. Though the album was a critical it, the threesome broke up after its release.
Released: January 16, 1995
Electric Skychurch – Knowoneness (Moonshine)
SoCal group led by James Lumb (a former Big Shot contributor) infused ambient, dub and trance along with spirituality into their mix, creating a soundtrack for a raging party and the eventual comedown. This was thinking man’s rave music, one which drew from a spate of genres and somehow managed to revolutionize its own in the process.
Released: July 18, 1995
Banco De Gaia – Last Train to Lhasa (Planet Dog)
Touching ever so lightly on the complicated politics of Tibet while finding a beautiful common ground between ambient music and world music (particularly the sounds of Asia), this massive, three-disc album delicately crafted by Toby Marks features chanting and spoken word passage. All these years later it remains a must-have album for downtempo devotees.
Released: June 21, 1995
Honorable Mention
Carl Craig – Landcruising (Blanco Y Negro)
Various Artists – Hardkiss: Delusions of Grandeur (Hardkiss)
Model 500 – Deep Space (Sony)
Rockers Hi-Fi – Rockers to Rockers (4th & Broadway)
Moby – Everything Is Wrong (Elektra)
Björk – Post (One Little Indian)
Vanessa Daou – Zipless (MCA)
Mouse on Mars – Iaora Tahiti
Oval – 94 Diskont (Mille Plateaux)
Basic Channel – BCD (Basic Channel)
Tricky – Maxinquaye (Island)
Ballistic Brothers – London Hooligan Soul (Junior Boy’s Own)
St. Germain – Boulevard (FCommunications)
T.Power – Self Evident Truths Of An Intuitive Mind (SOUR)
Dave Angel – Tales Of The Unexpected (Blunted)
Joey Beltram – Places (Logic)
Massive Attack vs Mad Professor – No Protection (Gyroscope)
The Advent – Elements Of Life (Internal)DALLAS -- Justin Anderson wants to set the record straight about Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle's reputation for detesting rookies.
"I don't know where coach got the bad name for the rookies and all of that," Anderson told ESPN.com a couple days after he made a game-saving block in the final seconds of the Mavs' series-tying upset in Oklahoma City. "He always boosts my confidence, telling me, ‘You're doing a great job doing this and that.' He's been phenomenal for me."
Could this be a case of a rookie hoping to get more minutes by kissing up to his coach? That's a decent conspiracy theory, especially considering Anderson's reaction to a reporter trying to trick him into confirming the Mavs' starting lineup a few hours before Game 1 by asking if he received an explanation for why he was coming off the bench.
Anderson got up, walked about 20 feet down the sideline and asked Carlisle if the Mavs' lineup had been released. Carlisle, who would probably rather provide his social security number than reveal his starters earlier than the NBA-mandated 16 minutes before tip-off, answered that it had not. After ratting out the reporter, Anderson walked back down the sideline and relayed a message, "Coach said to ask him about the lineup."
Mavericks rookie Justin Anderson hopes to disrupt Kevin Durant's flow in Game 3. J Pat Carter/Getty Images
OK, so the kid is kind of a coach's pet, and Carlisle certainly played a significant role in earning his rookie-hating reputation. He has admitted that his unwillingness to rely on young players, particularly Tayshaun Prince, was one of the primary reasons he was fired after a pair of 50-win seasons with the Detroit Pistons. Carlisle has never had a rookie in the rotation of a playoff team during his eight-year stint in Dallas. Not coincidentally, in the past decade, the Mavs haven't had a first-round pick develop into a decent NBA player.
Until now.
Anderson insists, however, that there should be no controversy about why the 21st overall pick spent much of his rookie season riding the bench.
"The reason why I wasn't playing, it wasn't because he didn't want to play me," said Anderson, who was inactive or received a DNP-CD 27 times this season before playing a major role in the Mavs' late-season playoff push. "It was because I wasn't ready to produce."
Maybe so, but Anderson was absolutely ready when the Mavs needed him most. His insertion into the starting lineup helped spark a late-season, six-game win streak that set the Mavs up to make the playoffs.
It can be argued that Anderson's arrival in Dallas' rotation was due to desperation. After all, it came after the Mavs lost 10 of 12 games to fall a few games under.500 in March. The Mavs had been playing three-guard lineups almost all the time since forward Chandler Parsons suffered a season-ending knee injury. Dallas was one of the league's worst defensive teams during its slump -- with more than 113 points allowed per game -- and almost as dreadful in the rebounding department.
It was time to give the 6-foot-6, 228-pound Anderson, who has a 6-foot-11 wingspan and 43-inch vertical leap, the chance to fly.
"We had to throw him back out there in the mix," said Dirk Nowitzki, the locker room neighbor whom Anderson refers to as simply "Six," a reference to his spot on the all-time scoring list. "With the way things were going, we were struggling. We needed some athleticism.
"He just proved to be ready. You can practice all you want. You never know until you get game minutes, until you get confident out there. What he brings is sometimes what we lack: that hard-charging, never-give-up, always-go-hard guy. It's something that we needed."
Anderson had endeared himself to his veteran teammates with his innocent intensity. His constant curiosity is a source of comedic fodder in the locker room. Sometimes, his teammates roll their eyes at the 22-year-old rookie's questions, occasionally wrestling him to the ground as a group when they really want the kid to shut up.
"He's asking a million questions a day," said 10-year veteran guard J.J. Barea, a mentor to Anderson. "He's not afraid to ask dumb questions, good questions or bad questions. He's doing all the talking. Sometimes we gotta go, ‘Just chill a little bit.'"
Justin Anderson's defensive heroics helped the Mavericks tie the series 1-1. Mark D. Smith/USA TODAY Sports
Nevertheless, the vets appreciated Anderson's desire to learn and improve, especially as he dealt with the frustration of his minutes being mostly limited to garbage time. They commended him for consistently showing up to the gym early to work with player development coach Mike Procopio. The saw steady improvement during practice, as Anderson's rookie mistakes, such as running to the wrong spot, became rarer and rarer.
All the vets were rooting for Anderson. He earned their respect by rising to the occasion and excelling as a glue guy during the critical win streak, in which he averaged 9.2 points on 54.3 percent shooting, 7.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 27.8 minutes per game.
Anderson also seemed to finally earn Carlisle's trust, though he was demoted from the starting lineup when the stakes got highest, and he came off the bench in what amounted to a play-in game in Utah the night after the six-game win streak was snapped.
"Trust is earned over time, with actions," Carlisle said. "I just love the way the kid approached the whole season. There was a steep learning curve, but he got better, he adapted, he adjusted, he learned a lot. And then, when his time came for his number to be called, he was ready. He's kept it simple. He's been a force for us, defensively and on the boards. His experience over the last two-plus weeks has prepared him to become a guy that we're going to have to count on in the NBA playoffs."
Carlisle said that the day before the first-round series started. Then he played Anderson a grand total of four minutes in the first half of the Thunder's Game 1 rout. Carlisle pulled Anderson from the game and shouted at him after he passed up an open corner 3-pointer right in front of the Mavs' bench.
Whether Anderson wants to admit it or not, the roller-coaster of being a rookie under Carlisle can be rough.
Of course, it's worth mentioning that Carlisle hasn't had much rookie talent to work with during his time in Dallas. Jae Crowder, a second-round pick, has been the only rookie to get regular minutes, and that was for the only Mavs team in the past 16 seasons that missed the playoffs.
There was a lot of buzz about Rodrigue Beaubois -- "Free Roddy B!" the fan base cried as he showed flashes of brilliance as a fringe rotation player -- but Carlisle ended up being right in his concerns about the finesse guard's mental and physical toughness. Beaubois' career fizzled so quickly that he never signed with another NBA team.
There are no such concerns about "Simba," as Anderson is known to Mavs fans because of his resemblance to a lion. The nickname also fits his ferocious style. He's still awfully raw, offensively -- hence Carlisle's demand to keep it simple -- but Anderson is a rugged defender and relentless rebounder. (Among players 6-foot-6 or under, only Denver's Will Barton had a better rebounding percentage than Anderson's 10.7, according to NBA.com stats.)
Carlisle has counted on Anderson in crunch time in the Mavs' two biggest wins of the season. His driving dunk with 30 seconds remaining was the dagger in the playoff-clinching win in Utah. His block of Kevin Durant's layup attempt with 3 seconds left helped the Mavs pull off the Game 2 upset.
"He's got a great sense of timing, certainly a flair for the dramatic, although that's not really what he's all about," Carlisle said, noting Anderson has had a handful of clutch blocks the past few weeks. "He's just a nails kind of guy, and he loves to compete."
The Mavs picked Anderson with the hope that he'd be a much bouncier version of Crowder, who has flourished since being traded to Boston. That projection certainly seems reasonable as Anderson nears the end of his rookie season.
"He could really turn out to be the steal of the draft," owner Mark Cuban said.
"He's going to be a great system player, at the least, and he certainly has the ability to be more than that," Carlisle said. "What we told him this year, from the beginning of the year going forward, is work at becoming a guy that can play conservatively but aggressively within the system and within your abilities. He certainly has done that. Over the last three weeks, he's demonstrated that he's come a long way."Officials in Grove City say they are working to make all parks tobacco-free throughout the city.
Franklin County Public Health and Grove City Parks and Recreation say they have partnered on the project.
The tobacco ban includes recreation spaces and all other sites where park and recreation rules apply. It prohibits smoking or carrying of lighted cigarettes, pipes and cigars and other tobacco use.
Grove City Parks and Recreation Department will install signs at the entrance of its public parks to inform residents and visitors of the change.
“One of our missions is to provide healthy and clean places for people to enjoy,” said Richard "Ike" Stage, mayor of Grove City. “The smoking and tobacco ban is about protecting the rights of everyone to have a smoke-free and tobacco-free environment to exercise and enjoy our outdoor spaces.”
Grove City now joins other communities in Franklin County and around the state working closely with local public health agencies to enact comprehensive tobacco-free policies.Stephen Strasburg will make a rehab start for Class AA Harrisburg on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
TAMPA — Stephen Strasburg will make a rehab start with Class AA Harrisburg Wednesday, the Senators announced Monday morning. The right-hander has been on the disabled list since May 30, sidelined by what was officially called a strained left trapezius muscle, but what Manager Matt Williams described as back discomfort. The trouble led to the least effective stretch of Strasburg’s career, and a 6.55 ERA in 45 1/3 innings this season.
“It was a combination of underlying injuries and mechanics, but it’s feeling much better,” Strasburg said.
After he left his May 29 start after an inning, he explained the issue as a very sore neck that locked up and would not allow him to turn his head left. Strasburg experienced lower back pain on his right side in early May. All of that came after he rolled his ankle in spring training, an injury he and Williams speculated might have caused him to compensate, and in turn, disrupted his mechanics and muscles not used to new strains.
Strasburg threw a bullpen session on Sunday. He also threw 60 pitches to teammates Friday, a simulated game of sorts in which he sat down between innings and threw all of his pitches. He pitched more “on line,” Williams said afterward, kept his body aligned toward home plate throughout his delivery, something he is focusing on in an attempt to clean up any mechanical issues that might have led to discomfort or inconsistency.
“My arm never really bothered me,” Strasburg said. “Just some underlying injuries that caused everything to get thrown off a little bit. Just trying to address those and get back out there.”
Wednesday comes the real test. He and Williams said he will aim for around 85 pitches. Strasburg made five May starts. In four of them, he did not last past the fifth inning, and in four of those five, he did not throw 85 pitches.
“I think he’s ready for it,” Williams said. “…as long as he feels good physically, so we’re happy about that. He has had no issues so far, so we’ll step up the competition and intensity a little bit and make sure he’s good to go.”
Strasburg said “it’s tough” to be relegated to watching, unable to aid the team.
“You just gotta try to take a step back and just be here for the guys in any way you can and try to get back as fast as you can,” he said.
If all goes well Wednesday and in the days that follow, he may not be watching much longer. Williams said the rehab start could be Strasburg’s final step before a return.
“If he gets to the point where he can go 80, then the next time out would be 95 anyway, which is roughly where he’d be (in a normal start),” Williams said. “…if he comes out of it okay, then I think we can look at that and say ‘yeah, he’d be ready to go.”Teenage girl injured by barbed wire 'booby trap' in Perth
Updated
Police are investigating an apparent "booby trap" that injured a 16-year-old girl when she tripped over barbed wire strung across the road in the eastern Perth suburb of High Wycombe.
Sixteen year old Maddison White was jogging along Upton Road on Monday night when she was caught in what appeared to be a trap.
Police say one end of the wire had been tied to a power pole, with the other end rolled up and placed on the verge.
The teenager received minor injuries.
Her mother Michelle White told ABC local radio her daughter was shaken by the incident.
"She'd tripped over and hurt her leg on some barbed wire that had been strung across the road, across the footpath and attached to a light post," Mrs White said.
"It hit her mid-shin, caused little bit of a scratch and she tripped over.
"She was shocked that it was barbed wire and that it was deliberate."
Mrs White said it could have been worse if a child or an elderly person had been caught by the wire.
"It's situated near the skate park and it gets a lot of traffic with skateboards and scooters and bike with lots of kid action around that area," she said.
Anyone with information is urged to contact police.
Topics: crime, police, high-wycombe-6057
First postedIf I were making a list of the best breweries that you’ve never heard of, Cigar City Brewing would end up in the top five (Saint Arnold’s, Lazy Magnolia, and Parish Brewing Company would be there. Revolver, Deep Ellum, B. Nektar Meadery, and Three Floyds would land in the mix for a top 10.). It’s a little brewery in Tampa that makes excellent white and brown ales, and some very interesting concepts: a brown ale made with an obscene amount of espresso beans, a cucumber saison, and the Hunahpu — an imperial stout consider among the best beers produced in America.
Cigar City got together with a group called Brew Bus, a local tourism company that runs beer tours in the Tampa-St. Pete area. Naturally, any company claiming to provide an all-inclusive craft beer experience should brew its own beers to serve on its tours. That’s where Cigar City comes in. After brewing its own stuff for a few years, Brew Bus turned the reins over to Cigar City to brew and can its product. Brew Bus Brewing Company produces five year-round beers: red, wheat, blueberry wheat, and India Pale Ales, as well as a double porter.
One expects wheat ales to be smooth, heavy beverages. We’ve been lulled into this false sense of wheat aledom by Blue Moon and the ensuing onslaught of witbiers and faux Belgian whites. During the summer, wheats make up the vast majority of summer ales, tinged with lemon peel. Are Wheat There Yet? throws all of the spices and fruits away, and utilizes four different hops to bring the fruit flavors and bitterness to the table. It’s not quite a pale ale, but then again, it’s not your typical wheat ale either. It’s a complex wheat ale that lets the hops build the flavor profile rather than fruit peels and the spice rack.
This is the type of beer that I would want on a summer weekend while sitting out on the back porch. It’s not a session beer, but is still low enough where one can drink a few without getting completely boxed.
Now if it were only distributed in New York…
Brewer: Brew Bus Brewing Company (Cigar City Brewing Company)
Beer: Are Wheat There Yet?
Style: American Wheat Beer
ABV: 5.0% IBU: 28
Container: 12 oz. can
Price: $2.39 (purchased as a single) Point of Purchase: Abe’s Cold Beer, Bethlehem, Pa.
To The Eye: Golden and cloudy. It carries a big head that lasts throughout.
To The Nose: Bright citrus nose. I smelled pineapple, though others claim lemon peel. Let’s say tropical fruit and call it a day.
To The Palate: Pineapple is upfront and dominates all the way through. A little bit of a hop bitterness. I thought it was more of a medium-bodied beer.
Aftertaste: Clean. It just disappears.
Boozy Factor: It didn’t feel like much after one, but all I had was the one.
On a Scale of 1 to 10, with 10 as highest: 8The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are back! Maybe.
I laughed while typing that line. But it's true.
Heading into the 2014 season, there is no greater variable than Tampa Bay. And that's largely because, on the player level, there is no greater variable than Josh McCown.
McCown and the Buccaneers are the biggest, most fascinating preseason maybe I can remember in quite some time.
Make no mistake: The Bucs' goal in 2014 is to hit the playoffs. That's why they fired head coach Greg Schiano and general manager Mark Dominik and brought in Lovie Smith and Jason Licht -- who make up a fantastic pairing, in my estimation. The defense is loaded with emerging studs at each level, including Gerald McCoy (one of the game's best defensive tackles), linebacker Lavonte David (a Defensive Player of the Year candidate) and free-agent acquisition Alterraun Verner (a cornerback who perfectly fits Smith's defensive scheme). The offense, though, carries some questions, starting at the game's most important position.
Smith and Licht inherited a young quarterback, Mike Glennon, who displayed fine potential in his rookie campaign. Entering the 2013 NFL Draft, my quarterback colleagues at CBS Sports Network -- Phil Simms, Rich Gannon and Steve Beuerlein -- all thought Glennon could be the best QB in the class. That appeared to be the case last season. And yet, Smith and Licht didn't hand him the keys to the car, opting instead for a 35-year-old with 38 career starts.
Yup, the new regime handpicked Josh McCown to be Tampa Bay's quarterback, pouncing on him at the outset of free agency. Imagine if I told Bucs fans this would happen a year ago. What a turn of events.
McCown has shown flashes during his 11-year NFL career, but he's mostly played the headset-and-clipboard role. (His journey is detailed in colleague Judy Battista's fine feature on backup quarterbacks.) However, McCown seized an opportunity last season in Chicago, filling in brilliantly for the injured Jay Cutler. Under the tutelage of quarterback guru Marc Trestman, McCown posted 13 touchdowns passes (to one interception) and a 109.0 quarterback rating, leading the Bears to three wins in his five starts. He was simply spectacular.
Can he do it again?
I spoke with McCown earlier this week in a wide-ranging 20-minute interview on my SiriusXM Radio show, "Schein on Sports," and the veteran quarterback is thrilled to be "the guy" after years of operating in the shadows.
"All things considered, it is very humbling," McCown told me. "It's a neat place to be for my family and me. Every day, I walk on the field, and you are exactly right -- looking back on the past few years, where I was, how this journey turned out, I'm humbled."
McCown knows there are those who doubt him as he begins the next phase of his journey, those who wonder if he can bring last year's Windy City magic to Tampa.
"It is a fair assessment," McCown said. "But going into your 13th year (McCown spent one year in the United Football League), there's a different sense. You put the time in to play at a high level. There was a standard set last year. You don't want to back off of it. To make the jump that we did, you understand what it takes to do that. You want to bring the work ethic and those mechanisms to Tampa."
He also knows he has to prove he belongs in a QB-blessed NFC South and looks to draw on past experiences to expedite his initiation process.
"Things (in Tampa) are going to be different, but there are things you carry over," McCown said. "The way you approach film. The way you study with receivers and the offensive line. You hope it speeds up the learning curve when you are in the division with Drew Brees, Cam Newton and Matt Ryan. We have a great Lovie Smith/Leslie Frazier defense, but it is a quarterback-driven league. And the way those quarterbacks play at a high level, we have to be great on offense."
That potential does exist in Tampa. Bowling-ball back Doug Martin is healthy. Vincent Jackson is a bona fide star at receiver. And now that No. 7 overall pick Mike Evans is healthy, the rookie wideout is quickly developing a rapport with McCown. McCown is high on the team's second-round pick, tight end Austin Seferian-Jenkins, as well. This group can be dynamite under the watchful eye of coordinator Jeff Tedford, who's moving to the NFL after a long stint (2002-2012) as the coach at Cal. McCown loves his new play caller: "Great, fresh set of eyes from the college game with new ideas. Look at what Chip Kelly did. I'm excited to see how this plays out."
Yes, I can imagine McCown truly coming into his own and having a Rich Gannon-esque finish to his NFL career.
Or not.
One looming (and massive) concern: Tampa's offensive line is a major question mark. And when I say "question mark," I mean even the starting quarterback doesn't know who his offensive guards are.
"We understand Evan (Dietrich-Smith) is our center," McCown said. "Anthony Collins and Demar (Dotson) hold down the tackles. We are sorting out the guards right now. I will leave that to the coaches. We are figuring that out in camp right now. Early in a program, you have a coaching change, you have to learn a little bit about a position. We are going through it, but I trust our coaches and decision makers to not let us down."
He should trust the staff. It's great. And I'm not surprised to see NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reporting that disgruntled 49ers guard Alex Boone is on the Bucs' radar. (Although I don't see San Francisco dealing him.) I'm sure Licht will do everything he can to shore up this area of great concern. But right now, it's just that: an area of great concern. A shoddy offensive line could blow up Tampa's best-laid plans. This is a big deal. McCown knows there is no margin for error in his new division.
"It's always competitive," McCown said of the NFC South. "You don't repeat as the division winner. The level of play is remarkable. We understand that. We understand there are going to be six games a year that are going to be fierce and intense and feel like playoff games. Look at the defenses. Carolina's defense is great. The job Rob Ryan has done in New Orleans. Mike Smith in Atlanta. And the great quarterbacks I referenced earlier."
If Tampa can shore up its offensive line, the overall talent is there to break through and win 10 games. The new regime inspires great hope. Smith is the ideal coach to replace Schiano, a taskmaster who wasn't loved by his players. McCown, who spent parts of two seasons with Smith in Chicago, called the coach a "straight shooter with a high standard, but it comes from a place of genuine care with a wonderful approach." Perfect.
This is a storyline with intoxicating potential: McCown rewrites his personal history while piloting Tampa Bay back to the Promised Land.
I believe in the Bucs.
Maybe.
Follow Adam Schein on Twitter @AdamSchein.The father and brother of British actor, Afshan Azad, the 22-year-old who has played the part of Hogwart’s student Padma Patil in several Harry Potter films, have been charged with attempting to kill her, according to the BBC. Azad’s brother has also been charged with assault against his sister.
CNN reports that the actress, who is of Bangladeshi descent and is Muslim, upset her family by going out with a Hindu man. She is currently hiding out in London with friends, and the case is adjourned until July 12.
When I first read this story yesterday, the headline grabbed my attention right away. I was expecting to read about one of the Caucasian lead characters of the Harry Potter films. But as soon as I saw Afshan Azad’s face and read that her parents were originally from Bangladesh, the story completely changed for me and I feared the worst.
Although nothing has been confirmed yet, Azad’s case has all the makings of an attempted honor killing–an unfortunate but very real and rising trend amongst the British-Muslim community. The United Nations defines an honor killing as:
The murder of a (typically female) family or clan member by one or more fellow (mostly male) family members, in which the perpetrators (and potentially the wider community) believe the victim to have brought dishonor upon the family or community.
This “dishonor” can be anything from unacceptable dress codes to refusing an arranged marriage or engaging in sexual acts.
Annual worldwide statistics of victims of honor killings are as high as 5,000 women. The rates are especially alarming in the United Kingdom where every year about a dozen women become victims of honor killings. The UN reports that these murders are happening almost exclusively in Asian and Middle-Eastern families.
Maybe it is too early to make presumptions about this case. For now, Afshan’s father and brother are out on bail and have been told to stay away from London. One thing positive about this situation, whatever the outcome, is the attention it will bring to honor killings in these specific ethnic communities of Britain. More awareness can, hopefully, eventually bring an end to this violent practice against women.First born children perform better at school because they receive more intense attention from their parents, new research reveals.
First born children perform better at school because they receive more intense attention from their parents, new research reveals.
Data from thousands of families over more than a decade found that parents spent the most time developing the thinking skills of their eldest son or daughter, but then became more relaxed with subsequent children.
They tended to take part in fewer activities with their young children, such as reading with them, doing crafts and playing musical instruments.
Analysis of IQ tests shows the extra focus gives first born children an edge over their younger siblings, which manifest itself as early as the age of one.
Researchers say the findings could help to explain a phenomenon called the “birth order effect”, whereby children born earlier in a family have a greater chance of enjoying better wages and greater education in later life.
All children within a family tended to receive the same level of emotional support.
All children within a family tended to receive the same level of emotional support.
But the reduction in providing intellectual stimulation was reflected in other parental traits such as a more lax attitude to smoking and drinking during pregnancy, the study found.
Dr Ana Nuevo-Chiquero, from Edinburgh University, which led the study, said: “As the household gets bigger time has to be split with younger children so they miss out on the advantage of being an only child for a time.
“It doesn’t mean first-borns get more love, that stays the same.
“But they get more attention, especially in those important formative years.”
#Nearly 5,000 children were assessed every two years from before their birth to the age of 14, when they were given various tests such as picture and vocabulary assessments.
Researchers also observed the behaviour of their parents, in particular the amount of mental stimulation and emotional support they gave.
The findings showed that advantages enjoyed by first born siblings start very early in life and that the differences increased slightly with age.
Dr Nuevo-Chiquero said numerous studies have found large differences in the education and labour market outcomes of adults by their birth order.
This, however, was the first to compare first-borns with younger siblings from the womb through childhood.
"For most, it is probably not difficult to understand how and why one's parenting focus and abilities may change with his or her latter children,” she said.
"These broad shifts in parental behaviour appear to set their latter-born children on a lower path for cognitive development and academic achievement with lasting impact on adult outcomes."
Telegraph.co.ukThe company that operated both of the drill rigs used in Shell's ill-fated 2012 Arctic offshore season has agreed to pay $12.2 million in fines and community service payments stemming from environmental and safety violations aboard its vessels, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday.
Noble Drilling (U.S.) LLC, owner and operator of the Noble Discoverer and operator of the Shell-owned Kulluk, will plead guilty to eight felony offenses and will receive four years of probation and must implement a comprehensive environmental compliance plan for violating federal environmental and maritime law in 2012, under a settlement announced by Karen Loeffler, U.S. attorney for Alaska.
Noble's parent company, London-based Noble Corp. plc, will also implement an environmental management system for all its mobile offshore drilling units, according to the settlement.
The vast majority of environmental and safety crimes occurred aboard the Discoverer, according to the plea agreement. Only one charge concerned the Kulluk, which was wrecked after it broke free from a tow during bad weather and ran aground south of Kodiak Island on Dec. 31, 2012.
"We believe these are serious offenses, and the charges and the penalties reflect that level of seriousness," assistant U.S. attorney Kevin Feldis said at a news conference.
That 56-page plea agreement describes a litany of malfunctions, hazards, misdeeds and deceptions aboard the Discoverer, which the document said occurred from the time the ship left New Zealand in February of 2012 for U.S. waters to the time it was towed to Seward at the end of the year on its way out of Alaska for the winter.
"During 2012, the Noble Discoverer experienced numerous problems with its main propulsion system, including its main engine and its propeller shaft, resulting in engine shutdowns, equipment failures and unsafe conditions," the plea agreement says.
Some of the engine shutdowns were automatic, triggered by lack of lube oil, and others were undertaken by Discoverer crew members trying to do emergency repairs while the ship was traveling to and from the drilling theater. The shutdowns were not reported to the Coast Guard, according to the plea agreement.
There were numerous engine backfires, some of them damaging the exhaust-venting system, which was already faulty and pouring "significant" amounts of exhaust into the ship's engine room, according to the plea agreement.
There were failures to use the required oil-water separator to clean wastewater, along with false log entries stating that the system was being used properly, leading directly to some of the criminal charges. In fact, the oil-water separator was inoperable for much of the Discoverer's 2012 operations for Shell. Instead of properly processing wastewater through required pollution-prevention equipment, Noble set up an illegal, makeshift barrel-and-pump that sent untreated wastewater directly overboard.
"Noble failed to notify Coast Guard and actively took steps to conceal its use of that illegal blue-barrel-and-pump system from Coast Guard," assistant U.S. attorney Yvonne Lamoureux said at the news conference.
There was an inoperable alarm, a broken backup generator that was leaking fluid and antifreeze, and frequent overflows of water in engineering spaces, according to the plea agreement. Ship operators used ballast tanks to store and discharge oil-laced wastewater, a violation of the law intended to prevent the spread of nuisance species, according to the plea agreement.
"By design, ballast tanks should contain only uncontaminated seawater," Lamoureux said. Instead, "Noble pumped the contents of its oily skimmer tank fluids and deck water, with a sheen, into its ballast tanks," she said.
In all, Noble agreed to plead guilty to five counts of violating the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships, one count of violating the Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act and two counts of violating the Ports and Waterways Safety Act. The sole count concerning the Kulluk was about false records of oil-waste management.
The main catalyst for the criminal case, Feldis said, was the Coast Guard inspection conducted after the Discoverer arrived in Seward "under a dead ship tow" in late November of 2012. By then, the ship's main engine was considered unsafe to operate and was not being used, according to the plea agreement. But there were other obvious clues that things were amiss aboard the Discoverer, Feldis said.
A powerful engine backfire in Unalaska in November of 2012, which coated fire-safety insulation with soot and oil residue and drew an emergency response from the local fire department, was one of those. So was the unauthorized discharge of bilge water into Unalaska's Back Bay in July of that year, an act that created a noticeable oily sheen, he said.
"There's a whole number of things that Noble did to draw attention" to its operational problems, Feldis said.
The settlement, if accepted by the court, resolves the criminal case against Noble, Feldis said. He declined to comment on any further legal punishment resulting from Shell's 2012 drill season.
In a statement, Noble said the criminal charges "principally relate to deficiencies and maintenance issues raised by the U.S. Coast Guard during an inspection of the Noble Discoverer following a successful drilling season in offshore Alaska during 2012."
Noble said the problems have been fixed.
"Concerns related to the Noble Discoverer have been addressed during the renovation and modernization of the rig which occurred as part of an extensive shipyard program conducted in Korea and Singapore. In addition to these improvements and upgrades to the vessel, Noble noted that it had strengthened its training programs to ensure that its operations more aptly reflect the company's deep commitment to safety, compliance and environmental protection."
In a statement, Shell spokesperson Megan Baldino said the company was "disappointed" in Noble's actions in 2012.
"While Noble has worked to resolve all of the issues and has appropriately accepted responsibility, we've made clear that their actions in 2012 are not acceptable," Baldino wrote in an email.
Baldino also said that the Noble Discoverer had undergone extensive repairs and the issues raised in the plea agreement have been addressed.
"In addition, both Shell and Noble have initiated procedural and safety management system reviews that will be verified through internal and external audits and a series of operational tests," she said. "Together, these actions are designed to ensure the integrity of the Discoverer and Noble's marine management systems for future operations."
Shell -- which managed to drill only part of a well in the Chukchi Sea and part of a well in the Beaufort Sea in 2012 -- still intends to bring the Discoverer to Alaska to resume drilling.
The company's revised exploration plan, filed in August with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, calls for the Discoverer and another contracted vessel, the Polar Pioneer, to drill simultaneously in the Chukchi. The plan calls for the two units to complete up to six wells over multiple seasons. The Discoverer, the plan says, "is ice-strengthened for operating in Arctic OCS waters" and |
to now-attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions.
The astonishingly cruel and incompetently executed order reflected a view of Muslims, and particularly of Muslim refugees, that Bannon frequently promoted at Breitbart. As the head of the conservative outlet, he regularly lifted up the voices of leading anti-Muslim extremists and used his daily Sirius radio program to share a dystopian vision of what he depicted as western civilization overrun by a Muslim “invasion.”
Bannon seemed especially taken with the description of refugees offered in the 1975 novel “The Camp of Saints” by French author Jean Raspail. Raspail’s dystopian vision of dark-skinned refugees taking over a white Europe has become popular among American white supremacists. Bannon cited the book at least twice on his radio program; once was in an interview with Sessions, where he warned that the “Muslim invasion of Europe” is “almost a Camp of Saints type invasion.”
While Trump spent his campaign demonizing refugees, calling them the “ultimate Trojan horse” and vowing to deport Syrian refugees already in the country, it appears to be Bannon and Miller who shaped that rhetoric into policy.
It’s this mindset that informed Trump’s executive order—and that will likely have another powerful voice if Sessions is confirmed as attorney general. In a story calling Sessions the “intellectual godfather” of Trump’s executive actions on immigration, the Washington Post’s Phillip Rucker and Robert Costa lay out the close alliance and ideological affinity between Sessions, Bannon and Miller when it comes to immigration issues:Battery innovation has been stuck in the lithium ion age over the past few decades, and progress towards a better battery has hardly moved at all when compared to exponential jumps in storage space, memory capacity and processor computing speeds. However, in the recent past, graphene (similar to a pencil’s graphite) has enjoyed success in solving some of the roadblocks of lithium ion technology. In fact, the potential output of the material far outlasts and exceeds the capacity of traditional lithium ion in terms of volume and weight. On top of that, the material is flexible and can be adapted in new flexible displays. However, the reason we haven’t seen devices using graphene yet is due to difficulties in the implementation of the delicate processes involved in building graphene layers on a large manufacturing scale.
According to the post on Samsung’s blog, it seems Samsung has finally grasped the manufacturing process, and stated that in partnership with Sungkyunkwan University, SAIT (Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology) has become the first group of researchers to harness the benefits of graphene on a large scale manufacturing platform. The process is designed to overcome previous problems which included deteriorating electric properties. The breakthrough was accomplished by synthesizing “large area graphene onto a single crystal on a semiconductor, maintaining its electrical and mechanical properties.”
Samsung and Sungkyunkwan University have been working on graphene and other nano research since 2006, and the partnership has yielded the most awaited leap in efficient energy management. We will see the technology decrease the size of our phones and tablets further, as well as power smart watches and even allow tiny devices to achieve incredible battery life. As processors make the switch to 14 nanometer processes, and flexible devices are becoming popular, the world is finally ready for a revolutionary change in how often we charge our devices, and what types of efficiency we will expect from them in the future.
Source: Samsung | Image via UC Berkley"Insulin shunts sugar to fat. Insulin makes fat. More insulin, more fat. Period." "Insulin shunts sugar to fat. Insulin makes fat. More insulin, more fat. Period." If you've been involved in nutrition for the past few years, then you've probably heard of Dr. Robert Lustig. He is a pediatric endocrinologist and an expert on childhood obesity. He became well known in 2009 for his viral YouTube lecture called Sugar: The Bitter Truth. In the video above, he is interviewed by Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt, about what he believes to be the true cause of obesity and other diseases of civilization.
There Are "Biochemical Forces" That Make Us Eat More and Exercise Less Some people believe that obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little. In other words, the behavior is driving the weight gain and it is the individual's fault that this happened. However, Lustig does not believe this to be the case, at least not in the majority of people. He believes that the behavior, increased food intake and decreased exercise, is secondary to changes in the function of hormones ( ). It turns out that there are well defined biological mechanisms that can explain how the foods we eat disrupt the function our our hormones, which makes us eat more and gain weight (2). In other words, we're not getting fat because we're eating more, we're eating more because we're getting fat.
Insulin and Leptin Are Two of the Major Players in Obesity Obesity is an incredibly complex disorder and scientists don't agree on what it is that causes it. However, it is well established that hormones have a lot to do with it. A key player here is a hormone called leptin. This hormone is secreted by the fat cells. It sends a signal to the brain that we have enough energy stored and that we don't need to eat (3). Obese people have a lot of body fat and a lot of leptin in their bloodstream. But the problem is that the leptin isn't getting to the brain to send that signal. Put simply, the brain doesn't "see" the leptin. It doesn't see that we have enough fat stored and therefore thinks that we're starving. This is known as leptin resistance and is believed to be a leading driver of obesity (4). When people are leptin resistant, it is the hormones that drive the increased food intake. We're eating more because the brain doesn't see the leptin and thinks we're starving. Trying to exert willpower against the leptin-driven starvation signal is next to impossible. Another hormone, which Lustig (and many other respected scientists) believe to be a major culprit, is called Insulin. Insulin is the hormone that tells our cells to pick up glucose from the bloodstream. It is also the major energy storage hormone in the body. It tells our cells to store energy, either as glycogen or fat. According to Dr. Lustig, one of the ways that insulin contributes to obesity, is by blocking the leptin signal in the brain ( ). For that reason, having chronically elevated insulin levels could be one of the reasons that people become leptin resistant. High insulin -> No leptin signal -> The brain doesn't "see" that we have plenty of energy stored and thinks we're starving, making us eat. Another thing that insulin does, is sends signals to the fat cells, telling them to store fat and to hold on to the fat that they already carry (6). It seems simple and makes a lot of sense, but I'd like to point out that many other researchers do not believe this to be true.
What Causes Insulin to Go Up? A key feature of the metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes is insulin resistance. What insulin resistance means is basically that your body's cells don't see the insulin signal and therefore the pancreas need to make even more insulin. This leads to a condition called hyperinsulinemia, which basically means that insulin levels are high all the time (7). Of course, insulin is not a "bad" hormone. It is absolutely essential for survival. But when it becomes chronically elevated, it can start to cause major problems. But what is it that causes insulin to go up? According to Lustig, excess dietary fructose from added sugars is one of the leading drivers of insulin resistance, and insulin resistance leads to chronically elevated insulin levels (8, 9). There is actually quite a bit of evidence showing that when people eat a LOT of fructose (from added sugars, not fruit), it can lead to insulin resistance, high insulin levels and all the related metabolic problems (, 11). But it's important to realize that even IF dietary fructose from added sugars is one of the main causes of insulin resistance, simply removing added sugar is NOT sufficient to reverse obesity and associated metabolic dysfunction. Therefore, avoiding sugar is an important prevention strategy, but it won't be very effective as a cure.Obama: How Dare Unpatriotic People Criticize America and Suggest It's Not Great TBOTFG. Obama has done little but criticize America -- but when he's the president, a criticism of America is a criticism of himself, so now, and only now, does he take offense and get filled with some rootin' tootin' six-gun shootin' patriotic fervor for his own awesomeness. Obama has done little but criticize America -- but when he's the president, a criticism of America is a criticism of himself, so now, and only now, does he take offense and get filled with some rootin' tootin' six-gun shootin' patriotic fervor for his own awesomeness. In the echo cham�ber that is pres�id�en�tial polit�ics, everything is dark and everything is ter�rible,� he lamen�ted at the Busi�ness Roundtable headquar�ters in Wash�ing�ton. Pres�id�en�tial can�did�ates, "don't seem to of�fer many solu�tions for the disasters that they per�ceive, but they�re quick to tell you who to blame."... He con�tin�ued: "I'm here to say there�s noth�ing par�tic�u�larly pat�ri�ot�ic or Amer�ic�an about talk�ing down Amer�ica, es�pe�cially when we stand as one of the few sources of econom�ic strength in the world." Only a true Nation of Cowards would have elected this evil lightweight twice. Only a true Nation of Cowards would have elected this evil lightweight twice.
Posted by: Ace at 04:18 PM
MuNuvians MeeNuvians Polls! Polls! Polls! Frequently Asked Questions The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick Top Top Tens Greatest Hitjobs News/ChatYesterday Panasonic unveiled a next-generation solar roof panel that will be optionally used on the Japanese-market Toyota Prius Prime.
With more than triple the energy generation of former 50-watt roof panels on the Toyota, the HIT™ Photovoltaic Module for Automobile could find its way onto other brand cars and will be able to power accessories and charge the battery with 180 watts output.
The idea of using available real estate on the car and capturing the sun’s energy may sound great, but even with superior photovoltaic cells, Toyota estimates on a sunny day maybe only 3.7 miles of electric range may be added.
That won’t do away with the need to plug in for the Prius Prime estimated in the U.S. with 25 miles range, but every bit counts.
Whether further advancements could inch the solar juice upwards enough to make the idea widespread is unclear, but Panasonic said new chemistry is responsible for its latest innovation
“Panasonic’s solar cells have a unique structure that combines a crystalline silicon substrate and an amorphous silicon film, and feature high conversion efficiency and excellent temperature characteristics,” said the company.
Notable also is Panasonic is a solar cell and battery supplier to Tesla, and is leveraging that relationship to potentially do business with other carmakers.
“Panasonic will make efforts to expand the use of the ‘HIT™ Photovoltaic Module for Automobile’ and contribute to the achievement of an environmentally friendly society in the automotive as well as the housing and industrial fields,” Panasonic said.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the Model 3 will “probably” have a solar roof option as well, and if the idea continues to gain traction, it may become more common.
To date, Panasonic has not announced it would put the bent-glass covered roof on the U.S. market Prius Prime however.
The company is reportedly working on a solution to enable the roof to pass U.S. rollover tests, but for now this is a work in progress with no timeline given.The complicated relationship between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan has been thrown into stark relief in recent weeks. On 30 October, Adel Murad, a founding member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), publicly voiced his support for the involvement of Iran, rather than Turkey or Saudi Arabia, in Iraqi affairs. The PUK is one of the largest political parties in Iraqi Kurdistan and its leader, Jalal Talabani, is the president of all Iraq, although he has been receiving treatment in Germany for a stroke he suffered in December 2012.
But on the news that Tehran had hanged two Kurdish activists on 25 October, protests were held in Iraqi Kurdistan, including outside the Iranian consulate in Erbil, opposing the Iranian government and supporting the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a Kurdish political movement engaged in a long-running armed struggle against Tehran. One of the two Kurds hanged, Habibollah Golparipour, was referred to by PJAK as a "senior leader." In response to the hangings, PJAK issued a statement claiming that it had taken revenge by killing ten Iranian revolutionary guards. A third Kurdish activist was subsequently hanged in Iran on 4 November.
These contradictory developments surrounding relations with Iran reflect the complex political landscape in Iraqi Kurdistan. In the aftermath of the 1990–91 Gulf war and the demilitarisation of Iraqi Kurdistan by Baghdad, a bitter civil war broke out between the left-wing PUK, under Talabani, and the more conservative Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), led by Massoud Barzani.
In 1998, the PUK and KDP signed a peace treaty and later joined forces in support of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq. Kurdish guerilla fighters, called peshmerga, fought alongside American troops in the conflict. Following the invasion, the PUK and KDP held the balance of power in Kurdistan: ruling the region in coalition, and sharing out key political offices – the presidency of Iraq is held by the PUK's Talabani, and the presidency of Iraqi Kurdistan by the KDP's Barzani.
Relations between Kurds and the Iranian government differ according to on which side of the Zagros mountains you stand. In Iran, the conflict between PJAK and Tehran has thrown salt on a long-open wound in the relations between minority Kurds and the Iranian authorities. Iranian Kurdish activists say that the promises of reform made by President Hassan Rouhani and members of his new administration seem not to apply to their region.
For Iraqi Kurds, relations with Iran must be seen through the prism of relations between Iraq as a whole and its eastern neighbour. Between 1980 and 1988, Iraq and Iran fought the longest conventional conflict of the twentieth century, and their rulers continued to espouse radically opposed visions for their countries: the political Shia Islam of Khomeini and his fellow clerics, against the Arab nationalist secularism of Saddam Hussein and the Sunni minority he led.
After 2003, with the United States, Iran's sworn enemy, embroiled in a bloody insurgency in Iraq, Tehran leveraged its popularity among the resurgent Iraqi Shia majority. Iran's influence in Iraq was illustrated by the juxtaposition of American president George W Bush's fleeting, unannounced, and heavily secured visits to US airbases in Iraq, and Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's open-top motorcade from Baghdad airport, along a road once lined with snipers and car bombs and called by western media the "most dangerous road in Iraq" or the "Highway of Death," to a red carpet reception in Baghdad by the Iraqi president – none other than the PUK's Talabani, a fluent Farsi speaker. Sharpening the contrast, American and British officials had been banned from using the same airport road and typically travelled by helicopter to Baghdad's well-defended Green Zone.
Since 2003, following the fall of their opponents in Baghdad and with newfound autonomy and increasing security and stability, the Iraqi Kurds have gradually, but discernibly, strengthened relations with Iran. The affair did not start auspiciously. Unsettled by the participation of the peshmerga in the US-led invasion of Iraq, and worried that PJAK would find a safe harbour in Iraqi Kurdistan from which to redouble its campaign against Tehran, Iran angered the Iraqi Kurds by flouting territorial sovereignty and shelling peshmerga positions in Iraq. As recently as 2010, two weeks of Iranian air strikes and shelling sought to cripple PJAK bases in the region, and Kurdish media reported Iranian ground incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan.
Since then, Iran has grown more confident of its regional influence and, concurrently, less belligerent. In August 2010, the last US combat brigade withdrew from Iraq. After the 2010 Iraqi elections, Iran played a role in brokering the agreement in Tehran that formed a Shia-led (and broadly pro-Iranian) coalition in Baghdad, with Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia, appointed as prime minister. Those negotiations also involved the Kurds, with Talabani returning as president of Iraq, meeting a key Kurdish demand.
Political relations between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan continued to strengthen: in August 2013, the prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, Nechirvan Barzani, visited Tehran for Rouhani's inauguration. An earlier visit in 2011 by the president of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, to meet with Ahmadinejad, his then-counterpart, was heralded by energy industry analyst John Daly as "proof of the changing regional dynamics," in which Iran was successfully subverting America's influence over Iraqi affairs.
And instead of throwing its weight about militarily, Iranian influence on daily life in Iraqi Kurdistan is now softer, but no less persuasive. Trade between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan is making far greater inroads than military operations ever did. Last year saw a visit to Iraqi Kurdistan by the Iranian vice president for international affairs and a delegation of more than 100 Iranian companies as part of the Iranian-Kurdistan Region Economic Forum.
This July, the Iranian first vice president welcomed the Iraqi Kurdistan minister of housing and development, amid announcements that a new bilateral trade agreement had been signed and that trade between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan was expected to surpass $4 billion in 2013. In 2000, before the war, the officially reported volume of trade was only $100 million.
But Iran still has some way to go to catch up with another regional heavyweight, Turkey. The historical relationship between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan is similar to Iran's. Like Tehran, there is deep-rooted hostility between Ankara and its Kurdish citizens. Like Iran and PJAK, Ankara has been embroiled in a long-running conflict inside Turkey with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a left-wing Kurdish movement whose leader, Abdullah Öcalan, is currently in prison. Like Iran, Turkey shelled, bombed, and even sent ground troops against PKK positions inside Iraqi Kurdistan in the aftermath of the US-led invasion.
Earlier this year, however, the PKK signed a ceasefire with Ankara and the two sides are engaged in peace negotiations. And Turkey has moved even more vigorously than Iran in investing in Iraqi Kurdistan, throwing its weight into politically important, big-ticket infrastructure projects. Half of all foreign companies registered in Iraqi Kurdistan are Turkish, and trade between Ankara and Erbil is $8 billion, double the Iranian figure. Oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan has attracted investment from the major international energy companies – and the largest oil producer in the region is the Turkish company Genel Energy, listed in London and run by former BP chief Tony Hayward.
Erbil is finalising the connection of its oil supplies to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries oil from Iraq proper to energy-hungry Turkey and the port of Ceyhan. At the end of October, Erbil announced its plans for a second pipeline that will directly link Iraqi Kurdistan to Turkey, free from any interference from Baghdad. Even the ancient round citadel in Erbil bears the hoardings of 77 Construction group, a major Turkish-Iraqi joint venture.
Although currently smaller than the Turkish connection, the economic relationship between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan is blossoming, and it is by no means a one-way street. Over the years, there have been well-documented allegations of sanctions-busting oil smuggling from Iraqi Kurdistan to Iran, in defiance of Baghdad and the international community.
These allegations were denied in July this year by Ashti Hawrami, the Iraqi Kurdistan oil minister, although in August Reuters claimed that as many as 30,000 barrels per day of crude oil were being smuggled from Iraqi Kurdistan to Iran's Bandar Imam Khomeini terminal on the Persian Gulf. A rise in smuggling across the Kurdistan-Iran border was recently reported, along with an increase in the deaths of kulbars, or smugglers, totalling around 100 over the past two years. Similar allegations have been made in respect of arms trafficking and money laundering.
The relationship between Iran and Iraqi Kurdistan is thus more evenly balanced than might be expected, even surprisingly so. After all, Iran is a powerful country of 80 million people that operates a globally infamous nuclear programme, while Iraqi Kurdistan is but a region of Iran's smaller, western neighbour. But there are opportunities on both sides. Trade is blossoming, and Iranian cultural influence in the area is centuries old. Iran has fostered good relations with the KDP and the PUK, both of which are increasingly striving to hedge Iraqi Kurdistan's economic growth with inbound investment from a basket of neighbouring countries. Politically, Iran has achieved a government in Baghdad with ties to Tehran through its negotiations with the Iraqi Kurds, in return for which the Kurds have held onto the presidency of Iraq.
In all these areas, Iran has dealt with Iraqi Kurdistan as an equal. But the recent hangings in Iran reminded Iraqi Kurds of something they seemed to have forgotten: when it comes to the Kurds inside Iran, especially PJAK, no amount of friendship with Iraqi Kurdistan will temper Tehran's fury.7 SHARES Facebook Twitter Google Whatsapp Pinterest Print Mail Flipboard
In the theology of the Catholic Church, Limbo is a speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in Original Sin without being assigned to the Hell of the Damned. For the family of Marlise Muñoz, their Hellish experience in limbo may finally be coming to a long-overdue end that took a Texas district court judge to make a ruling that should have been made over two months ago. Marlise Muñoz collapsed and died at home a week after Thanksgiving, but after being rushed to a hospital doctors used drugs, electric shocks, and machines to restart her heart, they could not undo the damage to her brain; Marlise Muñoz was legally dead. However, because Muñoz was pregnant, an absurd religious law forced the hospital to use Muñoz’s dead body as an incubator. Hospital officials refused to honor Marlise’s advance medical directive and her family’s wishes that she not be kept hooked up to the machines that have kept her body functioning for two months.
On Friday, a district court judge granted Marlise’s family’s request that she be taken off the machines so they could give her the rest she so rightly deserved over two months ago. The District Judge, R.H. Wallace, gave the hospital until 5 p.m. central time Monday to execute his order according to the Associated Press, but it is important to remember this is Texas and the religious right is not likely to allow a judge to overrule their demand that Muñoz’s dead body be used as an incubator for the distinctly abnormal fetus. It is unlikely that the fetus is in much better shape than Marlise’s body after being deprived of oxygen for over an hour, suffered electric shocks, and the same chemicals that restarted the dead woman’s heart. Marlise’s body has been kept functioning due to machines keeping her heart beating, but there is absolutely no brain activity. Muñoz was 14 weeks pregnant when she suffered a pulmonary embolism, went without oxygen for over an hour, and was declared legally dead when she was admitted to the hospital a week after Thanksgiving.
Marlise’s husband and parents had to file a lawsuit against John Peter Smith Hospital to put an end to their nightmare. It turns out the hospital misread, whether deliberately or out of ignorance, the obscure law that required them to keep Muñoz alive only because there was a fetus in her womb. At 14 weeks, the fetus was not viable, and attorneys for the family secured test results that provided a better look at the status of the fetus, and it is not good. According to test results, the fetus has severe deformities in its lower extremities, so severe in fact it is impossible to determine its gender, and it suffers from hydrocephalus, a condition that involves excess fluid in brain cavities that can lead to either mental disability or death. The fetus may also have heart deformities, but attorneys for the Muñoz family cannot comment on the extent of the heart problems “due to the immobile nature of Mrs. Muñoz’s deceased body.”
It is the condition of the dead body that may have led to the judge’s ruling because the hospital cited the absurd and obscure religious law that forbids the state from removing “life sustaining treatment” from a woman carrying a fetus. Muñoz’s family argued all along that the law never applied because Marlise was already dead, and most legal experts who weighed in prior to the judge’s ruling sided with Muñoz, and argued the Texas hospital had misread the state law that may itself be unconstitutional. According to legal experts, “Hospitals cannot provide ‘life-sustaining treatment’ to a person who is dead, and that’s what brain dead means: death. This is not the same as being in a vegetative state, where you can breathe without a respirator. In all 50 states, brain dead means you are legally dead.” Marlise Muñoz has been legally dead since a week after Thanksgiving and hospital officials kept a badly damaged fetus incubating inside her dead body to satisfy a religious law demanding that regardless the damage to the fetus, the deceased woman’s advance medical directive, or her family’s wishes, a woman who dies while pregnant must be kept functioning with no regard for the health of the fetus.
The Muñoz family maintained from the beginning of their nightmarish ordeal that they were grieving for Marlise and her fetus and simply wanted to give them a proper burial. Marlise’s father, Ernest Machado said, “This isn’t about pro-life or pro-choice. We want to say goodbye. We want to let them rest.” The two attorneys representing the Muñoz and Machado family said of the condition of the fetus and debilitating grief the family is suffering, “Quite sadly, this information is not surprising due to the fact that the fetus, after being deprived of oxygen for an indeterminate length of time, is gestating within a dead and deteriorating body, as a horrified family looks on in absolute anguish, distress and sadness.”
It is sadness and anguish the family should never have suffered because as a paramedic who understood end-of-life issues better than most, Marlise made it clear that she would have never wanted to be kept alive in her current condition. Muñoz’s husband Erick, a paramedic, had told the court about Marlise’s requests, but hospital officials claimed that they were bound by a state law that banned them from withdrawing treatment from a patient who is pregnant; even if the patient was dead. At the earliest stages Mr. Muñoz said the fetus, at 4 ounces, was not viable and suffered the exact same conditions as Marlise’s dead body.
It is unclear why the judge gave the hospital until Monday at 5 p.m. to end the Muñoz family’s grief and suffering, but it is Texas and the religious right’s power extends to all facets of government. Throughout Erick Muñoz’s ordeal, pro-life advocates made vile and insensitive comments that his only regard was “getting rid of his wife and child,” but his wife was already legally dead, and the fetus (not a child) was certainly deformed, but there is no accounting for the lengths the religious right will go to prolong a grieving husband’s suffering. As of today, it will be prolonged until at least Monday at 5 p.m. when Marlise’s husband and family may finally get to say goodbye and lay their loved-one and fetus to rest and bring the religious right-induced nightmare to a long-overdue end.
Update: On Sunday, John Peter Smith Hospital in Fort Worth removed Marlise Muñoz from life support after acceding to the judge’s ruling. Marlise Muñoz’s body will soon be buried by her husband and parents putting an end to their nightmare. The abnormally deformed fetus will not be born.
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:<QUESTION>
Recently a prominent person passed away and hundreds of thousands of people attended his Janaza. Some people said this was a sign of his forgiveness and acceptance; is this true?
<ANSWER>
In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,
Among the ‘signs’ [and not a categorical proof] of a believer’s righteousness, goodness and acceptance with Allah is that a large number of Muslims participate in his or her funeral (janaza) prayers. This is due to two reasons:
Firstly, the funeral prayer is in reality a supplication (du’a) unto Allah Most High for the deceased. As such, the greater the number of those supplicating and seeking forgiveness for a deceased, the more likely that it will be accepted.
Sayyida A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) relates that Allah’s Messenger (Allah bless him & give him peace) said, “If a group of Muslims numbering a hundred pray over a dead person, all of them interceding for him, their intercession for him will be accepted. (Sahih Muslim 947)
Malik ibn Hubayra (Allah be pleased with him) relates that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) said, “If a believer dies and a group of Muslims comprising three rows pray over him, he is forgiven.” (Abu Dawud, Ahmad and Tirmidhi)
Sayyiduna Abd Allah ibn Abbas (Allah be pleased with him) relates that he heard the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him & give him peace) say, “If a believer dies and a group of Muslims numbering forty – who do not associate any partner with Allah – pray over him, then Allah will accept their intercession for him.” (Sahih Muslim)
As such, a large number of Muslims praying over the deceased, supplicating for him, interceding for him and asking Allah to forgive him – with sincerity – is an indication of forgiveness and Allah’s mercy on the deceased. When believers beseech and supplicate their Merciful Lord, it is hoped that He Most High will answer their prayers. The likelihood of prayers being accepted is greater when more people supplicate and pray, especially if it includes scholars and pious servants of Allah.
Secondly, the presence of a large gathering at a funeral prayer is normally because those in attendance hold the deceased in high esteem and consider him or her to be righteous. When believers praise the deceased, it is an indication of his acceptance with Allah Most High.
Sayyiduna Anas ibn Malik (Allah be pleased with him) relates that a funeral procession passed by and they [the companions] praised the deceased. The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “It has become necessary.” Then another passed and they spoke ill of the deceased. He (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “It has become necessary.” Umar ibn al-Khattab (Allah be pleased with him) asked, "What has become necessary?” He replied, “You praised this one, and so the Garden is necessary for him; and you spoke ill of this one, so the Fire is necessary for him. You are the witnesses of Allah on the earth.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1277 and Sahih Muslim)
Abu ‘l-Aswad says, “I came to Madina during an epidemic. I was sitting with Umar ibn al-Khattab (Allah be pleased with him) when a funeral passed by and the deceased was praised. Umar said, ‘It has become necessary.’ Then another passed by and they praised the deceased. Umar said, ‘It has become necessary.’ Then a third passed by and they spoke ill of the deceased. Umar said, ‘It has become necessary.’” Abu ‘l-Aswad says, “I asked, ‘what has become necessary, Amir al-Mu'minin?’ He said, ‘I say as the Prophet (Allah bless him and grant him peace) said, “Any Muslim to whose goodness four people testify, will be admitted by Allah to the Garden.” We said, “And if three do?” He said, “Three as well.” We said, “And two?” He said, “Two also.” Then we did not ask him about one.’” (Sahih al-Bukhari 1278)
Imam Nawawi (Allah have mercy on him) comments in explanation of this hadith, “When Allah Most High inspires the people, or majority of them, to praise a believer who has died, then that is an indication of him being amongst the people of Paradise (janna)…” (Al-Minhaj sharh Sahih Muslim)
Based on this, when several people – especially scholars and those who are known to be pious and truthful – praise a deceased person and testify that he was righteous, God-fearing and good in character and behavior, Allah Most High accepts their testimony, forgives that person and admits him to heaven.
Often, the praise is due to what people have witnessed in their interaction with the deceased during his lifetime. When a person lives a righteous life, his behavior is certain to be reflected on others who deal with him. They are bound to praise him when they learn of his death. Thus, they are considered as Allah’s witnesses, and He accepts what they say and deals with the deceased accordingly.
Moreover, when an individual obeys Allah and becomes beloved to Him, Allah instills the love for him in the hearts of the masses; He Most High says, “Surely, those who believe and do righteous deeds, for them the All-Merciful will create love.” (Qur’an 19:96)
As such, when a large number of people attend the funeral prayers of a deceased, it is in fact a manifestation of their love and high regard for him. They are testifying before Allah Most High that the deceased was a righteous and pious individual, and thus it is an indication that he is from the people of Paradise, In sha Allah.
Word of Caution
Having said that, it should be noted that the participation of a large number of Muslims in a deceased’s funeral prayers and their praise for him is indeed a sign of his righteousness; however, it must not be taken as categorical proof. Only Allah Most High knows of the absolute reality.
Moreover, it is wrong to think that less people attending the funeral prayer of a deceased is a sign of his non-righteousness. There have been countless pious servants of Allah –such as Sayyiduna Uthman ibn Affan (Allah be pleased with him) – whose funeral prayers were attended by a handful of people, yet they were amongst the most beloved servants of Allah.
And Allah knows bestPhoenix police say a woman's body was found Wednesday morning at a recycling plant.
Officer James Holmes said plant employees were sorting recycling materials when they discovered the woman's body on the conveyor belt.
Those employees contacted managers who then contacted police.
Police do not know what happened to the woman, but believe she did not die at the facility; they believe her body was brought in from somewhere else.
Police have not identified the woman. Holmes said the Medical Examiner and police department's violent crimes bureau would be coming to the plant to investigate.
"It's going to be very detailed for us," Holmes said.
Holmes asked anyone who may have a family member or friend missing to contact Phoenix police.
"Certainly the circumstances of the discovery of the body would lead one to believe this is an attempt to cover up a death which would logically lead to a homicide," said ASU Professor Dr. Anthony Falsetti.
The plant, located near 27th Avenue and Lower Buckeye Road, is closed for the investigation. The facility processes recycling for 390,000 Valley homes.
Recycling material is being transferred to another facility, according to the plant's operations manager.
Stay with abc15.com and ABC15 Mobile for updates.
Stay connected:Whenever there is a significant attack by Maoist rebels on security forces, as there was on 25 April, when 26 troopers of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) were killed in an ambush by several hundred rebels in southern Chhattisgarh, some responses have become standard.
To diminish inadequacies of governance and boost morale of troopers, ministers in New Delhi and state governments—in this case, Chhattisgarh—mouth variations of “Their sacrifices will not go in vain." Some media echo the government line of Maoists committing “cold-blooded murder". Some security analysts insist the Indian Army be deployed to combat rebels. The army plays it down, because this rebellion is a policing and governance operation, a war fought on account of livelihood, dignity and opportunity with no layering of secessionism or “foreign hand".
Some analysts rail about “intelligence failure". If rebels employ explosives to blow up “mine-resistant" troop carriers, there are calls to make troopers walk. If a foot-patrol is attacked, as happened earlier this week in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, often the same social network and network television pundits insist troopers be driven in such troop carriers. Some insist they ought not to have stopped for a quick meal, providing Maoists an opportunity to ambush. (It was an eerie replay of an attack in April 2010 when rebels attacked and killed 75 CRPF troopers as they similarly took a break.)
And those actually doing battle over the hearts and minds of citizens to secure their respective interpretations of the idea of India will go about their business of attack and counter-attack in a terrain of both physical and emotional geography, gaining ground or ceding it in a battle of will and wiles in guerrilla warfare—about the only element of Mao in this home-grown and home-fed and -watered Maoism. It has been this way for five decades, as Maoism Mark I extends to what I term Maoism Mark V.
Southern Chhattisgarh is today the country’s most militarized patch (or policed and paramilitarized patch, as it were) after Jammu & Kashmir and certain parts of northeast India, in response to the area being part of the biggest remaining stronghold of Maoism Mark V.
Beleaguered as the Maoists are, having lost across India several hundred cadres and leaders each year for the past several years to deaths, arrests, surrender and rehabilitation policies of various state governments |
a clue that works to reframe their fight itself as a response to Ben’s death; although their lack of a strong personal connection to Ben makes their reaction to his death less intense, meaning they don’t immediately stop looking into having the mole removed, it changes the stakes enough for the two to reconcile the issue peacefully, and honestly.
There is always the danger of critical reviews intellectualizing a show to the point where we become disconnected from our emotional responses; it’s rare that sitting in front of your television with a laptop registers as an emotional experience. However, as I reached the final scenes of “My Screw Up” I stopped taking notes. Part of this is that those final scenes are burned in my memory, “Where do you think we are?” becoming one of the most memorable lines in a series more often known for its one-liners. It’s also because I tear up every time I watch it. Despite the fact I can never recreate that initial realization, and despite the fact I intellectualized my way through the rest of the episode breaking down its structure and highlighting its tonal inconsistencies, I can’t help but break down as Ben asks Perry to forgive himself, or as we fade to black on Perry finally facing the truth he spent two thirds of the episode avoiding. It’s a bravado performance from John C. McGinley, equally as strong when Cox is hiding his grief as it is when all of that grief comes flooding over him.
Set to Joshua Radin’s “Winter,” in one of the series’ most powerful marriages of music and image, that final scene has become the distillation of the episode. While watching it, it’s impossible to imagine someone misinterpreting it, even though if we were to go back in time we might understand where the executive’s wife was coming from. Among the series’ fans, though, there has never been any confusion: Remembering checking the official Scrubs message board after the episode aired, a common ritual among the show’s writers at the time, Goldman recalls seeing an unusually high number of posts under “My Screw Up.” For him, it “was the first indication that people ‘got it.’ I kept beating myself up after the final twist went over the exec’s wife’s head, but sure enough, everyone seemed to understand what we were going for.”
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“My Screw Up” resonates so much with viewers because it was going for something. Structurally complex—Lawrence remembers obsessing with Goldman and Donovan about ensuring it would hold up to scrutiny, even over nine years later—and emotionally uncompromising, the episode stands as the pinnacle of the series’ commitment to the weight of death. Although this was only Brendan Fraser’s second appearance on the series, it was still the first time someone died who we didn’t first meet as a patient, and whose death exits the realm of the job description. It is inevitable when you work as a doctor that some of your patients will die, and Scrubs has on many occasions explored that reality of medical work. Although it is just as inevitable that we will lose someone close to us in our lifetime, we’re never fully prepared, especially if you feel you were in a position to do something about it (as Perry felt he was). The greatest clue that something is amiss is not the missing camera or the identical outfit, or the fact that Ben isn’t acknowledged by anyone but Perry; instead, the greatest clue is that Perry’s response—I can’t say enough about how important McGinley is to this episode—is very clearly that of a man who lost his friend, and not a doctor who lost his patient.
The episode is neither the first nor the last time Scrubs would commit to the realism of its premise. It wasn’t even the last time Dr. Cox would blame himself for someone’s death and spiral into a deep depression as a result. However, “My Screw Up” comes at a time where—no matter my issues with J.D.’s character this season—the show was certain about what it was. After the initial growing pains, and before the show’s tone began to shift in later seasons, “My Screw Up” delivers its emotional gut punch with incredible confidence, perhaps standing as the pinnacle of the series’ storytelling.
Stray observations:
Credit for “My Screw Up” must also go to director Chris Koch—as much as this is an episode that depends on careful construction at the script stage and on the work of the performers, the director’s a key part in that translation. I particularly liked the staging of Ben suddenly appearing behind Dr. Cox as J.D. breaks the news about Ben’s death.
I hadn’t realized that “Winter” was actually the first song Radin—a friend of Braff’s—had ever written, which Lawrence heard and felt was “perfect.” I’d agree, and it’s impressive it stands up here after Radin’s music has become so ubiquitous on TV.
Goldman shares that one of his other concerns was that the episode would seem too coincidental with Ben happening to die while at Sacred Heart. I’ll admit I had the same thought rewatching the episode, but the payoff is so strong that it’s hard to hold it against the episode in any capacity.
Lawrence shared that he continually gets people forwarding this Tintin comics panel to him and claiming that Scrubs plagiarized it; it’s actually a piece of fan art based on the show, but that apparently hasn’t stopped people from claiming otherwise.
Special thanks to Neil Goldman and Bill Lawrence for taking the time to chat with me about the episode—I knew this one was a special one, and with no DVD commentary it felt like a space for some additional reflection.
I chose to eschew stray observations on “My Porcelain God” given the weight of the second episode, so please do share thoughts/quotes/etc. in the comments, as per usual.
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Next time on Scrubs: A tormented mentor, and the butterfly effects of Sacred Heart.With wary optimism, the son of Cuba’s most iconic revolutionary is coming to grips with the visit to Havana this Sunday of a contemporary who just happens to be the leader of the world’s capitalist powerhouse.
Camilo Guevara – the eldest son of Ernesto “Che” Guevara – was born within a year of US president Barack Obama in the early 1960s, when their two countries were starting one of the cold war’s most dangerous and enduring conflicts.
Related: Obama’s address to Cuban people will be highlight of historic visit
His father was executed in Bolivia five years later. Today, in more peaceful but less triumphant times, he is dedicated to protecting Che’s legacy and ensuring that his father’s words – and not just his famous portrait – are remembered around the world.
But, like many in this island nation, he sees Obama’s imminent arrival as much a threat to that legacy as an opportunity.
“It’s a historic and very important visit. It’s the first time a US president will visit an independent Cuba,” Guevara tells the Guardian. “But the US is an empire. Their nature is not to set the table and invite you for a feast. History shows us that every time they set a table, you have to accept you might be poisoned or stabbed in the back. But let’s see.”
In the outside world, Obama’s visit is a peacemaking, groundbreaking trip to a small island that has resisted its superpower neighbour for more than half a century. It appears aimed at starting a triumphant countdown for a president in his final year in office.
US officials say this will be one of the biggest presidential delegations in recent history. As well as his family, Obama will come with four cabinet secretaries, about 40 senators and members of Congress, and dozens of businessmen and prominent Cuban Americans. Along with secret service agents, logistics specialists, journalists and the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team (who will play a match that Obama will attend), the official US party will fill 1,200 rooms.
The immense size is no accident. This is a visit designed to impress. Among his domestic audience, Obama wants to secure his legacy as a peacemaker. Among his Cuban hosts, he wants to show how much there is to gain from closer ties.
Related: Obama and Jagger fly in, but fears grow over who profits as Cuba starts to party
Guevara believes his father would have had mixed feelings about the rapprochement. “You can see that he didn’t trust anything coming from the empire,” he says, referring to his father’s extensive writings. “But he was a man who felt it was important to have relations with the world, that it was necessary to learn from the positives and the negatives, and he felt that we could also transmit ourselves outwards … Maybe we can influence the US in a positive way.”
We meet at the Che Guevara Study Centre in Havana, which houses a collection of letters, essays and speeches that has been recognised by Unesco as part of the global heritage.
In appearance and speech, Camilo Guevara comes across as very much his father’s son. His face gives a clue to how Che’s famous looks – now plastered on millions of T-shirts and posters – might have aged if he had not been killed in Bolivia before he reached his 40th birthday. The beard is grey, the flowing locks have receded and the piercing eyes need glasses.
He comes across as gregarious, humorous and intense. Although he is not a government spokesman, he reiterates the oft-stated official line that the talks can only succeed if the US respects Cuban sovereignty, engages in talks as an equal and removes the remaining obstacles to closer ties – namely the economic embargo and US navy occupation of Guantánamo Bay.
But while the revolutionary ideology is strong, it is not inflexible. “We have a project as a nation. It has taken us to where we are now. Tomorrow, if we face a different situation, then we have to modify our project,” he observes. “If, in the worst case, relations with the US destroy our principles, our ideals, our national project, it means it wasn’t strong in the first place.”
Change, if it comes, will be at a pace that the Cuban government chooses. Until now, that has led to criticism in the US that Obama has given more than he has got from his deal with Cuban president Raúl Castro on 17 December 2014.
Most of the movement so far has come from the US side – most recently with this week’s announcement of relaxed currency and travel controls – but it is not entirely a one-way traffic.
Related: US eases Cuba financial and travel regulations ahead of Obama visit
Cuba has released several dozen political prisoners (though detentions and beatings continue), expanded internet access (although it is still very limited) and entered talks on security, human trafficking and narcotic control. On the big issues – free elections, free press, free assembly – there has been almost nothing, although there is growing speculation that next month’s Communist party congress could debate further steps forward on economic reform and possibly even a referendum on constitutional reform.
So far that is just guesswork. But Obama will try to nudge debate forward in that direction during his speech, the main message of which will be “Cuba’s future is for the Cuban people”, but officials stress the goal is not to foster regime change but to remove restrictions that were impeding the island’s ability to develop and decide its own fate.
Guevara is cautious about the president’s motives.
“I don’t know Obama in person. He appears intelligent and sensitive towards the major problems of humanity, but he came to power in an election, not a revolution. He was supported by corporate America,” Guevara says. “The colour of skin is one thing, the colour of ideology is another.”
Nonetheless, he believes Obama has helped to usher in much needed change that will endure to some degree even after he leaves office. “The fact is that US-Cuba relations were stuck. Regardless of who becomes president next, things can’t get any worse than they were in the past.”
The present, however, has its fair share of troubles, which the US could potentially help with. The economy is weak. Shops are often short of basic commodities. Leftwing regional allies that once helped to fill the gaps are now struggling with their own problems.
Venezuela, which channelled substantial fuel and aid to Cuba under Hugo Chávez, is now reeling from low oil prices, recession and political turmoil. The Workers’ party government in Brazil, which helped to bankroll Cuba’s biggest development project at Mariel port, is distracted by mass protests, economic decline and a debilitating corruption scandal.
Leftwing leaders in Argentina and Bolivia have suffered election defeats.
Guevara blames the reverses of the Latin American left on cyclical factors: governments lost sympathy when they struggled to realise the hopes of the electorates, but he says this was compounded by a hostile media, oligarchs and transnational companies.
“This is a temporary setback. [Leftwing movements] haven’t disappeared or died,” he says. “The tide has retreated a few steps, but that is what happens before a tsunami comes surging back.”
Almost 50 years after his father’s death in 1967, Che remains a figurehead for such movements, but he is also now a commercial icon.
Guevara says part of his objective at the study centre is to ensure that his father’s image is not separated from his ideas and history. “Che continues to play an important role, but we have to recognise that the symbol of Che means different things in different countries. His image on a flag at a football match in Europe is not the same as his image on the T-shirt of a miner marching for rights in Latin America. Unfortunately there are some who try to separate the image and the history. It’s one of our objectives to address that.”
Among the documents in the archive is a short goodbye message that Che wrote to his children in the knowledge that he could soon die. It implores them:
Above all be sensitive, in the deepest areas of yourselves, to any injustice committed against whoever it may be anywhere in the world.”
Guevara is reluctant to share personal reminiscences. “I have flashes of memory but I’m not sure how reliable they are because we fill emptiness with our own visions,” he says. Instead he prefers to focus on the concrete legacy by distributing Che’s ideas online, in educational materials and exhibitions.
All of which are politically toxic to a US president during campaign season. Obama will be cautious about endorsing his hosts. Officials say he will not meet Fidel Castro. Instead, he will be more intent on workshops with entrepreneurs, talks with civil society groups, a baseball match, a speech to the nation’s youth, and bilateral talks.
There is no chance he will visit the Che Guevara Study Centre for a lesson in revolution. For Guevara that is a shame: “If Obama comes, he might learn something.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media 2016[English version below!]
No dia 21 de fevereiro de 2015, assinalaram-se por todo o mundo eventos dedicados ao Open Data Day, um dia para se falar de dados abertos. Em Portugal tratámos de marcar este dia com um hackday especial, e partilhamos agora o relato do que se passou.
Workshop de Linked Data
Para abrir o dia, começámos com o workshop dedicado ao tema linked data (dados interligados), orientado pelo João Pequenão. Os dados interligados foram apresentados como o próximo nível da agenda open data, dando direção e contexto aos dados isolados. O tiro de partida foi dado na forma de um brainstorm coletivo para encontrar respostas para duas questões:
Qual é o panorama nos Dados Abertos desde 2000 até hoje? E nos Dados em geral?
O que gostávamos que acontecesse nos próximos 15 anos?
Em grupos, os post-its saíram a voar para os flipboards com ideias, sugestões e palpites sobre o que existe e sobre o que aí vem. As implicações do tema “dados” ramificaram-se para assuntos como a privacidade online, o envolvimento cidadão na governação, o estonteante ritmo da evolução tecnológica e, sobretudo, uma incerteza entusiasmada quanto a um futuro que se sabe promissor mas, também, repleto de dilemas.
Daí, partiu-se para uma concretização sobre a natureza, valor e potencial dos dados interligados. Exploraram-se as tecnologias específicas que vão dar que falar nos próximos tempos, com uma introdução teórica ao RDF e exercícios práticos na forma de um registo pessoal em formato FOAF e algumas experiências com SPARQL.
Finalmente, com os conhecimentos obtidos, voltou-se ao domínio da especulação produtiva com o desafio de responder, novamente em grupos, a quatro cenários onde os dados interligados poderão ser um elemento potenciador: a gestão e compreensão da afluência às unidades de urgência médica, o poder de fiscalização cidadã dos dados públicos, a idealização de novos planos de negócio para PME, e a forma possível para um portal europeu de dados abertos em 2020.
Deste brainstorm surgiram pistas sobre o potencial de recolha e extração de significado de dados que possa amplificar a eficiência de serviços públicos, a importância de formatos standard, ou as possibilidades dadas pelo contexto fornecido pela estrutura intrínseca dos dados interligados.
Os slides do workshop estão disponíveis! (PDF)
Totonome
O Tiago Vieira, coder residente do Transparência Hackday, abriu a tarde para mostrar a mais recente aventura do nosso coletivo com bases de dados onomásticas, materializada no projeto Totonome — um jogo para testar os palpites de cada pessoa sobre que nomes foram ou não aceites pelo IRN como aceitáveis para dar a um recém-nascido em Portugal. Os slides desta apresentação foram postos à disposição pelo Tiago.
Foi explicada a maior dificuldade no arranque de projetos de apps ou sites que usam informação pública: encontrar e processar os datasets de forma a estarem aptos a serem integrados em aplicações. Neste caso, o dataset dos nomes aprovados apenas está disponível para o ano de 2014, em formato PDF. Este formato não é prático para bases de dados, pelo que se usou o Tabula, o CSVkit e outras ferramentas para processar, filtrar e organizar os dados para que se pudesse concretizar o jogo que tínhamos em mente.
A partir daí, foi criado um protótipo em 3 horas com recurso ao AngularJS para testar a ideia que parecia mais adequada para uma primeira experiência: um jogo que nos mostra dois nomes, um que foi aceite no IRN e outro que não foi. O objetivo é encontrar o nome que foi aceite.
Tal como demonstrado pelo Tiago, o jogo é surpreendentemente envolvente; bastou uma pequena demo para nos vermos todos a mandar os nossos palpites num jogo coletivo de adivinhação sobre quais eram os nomes mais plausíveis.
Foram também enumerados os próximos passos para o Totonome: assentar num interface simples, bonito e funcional; melhorar o feedback visual dos resultados, que não é ainda ideal; e facilitar a partilha dos resultados em redes sociais.
Eduardo Nunes
O Eduardo Nunes é um designer baseado em Coimbra, dividindo a sua atenção pela docência na Universidade de Coimbra e pela atividade como designer cross-media.
Foi-nos dada uma visão geral do percurso do Eduardo pelos ofícios gráficos. No seu percurso, encontrámos experiências de visualização do tempo e dos hábitos, numa manifestação premonitória do quantified self.
A seguir, vimos alguns exemplos da vertente de animação 3D. Foi mostrada uma fantástica visualização do Orçamento de Estado, num estilo idiossincrático e revelador.
E de seguida, o projeto responsável pelo convite que fizemos ao Eduardo para nos mostrar o seu trabalho no Open Data Day: a sua animação dedicada ao tema Saúde Mental em Portugal.
Finalmente, debruçámo-nos sobre o Dizer Design, um esforço de recolha e compreensão antropológica da demografia profissional dos designers em Portugal. Este site constituiu uma experiência de crowdsourcing da informação que não tardou em proporcionar resultados, com centenas de contributos por todo o país.
No entanto, evidenciaram-se os desafios de sustentar projetos independentes como o Dizer Design, com vários custos que são frequentemente invisíveis para o olhar convencional, como os custos de aluguer dos servidores ou o esforço de manutenção e atualização das plataformas ao longo do tempo. Este assunto proporcionou uma interessada discussão, tornando-se claro que os dilemas à volta da construção de plataformas independentes são comuns a várias áreas de trabalho.
Central de Dados
Na última apresentação do dia, a Ana Isabel Carvalho e o Ricardo Lafuente mostraram o estado atual do seu trabalho na Central de Dados, uma plataforma de distribuição de datasets em formatos standard.
A Central de Dados constitui uma resposta ao problema da dispersão que vivemos nos Hackdays: temos vários datasets, mas alguns são publicados em repositórios Github, outros em dropboxes, outros ainda passados à mão com pen drives, etc. Fazia-nos falta um local central e uma forma comum de formatar e publicar os datasets. Aplicações web como o CKAN seriam a resposta a este problema, mas elas também vêm com alguma bagagem: é necessário mantê-las debaixo de olho e fazer manutenção regular, o que exige tempo e recursos que não temos.
A Central de Dados é a solução proposta para o caso específico do Transparência Hackday. Recorrendo ao formato data package (em desenvolvimento pela Open Knowledge), os datasets criados no Transparência Hackday são publicados de forma documentada e organizada, servindo a Central de Dados como portal web para facilitar o acesso. Assim, temos uma plataforma que nos permite aceder facilmente aos datasets que tratámos para com eles poder construir aplicações e plataformas que demonstrem o seu valor. Ao mesmo tempo, qualquer pessoa pode igualmente beneficiar da conveniência de ter os datasets atualizados e em formatos documentados, bem como criar as suas apps e outras experiências usando diretamente os datasets fornecidos na Central.
Conclusão
O dia foi pontuado com momentos de entusiasmado networking por entre coffee breaks e almoço — apercebemo-nos da importância destes momentos na condução de um evento aberto ao público, uma vez que um dos objetivos principais era aproximar e pôr em contato várias pessoas interessadas pelo tema dos dados abertos.
Podemos afirmar que foi um sucesso: com a maior participação de um hackday até ao momento: 23 pessoas, com mais de 1/3 de mulheres. Este sucesso só foi alcançável graças ao fundamental e generoso apoio da Open Knowledge, da ADDICT e da UPTEC. Faz assim sentido pontuar este relato com um profundo agradecimento a estas entidades, bem como a todas as pessoas que participaram no Open Data Day, para juntos integrarmos a nossa vontade comum de trocar impressões e opiniões sobre o que foi e pode ser feito para avançar as agendas dos dados abertos, tecnologia livre e cidadania envolvida.
Todas as fotos do dia (incluindo as deste post) foram feitas pela Mariana Santos e estão disponíveis no Flickr do Transparência Hackday.
E o próximo hackday, em que vamos prosseguir com as pontas soltas deixadas neste dia, será já a 14 de março — marca na agenda!
English version
On 21 February 2015, several open data initiatives were held around the world to celebrate Open Data Day, a day dedicated to all uses and potential of open data. In Portugal, we made the most of this day in a special hackday; here are our notes of all the activities.
Linked Data Workshop
We started the day with a workshop around the subject of linked data, led by João Pequenão. Linked data were introduced as the next level of the open data agenda, providing context and direction to isolated data. The starting point was a collective brainstorm to find answers for two questions:
What does the open data landscape look like since 2000 until today?
What will we see happen in the next 15 years?
Divided in groups, people got the post-its flying towards the flipboards with ideas, hunches and insights about what’s there and what’s coming. The implications of the broad theme of “data” branched to issues such as online privacy, citizen engagement in governance, the dizzying pace of technological progress and, overall, an excited uncertainty about a future that looks both promising and packed with dilemmas.
From there, we went on to a more specific account of the nature, value and potential of linked data. This was followed by an exposé of existing technologies with an introduction to RDF and practical exercises: a personal FOAF record and a set of SPARQL experiments.
Finally, with the knowledge obtained, we went back to productive speculation with the challenge of providing answers, again in groups, to 4 scenarios where linked data might help:
understanding and managing the turnout in emergency health services
the ability of citizens to oversee public data policy
possible new business models for SMEs
what a next-generation (2020) EU data portal would look like
From this brainstorm, we got interesting insights, discussions and clues around the potential of gathering meaning from data that can widen the efficiency of public services, the importance of standard formats, or the possible uses of the extended context that linked data intrinsically provide.
The workshop slides are available! (PDF, Portuguese)
Totonome
Tiago Vieira, one of Transparência Hackday’s (THD) resident coders, opened the afternoon to showcase the most recent endeavour of the THD collective, Totonome — a game using official name registries to test players’ hunches as to which names were or not accepted by the official registry (IRN) as acceptable for naming newborn citizens. Portuguese law restricts the given names to an existing set, with new proposals being considered each year. The presentation slides were made available.
Tiago described the largest hurdle in bootstraping this kind of public data app or site: finding and refining the available datasets into proper formats to be fed into other applications. In this case, the name approval record is only available for the year 2014, in PDF format. This format is not practical for publishing databases; specialised tools (Tabula and CSVkit) were used to organise the data in order to make our game idea real.
From there, an AngularJS-based prototype was created in 3 hours to test the game idea that sounded the most interesting: a game that shows two names, one which was accepted by the registry and one that was not. The goal is to find the approved name.
As demonstrated by Tiago, the game is surprisingly engaging; a quick demo was enough to get the crowd excited throwing guesses in a fun, collective quiz about which names sounded the most plausible.
Finally, the next steps for Totonome were outlined: come up with a simple, pretty and functional interface, improve on the results’ visual feedback, and facilitate sharing of the scores in social networks.
Eduardo Nunes
Eduardo Nunes is a designer based in Coimbra, working both as a teacher at University of Coimbra and as an independent cross-media designer.
We got an overview of Eduardo’s path through visual craft. In it, we found early experiments around visualizing time and habits, in an early reference to the quantified self meme.
We then were treated to his 3D animation experiments, including a fantastic visualization of the Government Budget de Estado, in an unusually pleasant graphic style.
This was followed by the project that got THD in love with Eduardo’s work and contacted him to present in Open Data Day: an animation dedicated to the issue of Mental Health statistics in Portugal.
Finally, Eduardo presented Dizer Design, an effort to gather and carry out an anthropological understanding of the designer demographics in Portugal. This site was an experiment in crowdsourcing information that produced quick results, with hundreds of contributions from all around the country.
However, the challenges of maintaining independent platforms and their sustainability became clear, with several costs that are frequently invisible to the end user, such as the server rental costs or the labour involved in maintaining and updating these platforms over time. This subject created a lively discussion, making it evident that the problems involved in building independent online platforms are felt by many.
Central de Dados
In the last talk of the day, Ana Isabel Carvalho and Ricardo Lafuente showed the current state of their ongoing work in Central de Dados, a platform for distributing datasets in a standard format.
Central de Dados is an attempt to answer THD’s problem of dataset dispersion: we have gathered several datasets, but had no central location to place them for the public. Some lived in fileservers, others in dropboxes, others yet in Github repositories, saved in many different formats. We sorely missed this kind of central location, as well as a standard format to publish datasets. Applications like CKAN were built to address this need, but they also come with their baggage. It is necessary to keep them under frequent attention and perform regular maintenance, which requires time and resources that we found we do not have at THD.
Central de Dados is our effort to address our specific use case. Using the excellent data package standard format (under development by Open Knowledge), the datasets created and scraped at THD can be published in a documented and organised way, with Central de Dados as a web portal to facilitate public access. With this, we have a platform that we can use ourselves to quickly bootstrap our public data project ideas, highlighting the value and potential uses of public data. Being an online platform, the general public fully benefits from this possibility as well.
Wrapping up
The day was flicked with moments of enthusiastic networking during coffee breaks and lunch — we became aware of the importance of these intermissions when hosting a public events, since they ended up largely being responsible for fulfilling our goals to bring together a nascent local community interested in open data through sharing of experiences and thoughts, beyond the “work” moments.
We can call this a successful event, with the largest crowd in a hackday so far: 23 people, with more than a third of them women. This success was only made possible thanks to the crucial and generous support of Open Knowledge, ADDICT and UPTEC.
It therefore makes sense to close this report with a grateful word of thanks to these entities, as well as our speakers and everyone who attended the Open Data Day, making it possible for everyone to share our common goal to further the agendas of open data, libre technologies and engaged citizenship.
All the photos from this day (including the ones in this post) were done by Mariana Santos and can be found at Transparência Hackday’s Flickr account.
The next hackday, where we’ll tie up the loose ends left today, will be on the 14th of March — save the date!It was said that the sunsets in the great nation of Bumblebee were the finest in all the lands. People would describe, perhaps with exaggeration, the beautiful detail of the colors, the way the reds and the yellows would fantastically blend together with the oranges. It even led to an unofficial nickname for the nation, the Sunset Kingdom.
From his seat at the quaint little table in his hotel room, Quixotic watched the sunset. To most, it was a thing of pure beauty, something to watch alone or with a lover. But to him, the setting of the sun signified what time it was.
It was time to start drinking.
The man threw himself down the stairs, out the front door, and into the tavern across the street with an almost contagious exuberance. He barged through the doors of the lounge and dropped onto one of the barstools, signaling the bartender to pour another mug of cheaply-made beer.
"Another night drinking alone?" The bartender halfheartedly tried to begin a conversation with him.
Quixotic grunted in assent as he polished off his first glass of alcohol, slamming it down on the counter with the intent of receiving a refill.
"So where are you from?"
Quixotic held the glass in front of his face and hesitated for a moment before setting it down. "I see what you're doing, but I'll bite. I come from Top Shelf, came here to sell some goods, maybe buy a couple weapons. Nothing big." He began to guzzle his drink, albeit as a slower pace than before.
The bartender laughed a bit. "Top Shelf? That's a long way away from here. Don't tell tall tales to me, son. I've heard them all." Quixotic laughed as well, finishing his second drink. "Well, every good lie has a grain of truth. Now, if you'll excuse me…" He bowed his head to the bartender and exited, noting the sigh the bartender let out as he walked away.
He walked around the back of the tavern and found a nondescript door in the back with a small peephole from which those inside could look out. He knocked three times on the door, then twice, then three again. The peephole's hatch opened.
"Have you brought me anything to eat?"
Quixotic grumbled and said the passphrase. "A fresh Quail from the north."
At once the peephole closed, followed by the sounds of multiple locks being unlatched. Finally, the door opened, a grizzled middle-aged man standing behind it. He quickly beckoned for Quixotic to enter the back room, closing the door swiftly after his protégé came in. They sat down at a rather large table, which had numerous half-written papers strewn around a single lit candle. "So, have you cemented your identity?"
Quixotic scratched his jaw. "I'm doing that right now. People know me as the travelling merchant with a drinking problem. It provides the perfect cover for my reconnaissance." He pulled out a folded-up wad of papers from underneath his cloak, handing them to his superior, who looked them over with an almost gleeful enthusiasm.
"The guardsmen stationed on the eastward side, facing the mountains, are the least numerous. The patrols on the west side are the largest, but they're sapping men from the north and south sides of the city to do so, mostly the south."
The other man smirked, satisfied with his apprentice's work. "My boy, this is fine work. You've accomplished quite a bit in your short time here. Keep it up."
They stood up and shook hands as Quixotic's mentor pocketed the documents. "One more thing, if I may," Quixotic began. "The Emberald priests in the city, they've been acting… strangely of late. Something's up, and I don't know what."
His mentor waved him off. "They're basically a doomsday cult, they're always on edge. I wouldn't worry about it."
Quixotic shrugged. "If you say so. Farewell, sir." He stepped outside into the filthy alley, off to cause more trouble to "keep his cover."
The man laughed and stood up. "It's safe to come out now." A clean-shaven, charming young officer stepped out from a closet and into the main chamber. "He's gone, finally. All this spy work makes me thirsty. Good thing we're next to a bar." They both chuckled heartily as the man handed the officer the stack of papers.
"Is this everything we need?" the officer asked. The spy nodded. "We have everything there, Colonel Vulpix."
Vulpix laughed as he shifted through the documents, surprised by the detail the younger spy had had put into his job. "Come now, just because you're jealous of my success doesn't mean you need to get vulgar. Colonel. Ha! Celtic wouldn't associate with someone of such a low rank." He slid the papers into the side pocket of his uniform, and shook his operative's hand.
"Celtic thanks you, Sir Nachbar. You will not regret this." Nachbar laughed again, his sides shaking under his wide cloak. "If I do," he said, "I'll just switch sides again."
Vulpix laid his hand on Nachbar's shoulder. He looked into his eyes, searching them for any disloyalty. He found none, and removed his hand.
"Farewell, my friend. Tomorrow, we rise. And you can finally get laid."
Vulpix laughed as his friend crumpled up one of the papers on his desk and threw it at him with pinpoint accuracy. Unlatching the absurd amount of locks on the door, he walked out into the street.
Across the town, a middle-aged man walked through the winding passageways of the city market, trying not to bump into any of the various, potentially dangerous characters that populated the area. He stopped in front of a stall that sold various foodstuffs.
"Hello, sir," said the grocer. "What'll it be today?"
The man smiled, reaching under his cloak and finding a pouch of coins. "Two loaves and two cobs of corn, please." The grocer grabbed the items and handed them to the man. As he did so, he pointed.
"The sigil on your cloak, I know it. You're from Guns and Roses, aren't you?"
The man nodded as he placed a small lump of copper coins on top of the stall's table. "Indeed. I used to be a soldier in their army, became one of their best strategists. I retired, migrated here. It's a simpler life." He smiled. "I'm Austin."
"A pleasure." The grocer smiled, shaking Austin's hand. "I hope to meet again sometime."
"I'm sure we will." Austin dropped the corn and the bread into his basket and continued onwards towards the residential section. He passed through the ever-thinning throngs of people and |
beekeepers suggested environmental factors including pesticides [2]. In South-Africa, the effect of migratory beekeeping practices was found significant on colony losses, migratory beekeepers losing on average more colonies than stationary beekeepers [17]. For pollinators in general, other studies have shown the negative impact of land-use intensification [18], and interacting negative effects of human-induced changes on climate [19]. Despite all these studies, our collective understanding of honey bee health has been hampered by a lack of collaborative trans-national efforts following common protocols and the impacts of beekeeper knowledge and beekeeping management practices has often been overlooked, despite honey bees being a managed pollinator. The objective of the present study was to identify the key risk factors surrounding honey bee colony mortality through data from the first surveillance programme based on randomly selected participants and deploying standardised methods to monitor honey bee colony health, pests, diseases and management practices across 17 European countries.
Materials and methods Building a surveillance network The selection of Member States taking part to EPILOBEE, the methodology to randomly pick up the apiaries and the beekeepers, the evaluation of the protocols set up in each Member State are described in details in Chauzat et al. [20] and in the guidelines published by the European Reference Laboratory for Honey bee Health (EURL) [21, 22]. The EPILOBEE protocol is described briefly below. Surveillance was implemented during two consecutive years, between autumn 2012 and summer 2014. Three visits were set up in each Member State: before winter (autumn visit: V1), after winter (spring visit: V2) and during the beekeeping season (summer visit: V3). At each visit, beekeeping practices and clinical signs of the main honey bee diseases were recorded during field inspections using a standardised questionnaire. If colonies exhibited clinical signs of a disease, samples were collected for subsequent laboratory analyses. The main honey bee diseases clinically investigated were those listed for notification for intra-EU trade and import rules or for national eradication programmes at the European level [23, 24]: the fungal disease Nosemosis; the parasitic disease varroosis; the two main bacterial diseases affecting honey bee brood; the American foulbrood (AFB) and the European foulbrood (EFB); and a viral disease caused by the chronic bee paralysis virus (CBPV). An apiary was considered to be suffering from a disease after its diagnosis in one or more colonies. All case definitions were agreed between the EURL and the Member States (20). An agreed sampling protocol was circulated by the EURL after consultation with all participating Member States and is available upon request to the EURL [20]. Subsequently, each Member State organised training, managed the visits and stored the national data in an online database. For the second year, at least one third of the total beekeepers from the first year was renewed and for comparison the same methodology was utilised. Population representativeness was achieved through random sampling of apiaries (primary units) and bee colonies (secondary units) in each Member State considered to be representative of the national beekeeping population [20]. England & Wales (taken as one Member State) did not take part in the second year of the program. Study population studied and retained variables To calculate the colony mortality rates, only the apiaries with three consecutive visits and consistent data needed for mortality calculation were included. Data consistency was tested through several checks applied to the dataset including some editing to retain as much data as possible for analysis [25]. The consistency between various variables was checked; for exemple, the number of colonies randomly selected at the first visit and information reported at the second visit; the number of colonies randomly selected at the first visit and the size of the apiary; or the number of colonies owned by the beekeeper and the size of the apiary. After quality checking, 2 332 apiaries (out of 3 053) were retained for the analysis in the first year and 2 426 apiaries (out of 2 745) for the second year. Apiary was designated as the epidemiological unit. Among the available 138 variables in 12 tables, 36 were selected for the statistical analysis after a Delphi-like selection. In summary, these 36 retained variables were related to the beekeeper (age, activity and experience in beekeeping), the operation type (type of production i.e. honey, pollen, queens), the operation scale (the number of colonies owned by the beekeeper, the number of colonies in the visited apiary), the husbandry (honey bee subspecies [26], swarms and queens produced or bought), the disease state, whether depopulation had been observed in the apiary (clinical signs and mortality of colonies or honey bees observed before and during site visits) and the landscape surrounding the apiary. They were used as explanatory variables with the seasonal and the winter mortalities as response variables. With the seasonal mortality as response variable, the previous winter mortality was included as a supplementary explanatory variable. Statistical methods First, data sets from each year were considered independently and the 17 Member States were clustered according to honey bee colony mortality. Second, for each year considered again independently, the links between the seasonal and the winter mortalities were explored. To work with a complete dataset, missing data were completed using the data imputation method based on multiple correspondence analysis. Finally, risk factors of mortality were sought on the overall study including both years of data by means of generalised linear models (see below). Clustering the Member States according to yearly mortality Yearly honey bee colony mortality was studied pooling together the winter mortality and the seasonal mortality on 2 332 apiaries for the first year and 2 426 apiaries for the second year. The 17 Member States were clustered according to mortality patterns (i.e. groups with high mortality rates versus lower mortality rates) using vectors composed of two values (for the winter mortality and for the seasonal mortality rates). The 17 vectors were subsequently analysed through the hierarchical clustering of observations on the main principal components function (HCPC) from the FactoMineR R package [27]. This resulted in producing groups of Member States with similar annual mortalities for the first and second year separately. Link between the winter and the seasonal mortalities This specific analysis was performed for EPILOBEE first year and second year separately. Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated taking into account two variables for each year: a first one corresponding to winter mortality rates and a second one corresponding to seasonal mortality rates. Risk factors related to honey bee colony mortality (both years combined) Considering the missing data in data sets from each year, 1 139 (out of 2 332) apiaries should have been kept in the analysis for the first year, and 1 020 (out of 2 426) for the second year. To take into acount a complete dataset, an imputation method was performed to process the missing data separately for each year, based on multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) [28] through the functions estim_ncpMCA and imputeMCA from the missMDA R package [29]. After imputation, data sets from each year were merged and the new global dataset was used in the following analysis. The winter and seasonal honey bee colony mortalities (response variables) were considered as count numbers with quasi-Poisson distributions. In the subsequent analysis, the models used were the quasi-Poisson generalised linear models. Calculations of p-values (associated to the likelihood ratio) were implemented for the winter mortality and the seasonal mortality for each explanatory variable (glm function R package). The 0.20 threshold was used to select the variables kept in the study: the ones with a p-value superior to the threshold were removed from the study, the others variables being incorporated in the subsequent steps. To avoid multicollinearity in Poisson regressions, variables from each theme (e.g., diseases, management) were summarized in a single categorical latent variable through MCA and classification using the FactoMineR package [30] as detailed in Jacques et al. [25]. A unique new synthetic explanatory variable resulting from clustering and composed of seven categories was included in the generalised linear model as a fixed effect. The Country and the year variables were included as random effects. For each mortality, a mixed multivariate Poisson regression model was performed using the glmer function from the lme4 R package with a log link [31]. Thereafter, contrasts were used to compare mortalities of each cluster of the synthetic explanatory variable to the other ones. At the end of the classification, the seven clusters of the synthetic variable were built according to eight criteria: the typology of the beekeeper (hobby, part time or professional), the size of the apiaries and of the colonies according to four classes: size 1 = operation having less than 50 colonies in total and apiary having less than 20 colonies; size 2 = operation having less than 50 colonies and apiary having between 21 and 50 colonies; size 3 = operation having between 51 and 300 colonies and apiary having more than 50 colonies; and size 4 = operation with more than 300 colonies and apiaries having more than 50 colonies. The age of the beekeeper was recorded in four groups (less than 30 years of age, between 30 and 45 years, between 45 and 65 years and more than 65 years of age). The involvement in a cooperative treatment against Varroa and the observation of clinical diseases in colonies visited and the subsequent confirmation in laboratory were also considered in the synthetic variable. The actions implemented at the operation level to improve the quality of production were reported under the section Apiary management: if the beekeeper produced his/her own queens and swarms or whether he/she bought some; if the management of the bee population by acquiring swarms and queens was intended to increase the production, to compensate the bad health conditions or to maintain the livestock; which subspecies of honey bees were used in the colonies visited; which environment surrounded the apiary under study according to the beekeeper; what kind of main production was targeted by the beekeeper; if the colonies were merged; and which honeyflow was targeted by the migration. The bee subspecies were reported by the beekeepers. There was no morphological nor molecular analysis conducted on honeybees to assess the subspecies. The environment surrounded the apiary under study was also reported by the beekeepers. No landscape measures were recorded to assess this criterion. The section on the beekeeper background gathered the experience in beekeeping (training, qualification, how long he/she is a beekeeper) and some practices (using a apiarist book, be part of a beekeeping organisation). The last section noted the presence of any health events in the apiary before the start of the project. For seasonal mortality only, a supplementary criteria was added to account for the winter colony mortality previously recorded.
Discussion Our results demonstrate that overwinter losses ranged between 2% and 32%, and that high summer losses were likely to follow high winter losses. Multivariate Poisson regression models revealed that hobbyist beekeepers with small apiaries and little experience in beekeeping had double the winter mortality rate when compared to professional beekeepers. Furthermore, honey bees kept by professional beekeepers never showed signs of disease during the visits, unlike apiaries from hobbyist beekeepers that had often symptoms of bacterial infection and/or heavy Varroa infestation observed during the visits. Our results show that the main factors protecting honey bee colonies are beekeeper background and practices. More efforts are needed in beekeeper training to promote good beekeeping practices and achieve early identification of clinical signs of disease. During the first year of the study there was no clear geographical pattern for the distribution of yearly mortality rates (including both winter and seasonal rates). Conversely, during the second year, the Member States with similar mortality rates were distributed according to geographical patterns, grouped in patches. The winter 2012–2013 was particularly long and cold across Europe. This was not the case for the following winter (2013–2014) which was rather mild [32]. Mild winters are known to favour the build-up of Varroa mite populations. According to a longitudinal study run in Europe, the colony location strongly influence autumn mite loads and viral prevalence [15]. Multi-year longitudinal monitoring of colony health can identify region-specific risk factors associated with colony mortality [33]. Once these factors have been identified, they can inform on management and research priorities including pesticide uses [33]. It has been recently suggested that different honey bee populations may have developed their own specific resistance mechanisms tailored to match the challenge of the environment they are located in, including the locally prevailing combination of pathogens and pathogen variants [16]. Similar results were shown in England and Wales for AFB exhibiting significant spatial aggregation at distances from 10 to 30 km [34]. In the field of ecotoxicology, sublethal effects of neonicotinoid pesticides were also modified in magnitude by environmental interactions specific to the landscape and time of exposure events [35]. These observations advocate the use of honey bee health surveys to be conducted at the landscape scale, and to include environmental factors. However, the distribution of the Member States with similar mortalities observed during the first year of the study without any geographical pattern may indicate that weather could be an overwhelming factor that can mask regional effects. In the US data showed that beekeepers in northern states lose more colonies than those in southern states [2, 33]. Therefore the role of climate in winter colony mortality could be further elucidated by repeating the surveys over serveral years. The mortality rates reported in EPILOBEE were relatively low compared to rates reported in the US which are consistenly around one-third for each winter [3]. It is not known whether these discrepancies could be attributed to sampling issues, analysis, biological pressures, landscapes or management factors, or any combination of the above. Commercial beekeeper in the US typically transport their hives thousands of miles per year, which is exceedingly rare in Europe. Although some studies have already highlighted the stress induced by these transportations, how these factors influence the various mortality rates remains largely unknown at colony level [36, 37]. We also present the first evidence of a relationship between winter and seasonal mortalities. Although winter colony mortality is commonly used to quantify losses in a standardized way, the colony mortality during a full year should also be taken into consideration to estimate population level trends. Colony losses are highly dependant on beekeeper management which includes how colonies are taken care (disease detection) but also which honey flow is targeted and therefore potential specific pesticide exposure [38]. Thus, future surveillance studies should encompass information on land use and pesticide analyses. The statistical analysis of our data from the first year has shown that size of the operation, apiary and the clinical disease (varroosis, AFB and nosemosis) observed during the previous autumn were significant risk indicators of overwinter honey bee colony survival [20]. In the present study, our findings find a similar result when considering two study years. The study variables were grouped into seven summary clusters. The clusters with the highest and the lowest mortality were distinguished by occurrence of diseases and beekeeper background. When the data set was extended to include both years, only prior observations of varroosis for the winter mortality and AFB for the summer mortality were found to be significant risk factors. Beekeepers with better knowledge on disease detection and management (specifically for varroosis and AFB), applying earlier prophylactic measures and good beekeeping practices (e.g. preparation of colonies for winter) had lower mortality rates than others (Tables 1 & 2). Recently, historical data have been used to explore the link between honey bee colony mortality and other risk factors such as changes in the political and socioeconomic systems [39]. Using FAO data, it was shown that the most dramatic decline in the number of colonies in Europe was statistically associated with the collapse of the socialistic regimes in the Eastern European countries after 1989. In contrast, the arrival of the parasitic mite V. destructor in the early eighties in Europe had no detectable effects on the number of managed colonies in the full European data set. This does not show that Varroa does not kill honey bee colonies. However, it shows how beekeepers efficiently adapt their operation to comply with the challenges set by pests even as lethal as V. destructor [39]. Our results are in accordance with the latter study showing that beekeepers tend to have practices that compensate for the colony losses. Indeed, during both years of the study, the number of swarms bought was positively linked with both mortalities (the more swarms were bought, the higher the colony mortality–results not shown). The statistical link was also significant between merged colonies and colony losses. This might reflect the additional work needed by a beekeeper to overcome colony losses: beekeepers got new swarms and merged colonies to maintain their livestock at an acceptable level in quantity and quality. In future studies, the assessment of beekeeper additional work to compensate for losses or weakness of colonies should be better quantified. The limits of our descriptive epidemiological protocol should be taken into account when drawing conclusions. Indeed, any hypotheses expressed in this paper should be fully studied in dedicated experimental protocols to confirm the risk factors and clarify any potential causality [33]. Our study offers observational evidence to suggest the importance of beekeeper training and education. These results must be seen as preliminary until confirmed by direct experimental means.
Conclusion Our results show that the main factors protecting honey bee colonies are beekeeper background and practices. More efforts are needed in beekeeper training to promote good beekeeping practices and achieve early identification of clinical signs of disease. Considerable variation of colony losses exist across different Member States and between years. Climate conditions might have a strong effect on colony mortality during the whole year, requiring long term surveillance study to overcome the weather factor. Data from descriptive survey such as EPILOBEE should be used to set up dedicated protocols to study further targeted hypotheses. The promotion of regional scale studies of local practices should be encouraged. Further to this work, the causes of colony losses should be investigated by conducting studies on specific issues as potential causes of honey bee losses, for example case-control studies that include pesticide analyses and landscape recording.
Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank the beekeepers who partipated in this important field work. The complete membership of the EPILOBEE Consortium Belgium: De Graaf Dirk (Ghent University, Department of Physiology, Laboratory of Zoophysiology); Méroc Estelle (National Reference Laboratory for honeybee diseases CODA-CERVA-VAR); Nguyen Bach Kim (Ulg, Faculté Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech); Roelandt Sophie (National Reference Laboratory for honeybee diseases CODA-CERVA-VAR); Roels Stefan (CODA-CERVA-VAR); Van der Stede Yves (CODA-CERVA-VAR). Denmark: Tonnersen Tina (National Reference Laboratory for honeybee diseases Aarhus University); Kryger Per (NRL Aarhus University). Estonia: Jaarma Kärt (Estonian Veterinary and Food Board); Kuus Merle (Estonian Veterinary and Food Laboratory); Raie Arvi (Estonian Veterinary and Food Board). Finland: Heinikainen Sirpa; Pelkonen Sinikka, Vähänikkilä Nella (Finnish Food Safety Authority EVIRA, Veterinary Bacteriology Research Unit, Kuopio). France: Andrieux Christophe (DDPP du Cantal); Ballis Alexis (Chambre d'Agriculture du Haut-Rhin); Barrieu Guy (DDPP des Bouches du Rhône); Bendali Fatah (Direction Générale de l'Alimentation); Brugoux Corinne (Groupement de Défense Sanitaire du Cantal); Franco Stéphanie (National Reference Laboratory for honeybee diseases, Anses, Sophia Antipolis); Fuentes Anne-Marie (Groupement de Défense Sanitaire de la Drôme); Joel Alain (DDPP Finistère); Layec Yves (Groupement de Défense Sanitaire Apicole du Finistère); Lopez Jacqueline (DDPP Indre et Loire); Lozach André (Groupement de Défense Sanitaire Apicole du Finistère); Malherbe-Duluc Laure (Groupement de Défense Sanitaire Indre et Loire); Mariau Viviane (DDPP Indre et Loire); Meziani Fayçal (Direction Générale de l'Alimentation); Monod Denis (Groupement de Défense Sanitaire Apicole des Bouches du Rhône); Mutel Sébastien (DDCSPP Haut-Rhin); Oesterle Eric (Groupement de Défense Sanitaire Indre et Loire); Orlowski Muriel (DDPP de la Drôme); Petit Manuel (DDPP Finistère); Pillu Patricia (DDPP du Cantal); Poret Florence (Groupement de Défense Sanitaire du Cantal); Viry Alain (Laboratoire d'Analyses du Jura). Berg Stefan (Bavarian State Institute for Viticulture and Horticulture, Bee Research Center, Veitshöchheim); Büchler Ralph (LLH Bieneninstitut Kirchhain); de Craigher Doris (University of Hohenheim, Apicultural State Institute, Stuttgart); Genersch Elke (Institute for Bee Research, Hohen Neuendorf); Kaatz Hans-Hinrich (University of Halle-Wittenberg, Zoology Dept., Halle); Meixner Marina D. (LLH Bieneninstitut Kirchhain); von der Ohe Werner (LAVES Institut für Bienenkunde, Celle); Otten Christoph (Dienstleistungszentrum Ländlicher Raum, Fachzentrum Bienen und Imkerei Mayen); Rosenkranz Peter (University of Hohenheim, Apicultural State Institute, Stuttgart);Schäfer Marc O. (Institute of Infectology, Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Greifswald—Insel Riems); Schroeder Annette (University of Hohenheim, Apicultural State Institute, Stuttgart). Greece: Agianiotaki Eirini (Centre of Veterinary Institute of Athens); Arfara Stamatia (Centre of Veterinary Institute of Athens); Boutsini Sofia (Centre of Veterinary Institute of Athens); Giannoulopoulou Marianthi (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Heraclio); Hondrou Varvara (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Mytilini); Karipidou Sonia (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Kozani); Katsaros Dimitrios (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Chalkis); Katzagiannakis Aristomenis (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Heraclio); Kiriakopoulos Antonios (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Mytilini); Oureilidis Konstantinos (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Kavala); Panteli Aspasia (Centre of Veterinary Institute of Athens); Pantoleon Fotis (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Tripoli); Papagianni Zoi (Centre of Veterinary Institute of Athens); Papalexiou Eleni (Centre of Veterinary Institute of Athens); Perdikaris Socrates (Ministry of Rural Development and Food); Prapas Athanasios (Centre of Veterinary Institute of Athens); Siana Panagiota (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Tripoli); Skandalakis Ioannis (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Chania); Stougiou Despoina (Centre of Veterinary Institute of Athens); Tomazinakis Ioannis (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Chania); Tsali Eleftheria (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Larisa); Tseliou Evgenia (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Kerkyra); Tsiplakidis Achillefs (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Kavala); Tsompanellis Efstratios (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Mytilini); Vamvakas Giorgos (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Kozani); Varvarouta Vasiliki (Regional Veterinary Laboratory of Heraclio); Vourvidis Dimitris (Ministry of Rural Development and Food). Hungary: Dán Ádám, Daróczi Gyöngyi, Láng Mária, Papp Melitta, Paulus Petra–Deákné, Pupp Eszter (National Food Chain Safety Office, Veterinary Diagnostic Directorate -NRL for bee health); Szaló Márta (Ministry of Agriculture, Food Chain Control Department); Tóth Ádám, Zséli Szilvia (NRL for bee health). Italy: Bressan Gianluigi (Ulss22, Bussolengo); Cerrone Anna (IZS del Mezzogiorno); Formato Giovanni (IZS delle Regioni Lazio e Toscana); Granato Anna (IZS delle Venezie); Lavazza Antonio (IZS della Lombardia e dell'Emilia Romagna); Macellari Piero (Asl Umbria); Marcello Paola (ASL Sassari); Ghittino Claudio (IZS dell'Umbria e delle Marche); Maroni Ponti Andrea (Ministero della Salute); Possidente Rosaria (IZS del Piemonte Liguria e Valle d'Aosta); Mutinelli Franco (IZS delle Venezie); Nassuato Claudia (Regione Lombardia); Pintore Antonio (IZS della Sardegna); Ricchiuti Luciano (IZS dell'Abruzzo e del Molise); Ruocco Luigi (Ministero della Salute); Salvaggio Antonio (IZS della Sicilia); Troiano Pasquale (IZS di Puglia e Basilicata); Voltini Barbara (Regione Toscana). Latvia: Avsejenko Jelena, Ciekure Elïna, Deksne Gunita (Institute of Food safety, Animal Health and Environment, "BIOR"); Eglïte Ineta (Latvian Beekeepers Association); Granta Rita (BIOR); Olševski Edvïns (Food and Veterinary Service of the Republic of Latvia); Rodze Ieva (BIOR); Stinka Madara (Food and Veterinary Service of the Republic of Latvia). Lithuania: Sirutkaityte Rasa, Siriukaitis Sigitas (The State Food and Veterinary Service, Animal Health and Welfare department); Poland: Bober Andrzej (National Veterinary Research Institute, Pulawy); Jażdżewski Krzysztof (General Veterinary Inspectorate, Warsaw); Pohorecka Krystyna, Skubida Marta, Zdańska Dagmara (National Veterinary Research Institute, Pulawy). Portugal: Amador Maria Rita Ramos, Freitas Susana, Quintans Sofia (Direção Geral de Alimentacão e Veterinaria); Santos Patricia Tavares (Direção Geral de Alimentacão e Veterinaria). Slovakia: Březinová Nicole, Brtková Andrea, Čuvalová Zuzana, Filipová Miriam, Jurovčiková Júlia, Kantíková Miriam, Kubicová Zuzana (State Veterinary and Food Institute, Dolny Kubin); Papierniková Erika (State Veterinary and Food Administration of the Slovak Republic), Šulejová Lucia (State Veterinary and Food Institute, Dolny Kubin); Toporčák Juraj (The University of veterinary medicine and pharmacy in Košice). Spain: Ares Cenador Carmen Maria (Consejería de Agroganadería y Recursos Autóctonos del Principado de Asturias); Ariza Javier (Consejería de Agricultura de La Junta de Comunidades de Castilla La Mancha); Berná Serna Nieves (GVA, Consejería de la Presidencia de Agricultura, Pesca, Alimentación y Agua); Cabeza Núñez Amparo (Consejería de Agricultura y Pesca de la junta de Andalucía); Casasempere Cascales Jorge (GVA, Consejería de la Presidencia de Agricultura, Pesca, Alimentación y Agua); Cid González Carlos (Subdireción Xeral de Gandería—Consellería do Medio Rural e do Mar—Xunta de Galicia); Corzán Ripoll Jose Manuel (Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería y Medio Ambiente, Diputación General de Aragón); De Abajo Domingo Miguel Ángel (Consejería de Agricultura y Ganadería de la Junta de Castilla y León); Díaz Rey Roberto (Subdireción Xeral de Gandería—Consellería do Medio Rural e do Mar—Xunta de Galicia); Esteban Royo Ángel (Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería y Medio Ambiente, Diputación General de Aragón); Fernández Somalo Pilar (SG de Sanidad, Higiene Animal y Trazabilidad del M° Agricultura, Alim. y Medio Ambiente); García Pascualvaca Alejandra (Consejería de Agricultura y Pesca de la junta de Andalucía); González Breña Carlos (Consejería de Agricultura, Desarrollo Rural, Medio Ambiente y Energía, J. de Extremadura); Mínguez Gonzalez Olga (Consejería de Agricultura y Ganadería de la Junta de Castilla y León); Oñate Maria Luisa (Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería y Medio Ambiente, Diputación General de Aragón); Oteiza Orradre Pedro (Dpto. de Desarrollo Rural, Industria, Empleo y Medio Ambiente, Diputación Foral Navarra); Pérez Cobo Iratxe (SG de Sanidad, Higiene Animal y Trazabilidad del M° Agricultura, Alim. y Medio Ambiente); Plaza Pérez Margarita (Consejería de Agricultura y Agua de la Región de Murcia); Puy Pitarque D. Juan Ramón (Departamento de Agricultura, Pesca y Alimentación del Gobierno Vasco); Riol Guinea Rubén (Consejería de Agricultura y Ganadería de la Junta de Castilla y León); Romero González Luis José (SG de Sanidad e Higiene Animal y Trazabilidad del M° Agricultura, Alim. y Medio Ambiente); Soldevilla Yanguas Jose Fernando (Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería y Medio Ambiente, Comunidad Autónoma de la Rioja); Soler i Barrasús Mercè (Dept. Agricultura, Ramaderia, Pesca, Alimentación i Medi Natural, Generalitat de Catalunya); Soriano González Mario (Consejería de la Presidencia de Agricultura, Pesca, Alim. y Agua, Generalitat Valenciana); Vigo López Virginia (Consejería de Agricultura, Ganadería, Pesca y Aguas del Gobierno de Canarias); Villarta Rivas José Luis (Consejería de Agricultura de La Junta de Comunidades de Castilla La Mancha). Sweden: Fabricius-Kristiansen Lotta (Swedish Board of Agriculture); Forsgren Eva (Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences). UK: Brown Mike, Budge Giles, Grant Ruth, Marris Gay, Powell Michelle, Wattam Andy, Whiting Ilex (The National Bee Unit (NBU)—Food and Environment Research Agency (FERA). EURL staff: Cauquil Laura, Rivière Marie-Pierre (Unit of Honey bee Pathology); Garin Emmanuel (Unit of coordination and support to surveillance).
Author Contributions Conceptualization: MRC PH MPC. Data curation: ML MRC PH MPC. Formal analysis: AJ ML MS SB PH MPC. Funding acquisition: ML MRC SB PH MPC. Investigation: AJ ML MRC MS SB PH MPC. Methodology: AJ ML MS SB PH MPC. Project administration: ML MRC PH MPC. Resources: AJ ML MRC MS SB PH MPC. Software: AJ MS ML SB. Supervision: ML MRC PH MPC. Validation: AJ ML MS SB PH MPC. Visualization: AJ ML MS SB GEB MPC. Writing – original draft: AJ ML MS SB MPC. Writing – review & editing: AJ ML MS SB GEB MPC.Further to this morning's announcement of a weekend-long Doctor Who special offer, another title has been added...
Early today we announced a special offer on all of the Doctor Who - Eighth Doctor Adventures range (see here).
By - as they say - popular demand, we've added a single further title to this - 2010's Doctor Who - An Earthly Child:
Thirty years on from the Daleks' invasion of Earth, the scars still haven't healed. The survivors inhabit a world thrown back two hundred years, a world of crop shortages and civil unrest. A world where the brightest and best of its young people are drawn to the xenophobic Earth United group.
A world sliding into a new Dark Age, believes Susan Campbell, widow of one of the heroes of the Occupation. A world in need of alien intervention. A world in need of hope.
But as Susan takes drastic action to secure the planet's future, she's oblivious to the fact that her student son, Alex, ensnared by Earth United, is in need of alien intervention too. Or so Alex's great-grandfather thinks.
Doctor Who - An Earthly Child is available from now until mid-day on Tuesday 17th February (UK time), the same time the special offer ends on the rest of the Eighth Doctor Adventures...After brewing with and really enjoying GY054-Vermont IPA and White Labs Brettanomyces bruxellensis Trois individually, I was naturally tempted to blend the two fruity strains, but it turns I don’t have to because The Yeast Bay has already done this for us with their Funktown Pale blend! They describe the yeast as a “blend of our Vermont Ale strain and a unique strain of Brettanomyces that is well suited for primary fermentation.” A quick look at Milk the Funk’s wiki shows that this line about using a unique strain of Brettanomyces is crossed out stemming from Omega Yeast Labs and White Labs analysis that found the strain was actually saccharomyces.
I was able to pick up some malted spelt for this beer, which I’ve been excited to try in a beer for a while after using and enjoying flaked spelt in a number of hoppy beers, which seemed to increase mouthfeel. Spelt is an ancient form of wheat cultivated since 5000 BCE (I’ve heard it hasn’t been “modified” like our current wheat for manufacturing purposes, but I don’t have a link to a source on that). Spelt does have gluten, but to a lesser extent than wheat, which some people with non-celiac gluten sensitivity have said they can digest easier than wheat, perhaps because the gluten in spelt is more soluble than wheat gluten. When used in baking spelt is said to have a sweet and nutty flavor, which could be a good way to add a little complexity to a grain build. The high protein content also should help with head retention (spelt can have up to 14% protein compared to most wheat malts at 12%).
BESTMALZ description of spelt malt: BEST Spelt Malt is used for producing full-bodied, top-fermented beers. Spelt is an ancient grain and is known to possess a number of health benefits. For this reason, spelt was the favorite grain of the medieval pioneers of today’s health movement. German nun, Hildegard von Bingen, born in the year 1098 is famous for using spelt in her recipes. Likewise, spelt beer, is considered highly digestible and conducive to good health. This malt improves foam stability. It can also have other positive effects in the brewing process.Xbox One has been getting a lot of flack from gamers for having inferior multiplatform games when compared to PlayStation 4. The recent controversy over Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition's frame-rate has only served to exacerbate the issue, compelling Albert Penello, Xbox One's lead planner, to address the matter head-on.
Speaking on the latest episode of GamerTagRadio, the Microsoft exec used Ryse: Son of Rome as a prime example of why Xbox One is capable of offering games that are just as visually impressive as the competition.
Look, I had a lot of time to think about this and I believe in what I said. I believe that the differences between the boxes [PS4 and Xbox One] is not all that great and I know what is going behind the scenes and I have access to more information about some of this thing than a lot of people. Sometimes people tend to neglect the points that are in my favor and they like to highlight the points that tell me I am wrong. I still think Ryse is still the best looking game on any platform. Period. End of story.
He then went on to discuss the aforementioned Tomb Raider controversy, and multiplatform games in general:
I think if you look at the title which we launch, which were multiplatform titles. The bulk of them were the same. I think there were 12 titles were released on both platforms [PS4 and Xbox One], leaving three all of them had the same performance on both boxes. Everybody wants to focus on frame rate, there is the Tomb Raider, there is a resolution thing going on and OK, there could be a lot of reasons why that could be true but we are just a [few] weeks in, we just shipped, it’s a long generation. People who bought an Xbox One are going to be in for an awesome generation of games that are only going to get better. I think these little things get way overblown versus like the quality of the games and the real differences in experiences which are pretty minor.
[Via GamingBolt]Gas costs have skyrocketed, and with them, the cost of flying. This greenie isn’t 100% upset: with the cost of fuel increasing exponentially in the past few years, people are examining their transportation patterns and needs and trying to find cost- and fuel-effective methods of getting from Point A to Point B. Smaller, more fuel-efficient cars are selling well, and ridership on public transit is up. But for many Americans, particularly those in smaller cities and towns, public transit is non-existent. For those living anywhere but the East Coast, Amtrak is slow, unreliable, or non-existent. We’re a country for whom the cost of cheap fuel has promoted individual car use to the detriment of other forms of transportation.
Here in the Midwest, it’s incredibly frustrating how limited rail and bus is. I frequently travel between St Louis and Minneapolis, and unless I have the luxury of a few days to travel, rail and bus are extremely inconvenient. Don’t get me started about trying to get to Des Moines, where my parents live, from St Louis–it’s basically fly or drive. Flying has become extremely expensive and unthinkably uncomfortable. I find myself wedged in |
the visions of the ‘‘reformers’’ are realised. The fundamental question here is: what kind of university system do we want? The changes announced in the budget will push Australia in the direction of the US. Pyne has promoted the US as the world-leading model, asking why Australia does not have a university like Harvard? The US university system does indeed lead the world in terms of scientific research, as can be seen from its dominance of the Nobel prizes, and has done so ever since World War II. But it is a different story when it comes to the more basic function of undergraduate education. The US was once a world leader in this field as well, but it has failed badly in recent decades.
Thirty years ago, the proportion of young Americans completing college - around 30 per cent - was easily the highest in the world. Today, the US proportion is almost unchanged, and has been overtaken by many other countries, including Australia. The US education system is now much like its health system. It does a great job for the 1 per cent who go to the Ivy League schools (and whose parents are mostly in or close to the top 1 per cent of the income distribution), does an adequate but expensive job for the next 20 per cent or so, and leaves everyone else in the lurch. The Ivy League universities (and other elite schools like MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Caltech and the famous liberal arts colleges) have around 5000 undergraduate students apiece and, in most cases, this number has remained unchanged for generations. In fact, Harvard reached its peak undergraduate enrolment in the years after World War II, graduating 2000 students in 1950. Taken together, the elite private universities have a total enrolment of around 100,000 students, about 1 per cent of the eligible age cohort. Adjusting for population size, an Australian equivalent of the entire US elite sector might take in around 7500 students a year. So, the idea of an Australian Harvard is nonsensical, at least in terms of undergraduate education. The private sector dominates the top tier of US education, and also the bottom. For-profit institutions like the University of Phoenix are much admired by Australian advocates of deregulation, long after they have been discredited in the US as being little better than scams, aimed at extracting public grant money from poor students. After a string of complaints of fraud, US authorities are moving to shut down some of the worst offenders. Leaving these extremes aside, the task of educating young Americans falls to the state universities. As with the elite private universities, the top tier of ‘flagship’ state universities (such as the University of California system) have barely changed their enrolments in decades. The flagship campuses have responded to cuts in state funding by increasing tuition fees and are increasingly out of reach for middle-class and poorer Americans.
Typical tuition fees are $US10-15000 a year, or around 20 per cent of the median income for an average household. Because the system is state-based, charges for ‘out-of-state’ students are even higher. Despite the cost, admission to these institutions has become steadily more competitive, as the economic necessity of getting a university education has become more and more pressing. The situation is far worse for the lower-tier state universities and the two-year community colleges (roughly equivalent to our TAFE sector), which are in a dire state, depending on poorly paid and overworked adjunct staff for much of their teaching. In many of these institutions, graduation rates are below 25 per cent, implying that most students drop out. The same processes will work themselves out in Australia if the proposed deregulation takes place. Far from increasing access to high quality education, the deregulated system will give the elite ‘sandstone’ universities, and those that aspire to be elite, including the universities of technology, the opportunity and incentive to reduce student numbers and raise entry standards, thereby increasing the perceived quality of their product. Meanwhile, regional and outer-suburban universities will struggle to raise fees by as much as their well-established rivals, and may not even make enough to compensate for the withdrawal of public funding. So, the existing differences in status within the system (substantial, but still relatively modest by world standards) will inevitably widen.
John Quiggin is Australian Laureate Fellow in Economics at the University of Queensland.In your computer science algorithms course, you learned about space-time tradeoffs. An algorithm that requires lots of time can often be changed to take less time but more space. A wide range of performance optimizations work this way, from caching to memoization to loop unrolling. But the "tradeoff" is a lie. Space is time. Every use of space incurs a time cost. In your theory class, the time cost of space is swept under the big-O rug. On your big-iron machine running a single computational workload or CPU benchmark, the time cost of space is small compared to the other time costs involved. But in the real world of consumer-grade devices, with limited memory and power, the time cost of space is tremendous. A performance optimization that tries to trade less time for more space often ends up requiring more time and more space. The gcc compiler uses a garbage collector to manage its memory. To save time, gcc does not even start to collect any garbage until its memory size is quite large. "That's fine", you might say, "my new machine has gigabytes of memory". But the kernel needs a big chunk of memory just to keep track of the rest of the memory. And you're running a web browser, and an email client, and an IDE, and music and chat and clock and search and sync and backup and everything else you didn't have a decade or two ago. And your build system runs multiple gcc commands in parallel because your machine has multiple cores. Now your memory capacity isn't so big after all, the system starts paging to disk, and your compiler performance falls off a cliff and the web browser is sluggish too. In this memory-constrained environment, trying to use less time (skipping GC) and more space (accumulating garbage) has backfired badly. Space is time. An optimization that is faster on a well-endowed device may be much slower everywhere else. Assume your customer's machines have less memory than yours, and design and test accordingly. At one modern extreme, the iPhone has only 128 MB of memory. Ever seen iPhone Safari "forget" a web page and re-download it after you switched tabs or apps? The system ran out of memory and Safari had to throw the page away. On the iPhone, your favorite space-time tradeoff in your own program may sacrifice the user's web page, requiring a repeat download across a slow network. Good for your program, perhaps, but bad for the user. Space is time. An optimization that makes your program faster may make the user's system slower overall. Play well with others. Most of Mac OS X is compiled with -Os instead of -O3, to reduce code size. Mac OS X's memory allocator is slower than other allocators under some workloads, because it tries to avoid hoarding unused memory where other processes can't use it. Mac OS X uses dynamic shared libraries exclusively, then combines multiple shared libraries into a single shared cache, then carefully re-processes that shared cache, all to save space across multiple processes. Many ideas for faster cross-library calls or accelerated Objective-C method dispatch or JIT-based optimization have been abandoned because they need too much space and do not save enough time. CPU-focused optimization can be just as evil as the infamous premature optimization. Space is time.Did you know? January 2015, California endured its worst drought ever since 1895. Unfortunately, the crisis has not improved, meaning the state has only about one year’s supply of water left.
As the Los Angeles Times reports, snowpack levels are at an all-time low and, according to NASA satellites, all of the water in the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins (and we mean all of it) is 34 million acre-feet below normal.
Last year, reports indicated that California had an estimated two years of water remaining. Because that water depletion is on schedule, the state has only one year of aqua left.
Nearly two-thirds of the groundwater in California has been siphoned to farmers to irrigate their crops. While it’s their only option – especially since their surface-water locations have been cut by 80-100%, it’s definitely not sustainable. Wells aren’t only running dry, the ground is losing moisture and sinking. In the Central Valley, there are areas of land sinking by one foot or more per year, shares Archinect.
Of course, it doesn’t help that Nestle continues to siphon and bottle California’s groundwater, either.
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of positive news to sprinkle in with this article. California is drying up, and there’s no masking the drought’s devastation.
Some still have hope that the problem can be rectified, however. Jay Famiglietti, a senior water scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, wrote in a piece for the Los Angeles Times that the following actions have to be taken to save California from completely shriveling up:
First, mandatory water rationing needs to be implemented across “all of the state’s water sectors” including municipal, residential, commercial and agricultural. Second, lawmakers need to implement the Sustainable Groundwater Act of 2014 as soon as possible. This law “requires the formation of numerous regional groundwater sustainability agencies by 2017,” explains Famiglietti. “Then each agency must adopt a plan by 2022 and achieve sustainability 20 years after that. At that pace, it will be nearly 30 years before we even know what is working. By then, there may be no groundwater left to sustain,” he writes. Finally, the last point in his plan is for the creation of a task force of “thought leaders” who will brainstorm a solution for long-term water strategies.
“Our state’s water management is complex,” Famiglietti writes, “but the technology and expertise exist to handle this harrowing future. It will require major changes in policy and infrastructure that could take decades to identify and act upon. Today, not tomorrow, is the time to begin.”
What are your thoughts? Comment below and share this article.
This article (California Has Only ONE Year Left Of Water) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to the author and TrueActivist.comThe Edina mayor and City Council members Tuesday night told an overflow crowd of about 150 that they were sorry about last week’s incident between a white Edina police officer and a black man. The apologies followed more than three hours of pointed comments and demands at Tuesday night’s regular council meeting.
A bystander video that later went viral on social media caught last Wednesday’s daytime encounter between plainclothes Edina police Lt. Tim Olson and Larnie Thomas, 34, of Minneapolis. Olson grabbed Thomas by the back of his jacket and reprimanded him for walking in the street near a construction zone in the 5900 block of Xerxes Avenue S. Agitated, Thomas objected to his treatment, sometimes swearing at Olson.
Thomas ultimately received a citation but was not arrested.
The Minneapolis NAACP issued a list of demands following the incident, including an independent investigation, which Mayor Jim Hovland agreed to. But on Tuesday, Hovland said “we learned this afternoon that the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension did not want to conduct an investigation.”
The city on Monday said it believed that “the officers followed established protocol,” but that it was nonetheless dismissing the citation against Thomas.
Hovland spoke briefly at the outset of Tuesday’s meeting. “We are here tonight to listen,” he said. “We know the situation has been very difficult. We know that there are multiple voices and multiple truths, and they’re all right.”
Hovland repeated his belief that police protocol was followed in the incident, but characterized the video as “disconcerting.”
Officer lambasted
One speaker said Olson “treated Thomas like an animal” last Wednesday. Others described Olson’s actions as “appalling,” “disgusting,” “indefensible” and “racist.”
“Please send a loud, clear message to your police department that this will not be tolerated,” said Cathy Jones, of the NAACP’s Minneapolis chapter. I don’t want to ever, ever, ever see this happen to another black or brown body in this city again.”
Ron Easton, of West St. Paul, said he has lived in Minnesota for 45 years, but “being a child of the Deep South, I’m familiar with police tactics. That man was accosted,” he said of Thomas. “What are you going to do to repair his dignity?”
As the mayor and council member listened without comment, Easton said “there are a lot of good police officers in the state. Lt. Olson is not one of them. What that lieutenant did not only put a black eye on himself but on every other law enforcement officer in the state.”
Many of those present took issue with Hovland’s assertion that Olson’s treatment of Thomas was according to protocol.
7.5 million video views
Carol Overland, who called herself “an older white woman of privilege,” grew up six blocks from where the incident happened, but lives in Red Wing. “This is protocol? No. Show me the protocol. I hate to think what would have happened if this wasn’t videotaped.”
Emily Flower of Black Lives Matter St. Paul said the bystander’s 7-minute video of the encounter has had 7.5 million views on Facebook and YouTube as of Tuesday night, and more than 30,000 comments.
Edina resident Kessea Moses, who is white, said, “I hope this officer is reprimanded so we do not need to be embarrassed again by what we saw” last week.
“When I saw this video I was terrified,” said the Rev. Carolyn Philstrom, of Bloomington. “In Lutheran services, the first thing we do is confess our sins. Until we confess our sins, we cannot move forward. We can do better.”
City officials on Monday had declined an NAACP request to suspend Olson without pay pending an investigation, but said they would provide additional training to police and were open to the demand that it collect race data on its arrests and traffic stops. That response fell short of the formal apology that was among the NAACP’s demands.
‘We can do better’
When public comment concluded about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday, Council Member Bob Stewart was the first to actually apologize to Thomas.
“I think we can do better,” he said. “I will say to Larnie Thomas, I’m sorry.” Stewart added, “we will work to have it not happen again.”
The mayor said, “For Mr. Larnie Thomas, I’m going to meet him face to face. It’s one thing for me to sit up here and apologize, it’s another to meet him face to face.”
Responding to demands to suspend Lt. Olson, Hovland said that would be a matter for the city manager and the police chief to discuss later.
While he was at the meeting along with other city officials, Edina Police Chief Dave Nelson did not comment.
Nekima Levy-Pounds of the Minneapolis NAACP said that Larnie Thomas is very upset. If he is unable or unwilling to meet with the mayor, they still want a formal, written apology from the city.
Hovland said that if Olson’s actions were in line with protocol, the protocol is wrong.
The mayor also said the city is asking for help from advocates, residents and others to come up with solutions and changes.George Clooney called "Batman & Robin" a "waste of money." Warner Bros Sixteen years later, George Clooney still regrets suiting up as the Caped Crusader.
In an exclusive interview with Deadline, the Academy Award winning actor and producer revealed that he kept a photo of himself as Batman "prominently displayed on his office wall, as a cautionary reminder of what can happen when you make movies solely for commercial reasons."
Around the time he signed onto "Batman & Robin," Clooney was still best known as the original McSteamy on the NBC drama, "E/R."
The big-budget action flick, co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chris O'Donnell, Uma Thurman and Alicia Silverstone, was going to be his big break.
"My phone rang, and the head of Warner Bros said, 'Come into my office, you are going to play Batman in a Batman film' and I said, 'Yeah!' I called my friends and they screamed and I screamed and we couldn't believe it!" Clooney told Total Film Magazine. "I just thought the last one had been successful so I thought I was just going to be in a big successful franchise movie."
Clooney and Chris O'Donnell as Robin threatened to derail the entire franchise. Christine Loss/AP He thought wrong.
"Batman & Robin" was considered a commercial drain when it hit theaters in 1997 — earning a domestic lifetime gross of $107 million on a production budget of $125 million, according to Box Office Mojo. The Joel Schumacher-directed film earned a 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 11 Razzie Awards nominations, including Worst Picture.
It threatened to derail the entire franchise.
The next Batman movie was Christopher Nolan's saving-grace reboot "Batman Begins," in 2005.
"With hindsight it's easy to look back at this and go, 'Woah, that was really s--- and I was really bad in it,'" Clooney said. "It was a difficult film to be good in."
He quickly realized that he needed to steer clear of flashy movies that are "wastes of money."
"At that point I realized I'd better start picking better. My next three movies were 'Out Of Sight,' 'Three Kings and O Brother,' 'Where Art Thou?'" Clooney said, according to Digital Spy. "It was, 'OK, at last I understand now what I want to do.'"
Clooney's time in Gotham City continues to influence his work. The actor prides himself on fighting for provocative movies under increasing pressure from distribution companies to churn out tent-pole films.
Clooney blamed hedge fund hocho Dan Loeb for the declining quality of big-budget films. REUTERS/Steve Marcus Last month, he slammed hedge fund honcho Dan Loeb, who controls 7% of Sony Pictures stock, for encouraging the company's chiefs to spin off its entertainment assets, citing recent box office failures.
The actor argued that by evaluating Sony Pictures based on its revenue and not the quality of its content, Loeb makes it nearly impossible to produce meaningful but risky pictures, like Clooney's Oscar-winning "Argo" or his current time-period project, "The Monuments Men."
In "Argo," the studio's leap of faith paid off. It grossed $232 million worldwide on a production budget of $44 million, according to Box Office Mojo.
"The Monuments Men" is equally promising as an untold story of World War II. Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray and John Goodman star as a crew of art historians and museum curators on a mission to recover renowned works of art stolen by Nazis, before Hitler destroys them. Written and directed by Clooney, it arrives in theaters December 2013.
Watch the trailer:
The dramedy is a far cry from the campy action-adventure "Batman & Robin."
Clearly, Clooney let his conscience — and a photo of him as the Bat — be his guide.
The Deadline story mentioned was uploaded to Reddit by user Pakse118.Courtesy of Steven Blum Dater: Steven Blum has found dating in Berlin a perplexing endeavor. Share
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‘So you’re Jewish, right?” Tobias asked while we were watching an episode of “Real Housewives” on his couch.
“Yup,” I responded.
Even though this was our first date after meeting in a yoga class — he was the flexible, relaxed one; I was schvitzing and falling — I let a few more details slip because I was feeling raw and uninhibited.
“My grandparents are actually from Germany,” I said.
“Oh my God, what happened here was so awful,” he said, dramatically elongating the “aw.” “I’m so sorry, on behalf of Germany.”
“I mean, it wasn’t you,” I said, trying to sound conciliatory. “Besides, I can’t accept apologies. I wasn’t alive back then.”
We turned our eyes back to the television and watched as one of the “real housewives” berated her maid. “My grandfather was a Nazi. Pretty high up, too,” Tobias said.
“Oh.”
“Sorry, that was more like a 15th date admission! I’m such a spaz.”
“No, that’s fine. I can take it,” I said, lying.
I told Tobias I needed to visit the little boy’s room, and I went to look at myself in the mirror. “This is crazy,” I mouthed to my reflection. I wondered if Tobias would show me pictures of gramps next. I envisioned him rotting away in a Soviet prison.
When I sat back on the couch, it seemed as if Tobias was so wrapped up in his own traumatic admission that he couldn’t even look at me. I was no longer the boy he talked to about New Age philosophy after yoga class — I was an emotional trigger.
When he looked back at me to laugh about the shenanigans of one housewife, I found myself thinking there’s something devilish, almost sinister, about his grin. Oh my God, I thought, why did we have to have the Nazi talk already?
For American Jews in Berlin, dating can feel like an endurance challenge, the object of which is to be comfortable and open enough to handle the most naive and arbitrary questions, ambiguous silences and disturbing admissions of familial guilt.
But more than anything, dating in Berlin makes one feel like a perennial spokesJew. At times I’ve offered sage counsel to men troubled by their family’s Nazi history, or attempted to explain why Jews circumcise. Other dates have been awkward because of lack of cultural awareness or sensitivity: I’ve had dates call me “a little Woody Allen,” or wonder why it’s so bad to take their sexy pics in front of the Holocaust memorial. (That’s something of a trend here; a lot of guys take off their shirts at Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and then post the photos on Grindr, a gay-dating app. Why? It’s still a mystery to me. Is it cultural insensitivity? An attempt to look pensive and aware of history? Who knows.)
Later in the week, Tobias invited me to see the band Iron and Wine perform at a warehouse in Kreuzberg, a trendy district in Berlin. I tried to appear as if I were the same silly, self-deprecating guy he met in yoga class, not a dreary reminder of Germany’s sordid past. I wore a polka-dot shirt and cheered wildly for the low-key folk band.
After the show, on a gum-stained bridge clogged with partygoers, Tobias casually asked if I could buy him a drink at a nearby convenience store. I reached into my pocket and fumbled around for a coin with some heft to it, but all I could find were the lightweight copper 1 cent and 5 cent pieces. I told him I didn’t have the cash. He gave me a look.
“You’re not a cheap Jew, though, right?” he asked. Then he laughed.
“That’s bullshit,” I responded, but I don’t think he heard me over the roar of a nearby train.
The next day, I ignored Tobias’s phone call. I decided I’d rather be single than imagine what my ancestors would think of me dating an anti-Semitic German man. The fact that we were interested in the same New Age philosophy seemed like a cruel irony.
Surprisingly, though, the experience did not dissuade me from continuing to date German men. It’s embarrassing in retrospect, but a part of me reveled in being the spokesJew.
I enjoyed being both “unicorn” and cultural ambassador. I introduced one date to the nondubbed version of the TV show “The Nanny” (“What is this voice? Is this real?” he asked me, to my sheer delight). I told another about all the Tel Aviv electronic bands I adored. I even joked lightly about my Jewish upbringing to strangers who knew nothing of Jewfros or Hebrew schools.
The backdrop to many of these revealing and entertaining exchanges was a chintzy bar in Berlin’s gayborhood, appropriately named Heile Welt — Heal the World. Smokey and loud, Heile Welt was a raucous place, similar to the kind of gay bars you’d find in the United States.
This is where I first met Mischa, who is a big and boisterous presence in Berlin’s gay community and also happens to be a German Jew. A tour guide by day and a cabaret singer by night, Mischa picked me out in the bar instantly by yelling “another Jew!” He was surrounded by more than a few German men, all of whom turned in my direction at once.
“Are you from Tel Aviv?” one of the men asked me.
“No, Seattle.”
The man looked slightly disappointed by that answer.
“There are Jews in Seattle?”
“Well, there’s me!”
We shared an uncomfortable moment or two. Then Mischa gave me a big kiss on the lips.
“Mein kleine Jude,” he said, pinching my cheeks: my little Jew.
As the night wore down, Mischa told the bartender to play “Hava Nagila.” He grabbed my hands until we were both dancing the hora — gin and tonics in hand — with an Austrian, a Dutch guy, two Germans and a Brit. Someone kissed me on the cheek as the disc jockey performed the Herculean task of transitioning from “Hava Nagila” to the next song: Kylie Minogue’s “All the Lovers.”
Much later, I told a Jewish friend in Berlin about my experiences, and she laughed. “I know plenty of guys in Berlin who get laid for being Jewish,” she said. “Did you roll with it?”
I told her that I loved it at the time, but the experience ended up making me feel alienated. Sure, it felt affirming to embrace my Jewishness in front of non-Jews, but I couldn’t shake the sense that I was performing a role.
Either I was the spokesJew, easy to fetishize and exotic to behold, or I was a resented remnant from the past, haunting the lives of the troubled Germans whom I’d meet.
Chalk it up to adolescent thinking or to cold, hard denial: For whatever reason, I just hadn’t expected that the Jewish identity I treated so casually — even jokingly — in the United States would become such a burden in Germany.
After Tobias asked me if I was a cheap Jew, I tried to play it off lightly, as if I were dealing with the ironic anti-Semitism that sometimes pops up in the States. I considered my reaction carefully, not wanting to be one of those Jews who projects the past on today’s guiltless generation.
I wish I could go back in time and tell myself: “Screw that. Screw polite. There’s no excuse for anti-Semitism, especially in Germany.”
Steven Blum is a writer and editor in Berlin. He has written for Tablet magazine, The Jewish Transcript, The Stranger, Blackbook Magazine and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
This story "Hazards of Dating While Jewish in Berlin" was written by Steven Blum.With less than four days to the end of 2017, Singapore has been rocked by the biggest drama yet:
Long story short: A guy named Ashry Owyong Min was exposed in a lengthy Dayre post by Chloe Teo, a girl he was seeing, and whom he allegedly five-timed.
Aftermath: Making sense
Over the past day or so, Teo took to her Instagram stories to reveal more details.
1. Special Operations Forces? What SOF?
Min had apparently told Teo he is part of the Special Operations Forces.
A photo of him in No. 4 was shared online:
However, it is understood that it is highly rare and unlikely for one regular serviceman, at age 24, to have acquired so many badges indicating he has completed a multitude of courses.
The badges on his uniform’s left side, clockwise from bottom right, represent:
• Naval Diver
• Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD), which is a vocation badge earned and worn by engineer-trained soldiers, and
• Airborne (usually worn by Commandos), with a star on top that denotes a certain number of jumps completed.
On his right are supposedly two airborne patches: One from New Zealand and one from Thailand.
Acquiring all would have required him to have trained as a combat engineer (EOD advanced level badge), and then go on to airborne and naval diving to earn the other two badges.
Cross-vocation in the military would also mean officer level, and if so, Jungle Confidence Course (JCC) and the Combat Skills badges would also be worn.
It is also understood that SOF personnel have a small tag identifying them that is added to one of their shoulders. Wearing it is optional, though, because their vocations are kept classified for their safety.
All these at age 24? What are you? Winter Soldier?
2. More tip-offs
After Teo’s Dayre post on the saga went out, she received a message from someone claiming to have information about Min’s alleged boyfriend:
As it turns out, the person who contacted Teo claimed he was previously propositioned by Min’s alleged boyfriend on Jack’d, a location-based app that connects gay men.
The informant said he also knew someone else who allegedly was a sugar baby of his.
3. Taking a hiatus?
A screenshot of Min’s Tinder profile in the aftermath of things blowing up online appears to show an updated message that subtly refers to the ongoing saga:
It also appears he has deactivated two of the three Instagram accounts Teo listed in her Dayre account that belong to him:
Love hexagon
Here are some of the best reactions from the Singapore Internet in response to this love hexagon:
And there you have it. The drama to round off 2017.
Related article:
S’porean guy 5-times girl he met on Tinder with 3 other girls & 1 guyUpdated on 11/23/2010: Civilization 5 for Mac has been released by Aspyr. You can order Sid Meier’s Civilization 5 for Mac on Amazon and it will ship for free.
You can also watch a Mac version video trailer, and we’ve been given a Civ 5 for Mac release date of November 23!
The wildly popular Civilization 5 is coming to the Mac sooner than later, according to a report on MacRumors.com.
We’ve received reliable word that Civilization V for the Mac is due very soon — likely in the coming weeks.
The coming weeks would be very wise, shipping Civilization 5 by the holiday season would surely boost Mac sales considerably.
I’m happy to see that Mac gaming is finally getting some serious attention, as MacRumors notes. In case you didn’t notice I’m a sucker for strategy games (Starcraft 2 anyone?), so bringing Civ 5 to the Mac is really exciting news to me.
Earlier this year, Civilization for iPhone was made available for free. If you’re a Civ addict it’s a worthwhile purchase too especially considering now it only costs $1.Motion AI, a Chicago company that lets anyone easily build a bot without touching a line of code, has announced it is open to business after several months of private testing.
What, another bot-builder? Dozens of other startups have launched to build bots for developers, especially after Facebook kicked off a bot craze last month that now has tens of thousands of developers building bots on Facebook Messenger alone.
But Motion AI stands out because it hand-holds you through building every aspect of the bot’s flow, including deployment across most of the bot platforms (Facebook, Slack, SMS, email, Web and so on). Moreover, it has created what it calls bot “modules,” which package up the logic required for building particular bot features. This saves novices — and even experienced developers — multiple steps. These modules will soon be featured in a store (to be launched in about a month) where customers can take whatever module they need as they put together their bots, according to founder and chief executive David Nelson.
For example, Motion AI’s modules let you easily build a “customer service triage” bot. It does this by offering “Yes/No,” “Multiple Choice,” and a series of other modules that send and receive data from a service called Zapier. In 20 minutes, Nelson said, he was able to build his own bot that uses a connection with Zendesk software. The bot lets you scan your company’s knowledgebase for answers to incoming customer questions; if that doesn’t come up with an answer to the customer’s question, the bot creates a support ticket automatically through a connection with Groove. Here’s a video of the bot he made, depicting an unofficial Apple support bot. Motion AI simply passes along the cost of the connections to the customer.
Another module in popular demand is one that completes customer satisfaction surveys, Nelson said. Motion AI also handles the basic infrastructure for deploying bots, so that you don’t have to sign up to Twilio to run a bot over SMS or SendGrid to run it over email. Motion AI handles all of this for you. It also lets you import artificial intelligence or natural language processing services, like Facebook-owned Wit.ai or Api.ai, into your bot without having to spin up servers of your own.
Nelson, who has a software development background, said the module idea came to him last year when he noticed developers spending significant amounts of time reinventing the wheel each time they built a bot, piecing together the same services. Why not help them save time?
This modular approach is also what makes Motion AI useful for developers, because it lets them plug in other services through APIs. “We’ve made sure it plays well with other services,” Nelson said. “We want to make sure others have the ability to plug in other services to the flow.”
Nelson said the company’s support of integration services like IFTTT and Zapier have made the possibilities of what third-party services you can integrate “pretty limitless.”
Motion AI also handles things like analytics and reports on how the bot is being used after deployment. There’s a good video overview here.
Nelson said several big companies are experimenting with the software, including a large national health care company that is triaging and tracking patients in a trauma center, using data ingested from an SQL database and plugged into Motion AI. The bot then communicates with attending physicians.
Nelson has a ton of other ideas for how the service can be useful. He’s actively encouraging developers to build unique bots on the platform, like a “date-night planning bot” from modules that string together DoorDash, Fandango, and Uber, allowing couples to arrange a date that includes dinner, tickets to a movie, and a ride that picks you up to take you there.
Why not just launch this dating service bot on Facebook messenger himself? Nelson says he’s not in the business of launching completed bots. He’d rather let developers customize the date-night planning bot themselves, to make them fit the specific needs of, say, Kik’s younger audience or Slack’s business audience.
Last November, Motion AI debuted its flowchart-style bot-building concept on Product Hunt, building up more than 7,500 people on its closed beta wait-list.
In December, the company raised a $700,000 seed round, with backing from 1QBit (a quantum computing company), Fiverr’s chief executive Micha Kaufman, former Yahoo chief marketing officer Kathy Savitt, and a number of other angels.
The company has four employees.China has invited the US to co-operate in financing and building infrastructure in Africa and other parts of the developing world, an unprecedented proposal that has potentially sweeping implications for the future of international development aid.
Chinese officials first approached Washington last year to discuss working together on a $12bn dam project in the Democratic Republic of Congo, US officials said, but the talks gathered momentum at the annual China-US summit in July in Beijing.
The putative partnership is challenging: a bid for what could be the world’s largest hydropower complex, in one of the world’s least developed countries. While the World Bank has recently funded a report to evaluate the project, proposals for the Inga-3 dam have been discussed for years without resolution.
The Chinese approach, nonetheless, signals a possible change of approach by Beijing as it indicates a desire to recalibrate its relationship with Africa. It comes as the White House seeks to step up US engagement in the region, home of six of the world’s 10-fast growing countries, hosting this week the first ever US-Africa summit.
Chinese officials have faced mounting accusations in the West and Africa in recent years over its engagement strategy with the region. It has been accused of pursuing a “cheque book” policy, lending money to states largely to benefit its own construction groups, which have built everything from roads to hospitals on the continent.
China appeared to embrace a more multilateral approach earlier this year, when it launched a $2bn fund with the African Development Bank, but that is a fraction of its bilateral deals.
US officials say that a partnership with China on Inga-3 or another dam would be an important breakthrough in collaboration at a time when military rivalry between the two countries in Asia is growing. However, they stress that parts of President Barack Obama’s administration, Congress and the multilateral financial institutions remain wary over US involvement.
Backers in the US government believe America and the World Bank have paid too little attention to major infrastructure projects in Africa.
However, any collaboration with China will be controversial against the backdrop of China’s record in Africa for a lack of transparency in its business dealings. US officials say no decision has been taken.
In depth US-Africa Summit 2014 Responding to strong competition from emerging countries the White House is seeking to build economic links with one of the world’s fastest growing regions
The DRC’s ambitious hydropower plans, which supporters argue would benefit a number of economies in sub-Saharan Africa, will be discussed on the margins of the US-Africa summit in Washington attended by leaders from 50 African nations.
Mr Obama on Tuesday announced that US companies have pledged $14bn in new projects for Africa during the summit, including for the US-backed “Power Africa” initiative to expand electricity generation across the continent.
The Inga-3 project is part of a bigger endeavour to tap the hydropower potential of the Congo river, the second largest in the world in terms of volume. The broader Grand Inga plan is designed to generate 40,000MW which would be twice the size of the Three Gorges dam in China.
Although the river’s hydropower potential has been discussed for decades, it has been given new impetus by an agreement last year between DRC and South Africa to purchase a large part of the energy it would yield.
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Three consortiums, from |
much. Since it would be covered by the shade I just scraped off the excess and carried on.
We’re pretty much done at this point. Now to just get a shade and a bulb.
Ah, there we go! I was glad I was able to save a piece of this tree as a memory of the awesome trip.
AdvertisementsVATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican was shaken by a corruption scandal Thursday after an Italian television investigation said a former top official had been transferred against his will after complaining about irregularities in awarding contracts.
An exterior view of the Vatican Embassy is seen in Washington January 26, 2012. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
The show “The Untouchables” on the respected private television network La 7 Wednesday night showed what it said were several letters that Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who was then deputy-governor of Vatican City, sent to superiors, including Pope Benedict, in 2011 about the corruption.
The Vatican issued a statement Thursday criticizing the “methods” used in the journalistic investigation. But it confirmed that the letters were authentic by expressing “sadness over the publication of reserved documents.”
As deputy governor of the Vatican City for two years from 2009 to 2011, Vigano was the number two official in a department responsible for maintaining the tiny city-state’s gardens, buildings, streets, museums and other infrastructure.
Vigano, currently the Vatican’s ambassador in Washington, said in the letters that when he took the job in 2009 he discovered a web of corruption, nepotism and cronyism linked to the awarding of contracts to outside companies at inflated prices.
In one letter, Vigano tells the pope of a smear campaign against him (Vigano) by other Vatican officials who wanted him transferred because they were upset that he had taken drastic steps to save the Vatican money by cleaning up its procedures.
“Holy Father, my transfer right now would provoke much disorientation and discouragement in those who have believed it was possible to clean up so many situations of corruption and abuse of power that have been rooted in the management of so many departments,” Vigano wrote to the pope on March 27, 2011.
In another letter to the pope on April 4, 2011, Vigano says he discovered the management of some Vatican City investments was entrusted to two funds managed by a committee of Italian bankers “who looked after their own interests more than ours.”
LOSS OF $2.5 MILLION, 550,000 EURO NATIVITY SCENE
Vigano says in the same letter that in one single financial transaction in December, 2009, “they made us lose two and a half million dollars.”
The program interviewed a man it identified as a member of the bankers’ committee who said Vigano had developed a reputation as a “ballbreaker” among companies that had contracts with the Vatican, because of his insistence on transparency and competition.
The man’s face was blurred on the transmission and his voice was distorted in order to conceal his identity.
In one of the letters to the pope, Vigano said Vatican-employed maintenance workers were demoralized because “work was always given to the same companies at costs at least double compared to those charged outside the Vatican.”
For example, when Vigano discovered that the cost of the Vatican’s larger than life nativity scene in St Peter’s Square was 550,000 euros in 2009, he chopped 200,000 euros off the cost for the next Christmas, the program said.
Even though, Vigano’s cost-cutting and transparency campaign helped turned Vatican City’s budget from deficit to surplus during his tenure, in 2011 unsigned articles criticizing him as inefficient appeared in the Italian newspaper Il Giornale.
On March 22, 2011, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone informed Vigano that he was being removed from his position, even though it was to have lasted until 2014.
Five days later he wrote to Bertone complaining that he was left “dumbfounded” by the ouster and because Bertone’s motives for his removal were identical to those published in an anonymous article published against him in Il Giornale that month.
In early April, Vigano went over Bertone’s head again and wrote directly to the pope, telling him that he had worked hard to “eliminate corruption, private interests and dysfunction that are widespread in various departments.”
He also tells the pope in the same letter that “no-one should be surprised about the press campaign against me” because he tried to root out corruption and had made enemies.
A general view of St. Peter square where Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the canonization ceremony in St. Peter square at the Vatican October 12, 2008. REUTERS/Alessandro Bianchi
Despite his appeals to the pope that a transfer, even if it meant a promotion, “would be a defeat difficult for me to accept,” Vigano was named ambassador to Washington in October of last year after the sudden death of the previous envoy to the United States.
In its statement, the Vatican said the journalistic investigation had treated complicated subjects in a “partial and banal way” and could take steps to defend the “honor of morally upright people” who loyally serve the Church.
The statement said that today’s administration was a continuation of the “correct and transparent management that inspired Monsignor Vigano.”A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure and privilege of attending Typographics NYC, “a conference for people who use type.”
Once I finally arrived in New York (the story of my hectic adventure is its own odyssey entirely, see #1 below), I had a fantastic time. The speakers were inspiring, the conference-goers were kind and positive, and the swag bags were killer. It’s an impossible challenge to distill the immense amount of knowledge and inspiration I absorbed at the conference, but for now, these “10 things I learned” will just have to do.
10. Nothing says “Passion” like Helvetica. (jk)
The vast image library of Marlene McCarty’s handmade “Resist Typography”
One of the most inspiring, and certainly the most empowering lectures of the conference was given by American artist and NYU faculty member Marlene McCarty. She shared images of handmade riot signs from the last few years. From Ferguson protests to the Women’s March on Washington, McCarty stressed the power, passion, and intimacy of signs made by hand — not simply drawn with marker on poster board — but stitched, sewn, painted, cut, and pasted.
In contrast to the the DIY signs, she showed an image of a satirical poster she made with her daughter that was neatly typeset with script and serif. It seemed so sterile compared to the hand-rendered posters that flooded the streets of the DC Women’s March, proving that there’s real power in harnessing the handmade.
9. When in Rome: Not just Roman.
Lara Captan on Arabic typography (recently featured on AIGA’s Eye on Design)
Talk about getting outside of my Western type bubble! One of the Saturday afternoon speakers, Lara Captan, spoke about her journey to create the first intensive Arabic type design program — ATDB (Arabic Type Design – Beirut). Born in Lebanon, raised in Saudi Arabia, and currently based in Amsterdam, Captan further blew my mind with her quest to create contemporary typefaces that “respect the essential characteristics of the Arabic script.” She spoke of the immense struggle of designing Arabic type, including countless ligatures, complex diacritics, and multiple translations of a single letter. For example, the Arabic letter mīm (meem) can be written four different ways depending on its position within the word.
In English, a language that uses Roman characters, we do have different ways to transcribe letters (single story and double story “g”), but the form is not dependent on its location within a word. Imagine if that were the case! Would it change a word’s inflection or meaning?
As a non-Arabic speaker, this was a revelation.
8. Handwriting (not “lettering”) could experience a resurgence.
Agnieska Gasparska
“The aesthetics of all typography express layers of information and give shape to the way we perceive, interpret, and judge a piece of content. Handwriting is no exception.”
Agnieska, the owner of the Brooklyn design studio Kiss Me I’m Polish, shared some of her personal history and love of handwriting. Among her slides were scans and snapshots of childhood mementos and learning-to-write exercises, written in the hand of her six-year-old self. She spoke of the intimacy of handwriting, how her father’s scrawl is representative of him as a person, and how her brother’s handwritten notes to her wouldn’t have half as much meaning if they had been typed out and printed. I would encourage all who are reading this to check out the video of her talk — it’s completely endearing. There seems to be a handwriting theme going on here…
7. Inkwell could be the new Comic Sans.
Type design powerhouse Hoefler & Co. releases a new font based on handwriting (as featured on Fast Company)
My number one takeaway: It’s actually possible to create a usable, casual, handwriting-style blackletter font. That’s right… more handwriting.
6. Your idle hobby could be your new business model.
Hansje van Halem’s mind-numbingly beautiful letters
I’m almost at a loss for words here. Van Halem’s intricate, refined, colorful, and painstakingly detailed work floored the audience, myself included. This Dutch designer takes detail in letterform to a whole new level. And since I’m struggling to capture the complexity of her work and design process, here’s how the folks at Typographics summed it up:
“In between deadlines for book designs, she fills time gaps with type drawings and empty book space with patterns. With a ‘practice makes perfect’ mind-set, she taught herself not to be afraid of failure. Her time gaps soon took the upper hand and became her core business. While working on commissions from patterns for endpapers, architectural typography, and all scales in between, she creates a lot of overproduction. The talk will display a richness of design attempts that did not make the cut or ones that are waiting for the right opportunity. The benefits of 10+ years design experiments, failures and unused starting points have led to sweet revenge by up-cycling and up-scaling.”
5. Does typography have a place in VR?
Who would go to VR to READ?
One of the main topics discussed on the first day of the conference was “designing within the frame.” Whether designing for a magazine layout, poster, browser, or app, much of today’s design is constrained within a rectangle (except for maybe the Moto 360, a smartwatch with a circular screen). In a speaker Q&A, one of the designers posed the question: “Does Typography have a place in VR? That is, does typography have to exist within the frame?” I wonder what the rules of alignment, composition, and scale will look like when you have seemingly endless virtual space. I can’t imagine anyone putting on the goggles to read a book.
4. Girl power.
Ken Barber lauds a once-forgotten female
Ken Barber, letterer extraordinaire, generously shared some of his lettering and design role models from the mid-20th century. One of these designers was none other than Ruth Guzik.
You’ve never heard of her?
Maybe you’ve seen her work:
In addition to being a truly gifted lettering artist, Guzik was also an advocate for equal pay. The story goes: Guzik demanded equal pay upon threat of resignation. Her employer didn’t follow through. Guzik quit. Her employer, tail between his legs, kindly asked her to return to work… with a handsome (and equal) pay raise.
3. What’s in a name? Understanding.
Kris Sowersby on Untitled
As we know well here at TOKY, naming is important. Kris Sowersby, type designer and founder of Klim Type, said as much in his presentation about his new typeface, Untitled. This nondescript typeface has “nothing of ME in it,” Sowersby says. Both the sans and serif versions are quite… regular! And that was precisely his intention. How does a type designer, artist, writer, or any creative person intentionally remove him or herself from their work? What challenges does that pose?
Aside from simply showcasing the typeface, Sowersby touched on the inherent meaning of a name. One of his more interesting points was the naming of paintings — an apt comparison as both typography and paintings are both carefully crafted works of art made by hand with a voice, context, and tone all their own. “Paintings,” he says, “did not have names until they started to travel” to be shared amongst collections. I found myself thinking (as I did with many speakers at the conference), “I never thought of it that way!”
2. The type design community is full of smart, gifted, and kind folks.
‘Nuff said.
1. When life gives you lemons, you meet a pioneering female designer who worked with Herb Lubalin and Milton Glaser in the ’60s.
After getting stuck in Nashville, weathering the cancellation of my LaGuardia flight, ending up in Baltimore, and booking a last-minute train ticket from “The Greatest City in America” to NYC, I ended up sitting next to lady-legend and glass-ceiling-breaker Shirley Berman.
To elaborate:
Friday morning, the first morning of the conference, I was not seated in a Cooper Union auditorium chair, but in a window seat on the second to last train car of the #172 from Baltimore to New York. Exhausted and thoroughly strung out from the previous day’s adventure, I was nodding off against the window in a dark, gray-upholstered “quiet car” gazing outside at a gray day. At Penn Station Baltimore, a small blonde woman sat down next to me. She was dressed in a bright purple shirt with large appliqué flowers at the shoulders. She wore a ring that was a bright yellow gold set with a purple cabochon stone that matched her blouse. Her appearance, and in fact her presence, was in stark contrast to the business suit gray of the train car. I complimented her ring and she whispered a quiet, “Thank you, dear.”
“Do you like art and design?” she whispers in my direction. Wide-eyed, I turn to her and say, “Yes! … do you?” The woman pulls a piece of paper out of her backpack and shows me a pleasantly typeset, art-and-design-themed itinerary outlining her New York weekend getaway with her daughter-in-law. “I’m a designer, you know, so I like these sorts of things,” she says. She pulls out her business card, hands it to me, and says, “I’m Shirley Berman… I like to design in the Bauhaus style. Do you like Bauhaus?” Now fully awake, I start asking this woman about her design career, much to the chagrin of my nodding-off neighbors in the quiet car. She tells me the story of how, in the 1960s, she was the first female designer for McCann Erickson in New York City. Apparently she coerced her husband, who worked in accounts at McCann, to get her an interview in the art department. At the time, it was against company policy to work at the same place as your husband, but Shirley, determined to get a job in her chosen field, told the men, “I know you like my work. You’d be a fool not to hire me.” And so they did. “How’s that for breakin’ the glass ceiling?” she asked.
(Shirley Berman! Ruth Guzik! All the empowering and talented female speakers! What a weekend!)
She went on to talk about how she worked under Herb Lubalin and Milton Glaser. The original NBC peacock logo was one of her favorite identities ever designed. She likes lowercase e’s that have diagonal crossbars. She quit her design job in New York and became a children’s clothing designer. She still runs her own graphic design practice.
When the man sitting next to her daughter-in-law got up to exit the train, Shirley gets up to go sit with her companion. She places her hand on my knee and says, “Take over for me.” I raise my eyebrows. “I’m slowing down,” she says, “Take over for me.” Taken aback, I say, “I’ll do my best.” She picks up her miniature backpack and itinerary, looks at me earnestly and says, “No. Don’t qualify it. Do it.”
“Oh, and good luck at the Cooper Union. You’ll love it.”
Subscribe to our mailing list.Benjamin Delpy the author of the well known mimikatz toolkit has released a very cool extension to WinDbg today.
In summary the extension can extract Windows passwords from memory dumps, hibernation files and Virtual Machine.vmem files (paging, snapshots).
Especially the ability to extract passwords from.vmem files was very interesting. So I decided to to test this out, so let’s see how it works!
First you need to download and install the Debugging Tool for Windows (WinDbg). Then we’ll need MoonSols Windows Memory toolkit (Free edition suffices) and finally you’ll need to download mimikatz.
Extract bin2dmp.exe from Windows Memory Toolkit and use it to convert a.vmem file to a.dmp file:
Now start WinDbg and load the generated dump file via File -> Open Crash Dump. Load the mimilib.dll file that corresponds to the dump file (32 bit lib for x86 dumps and 64 bit lib for x64 dumps).
eg:.load mimilib.dll
Now search for the lsass process (!process 0 0 lsass.exe) and use the returned address:
Finally enter!mimikatz and wait for the magic to happen:
I have just one word, WOW. Great job by Benjamin again!
Like this: Like Loading...Labor's proposal to clean up political donations draws scorn from Coalition
Updated
Labor has introduced into Parliament a suite of measures to clean up the hazy world of political donations.
Key points: Bill Shorten says "too many Australians" feel as if political system is broken
Liberal Senator says proposal "is a stunt" and has technical issues
Labor criticised for not waiting for Joint Standing Committee report to be handed down
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said his legislation, which includes banning foreign donations and reducing the disclosure limit to $1,000, will help fix the perception that politics is broken.
"Australians are telling us that our political system, the quality of our democracy, that all of us here, we need to lift our game," he said.
Speaking in the Parliament, Mr Shorten said political donations were shaking the public's faith in the political system.
"Too many Australians feel as if our system is broken and that what happens here is cut off from their lives," he said.
"As long as this perception holds, we will continue to see the rise of fringe movements, false prophets who convert their anti-Canberra, anti-politics message into seats in Parliament for them."
Labor has introduced a suite of measures into Parliament, including reducing the donation disclosure limit from the current level of $13,200 to $1,000, banning all foreign donations and anonymous donations above $50, and to bring in real-time disclosures to avoid situations where it can sometimes be more than a year before it is disclosed who made a donation.
"Disclosure should be in-built, automatic and instinctive, and it should be as close to real-time as possible," Mr Shorten said.
"This means as close to instantaneous as the technology and accounting allows. This has to be the next step."
Donation reform proposal 'a stunt', Scott Ryan says
Minister of State Scott Ryan, who is responsible for electoral reform, said the Opposition's proposal was a stunt, claiming Labor did not reform the system when it was in Government.
The legislation aims to: Reduce the donation disclosure limit from $13,200 to $1,000
Ban foreign donations
Ban "donation splitting" where donations are spread between different branches of political parties and associated entities
Ban anonymous donations above $50
Link public funding to campaign expenditure
Introduce new offences and increased penalties for breaking donation rules
"We need to deal with this seriously, as the Prime Minister has said, and we do that by dealing with it in a thoughtful and comprehensive fashion," he said.
"This [Labor's plan] is essentially the same bill as they introduced before and when they were in Government they didn't progress it into the Senate, they didn't bring it to a vote."
Senator Ryan argued there were technical issues with Labor's proposal.
"The issue of foreign donations is quite important, but it's important that we deal with it comprehensively," he said.
"We need to look at the issue of foreign donations to third parties, there's no point in having a restriction on foreign donations just to political parties so they can go to groups like GetUp.
"We also need to clarify what we mean by a foreign donation.
"Labor's bill would seemingly prevent an Australian citizen on the electoral roll who resided overseas making a donation from their account. I think there are constitutional risks with that."
Senator Ryan said he would be waiting for the report from the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters to be handed down next month before he brings forward any proposals to donation reform.
"We've got the most comprehensive inquiry into electoral funding and donations going on at the moment" he said.
"In the first week of March it will issue a public report on the issue of foreign donations, and following that it will also issue a comprehensive report on funding and donations comprehensively."
Political donations expert questions Labor reforms
Adjunct Professor Colleen Lewis, an expert in political donations from the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University, was also critical of Labor not waiting for the Joint Standing Committee's report on electoral matters to be handed down before introducing legislation.
"I don't understand why the Labor Party would be actually saying 'Well, what the Committee is going to say is not worth hearing because we've already decided what should be done'," she said.
"I'm a bit concerned that that doesn't show respect to the Parliamentary Committee which has Labor Party members on it.
"So look, the only conclusion I can draw is that they see it as being to their political advantage to do so."
Dr Lewis, who is appearing this week before the Joint Standing Committee on electoral matters, said Labor's proposal has one big hole in it.
"I wonder why there is nothing there on a cap on donations from all sources?" she said.
"If you actually believe that democracy is about equality, and I'm sure the Labor Party does, then you would expect the cap to be put on donations that allowed the average person to be put in a position to also have a political voice by donating to whichever party they choose.
"From what I can see there is not that cap, and I think that is crucial if we're going to stop this arms race that is going on at campaigns."
Labor's bill will be debated at a later date.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, federal-parliament, australia
First postedSpread the love
A week after the deadly protest in Charlottesville, Virgina, another protest/counter protest is set to happen in Boston this Saturday. Boston law enforcement noted that they would shut down the “Free Speech Rally” at the first sign of trouble.
“If anyone gets out of control — at all — it will be shut down,” Mayor Marty Walsh said.
Hundreds of officers will be on the scene, both in uniform and undercover to attempt to keep the peace. However, if the countless other similar rallies are any indication, peace will be all but non-existent.
Make no mistake, the White-nationalists, neo-Nazis, Alt-righters, whatever you want to call them, want to be attacked.
Why would anyone want to get punched in the face, you ask? Well, it is quite simple. When violence is enacted against the white supremacists, it flips the script and they become the martyrs or victims.
It's satisfying to use violence against white supremacists, but doing something that makes your ego feel good isn't the same as winning. — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 19, 2017
Before videos emerged of white-supremacists being attacked, no one paid any attention to them. Their ideas are so horrifically stupid that they are self-defeating. However, when you punch a nazi you legitimize them. While it doesn’t legitimize their cause, it makes them victims and therefore garners more support.
It's almost like they stoke controversy in order to get punched on camera so they can push their white victimhood mythos. https://t.co/GAR28bCe0z — Nicholas Lukács (@nick_knack52) August 17, 2017
There is absolutely no chance of an outspoken, swastika toting white supremacist, hell bent on a 2nd Holocaust, taking over the country and locking you up. This is why battling white supremacists is futile. There is, however, a very real system of oppression on the rise in this country that does oppress minorities, kidnaps them, cages them, and also kills them on a large scale. It was here far before Trump too.
Spoiler alert: The tactic which will actually beat the alt-right and the tactic which you find egoically satisfying are not the same tactic. — Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) August 19, 2017
Why aren’t these counter-protesters who show up to all these white nationalist marches out there every day trying to end the real white nationalist problem? This problem began way before Trump, Obama, or Bush, and has been perpetuated by all Presidents since Nixon. Shortly after the Jim Crow era came to an end, under the guise of ‘protecting citizens from drugs’, a new Jim Crow was ushered in. The drug war.
The millions of lives ruined, families torn apart, morally innocent people imprisoned, and innocence slaughtered is massive in scale and a far greater threat to the well-being of minorities than idiots in hoods protecting statues.
As Ajuma Baraka notes, writing for Counter Punch,
What I find interesting about the current discussion around what many are referring to as the emboldening of the radical white supremacist right is how easy it is to mobilize opposition against the crude and overt white supremacists we saw in Charlottesville. So easy, in fact, that it’s really a distraction from the more difficult and dangerous work that needs to be done to confront the real right-wing power brokers.
It’s not just the drug war either. America’s foreign policy, perpetrated under multiple White House puppets over decades, is infinitely more dangerous than low IQ racists carrying silly flags.
America’s real white supremacists don’t identify themselves with flags—they use the seals of government agencies and company logos to officialize their corporatism into policy. They hide behind marble walls, built by slaves, and move armies around the planet like chess pieces on a board. America’s real white supremacists want you paying attention to the serfs fighting over statues so they can continue to rape the planet, extract the fruits of your labor, and spread empire all in their hellish mission to maintain their ‘order.’
As Ajamu Baraka notes:
Looking at white supremacy from this wider-angle lens, it is clear that support for the Israeli state, war on North Korea, mass black and brown incarceration, a grotesque military budget, urban gentrification, the subversion of Venezuela, the state war on black and brown people of all genders, and the war on reproductive rights are among the many manifestations of an entrenched right-wing ideology that cannot be conveniently and opportunistically reduced to Trump and the Republicans.
So, as corporate media blasts photos and videos of Antifa battling white supremacists in Boston today, telling you that there is a race war brewing — remember that they are the ones brewing it — all to keep you from looking up at the real war taking place on humanity, 24 hours a day, across the globe, carried out by people who couldn’t care less about some racist statue.Graphic designer and creative coder Frederic Brodbeck has analyzed movies to create a visual "fingerprint" for them, analyzing information such as editing structure, color, speech or motion and transforming them into graphic representations that can be compared side by side.
[partner id="wireduk"]The project, called Cinemetrics, was for Brodbeck's thesis in generative design at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. Brodbeck recognized that there were already lots of infographics using metadata related to movies, such as budget, box office data and awards. However, he was keen to use the movie itself as a source of data and create visualizations that captured the movies in their entirety.
Brodbeck disassembled video files into their components – video, audio, subtitles – and then processed them frame by frame, detecting when a shot ended, how much movement there is in the scene, and the colors used within the scene. These were fed into visualizations that are much more interactive and detailed than the likes of the Moviebarcode project, which Wired.co.uk reported on a few months ago.
The resulting "fingerprints" look a little like pie charts. The size of the pie corresponds to the length of the film. The segments of the fingerprint correspond to the length of the shots within the film. You can view the overall colors used in the entire movie, and broken down by each chapter. The amount that the segments move reflects the amount of movement in that scene. You can even click on the chart to see the particular frames that have been analyzed.
The visualizations allow you to compare in a glance the difference between an original and a remake, movies from the same genre or movies by one director.
Brodbeck explained on his website: "Not only cinema enthusiasts and people doing film studies might benefit, but also for regular people an alternative way of looking at movies could provide an interesting new way of choosing movies based on formal criteria. For instance: 'I don't want to see the dark one with lots of motion, that colorful one with the great amount of spoken words looks much more interesting to me.'"
Check out the video showcasing what Cinemetrics can do above.
See Also:- Inception, ExplainedA look at Saudi Arabia's news media shows that the Persian Gulf monarchy stands squarely behind Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's efforts Tuesday in Congress.
In an article in Monday's edition of the Saudi daily Al-Jazirah (no relation to the Qatar-based television network), columnist Dr. Ahmad Al-Faraj comes out strongly against U.S. President Barack Obama. "I believe that Netanyahu's conduct will serve our interests, the people of the Gulf," he writes, "much more than the foolish behavior of one of the worst American presidents."
The article was translated and disseminated to Western media by MEMRI, the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.
Al-Faraj writes that Obama is working to sign a deal with Iran at the expense of America's longtime allies in the Gulf, and that Netanyahu's campaign against the deal is therefore justified and serves the interests of the Gulf states.
The article provides background regarding the speech and the tensions surrounding it. It states that Netanyahu "will devote his speech to expressing his firm objection to the signing of an agreement between the Obama administration and Iran on the nuclear issue. He hopes to convince the Congress members that he is right, which could delay the agreement."
It further mocks Obama for his behavior, saying he is "clearly furious – not because Netanyahu is intervening in an important matter that Obama hopes will bring him personal glory, but because House Speaker [John Boehner] did not consult with Obama before inviting Netanyahu, and Obama considers this a breach of established protocol…"
The Saudi columnist's main conclusion minces no words: "Since Obama is the godfather of the prefabricated revolutions in the Arab world, and since he is the ally of political Islam, [which is] the caring mother of [all] the terrorist organizations, and since he is working to sign an agreement with Iran that will come at the expense of the U.S.'s longtime allies in the Gulf, I am very glad of Netanyahu's firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration's anger and fury. I believe that Netanyahu's conduct will serve our interests, the people of the Gulf, much more than the foolish behavior of one of the worst American presidents. Do you agree with me?"
The pressure-cooker of tensions between Saudi Arabia and the Obama Administration has been simmering for a while. A New York Times article of a year ago states that Saudi leaders were vexed already then at Obama "for failing to throw America’s military might behind their proxy war with Tehran in Syria… And the Saudis were flabbergasted last year when Mr. Obama reversed course at the last minute, calling off missile strikes against the Assad government for its use of chemical weapons."
The paper quoted a commentator for the Saudi-owned news network Al Arabiya as having written that Obama “has got it all wrong when it comes to Iran.” He accused the president of having a “new fondness” for the Iranians, calling this “the heart of the problem” in his relations with the Saudis.Tools> pencil, photshop, optical mouse
www.kizer180.deviantart.com
I feel that a mixture of Warren Ellis Clark Kent and Cris Reeve's portrayal of him in the Superman films to be the best disguise. When you mix that up you get a clumsy, head sunked between the shoulders, Bowlegged, slightly stuttering, might of been a nerd in highschool, cowardly Clark. I not only see the confident exterior when he puts on the red, blue and yellow tights but sort of a exhale. The chance for him to breath and be himself. To me Superman is truly who he is.
I could be wrong though...tell me what your thoughts are guys and what ya think.
Tools> pencil, photoshop, optical mouse
This guys is a pretty complex dude.
Every body knows that the Playboy, Womanizing
Bruce Wayne is an act. That playful rambunctious Bruce before his parents were killed doesn't exist anymore so he never grew to become that kind of man. Vengeance and hatred pretty much took it's place. So His whole life after the point was consumed by getting back at the people who reminds him of his tragic past.
So he prepares himself because he knows that going after such men was inevitable. He defeats his greatest childhood fear by becoming it and "Batman" is the result. So I feel the masked mysterious man of vengeance who want to strike fear in the hearts of man is the real Bruce Wayne. But this again is my opinion. What do you guys think?....
Tools> pencil, Photoshop, Optical mouse
There's tons of people out there who have escaped there past problems by suppressing them so far within there minds to a point where its almost like they've never even happened. This guys just couldn't seemed to achieve such a dream. I'm a big fan of the hulk that started up in the early 80's with Bruce being abused as a child and having (DiD) which is basically a spit personality.
I feel that the reason Hulk is so strong and so perpetually enraged is because of Bruce�s strong inner emotional agony and Rage from his past.
To me Hulk is like a living personification of Bruces inner self. This Wild, Montruos, Powerful sudconcious bomb that has basically exploded. This Bruce here would probably be one who seems to not only be running from a murder he didn't commit or Lieutenant Striker�s men but possibly this beast that lies within him as well. Even though he know�s that�s pretty much impossible. Hulk is partly who he is.
..But What do you guys feel?
Tools> pencil, photoshop, optical mouse
www.kizer180.deviantart.com
Kind of thought of Matt as a straight faced, dapper
superbly professional and constantly observant lawyer but
one who of course still seems dependent on the walking stick for secret disguise reasons..here. To me this DD guy is kind like a mix between Batman and the Punisher. He seems to not only want vengeance but Punishment when it comes the criminals he goes after and will go through any means get both. This of course spawned from the tragic death of his father when he was a kid. I don't really see to much of a mask man here I just see a guy who is now doing what he always wanted to accomplish ever. Putting bad people away by day and doing the same at night. With his suit I always thought that eventually someone was going to use that ningitsu background of his and place some of that in his Daredevil attire but it never really happened. So I took the liberty of alternating it just a touch. But what's your thought's on this dude?
Tools> Photoshop, Optical mouse
www.kizer180.deviantart.com
So I sort of thought of Tony as a womanizing, Super intelligent, Incredibly mellow, Sarcastic, brilliant business minded, fast talking dude....whew. Which isn't all that different from how he is in the books now. The thing is that I feel that some of the way he acts is a way to avoid his past. The alcoholism, the take over of his company, him becoming homeless for a while, creating weapons of war for profit and of course the tragic death of his parents. So keeping his future in mind and his past out is what he does now. I think continuing to be visibly cool in public is a great way to prevent people from becoming suspicious of whose within the Iron suit as well. The birth of Iron man to me was kind of like the rebirth of how Tony saw war. It basically showed him that what he was doing was wrong. That selling WMD's wasn't the best way in solving conflicts between countries. Unfortunately he had to be imprisoned, forced to make a bomb and almost near death to see this but this was sort of is his "At first I was blind but now I see" moment.
But this again an opinion of mine.....what's yours?
Tools> photoshop, optical mouse
www.kizer180.deviantart.com
Heres the others>
I guess my Eddie would be a combo of both the original and Ultimates version. A bully that is a complete ass and the dude that has all the deep down problem caused from the death of his parents and what he thinks of as a betrayal of Peter Parkers trust. My venom is basically the one that I love most. The musclular, Wild ass, Brute of a Beast. I always thought this one was the scariest. My thoughts what yours?
_________________
www.kizer180.deviantart.com I've never really did one of these things so I thought I'd show you guys my version of Petey and Spidey. I'm a big fan of the Super Dorko Peter Parker from the early 60's more then the modern cool ass Petey of today. To me the Geek Pete was the ultimate mask. No one ever suspects a friendless braniac loser with a hunch to be the super strong, wall crawling, web swinging hero. I wanted to elongate his porportion and give him very lanky figure. This look to |
and difficult to defend because he used a variety of personnel to avoid the defenders. Parling’s were rushed – as we saw in the disorganisation of the second Test lineouts – and more easily read as he called to himself the majority of times.
The Lions coaches could not control the injury to O’Connell but they do have a significant hand in tactics and total control of selection. The current Lions’ game plan centres on set play dominance to gain penalties for Halfpenny to score.
There is one problem. It ain’t working. The Lions are going into the deciding Test without a game plan that attacks Wallabies’ weaknesses.
Coaching conference
The Lions did not liberate the ball from a single scrum last week. At the coaching conference the Wallaby staff showed analysis of the Lions scrum. It is unarguable that at the set-up, the Lions’ front row significantly angles forward at loosehead. On engagement the loosehead drives in, or attempts to walk around to gain a penalty.
The Lions’ scrum is not interested in giving the ball to the backline. The Lions are scrumaging for penalties. Despite Vunipola’s early errors, last week the Lions gained nine points from scrum penalties.
Last week the first five-metre attacking lineout saw the Lions backline run in to attempt to set up a 12-man maul. That style of attack is an abomination on the game, however it does reflect the lack of imagination in the Lions attack coaches.
The Wallabies have belief because the Lions took a knife to a gunfight, believing penalty kicks would be enough to win the series.
With a game plan that minimised backline attack and maximises field position to gain penalties, the Lions selectors then panicked and dropped Brian O’Driscoll, the most experienced leader available to them and the best defending centre. They have punished the outside centre for not attacking when the team’s tactic is to not pass the ball.
In dropping both Brian and Jamie Heaslip the Lions have gone from having five national captains on the field to one, in Alun-Wynn Jones.
The only possible rationale is the Lions’ staff believe a Welsh -based team have more experience playing together. If this is so then it has a major flaw. The Welsh were beaten three Tests to nil by a much weaker Wallaby team last June.
Unwittingly the lack of imagination in the Lions’ game plans has empowered a fragile Wallaby team to believe they can win. Like a wind changing direction, the series momentum has departed the Lions and has hit the Australians.
On the field the Wallabies’ defence has been top class and their fighting spirit unquestionable.
To the Lions coaches’ amazement, the Wallaby scrum has held and at times dominated. Watch for penalties on Adam Jones for his tactic of pulling down his opposing loosehead by grabbing his sleeve.
The return of George Smith could be a masterstroke. He understands referee Poite from his time in Toulon and speaks passable French. His presence at the tackle will be significant.
More importantly, Smith brings to the Wallaby team what O’Driscoll should have brought to the Lions. An aura of invincibility, a legendary position in the team’s lore that inspires his mates to give more because they do not want to let him down. Playing with a legend is inspirational.
Great deal
The Wallabies have gained a great deal by selecting George and inexplicably the Lions have chosen to discard even more by dropping O’Driscoll
The impact on the Lions players of not selecting Brian is immeasurable. It has placed pressure on the selected team that could have been avoided and robbed them of an opportunity to say, “I played with Brian O’Driscoll the night he Lions won”.
A first class selection balls -up.
If I was Robbie Deans, part of my game plan would be to get the ball into Israel Folaus’ hands 20 times in the 80 minutes. If Australia do this they will win. He is a match- winner.
Today it will be close, but the Lions are unravelling.
I believe The Tom “Rusty” Richards Trophy will stay in Australia for another 12h years and the Lions will lose the unloseable series.Taste of Atlanta is the city's must-do food, wine, beer and cocktail festival that showcases the diversity of Atlanta restaurants and attracts food lovers from Atlanta, the Southeast and beyond. Over three days, more than 90 neighborhood favorites will show off their most craveable dishes, the hottest local chefs will strut their stuff on four live demo stages, and VIP patrons will hit boozy nirvana sampling craft beers, wine and creative cocktails. Taste of Atlanta patrons will enjoy:
Good eats from some of the Best Atlanta Restaurants
Live cooking demos and conversations on The Chef's Table stage
Hands on cooking classes in The Kitchen Workshop
Home Plate Stage with interactive cooking demonstrations and hands on activities for the whole family.
VIP area with Beer and Wine & Cocktails
*Admission open to VIP ticket holders only; must be 21 or older to enter, no exceptionsThe more I track how Canonical is handling the crowdfunding campaign for its Ubuntu Edge smartphone, the more I think it’s going to fail. I get this feeling partly from watching the growing disparity between funds raised and funds needed, and partly from new details that Canonical has recently released.
Let’s start with a graph of the project‘s progress thus far, thoughtfully put together by Canonical’s Gustavo Niemeyer (if you can’t make out the numbers and text on the axes, though, be aware that the graph represents the last few days only, and doesn’t start from zero):
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The red line represents the trajectory needed to hit that ambitious $32 million figure, while the purple represents reality. At the time of writing, around $7.5 million had been raised – if things were going as they should be, 8.5 days into the 30-day campaign, the total so far should be $9.4 million.
Of course, the path towards success would never be straight – incentives boost interest and funds raised. The Indiegogo campaign got off to a good start with the $600 “perk” level flying off the virtual shelves, only to stall afterwards.
People weren’t snapping the device up at its full $830 price (only 33 have done so thus far) so Canonical introduced a new series of perk tiers below that level. These are running out too, now. At the moment, the best offer people can get is $775, which isn’t hugely lower than $830.
So why aren’t people more interested?
Let’s rewind for a moment. Ubuntu was, for a long time, the most popular Linux distribution. It was overtaken a while back by Mint, in part because Ubuntu started changing its interface with a view to becoming more mobile-friendly.
Canonical knew where it was going with its Unity interface – the Ubuntu Edge concept involves one underlying operating system that can be smartphone-y on a mobile screen and desktop-y when connected to a monitor and keyboard – but a lot of Linux enthusiasts weren’t so keen.
So who is it precisely that Canonical is going after with the Ubuntu Edge? It’s certainly not the mass market. The Edge is a concept device with very high internal specifications for a smartphone (4GB of RAM!) that is intended to show off Canonical’s “converged” mobile-desktop approach. What’s more, it will never go on general sale – only those buying into the Indiegogo campaign will get their hands on it.
So you would think Canonical would be desperately trying to attract Linux aficionados to pledge their hard-earned $775-$830. However, on Tuesday Canonical posted a Q&A about the campaign, which included this note:
“Will the Ubuntu Edge be sustainable and/or hardware hackable?
While we will do our best to keep the hardware as open as possible, these are not the main focus of the project in its first generation. Hardware that’s capable of convergence is the priority.”
In my view, this is a grave mistake. Hackability and openness are pretty much the top priorities for Linux fans (cynically speaking, why else would someone put themselves through the relative user-unfriendliness of Linux UIs?) and, what is more, there is already another rather successful Linux-based operating system that is very hackable. It’s called Android(s goog).
Concept vs reality
The convergence idea hasn’t worked so far – witness Motorola’s Atrix dock, which hardly set the world on fire. But it remains a good idea. Having one device that can be both a smartphone and desktop computer is in itself a very sustainable concept (making Canonical’s lack of focus on sustainable materials a bit easier to forgive), and with sufficient internal horsepower it could well work.
The Ubuntu Edge could prove that, but not if its crowdfunding campaign fails. If that happens, backers won’t lose their money, but Canonical’s reputation will take a serious hit and more low-cost Ubuntu phones – the ultimate goal of this exercise – won’t materialize.
Ultimately, the people Canonical really needs to convince are carriers, who are the ones with the big marketing budgets and also the ones currently diving into Firefox OS as their open alternative to the Android-iOS(s aapl) duopoly. If the crowdfunding campaign succeeds, they are more likely to bite. If it fails, they will run away.
Canonical doesn’t have much space left to introduce cheap tiers, in order to pump up demand for the Edge. The deep-pocketed Linux fanboi demographic is already pretty limited, even before Canonical annoys these potential buyers by downplaying its openness ambitions. And as for average smartphone users, they don’t know what Ubuntu is, nor will they understand Canonical’s convergence play until someone (a carrier, probably) shows it to them in action.
Unless Canonical quickly wises up about playing to its existing fanbase, I’m not sure this crowdfunding endeavor was a risk worth taking.With a $25 million addition to the American Civil War Museum underway nearby, a comparably priced expansion to the Virginia War Memorial is helping reshape the downtown riverfront.
The memorial at 721 S. Belvidere St. has broken ground on a $26 million expansion project that will add 26,500 square feet in educational facilities, administrative office space and a lecture hall, a second shrine and a parking deck with roughly 170 spaces.
The new shrine, on the memorial’s eastern side, will honor veterans from the Global War on Terror, said memorial director Clay Mountcastle.
“The current shrine is full with names of veterans from World War II through the Persian Gulf wars. (The second shrine) was the main driving force behind the expansion project,” Mountcastle said.
The parking deck will more than triple the memorial’s parking capacity, with two underground levels and a third above ground.
Annual visitation exceeds 70,000 people, consisting largely of educational groups. Mountcastle said the memorial has added staff in recent years to accommodate the increased interest in its programs.
KBS is the contractor on the expansion, which SMBW Architects designed.
The state is providing most of project’s funding. The nonprofit Virginia War Memorial Foundation has a capital campaign to pitch in 10 percent of the funding needed.
The expansion is set to finish in late spring or early summer 2019. Until then, Mountcastle said, the memorial will operate as usual, with traffic patterns unaffected.
The expansion broke ground around the same time as the addition to the American Civil War Museum, which is building its facility at Historic Tredegar down the hill.Court clears Assemblyman accused of dishonestly claiming disability benefit BelfastTelegraph.co.uk A DUP politician who was accused of benefit fraud has been cleared of any wrongdoing after a judge threw out the case against him. https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/court-clears-assemblyman-accused-of-dishonestly-claiming-disability-benefit-28476051.html
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A DUP politician who was accused of benefit fraud has been cleared of any wrongdoing after a judge threw out the case against him.
East Antrim MLA David Hilditch was accused of dishonestly failing to inform the Social Security Agency promptly about improvements to his condition which would affect his entitlement to Disability Living Allowance.
The former Mayor of Carrickfergus suffers from osteoarthritis — a degenerative bone and joint condition which limits his mobility — and had been receiving DLA, which is not means tested, for the condition.
However an investigation was launched into the politician, who sits on the Assembly body responsible for scrutinising social security payments, after it emerged he had taken part in a charity inter-parliamentary football tournament in London in 2007.
During the hearing in Belfast yesterday the court was shown video evidence recorded by fraud investigators of Mr Hilditch walking without crutches on three separate occasions during a two-and-a-half-week period at the start of 2008.
When asked by the prosecution if he could explain how he was able to move about unaided or in pain, the 46-year-old replied:“I see |myself in considerable pain in some of those shots. It was a good day compared to some. That's the day I was |observed and I can't do anything about that.”
The court also heard how the DUP MLA had contacted the Social Security Agency in February 2008 to inform them that he wanted to relinquish DLA before he knew he was being probed.
District Judge Ken Nixon dismissed the case, saying he was “not satisfied that this complaint is made out”.
Speaking after he was |acquitted, Mr Hilditch said he was “very happy” with the result, adding the past few months had “taken its toll”.
Belfast TelegraphBIG # 30 - what the market has been waiting for and, it is just the beginning of a
LONG RUN......
(NOW JBZY)
COMPANY EXEC'S HAVE INDICATED THEY INTEND TO UPLIST TO NASDAQ
FINRA approved name/symbol change. It was posted to FINRA site 10/24/2017 and became official through brokerage houses 10/25/2017
(Courtesy of DJKnows)
1. DOLVwas an idle shell for over a year2. A Chinese Billionaire Wang Dequn enlisted Richard Oravec (IPO and Reverse Merger Specialist) to find him "shell" company.3. Richard Oravec presented Wang Dequn(Also goes by Wang Jinlai in China) DOLV as the "shell"4. Wang Dequn acquired 300,000 preferred shares in DOLV to obtain majority interest by reverse merging Zhong Ji Ming Yang New Energy into the DOLV shell.5. All of a sudden the idle shell wasn't so idle anymore6. Shareholders who had not seen any action in the stock started to check what was happening (started movement from below.0001)7. Due Diligence began uncovering the trail of a "reverse merger"8. Wang Dequn was discovered and the real Due Diligence began9. Once the trail to the "real Wang Dequn" was uncovered, all of Wang Dequn's business holdings started to come to light (continued movement form.001 upward)10. Richard Oravec (I.R. for DOLV) and reverese merger specialist issued a PR on April 6th detailing the DOLV Acquisition (ran from.01 to.13)11. More and more and more Due Diligence was done uncovering massive potential12. It was found that a new company was being created.13. It was found that this company was being formed by the JinBo Group of Wang Dequns14. Further Due Diligence uncovered business entities being created JB & ZJMY "HOLDING" company15. It was discovered that JinBo Group is "MASSIVE"16. More Due Diligence uncovered JinBo Group had purchased majority shares of ZJMY New Energy17. Further, ZJMY had purchased controlling interest of Wuhu Huabo Electric Battery and EV company18. Wuhu Huabo contracts Chery(Top Chinese Auto-maker) to manufacture their Electric Vehicles for them (Utilizing Chery's chassis, interiors, body - but using ZJMY batteries, electronics, motors and drivetrains)19. More and more, it was found that DOLV was being MERGED into an incredible Electric Vehicle, Battery, charging station, robotic battery swapping station, etc. etc. etc. company20. We began seeing multiple news articles with "Z" low-speed electric vehicles.21. Further DD saw that the company has patents for batteries, swapping stations etc. Price began to fall off as FINRA was taking too long to approve the name/symbol change. This was due to some illegal activities from the shell owners back in 2010 when it was a diamond mining company)22. Besides Electric Vehicles and best batteries available, company also will have charging stations and ROBOTIC BATTERY SWAPPING STATIONS23. The June 24th ASEAN ONE BELT ONE ROAD CONFERENCE was held detailing JB & ZJMY's entry into the NEW ENERGY ELECTRIC VEHICLE space in multiple Asian countries. (stock price stabilized as more people realize the potential)24. Recently, it was discovered that Zhong Ji Ming Yang New Energy took a 37.7% shareholder stake in Long Star New Energy and the Low-Speed EV production base was set up at Long Star for joint-venture production25. It was announced that Zhong Ji Ming Yang and Guigang City in Guangxi province had a cooperation agreement for a 300,000 unit high-speed EV factory covering 500 acres26. Following the submission of requested info by August 25th deadline, FINRA has since entered into the next stage of its Company-Related Action (rule 6490) review process, asking issuers or duly authorized reps of DOLV to provide answers and supporting docs to any follow-up questions (stock has been heavily accumulated in the 0.03-0.4 range, and most recently ran up to 0.05 on an uptick in volume)27. Once FINRA posts Name/Ticker change, JB&ZJMY should release Consolidated Financials28. Expect many Press Releases once company is openly PUBLIC!!32.REVERSE CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER : Tap this link: http://tinyurl.com/y8bqnoor HUGE NUMBERS OF LINKS AND PHOTO'S FOLLOW WHICH WILL HELP YOU WITH YOUR DUE DILIGENCE / RESEARCH OF THE REVERSE MERGER AND WHAT WILL DEVELOP!!Mostyou would want to find about your investment... is within the links in this post.You just need to take the time to go through the multiple pages within each link.Here are some links that will help those who don't know how to search with Chinese Characters or get the translations and search. It really helps to be using GOOGLE CHROME on a laptop or desktop PC as the ability to right click your mouse and do auto translate is wonderful.SEARCHES IN GOOGLE:SEARCHING FOR WANG JINLAI INFORMATION? Tap on this link: http://tinyurl.com/ydfvecl5 SEARCHING FOR ZHONG JI MING YANG INFORMATION? Tap on this link: http://tinyurl.com/yayb8kvu SEARCHING FOR LONG STAR NEW ENERGY INFORMATION? Tap on this link: http://tinyurl.com/yd24sasq SEARCHING FOR WUHU HUABAO NEW ENERGY INFORMATION? Tap on this link: http://tinyurl.com/y8gt3rp3 SEARCHING FOR COWIN/CHERY INFORMATION? Tap on this link: http://tinyurl.com/ycvo3lco SEARCHING FOR JINBO INVESTMENT HOLDING CO. INFORMATION? Tap on this link: http://tinyurl.com/y9sa38ab SEARCHES IN CHINA'S BAIDU:Zhong Ji Ming Yang New Energy - Search results from Baidu for ZJMY:Long Star New Energy Vehicles - ZJMY's OEM partner for Low-Speed Models:Cowin/Chery website - ZJMY's OEM partner for the V3 7-Seater All Electric SUV:Jinbo Investment Holding Group - ZJMY's parent company:Wang JinLai, Jinbo Investment Holding Group CEO:Some Business Listing sites to check out for partner Long Star:A FEW MORE WEBSITES FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES....Jin Bo News Website: http://www.jingtezmt.com/ Parent company website for Long Star: http://www.jiujiuxing.net/ Shandong Long Star website: http://www.jjxddc.com/ Guangxi Long Star website: http://www.jjxev.cn/ Website/Blog from Taiwan China Urban Competitiveness Cultural Exchange Association, vice chairman: http://tinyurl.com/yctbp6gc Photo of the original all electric ZJMY prototype utilizing the Cowin/Chery C3 platform with ZJMY batteries/motor/drive electronics. Some V5's also in backgroundPhoto's of the ZJMY Cheetah Police Patrol EV's donated to the Zhangjiakou Police force:Two posts by floridany in regard to his trips to meet both Wang Dequn/Jinlai and then Han Zhiming:Several images of the Zhong Ji Ming Yang and Long Star partnership investment in Electric Vehicles in China:Show full PR text
PBS Launches Free Full-Length Video App for iPhone and iPod touch and Antiques Roadshow Game App
Television Critics Association Press Tour, Pasadena, CA – January 8, 2011 –
PBS announced today the App Store debut of the PBS App for iPhone and iPod touch, featuring more than 300 hours of free video, including full-length programs. Also launching today, the PBS Antiques Roadshow game app, available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, lets players virtually collect, appraise and bid on real antiques with new collectibles from different cities added regularly.
"With a huge library from nearly 360 member stations and 1500 public media producers, PBS is delivering a rich on-demand experience and is now one of the first broadcasters to bring full-length video to the iPhone," said Jason Seiken, SVP, PBS Interactive, Product Development and Innovation. "There has been increasing demand for our content on other platforms – the PBS video player averages 22 minutes viewing time per program among audiences 18+ and ranks 19th among video sites, with more than 104 million streams. In addition, PBSKIDS.org is the #1 children's video site in streams and unique users, according to comScore."
The PBS App for the iPhone and iPod touch features more than 300 hours of free video, including full-length programming from FRONTLINE, PBS Newshour, and others, as well as scheduling details, previews, and a new tune-in reminder calendar that can be synced with iCal. This app was developed by PBS and Bottle Rocket Apps and comes on the heels of the already successful PBS App for iPad.
Based on the popular television series, the Antiques Roadshow App brings out the expert collector and appraiser in every Roadshow fan. Dozens of unique game challenges let players collect and store hundreds of virtual antiques based on images of real objects and actual values. Players appraise and learn about each item's history and value. Expert players can unlock a free play mode and scoop up extra rare items for their treasure chest.
"Antiques Roadshow remains a huge hit on-air, and local events draw large crowds. The series is part adventure, part history and part treasure hunt, and now the app takes it to another level, allowing players to become antiques dealers-in-training," said Marsha Bemko, Executive Producer, Antiques Roadshow. "No more waiting in line to get in. We've granted VIP access passes to everyone to indulge their inner appraiser."
The PBS App is available for free from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, or at www.itunes.com/appstore.
The Antiques Roadshow App is available for $2.99 from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, or at www.itunes.com/appstore.
About PBS
PBS, with its nearly 360 member stations, offers all Americans - from every walk of life - the opportunity to explore new ideas and new worlds through television and online content. Each month, PBS reaches 117 million people through television and 20 million people online, inviting them to experience the worlds of science, history, nature and public affairs; to hear diverse viewpoints; and to take front row seats to world-class drama and performances. PBS' broad array of programs has been consistently honored by the industry's most coveted award competitions. Teachers of children from pre-K through 12thgrade turn to PBS for digital content and services that help bring classroom lessons to life. PBS' premier children's TV programming and its website, pbskids.org, are parents' and teachers' most trusted partners in inspiring and nurturing curiosity and love of learning in children. More information about PBS is available at www.pbs.org, one of the leading dot-org websites on the Internet.
About Antiques Roadshow
Part adventure, part history lesson, and part treasure hunt, eight-time Emmy-nominated Antiques Roadshow marks its fifteenth season in 2011. PBS's highest-rated series, Roadshow is seen by more than nine million viewers each week. In each hour-long Roadshow episode, specialists from the country's leading auction houses and independent dealers from across the nation offer free appraisals of antiques and collectibles. Host Mark L. Walberg welcomes back viewers to join the journey through America's attics and basements, starting Monday, January 3, 2011 at 8/7C on PBS.
About Bottle Rocket Apps
Bottle Rocket Apps (www.bottlerocketapps.com) is a full-service mobile app development firm, focused on creating mission-critical, premium brand experiences on the Apple iPhone and iPad and on Android devices. The company's apps have won numerous industry accolades for innovative and user-centered design, and frequently appear at the top of their categories on the iTunes App Store. The Bottle Rocket team of senior strategists, architects, developers and artists work their magic from the company's offices in Dallas, Texas.The last time we saw an EV pit itself against a BMW, it wasn't a good day for the German car. On this occasion, the beemer is the EV, and it's one that all the others will officially have to enjoy viewing from behind. The car in question is the Rimac e-M3, the fledgling EV-firm owner's personal custom ride, and it's just been officially acknowledged as the fastest accelerating electric vehicle (with some category caveats). The record-breaking run actually happened April 2011, but it seems the FIA isn't quite so fast when it comes to making things official. The Croatian driver covered the first eighth of a mile in 7.549 seconds, needing less than five more for the same distance again (1/4 mile in 11.808 seconds). This is where the official-dom ends, but the total mile was completed in 35.347, which is still pending the FIA nod. Happy as driver Mate Rimac is, he already thinks there's something faster. What might that be? His new pre-production Concept_One of course. Catch the car in action after the break.TOKYO – China's central bankers on Sunday allowed some public and direct insight into their thinking. A top official of the People's Bank of China delivered remarks to those who had been attending a joint meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Tokyo.
The deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, Yi Gang, says the priority for monetary authorities in Beijing is on stable prices and they want to pursue a sustainable path of economic development.
China's next stimulus package - focused on expanding the country's transportation infrastructure, will be an appropriate one, according to Yi.
"When I say appropriate in terms of size that is large enough to stabilize the growth but not too large to cause some further negative impact or negative problem in the future."
China's economy has slowed for the past six consecutive quarters. But it still has cash reserves estimated to be around 40 percent of its gross domestic product and with official foreign currency reserves around three-and-a-quarter trillion dollars.
Yi, speaking for his boss, characterized the Chinese currency as having reached its equilibrium, and said the central bank had not intervened in the foreign exchange market in the past year.
The United States has long urged Beijing to lift exchange markets controls, contending the Chinese currency is undervalued and that gives China's exports an unfair price advantage overseas.
Yi said the central bank will continue to diversify its reserve holdings as China is already sitting on enough cash, and "in terms of reserves, it's not the more the better."
The central bank number two told the audience of banking officials that he does not promote the internationalization of the renminbi (the official name for the yuan) and moves in that direction are totally market-driven.
Responding to a question about what authorities will do amid speculation China faces a bubble with soaring urban real estate prices, especially in Beijing and Shanghai, Yi indicated he and fellow central bankers are keeping a close watch.
"Right now whether it's a correct level or it's a bubble is not known. But if it continues to go up the probability is higher and higher it will become a bubble. Right? So, that we certainly don't want to have a bubble so we want to stabilize the real estate prices."
Yi was a stand-in at the Tokyo meetings for the People's Bank of China governor Zhou Xiachuan and delivered a speech on his behalf.
Zhou, along with China's finance minister, broke with their country's own protocol and did not send top relevant officials to the annual event.
Chinese officials have made no secret this was meant to express Beijing's displeasure over a recently re-ignited territorial dispute with Japan.
Steve Herman Steve Herman is VOA's White House Bureau Chief. SubscribeChickTech is based in Portland but plans to be nationwide by 2016. After interviewing Jennifer Davidson about how ChickTech gets girls involved in tech, I have high hopes it's even sooner.
The non-profit targets girls who would never nominate themselves to participate in a tech workshop and who wouldn't dream of a career in tech. Why? Because they've never had someone believe their skills were valuable in that world. I believe that our society understands that girls' skills are needed in tech, we've just needed support for our girls like we've shown for our boys.
At ChickTech, women like Jennifer Davidson and ChickTech founder Janice Levenhagen-Seeley, give girls a chance. A jumping off point. A view into a world that can also be theirs.
ChickTech will host Open HeARTware workshop at OSCON 2014 on July 20.
What drove the creation of ChickTech, and what does it do?
We started ChickTech because we’ve experienced, first-hand, the lack of gender diversity in tech careers. Without this gender diversity, women don’t have a workplace that helps us feel like we “belong." So we decided to create a nonprofit that would change that by creating a community of support for women and girls, provide them with fun and exciting workshops to improve their confidence and abilities, and change tech culture for the better. Our general mission is to get more girls and women in tech and to retain the women who are already there.
We’re based in Portland, Oregon, but we’re quickly expanding to cities around the United States. Our current focus is ChickTech: High School, a year-long program for 100 high school girls to participate in project-focused tech workshops, internships at local tech companies, and a mentorship program with local tech professionals.
Tell me about your role as program manager and how the leadership teams work.
I help with every aspect of ChickTech, from helping Janice, the Executive Director, shape ChickTech’s vision to event planning to grant writing. However, a normal program manager would head up a leadership team in a specific city. So, in addition to helping with everything else, I also head up the leadership team in Corvallis as we plan a weekend-long event at Oregon State University. It’ll be the first event where the high school girls will get to stay in the residence halls on campus. We’re excited to provide a first-time college experience for many participants.
Each ChickTech chapter (currently Portland, Corvallis, and San Francisco) has a leadership team whose job it is to organize volunteers to run events for the ChickTech: High School program. We implemented leadership teams with a goal of building community amongst local tech professionals and university students; these volunteers work together to make positive change in their communities by introducing girls to
technology.
What are you trying to get across with the ChickTech: High School program?
The main goals are to show girls that they do belong in tech, that they can do it, and that their skills and talents are absolutely needed. ChickTech seeks to increase participants’ confidence in their tech skills and seeks to build a tech community for participants to provide a sense of belonging and support. In the United States, many girls are brought up to believe that "girls can’t do math" and that science and other "geeky" topics are for boys. We break down that idea. We fill a university engineering department with 100 high school girls—more girls than many engineering departments have ever seen. The participants can look around the building and see that girls from all backgrounds are just as excited about tech as they are.
We see such positive change in girls over just a 2-day event. We don’t want to change the girls to fit the current technology culture, it’s to ready them to improve that culture and their communities with our help.
The ChickTech: High School program starts with a 2-day kickoff event. Each girl participates in 1 workshop for a full 2 days, ranging in topic from robotics to user experience. Workshops are developed in collaboration with ChickTech leadership, local tech professionals, and university students. At the end of the workshop, girls have a customized project that they can take home. ChickTech doesn’tbelieve in boring tutorials or panels. Instead, ChickTech volunteers work with the girls to create a project of their very own. Something that the girls can be proud of, that they can take home as a reminder of what they learned and what they’re capable of.
Well over 60% of ChickTech: High School attendees have never participated in any tech-related event (programming, robotics, etc.) before. And to take a girl who has no exposure to tech before the 2-day event, to have a customized, operating robot by the end of that weekend is quite powerful.
After the 2-day event, we have monthly workshops that revisit some topics from the 2-day workshop, but also give them the chance to explore how technology has revolutionized many industries, from medicine to fashion to films. Our mentorship program is in its first year in Portland, and it’s having a great positive impact. We do team-building activities between mentors and mentees, and we encourage mentors to bring their mentees to user groups and tech events around Portland to really help them feel like they have a welcoming tech community.
Do you use open source software and hardware in your high school and adult workshops?
We use and promote open source tools and products because we want to lower the cost barrier to entry for the girls. We want them to be able to install and use these tools when they get home to continue their projects. For example, our website design and creation workshop uses Drupal, and we use open hardware (Arduino) for our soft circuits workshop. In our computer construction course, we teach girls how to install Ubuntu on a desktop machine that they built (and that they get to take home!).
Personally, I am passionate about open source and open knowledge, and I think it’s a fabulous way to share knowledge and ensure that people from all backgrounds have access to tech.
What is your experience working with teenage girls?
My first role in ChickTech was as a "Designing Experiences" workshop lead. I worked with a team of volunteers to create the curriculum and conduct a workshop related to User Experience. Conducting this workshop was an example of how ChickTech does not only positively influence the girls who attend, but also the volunteers. My confidence went through the roof because I learned that I knew enough about my field to teach it, and teach it in a way that high schoolers would understand and find interesting. I had a great time with the girls in the workshop, and it was inspiring to hear things like, "I could totally see myself doing this for a job!" and "People get paid for this? Cool!" The User Experience workshop involves local non-profits as clients, and the girls are grouped into teams and tasked with designing a solution to the non-profits’ tech issue. We have the clients pitch their ideas to the girls, and the girls get to pick which non-profit they work with.
They work on real problems, with real clients. One of our clients, Wearshare, found the experience so useful that they are hosting ChickTech interns this summer.
The part of ChickTech: High School that is both unique and extremely effective is the fact the girls are nominated to attend. This sends them the message that they were selected for this special opportunity because someone believes in them. We ask high school career counselors and teachers to nominate up to 15 girls from their school who they think would excel in tech but who aren’t engaged in tech opportunities yet. In addition to reaching out to public schools, we also reach out to the Boys & Girls Club, and alternative schools. Because we specifically ask schools to find girls who have no tech experience, and who may not consider tech without an extra push; we reach the girls who will not self-nominate and have a very low chance of choosing a technology career without us. We also ask that at least 33% of nominees are eligible for free/reduced lunch. To make this program accessible to all, our events are completely FREE for attendees, and we provide meals and transportation for those who need it. It’s *never* too late to become a technology creator, and we pass that on to these amazing high school girls who may very well find their passion is in tech.
Many girls in our program do not realize the many choices they have in tech. The big problem is that, before entering ChickTech, they didn’t have a community that knew or cared about tech. We provide that. We’ve seen girls write about ChickTech in their college essays and switch their career path from dental assistant to engineer. ChickTech works, and it’s because of the passion of the founder, the passion of our volunteers, and our excitement about creating a safe, welcoming, and inspiring environment for these girls.
ChickTech coordinates workshops for adults too. Who leads these and what skills are taught?
Currently, ChickTech: Career has done events in Portland. ChickTech volunteers lead these workshops, and our volunteers are made of tech professionals from around Portland. Our signature ChickTech: Career event is called "Advancing the Careers of Women in Tech," and has been held for two years at Puppet Labs in collaboration with the Technology Association of Oregon. It attracted over 270 women and provides one-on-one resume and interview advice with tech recruiters, along with skill-building workshops like introduction to open source and introduction to website development.
We’ve also run Arduino workshops for career level women. In those workshops, women come from all backgrounds to learn about open hardware |
This might not have applied to arrivals closely following the original arrivals, but such immigrants would be unlikely to be carrying alleles that the original settlers lacked.Mandragora officinarum Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae Clade: Angiosperms Clade: Eudicots Clade: Asterids Order: Solanales Family: Solanaceae Genus: Mandragora Species: M. officinarum Binomial name Mandragora officinarum
L. Synonyms[1] (Based on a broad circumscription of M. officinarum) Atropa acaulis Stokes
Atropa humilis Salisb.
Atropa mandragora L., nom. illeg.
Mandragora acaulis Gaertn.
Mandragora autumnalis Bertol.
Mandragora foemina Garsault
Mandragora haussknechtii Heldr.
Mandragora hispanica Vierh.
Mandragora × hybrida Hausskn. & Heldr.
Mandragora mas Garsault
Mandragora microcarpa Bertol.
Mandragora neglecta G.Don ex Loudon
Mandragora praecox Sweet
Mandragora vernalis Bertol.
Mandragora officinarum is the type species of the plant genus Mandragora. It is often known as mandrake, although this name is also used for other plants. As of 2015, sources differ significantly in the species they use for Mandragora plants native to the Mediterranean region. The main species found around the Mediterranean is called Mandragora autumnalis, the autumn mandrake. In a broader circumscription, all the plants native to the countries around the Mediterranean Sea are placed in M. officinarum, which thus includes M. autumnalis. The names autumn mandrake and Mediterranean mandrake are then used.[2] Whatever the circumscription, Mandragora officinarum is a perennial herbaceous plant with ovate leaves arranged in a rosette, a thick upright root, often branched, and bell-shaped flowers followed by yellow or orange berries.
Because mandrakes contain deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids and the shape of their roots often resembles human figures, they have been associated with a variety of superstitious practices throughout history. They have long been used in magic rituals, today also in contemporary pagan practices such as Wicca and Odinism.[3] However, the so-called "mandrakes" used in this way are not always species of Mandragora let alone Mandragora officinarum; for example, Bryonia alba, the English mandrake, is explicitly mentioned in some sources.
Description [ edit ]
Mandragora plant from Mandragora autumnalis rather than Mandragora officinarum plant from Israel that some sources would place inrather than
As of 2015, Mandragora officinarum has three or four different circumscriptions (see Taxonomy below). The description below applies to a broad circumscription, used in a 1998 revision of the genus, in which the name is used for all the plants native to Mediterranean region.[1] Thus defined, Mandragora officinarum is a very variable perennial herbaceous plant with a long thick root, often branched. It has almost no stem, the leaves being borne in a basal rosette. The leaves are very variable in size and shape, with a maximum length of 45 cm (18 in). They are usually either elliptical in shape or wider towards the end (obovate), with varying degrees of hairiness.[1]
The flowers appear from autumn to spring (September to April). They are borne in the axils of the leaves. The flower stalks (pedicels) are also very variable in length, up to 45 cm (18 in) long. The five sepals are 6–28 mm (0.2–1.1 in) long, fused together at the base and then forming free lobes to about a half to two-thirds of their total length. The five petals are greenish white to pale blue or violet in colour, 12–65 mm (0.5–2.6 in) long, and, like the sepals, joined together at the base with free lobes at the end. The lobes are between half as long as the petals to almost as long. The five stamens are joined to the bases of the petals and vary in length from 7 to 15 mm (0.3 to 0.6 in). The anthers of the stamens are usually yellow or brown, but are sometimes pale blue.[1]
The fruit which forms in late autumn to early summer (November to June) is a berry, shaped like a globe or an ellipsoid (i.e. longer than wide), with a very variable diameter of 5–40 mm (0.2–1.6 in). When ripe, the fruit is glossy, and yellow to orange – somewhat resembling a small tomato. It contains yellow to light brown seeds, 2.5–6 mm (0.10–0.24 in) long.[1]
Earlier, a different circumscription was used, in which Mandragora officinarum referred only to plants found in northern Italy and part of the coast of former Yugoslavia, most Mediterranean mandrakes being placed in Mandragora autumnalis.[4][5] The description above would then apply to both species combined, with M. officinarum having greenish-white rather than violet petals, up to 25 mm (1 in) long rather than usually 30–40 mm (1.2–1.6 in) or longer, and a berry that is globose rather than ellipsoid.[4] More recently, plants native to the Levant have been separated out as Mandragora autumnalis, leaving those found in the rest of the Mediterranean area as M. officinarum. One difference then is that the size of the seeds of M. officinarum is less than half the size of those of M. autumnalis.[6]
Taxonomy [ edit ]
Mandragora officinarum was first described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus in the first edition of Species Plantarum.[7][8] It is the type species of the genus Mandragora.[5] (Linnaeus later changed his mind and in 1759 placed M. officinarum in the genus Atropa as A. mandragora.[9]) Linnaeus regarded M. officinarum as the sole species in the genus, at that time only known from the Mediterranean region. Jackson and Berry (1979)[5] and Ungricht et al. (1998)[1] have documented some of the subsequent confusion over the number of Mediterranean species of Mandragora and their scientific names. Ungricht et al. describe the confusion as "incredible" and a "morass".[1]
The first confusion relates to the name "Mandragora officinalis Mill. ", dated to 1768 in the eighth edition of Philip Miller's The gardener's dictionary. However, this work uses the epithet officinarum, not "officinalis".[10] There is a reference to "Mandragora officinalis" as a synonym in the 9th edition of The gardener's dictionary of 1807. However, there was no such earlier use of the name, and Ungricht et al. say that "officinalis" is an orthographic error for the correct epithet officinarum, so that the name "Mandragora officinalis Mill. " (and any subsequent uses of this epithet) have "no real nomenclatural standing".[1]
The second confusion relates to the number of Mediterranean species of Mandragora (a confusion which continues). At different times, between one and five taxa have been recognized.[1] Dioscorides was among those who distinguished between "male" and "female" mandrakes,[5] a distinction used in 1764 when Garsault published the names Mandragora mas and Mandragora foemina. Flowering time was also used to distinguish species; thus in the 1820s, Antonio Bertoloni named two species as Mandragora vernalis, the spring-flowering mandrake, and Mandragora autumnalis, the autumn-flowering mandrake.[1] Since the late 1990s, three main circumscriptions of Mandragora officinarum have been used and all three will be found in current sources.
Identifying the spring-flowering mandrake as Linnaeus's M. officinarum, works such as Flora Europaea list two Mediterranean species of Mandragora : M. officinarum and M. autumnalis. On this view, the main Mediterranean species is M. autumnalis rather than M. officinarum, which is a rare species, confined to northern Italy and a small region of the coast of former Yugoslavia. [4] [5]
, works such as list two Mediterranean species of : and. On this view, the main Mediterranean species is rather than, which is a rare species, confined to northern Italy and a small region of the coast of former Yugoslavia. Using statistical analysis of morphological characters, Ungricht et al. in 1998 found no distinct clusters among the specimens they examined and concluded that Linnaeus's M. officinarum is a single, variable species. They thus include M. autumnalis in M. officinarum, which on this view is the only Mediterranean mandrake. [1]
is a single, variable species. They thus include in, which on this view is the only Mediterranean mandrake. M. autumnalis was again separated from M. officinarum by Tu et al. in 2010 in a molecular phylogenetic study. They regard M. officinarum as the main species in the Mediterranean, but separate out plants native to the Levant as M. autumnalis, which was then shown to be more closely related to Mandragora turcomanica than to their circumscription of M. officinarum.[6]
Distribution and habitat [ edit ]
In the circumscription in which Mandragora officinarum is the only Mediterranean species, it is native to countries around the Mediterranean sea: Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in north Africa; southern Spain, southern Portugal, Italy included Sardinia and Sicily, (Niccolò Machiavelli wrote a novel about it), former Yugoslavia, Greece and Cyprus in southern Europe; southern Turkey; Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan in the Levant. It is usually found in open habitats, such as light woodland and disturbed sites, including olive groves, fallow land, waysides, railway embankments and ruins, from sea level to 1,200 m (3,900 ft).[1]
When Mandragora autumnalis is regarded as the main Mediterranean species, M. officinarum is native only to north Italy and part of the coast of former Yugoslavia.[4] Alternatively, M. officinarum is absent from the Levant, where it is replaced by M. autumnalis.[6]
Toxicity [ edit ]
All species of Mandragora contain highly biologically active alkaloids, tropane alkaloids in particular. Hanuš et al. reviewed the phytochemistry of Mandragora species. More than 80 substances have been identified; their paper gives the detailed chemical structure of 37 of them.[11] Jackson and Berry were unable to find any differences in alkaloid composition between Mandragora officinarum (using the narrowest circumscription of this species) and Mandragora autumnalis (viewed as the main Mediterranean species). Alkaloids present in the fresh plant or the dried root included atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine (hyoscine), scopine, cuscohygrine, apoatropine, 3-alpha-tigloyloxytropane, 3-alpha,6-beta-ditigloyloxytropane and belladonnines. Non-alkaloid constituents included sitosterol and beta-methylesculetin (scopoletin).[5][11]
The alkaloids make the plant, in particular the root and leaves, poisonous, via anticholinergic, hallucinogenic, and hypnotic effects. Anticholinergic properties can lead to asphyxiation. Ingesting mandrake root is likely to have other adverse effects such as vomiting and diarrhea. The alkaloid concentration varies between plant samples, and accidental poisoning is likely to occur. Clinical reports of the effects of consumption of Mandragora officinarum (as Mandragora autumnalis) include severe symptoms similar to those of atropine poisoning, including blurred vision, dilation of the pupils (mydriasis), dryness of the mouth, difficulty in urinating, dizziness, headache, vomiting, blushing and a rapid heart rate (tachycardia). Hyperactivity and hallucinations also occurred in the majority of patients.[12][13]
Folklore [ edit ]
The so-called "female" and "male" mandrakes, from a 1583 illustration
Mandrake has a long history of medicinal use, although superstition has played a large part in the uses to which it has been applied. It is rarely prescribed in modern herbalism.[citation needed]
The root is hallucinogenic and narcotic. In sufficient quantities, it induces a state of unconsciousness and was used as an anaesthetic for surgery in ancient times.[14] In the past, juice from the finely grated root was applied externally to relieve rheumatic pains.[14] It was also used internally to treat melancholy, convulsions, and mania.[14] When taken internally in large doses, however, it is said to excite delirium and madness.[14]
In the past, mandrake was often made into amulets which were believed to bring good fortune, cure sterility, etc. In one superstition, people who pull up this root will be condemned to hell, and the mandrake root would scream as it was pulled from the ground, killing anyone who heard it.[3] Therefore, in the past, people have tied the roots to the bodies of animals and then used these animals to pull the roots from the soil.[3]
References [ edit ]Posted by jesse shayne on July 20, 2017 at 3:39 PM
Independent voters have second-class status in American democracy
This article was written by Open Primaries President John Opdycke for The Hill
"Morning Joe" is in mourning. The deceased is the Republican Party of balanced budgets and international restraint.
MSNBC host and former Congressman Joe Scarborough announced last week that he was leaving the Republican Party. In an impassioned piece for The Washington Post, Scarborough cited Donald Trump’s actions and Republican Party leadership’s silence as the basis of his decision:
“The wreckage visited of this man will break the Republican Party into pieces — and lead to the election of independent thinkers no longer tethered to the tired dogmas of the polarized past. When that day mercifully arrives, the two-party duopoly that has strangled American politics for almost two centuries will finally come to an end. And Washington just may begin to work again.”
Welcome to the (anti-) party, Scarborough! You are joining the roughly 45 percent of Americans who are abandoning the Democratic and Republican Parties or never joined them in the first place. Not only are our ranks growing, but political scientists and pollsters are finally acknowledging that independents are not apathetic fence-sitters but engaged Americans concerned about how the parties and partisanship are ruining our country.
But if I’ve learned anything about American politics in my 20 years as an independent activist and advocate for electoral reform, it’s that nothing automatically leads to anything. There are no straight lines in politics. Change is not inevitable. The parties work hard to muffle the impact of this exodus towards independence. Independent voters might comprise 45 percent of the country, but the parties still make the rules. And here’s rule No. 1: Independent voters must accept that they are second-class citizens in our democracy.
Independent voters in many states cannot register to vote as independents — they must choose from derogatory voter registration language like “unenrolled” or “decline to state.” Independent voters are not allowed to serve as poll workers in states like New York — it’s a job only Democrats and Republicans can apply for. Independent candidates are locked out of participating in the presidential debates and have to gather many more signatures than party candidates to have their names appear on the ballot.
Independents in dozens of states pay taxes for primary elections that they are barred from. The two forms of gerrymandering that dominate our country — partisan gerrymandering and bi-partisan gerrymandering — share a common commitment to protecting the parties at the expense of the voters, especially independents. The Federal Election Commission is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans — which guarantees deadlock — instead of two Democrats, two Republicans, and two independents, which the current statute allows for and would produce functional oversight of the electoral process. Local and state boards of elections are run by Democratic and Republican appointees.
We do need to elect independent thinkers no longer tethered to tired dogmas, as Scarborough suggests. That is true. And we need to free independent voters from the iron maiden of partisan election laws and practices that keep them from fully participating.
Implementing open primaries is where I start. It’s simple and popular. Let all voters vote in all elections. Don’t make party membership a condition for participation. Don’t let the parties — private, non-government organizations — decide who can and cannot vote in publicly funded elections. If we can break down this barrier, the American people will be better positioned to take on the dozens of other ways the parties hold on to old dogmas and insulate themselves from independent voices, from change and from progress.
My hope is that Scarborough takes his independence seriously and uses his location in the media to publicize the growing chorus of voices calling for the full enfranchisement of independent voters. While just five years ago the conversation about reform was limited to money in politics, there is a surge of new leaders and organizations who recognize that the party control of the process itself must be disrupted. There are hundreds of articulate, passionate, committed and accomplished independent leaders and reformers working around the clock to reform our political system. The country needs more opportunities to hear from them!
Don’t mourn Joe. Join the fight to unleash the power of independents.
John Opdycke is president of Open Primaries, a national election-reform group.From guild fights to group PvE to solo open world roaming, you might find yourself in an array of different situations in Albion Online. Bludlust’s goal was to find a single build that allowed him to participate in all of them.
April 11, 2017 at 5:30 PM by UrzakeFrostgard
In this week’s Albion Armory we take a closer look at a real all-rounder build. Bludlust, member of Red Army and the creator of the build, wants to share his experiences with all of the Albion Online community. Enjoy!
Creation of the Cursed All-Rounder
“I joined the world of Albion Online in the first Beta Test,” Bludlust begins about the creation of his build. “Quickly, I realized that I was pushing myself harder than most other players in the game. I don’t mind that but it ultimately leads to a lot of solo playtime. As I didn’t want to play multiple builds I decided to create my own build. A build that I could enjoy in any situation be it solo roaming, small scale PvP and GvG or large open world fights. Over the time I have perfected it and added minor adjustments depending on the situation to be even more effective while the core playstyle always stays the same!”
Build Overview
Bludlust’s Cursed All-Rounder is a true jack-of-all-trades. While the basic build allows you to be effective for your team in almost any situation in Albion, a few minor adjustments greatly increase its potential for certain situations.
The combination of raw damage, survivability, and utility make this build a solid cornerstone for solo players that don’t want to farm multiple sets of gear and an excellent choice for new players that haven’t found their true purpose yet.
Equipment: Weapons
Mainhand: Cursed Staff
Vile Curse
Places Vile Curse on the target, dealing damage to the target over time. Stacks up to four times.
Armor Piercer
A demonic beam shouts out in a straight line. All enemies hit take damage and have their Armor and Magic Resist reduced for a few seconds.
Death Curse
Places a death curse on the target that will deal delayed damage to the target depending on the number of charges of Vile Curse on the target.
Passive: Energetic
Every normal attack, you restore energy.
The kit of abilities the Cursed Staff offers is exceptional. Depending on the task at hand you go with Vile Curse for single target DPS, for example in solo farming or in small scale skirmishes. Whenever you need to hit multiple opponents at once you switch to the Curse Sickle spell.
Armor Piercer is your first choice for GvGs and most PvE situations. The potent AoE Armor/Magic Resist debuff increases the damage from any other source. Desecrate on the other hand is your bread and butter for any successful gank in the open world.
The Death Curse is your most powerful nuke spell that perfectly complements the kit of sustainable damage.
The passive spell Energetic will keep your energy pool up but for open world fights. Hit & Run (Tier 6+) is also a viable alternative to increase your overall mobility.
Variant: Whenever you feel the need for more AoE damage you can switch Cursed Staff for the Lifecurse Staff. The playstyle is very similar as only Death Curse is replaced by Enfeeble Blades, but the damage from this skill combined with its AoE damage debuff helps a lot against big groups of enemies. Keep in mind, you can cast Enfeeble Blades on your team members as well!
Offhand: Eye of Secrets
The Eye of Secrets, in combination with Energetic on your Cursed Staff, solves all of your energy problems. You won’t have to worry too much about your energy pool and you are able to focus on the battle rather than your energy management.
Variant: In case you’re supposed to be the tank in your group you can swap Eye of Secrets for a Sarcophagus Shield to get your hands on that extra damage mitigation.
Equipment: Armor
Helmet: Cleric Cowl
Ice Block
Channeled ability, which instantly makes you immobile and invulnerable to damage for the duration.
Passive: Aggression
Increases your damage and heal power.
As you don’t have to worry about energy problems, your helmet slot can be used to increase your overall survivability. Ice Block is one of the strongest defensive abilities the game has to offer and can often be used to render even the strongest attacks of your enemies useless.
Chest: Mercenary Jacket (Tier 5+)
Bloodlust
Every time you damage an enemy you heal yourself for a certain amount of life. Lasts for the lower of 10 seconds or 15 hits.
Passive: Quick Thinker
All cooldown times are reduced.
The Cursed Staff allows you to throw out a huge amount of attacks per second. This chimes together perfectly with Bloodlust from the Mercenary Jacket as you can easily get in 15 attacks to get the most healing out of it. The passive Quick Thinker is picked to increase your total damage output even further.
Variant: In large scale open world battles, you can swap to a Mage Robe to increase your raw damage potential from the backline.
Boots: Knight Boots
Run
Increases your move speed by 60% for 10 seconds. Isn’t interrupted if you receive damage.
Passive: Toughness
Decreases the damage your receive.
Run is your first choice in all PvP situations as it offers you a consistent amount of mobility. In group PvE, Run can be switched for Shield Charge to add an extra support skill for your party.
Consumables: Food and Potions
Omelette
Improves your casting speed and cooldown reduction.
Major Healing Potion
Regenerates a percentage of your total health over time.
As you have already plenty enough sources to sustain your energy pool, you can use the Healing Potion to keep yourself alive. The Omelette’s cooldown reduction and improvement of cast speed helps you increase your damage and survivability.
Tips, Tricks, and Combos
Keep in mind: despite your damage coming from a staff, you are not a pure damage dealer, nor are you a squishy that should stay in the backline. The survivability of your Ice Block and the sustain as well as the damage reduction from your Mercenary Jacket makes you more of a bruiser, and your playstyle should reflect this. Do not be afraid to engage your enemies directly. The damage you will absorb will make you an even more effective weapon in a team fight.
Using Cursed Sickle for the first time might be confusing, but once you understand how the skill shot moves you will able to make crazy plays with it, as it greatly extends the effective area you are able to cover.
Your Death Curse deals damage based of the number of Vile Curses on your target, but the damage is delayed. This means you only need a single stack of Vile Curse on your target before you cast your Death Curse, as you will have enough time to maximize your Vile Curse stacks.
Pro Tip: Both Vile Curse and Death Curse can be applied while your target is using Ice Block. Consider the time they are in Ice Block as a risk-free moment to apply even more DoT (Damage over Time).
Always weave an auto-attack in between your Vile Curses to keep your energy high and to deal extra damage. The best way to do this is by spamming your attack hotkey (spacebar by default).
In a GvG, the pure pressure of your sustained damage is enough to keep the enemy’s healer busy. The only option for your enemies is to send a least one teammate to their aid. While you take on both, the rest of your team has a numbers advantage in the rest of the battle. Thanks to the huge range of Armor Piercer you can make their fight even easier by reducing their opponents’ defenses.
What do you think about this jack-of-all-trades build? Do you like the huge amount possibilities it offers or do you prefer more specialized builds? Let us know in the comments below or on our forums!
Want your build to be featured on the Albion Online website? Contact UrzakeFrostgard via the forums or on Discord (UrzaKeFrostgard#5431).If you enjoy my fanart please give my original comic/manga
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I playedback in Vanilla avidly in PvP (Marshal, Warsong Gulch!) but haven't touched the game since. Recently though I've been really getting into and even though I love the game I don't like that it's just a mash-up of their existing IPs, so instead I wanted to pay respects to the source material!Now because I only play HotS I had a limited pool of characters to choose from to put in the piece, especially on the Horde side. Originally Kael'thas and ETC were in there but with one never actually being associated with the Horde whatsoever and the other not being an actual character, but based off of a band... I decided to omit both.I did make changes off of existing Warcraft lore too though! I took what I liked most from current Thrall and mixed it with his older look that I enjoyed, I also gave Jaina her current look in WoW which I really wish they made a skin in HotS.The Human Rights Commissioner has waded into the controversy over X Factor judge Natalia Kills' shock tirade.
Kills, along with her husband and fellow X Factor judge Willy Moon, have been axed from the show.
It comes after Kills was blasted by an All Black, a news presenter, a former X Factor contestant and multiple radio hosts for her treatment of Joe Irvine during X Factor's first live show last night.
On the show Kills told Irvine: "I am disgusted at how much you have copied my husband. From the hair to the suit, do you not have any value or respect for originality?
Human Rights Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy says bullying is never acceptable even on reality TV.
"Whether we're at work, at school or on stage at an X Factor talent show: bullying isn't acceptable," says Dame Susan.
"I'm glad to see Mediaworks decided to not be a bystander and to publicly condemn bullying abuse."
Kills was blasted by an All Black, a news presenter, a former X Factor contestant and multiple radio hosts for her treatment of Irvine during X Factor's first live show last night.
On the show Kills told Irvine: "I am disgusted at how much you have copied my husband. From the hair to the suit, do you not have any value or respect for originality?
"It's disgusting, you make me sick, it's absolutely disgusting, you have no identity, I can't stand it, I'm ashamed to be here," she ranted while sitting next to fellow judge and husband Willy Moon.
MediaWorks chief executive Mark Weldon says the comments were "completely unacceptable".
"While the judges on X Factor are expected to provide critiques of performances, we will not tolerate such destructive tirades from any of the judges.
"We no longer have confidence that Kills and Moon are the right people to perform the role of The X Factor judges, and they will leave the show, effective immediately."
The X Factor NZ Executive Producer, Andrew Szusterman, says tonight's show will be judged by Stan Walker and Mel Blatt, and two new judges will be announced before next week's show.
Today, Kills faced a social media backlash for her controversial comments, with global media asking if she is "the nastiest X Factor judge ever?"
A Facebook page calling for the sacking of an X Factor judge has grossed more than 44,000 likes and counting following the vicious tirade at a contestant last night.
Earlier All Black Israel Dagg weighed in.
Those comments were inappropriate and disgraceful.. #xfactornz — Israel Akuhata Dagg (@izzy_dagg) March 15, 2015
As did TV 3 news presenter Hilary Barry.
Shame on you Natalia. Shame on you. #xfactornz — Hilary Barry (@Hilary_Barry) March 15, 2015
">// // // // // // //
Today, Irvine has taken the comments in his stride, quoting lyrics from the song 'Magic'.
In the words of Lili last night why you gotta be so rude don't you know I'm human too pic.twitter.com/a5e9iat6qW — joe irvine (@jooe63_joe) March 15, 2015
Kills took to Twitter to thank her followers for their support following the backlash.
I love you guys, thanks for your support & understanding my passionate opinions! You know what they say about me... https://t.co/DNBksvmYWM — NATALIA KILLS (@NataliaKills) March 15, 20151 Charles Dickens loved decorating his home
Dickens cared a great deal about how his home looked. Here at the Charles Dickens Museum we hold letters in our archive detailing requests to the landlord for painting and cleaning at 48 Doughty Street (a Georgian townhouse in Bloomsbury that Catherine and Charles Dickens called home from 1837–39).
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Dickens made various changes to the property, particularly the drawing room. He removed the unfashionable dado rail [a decorative waist-high moulding round the wall of a room], hung wallpaper, and installed a fitted carpet and a veined marble hearth stone. Decorative items in our collection such as ostentatious gilt candlesticks illustrate Dickens’ preferred style.
At Doughty Street and in subsequent homes, Catherine participated in decision-making about decorating, but she still had to contend with Dickens’ strong opinions on the matter. While travelling in northern Italy in 1844, Dickens wrote home to Catherine, urging her not to rearrange furniture in his absence: “Keep things in their places. I can’t bear to picture them otherwise.”
2 Charles Dickens worked from home
For the first half of his career Dickens worked from a study inside his family home, which would have been alive with the noise and bustle of young children, servants and visiting family members. At 48 Doughty Street, Dickens’ study was situated on the first floor, with a door leading into the drawing room. By the time he and Catherine left in 1839 they had three children under the age of three (Charley, Mamie and Katey), and employed four servants.
Dickens tended to keep to a strict routine of working in the morning without disturbance. There were, of course, exceptions to the rules: one day at Doughty Street, hearing the hilarity in the drawing room, Dickens left his study and joined his family, bringing with him his portable writing desk, ink pot, quill and paper. There he went on writing Oliver Twist, telling the family not to worry about him but rather to go on with their play.
3 Charles Dickens’s house had plumbing and draining issues
Just like any other Londoner, Dickens experienced problems with draining and water supply into his homes. Upon leaving the property at Doughty Street in 1839 he complained to the landlord that “the drains… have been a serious annoyance to us, and although we have had the plumbers in the house half a dozen times, we have not been able to make them last our time without often receiving strong notice of their being in the neighbourhood”.
One article in Dickens’ weekly journal, Household Words, concerns a trip he and a friend made to assess a water pumping station off the river Thames. Dickens’ interest in water supply for Londoners hit close to home: letters written during his time at Tavistock House (his London home from 1851–60) include a complaint about intermittent water supply to the house from the New River Company.
4 Although Charles Dickens loved music, he had no talent for it
Both Charles and Catherine came from musically talented families, so it is little surprise that they kept a piano in their home. Letters recall how Dickens and his friend John Hullah composed pieces for the operetta The Village Coquettes on Dickens’ piano in Furnivals Inn in around 1836, and a cottage piano is listed in the inventory of another home in 1843.
Though the Charles Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street does not possess a Dickens instrument, we have installed a late 18th-century Longman & Broderip piano – the kind a middle-class couple like Charles and Catherine would have owned. It is positioned in the drawing room, and each Christmas it is used for concerts to entertain our guests.
But although Dickens had a passion for music, he was not necessarily a great pianist. In a letter to the Daily News in around 1871, Dickens’ old school chum John W Bowden recalled that Dickens had tried to learn music, but that one day their music master had given up teaching him the piano, declaring: “He had no aptitude for music, and it was robbing his parents to continue giving him lessons.”
5 Charles Dickens loved mirrors
Dickens is known to have loved mirrors. Several still hang in the drawing room of his final home at Gad’s Hill Place in Kent (where Dickens lived from 1856 until his death in 1870), and photographs of Dickens’ Swiss chalet summer house, where he spent much of the warmer months writing, show mirrors situated around his desk.
As well as being a decorative feature that brought more light into rooms, Dickens used mirrors in the process of writing his novels. His eldest daughter, Mamie Dickens, remembers a day she was ill and her father permitted her to lie on the sofa in his study while he worked. She recalls: “He suddenly jumped from his chair and rushed to a mirror which hung near, and in which I could see the reflection of some extraordinary facial contortions which he was making… for the time being he had not only lost sight of his surroundings, but had actually become in action, as in imagination, the creature of his pen.”
6 Dickens immortalised some of his pets through taxidermy
The Dickens family had many pets, ranging from a canary called Dick to a series of dogs including Mrs Bouncer the pomeranian and a large mastiff called Turk. One of the more famous pets was Grip the raven, who died unexpectedly after consuming paint. Dickens had Grip stuffed, and the creature now resides in the Philadelphia Free Library. Grip is believed to have been the inspiration behind the raven in Barnaby Rudge (1841).
Grip was followed by another raven, ‘Grip the second’, and when painting a portrait of the Dickens children in 1841 (pictured below), Daniel Maclise includes Grip sitting behind the siblings. This portrait is today on display at the Charles Dickens Museum.
A pet kitten named Bob, who was known for his devotion to the writer, was also memorialised through taxidermy like the original Grip. When Bob died, Dickens made his paw into a letter opener. This is now on display in the New York Public Library.
7 Charles Dickens was a bit of a party animal
Dickens was in his element when hosting, and Christmas presented the perfect opportunity to invite friends and family to his home for meals and parties. Catherine and Charles’s eldest son, Charley, was born on Twelfth Night (the last day in the Christmas season), and the couple celebrated with a joint birthday/Twelfth Night party, which grew over the years to include dancing, magical performances and even amateur theatricals.
At one such party in the 1850s, Dickens staged Fielding’s Tom Thumb, casting his children in various roles and himself as the ghost. English novelist William Thackeray was among the audience, and is reported to have fallen off his chair with laughter at the performance.
Over the festive period at the Charles Dickens Museum in London, visitors can enjoy candlelit tours, evening performances of A Christmas Carol, and a new exhibition titled ‘A Christmas Carol Reimagined’. To find out more, visit www.dickensmuseum.com
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This article was first published on History Extra in December 2015Photos: David Bowie's ever-changing look David Bowie, whose incomparable sound and chameleon-like ability to reinvent himself made him a pop music fixture, died on January 10, 2016, after an 18-month battle with cancer. He was 69. Australian street artist James Cochran, also known as Jimmy C, created this mural depicting Bowie in 2013. It's inspired by Bowie's 1973 album, "Aladdin Sane." Hide Caption 1 of 20
Photos: David Bowie's ever |
more documents, but our observation is that anything written is unlikely to move the situation forwards. LGCM and Changing Attitude, who are shortly to merge, will now begin a series of campaigns to change this situation. We will use the levers of power available to us and will oppose and challenge your stance where it is intransigent at every opportunity. Those of us who are members of the Church of England will remain in communion with you and will insist on making our protests and acting in ways that seek to hold the Church of England together. We will work to help it move to a more diverse and inclusive future, bringing the message of Christ alive in the present day. Like you, we are deeply concerned with the decline of the Church of England not simply numerically, but in the estimation of the English people. Our concern is, therefore, missionary as well as pastoral and political.
Your actions and inactions will not commend your church to ordinary people. We will work to make the Church of England a body of which all Christians can be proud again. We are glad that your proposal for a new report to replace Issues will engage and include LGBTI+ Anglicans in the writing of it, and we remain ready to participate in that. In other initiatives where you allow us we will work with you, but our clear focus is on the changes that need to come.
Yours in the fellowship of Christ,
Tracey Byrne, Chief Executive Officer
Jeremy Pemberton, Chair of the Board
The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement
AdvertisementsTEL AVIV (JTA) — The leader of Israel’s main Republican group called Sarah Silverman a “self-hating Jew” and said she “needs a muzzle.”
Marc Zell made the comments Saturday night on behalf of the Republicans Overseas Israel Facebook page, which he manages as the group’s co-chairman. The post links to a blog post about a decade-old video clip of the Jewish comedian performing her stand-up show “Jesus Is Magic.”
The February 2 blog post by conservative documentary filmmaker Pat Dollard is titled “Jew Sarah Silverman: “I Hope The Jews Did Kill Christ. I’d Fucking Do It Again in a Second,” and features Silverman delivering a version of that line.
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Zell, an attorney who lives in the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, said Silverman’s comments “damage” the Jewish community and insult Christians. He said it falls within the mission of Republicans Overseas Israel to “call down” public figures like Silverman.
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1300626430024581&id=227737297313505
“Republicans Overseas Israel exists in order to not only represent the Republican Party here in Israel but also to represent the Jewish community in Israel to the Republican Party and the millions of Americans who support the Republican Party and our president,” he told JTA Sunday. “I think it’s appropriate to say something about a public figure as widely known as this woman, who during the campaign also had some ‘precious’ views to express about our candidate and our president. People like her need to be called down when they step over the line.”
Silverman — who supported Senator Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., and then Hillary Clinton, for president during the 2016 election campaign — has been an outspoken critic of US President Donald Trump. Last March, during the Republican primaries, she appeared on TBS’ “Conan” dressed as Adolf Hitler and complained of her character being “unfavorably” compared to Trump.
Republicans Overseas Israel held a get-out-of the-vote campaign in Israel for Trump during the general election, and Trump and Vice President Mike Pence recorded video messages for an event the group held in Jerusalem in October. Zell claimed a record number of Americans in Israel cast absentee ballots, though that was widely disputed.
One of Trump’s most prominent boosters in Israel during the campaign, Zell continues to combatively advocate for and defend the president, along with Israel and the settlements.
On the Republicans Overseas Israel Facebook page Thursday, he also deemed the Israeli-American teenager from Ashkelon who was arrested last week on suspicion of calling in more than 100 bomb threats to Jewish Community Centers across the United States “The Ultimate Self-Hating Jew.”
The Ultimate Self-Hating Jew, a19-yr old Israeli-American, was behind the JCC bomb threats. The US Jewish leadership owes @POTUS an apology Posted by Republicans Overseas Israel on Thursday, 23 March 2017
Four women had commented on Zell’s Facebook post about Silverman Sunday, all agreeing with its sentiment. One invited Silverman to visit the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip, saying, “Your friends are there, you’ll feel really comfortable and soon the rainy season is over so you won’t drown in your bed.” Others called her a “trash box” and a “pig.”
Zell responded in a comment Sunday: “Better not to even pass her stuff around. I’m hitting delete.” But the post remained up.Sigi Schmid has been in the business of soccer long enough to know the golden rule when it comes to young American players.
It’s a numbers game he learned a long time ago, while coaching at UCLA. During the 1980s and 1990s he built the Bruins into one of the premier college soccer programs in the country, and in decades spent recruiting and developing the nation’s most talented players he learned landing five top-level recruits on campus each fall wasn’t always something to celebrate.
The numbers told the story, time in and time out. Three of those players might turn out right. Maybe four, if things went his way.
But five? Never.
“Getting three is pretty damn good,” Schmid says with a laugh. “But you’re not going to hit on every one.”
The result of decades spent hedging his bets? Schmid remembers the really good ones, before they were big. He remembers seeing nine-year-old Robbie Rogers, who played up two years just to make it competitive. He remembers the skill of Sacha Kljestan at 11 years old, or the presence of Maurice Edu at 10. As the head coach of the Columbus Crew years after UCLA, Schmid caught a glimpse of Wil Trapp at 13 years old and knew instantly he had the makings of a professional player.
And he recalls very clearly the first time he saw 17-year-old DeAndre Yedlin. It was in Southern California in October 2011, when Yedlin was a senior in high school and a member of the Sounders academy, playing against the team’s counterparts from Chivas USA. He played hard, his speed was electric and his athleticism was a gift. He was dynamic and rare, and unsmissable.
Of course there are more memories now – Yedlin’s days at Akron, his Seattle debut in 2013 and his stunning turn at the World Cup this summer – but none were earned without a mix of luck and hard work on both sides.
Yedlin’s isn’t the definitive path to success for all young players, and any of those who helped him along the way know that. Each player must find his own luck and try to forge his own fate, knowing full well there’s no one way to become unforgettable.
“Sometimes things happen, and you don’t ask why,” Schmid says. “You go with it.”
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To try and pick the best player on a team of 11-year-old boys seems an easy task. Most of the criteria come down to physicality and which boy has hit a growth spurt first, making him bigger and faster than the others in the group.
Are some technically gifted? Perhaps. Do they have a read on the game? Not quite. The ones who excel are those gifted with speed or size, able to impact the match from a number of positions before the subtleties of the sport become more important later in their development.
Yedlin had speed, that was clear immediately. He was a threat not just in youth soccer but also in basketball and football, where he overcame his relative lack of height – he’s plateaued as a pro at 5-foot-8 – with quickness that made him invaluable. On the soccer field it made him the standout of most of his youth teams in Seattle, and, at 11 years old, he was good enough to play up a year at a select summer tournament that helped shape his professional future.
“I have no clue what position he was supposed to be playing, but he was all over the field,” says Sean Henderson, who was coaching with the Crossfire Premier Soccer Club in Seattle in the summer of 2004. “It didn’t take a soccer brain to realize right away that he was a good player.”
Youth coaches are smart enough not to waste talent like Yedlin’s, regardless of the sport. The most talented kid on the team plays shortstop, quarterback, or, in Yedlin’s case, central midfielder, where he could make the biggest impact with his athleticism and speed and, against lesser opponents, decide the game.
DeAndre Yedlin was a standout youth soccer player in Seattle by the time he was 11 years old, when he first caught the eye of future Sounders academy coach Sean Henderson. He signed with the Sounders academy at 17. (USA Today Sports)
Yedlin won a state championship with the Northwest Nationals club team the next year, but he was on the move shortly thereafter. His grandparents -- Ira Yedlin and Vicki Walton, who raised him since he was 19 months old -- quietly called Henderson and inquired about a potential switch to Crossfire, one of the Seattle area’s most respected and visible youth organizations.
Henderson’s reputation preceded him in youth soccer circles. He’d had his own success as a player – an All-American and national champion under Schmid at UCLA and then a pro in Germany and MLS – and it was no secret he was the brother of Chris Henderson, a US World Cup veteran and an MLS regular since the league's inception since 1996.
With years of experience breaking down opposing players and then a second career spent building young area players from the ground up, Sean Henderson knew Yedlin had something. He was the best player on an otherwise average team the year before, raw and completely relentless.
“He was really brave in tackles, sometimes to the point you were concerned about risking a red card,” says Chris Henderson, who saw Yedlin not long after the switch to Crossfire. “But he loved to play, and you could see it in training. He was going full out, up and down the flanks. He’s controlled his emotions and his energy as he’s gotten older, but those instincts are still there.”
All that matters only so much to Schmid, who says there’s even more criteria for judging players at such a young age. He looks not only at the player’s instincts – is he making the right decision when to push forward, or when to take on a defender one-on-one – but also his engagement on the field. A player lagging behind the ball or more interested in his girlfriend or parents on the sideline, Schmid says, is worth noting.
“Even at that age, you want kids who are engaged,” Schmid says. “If a guy loses the ball, the first thing he should be thinking is, ‘how do I get it back?’ That’s not always easy to find.”
By all accounts, Yedlin fit the bill. After a successful spell with Crossfire he joined Sean Henderson by making the move to the Sounders academy in 2010. He was a junior in high school, four years away from the World Cup.
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Sometime during that year a debate began about the best way Yedlin could actually forge a professional career. It was clear to those in his circle – most notably the Henderson brothers, who were now both on board with the Sounders – that despite Yedlin’s abilities, his future as an attacking midfielder was murky.
The competition for playing time is inherently stiff in central midfield and it was clear that for all his attributes, Yedlin wouldn’t be a traditional playmaker at the professional level. He needed a spot on the field that could highlight his speed, stamina and athleticism and make him indispensable to an MLS roster.
“At the highest level, we knew he had to play right back,” says Sean Henderson. “It was pretty simple. For a young player, that’s the quickest way to get in.”
Yedlin was used primarily as an attacking midfielder until his senior year in high school, when his coaches hatched the idea to turn him into a right back. Says Sounders Academy coach Sean Henderson: “It was pretty simple. For a young player, that’s the quickest way to get in.” (USA Today Sports)
Luckily for Yedlin, there was plenty of precedent. Brazilian legend Cafu was the best of the breed going back to the 1990s, and France won a World Cup in 1998 with Bixente Lizarazu in a revelatory role at left back.
Brazilian left back Roberto Carlos also emerged as a world-class defender with speed for Real Madrid years before Yedlin made the switch, and Barcelona outside backs Dani Alves and Eric Abidal were critical to the team’s run of success between 2008-12 under head coach Pep Guardiola.
Teams set on controlling the tempo of the game with possession in the midfield needed numbers centrally, meaning traditional wingers pinched inside. The space they left behind was to be filled by overlapping defenders not only with speed to get forward and recover but also the ability to provide an accurate cross.
If Yedlin could use his speed to stretch the field and fill in those gaps, he could become something of a rarity in MLS, and perhaps one day find a role with the United States national team.
By then he’d also caught the eye of Akron head coach Caleb Porter, who had served as an assistant with the US Under-18 team when Yedlin was called in as a junior in high school. The Zips won a national title in 2010 using an aggressive and effective right back in Kofi Sarkodie, but there was a hole in the lineup after Sarkodie departed for MLS, drafted by the Houston Dynamo in 2011.
Yedlin made the switch to right back during his senior year at O’Dea High School in Seattle and thrived immediately. But even as a promising member of the Sounders academy there was little debate about the club offering him a Homegrown contract with the senior team, largely because there was still plenty of work to do.
“Because of his speed when he was younger, he had a tendency to just go,” Sean Henderson says. “The tactical side of the game was missing – when to run, how far to run. When he started playing games at the higher levels it began sorting itself out, but he was still learning the right time to go forward.”
A group of top-level Sounders personnel including part owner Adrian Hanauer, Sounders academy head coach Dick McCormick, Schmid and the Henderson brothers gathered to discuss Yedlin’s options, and it was clear college was the next step. As a former college coach, Schmid advocated for the decision to have Yedlin play at least a year at school before the club would reassess his development, and Yedlin had an offer from Porter and Akron on the table.
There was also great concern among the Sounders that signing Yedlin too soon could potentially harm his development and ruin the club’s first shot at naming a Homegrown player. The club was all-too-familiar with local hero Nik Besagno – the King County teenager who was drafted first overall in the 2005 MLS SuperDraft and ended up out of MLS by 2008 – and by 2010 there were already cautionary tales of young players called up too quickly under the MLS Homegrown initiative. Those moves had cost some players their college eligibility, and tarnished the reputations of some academy programs.
The Sounders played it safe, and Yedlin went to Akron. Sounders assistant Kurt Schmid watched him play a number of times his freshman year and Yedlin returned to Seattle the summer after his freshman year a more confident player. The faults that hurt him during his younger years – a sometimes clumsy first touch and errant crossing – had improved, and he was beginning to truly grasp when to best use his speed in attack so that his team wouldn’t get caught on the counterattack.
Yedlin returned to Akron his sophomore year and excelled again for the Zips, leaving no doubt about his professional future. The Sounders made him the franchise’s first-ever Homegrown player in January 2013 and unveiled him at the MLS SuperDraft in Indianapolis four days later.
“Expect some speed,” he told the Sounders’ website. “And lots of attack.”
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The rest of Yedlin’s rocket ride is well documented. He won a starting spot for the Sounders during his rookie season in 2013 and, at the suggestion of the Sounders staff, earned a spot on the US team at the Under-20 World Cup last summer.
Less than a year later he earned his first cap with the US senior team, and he was selected to Jurgen Klinsmann’s 23-man roster ahead of the World Cup in May.
He appeared in three games at the World Cup in Brazil and was sold to English Premier League side Tottenham less than a month later. At this time next year, he’ll be in Europe.
But there is still plenty of room to grow for Yedlin, despite all the steps he’s taken to get here. It’s easy to salivate over his speed and tenacity, but there are moments when it’s easily apparent he’s still just 21 years old, far from a finished product in MLS, let alone in the EPL.
Look no further than the recent highlight that drew him national attention during last week’s US Open Cup final in Philadelphia. The play is remembered for his ability to somehow chase down a Union player on a breakaway from beyond midfield, but it’s Yedlin’s brutal first touch that sets off the play in the first place.
Or take the Sounders’ 4-4 draw against the Portland Timbers back in April, when former Akron star and Timbers midfielder Darlington Nagbe carved Yedlin up on the right side most of the afternoon. The Sounders only salvaged the draw after Yedlin cleared a Timbers scoring chance off the goal line and then drew a penalty kick in the waning minutes because he overlapped on the right side and burst past the Timbers defense.
“He’s not perfect,” Sean Henderson says. “But he’s done a great job at making all these jumps and proving himself. That’s where he has separated himself. That mentality: to improve his game, and to prove his game.”
Both Schmid and Chris Henderson know that Yedlin’s rise to success is not the perfect model for every player, and there’s no direct line from the Seattle suburbs to White Hart Lane. They each attribute Yedlin’s success a mixed bag of factors, not wholly the result of what the Sounders or Yedlin did right in his development.
Yedlin appeared in three World Cup games with the United States this summer in Brazil, becoming the first MLS Homegrown player to appear in the World Cup. Says Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid: “It’s not about the pressure of finding another DeAndre. Sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn’t." (USA Today Sports)
The move to right back meant less competition. A nagging hamstring injury to Sounders defender Adam Johansson in 2012 made him expendable ahead of Yedlin’s rookie season. And what if US starting right back Fabian Johnson hadn’t gotten injured during the Americans’ match against Belgium in the Round of 16, forcing Yedlin off the bench? Would Tottenham still be interested?
“It wasn’t that I thought he would struggle when he got his opportunity,” Schmid says. “I just didn’t think it would happen this soon.”
And so they will. The Sounders signed two more Homegrown players in January – midfielder Aaron Kovar and forward Sean Okoli – and they have one of the country’s premier young talents in Jordan Morris, the Stanford University standout who earlier this month earned a call from Jurgen Klinsmann for the United States’ international friendly against the Czech Republic.
There are also the rewards of the Yedlin deal – a reported $4.5 million transfer fee, of which the Sounders receive 75 percent – that the club can throw back into their academy system. And there’s a new motto quietly circulating around the Sounders academy staff, a call to action for both coaches and players: Who’s going to be the next DeAndre Yedlin?
“It’s not about the pressure of finding another DeAndre,” Schmid says. “It’s about doing what’s right for the player. Sometimes it hits and sometimes it doesn’t. But as a motivator for the staff here and the players, DeAndre’s story has been wonderful. The players realize that all of this is possible.”OTTAWA – A new analysis says governments can wrestle recreational pot proceeds away from criminals – just so long as they’re not counting on an early windfall from legalized weed.
The study, to be released Tuesday by the C.D. Howe Institute think tank, estimates legalized cannabis would generate about $675 million in 2018 in combined federal and provincial revenue through existing sales taxes.
However, if authorities want to raise even more cash in the early days of legalization through additional taxes, they risk undermining their stated priority of squeezing out organized crime, the report says.
WATCH: Marc Emery wonders how legal marijuana will be distributed
The study comes as the Trudeau government prepares to introduce legislation Thursday to begin the process of legalizing pot.
“The government does actually have to choose at the outset between minimizing the black market and a large amount of revenue generation – it can’t do both,” study author Rosalie Wyonch said in an interview.
“However, if they do manage to nearly, fully legitimize the market, that’s when they can start to implement higher tax rates without necessarily re-entrenching the illicit market.”
READ MORE: How marijuana will be taxed remains unclear
Using a $9-per-gram example, Wyonch estimates 90 per cent of Canada’s weed market would be legitimate if existing sales taxes were the only taxes applied.
But if governments seek to lift their total tax revenues on pot sales to around $1 billion, she said, illicit sales would likely grow to about half of Canada’s marijuana market.
Policy-makers could hit that threshold by tacking on as little as one loonie per gram, she added.
WATCH: NDP MP attacks Trudeau on cannabis charges, brings up Trudeau’s ‘smoking marijuana’ past
Wyonch, a C.D. Howe policy analyst, said while the legal-pot revenues will be modest at first, there’s potential for more money to be made once the market matures and large companies streamline their operations.
To produce her numbers, she said she used price estimates of illegal pot, by province, that were included in a report published last November by the parliamentary budget office.
That report found sales tax revenue on cannabis in 2018 could be as low as $356 million and as high as $959 million, with a likely take of about $618 million. The calculations were also based on legalized pot selling for $9 per gram – in line with current street prices.
READ MORE: Medical marijuana coverage added to Loblaw, Shoppers Drug Mart staff benefits
It also suggested that pricing legal pot too high would allow the black market to continue to flourish. If prices stay too low, it said, governments could be seen to be encouraging its use.
Other studies have predicted far bigger marijuana-fuelled windfalls for Ottawa.
CIBC World Markets has estimated federal and provincial taxes could be as much as $5 billion a year from legal pot, while Deloitte has projected as much as $22.6 billion in economic activity from recreational marijuana, including $5 billion to $8.7 billion per year in retail market sales.
READ MORE: Licensed marijuana producers keen for details in Canada’s marijuana legislation
The Trudeau government has said that any eventual pot proceeds would be earmarked for addiction treatment, mental health support and education programs.
The feds have also said their goals include keeping pot away from young people and the proceeds of its sale out of the hands of organized crime.
Last month, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said the government had yet to fully explore how much revenue it expects legal pot to generate.On Saturday night, the Arena Ciudad de Mexico in Mexico City played host to UFC 188. The event was marked by the coming together of champions. Eddie Alvarez and Gilbert Melendez combined the Bellator and Strikeforce titles of their respective pasts, with Alvarez overcoming in-cage adversity to get the decision.
The interim and heavyweight champions — Fabricio Werdum and Cain Velasquez — combined their belts in an enthralling battle that saw Werdum do things to Velasquez that no man has been able to in the octagon previously. Werdum submitted Velasquez with a third round guillotine choke to push himself into the “greatest heavyweight of all time” debate.
LWOS Books the Fights: UFC 188
With so many stand out performances, here’s what we hope is in store for the winners and losers of UFC 188.
Fabricio Werdum: Prior to Cain Velasquez’ fight with Fabricio Werdum on Saturday, only three men had fought over the legitimate world title in over four and a half years: Cain Velasquez; Junior dos Santos; Antonio “Bigfoot” Silva. Now with Werdum crowned as the undisputed champion, there are new and exciting possibilities aplenty. Velasquez’ supporters will hope for a rematch, but it is Andrei Arlovski who presents the most exciting first defense for the champion. Arlovski holds a win over the champion back in 2007, and has returned to the UFC with a 3-0 run that has seen him crush former title challenger “Bigfoot” Silva, and highly touted contender Travis Browne in exciting fashion.
Cain Velasquez: Velasquez’ performance following a long layoff against a man who was able to slow him considerably by continuously punching and kneeing him in the face, suggested that an immediate rematch would be an unwise move at this point. The layoff, the altitude, the incredible ability of his opponent, it all proved too much to overcome. That said, Velasquez’ stature in the sport dictates that he can only fight the elite in the division. A fight with Stipe Miocic would prove the perfect measuring stick for both men. Contrary to popular belief, the UFC do sometimes match fighters coming off a win with those coming off a loss. Both need another big win to move into title contention and whoever came out on top would be impossible to overlook.
Eddie Alvarez: The former Bellator champion has had an incredible baptism of fire since entering the UFC. Donald Cerrone and Gilbert Melendez are two of the greatest 155 pound fighters on the planet. With his first octagon win in the bag, Alvarez can now set his sights on making a run towards a title shot. Dustin Poirier has looked sensational since returning to lightweight and having won his fight with Yancy Medeiros one week ago, is not only on a similar timeline to Alvarez but will also be looking for bigger fights. Even more importantly, Alvarez vs Poirier would simply be a great fight.
Gilbert Melendez: There was a time some believed Gilbert Melendez was the best lightweight in the world. His results since joining the UFC as part of the Zuffa acquisition of Strikeforce, have proven — at least at this point in his career — that he is not. While the level of competition that has handed Melendez three defeats in four fights — Benson Henderson, Anthony Pettis and Eddie Alvarez — is truly world class, he will be desperate to get back in the win column. Myles Jury would represent a slight step down in competition and a chance for Melendez to prove whether he is still a top five fighter. Should the injury that forced Jury out of his proposed bout with Edson Barboza keep him out too long to make that fight happen, Barboza himself would provide similar opposition whatever the results of his fight with Paul Felder.
Kelvin Gastelum: While the former Ultimate Fighter winner wrecked Nate Marquardt over two rounds in Mexico City, it remains unlikely that he can become a force at the very top of the middleweight division. Following post-fight assurances from Gastelum that he can do what it takes to make the 170 pound welterweight limit, Dong Hyun Kim would make for the perfect test. Kim is coming off a submission win over Josh Burkman in May.
Nate Marquardt: The sight of Marquardt slouched on his stool after the second round of his fight with Gastelum was tough to watch. So was the beating that Gastelum put on Marquardt to put him in that position in the first place. At 36-years-old, with five losses in his last six fights, and no route back to any sort of contendership at any weight class it might be time for “the Great” to call it a day. Marquardt has fifty pro fights to his name and is unlikely to go out with a win without a significant drop in competition. The coupling that makes most sense for him right now is with retirement.
Yair Rodriguez: Following an exceptional performance against Charles Rosa, Rodriguez can start to look for a spot in the featherweight division’s top 15. Next weekend Dennis Siver faces Tatsuya Kawajiri in the co-main event in Berlin. The winner would provide Rodriguez with an experienced opponent to fight for a spot in the featherweight rankings.
Charles Rosa: Despite losing to Rodriguez in Mexico City, Rosa did plenty to suggest he deserves his place in the 145 pound division. Clay Collard competed on the Fight Pass prelims and was defeated by Gabriel Benitez. Like Rosa, Collard has gone 1-2 in the UFC and a fight between the two would serve to indicate which man has the greater potential in the division.
Tecia Torres: Torres did enough to beat Angela Hill, but the greater question was whether she did enough to warrant a shot at the winner of Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Jessica Penne next weekend. Frustratingly, Torres seems to be making little progress and has shown no real signs of improvement since moving from the Invicta cage to the UFC’s octagon. If anything a drop in her level of competition has led to a drop in her level of performance. Leave it up to Claudia Gadelha and Jessica Aguilar to decide in August who is the real number two in the division then. Instead, Torres should be matched up with Maryna Moroz. A fight between two top ten ranked fighters coming off a win, who have more to prove before moving into genuine title contention.
Angela Hill: If Torres’ performance was underwhelming, Hill’s was baffling. Hill looked nothing like the prospect we had seen against Emily Kagan at the TUF 20 Finale, and looked tentative throughout. The easiest way to find out whether that was the altitude in Mexico City is to match her up against fellow TUF alumni Felice Herrig. Herrig herself fell apart when overwhelmed by Paige VanZant earlier this year, and a bout between the two would show whether Hill retains as yet unrealized potential, or has simply been put in too early at too high a level of competition to ever develop into a threat.
Main PhotoCharles "Chase" Merritt was arrested in late 2013 in connection with the killings of Joseph and Summer McStay and their sons. (Photo credit: CBS)
— In less than a week, the man accused of killing the McStay family and burying their bodies in the high desert is set to begin his preliminary hearing after several major delays.
And now his attorney is speaking out and releasing new information in the case.
Charles “Chase” Merritt’s attorney Jimmy Mettias says the San Bernardino prosecutor’s office will say Merritt used a sledgehammer – found in the grave with the McStay family – to kill the McStays in their home and that he covered it up by returning to the house and painting over the evidence, CBS2/KCAL9’s Tom Wait reports.
Mettias says the prosecution will also try to use cell phone records to establish Merritt’s location around the time of the killings, according to Wait.
As for motive, Mettias told Wait the prosecution will argue Merritt was angry because McStay was going to cut ties with him after catching Merritt writing checks to himself from their business account.
Merritt and McStay worked in the fountain business together.
But Mettias told Wait the prosecution’s case will be light on evidence, claiming there is no physical evidence – DNA or fingerprints – to link Merritt to either the San Diego County home where the McStays were allegedly killed, or to the shallow grave in the high desert where the family’s remains were discovered.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office says they have no comment on the newly released information.
When the McStays vanished in 2010, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department initially treated their disappearance as a missing persons case.
Someone riding a motorcycle through a remote area of the high desert found the McStay’s remains in November of 2013. Merritt was arrested a year later.
In a jailhouse meeting with Merritt last month, Merritt told Wait that he is innocent of the charges.A treasure trove of the bizarre & the extra-ordinary, the beautiful & the refreshing.
"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion" ~ Albert Camus
Playing with dolls
"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity." ~ Henry David Thoreau (from "Walden")
The Cinnamon Peeler If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow (...) Painting by Hamish Blakely
Dust If You Must Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better,
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed,
Ponder the difference between want and need?
(...)
At Times I Almost Dream At times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages’ way,
And tread once more familiar paths.
Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light let in by death,
That life was blotted out—not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again.
From "Paracelsus" by Robert Browning
Drawing: Cleopatra by Michelangelo Buonarroti
Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Pablo Neruda
"Some lose all mind and become soul, insane.
some lose all soul and become mind, intellectual.
some lose both and become accepted" ~ Charles Bukowski
"I’m going to paraphrase Thoreau here… rather than love, than money, than faith, than fame, than fairness… give me truth." There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more... ~ Lord Byron
"Sadness gives depth.
Happiness gives height.
Sadness gives roots.
Happiness gives branches.
Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth.
But both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes simultaneously.
The bigger the tree, the bigger will be the roots.
In fact it is always in proportion.
That’s its balance." ~ Osho
Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars in the sky and I thought to myself, "Where the heck is the ceiling?!"
Gossip A woman was gossiping with a friend about a man she hardly knew - I know none of you have ever done this - that night she had a dream A woman was gossiping with a friend about a man she hardly knew - I know none of you have ever done this - that night she had a dream (...)
The Road not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood (...)
False
Evidence
Appearing
Real
Invictus
The Man & the Ostrich A man walks into a restaurant with a full-grown ostrich behind him. As he sits, the waitress comes over and asks for their orders (...)
"A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave." Mahatma Gandhi Painting: Sabina Nore
"Some people never go crazy.
What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~ Charles Bukowski
Fun and relaxation are important...
Never argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
A Bit of Fry and Laurie Psychic Spoon Bender
Shortest Story Ever Told It is said that the shortest story ever told was written by the then young Ernest Hemingway, who said he could write a complete story in only six words! (...)
The Persistence of Frog
"If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher.
I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself." Confucius
Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell Amusing Ourselves To Death
Comfortably Numb Numbness versus Sensitivity
The Education System
A matter of equipment A couple went on vacation to a fishing resort up north. The husband liked to fish at the crack of dawn. The wife liked to read (...)
Fawlty Towers Too much butter on those trays
Woody Allen "When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room." "For some reason I'm more appreciated in France than I am back home.
The subtitles must be incredibly good." "Some guy hit my fender, and I told him, 'Be fruitful and multiply,' but not in those words."
"Work like you don’t need the |
an operating visa was filed two days ago, rather than with a typical eight-day delay and characterized the cancellation of tonight’s screening as “purely administrative.” Distributor Lassaad Goubantini had another take, saying, “It’s a decision based on bogus accusations… Today they prevent a film because of an actress, tomorrow they’ll invent another excuse. It’s an attack on liberties.”
Wonder Woman was also taken off the schedule of a film festival in Algeria where it was originally due to premiere on June 8. However, the deprogramming of WW at the Nuits du Cinéma fest is said to be the result of a rights issue. Organizers of the festival, which takes place in Alger, told AFP that the cancellation of the screening was not tied to Gadot’s presence and that the movie would be re-programmed “once the administrative constraints related to the exhibition rights have been sorted,” said a spokesperson. Algeria’s Culture Minister had already issued an import license for the Patty Jenkins-helmed hit which grossed $228.1M in its maiden voyage last weekend worldwide.
Still, an online petition has circulated in the largely Muslim country since last week. Titled, “Non! Pas en Algérie” (No, Not in Algeria), it says Gadot has “glorified” an attack on Gaza and that the signatories consider it “unacceptable” that the June 8 screening would fall within the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Gaza during the Six Days War.
In Lebanon, Wonder Woman‘s banning was prompted by Lebanese group Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel-Lebanon. Lebanon is officially at war with Israel and has a law that boycotts Israeli products and bars Lebanese citizens from traveling to Israel or having contact with Israelis.Even though I'd spent a long time following the startup scene and reading all the standard blogs and books before founding my first startup CoderStack (a job board for software developers) when it came to actually putting theory into practice I ran across a lot of gaps in my knowledge.
So I've decided to write a series of blog posts describing my experiences and sharing the advice that I wish someone had given me before I started.
I've tried to roughly break the blog posts into themes and the first (this one) is going to be about user acquisition.
User Acquisition in your Business Plan
If I look back at my own plans from before I started working on my startup I actually cringe a little at my user acquisition strategy, I made the same mistakes that I see many other startup founders making now. My strategy was made up of broad terms like "SEO" and "Advertising" without any serious attempt to model how much traffic each of these approaches would generate and what the cost of user acquisition would be.
Any form of user acquisition has a cost, it might be defined in terms of your time rather than money, but unless you sit down and create a model for analyzing the amount of traffic you can generate and what that will involve you have no idea if a particular form of user acquisition is worthwhile.
Any form of user acquisition can also be modelled whether it's viral growth, PR, SEO, etc. By sitting down and building a model in Excel it helps you evaluate the strategy and understand the hidden assumptions (for example for viral growth what percentage of your users will tell their friends about your product) you're basing your business on. If I'd done that to start with it would have saved me a huge amount of time down the line.
Once you launch and are actually implementing your strategy it's trivial to update your spreadsheet and replace your assumptions with the hard data and see how that impacts the end results. You might find that once the assumptions have to be modified to match reality that the strategy you're using no-longer works. And it's much much better to find that out up front rather than six months down the line when you're wondering why you haven't grown as fast as you expected.
SEO
SEO is hard, one prong of our growth strategy was getting decent rankings for focused keywords like "Python jobs". I went into this without really understanding SEO as well as I should. Even through I managed to get first page listing for many keywords (we were helped by getting links from sites like Techcrunch and Business Insider) getting into the top position for competitive keywords is much harder than I thought.
As a new startup you automatically get a penalty for not having an "aged" domain (older websites get higher ranking), but it's close to impossible to beat off sites which have hundreds of thousands of established links, even if those links aren't as focused.
I also didn't really analyse the numbers as I should have, the phrase "Python jobs" gets roughly 500 searches a month in the UK. The top ranked result for that search will probably only get 20% click-through (i.e a hundred visits). If you're 5th in the rankings, you'll probably get 15 visitors a month.
In many cases the SEO effort taken to improve rankings wasn't worth the resultant traffic.
If you plan to use SEO as strategy for your startup make sure you use Google Keyword tools to figure out how many searches are made on the keywords you're targeting and how many links, etc. you'll need to get in order to get a worthwhile ranking (I've found Seomoz and SEMRush can be good for this).
Advertising
I've talked about my experiences in advertising my startup extensively elsewhere, so I won't go into too much details but the key fact I discovered was that obtaining cheap traffic comes down to two things:
Increasing your click-through-rate (good ad copy, etc.) Finding underpriced ad space (using demographic targeting, buying ads on smaller sites etc.)
On pretty much any ad platform you can reduce your costs by optimizing your ads (in some cases by as much as 100x), so it's definitely worth investing time and money to learn which optimization techniques work well on the ad platforms you're using.
Our original business plan was based around buying long-tail technical keywords (e.g. "concurrenthashmap") on Google cheaply, this strategy didn't work as it was based on the underlying assumption that long tail keywords with no other advertisers would be cheap. It turns out that due to the changes Google have made to the Quality Scoring algorithm part of their Adwords platform it's very hard to buy cheap adverts on non-"commercial intent" keywords.
We were however lucky that we managed to figure out an alternative strategy (extermely targeted ads on social networks) that turned out to give us the cost effective advertising we were after.
Social Media
Having a social media strategy is often equated with having a presence on social media websites, but there are actually lots of different types of presence.
Usage of social media by companies generally falls into one of these three categories:
Companies using it to broadcast company news Companies using it to interact with customers (support, etc.) Companies using it as a promotional tool
The first two help you keep in touch with existing users and perhaps generate repeat business, but don't really help you gain new users.
If you want to use social media as a user acquisition vector you really need to make sure you fall into the last category, and that means focusing on generating content that your users want to promote to their friends.
If you're a content based startup it's definitely worth driving your content through your Facebook and Twitter content streams, because it's content far more than anything else that gets shared through the social networks.
Direct Sales
Direct sales is one of the highest converting ways to get users. How effectively this scales obviously depends on how much each user is worth to you as it typically has a high cost per user acquired. Even if it's not a viable long term strategy for your business it can be good way to get your initial users.
I'm not a natural extrovert and I still cringe a little when making sales cold calls or sending sales emails, but it's much easier than you think and once you get started it gets easier. The first few cold sales are the hardest.
It also has the huge advantage that you're speaking on a one-to-one basis with many customers and getting invaluable feedback that can help you iterate on your product.
That's it from me on user acquisition, if you have any questions or have particular areas you'd like me to talk about in detail feel free to leave a comment. You can also follow me at @imranghory on twitter.Australia Outlaws Warrant Canaries
In the US, certain types of warrants can come with gag orders preventing the recipient from disclosing the existence of warrant to anyone else. A warrant canary is basically a legal hack of that prohibition. Instead of saying "I just received a warrant with a gag order," the potential recipient keeps repeating "I have not received any warrants." If the recipient stops saying that, the rest of us are supposed to assume that he has been served one.
Lots of organizations maintain them. Personally, I have never believed this trick would work. It relies on the fact that a prohibition against speaking doesn't prevent someone from not speaking. But courts generally aren't impressed by this sort of thing, and I can easily imagine a secret warrant that includes a prohibition against triggering the warrant canary. And for all I know, there are right now secret legal proceedings on this very issue.
Australia has sidestepped all of this by outlawing warrant canaries entirely:
Section 182A of the new law says that a person commits an offense if he or she discloses or uses information about "the existence or non-existence of such a [journalist information] warrant." The penalty upon conviction is two years imprisonment.
Expect that sort of wording in future US surveillance bills, too.
Posted on March 31, 2015 at 7:14 AM • 73 CommentsThe couple accused of holding three women as domestic slaves in south London for 30 years had been leading lights in a cultlike far-left political group which worshipped the Chinese revolutionary Mao Zedong and believed that their area of south London was on the verge of being liberated by China's Red Army.
Aravindan Balakrishnan, 73, named for the first time on Monday, was a senior member of the tiny Communist party of England (Marxist-Leninist) in the early 1970s, before splitting away in 1974 to form an even more niche and hardline grouping, the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought.
His 67-year-old wife, Chanda, was part of the same grouping, which set itself up in 1976 in a library-cum-commune inside a large Victorian building in Brixton, south London, with about 25 members. Its leader, Balakrishnan, was known at the time as Comrade Bala.
Steve Rayner, an academic who studied the group, noted its cultlike attributes, in which there was little debate and the few members with jobs donated all their income to the organisation. Rayner, a professor at Oxford University, who studied Balakrishnan's group for a 1979 PhD thesis on leftwing groups, described the leader's "superior ability to manipulate" other members, who were mainly from overseas and appeared vulnerable.
Rayner's investigation found that members, who wore Mao badges at all times, believed that they and the rest of Brixton would soon be liberated by the Red Army. He said the group was the "clearest case of far-left millenarianism which I have encountered".
The couple were both arrested on suspicion of holding three women captive at a series of addresses in south London including, most recently, a council-owned flat in Peckford Place, Brixton. Police inquiries have since tied the group to more than a dozen properties around south London over the decades.
Police sources indicated that they were investigating claims that a woman fell to her death from a window at one of these addresses in 1997. A neighbour of the Victorian property in Herne Hill, south of Brixton, where the group are believed to have lived for about seven years from 1997, said the household was known locally as "something to do with a cult". Kate Roncoroni, 43, whose house backs on to the road, said: "I came here in 1996. It could have been within two years of moving in. All I remember was there was local gossip that this woman had fallen out of a window and that she had died."
A Metropolitan police spokesman said: "We are aware of this and we are attempting to access archived paper records from the inquest."
A cousin of the dead woman, who was named as Sian Davies, 44,on Monday night told ITV News that Davies had written to her family saying she was "looking after the mothers of the world". An inquest into her death heard that her fellow residents had delayed telling her family that she had fallen out of the window for seven months and that Davies had spent seven months in hospital after the Christmas Eve fall, eventually dying on 3 August 1998.
The three women freed last month freed, who left the address before the arrests following a period of secretive discussions with police and a charity combating domestic slavery, have been identified as a 69-year-old Malaysian national, a 57-year-old Irishwoman and a 30-year-old Briton, called Rosie, who is believed to be the daughter of the Irishwoman and Balakrishnan.
As the background of the suspects emerged, Lambeth council came under pressure to explain why it did not appear to have acted on concerns about the 30-year-old woman, who is believed to have been held by the couple since birth.
The authority reportedly received a complaint from a member of the public in 1998 when the teenage captive, then aged 15, did not appear to be attending school. Detectives have found no official documentation for the woman other than a birth certificate.The flat where the five people lived in Peckford Place is a council property. But the council said it could not explain why it had housed the group there, or why it had not noticed that the 30-year-old woman had not been to school. A spokeswoman said the council could not go into detail about its contact with the Balakrishnan couple because officials were working with the ongoing police investigation.
"This is an extremely complex case involving a number of individuals going back decades. It is too early at this stage to provide the detail of any contact we may have had with them," she said.
The charity that was central to the release of the women, the Freedom Charity, has appealed to the media to respect the women's privacy as more detail about their life with the couple became public. "The women are under added pressure as the appetite increases to find out who they are," said Aneeta Prem, the charity's founder.
The Balakrishnan group's beliefs were mocked in the diary column of the Times, prompting speculation that it may have been a partial model for the Tooting Popular Front, the ludicrous political movement in Citizen Smith, the BBC sitcom, which began in 1977.
The Rev Bob Nind, who was the vicar of St Matthew's church in Brixton at the time, said he knew of the group by reputation as the most far-left among the many Marxist-linked groups at the time: "I remember very well that at the 1978 byelection after Marcus Lipton died, there were 10 candidates, and five were to the left of Labour. But even among these, the people from Acre Lane were known as being particularly doctrinaire, and quite centralist."
According to another history of far-left groups in the period, the Balakrishnans' Acre Lane community was broken up in a police raid in 1978, in which the couple were among 14 people arrested.MOSCOW — It would be hard to imagine a more perfect birthday for Vladimir V. Putin, the president of Russia, who turned 63 on Wednesday.
After receiving a report from his defense minister that Russia had launched a major cruise missile strike on Syria — a move further confounding American policy in the Middle East — Mr. Putin celebrated his birthday by playing a game of hockey with N.H.L. veterans, and winning.
Donning skates and a uniform, Mr. Putin took to the ice in the Shayba Arena in the Black Sea resort of Sochi as a member of a team called Stars of the N.H.L., which included, among other hockey legends, Pavel Bure, known as the Russian Rocket.
The game was broadcast live on national television as the highlight of a day of adoring homages to the Russian leader.With Super Bowl XLVII in the books - congratulations to the Baltimore Ravens and our very lucky friends at Baltimore Beatdown, by the way - we're now completely and officially into off-season mode in the NFL. As such, we'll be spending our Monday taking stock of the roster breakdowns we ran throughout January and preparing ourselves mentally to discuss Buffalo Bills free agency and the 2013 NFL Draft full-time for the next three months or so.
We'll start with the Bills' own free agents, which we've discussed by position over the last several weeks, but never as an entire group. The thrust of this discussion will be to determine which players the community is most eager to see the Bills re-sign this spring.
Two names will not appear on the list, because frankly, it's as close to universal as you can get that everybody wants free safety Jairus Byrd and left guard Andy Levitre locked up long-term. We've had that conversation before. This conversation will be about the remaining 12 unrestricted free agents, and which players fans would like to see retained alongside Byrd and Levitre. Those names are below; the comments section is all yours. Go.
QB Tyler Thigpen: Signed after the 2011 lockout to back up Ryan Fitzpatrick due to his familiarity with Chan Gailey, Thigpen has not played much at all through two seasons in Buffalo.
QB Tarvaris Jackson: When Vince Young's legal situation forced Buffalo to cut him last fall, the Bills flipped a seventh-round pick to Seattle for Jackson, then promptly left him on the inactive list all season. Jackson, who turns 30 in April, has been considered a stop-gap starting quarterback for the last few years of his career.
RB Tashard Choice: Another player brought in largely due to his familiarity with Gailey, Choice had his moments as the Bills' third running back last season, but has largely been ineffective and infrequently used backing up C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson.
FB Corey McIntyre: One of the team's best special teams players, the 34-year-old McIntyre didn't play much in Gailey's offense - but with Gailey's offense out, could the door possibly be open for more fullback play?
WR Ruvell Martin: Another core special teams player last season, the veteran receiver only stepped into the offensive lineup when injuries struck in-game - and when he did, Buffalo's offense almost always took a step back.
OG Chad Rinehart: A spot starter along a seemingly constantly banged up Bills offensive line for parts of the last two years, Rinehart isn't the best athlete nor the best blocker, but he's tough, consistent and a proven quality reserve.
DE Kyle Moore: With reports already surfacing that the Bills want to re-sign Moore, he may be atop the team's list of the non-Byrd and Levitre free agents. The 26-year-old defensive end was a surprisingly solid pass rushing contributor in 2012, finishing with the first three sacks of his career.
DE Shawne Merriman: He didn't make the team last August, but was brought back mid-season as an injury replacement and played a rotational role as a defensive end. 29 in May, it's clear at this point that Merriman won't be returning to his old form.
DT Spencer Johnson: Signed to a five-year contract in 2008 (he was acquired the same week as Marcus Stroud), Johnson has been a rotational tackle for the Bills since that time, occasionally making some nice plays but routinely not standing out on a consistently bad defense.
LB Bryan Scott: Scott has been in Buffalo since 2007, and has been the team's de facto nickel linebacker for the past two-plus seasons. He's got a knack for coming up with turnovers, but was also a pass game liability in 2012 than in years past, and clearly puts the run defense at a disadvantage.
LB Kirk Morrison: The veteran linebacker spent most of 2012 on the inactive list before getting cut, then re-signing to play special teams over the last two games.
CB Leodis McKelvin: One of the league's elite punt returners (he has three touchdowns in a 12-game window for Buffalo, and didn't even appear in all of those contests), the 2008 first-round pick is nonetheless an inconsistent corner that has been incapable of holding down a prominent role in Buffalo's defensive backfield of late.1 of 10
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Kyle Allen had a very solid first season with Texas A&M last fall. After stepping into the starting quarterback role in November, Allen made five starts, throwing for 1,322 yards with 16 touchdowns against seven interceptions while completing 61.5 percent of his passes.
The Aggies went 3-2 in those games, including a Liberty Bowl win over West Virginia. That performance would earn him a starting role in many programs, but A&M signed 5-star recruit Kyler Murray, an enticing dual-threat quarterback who had his pick of destinations. Murray didn’t come to College Station to sit for long, and he’ll surely put pressure on Allen this fall.
He is confident in his abilities, as he told SB Nation's Yaron Weitzman.
"Right now [Allen's] the starter, obviously," Murray said. "Right now my job is just to come in, learn the offense, get better every day and try to help the team any possible way. I just have to sit there and wait my turn. I think I will get reps in games, so they will see me, so when that time comes... that's what it's all about."
Allen can’t afford to struggle, as head coach Kevin Sumlin has set precedent for quarterback changes recently. Remember Kenny Hill? He went from Heisman Trophy candidate to transferring to TCU after Allen supplanted him as starting quarterback last fall. It could happen again.According to a Colorado Bureau of Investigations report obtained by Media Trackers, State Representative Rhonda Fields (D-Aurora) was arrested in 1976 on a charge of larceny and again in 1991 on a charge of shoplifting. Despite her own criminal record, Rep. Fields has sought to limit the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.
An apparent mugshot of Fields was posted to the Magpul Industries Facebook page by a private user after legislation to limit gun magazine capacity, which was cosponsored by Fields, drove the company to announce that it was closing its doors in Colorado and moving out of state.
Rep. Fields has sponsored multiple gun control bills currently under debate in the Colorado Legislature, including legislation to ban on magazines with the capacity to hold more that 15 rounds, criminalize the private sale or transfer of a firearm without a background check,ban on concealed carry permits on the college campuses, and increase background check fees.
Fields has also co-sponsored Sen. Evie Hudak’s legislation which would not only strip anyone subject to a restraining order of their Second Amendment rights, but would also require the same to relinquish any firearms they own to the state.
Sen. Hudak has recently been in the national spotlight for remarks she made to rape survivor Amanda Collins. During testimony from Collins which detailed how her attacker was able to target her while she was unarmed due to a campus ban on concealed carry in Nevada, Hudak told Collins that “actually statistics are not on your side even if you had a gun.”
Additionally, Fields was the sole sponsor in the House to sign on to Sen. John Morse’s (D-Colorado Springs) legislation to institute civil liability on firearms manufacturers, sellers, and owner for any damage incurred through the use of their firearms.
Despite her criminal history, Rep. Fields has previously received campaign donations from the Aurora Police Association.
Media Trackers attempted to contact Fields at her office multiple times, but the Representative was unavailable for comment as the calls were unanswered.
This post was originally featured at Media Trackers Colorado.Story highlights Obama administration says it will stop deporting young illegal immigrants
Ruben Navarrette: This is a stunt to help improve Obama's chance with Latino voters
He says some DREAM'ers may benefit from Obama's initiative, but many probably won't
Navarrette: Obama's immigration record is most impressive to those who follow it least closely
Did you ever wonder why Charlie Brown kept charging at the football, despite the fact that Lucy always pulled it away and he wound up flat on his back? You would think that experience has made him skeptical. It's because he really wanted to believe that, this time, things would work out. And when you really want to believe in something, you have a short memory when it comes to past disappointments.
That's how it is with many Latinos and other immigration reform advocates. They want President Obama to become the person they voted for -- who promised Latinos that he would fix a broken immigration system, stop dividing families, and push through Congress a Dream Act-like legislation that would give undocumented young people a pathway to legal status if they go to college or join the military.
None of that happened, and so Latinos -- who, in 2008, voted overwhelmingly for Obama -- are ambivalent about the president's re-election.
Something had to be done to convince Latinos that the president is on their side.
Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Today, something was done. Or rather, something was promised. The Obama administration announced that it would stop deporting younger illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children -- provided they meet certain conditions -- and begin granting work permits to them.
Illegal immigrants will supposedly benefit from the new policy if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16, if they are 30 or younger, if they have lived in the country for at least five years, if they have no criminal record and if they attend or graduated from a U.S. high school, or have served in the military.
The policy change could affect as many as 800,000 immigrants -- so-called DREAM'ers -- who would have benefited from the DREAM Act had it not been blocked by Congress. These people have been living in fear of being deported by the same administration that is now offering the pardon.
Confused? Just wait. It gets better. We've only just begun to make our way down this rabbit hole.
The administration is obviously trying to "checkmate" a nearly identical proposal floated by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, which reportedly would also stop DREAM'ers from being deported and issue them work permits. The Rubio plan would not offer a pathway to citizenship. About this omission, the left was incensed. But Obama isn't offering a pathway to citizenship either, and yet many in the left couldn't be happier. Where is the consistency?
Then there is the inconvenient fact that we're not supposed to even need this kind of policy change because, according to Obama, his administration isn't deporting DREAM'ers at all; instead, it's concentrating its enforcement efforts on criminals. That's exactly what Obama told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos during a March 2011 trip to El Salvador. A couple of weeks later, Obama had to swallow those words when -- during an education town hall meeting in Washington, sponsored by Univision -- he was confronted by a DREAM'er holding deportation papers. So now we're supposed to applaud the administration for not deporting people the president had claimed weren't being deported in the first place.
Of course, the administration is deporting DREAM'ers, along with gardeners, housekeepers, nannies and ice cream vendors who represent no threat to public safety. It's a waste of time for officials to deny that.
Just this week, I wrote in my CNN.com column about another one of Obama's broken promises. The administration pledged to use prosecutorial discretion to free from deportation proceedings individuals who had been in the country for a number of years, had U.S.-born children, or were otherwise rooted in the United States. That included DREAM'ers. So far, the promise hasn't amounted to much of anything
I expect a similar outcome with DREAM'ers. Some of them may benefit from Obama's new initiative, but many probably won't. That's because the idea behind the DREAM Act -- trading legal status for college attendance or military service -- is still unpopular with most voters in this country. The administration has no interest in antagonizing a wide portion of the electorate in an election year.
It doesn't matter anyway, at least not to the president. All he cares about is his bid for re-election, and whether this latest stunt helps improve the turnout of Latino voters. It might. People get fooled, especially if they're not paying attention. In fact, I've realized that Obama's immigration record is most impressive to those who follow it least closely. In other words, the closer you follow the record, the less impressive it seems.
In the words of Ronald Reagan, the last president to actually grant an amnesty to illegal immigrants and not just talk about it, Latino voters, immigrant advocates and the DREAM'ers themselves should -- in response to this latest promise -- "trust, but verify." And, given the administration's record, they can skip the first part.One problem with the focus the Israeli raid on the Gaza aid flotilla is that it may make it appear that the Israeli blockade of Gaza is the central issue. Then any Israeli loosening of the blockade would seem to be an advance.
In fact, the blockade is not the problem but is rather a symptom of the underlying issue, which is Palestinian statelessness. Gazans have no state. What the Israelis deign to call the ‘Hamas regime’ is no such thing because it lacks sovereignty, over its borders, air, sea, imports and exports. (The idea that Israel is ‘at war’ with its own occupied territory is laughable.) The Israeli ‘withdrawal’ of 2005 simply removed a few thousand colonists and withdrew troops, usually, to the borders. But it did not allow the creation of a sovereign state. Gazans are excluded from a third of their own farmland by Israeli restrictions on where people can live. That so many Gazans are unemployed, that their industries have collapsed, that they are food insecure, and that malnutrition is causing stunting in 10% of children– all these outrages derive from their lack of a sovereign state to look out for their interests.
The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a report this weekend detailing the harm to Gazan children and civilians of the blockade. Most do not even have clean water to drink.
Aljazeera English also reports on the impact of the blockade on Gaza’s children:
Nevertheless, the problems inflicted on Gazans by the Israeli blockade will not be resolved by a loosening of the blockade. They will only be resolved by the bestowal of citizenship on Gazans, either by a Palestinian state (which does not exist and would have to be created) or by Israel (which does not want the Gazans as citizens but may end up being stuck with them).
What I cannot understand is how Israel, the US, and the European Union expect this thing to end. In the West Bank there are three political processes. First, there are the proximity talks between Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and the Israelis (talks about the conditions for talks). Second, there are municipal elections this summer in the West Bank. Third, the ‘Fayyad Plan’ calls for the Palestine Authority to have some 20,000 trained security forces in the West Bank by summer 2011, at which point Salim Fayyad, the appointed prime minister of the Palestine Authority and his government could well declare an independent state.
But in Gaza there is no political process and no prospect of one. The fundamentalist party, Hamas, won the January 2006 parliamentary elections in the Palestine Authority. But the Israelis and the US immediately rejected its victory and kidnapped parliamentarians and disrupted the government and then supported a coup in the West Bank by Fatah, the secular nationalist party of president Abbas. An attempt to extend the coup to the Gaza Strip failed, so Hamas remained in power there. The Israelis have attempted to overthrow and dislodge Hamas, including through the blockade on ordinary civilians and through the 2008-09 Gaza War, but so far have failed.
Unless a way can be found to hold legitimate elections in Gaza, it will remain isolated, even from other Palestinians in the West Bank, both politically and economically, so that the lives of its inhabitants will continue to be hell. The Israeli far right, now in power politically, will use the isolation of Gaza to argue that there is no single Palestinian representative with whom they can negotiate, and that they therefore do not need to negotiate, and can go blockading Gazans and stealing the land of West Bank Palestinians.
To repeat: the Israeli blockade of Gaza is a war crime and it is harming the health and well-being of the Gazans. But it is not in and of itself the problem, such that easing the blockade solves anything fundamental. Incorporation of Gazans into a sovereign state such that they have citizenship and can exercise popular sovereignty is the key to any real advance.
It seems to me therefore less than earth-shaking that the White House is backing an internal Israeli inquiry into its fatal raid in international waters against an aid flotilla that aimed at helping the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. The commission will have some distinguished Europeans on it as observers, but the performance of the Israeli authorities with regard to investigating their own during the 2008-2009 Gaza War and Tel Aviv’s demonization of Judge Richard Goldstone and the Goldstone Report do not encourage confidence. Moreover, even if the commission found that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu erred in sending commandos to board the Mavi Marmara aid ship, it is hard to see how the ordinary people of Gaza would benefit from such a finding.
In any case, Washington and Tel Aviv no longer have infinite time to resolve the issue. The blockade of civilians is backfiring on the Israelis by provoking more and more aid ships.
Even little Bahrain is sending aid to Gaza. And, Iran is planning an aid flotilla (I expect real trouble over that one). And Turkey is planning another, this time possibly with the Turkish prime minister aboard (major international conflict looming, possibly even hostilities).
The international community has to stop dithering and intervene to end this Israeli lawlessness in Gaza, and provide a path for Gazans to citizenship in some sovereign state. The consequences of not doing so are now potentially explosive.Gaza journalists rally for release of Al Jazeera reporter
7:05 AM
Dozens of Palestinian journalists held a non-violent protest Saturday in Gaza City outside the offices of the United Nations. They called on UN officials to pressure Israel to release their colleague, reporter Samer Allawi, who has been held in Israeli detention since August 10.Allawi was abducted by Israeli forces at the Israeli-controlled border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank, while he was returning to his home in Nablus district after a three-week vacation.
Israeli intelligence agents reportedly questioned Allawi about his work as a correspondent in Afghanistan, where he served as Al Jazeera’s bureau chief. They then took him to a detention camp, where he is being held without charge in what Israel terms ‘administrative detention’.
The detention of Samer Allawi has been condemned by media agencies worldwide, as well as media rights groups like Reporters Without Borders, who say that the detention of journalists violates the freedom of the press.
Adel Zanoun, the director of the Doha Media Center, spoke at the protest on Saturday and stated, ‘As journalists, we came here today to ask Israel to immediately release Samir Allawi and all other journalists detained in Israel. The only crime those journalists committed was doing their jobs and defending the freedom of the press and freedom of expression.’
Al Jazeera journalist Wael Dahdouh also spoke at the rally, pointing out the dangers faced by journalists working throughout the region, and honoring a colleague killed in Libya last month while reporting on the events taking place there.This article is about the canceled Alaska dam project. For the reservoir in Colorado, see Rampart Reservoir
The Rampart Dam or Rampart Canyon Dam was a project proposed in 1954 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dam the Yukon River in Alaska for hydroelectric power. The project was planned for Rampart Canyon (also known as Rampart Gorge) just 31 miles (50 km) southwest of the village of Rampart, Alaska and about 105 miles (169 km) west-northwest of Fairbanks, Alaska.
The resulting dam would have created a lake roughly the size of Lake Erie, making it the largest man-made reservoir in the world. The plan for the dam itself called for a concrete structure 530 feet (162 m) high with a top length of about 4,700 feet (1,430 m). The proposed power facilities would have consistently generated between 3.5 and 5 gigawatts of electricity, based on the flow of the river as it differs between winter and summer.
Though supported by many politicians and businesses in Alaska, the project was canceled after objections were raised. Native Alaskans in the area protested the threatened loss of nine villages that would be flooded by the dam. Conservation groups abhorred the threatened flooding of the Yukon Flats, a large area of wetlands that provides a critical breeding ground for millions of waterfowl. Fiscal conservatives opposed the dam on the grounds of its large cost and limited benefit to Americans outside Alaska.
Because of these objections, United States Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall formally opposed construction of the dam in 1967, and the project was shelved. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers nevertheless completed its engineering study of the project in 1971, and the final report was released to the public in 1979. In 1980, U.S. President Jimmy Carter created the Yukon Flats National Wildlife Sanctuary, which formally protected the area from development and disallowed any similar project.
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The northern portion of Rampart Canyon is seen in 1949.
From its headwaters in the Coast Mountains, the Yukon River flows northwest, across the Yukon–Alaska border, until it intersects the Porcupine River at the settlement of Fort Yukon. At that point, the river turns west and southwest, flowing through the Yukon Flats, a low-lying wetland area containing thousands of ponds, streams, and other small bodies of water. As the river flows southwest, it intersects the Tanana and Koyukuk rivers before looping south, then north into Norton Sound in the Bering Sea.[1][2]
During the river's flow through eastern Alaska, and before it intersects the Tanana River, the Yukon flows through the Central Plateau region of Alaska. During the millions of years of its flow, it has cut through ridges, forming canyons in some places near its juncture with the Tanana.[3] One of the deepest of these canyons is known as Rampart Gorge, or Rampart Canyon. The |
gaming community; telling gamers they don't understand the process of game development. That gamers just don't understand the business aspects of getting a game out there.Lead designer for the Kickstarter funded basically breaks down and explains that it's not all peaches and roses between developers and publishers, and oftentimes gamers assumptions about the poor quality of a product being the publisher's fault is correct. Ripten has a very, very informative interview up with Brian Fargo, as he talks about the process of getting the game made, some of its features and most importantly, how no big publisher was willing to pick up the publishing rights and actually get the game made.What's more is that Fargo explains that the relationship between publishers and developers is no laughing matter...When asked about why there is so little transparency on the matter, Fargo further explains that most devs just want to keep their jobs and spilling the beans on a big publisher is not the way to go about staying regularly employed in this multi-billion dollar industry...Oftentimes, savvy gamers are quick to point out that most big publishers are greedy. It's a given. Most big publishers use the PR route of simply passing it off as if gamers don't understand, but most people already understand that it's all about investments and making money. But that's not why hardcore gamers are hardcore gamers...we don't care if a big business wants to go from an annual intake of $4.74 billion to $5.2 billion the following year; we care about whether or not the games are good, are long lasting and fun.When asked if he would return to a big publisher ifmanages to become a critical success, Fargo simply stated that...The interview also covers one other very important topic. The inflating cost of video game development. This has been a subject of contention for quite some time, but Fargo breaks it down by explaining that budgets for most games, under big publishers, can inflate anywhere between 25% and 35% due to mismanagement and over-spending, oftentimes in the areas of cinematics, voice acting and audio recording. He explains that...The entire interview is great, and Ripten did a fantastic job of asking all the right questions. It definitely gives you something to think about and coincides a lot of what was covered in the Top Misconceptions about Gaming You can check out the entire interview with's Brian Fargo over at Ripten Blended From Around The Web Facebook
Back to topHow'd They Do That? The Story Of A Giant Rock And A Road Of Ice
toggle caption DEA/ W. Buss/De Agostini/Getty Images
Great works of ancient engineering, like the Pyramids or Stonehenge, inspire awe in every beholder. But some onlookers also get inspired to figure out exactly how these structures were made.
Howard Stone, an engineer from Princeton University, had such a moment in Beijing's Forbidden City — a city-within-a-city of palaces and temples built in the 15th and 16th centuries. A carved, 300-ton slab that formed a ramp to one structure particularly caught Stone's eye. "How in the world did it get here?" he wondered.
Enlarge this image toggle caption PNAS PNAS
Stone (and no, there will be no puns on his name in this story) is an engineer who studies fluid dynamics. Turns out, that was a lucky thing.
Stone got some of his Chinese colleagues involved. They discovered a 500-year-old document that says the slabs came from a quarry 45 miles away, transported over a road of ice. So Stone set about figuring out what that would have required.
First, why rely on ice? The Chinese had had the wheel for 3,000 years already. "The roads were pretty bumpy and rough," Stone explains, "and one thing ice does is give you a pretty smooth surface."
The document is sketchy about the technique but it does say workers dug wells along the route. That would have provided water to make the ice. It also says the job took 28 days in January — during the depth of winter.
"Given the friction and... the mass of the rock,... the temperature conditions in Beijing in the month of January when it was mostly done, what are the typical numbers for people you would need for the dragging?" Stone asked himself. "And is this a plausible number?"
He did some heavy math to see how many people would be required to drag a slab weighing about 120 tons (the weight the document described) over an ice road for 45 miles in 28 days. Everything hinged on the amount of friction that existed between a wooden sledge the rock sat on and the ice beneath the sledge.
A thousand people seemed just too unwieldy a group to drag this block of stone along a road, the engineer thought. But the math said you could do it with about 300 people — if these ice-road workers kept lubricating the ice with water. Doing so would lower the "coefficient of friction" of a wooden sledge-on-ice enough, he figured, so that 300 people could move the slab 20 feet per minute. (Speed skaters understand this phenomenon well — the ability to skate faster when there's a film of water on the ice.)
Sure enough: 20 feet per minute turns out to be fast enough to match the 28 days recorded in the Chinese document for the slab's journey to the Forbidden City.
Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stone says it was an amazing feat. "You had on the order of a month to pull this off at the temperature conditions of Beijing," Stone says. "I think this just says a lot about their ability to engineer, their ability to plan."
Enlarge this image toggle caption Bob Jordan/AP Bob Jordan/AP
Ancient Egyptians pulled off a similar delivery, sliding a 60-ton statue on wooden planks to a temple. They, too, used water to lower the friction. And in 1999, engineers moved North Carolina's Cape Hatteras lighthouse — more than 4,800 tons — more than a half-mile on steel rollers greased with soap.
But the Chinese, Stone believes, appear to be the first to have moved a chunk of mountain along a road of man-made ice.Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman ripped Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff for his “running style.”
Adding insult to injury, Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman ripped Los Angeles Rams running back Jared Goff for his “running style.”
During the fourth quarter of the Rams’ loss to the Seahawks on Thursday Night Football, Rams quarterback Jared Goff scrambled and nearly found the end zone. Sadly for the rookie quarterback, it wasn’t meant to be and he paid the price.
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Before Goff could reach the end zone, Sherman came flying across the field and absolutely destroyed Goff, knocking him out of bounds. The hit also ended Goff’s night, as he was immediately placed in the concussion protocol.
To make matter’s worse, the play was called back anyway thanks to a holding penalty against the Rams. You can watch the clip here.
After the game, Sherman said he felt disrespected by Goff’s run, saying the signal-caller looked like he would have an easy touchdown, per NFL Network’s Dan Hellie:
“There was a little disrespect in his running style, he was acting like he was getting a freebie to the end zone.”
Despite being placed in the concussion protocol, Goff was walking around and seemed to be fine after the game. Interim head coach John Fassel said Goff was going to be OK and also noted that he needs to get out of bounds on a play like that.
To say Goff was being disrespectful by trying to score a touchdown is a bit silly, but sometimes Sherman’s quotes go in that direction. Normally Sherman is good for a solid quote – like calling Thursday Night Football a “poopfest” – but this wasn’t one of them.
This article originally appeared onScott Aukerman with "Weird Al" Yankovic and guest Tony Hale on Comedy Bang Bang Season 5.
There is a place where the dead return to life, where famous celebrities and lowly janitors mingle, and where esteemed scholars and ignorant fools are equally welcome. This place is Comedy Bang! Bang!.
Both a television show on IFC and a long-running podcast,Comedy Bang! Bang! is the brainchild of Scott Aukerman. The format is simple: Aukerman welcomes guests as themselves as well as comedians in the guise of everyone from director Werner Herzog to Ho Ho the Naughty Elf (who brings knives and guns to the naughty children at Christmas each year). What makes these shows, which might otherwise be irreversibly chaotic, flourish is Aukerman himself, who brings to the platform an uncanny ability to draw out both his real guests and comics in character while gleefully sandbagging their intentions when necessary.
He’s had plenty of time to perfect his craft.
After serving as a writer and performer on HBO’s Mr. Show, Aukerman first debuted Comedy Bang! Bang! (then Comedy Death-Ray) at M Bar in Los Angeles in 2002. The live version, which was akin to a variety show, ran for 10 years after a move to the nearby Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre and featured plenty of appearances from the likes of Louis C.K., Aziz Ansari, Maria Bamford, and countless others.
TheComedy Bang! Bang! podcast started in 2009 and has blossomed into a premiere platform for both rising talent and frequent favorites like Paul F. Tompkins and Andy Daly. Since 2012, Aukerman has also expanded his brand to a television show of the same name, a wonderfully surreal program that takes the format of him speaking to guests on a couch and twists it with unique editing, bizarre story lines, and absurd banter.
As the Comedy Bang! Bang! television program prepared for its upcoming fifth season, Aukerman found himself facing a challenge he thought he’d already conquered: finding a new bandleader.
The incomparable Reggie Watts had left his station as Scott’s sidekick after three seasons to take a position on James Corden’s The Late Late Show, but Season 4 replacement Kid Cudi informed Aukerman he would not be returning with production set to begin shortly. With his options limited, he went after the best man for the job.
“We were just in such a bind that it was like a Hail Mary pass for me,” says Aukerman. “I was just like, you know what would solve all of this? If ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic did the show.”
“I’d just finished my five-month tour, and literally the morning after I got home, I opened up my laptop and read my email,” recalls Yankovic. “The first email is from Aukerman saying, ‘Hey, how would you like to be the new bandleader on Comedy Bang! Bang!?’ It’s not every day that I get offered a chance to co-star in one of my all-time favorite shows, so it took about a nanosecond of thought before I said, ‘Of course!’”
Aukerman has made no secret of his affinity for the godfather of parody songs. “Weird Al” has guested on the Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast numerous times, as well as appearing in each season of the television show to date. The two speak of each other with a warm affinity, and the chemistry they share gives plenty of reason to expect the new season of the show to be one of its strongest to date. For Yankovic, taking the role gave him something he says he hadn’t had in quite a while: a regular job.
“It’s not part of my normal existence to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning and drive somewhere every single day,” says Yankovic, “but it was a joy to do that, because every single time I came to the set, I would be in the company of these amazing people and doing ridiculous things.”
In Aukerman’s case, he’s always getting up early, if he ever sleeps at all. In addition to his podcast and television show, he’s also one of the founders of Earwolf, a titan in comedy podcasting that features other popular shows like Never Not Funny, How Did This Get Made?, and the show co-hosted by his wife, Kulap Vilaysack, Who Charted? Along with Zach Galifianakis, he is the creator of Between Two Ferns, the Funny or Die program that in 2014 featured an episode with President Barack Obama. He also wrote for Chris Rock on the last Academy Awards telecast and now produces several programs for NBC’s new streaming comedy platform, Seeso.
“I really had to get better at my time management and figuring out how to make the podcast still good while I was doing the TV show,” says Aukerman, “which is something that I think I’ve figured out how to do. I’ve been really pleased with the fact that a lot of people think the last couple of years have been some of the strongest years in the podcast’s history while I’ve been working this insane amount of hours on the TV show.”
One challenge that Aukerman has been forced to face several times in the last couple of years is figuring out how to be funny when the world looks acutely dark. He recalls being on set at Village Video during Season 5’s production when he learned that Prince, one of his favorite musical artists, had suddenly passed away.
“Prince, it just was so out of the blue,” he says. “It definitely was something that I couldn’t believe, but at the same time, there I am at work, and we’ve got to get to work that day. I’m sort of able to compartmentalize it a little bit and just kind of go, ‘Well, this is crazy, and I’m bummed, but we have a show to shoot.’”
“Weird Al,” who for many years lobbied Prince’s camp for permission to do a parody of one of his songs, says he is sorry he’ll now never have that chance.
“It’s very sad, because that’s a ship that has now passed. I’ve always held a hope that someday we would meet, let bygones be bygones, and maybe he’d even let me do a parody at some point, but that’s not ever going to happen now.”
A much more immediate loss was the tragic death of Harris Wittels, a writer for Parks and Recreation and one of the most beloved guests in Comedy Bang! Bang! history. When Wittels passed away from an overdose in February of 2015, the comedy world went into mourning. Aukerman, who was a close friend to Wittels and even had a separate podcast with him – Analyze Phish, in which Wittels attempted to convince Aukerman that Phish was a good band – says the late comic’s presence still looms large in his life.
“It’s so interesting,” says Aukerman, “because still to this day, I’ll be trying to figure out who to have on a show, and it’ll pop in my head every once in a while, Oh, I could get Harris, and then I realize, You know that he’s not around anymore.”
Aukerman recalls taping what would ultimately be the final episode of the Analyze Phish podcast with Wittels and that his co-host seemed “put off” when the recording was over. Aukerman says he worried that perhaps he’d done too many bits or simply not taken things seriously enough for Wittels’ liking. Eventually, Wittels asked to listen to the episode, and upon hearing it back, immediately saw the comedic value and asked that it be released right away.
It’s an anecdote indicative of how intuitively and wholly Wittels embraced good comedy, even at his own expense.
“I think he was always just looking for the truthful representation of stuff, rather than putting on any kind of a front,” says Aukerman, “and that was really refreshing.”
While the loss of Wittels was a tragedy not just for fans of comedy but for those who knew and loved him, the response of Comedy Bang! Bang! to his passing is proof positive of why it is such an important, beloved institution for so many. Aukerman made the difficult choice to release the final podcast featuring Wittels — the fourth installment of the “Farts and Procreation” saga that featured the late comic along with Parks and Recreation star Adam Scott and former writer Chelsea Peretti — four days after Wittels’ death.
In a touching intro to the episode, Aukerman notes that he was inclined to shelve the episode, but was reminded of something Wittels had told him shortly before his death: “I just think … motherfuckers want to laugh.” He was right. The comments on the episode’s page and at dedicated fan forums on sites like reddit showed what a cathartic help having one last hour with Wittels was for fans who, in spite of having never met the man, found themselves truly grieving.
It makes what Aukerman does – on his podcast, with his television show, and on the 18-city live tour he just concluded – so special. There certainly doesn’t need to be despair in your life to enjoy any of his many projects, but when there is, they are there, ready to help make the day a little bit brighter.
“Sometimes when the world is especially unfunny, it actually helps you to be funny,” says Aukerman. “It’s like, ‘Hey, this is all depressing, let’s go be silly.’ I think the good thing about Comedy Bang! Bang! is it’s really just silly and dumb. It’s a lot of fun to do, but I think it helps people as well when their personal lives get shittier or when the world looks kind of shitty. It’s definitely something that I think helps out rather than is a chore.”B/R: LeBron is signed for several years, and the Lakers have this young core. It’s early, but can you envision Los Angeles being a place to settle down? Michael Beasley: I’ve felt like that every year for the last eight years, so I’m going into this situation with the mindset of playing basketball for a year and coming home to Atlanta at the end of the year and whatever happens, happens. I want a long-term contract, two, three, four years, 100 percent. But at this point, I’m tired of getting my hopes up and smashed. But the Lakers organization, from Rob Pelinka to Jeanie Buss to Magic, they’ve treated us like family. So, they did nothing wrong as to why I feel the way I feel. It’s just kinda like a battered-dog situation. I’m gonna take it a day at a time, and hopefully the days don’t endRandom subway celebrity sightings are a dime a dozen in this city, whether it's Tom Hanks Hankspreading on the 1 train, Michael Cera rubbing his shoes all over the pole, or Dame Helen Mirren showing exemplary subway etiquette on the R train. There are a few exceptional celebrities though, the ones every New Yorker thinks they've ridden with, like Kevin Bacon or Jake Gyllenhaal, who has been cursed to eat bagels off the floor of the subway for eternity. We are proud to formally declare Lorde an exceptional subway celebrity, but because she is the inverse of Bacon and Gyllenhaal: you've probably ridden with her on the subway without even realizing it.
cowboys of the subway A post shared by Lorde (@lordemusic) on Feb 2, 2017 at 8:43pm PST
In the buildup to the release of her sophomore album Melodrama, Lorde has been on a charm offensive regaling various publications with tales of her subway exploits. This weekend, she'll appear on an episode of CBS Sunday Morning, where she'll be riding the train with Anthony Mason. She told him much of the album was written while riding the F train. "I thanked the subway in my album notes. Because I wouldn’t have been able to make the record without it," Lorde says in the segment. "I found it such an amazing space to kind of be around people.”
✨👼🏻👼🏼✨ A post shared by Maddy Budd (@maddybudd) on Nov 30, 2016 at 9:10pm PST
In May, she told Rolling Stone about her habits while writing the album:
Outside the studio, Lorde often kept to herself. She stayed in a "bizarre businessman hotel - just me and conferences," she says. "In a lot of ways I felt like a little monk, drifting down into the subway, being very solitary and just thinking about the music all the time and not really socializing very much. Every once in a while, a sweet little NYU student would come up to me and say some lovely thing, but really I felt like I was able to lose touch with myself as a person of note, which is a really valuable thing. By the end, this part of my life, this part that we're doing right now, all of this felt very abstract."
Lorde just releases the #1 video & song of the day & hangs w/ friend MaddyBudd on the subway.
it is what it is...& loving it#greenlight pic.twitter.com/X5n7BUG45T — Lorde WorldWideNet🌐 (@Lorde_WWN) March 3, 2017
The most extensive information about Lorde's subway habits came in a NY Times Magazine cover story, which included a lot of quotes about how much she enjoys not being recognized in public ("No one cares about me."):
We pushed through the service exit, walked along empty streets and boarded an uptown 1 train. While making Melodrama, Lorde took lots of subway rides, auditioning rough mixes of songs on cheap earbuds, which helped give her a sense of how the music would sound in daily life. As we rumbled northward, her face was in full fluorescent light, and I wondered if people ever bothered her during these rides. “Nobody recognizes me,” she said. When Lorde does spot someone spotting her, she went on, her move is to smile, place a finger to her lips and mouth a conspiratorial shh. Her thinking is that this gesture, warm and direct in its appeal, will pre-empt any further encounter — “and it usually does.”
There's also this little scene, which took place at a diner near Columbus Circle called the Flame. Suffice to say, not only have you unknowingly travelled with Lorde on the subway—she's probably jotted down something you said (assuming you said something interesting):
Part of the reason Lorde likes traveling unnoticed in New York is that she enjoys paying close attention to strangers’ conversations. “I’ll overhear a phrase and roll it around in my mind for hours,” she said. Sometimes it isn’t a phrase that ensnares her but a tableau. At one point during our meal, she broke off midsentence and drew my gaze to an older couple one table over. The man, who had a plastic ballpoint pen clipped to his belt, was holding up a takeout box. His companion was slowly filling it with uneaten French fries from her plate, one tiny fork-nudge at a time. Neither spoke, but there were soft, birdlike squeaks as the china rubbed against the plastic foam. Lorde looked back at me and put a hand to her heart.
And in case you're wondering: yes, Lorde is fully aware that the F train is now the poster child for our never-ending waking infrastructure nightmare. Love is love.
fun fact i got stuck on the F train for 4 hours late last year! and still my love endures 🤔 — Lorde (@lorde) June 9, 2017
Now I just want to know whether her stance on the other Subway is still as strong as it once was.
[h/t Stereogum]The deficit is now down to under 3% of GDP, and in contemplating that fact, Paul Krugman asks why the deficit hawks aren’t celebrating the precipitous fall from nearly 10% of GDP a few years ago. He then explains that:
Far from celebrating the deficit’s decline, the usual suspects — fiscal-scold think tanks, inside-the-Beltway pundits — seem annoyed by the news. It’s a “false victory,” they declare. “Trillion dollar deficits are coming back,” they warn. And they’re furious with President Obama for saying that it’s time to get past “mindless austerity” and “manufactured crises.” He’s declaring mission accomplished, they say, when he should be making another push for entitlement reform. All of which demonstrates a truth that has been apparent for a while, if you have been paying close attention: Deficit scolds actually love big budget deficits, and hate it when those deficits get smaller. Why? Because fears of a fiscal crisis — fears that they feed assiduously — are their best hope of getting what they really want: big cuts in social programs.
So, he unmasks them and then goes on to say:
But isn’t the falling deficit just a short-term blip, with the long-run outlook as dire as ever? Actually, no. Falling deficits right now have a lot to do with a strengthening economy plus some of that “mindless austerity” the president condemned. But there has also been a dramatic slowdown in the growth of health spending — and if that continues, the long-run fiscal outlook is much better than anyone thought possible not long ago. Yes, current projections still show a rising ratio of debt to G.D.P. starting some years from now, and uncomfortable levels of debt a generation from now. But given all the clear and present dangers we face, it’s hard to see why dealing with that distant and uncertain prospect should be any kind of policy priority.
That is, Paul Krugman is saying that
— he doesn’t think it’s necessary to deal with a possible long-term rising debt-to-GDP ratio now, because of the many other problems we still have to face; but he’s also implying that if the projection of such a rise holds later, then we will have to deal with it at that time;
— the lowered deficit now is due to both a strengthening economy and some austerity measures, thereby excluding the possibility that it is due to the recovering economy alone, in spite of the fiscal drag from reduced Government spending at the Federal level pulling in the opposite direction; and
— “... uncomfortable levels of debt a generation from now” are a possibility, implying that high levels of debt, and debt-to-GDP ratios mean something to the fiscal sustainability of Government spending in the United States.
Also, what he is not saying is that the deficit is far too low for a full employment US economy that can drive up wages and drive down inequality, courtesy of both major parties and the Administration, who made deficit reduction a priority since the stimulus bill passed in 2009. So what does this tell us about the thinking of the “progressive” economist with the greatest name recognition among the public and the Democratic Party faithful?
Simply this:
— Krugman evidently still is communicating to progressives and Democrats that levels of debt and the debt-to-GDP ratio matter for a nation like the United States with a non-convertible fiat currency, floating exchange rates and no debts in a foreign currency.
— He ‘s still implying that it was good to cut the deficit using some austerity, even though we still have 25 million Americans wanting full-time jobs who can’t find them.
— He’s still saying that higher debt levels can be a problem for future generations.
And by not saying that the deficit is too low for the economic context of the US in 2014 – 2015, he is also telling us that he still doesn’t understand the significance of the Sectoral Financial Balances (SFB) Model, and in particular that if the deficit has been driven down to under 3% of GDP by the politicians, that implies that the sum of private sector savings and current account balance cannot exceed 3%, and further that if the current account balance is approaching 3% as I believe it is, then that must mean that aggregate savings for the private sector was close to 0% in 2014.
A bad year for the private sector by any standard, and the lowest aggregate savings figure for the private sector since the first quarter of 2008. That is not a good sign for the continued recovery of the economy, and judging from his column quoted earlier, Krugman doesn’t appear to have a clue about the sheer fiscal irresponsibility of driving the government deficit down to a low enough level that there is no surplus available for the private sector to save. Now that’s austerity. But Krugman’s claiming that austerity is over.
In addition, the fact that his continued belief that the level of debt subject to the limit and the debt-to-GDP ratios can be a problem for our economy, means that if we listen to his advice we will one day have problems with our economy. This is true because sooner or later he is bound to conclude that the existing level of debt, or the debt-to-GDP ratio, is too high to allow the US to deficit spend very much to get to full employment, or create an economy that is fully recovered from a depression or serious recession.
Government fiscal policy should be targeted on public purpose outcomes such as full employment, price stability, Medicare for All, a strong safety net, renewed infrastructure, re-invented energy foundations, etc while the deficit, the debt, the debt-to-GDP ratio, and the current account balance are allowed to adjust to spending, as they will (to float). That is Real Fiscal Responsibility in fiscal policy. And there is no room in the process of implementing it to target arbitrary values of debts and deficits; because they are not important in themselves for a nation like the United States with a sovereign fiat currency. More on the idea of Real Fiscal Responsibility and an effort to spread the idea is here. Please help us do that.India and St Kitts & Nevis settled for a 1-1 draw at the Mumbai Football arena on Thursday as the home side won the Tri-Nation Series title. India finished the tournament with four points, ahead of St Kitts & Nevis (two) and Mauritius (one).
Gvaune Amory's corner conversion in the 71st minute cancelled out Jackichand Singh's 39th-minute strike, snapping a sequence of nine consecutive wins for India, which includes an unofficial friendly against Bhutan.
The silken skills of Rowllin
If there is one player who is growing in stature under Constantine, it is Rowllin Borges, who was again the best player for India on Thursday.
It wasn't just that he created the goal with a perfectly weighted cross that was nodded in by Jackichand, but also the work rate from him that gives this Indian team an added edge. Eugeneson Lyngdoh did not do much over the two matches, other than a smart pass that set up Balwant Singh's winner against Mauritius, but Rowllin's ability to change gears in the middle meant he didn't always need to.
India lack match fitness
Against the Caribbean opponents, just like the Mauritius game, the Indian team looked a little half-cooked, particularly in the first half of both games.
After a hectic domestic season, the only competitive football the national team got was by the middle of June. The past two months have been a quieter period for most members of the squad and that showed.
With four debuts across the two matches, Stephen Constantine tried out plenty of combinations and playing styles in the lead-up to a critical AFC Asian Cup qualifying match on September 5 away to Macau. The fact that they have just played two teams ranked well below India's 97 should not matter and the coach should be satisfied with the game time his squad got.
The defence continues to look brittle
Through the good form in recent months, the Indian defence has always looked uncertain. The central defensive partnership of Anas Edathodika and Sandesh Jhingan, the latter getting to wear the captain's armband in the Tri-Nation Series for the first time, has not had a lot of time together. That has led to some gaps in communication between them and the goalkeeper Subrata Pal, who replaced Gurpreet Singh Sandhu in this tournament.
Both full-backs, Pritam Kotal and Narayan Das, look good when India are on the move forward, but sometimes leave spaces vacant at the back for the opposition to exploit. All nations in 2017 have exploited this weakness to different extents -- stretching the defence apart on occasion -- and these are areas that better teams will not leave unpunished.
The big boys will return for Macau
The two matches in Mumbai were both valuable match practice for the Indian team, as well as an audition for parts left vacant by the AFC Cup bound Bengaluru FC trio of Sunil Chhetri, Udanta Singh and Gurpreet.
All three should automatically slot back into the starting lineup against Macau. That means the likes of Robin Singh and Balwant Singh, both of whom played consistently in both friendlies will compete for one spot, if at all.
Holicharan Narzary and Jackichand may also have to fight for one slot on the flanks, and the latter could have tipped it in his favour with his goal. Nikhil Poojary, though, has emerged as a genuine contender for a place in the midfield -- he has pace, skills and is always willing to take on opposition players in one-on-one situations.
There are some holes to be plugged, but the competition for places is a welcome headache for Constantine to have ahead of the Macau trip.Disney Princesses Get ‘Star Wars’ Makeover (Images)
It’s quite popular to take Disney characters and switch their look up a bit, whether it be giving them a dark and twisted makeover or dressing them up as characters from Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead or trying to figure out what they might look like in real life.
Today the Disney Princesses try their hand in the Star Wars universe. A collection of seven of the princesses have been given a Star Wars makeover, complete with lightsabers or familiar outfits or a carbonite, uhh…accessory? Yeah, let’s go with that!
You can check out the images below.
The images come from artist Ralph Sevelius, and you can check out more of his geek-friendly work over at his deviantART page.
Image Gallery [Click thumbnails for larger view.]India faces an invisible public health crisis in the form of widespread maternal and child undernutrition. One-third of Indian women (of reproductive age) are undernourished, and close to 60 million children (under five years of age) are at risk, that is, they are either stunted (low height-for-age) or wasted (low weight-for-height). Women and adolescent girls face the added burden of societal discrimination, which manifests in their unequal access to food, healthcare and resources. As a result, about 42% of Indian women are underweight when they begin pregnancy—compared to about 15% in African countries.
Like mother, like child: A child raised in India is far more likely to be malnourished than one from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, or Somalia. India’s failure to feed its young results from its inability to address the multiple contributing factors of undernutrition, and to prioritize early life-cycle investments. Given that 50% of the growth failure in the first two years of age occurs in the womb owing to poor maternal nutrition, policy must target the first 1,000 days of a child’s life (from conception to the two-year post-natal period).
The lack of nutrition is not only a denial of a fundamental human right, it is also poor economics. Undernutrition has adverse, irreversible consequences for a child’s cognitive and physical development. Field studies reaffirm the link between the provision of school meals and improved learning outcomes for children, including better classroom concentration. Undernutrition also remains one of the leading causes of child mortality: Close to 70% of children between the age of six months and five years in India suffer from anaemia, which, if left untreated, increases susceptibility to illness, raising morbidity.
The poor state of maternal and child is accentuated by stark state-level disparities in nutritional status. Take the case of stunting in children under 5: rates range from 50% in Uttar Pradesh to 19% in Kerala. State-level disparities are likely to be aggravated further with the budgetary realignments after the 14th Finance Commission. According to the Centre for Policy Research’s Accountability Initiative, Central allocations to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) declined almost 10%, from Rs15,502 crore in 2015-16 to Rs14,000 crore in 2016-17. Not all states have been able to plug the funding gap.
Policymakers can break the tenacious hold of hidden hunger by being sensitive to three key facts. First, early life-cycle interventions targeting the first 1,000 days of a child’s life are crucial for reducing a child’s susceptibility to infections, and breaking the link between undernutrition, disease and mortality.
Second, direct nutrition interventions can reduce stunting only by 20%; indirect interventions, for example, access to water, sanitation and hygiene, must tackle the remaining 80%. The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan should be used to leverage policy complementarities with household sanitation, and behavioural change encouraged through social messaging, and information-education-communication activities for pregnant and lactating mothers.
Third, policy must deliver universal, rights-based nutrition services, which overcome disparities across gender, communities and geographical regions. Take the current situation of the ICDS supplementary nutrition programme: Food reaches barely 20% of children in Uttar Pradesh, but over 90% of children in Odisha.
India’s ability to harness long-term demographic dividends rests on it prioritizing nutrition in its health agenda, and reforming the institutional framework through which interventions are delivered. Most importantly, to combine fragmented efforts, a nodal government body should be established with responsibility for meeting time-bound nutrition targets, and coordinating multi-sectoral programmes, including the ICDS, the National Rural Health Mission, the midday meal scheme, and the public distribution system.
Simultaneously, the ICDS should be restructured to improve targeting and strengthen last-mile delivery. Reforms include standardizing the nutritional component of supplementary food, prioritizing educational outreach, and investing in anganwadi centres and workers. Close to half of anganwadi centres operate without functional adult weight scales.
Additionally, food fortification of staples (including wheat, flour, rice and edible oils) represents a cost-effective and scalable solution to enhance nutrient intake. Standards for food fortification should be established, and guidelines changed to promote the use of fortified inputs in ICDS-provided hot cooked meals.
Finally, the government should facilitate public-private partnerships in the sector. Private sector engagement can leverage technological solutions for scaling up food fortification initiatives, and complement the government’s outreach efforts through mass awareness and education campaigns in communities.
India’s fight against hidden hunger must acknowledge that economic growth is not a panacea for all public health problems. Given the ever-increasing weight of the country’s economic ambitions, prioritizing nutrition in an |
takes a completely different direction – keeping in the same colour scheme but moving towards more substantial imagery.
Going back to the NA cover, I think my love for its simplicity comes from a place that is both surprising and unsurprising: unlike The Girl on the Train, I was bowled over by Fates and Furies. It’s funny – we’re always told not to judge a book by its cover, but I never thought I’d find myself judging a cover by its book.
How about you? What’s your favourite cover? Leave me your thoughts and opinions in the comments!
Cover to Cover is a weekly feature appearing every Wednesday. You can browse through past posts here.Another day of red arrows for the major stock indices (^DJI, ^GSPC, ^IXIC) a day after the Fed left the door open, at least a little, for a June rate hike. A mixed bag of economic data this morning didn't help matters. Jobless claims came in lower than any other week in the last 15 years and consumer spending ticked higher. Still the cost of employing the average American worker ticked higher and personal income was flat.
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Here are some of the other stories Yahoo Finance is keeping an eye on today.
McDonald's build-a-burger
McDonald's (MCD) efforts to revitalize sales have been making headlines pretty much every day, and today is no exception. Now, the fast-food giant is reportedly test marketing custom-made meals, where diners can choose how their burgers and salads are made.
Big banks and bitcoin
Bitcoin is taking another step towards mainstream acceptance. Goldman Sachs (GS) is investing $50 million dollars in consumer digital currency company Circle Internet Financial, becoming the first big banking institution to get behind bitcoin.
Secret no more
It's no longer a secret--the Secret app is no more Co-founder David Byttow blogging that after a lot of thought and consultation with the board, he's shutting the company down after just 16 months. The once-hot app that allows users to share information anonymously has reportedly seen a big dropoff in demand despite a retooling a few months ago.
Fastest growing retail app
What retailer would you think had the fastest growing mobile app last year? Well, if you said Kohl's (KSS), you'd be right. Researcher Comscore finds the Kohl's app jumped 793 percent in 2014...second only to car service Lyft.
More from Yahoo Finance
McDonald's new menu, Apple becoming Microsoft and Budweiser's blunder
Budweiser's 'no' must go: social media
Microsoft developers conference falls flat, is Apple next?Why do teachers leave?
Updated
As the school gates open and students flood in with shiny shoes and new backpacks, there's an expectation that teachers should be bursting with enthusiasm to get back to the classroom after their long summer holiday.
The reality is that teachers have mixed feelings as the school year commences.
Some describe dread and anxiety while others say they're hopeful or 'trying to remain positive'.
"I feel better than I did in previous years," an experienced teacher says.
"Our new principal makes our workload more manageable."
Another teacher — mid-career, early 40s — discloses her panic at the thought of a year working with a particularly challenging student.
"I'm not sure how much longer I can do this," she confides.
A graduate teacher, just three years into his career, tells me of his travel plans.
"I'm not going to teach," he explains. "I need a break. I can't face the thought of so much work and all that stress.
"I do love teaching," he smiles ruefully. "Teaching is awesome until you have to do something other than teach, which is about 80 per cent of the time."
Teachers leaving in significant numbers
It's worth considering the fact that many of the teachers who walked through the school gates last year aren't returning this year. And it's a trend we can expect to continue.
Teachers are leaving the profession in significant numbers — the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics suggest 53 per cent of people who hold a teaching degree do not currently work in education.
And research conducted by the Australian Government in 2014 estimates that 20 per cent of education graduates do not register as teachers on graduating, meaning many teachers are leaving before they've even started.
But the specific reasons why teachers leave and precisely how many are leaving are largely unknown.
There is currently no systematic tracking of teachers who leave the profession, let alone analysis of the reasons why they do.
Not only does this impact teachers and kids — disrupting staff teams and school communities, and even impairing student learning — experts say it also prevents education departments from identifying teacher shortages and planning for the future.
So why is it that the job with'such great pay and so many holidays' isn't retaining its workforce?
'We're going to have a teacher shortage'
Associate Professor Philip Riley from the Australian Catholic University, who is leading research into teacher attrition, says the first problem is that no-one is collecting and coordinating the data on a federal level.
"There are nine parallel [education] systems operating across Australia," Professor Riley explains.
"There's state, Catholic and independent. Each of them are collecting information in different ways, but no one is bringing that information together."
Professor Robyn Ewing from the University of Sydney, who also researches teacher attrition, agrees the current systems for data collection need review.
"There's a huge problem in Australia getting reliable statistics on this issue because most teachers begin as temporary or casual," Professor Ewing says.
"At the moment we're only tracking those that are permanent."
The latest national data from the Australian Government suggest an average of 5.7 per cent of teachers left the profession in 2014.
It seems a fairly innocuous figure, however Professor Ewing argues it doesn't provide any insight into what is happening to teachers on the books.
"Government bodies reassure us that there are thousands of teachers on the list," Professor Ewing says.
"But that just means they're registered to teach. Many of those have taken up other jobs or moved to different systems or are stuck in the casual, temporary cycle.
"In actual fact we have evidence to suggest that we are going to have a teacher shortage."
One figure that adds weight to Professor Ewing's argument is the alarming percentage of those who leave the profession shortly after graduating.
Although the figure varies by locality, about 40 to 50 per cent of our newest teachers leave within their first five years on the job.
These graduates are leaving for various reasons, but similar themes recur: they feel burnt out, unsupported, frustrated and disillusioned.
Many cannot secure permanent, full time employment and so leave the profession to pursue careers with fewer demands and greater certainty.
'Anything is preferable to teaching'
For example, Kate, 30, left the profession several years ago after her first year of full-time teaching, and now works as a freelance writer.
"Of my six close friends who I graduated with [in 2007], only one is returning to the classroom this year," she tells me, before listing off their new careers: blogger, footballer, police officer, priest, publican.
It seems that anything is preferable to teaching.
"New teachers are expected to have all this energy and enthusiasm to make up for our lack of experience," Kate explains.
"But that energy gets drained away. Nobody's supporting us when we're finally in the job."
Professors Ewing and Riley cite a lack of mentoring from more experienced teachers as one of the biggest problems affecting graduates.
"New teachers need support once they're in schools," Professor Ewing says. "A well-mentored new teacher is three times more likely to stay in the game."
But more experienced teachers often aren't willing to take on these additional mentoring roles; their workload is already beyond capacity.
With the advent of Professional Teaching Standards in 2011, all teachers — including those with extensive experience — were burdened with an additional administrative task designed to provide a framework for teacher professionalism and ongoing accreditation.
This means an experienced teacher's time is now spent documenting their own worth; there's no time left to support colleagues, new or old.
"This is our obsession with teacher accountability playing out," Professor Riley says.
"We've made it an adversarial profession, when it should be collegial. Teachers are competing for positions and constantly trying to make themselves look highly employable. What they should be focussed on is their students and their teaching."
It's not just 'new teachers' that are leaving, either
Research suggests many long-serving teachers are also retiring early, feeling utterly spent.
"And they mourn the loss," Professor Riley says.
"They miss the kids and they miss teaching — but the demands of the job simply become too much."
Like many of the new teachers who leave, these more experienced professionals are disillusioned.
There is ongoing pressure on teachers to improve test results, lift the profile of the profession, meet the teaching standards and deliver — faultlessly — an overcrowded curriculum.
"Experienced teachers have had enough," Professor Riley says.
And as they leave, they take with them their expertise and their ability to mentor and guide new and mid-career teachers.
It seems that consistent collection and analysis of data on teacher attrition — on a national scale — is urgently required.
The most comprehensive and recent information available is the federal government's National Teaching Workforce Dataset report published in 2014.
The data was collected in order to "provide understanding and insight into school teachers across Australia". However, the report itself acknowledges "limitations" in relation to "the completeness and accuracy of some data items".
"Teaching is a big workforce that nobody's monitoring," Professor Riley says. "And that impacts our ability to make plans for the future."
Without accurate and comprehensive data collection it cannot be determined how many teachers are seeking an alternate career, how many plan on returning to the workforce and how many retire early.
What's more, teacher shortages — already evident in remote and regional areas — seem likely to continue given the number of students is predicted to increase 26 per cent by 2022.
This, combined with the ageing workforce and high attrition rates, will likely result in larger class sizes, teachers teaching out of field and less experienced teachers being called upon to do more, all of which have serious implications for students and their learning.
So given what's at stake, why aren't we tracking attrition more closely?
"It's an issue of complexity and of cost," says Professor Riley.
"We simply don't have the sophisticated systems in place to record all the nuances associated with teachers as they leave and shift within the profession."
Of course, without that data, the size of the problem can never be fully understood and, more importantly, the reasons why teachers leave cannot be addressed.
"We aren't investing in our teachers," Professor Riley says.
"We still aren't resolving the problem."
Topics: teachers, children, primary, professional-development, schools, australia
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In a recent Nation piece, the wonderful Elizabeth Royte teased out the direct links between hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the food supply. In short, extracting natural gas from rock formations by bombarding them with chemical-spiked fluid leaves behind fouled water—and that fouled water can make it into the crops and animals we eat.
But there’s another, emerging food/fracking connection that few are aware of. US agriculture is highly reliant on synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, and nitrogen fertilizer is synthesized in a process fueled by natural gas. As more and more of the US natural gas supply comes from fracking, more and more of the nitrogen fertilizer farmers use will come from fracked natural gas. If Big Ag becomes hooked on cheap fracked gas to meet its fertilizer needs, then the fossil fuel industry will have gained a powerful ally in its effort to steamroll regulation and fight back opposition to fracking projects.
The potential for the growth of fracked nitrogen (known as “N”) fertilizer is immense. During the 2000s, when conventional US natural gas sources were drying up and prices were spiking, the US fertilizer industry largely went offshore, moving operations to places like Trinidad and Tobago, where conventional natural gas was still relatively plentiful. (I told that story in a 2010 Grist piece.) This chart from a 2009 USDA doc illustrates how rapidly the US shifted away from domestically produced nitrogen in the 2000s.
Today, Trinidad and Tobago, an island nation off the coast of Venezuela and our leading source of imported N, is in the same position the US found itself in the early 2000s: Its supply of conventional, easy-to-harvest natural gas is wearing thin. In 2012, the International Monetary Fund estimated (PDF) that at current rates of extraction, the nation had sufficient natural gas reserves to last until just 2019.
Meanwhile, the fracking boom has made US natural gas suddenly abundant—and driven prices into the ground. A Btu of US natural gas now now costs 75 percent less than it did in 2008, the New York Times recently reported. Meanwhile, nitrogen fertilizer prices remain stubbornly high, propped up by strong demand driven by high crop prices. Those conditions—low input prices plus elevated prices for the final product—mean a potential profit bonanza for companies that use cheap US natural gas to make pricy N fertilizer for the booming US market.
Not surprisingly, as Kay McDonald of the excellent blog Big Picture Agriculture shows, the industry is starting to move back to the United States to take advantage of the fracking boom. McDonald points to a $1.4 billion project announced in September by the Egyptian company Orascom Construction Industries to build a large new nitrogen fertilizer plant in Iowa close to a natural gas pipeline. According to the Wall Street Journal, “cheap U.S. natural-gas supplies and the nation’s role as the world’s most important food exporter” drew the Egyptian giant into the US market.
Fertilizer giant CF Industries won more than $70 million in tax incentives from the the state, and $161 million in property taxes over 20 years from the county that houses the plant.
That same month, US-owned agribusiness cooperative CHS announced it was investing $1.2 billion to build a nitrogen plant in North Dakota. An Associated Press article gave a taste of the potential profits in such an operation: “Natural gas prices are now at about $2.50 per thousand cubic feet. At those prices, it takes about $82 worth of natural gas to make a ton of anhydrous ammonia, which is selling for about $800 per ton.”
And then there’s US fertilizer giant CF Industries, which in November announced a $3.8 billion expansion of existing nitrogen fertilizer plants in Louisiana and Iowa, a move designed to “take advantage of low natural gas costs and high grain prices,” MarketWatch reported.
Now, it should be noted that it isn’t just the promise of windfall profits that are driving these investments. Energy prices are highly volatile, and the industry is wary of the risk involved with plunking down billions in hopes of future gain. Enter the taxpayer: These projects are being underwritten by public money at the national, state, and local levels. As a reward for expanding its Iowa plant, CF Industries won more than $70 million in tax incentives from the the state, and $161 million in property taxes over 20 years from Woodbury County, which houses the plant, the Sioux City Journal reports. Louisiana will chip in several million dollars in tax breaks for the company’s expansion there, too.
As for Orascom Construction’s Iowa plant, it’s being financed through a federal loan program designed to help states recover economically from disasters—in this case, Iowa’s 2008 floods. The loan program, which gives Orascom access to an interest rate much lower than it would find in the commercial market, is a de facto subsidy—it will likely save the company $360 million in interest payments on the construction, the Des Moines Register reported. And that’s on top of $100 million in tax breaks the state of Iowa has committed to the project.
What are taxpayers getting in exchange for these goodies? In my view, not much. Industrial agriculture’s reliance on plentiful synthetic nitrogen brings with it a whole bevy of environmental liabilities: excess nitrogen that seeps into streams and eventually into the Mississippi River, feeding a massive annual algae bloom that blots out sea life; emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas 300 times more potent than carbon; and the destruction of organic matter in soil.
By adding a “small grain” (oats or wheat) plus nitrogen-fixing cover crops, farmers can reduce their nitrogen needs by upwards of 80 percent.
Rather than prop up nitrogen use by subsidizing new megaprojects, public policy could be seeking encouraging farming practices that demand less nitrogen. One obvious strategy is diversification. The most prolific US crop, corn, is also the most nitrogen-intensive among major field crops. In a 2012 paper, researchers from Iowa State University’s Leopold Center showed that by extending the typical Midwestern corn-soy crop rotation by adding a “small grain” (e.g., oats or wheat) plus nitrogen-fixing cover crops, farmers can reduce their nitrogen needs by upwards of 80 percent. Investing in policies that encourage such changes would likely, in the long run, be much smarter than subsidizing the fertilizer industry’s move toward relying on fracked gas.
As they fight the expansion of fracking and push for tighter regulations on it, concerned citizens can count on an opponent nearly as powerful and monied as Big Oil: Big Ag. Already, the American Farm Bureau Federation, which essentially acts as a lobbyist for Big Ag firms, supports the controversial energy source: “Farm Bureau supports additional access for exploration and production of oil and natural gas, including the use of hydraulic fracturing,” the group declared in an October 2012 policy statement (PDF). But the Farm Bureau and its agribiz allies haven’t played much of a role in the fight over regulating fracking, yet. As the fertilizer industry becomes reliant on cheap US natural gas, that will likely change.NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s letter to the mayor of Oakland should leave very little doubt: The Oakland Raiders are as good as gone.
The Bay Area News Group published a letter from Goodell to Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf concerning Oakland’s final push to keep the team. And it didn’t leave much room for any optimism.
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Oakland had pitched a $1.3 billion development for the Raiders and Major League Baseball’s Oakland A’s at the current site of the Coliseum. Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott is involved with the group that proposed the project.
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But Goodell, with the owners set to vote next week on the Raiders’ relocation to Las Vegas, said the city’s proposal wasn’t “clear and specific, actionable in a reasonable time frame, and free of major contingencies,” according to the Bay Area News Group.
“Despite all of these efforts, ours and yours, we have not yet identified a viable solution,” Goodell said. “It is disappointing to me and our clubs to have come to that conclusion.”
One major concern for the league seems to be the A’s being a part of the project. The Bay Area News Group said the plan was for “a 55,000-seat football stadium, along with hotels, restaurants and space for a new ballpark for the A’s.” The Bay Area News group said Schaaf has said the NFL has asked if Oakland could shorten its lease with the A’s. Oakland appears to be unwilling to do that, and Goodell wrote “the long-term nature of the commitment to the A’s remains a significant complication,” according to the Bay Area News Group.
Story continues
The Raiders need 24 of 32 votes to approve the move to Las Vegas and a $1.9 billion planned stadium that includes $750 million in public money. While that plan has had its ups and downs, the NFL has never seemed close to being happy with any of Oakland’s plans to keep the Raiders. At this point it seems like it would take a major upset for the owners to deny the Las Vegas move, if only because there is no other viable alternative for the Raiders.
Oakland tried in the final hour to keep the team, but Goodell made it clear that plan wasn’t good enough.
A fan holds a sign at a rally on Saturday to keep the Raiders in Oakland. (AP)
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!Variety reports that Showtime’s new Benedict Cumberbatch project, Melrose, has added Jennifer Jason Leigh and Hugo Weaving to its cast as the parents of Cumberbatch’s aristocratic title character. Based off Edward St Aubyn’s Patrick Melrose novels, the series will track the life of St Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical stand-in, as he attempts to survive alcoholism, heroin, and other perils of the life of the inherited and idle rich.
But in case Hugo Weaving being cast as his father didn’t clue you in, Melrose first has to get through a pretty rough childhood before he can even get to all the fun rock bottom stuff. (Variety describes the father as “horribly abusive,” and Leigh’s mother character as quietly condoning his behavior.) Leigh comes to the part off of a current role on Showtime’s Twin Peaks, while Weaving recently co-starred as a significantly more supportive father figure in Mel Gibson’s Hacksaw Ridge.
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Melrose will have a five-episode, limited series run on Showtime, with each installment covering one of the five Patrick Melrose books.Canadian boxer among the four people who were in the rented two-seater Ferrari that was being driven recklessly when it crashed on Sunday.
UPDATE:
DUBAI // Two men and two women died when their rented, two-seat Ferrari 458 Spider hit a pavement, crashed into a lamppost and split in two in the early hours of Sunday.
The crash occurred about 12.30am in Al Sarayat Road, Jumeirah Lakes Towers.
One of the two Canadian men was Cody Nixon, 24, a boxer from Toronto who was on a round-the-world trip. The other man was thought to be his cousin.
A picture posted on his Instagram account shows him in a kandura, posing with the Ferrari on The Palm Jumeirah, with the caption: "Just landed in Dubai, picked up the Ferrari. Don't worry, I won't speed ;)"
Dubai traffic police chief Col Saif Al Mazrouei said the car was designed for two people and the man behind the wheel was driving recklessly in a 60kph zone. He said police were still working out how fast the car was going.
Motor City Boxing Club in Oshawa, where Nixon trained, posted a tribute to him on Facebook.
"It's with heavy hearts that we bid farewell to Cody 'C-4' Nixon. RIP Cody," it said.
Nixon was in the middle of a trip that he was detailing on his Instagram account, @travelwithcody. He had recently posted pictures and footage of him skydiving on Aruba Island in the Caribbean.
Diana Khaddaj of Global Affairs Canada, which manages the country's diplomatic and consular affairs, said: "Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the two Canadian citizens who passed away.
"Canadian consular officials are in contact with local authorities and are providing assistance to the families."
Samir Rahman, from Dubai's EZ Rentals, which has a fleet of luxury cars, said it cost Dh3,500 a day to rent a Ferrari 458 Spider, with a Dh5,000 deposit to cover any damage.
"Depending on the vehicle and its insurance policy a person must be at least 21 years old, and in some cases 24 years old," Mr Rahman said.
"The customer must have had a licence for at least six months or insurance won't cover anything at all in case of an accident."
He said that because of rising competition in Dubai, some rental companies chose to rent to drivers under 21.
"I am very keen on the rules and policies but I know companies that rent out to 19 and 20-year-olds, and especially sportscars," Mr Rahman said.
[email protected] story in Georgia, where church pastor Jonathan Ayers was shot and killed by undercover narcotics officers during a botched drug sting on Tuesday afternoon. Ayers was not the target of the investigation.
Police were apparently after a woman Ayers had dropped off just prior to stopping at the convenience store where police confronted him. Surveillance video shows a black SUV pulling up to the store, and plain-clothes officers jumping out with their guns drawn before the vehicle has stopped. Ayers' car then backs into the picture, and the officers fire into his car as he drives off. Ayers was shot in the liver, crashed his car a short distance later, and died at the hospital from the bullet wound.
A police spokesperson says the officers identified themselves as they got out of the truck, though even if they did, it isn't difficult to see how someone in Ayers' position might panic when confronted with armed, plain-clothes men who'd just jumped from a black SUV. He had also just returned from getting money from the store's ATM. There were no drugs in Ayers' car.
Ayers leaves behind a wife who is four months pregnant.For any online business – certainly, online journalism – the health, welfare and public reach of large internet media companies that spread news around the world is always pertinent. Beyond social media like Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, etc., every business – both on or offline – relies on the search engines and profile-raising capabilities of sites like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and AOL to help push their product and drive interested parties to their brand. Of course, it’s long been held that dinosaurs like AOL and Yahoo have not only become antiquated in that job description, they’re postivitely ‘uncool,’ with their currency and hip quotient diminished accordingly.
So there was something of a collective gasp when, on the anniversary of the infamous Facebook IPO, compiled statistics of the companies with the top-performing stocks of the year since that event were… Yahoo and AOL.
I can hear the keys that have been tapping out their death notices for years suddenly stop.
In a Slate article bluntly titled, The Hottest Internet Companies of the Past Year Were Yahoo and AOL, writer Will Oremus lays it out:
AOL, of all companies, has seen its stock soar from $26 a share in May 2012 to more than $37 today—almost the exact inverse of how Facebook’s shares have performed. Its fellow dinosaur Yahoo has done even better, leaping from around $15 last year to over $26 today. If you had the foresight (or orneriness) to buy shares in those two companies instead of Facebook a year ago, congratulations: You’ve earned the right to party like it’s 1999. In AOL’s case, CEO Tim Armstrong’s bid to reinvent the company as an ad-supported media business finally showed signs of progress in the past year. Meanwhile, the company somehow manages to keep raking in some half a billion dollars every year from dial-up subscribers, more than offsetting the losses in its other divisions. At Yahoo, new CEO Marissa Mayer has engineered what may be a more sustainable turnaround. She has succeeded in shaking up a moribund corporate culture by buying hot startups, bringing in star talent, and cracking down on employees who were using “I’m working from home” as an excuse to slack off. Her anti-telecommuting edict drew a lot of flak, but it seems to be working.
Which seems to make the case that everything old can become new again… or at least stock-worthy! One can assume that AOL’s 2011 $315 million dollar acquisition of media giant, The Huffington Post, which, powered by its charismatic founder, Arianna Huffington, is both ubiquitous and influential, has brought the aging company into the 21st century and positioned it to be the player it appears to have once again become. Naysayers were perplexed by the sale when it happened, but given the fresh blood pumping the brand, as well as soaring stock prices, it’s clear those who had more foresight are the ones “partying like it’s 1999!”
As for Yahoo, the company has been in the news most recently because of its controversial CEO, another powerful and charismatic female, 37-year-old Marissa Mayer. Mayer brought hope and raised hackles when she left Google in 2012 to come to a struggling Yahoo, committed to turning the company around with a “take no prisoners” attitude. She immediately made clear she was willing to change the corporate culture there and did so by making it mandatory for telecommuting employees to show up at their Yahoo offices. The uproar of criticism from both the Yahoo workforce and some reporting media was intense, but she was not only adamant about her reasons for making the draconian pronouncement, she was also willing to make more welcomed changes on the other end of the spectrum, by extending family leave benefits, for example. Like everything this young, powerful woman puts into play, that too incited discussions about her “saving face” after the telecommuting fracas, but those who know her see it otherwise. Forbes writer, Margie Warrell made this point:
“She’s clearly driven far less by what you or I think and far more by what will serve the best interests of Yahoo’s stakeholders.”
And the numbers for Yahoo stakeholders do seem to be bearing her out. Now Mayer is looking to acquire New York-based blogging platform, Tumblr, which raises the question, will such an acquisition further raise the “cool quotient” of this re-emerging company? In an AllThingsD piece on the story, one commenter was quoted as saying:
“If you could pick a company that fits in with what Marissa Mayer has demonstrated in her career — aesthetics software technology and fast-growing — you could not land on a better choice,” said another source.
Whether the likely Tumblr addition will add to the cachet of the company remains to be seen, but given just the rise in stock value for both Yahoo and AOL, it’s clear something is going their way. Market watchers will surely be interested to see if, at the time of next anniversary of the Facebook IPO, this trend continues. For now, those who held on to their stock, leaped in against all conventional wisdom, or chose to continue with their “uncool” AOL and Yahoo e-mail addresses, it’s nice to feel relevant again… however long it lasts!
Follow Lorraine Devon Wilke on Twitter, Facebook and Rock+Paper+Music; for her archive at Addicting info click here; details and links to her other work: www.lorrainedevonwilke.com.FILE - In this Sept. 28, 2011 file photo, the Amazon.com logo is displayed at a news conference in New York. The e-commerce powerhouse on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2015 said it will now let members of its $99 annual Prime loyalty program download some shows and movies on its streaming video service to watch offline, or when there is no Internet connection available, for free. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File) The Associated Press
By MAE ANDERSON, AP Technology Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is upping the ante in the streaming-video competition with downloadable videos.
The e-commerce powerhouse will now let members of its $99 annual Prime loyalty program download some shows and movies on its streaming video service to watch offline, or when there is no Internet connection available, for free.
To watch the content users can download the Amazon Video app for iOS or Android.
Users will now be able to download shows like "Downton Abbey" and "The Good Wife," HBO shows including "Girls" and "Veep" and movies including "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" and "The Wolf of Wall Street."
Shows will be downloadable to Apple and Android phones and tablets, including Amazon's Fire devices — but not desktops or laptops.
Other streaming services like Netflix and Hulu offer streaming-content only.
"There's no doubt that the way people watch entertainment is changing_anytime, anywhere viewing is important," said Michael Paull, vice president of digital video at Amazon, which is based in Seattle.
The downloadable videos are available to prime members in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Austria.
Netflix said it had no plans to follow suit. A company spokeswoman said that with internet speeds climbing and wireless connections available in more and more places, the ability to stream live wherever you are will increasingly dampen the need to download.
Amazon has been expanding services for Prime members, including its Prime Instant Video service, to attract more subscribers to the annual program.
Shares of Amazon.com Inc. fell 2 percent to $501.78 amid a broad market sell-off.Motherhood often takes precedence over fatherhood when it comes to rearing a child, but did you know that a father plays an equally important psychological role in the upbringing of a child?
A video posted by Full Frontal Fatherhood, featuring Julian Redwood, emphasized that the role of a dad in the mother-baby equation is just as important for the psychological development of the child.
Julian Redwood, a Marriage and Family Therapist, also illustrated the dynamics of modern families, such as single parents and goes on to explain why another person needs to be introduced to that kind of parenting role. This is essential because the child needs to be brought up with the understanding that he/she is not just a part of their mother or that single parent, but are individuals who are independent of their parent(s).
More often than not, a sort of dependency is formed when a child is brought up by a single parent. Although they do learn to become responsible and learn for themselves, sometimes growing up a bit faster than most, there may be a creeping worry such as, “What will they do without me?”
Although Julian is speaking about the traditional mother and father roles in bringing up a child, a truly healthy relationship is one which allows both parents to be able to dabble between the masculine and feminine influences that go into parenting.
Not to stereotype, but generically, this is one of the known ways to help a child strike that mental balance and furthermore acquire and incorporate both the feminine and masculine associated qualities into their personality, core characteristics, and daily lives.
This includes titling towards being more practical or empathetic, being caring but knowing when not to be taken for granted, being understanding but not manipulated, having inner-strength and knowing it’s okay to show your vulnerable side, and even knowing when to be careful and take risks.
According to Julian, “This primary care (not necessarily a woman) is just someone who will take the time to nurture the development of the baby and attend to his/her needs. A baby’s brain needs this bonding to arrange itself properly and without it, people literally go varying levels of insane.”
Moreover, having two parents in one’s life, not necessarily the classic mother or father figure, allows a child to be exposed to more than just one point of view or have one primary character reference. This enables children to grow up seeing two people with different points of view, who have disagreements, who love and care for one another, have varying opinions, and even how they led different lives before they became his/her parent.
This also helps them better interact and have friendships or other relationships with the boys and men they meet in their lives, as they will have a version of that experience at home to refer to.
This type of psychological facilitation cannot come from schooling or even from family visits or books, there needs to be two grounded characters in the child’s life with the committed aim for their welfare.
Almost akin to maintaining the Yin and Yang of psychological balance for a child, this is what makes or breaks them before they face the world on their own.
So this is why we all love our dads and as research suggests, this is why they play such a huge role in our lives.- regarding the fact that on some sites (wot-news, vbaddict) some vehicles appear as underperforming and need buff – “we do not balance the tanks according to 3rd party sites”
- IS-7, IS-4 and Maus guns to be buffed? “If we buff their guns, we’ll have to nerf other parameters”
- Indienpanzer is not “suffering” apparently either (SS: as in, it is not underpowered)
- the “rule of 10 calibers” applies only when main armor is penetrated (eg. when dealing damage), not after the penetration of spaced armor
- for the purpose of the spotting mechanism change (second part), bushes will count as obstacles, so if you got spotted while standing behind the bush, you will disappear when the camo penalty for shooting ends
- basically, regarding the point above, Storm confirms that a tank, that gets spotted on the open field will never disappear, unless it drives behind an obstacle (a bush) or out of view range
- maximum spotting distance will not change
- 565 meters maximum drawing distance is not “too little”
- FV304 will be nerfed
- there will be some fixes in the Team Battles mechanism this year (SS: the player mentions situations where some people take a few tier 2 tanks and join the automatic team search)
- regarding the UI, introducing garage dynamic tank characteristics in garage is “much more complicated than introducing a reload timer”
- Overlord on WoT Blitz for Android: “By the end of the year most likely. No fixed date for now. Really lots of work with all these hardware and software versions on android.”Melania Trump has filed a blockbuster $150 million lawsuit against the The Daily Mail and a US-based blog claiming they defamed her when they reported that she worked for an escort service, multiple reports said Thursday.
And the British newspaper blinked just hours later, retracting its story and apologizing to the wife of GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Charles Harder, Melania Trump’s lawyer, hammered the news outlets. “These defendants made several statements about Mrs. Trump that are 100 percent false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation,” he said in a statement.
The suit was filed against the paper and the blog Tarpley in state court in Montgomery County, Maryland, CNN reported.
“Defendants broadcast their lies to millions of people throughout the U.S. and the world—without any justification,” Harder said. “Their many lies include, among others, that Mrs. Trump supposedly was an ‘escort’ in the 1990s before she met her husband. Defendants’ actions are so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs. Trump that her damages are estimated at $150 million dollars.”
‘The article… [did not] intend to state or suggest that Mrs. Trump ever worked as an ‘escort’ or in the ‘sex business.’ - The Daily Mail
Melania Trump had warned a week ago that she would pursue legal action against the outlets for what she and her lawyer called false and defamatory statements in reports about her work and immigration history.
The Daily Mail this month published a report citing a story in a Slovenian magazine that claimed a New York modeling agency that once represented Trump |
San Francisco from Korea on Tuesday afternoon to call upon the Board of Supervisors to install a memorial for others, like her, who survived coercement into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.
“I came to this beautiful San Francisco to meet with you and I want to ask you from the bottom of my heart, please, please let me get rid of my sadness in my heart by erecting a memorial in this beautiful city of San Francisco,” Yong Soo Lee, also affectionately called Grandma Lee, told the board through a translator.
Afterwards she met with Mayor Ed Lee for about 20 minutes.
Her visit comes as the board’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee is scheduled Thursday to vote on a resolution introduced by Supervisor Eric Mar that acknowledges the atrocity and supports the installation of the memorial. Survivors and women’s rights advocates have long fought to bring awareness to the wartime atrocities and obtain redress from Japan’s government.
The memorial is stirring controversy with opposition from some in San Francisco’s Japantown and is putting a strain on international relations given the nine-page letter Toru Hashimoto, mayor of the city of Osaka in Japan, sent to the board opposing it. Criticism ranges from taking issue with some of the facts presented in the resolution, suggestions it “projects hate towards a specific nationality” and focuses too narrowly on the “comfort woman” issue.
Mayor Ed Lee would not say Tuesday, before his meeting with Grandma Lee, whether he would support a memorial installed in San Francisco. No major U.S. city has installed such memorials but smaller municipalities have, like Glendale, where a similar debate ensued.
The mayor said he was “open” to a memorial but his focus was on the current debate around the resolution. The mayor said he has asked Mar to “reach out to many groups so that it is not misinterpreted” and that “the dialogue is appropriate.”
Mar commended Yong Soo Lee on Tuesday, calling her an “amazing leader.” He said the effort was “for justice and for empathy for hundreds and thousands of girls and women that were kidnapped and coerced into sexual slavery.”
Supporters expressed concerns over possible amendments. “The resolution tells an accurate historical account of what happened to the comfort women and why the resolution is necessary,” said Julie Tang, a retired San Francisco Superior Court judge, who is part of the coalition supporting it. She said the “most emblematic of sexual exploitation of women and girls of the last century should be remembered.”
Mayor Lee said he does “support the recognition that ‘comfort women’ is a bad piece of our world history and that we should do everything that we can to prevent it,” and he linked it to the modern day human trafficking issue, which he said San Francisco must continue to address.
The mayor has established an anti-human trafficking task force. A recent task force report found nearly 300 mostly young females were victims of sex trafficking in San Francisco during the last six months of 2014.
Mar already has seven other supporters for the memorial on the board. It would take six votes to pass at the board. Yong Soo Lee was 15 years old when the Japanese army took her from her home and transported her to a “comfort station” for kamikaze pilots. In an April 22 interview with the Washington Post, Yong Soo Lee recounted being tortured and having a miscarriage. When the war ended two years later she was sent home at age 17. It wasn’t until the early 1990s that she began to speak about the issue.
“I came here as the witness of the history,” an emotional Yong Soo Lee said. “But now I am more than that. I came here as an activist who is trying to resolve the history for the sake of all women’s rights of the world.”
Click here or scroll down to commentThe new national facial recognition system is not necessary, will not make us safer from terrorism and will significantly erode Australians' privacy. We should be asking some hard questions about the regime and questioning COAG’s statement, says University of Canberra Associate Professor Bruce Baer Arnold.
A commitment to share the biometric data of most Australians – including your driving licence photo – agreed at Thursday’s Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting will result in a further erosion of our privacy.
That sharing is not necessary. It will be costly. But will it save us from terrorism? Not at all, although it will give people a false sense of comfort.
Importantly, it will allow politicians and officials to show that they are doing something, in a climate where a hunt for headlines demands the appearance of action.
Your biometric data
Biometric data used in fingerprint and facial recognition systems is indelible. It can be used in authoritative identity registers, featured on identity documents such as passports and driver licences. It can be automatically matched with data collected from devices located in airports, bus and train stations, retail malls, court buildings, prisons, sports facilities and anywhere else we could park a networked camera.
Australia’s state and territory governments have built large biometric databases through the registration of people as drivers — every licence has a photograph of the driver. The national government has built large databases through registration for passports, aviation/maritime security and other purposes.
Irrespective of your consent to uses beyond those for which the picture was taken, the governments now have a biometric image of most Australians and the ability to search the images.
This week, COAG announced that the governments will share that data in the name of security.
A raft of tough new anti-terror measures has been agreed upon at a special meeting in Canberra. #AusPol #COAG @LCalcutt #9News pic.twitter.com/FcL5gXMmae — Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) October 5, 2017
Sharing data with who?
Details of the sharing are very unclear. This means we cannot evaluate indications that images will be captured in both public and private places. For example, in retail malls and libraries or art galleries – soft targets for terrorism – rather than in streets and secure buildings such as Parliament House.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has responded to initial criticism by clarifying that matching will not involve “live” CCTV.
But the history of Australian surveillance law has been a matter of creep, with step-by-step expansion of what might initially have been an innocuous development. When will law enforcement agencies persuade their ministers to include live public or private CCTV for image matching?
We cannot tell which officials will be accessing the data and what safeguards will be established to prevent misuse. Uncertainty about safeguards is worrying, given the history of police and other officials inappropriately accessing law enforcement databases on behalf of criminals or to stalk a former partner.
The sharing occurs in a nation where Commonwealth, state and territory privacy law is inconsistent. That law is weakly enforced, in part because watchdogs such as the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) are under-resourced, threatened with closure or have clashed with senior politicians.
Australia does not have a coherent enforceable right to privacy. Instead we have a threadbare patchwork of law, including an absence of a discrete privacy statute in several jurisdictions.
The new arrangement has been foreshadowed by governments over several years. It can be expected to creep, further eroding privacy and treating all citizens as suspects.
Software and hardware providers will be delighted: there’s money to be made by catering to our fears. But we should be asking some hard questions about the regime and questioning COAG’s statement.
Privacy car crash
Will sharing and expansion of the biometric network – a camera near every important building, many cameras on every important road – save us from terrorism? The answer is a resounding no. Biometrics, for example, seem unlikely to have saved people from the Las Vegas shooter.
Will sharing be cost effective? None of the governments have a great track record with major systems integration. The landscape is littered with projects that went over budget, didn’t arrive on time or were quietly killed off.
Think the recent Census and Centrelink problems, and the billion dollar bust up known as the Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record.
It won’t be improved by a new national ID card to fix the Medicare problem.
Is the sharing proportionate? One answer is to look at experience in India, where the Supreme Court has comprehensively damned that nation’s ambitious Aadhaar biometric scheme, which was meant to solve security, welfare and other problems.
The Court – consistent with decisions in other parts of the world – condemned the scheme as grossly disproportionate: a disregard of privacy and of the dignity of every citizen.
Is sharing likely to result in harms, particularly as the biometric network grows and grows? The answer again is yes. One harm, disregarded by our opportunistic politicians, is that all Australians and all visitors will be regarded as suspects.
Much of the data for matching will be muddy – some street cameras, for example, are fine resting places for pigeons – and of little value.
As with the mandatory metadata retention scheme, the more data (and more cameras) we have the bigger trove of indelible information for hackers. Do not expect the OAIC or weak state privacy watchdogs (which in some jurisdictions do not exist) to come to the rescue.
As a society, we should demand meaningful consultation about official schemes that erode our rights. We should engage in critical thinking rather than relying on headlines that reflect political opportunism and institutional self-interest.
The incoherent explanation and clarifications should concern everyone, irrespective of whether they have chosen to be on Facebook – and even if they have nothing to hide and will never be mistaken for someone else.
Expanding facial recognition database in Australia not justified, watchdog warns https://t.co/Q2oWqRGrlB — ODDemocracy AU (@OddemocracyA) October 5, 2017
Bruce Baer Arnold is Assistant Professor in the School of Law at the University of Canberra. This article was originally published on The Conversation on 6/10/17 under the title 'Let’s face it, we’ll be no safer with a national facial recognition database'. Read the original article.
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Facial recognition database pushes us towards Orwellian future https://t.co/FB8wL5uTCW pic.twitter.com/QexiFXdOsq — 📮🌈 (@DavidParis) October 5, 2017
Subscribe today. Just to be safe.This Virginia band released their album Hidden Manna back in May, and the big question is, why hasn’t it generated more of a buzz in the underground circles? The crisp production might turn off some purists. Salvaticus make the most of the four songs on this EP. ”Breeding Ground” doesn’t shy from dishing out liberal doses of blasty mcnasty, that lets up to show the band’s thrash roots in a stampede of galloping riffing. The clean middle sections are not far removed from Tribulation in their dark wanderlust, although the big difference being their tightly coiled guitar attack leaves little room for space jam rituals. Not unlike most death metal bands, their focus is the aggression. The Virginians might balance this aggression out dynamically, but it doesn’t dilute the intensity that they lash out with their instruments.
&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href=”http://salvaticus.bandcamp.com/album/hidden-manna”&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Hidden Manna by Salvaticus&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;
All are competent musicians; however, drummer Kevin Ardrey steals the show. He combines fury with technique, knowing just when to throw in the subtle punch or accent. The big sound of the album doesn’t hide their chops with cave-like reverb for the sake of earning their corpse paint. Salvaticus holds the thrash ethic of being direct and in your face, without feeling like a throw back to 80’s Bay Area metal. They are more of a European hybrid, with emphasis on German bands like Kreator or Sodom. These are not three-minute punk rock jams, but with more emphasis on power than math, defying the prog label as well. They sharpen their metal with a wide spectrum of sounds from varied genres, the one common denominator being the feral intensity holding this beast together.
Bassist Alex Lee’s hateful, mid-ranged rasp seems to be uttering actual lyrics, rather than gurgling for effect. The lyrics themselves, however, are almost a moot point. Like many metal bands of this ilk, the vocals seem like an afterthought, forcing the band to rely on sheer momentum to plow past this fact. This is not a difficult task for the band, who switch from an ominous doom lumber with a stream of Morbid Angel-like double bass trickling and flowing beneath like the River Styx, to the atmospheric white noise drone of the more traditional approach to black metal on “A Vulture’s Feather”. Their knack for riff craft enables them to lock into their gallop after hurtling into an abyss of tooth-gnashing tremolo picking.
If you are unafraid to fall in love with blatant, in your face metal, blazing solos and all, then do yourself a favor and check these guys out. They do not apologize for not jumping on any band wagons. These guys have no clue what post- anything is, nor do they care. All they care about is making you bang your head. A simple enough mission statement that they excel at. If you’re wearing a denim jacket as you read this don’t waste another minute, or this will end up becoming the best straight up, no frills metal band that you didn’t get to hear in 2014.Array ( [display_name] => MLG #1 NA Dollers lens [champion_id] => 97 [skin_id] => 619 [summoner_spell_builds] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [display_name] => [summoner_spell_ids] => Array ( [0] => 2 [1] => 2 ) [description] => [display_order] => 1 [summoner_spells] => Array ( [0] => Array ( [summoner_spell_id] => 2 [client_id] => 6 [display_name] => Ghost [url] => ghost [description] => Your champion ignores unit collision and has 27% (+1% per champion level) increased Movement Speed for 10 seconds. The movement speed bonus ramps up over the first two seconds. 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At 100 charges, your next attack expends the charges to deal 60-140 magic damage (at levels 1-18) to up to 5 targets. This effect will critically strike if your initial attack also did. 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[unique_passive] => Cleave: Your attacks deal physical damage up to 60% of your Attack Damage to units around your target, decaying down to 20% near the edge. [consume] => [active] => [unique_active] => Crescent: Deals physical damage up to 100% of your Attack Damage to units around you, decaying down to 60% near the edge. (10 second cooldown) [is_deprecated] => 0 [is_deleted] => 0 [is_buildable] => 1 [is_published] => 1 [comment_count] => 19 [last_comment_ts] => 2017-05-10 22:12:50 ) [1] => Array ( [item_id] => 159 [display_name] => Ravenous Hydra [url] => ravenous-hydra [client_id] => 3074 [icon] => [is_consumable] => 0 [is_summoners_rift] => 1 [is_twisted_treeline] => 1 [is_howling_abyss] => 1 [is_crystal_scar] => 0 [is_classic] => 0 [is_dominion] => 0 [available_in] => [tier] => Legendary [description] => [recipe_cost] => 400 [total_cost] => 3500 [sell_value] => 2450 [category] => Health Regen,Damage,Life Steal [health] => 0 [health_regeneration] => 100 [health_multiplier] => 0 [dodge] => 0 [armor] => 0 [magic_resistance] => 0 [attack_damage] => 80 [attack_speed] => 0 [critical_strike] => 0 [critical |
without foundations,” adding that “not a single component of the U.N. sanctions regime against North Korea currently enjoys robust international implementation.”
Commerce is so brisk, in fact, that Russia recently inaugurated weekly ferry service between Vladivostok and the North Korean port of Rajin, a hundred miles or so to the southwest.
But if nobody wants sanctions, why do they bother at all? Why not stop pretending and allow the DPRK to trade as much as it wishes?
The reason is that the current standoff is not without certain benefits. For Kim, nukes are not only a guarantee against U.S. invasion, but a means of driving a wedge between Washington and Seoul – a goal that Trump has made all the easier by repeatedly attacking the 2007 Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and by reportedly telling Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham: “If there’s going to be a war to stop them, it will be over there. If thousands die, they’re going to die over there, they’re not going to die here.”
If Korean lives really count for less in Trump’s view, then people on both sides of the 38th Parallel may have more in common than they previously believed and the North may be one step closer to its long-term goal of driving the U.S. off the peninsula. Meanwhile, Russia and China are willing to provide the DPRK with a measure of cover for two reasons: because neither wants a failed state, which is precisely what a U.S.-imposed oil embargo is designed to achieve, and because neither wants a South Korean takeover since it would mean U.S. troops right on their doorstep.
China sent more than a million troops across the Yalu River in 1950 to prevent any such eventuality while Russia, which shares an 11-mile border with the DPRK, has enough problems with NATO forces massing on its western frontiers without having to worry about U.S.-South Korean troops doing the same in the east.
Neither country is particularly happy with North Korean off-the-wall rhetoric about beating the U.S. “to death like a rabid dog” or nuking the Japanese archipelago “into the sea.” But they’re willing to put up with the rambunctious Kim if it means holding off an even more rambunctious Trump.
Daniel Lazare is the author of several books including The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (Harcourt Brace).Hillary may have gotten her way with the FBI, but the American people are still not buying it. That’s why this petition has already received almost 87,000 signatures. Do you stand with these Americans in demanding that she be charged for her crimes?
Do you stand with these Americans in demanding that she be charged for her crimes? Do you stand with these Americans in demanding that she be charged for her crimes? * No HELL YES!
Enter your email to see the poll results: *
The Petition Reads:
Secretary of State Clinton was in direct violation of the agreement between her and the United States of American outlined on the Standard Form 312, section 4. She sent classified information outside of a server with the classification needed to keep the information she was sending secure. Her actions have created a major security violation and could potentially be used by enemies of the state. This petition is being used to reverse the FBI decision and have HRC charged with all of the aforementioned charges, along with any others that are outlined in the SF 312.
Trending: WTF? The Weedkiller ROUNDUP Has Been Detected In These BEER & WINE Brands
Their goal is reach 100,000. You can sign the petition hereShare. “It’s nice to be with a woman for a change.” “It’s nice to be with a woman for a change.”
Uncharted has long been a series built on duos. Whether it’s Nathan Drake and Sully, Nate and Elena, or Nate and Sam, each pairing has its own unique dynamic adding layers and complexity to the narrative while revealing new sides of these respective characters. These duos are usually explored in respectful and complex ways, but there has long been a very specific one missing.
Until now.
Warning! Spoilers for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Ahead.
While driving through the lush valley of India’s Western Ghats, Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross often engage in small talk. These moments are largely innocuous exposition, but one moment in particular stands out. While discussing their history with the Drake brothers and the adventuring business, Chloe casually comments, “It’s nice to be with a woman for a change.”
Although it’s delivered like a throwaway line, this bit illustrates a critical theme in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. It is a story whose main focus is placed solely on the friendship of two women.
Damsels Need Not Apply
In contemporary entertainment, women are often relegated to a handful of specific roles, usually in service to other characters or the plot itself. They’re the love interests, damsels, prizes to be won, token “badasses” who are just as competent, but rarely exceed the skill of their male counterparts. Leading roles are rarely given to women, and when they are, it’s usually in limited numbers.
Exit Theatre Mode
The MCU in particular is guilty of this. Hope van Dyne in Marvel’s Ant-Man is easily more familiar with the Pym tech and more competent than Scott Lang, but is held back for the sake of “protection.” Black Widow and Gamora are both token women who hold their own, but never eclipse the capabilities of the boys in the group. Agent Carter — who is, arguably, one of the best-written female characters in the MCU — is rarely seen engaging with women in non-antagonistic ways.
“ The Lost Legacy sidesteps tired tropes with one vastly underutilized device: a positive female friendship.
And even when additional women are added in, it doesn’t improve much. A surplus of female characters usually means they’ll be competing with each other, have a negative or antagonistic relationship, be used as set dressing, and be used to convey a sense of vulnerability and weakness. They’re ever the sidekicks and villains, rarely the heroes.
Uncharted itself has been guilty of this trope in the past, by positioning Chloe as the “other woman” Elena doesn’t trust and wants nothing to do with. At no point in the past games have we seen two women working together extensively in a positive light.
But in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, things are different. It sidesteps a vast majority of these tropes through the use of one vastly underutilized device: a positive female friendship.
Thank You For Being a Friend
On the surface, saying there’s a female friendship in a story doesn’t seem revolutionary. But consider, for a moment, the last time you saw a female friendship in entertainment that didn’t involve ulterior motives, didn’t become a punchline, wasn’t broken up by an outside source, and didn’t end with both women at odds. It’s difficult to find one that meets this criteria, much less one that does it well.
Exit Theatre Mode
Chloe and Nadine’s relationship is dynamic and ever-evolving, shifting from an apprehensive alliance fueled purely by money and ending in smiles, heartfelt moments, and a shared struggle. It works wonderfully, thanks to complex and layered characterization that is as malleable as the relationship itself.
“ The theme of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy’s story is one of defiance.
Neither Chloe or Nadine are categorically “good” people. They’re chaotic neutral at best, remaining somewhat amoral and pragmatic in order to tweak the circumstances toward their gain. Chloe is willing to lie, double cross, and deceive in order to get her way, while Nadine has a short fuse, clenched fist, and itchy trigger finger. It isn’t a great combination, and the two women do not instantly connect. They’re constantly second-guessing each other, Nadine bringing up rational concerns and criticizing Chloe’s impulsivity, while Chloe quips and acts dismissively toward danger and threats. Still, there’s a shred of mutual respect shared between the two women that binds — and ultimately brings — them together.
Exit Theatre Mode
“ This matters, because we don’t see it nearly as often as we should.
In its opening moments, the two are confrontational and tense, cautious of the other and always keeping a wary eye on the lookout. As the story progresses, they start to soften toward each other. They’re both making the best of a dangerous situation, reliant on each other’s know-how and experience to make it out of successively risky encounters alive. At times it’s genuinely sweet, like the photo op Chloe snaps at the top of the massive, ornate city entrance while Nadine slowly teeters on the edge of a seemingly deadly drop. Nadine protests the inappropriate timing, but Chloe counters the complaint by pointing out Nadine may never have a moment like this again. These shared moments make them open up and become more vulnerable, allowing them to have genuine moments of shared growth.
It’s enough to allow them to open up and show us a totally different side of themselves, like Chloe’s emotional breakdown upon realizing she had blazed the same trail as her father, or watching Nadine lose her tight-lipped composure when encountering the very soldiers that had betrayed her. These moments are strong on their own. But when they’re shared between these two women, who help each other cope with their own faults and struggles? They’re downright compelling. Chloe and Nadine bring out new sides of each other, and it makes for stronger characterization and storytelling.
Exit Theatre Mode
The story comes dangerously close to adopting the trope of competitive, antagonistic women in its third act, when we learn Chloe lied to Nadine about Sam Drake’s involvement in the mission. Nadine runs off in a fit of rage, leaving Chloe alone to race against a sociopath and his armed mercenaries.
Thankfully, it avoids this pitfall by instead reminding the characters — and by extension, us — what made this relationship work so beautifully in the first place: they’re two women, fighting against the odds, refusing to give up in the face of severe adversity and hardship. It’s a rocky, somewhat unstable foundation, but it’s one the two are familiar with and adjust quickly when they willingly choose to put their lives on the line in order to stop the murderous intent of a madman.
Man, I Feel Like a Woman
So, why does it matter that they’re women? Why should it matter that we see two women in a well-developed and compelling friendship?
“ I’m desperately hopeful for more.
The theme of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy’s story is one of defiance: defiance in the face of impending disaster, defiance toward adversity, and — on a broader scale — defiance of the very norms that also govern representation in media today. The two women at its center are complex, layered, and fully-formed, and together, they make a powerful, capable team rivaling — if not surpassing — the charisma and know-how of Sully and Nathan Drake. And more, they’re two minorities in media, society, and culture firmly grasping the wheel and directing this story in their best interests. It matters, because we don’t see it nearly as often as we should.
In one quote, Chloe neatly summed up what I loved most about Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. It was nice to be with a woman for a change, and I’m desperately hopeful for more.
Cassidee is a social producer for IGN. You can chat with her about Star Wars, comics, and games over on Twitter.The Republican National Committee today excitedly announced the launch of a new startup lab to bring techies and creatives together, Silicon Valley-style, to get Republicans elected. Oh, and they named it for a Nazi gun, a type of ammo, and a philosophy that puts war before peace.
Welcome to Para Bellum Labs, America! "Para Bellum Labs will help create a culture to allow the RNC to innovate faster and recruit more talented people who can build digital platforms to understand public opinion, engage voters and power elections," RNC Chairman Reince Priebus gushed in a press release this morning. Para Bellum plans to recruit on top engineering school campuses and hold fun hackathons.
The charm offensive all starts with the video above, which makes Para Bellum look like a much cooler place than DeVry Institute to get your associate's degree in IT. "I chose to be a part of Para Bellum Labs because this is something that has never been done before," says new employee Lauren. (By Republicans, no, this has not been done before. Not successfully. But by Democrats, well, um. Yeah.)
The thing about Para Bellum, though, is that name. In Latin, it literally means "(prepare)* for war." That's dumb enough, probably: Hey, idealistic young programmers! Let's save the world by crushing our enemies, seeing them driven before us, and hearing the lamentation of their women.
In fact, it's part of an old Roman cliche, "Si vis pacem, para bellum"—if you seek peace, prepare for war. That's been quite an inspiring little phrase through history, at least to militarists. It was especially inspiring to Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken, the German government's arms manufacturer from the late imperial era to World War II.
DWM started using the "parabellum" phrase as a name for its signature guns—first, the light machine gun used by the Kaiser's best during World War I, and then its most iconic gun: the Parabellum Pistole, or the Luger pistol. You know, this one:
Gosh, why's that look so familiar? Maybe from the movies:
Yep, Nazi parabellum! The gun was so popular in the Third Reich that its ammunition—one of the first to use a slug that was 9 millimeters in diameter—became known as "9 mm parabellum," which you can find now at your local gun store. Assuming, of course, that Obama and FEMA aren't buying it all up for the upcoming counter-revolution.
All of which begs the question: Republicans, if you could name your new hip millennial programmer lab anything, why'd you settle on a Latin phrase that carries some serious Hitlerite baggage?
Sure, sure, you're trying to separate yourselves from the pack, as new employee Jesse explains in the Para Bellum video: "You could go try to work on the west coast and potentially make a cool app, or you could actually physically change history."
Yeah. But Jesse: You know who else actually physically changed history?
*Update: The RNC has responded to this story, thanks to the inimitable Dave Weigel:
I irritated RNC spokesman Sean Spicer, asking him to respond to the story. He responded with this link to a definition of "gawker." "Interestingly, a spectator who stares stupidly without intelligent awareness."
Interestingly, Spicer used a definition of "gawker" from Princeton's WordNet, which is sustained by a grant from the National Science Foundation—an agency that Republicans have tried mightily to defund, as writers like Weigel have noted. Next, look up "irony," Sean!CBI will soon record the statement of former Director, Intelligence Bureau and Governor of Andhra Pradesh E S L Narasimhan as witness in connection with allegations of bribery in purchase of 12 VVIP helicopters from Ango-Italian firm AgustaWestland.
CBI sources said Narasimhan, along with then NSA M K Narayanan and then SPG Chief B V Wanchoo, attended the March 1, 2005 meeting where the decision to reduce service ceiling --maximum height at which a helicopter can perform optimally --was taken, making AgustaWestland eligible for the deal.
Recently CBI team has quizzed Narayanan and Wanchoo as witnesses for its probe into allegations of bribery of Rs 360 crore in the Rs 3600-crore VVIP chopper deal with AgustaWestland.
The sources said the need to record statements of Wanchoo and Narayanan was felt as both had participated in the meeting in 2005 that allowed key changes in the technical specifications of the chopper.
They said since Narasimhan was also present in the meeting, his statement is also crucial to get additional inputs about the reasons for reducing service ceiling.
CBI has alleged reduction of the service ceiling--maximum height at which a helicopter can perform normally--allowed the UK-based firm to get into the fray as, otherwise, its helicopters were not even qualified for submission of bids.
CBI had registered a case against former IAF Chief S P Tyagi along with 13 others including his cousins and European middlemen in the case.
The allegation against the former Air Chief was that he had reduced flying ceiling of the helicopter so that AgustaWestland was included in the bids. Tyagi has refuted the allegation against him.
CBI claims the parameters regarding the height at which the helicopter can fly as well as the flight evaluation were changed in a manner that enabled AgustaWestland to clinch the deal vis-a-vis its competitor Sikorsky.After a marathon legislative session Monday, the Illinois House passed a school-funding bill that the Illinois Senate is expected to pass and Gov. Bruce Rauner is expected to sign. View Full Caption Shutterstock
CHICAGO — After a dramatic series of votes, the Illinois House approved a new school-funding formula late Monday that would give the Chicago Public Schools about $450 million more than last year, officials said.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel hailed the measure's passage — with 73 votes, hours after initially failing with only 46 votes — "as an education-funding plan that provides parity and stability for children across Illinois."
The compromise measure passed on a second try — with two votes to spare — after House lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to override Rauner's veto of the original funding bill earlier during the marathon session.
In a statement, Rauner praised lawmakers for passing "historic education reform."
The measure is expected to be considered by the Illinois Senate Tuesday. If it passes, as expected, Gov. Bruce Rauner vowed to sign it, even though it contains $150 million more for CPS than the original school funding measure that the Republican governor derided as a bailout of Chicago's mismanaged schools.
In addition, the state will pay $221 million toward the pensions for Chicago's teachers, compared to nearly $12.2 million last year.
Under the legislation, the Chicago Board of Education would have the authority vote to raise property taxes by an additional $120 million to $163 million to pay for teacher's pensions.
The new funding formula gives school districts "much-needed flexibility" by lifting some requirements for the number of required physical education classes and allowing driver's education classes to be outsourced, Rauner said.
In addition, the measure includes $75 million for a tuition tax credit program that would offer families scholarships to send their children to private or parochial schools — or to pay the cost to send their sons or daughters to a public school outside their home school district, officials said. Opponents of that program criticized it as a voucherlike program could "decimate public schools."
"It protects the rights of parents to choose the school that best meets the needs of their children — providing more school choice for children from low-income families," Rauner said.
That provision of the law was backed by Roman Catholic Archbishop Blase Cupich, who said in an email to Emanuel that the program "would be an enormous boost to the Chicago schools and the thousands of parents who use our schools.”
Enrollment in Chicago's Catholic schools has been dropping for several years, leading to the closure of several — including St. Benedict High School in North Center — and the merger of four Far Northwest Side Catholic schools into Pope Francis Global Academy.
The voucherlike proposal has been roundly condemned by parent-led group Raise Your Hand and the Chicago Teachers Union as "a double-whammy aimed at the heart of public education."
The City Council's Progressive Caucus and Latino Caucus opposed the voucherlike program.
Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th) — who is running for governor — called the voucherlike proposal "wrong" in a tweet.
"Opening the door to additional school privatization and creating tax credits for parochial/private schools is no compromise," Pawar said.
Along with Pawar, gubernatorial candidates state Sen. Daniel Biss and businessman Chris Kennedy have also blasted the program. Billionaire investor and entrepreneur J.B. Pritzker did not take a position on the proposal.
Once state lawmakers act, Emanuel said he would detail how he thinks Chicago officials should spend the $269 million for Chicago schools.
"When it is done, we will do what we have to do," Emanuel said.
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How Will 956 CPS Layoffs Affect Your School? Here's The Whole ListPresident Trump signed a congressional resolution Wednesday that allows financial institutions to block customers (that’s us) from filing class-action lawsuits. In doing so, he grabbed back a tool we were given in July by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that would have helped us fight banks or credit card companies or mortgage lenders and others if they rip us off.
The rule, which was supposed to go into effect this spring, would have banned something called a “mandatory arbitration clause” that prevents people from joining together in a class-action lawsuit. Last week the Senate was divided on whether to overturn the rule. Vice President Pence broke the tie 51-50.
When you sign up for a credit card, a checking account, a loan or other financial services from a bank, buried deep in the fine print of nearly every contract is language that requires customers to use arbitration if you have a beef. That puts you up against a team of corporate lawyers, alone. It doesn’t matter if you learn that there is a pattern of shady practices hurting millions of other customers, you cannot band together to have your day in court. And however you settle your case, the results of arbitration cases are usually sealed. So the rest of us will not be warned to steer clear.
The Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB) was launched in 2010, as part of the Dodd-Frank financial law, to find ways to better protect consumers from dishonest and fraudulent bankers, traders and executives like the ones that misled consumers about the toxic mortgage products they peddled as they paved the way to the global banking crisis. Or like the Wells Fargo employees who opened millions of deposit and credit-card accounts without customers’ permission.
The business lobby fought hard to roll back the rule.
When the CFPB was created, it was explicitly charged with studying the use of mandatory arbitration clauses. And after five years, numerous hearings, thousands of public comments and a 700-page report, the CFPB determined that class actions are, indeed, a valuable tool to safeguard consumers.
But the business lobby fought hard to roll back the rule, arguing that arbitration is faster and less expensive, and would prevent nuisance lawsuits that serve to benefit attorneys. David Lazarus a columnist for the Los Angeles Times explains how that argument is twisted:
What’s particularly repulsive here is the shamelessness with which conservatives framed the debate — pretending they were saving consumers from rapacious trial lawyers rather than doing the bidding of deep-pocketed corporate backers. They also repeatedly painted the CFPB as a “rogue agency” that was unaccountable to the American people. The reality is that the only ones going rogue were Republican members of Congress.
The head of the Senate Banking Committee, Mike Crapo (R-ID) turned to a little known legislative tool called the 1996 Congressional Review Act. A disapproval resolution gives legislators a limited window to block a new regulation before it goes into effect. And once it is blocked, the CFPB can’t take it up again. This is a “significant victory for Wall Street,” reports The Washington Post:
If the CFPB’s rules had gone into effect, companies like Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Equifax would have been exposed to billions of dollars in lawsuits for future bad behavior. The Center for Responsible Lending estimates the US banking customers paid $14 billion in overdraft fees last year, and the industry has gotten in trouble in the past for shady tactics like transaction reordering, where a bank would reorder a day’s debits and withdrawals to extract the most overdraft fee income from its customers that day.
The CFPB rule was meant to deter banks from crooked behavior and to give consumers a fighting chance to recover damages in court. Proponents argued that arbitration is rigged against customers and the right to a trial is guaranteed by the constitution. Now get this — the financial companies themselves still have a right to join with other companies to sue for damages. When he announced the rule last summer, CFPB Director Richard Cordray wrote an op-ed in The New York Times explaining it:
In truth, by blocking group lawsuits, mandatory arbitration clauses eliminate a powerful means to get justice when a little harm happens to a lot of people. It is the height of hypocrisy for companies to say they’re helping consumers by closing off the very same legal option they use when they’ve been wronged.
So big financial corporations are now off the hook because they will feel little impact after they convince a few solo individuals, behind closed doors and under seal, to settle their grievances. This may open the door to more companies finding ways to block customers from suing in other non-financial services, Reuters reports. For example, “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is working to keep the clauses in contracts related to higher education.”
Marketwatch reports that: “Consumers can still submit complaints to the CFPB about company practices they believe are unfair, on the CFPB’s website.” But the CFPB is itself under attack by Republican members of Congress who appear more interested in ridding companies of regulation than in protecting consumers. The Conversation provides a thorough analysis of why consumers need to protect the bureau that is supposed to be protecting them.What a difference a year makes. Without dissecting the how and why of it, the raw statistics paint a much-changed picture. This time 12 months ago, Everton had lost just once and sat level on points with Chelsea, just two behind leaders Liverpool. The Toffees possessed a league-high eight clean sheets, conceding just 16 goals in their first 17 matches.
It is 27 goals against this time around -- and the last of three clean sheets arrived against Swansea on Nov. 1-- for a side currently 13 points worse off than this stage last season.
December is certainly the low point of this season so far. Aside from the home win over QPR, the team have suffered league setbacks against Hull City, Manchester City and Southampton and are contenders for the worst performances of Roberto Martinez's tenure, with each result somehow worse than the previous one.
Therefore, recent results leave the Toffees in search of festive cheer when Stoke visit Goodison Park on Boxing Day, although there will be no hiding place in front of an expectant full house. Supporters will demand a response after the lifeless 3-0 loss to Southampton at the weekend.
To remedy a lacklustre run of one win in six matches in all competitions, Everton must dispense with the current square peg, round holes approach. Put players in their preferred positions, let them play their natural game; give them freedom to express their ability as they did so often last season.
The defence has experienced enough trouble this season without having to compensate for an attack handicapped by the manager's refusal to make tough decisions and remove experienced, underperforming players from the starting lineup. With goalkeeper Tim Howard and central defender Sylvain Distin liable to press the self-destruct button at any given moment, there has to be a reliable attacking setup. The same number of goals scored as this time last season covers up the bigger picture for a team scoring two or more goals in just two of the last eight league games.
What is most frustrating is how many of the current problems appear self-inflicted. A simple change here or there and the team would appear to have a better platform to build on.
Bring John Stones back into a disorientated defence, use his general calmness, composure and ball-playing ability to settle those around him. Move Ross Barkley into a central position. Stationing him out wide is akin to handcuffing the young midfielder to a post.
Ross Barkley, one of Everton's highlights last season, has been stifled by having to play in a winger role at times this season.
Inject some pace and purpose into the football. One only has to look at the corresponding fixture in the last campaign as an example, when Everton eventually coasted to a 4-0 victory as Gerard Deulofeu ran the visitors ragged. The jet-heeled winger is no longer here but there is nothing to prevent a quickening of tempo and increased productivity.
Utilise the bench. The Southampton defeat was the first time since January 2009 that Everton had gone through a match without making a change. In the four games either side of the QPR win -- four games Everton failed to win -- the full quota of substitutes went unused.
The passing style is not the problem; the problem centres more on the execution of said style. The ball is spending too much time in the defensive third. Those in advanced positions must demand the ball and provide options for an overworked, creaking defence.
Only the two Manchester clubs and Arsenal average more possession per match than Everton, but the Blues sit 11th in terms of shots per game. Effective use of possession is the key. QPR and West Ham average much lower average possession, yet produce more shots per game.
There has to be an emphasis on creating chances. This club cannot afford to spend almost 30 million pounds on a forward then fail to play to his strengths. Romelu Lukaku needs regular and quality service, not snatched glimpses of goal or the forlorn task of chasing aimless passes.
Perhaps most important, though, is ensuring there is some width to the attack. Open up the pitch; it offers more lines of attack and asks more questions of the defending side. Get the full backs involved. Everton have two of the best attacking full backs in the country and it is time they returned to making the most of them.
Too narrow, one-paced and directionless, this current brand of football is easy for opponents to keep out. When the ball eventually travels forward, it is at such a slow pace, there is no real threat attached. Opposing sides play without any fear, knowing there is little danger of Everton turning their back four and forcing them out of their comfort zone.
The potential return of Kevin Mirallas can help to address this issue, with his direct running and dribbling sorely missed in his absence. However, even if the Belgian misses out, the Barkley, Samuel Eto'o and Steven Naismith trio in the lineup simply cannot continue.
It is too pedestrian, none of the three seemed comfortable against Southampton; Barkley and Naismith struggled out of position as the hosts easily shackled an ineffective Eto'o. Having three players suited to a certain role is no reason to cram them into the same system.
If there is no visible improvement against Stoke, supporters are unlikely to think twice about airing any grievances. It is on the manager and his players to give the fans something to cheer.
Luke is ESPN FC's Everton blogger. Follow Luke on Twitter @lukeofarrell.Phil Erholm has lived in the Emerald Towers for almost eight years, but it's likely he won't get to celebrate that anniversary in February.
He's one of the dozens of senior citizens who are being asked to leave the building within 60 days after receiving a notice the property has changed management.
“There are some people who have been here 30 years or longer. This is their home, it’s hard to leave," Erholm said.
Colorado Springs City Council President Richard Skorman and the non-profit group Blackbird Outreach say they want raise at least $1,000 to help each resident at Emerald Tower Apartments with moving expenses, security deposits and first month's rent in their new homes.
Click here to donate to Blackbird Outreach.
The notice pointed out that they legally only had to give 21 days to residents before giving them the boot, but they offered residents $500 dollars if they were able to move out within 30 days.
Originally they were told, if they couldn't get out that soon, they'd have 60 days to leave. But after a nudge from city leaders, 11 News has learned the owners decided to give some residents 90-180 days to move.
Erholm thought the cash offer was insulting.
"I think it’s a little bit of a kick in the boot, $500 doesn’t even begin to get you out, get you moved and get you a new place. It [the move] probably can and will put a financial burden on a lot of the people here," Erholm added.
The notice also includes a few sister properties run by the same company, but tenants tell 11 News many of those options have long waiting lists and would be impossible to move in on time.
Silver Key Senior Services Chief Development Officer Lorri Orwig is now priming her caseworkers to handle these problems.
She said the timing makes this even more difficult.
“These seniors are planning their holidays, it’s November. They are thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and maybe they were already planning on being out of town visiting family members," Orwig said. "Now they need to add finding a new residence to the mix which will completely change what their plans were for the holiday.”
These seniors aren't the only people who are going to be searching the Colorado Springs renter's market this winter. The competition for affordable rent is already steep.
“Seniors may not have the same tech-savvy as a younger person in regards to using a smartphone or tablet to navigate the housing market in this community," Orwig explains. "They may also be facing issues with transportation and so that could be an additional barrier to them being able to access housing quicker.”
Right now, back at the Emerald Tower, Phil Erholm is trying to figure out what his next move is, as the time ticks down.
“I'm not sure... I haven’t had time to think about it," Erholm mused. "For years I’ve been thinking of moving back to Iowa. I have family there. That’s an option, but I don’t like the fact that I have to do this in a hurry.”
In an emergency meeting held Thursday, Colorado Springs City Council President Richard Skorman said what has happened at Emerald Towers highlights the potential future crisis for affordable housing, especially for senior citizens.
"What we realize by this incident is, this is common, especially with seniors. They're predicting a 15,000-unit shortage for seniors over the next couple of years in the community. That's a very vulnerable population. There may be this kind of situation happening many more times," Skorman said.
Several local organizations were at the emergency meeting, including The Coalition for Compassion and Action, who is taking donations for the displaced tenants and asking for volunteers to help moving them.
11 News reached out to Apartment Management Consultants L.L.C. for comment. About a week later, Emerald Towers released a statement.
It said in part:PHIL MOORE / AFP / Getty Images Andre Bahuma, a warden at the Virunga National Park, plays with an orphaned mountain gorilla in the gorilla sanctuary in the park headquarters at Rumangabo in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo on July 17, 2012.
Just over a year ago, Andre Bauma and his adopted daughter Ndakasi huddled together as bombs, rockets and mortars rent the air. Bauma recalls holding Ndakasi and stroking her thick, dark hair. They were by no means the only ones afraid that day; tens of thousands of families either hunkered down or fled the onslaught. What made them unique was that Ndasaki, Bauma’s “daughter,” was one of around 800 mountain gorillas remaining in the world.
The thick forest canopy above the headquarters of the Virunga National Park at Rumangabo gives the impression that this natural paradise is somehow insulated from war. Tree tops part, revealing densely covered plains and, on a clear night, the red glow of Nyiaragongo volcano with the largest lava lake in the world. Birdsong and the occasional bark of a belligerent baboon are usually the only sounds. Until the fighting starts.
A few kilometers south of the park’s headquarters is the most important military base in the war-torn east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In July of last year, the rebel group M23 seized the sprawl of buildings with traditional Belgian facades. As the battle raged, tanks moved through Rumangabo village and heavy artillery was stationed at the school. Civilians turned up at the park’s headquarters bearing gunshot and shrapnel wounds, some carrying their dead.
Recalling that day in the forest enclosure of the gorilla orphanage, park ranger Bauma demonstrates a medium-pitched throaty growl, which he uses to signal calm. “You have to let the gorillas know that they’re not in danger,” he says. It’s just one utterance in Bauma’s extensive gorilla vocabulary. He lives with three young females at the Rumangabo orphanage, but only Ndakasi is convinced she is his child.
Bauma was born in Masisi in 1972, a time, he says, when life in North Kivu was good. Television images of gorillas consumed his youth, and he longed to see them in real life. Peace, he recalls, was shattered after horrifying ethnic discord led to the slaughter of nearly a million Rwandans in 1994 and numerous armed groups pouring into the country. The lack of alternative livelihoods and the prevalence of forced recruitment meant that many young men like Bauma ended up fighting. But in 1998, when the “Great War of Africa” began between 20 armed groups from nine countries, Bauma heard that the National Park was recruiting rangers. Three years after signing up he saw his first gorilla. “It was my greatest joy,” he says.
Today, Bauma’s bedroom, which abuts the gorilla’s quarters, is part veterinary clinic, part soldiers’ digs. A Kalashnikov is propped by his bed; human supplements and children’s medicines stock the shelves, a reminder of our genetic similarity to gorillas. Like all rangers, Bauma is militarily trained; there are always a handful of potentially hostile armed groups in the park. He is reluctant to speak of the occasions where he was forced to use his weapon, but more than 130 rangers have died defending the park since 1996.
Ndakasi was born in 2007 during a paroxysm of violence after elections promised, and failed, to bring peace. Regional stability collapsed as a rebellion gathered strength, one almost identical to the uprising today. Fighting reduces the rangers’ ability to patrol |
a trademark holder, here’s what we’ll do: [...] Refrain from taking any action in reference to trademark complaints alone (i.e. with no court order), and encourage the parties to resolve the dispute amongst themselves
Transparency Report
Our final star is awarded to services that compile and publish a transparency report about copyright and trademark complaints they receive. In the last several years, we have started to see many companies publishing similar reports about government requests for user data. Although it's still a relatively uncommon step for services to do the same for copyright and trademark, we hope that is changing. Transparency reports are a tremendously valuable source of information for groups like EFF, as well as journalists, policy-makers, and others who want to make sound evidence-based policy.
To pick a good example: Twitter has published a transparency report on copyright takedown requests every six months for over two years, and has now produced an important body of knowledge about trends in not just the number of takedown notices getting sent, but also how frequently those notices are rejected or contested by users.
Wordpress expanded on that trend, recently publishing its first copyright and trademark transparency report and including a "Hall of Shame" for bogus takedowns it wished to highlight. We like the idea of a Takedown Hall of Shame—we've run our own for years—and by publishing it along with full number Wordpress is able to provide both quantifiable evidence and illustrative anecdotes.
Additionally, some services forward takedown notices to Chilling Effects, a public database that aggregates from many different sources. While we applaud that step, we didn't consider that alone to qualify for a star in this category.
References and Resources
Etsy
Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy: https://www.etsy.com/help/article/482
Filing a Notice for Trademark Infringement: https://www.etsy.com/help/article/5599
What should I know about DMCA counter-notices?: https://www.etsy.com/help/article/5598
Facebook
Reporting Copyright Infringements: https://www.facebook.com/help/400287850027717/
Reporting Trademark Infringements: https://www.facebook.com/help/440684869305015/
Flickr
Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy: https://info.yahoo.com/copyright/us/details.html
Counter Notification: https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/copyright/en-us/counter-notification/
Go Daddy
Trademark/Copyright Infringement: https://www.godaddy.com/agreements/showdoc.aspx?pageid=TRADMARK_COPY
Imgur
Terms of Service: https://imgur.com/tos
Instagram
Reporting Copyright Infringements: https://help.instagram.com/454951664593304
Reporting Trademark Infringements: https://help.instagram.com/188234407991837
Namecheap
Copyright and Trademark Policies: https://www.namecheap.com/legal/copyright-and-trademark/copyright-trademark-policies.aspx
Pinterest
Copyright: https://about.pinterest.com/en/copyright
Trademark: https://about.pinterest.com/en/trademark
Tumblr
Terms of Service: https://www.tumblr.com/policy/en/terms-of-service
DMCA Copyright Notifications: https://www.tumblr.com/dmca
Twitter
Copyright and DMCA policy: https://support.twitter.com/articles/15795-copyright-and-dmca-policy
Trademark policy: https://support.twitter.com/articles/18367-trademark-policy
Transparency Report: Copyright notices: https://transparency.twitter.com/copyright-notices/
Vimeo
Vimeo DMCA (Copyright) Notifications and Counter-Notifications Process: http://vimeo.com/dmca
Vimeo Trademark Complaint Form: http://vimeo.com/help/violations/trademark
Wordpress
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Notice: http://automattic.com/dmca-notice/
DMCA Counter-Notice: http://automattic.com/dmca-counter-notice/
Trademark Policy: http://automattic.com/trademark-policy/
Transparency Report: Intellectual Property: http://transparency.automattic.com/intellectual-property-2014-h1/
YouTube
Counter Notification Basics: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2807684?hl=en
Support for users affected by copyright claims: https://support.google.com/youtube/topic/2778545?hl=en
Legal policies: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801979?hl=enHeroes of the Storm, like all esports, has a unique equalizing effect. Pro players have access to the exact same characters and in-game tools as anyone. To the untrained eye, a Varian, Chromie, or Medivh looks exactly the same in a quick match as they do on the Blizzcon stage. That said, what makes the HGC truly special is the group of hard-working, passionate gamers fighting for the right to keep pursuing their dreams. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a closer look at the men on the other side of the screen. It’s time for you to really get to know the Roll20 Esports Heroes of the Storm team. Check out previous interviews at the end of this article.
We’ve arrived at the final player interview in our series. Don’t worry though, we have more Roll20 content coming down the pipeline! Today, it’s time for the captain to share his thoughts. Glaurung has been interviewed and discussed more than any other member of the team, so I’ve attempted to give you something new, a slightly different perspective on Roll20’s most tenured pro.
Focus and Pursuit
Glau’s history in competitive HOTS has been well-documented. Prior to Heroes, he had never really pursued a competitive career. He explained that while he had always enjoyed competition and loved gaming, throughout most of his life the focus had remained on school. “I was studying physics and computer science,” said Glaurung. However, as esports rose in popularity, the career of a professional gamer started to sound much more appealing. Eventually, he left his studies behind to focus completely on becoming a pro player in Heroes of the Storm. At this point, Glau admitted that he has no clue what his life would be like if his pursuit of this dream had not worked out.
Initially, qualifying for the HGC wasn’t really about becoming a champion. “I wasn’t too happy about my last team’s performance at Blizzcon,” he explained. Rather than sign with an established team guaranteed to lock in an HGC slot, Glau instead chose to join Chu8 in building a team focused on having fun, and not taking the pro scene too seriously. Once the team qualified, however, the call to compete proved too strong. “Qualifying for HGC made the previous years’ worth of time investment worth it.” The rest, of course, is history. The team shattered all expectations, and is now the North American first seed as Glaurung returns to the Blizzcon stage once again.
Transitions
When Roll20 made its first roster change, many analysts were concerned how the addition of Goku would affect the team captain’s play. The two share similar hero pools, and some suggested that there might be struggles over who gets to play trademark heroes like Zeratul. “It took time to adjust, but we’ve been able to make it work,” said Glaurung. Focusing Goku as the team’s offlane specialist has provided much-needed clarity in their gameplay and draft strategy.
The draft was another key piece of the new roster’s success. Originially, Glaurung had been the team’s primary shotcaller as well as the lead drafter. Now, he has taken a back seat in the draft, with Justing taking the lead and others providing support. “It allows me to focus more on shotcalling.
Glaurung’s prowess as a shotcaller has been lauded by plenty of outlets (myself included). He mentioned that “this team dynamic is good for me as a shotcaller. Everyone is really good at feeding relevant information as well as navigating through small side skirmishes.”
Friendship and Free Time
Although most of his time is spent practicing and preparing, Glau has a personal passion that he stays committed to during the season. “I love to rock climb,” he said. “There’s a rock climbing gym near my house that I go to multiple times a week.”
In our interview with Buds, I had jokingly asked how the team might fare in a zombie apocalypse. Buds was quick to call out Glaurung specifically as the team member who would doom the rest of the group. “I would probably get bitten and end up biting everyone else to convert them,” Glaurung admitted. However, he did say that his reasons for doing so would extend beyond a mere hunger for brains. “Being a zombie is probably pretty lonely. That said, ever the captain looking out for his team, Glaurung did mention a clear plan of action for the team to survive an apocalyptic scenario. “Everyone can just set up camp at Justing’s ranch in Wisconsin!
Throughout the interview, Glau kept his answers concise and focused. In keeping with that, his message to all the team’s fans and followers was simple and clear:
Thanks for believing!
Thank you so much to Glaurung for taking the time for this interview, and to Roll20 for the opportunity to chat with these awesome players. Be sure to follow him on Twitter, and keep an eye on Roll20 Esports (and, you know, me) for our last player interview in this series.
Want to show your support for Roll20? Head to the R2E shop and pickup an official Roll20 Esports jersey!
Check out our previous interviews:
Prismaticism
Buds
Justing
Goku
AdvertisementsGawker An RBS banker was fired without compensation after a co-worker told their boss about posts she had written on Facebook, UK ParentsLounge reports.
In September, a news article announced that RBS would cut 3,500 jobs, and Kate Furlong suspected she'd be one of those affected.
In anticipation of being laid off, she updated her status on Facebook and wrote:
''I speak for myself when I say WoOOOOooooOooooHOoooOooOoo' it was pretty damn obvious something like this was coming. I'm neither stupid nor naive... and quite honestly it is the best news ever as far as I am concerned!''
'It was not unexpected. I've just hung on by my fingertips to stick around long enough for a nice payout when they could've had me out long ago without a penny! More fool them! Haha! Xx.''This article is over 2 years old
In its final set of public hearings, royal commission to examine child protection in Australia’s detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island
The royal commission into child sexual abuse is to hold limited public hearings on Australia’s immigration detention regime on Nauru and Manus Island.
The royal commission had initially declined to conduct investigations into Manus and Nauru because of jurisdictional concerns about the scope of the inquiry’s powers. Legal groups had urged the royal commission to examine Australia’s offshore immigration detention regime, outlining legal advice that Australia’s institutional response to allegations of abuse were within its power and terms of reference.
The commission appears to have partially adopted this approach, announcing the limited public hearing into the Australian government’s response to report of a child protection panel convened by the immigration minister, Peter Dutton.
The Nauru files: cache of 2,000 leaked reports reveal scale of abuse of children in Australian offshore detention Read more
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the royal commission said its final scheduled public hearing in March would examine the Australian government’s response to the report.
“On 14 November 2016 the royal commission announced a series of public hearings to be held in Sydney to inquire into the current policies and procedures relating to child protection and child safety of various institutions,” the statement said.
It said the hearings would include: “The response of the commonwealth government to the recommendations of the child protection panel in its report dated 11 May 2016, ‘Making Children Safer – the wellbeing and protection of children in immigration detention and regional processing centres’.”
The child protection panel identified serious inadequacies in Australia’s child protection framework in the immigration detention system on Manus and Nauru. It found almost half of the responses to reported incidents of child abuse were inadequate and the immigration department was unsure of the number, nature and severity of incidents.
The panel made a series of recommendations including to improve categorisation of incidents, to require service providers to deliver accurate and complete incident reports, and to ensure inquiries were not finalised without all available facts and an effective response.
There has been renewed focus on the asylum seekers and refugees held on Nauru by Australia after the Guardian’s publication of the Nauru files, which detailed thousands of incident reports from the island’s detention facility until October 2015.
A Senate inquiry is also under way into serious allegations of abuse and assault on Nauru and the department is facing increasing pressure to release information about incident reports, as well as healthcare information for asylum seekers and refugees on the island.
Senate to investigate allegations of child abuse on Nauru and Manus Island Read more
The royal commission’s limited hearings will still not fully examine the detention regime on Manus Island and Nauru. They will occur as part of a set of hearings into other areas of government responses, including the defence department and the management of working with children’s checks.
The commission has made substantial inquiries into the onshore immigration detention regime, but declined to hold public hearings.
The hearings will begin in March.
• Contact Paul Farrell at [email protected] or via the secure messaging app Signal on +61 457 262 172Story highlights Awan was arrested at Washington's Dulles International Airport as he attempted to travel to Pakistan
Awan was arraigned in US District Court on Tuesday and charged with one count of bank fraud
Washington (CNN) Imran Awan, who has worked for several House Democrats, including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was arrested Monday and charged with bank fraud as he tried to leave the country, legal documents show.
FBI spokeswoman Lindsay Ram said FBI and US Capitol Police arrested Awan at Washington's Dulles International Airport as he attempted to travel to Pakistan.
The complaint and affidavit against Awan accused him and his wife, Hina Alvi, of attempting to commit bank fraud by misrepresenting themselves on a loan for a rental property they had and then wiring the proceeds to two unnamed persons in Pakistan.
Christopher Gowen, an attorney for Awan, said Schultz's office fired him after the arrest. David Damron, a spokesman for Wasserman Schultz, confirmed to CNN that Awan had worked in the Florida Democrat's office and had been fired.
Asked if Alvi, who the complaint refers to at length, had been charged, Gowen said, "Not yet."
Read MoreWith hundreds of actors, including understudies, playing the lead role of the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera in its many productions throughout the world, it is a hard task to choose the top ten talented men who have stepped behind the mask to portray the enigmatic musical genius. We undertook this difficult task, however, and here is our list of top Ten Phantom’s who have played the role in various productions throughout the world.
10. Anthony Crivello
Anthony Crivello originated the Las Vegas production of The Phantom of the Opera, and is tenth on our list. Originally appearing in the role alongside Brent Barrett, alternating the lead, Crivello is now, as of 2008, the sole Phantom in the Vegas show.
9. Anthony Warlow
Ninth on our list is the original Phantom in the Australian production of the musical, which opened in 1990. Anthony Warlow played the role on and off until 2009, as he reprised his role in 2007 at the Melbourne Princess Theatre when The Phantom of the Opera reopened. Warlow also played the part on the two-year tour of the show which visited Brisbane, Sydney, Perth and Adelaide, as well as New Zealand. He appeared as a guest at the 25th Anniversary Concert of The Phantom of the Opera in October 2011 at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
8. Simon Bowman
Simon Bowman shot to recognition after appearing in the hit musical Miss Saigon, and then went on to play the part of Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera. Later, he was chosen in the leading role and performed at the 25th Anniversary celebrations of the show in December 2011 in Manchester.
7. Colm Wilkinson
Originally from Ireland, Colm Wilkinson performed as the original Phantom in the Canadian production of the show in 1989 at the Pantages Theatre, now Canon Theatre, in Toronto. He has lived in the Canadian city ever since. Wilkinson also appeared during the 25th celebrations of the show alongside other former Phantoms at the Royal Albert Hall.
6. Earl Carpenter
Earl Carpenter is the current Phantom at Her Majesty’s until 17th March 2012 but will continue in the role on the UK tour of the show in October. Earl first played the role from 2005 until 2007 and reprised the part in December 2011 for a short run of four months. He was also part of the 25th Anniversary celebrations at the Royal Variety Performance at The Lowry in Manchester, singing the title song of The Phantom of the Opera alongside three other former Phantoms and Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger.
5. Peter Karrie
Having played the role of the Phantom in London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Vancouver and Toronto, as well as on the UK tour in cities such as Manchester, Peter Karrie is a veteran when it comes to portraying the character. Loved by Phantom ‘Phans’, he was twice voted in 1994 and 1995 as the favourite Phantom by members of The Phantom of the Opera Appreciation Society.
4. John Owen-Jones
Forth in our list is John-Owen Jones, who was chosen to play the part of the Phantom in the West End in 2001. Jones is special in that he has performed in the role for the longer than any other London Phantom, as he left after nearly four years and 1,400 performances. As part of the 25th Anniversary celebrations of the show, Jones performed the title song and The Music of the Night at The Royal Albert Hall performance in October 2011 alongside other past Phantoms.
3. Gerard Butler
Hollywood actor Gerard Butler has never portrayed the role of the Phantom on stage, but he was cast in the 2003 movie of the musical by director Joel Schumacher. Although Butler has no previous musical experience, he began to take singing lessons and auditioned for Andrew Lloyd Webber who was impressed by his performance. Butler was praised for his role as the iconic masked musician and it brought him recognition in the world of film.
2. Ramin Karimloo
Ramin is popular amongst Phantom fans. In 2003, he played a different leading role in the West End production of The Phantom of the Opera as he performed as Raoul, and in 2007 he took over as the Phantom and performed during the 21st anniversary in the role. Recognised by fans of the musical for bringing a different interpretation of the character to the show, Ramin received a Theatregoers’ Choice Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Take Over Role, that year. Ramin went on to originate the part of the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel Love Never Dies which premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in 2010, and one of his greatest honours was being chosen to perform as the Phantom alongside his Love Never Dies co-star Sierra Boggess as Christine in the 25th anniversary production of The Phantom of the Opera which was staged at the Royal Albert Hall and streamed live to cinemas across the world.
1. Michael Crawford
Topping our list of Phantom’s is, of course, the very first Phantom, Michael Crawford. Originating the role back in 1986 at Her Majesty’s Theatre in London, Crawford saw great success following his role opposite Sarah Brightman as Christine Daae, winning the 1986 Olivier Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Musical. Crawford reprised his role on Broadway in 1988, winning a Tony Award for his performances. In 1991, 1,300 performances and three and a half years later, Michael Crawford left The Phantom of the Opera. He will always be known by fans of the musical as the original and best Phantom. Are you a Michael Crawford fan? Join in the chat and keep up to date with news on the singer at the Michael Crawford international fan association.
Who would you have put on the list? Do you think that there is a deserving Phantom missing or should the number one spot be given to someone else? Add your comments here!Twitter CEO Dick Costolo at the Wired conference in New York. Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET
(CNET) "We don't see any need or urgency to even think about that stuff," Twitter CEO Dick Costolo said today when asked when the company is going public.
Speaking with writer Steven Levy at Wired's Disruptive by Design conference today in New York, Costolo said that the business was working extremely well and that the company had plenty of money in the bank (it's raised more than $1 billion in venture funds). "We don't need to worry about financing now," he said.
Costolo also signaled that he may not want to run a public company the way the markets demand. "I'm never going to optimize for short-term revenue at the expense of user experience," he said. "If people think we're going too cautiously, I don't care. They can stay on the sidelines."
The Twitter CEO expressed a disdain for the thinking that there's an "IPO window" that may close soon and leave Twitter unable to raise public funds, if it ever needs to. "That's silly and shortsighted thinking," he said. "Google went public on its own terms. If you have a great business, you can be a public company whenever you want to be a public company. You're not beholden to a window."
Levy asked Costolo if Twitter was going to expand its revenue model, the Promoted Tweets advertising program. Costolo confirmed that the company is on track to bring in $250 million a year in revenues and said, "We're confident we've got a hit on our hands."
Speaking about the Twitter product itself, Costolo did confirm that "onboarding" new users to Twitter was a continuing challenge. It's difficult to show them the benefit of the platform when they're new. Thus, the company's new #Discovery feature, announced this morning. "We need to make it super simple and dead easy for both our existing users and users new the platform," he said.
He added that the new, personalized Discovery feature is based, today, simply on who users follow. He did hint that this was very valuable data to Twitter, and thus to advertisers, but it's apparently not being used to target advertising yet. "The interest graph paints a maybe even more compelling picture of who you are than either age or geography," he said.
This article first appeared at CNET.6 years ago
(CNN) - Dick Armey, the chairman of the conservative tea party-aligned group FreedomWorks, has resigned his post, representatives of the group said on Monday.
Adam Brandon, the group's executive vice president, confirmed to CNN "that he did step down on Friday, and we wish him well."
"Obviously the elections didn't go the way we wanted," Brandon said. "But we are focused on the learning the lessons on what we need to better heading into 2013."
Mother Jones, which first reported the resignation, reported Armey said in an interview that the group's leadership was "taking a direction I thought was unproductive."
"Obviously I was not happy with the election results," he said, according to Mother Jones. "We might've gotten better results if we had gone in a different direction. But it isn't that I got my nose out of line because we should've done better."
CNN was unable to contact Armey for comment.
The group's president, Matt Kibbe, said Armey's contract was scheduled to expire at the end of this year but did not comment further on questions about the departure.
And while Armey was pretty clear on having differences about the management of the organization, officials say FreedomWorks has "never been stronger."
Kibbe pointed to what he described as the group's "amazing year institutionally" and said he was optimistic about the movement's future, despite the election results.
"We took our beating in the election, but you know what, you don't always win," he told CNN, though adding that many of the House Republican gains made in 2010 were protected in 2012–with the exception of Rep. Allen West in Florida and Rep. Joe Walsh in Illinois.
Armey is a former House majority leader who represented Texas in the U.S. House from 1985 to 2002. He co-authored in 2010 the book "Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto" with FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe.
He urged publicly for Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to enter the presidential race and his group was no fan of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's candidacy.
In an e-mail published by Mother Jones, Armey requests the group remove his endorsement from their materials, give him passwords to social media accounts bearing his name, and "deliver the copy of my official congressional portrait to my home in Texas."
- CNN Senior Producer Kevin Bohn contributed to this report.Ruth Marcus won't have to worry about eating catfood.
“The debate about the CPI was really a political debate about how, and by how much, to cut real entitlements.”
--Greg Mankiw, chairman of George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers from 2001-2003.
Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus is a dyed-in-the-wool Villager. (Her husband, Jon Leibowitz, is chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.) She's a kinda-sorta liberal, but liberal only in that DLC-Third Way way. Oh, and she thinks bloggers are icky! Now she's championing the chained CPI after being approached by the White House, and she's just tickled to help. She starts by clutching her pearls and claiming the current Consumer Price Index overstates inflation:
It fails to account for what economists call upper-level substitution bias, and what my mother would call plain common sense: If the price rises for a certain commodity in the basket of goods used to measure inflation, consumers will choose a cheaper alternative. In my house, when the price of beef soars, we substitute chicken. The CPI doesn’t and, as a result, taxpayers are undercharged and beneficiaries are overpaid — a lot. The overestimate is small — less than 0.3 percentage points annually — but, much like compound interest, it adds up over time. Changing the inflation measure to what is called chained CPI would save $225 billion over the next decade. Of that, $95 billion would come from increased tax revenue, $80 billion from Social Security (assuming built-in protections for the very old and very poor, about which more later) and the rest from other programs. Because of the compounding effect, the savings in later years would be even larger. If chained CPI is a more accurate inflation measure, benefit checks will be smaller than they otherwise would have been. But the purchasing power of those benefits will remain the same. So, you might say, that’s a mighty big if. Indeed, the elderly may face higher costs, especially for health care, than other Americans, and health-care costs are growing more quickly than overall inflation. Some opponents of chained CPI argue instead for switching to what’s called CPI-E, a measure that gives more weight to health and housing costs. The problem with that is twofold. That measure is imperfect — the “E” stands for experimental. And, as the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes, the burden of higher health costs falls unevenly among the elderly. Average costs are skewed upward by a minority who face very high out-of-pocket expenses, a problem better addressed by fixing Medicare to deal with catastrophic costs.
Yes, we're seeing a lot of "even the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities" references these days. The Obama administration managed to convince ONE liberal economist that they would make sure the poor and elderly would be protected. (See "public option." "The White House wouldn't lie to ME, would they?")
And no, the E stands for elderly. But don't let facts stop you, Ruth. Sis! Boom! Bah!
There remain two reasons to worry about a switch to chained CPI — the old-old and the poor-poor. For the very old, who are more likely to have exhausted other sources of income, the compounding effect of the switch will be significant. For the very poor elderly and disabled who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the impact could be doubly problematic because CPI is used to compute both initial benefits and cost-of-living increases. As a result, every commission that has examined the issue and endorsed the change has coupled it with additional benefits for the poorest recipients. Opponents of the switch — including AARP and, more convincingly, the National Women’s Law Center — insist these protections are inadequate. The administration assures me that, under its approach toward the oldest seniors, the poorest would be shielded and perhaps even better off.
What better status symbol for a Village insider? "The administration assures me." (See "public option.")
Such concerns are an important reason for care in crafting the details of any change. They are not a reason for refusing to fix an inaccurate inflation measure that overpays beneficiaries and undercharges taxpayers. That is a particularly clumsy, infuriatingly wasteful way of protecting the most vulnerable.
Oh dear. Where to begin? I'll let Dean Baker sum things up:
The story here is pretty simple. If we want a more accurate index for adjusting Social Security benefits then we would have BLS construct a full elderly index. If the point is to cut benefits then we would do what Marcus advocates and switch to a chained CPI. That will teach those high living seniors.
The part that infuriates me is the argument that most of the elderly are healthy and energetic enough to hop around comparison shopping. Really? When was the last time any Villager was responsible for taking their 86-year-old parent shopping? I'm pretty sure they hire people for that.
And let's talk about class, too. The college-educated elderly do tend to be healthier and more active. But how many of that cohort depend on Social Security for 90 percent of their retirement income? Also: It doesn't hurt when your daughter went to Yale, and then to Harvard Law. After all, she can afford to help.
We won't even get into the fact that the chained CPI also means a significant tax hike for those earning under $40,000. (Hey, it doesn't affect anyone Ruth knows!)
I remember taking my mother shopping. Since she had vertebrae fractures, she was in constant pain and couldn't stand very long. Hell, she had trouble getting out of the car! Mom did try to pinch pennies by cutting coupons, but mostly it was all too much for her and she went for whatever was most convenient. You know how she made up for it? By refusing to turn the air conditioning on during record heat waves. (From what I hear from my friends, this is a common form of "thriftiness" among the elderly.) Yeah, having old people drop dead from the heat is a great solution.
And these are the people Stenographer Ruth Marcus wants to cut? What a dupe. But then, I shouldn't be surprised. The Post opinion pages are full of them.Despite recent advances in stroke therapy, current therapeutic concepts are still limited. Thus, additional therapeutic strategies are in order. In this sense, the transplantation of stem cells has appeared to be an attractive adjuvant tool to help boost the endogenous regenerative capacities of the brain. Although transplantation of stem cells is known to induce beneficial outcome in (preclinical) stroke research, grafted cells do not replace lost tissue directly. Rather, these transplanted cells like neural progenitor cells or mesenchymal stem cells act in an indirect manner, among which the secretion of extracellular vesicles (EVs) appears to be one key factor. Indeed, the application of EVs in preclinical stroke studies suggests a therapeutic role, which appears to be noninferior in comparison to the transplantation of stem cells themselves. In this short review, we highlight some of the recent advances in the field of EVs as a therapeutic means to counter stroke. Stem Cells Translational Medicine 2017;6:2044–2052
Significance Statement Despite recent success in therapeutic approaches against stroke, especially in the field of endovascular therapy, additional therapeutic means are still in order. In this sense, the application of extracellular vesicles might be an interesting tool to induce post‐ischemic neuroregeneration, overcoming the limitations and risks of stem cell transplantation themselves.
State‐of‐the‐Art Stroke Treatment Ischemic stroke treatment currently involves three concepts: The admission of stroke patients to stroke units, the application of thrombolytics, and the recanalization of the occluded vessel by endovascular clot removal 1-4. With the first stroke units being introduced in the 1990s, stroke management has turned from a purely observational field toward an evidence based therapeutic field. Controlled randomized studies not only demonstrated the utility of the thrombolytic recombinant tissue plasminogen activator to improve stroke outcome when administered intravenously within 4.5 hours after symptom onset 5, but more recently revealed the efficacy of endovascular recanalization therapy 1, 2. Despite this great success, the majority of patients receive none of the two aforementioned treatments, partially because of narrow time windows or because of significant complication risks. This justifies the need for additional treatments, which alleviate the long‐term consequences of a stroke.
Post‐Stroke Brain Repair With strategies on brain protection having failed in clinics in the 1980s and 1990s, current preclinical research strongly focuses on promoting the regenerative capacities of the ischemic brain. The physiological basis of the latter is the persistence of endogenous neurogenesis in the adult mammalian brain within so called stem cell niches, namely the subventricular zone (SVZ) of the lateral ventricles 6-8 and the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus 9, 10. Upon stroke, neural progenitor cells (NPCs) within the SVZ migrate toward the ischemic lesion site where they proliferate 11, 12. Yet, the stroke‐induced promotion of post‐stroke neurogenesis has restricted functional relevance, as new‐born cells show both low survival rates and poorly differentiate into mature neurons 13-15. In order to use the endogenous regenerative potential of the ischemic brain, two different strategies to manipulate neurogenesis are under investigation: (a) enhancing the resistance of NPCs to delayed degeneration and (b) augmenting the number of NPCs in the ischemic brain tissue. The former can be achieved by the administration of antiapoptotic drugs 14, 16, the latter is thought to be accomplished by stimulating NPC proliferation or by transplantation of exogenous NPCs. Although transplantation of stem cells improves post‐stroke symptoms, grafted stem cells do not replace cells lost in injured tissue. Rather, grafted stem cells act in an indirect manner, very likely by releasing trophic and anti‐inflammatory factors that promote the survival, remodeling, and plasticity of the ischemic brain tissue 17-19. Considering the paracrine nature of stem cell‐mediated beneficial effects, the choice of stem cell source might not be essential for achieving recovery‐promoting effects of cellular therapeutics. As a matter of fact, in addition to NPCs stem cells derived from various adult tissues have been found to promote restorative effects in the ischemic brain 18, 20-22. Especially due to their broad availability, their simple handling and their low side effects, bone marrow‐derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) became an attractive cell source to treat ischemic stroke in a number of different preclinical models.
Transplantation of MSCs and NPCs After Stroke Preclinical transplantation studies in a plethora of stroke models using MSCs or NPCs have shown beneficial effects (Table 1) in a large number of different readouts 23, 26-36, 43-45. NPCs, either administered intracerebrally or systemically, mediate neuroprotection and enhance neurological recovery via stimulation of endogenous angiogenesis and neurogenesis. The mechanisms involved in the process of NPC‐induced brain protection and brain regeneration greatly depend on both cell delivery routes and cell delivery timing 34, 35. For example, acute NPC transplantation reduced neuronal injury and infarct volume, while transplantation at later stages rather modifies post‐stroke brain regeneration and neuronal plasticity. Table 1. Preclinical studies and clinical trials on systemic post‐stroke delivery of MSCs and NPCs Species Cell type Delivery timing Key results References Mouse Umbilical cord MSCs Within 30 minutes Reduction of brain injury & modulation of TGF expression 23 Rat Adipose‐derived MSCs Within 24 hours Reduction of brain injury/improved motor coordination 24 Rat Adipose‐derived MSCs (i.ventr./i.v./i.a.) Within 24 hours Reduction of brain injury/improved motor coordination 25 Rat BM‐derived MSCs Up to 1 month Increased angiogenesis and better neurological recovery 26 Rat Placenta‐derived MSCs 24 hours versus 8 + 24 hours increased neurological recovery 27 Rat BM‐derived MSCs (i.a.) d2 and d7 Increased angiogenesis and homing/no effect on neurological recovery 28 Rat BM‐derived MSCs 3 hours Reduction of brain injury/improved functional outcome 29 Rat BM‐derived MSCs 24 hours Increased angiogenesis 30 Rat NPCs (i.a./i.v./i.c.) 24 hours Migration and distribution patterns depend on delivery routes 31 Mouse NPCs d7 Reduced brain injury/improved neurological recovery 32 Mouse NPCs 6 hours Improved neurological recovery 33 Mouse NPCs Up to 1 month Reduced brain injury/increased tissue regeneration/improved functional recovery 34 Mouse NPCs (i.v./i.a./i.s./i.ventr./i.cort.) 6 hours (i.v.) Sustained reduction of brain injury after systemic transplantation 35 Rat NPCs 24 hours Reduced tissue injury and better neurological score 36 Human Phase II Adipose‐derived MSCs Within 2 weeks Recruiting patients 37 Human Phase I/II BM‐derived MSCs (i.a.) Between 5–9 days No safety concerns/no better outcome after 6 months 38 Human BM‐derived MSCs Within 1 week after randomization No safety concerns/better outcome for some scores 39 Human BM‐derived MSCs 36–133 days post‐stroke No safety concerns within 1 year 40 Human BM‐derived MSCs 3–12 months post |
going to have to try to make this work.” Two politicians have already emerged as major players: Michael Dugher, Burnham’s campaign chief, and Jon Ashworth, a key supporter of
Yvette Cooper. On 13 September, they began calling opposition frontbenchers, putting the case to them for staying in post under Corbyn. For the most part, they were unsuccessful: Corbyn’s shadow cabinet is significantly further to the left than Miliband’s, with most of the centrists out in the cold.
Yet there are still representatives from the party’s moderate wing. Burnham is shadow home secretary, after all, while his allies Charles Falconer, Hilary Benn and Lucy Powell have been given plum positions shadowing Justice, Foreign Affairs and Education.
It is the politicians with superficially less high-powered roles, however, who hold real power and on whom much of the future prospects of Labour’s moderates now rest: Rosie Winterton, who remains as shadow chief whip, Dugher, Ashworth and Gloria De Piero. De Piero, like Dugher and Ashworth, is a protégée of Watson. Winterton, though officially neutral during the leadership contest, was Watson’s nominee for the post of chief whip five years ago.
Ashworth sits on the party’s ruling National Executive Committee, notionally as one of the leader’s picks but in reality as a voice for stability and unity, rather than one advocating fundamental change to the party’s structures. And Dugher, the new shadow culture secretary, will be insulated in his role from some of Corbyn’s more
radical positions.
And De Piero? She has the newly created post of “shadow minister for young people and voter registration”, with the right to attend shadow cabinet. The brief gives her licence to travel the country, meeting members, winning them over – ready, perhaps, for the moment when Watson, in his guise as shadow secretary of state for the sword of Damocles, moves against Corbyn.
Stephen Bush is the editor of the Staggers, the New Statesman’s politics blogLast week, former Mexican President Vicente Fox spoke at a Cato forum on the need to legalize the consumption, production and sale of all drugs. (You may also see C-Span’s coverage of the event.) President Fox took time to do a BBC interview below on the same topic.
By calling for an end to the drug war, he joins prominent figures from around the world—including former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, and many others—who are calling for policies that treat drug abuse as a social problem, rather than a criminal one. Join us for a major Cato conference, “Ending the Global War on Drugs,” on November 15, where the above opinion leaders will address the harm of prohibition and realistic policy alternatives.Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson is lobbying for the creation of a new provincial park within city boundaries — one that would give residents access to a “phenomenal” natural area and create opportunity for cultural tourism.
The river valley park would protect the southwest Big Island-Woodbend area and could be co-managed with the Enoch Cree Nation, since it overlaps with reserve land the Cree nation was forced to give up in the early 1900s.
“It really is a phenomenal area,” said Iveson. “Big Island really was the first (accidental) beach area. Paddle-wheelers used to go up there. It was a day trip for families, then it fell out of use. But the beauty that was there 100 years ago is still fully there.
“It’s a stunning area that’s largely untouched,” he said, adding that some areas that were previously farmed could be great for a campground or gathering space.
The first details of the plan were released Friday in a report to city council. It says the mayor’s office held initial discussions with the province, Enoch and other regional stakeholders this past spring and now needs formal approval to proceed. “All stakeholder representatives indicated interest in principle for continuing the discussion.”
When Enoch Cree Nation first signed a treaty, its land was about 100 square kilometres, reaching to the banks of the North Saskatchewan River. It gave up about half that land through two forced surrenders in 1902 and 1908, a move likely driven by former Edmonton politician Frank Oliver.
This park would bring something beautiful and positive out of that history, said Enoch Coun. Michelle Wilsdon, hoping Enoch residents can help develop the park and run interpretive programs similar to what Parks Canada does in Jasper.
They’d love to see interpretive walks, a visitors’ centre and a campground with evening interpretive programs, she said. “Really turning this into a celebration of our history there. We’re kind of dreaming big on this.”
Edmonton has been debating how best to protect the Big Island area for years. It’s now mostly private land with a beautiful sand dune, deep ravine and long back-channel on the river with some key fish habitat.
The Sierra Club and North Saskatchewan River Valley Conservation Society have been trying to raise money to help preserve it, estimating in 2013 that they’d need $20 million to $25 million to do that. The land is located on the southwest border of Edmonton, where residential development is rapidly changing the higher tablelands above.
This proposal reaches even further, encompassing several hundred hectares below the top of the bank from Anthony Henday Drive to the town of Devon. It includes parts of Leduc and Parkland counties.
In the report to council, Iveson’s office said the idea of an urban provincial park came from a conversation with the conservation society. The greater provincial powers and resources would allow faster implementation of that vision.
Working with Enoch First Nation could be an opportunity for reconciliation and economic development, similar to how the Piikani First Nation has a role managing the new Castle Provincial Park in southern Alberta, said Iveson. The urban provincial park could create for Edmonton what Fish Creek Provincial Park has given Calgary, he said.
The idea goes to council for debate Tuesday.
[email protected]
twitter.com/estolte
Photo tour of the Big Island-Woodbend area
The Edmonton Journal toured the Big Island-Woodbend area in April 2013, when the conservation society was launching a major fundraising initiative. Here are some photos from that tour.
A provincial park could make the natural land more accessible to residents of Edmonton, Devon and the region.There is compelling evidence that at least two raptor species – the Brown Falcon and the Black Kite – act as propagators of fire within the Australian savanna woodlands and perhaps in other similar biomes elsewhere
This is a presentation made earlier today at the Raptor Research Foundation meeting at Sacramento, CA.
Thanks to my co-author Mark Bonta of Penn State University for his invaluable assistance with this presentation.
Please note that this presentation is but a summary of our work which will emerge as a full-blown paper in the near future.
Introduction
Birds are key taxa in the study of the impact of fire on Australian savanna woodlands – but most studies examine the impact upon birds, not the impact of birds in relation to fire;
Two commonly accepted sources of fire in Australia – anthropogenic and lightning. But we want to ask if there is a third cause?
Here we look at the evidence that two raptors – the endemic Brown Falcon Falco berigora and the globally-abundant Black Kite Milvus migrans – may be propagators of fire in the Australian savanna and perhaps elsewhere.
Applying ethno-biological research methods and materials – anthropological, linguistic and first-person accounts – reveals the as-yet unrealized role of these birds and fire in both traditional knowledge and ceremonies and land management.
Methodology
Because biological information on the two species studied here is (relatively) well-known, we have focused on the identification of relevant ethnobiological research methods and materials;
We have conducted formal semi-structured interviews with a small number of non-Aboriginal (n=6) and Aboriginal (n=8) fire and land managers working in the Northern Territory savanna;
We have conducted formal semi-structured interviews with a small number of Aboriginal ceremonial participants and senior ceremonial practitioners (n=10);
We have conducted extensive literature research (both specialist academic and ‘grey’ literature) on a variety of topics including general and specific anthropological research, linguistic texts, particularly dictionary and grammar texts, and fire-related literature;
We have also issued calls for comment and submission of observations through social media networks that have provided a number of useful contacts and further research cues;
We are looking at publishing our preliminary findings in the near future and the preparation of a further field-based research program for the 2016 northern fire season, with a concentration on video contributions by local fire managers and interviews with practitioners and observations from other savanna biomes.
The two species under consideration here are:
(1) Black Kite Milvus migrans Boddaert, 1783 (above). A medium-sized, latest global population estimates run up to 6 million individuals. They are opportunistic hunters more likely to scavenge.
Distributed through temperate and tropical parts of Eurasia, Africa, & parts of Australasia and Oceania. Attracted to smoke and fires, where they seek escaping prey, related to Australian Aboriginal beliefs that kites spread fires by picking up burning twigs and dropping them on dry grass.
(2) Brown Falcon Falco berigoraVigors and Horsfield, 1827. A mid-sized long-legged, buteolike falcon. Adults are extremely variable: from tan and buff to chocolate brown with variable white underparts (males tend to have more white), to near black all over.
A versatile and opportunist hunter: takes prey from perch, hover, in direct flight, or running over the ground.
Pairs occasionally hunt cooperatively. Feeds on fresh carrion but takes mostly live prey: mammals, birds, reptiles (especially snakes), amphibians, and large insects.
Fire and birds in the Australian savanna
Australia is dominated by fire-adapted vegetation. European settlers have, since the time of invasion of the continent in 1788, struggled to comprehend the ecology of fire in Australia. Unlike southern Australia’s forests, northern Australia’s savannas are the most pyrophitic of the world’s biomes.
Fires burn about 30-50% of northern Australia each year. Many areas burn every year. The fires are so common for so much of the year that the creation of new habitat occurs almost continuously. The most ephemeral of these habitats is the fire itself.
Fire provides the opportunity for pyrophilic behaviour by some birds. Brown Falcons, Falco berigora, perch at the fire-front waiting for grasshoppers, frogs, snakes, lizards and small mammals.
Whistling Kites (Haliastur sphenurous), and particularly Black Kites (Milvus migrans), spectacularly hawk around the curtain of flame, preying on grasshopper, cockroaches and other small fleeing animals.
Apart from these opportunistic specialists, many other bird species also benefit from fire, foraging directly at the fire-front or, particularly in the northern savannas, relying on the opportunities provided by post-fire habitat succession for prey availability. The changed appearance and odour of habitat, plus new distribution of resources and dangers, greatly increase the vulnerability of prey species.
Other predatory species exploit the two to three days of the ‘hot ash’ phase and the subsequent two weeks of the ‘cold black’ phase after the smouldering has stopped but before vegetative sprouting – the ‘green pick’ phase – has begun.
But this fire-related activity is only a part of the story. The ecology of Australia’s tropical savannas is shaped by the near-pervasive influence of fire.
Constituting ~20% of Australia’s land area, tropical savannas contribute >75% of the area burnt in Australia each year. Across most of Australia’s tropical savannas, components of biodiversity are declining, including many species of birds.
Local Aboriginal people believe that Black Kites set fires by carrying burning sticks to new locations and drop them into dry grass on unburnt grounds. (From: Bowman & Murphy (2011); Woinarski (nd); Braithwaite & Estbergs (1987-88)).
Image: Rain in average millimetres/annum. Credit: Mila Bristow/Charles Darwin University.
Image: Darwin Centre for Bushfire Research.
“I have seen a hawk pick up a smouldering stick in its claws and drop it in a fresh patch of dry grass half a mile away, then wait with its mates for the mad exodus of scorched and frightened rodents and reptiles. “When that area was burnt out the process was repeated elsewhere. We call these fires Jarulan.” Waipuldanya Phillip Roberts in I, the Aboriginal by Douglas Lockwood & Phillip Roberts. Readers Book Club, London. (1964)
Reading that quote from Waipuldanya started me on a research project that has run for more than a few years so far and most likely will run for a few more.
The material that I’ve found falls into three broad categories:
Direct evidence – correspondence and interviews – from Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal land-managers and fire “fighters” of observations of raptors carrying burning sticks from burned ground to unburnt ground. Direct evidence using interviews – from Aboriginal ceremonial leaders and participants of observations of raptors carrying burning sticks from burnt ground to unburnt ground and of the relationships between those observations and contemporary ceremonial practice; and Accounts from the literature including anthropological accounts of ceremonies, reports of traditional Aboriginal myths and legends, fire and ecological management, ornithological and linguistic journals and popular literature.
Turning to this material by category (briefly):
1.Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal land-managers and fire-fighters are close observers of fire behaviour and all those things associated with the management of wildfires. Aboriginal observers spoken to generally take fire-promoting behaviour by these raptors as a given, whether they have seen it or not. Non-Aboriginal observers express initial surprise at seeing this bird behaviour and sometimes struggled to incorporate it into their broad fire-related knowledge; 2. Aboriginal informants – whether professionally engaged as fire and/or land managers – who participate in ceremonies where this conduct is expressed as a ‘scene’ during the course of at least two of them conducted across Arnhem land, accept this conduct as a mythological, religious and contemporary fact. These informants have fine-grained ecological and cultural knowledge and most informants are fluent in several local languages, with English often being at least a second or third language. 3. The anthropological material found during my research – some recorded as long as 110 years ago – indicated that practices conducted in one ceremony, the Yabuduruwa, was consistent with that recorded in detail in 1965 and with contemporary practice. The “scene”, known variously as the “Grasshopper” or “Burnt Grass” scene is also found in a more widespread funerary ceremony known as “Lorrkon”. Linguistic material reveals useful corroborative data across a wide area. Phonetically similar or cognative names for “garrkan”, variously identified as either Brown Falcon or “chickenhawk” is often accompanied by a description that closely links the bird with fire, either as “having fire”, “carrying fire” or similar. There is an extensive body of recorded material – some over 100 years old – of Aboriginal myths and legends relating to birds and fire from across Australia. Many of these relate to the role that birds play in the spread of fire for use by humans. One common theme is that a small hawk – variously a “chickenhawk”, “eaglehawk” or similar – rescues fire from an agent that wants to dispose of it/refuses to share/etc. and distributes fire to humans for the common good.
Conclusions and future research
There is compelling evidence that at least two raptor species – the Brown Falcon and the Black Kite – act as propagators of fire within the Australian savanna woodlands and perhaps in other similar biomes elsewhere in the world.
This has important implications for our understanding of the history of fire initiation in the Australian savanna, and for our appreciation of similar large-scale landscape modification processes there and elsewhere.
It is also possible that humanity’s acquisition and manipulation of fire may be a result of the observation of intentional avian pyrophilic behaviour rather than solely from some relationship with lightning-caused fire.
There is some limited evidence of similar avian pyrophilic behaviour from elsewhere – the Grasshopper Buzzard, Butastur rufipennis in central Africa and the Crested Caracara, Caracara cheriway in the southern USA – and this also calls for further study.
Further research is required in the Australian savanna woodlands and we are planning a qualitative and quantitative research program for the 2016 northern fire season.
Any suggestions for funding or support would be welcomed!
If you are interested in finding out more about ethnoornithology, this volume provides an excellent overview of the sub-discipline.
You can join the Ethnoornithology FB page and the Ethnoornithology Research & Study Group has more information and connections.
Please send in your observation or thoughts here or you can send them direct to me by email at [email protected]Tommy Mendez went out with $3 to buy cookies at the corner store — but even in leafy Carroll Gardens, that proved to be perilous.
The 10-year-old was held up at gunpoint on one of Brooklyn’s safest streets by three men who forced him to hand over the three singles — and threatened to kill him if he snitched.
“I got really scared,” Tommy told The Post. “I didn’t want to tell my parents because I thought they would get mad at me for going out without permission. It was a big mistake.”
The crime took place at 4:30 p.m. Dec. 8 near the boy’s home and across the street from PS 149, also called The Brooklyn New School.
“I saw three teenagers. They had hoods on and it was hard to see their faces. One of them asked me if I wanted any candy,” Tommy said.
“Then the guy asked me if I had any money. I hesitated and I got really scared.
“I took out my only three dollars... They took it and started running.”
Afraid to tell his parents he was out alone at dusk, Tommy kept quiet for three days before coming clean to a school crossing guard who saw him crying.
“I found the crossing guard and told her what happened,” he said. “I didn’t want to be alone on my block. I thought I would see those guys again. The crossing guard called the police and they talked to me. Then my dad showed up.”
Tommy’s father, Jose Mendez, said his son was traumatized.
“He was shocked. He was crying,” Mendez, 35, told The Post.
“I asked him, ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell Mom? We could have called the police right away,’ ” José recalled.
“He said, ‘You know, Papa, I’m afraid because they told me, ‘If you tell anyone, we’re going to kill you.’ ”
The father and son went to the 76th Precinct station house, where cops showed them photos of possible suspects, but the boy didn’t recognize anyone. There were no witnesses and no surveillance video of the robbery, police said.
Additional reporting by Reuven FentonErm, okay, so, Twitter had a bit of a bug recently that showed that not even God is safe.
A bug in how Twitter handles password reminders allowed users to take control of other accounts such as @emoji and @god. The bug in question was that, when a user went to reset a password, it would display the full email address tied to it, and not partially asterisking it out as it usually does.
In some cases, you are able to reset an account’s password with just the email address. So, if you come across an email address that may have expired, all you need to do is re-register the address and you’re in.
The majority of accounts that were taken over are now back to normal and the tweets posted by the hijackers have been deleted, most of which aren’t safe enough for work to post here, bar this one:
follow my main account @Centrally we out here recreating hotmails thanks to @twitter for this sick 0day they gave us!!! — God (@god) February 10, 2016
Valuable Twitter handles
While I can’t imagine there’s someone up there currently on hold with Twitter’s customer support, there’s still value in the @god account and many others.
A Twitter account such as @god has a heavy following, which makes it a perfect avenue for posting spam.
Accounts that are just three characters can sell for a sizeable sum, with this recent acquirer looking to sell his new account quickly:
The bug appears to have been fixed now, thank @god.
Damage to reputation
While I haven’t seen any organisations suffering from this bug so far, there are still risks to organisations using social media. If, for example, your account was to fall victim to this bug, how much damage to your reputation would there be?
Organisations that use social media need to include them in their risk assessments and ensure that they have policies and procedures in place for handling these accounts, and what to do if the worst was to happen.POLICE are hunting moped riders who launched a series of 'drive-by' muggings on pedestrians in Southampton in the early hours.
Victims were targeted in four robberies and attacks each staged by two people riding on a small motorcycle.
Now police are stepping up their enquiries to find the riders and urge anyone who witnessed the muggings to contact them immediately.
They say it is too early to determine whether the incidents are linked but are warning people to stay vigilant while walking at night - or to stay safe by taking taxis or public transport.
A 48-year-old man was walking from Oxford Street in Southampton towards Harefield in the early hours of Sunday, August 14, when he was approached from behind by two people on a moped who assaulted him and stole his wallet.
A group of 17-year-old boys were walking home along Meadowside Close at around 12.20am on Friday, August 19 when two people on a moped approached, threatening them and demanding their belongings.
The boys refused and were subsequently assaulted by the riders before they zoomed off.
In the same night, an 18-year-old man was walking along Spring Road at around 4.14am when he was assaulted by two people on a moped and forced to hand over cash before the teenager fled.
A 22-year-old man was walking along Butts Road between 3-4am on Saturday, August 20, when a moped came up behind him and two people on it assaulted him.
Nothing was stolen and the riders went off in the direction of Thornhill.
Detective Inspector Nick Plummer said: “These incidents happened in the early hours of the morning.
"We appreciate not many people would have been around, but if you heard or saw anything suspicious in these locations we want to hear from you.
“We are actively investigating each report and linking where evidentially appropriate.
“I would like to take this opportunity to remind people of their personal safety.
"If it’s very late at night consider taking a taxi or bus ride home, don’t carry too much cash on you and arrange to walk with a friend at the very least."
Witnesses should contact police on 101 quoting 44160304599 for the Oxford Street to Harefield incident, 44160310861 for the Meadowside Close attack, 44160311430 for the Spring Road robbery and 44160312927 for the Butts Road assault.
Alternatively call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.Visa requirements for German citizens are administrative entry restrictions by the authorities of other states placed on citizens of Germany. As of January 2019, German citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 188 countries and territories, ranking the German passport 3rd in terms of travel freedom according to the Henley & Partners Passport Index.[1] Additionally, the World Tourism Organization also published a report on 15 January 2016 ranking the German passport 1st in the world (tied with Denmark, Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Singapore and the United Kingdom) in terms of travel freedom, with the mobility index of 160 (out of 215 with no visa weighted by 1, visa on arrival weighted by 0.7, eVisa by 0.5 and traditional visa weighted by 0).[2]
Recent [ edit ]
Recently visa requirements for German citizens were lifted by Uzbekistan (15 January 2019),[3] Cape Verde (1 January 2019),[4] Belarus (February 2017),[5] Solomon Islands (October 2016),[6] Tuvalu (July 2016),[7] Marshall Islands (June 2016),[8] Palau (December 2015),[9] Tonga (November 2015),[10] Sao Tome and Principe (August 2015),[11] Vietnam (July 2015-June 30, 2021 at least),[12] Indonesia (June 2015),[13][14] United Arab Emirates, Timor-Leste, Samoa (May 2015),[15][16][17][18] Kazakhstan (July 2014),[19] Mongolia (September 2013)[20] and Kyrgyzstan (July 2012).[21]
German citizens were made eligible for eVisas recently by Tanzania (November 2018),[22] Angola (March 2018), Djibouti (February 2018),[23] Egypt (December 2017),[24] Azerbaijan (January 2017),[25] Tajikistan (June 2016),[26][27] India (e-Tourist visa from November 2014)[28] and Myanmar (September 2014).[29]
Visa requirements map [ edit ]
Germany Freedom of movement Visa not required Visa on arrival eVisa Visa available both on arrival or online Visa required prior to arrival Visa requirements for German citizens
Visa requirements [ edit ]
Territories [ edit ]
Visa requirements for German citizens for visits to various territories, disputed areas, partially recognized countries and restricted zones:
Vaccination [ edit ]
Many African countries, including Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Zambia require all incoming passengers to have a current International Certificate of Vaccination. Some other countries require vaccination only if the passenger is coming from an infected area.[369]
Passport validity [ edit ]
Many countries require passport validity of no less than 6 months and one or two blank pages.[370]
Countries requiring passport validity of at least 6 months on arrival include Afghanistan, Algeria, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Cambodia, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Fiji, Guyana, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq (except when arriving at Basra - 3 months and Erbil or Sulaimaniyah - on arrival), Israel, Kenya, Laos, Madagascar, Malaysia, Marshall Islands, Myanmar, Namibia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Suriname, Taiwan, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Thailand, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, countries requiring passport validity of at least 4 months on arrival include Micronesia, Zambia, countries requiring passport validity of at least 3 months on arrival include Georgia, Honduras, Iceland, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Moldova, Nauru, Panama, United Arab Emirates and countries requiring passport validity of at least 1 month on arrival include Eritrea, Hong Kong, Macao, New Zealand, South Africa.[371] Other countries require either a passport valid on arrival or passport valid throughout the period of intended stay.
Conflicts [ edit ]
Israel, subject to the Arab League boycott, does not stamp passports anymore. Instead, it issues ID cards to visitors. Previously, it was possible to get the stamp on a separate piece of paper. Kuwait,[372] Lebanon,[373] Libya,[374] Saudi Arabia,[375] Sudan,[376] Syria[377] and Yemen[378] do not allow entry to people with evidence of travel to Israel, or whose passports have either a used or an unused Israeli visa.
Iran: Admission is refused for holders of passports containing an Israeli visa/stamp in the last 12 months[379][ better source needed ]
However, similar conflicts exist between other countries. Visitors with passport stamp of such countries may have trouble to enter the other countries. Germany allows its citizens to hold several German passports (two or three, in extreme cases up to ten) to circumvent such travel restrictions. However, these additional passports are valid only for a maximum of six years, even if the "main passport" is valid for ten years. Holding a German passport and a foreign passport at the same time, that is, dual citizenship, is restricted under the current German nationality law. Germany allows dual citizenship with other EU countries and Switzerland; dual citizenship with other countries is possible with special permission or if obtained at birth. Dual citizenship is also routinely granted when the other citizenship cannot be renounced or renunciation would be practically impossible.
Fingerprinting [ edit ]
Several countries including Afghanistan, Argentina, Burundi, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and the United States demand all passengers to be fingerprinted on arrival.[380][381][382][383][384][385][386][387][388] Countries capturing other biometric data like iris pattern include Jordan,[389] Oman[389] and United Arab Emirates.[390]
Right to consular protection in non-EU countries [ edit ]
When in a non-EU country where there is no German embassy, German citizens as EU citizens have the right to get consular protection from the embassy of any other EU country present in that country.
Currently (2017), Germany manages 226 diplomatic missions worldwide. There are also 354 unpaid honorary consuls. See also List of diplomatic missions of Germany.
Diplomatic missions of Germany
Currently, there are no German diplomatic missions (but in some cases honorary consuls) in
Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bhutan, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Cook Islands, Comores, Dominica, East Timor, Fiji, The Gambia, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Maledives, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Monaco, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, San Marino, São Tomé and Príncipe, Seychelles, Somalia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Swaziland, Syria, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
Germany regularly publishes travel warnings on the website of the Auswärtiges Amt (Federal Foreign Office) to its citizens. The Office allows German citizens to register online in a special list, the Krisenvorsorgeliste ("Crisis-Prevention List") before they travel abroad (Elektronische Erfassung von Deutschen im Ausland [ELEFAND] Electronic Registration of Germans Being Abroad). With a password, the registered persons can changed or update their data. The registration is voluntary and free of charge. It can be used for longer stays (longer than 6 months), but also for a vacation of only two weeks. The earliest date of registration is 10 days before the planned trip.
Non-ordinary passports [ edit ]
Holders of various categories of official German passports have additional visa-free access to the following countries - Algeria (diplomatic passports), Ghana (diplomatic, official, or service passports), India (diplomatic passports), Kazakhstan (diplomatic passports), Pakistan (diplomatic passports), Russia (diplomatic passports) and Vietnam (diplomatic passports). Holders of diplomatic or service passports of any country have visa-free access to Cape Verde, Ethiopia, Mali and Zimbabwe.
See also [ edit ]
Annotations, References and Notes [ edit ]
Annotations [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]In 2008, scientist Bryan Black took core samples the diameter of a pencil from a forest near the north Oregon coast. Most of the trees were hemlocks and Douglas fir that had been undisturbed for about 90 years.
The hemlocks were growing normally. But Black was shocked at what he saw in the Douglas fir samples.
“In 1984, these Douglas fir all but shut down,” Black says. “In fact, their growth was so slow that it wasn’t even forming wood around the whole circumference of the tree.”
The firs were so stressed, they couldn’t form rings and were laying down wood in patchy strips. The trees’ growth between 1984 and 2008 was packed into just a millimeter. The trees had a particularly severe case of Swiss needle cast, a disease caused by a fungus that infects Douglas fir needles and starves the trees of carbon dioxide.
A Douglas fir tree core showing a dramatic slowdown in growth caused by Swiss needle cast infection. Credit: Bryan Black.
Unlike many problem diseases, the fungus that causes Swiss needle cast is native, not an invader; it evolved in the Pacific Northwest. For decades, foresters believed the pathogen didn’t cause any disease or symptoms in its native range. Then Douglas firs with thin foliage and yellow needles started to appear on the Oregon coast in the 1970s. Today, a Swiss needle cast epidemic affects about 3 million acres of coastal Douglas fir.
A whole range of variables may have contributed to this sudden outbreak of a native tree disease, but Black’s tree ring studies suggest that one of the key factors is winter temperatures that have warmed by about half a degree each decade since the 1960s.
Black and fellow researchers have been trying to understand why the disease appeared relatively suddenly, and what explains the severity of the disease in some coastal Oregon forests and its mildness elsewhere.
“Bryan was able to correlate increases in winter temperature with changes in tree ring width and growth declines,” says Jeff Stone, an expert in tree diseases at Oregon State University who is also studying Swiss needle cast.
How the Disease Works The disease is caused by a fungus, Phaeocryptopus gaeumanni.
The fruiting part of the fungus develops in openings in the needle called stomata.
This clogs the stomata, restricting the needle’s intake of CO2 and photosynthesis.
When 25-50% of the stomata are blocked, the needle becomes an energy sink.
The tree sheds needles that lose energy. Older, infected needles yellow and die.
Eventually, the tree struggles to produce sugars and wood and its growth shuts down.
An infected needle with blocked stomata. Credit: Bryan Black.
Stone says early climate modeling work suggests that the area of land impacted by the disease will increase over the next 80 years, though he doesn’t yet see indications it will spread out of the Coast Range and into the Cascades.
Neither Black nor Stone say they are alarmed by the rapid spread of Swiss needle cast. Native pathogens play an important role in determining what tree species occupy particular niches. Recent history and forest management practices have led Douglas firs to dominate in many coastal forests.
The spread of Swiss needle cast could allow other native trees to regain their competitive advantage, Black says: “These forests might be replaced by hemlock or Sitka spruce and other species, and return to their historical character.”
On parts of the landscape, the disease has already led young hemlocks- normally a slower-growing tree- to crowd out Douglas firs.
For the forest-products industry in coastal Oregon, the spread of the disease could mean significant lost income. Mark Gourley, a forester with Starker Forests in Philomath, says the disease is often hard to detect until a stand is 10 or 15 years old. At that point a company or landowner has already made a significant capitol investment in the trees.
“It has huge economic impacts, when you’ve got wood out there that’s not growing” he said.
In 1996, the Oregon Department of Forestry, the U.S. Forest Service, and private timber owners formed a cooperative. The cooperative pays for a yearly flight up and down the coast to look for yellowing Douglas firs.
“The symptoms that we can visually see are moving inland about two air miles a year,” says Gourley. He estimates about a third of Starker’s Doug firs are impacted by the disease.
A map from the 2010 aerial survey of Swiss Needle Cast. Credit: Swiss Needle Cast Cooperative and Oregon Department of Forestry.
Gourley works closely with both Black and Stone, but he’s not convinced warming winter temperatures are the key variable that’s driving the spread of Swiss needle cast. Gourley is focused on other research that suggests that soil composition could affect the severity of the disease. Gourley says he’s experimented with hundreds of strategies, from thinning stands to treating the soil with plane loads of phosphorus and calcium. He’s hopeful improving soil nutrition will make the trees more resilient.
“It’s probably a combination of a bunch of things. We’ve got probably more Douglas fir out there than we have in the last 100 years. Maybe Jeff’s right, we’ve had warmer temperatures the last several years, … maybe we’re into different genetics with our trees. The nutrition has changed in the soil over time. There’s just a whole bunch of factors that have come together,” Gourley says.Heyoka Profile Blog Joined March 2008 Temple of EE-Sama 22468 Posts Last Edited: 2012-06-21 22:52:23 #1
Presence in a major team league will put the team up for consideration to be added to the list. Consideration will be based on the teams overall presence in the scene and their performance in team leagues and individual leagues.
Here are the additional teams you have to choose from:
You can set them by going to your profile and selecting a team in the "favorite progaming team" drop down. These will now show in the Starcraft 2 and Starcraft 2 Tournaments forums, as well as News.
Additionally there is finally an icon for Team 8:
Enjoy! For years the Brood War team icons have been a way for fans to show their team affiliation within the |
have descended into complete savagery if not for the ruling crime family in tandem with the Imperial presence. Most of the income of the province comes from illegal means, the little honest money that goes through comes from sparse trade with Elsweyr and the boats stopping on their way to the Nibean Islands.
Out of all the provinces to still suffer from the Boethian invasion, Gideon stands first among them as Argonian Society has yet to recover from the destruction of the Hist trees in Black Marsh. To this day it is not known if there can be a recovery when you take into consideration the unknown symbiotic relationship between the two species.
The province has little to no Dragon Elf influence, due to the ruling families insistence and only supports two Imperial forts. Their presence is less to enforce Imperial law and more to protect the province from the dangerous wildlife roaming the Daedric Wastes to the east.
Other than obvious geographical disadvantages, Argonian society suffers from the effects of depression, rampant Skooma use and drinking to senselessness. Furthermore many of the youth are often killed searching the Daedric Wastes of Black Marsh for a surviving Hist tree in the hopes of restoring their long diminished society.
The populace consists of almost exclusively Argonians, though there is a strong Imperial presence in the town of Deepscorn.
At the moment the only means of travel from one shore of the Nibean bay to the other is by boat, or ferry, though plans are in the works for a grand bridge to be built sometime in the next decade.Glyphosate spraying of illegal drug crops has caused environmental damage in Colombia’s rainforest.
Buenos Aires – After the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared glyphosate a probable carcinogen, the campaign has intensified in Latin America to ban the herbicide, which is employed on a massive scale on transgenic crops.
In a Mar. 20 publication, the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) reported that the world’s most widely used herbicide is probably carcinogenic to humans, a conclusion that was based on numerous studies.
Social organisations and scientific researchers in Latin America argue that thanks to the report by the WHO’s cancer research arm, governments no longer have an excuse not to intervene, after years of research on the damage caused by glyphosate to health and the environment at a regional and global level.
“We believe the precautionary principle should be applied, and that we should stop accumulating studies and take decisions that could come too late,” said Javier Souza, coordinator of the Latin American Pesticide Action Network (RAP-AL).
The precautionary principle states that even if a cause-effect relationship has not been fully established scientifically, precautionary measures should be taken if the product or activity may pose a threat to health or the environment.
“We advocate a ban on glyphosate which should take effect in the short term with restrictions on purchasing, spraying and packaging,” Souza, who is also the head of the Centre for Studies on Appropriate Technologies in Argentina (CETAAR), told IPS.
Carlos Vicente, a leader of the international NGO GRAIN, told IPS that the herbicide first reached Latin America in the mid-1970s and that its use by U.S. biotech giant Monsanto spread massively in the Southern Cone countries.
“Its widespread use mainly involves transgenic crops, genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate, such as RR (Roundup Ready) soy, introduced in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and other countries,” said Vicente, a representative of GRAIN, which promotes the sustainable management and use of agricultural biodiversity.
There are 50 million hectares of transgenic soy in the region, and 600 million litres a year of the herbicide are used annually, he said.
According to Souza, there are 83 million hectares of transgenic crops in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay alone.
The WHO report “is very important because it shows that despite the pressure from Monsanto, independent science at the service of the common good rather than corporate interests is possible,” Vicente said.
Monsanto sells glyphosate under the trade name Roundup. But it is also sold as Cosmoflux, Baundap, Glyphogan, Panzer, Potenza and Rango. And among small farmers in some countries, it is popularly referred to as “randal”.
It is used not only on transgenic crops but also on vegetables, tobacco, fruit trees and plantation forests of pine or eucalyptus, as well as in urban gardens and flowerbeds and along railways.
But in traditional agriculture it is used after the seeds germinate and before they are planted, while in transgenic crops it is used during planting, when it acts in a non-selective fashion, thus destroying a variety of plants and grass, according to RAP-AL.
The people of the town of Malvinas Argentinas, in the central province of Córdoba, have blocked the construction of a Monsanto transgenic maize seed treatment plant since 2013, in their fight against the alleged toxic effects to human health and the environment. (Photo: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS)
Souza complained that in Latin America, glyphosate is sold without restrictions by animal feed and agrochemical suppliers, hardware stores and other businesses, often “in smaller quantities, in soft drink bottles.”
Stédile, who is also a member of the international small farmers movement Vía Campesina, hopes this region and Europe will ban its use in agriculture, as Mexico, Russia and the Netherlands have done.
As an alternative, he proposed “agroecological production that combines scientific know-how with the age-old knowledge of peasant farmers, to develop crops without the use of poisons, suited to each ecosystem.” That methodology has increased “the productivity of the soil and labour, better than practices that use poisons,” he said.
It is not, said Vicente, a question of replacing glyphosate with new weed killers, several of which are even more toxic, “but of switching to a model of agroecological smallholder agriculture aimed at achieving food sovereignty for our people.”
Stédile said governments in South America continue to support transgenic agriculture despite the evidence of damage to health and the environment, because they believe “agribusiness can help the economy by increasing exports of commodities, contributing to achieving a positive trade balance.”
“This exports illusion keeps governments from taking a stance against a veritable genocide,” he said.
Vicente called for concrete government measures that reflect the results of research carried out in this region, now that the WHO has issued conclusions backing it up.
In a statement, Monsanto criticised the IARC report as “junk science”, saying “this result was reached by selective ‘cherry picking’ of data and is a clear example of agenda-driven bias.” They demanded a rectification.
In response, the researchers pointed out that they stated that glyphosate was a “probable carcinogen”.
Monsanto said “This conclusion is inconsistent with the decades of ongoing comprehensive safety reviews by the leading regulatory authorities around the world that have concluded that all labeled uses of glyphosate are safe for human health.”
Lajmanovich argued that the position taken by a company “cannot prevail over that of an international institution of renowned prestige, the WHO, which is the guiding body in world health.”
He also noted that Monsanto considered WHO reports reliable “when they indicated that glyphosate was innocuous.”Iraq is trying to recover nearly $41 billion after the US has refused to deliver the F16 aircrafts the Iraqi government had paid for, Anadolu news agency quoted an Iraqi official as saying.
A member of the Security and Defence Committee in the Iraqi parliament, Hakim Al-Zamli, said: “The US has not complied with the agreement concluded with the Iraqi government to prepare and deliver the F16 aircrafts and Apache helicopters, as well as other weapons and materiel to combat terrorism, despite receiving more than $41 billion from the Iraqi government.”
He added, “The US is not serious and is deliberately delaying the arming of the Iraqi army to combat terrorism in the country.”
Al-Zamli denied US intelligence reports claiming that ISIS militants in the Islamic State impose a significant threat to Baghdad and described the claims as “exaggerated”. “The US security chiefs know that ISIS elements have tried to enter Baghdad, but their attempts have been foiled,” he said.
The Iraqi government had contracted Washington to purchase 18 F16 aircrafts and 24 Apache helicopters on its behalf within a strategic framework agreement concluded between the two sides in 2008.
The US justifies the delay citing fears that the weapons might fall into the hands of ISIS militants.
Iraq bought Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia last month; ten of them already arrived in Baghdad and have begun implementing sorties in preparation to participate in supporting the Iraqi security forces in their battles against the Islamic State.
Sunni groups led by the Islamic State have seized large areas in northern and western Iraq since 10 June, in addition to the areas they control in the north and east of Syria.
While Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki describes these groups as extremist terrorists, Sunni figures marginalised by Iraqi politics describe what is happening as “a Sunni revolt against Al-Maliki’s unfair and sectarian Shiite government”.Animals and all their products have been a part of human life since domestication of wild stock. Straight survival entailed finding food sources and the natural milk of many animals goats, sheep, and cows were soon found to be nutritious and easily obtainable. Nature 'invented' milk, humans just made good use of it. The milk we purchase today in the supermarket however is quite a different story. Much research suggests that this more processed product actually causes calcium to be leached from human bone.
This first website is interesting because one person states the obvious that people in Africa drink the milk without andy ill effect. ( The Massai mix the milk and blood of the cow ) He overlooks though that this is straight from the animal and not processed. But even raw milk is not designed for adults either human or animal.
Source(s): http://osteoporosissolution.com/why-would-drinking-milk-cause-osteoporosis-or-weaken-bones
The other sites are more informative.
http://milk.elehost.com/html/why_does_calcuim_leave_the_bon.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/07/health/he-calcium7
http://www.vitaminb17.org/milkinfo.htm Mac · 9 years ago 2 Thumbs up 0 Thumbs down Report AbuseImage caption Many British soldiers are involved with peacekeeping activities in Cyprus
The UK has sent 1m euros (£850,000) to Cyprus as a "contingency measure" to provide military personnel with emergency loans.
The money is to be used for British personnel and their families if cash machines and debit cards stop working.
UK officials said a plane with the cash had landed at the RAF base in Akrotiri.
MPs in Cyprus have rejected a 10bn-euro (£8.7bn) EU-IMF bailout which European officials say is needed to prevent the collapse of its banking sector.
Cypriots are angry at a planned one-off levy of up to almost 10% on savings. The tax is a condition for Cyprus to get a loan from the EU and IMF.
Salary needs
A revised version of the tax would mean a 6.75% levy on deposits over 20,000 euros, with those over 100,000 euros charged at 9.9% - but the Cypriot parliament voted against the move after a debate on Tuesday.
The levy was expected to affect many of the 3,000 UK military personnel in Cyprus, and up to an estimated 25,000 expatriates.
The cash was flown out from RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, on Tuesday afternoon on one of the two weekly RAF flights that travel between the UK and Cyprus. It arrived at 19:50 GMT.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said the situation was being kept under review and it would consider further shipments if required, but that the cash was a contingency and not currently due to be distributed.
"The MoD is proactively approaching personnel to ask if they want their March, and future months' salaries, paid into UK bank accounts, rather than Cypriot accounts," they said.
"We're determined to do everything we can to minimise the impact of the Cyprus banking crisis on our people."
Chancellor George Osborne had already said the UK would compensate any British troops in Cyprus hit by plans to introduce a bank levy.
And British government workers would also be protected, he said.Some quick random dribbles/news items on the Cavaliers as NBA draft day has arrived.
1. Front office point men Koby Altman and Mike Gansey were working the phones well into the night and early Thursday morning, and have the Cavs on the brink of several trades, league sources told Amico Hoops. That includes a potential biggie.
2. Sources would not offer specifics on the possible blockbuster, saying they do not want to sabotage deals by leaking too much information.
3. The Cavs are still very involved in talks for Indiana forward Paul George. It has been estimated that nearly every team has called to inquire about the Pacers star. The Cavs, Celtics and Lakers (George’s preferred destination) are all believed to have strong offers on the table.
4. The Pacers do not care, of course, that George intends to eventually play for the Lakers. They will take the best deal from any team, no questions asked.
5. As Amico Hoops reported, sources reiterated that the report of Cavs players telling Chicago Bulls star Jimmy Butler to stay away is false. The Cavs were still not close to a deal involving Butler as of Thursday morning, sources said.
6. Chauncey Billups has been offered the position of the Cavs’ top basketball executive, and sources said he spoke in a manner Wednesday that has those in the organization believing he will accept.
7. Billups just has to decide whether he wants to leave his cushy TV gig with ESPN for the day-to-day stresses of running an NBA franchise –especially one that is constantly under the national microscope.
8. The expectation is Billups will let the Cavs know of his decision Thursday or Friday.
9. Cavs star LeBron James has been kept abreast of the Cavs’ plans and told the team is indeed hard at work in its attempts to surround him with another star/more talent.
10. James is said to be open and receptive to the potential hiring of Billups, someone James has competed against and admired during Billups’ playing days with the then-rival Detroit Pistons.
11. Contrary to the common narrative, James was not ticked off about the Cavs’ parting of ways with former GM David Griffin, sources said. James was sincerely appreciative of Griffin’s efforts and somewhat surprised by the split. But James isn’t necessarily pinning all the blame for the breakup on the organization.All part of the service: Dave Greenberg in front of the rescue helicopter.
He's been saving lives since he was a teenager and has been a crew member of Wellington's Westpac rescue helicopter since 1991, but modesty is still Dave Greenberg's watchword.
"It's just in my nature, being in service to others," he said.
"Over the 20 years I've been doing this I get a lot of the credit because I tend to do the media stuff."
But the 48-year old Life Flight crewman, and operations manager for the Wellington region, said: "I'm part of a team. It's always a team effort and I'm only one part of that."
Typically the team comprises the pilot, a crew member and either a paramedic or a doctor.
Mr Greenberg said his was a multi-function role.
"One aspect is to assist the pilot with navigation or radios... when we fly at night we use night-vision goggles, which requires specialty training in that area." Winching was another technically demanding aspect.
His involvement with the emergency services began non-professionally. "The first life I saved was when I was 13," he said, referring to a man he resuscitated in his native New York. "That was a real turning point for me."
He continued to be involved in a volunteer capacity, while pursuing a career in IT. In 1990 he took a job with Unisys in Wellington.
"I was unsure about coming out," he said of the big move.
"I figured it was only for one year. I've always been a bit of a risk taker... and this one worked out fantastically."
In 1991 he applied to Life Flight as a volunteer, and in 1995 it became a permanent paid role.
"I found my life's passion at Life Flight, in a country I love."
Wellington, he said, had everything he needed.
Despite leaving his family behind in the United States, he has surrounded himself with friends. "This is where my life is."
His said his job was challenging but satisfying, involving mostly hospital transfers and search and rescue missions.
"Even when you come across things that aren't very pleasant, it's part of the job. I'm very lucky – I believe in what I'm doing."
The missions that stuck in his mind were sea rescues, he said.
"They're usually in pretty bad conditions, which makes it challenging."
Despite this, Mr Greenberg said he had never feared for his life.
"I feel much safer in the helicopter than I do crossing Lambton Quay.
"There are inherent risks, but a lot of money is spent on training, and every decision about safety is made as a team."
One mission that did not turn out the way he expected was the rescue of a critically ill seaman on New Year's Day, 2005.
Having retrieved the man from a boat competing in the Global Challenge competition, Mr Greenberg was offered his spot on board for the next leg of the race.
He jumped at the chance. "I ended up in an unfamiliar workplace. It was pretty memorable, and all thanks to my job."
The role was more challenging when missions became personal.
"Just recently I picked up a horse-riding victim who turned out to be Kerry Prendergast's son," he said – a heart-rending experience because he is a long-time friend of the family.
The service handled 1300 patients last year and this year will hit the 20,000-mission mark.
"We're making an incredible difference to a huge number of lives, one at a time," he said.
Mr Greenberg has been involved in 3500 of the rescues.SAN JOSE — A San Jose police officer shot and killed a man early Sunday — the fourth officer-involved shooting this month and sixth of the year — while responding to a report of a disturbance involving a tenant at a downtown apartment complex.
Officers were called to Donner Lofts at 12:35 a.m., but when they arrived the suspect refused to open the door. Then officers saw that someone had set fire to the other side of the door in an apparent bid to make the police go away, said San Jose Police Chief Eddie Garcia.
“The officers observed flames and smoke coming from under the front door,” Garcia said. “Fearing for the safety of the occupants, officers forced open the front door.”
One of the two men inside quickly surrendered to officers and was taken into custody. But the other man refused to cooperate and had armed himself with an ax.
“The suspect initially discarded the ax, but then did not comply with the officers’ commands,” Garcia said.
Officers then used a Taser on him but it had no effect.
“The suspect then rearmed himself with the ax, and it was not until he threatened the officers with the ax and began advancing on the officers that the officer was given no other choice but to discharge his firearm,” Garcia said.
The 35-year-old man was pronounced dead after being taken to a hospital. His name is being held pending notification of next of kin. Garcia said he had numerous priors involving violence, weapons, and drugs, and had been committed to mental institutions in the past.
“This is tragic for the suspect and the suspect’s family,” Garcia said. “But what is often lost in these cases is the impact on the officers, who seem to have the deck stacked against them in these types of incidents.”
Four of this year’s officer-involved shootings were fatal. Garcia said all six of this year’s shootings involved a person with mental health issues. Last year, there were four officer-involved shootings and two were fatal.
Garcia said the officer who fired the shots had gone through the department’s Crisis Intervention Training program aimed at defusing standoffs with someone with mental issues.
“Some of these situations are impossible,” Garcia said. “It’s very difficult to defuse a situation when an individual is armed with an ax. … There are hundreds of other times when these skills defuse the situation but it doesn’t always work.”
He said the ax was more of a weapon in appearance than a household tool, with tape wrapped around parts of it.
“There was no mistaking this for anything other than an ax,” he said.
Nina Russell, who lives at the apartments at 158 E. St. John St., said she heard two bursts of gunfire, each with about four shots, after a loud argument and a man “screaming for help.”
“I turned the TV off — I didn’t need it for entertainment with all the Saturday night madness going on,” Russell said.
Stan Willis, who knows a man who lives in the apartment where the shooting occurred, said he was awakened by police “pounding on doors” and telling people to stay inside. He later saw the tenant’s door with scorch marks at the base.
Residents said the low-income 102-unit apartment facility has a number of transitional units for previously homeless people, and there’s a lot of traffic in and out of the building.
Tracy Nikitas said the shooting followed an altercation earlier in the evening in which another female resident was assaulted.
“I got home and elevator doors open on the second floor and there was blood in the hall,” said Nikitas, who lives in the lofts with her 17-year-old son. “I’m not sure, there were a couple incidents last night, not sure if it’s the same. … This place needs to be cleaned up a little bit. There’s a lot of riff-raff and the city of San Jose and the police officers need to know that.”
She said she wasn’t surprised that an officer-involved shooting happened.
“It’s that type of environment,” she said.
No officers were injured in the shooting.
The officer, who has been on the force for two years, will be placed on routine paid administrative leave while the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and homicide detectives investigate the legality of the shooting.
6-7 shots fired at 148 East St. John, Donner Lofts. Police involved. @JGreenMercNews @mercnews pic.twitter.com/DCZGLkMZLI — ʟᴜᴄɪᴅʙᴇᴀᴍɪɴɢ (@lucidbeaming) May 28, 2017
The case also will be monitored by the San Jose Police Department’s Internal Affairs Unit, the San Jose City Attorney’s Office and the Office of the Independent Police Auditor.
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This is the most officer-involved shootings since 2015, when there were 12, at least a 10-year high, including six fatal.
San Jose police are asking anyone with information about the case to contact Detective Sgt. Mike Montonye or Detective Jason Tanner of the homicide unit at 408-277-5283.
Donner Lofts apartments at St. John and Fourth in downtown San Jose.Nowadays it's no surprise to find Californian lettuce in a New York grocer or New Zealand onions in a German supermarket.
A massive logistical operation swings into action every day in industrial societies, just to supply cities with food. Yet some say cities could be doing a lot more to feed themselves.
Volkmar Keuter of the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety and Energy Technology in the German town of Oberhausen says cities are full of unused potential to grow food.
"You might have some kind of production going on underneath a roof. Certain industrial installations that produce heat could be used as a greenhouse in winter," he told Deutsche Welle.
"Or you might have office buildings. Offices often have large server rooms that produce heat as they cool the computers. That heat could be used as well."
Hydroponic systems already exist on the New York skyline
Circulation saves resources
Keuter is an advocate for urban farming. Especially when it comes to using the spaces – and outputs – that we frequently consider 'waste.'
Take sewage. Treated properly, this could be used to fertilize rooftop farming operations.
"You could use the waste water that flows from buildings anyway, and then treat and sanitize it so the roots of the plants get bacteria-free water," he said.
This implies some significant up front investments, but there are savings to be had as well.
"If you could re-claim the nutrients in the waste water – the phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium – you would only need to add a very small amount of fertilizer."
One of the best ways to grow vegetables in cities is with hydroponic systems – using synthetic granulates or fibers instead of soil and recycling water and other nutrients. This has downsides - it can be expensive and energy intensive. But Keuter says there are plenty of advantages at hand.
Hydroponic growers can use the electrical conductivity of their plants' water to measure its nutrient content, allowing growers to maintain optimal growth conditions.
"The plants can be fertilized much more efficiently than with traditional farming, where you often dump too much fertilizer on the plants. In effect, you can guarantee a harvest 10 or 20 times more than traditional farming. You can grow a lot of plants in a very small space," he said.
Measuring nutrients
Wouldn't it be nice to pick this from your roof?
Another advantage of a hydroponic system is that the flower pots are very light, since the plants don't need any earth, which is important because most roof structures can't support much weight.
Although most urban roofs can't support the weight of a farm, Keuter says a surprising amount of space is suitable for growing food. He estimates that there are 36,000 hectares available on Germany's rooftops alone.
That's around three times more space than all the greenhouses in the Netherlands.
"Depending on whether you're going for quantity or quality, you could produce around 40 tons of vegetables a year on 1,000 square meters of rooftop. That could be in lettuce or tomatoes, but it could also be in beans or zucchini," Keuter said.
Endless possibilities
With space for traditional agriculture being reduced worldwide, some scientists believe it might also be worth considering building multi-story greenhouses like skyscrapers.
Though they would need artificial lighting, modern LED technology already hints at the energy-saving possibilities in this regard.
Cologne architect Stefan Schmitz, who works on developing green cities in China, is enthralled by the idea of bringing food production closer to people.
"What I like about it is that you could also introduce it to children and students," Schmitz told Deutsche Welle. "You could show them what agriculture is – how you harvest, how the produce grows."
Urban farming already has a foothold in the United States and China. While it is not usually on rooftops, it is still accessible for town populations. Schmitz has a firm vision for how he would like to see it take hold globally.
"You could be doing your shopping in the mall, for clothes or whatever," he explains. "Then you get a basket and you walk though a greenhouse on the roof to fill it up. So it's self-service, but not all packaged like in a supermarket. It's straight from nature."
Author: Fabian Schmidt / bk
Editor: Nathan WitkopThe city the Velvet Underground frontman made his name in is much changed since the 60s and 70s as old haunts have been overtaken by sushi restaurants and parking lots
When Brooklyn-born musician Lou Reed died on Long Island on Sunday, he left behind a city whose grit and grime inspired him to create music that influenced decades of successful musicians.
These days, the Lower East Side crack dealers are more subtle and most of the prostitutes have been cleared from Times Square – but the scent of cigarette smoke hasn't yet cleared and it is still impossible to go an entire day without hearing a car horn.
In the 1995 film Blue In The Face, Reed talks about why he was never far from the city:
I think one of the reasons I live in New York is cause I know my way around New York. I don’t know my way around Paris. I don’t know my way around Denver. I don’t know my way around Maui. I don’t know my way around Toronto... it’s almost by default. I don’t know very many people in New York who don't also say 'I’m leaving.' I’ve been thinking of leaving for 35 years now, I’m almost ready.
John Cale's apartment: 56 Ludlow Street
When Lou Reed met John Cale, a fellow founding member of The Velvet Underground, Cale was living in this apartment on Ludlow Street in New York's Lower East Side. Victor Bockris, who wrote a biography of Reed, described the space as a "bohemian slum dwelling".
This dwelling is where Reed, Cale and Sterling Morrison rehearsed and recorded six songs in 1965, creating the foundation of their first album The Velvet Underground and Nico.
Cale returned to the spot in January and told the Wall Street Journal:
When we rehearsed, we weren't too loud. We only had acoustic instruments and the most basic amps. We stole electricity from other apartments, so wires snaked all over the place. Besides, the people downstairs were always blasting music on the radio, so no one in the building heard us or complained.
The Factory: 231 East 47th Street
This was the site of Andy Warhol’s Factory from 1963 to 1968. Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side is about the time he spent hobnobbing with New York hipsters in The Factory:
Holly came from Miami, Florida
Hitch-hiked her way across the USA
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she She says, "Hey, babe
Take a walk on the wild side"
She said, "Hey, honey
Take a walk on the wild side"
That space is now a parking lot in the well-groomed Midtown district of Manhattan which is almost always vacant by 10pm, any night of the week.
A large group of people were gathered outside the area on Monday, enveloped in the meaty scent of what seems to be the neighborhood's most popular food cart.
Andy Warhol's first Factory location was razed in the late 1960s. Now, it is a parking lot. Photograph: Amanda Holpuch for the Guardian
Dom: 19-25 St Marks Place
The East Village bar and club Dom played host to the early stages of Andy Warhol’s mixed media show with The Velvet Underground and Nico – Exploding Plastic Inevitable. This cavalcade of rock music, avant-garde film and dancing started at this nightclub in April 1966 and eventually toured throughout the US.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A pedestrian walks by the former site of the rock club The Dom, where the Velvet Underground was the house band. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
125 and Lexington
This is where Reed waited to buy heroin from a man and I watched a disgruntled person overturn a garbage can.
I'm waiting for my man
Got 26 dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington 125
Feelin' sick and dirty
Huh, I'm waiting for my man
The neighborhood gentrified considerably since I'm Waiting for the Man appeared on The Velvet Underground's 1967 debut – but this corner maintains the trademark New York grit evinced in Reed's music. On any given day, a person may have to step over a flattened rat carcass to cross 125th Street and get a $1 slice of pizza or hotdog across the street.
Chelsea Hotel: 222 W 23rd Street
This historic hotel inspired Reed and Sterling Morrison's song Chelsea Girls, sung by Nico on her 1967 debut album.
Pepe she's having fun
she thinks she's some men's son
Her perfect loves don't last
her future died
in someone's past Here they come now
see them run now
Here they come now
Chelsea Girls
It's serving as the city's defacto memorial for Reed – with flowers and lit candles at the doorway, below the plaques honoring the hotel's famous guests, including Leonard Cohen and Dylan Thomas.
Janis Joplin, Patti Smith and Iggy Pop have also spent time in the 250-unit hotel, which is now a registered New York City landmark. Some of their tales were published by Vanity Fair this month.
Chelsea Hotel was purchased by a real estate developer in May 2011 and stopped taking reservations in August of that year. It’s been mired in lawsuits, management restructuring and renovations ever since.by Thomas R. Wells
North Korea’s development of atomic fission bombs and ICBMs is very worrying. Unfortunately the analysis of it in the news media is woeful. Some commentators assume that North Korea works like a normal country (like their country); some clearly don’t understand how war works; some believe the regime’s propaganda; some seem unable to think in a straight line at all. Some manage to make all those mistakes at the same time and more. One can only hope that the US, South Korean, and Japanese war ministries have better experts. In the meantime, at least we can throw out the worst nonsense.
Myth 1: This Will Lead to World War III
The exchange of threats between Kim Jong-un’s regime and Trump’s leads some to assume that world war is imminent. It is never explained how. The Cold War was the last time we seriously thought about an exchange of nuclear weapons and it seems that a lot of people who write for newspapers still think in the same patterns, in terms of extraordinary powers of annihilation and hair trigger global alliances.
But this situation is nothing like that.
War is the use of military might to achieve political objectives against the will of another government. Killing lots of people isn’t the point of a war; only a means to an end. North Korea could already do that with its arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. The fact that Kim Jong-un will soon be able to kill lots of Americans in spectacular fiery explosions doesn’t mean he can now beat the USA into submission in a war. In any nuclear exchange, America’s government would be the only one left standing.
It is possible that nuclear weapons might allow Kim Jong-un to achieve certain political objectives against America by their threat rather than their use. For example, getting America to renounce its defence treaties with S. Korea and Japan. Although you may have noticed that countries with nuclear weapons don’t generally have much success in using them to order other countries around. After all, if it worked then America would already have used it on North Korea.
Myth 2: North Korea Needs Nukes to Deter an American Attack
This line of analysis points to the overthrow of Qaddafi’s regime in 2011 with American military assistance after he had given up his nuclear weapons programme 8 years before. Together with the inclusion of North Korea in George Bush’s 2002 Axis of Evil speech, the lesson is supposedly that if America is out to get you its promises mean nothing. The only guarantee of protection is having nuclear weapons.
This is just lazy. The nuclear weapons programme is decades old, as is North Korea’s habit of signing and breaking solemn treaties to end it. It can’t have been motivated by anything that happened to Libya. (North Korea was actually supplying parts and know-how to Libya’s programme.) Moreover, if North Korea genuinely believes that America wants to destroy their regime, why would it have sat around waiting for decade after decade while the deterrent gets built?
Presumably because North Korea already had 3 independently effective deterrents against external regime change.
1. China. In 1950 China sent an army to save the North Korean regime from the destruction it had brought on itself by invading the south. For the past 65 years China’s willingness to use force to keep a US ally from its border has not been in doubt.
2. Seoul. There are thousands of artillery pieces lined up facing Seoul. North Korea’s army is decrepit and its equipment decades out of date, but it can still inflict massive destruction and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in the hours before they are all destroyed. Those are costs of war that no one wants to pay anymore, especially since it is in no one’s interest to destroy North Korea’s regime anyway.
3. North Korea’s people. The destruction or implosion of the regime would create an extraordinary humanitarian disaster, with 20 million traumatised cult survivors wandering around confused, angry and starving. (The threat of this is so scary that South Korea routinely sends aid to the North to keep it going)
If anything, developing nuclear weapons undermines each of these existing deterrents by shaking up the status quo. China is losing patience with Kim Jong-un’s reckless and disrespectful behaviour and seems increasingly reluctant to provide diplomatic and security cover for it. Its economic subsidies have already been dramatically cut. Likewise, striving to become more dangerous to one’s neighbours only increases their interest in regime change despite its humanitarian costs. South Korea and Japan are rearming and (presumably) dusting off their own mothballed nuclear weapons programmes.
Myth 3: Kim Jong-un Needs Nukes to Legitimise his Rule
The nuclear weapons programme is decades old, but it has accelerated dramatically under the new despot. Regime transitions are a delicate thing in a country with a social contract as misshapen as North Korea’s. Perhaps Kim Jong-un needs to make a big gun that scares foreigners in order for his people to believe he is a big shot?
The people making this claim seem to be extrapolating directly from their own situation. In a normal country, the legitimacy of a regime does depend on the will of the people. But North Korea is not a normal country. Its people are locked inside a gigantic prison camp controlled by a ruthless cult. North Korea’s politics does not extend beyond a narrow hereditary elite, which Kim Jong-un has already purged of all doubters with violent enthusiasm.
So the political views of ordinary North Koreans are irrelevant. But besides that, why bother to build real missiles with all their risks and costs? (Billions of dollars per year of scarce hard currency that could have been spent on other regime projects, or even just mechanising agriculture so that everyone has enough to eat.) This is a regime that lies about everything and forces its people to repeat those lies convincingly on pain of death. Its people are forced to pretend to believe that the 1950’s war was started by America; that Kim Jong-un can score 9 holes-in-one with one shot; that there is food to eat when there isn’t. If these nukes are for domestic consumption, |
just five working days. It is showing foreign investors one thing, and telling local residents another. Employing a director of regeneration who openly describes part of the area she’s regenerating as a “warzone” – a comment the council claims was taken out of context. It is creating a future for an area in which the very people living there are erased.
Tonight, as Haringey council’s cabinet hands over public assets to an unaccountable private giant, protesters will march peacefully on the civic centre. If you care about our capital remaining a home for all, rather than a chewtoy for international speculators, you should try to be there.
Sam and her neighbours have done nothing to deserve this official contempt. But the politicians and officials forcing through this reckless, arrogant gamble – now, they really are contemptible.Lagniappe (la ·gniappe) noun ‘lan-ˌyap,’ — 1. An extra or unexpected gift or benefit. 2. Something given or obtained as a gratuity or bonus.
Beginning in 2011, one of the first Lagniappe Sessions commissioned was Timothy Showalter’s (then nascent) Strand of Oaks with a pair of disparate covers (Michael Hurley and Moby). True to form, Showalter returns with his second session paying tribute to Glasgow’s Primal Scream and Manchester’s Stone Roses…along with a recent discovery of his own, the music of Phish. Showalter, in his own words, below.
Strand of Oaks :: Dirt (Phish)
I might be the newest Phish fan in the world. I was never exposed to them until this summer. My manager asked me to go to both nights Phish played at Wrigley. Of course! So in anticipation of the show I started listening to a lot of their music and quickly fell in love. Those two nights at Wrigley we’re some of the most genuinely fun times I’ve had in a long time. Just getting to spend time with my manager Ryan, not in any work capacity, us just having fun. And if anyone ever has doubts about Phish, please just go to a concert. Being basically hugged by 30,000 people is hard to combat against. I needed those fans and needed those four wonderful musicians that night. I chose “Dirt” simply because it basically has the same chord structure of an Oaks song (which is good because I don’t know that many). Its also just a beautiful melody.
Strand of Oaks :: Damaged (Primal Scream)
Screamadelica is easily one of my top five records ever. I dare you to find another record that creates its own utopia more. I’ve listened thousand of times and it’s one my beacons of inspiration. I wanted to do “Damaged” because the lyrics speak so much to how I love my wife. “Stoned in love with you”, – yup, I could never say it better. Bobby Gillespie’s range is really underrated too. I had to stretch to hit some of those notes. I also refused to touch the guitar solo, no way. That is one of the prettiest, perfect selection of notes I’ve ever heard. Pure ecstasy.
Strand of Oaks :: Made of Stone (The Stone Roses)
This song has lifted me from darkness ever since I was a teenager. When I decided to cover it, I started to do a pretty literal translation of the song. It obviously wasn’t working because those four humans cannot be replicated EVER. Then I picked up my acoustic guitar and added a shit ton of woozy chorus and delay and the song started working. But so different, it quickly become terrible touching and bittersweet. “Sometimes I fantasize…” took on a whole new meaning, thinking about these dark, dark times we are living in. Knowing how much hope and beauty the Madchester scene represented made me long for that in my own life and the world I live in. I want that light to be in all of our lives. Whether through friends, good chemicals, and general love for another, I just want that so, so bad right now.
I recorded these songs in the midst of doing a lot of press for my new record, and having a general sense of anxiety how it will be received. So getting to completely blow off emails, texts, and phone calls, in order to get these songs done before tour was a total gift. I’ve spent hundreds of hours at my little desk and broken midi keyboard demoing and writing. I still don’t know how to make shit sound “normal” but I actually embraced that even more with these three songs. It’s weird the only time I’m ever thrilled with my vocals is at my house with my 50 dollar microphone (that’s also broken, I think). It’s a sensitive mic so typically you can hear my cats fighting in the background or my wife walking around. I love being reminded of that. I have no idea how to properly mix and can barely get the right levels, but those human elements that happen when your home surrounded by people and things you love are what I cherish most.
I hope everyone enjoys listening to these as much as I had making them. Music made for no other reason than to make music. That’s heaven for me. Peace – Tim
Previously: The Lagniappe Sessions :: Strand Of Oaks / Michael Hurley, Moby
Lagniappe Sessions Archives / imagery via d norsenAs the NBA’s new television rights deals are set to kick-in, the term “max-contract” is being thrown around as often as “bae.” Both over-used phrases are becoming increasingly annoying, but for differing reasons.
The most recent estimate has the NBA salary cap projected to reach $94 million for the 2016-2017 season, up from the $70 million from last season. As a result of the huge leap, players like DeMar DeRozan and Harrison Barnes, in spite of their poor playoff showings, are in line for massive, max-money paydays. Don’t worry, I’m sure our television rights deals are coming in soon too.
Although many deals will be agreed upon July 1st, pens aren’t allowed to touch paper until July 7th. I have a feeling no one will be going hungry in those six days, and they certainly won’t be once free agency officially opens, as this FA period is shaping up to be the most lucrative in NBA history.
While the Durants, Horfords, and Howards of the league will receive massive deals, there are also a number of not-quite-household names who will be cashing in. The NBA really should have taken some advice from the Notorious B.I.G. before signing this new television rights deal.
Where are the top FAs going to land? How many will have the foresight to demand player opt-out options for next year (when the cap is set to jump again)? The SBD crew sets the odds!
NBA Free Agency Odds
Odds on where the following free agents will sign for the 2016-17 season
NB: even when the odds below do not expressly include the Lakers, you can assume the Lakers are interested.
Kevin Durant
Thunder: 5/2
Warriors: 4/1
Celtics: 11/2
Spurs: 7/1
Heat: 9/1
FIELD: 20/3
The Thunder will do everything in their power to convince Kevin Durant to stay put. If he decides he’s had enough, the Warriors and Celtics have the next best shot of luring free agency’s top-prize. If he’s staying in the West, he’s going to a contender; sorry Lakers. – Matt McEwan
(Editor’s note: You might notice that the rest of this list is in alphabetical order. No, I don’t think that D comes before A in the alphabet. But I do think KD is the only free agent that you, dear reader, really care about.)
Ryan Anderson
Wizards: 9/2
Rockets: 5/1
Celtics: 11/2
Kings: 7/1
Pelicans: 9/1
FIELD: 3/2
The Wizards, along with about half of the league, have declared their interest in acquiring a stretch-four. Ryan Anderson is one of the top-options available, and he would come at a more reasonable rate than some of the others. There will be a lot of teams vying for his services when free agency opens. – Matt McEwan
Harrison Barnes
Warriors: 7/3
Lakers: 3/1
Clippers: 4/1
76ers: 5/1
FIELD: 8/1
While some may have thought Barnes played himself out of a max deal in these NBA Finals, now he has the title of U.S. Olympian to bring to the negotiating table (for whatever that’s worth). Given the sour way things ended for him in Golden State, Barnes may want to make a return, but that’s only possible if the Warriors whiff on Durant. After that, there’s still the chance of joining Luke Walton and the Lakers or at least sharing the same arena with the rival Clippers.
Then there’s the hilarious, but not unthinkable, scenario where Jerry Colangelo doesn’t just add Barnes to Team USA, but also brings him to Philadelphia. – Eric Thompson
Nicolas Batum
Hornets: 1/3
Warriors: 12/1
Wizards: 12/1
Grizzlies: 20/1
Knicks: 30/1
FIELD: 49/1
This is basically a done-deal. Batum wants to return, and the Hornets have announced that he is their top priority in free agency. If they can’t reach a deal (which won’t happen), Golden State will be waiting in the wings if Harrison Barnes decides to jet. – Matt McEwan
Kent Bazemore
Hawks: 4/9
Pelicans: 6/1
Mavericks: 8/1
FIELD: 11/1
Having lost DeMarre Carroll last offseason, Atlanta can’t possibly lose another small forward, can they? Don’t sweat that answer too much Hawks fans: it doesn’t sound like Bazemore is going anywhere. – Eric Thompson
Mike Conley
Grizzlies: 4/5
Mavericks: 5/1
Spurs: 8/1
Heat: 20/1
FIELD: 22/3
Both the Grizzlies and Conley are interested in maintaining their relationship. There is no reason for the two sides to part, especially since there isn’t any other Conley-esque point guard for Memphis to chase in this free agent class. – Matt McEwan
DeMar DeRozan
Raptors: 2/13
FIELD: 13/2
The Raptors leading scorer from last season has said he’ll only meet with one team in free agency: his current one. The only way he doesn’t return to the north is if Masai Ujiri was stretching the truth about his willingness to bring back the guard, because in this crazy new NBA, he is most certainly a max-money guy. – Eric Thompson
Tim Duncan
Spurs: 5/6
Nowhere/Retires: 6/5
FIELD: 50/1
Duncan has to opt into the final year of his deal very soon, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still change his mind and retire down the road. One thing is all but certain, you won’t see the lifetime Spur wearing different colors next fall. He’ll either be in black, or in an ugly Hawaiian shirt on a beach somewhere. – Eric Thompson
Pau Gasol
Spurs: 6/7
Knicks: 3/2
Bulls: 25/1
FIELD: 10/1
Two destinations quickly emerged as the most likely place for Gasol to sign next year, and neither are Chicago. He’d be a natural fit with the veteran-laden Spurs. But he may also want to reunite with Phil Jackson and Derrick Rose in New York, where a center spot just opened up. – Eric Thompson
Eric Gordon
Pacers: 4/3
Knicks: 7/2
Nets: 5/1
76ers: 7/1
Pelicans: 20/1
FIELD: 9/1
Gordon has only been on one winning team in his eight-year career, and that familiarity with losing makes him an achievable asset for some floundering east coast teams. However, if the scorer-for-hire wants a chance to succeed, a return to his hometown and the Pacers looks like the best option. – Eric Thompson
Al Horford
Hawks: 5/3
Magic: 7/1
Lakers: 15/2
Pistons: 8/1
Wizards: 9/1
FIELD: 3/1
The Hawks are trying to get their name linked to Durant in the worst way, but perhaps they should focus more on keeping their own? With both Horford and Kent Bazemore headed for free agency, their spot in the lower-upper-tier of the Eastern Conference is in jeopardy. Most of the teams linked to Horford can’t offer a better chance to win now, but almost all of them do have more cap space to work with. – Eric Thompson
Dwight Howard
Nets: 14/3
Magic: 5/1
Trail Blazers: 11/2
Knicks: 12/1
Rockets: 9/1
FIELD: 17/8
Dwight wants to head to the Big Apple, but the Knicks can’t afford him. Brooklyn was still part of NYC last I checked and Howard hasn’t played for the Nets yet, so the relationship has yet to be tarnished. All the pieces fit! – Matt McEwan
Joakim Noah
Knicks: 1/1
Wizards: 5/1
Nets: 7/1
Bulls: 100/1
FIELD: 4/1
The Knicks need to replace starting centre Robin Lopez after trading him to Chicago to acquire Derrick Rose; and they need to find an affordable option, as well, if GM Phil Jackson is serious about also pursuing Kevin Durant. Noah makes a lot of sense, even more so when you consider his relationship with Rose. – Matt McEwan
Dirk Nowitzki
Mavericks: 1/4
FIELD: 17/4
Nowhere/Retires: 99/1
Dirk opting-out of his contract should be perceived much differently than Chandler Parsons and Deron Williams opting-out. The big-German is not going anywhere, and he seems intent on playing at least one more season. If the Warriors hadn’t entered the conversation, the odds would be even greater in Dallas’ favor. – Matt McEwan
Chandler Parsons
Boston Celtics: 4/1
Washington Wizards: 9/2
Orlando Magic: 19/4
Mavericks: 18/1
Chicago Bulls: 11/2
Dallas Mavericks: 18/1
FIELD: 19/6
Chandler Parsons took to Twitter to stir up the buzz around where he’ll wind up in 2016. Whichever team has the most money is the one who will prevail here, and the Mavs have already wisely stated they won’t offer him a max-deal. The sheen on “max players” is really losing its lustre. – Matt McEwan
Hassan Whiteside
Mavericks: 7/4
Trail Blazers: 5/2
Heat: 3/1
FIELD: 7/1
There’s a boatload of quality big-men out there in free agency – assuming that Bismack Biyombo now counts as a “quality” big-man – but Whiteside’s value on the defensive end alone will earn him a nice raise from the league-minimum deals he’s been living off of. He also says he’s going to test the market, so look for Dallas and Portland to both make a strong push for a much-needed rebounder. – Eric Thompson
Marvin Williams
Hornets: 8/5
Rockets: 5/1
Wizards: 5/1
Lakers: 8/1
Cavaliers: 15/1
FIELD: 9/1
The Hornets’ second-priority is to resign forward Marvin Williams. The only issue is whether or not they will have enough money leftover after re-upping Batum. My bet is they will. If not, he is another floor-spacing power forward that will be sought after by many. If the Cavaliers decide to trade Kevin Love, Williams could be a perfect fit. – Matt McEwan
Odds that Kevin Durant will …
sign a one-year contract or a multi-year contract with a player opt-out option after one year: 1/99
sign a long-term deal with no player opt-out option: 99/1
Durant has made some stupid plays in his career, but he’s not a stupid man and he doesn’t have a stupid agent. With the salary cap set to explode next year, he’ll want to re-enter free agency in 2017. Jason Patt and Mark Hinog recently noted that he could earn upwards of $100M more by waiting to sign a long-term deal. That’s the kind of number that will get the attention of the already-ridiculously-rich. – Sascha Paruk
Over/under on the number of 2016-17 free agent contracts that will include player opt-out options after one year : 9.5
This is a tough one to predict. Options are incredibly common in NBA contracts, although most aren’t after one year and some are team options.
Any player who thinks he can make more as a free agent next year when, again, the cap is set to jump will be fighting for a player-option after year one. There are 117 free agents in this year’s class, according to SB Nation. But they don’t all have the clout to get a one-year option, and they don’t all have the talent to want one. For every KD, there is a Kris Humphries, who might want the longest deal he can get, knowing his status as an NBAer is tenuous.
Last year, LeBron, Tim Duncan, and Dwight Howard signed multi-year contracts with player options after one year. (So did Shane Larkin and Wayne Ellington with the Nets, strangely.) More guys will be fighting for the one-year player option this year, but GMs will be fighting equally hard the other way. In a relatively weak free agent class, it should be a seller’s market (meaning the players have the edge).
At the end of the day, I see about ten guys walking away with one-year player options. But management could prove much more desperate than I realize and cave to the demands of lesser FAs like JR Smith and Amir Johnson. – Sascha Paruk
Odds the following players change teams (from 2015-16)
LeBron James (Cavaliers): 25/1
(Editor’s note: love him or hate him, LeBron is worthy of the same alphabetically-out-of-order treatment as Durant.)
LeBron could be leaving some money on the table by re-signing in Cleveland. But he’s already said he’s not fleeing his home state again. I believe him.
Bradley Beal (Wizards): 3/1
Beal wants to stay in Washington, but he wants a max contract more. These are effectively the odds that the Wizards don’t offer him a max deal. (Spoiler alert: they’re going to offer him a max deal.)
Jordan Clarkson (Lakers): 5/3
Clarkson has been one of the lone bright spots on a struggling Lakers team the last couple years. The LA native is now a restricted free agent and wants to stay with his hometown team. Advantage Lakers. But there’s ample interest from elsewhere, including Philly, and the Lakers have their sights set on some bigger FA fish who could push them up against the cap. Clarkson is one of the more plausible movers among the restricted FAs.
Andre Drummond (Pistons): 6/1
Drummond is also a restricted free agent. The Pistons have the right to match any offer he gets. He’ll get a max offer one way or another, but given the current paucity of quality big-men in the league, Detroit would be crazy not to match. They’re not crazy.
Tim Duncan (Spurs): 50/1
The very thought of Tim Duncan in a different uniform verges on incomprehensible. I’m pretty sure even NBA2K has a setting that prevents it.
Dirk Nowitzki (Mavericks): 17/4
Nowitzki is going to end his career the same way he started it: by flying back to Germany and playing for Wurzburg. In all seriousness, Disco Dirk is going to be a Maverick until he retires.
Dwyane Wade (Heat): 5/1
D-Wade wants to stay and the Heat want him back. But Miami also wants to win. Will they be able to agree on a price that satisfies all parties? I think so, but it’s not a lock. As Wade said himself (per Ethan J. Skolnick), “there’s a lot of moving parts.”
– Sascha Paruk
Featured photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/].Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
PinkNews Exclusive
Olympic Diver Tom Daley chats to PinkNews about why he’d accept transgender athletes, his career plans, and his decision to sign on as a patron for LGBT+ helpline Switchboard.
How’s training going for the Rio Olympics next year?
Training’s going really well! We’re coming up to the World Championships, which is the first chance to qualify for the Olympics. I’m working towards that at the moment.
Do you have any plan for after Rio? We heard a rumour that you might be stepping away from the diving board…
I’m definitely going to take a little bit of time off – after four years, that’s a long slog.
I’m probably going to go on holiday for a bit. Cheesecake will definitely be on the menu, and ice cream probably. We’ll see how it goes!
Looking back at the number of gay sportspeople that have come out recently – Ian Thorpe, Jason Collins, Thomas Hitzlsperger, Michael Sam – do you keep up with any of the others?
I don’t think it becomes a club where all of a sudden you know everyone! You kind of get on with your own thing, training every day and competing, and that’s just how it is.
I’ve spoken to lots of different LGBT people in sport… I get lots of people constantly asking me who they can speak to, where they can get some kind of guidance. I try and refer them as much as I can to Switchboard!
In sport, we have lots of gay role models like yourself, but there aren’t many trans athletes.
The difficult thing with the trans community in sport – I think with the way it works, if you’re a male transitioning into a female, you still sometimes have to compete in the male category? I think that’s a little bit tough.
With diving I feel [trans people] would be completely accepted, but I don’t know how it would work. I’ve never heard of it in sport, actually.
You’ve become a patron of LGBT+ helpline Switchboard – how did that come about?
Switchboard is a great charity. From personal experience, I’ve always had supportive friends and family, and had people to talk to that weren’t judgemental.
Lots of people aren’t so fortunate, and at Switchboard there’s always someone on the other end of the phone to speak to, and not judge you, and it’s completely confidential. Coming to terms with sexuality, gender identity – if you want to go out somewhere… it’s a great information service.
I’m excited to spread the word about Switchboard, and help them reach out to more young people, and help them, essentially, save lives. I think it’s going to be a long journey, and I’m really excited to be part of it.
Has there ever been a time in your life when you felt like you’ve needed Switchboard?
Massively! The more that you have it built up inside you, thinking about things – if you don’t actually speak about these things, they can really build up and weigh you down. I was lucky enough to have my best friend Sophie, who was the first person I spoke to about things. If I didn’t have someone like Sophie and my friends and family, Switchboard would have been a great opportunity to sit down and speak to someone.
If you don’t feel brave enough to speak on the phone, you can email, instant message and so on.
If you were answering the phone at Switchboard, and someone said ‘I’m nearly ready to come out, but I just need some guidance’, what would you tell them?
You have to be comfortable to be who you are! Once you tell one person, it gets a massive weight off your chest – being able to say it out loud for the first time is a massive step.
It’s just about making sure you’re comfortable with who you are, and to be supported. Switchboard is a massive support system for that.
The name is changing from the London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard to Switchboard LGBT+ – how do you feel about that?
I think it’s great that it’s being rebranded, it’s not just lesbians and gay people that use the service.
There’s so many people who identify themselves in so many different ways. I think it’s really important, because there’s lots of people who aren’t necessarily educated or know about lots of things and Switchboard has so much information and trained volunteers that are on the other end of the phone.
A lot of people ring Switchboard when they’re struggling to tell their parents.
Being able to tell your parents is one of the hardest steps to do. You build it up in your head as this massive thing, but at the end of the day your parents love you, and they’ll always come around at the end.
It might take them a bit of time, but if you want someone to speak to right after you do it, or before you do it – then Switchboard’s there to listen to you. You can air all your thoughts – how it went, what you’re thinking before you’re do it. It’s there to listen!
How was it for you, coming out to your mum?
You know, it was completely fine! My mum was just happy that I was able to tell her.
She just said ‘whatever makes you happy’, told me that she loved me and that was that! Ever since it’s been great.
Does more need to be done in schools to tackle homophobia?
I think it should be made compulsory, that you not just get taught about sex education – LGBT issues should be brought up in the same way as well.
Having people be educated about it is really important.
With the Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage, we will now have same-sex marriage in all 50 US states. How do you think that impacts tolerance?
I think if all 50 states of America can get marriage equality, I think that’s a massive step. I think the rest of the world will look at that, and try and make that the same for all their countries too.
We still have work to do over here too, with Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey…
I think very soon it will be marriage equality everywhere, or it should be anyway. If you fast forward ten years, I think in the UK for sure, we will have full equality.
We’re just finishing pride season – do you think pride is still important?
I do think pride is still important! There’s lots of different things that are celebrated, and it’s a great way for people to get together and have a fun day. I think more and more now, a lot of people outside the LGBT community find it really fun too.
It’s also massively education, because once young people have heard about it, it gives them the opportunity to talk about it. Even within families, at dinner tables, talking about it can help.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. court on Friday issued an order temporarily blocking the implementation of a federal water rule across the country, expanding on a prior injunction from a separate court that applied only to certain states.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit granted a nationwide stay against the so-called Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in May.
The appellate court said that the 18 states challenging the new standards were unlikely to face immediate irreparable harm from the rule, but there was also no evidence that the nation's waters would suffer "imminent injury" if the regulation was put on hold.
"A stay allows for a more deliberate determination whether this exercise of executive power... is proper under the dictates of federal law," the court said in its majority opinion.
The stay was the latest in a series of legal setbacks for Obama administration environmental regulations.
In August, the U.S. District Court in North Dakota issued a preliminary injunction against the federal water rule in another case. That order applied to North Dakota and the 12 other states involved in the lawsuit.
Late last month, a federal judge in Wyoming placed an injunction on Obama administration regulations for hydraulic fracturing on public lands.
(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Susan Heavey and Christian Plumb)
Also on HuffPost:Corporate Compensation Corner starts the podcast with a bang before going on to: a major victory for Freebooting, jobs-while-listening-to-Hello-Internet corner, cargo ships and the environment revisited, reddit's CEO resignation, free will follow-up, the limits of what you might want to know about Scarlett Johansson, being wrong about predicting the future, the death and the inevitable decline of our careers, before finishing up with a serious amount of cursing.
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Show Notes:
Discuss this episode
Qantas
Destin from Smarter Every Day
Slate.com on Freebooting
Grasp the Nettle
Marinetraffic.com
Anthem of the Seas
EPA.gov: Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks 1990-2013
Ellen Pao's resignation thread on reddit
Steve Huffman as CEO announcement thread on reddit
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
Hipmunk
Alexis Ohanian
Alien Blue
Richard Feynman - Ode on a Flower
Brady makes a comic about Grey
Scarlett Johansson
BanNaughty.orgGig, a new car-sharing app created by the emergency roadside assistance service AAA rolled out to the Bay Area today.
The startup comes out of A3 Ventures, AAA’s venture arm and the new one-way car sharing service is now active in Oakland and Berkeley, California.
Gig is similar to other temporary car share services like Enterprise CarShare or Zipcar. But unlike the traditional car share model, Gig does not require you to return the car at a designated location. You rent any of the 250 Toyota Prius c vehicles included in Gig’s fleet for $2.50 per mile, $15 per hour or $85 per day (depending on which option is cheapest), drive it to your destination using the app and keyless entry, then drop it off at any public parking lot or metered parking space within Oakland or Berkeley when you are done.
And, just to make things even more convenient, Gig also plans to have at least two designated parking stalls near all Oakland and Berkeley BART stations. Those headed to the Oakland International Airport will also be able to drop their Gig car off inside the Park N’ Fly.
The convenient parking component is made possible through a deal with each city to provide progressive transportation options for citizens. According to a source, Gig is also working on a similar deal with the city of San Francisco. No word yet on if or when it will be able to secure the same deal as is available in Oakland and Berkeley but you can still park your Gig in a city outside of Berkeley or Oakland, you’re just responsible for any incurred fees if you happen to go outside either city limit right now.
Several thousand people came out to celebrate the launch of the new service with the largest Daybreaker event ever held this morning at Oakland’s Lake Merritt amphitheater.
For those unfamiliar, Daybreaker is a drug and alcohol-free morning dance movement that started in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, was swiftly adopted as somewhat of a lifestyle for many in the Bay Area and has quickly spread to various other cities throughout the world.
More than 8,000 people RSVP’d on Eventbrite to participate in the sold-out event, according to organizers. The day-long celebration, called Sunday Funday, also provided family fun activities, live music, food trucks and some world record breakers. As one person told TechCrunch, Lake Merritt was “poppin’.”
Anyone who lives (or wants to drive in) Oakland or Berkeley and is interested in trying Gig out can do so by downloading the app on either Android or iOS and using the promo code “HEYGIG” for an $85 credit.Philadelphia police have released surveillance video of a bandit on a bicycle who has attacked two women.
RELATED: Watch the surveillance video
The first incident happened Saturday morning June 16th at 6:15 a.m. in the 400 block of Christian Street. Police say the man approached a woman who walking down the street, grabbed her from behind by the neck and assaulted her.
He then took her purse and fled.
The second incident took place Sunday morning June 17th at 7:25 a.m.in the 600 block of Catharine Street, near the location where the surveillance video was recorded.
A woman walking on the street noticed a man on a dark colored bicycle with a white "T" shirt covering his face circling the block.
Police say the suspect approached that woman from behind, grabbed her by the neck and forced her to the ground. He took her purse containing $300 in cash, various credit cards and identification and then fled east on Catharine Street.
Police are describing the suspect as a black male in his 20s, 5'9 to 6' tall, medium to light complexion wearing a light t-shirt. In one of the cases the victim saw him riding an older model black pedal bike.
Anyone with information is being asked to call South Detectives at 215-686-3013 or -3014.It goes without saying that the next Avengers movie is going to be epic. But the superheroes uniting across the Marvel Cinematic Universe won’t be the only ones to get in on the fight against Thanos.
A new casting call from Project Casting reports that the Marvel Studios movie codenamed “Mary Lou” is looking for actors to play soldiers for filming next month.
Avengers: Infinity War has gone under the working title “Mary Lou” during its production and though principal filming wrapped last month, Marvel Studios typically plans for extensive reshoots for each of its film.
Plus, Marvel is shooting the next crossover film and the untitled Avengers 4 movie back to back, meaning they could probably bring some actors back around for pickups if its needed.
Avengers: Infinity War also put out a casting call for emergency workers like EMTs and first responders, so this scene might go along with that one.
Filming is taking place in Atlanta, and they’re looking for actors who can fit this description:
Soldiers: Central Casting is looking for men over the age of 18, any ethnicity, to portray soldiers of various rankings. MUST be clean shaven and willing to receive a military haircut (high & tight). No larger than 44 coat and 36 waist to fit provided uniform. You should be physically fit as moderate exercise may be required.
There’s no question that the upcoming Avengers movie would be packed to the brim with action sequences, but it’s interesting that we’re starting to glean more details about the epic scope of the conflict.
How will a squadron of soldiers be able to contend against the might of Thanos with an Infinity Gauntlet, flanked by his Black Order? Will the Chitauri or a similar army of aliens be involved? Or are they just cannon fodder against the Mad Titan?
Hopefully we find out more when the first official trailer for Avengers: Infinity War finally debuts for the public.
Avengers: Infinity War is scheduled to debut in theaters May 4, 2018.Jamie Wilkerson Gender male Age 0 - 3 Hometown Star City, California Family & Friends Parents Hal Wilkerson (father)
Lois Wilkerson (mother) Siblings Francis (older brother)
Reese (older brother)
Malcolm (older brother)
Dewey (older brother) Friends None Production Information First appearance Baby Part 2 Portrayed by Kara Sanford and Jessica Sanford (As a baby) James and Lukas Rodriguez (As a toddler)
Contents show]
Biography Edit
portrayed by twin sisters, Kara and Jessica Sanford in earlier episodes as a baby, and later by twin brothers, James and Lukas Rodriguez for the rest of the series as a toddler, is the fifth-born son of Hal and Lois Wilkerson. Jamie was born in the season 4 finale episode Baby Part 2, introducing himself to the main cast and replacing Dewey as the youngest child of the Wilkerson family.
The first mention of Jamie's birth was in the episode Grandma Sues, when Lois and Hal first learned the unexpected news that they were pregnant with Jamie. This was not met with happiness. Lois and Hal were already hard pressed financially as it was and it didn't help that Lois's hateful mother, Ida was suing them at the time. When Malcolm and the others learned of Lois pregnancy they were enraged and selfishly voiced how the baby was going to affect them. The boys came to accept it later on.
Jamie was able to communicate to Dewey while in the womb. He told his older brother to do some pretty weird things like paint the kitchen wall green and drive the car among other things. Jamie finally made his first appearance in "Baby Part 2". He was bigger than average, and Lois and Hal initially wanted to induce labor on Dewey's birthday (they forgot it was his birthday ) - much to the chagrin of the latter - but he came earlier than expected. This was mostly due to the stress Lois was in because her mother decided she was moving in with them. There wasn't time to get Lois to the hospital and the paramedics were taking too long to arrive so |
helped hunt megafauna like the mammoth to extinction, the Maori in New Zealand who ate the flightless moa to death, and prehistoric Pacific Islanders who extirpated more than a thousand species of birds. For both Native Americans and European settlers, the appearance of passenger pigeons or the discovery of one of their giant roosting grounds became a festive occasion where every member of the family had a role: shooting the birds, knocking squabs out of nests, chasing the unfledged runaways, and collecting the dead for pickling, salting, baking, or boiling. Many of the hunting stories have a tall-tale aspect perfectly in tune with the fantastic aura that surrounds the birds. Boys stuck long hickory poles into the ground, pulled on ropes tied to the tips of the poles, and knocked birds down simply by making the poles quiver. Nets were stretched between trees. A roosting ground in Tennessee was set on fire and “scorched corpses were then collected the next day for personal use or sale” from two-foot-high piles of the dead. More elaborate methods were used, of course—like luring the birds into nets with a live pigeon, which is the origin of the term “stool pigeon.” A demand for stool pigeons opened up a trade in live birds, and so did the later development of “trap shooting,” in which live birds were mechanically launched into the air for sportsmen. So many birds died in transport to the shoots that huge numbers were needed. (The “clay pigeon” was devised by passenger-pigeon hunters to replicate the experience after the actual birds grew scarce.) “Let me give you a fake e-mail address as well—just to drive home the point.” As long as America was rural and untraversed by railroads, the killing did not seem to do much more than dent the vast pigeon population. After the Civil War, however, things began to change rapidly. You could find out by telegraph where pigeons were nesting, get there quickly by train, and sell what you killed to a city hundreds of miles away. Soon market hunters began operating on an enormous scale, cramming tens of thousands of birds into boxcars—especially after Gustavus Swift introduced the refrigerator car, in 1878. This meant that rural migrants to growing cities could still get wild game, and the well-heeled could eat Ballotine of Squab à la Madison, served by a new class of restaurant, like Delmonico’s, in New York, where fine dining was becoming a feature of urban life. All this coincided with an explosion in logging, which began destroying the habitat of pigeons just as hunters were destroying the pigeons themselves.
Greenberg hauntingly documents the way people kept “seeing” the birds after the great flocks vanished, or devising outlandish theories to explain where they might have gone. The journal Science speculated that they were in the desert of Arizona; another journal, the Auk, suggested that they were east of Puget Sound, and a lumberman claimed to have seen millions in Chile. Henry Ford was convinced that they had all drowned in the Pacific en route to Asia. The flocks were like phantom limbs that the country kept on feeling. Or perhaps the birds’ disappearance, and the human role in it, was simply too much to bear. In keeping with these fantasies, it isn’t at all surprising that there is a plan afoot to resurrect the bird, or at least to bring back a genetically approximate simulacrum. To this end, Revive & Restore, an offshoot of Stewart Brand’s Long Now Foundation, has enlisted the assistance of the Harvard geneticist George Church, who helped initiate the Human Genome Project, to work on what is frequently referred to as “de-extinction.” De-extinction became big news after a conference last March—sponsored by Revive & Restore, TED, and National Geographic—broadcast plans to take passenger-pigeon genes recovered from the toe pads of museum specimens, combine them with genes from the band-tailed pigeon (the genetic next of kin), and use them to modify another bird, possibly a chicken, so that it would lay a passenger-pigeon egg that could be raised by a band-tailed pigeon but taught to flock by a homing pigeon. If all this sounds like pure fantasy, bear in mind that in Dubai, in 2011, a “chimeric duck” was successfully engineered: it walked like a duck and quacked like a duck but was in fact a chicken, at least reproductively. “Feathered River” touches on de-extinction in a few neutral paragraphs in the appendix, without getting into the question of why anyone would want to bring back a bird whose habitat was destroyed, and that descended on buckwheat fields like a plague of locusts even when it was there. But the destructiveness of the bird hardly disqualifies it from serving as an environmental teaching tool. If anything, the passenger pigeon is a bracing corrective to notions of a natural world detached from its fecund terrors. The bird’s propensity for eating everything and taking over earth and sky makes it seem, frankly, a little like us. As Greenberg notes, “a widely held view is that this species could not sustain itself without a giant population,” so that decline itself became a cause of further decline. In other words, passenger pigeons lived by collaboration on a giant scale, and may have died by it. Yet what Greenberg sees is not the clash of two irreconcilable species with gargantuan needs but a story of victimizers and victims. We did hunt the passenger pigeon to death, even if we didn’t quite understand at the time what we were doing. We also might have saved it, at least in token form, if only our technological genius and our conservation consciousness—two things that set us apart from other animals—had come together sooner. But Greenberg’s emphasis on bloodguilt can give his book a religious impatience, however secularized. He has a habit of blurring time and place so that the whole country seems hell-bent on blasting, stomping, and literally biting the pigeons to death, as if it were this zeal, and not a complex web of industrial and environmental factors, that led to their extinction. “What a shame that passenger pigeons became extinct,” he writes, mocking a woman whose 1808 memoir recalls the “gayety” of a pigeon hunt—at a time when there were perhaps five billion of the birds in the world. “Future generations would be denied the near euphoria that apparently accompanied raising a gun toward a flock of pigeons and firing.” Human beings live in their historical and cultural contexts as much as passenger pigeons lived in fields, trees, and sky; it is important to remember, for example, that rural people hunted for food in the days before factory farming and supermarkets. The chicken industry in this country alone kills more than seven billion birds a year—far more than the total number of passenger pigeons at their peak. Nobody in the nineteenth century had figured out how to make the slaughter of the birds sustainable, but it is worth wondering what we would think of the passenger pigeon, and ourselves, if they had. It would also have been useful if Greenberg had explored the fact that when the last of the great flocks were being killed off, in the eighteen-seventies, America was suffering from the aftershocks of the Panic of 1873 and the economic depression that followed. (In her book “Flight Maps,” the historian Jennifer Price does this well.) Financial hardship doesn’t have to justify the elimination of a species to help explain why poor country people saw a flock of birds not as a conservation opportunity but as an economic one. This is especially important in light of Greenberg’s environmental purposes, since today, too, regions of economic hardship often overlap with areas where many species are at risk of extinction, surely an argument for making economic development a cornerstone of environmental activism. There is only so much fair-trade chocolate one developing country can produce.Droplets falling onto a bath of the same liquid will sometimes coalesce via a series of increasingly smaller droplets in a process known as the coalescence cascade. Soap bubbles, it turns out, can exhibit a similar partial coalescence. When a bubble nears a soap film and the air between them drains away, coalesce can begin. If the the soap film beneath the bubble ruptures, some air from the inside of the bubble can escape. Part of the bubble coalesces with the soap film and a smaller daughter bubble is left behind. The researchers observed this process happen up to three times before the bubble coalesced completely. Alternatively, if the soap film did not rupture, the air inside the bubble had no escape, and the bubble would coalesce into a hemispherical lens atop the soap film. (Video credit: G. Pucci et al.; via KeSimpulan)
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Don’t forget about our FYFD survey! I’ve teamed up with researcher Paige Brown Jarreau to create a survey of FYFD readers. By participating, you’ll be helping me improve FYFD and contributing to novel academic research on the readers of science blogs. It should only take 10-15 minutes to complete. You can find the survey here. Please take a few minutes to participate and share!Share this infographic on your site!
Source: Healthcare-Management-Degree.net
The Game of Life, and How it Ends
Let’s see if the odds are in your favor.
Lifetime odds of death by cause:
Most Americans won’t die of any of the below causes.
But about 56 million will die of…
Heart disease and cancer: 1 in 7
Chronic lower respiratory: 1 in 29
And motor vehicle incidents (1 in 112) will claim about as many as intentional self harm (1 in 103)
While around 4.7 million present day Americans will due of Unintentional poisoning by and exposure to noxious substances (1 in 119)
And falls (1 in 152)
Assault by firearm will claim about a 890,000 (1 in 356).
Much more than accidental firearm discharges, which clocks in at 48,000 (1 in 6,509).
There’s a chance you’ll be on the street.
Motor vehicle incidents: 1 in 112
Car occupant: 1 in 492
Pedestrian: 1 in 723
Motorcycle rider: 1 in 922
Though your safest bets are bikes, planes and spacecraft:
Pedalcyclist: 1 in 4,974
Air and space travel incidents: 1 in 8,321
Around 609,000 people can expect to die in one of these unsavory ways:
Unintentional drowning and submersion: 1 in 1,043
Exposure to fire, flames, or smoke: 1 in 1,418
Choking from inhalation and ingestion of food: 1 in 3,649
At least mother nature won’t kill many:
Exposure to excessive natural heat: 1 in 8,321
Exposure to electric current, radiation, temperature and pressure: 1 in 12,174
Contact with sharp objects: 1 in 37,566
Contact with heat and hot substances: 1 in 62,608
Contact with hornets, wasps and bees: 1 in 75,852
Cataclysmic storm: 1 in 83,922
And your much likelier to be killed by a dog than a venomous snake:
Bitten or struck by dog: 1 in 103,798
Venomous snake: 1 in 1,224,099[4]
Similar numbers of people will be legally executed as well be killed by lightning:
Legal execution: 1 in 96,203
Lightning: 1 in 136,011
Or you could die in a terrorist attack (1 in 256,410)[3]
A number comparable to your chances of being crushed to death by your own television(1 in 253,205)
Though the chances of just furniture (1 in 1,346,153) or appliances crushing you (1 in 2,025,641) are much more slim.
But it really all depends on your age
Top ten causes of death by age:
<1: Congenital anomalies, short gestation, SIDS, Maternal pregnancy complication, placenta cord membrane, unintentional injury, respiratory distress, bacterial sepsis, neonatal hemorrhage, circulatory system disease
1-4: Unintentional injury, congenital anomalies, malignant noplasms, homicide, heart disease, influenza/pneumonia, septicema, perinatal period, chronic low respiratory disease, benign neoplasms
5-9: Unintentional injury, malignant neoplasms, congenital anomalies, homicide, heart disease, influenza/pneumonia, septicemia, benign neoplasms, chronic low respiratory disease, cerebro-vascular
10-14: Unintentional injury, malignant neoplasms, suicide, congenital anomalies, homicide, heart disease, chronic low respiratory disease, influenza/pneumonia, benign neoplasms, cerebro-vascular
15-24: Unintentional injury, homicide, suicide, malignant neoplasms, heart disease, congenital anomalies, influenza/pneumonia, cerebro-vascular, chronic low respiratory disease, HIV
25-34: Unintentional injury, suicide, homicide, malignant neoplasms, heart disease, HIV, diabetes melitus, cerebro-vascular, congenital anomalies, influenza/pneumonia
35-44: Unintentional injury, malignant neoplasms, heart disease, suicide, HIV, Homicide, liver disease, cerebro-vascular, diabetes melitits, influenza/pneumonia
45-54: Malignant neoplasms, heart disease, unintentional injury, liver disease, suicide, cerebro-vasclar, diabetes melititus, HIV, chronic low respiratory, viral hepatitis
55-64: Malignant neoplasms, heart disease, chronic low respiratory disease, diabetes melititus, cerebro-vascular, unintentional injury, liver disease, suicide, nephritis, septicemia
65+: Heart disease, malignant neoplasms, cerebro-vascular, chronic low respiratory disease, alzheimer’s disease, influenza/pneumonia, diabetes melititus, nephritis, unintentional injury, septicemia.
Total deaths by age bracket:
<1: 19,229 1-4: 3,645 5-9: 2,358 10-14: 3,128 15-24: 28,677 25-34: 32,740 35-44: 69,448 45-54: 139,380 55-64: 220,404 65+: 1,471,011 Total: 1,990,020 per year
(From 2003)
That’s 1 in 145 whose time is up, every year.
Such is the game of life!
Citations:Building Trust: Yoshida, Reggie, and the Emergence of the Mascot Executive
The way I see it, there are approximately three to four slots a company can occupy in the perception chamber of a given consumer’s brain. The first is the largest, and the most difficult to escape from: the “evil” slot. This slot is reserved for entities that, by most folks’ accounts, engage in activities aimed to boost profit regardless of negative consumer side effects. Businesses exist to make money, yes, but if you step on consumer rights, artificially inflate prices, or overstep ethical boundaries, your PR team may have months or years of rehabilitation ahead of it. If you were to grab someone off the street in 2014 and peer into this aforementioned slot, you might find the likes of Comcast, or maybe even Verizon. Like it or not, this is the public’s current opinion of these companies.
Next is no-man’s land. Now, I suspect that no-man’s land is often subconsciously divided into two sections; one negative-leaning, and one positive-leaning. Microsoft are masters of no-man’s land, and the company has skillfully remained there for much of its existence, long before Xbox ever existed. Microsoft certainly has its laundry list of borderline “evil” practices through the years — bullying afforded by its exorbitant Windows market share, recent attempts to abolish used games — but by and large, Microsoft has been able to either get away with murder or perform an about-face long before anyone but savvy, core users raise a fuss. To the average person, Microsoft is just a part of life; good or bad, they continue to release products and exist.
And then there’s Sony. Sony and its PlayStation business have exhausted the gamut since the brand’s inception, from the mystique of the original PlayStation, to the glory of the PS2, all the way to the initial frustration and confusion-turned-eventual-joy that is the PlayStation 3. Sony enraged gamers as recently as two years ago, when it revealed the bloated price tags it had attached to each and every Vita memory card. It wasn’t hard to see their reasoning, but that certainly doesn’t mean people were happy about it either.
Still, PlayStation has never stumbled past the line of what I’d call a “severe honest mistake,” nor has it yet sojourned the dark place where Microsoft covertly visits and Comcast thrives. In fact, both Sony’s sales success and its image have made incredible turnarounds since the dawn of PS4, and aside from an obvious strategy shift responsible for the former, I’d attribute a good part of the latter to one thing in particular — the emergence of a new mascot. You guessed it; I’m talking about SCE Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida.
Now, to call Yoshida a new addition to Sony would be erroneous, and diminishing his role to that of a mascot alone borders on folly, but bear with me. Yoshida, despite joining Sony in 1986, has only just recently set up shop in the public eye. As a Nintendo fan who happens to also greatly enjoy PlayStation, I had never heard of the man before 2013, and that’s coming from a life-long follower of the industry. This all changed once the road to PS4 began, though, and by the time the system released, you’d have needed a metric truckload of sand to bury your head deep enough not to know his name and face. Be it the hilarious instructional video on how to share used games, his amusing replies to fans on Twitter and Facebook, or even his antics on competitors’ online services, Yoshida’s reputation as a relatable goofball now officially precedes him.
That last sentence could have ended with “for better or worse,” except for one problem; there’s no convincing argument that Yoshida’s ascension to superstar-status amongst gamers has been anything but a huge boon for PlayStation’s image. It’s hard to pinpoint where and why it took off, but I suspect it has a lot to do with most gamer’s base desire to have someone with power fighting for them. Gabe Newell is beloved, and though his accomplishments are tremendous, it’s not his sparkling LinkedIn page that puts him on a near-holy pedestal. It’s because nearly everything he does at Valve, day in and day out, aims to make things more convenient, less expensive, or downright better for gamers. He’s responsible for some of the most respected games of all time, too. There’s also that. The track record of folks like Newell speaks for itself.
Still, there’s another element to this mascot business, and despite Sony’s runaway PS4 success so far, the company hasn’t exactly revolutionized much; at least not yet. In a temporary bout of greed and poor judgement, Microsoft thought it could topple the sharing and reselling of physical games. Sony needed simply to uphold the status quo to look like heroes, and look like heroes they did. Probably more than they ever imagined. Despite its remarkable outcome, the initial blunder by Microsoft wasn’t terribly difficult to capitalize on.
What is tough to capitalize on, though, is doing the right thing, and that’s where Yoshida and the PlayStation crew passed with flying colors. It was actually Jack Tretton who broke the good news on used games at last year’s E3 (namely, the fact that Sony would continue to allow them), and as mentioned earlier, Yoshida and colleague Adam Boyes whipped up a biting satire in the form of a mock instructional video. Call it fanboy wars all you want, but the satisfaction Sony faithful reaped from such an act runs much deeper than the petty mudslinging found in game-blog comment sections. As a New York Giants fan, I stand up and cheer when my team scores a touchdown. When Victor Cruz breaks into a full-on salsa dance, I pump my fist twice as hard. The instructional parody was Yoshida and Boyes’ salsa dance, and there’s absolutely no shame in chest-bumping your buddies after it happened.
So what, specifically, has propelled Yoshida and folks like Adam Boyes to such astronomical heights of popularity? I suspect it boils down to a healthy dose of targeted, unfettered moxie. Ironically enough, it’s Nintendo who popularized this strategy (and subsequent trend) almost ten years ago with the emergence of a new VP of Sales and Marketing at E3 2004. The Japanese giant was suffering at the hands of its own “kiddie” image more severely than ever (these were the purple lunchbox days, remember), and Reggie Fils-Aime’s proclamation that he aimed to “kick ass and take names” was just the PR jolt the company needed. Accident or not, the strategy has since spread throughout the company; similarly hilarious antics by CEO Satoru Iwata pervade most Nintendo Directs, and even guys like Bill Trinen from the humble Nintendo Treehouse have been made into minor gaming celebrities.
Giving big execs a personality consumers can connect with has proven effective time and time again, and it’s not just limited to gaming. Anyone who follows tech and wireless news is no-doubt aware of what T-Mobile CEO John Legere has done for the fourth largest wireless carrier in just a single year’s time, and much of his charisma with fans has been the result of abundant trash talking and absurd Twitter antics the likes of which suit-and-tie CEOs would never even dream about. The point is, Mr. Legere has established himself as a larger-than-life character, and just like with my favorite athlete, film actor, or even author or studio musician, there’s an element of trust that forms. If Leonardo DiCaprio is performing in a film, I know I’ll enjoy it, because he’s built that trust with his fans. As long as John Legere is at T-Mobile, I feel comfortable that my interests will be protected, because it’s happened time after time. If Shuhei Yoshida were to leave Sony tomorrow, I’d be highly alarmed, but as long as he remains, I can rest easy knowing the PlayStation ship will be kept relatively on course. I won’t have to analyze every scrap of Sony news to make sure The Man isn’t trying to screw me, and I won’t have to sleep with one eye open to keep watch over my stack of secondhand games. It’s comforting, and the longer it continues, the more that comfort will spread through gamedom like wildfire.
It’s almost a bit funny; despite his bombastic inauguration nearly 10 years ago, Mr. Fils-Aime has mellowed. The trust he’s built remains, but he doesn’t seem to be kicking much of anything lately, nevermind the backside of the competition. And strangely, the timing seems almost perfect. Industry personalities move in cycles, and when I watched the video of Sony’s Morpheus presentation at GDC, I felt strangely at ease. Yoshida joked about the cryptic-ness of the event’s invitation, and how the audience had “no idea” what he intended to talk about. It was almost as if I were enjoying a presentation from a company I care about, without stressing over said company’s well being. It was rare, and it was relaxing.
Sony’s current stable of execs may not be built from the ground up to kick ass and take names, but I get the feeling they may be on to something better. A blast of aggression and industry shake-ups can make for effective marketing at first, but it’s a strategy where excitement can quickly and easily wane. Yoshida and his team are smart, they have decades of experience, and when push comes to shove, they’re a group that knows how to execute with such poise and efficiency that there’s even time left for comically unsubtle jabs at the competition. If that’s not the corporate definition of “style points,” then I don’t know what is.
It’s strange how the term “fan” is seen as positive, and is associated with devotion, while “fanboy” has become a biting insult that denotes immaturity. Sometimes I have a hard time understanding the problem with either. If Sony were to sell foam fingers at this year’s E3, I’d gladly snap one up and wave it through the air from their press conference’s front row. At the end of the day gamers don’t ask for much, and if the folks in charge can cause me to jump from my seat in excitement, chuckle at their amusing remarks, or even just prove to me they’re not built from wires and stainless steel, I can’t really imagine being more content. If I can rest easy knowing a corporate entity will actually look out for my rights, privileges, and wallet, well, that’s just icing on the cake.
Oh, and one last request to management: keep shifting record amounts of PS4 hardware, would you? That’d be great. Oh, and we should meet up for drinks sometime too. What, we’re not actually pals in real life? My apologies — you had me thoroughly fooled."This new line of Leviton HomeKit-enabled lighting control accessories expands and builds upon the Decora brand that consumers are familiar with and that professionals trust," said Richard Westfall, vice president and general manager of Leviton Energy Management, Controls & Automation. "Innovation has been a focus for Leviton since our founding 110 years ago, and from pioneering the Decora rocker light switch decades ago to adding support for HomeKit, Leviton continues to innovate the Decora brand in order to best meet the growing and expanding needs of homeowners, and this product line is the next step in the brand's evolution."
The new lighting control accessories are engineered with advanced technology to function with extremely sensitive, low-wattage light sources, such as a single LED bulb in a hallway or a strand of holiday lights. The in-wall dimmer and rocker switches leverage the Decora form-factor pioneered by Leviton with true rocker paddles, making usage easy for guests and family members alike, even in the dark. The dimmers feature embedded LEDs to display the illumination level, but the LEDs vanish to afford a clean appearance. Leveraging the Decora wiring device platform, there is support for multi-way applications, such as hallways or staircases, in which one fixture is controlled by two devices. Common color change kits and screwless wallplates round out the smart offering.
The free Leviton app, Decora Smart Home, will provide advanced lighting control and customizable settings, including bulb type, adjustable fade rate, minimum/maximum brightness levels and more. Leviton's HomeKit-enabled devices can leverage scenes including "Good Morning" and "Good Night", automation scheduling, third-party device integration and remote access capabilities. Further, Leviton HomeKit-enabled accessories respond to Siri, letting you dim/brighten or turn on/off with just your voice.
"Leviton is ecstatic to take our popular Decora brand into the future with Decora Smart, starting with HomeKit-enabled devices," said Daryoush Larizadeh, president and chief operating officer for Leviton. "With no unnecessary steps or hardware bridges, our contractors, builders and end-users can create a smart home faster and easier than ever, using Leviton dimmers and switches that wire just like the traditional devices at a comfortable price point for smart technology."
HomeKit provides advanced security with end-to-end encryption and authentication between a HomeKit-enabled accessory and your iPhone or iPad. After installing your Leviton accessories, configure settings from Apple's Home app with just a few simple steps, allowing you to easily turn on, off, dim or brighten an individual light or an entire room, zone, or home. Custom scenes can also be created in the Home app to control home settings, including automatically turning off the lights, locking the doors, closing the garage door and setting the thermostat to the desired temperature in just one step.
Leviton Decora Smart HomeKit-enabled lighting control accessories will be available this April in all sales channels including electrical distribution, retail, and online vendors. Please email [email protected] for more details.
SOURCE Leviton[+]Enlarge Nelson (center) on the “Breaking Bad” set with Cranston (left) and Paul (right). Credit: Helen Caldwell
In 2008, C&EN reported on the first season of the television series “Breaking Bad,” in which high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston) is diagnosed with lung cancer and turns to making methamphetamine to provide for his family. The show’s budget didn’t allow for a paid chemistry adviser, so much of the science information was researched on the Internet. Series creator, writer, and producer Vince Gilligan told C&EN that he would welcome input from chemists.
The request intrigued Donna J. Nelson, an organic chemistry professor at the University of Oklahoma who studies alkene addition and carbon nanotube reactions. But Nelson hadn’t seen the show, and she was concerned that it glorified drug abuse. After watching it, however, she was reassured.
“If anything, the way Vince portrays this is to make the lifestyle appear horrible—I think it will make kids shy away,” Nelson says. “I don’t think Vince is trying to set up Walt as a role model for chemists,” she adds.
Nelson proceeded to volunteer to help Gilligan and his colleagues with the show. Gilligan accepted.
Her first interaction with the show’s writers came on a 2008 trip to California, during which she stopped in Burbank to meet with Gilligan and other “Breaking Bad” writers. They peppered her with questions about what would make a person go into science, become an organic chemist, leave a research position to become a high school teacher, and so on. “They were trying to develop Walt’s character, but none of them had any science background,” Nelson says.
Going forward, Nelson’s contribution to the show continued to center on White’s character as a chemist, what he says as a chemist, and his interactions with Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), White’s former student who becomes his junior partner in meth synthesis.
“I did a lot of answering questions and quite a bit of checking scripts,” she says. Nelson advised how teacher White might talk to Pinkman or, later, how two lab mates might talk to each other. The show turned to Drug Enforcement Administration sources for illicit meth lab setups. “Vince was really interested in getting every detail correct,” Nelson says. But he wanted to do it without giving viewers meth recipes, she notes.
At some points during the show’s production, convenience won out over scientific rigor. When Nelson was asked to calculate how much meth could be synthesized from 30 gal of a methylamine solution, she needed to know which reducing agent White would use. She gave the show several choices. The writers went with an aluminum-mercury amalgam, because they thought it would be easiest for the actors to say.
“Chemists normally choose a reducing agent based on safety, cost, or yield, but never based on the name,” Nelson says. “I thought that was hilarious.” The yield? About 280 lb.
Nelson’s favorite scene is one that comes at the start of the show’s fourth season, when White fears he is about to be killed by Gustavo Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), meth kingpin of the Southwest. One of Fring’s deputies thinks he can follow White’s meth synthesis.
“Really?” White asks emphatically, desperate to prove his value. “Oh, so please, tell me, catalytic hydrogenation, is it protic or aprotic? Because I forget. And if our reduction is not stereospecific, then how can our product be enantiomerically pure?”
“They sent that script by me, and I cleaned it up and made it really strong and absolutely correct,” Nelson says. But she likes it not because she helped write it but because it puts chemistry front and center. “Walt is saying, ‘I am important to you. I am essential to this, because I have this knowledge of chemistry,’ ” Nelson says.
Nelson initially received some negative comments about volunteering for the show. “You should not help them, you should let that show die,” people advised her, she says. She responded by saying, “There’s no way it’s going to die. This show is extremely popular. We’re either going to have an extremely popular show on television with bad chemistry or an extremely popular show on television with correct chemistry.” When you look at it like that, she says, you really don’t have much choice but to get involved.
Aside from the visit to Burbank, Nelson got to visit the set in Albuquerque a few times. Once, she was filmed for a cameo appearance, dressed in a nurse’s scrubs for a scene in a nursing home.
“What surprised me was how early you have to get into the proper clothes, then you wind up sitting around and waiting all day,” she says. She had dressed early in the morning, and they finally shot her scene at about 4 PM. Unfortunately, she didn’t make the final cut.The Daily Mail has apologized and agreed to pay Melania Trump a reported $2.9 million in damages to settle two lawsuits she filed after the publication republished stories that alleged she was an escort in the 1990s.
In September, the first lady accused the Daily Mail of making false and defamatory statements after it published a story titled “Racy Photos, and Troubling Questions About His Wife’s Past that Could Derail Trump” that was based on a report from a magazine in Slovenia. Melania was seeking $150 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The Daily Mail apologized for the story Wednesday.
“We accept that these allegations about Mrs. Trump are not true and we retract and withdraw them,” a lawyer for the publication said.
“We apologize to Mrs. Trump for any distress that our publication caused her. To settle Mrs. Trump’s two lawsuits against us, we have agreed to pay her damages and costs.”LOS ANGELES >> Politicians, government managers and nonprofit groups gathered Thursday to express their hope for a greener, more accessible Los Angeles River.
Lewis MacAdams, founder of Friends of the L.A. River more than 40 years ago, spoke of a new plan proposed by the Army Corps of Engineers to strip away portions of the river’s concrete undergirding and reveal its hidden attributes.
“The river is a rigorous mistress. When you tickle her with your deeds, you can hear her laughing beneath her concrete corset,” MacAdams said, reciting the line from a poem he’d written. Then, with the nearly full Deaton Auditorium in a hush, he added:
“Today, she is waiting to slowly take off the corset, as one takes back the sheets of a bed as one would for one’s lover.”
Nancy Steele, executive director of the Council for Watershed Health, the group hosting the seminar and the emcee, didn’t quite put it that way. But she also supports what’s called Alternative 20 of the plan, a $1.08 billion restoration that will add trees, parklands, vegetation, bike paths, pedestrian/bike bridges and recreation to an 11-mile stretch of the river known as the Glendale Narrows that runs from Griffith Park to downtown Los Angeles.
“There is excitement in the air now that the Army Corps has released its study,” she said in her opening remarks. “Concrete will come out. Streams will be daylighted. Wildlife will be able to connect up with their friends on the other side (of the river).
“But,” Steele summed up, “this will come at a high cost.”
The 51-mile L.A. River runs from the San Fernando Valley and Pasadena to the Pacific Ocean in Long Beach. During the 1930s, after several serious floods, the Army Corps of Engineers lined most of it with concrete for flood control purposes.
In the past seven years, the city of Los Angeles, working with Los Angeles County and the city of Burbank, which shares a portion of the L.A. River on its border, have been trying to convince the federal agency to support ripping out some concrete and adding amenities. The cities support the most expensive alternative.
“The river is the backbone of this city,” said L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.
The Army Corps prefers Alternative 13, which leaves out key projects wanted by the L.A. mayor but will cost substantially less, about $450 million. Under Alternative 20, the federal government would pay 54 percent of the bill, leaving 46 percent for local cities.
Two projects included in Alternative 20 — the greening of the Verdugo Wash Confluence and building a connection between the new El Rio De Los Angeles State Park to the river — are left out of other alternatives. Under Alternative 20, 671 acres would be restored by terracing its banks with plants and trees in what is now an industrialized flood control channel that very few Angelenos visit.
Other projects would include: greening the Arroyo Seco Confluence south of South Pasadena and restoring wetlands where the river empties into the ocean in Long Beach, said Carol Armstrong, a city of L.A. engineer who is familiar with the Army Corps study.
The Army Corps is holding a public hearing on its study at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Los Angeles River Center. 570 W. Avenue 26, L.A. 90065. Speakers and audience members were taking notes on what to say at that meeting.
“We need to convince the federal government that investment in ecosystem restoration along the L.A. River is worth it,” Armstrong said.
While Garcetti, who gave the keynote speech, said he’s met with members of Congress and the Obama administration in Washington, he urged the public to speak out and sign his online petition — www.lamayor.org/restore_the_river.
He said the first West Coast explorers, known as the Pobladores, followed the Los Angeles River as a source of life and community. They helped establish El Pueblo de Los Angeles, even though the mission was first built on the San Gabriel River, and later moved to higher ground in San Gabriel.
“Instead of a brick-by-brick mission, we have a block-by-block mission that once again leads us to the L.A. River,” Garcetti told the group.
Since he’s been in office, the trash in the L.A. River has |
, being dismissed from courses and humiliated, but eventually they will manage to restore the dignity of the Jewish heritage."American Express Small Business Saturday is coming back on November 28, 2015.
In 2015, American Express card members were able to earn 3 separate $10 statement credits per card for up to a $30 bonus per card for making purchases at local small businesses on Small Business Saturday.
The 2015 details have not yet been released, but we will update this article as more information becomes available.
Just visit the Small Business Saturday Registration Page to register your American Express card for this offer once it becomes available.
I was disappointed when the bonus was decreased from $25 to $10 for 2013, but it was nice that they increased the bonus to a total of $30 per card for 2014, although you had to make 3 separate purchases for a $10 statement credit per purchase.
I can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2015.
2014 Small Business Saturday Details
You can review the Terms and Conditions for Small Business Saturday in 2014.
To receive the $10 statement credit, you must use your registered card to spend $10 or more in a single, in-store transaction at a participating small business on Saturday, November 29, 2014.
There is a limit of 3 $10 statement credits per eligible American Express card, so you can earn a total of $30 per card this year with 3 separate $10 purchases.
Eligible American Express cards include all American Express cards except corporate cards and prepaid card products.
However, both Bluebird and Serve cards are eligible this year.
In addition, you can register multiple American Express cards for this offer, so you can earn a $30 statement credit for each of your American Express cards.
The statement credits will appear on your billing statement within 90 days after November 29, 2014, but it usually appears much sooner after your purchase.
Enroll your American Express card to earn up to 3 $10 bonuses per card on Small Business Saturday.
Small Business Saturday Terms
1. Limit three (3) $10 statement credits per eligible American Express Card. To receive the offer, Card Members must register any eligible American Express Card for this offer. Corporate Cards and all prepaid Card products (other than American Express Serve and Bluebird) are not eligible.
Registration may be performed via any of the following ways:
By completing the registration form accessible via ShopSmall.com.
By logging in to your account at americanexpress.com and clicking on the ‘Amex Offers’ tab or ‘Small Business Saturday’ offer tile in ‘Amex Offers & Benefits’.
By logging into the American Express App and visiting the ‘Offers For You’ tab in the ‘Membership’ section.
By adding the offer directly to your connected Card via amex.co/facebook.
By tweeting #AmexShopSmall to add the offer directly to your connected Card.
2. The number of registrations is limited. Registration opens at 12:00 A.M. MST (“Mountain Standard Time”) on Nov 16, 2014 and will continue until 11:59 P.M. MST on Nov 29, 2014, unless the registration limit is reached sooner.
3. To receive the $10 statement credit, the Card Member must use his or her registered Card to spend $10 or more in a single, in-store transaction at a qualifying small business location on Saturday, Nov 29, 2014. For example, if your transaction is only for $5, you will not receive a credit. Multiple transactions of less than $10 will not qualify even if the combined total of those transactions is over $10. You may purchase multiple items that together equal $10 or more, but you must purchase them in a single transaction to receive the statement credit. Online transactions do not qualify.
4. Qualifying small business locations appear on the Shop Small® Map available at ShopSmall.com. Please note that the businesses listed on the Shop Small Map may change. In addition, business location and other information provided on the Shop Small Map may contain inaccuracies or errors, including as a result of information provided by third parties. Transactions with political campaigns or political action committees as well as purchases at gas or service stations do not qualify for the statement credit, regardless of whether they appear on the Shop Small Map.
5. If American Express does not receive information that identifies a transaction as having occurred in-store at a qualifying small business location on Nov 29, 2014, the transaction will not qualify for the statement credit. For example, your transaction will not qualify if it is not made directly with the merchant. In addition, in most cases, you will not receive the statement credit if your transaction is made with an electronic wallet or through a third party or if the merchant uses a mobile or wireless card reader to process it.
6. The statement credit will appear on your billing statement within 90 days after Nov 29, 2014, provided that American Express receives information from the merchant about your qualifying purchase as described above. Note that American Express may not receive information that identifies your transaction as a qualifying transaction if the items from your purchase are not all provided to you on Nov 29, 2014. For example, if you purchase an item that is not available until after Nov 29, 2014, that item will not count towards determining whether your transaction qualifies for the offer.
7. The statement credit may be reversed if the qualifying purchase is returned or cancelled.
Enroll your American Express card in Small Business Saturyday to get 3 $10 bonuses at a local small business on November 29th.
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Register your AMEX card to get a $10 statement credit up to 3 times per card on Small Business Saturday and support your local businesses.Matz, the creator of Ruby, announced last weekend at Baruco (Barcelona Ruby Conference) the move to generational garbage collection (GC) in Ruby MRI version 2.1 in what is expected to be an important performance boost for the language. Ruby 2.1 is expected to be released before the end of this year.
Coincidentally in another talk that same day Vicent Martí from Github strongly criticized the Ruby MRI garbage collection implementation, calling the current mark & sweep algorithm a “2-headed monster”. Vincent explained how often times Github’s large scale Ruby deployment was affected by the GC limitations.
On one hand because of its slow marking phase (in which the entire object graph is traversed sequentially to identify active objects, effectively stopping the application during that time). On the other hand because of inaccuracies in the sweeping phase which can end up freeing Ruby objects that are actually still in use (pointed by) C extensions.
Vincent mentioned that using tools like Valgrind or performing static analysis beforehand can help minimize these issues, but highlighted that the current implementation of Ruby GC in MRI is fundamentally flawed, recommending large scale Ruby deployments to move to JRuby or Rubinius once they achieve the same feature set as MRI.
In his talk Chris Kelly from New Relic coincided on the slowness of the current GC implementation, highlighting that a typical Rails application starts up with hundreds of thousands objects which need to be analyzed over and over during the marking phase of the GC execution. However, Chris also shared results from New Relic’s Ruby GC benchmarking showing a 48% decrease in garbage collection execution time between Ruby 1.8 and 1.9.
According to Chris this shows that there are major improvements being done by the MRI team which will level up the Ruby implementation in this area, in particular with the announced move to generational garbage collection (expected to reduce marking phase duration by half according to Matz).
There was also some criticism in some talks on the lack of English documentation about the garbage collection implementation on Ruby MRI, with Chris listing some recommendations in his presentation, such as “Rare Are GC Talks”.
Some other enhancements announced by Matz for Ruby 2.1 include string suffixes (“i” for complex numbers, “r” for rational numbers, “f” for frozen strings), refinements (full feature) and (around 15%) faster RDoc generation.IDEAS Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., is clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, the founding co-director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, and executive director of the Mindsight institute.
Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., is the co-author (with Siegel) of the best-selling The Whole-Brain Child.
Time-out is the most popular discipline technique used by parents and the one most often recommended by pediatricians and child development experts. But is it good for kids? Is it effective? Not according to the implications of the latest research on relationships and the developing brain.
Studies in neuroplasticity—the brain’s adaptability—have proved that repeated experiences actually change the physical structure of the brain. Since discipline-related interactions between children and caregivers comprise a large amount of childhood experiences, it becomes vital that parents thoughtfully consider how they respond when kids misbehave. Discipline is about teaching – not about punishment – and finding ways to teach children appropriate behavior is essential for healthy development.
So what about time-outs? In most cases, the primary experience a time-out offers a child is isolation. Even when presented in a patient and loving manner, time-outs teach them that when they make a mistake, or when they are having a hard time, they will be forced to be by themselves—a lesson that is often experienced, particularly by young children, as rejection. Further, it communicates to kids, “I’m only interested in being with you and being there for you when you’ve got it all together.”
The problem is, children have a profound need for connection. Decades of research in attachment demonstrate that particularly in times of distress, we need to be near and be soothed by the people who care for us. But when children lose emotional control, parents often put them in their room or by themselves in the “naughty chair,” meaning that in this moment of emotional distress they have to suffer alone.
When children are overtaxed emotionally, they sometimes misbehave; their intense emotions and the demands of the situation trump their internal resources. The expression of a need or a big feeling therefore results in aggressive, disrespectful, or uncooperative behavior—which is simply proof that children haven’t built certain self-regulation skills yet. Misbehavior is often a cry for help calming down, and a bid for connection.
When the parental response is to isolate the child, an instinctual psychological need of the child goes unmet. In fact, brain imaging shows that the experience of relational pain—like that caused by rejection—looks very similar to the experience of physical pain in terms of brain activity.
On top of everything, time-outs are usually ineffective in accomplishing the goals of discipline: to change behavior and build skills. Parents may think that time-outs cause children to calm down and reflect on their behavior. But instead, time-outs frequently make children angrier and more dysregulated, leaving them even less able to control themselves or think about what they’ve done, and more focused on how mean their parents are to have punished them.
When children concentrate on their horrible luck to have such a mean, unfair mom or dad, they miss out on an opportunity to build insight, empathy, and problem-solving skills. Putting them in time-out deprives them of an opportunity to build skills that other types of discipline could focus on. Setting clear limits while emphasizing collaboration, conversation, and respect gives kids a chance to practice being active, empathic decision makers who are empowered to figure things out on their own.
Next time the need for discipline arises, parents might consider a “time-in”: forging a loving connection, such as sitting with the child and talking or comforting. Some time to calm down can be extremely valuable for children, teaching them how to pause and reflect on their behavior. Especially for younger children, such reflection is created in relationship, not in isolation. And all of this will make parenting a whole lot more effective and rewarding in the long run.
Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., co-author with Bryson of the new book No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, is clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, the founding co-director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, and executive director of the Mindsight institute. A graduate of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Siegel is the author of several books, including the New York Times bestseller, Brainstorm, together with the bestsellers Mindsight, Parenting from the Inside Out (with Mary Hartzell) and The Whole-Brain Child (with Bryson).
Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D., is the co-author (with Siegel) of the best-selling The Whole-Brain Child, which has been translated into eighteen languages. She is a pediatric and adolescent psychotherapist, the Director of Parenting for the Mindsight Institute, and the Child Development Specialist at Saint Mark’s School in Altadena, CA.
Contact us at [email protected] Latest: Trump to review US sanctions on Russia
U.S. President Donald Trump, center, center, flanked by British Prime Minister Theresa May, right, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, joins fellow leaders in a group photo at NATO headquarters during the NATO Summit in Brussels, Belgium on Thursday, May 25, 2017. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)
NAVAL AIR STATION SIGONELLA, Italy (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump’s first trip abroad (all times local):
11:50 p.m.
White House economic adviser Gary Cohn says President Donald Trump is “looking at” the future of U.S. sanctions on Russia.
Asked what the current administration position is, Cohn said, “Right now, we don’t have a position.”
Cohn spoke to reporters on Air Force One as Trump headed to the Group of 7 summit in Sicily. G-7 leaders kicked Russia out of the group of wealthy nations for its annexation of Ukrainian territory.
Cohn says he expects Russia to be a topic during the two-day summit. Pressed on what specifically the White House was looking into on sanctions, Cohn would only say that Trump has “many options.”
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11 p.m.
President Donald Trump is opening the final leg of his maiden international trip, landing in Italy for meetings with the Group of 7 leaders.
Trump and leaders from some of the world’s wealthiest nations will hold wide-ranging talks on foreign affairs, including terrorism, trade and economic growth in Taormina, Italy.
The White House is expects Trump to be pressed by many of the G-7 leaders to stay in the Paris climate accord. Trump has said he’s waiting until after he returns to Washington to make a decision on whether to withdraw from the deal, which was agreed to by the Obama administration.
The other G-7 leaders are Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Trump flew to the Italian island of Sicily from Brussels, where he attended NATO meetings and met with European Union officials.
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8:35 p.m.
President Donald Trump has concluded his participation in a NATO summit in Brussels and is on his way to Sicily for further consultations with his world counterparts.
Trump is scheduled to participate in two days of talks in Taormina, Italy, with the leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrial nations. They are the U.S., Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
Sicily is the fifth and final stop on the first international trip Trump has taken since he became president in January.
Trump opened the trip in Saudi Arabia. He then traveled to Israel and Rome, to meet with the pope, before arriving in Brussels on Wednesday night for Thursday’s NATO summit.
He is scheduled to return to Washington late Saturday.
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8:30 p.m.
Authorities have detained dozens of protesters who attempted to block a route to a summit at NATO headquarters by lying down.
The peace activists refused to move despite repeated police requests. They were detained during ceremonies at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Their actions did not appear to impede leaders arriving to dedicate a gleaming new headquarters building.
Thursday’s demonstrations drew a few hundred protesters.
About 10,000 people attended an anti-Trump demonstration in Brussels on Wednesday.
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6:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump’s push to get in front of the pack at the NATO summit in Belgium is getting attention.
Video footage from the gathering shows Trump putting his right hand on the right arm of Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic and pushing himself ahead as NATO leaders walked inside the alliance’s new headquarters in Brussels.
Trump then stands near Markovic and speaks to Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite. The video garnered attention on social media.
Montenegro is scheduled to formally become NATO’s 29th member in early June.
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5:50 p.m.
The White House says U.S. first lady Melania Trump and Belgium’s Queen Mathilde have participated in a forum on protecting children from online exploitation.
Mrs. Trump attended the forum at the queen’s invitation after she arrived in Brussels late Wednesday with President Donald Trump. The presentation about Child Focus, a center for missing and sexually exploited children that was founded in Brussels, was held at the palace. It was closed to news media coverage.
Mrs. Trump said in a written statement afterward that it’s important to teach children that computers are useful tools but that they can also be used by people who want to harm them.
She previously has identified cyberbullying as an issue she’ll work on as first lady, but has yet to announce any initiatives on the issue.
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5:30 p.m.
The European Union and the United States will be making a fresh effort to align their commercial policies.
EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says after meeting with President Donald Trump that delegations from both sides will meet soon to review commercial issues. Juncker says “we think divergences were too big.”
The 28-nation EU and the United States have been negotiating for years on a trans-Atlantic trade agreement that would bring the world’s two biggest economic blocs closer together. Trump has shown little appetite for such deals and has said he would rather negotiate with individual nations.
Juncker says they discussed international trade and free trade, and stressed the need for “free but loyal competition.”
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5:10 p.m.
President Donald Trump made no explicit mention of NATO’s mutual defense pact on Thursday even as he spoke at a ceremony unveiling a memorial dedicated to it.
Trump has so far refused to personally commit to abiding by Article 5. U.S., which commits allies to defend any of the 28 members that come under attack. But Press Secretary Sean Spicer says, “It goes without saying” that Trump’s presence at the event underscores the White House’s “commitments and treaty obligations.”
Trump spoke at the unveiling of a steel beam from the 107th floor of one of the World Trade Center towers at the new NATO headquarters in Brussels.
It’s intended as a reminder of NATO’s commitment to its collective defense clause. Article 5 has only been activated once, after 9/11.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that “of course” the United States supports Article 5.
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4:55 p.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron has lauded his first meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump as friendly and very frank, despite continued uncertainty about the U.S. commitment to a key climate change agreement.
Macron says he and Trump didn’t see eye to eye on everything, but committed to reinforcing U.S. and French cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
Macron added that he respects that Trump is still reviewing the U.S. stance on the Paris climate agreement. But Macron adds that he reinforced for Trump the importance that France and the rest of the world see in the U.S. sticking to the pact.
The French president called his lunch meeting with Trump “very direct and very frank” and says pragmatism was at the “heart” of their exchange.
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4:48 p.m.
President Donald Trump is lecturing members of the NATO alliance to pay their fair share on defense during a ceremony at NATO headquarters.
Trump says NATO members must “finally contribute their fair share” and meet their obligations.
The president has been urging NATO leaders to live up to a 2011 decision to increase spending on defense to 2 percent of GDP by 2024.
Trump says 23 of the 28 member nations are not paying what they should and he says it’s “not fair” to the people of the United States. He says many of these nations owe “massive” amounts of money from previous years.
The president spoke as the other NATO leaders looked on.
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4:41 p.m.
President Donald is calling for a moment of silence for the victims of the Manchester concert attack.
The president is speaking at a dedication ceremony for a new 9/11 memorial at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
He says that “today is a day for both remembrance and resolve” and that the attack demonstrates “the depths of the evil we face with terrorism.”
Trump has urged NATO members to spend more money on defense.
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4:37 p.m.
President Donald Trump is attending a dedication service for two new memorials at NATO headquarters.
Trump stood on as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg unveiled two sections of the Berlin Wall that divided the German city until 1989.
The pieces, standing together, form a monument that symbolizes the efforts to end the division of Europe.
Trump and Stoltenberg are also unveiling a steel beam from the 107th floor of one of the World Trade Center towers that collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.
It’s a reminder of NATO’s commitment to its collective defense clause — so called Article 5. It has only ever been activated once, after 9/11.
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4:35 p.m.
President Donald Trump is pledging to “get to the bottom” of leaks of sensitive information.
In a written statement Thursday, Trump called recent leaks “deeply troubling.” He said he is asking the Justice Department and other agencies to “launch a complete review of this matter.”
Trump adds that “if appropriate, the culprit should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Trump’s comments come amid anger from Britain over intelligence leaks and a decision by Manchester police to withhold information from the United States about the investigation into this week’s bombing.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will make it clear to Trump that intelligence shared between law enforcement agencies “must remain secure.”
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4:20 p.m.
President Donald Trump has arrived at NATO headquarters for an afternoon of meetings with fellow world leaders.
Trump was greeted by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the organization’s new headquarters in Brussels.
Stoltenberg visited the White House last month and touted NATO’s benefits at a joint press conference with Trump.
Trump had previously questioned NATO’s relevance.
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4:04 p.m.
British Prime Minister Theresa May says she will press U.S. President Donald Trump on keeping shared intelligence confidential, after leaks from the investigation of the Manchester concert attack.
Speaking to reporters upon arrival at a NATO summit in Brussels, May said that the U.S.-British defense and security partnership is built on trust.
But she says, “part of that trust is knowing that intelligence can be shared confidently.”
She said that when she sees Trump at the summit Thursday she will stress “that intelligence that is shared between law enforcement agencies must remain secure.”
She said the Manchester attack shows why it’s important for the international community and NATO to do more about the fight against terrorism.
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3:59 p.m.
President Donald Trump is on his way to NATO headquarters in Brussels for his first meeting with a group he criticized mercilessly during his campaign.
Trump has rattled the group with musings about pulling out of the pact because other countries aren’t dedicating enough money to defense and called the alliance “obsolete.”
But he’s softened his stance considerably since taking office in January.
Trump is set to deliver remarks at the unveiling of memorials dedicated to the Berlin Wall and one that will serve as a reminder of NATO’s commitment to its collective defense clause — so called Article 5. It has only been activated once, after 9/11.
He’ll also attend a working dinner with other member leaders.
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3:32 p.m.
Several hundred protesters have gathered outside the NATO summit in Brussels to demonstrate against NATO and U.S. President Donald Trump.
The group was tiny compared to the 10,000 demonstrators who came out Wednesday to protest Trump’s visit. But the summit won’t start until late afternoon, so the crowds could still swell.
Security officials have cordoned off a large protest zone outside NATO headquarters. Protesters there are holding banners that say “NATO game over” and “peace.”
At one point, some 50 demonstrators tried to block a road using banners.
Stephanie Demblon of the “Agir pour la paix” pacifist group says Trump “makes people scared” and says he’s “shown over the past months that he isn’t a man of peace.”
The anti-NATO activist says she’s worried that Trump, who criticized NATO during his campaign, is now beginning to see the partnership as “something very useful to his aims.”
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2:09 p.m.
The White House is condemning recent violence in the Philippines by militants linked to the Islamic State group.
In a statement released Thursday, the White House says “cowardly terrorists killed Philippine law enforcement officials and endangered the lives of innocent citizens.”
It adds that the United States will provide “support and assistance to Philippine counterterrorism efforts.” The statement from the press secretary says the United States is a “proud ally of the Philippines.”
Army tanks packed with soldiers have rolled into a southern Philippine city to try to restore control after militants linked to the Islamic State group launched a violent siege. Thousands of civilians have been fleeing Marawi, a city of some 200,000 people.
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1:38 p.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron says he has a long list of issues to discuss with U.S. President Donald Trump, including the fight against terrorism, the economy and climate and energy issues.
The two leaders are meeting for the first time over lunch at the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium’s residence. They’ll dine on tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella, veal filet with potatoes, tri-colored vegetables, and a duo of Belgian chocolate mousse.
The two also shared an intense handshake, gripping each other’s hands so tightly that Trump’s knuckles appeared to turn white.
Macron has been critical of Trump in the past, including denouncing Trump’s musings on abandoning the Paris climate treaty. White House officials say Trump has not made a decision yet about whether the U.S. will fulfill its obligations under the deal.
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1:25 p.m.
President Donald Trump is praising newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron as the two leaders meet for the first time.
Trump and Macron met at the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium’s residence Thursday for a working lunch.
Trump says Macron had an “incredible victory, all over the world they’re talking about it.” He added that the two have a lot to discuss, including terrorism.
Macron has said he expects to discuss defense and security issues during the pair’s first face-to-face meeting. He has been critical of Trump in the past, including denouncing Trump’s musings on abandoning the Paris climate treaty.
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1:19 p.m.
President Donald Trump did not respond to a shouted question about whether the British can trust America with intelligence following a series of leaks blamed on U.S. officials.
British authorities are livid over leaks related to the Manchester concert bombing. They include photos detailing evidence about the bomb used in the attack that were published by The New York Times. It is not clear that the newspaper obtained the photos from U.S. officials.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said she plans to raise the issue with President Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels later Thursday.
She says she plans to “make clear to President Trump that intelligence that is shared between our law enforcement agencies must remain secure.”
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1:15 p.m.
President Donald Trump is meeting with newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron.
Trump and Macron are holding a working lunch at the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium’s residence Thursday.
Macron was elected over far-right opponent Marine Le Pen in the French presidential runoff earlier this month. Trump called him after his victory to congratulate him.
Macron has said he expects to discuss defense and security issues during the meeting. He has been critical of Trump in the past, including denouncing Trump’s musings on abandoning the Paris climate treaty.
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12:43 p.m.
U.S. first lady Melania Trump cheered up children in a Belgian hospital with Dr. Seuss books and crepe paper flowers while her husband met with European Union leaders.
Young patients at the Queen Fabiola Children’s University Hospital used a sketch toy to make a sign reading “Welcome Mrs. Trump.”
The first lady, wearing a knee-length dusty rose leather jacket and skirt, toured the hospital Thursday and joined a group of children making paper flowers, a Belgian tradition. Two of the children sitting with her were hooked up to IVs.
They shared opinions on favorite flowers. The first lady said she likes peonies, tulips, roses and especially orchids.
Mrs. Trump also visited the Vatican’s children’s hospital earlier this week and gave the children Dr. Seuss books.
She’s expected to join the spouses of other leaders in town for a NATO summit for a visit to the Magritte Museum and the Belgian royal palace later Thursday.
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12:31 p.m.
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has joined President Donald Trump for the next leg of his trip and is participating in meetings with European leaders.
The composition of the U.S. delegation has evolved over the course of the president’s maiden foreign trip.
Chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Steve Bannon and commerce secretary Wilbur Ross all returned home after the president’s first stop in Saudi Arabia.
And Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka Trump broke off before Trump traveled to Brussels, as previously planned.
The president will be returning to Washington on Saturday after nine days abroad.
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12:00 p.m.
European Union Council President Donald Tusk says talks with President Donald Trump reveal differences on key issues, including how to deal with Russia.
Tusk said Thursday that he was not “100 percent sure” the two leaders have “a common position, a common opinion, about Russia.” But he said that regarding Ukraine “it seems that we were on the same line.”
Trump met with European Union leaders Thursday morning in Brussels.
Tusk also said that “Some issues remain open like climate and trade,” where the EU is pushing for full respect of the Paris Agreement on climate and open multilateral trade deals.
But he insisted there was full agreement on many issues, including “first and foremost, on counter terrorism.”
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11:30 a.m.
President Donald Trump got to meet two European Union Presidents at the same time.
Under the convoluted rules of the 28-nation bloc, Donald Tusk presides over the Council of EU leaders and chairs summit meetings while Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker heads the EU executive.
“You know, Mr President, we have two presidents in the EU,” Tusk said as they started their meeting. “I know that,” Trump said.
Juncker joked: “There is one too much.”
Trump concluded his meeting at the European Union headquarters at about 11:30 a.m. He headed to the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium’s residence where he was set to have a working lunch with newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron.
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11:00 a.m.
President Donald Trump is speaking with European Union leaders during a meeting in Brussels.
Trump sat down Thursday with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, and other officials.
Trump publicly cheered for the dissolution of the body when the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU last summer.
Trump is in the midst of a nine-day international trip. It is his first foreign trip and has included stops in Saudi Arabia, Israel and the Vatican.
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10:10 a.m.
President Donald Trump is meeting with European Union leaders.
Trump arrived at European Union headquarters Thursday morning. He was greeted by the group’s president.
Trump publicly cheered for the dissolution of the body when the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU last summer.
The visit comes as part of Trump’s first international trip. The nine-day tour has included rapturous receptions in Saudi Arabia and Israel, and a polite meeting with Pope Francis in Rome.
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8:30 a.m.
U.S. President Donald Trump woke to a gorgeous spring morning in Brussels — and a huge flag from Greenpeace criticizing his policies.
Around 7 a.m., the environmental group got on top of a construction crane close to the U.S. embassy where Trump stayed overnight and unfurled a huge banner saying ”#RESIST.”
Two activists were up in the air to make sure the flag hung straight and would be clearly visible.
Greenpeace has been an ardent critic of Trump’s environmental views on climate change and global warming. Those issues will take central stage at the G7 summit in Sicily starting Friday.
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6:15 a.m.
President Donald Trump will be in the heart of Europe Thursday to address a continent still reeling from his election and anxious about his support.
Trump is slated to attend his first meeting of NATO, the decades-long partnership that has been rattled by the new president’s wavering on honoring its bonds.
Trump has mused about pulling out of the pact because he believed other countries were not paying their fair share. He also has so far refused to commit to abiding by Article 5, in which member nations vow to come to each other’s defense.
The president is slated to meet with the heads of European Union institutions after having publicly cheered for the dissolution of the body when the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU.NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury yields rose, the dollar gained while U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday after the U.S. Federal Reserve signaled it expects one more interest rake hike by the end of the year.
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., September 8, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
In its statement, the Fed, as expected, left rates unchanged and also said it would begin in October to reduce its approximately $4.2 trillion in holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities.
Benchmark U.S. Treasury yields jumped to their highest levels in six weeks. Benchmark 10-year notes US10YT=RR fell 11/32 in price to yield 2.29 percent, up from 2.24 percent before the Fed’s statement and the highest level since Aug. 8.
The reaction in the Treasury market “suggests a lot of people maybe weren’t anticipating the Fed would stick with the third rate hike expectation this year. So there’s a little adjustment going on there,” said David Joy, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial in Boston.
Interest rate futures traders are now pricing in a 72-percent chance of a December rate hike, up from roughly 60 percent before the statement, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.
Financial shares added to gains following the statement while utilities declined.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average.DJI rose 7.97 points, or 0.04 percent, to 22,378.77, the S&P 500.SPX lost 2.64 points, or 0.11 percent, to 2,504.01 and the Nasdaq Composite.IXIC dropped 21.76 points, or 0.34 percent, to 6,439.57.lost 0.09
The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index.FTEU3 lost 0.18 percent. MSCI's gauge of stocks across the globe.MIWD00000PUS shed 0.25 percent.
The dollar index.DXY rose 0.75 percent, with the euro EUR= down 0.83 percent to $1.1892.
Stocks had been mostly flat ahead of the Fed statement, while the dollar had been trading slightly lower.
Earlier, the New Zealand dollar hit its strongest in more than a month at $0.7374 NZD= after a poll showed the ruling National Party regaining a wide lead over the opposition before Saturday's election.
Oil prices were higher. They earlier pared gains after data showed a bigger-than-expected build in U.S. crude inventories.
U.S. crude CLcv1 rose 1.5 percent to $50.65 per barrel and Brent LCOcv1 was last at $55.86, up 1.75 percent on the day.Coaches are nervous creatures by nature. It doesn’t matter if the next opponent is Alabama or Massachusetts – they’re going to have an anxious week. But Navy of all teams tends to make coaches more nervy than usual.
Why Navy? Because the Midshipmen run a vaunted triple-option offense that incorporates cut blocking. When the ball is snapped, unpredictability always reigns supreme. With Navy, it does and it doesn’t. A run play is all but certain, but who will get the ball? Options are plentiful.
Even Navy quarterback Kennan Reynolds is out of the loop until he sees which way the defense goes and whom it pursues. According to head coach Ken Niumatalolo nothing is predetermined. For more than a decade, Navy’s offense has become the football program’s identity.
“It’s our calling card,” offensive coordinator Ivin Jasper said. “It’s what Navy football is known for.”
The Midshipmen haven’t won a national championship since 1926 and the last Heisman Trophy came in 1963. Over the past half century, the Navy head coaching position has become one of the toughest jobs in the country. The odds are tilted heavily against Navy – military commitments, stringent academic requirements and a long stint away from the college football spotlight.
Navy doesn’t haul in recruits with stars next to their names and they aren’t as big, fast or strong as opponents. Yet, Niumatalolo has won 62 percent of his games (49-20 over six years) and guided the Midshipmen to five bowl games. A portion of that success is due to their unique offense.
“I think it’s very confusing to a defense,” former quarterback Ricky Dobbs said in 2009 when Navy played at Ohio State, losing 31-27. “Sometimes it's confusing to us. At first, I was like, ‘Man, I wish we ran something different,’ but I think this offense can work any place as long as you get the guys tuned it to where they sell out for it.”
For Navy, leveling the playing field means baffling the competition, not loading up on the best players in football-rich states. When Ohio State’s defensive line – one of the best in the country – stares across the line of scrimmage at five much smaller football players, the reality sets in that trickeration and misdirection are needed.
Niumatalolo believes more teams should adopt the abnormal style – at least those that already face an uphill climb. The equalizing power is evident each |
way they are,' he said.
And the First Amendment, typically the bulwark of reporters, 'gives me the right to criticize fake news,' he said.
'It doesn't represent the people. It never will represent the people.'
Trump entered to a standing ovation from an audience that had stood in line from before dawn to get in.
He reiterated his pledge on Friday to'repeal and replace' the Obamacare law, and insisted that his plan to 'begin the construction of a great, great border wall' between the U.S. and Mexico is moving forward.
'It's going to start soon. Way ahead of schedule. Way, way, way ahead of schedule,' he boasted.
Cell phones and thumbs-up greeted the president as thousands clamored to capture the moment he walked onstage
Reception: Trump was cheered throughout his speech, with his attacks on the 'fake news media' gaining applause
On their feet: Trump walked on to a sea of Republican supporters clapping, cheering, and taking photographs
Stopping illegal immigration, Trump said, will allow the U.S. to'save countless tax dollars' spent on government benefits and programs used by people in the country illegally.
TRUMP'S PUNCH-LIST The president rattled off a long list of policy priorities on Friday, including hot-button issues that drove his upstart campaign: Media bias
Gun-owners' rights
Trade deals
U.S.-Mexico border wall
Illegal immigration
Narcotics trafficking
Infrastructure rebuilding
Repealing Obamacare
Middle East peace
The national debt
Special-interest lobbying
Welfare reform
U.S. flag desecration
Respect for law enforcement
Changes in the tax system
Military rebuilding
Terrorism in Europe
Keystone and DAPL pipelines
Made-in-the-USA purchasing
'The dollars that we're losing are beyond anything that you can imagine,' he said.
And criminal aliens who are inside the United States, he vowed, will be ejected as his administration starts 'throwing them the hell out of our country. And we will not let them back in.'
The president's lengthy speech drew on one campaign theme after another.
'One by one, we're checking off the promises we made to the American people. A lot of promises. And we will not stop until the job is done,' he pledged.
Trump hit all the policy highlights that drove enthusiasm in his upstart candidacy, including media bias, trade, immigration, Middle Eastern terrorism, the national debt, welfare reform and health care for military veterans.
Missing was a firm position on abortion – which Vice President Mike Pence touched on Thursday night. He also had nothing to say about a debate raging over the rights of transgender Americans.
And Trump made no mention of his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch, whose confirmation hearing is four weeks away.
Trump's wild welcome at CPAC stood in stark contrast to his reception six years ago when he addressed the gathering for the first time, amid a Tea Party push that had retaken Congress for the GOP three months earlier.
With the'money, money, money, money' chorus of his reality TV show's theme song blasting, Trump drew laughs and boos in 2011.
Conservatives, it seemed, saw Trump as a squishy liberal – a former Democrat in the lion's den of the GOP's most cantankerous gathering.
White House senior strategist Steve Bannon said Thursday that Trump 'understands, at CPAC there are many, many, many voices. This is the room where he got his launch.'
Bannon said Breitbart News, which he led before joining Trump's team last summer, and other conservative outlets first took note of the brash billionaire at his CPAC debut. And that's where Trump first began understanding the conservatives who years later would help him win the presidency.
Even the back of the ballroom – behind the press section – was stacked with standing-room onlookers
CPAC is held each year at the Gaylord National Harbor Hotel in Maryland, a short drive from Washington, D.C.
Donald Trump first spoke to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in 2011, as the'money, money, money, money' chorus of his 'Apprentice' show's theme song blasted; he was met with laughs and boos
Although Trump returned most years afterward, he was notably absent in 2016.
Instead, he held a campaign rally in Kansas, declaring in his populist style that 'the establishment is against us.'
ACU chairman Matt Schlapp said the presidential candidates were asked to participate in a question-and-answer session, but Trump wanted to make a speech.
He did show up in 2015, however, a few months before he announced his candidacy.
'I am really inclined. I want to do it so badly,' Trump said about the likelihood he'd run. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker were the top two choices in that year's straw poll.
In 2013 Trump warned the CPAC crowd that the GOP risked a'suicide mission' with the 'Gang of Eight' legislation that would have put 11 million illegal immigrants on a pathway to citizenship.
That bill failed in the House of Representatives as tea partiers pushed back.
Now, CPAC is largely the Trump show – 'TPAC,' White House counselor Kellyanne Conway called it. She, Bannon and other administration officials spoke Thursday, and Vice President Mike Pence gave the evening's keynote address.
White House senior strategist Steve Bannon, left, said Thursday that Trump 'understands, at CPAC there are many, many, many voices. This is the room where he got his launch'
Schlapp said Trump would be the first president to address the group during his first year in office since Ronald Reagan in 1981. He called that a 'huge sign of respect.'
In the CPAC exhibit hall, vendors did a brisk business Thursday with 'Make America Great Again' hats and shirts, along with copies of Trump's book 'The Art of the Deal.'
In a nearby hallway, a man walked a service dog wearing a sweater reading 'Make dogs great again.'
Trump's first speech to CPAC bore little resemblance to the mega-rallies that were the hallmark of his presidential campaign, although many of the themes were the same.
He presaged the slogan that would become his 2016 presidential campaign catch-phrase. 'Our country will be great again,' Trump said then.
He trademarked that phrase in 2012, just after Mitt Romney lost to Obama.
Vice President Mike Pence delivered Thursday night's CPAC keynote speech, a crowd warmup for Trump's Friday morning barnburner
The president told the skeptical 2010 crowd: 'I have a reputation for telling it like it is. I'm known for my candor.'
He seemed to back that up later.
Near the end of the speech he told the skeptical crowd that he was only thinking about running because he didn't like any of the potential candidates - prompting shouts of 'Ron Paul' to break out.
A Texas congressman at the time, Paul was a fan favorite of CPAC and won its straw poll that year.
Trump looked amused and shook his head. 'By the way, Ron Paul cannot get elected, I'm sorry.' he said. Loud boos erupted as Trump reiterated, 'Zero chance of getting elected.'
An angry audience member shouted: 'You have zero chance of getting elected!'A student has found a spectacular Anglo-Saxon burial.
During explorations of a private field in Norfolk, University of East Anglia archaeology student Tom Lucking noticed a large and deep signal from his metal detector. As he dug down to explore the source of the signal, he unearthed the top of a bronze bowl. Instead of continuing excavating, Tom alerted Norfolk County Council’s Heritage Environment Service (HES), and the Field Group’s geophysics team.
Dr. Andrew Rogerson and Steven Ashley from the HES invited Dr. Helen Geake, an expert on the early Anglo-Saxon period, to join them in fully unearthing the find.
After further excavation, the bronze bowl was found to be at the foot of an Anglo-Saxon grave. The bones of the Anglo-Saxon individual were poorly preserved, but the items they were buried with could reveal a great deal about Saxon history.
From the types of jewellery discovered, it became clear that the individual was a woman. A ‘chatelaine’, a set of small chains linked together and hung from a girdle, was found. It seems likely that the chatelaine was made from silver.
More finds were to come, the most spectacular of which was a stunning gold and jewel pendant. “It’s the single most exciting discovery I have ever been present at,” Dr. Geake said, a remarkable statement given that she was one of the key members of Channel 4’s popular and long-running archaeology series, Time Team.
The 7cm pendant is beautifully made from gold ‘cells’ with red garnet inlays. Some of the garnets have been carefully cut to create an animal ‘interlace’, a popular Anglo-Saxon design technique where depictions of creatures are elongated and intricately woven together.
While the pendant is the most jaw-dropping of the finds, several other items were recovered from the grave.
Two other pendants made from re-used gold coins were discovered, one of which was probably minted near Marseilles between 639 CE and 656 CE for the Frankish king Sigebert III. The grave, therefore, must be dated after this coin. Both pendants were combined with two gold beans to form part of a ‘choker’-style necklace.
Also found in the grave was a wheel-thrown pot, along with a small knife and iron buckle. It seems likely that these items also originated in France.
“It’s that theme that we see running right up to the present day, where we turn to France for style and cultured items,” Dr Geake explained.
It is unclear who the Anglo-Saxon woman was, but to have been buried with such valuable items, she clearly must have been of noble birth and a member of the upper echelons of society.
The skeletal remains have been taken to Norwich Castle Museum for further study. It is hoped that by analysing the woman’s bones, researchers will be able to reveal more about her lifestyle, particularly her age, diet and any medical conditions she had.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons user: NortoniusCONCORD, N.H., Sept. 12 -- Sen. Barack Obama and his campaign launched a promised counterpunch against Sen. John McCain on Friday, portraying him as an aging, out-of-touch politician who would cater to "fat-cat" lobbyists and continue President Bush's economic policies.
With two new television advertisements, a campaign memo to supporters and a two-day trip through New Hampshire, Obama sought to regain his footing amid faltering poll numbers, a continuing assault by his Republican presidential rival and rising worries among Democrats about his campaign.
"They've been talking about lipstick and they've been talking about pigs and they've been talking about Paris and Britney," Obama told a boisterous crowd of 1,500 packed into a gym at a technical college here. "They will spend any amount of money and use any tactic out there in order to avoid talking about how we're going to move America forward to the future."
Attempting to shift the focus away from Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and to McCain, Obama quoted his opponent saying Thursday night that "it's easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have."
"So from where he and George Bush sit, maybe they just can't see," the Democrat told supporters and some self-identified undecided voters earlier in the day in Dover. "Maybe they are just that out of touch. But you know the truth, and so do I.... We just can't afford four more years of what John McCain and George Bush consider progress."
If Democrats were expecting a dramatic change in words, tone or temperament, they did not get it. While McCain attacked him as a pampered, fading celebrity, a sexist and a desperate bully, Obama stuck to familiar themes linking the senator from Arizona to Bush and Washington lobbyists.
Even after being prodded by the audience in Dover, Obama appeared reluctant to get too aggressive. Glenn Grasso, 39, a doctoral student, pleaded: "When and how are you going to start fighting back?"
Obama responded by calling McCain's ads "just fabricated" and "just made up," an answer that spurred some to shout out: "Lies."
"Lies, that's the word," Obama said.
Not everyone was reassured. "Truth be told, I'm extremely worried" about Obama's dip in the polls and McCain's attacks, said Jaimee Rudman, 30.
Obama's use of McCain's words from a forum Thursday on volunteerism invited a biting response. McCain had suggested that he was out of touch as a way to defend Palin's record as a small-town mayor. But Obama also came to her defense at the forum, saying mayors fill potholes, trim trees and make sure the garbage is collected, while senators "yak."
"It's a shame that Barack Obama is using a discussion of service on September 11th as the basis for a distorted political attack. Especially when you consider that during the same event, Barack Obama reduced his own service in the U.S. Senate to mindless yakking," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded in a statement.The Vita-exclusivePhantasy Star Novais coming out soon! First announced at TGS it looks like we've got ourselves another top-notch Vita title to add to the already jam-packed month of November!
Phantasy Star Novawill be set in the same world asPhantasy Star Online 2but will drop many of the online elements andtake on a much more single player approach.If the idea of playing without your friends sounds horrifying, the game will include 4-player co-cop play.
The title takes place onPlanet Machia, a planet where'Photon'energy is useless. Without the ability to recover energy or upgrade your weapons, players must take survival into their own hands, exploring the planet of Machia and unlocking the secrets it has to offer.
The creatures inhabiting Machiaare giant beasts appropriately named 'Gigantes.'In order to take these massive brutesdown, you'll need to find and hit their weak spots together with your allies.
Sega also implemented tweaks based off thePhantasy Star Novabattle demo into the game. After the first demo, tri-Ace increased character movement speed by 1.4x, reduced input delay, fixed issues with locking on to enemies, and fine tuned the speed of the camera,among other improvements.Six weeks ago I landed in Amsterdam Schipol all glittery-eyed and raring for a new start in a beautiful new city. Call it newcomer’s excitement, naivety, or sheer ignorance, but I have so far only been able to come up with ways that Holland is infinitely better than the UK. Of course I miss pints being the standard unit of beer measurement, and as a West Country girl of course I miss vintage-matured cheddar cheese and ice cold cider. But that’s it… really, it is!
And so: flip the UK the bird, side-saddle the back of my fifty euro bike, and let me pedal you furiously through some of the pros, advantages, and utter gifts of the Netherlands.
Of course this made the list. Because it’s the best damned thing about living in Amsterdam. I used to have a bike (a hideously heavy thing I had to hunch over like Gollum to ride) and it sat neglected and staring longingly at me the full year it lived in my flat in Liverpool. I didn’t ride it once. Why? Because cycling in UK cities is like a hellish nightmare on wheels. If you’re not risking death by car bonnet, you’re tackling heinously steep hills which bully you into getting off and pushing; the ultimate walk of shame. You also arrive at your destination dripping with sweat and looking like you’ve just jumped out of a plane.
Here – no no no – in Amsterdam, you swan around in your work attire, never breaking a sweat and perhaps even catching up with a friend on WhatsApp as you traverse a busy crossroad. You own that road. You lord it on that bike. Cars and pedestrians are second class citizens, mere peasants to you. You’re in charge and you get drunk on that power.
Yes, I mean it. Now I can’t speak for other countries because, from what I have heard from other people, they find the rent in the Netherlands very expensive. But compared to the UK, well that’s a different story. To live on a houseboat in Amsterdam Centrum I pay the same rent as I did for my flat in Toxteth, Liverpool – one of the cheapest cities in the UK. I won’t even begin to compare to prices in London – the mind really does boggle!
Now, we’re getting a bit political here but it is definitely worth acknowledging! This is a perfect example where the phrase “give people an inch, and they take a mile” does not apply. With marijuana on sale in the controlled environment of coffee shops, do you think there are 13 year old kids shotting weed and whizzing around delivering to customers on their Halford’s mountain bikes? I think not. And that’s certainly prevalent in the UK. This upcoming ADE, you are allowed to carry up to 5 pills and I am yet to hear a horror story of someone going too far. People in Holland are given an inch and, generally of course, they don’t take too much, they don’t smoke too much, and they don’t drink too much – the British lads holidays do enough of that for everyone!
Ad
Forget scampy fries and pork scratchings, forget the packet of hand-cooked Tyrell’s sea salt and cider vinegar crisps open on the table for all to share, because Holland wins this one. How? Bitter Ballen. Don’t know what Bitter Ballen are? Well you could describe them as scotch eggs, minus the egg, with whizzed-up stew in its place.
But that would make it sound foul. So, I will let this American fella who burns his poor mouth explain and demonstrate the fried enigma that is, Bitter Ballen.
[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUomIB5HiZ4[/embedyt]
The British are renowned for their ‘politeness’. But what this really means is inwardly seething when someone pushes in front of you in a queue and resolving to audibly tut and sigh, but my god you will not spell it out for them. It’s finding someone occupying your reserved seat on the train and deciding to stand for the duration of your journey, because you don’t have the heart interrupt their M&S Egg and Salad Cream Sandwich and turf them out. It’s having a busy, important and rude businessman shoulder barge you at 100mph, following which you spin around crying wildly, “Oh, I’m so sorry!!”, despite being the innocent victim of a rhino attack. However much I love this painfully polite aspect of British culture, nothing beats Dutch honesty. They say what the feel and they feel what they say, bro. And what a breath of fresh air it is!
More on the British and the Netherlands? Try this one:The arrests of 21 undocumented workers during a vehicle safety blitz Thursday is causing controversy for the Canada Border Services Agency and Ontario Provincial Police.
On Aug. 14 the OPP, along with officials from the ministries of transportation and environment, and the CBSA, took part in a vehicle spot checks in northwest Toronto, around Wilson Avenue between Jane Street and Highway 400.
CBSA told CBC News on Friday it arrested 21 people who were "in violation of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act."
But, because the arrests were made during vehicle safety check, some question the methods and motivations of the CBSA and OPP.
Immigration lawyer Guidy Mamann said this is “not routine” and is, in fact, “a huge breach of public trust.”
“In the guise of looking for safety issues … they are abusing that power and using it for whatever they feel like," Mamann said.
“Safety blitzes are to determine whether or not the vehicles are safe and roadworthy, not to determine what your immigration status is. They are not connected."
'Racial profiling'
Syed Hussan, who is with the migrant activist group No One Is Illegal, said the pairing of the CBSA with the OPP amounts to targeted racial profiling.
“It’s a sweep, it’s racial profiling stopping cars in Jane and Finch under the guise of a traffic stop then coercing everyone to hand over their IDs, then detaining them,” Hussan said.
Geraldine Ortiz said her 27-year-old brother-in-law from Mexico was among those stopped on Thursday. He has been working for a contractor as a painter, is married to a Canadian woman and is currently in the process of making a citizenship claim, she said.
“They didn’t ID themselves as police or CBSA, they just told them to pull over and produce ID,” Ortiz told CBC News.
He was handcuffed and detained, she said. He has since been released.
Mamann says, even though officials found immigration violations, there is a bigger question about how the arrests were made.
“Even though they appeared to have arrested some people who have some immigration issues, the questions that Canadians have to ask themselves is how much rope are we going to give the government, how much privacy do we want and do we need,” he said.
“Can I walk down the street and just be randomly picked off … to be screened by these various government agencies even though [they] have no reasonable or probable cause that you’ve done anything wrong?”
The CBSA said there are many undocumented workers across the GTA and the arrests Thursday show the complexity of the issue.This report is for the media and the general public.
The SMM monitored the implementation of the “Package of measures for the implementation of the Minsk agreements”. Its monitoring was restricted by third parties and security considerations*. The situation at and around the Donetsk airport and Shyrokyne was tense. The SMM observed ceasefire violations in several locations in the Luhansk region. The SMM facilitated a local ceasefire in Raivka (Luhansk region), which allowed for the repairs of an electric substation.
The situation at and around Donetsk airport was tense. Between 12:25 and 17:00hrs, at the Joint Centre for Control and Co-ordination (JCCC) observation point at Donetsk central railway station (“Donetsk People’s Republic” (“DPR”)-controlled, 8km north-west of Donetsk city centre), the SMM observed a total of 59 explosions consistent with mortar fire as well as bursts consistent with automatic grenade launcher, heavy machine gun and small-arms and light-weapons fire. The SMM assessed that the explosions occurred at locations to the north, north-west, north-east and west, at distances between 3 and 8km from its position.[1]
The situation around Shyrokyne (20km east of Mariupol) was tense. The SMM, from its observation points located 1.5 and 3.5km west of Shyrokyne, heard 147 explosions consistent with outgoing and incoming tank and mortar fire, heavy machine gun and small- arms fire and saw several airbursts in and around Shyrokyne. The SMM also heard unidentified detonations in the distance north and north-east of its position.
At the JCCC headquarters in Soledar (government-controlled, 75km north-east of Donetsk), the SMM was presented with two logbooks, compiled independently by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Russian Federation Armed Forces representatives to the JCCC. The Ukrainian Armed Forces logbook recorded 63 ceasefire violations; 20 attributed to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and 43 to “DPR” and “Lugansk People’s Republic” (“LPR”). The Russian Federation Armed Forces logbook contained 55 ceasefire violations; 22 attributed to the Ukrainian Armed Forces and 33 to “DPR” and “LPR”.
In the Kuybyshevskyi district of “DPR”-controlled Donetsk city, the SMM met the “deputy head” of the “district administration” who said that, as of 22 June, 298 people including 30 children had applied for relocation out of areas closest to fighting and most affected by military actions but that the “district administration” could provide temporary accommodation to only eight families (37 persons). He said that he expects the number of people applying for relocation to increase significantly in the very near future.
At a Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint in Volnovakha (government-control, 49km south-west of Donetsk), the SMM observed a 2.5km queue waiting to cross into government-controlled areas including 20 trucks and 417 cars with hundreds of passengers, male and female of various ages including children. The SMM also observed a queue of 3.5km waiting to cross into “DPR”-controlled areas including 30 trucks and 684 cars waiting to cross into government-controlled territories. The personnel at the Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint told the SMM that it takes up to 24 hours to cross due to the new procedures. The SMM did not observe any toilet facilities or access to water and food and also noted that some of the people queuing were visibly upset at the situation.
The SMM visited a Ukrainian Armed Forces checkpoint located at 60km north of Donetsk and observed a queue of 280 civilian vehicles, three buses and one ambulance waiting to cross into “DPR”-controlled areas. The commander told the SMM that 20 per cent of civilians attempted to cross without a valid permit and were refused passage. He also said that the latest government decree of 16 June prohibited the passage across the contact line of all heavy trucks except for humanitarian assistance but that there was a lack of definition of what a heavy truck constituted. The SMM did not note any facilities for those queuing.
The SMM met the deputy mayor of Druzhkivka (government-controlled, 70km north-north-west of Donetsk) who said that the city’s statue of Lenin had been removed on 23 June in accordance with the new Ukrainian law “on condemnation of Communist and National-Socialist (Nazism) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and ban of propaganda of its symbols,” which was introduced 21 May 2015. She further stated that 67 Soviet-era street names would also be changed.
The SMM travelled to Sakhanka (“DPR”-controlled, 24km east-north-east of Mariupol) to verify media reports of shelling having occurred on 24 June. On Mira Street and 60 years of October Street, the SMM analysed 19 craters based on which it assessed that the impacts were caused by long range 82mm mortars fired from a south-westerly direction. The SMM observed three private houses destroyed as a result of direct impacts and an additional six damaged. The SMM observed blood marks in a courtyard and later confirmed with the Novoazovsk hospital that one man had died and one woman was wounded in the shelling.
In the Luhansk region, the SMM observed several ceasefire violations in the government-controlled areas of Popasna (69km west of Luhansk), Shchastia (20km north of Luhansk) and Trokhizbenka (33km north-west of Luhansk), as well as in “LPR”-controlled Slovianoserbsk (28km north-west of Luhansk). Except for Popasna, in all other areas, the majority of fire observed was assessed as incoming.
The SMM facilitated a local ceasefire to repair an electrical substation in Raivka (“LPR”-controlled, 18km north-west of Luhansk). The JCCC headquarters provided guarantees for the ceasefire, which held during the repair period.
In “LPR”-controlled Luhansk city, the SMM visited four locations and observed the presence of 38 trucks with Russian license plates and a banner on the side reading “humanitarian aid convoy from the Russian Federation”. The “head” of the “LPR” “centre for reconstruction and renovation” told the SMM that 16 tons of medical supplies had been unloaded in one depot and 224, 154 and 30 tons of goods at the other three locations. He also said that aid would be delivered in 40,000 packages throughout “LPR”-controlled areas including hospitals and summer camps for children; it would also be delivered through 21 soup kitchens and would also help them to support 5-6,000 prisoners located in “LPR”-controlled areas. The SMM monitored some unloading of the cargo which contained flour and cereals, but did not monitor the whole process.
The SMM revisited two Ukrainian Armed Forces heavy weapons holding areas the location of which complied with the respective withdrawal lines, and verified that all 12 and six previously recorded weapons were in situ. The SMM also revisited three “DPR” heavy weapons holding areas the locations of which complied with the respective withdrawal lines. On two of these sites, the SMM verified that all previously recorded weapons were in situ. When approaching the third site, the SMM saw four multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) (122mm, MB-21 Grad) and one military truck driving on the road which were all in situ once the SMM arrived at the location. The local commander said that they had been stationary there since February and it is necessary to drive them for maintenance only.
Despite claims by all sides that the withdrawal of heavy weapons was complete, the SMM observed one main battle tank (MBT) (T-64) in “DPR”-controlled areas and two MBTs (T-60) in government-controlled areas that are in violation of withdrawal lines according to the Minsk Package.
In Dnepropetrovsk, the SMM observed a conference on criminal investigation and identification where the head representative of the forensic bureau stated that in Zaporizhzhia, while the majority of the cases of using DNA sampling to identify bodies from the Anti-Terrorism Operation zone had been processed, some cases are still pending. This is due to the lack of sophistication of the equipment and due to the nature of the injuries that had led to the servicepersons’ death.
On 23 June, at the Chonhar crossing point (165km south-east of Kherson) along the administrative boundary line with Crimea, the SMM observed approximately 40 travellers with children who were prevented by the Ukrainian border guards from passing through to Crimea. The Ukrainian border guard explained that Decisions 367[2] of the Cabinet of Ministers requires children under 16 to either be in possession of a passport valid for foreign travel (in case of travelling on their own) or to be included on one of the parents’ foreign travel passports. Previously a birth certificate was sufficient. The travellers said to the SMM that they were not aware of this change in policy.
The SMM met the Chernivtsi region’s military commissar who said that out of 780 recruits 345 had been mobilized in April 2015 under the fifth wave of mobilization. In Chernivtsi city, only 16 per cent of the mobilisation objective had been met. The sixth wave, which commenced on 19 June, foresees the mobilization of more than a thousand people. The military administration, in order to improve the system and show the transparency of the process, had started delivering draft notices in public places like markets and squares, said the interlocutor.
The SMM monitored a demonstration in Lviv where 1,000 men and women of different ages marched from the Shevchenko monument to the Lviv regional administration building and protested against the price increase of utilities, including gas and electricity. The event was organized by non-governmental organizations including the Association of Officers, the Anti-corruption Committee, Galician Kozatstvo and Narodnyi Front. Ten police officers were present at the event, which ended peacefully.
The SMM continued to monitor the situation in Kharkiv, Odessa, Ivano-Frankivsk and Kyiv.
* Restrictions on SMM monitoring, access and freedom of movement:
The SMM is restrained in fulfilling its monitoring functions by restrictions imposed by third parties and security considerations, including the presence – and lack of information on the whereabouts – of mines, and damaged infrastructure. The security situation in Donbas is fluid and unpredictable and the ceasefire does not hold everywhere. Self-imposed restrictions on movement into high-risk areas have impinged on SMM patrolling activities, particularly in areas not controlled by the government. Most areas along the Ukraine-Russian Federation international border have ordinarily been placed off limits to the SMM by both the “DPR” and “LPR”. SMM UAVs cannot operate in the Luhansk region as it is beyond their range.
Delay:
The SMM was delayed at three “DPR”-controlled checkpoints, two in Oktiabr and one in Zaichenko, (26 and 25km north-east of Mariupol) for 20 minutes each time.
Prevented access:
While en route from Luhansk city to Zhovte (“LPR”-controlled, 17km north of Luhansk), the SMM was stopped and told by “LPR” members at a checkpoint leading into the village that due to security concerns, the SMM could not proceed. The SMM stayed at the checkpoint for 35 minutes following which it returned to its base.
* Please see the section at the end of this report entitled “Restrictions on SMM access and freedom of movement” for further information.
[1] For a complete breakdown of the ceasefire violations, please see the annexed table.
[2] Resolution 367 of 4 June2015, Order of Entry and Exit from/to Temporarily Occupied Territory of UkraineThe Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's health care law on Thursday, but Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a possible Republican vice presidential contender who has refused to establish a federally mandated health care exchange in his state, said Friday that he will continue to ignore it.
"We're not going to start implementing Obamacare," Jindal said during a conference call with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. "We're committed to working to elect Gov. Romney to repeal Obamacare."
Under the Affordable Care Act, states must set up a health insurance exchange program by Jan. 1, 2014, and will receive grants from the federal government to implement it. Several Republican governors, including both Jindal and McDonnell, have put off setting up the exchanges in the hope that the law would be repealed or struck down by the court. Now that the law has been upheld, Jindal said he won't change course and is looking to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney to lead the repeal effort if he takes office in 2013.
"Here in Louisiana we have not applied for the grants, we have not accepted many of these dollars, we're not implementing the exchanges," Jindal said. "We don't think it makes any sense to implement Obamacare in Louisiana. We're going to do what we can to fight it."
Despite the court ruling, there is still a chance that Republicans in Congress can repeal much of the law next year even if they don't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Because Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the mandate to purchase health insurance—one of the key provisions of the law—was a tax, Republicans can use a procedure called "budget reconciliation" to pass a repeal bill that requires only a simple majority to pass. But this scenario relies on the Republicans' ability to win the White House, keep the majority in the House and gain enough seats in the Senate.
On the same conference call on Friday, McDonnell, also considered a contender to become Romney's running mate, said he would "evaluate" his options in Virginia now that the court has upheld the law.
"We don't even know exactly what that federal exchange would look like, so there's still some uncertainty at this point as to what the right course is, and in the next days and weeks we're going to be evaluating the case as well as the options for Virginia," McDonnell said. "I think each state is going to have to weigh that and look at the time frame to determine what to do. But I agree absolutely that the priority right now is to elect a new president and a new Senate so this law can be repealed."
McDonnell, the chairman of the Republican Governors Association, added that he has not yet polled fellow state executives in the GOP about how they plan to proceed after the ruling, but said that most are looking to the election in November for guidance.A few weeks ago we posted a story stating that many CoD Casters were worried about Infinity Ward’s support for the eSports community in Call of Duty: Ghosts. Well known caster Fwiz tweeted multiple times saying that no one in the eSports community has been contacted by IW thus far.
However, it appears that may have changed. According to a tweet from Chris Durate (ImpactParasite), whose team won the Call of Duty Championship, he’s visiting Infinity Ward tomorrow.
Just last week, Fwiz tweeted out saying any CoD Pro players in LA should talk to him cause it’ll be “worth your time.” Now, one week later, it seems that both Fwiz’s tweet and the visit to IW could be connected.
After Fwiz tweeted that, MLG CEO responded with a quick “yes it will.”
If all these tweets are connected, it may be a big reassurance that the eSports community has been wanting that IW is planning on supporting the eSports with Ghosts.
We’re expecting official Multiplayer info to come in August according to Mark Rubin.
SOURCE: @ImpactParaiste, @Fwiz, and @MLGSundance“The blood of martyrs never touches the ground.”
–Kurdish Proverb
El Errante
So I had been kicking around Kobane for a day or two and had made some good contacts in the media center and also the YPG. One afternoon the translator and I had stopped by to see what the YPG were up to; it was quiet, mostly. Then a commander came walking through talking rapidly and pointing. I looked at the translator and he said that the YPG are helping to escort the bodies of 18 YPG/J fighters from Kobane Canton to Cizere Canton for final burial. There was some kind of ceremony that was supposed to happen too. So we saddled up the Hyundai minivan and followed the racing YPG cars to wherever it was they were going.
We landed at a building with an enclosed courtyard near Kobane’s sook. It looked like it must have been a sports club, likely volleyball as it had changing rooms and a volleyball court sized enclosed area (As soccer is to Brazilians, so volleyball is to the Kurds, an obsession, a crazed, fan-driven juggernaut). The building had been expropriated and given to the Institute for the Families of the Martyrs, a revolutionary institution to provide support for folks who lost people in the fighting, and to keep the memories of the martyrs alive. Not that the latter task needs much energy, the photos of martyrs are ubiquitous. They are hung in shop windows, on poles, |
plan – you’ll only have to pay $0.99 per listing and no monthly fees.
How to get paid:
Every 1-2 weeks, Amazon will disburse funds from your seller account to your bank account.
Etsy
Etsy is a marketplace for DIY and handmade products, as well as unique vintage goods. It’s the 9th most popular e-commerce site in the USA, and the majority of products sold on Etsy fall into categories like arts and crafts, jewelry, home decor, and paper goods.
There are 1.9 million active sellers on Etsy, and the marketplace’s yearly revenue is $441 million. Over 33 million people shop on Etsy every year, 81% of them are female. In comparison to Amazon, Etsy is more of a niche marketplace.
Best for: physical or digital niche products.
Price: $0.20 listing fee + transaction fees
How to get paid:
Receive payments through Etsy Payments (charges 5% transaction fee + 4%+$0.25 payment processing fee.) You can disburse your earnings manually at any time, directly to your bank account.
eBay
eBay is an online marketplace that’s best known for its auctions. It’s a place where people can sell or trade goods and services, and today, eBay is the second largest online shopping website in terms of traffic – over 817 million people visit the website every month.
According to the stats, there are 25 million people selling on eBay, which makes it the most competitive marketplace on our list.
Best for: physical niche products and antiques.
Price: you get 50 free product listings per month. Beyond that, the fee for listing is $0.30. The selling fee is 10% or less (depends on your product category.) Additional fees apply if you want upgrades like larger photos, international listing visibility, etc.
How to get paid:
Receive payments immediately if the buyer pays with PayPal. Card payments may take longer, usually around 3-5 business days.
Conclusion:
Online marketplaces are a good option for beginners and sellers with no social following base. However, from your profit perspective, building your own shop is the best way to sell products online.
How to get traffic and sales?
So, you’ve come up with your product idea and listed it on either your own shop or an online marketplace of your choice.
Now what?
The next step is to let people know about your product and generate traffic to it. You can do it two ways:
For free, using your connections and follower base
Using paid ads
Paid traffic
For many businesses, getting enough traffic to their websites is often a challenge. Luckily, there are paid ads – probably, the fastest way to generate traffic to your shop and product.
So, here are three reasons why paid traffic is great:
It’s fast. You can set up a campaign in minutes and start seeing results very quickly. It’s trackable. You have access to analytics, so you can see which campaigns are performing well, how much traffic – and sales – they generate, etc. It’s scalable. Once you find which campaign is working, you can simply increase the budget and boost your results.
There are many paid ways to generate traffic. If you sell your product on an online marketplace like Amazon, eBay or Etsy, it’s best to use their built-in advertising solutions. If you’re running your own website, give Facebook Ads and Google Adwords a try.
Facebook ads
Thanks to the laser-focused targeting options, Facebook Ads are one of the most popular options for advertising online.
Besides that, Facebook Ads allow you to place ads on both of the world’s leading social media platforms at the same time – Facebook (including Facebook Messenger) and Instagram. That gives you access to an enormous global audience, as over 2.5 billion people worldwide use at least one of Facebook’s apps.
Setting up your Ad Account, connecting it to your online shop and creating your first Facebook ad is easy – you don’t need any specific skills or knowledge to do it. Here are some ideas for your first campaigns:
Find customers based on their interests, demographics, etc. For example, if you sell digital poster print files, you can target people with interests ”motivational posters” who’ve recently moved to a new home.
Find more people similar to your existing customers, store visitors or fans with the Lookalike audience feature. For example, if your shop already has purchases, you can gather email addresses of these buyers, upload them to Facebook and ask it to find more users that have the same interests and characteristics.
Ask Facebook to track people who’ve been to your website but left without a purchase, then show them ads reminding them to finish their purchase. That’s called retargeting, and for that, you’ll need the Facebook tracking code installed into your website – something that won’t be possible if you sell your products on an online marketplace.
Pro tip: While you can use Facebook ads to promote your listings on online marketplaces, that might not be the most efficient way to invest your money. Most marketplaces don’t allow conversion tracking, which means – you won’t see how many people have visited your product page from a specific campaign, and how many have made a purchase. As a result, you’ll never really know how your campaigns are doing and if they’re performing at all.
Google Ads
Google is the biggest search engine in the world, and by using Google Adwords you can advertise to billions of people worldwide visiting it every day – multiple times!
Besides that, Google has partnered up with millions of popular websites, so that your ads show not only when people visit Google, but also when they are browsing other sites.
There are two main types of ad campaigns you can set up via Google Adwords:
Search campaigns
Search campaigns are based on keywords. That is, when your potential customer comes to Google and types in a search phrase that’s related to your product, your ads show up and, hopefully, get clicked.
When compared to Facebook ads, search ads can be much more efficient. It’s because people don’t go on Facebook to find products, while they do often use Google to search for things to buy. That is, people visiting Google have much higher buyer intent, and thus it’s easier to turn them into customers.
Display ads
Display ads are shown all around the internet. While Search ads are for people already looking for something specific, Display ads are great for reaching people before they specifically start to search for products that you offer.
These ads are also used for retargeting – ads that are shown to people who’ve visited your website and left. Just like in the case of Facebook, Google retargeting ads can also be used only if you have your own website, as the majority of marketplaces don’t have the option to add the tracking code.
Pro tip: While Facebook and Google Adwords are the most popular paid advertising networks, there are many more. Depending on the type of your product, you may find Twitter, Pinterest or Reddit ads more suitable. For example, if your target audience is marketers and journalists, Twitter might be a better fit, as it’s heavily used by people working in these industries.
Free traffic
Compared to paid traffic, free traffic flow takes longer to establish and see results. The results from free traffic campaigns are also more difficult to measure. And yet, there are several strong reasons why you should put in the effort and focus on organic traffic:
It’s free! Who doesn’t want to save money, especially when the business is in its early stages? It’s authentic and thus more valuable. People who follow your social media or have subscribed to your email list are usually genuinely interested in what you’ve got to offer. As a result, such traffic usually shows higher conversion rates. It’s long-lasting. Free traffic campaigns can continue to drive visitors long after it’s been stopped. For example, one blog post can continue to rank on Google and attract new visitors years after it’s been published.
The most popular free traffic sources are social media, email, and SEO (search engine optimization.)
Social media
There must be a reason why 81% of all small and medium businesses use one or more social platforms to connect with their customers. Social media networks have proven to be effective in generating traffic and boosting sales.
If you already have a social media presence and at least 1000 followers, you can easily make your first $1000 in a matter of days. We’ll show you how – download Sellfy’s ebook that is full of tested and true actionable tips to help you make money by selling digital products online.
Here are social media platforms that are best (read: most efficient) for generating free traffic to your product:
Instagram
Instagram is the third most popular social media in the world with over 800 million daily visitors. Besides that, Instagram is by far the most engaging social media platform for brands with 2-7% of users interacting with each post. In comparison, Facebook’s average engagement rates are between 0.12% and 1.5%.
High engagement rates signalize high interest, which often leads to better sales. But – to sell on Instagram, you must first grow the number of your followers. Then, make sure it’s easy for followers to visit your website:
Add a link in the bio
Tag products in your captions
Add links to your Stories (available to business profiles with 10k+ followers)
Good example: Christian Maté Grab
YouTube
With over 1.57 billion monthly users, YouTube is not only one of the biggest social media platforms, but also the second biggest search engine in the world. People often visit YouTube for the same reason as they go to Google – to search for answers to their questions.
Selling on YouTube is made possible thanks to many tools that allow users to link from their profiles to external websites. You can add links to your products in:
Video descriptions and comments
Your profile banner
End screens
YouTube cards
Good example: Peter McKinnon
Pinterest
At the top of the most popular social networks, Pinterest ranks right behind Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. What makes Pinterest a great channel to drive traffic and sales, is the fact that 93% of pinners admit they use Pinterest to plan purchases.
Besides the fact that every pin links back to your product, Pinterest also offers a feature called ”Buyable Pins”. These pins will have an “Add to bag” button that allows users to buy products directly from Pinterest.
Good example: TecCrowd
Email
Believe it or not, but emails are still one of the best ways to generate traffic to your website, drive sales and keep a strong connection with your audience. People have deliberately subscribed to your list to hear from you – either they love what you’ve got to say, they’re interested in what you’re selling, or both.
Atop of that, email marketing has one of the highest ROI (return-on-investment) – 4400%. That is, for every $1 you spend on building your list, you can get $44 back.
Unfortunately, online marketplaces don’t allow list building, which is an enormous loss for sellers. But if you’ve built your own shop, email marketing should definitely be on your to-do list.
Pro tip: Email marketing is made easy thanks to built-in functionalities most e-commerce platforms offer. For example, as a Sellfy user, you can send sales campaigns and interact with your customers directly from the platform, without using (and paying for) third-party solutions.
Here are some email campaigns that are proven to yield visible results:
Welcome email – thank your new subscribers for joining the list.
Product launch email – announce new products and product updates.
Promotions – introduce discounts and other deals.
Tutorials and tips – show and tell how to use your product.
Upsell – offer customers to buy additional products from your shop that are related to their original buy.
SEO (search engine optimization)
Google search is a huge deal, simply because it’s a way how the majority of discoveries on the web happen.
When you don’t know something, you google it. When you’re looking for a solution to your problem, you google it. When you need to find something to buy, you…google it!
As much as 51% of all website traffic and 40% of average store revenue comes from organic search. That is why doing SEO for your store – optimizing your store and product pages so that Google can find them – is so crucial.
That being said, keep in mind that Google is not the only giant search engine people use to find things. In fact, here are the top most-used search engines in the world:
Google YouTube Amazon Facebook Bing Baidu (in China)
So, if you’re selling your product through YouTube, besides optimizing your store for Google, you may also want to optimize your YouTube account. Or if you’re selling your product on Amazon, Google would be irrelevant to you and you should instead optimize your listings for Amazon search.
What’s important – when it comes to SEO, there is no “one tactic fits all”. Each search engine has its own rules for better rankings. For example, YouTube can ”read” keywords mentioned in videos, so you actually have to say the keywords you want to rank for. In the meantime, Google loves long-form content and backlinks, while Amazon pays bigger attention to product features that are listed next to the product image than long-form product descriptions.
Pro tip: SEO is a long-term marketing strategy, so don’t expect immediate results as soon as you add keywords to your product pages. So, have a strategy, implement it and be patient.
How to optimize your sales?
So, you’ve launched your product and ensured a steady traffic flow. Sooner or later, orders start to roll in. Great! But sale can always be better.
Therefore, here are two more advanced strategies to increase your sales:
Use upselling and cross-selling to increase your average order value
First, let me quickly explain the difference between upselling and cross-selling:
Upselling means offering customers to buy a higher-end (better, bigger, etc.) product than what they had initially chosen.
Cross-selling means offering customers to add complementary products to their order.
If you’ve ever been to Starbucks, you’ve experienced both upselling and cross-selling: ”Would you like a grande latte for just an extra $0.20?” – That’s upselling. ”Would you like a muffin with your coffee?” – That’s cross-selling.
Here’s why you should use these strategies:
Upselling and cross-selling are easier than selling to new customers. That is, once a person has made their purchasing decision, it’s easier to sell them an upgrade or additional items than it was to convince him or her to buy from you in the first place. In fact, stats show that the probability of selling to new customers is 5-20%, while upselling and cross-selling works 60-70% of the time.
Some may cringe when hearing these words, but the fact is – usually, both the seller and customer are left satisfied. For example, when you’re upselling, the customer gets a noticeably better version of your product paying just a little extra, while you’re earning a little more. It’s a win-win!
The bottom line is:
Upselling and cross-selling techniques can significantly increase your average order values, which, consciously, will boost your revenue.
Pro tip: As a Sellfy user, make use of the built-in upselling feature and set up your campaigns in a matter of seconds.
Use analytics to discover what works and what doesn’t
Tracking results of your campaigns is a must, even if you don’t invest money in paid advertising. Your time is also money, so don’t waste it doing things that don’t bring any results.
Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half. – John Wanamaker
Almost all tools have analytic dashboards that will help you understand what works and what doesn’t. To name a few:
Instagram has ”Insights” – discover your most popular posts, see how many people each post has reached, etc.
Facebook Ads Manager has ”Campaign” overview – see how much clicks your ads get, how many purchases your campaigns generate, how much each campaign costs you, etc.
YouTube has ”Channel Analytics” – see your most-watched videos, average view duration, etc.
Your website MUST HAVE Google Analytics – see where your traffic comes from, which marketing activities generate the most sales (use Google Campaign URL Builder to generate unique links for each of your campaigns and see accurate stats), etc.
In other words, analyze the results of your activities, discover what works best, then do more of it.
Final words
Look:
It took about 8 hours to write this article. It’ll probably take you half of that time to actually launch your business and start selling products online.
If you’re ready to take that next step and start your business, we’re planning to launch an ebook for you – completely free of charge – that will help you:
come up with specific and profitable digital product ideas
make your first $1000 in no time
Sign up for our newsletter and be the first to receive it when it goes live!Article Body
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The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 64,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. ( The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 64,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults. ( www.aap.org
A new clinical report from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) identifies prenatal exposure to alcohol as the leading preventable cause of birth defects and intellectual and neurodevelopmental disabilities in children. The report, " Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders," in the November 2015 issue of Pediatrics (published online Oct. 19) stresses that no amount of alcohol should be considered safe to drink during any trimester of pregnancy.Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) is an all-encompassing term for the range of effects that can occur in someone whose mother drank alcohol during pregnancy. Neurocognitive and behavioral problems from prenatal alcohol exposure are lifelong, but early recognition, diagnosis and therapy for any FASD condition can improve a child's health.Unfortunately, a lack of uniformly accepted diagnostic criteria for fetal alcohol-related disorders has critically limited efforts that could lessen the impact of FASDs, says Janet F. Williams, MD, FAAP, one of the report's lead authors."Even though fetal alcohol spectrum disorders are the most commonly identifiable causes of developmental delays and intellectual disabilities, they remain significantly under-recognized," said Dr. Williams.Prenatal alcohol exposure is a frequent cause of structural or functional effects on the brain, heart, bones and spine, kidneys, vision and hearing. It's associated with a higher incidence of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and specific learning disabilities such as difficulties with mathematics and language, visual-spatial functioning, impaired impulse control, information processing, memory skills, problem solving, abstract reasoning and auditory comprehension.In surveys, about half of all childbearing age women in the United States report consuming alcohol within the past month, and nearly 8 percent of women said they continued to consume alcohol during pregnancy. A recent study found increased risk of infant growth retardation even when a pregnant woman's consumption was limited to 1 alcoholic drink per day (a 1.5-ounce shot of distilled spirits, 5 ounces of wine, or 12 ounces of beer).First-trimester drinking, compared to no drinking, results in 12 times the odds of giving birth to a child with FASDs. First- and second-trimester drinking increased FASDs odds 61 times, and women who drink during all trimesters increased the likelihood of FASD odds by a factor of 65."The research suggests that the smartest choice for women who are pregnant is to just abstain from alcohol completely," said Dr. Williams.The AAP offers several resources for on prenatal alcohol exposure, including an FASD Toolkit for physicians ( http://www.aap.org/fasd ) and a set of frequently asked questions for parents on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorders ),Auburn is seeking feedback to its plans for a major renovation of the North end zone of Jordan-Hare Stadium, which would include an expanded concourse and walkways, club seating, additional concessions, new locker rooms, video board, recruiting lounge and other amenities.
Tigers Unlimited, the fundraising arm of Auburn's athletics department, issued an email survey to "approximately 5,000" accounts and has setup an email account and website for fans to give feedback to the plans.
If approved, the renovation would start following the 2016 season and be open for the start of the 2018 football season, a source with knowledge of the plans told AL.com.
"Before we move forward and ask for approval on such a major project, it's vitally important for us to reach out to the Auburn Family," Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs said in a statement on the department's website. "This survey is critical because it will help us determine the level of interest and support for a potential renovation to Jordan-Hare Stadium. The level of interest and support in a major stadium renovation must be substantial for it to be feasible."
The renderings released by Auburn, which are reworked plans after Jacobs was not pleased with initial design concepts for the potential project, show a mostly brick exterior to a multi-leveled concourse wrapping around the North end zone and connecting the East and West sides of the stadium.
The interior views show a multi-leveled seating plan including suites and club seating similar to those of Mississippi State's expansion of Davis Wade Stadium, which opened in the fall of 2014 with multiple levels, loge and field-level seating.
A new video board above the expansion appears comparable in size to the new $13.9 million video board Auburn built in the South end zone this past year.
"We know it's important to continue to improve the gameday experience, and that's why it's been a focus of mine for years now." Jacobs said in a release. "We know our fans and donors want more amenities such as more premium seating options but also other amenities that all of our fans will benefit from."
The total cost of the project, which had initial estimates were $145 million, is unclear, as is how it would be funded. Auburn spent $100,000 in the planning and design phases of the renovation project, according to documents obtained by AL.com.
Auburn's Board of Trustees, which would have to approve any renovation plans, discussed a $4.5 million construction project to repair the storm drain and sewer line in the North end zone last month, according to documents obtained by AL.com. That project, which is being funded by bonds, would begin in January and continue through August of next year, according to documents.
In May, Jacobs told AL.com the North end zone renovation would be funded through debt service and he believed Auburn's ticket sales and new premium seating would support funding.
"We're basing it totally on ticket revenue," Jacobs said in May. "We're not even taking into consideration any philanthropic giving."
It's unclear if ticket revenue alone would still cover the cost of the renovation project, which is not expected to alter the capacity of Jordan-Hare Stadium much from its current 87,451. The biggest difference would be in the expansion of premium seating in the North end zone and possible relocation of the press box to the Northwest corner, which would then create suites on the West side of the stadium.
Via the school's website, Jacobs stressed the project is still in the preliminary stages and the athletics department will only seek approval by the Board of Trustees if there is significant interest in the plans.
"Nothing has been approved and nothing is final," Jacobs said in a release. "We are sharing the renderings with donors so they can see the vision of what the North end zone could be."
Fans are encouraged to provide feedback via email ([email protected]) or by visiting the Tigers Unlimited website found here.
"We want their input and feedback, and I encourage them to offer it," Jacobs said in a release. "Fan and donor feedback has driven a lot of what we've done with the gameday experience that has proven to be popular and helped make Auburn's gameday experience the best in the nation."Qantas says sorry for blackface stunt
Updated
Qantas has apologised for encouraging two men to dress in blackface at Saturday night's Bledisloe Cup game in Brisbane.
A Qantas competition for tickets to the clash between Australia and New Zealand asked fans how they would show their support for the Wallabies.
Charles Butler won the competition by promising to dress as Fijian-born Wallaby Radike Samo.
Mr Butler and a friend were awarded tickets to the match and turned up wearing afro wigs and black facepaint.
A photo of the men was posted on the Qantas Twitter site, along with the comment "Good work".
The photo sparked outrage among some Twitter users, some of whom accused the airline of encouraging racism.
Qantas took the photo down and apologised for causing offence.
But Samo says the men were paying him tribute and has called the reaction silly.
The New South Wales Aboriginal Land Council says it is unbelievable that a company which has used Aboriginal icons to enhance its image did not realise the racial connotaions of the blackface costume.
Topics: rugby-union, community-and-society, brisbane-4000, australia, qld
First postedOne of the most popular keyboard apps on Android is SwiftKey. However, users with Nexus devices who upgrade to Android 4.2 might find that their installation of SwiftKey gets completely deleted upon upgrading. For some users, the keyboard only gets soft disabled, which is annoying, but not nearly as much as problem as the users who are finding the keyboard to be completely deleted.
In some cases, when the keyboard gets deleted, it can take all of its user data with it. This obviously makes the re-install process a lot more annoying. Thankfully, we’ve found out that SwiftKey is aware of the issue, and they are working on a fix.
SwiftKey posted on its blog and addressed the issue: “This is a rare but unfortunate report that we’ve recently been made aware of. We have contacted the Android development team to understand what caused this in their code. We are doing what we can on our end to resolve this issue for those affected.” For whatever reason, the keyboard and Android 4.2 are not playing nice, and this post makes it sound like it’s an issue cause by Google’s code and not SwiftKey.
SwiftKey recommends re-downloading the keyboard from the same source you purchased it from originally. This means you will only be downloading the app and not purchasing it again. Hopefully, this issue is fixed soon, but for the time being, it looks like simply downloading the keyboard again fixes the problem, so it’s not the end of the world.
[via Android Central]The yearly games awards show The Golden Joystick Awards is just around the corner. Held on November 17, in London's Bloomsbury Big Top, it celebrates the best games from the past year in an array of categories, voted for by the public. That means you can have your say on what games should win from the nominations, and in return, you'll get a free ebook. Here's the nominations.
Best Storytelling
Horizon: Zero Dawn
NieR: Automata
Night in the Woods
Persona 5
Prey
Pyre
Tacoma
Torment: Tides of Numenera
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
What Remains of Edith Finch
Best Visual Design
Cuphead
Dishonored 2
Final Fantasy XV
GNOG
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Little Nightmares
Monument Valley 2
Night in the Woods
Persona 5
Pyre
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Best Audio
Destiny 2
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Life is Strange: Before the Storm
Little Nightmares
Persona 5
Project Cars 2
Pyre
RiME
Sniper Elite 4
Tacoma
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Best Gaming Performance
Ashly Burch (Aloy, Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Brain Bloom (B. J. Blazkowicz, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus)
Claudia Black (Chloe Frazer, Uncharted)
Fryda Wolff (Ryder, Mass Effect Andromeda)
Jack Brand (Jack Baker, Resident Evil 7)
Kylie Brown (Rachel Amber, Life is Strange: Before the Storm)
Melina Juergens (Senua, Hellblade: Senua's Sarifice)
Nathan Fillion (Cayde-6, Destiny 2)
Best Indie Game
Dream Daddy
Everything
Friday the 13: The Game
Night in the Woods
Pyre
Slime Rancher
Stories Untold
Tacoma
Thimbleweed Park
What Remains of Edith Finch
Best Multiplayer Game
Absolver
Battlefield 1
Destiny 2
FIFA 18
Friday the 13th: The Game
Injustice 2
LawBreakers
Nidhogg 2
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
Pro Evolution Soccer 2018
Splatoon 2
Studio of the Year
Arkane Studios
Boss Key Productions
Creative Assembly
Guerrilla Games
Machine Games
NetherRealm
Ninja Theory
Nintendo EPD
PUBG Corporation
Platinum
Rebellion
Best VR Game
Dead Effect 2 VR
Farpoint
GNOG
Resident Evil 7
Rez Infinite
Robo Recall
Superhot VR
Star Trek: Bridge Crew
Statik
Thumper
Wilson's Heart
eSports Play of the Year
Agilities' five-man Dragonblade at Overwatch Contenders
Autimatic and Skadoodle win 2 vs. 4 with pistols
PraY's Ashe skillshot at Worlds 2016
Team Liquid win the first ever 3-0 grand final victory at The International
Tokido's incredible parry at Evo 2017
eSports Team of the Year
Astralis
Lunatic-Hai
Optic Gaming
SK Telecom T1
Team EnVyUS
Team liquid
Team SoloMid
eSports Game of the Year
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Dota 2
FIFA 17
League of Legends
Overwatch
Rainbow Six: Siege
Rocket League
Smite
StarCraft II
Best Streamer/Broadcaster
Hannah Rutherford
Jacksepticeye
Jupiter Hadley
Markiplier
Maximilian Dood
Polygon
Waypoint
What's Good Games
Handheld/Mobile Game of the year
Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
Ever Oasis
Fire Emblem Heroes
Framed 2
Hidden Folks
Milkmaid of the Milky Way
Monument Valley 2
Old Man's Journey
Pokémon Sun and Moon
Super Mario Run
Nintendo Game of the Year
ARMS
Bulb Boy
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
Metroid: Samus Returns
Pokémon Sun and Moon
Snipperclips
Splatoon 2
Super Mario Odyssey
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
PlayStation Game of the Year
Everybody's Gold
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Nex Machina
NieR: Automata
Nioh
Persona 5
Statik
The Last Guardian
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy
Yakuza 0
Xbox Game of the Year
Cuphead
Dead Rising 4
Forza Motorsport 7
Gears of War 4
Gigantic
Halo Wars 2
Pit People
Slime Rancher
Tacoma
PC Game of the Year
Dream Daddy
Endless Space 2
OneShot
Planet Coaster
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
Rising Storm 2: Vietnam
Stories Untold
Total War: Warhammer II
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III
West of Loathing
Breakthrough Award
Ashly Burch
Brendan Green
Cavalier Game Studios
Game Grumps
Giant Sparrow
Infinite Fall
Melina Jeurgens
Nick Popovich
Nina Freeman
SMAC Games
Most Wanted Game
Beyond Good and Evil 2
Call of Duty: WWII
Death Stranding
Far Cry 5
God of War
Metro Exodus
Metroid Prime 4
Ooblets
Red Dead Redemption 2
Sea of Thieves
Spider-Man
Star Wars Battlefront II
The Last of Us Part II
Still Playing
Diablo III
EVE Online
FIFA 17
Final Fantasy XIV
Hearthstone
Minecraft
Overwatch
Pokémon Go
Pro Evolution Soccer 2017
Rocket League
The Elder Scrolls Online
World of Tanks
Ultimate Game of the Year
Assassin's Creed Origins
Destiny 2
Dishonored 2
Horizon: Zero Dawn
Monument Valley 2
Persona 5
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
Resident Evil 7
Super Mario Odyssey
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
For voting, you'll get to choose between getting Edge Magazine's 'The 100 Greatest Videogames', 'The PlayStation Book, 2nd Edition', PC Gamer's 'The Best PC Games Ever', 'Nintendo Switch', 'The Ultimate Guide to Minecraft vol. 20', or 'The Retro Gamer Book of Arcade Classics, 2nd Edition' for free as an ebook, with an email confirming that afterwards.Overview (4)
Mini Bio (1)
If "born to the theater" has meaning in determining a person's life path, then John Lithgow is a prime example of this truth. He was born in Rochester, New York, to Sarah Jane (Price), an actress, and Arthur Washington Lithgow III, who was both a theatrical producer and director. John's father was born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, where the Anglo-American Lithgow family had lived for several generations.
John moved frequently as a child, while his father founded and managed local and college theaters and Shakespeare festivals throughout the Midwest of the United States. Not until he was 16, and his father became head of the McCarter Theater in Princeton New Jersey, did the family settle down. But for John, the theater was still not a career. He won a scholarship to Harvard University, where he finally caught the acting bug (as well as found a wife). Harvard was followed by a Fulbright scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Returning from London, his rigorous dramatic training stood him in good stead, and a distinguished career on Broadway gave him one Tony Award for "The Changing Room", a second nomination in 1985 for "Requiem For a Heavyweight", and a third in 1988 for "M. Butterfly". But with critical acclaim came personal confusion, and in the mid 1970s, he and his wife divorced. He entered therapy, and in 1982, his life started in a new direction, the movies - he received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp (1982). A second Oscar nomination followed for Terms of Endearment (1983), and he met a UCLA economics professor who became his second wife. As the decade of the 1990s came around, he found that he was spending too much time on location, and another career move brought him to television in the hugely successful series 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996).
This production also played a role in bringing him back together with the son from his first marriage, Ian Lithgow, who has a regular role in the series as a dimwitted student.
- IMDb Mini Biography By: Bruce Cameron <[email protected]>
Spouse (2)
Mary Yeager (12 December 1981 - present) ( 2 children) Jean Taynton (10 September 1966 - 1980) ( divorced) ( 1 child)
Trade Mark (6)
Distinctive dramatic voice
Towering height and slender frame
In his earlier roles, often played villains or mentally unstable characters
In his more recent work, often plays fathers and family men
Wild, over-the-top acting
Receding hairline and bold blue eyes
Trivia (40)
He attended and graduated from Princeton High School in Princeton, New Jersey.
He attended Harvard College and graduated with a Bachelor's degree magna cum laude in history and literature (1967). He lived in Adams House as an undergraduate. Lithgow later served on Harvard's Board of Overseers.
He studied at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
He was named a Fulbright scholar.
He is the parent of Ian Lithgow with Jean Taynton, and Phoebe Lithgow and Nathan Lithgow with Mary Yeager.
He hosted the Welcoming Reception for UCLA's new Chancellor Carnesale.
He claims that his most difficult performance was in Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) because he had to portray fear of the monster, although he could not really see it.
He was the original voice of Hades in Disney's Hercules (1997) and recorded all the dialogue, but his performance was then replaced by the performance of James Woods
In May 2002, he won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award as Best Actor in a Broadway musical for his performance in "Sweet Smell of Success".
His wife Mary Yeager is an economics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
His father ran a Shakespearian Acting company in the 1950s which included David Carradine
His parents are Sarah Jane Price (born 1917) and theater director/producer Arthur Lithgow (1915-2004).
Biography in: "Contemporary Authors". Volume 217, pg. 219-223. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2004.
He has provided the voice of Yoda in the NPR radio dramatizations of "The Empire Strikes Back" (1983) and "Return of the Jedi" (1996).
He has won two Tony Awards: in 1973, as Best Supporting or Featured Actor (Dramatic) for David Storey's "The Changing Room"; and in 2002, as Best Actor (Musical) for "Sweet Smell of Success." He has also been nominated on three occasions for Tonys -- two for Best Actor (Play): for "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (1985) and "M. Butterfly." (1988), and once for Best Actor (Musical): for "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (2005).
He was called in to replace another actor in Terms of Endearment (1983), and his role was filmed in three days during a break from filming Footloose (1984).
Three of his non-film roles have been based on movies involving Frank Oz and Ian McDiarmid. Most of Oz |
. We also know that Joey wanted to "cheat death itself" and this gives him a good reason to turn himself into his own cartoon character Bendy, because fictional characters never really die.
But was Joey really that stupid to throw himself immediately into the ink machine before testing it?
No, Drew needed to know that the ink machine would turn him into Bendy without mistakes so he began to test it.
Of course he wouldn't begin with a human as a test subject so he tried to make a living thing out of the ink machine without a human subject. First he tried to create The Butcher Gang. These characters came out full of mistakes so in the end these guys are cloned many times as the result of many failed experiments.
In this period the workers began to notice that Joey started to act crazier and crazier and they became angry at Joey for not telling them what he was doing.
Sammy, known as a cranky stressed musician by the other workers, needs to know what Joey is working on and he finds out about that Joey is trying to bring fiction to life. Sammy who is so stressed from his work sees Joey's plan as his way to finally be free and from this moment Sammy starts to help Joey.
Joey told Sammy that he would turn himself into Bendy and because this project had to stay a secret between Joey and Sammy, Sammy couldn't praise Joey as his savior so he started be praise Joey in the name of Bendy and that's when Sammy started to get obsessed.
Around this period they also needed a voice for the new character Alice Angle with the idea that when the ink machine was save enough, this woman would turn into a humanoid Alice Angle. This woman would be chosen by Joey, would know about the ink machine and this woman was Susie Campbell. While Joey kept working on the ink machine, Sammy would keep an eye on the other workers and Susie in special. This was also the moment that Susie started to feel Alice as a part of herself.
Meanwhile Joey kept working, and knowing how the copies of The Butcher Gang turned out, things didn't go well.
But then suddenly, one experiment went right. Without any mistakes...
Boris the Wolf.
Boris was the first fictional character who was created as a perfect real life model.
This was the moment Joey started to have faith again and he started to use some of his workers as test subjects now, but sadly this went terribly wrong many times and these workers became the searchers from BATIM.
Sammy, knowing about the workers becoming searchers, is unsure about Susie's situation when he sees all the human ink puddles.
Remember how Susie calls Sammy 'handsome'? It's possible that Sammy started to have feelings for Susie. So to save Susie from a horrible plan he replaces her with Alison as the voice of Alice Angle.
Alison was also told about becoming a humanoid Alice, but Sammy didn't told Susie his reason for firing her.
Susie needed "a way to fix this" as she said so herself and without thinking she throws herself into the ink machine, becoming an inky slug. When Sammy sees this he is desperate to help her. Sammy takes Alison with him and he combines Susie with Alison.
"The first time I was a useless wiggling slug. The second time. Well...it made me an angle."
This makes sense knowing the second time she combined with Alison and this made Susie a bit more humanoid.
But something went wrong. Joey enters the room and sees a half humanoid, half inky, Alice Angle. This is when he realize that Sammy can't be trusted and out of anger, Joey pushes Sammy into the ink machine giving him the inky body he wants to get rid of in chapter 2.
Joey lost his mind that moment...
And he saw how the outcome of Sammy, Susie and Alison was better than that of the searchers. He also tried with Polk and that also went well enough for Joey...
So well, that Joey couldn't wait anymore and turned himself into Bendy...
But what happened to the others after Joeys transformation?
I think that the following happened:
-Susie/Alison AKA Alice Angle started to clone more Boris the Wolves to make her beautiful again
-After 30 years Sammy is honoring Bendy in obsessed ways. Good chance that this is his way of surviving, because Bendy is now the only one who can free them all from their suffer. If Sammy is also the one who wrote the inky text on the walls it might be good hints to how Sammy feels.
"He will set us free" that one is obvious
"Dreams do come true" Sammy's suffer used to be his dream and it came true
"The creator lied to us" Joey's plan which ended up completely wrong.
- The Butcher Gang works for Bendy, these guys were made with the personality of the bad guys and with Bendy as their creator they teamed up with him and fight against Alice Angle and Sammy.
- All the Boris the Wolf clones also having the same personality as the cartoon character itself so Boris is mostly in his save house trying to keep away from danger.
Players were wondering why Boris doesn't talk in the game, that's because he simply can't. The Boris clones were only given the necessary organs to stay alive, like a heart.
And then we are left with Henry, because why would Joey ask Henry for a visit to the old workshop after 30 years?
Remember the 'new character' Henry tells about in his audiotape?
And wouldn't it be exciting how this unknown character would be like in real life?
I believe Joey's plan is to turn Henry into his own created character.
#CuratorReviewTEMPE, Ariz. -- The Arizona Cardinals have lost starting outside linebacker O'Brien Schofield for the season with an injured left ankle.
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Schofield was injured in Sunday's 31-17 loss at Green Bay. Initially, it was thought it probably was only a sprain but further examination uncovered ligament damage that requires surgery.
Quintin Groves replaced Schofield in the game and is expected to do so when the team resumes play Nov. 21 at Atlanta. The Cardinals have a bye this week.
Schofield, a fourth-round draft pick out of Wisconsin in 2010, has 34 tackles and four sacks this season.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated PressCanadian actor Jay Baruchel is a lifelong Montreal Canadiens hockey fan, but the Habs are not his only team obsession: Celtic Football Club also owns a major chunk of his heart.
"Some sports teams are just teams...Other teams transcend sport," Baruchel told CBC News.
"It's their history outside of their wins and losses; it's the cultural, religious, linguistic, class ramifications to all of it. The Habs are more than just a hockey team and the Celtic are more than just a football club."
Toronto-based Montrealer Baruchel — known for such movies as How to Train Your Dragon and This Is the End — shares his passion for sports and explores his Irish roots in the new documentary Celtic Soul.
Baruchel is seen interviewed during a visit to the Celtic F.C.'s stadium. The team boasts more than 9 million fans worldwide. (Markham Street Films)
Celtic F.C., part of the Scottish Premier League, has an extremely loyal fan base worldwide, with an estimated nine million fans around the globe, including 19 supporter clubs in Canada. The team was founded in 1887 by St. Mary's church in Glasgow "to accommodate all the Irish Catholic immigrants who came over as a result of the potato famine," Baruchel explained.
"It was a means of keeping poor kids out of trouble and giving them something to look forward to. So you gave a loaf of bread and a soccer ball."
Joined by Irish sports journalist Eoin O'Callaghan, Baruchel created Celtic Soul from a trip to Ireland and Scotland, where the pair connected with players and fans.
"People can live out their dreams and aspirations — maybe unfulfilled ones — through a team," O'Callaghan said, explaining the fandom for a team like Celtic F.C.
"There's an element of childhood encapsulated in sports support, whatever your team is... and you can live vicariously through supporting a particular organization."
The Canadian actor and Irish soccer journalist, the duo behind the new doc Celtic Soul, demonstrate their unwavering support of the Celtic Football Club by singing one of the team's chant songs. 1:20
A budding bromance
The duo's exchanges have obvious parallels to the witty banter between Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in the food-focused films The Trip and The Trip to Italy, but in this case Baruchel and O'Callaghan are fixated on sport.
With the two bonding over their mutual love of Celtic F.C., the doc becomes a sort of buddy movie; their bromance blossoming as Baruchel shows O'Callaghan the Bell Centre — where his beloved Habs play hockey — before they journey to Scotland to witness a Celtic practice, hang out with players and attend a game at the enormous soccer stadium fans have nicknamed Paradise.
Baruchel, left, and Eoin O'Callaghan gaze in wonder at Celtic Park in Glasgow. Nicknamed "Paradise" by Celtic F.C. fans, it's the largest soccer stadium in Scotland and has a capacity of more than 60,000. (Markham Street Films)
For Baruchel — who co-wrote the popular hockey movie Goon and makes his directorial debut with what promises to be a profanity-laced sequel, Goon: Last of the Enforcers, in March — the desire to cheer for a particular team is deeply rooted in being human.
"When you watch two groups of people in two different outfits march out, one wearing the same outfit as you, tell me: what isn't tribal and primal and ancient about that?" he asked.
"There's just something awe-inspiring about watching an incredible feat of athleticism and you throw that into the cultural context of them being the representatives of your village and that's a recipe for a lifelong addiction."
Celtic Soul opens in Toronto on Friday at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema in partnership with the Toronto Irish Film Festival. It plays the Whistler Film Festival on Dec. 2.If there's anything creepier than a drone flying up to your home and peering through your window, it's the thought of your technology—your cellphone, laptop camera, car radio, or even an implanted medical device—being turned on you for an even more intimate view of your private life. But the reaction last week to a drunken government intelligence agent borrowing his buddy's drone and crashing it into the White House lawn is a reminder that shortsighted solutions to the first problem could exacerbate the second.
As the White House reacted to the drone crash with a call for more regulation, the manufacturer of the downed quadcopter announced it would push a firmware update to all its units in the field, permanently preventing those drones from taking off or flying within 25km of downtown Washington DC.
This announcement may have been an effort by the manufacturer DJI, whose Phantom model is one of the most popular consumer drone units, to avoid bad press and more regulation. But it also reinforced the notion that people who "own" these drones don't really own anything at all. The manufacturer can add or remove features without their agreement, or even their knowledge.
In this case, there are reasons to restrict the airspace above Washington, DC, so DJI’s unilateral action may find support in community norms. But its action also underscores how your ownership of the stuff you buy is overridden by the manufacturer's ability to update or change it—a phenomenon that is proliferating to anything with a networked computer. In 2015, that's a huge portion of the things in your life.
In the world of gadgets, this has become a well-known problem. Nearly five years ago, for example, Sony made headlines by pressuring Playstation users to install an update that removed their ability to run unapproved software. People had been able to install GNU/Linux, and had even combined Playstations to assemble powerful supercomputers. Sony removed that feature from consoles in people's homes.
A more alarming example may be your car. New cars come with numerous on-board computers that can be reprogrammed—but not usually by you, the owner. Tesla made waves last week by "texting" new code to its cars, updating an algorithm to improve acceleration. But the gee-whiz quality of that upgrade should be tempered by some more uncomfortable realities.
One is a report in the New York Times last September, which documented the practice among lenders to install GPS trackers and "starter interrupt" devices to remotely locate and disable cars when, say, somebody falls behind on payments or drives outside of a certain area. The Times tells the story of a woman who couldn't bring her daughter to the hospital because she was three days late with a payment, and another of a woman whose car was found and towed a day after she left the agreed-upon radius in order to flee an abusive boyfriend.
These examples are from companies changing the products they control because it's in their self-interest to do so. But of course, the threat is not just from the manufacturer, but from anybody who can compel, coerce, or compromise its ability to issue those remote updates. These possibilities are not hypothetical. BMW announced just last week it would be fixing a vulnerability in its cars that would allow an attacker to hijack a remote unlock mechanism. And over a decade ago, the FBI attempted to take over OnStar voice-operated dashboard computers to snoop on drivers—a plan only foiled because it would have interfered with emergency operations of the devices. The government's ability to use official update channels for their own ends too goes back years, as revealed by examinations of the Stuxnet malware.
Fundamentally, the problem here is a system where users don't have control over the technology they own and rely upon. That's not just about a certain technological architecture; it's about the legal system that props it up. In this case, one major problem is the anti-circumvention provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which exists to support DRM software.
Without those DRM laws, users could replace the firmware on their devices with new software that was trusted and auditable. But instead, the law casts a shadow of doubt on users that would modify that software, researchers that would examine it for security vulnerabilities, and companies that would create competitive alternatives. It's a law that's overflowed its banks, affecting technology that touches almost every aspect of our lives.
For evidence of that legal excess, look no further than the list of exemptions proposed in the DMCA's currently ongoing triennial rulemaking process. From security researchers worried that the DMCA keeps them from uncovering life-threatening vulnerabilities, to the Software Freedom Conservancy's request to access the operating system of so-called Smart TVs, to many, many others, it's clear this law is no longer about "content," but about control. Control that's being denied to users.
(Yes, we're requesting exemptions for people to be able to repair and conduct security research on cars. Sign our petition to support those requests.)
The fate of small drone flights over DC may seem like a little thing—a spat worked out among private players. But these small battles shape the notion of what it means to own something and illustrate the growing control of manufacturers over user conduct.Showtime’s new political thriller Homeland starts us in Baghdad following Special Agent Carrie Anderson (Claire Danes) as she is on her way to meet with a prisoner. The prisoner has vital information for a case but he is scheduled to be executed. She bribes a guard to let her speak with the prisoner to get the information. After being stubborn initially the prisoner inaudibly tells Carrie the information as prison guards take her away.
10 Months Later
Carrie is late for a briefing in which she finds out that a presumed dead Marine POW, Sgt. Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), has been found at an Iraqi stronghold. He had been missing for eight years. Anderson immediately feels that something isn’t right about the situation. Sgt. Brody is scheduled to return home the following day. His wife Jessica ( Ashley Greene Morena Baccarin) is involved in a rather intimate relationship Mike Faber (Diego Klattenhoff), another marine. Sgt. Brody calls Jess’ cell phone after the new couple are…uh…finished? and surprises her with the news that he is still alive. She leaves Mike immediately.
Carrie’s prisoner contact told her that a captured American soldier had been “turned”. Since Brody is the only POW returning alive she thinks he is the one that her contact was referring to ten months ago. Carrie has Brody’s house illegally bugged with microphones and cameras as the family is away to reunite with him. Sgt. Brody returns home with much fanfare and publicity. Meeting the Vice President and holding a press conference as soon as he lands. His family waits anxiously to reunite with him. After the conference Brody and his family head home. Carrie talks to her old boss/mentor, and CIA Middle-East Division Chief, Saul Berenson (Mandy Patikin) and convinces him to get her in Sgt. Brody’s debriefing the following day. Jess tries to welcome her husband back in a romantic setting: wine, sexy “negligee”, dimmed lights…ya know. As she waits for Nicholas the phone rings but no one speaks then they hang up. As things begin to heat up with the couple she is shocked by the bruises and scars that are on his body, but they continue.
At the debriefing Brody seemingly answers all the questions posed to him rather easily until Carrie puts the pressure on him. She asks Brody why he was kept alive for eight years and had he ever met or spoken with Abu Nazir, a high-ranking member of Al-Qaeda. Brody outwardly denies such a meeting ever happened but his flashbacks tell a completely different story. After pressing Brody to hard, according to her boss David Estes (David Harewood), the interrogation/debriefing is over. Jessica calls her husband after the debriefing to ask how long he is going to be out and he lies and tells her he is still at the debriefing when in reality he is going to meet up with a fellow Marine’s widow. Carrie and her team follow Brody to the rendezvous point. Carrie is confronted by her partner Virgil about her taking Clozapine, a drug used to treat schizophrenia. She says that she has been battling it for years and that even though she has the disease she isn’t making up any of the information about Brody. During the meeting the Marine’s widow mainly just wants to know how her husband died while they were being held captive and Brody tells her he was beaten to death. She asks was Brody there when it happened, he tells her no and his flashbacks again show us the opposite.
When Carrie gets home Saul is there and confronts her about the illegal bugs she has set up around Sgt. Brody’s house. He says that she is taking her hunch too far and that she is going to get arrested. After a failed attempt to change Saul’s outlook through (one can assume) sexual favors, Saul leaves. A clearly flustered Carrie decides to go out to and find a companion for the night. She finds a suitors at bar, but as they are about to leave she finds something intriguing about a nervous “twitch” Brody has whenever he is on camera. She goes to Saul’s house and shows him the pattern he makes with his hands and determines that he is making contact with someone via coded hand signals. Saul tells Carrie that they should dig deeper.
We then go to Brody as he is jogging. He is having flashback from his captivity and we can see that he is conversing with Abu Nazir and that he sees himself beating his fellow Marine to death with his own hands.
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SAN DIEGO – When I was growing up in California, San Diego was our version of old-style Florida. It was nice. It was sunny. It was boring. It was a place for retirees, naval officers and folks who couldn’t handle the edginess of Los Angeles.
Boy, have things changed. You’ll still find a naval presence. And lots of sun in a city that receives 263 days of sunshine a year and gets less than 12 inches of rain. But you’ll also find edgy shopping areas, fabulous restaurants that take advantage of the year-round local produce and perhaps the best craft brewery scene in the U.S. outside of Portland, where the beer is great but the weather much less conducive to year-round patio tastings.
The San Diego Brewers Guild lists nearly 100 breweries in the area, with entertaining names such as Rip Current, Rock Bottom and Indian Joe. They also have an annual San Diego Beer Week, with this year’s event slated for Nov. 6-15, which is actually a rather generous 10 days.
The last thing you want to do is drink and drive, so the Brewers Guild website conveniently has links to the city’s growing public transportation network. There’s also a San Diego Beer (and wine) Train that gives you tastings at four breweries, a tour and light lunch as you ride from spot to spot on a trolley on a five and-a-half hour trip.
One of my favourite brews made in this booming beer town is the Grunion Pale Ale made by Ballast Point. It’s a hoppy, slightly orangey-tasting beer with a lovely, golden colour and a bit of sweetness to it; fantastic with a spicy or flavourful burger.
Ballast Point started way back in 1992 as a home brewery, before craft beer and San Diego became synonymous. I take a tour and learn how they encourage employees to try different types of hops or different ingredients. One IPA had added grapefruit, another had habanero peppers added (it allegedly makes for a good hangover drink, but I’m skeptical).
Their Little Italy brewery/restaurant is a sea of young people at night. You order your food at the counter and sit in a cavernous space with tons of the city’s youngest and best-looking folks in everything from little black dresses to British Columbia-looking lumberjack shirts. They make a great chicken sandwich with jalapeno remoulade and very good fish tacos.
Most of their beers stay in the San Diego area, so you’re best off to take a bottle or two home if you like something. (Better still, sell your house in Canada and move here; there are too many good breweries and not enough room in your suitcase.)
Over in the booming North Park area, we stop at the trendy Waypoint Public; a buzzy spot that lists beers on a panel that resembles the old airline or train terminal displays. One of their beers on offer during a recent visit was the Belching Beaver Great Lei IPA, which is rich and flavourful. Their Belching Beaver Hop Highway 78 IPA contains four or five types of hops for balance and has a zingy, citrus/grapefruit edge that works well with food.
Waypoint Public makes a great burger with pulled pork, a fried egg (you can skip the egg if you like), arugula and pickled veggies. They also serve up a lovely pasta with cherry tomatoes, sausage and shrimp. Bonus: there’s an enclosed kids play area in one corner with crayons and toys and a movie screen. They were showing Toy Story (without sound) when I visited, so the kids were entertained but the conversation went uninterrupted.
Not only does the Belching Beaver make outstanding beer, they also just hosted their second annual Belching Beaver Classic at their brewery in the north end of town. Featuring local food, classic cars and motorcycles, the likes of which you tend to find only in mild climate, auto-centric spots such as California. Money raised at the festival helps to support the families of struggling U.S. Marines; a very worthy cause.
You don’t want to leave San Diego without checking out the gorgeous cliffs and beautiful beaches of La Jolla, just north of downtown. Whisknladle is a cool bar with high ceilings and plenty of good-looking locals. There are fantastic happy hours all over town. At Whisknladle I found great $5 tapas from 3 p.m. onward including snap peas that were fresh and crisp and came topped with garlic, chili and grain Dijon mustard. I also loved the meatballs. And, yes, they serve plenty of great local brews.
The bustling Gaslamp Quarter downtown is filled with tons of great bars. I found a pretty good band and plenty of nice beer on tap at Tin Roof during a recent visit. Also highly recommended is the rooftop bar at the luxurious Andaz Hotel downtown.Daesh appears to intend to use citizens of Fallujah as human shields in future clashes with Iraqi militias. (AFP/File)
The Daesh militant group has been preventing civilians from leaving the flashpoint city of Fallujah in the western Anbar province for more than three months, Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Daesh has been using civilians as human shields in Fallujah for more than three months, preventing them from leaving the city and confiscating the property of anyone who disobeys,” commission member Fadel al-Gharawi said in the statement. “Daesh has planted improvised explosive devices in all [of the city’s] mosques and residential buildings and along the roads that lead to Fallujah.”
Eid Amash, a spokesman for Anbar’s provincial council, said Daesh militants had recently opened fire on local families who had attempted to flee the city at night.
Late Monday, the Shia Al-Hashd al-Shaabi militia – which is allied with the Iraqi army – said it had secured a road from Fallujah allowing some 1,000 families to leave the city for areas controlled by the Iraqi army.
An Iraqi military source said Monday that government forces had seized three vital areas from Daesh near the city of Ramadi, provincial capital of the Anbar province.
On the same day, Iraq’s Defense Ministry announced the launch of military operations aimed at flushing Daesh militants from Anbar.
The move comes two months after the army – along with the Shia militia – sent reinforcements to the flashpoint province.New Delhi: A new policy for cadre allocation has been finalised by the Central government for Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and other officers, aimed at ensuring “national integration" in the country’s top bureaucracy.
Officers of all-India services—the IAS, IPS and Indian Forest Service (IFS)—will have to choose cadres from a set of zones instead of states.
The officers of the three services are at present allocated a cadre state or a set of states to work in. They may be posted on central deputation during the course of their service after fulfilling certain eligibility conditions.
The existing 26 cadres have been divided into five zones in the new policy proposed by the ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions. Zone-I has seven cadres—AGMUT (also known as Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territories), Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana.
Zone-II consists of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, while Zone-III comprises Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam-Meghalaya, Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland will constitute Zone-IV, while Zone-V will have Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
The new policy will seek to ensure that officers from Bihar, for instance, will get to work in southern and north- eastern states, which may not be their preferred cadres, a personnel ministry official said.
“This policy will ensure national integration of the bureaucracy as officers will get a chance to work in a state which is not their place of domicile," the official said. He said the new policy would help in upholding the rationale behind the all-India services.
“All-India service officers are supposed to have varied experiences which can be earned when they work in a different state, which is new to them. The officers may not be able to experiment new things if they work in their own domicile state," the official said.
Under the new policy, candidates appearing for the civil services examination—conducted annually by the Union Public Service Commission—will have to first give their choices in a descending order of preference from among the various zones. “Thereafter the candidates will indicate cadres in order of preference from each zone," it said.
A candidate can list all 26 cadres, following this process. The preference for the zones will remain in the same order and no change will be permitted there, the policy said.
“If a candidate does not give any preference for any of the zones/cadres, it will be presumed that he has no specific preference for those zones/cadres," it said. If candidates are not allocated any one of the cadres for which they have indicated a preference, they shall be allotted along with other candidates any of the remaining cadres, arranged in an alphabetical order, where there are vacancies, the policy said.
Candidates will be allotted their home cadre on the basis of merit, preference and vacancy in the category, it said. The official said the policy is likely to be put into effect from this year. PTISpring is traditionally a time when professional hockey teams appeal to season-ticket holders to renew for next season - not save the owner's life.
But that is exactly what happened Thursday when the Ottawa Senators called a most unusual news conference to ask for potential donors to step forward and offer a portion of their healthy livers to Eugene Melnyk, now lying in Toronto General Hospital urgently in need of a transplant.
"Time is of the essence," Senators president Cyril Leeder said.
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The club's owner, who will turn 56 later this month, has been in hospital for three weeks. His last appearance in Ottawa was for the hockey team's end-of-season official photograph. Melnyk looked drawn and pale and, noticeably out of character, failed to comment on the playoff chances of the Senators.
The Senators had gone on a late-season surge, led by thenunheralded goaltender Andrew (Hamburglar) Hammond, that had surprisingly lifted them into the final playoff spot. They lasted six games in the opening round before bowing out to the powerful Montreal Canadiens, who had finished first overall in the Eastern Conference.
The hockey team's feel-good story was in stark, and welcome, contrast to what had been a very tough year health-wise for the franchise.
General manager Bryan Murray, 72, went through the season battling Stage 4 colon cancer, never missing a day's work during chemotherapy treatment. Murray often sat in the stands during team practices hooked up to a body IV drip.
In April, beloved assistant coach Mark Reeds succumbed to the cancer he had fought all year.
The 55-year-old former NHLer's last message to the team had been "Let's win it all."
It didn't happen, but they won enough to be dubbed the "Cinderella" story of the NHL's 2014-15 season.
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Melnyk, who made his money in pharmaceuticals, had saved the club from bankruptcy in 2003 when he purchased the team and arena for $170-million. Forbes magazine recently valued the franchise at $400-million, though Melnyk has claimed his losses have amounted to more than $100-million since he took over the club.
Though he has lived in Barbados since the early 1990s, Melnyk has been a familiar face around Canadian Tire Centre when his team is doing well. His absence during the team's magical run to reach the playoffs did not go unnoticed.
"Our biggest cheerleader was noticeably absent," Leeder said.
Melnyk entered hospital in Toronto in mid-April with "liverrelated complications." Tests soon confirmed that he was urgently in need of a live-donor transplant. Because of his relatively rare blood type, AB, it was deemed unlikely that the organ of a deceased donor would be suitable.
Live donors do not have to have an exact blood match, though other criteria comes into play. Family members and friends were solicited and some tests brought potential donors "to the one-yard line," Leeder said, but when no suitable donor could be found in this way the hockey club decided to turn to public appeal.
"He was reluctant to go public," Leeder said. "We had to convince him."
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The Senators say they were aware that this might seem like "queue-jumping" and so they were careful to ensure that in publicly appealing for a live donor they were doing so appropriately.
Leeder was joined by Don Chow, the team physician, and Gary O'Byrne, regional manager of the Canadian Liver Foundation. Both Chow and O'Byrne said that this public appeal could not only potentially save Melnyk's life but could also inform the public about the high success rate of live-donor transplants. As well, it could inspire the public to commit to organ donations.
The Senators have an admirable history of turning personal tragedies into public good. After the death of Hall-of-Famer Roger Neilson in 2003, the Senators Foundation established Roger's House in memory of their assistant coach. Roger's House/La maison de Roger provides pediatric palliative care to young patients and their families on the grounds of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
In the fall of 2010, Daron Richardson, daughter of assistant coach Luke Richardson, took her own life. The Richardson family later joined with the Royal Ottawa Foundation for Mental Health and the Senators Foundation to establish a program, Do It for Daron, which raises money and awareness for the prevention of teen suicide.
When Bryan Murray went public with his cancer situation, he openly chastised himself for failing to undergo a simple colonoscopy even though men his age should have one every few years or so. Since then, Murray has joined with cancer survivors to encourage older people to get checked regularly.
Murray recently announced his intention to stay on as general manager after discussing the situation with his doctors and family. He has two assistant GMs, Randy Lee and Pierre Dorion, to help prepare for the NHL entry draft, which is June 26 and 27 at the BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla.
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In their effort to find a suitable living donor - someone in good health, ages 18 to 55 - for Melnyk, the Senators had staff answering calls at 613-599-0100 Thursday evening and all day Friday.
Interested potential donors can also complete an online form through http://www.uhn.ca.
"All of it comes together to help everyone," O'Byrne said.
"Hopefully," Leeder added, "this will be able to shed some light on donor donations. Some good can come from this."Greetings Pioneers!
It’s been one of those satisfying and frantic weeks here at Flix, where many weeks of work starts to come together into something that we can actually look at as a whole. We’re starting our internal multiplayer testing very soon so we thought we would share some more shiny insights into where we are at, and what we’re working on. Go for it John!..
John – Lead Designer
I was at the awesome Insomnia55 event last weekend meeting with some amazing streamers and people to ready up for the launch of multiplayer and slowly start that beast of a PR train/boulder! This week I have been working through production, fighting an evil empire, talking some really good business with peeps and designing all of the multiplayer menus such as the server host screen, the lobby screen and designing the clan/squad system including how clan rules are set for existing assets and new assets are owned and handled by the clan.
Lee – Technical Director
This week I have been putting the AI together for the new Swamp Walker and some new interactive foliage. I’m making some good progress on putting our new AI perception component together which I hope to have in the next release which should help frame rate issues.
Joe – Environment Artist
I’ve been continuing with asset placement work on the new map. We’re trying to get a good balance between visual fidelity and gameplay, whilst making sure each area of the map is fun to explore and run around in!
Yves – Senior Developer
At the start of the week I worked through the new build mechanic tweaks as we had issues with automation where objects were snapping underground in certain situations, once this was fixed I managed to get the new build system save framework in place before nailing down the bugs that Andy posted up. Today we got Multiplayer servers up and working again (like a BOSS) and i’ve been debugging the dedicated servers and clearing out the obvious initial crashes.
After working through the server setup I managed to also get net-relevancy in for Apex destruction, meaning that anything destroyed, replicates for relevant clients and late joiners. BOOSH!
Rickalos – Developers
Finalised the new HUD elements for UMG, and been preparing for multiplayer by adding in a multiplayer UI Lobby System including Hosting and Joining games. Then here have been quite a few crash fixes and a backlog of bugs from the bugs board to sort through which are now looking much nicer.
Matt – Art Director
Modelling and importing has been the order of the week. The new style build sets have 3 variants depending on the rarity of mineral you construct them out of. Some stronger than others, the visuals need to represent their strength and it’s important we get the spaces you can create feeling secure like strongholds.
We’re also in the process of designing the visuals for an additional long range weapon and ‘armory’ utility which you will eventually need to create before you can acquire and upgrade weapons and armor types.
Tristan – Senior Developer
This week I have been working on bugs and tweaking mostly. It started off with the new build system before moving back to the new foliage system to get that ready for testing in multiplayer.
Marcin – Designer
It’s been a hard week getting all the building blocks ready for the new upcoming construction system. There is nearly 30 of them now, and they all needed to be set up from scratch. That is a lot of components, snapping locations, collision volumes, materials, effects, multipliers, and functions to go through. It’s all good though, because the result is proving to be quite impressive.
In preparations for the Multi-player we have been moving, simplifying and unifying a lot of code, especially to do with AI mechanics, such as taking damage, ragdolling, turning, etc., which means Lee and I had a lot of debugging on that front too. We are definitely at the end of that hurdle now, but it definitely felt somewhat like this:
Hal fixing a light bulb by hal16
Chris – Designer
This week I have returned from commanding 300 Spartans in Cyprus against the might of the Persian army even though ancient and modern Sparta was/is located in Greece!
But back to reality, I have been working with Joe on placing a few (thousand |
extract-text-webpack-plugin' ); const commonConfig = require ( './webpack.common.js' ); const path = require ( 'path' ); const rootDir = path.resolve(__dirname, '..' ); module.exports = webpackMerge(commonConfig, { devtool: 'cheap-module-eval-source-map', output: { path: path.resolve(rootDir, 'dist' ), publicPath: 'http://localhost:8080/', filename: '[name].js', chunkFilename: '[id].chunk.js' }, plugins: [ new ExtractTextPlugin( '[name].css' ) ], devServer: { historyApiFallback: true, stats:'minimal' } });
In the code above, you can see that webpack.dev.js imports the webpack.common.js and defines some extra configuration like setting a directory for the build output, defining how the source map is created and removing the compiled css from the bundle to place it in a separate file.
The advantage of using SystemJS is that the setup is not as complex and verbose as Webpack. It’s simple and straightforward but Webpack offers a whole lot more functionalities and is needed as your app grows to become complex.
Build A Sample App With Cloudinary
Cloudinary provides an API for uploading images and any other kind of files to the cloud. These files are safely stored in the cloud with secure backups and revision history.
Cloudinary already takes away the pain of having to write large amounts of code to interact with their API by providing a new open source Angular 2 SDK that ships with simple, easy-to-use helper methods for:
Image uploading
Image administration and sprite generation
Embedding of images
Image transformation and manipulation
With the Angular 2 SDK, you can also adapt images for delivery on any device. Uploaded images can be manipulated, on-the-fly to deliver each user a version that suits the requirements of the viewing device while optimizing performance. Cloudinary can automatically crop images to focus on the most important region, select the most optimal quality and format and responsively deliver the image on any device in any resolution or pixel density.
What are we waiting for? Let’s get started on how to upload images in an Angular 2 app using Cloudinary!
1. Sign up for a Cloudinary Account
Signing up for Cloudinary is free.
2. Enable “unsigned uploads” in the “Upload Settings” of your Cloudinary console
You’ll need to grab your cloud_name from the console.
3. We’ll just build on the already existing development environment we have that utilizes SystemJS, and use a few new packages.
@cloudinary/angular is the Cloudinary Angular 2 SDK and it depends on the cloudinary JavaScript library to function.
is the Cloudinary Angular 2 SDK and it depends on the cloudinary JavaScript library to function. cloudinary-core is the core Cloudinary JavaScript library.
is the core Cloudinary JavaScript library. ng2-file-upload is an Angular 2 package that allows us to upload files.
So go ahead and install the cloudinary package and file upload packages like so:
npm install --save \ @cloudinary/angular \ cloudinary-core \ ng2-file-upload
Once you are done, update your systemjs.config.js to the contents of this gist file. After that, open up your tsconfig.json file and add this:
... "outDir" : "dist"
This is to ensure that all the.js files and sourcemaps that are produced from the TypeScript files are all in one directory rather than occupy space in the other directories.
4. Create the app.component.ts, app.module.ts, app.routing.ts, app.component.css, app.component.html, config.ts, main.ts and populate them.
In the app.module.ts file, we imported the Cloudinary modules like so:
import { CloudinaryModule, CloudinaryConfiguration, provideCloudinary } from '@cloudinary/angular' ;
Now add your Cloudinary details in config.ts like so:
export default { cloud_name: 'xxxxxxx', upload_preset: 'xxxxxx' };
5. We’ll deal with photo uploading, listing the photos and perform some transformations on them with the aid of Cloudinary. So go ahead and create two folders, photo-list and photo-upload inside the app directory.
In the photo-list directory, add photo-list.component.css, photo-list.component.html and photo-list.component.ts.
In the photo-upload directory, add photo-upload.component.html and photo-upload.component.ts.
Also, don’t forget to create the models for your photos! Create a models folder inside the app directory and add photo.ts and photo-album.service.ts.
Note: Add <base href="/"> to your index.html file.
So Cloudinary provides us with some ready-made Angular 2 directives like:
<cl-image> allows you to easily fetch and display image on your web page from an external service like facebook
allows you to easily fetch and display image on your web page from an external service like facebook <cl-transformation> allows you to add all sorts of effects & transform the image. For a complete list of image manipulation options see the image transformations reference
allows you to add all sorts of effects & transform the image. For a complete list of image manipulation options see the image transformations reference <cl-video> allows you to embed a video element on your web page
A typical example is:
< cl-image public-id = "{some_public_id}" class = "thumbnail inline" angle = "20" format = "jpg" > < cl-transformation height = "150" width = "150" crop = "fill" gravity = "north" effect = "sepia" radius = "20" /> </ cl-image >
6. Try running your app. You should be able to upload, list your images and perform some transformations on them, as seen below.
Cloudinary is alive!
The complete source code for the application with SystemJS can be found on GitHub. The source code for this application with Webpack can be found here.
This application has also been integrated with Ahead of Time Compilation (AOT) and Rollup too. Check out the source code for that.
Now, if you need a zero-setup sample, feel free to checkout this plunker sample code that demos the use Cloudinary directives such as <cl-image>.
Conclusion!
We have looked at different ways of setting up a development environment for Angular 2 and also taken one of the easiest and very efficient approach of managing file uploads in your Angular 2 application. With Cloudinary, file management (images, videos, etc.) hassles should be a thing of the past!
For more detail on all the available Cloudinary Angular directives and components, check out the SDK documentation.Iran claims computer worm is Western plot to sabotage nuclear program
Iran claimed Tuesday that a computer worm found on the laptops of several employees at the country’s nuclear power plant is part of a covert Western plot to derail its nuclear program.
Iranian officials have suggested in recent days that the Stuxnet worm that has affected computers of employees at the Bushehr nuclear power plant could be a conspiracy to damage Iran’s nuclear activities. But Tuesday’s comments by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast were the strongest accusations of Western sabotage so far.
The United States, Israel and others accuse Iran of seeking to use the Bushehr nuclear power plant and other civil nuclear sites as a cover for a secret program to develop atomic weapons. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.
Mehmanparast said sabotage and pressure won’t make Iran stop its nuclear activities.
“They (the West) have shown by their words and actions that they try, through any possible means, to prevent or delay our peaceful nuclear activities,” Mehmanparast told a news conference. “These actions won’t make us give up our (nuclear) rights at all. These methods won’t help stop or delay nuclear activities in our country,” he added.
The malicious computer code, designed to take over industrial sites such as the Bushehr nuclear plant, has also emerged in India, Indonesia and the U.S. Iran said the Stuxnet worm infected personal computers of Bushehr employees but not the plant’s main systems.
The startup of Bushehr has been delayed but on Monday, Iran’s Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi said it was not because of Stuxnet. He said a leak was delaying the start.
Who created the Stuxnet code and what its precise target is, if any, remains a mystery. Some foreign experts have speculated it was designed to target Tehran’s nuclear program.
The web security firm Symantec Corp. says the computer worm was likely spawned by a government or a well-funded private group. It was apparently constructed by a small team of as many as five to 10 highly educated and well-funded hackers, Symantec says.
The Bushehr plant has stood outside the current controversy over Iran’s nuclear program since Russia will be providing the fuel for the plant and supervising its disposal.
But other aspects of Iran’s nuclear work, especially its enrichment of uranium, are of concern to the United States and other world powers. Enrichment can be used to produce weapons as well as make fuel for power plants.
Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi has announced the arrests of several people it alleged were suspected of nuclear espionage but he gave no details and did not clearly link the suspects with the investigation into Stuxnet.
Source: AP News
Mochila insert follows…Mydumper and Myloader are utility software programs that allow you to perform extremely fast and reliable multi-threaded MySQL backup and restore which is written in the C programming language.
It was initially developed by MySQL engineers who later moved to Facebook. Mydumper is approximately 10 times faster than the mysqldump tools typically used for backups.
When it comes to backing up and restoring MySQL database, most people usually use the very popular mysqldump. Whilst, mysqldump can be very easy to use for a smaller database, it doesn’t work well with larger databases. It’s very slow for huge databases and very error prone when used for very big MySQL databases.
In this article, we discuss how to use Mydumper and Myloader to perform very fast backups and restores for MySQL. Before we begin, we want to highlight the major benefits of Mydumper below:
The main advantages of Mydumper & Myloader
Parallelism and performance – Mydumper is able to use multiple threads to perform simultaneous connections and imports at the same time.
Easier to manage output (separate files for tables, dump metadata,etc, easy to view/parse data)
Consistency – maintains snapshot across all threads, provides accurate master and slave log positions, etc
Manageability – supports PCRE for specifying database and tables inclusions and exclusions
Install mydumper on ubuntu
We are going to install Mydumper on Ubuntu using the apt-get package manager, other operating systems use their own package managers. Open the terminal and run the following command
sudo apt-get install mydumper
How to Use Mydumper
Below is the complete breakdown of the MyDumper command with the respective options and what they mean:
Syntax mydumper [options] Application Options: -B, --database Database to dump -T, --tables-list Comma delimited table list to dump (does not exclude regex option) -o, --outputdir Directory to output files to -s, --statement-size Attempted size of INSERT statement in bytes, default 1000000 -r, --rows Try to split tables into chunks of this many rows -c, --compress Compress output files -e, --build-empty-files Build dump files even if no data available from table -x, --regex Regular expression for ‘db.table' matching -i, --ignore-engines Comma delimited list of storage engines to ignore -m, --no-schemas Do not dump table schemas with the data -k, --no-locks Do not execute the temporary shared read lock. WARNING: This will cause inconsistent backups -l, --long-query-guard Set long query timer in seconds, default 60 --kill-long-queries Kill long running queries (instead of aborting) -b, --binlogs Get a snapshot of the binary logs as well as dump data -D, --daemon Enable daemon mode -I, --snapshot-interval Interval between each dump snapshot (in minutes), requires --daemon, default 60 -L, --logfile Log file name to use, by default stdout is used -h, --host The host to connect to -u, --user Username with privileges to run the dump -p, --password User password -P, --port TCP/IP port to connect to -S, --socket UNIX domain socket file to use for connection -t, --threads Number of threads to use, default 4 -C, --compress-protocol Use compression on the MySQL connection -V, --version Show the program version and exit -v, --verbose Verbosity of output, 0 = silent, 1 = errors, 2 = warnings, 3 = info, default 2
This is how you would use Mydumper for create a backup of a MySQL database, replace the variables (bash words starting with $) with the actual values. Once this process is complete you can zipup the folder and transfer it to the destination folder.
mydumper \ --database=$DB_NAME \ --host=$DB_HOST \ --user=$DB_USER \ --password=$DB_PASS \ --outputdir=$DB_DUMP \ --rows=500000 \ --compress \ --build-empty-files \ --threads=2 \ --compress-protocol
Description of Mydumper’s output data
Mydumper does not output to files, but rather to files in a directory. The --outputdir option specifies the name of the directory to use.
The output is two parts Schema. For each table in the database, a file containing the CREATE TABLE statement will be created. It will be named: dbname.tablename-schema.sql.gz. Secondly, Data, for each table with number of rows above the –rows parameter, you will have a file called:
dbname.tablename.0000n.sql.gz.
Where “n” starts with 0 up to the number of.
Below is the complete describtion of MyLoader and all the optins and theier meaning.
Usage: myloader [OPTION...] multi-threaded MySQL loader Help Options: -?, --help Show help options Application Options: -d, --directory Directory of the dump to import -q, --queries-per-transaction Number of queries per transaction, default 1000 -o, --overwrite-tables Drop tables if they already exist -B, --database An alternative database to restore into -s, --source-db Database to restore -e, --enable-binlog Enable binary logging of the restore data -h, --host The host to connect to -u, --user Username with privileges to run the dump -p, --password User password -P, --port TCP/IP port to connect to -S, --socket UNIX domain socket file to use for connection -t, --threads Number of threads to use, default 4 -C, --compress-protocol Use compression on the MySQL connection -V, --version Show the program version and exit -v, --verbose Verbosity of output, 0 = silent, 1 = errors, 2 = warnings, 3 = info, default 2
If you want to restore these backup you can use Myloader
myloader \ --database=$DB_NAME \ --directory=$DB_DUMP \ --queries-per-transaction=50000 \ --threads=10 \ --compress-protocol \ --verbose=3
We hope this article helped with doing MySQL backups. If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our Facebook/Twitter page for updates.
Dotlayer is a knowledge-sharing platform built around a community of knowledge-seekers. We aim to make Dotlayer our readers' go-to source for all things tech-related. If you are interested in advertising or sponsorship opportunities, we are happy to discuss. Please submit all inquiries [email protected]. And if you enjoyed this post, we recommend reading our latest featured stories.As you know this is an election year (in the US) and everyone who can vote should. Under ADA law, people with disabilities have the right to vote and be given an accessible means to vote. However this is not always the case whether it be an inaccessible building or voting ballots that are difficult to read for people with vision impairments. Recently the state of Oregon began using iPads in special elections to make voting more accessible for people with visual impairments or limited use of their hands.
The state of Oregon teamed up with election software developer Everyone Counts to develop the iPad voting software program. Apple also donated iPads for the recent special elections this past November and January. The program works by allowing the voter to adjust the text size and color to a point that is readable for them. Text to speech is also an option which is great for people that are completely blind. I assume this is done with headphones for privacy purposes. Another great feature of the program is it’s compatibility with Bluetooth Sip and Puff technology. Allowing people with limited or no use of their hands to control actions on the iPad. Everyone Counts is also making the software technology available on other platforms such as PCs and Androids.
Electronic voting in general is controversial because of concerns of possible voter fraud hacking and a lack of a paper trail. The program in Oregon tried to alleviate these concerns by allowing the iPads to print the ballots onsite. The iPad voting technology is being looked at and used by other states like Florida. Which is a state with a high elderly population and could benefit from this technology. Overall this is great for people who might not have been able to vote before or maybe thought they couldn’t. Again, US citizens have the right to vote and should be given the means to do so.
I should also note that OpenIDEO, a socially conscious think tank, has a recently proposed a challenge to innovators to develop accessible ways for people with disabilities to vote. For more info on this challenge visit this website How might we design an accessible election experience for everyone?
CommentsAny mixed martial arts (MMA) fan still chanting "PRIDE never die!" probably skipped the UFC 128: "Shogun vs. Jones" pay-per-view last Saturday night (March 19) in Newark, NJ.
While the big story was Jon Jones' destruction of former light heavyweight champion (and PRIDE superstar) Mauricio Rua, another legend from the days of Japanese chop-socky received what is likely to be the final nail in the coffin of his storied career.
I'm talking of course about Mirko Filipovic, who is five years removed from his reign of terror in the now defunct PRIDE organization. And while he left on a high note, winning the 2006 open weight grand prix with wins over Wanderlei Silva and Josh Barnett, his stateside run left a lot to be desired.
And speaking of desire, it doesn't sound like "Cro Cop" has much left after Brendan Schaub beat it out of him in "Brick City" this past weekend.
From the Croat (via Jutarnji.hr, courtesy of Tomislav Gacina):
"I feel like somebody stole something from me. I am disappointed by the result, but congratulations to Schaub and thanks to my fans for their support. It's clear that in this sport without hunger, wish and ambition to win there is no success, and its also clear that there is no more left of those in me. He surprised me with that strike, everything was same like against Frank Mir. It seemed to me like I was better. What am I saying? If I was better, I would have won!"
Following his March 19 loss to "The Hybrid," UFC President Dana White informed media members that "Cro Cop" was finished inside the Octagon.
The Schaub defeat was his second straight and the icing on his eight-sided cake, which was baked with a mediocre (at best) 4-5 record, was that both losses came by way of brutal knockout.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
A lot of fans questioned his desire to fight as far back as UFC 99, after he hightailed it back to Croatia following his win over Mustapha Al-Turk in June 2009.
Filipovic was expected to finish his career under the DREAM banner until Zuffa boss Lorenzo Fertitta flew overseas to make the former member of Croatian Parliament an offer "he couldn't refuse."
And he didn't refuse it, but was the "hunger, wish and ambition" part of the deal? Or something that died with PRIDE back in 2007?
Only Cro Cop knows for sure.
For a career retrospective on Filipovic and a list of his greatest knockouts and fights click here.Bicyclists Getting More Lanes in Lawrenceville, Oakland
Some of the new lanes are expected to be in place by the end of the month.
By PM Staff
2015 likely will go down at the year Pittsburgh began the transition to a bicycle-friendly city.
Late last week, Pittsburgh's bicycle-pedestrian coordinator, Kristin Saunders, revealed the city's latest plans for a new network of shared and dedicated bike lanes in Oakland.
Later this week, on Aug. 6, Saunders will host a meeting to discuss proposed bike lanes on 40th Street between Butler Street and Liberty Avenue in Lawrenceville. That meeting is at 6:30 p.m. at Arsenal Middle School, located at 220 40th St.
The plan is to install an uphill protected bike lane from Butler Street to Penn Avenue and shared bike lane markings, called "sharrows," for downhill traffic. From Penn Avenue to Liberty Avenue, there would be shared bike lane markings in both directions.
photo by elaina zachos
The plans for Oakland include a pair of reserved bike lanes to be installed on the stretch of O’Hara Street, Bigelow Boulevard and Bayard Street, extending from DeSoto to North Neville streets. Saunders says the lanes, which will be 4- to 6-feet wide, will take space away from the existing vehicle lanes and get rid of some lightly used on-street parking. Another two blocks of eastbound Bayard from North Neville to Morewood will be given shared lane markings," the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
The new lanes are expected to be in place by the end of the month.
Unlike the lanes in downtown Pittsburgh, Oakland’s impending bike lanes won’t have posts to separate them from car traffic. But some intersections will have left-turn boxes for cyclists to ride in front of stopped cars while they wait at red lights.
Another bike lane also will be added where Bigelow makes a left turn at O’Hara Street, dropping to Fifth Avenue. And the city is planning on extending the Schenley Drive bike lanes to where the street merges with Roberto Clemente Drive and adding bike lanes from there to Forbes Avenue.
Not everyone likes these latest plans.
"You are encouraging usage of a road that is used for emergency vehicles, almost primarily. It is just foolish, foolhardy, and I'd better stop talking," one woman tells WTAE-TV.
In her presentation, Saunders reported that while just 2.2 percent of Pittsburgh residents are bicycle commuters — that's a 400 percent increase over previous counts by the U.S. Census Department.
“There is not a lot of bicycle infrastructure here, we’ve had auto-centric planning for some time and we’re trying to correct that,” Saunders tells the Post-Gazette.
––Elaina Zachos
Photo by dave dicello
#Props: Pittsburgh listed among most livable cities worldwide
Pittsburgh is among just two U.S. cities to make Metropolis Magazine's list of most livable cities in the world. The other U.S. city mentioned in Indianapolis.
Each city made the list for a different reason. Pittsburgh is getting props for its preservation efforts.
"Pittsburgh, like so many other Rust Belt cities, faced huge hurdles with the decline of its steel industry. But it is overcoming many of these challenges thanks, in great part, to its preservation movements, neighborhood renewal projects, and active communities," the magazine writes.
“We have a significant group of foundations here,” Raymund Ryan, curator at the Heinz Architectural Center at the Carnegie Museum of Art, tells the magazine. “Whether it’s about supporting exhibitions or organizing people to discuss neighborhood or heritage issues, there is a great amount of will here.”
In case you're curious, the magazine considers Toronto the world's most livable city.
––Richard Cook
photo by astrobotic.com
#FlyMetotheMoon:... But first stop at the White House
The company's work to place robots on the moon has earned Strip District-based Astrobotic a trip to the White House.
President Obama will host the first White House Demo Day on Tuesday, which will feature entrepreneurs from around the country. Instead of pitching their ideas, the businesses will share personal stories and latest innovations with attendees. Astrobotic will show off a prototype lunar rover, as well as its Autolanding Sensor Technology.
Astrobotic was founded at Carnegie Mellon University in 2007, when robotics engineer William Whittaker developed a project to compete for the Google Lunar XPRIZE. Since then, Whittaker and his team have flown hardware systems into orbit for other businesses and organizations. They aim to make space tourism, mining and exploration more efficient through their work.
Want to see the space adventurers in action? Check out the live webcast starting at 3:40 p.m. Tuesday.
—RCEmail us. ____
Shares in Telstra were up 4%, or 13 cents, to $3.34. The stock closed at $3.21 yesterday. Mr Rudd said the broadband proposal would provide 37,000 jobs at the peak of construction, providing a major boost to the economy in the midst of a global recession.
The fibre-to-the-premise network will run to 90% of homes and businesses. The Government will make an initial investment of $4.7 billion in the company but intends to sell its interest within five years after the network is fully operational. The network will be funded from Aussie Infrastructure Bonds while private sector investment in the new company will be capped at 49%.
The remaining homes and businesses will be reached via wireless and satellite technologies offering speeds of 12 megabits per second. The proposal goes much further than the Government had previously planned as fibre-optic cables will now run all the way from telephone exchanges to homes and businesses. It had previously planned to lay cables only from exchanges to cabinets at the end of street corners. In a major blow to Telstra, Mr Rudd said it was time ''to bite the bullet'' after years of neglect of the telecommunications sector. ''Years of failed policy have left Australia as a broadband backwater," he said. He described it as the "single biggest infrastructure decision in Australia's history".
A report to the Government from an expert panel found none of the national bids "offered value for money for Australian taxpayers". Telstra was dumped from the tender in early December after failing to meet a basic requirement, leaving Melbourne group Acacia, the SingTel-owned Optus, the Canadian telco Axia NetMedia, the Tasmanian Government and TransAct vying for the funding. The latter two made regional bids. Telstra shares have fallen 22% since it was excluded from the tender. "The investment by the Government creates an alternative to Telstra's fixed-line network over time, effectively re-nationalising part of the fixed-line industry in Australia," JPMorgan's telecommunications analyst, Laurent Horrut, said today. Mr Horrut said the new network would make Telstra's copper-wire network obsolete within a five- to 10-year period. "In addition, the Government is reviewing all key regulatory conditions in the sector and that will create significant uncertainty for the company," he said.
The Government plans to start construction in Tasmania about the middle of the year. Facing the loss of its near monopoly on fixed-line telecommunications, Telstra is expected to fight in the courts any attempt by the Government to force it to relinquish its grip. Some have suggested the project could be delayed by five to 10 years by Telstra using legal action to prevent the access required to its copper-wire network to complete the project. However, the Government today made clear it would change legislation to prevent Telstra from jeopardising the success of a national network. Since it was dumped from the tender in early December, Telstra has been promoting its ''Plan B'', which includes plans to spend about $300 million to increase speeds on its Melbourne cable network.
The alternative strategy entails shifting fixed-line customers onto its cable network and third-generation NextG mobile network. LoadingGame Details Developer: Firaxis
Publisher: 2K Games
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux
Release Date: February 5, 2016
ESRB Rating: T
Price: $60
Links: Steam | Official website Firaxis: 2K Games: Windows, Mac, LinuxFebruary 5, 2016: T: $60
Corporal Alessandra Cancellara is heading into a mission on the Skyranger when I notice her. Most of my squaddies are present, looking cool, as the music theoretically pumps both them and me up. But Alessandra, suited up in green with needles holding up her ash-colored bun, stands out. She’s practically dancing in her seat, a bundle of nervous energy and quick grins. I’d probably look like that heading into a massively tense battle zone, so it suddenly hits me: XCOM 2 has managed to find an emotional core.
The first of the rebooted XCOMs, 2012’s Enemy Unknown, was a fantastic strategy game. So was its expansion, Enemy Within. Yet if there was an immediate criticism to be made of both games, it was that they were stylistically... well, dull. The near-future X-Files-like alien invasion storyline only allowed for the most generic science fiction, and the game structure never felt fully committed beyond “well, this is how the 1994 X-COM did it.” In that light, XCOM 2 having a distinct sense of style is a tremendously positive sign.
That sense of style manages to weave itself through the entire game, making XCOM 2 a notable improvement over its predecessor at nearly every conceptual level—but the game does miss the opportunity to make structural improvements.
Vive la revolution!
The core conceptual improvement ofis simple: it takes place in 2035, two decades after the original, with the premise that the aliens won that war. They’ve taken over the Earth and installed a worldwide government called ADVENT to govern/occupy it. You control the remnants of the XCOM organization, flying all over the world in a converted alien carrier to fight the power. In an especially clever refocusing, some of the ethical issues that theexpansion raised and then ignored—like alien/human hybridization and human mech units—are portrayed as villainous acts in, which is a nice touch.
With the new plot, a lot of XCOM’s structural limitation suddenly makes sense. In the original, a worldwide anti-alien organization nonsensically could only deploy six soldiers at once. In XCOM 2, of course a resistance movement can only drop a handful of squaddies into small-scale missions. In the previous XCOM, you’d inexplicably see the same rural American bar & grill level show up in Nigeria and Nagasaki as well as Nacogdoches. In XCOM 2, the aliens have created a unitary worldwide culture where, yes, you could plausibly see the same architecture in Siberia as well as Chile.
It also helps explain why your carrier is scrounging for supplies and how training new recruits can be a massive cost. Instead of just waiting for UFOs to show up, every move you make in this campaign turns into a choice of which advantages you find most preferable and which disadvantages are best avoided.
The advantages of this premise extend to the presentation. By turning XCOM into a resistance story, a whole range of cool aesthetic ideas appear on the table. I’m particularly fond of the loading screens and their Soviet-style alien propaganda and the way your squaddies show up on “Wanted” screens in the high-tech alien cities. There are plenty of nods to other near-future sci-fi, too; the futuristic resistance story reminds me of the final season of Fringe, while music cues in the most high-tech areas remind me of Mass Effect and even Phantasy Star.
The resistance motif also allows for more squaddie customization, which is hugely improved in XCOM 2. There’s a much wider range of hairstyles, including non-ponytail long hair for both women and men plus dreads and afros as well. Tattoos, bandanas, glasses, and armor patterns add a huge amount of personality to individual squaddies, as does an actual personality setting. Alessandra, mentioned up top, had the nervous “Twitchy” personality, which affects both her posture and her in-combat barks. There’s even a way to save custom characters into files to be kept and shared (although this didn’t work as perfectly as I might have hoped when I attempted to make all my squaddies X-Men).
XCOM 2 also totally removes the almost totally pointless UFO combat portion of the original game. At first this seems like a good idea (especially if you played The Long War mod, where the combat could ruin your entire game), but the removal has the somewhat negative side effect of making it seem like player agency has been lost. Instead of actively blowing up UFOs and investigating them, the strategic situation now consists largely of waiting for new missions.
There are a few missions that pull UFOs into the game, including one where you assault a grounded UFO and another awesomely intense mission where your carrier gets shot down. But XCOM 2’s mission randomness, which so often seems like a strength, can bizarrely keep these missions hidden for entire campaigns.
Ground-pounders
While the tactical core of XCOM 2 is only slightly altered from the original, most of the changes are clear improvements. The biggest change is that almost every mission now has a timer attached to it. For example, aliens are attacking a transmitter and you have to get to it before it gets blown up, or a laptop with critical data needs to be hacked before time runs out. These are largely good ways to push players out of over-careful play—most missions in 2012’s XCOM could too easily be manipulated by just having squaddies wait in Overwatch. Here, you have to actually move.
A second major addition is a sneaky mode at the start of most missions where your characters are hidden until they attack or get too close to enemies. It’s occasionally cool to use this function to set up kill zones that remove enemy patrols at the start of missions. Most of the time, though, it feels slightly overdone. The concept works best in conjunction with the timed missions: if you only have eight turns to fight your way into a building, deciding when to pull the trigger on a “good enough” ambush versus waiting another turn for the perfect one can be a difficult and compelling choice.
The core squaddie classes have also been redesigned. Some, like the Grenadier (Heavy) and Sharpshooter (Sniper) are conceptually similarly to their predecessors, but the close-combat Ranger class has been given a sword and a whole range of stealth and melee skills. The Specialist is a far more interesting variation on XCOM 1’s Support class, with a drone that can deliver healing to allies or hack enemy mechs from afar.
The net effect is slightly disorienting. None of the classes feels entirely “normal,” which aids the feeling of tactical teamwork, but it also makes the game feel arbitrarily difficult. That said, the skills can get immensely cool at times. I won one battle against Chrysalids by sending a Ranger with the “Blademaster” skill into the front lines. Every time they came near her, she slashed aliens to death before they had a chance to attack.
As for the battles themselves, they’re tightly honed improvements on an already stellar form. XCOM’s two-action turns are back, and they still work as well as ever. The new procedurally generated levels add a critical element of variety to each map.
Meanwhile, the tremendously destructible environments add some great tactical options. At one point, I came across a heavily defended alien installation with two big scary turrets staring me down from the roof. I fired a grenade at one of them to shred its armor, only to discover that the explosion made the entire roof cave in, which in turn made the turret collapse. Watching walls fall as you blast at aliens in front of and behind them proves immensely satisfying.
Destructibility was present in the first XCOM, but various glitches prevented it from being fully comprehensible. In that game, dice rolls from before the shot was fired clearly decided whether a shot was a “hit” or not regardless of the animation. That’s fixed here for the most part, as bullets and lasers strike where they’re supposed to and destroy walls where they don’t. Other quirks are fixed, too: a camera zoom no longer indicates immediate death as a shot is fired, and dead squaddies don’t have their hair pop off like helmets. There are still glitches—for example, cars collapsing and shooting glass out before their animations actually show the explosions—but they no longer feel like they’re actually showing game flaws.
There are several other small changes, all largely positive. Armor no longer simply provides an addition to hit points but instead adds a constant defensive buffer for units that needs to be dismantled or bypassed. Hacking mechanized enemies or ADVENT towers creates choices that are consistently interesting little gambles. This is still arguably the best tactical combat system available in the genre.DETROIT — Evanger's is voluntarily recalling some of its dog food after a drug that is used to anesthetize or put down pets was found in it.
Pentobarbital was found in one lot of the dog food; five dogs got sick and one died, according to the Wheeling, Ill.-based company.
Fifteen states including South Carolina are affected by the Hunk of Beef Au Jus recall. The 12-ounce cans were manufactured June 6-13 and sold in stores and online in Washington, California, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
As a precaution, Evanger's is recalling Hunk of Beef products manufactured the same week, with lot numbers that start with 1816E03HB, 1816E04HB, 1816E06HB, 1816E07HB and 1816E13HB, and expire June 2020. The second half of the barcode on the back of the label says 20109. The ill and deceased dogs ate from the 1816E06HB13 lot.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is distributing information about the recall as well.
All Evanger’s suppliers of meat products are USDA approved, the company said.
"We feel that we have been let down by our supplier, and in reference to the possible presence of pentobarbital, we have let down our customers," the company said in a press release on its website, adding that it's the first recall in 82 years of manufacturing.
Evanger's said it has terminated its relationship with that supplier after 40 years, though that company services "many other pet food companies."
Dr. Alan Lewis of |
his contract.
Divisive
Suarez has been a divisive figure during his time at Liverpool, with misdemeanors ranging from his racial abuse of Manchester United's Patric Evra, to a perennial debate about diving and finally his biting of Ivanovic.
Liverpool's fans have stuck by him throughout, recognising his brilliance as a player, and he admits that he will always appreciate their support.
"The love I have for Liverpool I will never forget," he added.
"I love the city, the club and the people and everyone is welcome. All I ask is for respect for all the things that have been said."
Suarez has also conceded that some of his critics may be right in condemning his on-field theatrics.
"There are moments of importance (in games) and I have lived football in a very particular way since childhood," he said.
"But I know I can play tricks.
"Sometimes I protest too much to the referee. I have to take it a bit better."In the midst of raging debate over intolerance in the country, famous Bollywood scriptwriter- lyricist Javed Akhtar said on Saturday (November 21) that he never faced communal discrimination in his life.
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“I haven’t faced communal discrimination in personal life. I landed in Mumbai when I was 20-year-old. People who gave me work weren’t my relatives or members of my community, my class or my state, nor did they speak my native language. They gave me work because they liked my work,” Akhtar said in an interaction at the Indore Literature Festival here.
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“The only way to overcome discrimination and prejudice in the society is to excel in your work. If you do your work well, it will prevail over discrimination, prejudice, hatred and communalism. So, one shouldn’t grumble and whine but try to excel in one’s field,” he said.
Akthar also said that the notion that communalism and corruption didn’t exist earlier was wrong.
“The world has been beset with evil and wrongdoing since its genesis and these things continue to linger on. But now such things are debated,” he said.
He, however, lamented that his generation failed to pass on the legacy of culture, language, folk-stories and epics to the next generation.
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“Our generation remained stuck in the rat race of earning money,” he said.A song by a 13-year-old American teenager has gone viral on the internet after being widely described as the worst one ever recorded.
Rebecca Black's pop song called Friday has been viewed on YouTube more than 29 million times.
It has trended on Twitter and been the subject of huge online comment and discussion.
That's mainly because it's been derided by millions of people for what they say are its awful lyrics.
Ones like "yesterday was Thursday Thursday, today it is Friday Friday", "gotta get down to the bus stop, gotta get my bus, i see my friends" and "we we we so excited, we so excited".
People have been quick to criticise the song for more than just its words.
The teenager's heavily auto tuned singing and video have also been labelled as terrible.
Future stars
The song was produced by Los Angeles-based Ark Music Factory which describes itself as an independent record label.
On its website it says its main objective is to discover future number one artists and produce the next outstanding star.
Rebecca's profile page on the site describes her as "a fun loving, 13-year-old".
"She loves to sing, dance and act, and she is always looking to try something new," it says.
"She landed the lead role in her school musical, Oklahoma!"
There are many parents willing to pay whatever it takes to make their children become the next Justin Bieber.
The now internationally-recognised number one star was discovered on YouTube and later signed by Usher.
In this case though, despite the criticism, Rebecca Black may have the last laugh.
Tweeting on 15 March she said: "My song Friday is now available on iTunes!!! Thank you all for your support. xoxo <3 :)".
It's now entered the iTunes chart and by Monday lunchtime (21 March) had reached the number 25 spot.
Follow our technology reporter Dan Whitworth on TwitterNep-Nep Connect: Chaos Chanpuru first battle system screenshot
Plus two new Chaos character teasers.
Compile Heart shared the first screenshot of Nep-Nep Connect: Chaos Chanpuru‘s battle system in a New Year blog post.
The company says it will provide more information on the game’s battle system soon. A number of characters from across Compile Heart’s games will appear. You’ll be able to form a party of your favorite characters, who you can switch in and out based on the situation in card-based battles.
Compile Heart also teased that it has more Chaos characters to reveal. We’ve previously seen Chaos versions of Noire, Blanc, Vert, and others. Compile Heart is seemingly teasing Chaos reveals for Purple Sister from the Neptunia series and Faust from Trillion: God of Destruction:
Nep-Nep Connect: Chaos Chanpuru is a free-to-play title due out for PS Vita in Japan in 2017.Xbox One is home to some amazing games, that’s a given with the likes of Dead Rising 3, Forza Motorsport 5 and Ryse: Son of Rome, already starring in an impressive launch line-up. With more system exclusives like Titanfall and Halo 5 on the way the Xbox One’s gaming future couldn’t be brighter.
But Xbox One also goes beyond games to deliver a custom all-in-one package that caters to your every entertainment need, whether it’s movies, apps or communication. Everything is centred around Xbox One’s most important component, which is you, its end user and this begins on Xbox One’s home screen, where you can gather all your games, apps and entertainment options, easily pinning your favourites onto one handy location.
But don’t think you’ll be tethered to just the actual Xbox One in your living room. When you go on the road, whether visiting a mate’s house for a multiplayer session or travelling to the other side of the world, you can still sign into an Xbox One and all your entertainment and gaming choices travel with you, including your profile, game saves and entertainment options. Your Xbox One favourites are truly as portable as you are.
Traditionally you’ve only been able to do one thing at a time on a games console, but Xbox One breaks that mould as well with its Snap functionality, which allows you to split your screen and enjoy two entertainment windows at once. This gives rise to some really unique opportunities: perhaps you’re watching a movie and want to see who’s playing the mysterious villain?
Maybe you’re watching a vital football match and want to share the agony and ecstasy of a penalty shoot out? Perhaps you just want to share your reactions to the latest must-see Netflix drama? The possibilities are practically endless for combining your entertainment options.
One of Xbox One’s most significant advances is in the field of communication with the integrated Skype app and Kinect sensor. With a 1080p camera and Video Skype calls allowing up to four people to interact at once, instant, crystal clear communication with your friends has never been easier and it’s all available from the comfort of your own living room. All these new opportunities for sharing bring a whole new social dimension to enjoying the latest entertainment
Finally, get ready to ditch all those tired old cliches about entertainment being a passive medium and gamers being welded to their couches with the advent of Xbox Fitness, which is free for a limited time to Gold members.
Using the Kinect sensor’s advanced body mapping abilities, you’ll be able to enjoy a rewarding exercise regime exactly tailored to your own personal requirements, with biometric data and feedback used to shape the experience. From gentle yoga sessions, to the sweat-soaked hardcore Insanity Workout, you’ll be in the hands of some of the world’s leading trainers like Jillian Michaels or Tony Horton and it’s a prime example of how Xbox One has broken the boundaries of traditional entertainment options.
So to experience a brave new world of entertainment, leisure, apps and communication - there’s only one place to be this year and that’s on Xbox One.Maryland rules on employee overtime, wage and hour law, and fair pay.
What is the minimum wage in Maryland?
The minimum wage in Maryland is currently $9.25. However, it will increase to $10.10 on July 1, 2018.
Is the minimum wage different in Maryland for tipped employees?
The FLSA allows employers to pay a lower hourly minimum wage, as long as that wage plus the tips the employee earns adds up to at least the full minimum wage for each hour worked. If not, the employer has to make up the difference. In Maryland, employers can pay tipped employees an hourly wage of $3.63, as long as the employee’s tips bring the total hourly wage up to the state minimum wage. (For more information, see Nolo’s article Tips, Tip Pooling, and Tip Credits.)
When am I entitled to earn overtime?
In Maryland, eligible employees must receive overtime if they work more than 40 hour in a week. Bowling alley employees and residential employees in institutions other than hospitals, who care for people with intellectual disabilities or for the sick, aged, or mentally ill, must receive overtime if they work than 48 hours in a week. For agricultural work, employees must receive overtime if they work more than 60 hours in a week. Not every type of job is eligible for overtime, however. To learn more, see Nolo’s article Overtime Pay: Your Rights as an Employee and contact the Maryland Division of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
Am I entitled to a lunch or rest break?
Maryland does not require employers to provide lunch or rest breaks. However, you are entitled to be paid if you have to do any work during a break (for example, if you have to cover the phones while you eat lunch). And, generally, you are entitled to be paid for any short breaks (five to 20 minutes) your employer provides; this time is considered part of your work day.
To learn more about wage and hour laws in Maryland, contact the state Division of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.
What are wage and hour laws? Wage and hour laws set the basic standards for pay and time worked—covering issues like minimum wage, tips, overtime, meal and rest breaks, what counts as time worked, when you must be paid, things your employer must pay for, and so on. Where do wage and hour laws come from? The federal wage and hour law is called the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Most states also have their own wage and hour laws, and some local governments (like cities and counties) do, too. An employer who is subject to more than one law must follow the law that is most generous to the employee. For example, the federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 per hour, but employers in states that have set a higher minimum wage must pay the higher amount.
Finding an employment law attorney
To locate an employment law attorney in your area, visit Nolo's Lawyer Directory, where you can view information about each lawyer's experience, education, fees, and, perhaps most importantly, the lawyer's general philosophy of practicing law. By using Nolo's directory, you can narrow down candidates before calling them for a phone or face-to-face interview.John Sutherland never made good on his promise to eat Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence if it failed to win the Booker prize, so here's hoping America's National Endowment for the Arts literature director David Kipen will prove more honourable.
Kipen, programme director of American community reading scheme The Big Read, has vowed to eat a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird if any one of the 128 residents of Kelleys Island in Ohio fails to read the book. Weighing in at 309 pages, it is at least likely that Harper Lee's classic tale of racial prejudice will prove more digestible than Rushdie's 464-page novel.
So far, according to local paper the Sandusky Register, 70 residents have pledged to read the book, but Kipen, an author and book critic, needs the remaining 58 to sign up, or he'll be facing a nasty case of indigestion. If everyone living on the island reads To Kill a Mockingbird, and signs an affidavit promising they've done so, Kipen has said he'll buy them all a pizza.
Kipen said he had long wanted to find a town "small enough and brave enough to accept the challenge of dragooning every last literate resident, without exception, into tackling its chosen book", when Kelleys Island, a four square mile island in Lake Erie, was suggested to him. He didn't say whether he'd be tackling the hardback or the paperback edition of the novel if he fails to convince the island to get reading.
Sutherland said last year that if The Enchantress of Florence didn't win the Booker, he'd "curry [his] proof copy and eat it". It didn't. And he didn't.You've done it. You provided valuable content to your readers and they've converted into leads. Now, it's time to nurture these leads into opportunities for your sales team.
Trouble is, cutting through the inbox clutter isn't an easy feat. And many of these folks just aren't ready to buy yet.
That's where lead nurturing comes in: It's a way to stay connected to the leads you collect that aren't ready to buy from you yet, and build up trust until they are ready.
If you want to learn more about lead nurturing in general, you can check out this guide. But for the sake of this post, we're going to dive deep into one of the best channels for carrying out your lead nurturing efforts: email.
To help you better understand how to pair the two concepts, check out the lead nurturing email examples below. From ecommerce to product marketing, there's something for everyone -- no matter what industry you operate in. (And If you haven't already, check out Leadin: A free tool by HubSpot that helps you generate more leads and learn more about them.)
Check out these industries:
Ecommerce | B2B | Retail | Travel | Food & Beverage | Services | Product Marketing
19 Lead Nurturing Email Examples to Inspire Your Strategy
Ecommerce
Not all lead nurturing emails need to be strictly promotional. Engagement will lead to sales, so it's important to send recipients something they'll want to open and read. Framebridge does something in their nurturing emails that works like a charm: education. By teaching the reader a helpful skill, they are providing value in exchange for an ask from their recipient (reading the guide).
It's also worth mentioning that they only use one clear call-to-action -- "Educate Me." According to WordStream, simply using one call-to-action (CTA) in an email increases clicks by 371% and sales by 1617%.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
Your product is only as good as its reviews: eConsultancy reports that 61% of customers will read a review or testimonial online before purchasing. In this traditional abandoned cart email, Casper adds a bit of social proof with a fun customer testimonial.
Casper's abandoned cart email is clever and to-the-point. It asks the reader if they'd like to revisit a cart they have added to, shows what they were shopping for, and includes two simple CTAs.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
For visual products, video is a great method of communicating or explaining. A study by Tubular Insights reports that 96% of B2B organizations use video in some capacity in their marketing campaigns, of which 73% report positive results to their ROI.
Sephora includes a fun video from an employee with educational content as well as product offerings. They do have a lot of calls-to-action, however, the main focus is to watch the tutorial which is helpful to the reader. A visual email for a visual brand, it grabs your attention and shows off the products in a unique and interesting way.
B2B
Triggered email messages yield 67.9% higher open rate and 241.3% higher click rates than standard email messages, according to Epsilon. In other words, when you use a person's behavior -- let's say that downloaded content about email workflows -- to trigger a relevant email based on that action, it will perform well.
Here's a great example from Litmus that demonstrates how to use clever, clear copy to provide recipients with a relevant email that adds provides even more value.
Retail
Uncommon Goods shows their products in context and creates a Pinterest-inspired section for each different aesthetic. Each collection has a featured CTA and the email feels more like a curated pinboard than a sales email.
Not to mention, this email is also very mobile-friendly, which can play a big part in the success of an ecommerce lead nurturing email: 56% of email is opened on mobile devices, according to Litmus.
Chubbies is well known for their cheeky marketing and their emails do not disappoint. With 1.4 million Facebook Likes, they put the social, fun aspect of content first. Their email newsletter serves as a hub for user-generated content, promotions, and all-around humor.
Part information, part fun, this email encourages its reader to enjoy reading it even if they aren't planning to buy anything in that moment. The copy relates to its audience, the visuals are on-brand, and they offer multiple CTAs (purchase clothing & follow on Snapchat).
Travel
7 ) JetBlue
JetBlue has some of the best email copy around. Not only is this email funny, helpful, and full of great puns, but it also reflects JetBlue's commitment to engaging and retaining customers through email.
Aware that the funnel isn't always visitor > lead > customer, one of JetBlue's email objectives is to convert current or past customers into TrueBlue members, as demonstrated below.
(Want to learn how long your emails should be? Check out this helpful blog post that takes audience and message into consideration.)
8 ) Airbnb
Airbnb's emails have one goal in mind: give their readers wanderlust.
This email has a clear CTA, highlights beautiful travel destinations, and doesn't ask too much of the recipient. Not to mention, the one year anniversary is also a good opportunity to reach out to their subscribers without seeming pushy. It feels personal and curated. (Take me to Paris, please!)
Services
9 ) Handy
The combination of clear buttons, information about the service, and a nice photo make this email from Handy feel uncluttered and effective. More specifically, the photo of smiling customers is a smart move for two reasons:
It helps to draw attention to the effect their product has on those who buy it: happiness. object photos, a ccording to VWO Human photos saw 95% higher conversion than
I'm a sucker for a good illustration and Freelancer's caught my attention immediately. They prove the value of the service through a drawing, then provide a clear ask in the CTA: "Get Started Today."
Eye-tracking studies have shown that readers spend more time looking through images than reading text when they are relevant to the copy. So if you can align images in your email while educating your readers, the message will stick with them for longer and have a higher impact.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
At the top of this email, Skillshare includes a nice reminder to its recipients that their trial is about to expire -- a smart move that'll hopefully result in a renewal or purchase.
The reminder is accompanied by some unobtrusive, helpful CTAs for various educational classes. Notice how the simple, stylish boxes stand out as an alternative to a traditional button.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
Food & Beverage
When a person hears something, they'll remember 10% of that content three days later. However, when it's paired with a relevant image, they will remember 65% of the information three days later. This concept is referred to as the picture superiority effect.
Thrive takes advantage of this theory through their use of product images. They highlight their products in an attractive way, include a good amount of content, and encourage the reader to start shopping.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
Dunkin Donuts used an announcement for a new item as a way to reach out to its audience. This simple email asks its readers to find the location nearest them, showcases the new drink, and has a secondary CTA to add them on Snapchat. (Speaking of which, check out this guide to Snapchat for business.)
Product Marketing
Newsjacking is defined by HubSpot as "the practice of capitalizing on the popularity of a news story to amplify your sales and marketing success." By mentioning a current, trending topic into your marketing, you can bring in a new audience and engage with your current users. (You can learn how to incorporate newsjacking into your marketing strategy here.)
InVision monopolized on the "Stranger Things" trend by highlighting its typography in this email and relating it back to the design industry. They also used it as an excuse to teach their newsletter recipients through workshops and trainings.
According to DemandGen, leads that are nurtured with personalized content convert into sales at 20% higher than those who aren't.
This email is from the CEO of Zapier asking how he can help them get setup proves that they've got a handle on the whole personalization thing. This user is being targeted with a name personalization token as well as a trigger indicating that they are yet to setup the product.
For technical products, friendly, helpful emails based on activity can perform extremely well. Notice how they even include a link to their help documentation for added value and clarity.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
Sprout Social uses a new feature as a reason to reach out to leads. They teach the audience about this new feature, let them know that their trial is expiring, and provide helpful feature descriptions to inform their decision.
The Kapost blog tells us that 60% of people are motivated to learn more about a product after reading about it. By giving your readers a taste of your new products and services, they will be inspired to learn more, so be sure to also include relevant links and information for them to continue their research.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
Writing email copy is difficult. It's important to be friendly, helpful, and straightforward.
That's why Typeform really hit the nail on the head with this email. In the example below, you'll see that they're not only being relatable and honest, but they are also strategically taking advantage of their user's inactive status to position the outreach. And the challenge to look at their leaderboard is a nice secondary CTA that doesn't ask too much.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
Holiday marketing is a common type of lead nurturing. Both B2B and B2C companies take full advantages of running holiday-themed campaigns throughout the year.
Square leverages the Valentine's Day holiday to encourage its recipients to take action with their own customers. They provide a helpful and powerful statistic to prove value, and keep it short and sweet.
Source: ReallyGoodEmails
19 ) Duolingo
Duolingo taps into their users' affinity for learning by asking them to nominate a favorite teacher for a contest. This is a great way of engaging with your audience while providing a helpful and fun reason to click.
They also make use of two different types of testimonials. They tell the reader to join "350,000 teachers" as well as including two quotes from teachers using the product. What a great use of social proof.
Now that you've been inspired by these great brands and products, learn how to write email copy like a pro and create compelling images.
Have any favorite lead nurturing images? Mention them in the comments below.Beijing has a lesson for overseas universities: Don’t invite speakers who oppose the Communist Party to big events.
A branch of the Chinese government has barred Chinese scholars from receiving state funding to study at the University of California, San Diego, according to people at the school. The freeze highlights how Beijing is steadily placing pressure on overseas universities to suppress viewpoints that run counter to Communist Party orthodoxy.
In June, UCSD hosted the Dalai Lama to speak at its school-wide commencement ceremony for the 2016-2017 academic year. The invitation generated controversy among some members of school’s Chinese student population. The Chinese government strictly controls information within its borders about the Dalai Lama, who it views as a separatist and a symbol of China’s feudal past. Many Chinese citizens hold these same views.
In the months preceding commencement, members of UCSD’s Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA), a global network of Chinese students at overseas schools, met with the university’s chancellor to request that the Dalai Lama refrain from discussing politics at the speech. They also said that they informed the local Chinese embassy of the Dalai Lama’s scheduled appearance.
Now, the Chinese government has retaliated. On Sept. 16, UCSD professor Victor Shih tweeted that a colleague of his received notice that the China Scholarship Council, a branch of the government that funds overseas study for Chinese citizens, would no longer process applications to study at UCSD for scholars who had not already received a visa appointment from the US embassy.
The China Scholarship Council is a branch of China’s Ministry of Education. It typically provides scholarships for graduate students and professors at Chinese universities to travel to an overseas university as a visiting scholar. The CSC did not respond to Quartz’s email about the reported application freeze.
When asked for more details, a spokesperson for UCSD sent Quartz the following statement:
“UC San Diego has learned, unofficially, that the China Scholarship Council under the PRC Ministry of Education has apparently issued instructions that CSC-funded visiting scholars who do not yet have visas will not be allowed to study at UC San Diego. UC San Diego was not notified of this directly by the China Scholarship Council, and we are presently making inquiries to determine if this is the case.”
The application freeze does not bar undergraduates, graduate students, or other academics from attending UCSD—it merely prevents scholars from obtaining CSC funding to do so. As a result, these specific measures alone will likely do little to curb the school’s influx of Chinese students. In the fall of 2015, Chinese students made up 10.6% of UCSD’s student population and 55.7% of its international student population.
Yet the retaliatory action nevertheless shows that if universities invite speakers espousing views that the party hopes to suppress, Beijing might attempt to discourage academic exchanges with such schools. Inter-university exchanges between the US and China occur across all fields. Schools that invite controversial speakers could risk losing collaboration and funding opportunities with China.
Over the past year, various academic institutions have faced pressure to self-censor to appease either Chinese authorities or Chinese students themselves. In August, Cambridge University Press announced it had removed over 300 articles from the China-facing website for the China Quarterly, one of the leading academic publications for sinology, due to demands from the government. It later reinstated the articles due to uproar from the academic community. Meanwhile, in Australia, several professors recently found themselves shamed online and forced to apologize for making statements, some of them about international politics, that offended their Chinese students.Product Description
Ghost Stories
Ghost Stories is a cooperative game in which the players protect the village from incarnations of the lord of hell Wu-Feng and his legions of ghosts before they haunt a town and recover the ashes that will allow him to return to life. Each Player represents a Taoist monk working together with the others to fight off waves of ghosts.
From the Manufacturer
Many fell putting an end to the reign of terror of Wu-Feng Lord of the Nine Hells. The funerary urn housing his ashes was buried in the cemetery of a village in the Middle Empire. Years have passed and the cursed legacy has been forgotten by the living. Hidden away in Hell Wu-Feng has forgotten nothing. His incessant research allowed him to locate the receptacle. The shadow of his former incarnation already extends to the villagers who are unaware of the danger threatening them. Fortunately the Fat-Si (Taoist priests) keep watch guarding the border between the dead and the living. Armed with their courage their faith and their powers they will try to return the reincarnation of Wu-Feng to Hell. Ghost Stories is a cooperative game. The players play as a team against the game. Either they share a common victory or suffer the same defeat. Ghost Stories provides 4 levels of difficulty: Initiation Normal Nightmare and Hell.Dumb Ways to Die – a game that a few iOS users have been hanging over my head for a long time now, has finally come to Android through Google Play. For anyone else who has been looking for this title, you might have seen a barrage of fakes in the Play store under the same name. Thanks to helpful reviews titled, “Fake” and the ever-so-delightful, “This app is total bull***,” we were able to stay clear of any deceitful titles.
In this game, you play 15 different puzzles. Each one is different, and the object of each puzzle is to not die. Sometimes you have to swat away bees or make sure your characters don’t get hit by a train. Once you complete a few puzzles successfully, it gets faster and then they get even “fasterer.” It’s a very challenging, but incredibly fun game.
It’s free, so go check it out right now.
Play LinkTaylor Swift and Calvin Harris are going their separate ways.
The singer, 26, and the DJ, 32, have broken up, multiple sources confirm exclusively to PEOPLE.
“There was no drama. Things just don’t work out sometimes,” says an insider. “No one cheated.”
In March, the pair celebrated their one-year anniversary with a tropical getaway.
Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris Instagram
RELATED VIDEO: The Top 3 Taylor Swift Songs Calvin Harris Needs to Listen to to Get Over Taylor Swift
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Calvin Harris and Taylor Swift Courtesy Taylor Swift
RELATED: The Most Romantic Moments from Taylor Swift and Calvin Harris’ Epic Love Story
The couple celebrated July 4
“I’m just taking things as they come,” Swift told Vogue earlier this year. “I’m in a magical relationship right now. And of course I want it to be ours, and low-key this is the one thing that’s been mine about my personal life.”
Calvin Harris out on Tuesday in Los Angeles Splash News
Harris – who was briefly hospitalized on May 20 after a car accident – arrived back in L.A. on Tuesday after a short trip to the U.K.Gas prices run more than $4 in many states While the average gas price nationwide passed $4 last weekend, Missouri could boast of prices around $3.825, the cheapest in the country. How come the Show Me State has the lowest gas prices? Taxes, pipelines, and ethanol. State gas taxes—which are assessed on top of the federal rate of 18.4 cents per gallon—tend to get the most attention in comparisons of fuel prices across states. At 17.6 cents per gallon, Missouri’s gas taxes are low, but they aren’t quite as low as some other states’. New Jersey, for example, takes just 14.5 cents per gallon, but its prices remain more expensive than Missouri’s. (The Garden State’s ban on self-service pumps adds an
In Missouri, geography helps keep prices low. The state doesn’t have any oil refineries, and its share of U.S. crude oil production is so small that the Department of Energy reports it as 0 percent. But because of its proximity to Texas, Oklahoma, and the Gulf Coast states, Missouri is crisscrossed by some of the nation’s larger pipelines. Oil barges also pass through the state on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Proximity to producers reduces transportation costs a little, but it also makes Missouri less susceptible to price spikes when individual refineries run into problems.
The distribution of gas stations within a state can also make a difference. In Missouri, many pumps are at big-box stores or stations attached to convenience stores—which take in significant income from secondary sales. At these locations, retail gas prices tend to be closer to wholesale prices. (You can find a similar effect on gas prices in Kansas, parts of Pennsylvania, and the upper Great Lakes region.)
Retail gas prices can vary depending on state and local environmental requirements. Urban areas with particularly dirty air are required by federal law to sell “reformulated gas” for all or part of the year, and because the cleaner-burning fuel is refined through a special process, it tends to be a little more expensive than regular gas. Within Missouri, for example, St. Louis and Kansas City have higher prices compared with the rest of the state because of mandates for cleaner gas. California uses a unique blend of gas due to environmental regulations and is generally cut off from supplies east of the Rockies; there, prices can spike to more than 40 cents above the national average.
Yet one piece of legislation designed to help the environment may have had the unusual effect of reducing gas prices in Missouri—at least in the short term. At the beginning of this year, the state implemented a new law requiring that all gasoline include 10 percent ethanol. With the price of crude oil rising much faster than that of ethanol, the new formulation may save consumers about 10 cents per gallon (PDF) relative to regular gas. But with ethanol production being blamed for rising food prices, Missouri lawmakers are debating rolling back the law—a change that might allow South Carolina or New Jersey to reclaim the title of the nation’s cheapest gas.
Bonus Explainer: How come diesel fuel *—in Missouri and elsewhere—costs so much more than the regular stuff? Global demand. Historically, diesel has often been cheaper than regular gas. But with the rest of the world—including fast-growing China and India—so reliant on diesel, U.S. refiners have increased their exports abroad. While European refiners export gasoline to the United States, some tankers return with diesel to fulfill high demand across the Atlantic. Reduced supplies in the United States mean diesel is, on average, about 65 cents per gallon more expensive than gasoline.
While diesel and gasoline both use the same basic raw ingredient—crude oil—they require a different refining process. Given diesel’s higher price, refiners almost certainly would produce more if they could, but it may take them years to build that additional capacity.
Got a question about today’s news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Severin Borenstein of the University of California Energy Institute, Hayley Chouinard of Washington State University, Michael Davis of the Missouri University of Science and Technology, Tom Kloza of the Oil Price Information Service, Matthew Lewis of Ohio State University, Erich Muehlegger of Harvard University, and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources Energy Center.What do our stories tell us about who we are? What do our songs, our books, our paintings and our movies reveal about the reality of our existence? Do our artistic expressions point toward deeper truths that lie beyond the merely physical, or is our creative output only a subjective reflection of our innate longings and desires?
In “Death at the Movies: Hollywood’s Guide to the Hereafter” (Quest Books), Lyn and Tom Davis Genelli wrestle with these questions through an exploration of cinema’s metaphysical side, examining what our movies have to say about life, death and beyond.
The Genellis focus on “transit” films: movies that explore a “transition or change, as to a spiritual existence at death.” (3) In their understanding, “the essence of the transit film is to show characters learning and developing, mastering their limitations in an essential way.” (80) These cinematic narratives thereby function as “vehicles for the subconscious infusion of perennial mystical/spiritual concepts about death.” (3)
The authors think that such films reveal important metaphysical truths and set out to show “how popular motion pictures have intuited transit through their visions of death and the afterlife, and how those visions play out their largely unconscious role in the evolution and guidance of human consciousness toward understanding the meaning and purpose of death.” (3)
The Genellis walk us through the metaphysical insights of movies such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Resurrection, Poltergeist, Ghost, Groundhog Day, The Sixth Sense, The Others, Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and others, exploring the symbols, metaphors, and narrative significance of each in relation to their theme.
They approach their discussion through a broadly Buddhist lens but remain intentionally neutral in regard to specific religious doctrine, choosing to discuss life, love, death, heaven, hell and purgatory in general spiritual terms. This isn’t a book of theological doctrine, but a collection of spiritual reflections on movies.
My only disappoint with the book was the omission of several movies. Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries surely merit mention in any book about film and death. There’s also fertile ground for discussion in the work of Andrei Tarkovsky — Stalker in particular — as well as Aronofsky’s The Fountain and Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Obviously the authors couldn’t include every film that touches on death — don’t they all? — but for me these were particularly egregious oversights.
“Death at the Movies” offers an important starting point for reflection on how the dominant narrative form of our society both reflects and reinforces our thoughts about the very nature of existence. While I remain dubious of the notion that the films the authors discuss contain actual truths about life after death, I agree that “these two primordial themes — the crisis of death and an intuition of the transcendent” will continue to define and inspire our creative pursuits. A movie may not tell us if we’re going to heaven or hell, but it can give us profound insight into what we think about the afterlife — and about what we value in this life.
Dan Wilkinson
Dan is a writer, graphic designer and IT specialist. He lives in Montana, is married and has two cats. He blogs at CoolingTwilight.comOld European Open Forums - moderated
Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 5,096
Re: NYT article by Professor/Obama advisor-It´s hard not to notice that desegregation in US schools is effectively The failure of school desegregation was probably the biggest blow to the Leftist agenda in the twentieth century. The only students who benefited from school integration were a handful of blacks (they would send their best) who ended up in "choice" public schools in better White neighborhoods. And, that improvement was only very, very marginal - something you don't hear about in this article.
What the author fails to note about the "spate" of research he cites is that many of those schools were re-designated as A/V and training centers after a decade or two of busing black students in and out of such neighborhoods. One way or another, White communities found a way to end the infestation.
Likewise, "magnet schools" have been around for some time and, while sucking off the taxpayer teat, are not accountable to the same degree as public schools. They, as well, have been largely unsuccessful, but not because of a "hostile" Supreme Court. They have failed because they have not provided a suitable alternative for |
the Ramsey's meet with Detective Smit with a
7 Boulder police officer present. The Ramseys regret
8 that this proposal was not accepted and won't --
9 and want to renew their offer to meet with
10 Detective Smit. I have been instructed to deliver
11 this letter from John Ramsey to you so that you
12 may know his feelings in his words.̃
13 And it's signed John Ramsey. Mr. Ramsey, I don't
14 know if I can read your writing very well, and I
15 would like you to read it, if you will?
16 JOHN RAMSEY: (Dear Mr. Hunter, I'm writing
17 this letter because it seems difficult at times to
18 communicate through attorneys who are focused on
19 protecting my rights as a citizen. I want to be
20 very clear on our family's position. We have no
21 trust or confidence in the Boulder police. They
22 have tried, from moment they walked into our home
23 on December 26th, 1996, to convince others that
24 Patsy or I or Burke killed JonBenet. I will hold
25 them accountable forever for one thing: not
0008
1 accepting help from people who offered it in the
2 beginning and could have brought a wealth of
3 experience to bear on the crime. We, myself and
4 Patsy and Burke, John Andrew and Melinda will meet
5 any time, anywhere, for as long as you want with
6 investigators from your office.
7 If the purpose of a grand jury is to be
8 able to talk to us, that is not necessary. We want
9 to find the killer of our daughter and sister and
10 work with you 24 hours a day to find it.̃
11 I can't refer to this thing as a person
12 frankly.
13 (If we are subpoenaed by a grand jury, we will
14 testify regardless of any previous meeting with
15 your investigators. I'm living my life for two
16 purposes now: to find the killer of JonBenet and
17 bring it to the maximum justice our society can
18 impose. While there is a rage within me that says,
19 give me a few minutes alone with this creature and
20 there won't be a need for a trial, I would then
21 have succumb to the behavior which the killer did.
22 Secondly, my living children must not have to live
23 under the legacy that our entertainment industry
24 has given them based on false information and a
25 frenzy created on our family's misery to achieve
0009
1 substantial profit.
2 It's time rise above all this pettiness
3 and politics and get down to the most difficult
4 mission: finding JonBenet's killer. That's wall we
5 care about. The police cannot do it. I hope it is
6 not too late to investigate this crime properly at
7 last.
8 Finally, I am willing and able to put up
9 a substantial reward, one million dollars, through
10 the help of friends if this will help derive
11 information. I know this would be used against us
12 by the media dimwits. But I don't care. Please,
13 let's all do what is right to get this worst of
14 all killer in our midst. Sincerely, John Ramsey.̃
15 LOU SMIT: Thank you, John. I would just
16 like to ask you a couple things about that letter.
17 First of all, where did you write this letter at?
18 JOHN RAMSEY: I was in David Williams'
19 kitchen.
20 At his counter.
21 LOU SMIT: And is that here in --
22 JOHN RAMSEY: Here in Denver. Yeah.
23 LOU SMIT: And what prompted you to write
24 that letter? I mean you hadn't written a letter
25 before like that.
0010
1 JOHN RAMSEY: We just finally came to the
2 end of our rope in terms of frustration with what
3 we viewed as silliness. We, frankly, tried to
4 communicate through -- actually it was Pat Burke,
5 Patsy's attorney who was visiting with us and we
6 said, look, this is ridiculous --
7 BRYAN MORGAN: Excuse me. I really can't
8 get into, and let John get into conversations that
9 happened with the lawyers. That's a problem that I
10 just have to protect. Some the privileges have
11 waived for all purposes. I'm perfectly (INAUDIBLE)
12 for this conversation to be put on the record if
13 there's an understanding that this is not a
14 waiver. But the attorney/client privilege in
15 general. I understand, but I do have to watch out
16 for this. If that's okay with Mr. Kane, and it's
17 not a full-scale waiver, then go ahead and you may
18 talk about that conversation.
19 JOHN RAMSEY: Okay. Well, we were, I guess
20 very frustrated that we couldn't seem to get off
21 the dime with a serious investigation with good
22 communication. There seemed to be just a lot of
23 frivolous motives floating around that were
24 preventing a serious investigation from taking
25 place. And we asked Pat to communicate with the
0011
1 district attorney's office, that we were here, we
2 would meet with them right now if they wanted to.
3 But let's get this thing figured out. And,
4 frankly, in listening to Pat say what I wanted to
5 say over the phone, I could see that there was a
6 filtering going on, not intentionally, but a
7 filtering of my emotions. And so I sat down and
8 wrote the letter and I said to Brian, I said,
9 (Here, you either deliver this or tear it up, but
10 don't change it.̃ And he called me about a week
11 later and said, (Well, I just delivered it.̃ And
12 that's how the letter came about.
13 LOU SMIT: Okay. I would like to ask you
14 just a little bit. It seems to me like the letter
15 indicates that this is a 100 percent commitment on
16 your part?
17 JOHN RAMSEY: Um hmm.
18 LOU SMIT: What limitations do you have on
19 that? Are there any limitations that you're
20 putting on this?
21 JOHN RAMSEY: None. We want -- as long as
22 we are working with an objective investigation,
23 there are no limitations.
24
25 LOU SMIT: So we can contact you at any time?
0012
1 JOHN RAMSEY: Absolutely, as far as I'm
2 concerned.
3 LOU SMIT: Have you talked to Bryan
4 about this? I'm mean this has always been a
5 problem. What's been happening is that, we want to
6 conduct an investigation. We go through the
7 lawyers at the District Attorney's office. We're
8 obligated to always go through an attorney if a
9 person is represented by an attorney.
10 We cannot even contact John or Patsy
11 in person without going through attorneys. And by
12 the time it gets from two of our attorneys to four
13 of your attorneys, and a decision is made and
14 comes back, a great deal of time is expended. And
15 I'm not saying that it has to be that way. I'm
16 just saying, is there a way that we can streamline
17 this process. Because there's going to times,
18 especially if we're working in the intruder
19 theory, that we're going to want to just make a
20 telephone call. I know, because of this and the
21 focus of that's on this case, that's a very
22 difficult thing to do. And I know that lawyers
23 want to protect their client.
24 A lot of times I may come up with a name or one of
25 the investigators may come up with a name. We just
0013
1 want to say, (John, do you know who this is?̃
2 (No.̃ I don't know what can be arranged. That's up
3 to the lawyers and people to do. But, John, I
4 don't know how you feel. But then --
5 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, I --
6 LOU SMIT: -- I'm not going to advise you
7 on that. But I'm just letting you know.
8 BRYAN MORGAN: Let me say this much. And I,
9 I want to spare everybody a long speech. But, I
10 take it that at least you, Detective Smit,
11 understand why we truly do not believe that we
12 have any confidence in the Boulder Police
13 Department. When we have given leads to the
14 Boulder Police Department, those leads have been
15 turned around and used to poison the well against
16 us. With the people that we have good faith said,
17 (You at least should consider looking into...̃
18 and I (INAUDIBLE) but I won't.
19 So, what I would do, and John follows his
20 own lead. It was John who wrote that letter; it
21 was not with my prompting. And he did it because
22 of the frustration he felt at not being able to
23 communicate. The background of that was, we had
24 made an offer to Commander Becker to sit and talk,
25 and the offer was essentially rejected unless it
0014
1 could be this, that and the other. And that was
2 not what John had in mind.
3 I will put it this way. Let us see how long
4 we go this week. Let us see and make our own
5 judgment at the end of it (INAUDIBLE). What was
6 happening and what sort of investigation is being
7 run. And then I will talk with John, and John, as
8 always, will do what he sees fit. We do not want
9 to put impediments in the course of any sort of
10 conversation of the type you described: (John, do
11 you know this person? Can you tell us anything
12 about this subject, this object?̃
13 We don't want to put blockages there, but,
14 because half of everything we talk about winds up
15 being printed in the press and turned against us
16 in half-truths. We have a long history of being
17 very skeptical; not at you and not at the district
18 attorney's office. Let's see if we can get over
19 it. I say let's go through the next several days
20 and we'll see where we are.
21 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, you know, we would
22 -- the last thing in our mind on December 26th,
23 was that we would be considered suspects. It was
24 hard for us to believe that we were considered
25 suspects. We accepted that and there's been a
0015
1 countless number of instances where believe not
2 only were we suspects, but we were hunted
3 suspects. And these fellows, frankly, in my mind
4 were there to protect us as citizens and protect
5 our rights.
6 I would love not to have attorneys and
7 let's get on with this and figure out who did
8 this. And I'm encouraged that the investigation
9 that has started now, started with the meeting
10 with Burke and Dan Schuler and Pete Hofstrom is
11 the start of what should have happened 18 months
12 ago. And so I'm very encouraged and look at this
13 as a fresh start, I guess. It should have happened
14 18 months ago.
15 Frankly, if we're wrong, we owe a lot of
16 people an apology. But our view is that the
17 cruelty that was willfully imposed on us and our
18 family by Boulder police was only exceeded by what
19 the killer did to us. And that's our perspective.
20 and so that's behind us, let's move forward and,
21 you know, we've said it, we said it for 18 months
22 that, you know, we'll be here 24 hours a day if we
23 need, if that's helpful. So, I mean that's how I
24 feel.
25 LOU SMIT: Well, you know, it just seems
0016
1 what the public perception of it is: is that you
2 offered to do this in the past, to come in and to
3 talk. And then all of a sudden you don't talk. For
4 instance, like that CNN interview, for instance
5 where you said you'd be in --
6 JOHN RAMSEY: And we came back to Boulder
7 and it was extremely difficult. Patsy, as we came
8 over that hill coming down the valley, Patsy broke
9 down in tears. We almost turned around and went
10 back to stay in Denver. But we were coming back to
11 help with how, you know, what we could help with.
12 And we sat down with Mike Bynum the next morning
13 and he said, (Look, there's something you aught to
14 know. Here's what the police are doing. And they
15 refuse to release your daughter's body for burial
16 until you came in for an interrogation.̃ And he
17 was in tears.
18 LOU SMIT: Now this was after June?
19 JOHN RAMSEY: This was after June. He said,
20 (I took care of it.̃ He said, (We had a lot of
21 shouting matches and it was taken care of. But you
22 need to understand these people are not your
23 friends.̃ So we kind of sat back and said, (whoa.̃
24 And that set the or reset our perception against,
25 I guess, of what was really going on. And so, then
0017
1 we offered -- I remember once offered -- we were
2 in very bad shape. We were in shock, we were on
3 medication. We went to bed at 6 o'clock at night.
4 And we offered -- until we finally worked out
5 we're okay. We're going to come in Wednesday
6 morning when the police came back and said, (No,
7 no, no. Six o'clock Friday night we want you to be
8 here alone.̃ We're not even capable of holding a
9 conversation that time of day. And it was, to us,
10 very obvious what they're trying to do.
11 And so this whole arena of trust just went
12 from, frankly, total trust on the morning of the
13 26th to zero trust by two weeks later. And it
14 never has gotten any better. And so it's been very
15 frustrating for us as we look at our daughter and
16 the life of the precious child that was lost and
17 we're dealing with all this pettiness. And then
18 one detective said, (Well, you know, there's a lot
19 of careers on the line here.̃ And my answer was,
20 (Careers? I don't even care about careers. And
21 that's the problem. Your motive is wrong.̃
22 But, you know, we've been hurt as much as
23 we can be hurt. Nobody can hurt us anymore. And
24 we've been hurt. Let's sit down and figure out who
25 the heck did this. But we never could seem to get
0018
1 to that point where there was an honest effort on
2 both parties' parts.
3 LOU SMIT: You know, gentlemen, I know this
4 is going to be a tough question. I'm kind of
5 winging it here. But some people even say that no
6 matter what, a parent would come in. even if you
7 were feeling bad. How do you answer that?
8 JOHN RAMSEY: We've made lot's of offers to
9 come in. the day after the 27th they came over the
10 Fernie's where we were staying, in horribly bad
11 shape. I slept on the floor that night and then we
12 did well to get up the next day.
13 The police came in and we sat and talked with
14 them. They said, (Well, you know, we really want
15 you to come down to the station for an interview.̃
16 We said, (Look, we will talk to you the following
17 morning. But we can't leave this sanctuary, this
18 home.̃ It was just beyond our mental capacity to
19 get up, get dressed, go out into the media frenzy,
20 which was starting to develop.
21 And there's always been that offer on our part.
22 And it was always rejected in the condition, in
23 such a manner that we said, look, these people are
24 up to no good as far as we're concerned.
25 So, yeah, if could have called out the National
0019
1 Guard, I would have, if it had been in power. That
2 was my first reaction that morning. Let's close
3 the airport, let's put up roadblocks. What we got
4 to do here? But I finally just lost total
5 confidence in the Boulder Police. There's no
6 sense. We stared our own investigation last summer
7 because we, we didn't think anybody else was
8 investigating the crime.
9 MIKE KANE: John's attorney said there were
10 certain conditions and they were put on. What
11 conditions are you talking about specifically so
12 we can --
13 JOHN RAMSEY: By the police?
14 MIKE KANE: Yeah.
15 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, on the 27th, they said,
16 (Well, we want you to come to the police station.̃
17 We said, (We're mentally not capable.̃ Our family
18 doctor was there. He said Patsy was in no
19 condition to leave this house. They said, (Well,
20 we've got to have you come to the police station.̃
21 I said why, he said, (Well we have records there
22 we want to pull out and look at.̃
23 And we said, (We can't. If you come here we'll
24 spend as much time as you want. But we physically
25 cannot be there.̃ And that's when Mike Bynum
0020
1 stepped in and said, wait a minute, time out. And
2 he was there delivering food; he's a friend of
3 mine and he happened to be an attorney and he
4 smelled a rat, frankly.
5 LOU SMIT: Now this was while you were at
6 Fernie's?
7 JOHN RAMSEY: Um hmm.
8 LOU SMIT: Is that the first time that you
9 contacted the lawyer, that they contacted you?
10 JOHN RAMSEY: He was there. He was bringing
11 food over from Pasta Jay's, and just happened to
12 be there when the police were trying to haul us
13 down to the police station, and he said time out.
14 He took me inside and he said, (John, there's some
15 things going here. Would you allow me to do what I
16 think is necessary?̃ and I said, (Of course.̃
17 LOU SMIT: And what did he do, John?
18 JOHN RAMSEY: I don't remember, but you'd
19 have to ask him, I guess. But I suspect what he
20 did is take the police aside and say, stop. You
21 cannot do what you're doing to these people. And
22 he arranged to bring Bryan in and Pat and were
23 just kind of on autopilot there. And frankly,
24 skeptical, why did we need to do this.
25 But as time went on we became more and more
0021
1 confused of what the police trying to do. They
2 were trying to put a square peg in a round hole,
3 and we're the square peg. And, you know, it was an
4 extremely frustrating time for us. It still is.
5 Cause we know we didn't do it; there's a killer
6 out there.
7 LOU SMIT: Well, right now, John, it sounds
8 a lot to me like you're kind of letting go of the
9 lawyer and coming down. It's almost like starting
10 over. It just seems to happen, just in your own
11 words, how you explained that.
12 JOHN RAMSEY: I would love not to have
13 attorneys in the middle of this. In fact, as long
14 as we are considered suspects in the murder case,
15 I got to have an attorney. That's the way I look
16 at it. That's always kind of been my guideline. If
17 it was said to us in January, (Look we don't
18 really think you are suspects,̃ I would have no
19 need for an attorney. But that's, you know, the
20 police said we're under an umbrella of suspicion.
21 Frankly, I think if they were honest about it,
22 they should say we're their number one suspect and
23 there are no other.
24 That's what we believe. Now, if we're wrong, we're
25 horribly wrong. But given that, and that's our
0022
1 belief, you know, having guidance, I guess, in
2 this whole area to protect us is important. You
3 know, we've had detectives come in. They came in
4 one morning into my son's apartment, college
5 students, and barged in and, (we want to talk to
6 you boys.̃ And they said, well one of the kids
7 said, (Well, gee, I need to call my dad and maybe
8 talk to his attorney.̃ The detective said, (Well,
9 innocent people don't need attorneys.̃ And what a
10 slam, you know.
11 LOU SMIT: That is, you know, that's the
12 perception that (INAUDIBLE) have.
13 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, it's -- the law in the
14 hands of bigots is a dangerous thing. And,
15 frankly, that's what we have here.
16 LOU SMIT: If I might just make a couple
17 comments on that. You know, I've been here like
18 for 16 (INAUDIBLE) and it appears as though the
19 investigation focuses on two areas: the Ramseys
20 and on an intruder.
21 JOHN RAMSEY: Um hmm.
22 LOU SMIT: And I know that a lot of work
23 has been done in regards to you. But see, John, I
24 have to stick up for the Boulder Police Department
25 a little bit. I don't know what all personally
0023
1 went with you. But they initially focused on you
2 because of certain things that happened in the
3 house and that they found. And you were in the
4 house. So, as a detective, I myself would have
5 probably have done that. I would have probably
6 said, (Wait a minute, I got to put you on the
7 front burner, John.̃ And I gotta do that.
8 So, in fairness to them, I think that they
9 started off doing what detectives do. They take
10 the most logical thing that's happened. You were
11 there; there were strange circumstances that
12 occurred and we'll get into these here a little
13 bit later. And so they would focus on you
14 initially. And I would. I'd do the same thing. And
15 I'd concentrate my investigation on you. And
16 really, what detectives do, they aren't supposed
17 to make judgments. What they are supposed to do is
18 to focus on an area of the investigation and
19 collect and record information. That's what
20 detectives do. That's all we're supposed to do.
21 Then we're supposed to take this information to a
22 prosecutor or to other people that evaluate this
23 information. And then they make a determination as
24 to whether there will be charges filed.
25 So really, as detectives, even on the Boulder
0024
1 Police Department, that's what they were doing
2 initially, is gathering information. And, sure,
3 they gathered a whole lot of it. And, John, on
4 this area, there's going to be way more
5 information gathered.
6 But that's how I would look at it. It's
7 information. I'm not going conclude that you're
8 guilty because of this. And I'm not going to
9 conclude that an intruder is guilty. I'm going to
10 collect information and then let other people
11 evaluate that. What do you say to that?
12 JOHN RAMSEY: We are comfortable with that.
13 We never objected to being looked at. We
14 understand that, logically, we were in the house.
15 Okay. We accept that in an objective
16 investigation. What became concerning to us is,
17 our investigators, you know, had a tip line;
18 they'd get calls, you know. I tried to call the
19 Boulder police for five days for a month. They
20 won't return my call. I have a lead, you know. I'm
21 anxious to tell someone.
22 I lost count of the number of times that happened.
23 It started to occur to us that they're just
24 blowing off the other inputs on this. You know,
25 they're so focused on the Ramseys that nothing
0025
1 else is getting looked at. We said early on,
2 (Look, you're spending too much time on us. Look
3 elsewhere as well and we'll be fine.̃ But we never
4 got comfortable that there was anything going on
5 but a 100 percent focus on the Ramseys.
6 LOU SMIT: No, John, just from looking at
7 the case report, and again, in respect of the
8 police department, they have looked into other
9 areas. I know that there's been a lot of focus on
10 you, but I looked at every one of those reports.
11 There's been a lot of work done in other ways. And
12 I know from your perception it seems like that --
13 JOHN RAMSEY: Yeah.
14 LOU SMIT: -- but they have done a lot of
15 work.
16 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, and I say, we may be
17 totally wrong and owe a lot of apologies, but what
18 I want to do is just frame what our perception is
19 so you understand.
20 LOU SMIT: Well, when you're through being
21 put under the microscope with inspection, it will
22 point to what actually happened. The microscope
23 can't lie. But the person that looks through it
24 possible can interpret it different.
25 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, we know a lot of effort
0026
1 has been put into this and we're grateful for
2 that. And, you know, I sometimes find myself
3 thinking, (Gee, those guys are working their butts
4 off and we're criticizing them.̃ But then
5 something will come up which will just confirm our
6 suspicions. And so we've never been able to get
7 over that trust area.
8 And I don't mind having -- we've got nothing to
9 hide. They can look at anything and ask us
10 anything and, that's always been our position. But
11 I guess there's got to be a level of trust in the
12 objectivity of the -- in the relationship, I
13 guess, with the investigation. I've never done
14 this before.
15 It's very hurtful to have be what you thought was
16 a very good parent and a loving parent, and then
17 to have lost a child, and then to be accused of,
18 at least, accused by inclusion in the suspect
19 list, of hurting your child. It's beyond anything
20 you can comprehend was possible.
21 LOU SMIT: How is Patsy doing?
22 JOHN RAMSEY: Patsy is doing pretty good.
23 She's, as she said, very well. She's been hurt as
24 much as she could be hurt. So there's nothing else
25 that anybody can do to her that would hurt her
0027
1 anymore than the loss of JonBenet. So we can take
2 a lot of blows once you've taken a big one like
3 that.
4 LOU SMIT: Okay. If I can continue this a
5 little bit here. Bryan, do you have any comments
6 you would like to make in regards to that? I mean
7 --
8 BRYAN MORGAN: I have a lot of comments
9 I'd
10 like to make about how this attitude came about.
11 But, frankly, I don't think that's productive.
12 LOU SMIT: Okay.
13 BRYAN MORGAN: I'm happy to document the
14 reasons why we acted the way we did. I seriously
15 doubt anybody running a professional investigation
16 would have done the media lakes that still occur.
17 And I'm not convinced people are just gathering
18 information and trying to give it to the district
19 attorney. I think they're still fighting a media
20 war (INAUDIBLE) side just to try to get the
21 district attorney's office to file charges.
22 So, I'll leave it at that.
23 LOU SMIT: Okay.
24 BRYAN MORGAN: I don't think that's the way
25 you operate. And we'll go forward.
0028
1 MIKE KANE: Yeah. And, for the record, the
2 investigator is biting his tongue through all of
3 this.
4 BRYAN MORGAN: Never mind. Let's go, let's
5 go. They need to talk to this man, not us.
6 LOU SMIT: Okay. Let's -- if we catch the
7 person that did this, if we catch the killer, and
8 we've never lost confidence that we can, we're
9 going to need to prosecute him or her. And we do
10 want a conviction on this person. And we want him
11 punished as payment for that horrible and brutal
12 crime they committed. And do you agree with this?
13 JOHN RAMSEY: One hundred percent.
14 LOU SMIT: First of all, the defense most
15 likely would be that you and patsy are the, if we
16 catch him, that you and Patsy are the ones
17 involved in (INAUDIBLE). And I think that's
18 probably going to be (INAUDIBLE) if we do catch
19 this guy. And they may think that we can't
20 eliminate you as a suspect. So, for that reason
21 alone, we must take steps now to prove your
22 innocence.
23 And I know one thing about investigation: it
24 shouldn't only be used to prove guilt, but
25 innocence as well. And that's why we need all of
0029
1 the help that you can give us. Now, we cannot
2 actively pursue and convict this individual if you
3 and Patsy are in the way of the investigation.
4 We've got to get past you, and the sooner the
5 better.
6 For the past year and a half, you and Patsy have
7 been in the picture. In fact, you have been the
8 picture. There's been very little room for anyone
9 else. This procedure is not going to be easy. What
10 we're going to be going through, even at the
11 district attorney's office. In fact, you may
12 perceive it, even though it seems like you have
13 trust and confidence in us, that it's going to be
14 harsh, cruel, insensitive, uncaring and demeaning.
15 JOHN RAMSEY: I trust you objectivity and
16 your experience.
17 LOU SMIT: Okay.
18 JOHN RAMSEY: That's what I trust. And that's
19 all we've ever asked for in the investigation.
20 LOU SMIT: But you may feel this.
21 JOHN RAMSEY: That's fine. We put ourselves
22 up for that.
23 LOU SMIT: If you think you were under a
24 magnifying glass with the police department, you
25 better be aware that you'll be place under more
0030
1 scrutiny now. You'll be looked at under a
2 microscope, like I mentioned before, by the
3 prosecutors.
4 My role, as I see it, is to work towards
5 investigating the case and collecting and
6 recording information. Mike Kane, even, was hired
7 to look into the grand jury proceedings. He and
8 others involved in the case will take a fair look
9 at all of the information obtained, and will look
10 very closely into all aspects of the case.
11 We will both be asking questions in different ways
12 in our own areas from now on. In our discussion,
13 Mike emphasized that he will look, not only into
14 family involvement, but he'll look into the
15 intruder aspect of it also. In many instances it
16 will seem that we're concentrating only on you and
17 Patsy. And in some cases we will be. However, not
18 necessarily to convict, but also to prove
19 innocence. And that's what I mentioned before.
20 When everything is completed, the truth should be
21 evident and you should be able to go on with your
22 lives in a fairly normal way.
23 Now, Mike, do you have anything to day at this
24 time?
25 MICHALE KANE: I do. Mr. Ramsey, I'm somewhat
0031
1 new on the scene here. We've never been
2 introduced. But I just wanted to say, I mean from
3 a prosecutor's perspective, I come into this as a
4 lawyer and probably not even just as a lawyer, as
5 a prosecutor with a different mentality.
6 Investigators go out and dig up leads and
7 information.
8 I always think in terms of down the road. I'm sure
9 Bryan is the same way, when you're evaluating
10 things, you're think: how is going to be in court;
11 how is this going to play out. And so it gives me
12 from a different perspective in some regards.
13 The one thing that I wanted to emphasize, and with
14 what Lou has been saying is that, let's
15 (INAUDIBLE) down the road that someday there's
16 evidence that develops against an individual in
17 your home that night. And enough evidence develops
18 that we can file charges against that individual.
19 And, in short of some kind of confession or
20 whatever, we have to go to trial and prove that
21 person's guilt. There is no question, and you've
22 seen it because you've lived with it for a year
23 and a half, there is no question that the defense
24 is going to be, (It wasn't my guy. It was the
25 people living in the house.̃
0032
1 And, of course, as a prosecutor, our goal is to
2 prove guilt of that individual beyond a reasonable
3 doubt. And the flip side of that is, that the
4 defense only has to suggest to create a reasonable
5 doubt that maybe you were involved.
6 And so from my perspective, and I think Lou and I
7 talked about this since the day I came in, and
8 everybody in the D.A.'s office, I think, looked at
9 it the same way. In fact, as Lou said, we have to
10 prove -- if we're going to prove it's an intruder,
11 we have to prove your innocence.
12 And what that means is, is that a defense attorney
13 is going to go after you with a lot of very tough
14 questions to suggest that reasonable doubt. That
15 means I have to do the same thing. Because I have
16 to know the answers before any defense attorney
17 brings them up in the trial.
18 So I just want you to understand that, if I ask a
19 question, and I read your interviews with the
20 police department before. I know how it can get
21 uncomfortable if you get (INAUDIBLE). Would you
22 please try to understand, I'm going to ask a
23 question because I'm going to play the role that a
24 defense attorney is going to play and I just have
25 to hear what the answer will be.
0033
1 JOHN RAMSEY: Well, that's an interesting
2 perspective. It's one I hadn't even thought about
3 is. I mean, my hope is that, you know, this person
4 is caught and they confess, and that's it. And
5 there's some --
6 MIKE KANE: I mean --
7 JOHN RAMSEY: -- some piece of evidence that
8 confirms their confession and off we go. But I
9 never thought of that scenario, frankly.
10 MIKE KANE: Well, let me just add. So
11 truthfully it becomes absolutely -- you were in
12 the Navy. And there's a term -- I was never in the
13 Navy, but I know that there's a term called
14 (quibbling̃, and you know what quibbling is?
15 Technically true, but misleading.
16 So it's very important to not only give the truth,
17 the technical truth, but there's no quibbling
18 about it. But if something doesn't fit, but it's
19 the truth, just tell us the truth and we'll deal
20 with |
artists answer the title question with pictures of a variety of creatures rendered in their diverse, signature styles. Royalties from the book, due out from Henry Holt on January 21, will be donated to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass., which Carle and his wife, Barbara, founded in 2002.
The book, along with a forthcoming companion title, What’s Your Favorite Color?, was inspired by Carle’s response to an interviewer’s question a number of years ago. Asked about his favorite color, the artist immediately answered “yellow.” Laura Godwin, v-p and publisher of Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, recalled how Carle’s response resonated with her. “I found his response so intriguing and energizing,” she said. “He went on to explain that yellow is a difficult color to do as a painter. It’s the color of sunshine and a very joyful color, but it’s hard to find the right shade. Of course I had the standard editor’s response: that should be a book.”
But Godwin didn’t act on that instinctive reaction until about a year ago, when that idea “popped back into my head,” she explained. Godwin, who has been Carle’s editor at Holt for some 15 years, sent the author an e-mail suggesting that he create a pair of picture books, along with some of his artist friends, about their favorite animals and colors. “Eric wrote me back 12 minutes later, saying simply, ‘Let’s do it,’ and an hour and a half later he had a rough sketch of the jacket,” she said. “He jumped right on it.”
According to Carle, he gave an immediate nod to the projects for several reasons. “A picture book is really one idea in 32 pages,” he said. “I am always thinking to myself when I am working on a book, ‘Simplify, simplify, simplify.’ I think part of what appealed to me is the idea that one question would be enough to make a book. I also liked that each contributor would have their own interesting answer, and that the question would also be an invitation to the reader to engage in answering as well.”
After consulting with Carle, Godwin contacted illustrators, and their responses to the project were as quick and as positive as Carle’s had been. Nick Bruel, Lucy Cousins, Susan Jeffers, Steven Kellogg, Jon Klassen, Tom Lichtenheld, Peter McCarty, Chris Raschka, Peter Sís, Lane Smith, Erin Stead, Rosemary Wells, and Mo Willems all signed on. “Everyone was so eager to participate and so enthusiastic about the book,” said Godwin. “I asked the illustrators on Friday and by Sunday I received completed artwork from several of them.”
A Spectrum of Species Surfaces
Carle, who knows about half of the book’s contributors personally but is familiar with the work of all of them, appreciated the eclectic array of animals they selected, as well as the personal flair each brought to the book. “Fish, giraffe, horses, bunnies, ducks, penguins – I love the variety of the animals in this book, and how each page is a different style,” he said. “Each artist has their own approach, their own way of answering the same question. To me, this is what makes this book so rewarding to work on.”
Godwin was a bit surprised that each of the contributing illustrators selected a different animal to draw and write about. Carle, who said he has always loved animals and is “especially fond of cats,” chose to focus on his pet Fiffi, a feline who once played fetch with a string bean. Other favorite animal choices are less conventional: Sís spotlights the blue carp, Raschka the snail, and Bruel the octopus (much to the chagrin of a certain jealous Kitty). “Amazingly, there was no overlap in the artist’s choices,” Godwin said. “And the responses are so different. Some are funny, some sincere, and some sweet. But they are all thoughtful, and each reflects the artist’s personalities.”
Just prior to What’s Your Favorite Animal?, Carle worked on another project that sprang from a topic close to his heart. In November, Philomel published Friends, which features art created with his signature hand-painted tissue papers. “I can still remember my strong attachments and feelings for my friends when I was a boy,” he said. “It is the memory of my early friendships, as well as meaningful friendships with special people in my adult life, that inspired my new book.”
Carle has already given Godwin his contribution to fall 2015’s What’s Your Favorite Color? (As expected, his is yellow.) As with the first book, all the illustrators contributing to this compilation – an entirely new roster, except for Carle – will donate their royalties to the Carle Museum. “Many of the contributors to [these books] have exhibited work at the museum and have been involved in other supportive ways,” Carle said, “which has been so wonderful for the museum and so gratifying to me.”
What’s next on Carle’s docket? “While I try to be retired, there is always a project that occupies my mind,” he said. “And I think Laura has something up her sleeve.” He’s right, his editor confirmed. “I’m hoping we might pick a third topic for the Favorites line,” Godwin said. “We’ll see if anything strikes Eric’s fancy.”
What’s Your Favorite Animal? by Eric Carle and Friends. Holt, $17.99 Jan. ISBN 978-0-8050-9641-5
Friends by Eric Carle. Philomel, $17.99 Nov. ISBN 978-0-399-16533-7Federal investigators are looking into allegations that a longtime friend and benefactor tried to steer money to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, the Pioneer Press has learned.
Agents with the FBI have talked to or made efforts to talk to people in Texas familiar with the allegations, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Houston is where the first of two lawsuits was filed alleging Nasser Kazeminy, a Bloomington financier, tried to steer $100,000 to Coleman via his wife’s Minneapolis employer. The second suit, filed in Delaware, alleges Kazeminy initially tried to get money directly to the senator.
Both Coleman and Kazeminy have denied any wrongdoing, and Coleman last month said he welcomes an investigation.
Neither Coleman nor his office has been contacted by the FBI, spokesman LeRoy Coleman said Tuesday morning.
“We have not been contacted by any law enforcement or investigative authority on this matter,” he said.
On Tuesday evening, Coleman’s campaign released the following statement: “We are not aware of any investigation that is under way, nor have we been contacted by any agency with respect to this matter. As we have said repeatedly, we welcome any investigation of these lawsuits by the appropriate authorities to get to the bottom of these baseless, sleazy and politically inspired allegations.”
The campaign provided no evidence for the claim that the allegations are “politically inspired.”
Kazeminy has declined repeated requests for interviews and has not commented since releasing a one-page statement Nov. 8 flatly denying “false and baseless claims.” When asked Tuesday evening whether Kazeminy had been contacted by investigators, spokeswoman Amy Rotenberg said: “We have no information along those lines. What you’re telling me is news to me.”
The breadth of the FBI probe is unclear. Several individuals involved in the lawsuits and their attorneys either declined to comment or couldn’t be reached for comment.
FBI Special Agent Shauna Dunlap, a spokeswoman with the agency’s Houston office, said, “We do not confirm or deny the existence of any investigations.”
The FBI has jurisdiction over some cases of fraud, such as those alleged in the lawsuits.
The lawsuits, filed in the week prior to the Nov. 4 election, surround a Houston-based oil-drilling maintenance company known as Deep Marine, which is controlled by Kazeminy.
They allege a host of improprieties, including that Kazeminy tried improperly to send Deep Marine money Coleman’s way for no legitimate reason.
One suit was filed by the company’s founder and former CEO, Paul McKim, in a sworn affidavit. McKim, a Republican, has repeatedly denied his claim is politically motivated, and the Coleman campaign has provided no evidence to the contrary. The second lawsuit, by Deep Marine investors, names McKim as a defendant but makes essentially the same allegations, citing a “confidential informant.”
They allege Kazeminy forged a sham contract with the Hays Cos., a Minneapolis insurer that contracts with Coleman’s wife, Laurie Coleman. Laurie Coleman is a licensed insurance broker in Minnesota. Hays has confirmed that she worked for them and that they contracted with Deep Marine.
Hays has denied any wrongdoing, calling the Deep Marine contract legitimate, but has declined to provide details. Hays has said Laurie Coleman didn’t work on the Deep Marine contract. An attorney for Hays couldn’t be reached Tuesday evening.
Neither lawsuit alleges the money actually made it to Coleman or that the Colemans knew about the alleged plan. The suits allege McKim and another company officer were told by Kazeminy that the money was for Coleman. According to the suits, three installments of $25,000 each were paid to Hays, and McKim stopped a fourth.
Coleman has declined to release any information surrounding his wife’s work for Hays outside of what is required by Senate disclosure rules, which doesn’t include her income.
Kazeminy’s ties to Coleman date back at least to Coleman’s days as mayor of St. Paul.
In Senate disclosure forms, Coleman has reported receiving the following gifts of more than $305 from Kazeminy: a private plane trip with Coleman’s daughter valued at $3,960 on Feb. 21, 2005, and a private plane trip with his wife valued at $2,870 on May 27, 2004. Such gifts were legal because they were properly reported.
The race between Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken remains undecided, while the state awaits results of a hand recount in the extremely narrow November vote.
Dave Orrick can be reached at 651-292-1159.John Smedley is a man after my own heart, because what would be better for the company heavily invested in everything that SOE is doing other than to announce yet another MMO? We know from Smedley’s Twitter that there is definitely an MMO in the works, one that is dedicated to Star Wars Galaxies fans, presumably those who have been disgruntled with the developer ever since the New Game Enhancements way back when. Since then, Smedley posted two pictures on Twitter of in-game houses that were confirmed to be related to this upcoming MMO. So what is it?
Super sleuth Ste2000 over at the MMORPG.com forums found that Sony Online Entertainment filed a trademark last month for H1Z1, which sounds suspiciously like an MMO:
Computer game software and video game software; downloadable multiplayer, role playing, real time computer and video game software via an online website for entertainment purposes
H1Z1 is the name of a hoax zombie virus that spread around the internet claiming to be a strain of the H1N1. This isn’t a guarantee that Sony will do anything with the trademark, as developers are often known to file trademarks for products that die in concept/development.
(Source: MMORPG.com)
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SEATTLE – Imagine getting a grade-point average, but instead of being judged by a teacher who has worked with you throughout the year, you are evaluated by a bunch of teachers, some of whom may not know you very well.
That slightly scary proposition explains just some of the misgivings Microsoft workers have had about “stack ranking,” a longstanding practice for evaluating employee performance at the company. In a letter to employees on Tuesday, Microsoft’s head of human resources said the company would end the practice in favor of a new and more flexible system intended to encourage better collaboration among employees.
“Our new approach will make it easier for managers and leaders to allocate rewards in a manner that reflects the unique contributions of their employees and teams,” Lisa Brummel, the executive vice president of human resources, wrote in the letter.
Microsoft’s stack-ranking approach received a surprising amount of attention for what was, after all, an internal evaluation system. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed — every one — cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” Kurt Eichenwald wrote in a blistering Vanity Fair article about Microsoft last year.
While that story overstated the harmful effects of stack ranking in the view of many Microsoft employees, it clearly represented the views of many others. In a phone call with one Microsoft executive on Tuesday seeking reaction to the end of the practice, the person was positively giddy.
“It’s the single worst thing I’ve seen in my career,” said this person, who declined to be named because, even though ranking system is dead, the Microsoft prohibition against talking to the press without official permission is not.
One of the most hated aspects of stack-ranking process was that, throughout its various forms over the years, it required managers to grade their subordinates on a bell curve. That meant that a few people got great scores, many people got average scores and a few people got bad scores.
In their latest form, the scores were based on a 5-point rating system – 1 being the top score – with annual bonuses tied directly to the scores. It made it difficult to reward a group of standout performers with 1s because the system required managers to limit the number of people at the top end.
“When it came time, you had to still find more 4s and 5s, even if you had already gotten rid of the dead wood,” the Microsoft executive said.
The practice created an incentive for star Microsoft workers to avoid working with other stars since they knew it could hurt their chances of getting a top rating when it can time for employee reviews.
Another irritation for many employees was that managers had to discuss final rankings for their employees with groups of other managers, many of whom did not necessarily know the employees being graded. More articulate, pushy managers could successfully argue for better rankings for their top performers, while a star employee with a tongue-tied boss might get penalized.
The demise of stack ranking is another sign of the sweeping changes happening at Microsoft, including a major restructuring now underway that is aimed at increasing cooperation. The company is also searching for a successor to Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive, who is departing the company.
The negative publicity around Microsoft’s old employee review system reverberated loudly around the company, according to people who work there. It most likely was a deterrent to some recruits, too.
A strong hint that change was afoot with its stack-raking system was dropped by Ms. Brummel at a recent dinner for senior Microsoft managers.
The executive who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity recalled Ms. Brummel saying: “I hope I never have to read another article about our review system ever again.”The Cabal: Valve�s Design Process For Creating Half-Life
By ken birdwell
While Half-Life has seen resounding critical and financial success (winning over 50 Game of the Year awards and selling more than a million copies worldwide), few people realize that it didn’t start out a winner — in fact, Valve’s first attempt at the game had to be scrapped. It was mediocre at best, and suffered from the typical problems that plague far too many games. This article is about the teamwork – or "Cabal process" — that turned our initial, less than impressive version of Half-Life into a groundbreaking success.
Paving the Way with Good Intentions
Our initial target release date was November 1997 — a year before the game actually shipped. This date would have given Valve a year to develop what was in essence a fancy Quake TC (Total Conversion — all new artwork, all new levels). By late September 1997, nearing the end of our original schedule, a whole lot of work had been done, but there was one major problem — the game wasn’t any fun.
Yes, we had some cool monsters, but if you didn’t fight them exactly the way we had planned they did really stupid things. We had some cool levels, but they didn’t fit together well. We had some cool technology, but for the most part it only showed up in one or two spots. So you couldn’t play the game all the way through, none of the levels tied together well, and there were serious technical problems with most of the game. There were some really wonderful individual pieces, but as a whole the game just wasn’t working.
The obvious answer was to work a few more months, gloss over the worst of the problems and ship what we had. For companies who live and die at the whim of their publishers, this is usually the route taken — with predictable results. Since Valve is fairly independent, and since none of us believed that we were getting any closer to making a game we could all like, we couldn’t see how a month or two would make any significant difference. At this point we had to make a very painful decision — we decided to start over and rework every stage of the game.
Many of our scripted sequences were
designed to give the player game-play clues as
well as provide moments of sheer terror.
Fortunately, the game had some things in it we liked. We set up a small group of people to take every silly idea, every cool trick, everything interesting that existed in any kind of working state somewhere in the game and put them into a single prototype level. When the level started to get fun, they added more variations of the fun things. If an idea wasn’t fun, they cut it. When they needed a software feature, they simplified it until it was something that could be written in a few days. They all worked together on this one small level for a month while the rest of us basically did nothing. When they were done, we all played it. It was great. It was Die Hard meets Evil Dead. It was the vision. It was going to be our game. It was huge and scary and going to take a lot of work, but after seeing it we weren’t going to be satisfied with anything less. All that we needed to do was to create about 100 more levels that were just as fun. No problem.
So, Tell Me About Your Childhood
The second step in the pre-cabal process was to analyze what was fun about our prototype level. The first theory we came up with was the theory of "experiential density" — the amount of "things" that happen to and are done by the player per unit of time and area of a map. Our goal was that, once active, the player never had to wait too long before the next stimulus, be it monster, special effect, plot point, action sequence, and so on. Since we couldn’t really bring all these experiences to the player (a relentless series of them would just get tedious), all content is distance based, not time based, and no activities are started outside the player’s control. If the players are in the mood for more action, all they need to do is move forward and within a few seconds something will happen.
Conceptual artwork for
ceiling-mounted monster
that was dangerous to both
the player and the player's enemies
The second theory we came up with is the theory of player acknowledgment. This means that the game world must acknowledge players every time they perform an action. For example, if they shoot their gun, the world needs to acknowledge it with something more permanent than just a sound — there should be some visual evidence that they’ve just fired their gun. We would have liked to put a hole through the wall, but for technical and game flow reasons we really couldn’t do it. Instead we decided on "decals" — bullet nicks and explosion marks on all the surfaces, which serve as permanent records of the action. This also means that if the player pushes on something that should be pushable, the object shouldn’t ignore them, it should move. If they whack on something with their crowbar that looks like it should break, it had better break. If they walk into a room with other characters, those characters should acknowledge them by at least looking at them, if not calling out their name. Our basic theory was that if the world ignores the player, the player won’t care about the world.
A final theory was that the players should always blame themselves for failure. If the game kills them off with no warning, then players blame the game and start to dislike it. But if the game hints that danger is imminent, show players a way out and they die anyway, then they’ll consider it a failure on their part; they’ve let the game down and they need to try a little harder. When they succeed, and the game rewards them with a little treat — scripted sequence, special effect, and so on — they’ll feel good about themselves and about the game.
Secret Societies
Throughout the first 11 months of the project we searched for an official "game designer," — someone who could show up and make it all come together. We looked at hundreds of resumes and interviewed a lot of promising applicants, but no one we looked at had enough of the qualities we wanted for us to seriously consider them the overall godlike "game designer" that we were told we needed. In the end, we came to the conclusion that this ideal person didn’t actually exist. Instead, we would create our own ideal by combining the strengths of a cross section of the company, putting them together in a group we called the "Cabal."
The goal of this group was to create a complete document that detailed all the levels and described major monster interactions, special effects, plot devices, and design standards. The Cabal was to work out when and how every monster, weapon, and NPC was to be introduced, what skills we expected the player to have, and how we were going to teach them those skills. As daunting as that sounds, this is exactly what we did. We consider the Cabal process to have been wildly successful, and one of the key reasons for Half-Life’s success.
Cabal meetings were semi-structured brainstorming sessions usually dedicated to a specific area of the game. During each session, one person was assigned the job of recording and writing up the design, and another was assigned to draw pictures explaining the layout and other details. A Cabal session would typically consist of a few days coming up with a mix of high level concepts for the given area, as well as specific events that sounded fun.
The team explored a variety of visual metaphors that resulted in some very unique and effective opponents.
Once enough ideas were generated, they would be reorganized into a rough storyline and chronology. Once this was all worked out, a description and rough sketch of the geometry would be created and labeled with all the key events and where they should take place. We knew what we wanted for some areas of the game from the very start, but other areas stayed as "outdoors" or "something with a big monster" for quite some time. Other areas were created without a specific spot in the game. These designs would sit in limbo for a few weeks until either it became clear that they weren’t going to fit, or that perhaps they would make a good segue between two other areas. Other portions were created to highlight a specific technology feature, or simply to give the game a reason to include a cool piece of geometry that had been created during a pre-cabal experiment. Oddly enough, when trying to match these artificial constants, we would often create our best work. We eventually got into the habit of placing a number of unrelated requirements into each area then doing our best to come up with a rational way to fit them together. Often, by the end of the session we would find that the initial idea wasn’t nearly as interesting as all the pieces we built around it, and the structure we had designed to explain it actually worked better without that initial idea.
During Cabal sessions, everyone contributed but we found that not everyone contributed everyday. The meetings were grueling, and we came to almost expect that about half of the group would find themselves sitting through two or three meetings with no ideas at all, then suddenly see a direction that no one else saw and be the main contributor for the remainder of the week. Why this happened was unclear, but it became important to have at least five or six people in each meeting so that the meetings wouldn’t stall out from lack of input.
The Cabal met four days a week, six hours a day for five months straight, and then on and off until the end of the project. The meetings were only six hours a day, because after six hours everyone was emotionally and physically drained. The people involved weren’t really able to do any other work during that time, other than read e-mail and write up their daily notes.
The initial Cabal group consisted of three engineers, a level designer, a writer, and an animator. This represented all the major groups at Valve and all aspects of the project and was initially weighted towards people with the most product experience (though not necessarily game experience). The Cabal consisted only of people that had actual shipping components in the game; there were no dedicated designers. Every member of the Cabal was someone with the responsibility of actually doing the work that their design specified, or at least had the ability to do it if need be.
It’s important to include information on the
intended path through the level, as well as
rough geometry and character placement.
The first few months of the Cabal process were somewhat nerve wracking for those outside the process. It wasn’t clear that egos could be suppressed enough to get anything done, or that a vision of the game filtered through a large number of people would be anything other than bland. As it turned out, the opposite was true; the people involved were tired of working in isolation and were energized by the collaborative process, and the resulting designs had a consistent level of polish and depth that hadn’t been seen before.
Internally, once the success of the Cabal process was obvious, mini-Cabals were formed to come up with answers to a variety of design problems. These mini-Cabals would typically include people most effected by the decision, as well as try to include people completely outside the problem being addressed in order to keep a fresh perspective on things. We also kept membership in the initial Cabal somewhat flexible and we quickly started to rotate people through the process every month or so, always including a few people from the last time, and always making sure we had a cross section of the company. This helped to prevent burn out, and ensured that everyone involved in the process had experience using the results of Cabal decisions.
The final result was a document of more than 200 pages detailing everything in the game from how high buttons should be to what time of the day it was in any given level. It included rough drawings of all the levels, as well as work items listing any new technology, sounds, or animations that those levels would require.
We also ended up assigning one person to follow the entire story line and to maintain the entire document. With a design as large as a 30-hour movie, we ended up creating more detail than could be dealt with on a casual or part-time basis. We found that having a professional writer on staff was key to this process. Besides being able to add personality to all our characters, his ability to keep track of thematic structures, plot twists, pacing, and consistency was invaluable.
Pearls Before Swine
By the second month of the Cabal, we (the "swine") had enough of the game design to begin development on several areas. By the third month, we had enough put together to begin play testing.
A play-test session consists of one outside volunteer (Sierra, our publisher, pulled play-testers from local people who had sent in product registration cards for other games) playing the game for two hours. Sitting immediately behind them would be one person from the Cabal session that worked on that area of the game, as well as the level designer who was currently the "primary" on the level being tested. Occasionally, this would also include an engineer if new AI needed to be tested.
Other than starting the game for them and resetting it if it crashed, the observers from Valve were not allowed to say anything. They had to sit there quietly taking notes, and were not allowed to give any hints or suggestions. Nothing is quite so humbling as being forced to watch in silence as some poor play-tester stumbles around your level for 20 minutes, unable to figure out the "obvious" answer that you now realize is completely arbitrary and impossible to figure out.
This creature was initially designed as a friendly character, but play-testing revealed players’ tendencies to shoot first and ask questions later.
This was also a sure way to settle any design arguments. It became obvious that any personal opinion you had given really didn’t mean anything, at least not until the next play-test session. Just because you were sure something was going to be fun didn’t make it so; the play-testers could still show up and demonstrate just how wrong you really were.
A typical two-hour play-test session would result in 100 or so "action items" — things that needed to be fixed, changed, added, or deleted from the game. The first 20 or 30 play-test sessions were absolutely critical for teaching us as a company what elements were fun and what elements were not. Over the course of the project we ended up doing more than 200 play-test sessions, about half of them with repeat players. The feedback from the sessions was worked back into the Cabal process, allowing us to preemptively remove designs that didn’t work well, as well as elaborate on designs that did.
Toward the middle of the project, once the major elements were in place and the game could be played most of the way through, it became mostly a matter of fine-tuning. To do this, we added basic instrumentation to the game, automatically recording the player’s position, health, weapons, time, and any major activities such as saving the game, dying, being hurt, solving a puzzle, fighting a monster, and so on. We then took the results from a number of sessions and graphed them together to find any areas where there were problems. These included areas where the player spent too long without any encounters (boring), too long with too much health (too easy), too long with too little health (too hard), all of which gave us a good idea as to where they were likely to die and which positions would be best for adding goodies.
Letting players see other characters make mistakes that they’ll need to avoid is an
effective way to explain your puzzles and
add tension and entertainment value.
Another thing that helped with debugging was making the "save game" format compatible between the different versions of the engine. Since we automatically saved the game at regular intervals, if the play-testers crashed the game we would usually have something not too far from where they encountered the bug. Since these files would even work if the code base they were testing was several versions old, it made normally rare and hard to duplicate bugs relatively easy to find and fix. Our save game format allowed us to add data, delete data, add and delete code (we even supported function pointers) at will, without breaking anything. This also allowed us to make some fairly major changes after we shipped the game without interfering with any of our players’ hard-won saved games.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
Until the Cabal process got underway, technology was added to Half-Life freely. It was assumed that "if we build it, they will come," meaning that any new technology would just naturally find a creative use by the content creation folks. A prime example of this fallacy was our "beam" effect, basically a technique for doing highly tunable squiggly glowing lines between two points; stuff like lightning, lasers, and mysterious glowing beams of energy. It was added to the engine, the parameters were exposed, and an e-mail was sent out explaining it. The result was … nothing. After two months only one level designer had put it in a map. Engineering was baffled.
During the Cabal process, we realized that although the level designers knew of the feature, they really had no clear idea of what it was for. The parameters were all very cryptic, and the wrong combinations would cause the beams to have very ugly-looking effects. There were no decent textures to apply to them, and setting them up was a bit of a mystery. It became very clear the technology itself was only a small part of the work and integration, training, and follow-through were absolutely necessary to make the technology useful to the game. Writing the code was typically less than half the problem.
Square Pegs
Practically speaking, not everyone is suited for the kind of group design activity we performed in the Cabal, at least not initially. People with strong personalities, people with poor verbal skills, or people who just don’t like creating in a group setting shouldn’t be forced into it. We weighted our groups heavily toward people with a lot of group design experience, well ahead of game design experience. Even so, in the end almost everyone was in a Cabal of one sort or another, and as we got more comfortable with this process and started getting really good results it was easier to integrate the more reluctant members. For current projects, such as Team Fortress 2, the Cabal groups are made up of 12 or more people, and rarely fewer than eight. The meetings ended up being shorter, and they also ended up spreading ideas around a lot quicker, but I’m not sure I’d recommend that size of group initially.
Just about everything in Half-Life was designed by a Cabal. This at first seemed to add a bit of overhead to everything, but it had the important characteristic of getting everyone involved in the creation process who were personally invested in the design. Once everyone becomes invested in the design as a whole, it stops being separate pieces owned by a single person and instead the entire game design becomes "ours."
This "ours" idea extended to all levels. Almost every level in the game ended up being edited by at least three different level designers at some point in its development and some levels were touched by everyone. Though all the level designers were good at almost everything, each found they enjoyed some aspect of level design more than other aspects. One would do the geometry, one would do monster and AI placement, our texture artist would step in and do a texturing pass, and then one would finish up with a lighting pass, often switching roles when needed due to scheduling conflicts. This became critical toward the end of the project when people finished at different times. If a play-test session revealed something that needed to be changed, any available level designer could make the changes without the game getting bottlenecked by needing any specific individual.
By placing traditional combat action in more challenging environments we were able to intensify the feeling of tension and suspense.
This idea also extended to all code, textures, models, animations, sounds, and so on. All were under source control and any individual was able to synch up to the sources and make whatever changes were necessary. With a little bit of self–control, this isn’t as random as it sounds. It had the added benefit in that it was fairly easy to get a daily record of exactly what was changed and by whom. We would then feed this information back into the play-test cycles, only testing what had changed, as well as helping project scheduling by being able to monitor the changes and get a pretty good estimate of the stability and completeness of any one component. This also allowed us to systematically add features throughout the process with minimal impact. Once the technical portion was completed, the engineer assigned to the feature was able to synch to all the source artwork and rebuild any and all files (models, textures, levels, and so on) affected by the change.
The Workers Control the Means of Production
Even with all emphasis on group activity, most of the major features of Half-Life still only happened through individual initiative. Everyone had different ideas as to what exactly the game should look like, or at least what features we just had to do. The Cabal process gave these ideas a place to be heard, and since it was accepted that design ideas can come from anyone, it gave people as much authority as they wanted to take. If the idea required someone other than the inventor to actually do the work, or if the idea had impact on other areas of the game, they would need to start a Cabal and try to convince the other key people involved that their idea was worth the effort. At the start of the project, this was pretty easy as most everyone wildly underestimated the total amount of work that needed to be done, but toward the middle and end of the project the more disruptive decisions tended to get harder and harder to push through. It also helped filter out all design changes except for the ones with the most player impact for the least development work.
Placing the player in a
soldier-vs.-alien conflict
helped reinforce the illusion
of an active environment,
and let Valve show off
its combat AI with minimal
risk to the player.
Through constant cycle of play-testing, feedback, review, and editing, the Cabal process was also key in removing portions of the game that didn’t meet the quality standards we wanted, regardless of the level of emotional attachment the specific creator may have had to the work. This was one of the more initially contentious aspects of the Cabal process, but perhaps one of the more important. By its very nature, the Cabal process avoided most of the personal conflicts inherent in other more hierarchical organizations. Since problems were identified in a relatively objective manner of play-testing, and since their solutions were arrived at by consensus or at least by an individual peer, then an authority that everyone could rebel against just didn’t exist.
On a day-to-day basis, the level of detail supplied in even a 200-page design document is vague at best. It doesn’t answer the 1,001 specific details that each area requires, or the countless creative details that are part of everyday development. Any design document is really nothing more than a framework to work from and something to improve the likelihood that work from multiple people will fit together in a seamless fashion. It’s the Cabal process that helped spread around all the big picture ideas that didn’t make it into any document —things that are critical to the feel of the game, but too nebulous to put into words. It also helps maximize individual strengths and minimize individual weaknesses and sets up a framework that allows individuals to influence as much of the game as possible. In Half-Life, it was the rare area of the game that didn’t include the direct work of more than ten different people, usually all within the same frame.
In order for highly hierarchical organizations to be effective, they require one person who understands everyone else’s work at least as well as the individuals doing the work, and other people who are willing to be subordinates yet are still good enough to actually implement the design. Given the complexity of most top game titles, this just isn’t practical — if you were good enough to do the job, why would you want to be a flunky? On the other hand, completely unstructured organizations suffer from lack of information and control — if everyone just does their own thing, the odds that it’ll all fit together in the end |
De La Haye says. "I didn't feel like they [the rules stated in the NCAA waiver] were fair.... I just didn’t think it was fair what they wanted me to do, so I told them I wouldn’t do it." Due to his ineligibility, De La Haye also lost his scholarship to UCF.
The "Deestroying" channel has videos covering a variety of topics including football, fitness training, and "story time" videos detailing some of De La Haye's personal life stories. In total, the channel has just shy of 5 million views and about 96,000 subscribers. De La Haye posted his first video to the "Deestroying" channel in May 2016. The channel's growth over the past year has been solid, but it's not as dramatic as the millions of subscribers some YouTube channels have gleaned recently in just a few months' time.
It's hard to estimate how much money De La Haye currently makes from his channel if he monetizes all his videos. Social Blade, a website that tracks the performance of social media accounts including YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, estimates De La Haye could make anywhere between $252 and $4,000 per month with his YouTube account as it currently stands.
Creators can choose to demonetize specific videos on their channel even after they've opted-in to monetize the channel as a whole. Some creators do this frequently for videos that discuss sensitive topics like suicide or other issues that the creator doesn't feel right profiting from—but De La Haye's argument is that he shouldn't have to do that at all. "They wanted me to give up the money that I made, which is crazy. I worked so hard for it.... I'm passionate about this video stuff, so I'm giving it my 110 percent," he says.
The NCAA has consistently come down hard on athletes who find ways to make money with their talents. Athletes have been suspended for selling their own merchandise and autographed memorabilia, and the NCAA forbids college athletes from accepting endorsement deals that could help them pay for their careers as a whole. Athletes have challenged this stance in the past. Back in 2002, Olympic skier and University of Colorado football player Jeremy Bloom sued the NCAA so he could keep his skiing career, and the endorsements that came along with it, while playing football at his university. And former UCLA basketball star Ed O'Bannon continues to lead an anti-trust case against the NCAA over the organization using athlete likenesses for profit in things like video games.
Either way, the NCAA doesn't want De La Haye, or any student athletes, profiting off their athlete status on any social platform or within other business ventures. Social media is the next frontier for student athletes to make money on their own terms. Sponsored posts on social media outlets are nothing new, but that means the NCAA will have to follow student athletes' activity on all those fronts. YouTube, similarly to Instagram, has both the fortune and misfortune of being a permanent visual diary of sorts, available for anyone to see and scrutinize. But the NCAA may have a more difficult time policing student athletes if and when athletes turn to another outlet, like the ephemeral Snapchat, to promote themselves, brands, and other things that can make them money.Kadokawa began streaming a television commercial for the 16th compiled book volume of Reiji Kaitō's Unbreakable Machine-Doll light novel series on Friday. The video reveals that the 16th volume will be the series' last. Media Factory's MF Bunko J imprint will release the volume in two parts on July 25.
Kaito launched the light novel series with illustrations by LLO ( Mushi-Uta, Oreshura ) in 2009, and the 15th volume shipped in 2015. Hakaru Takagi launched a manga adaptation in Media Factory's Monthly Comic Alive magazine in 2010. Misato Kamada's Gene Metallica- Machine-Doll wa Kizutsukanai Re : Acta- manga ran in Media Factory's Monthly Comic Gene magazine from 2013 to 2014. The novels also inspired an image CD and a drama CD in 2010.
The novel series' anime adaptation premiered in October 2013. Funimation describes the anime:
Raishin Akabane and his beautiful companion Yaya enroll at Walpurgis Royal Academy to study Machinart: a dangerous blend of magic and technology. Raishin is a puppeteer capable of using magic to power up Yaya, his automaton, for ruthless battles no mere human could survive. In the wrong hands, Yaya is a deadly weapon, but the honorable Raishin, despite his mysterious quest for vengeance, takes no pleasure in killing for sport. Instead, he joins forces with a harem of gorgeous classmates to unmask those responsible for a rash of heinous human experimentation. If new enemies and terrible grades don't spell doom for Raishin, he and Yaya might live long enough to conquer the school where magic meets machine!Norway may be switching off its FM radio network in favour of digital but don't expect the same type of tune-out to happen in Canada any time soon.
The shift to digital radio technology — touted for its clearer sound and potential for more channels — is taking place at a much slower, wait-and-see pace here, say broadcasters and industry analysts.
That's not to say we haven't already tried. During the late '90s and 2000s, Canada experimented with the digital audio broadcasting (DAB) model that Norway will shift to this week — and it was a flop.
Duff Roman was instrumental in trying to make DAB a success here as president of Digital Radio Rollout Inc., a consortium of private and public broadcasters, but ultimately couldn't woo the Americans to follow.
Worker Ino Andre Nilsen arranges digital radios in an Expert City electronics shop in Oslo, Norway, on Wednesday. The country will switch off its FM radio network this week. (Alister Doyle/Reuters) "We tried our best to get them onside. They didn't want to do it," he said.
They were already working on adopting HD Radio, another type of digital radio technology that's now slowly seeping its way into Canada. It is developed by a private company and delivers digital versions of the audio from FM stations via a special receiver.
Digital receivers can cost hundreds of dollars and inability to convince consumers to buy into a new system was part of the reason that DAB stalled.
Roman said he is disappointed because he thought DAB was the superior model.
"It's sort of like Beta and VHS," he said of the difference. "The best system didn't win."
"I'm over it now … I think it will work as sort of an upgrade."
14 Canadian stations testing out HD Radio
The CRTC stopped renewing DAB licenses after 2012. Now, it oversees 14 Canadian stations who have started experimenting with HD Radio in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and a few other cities.
These stations have largely been using it as a way to simulcast their AM talk radio stations with less fuzz and clearer audio.
It's not like internet radio, which is streamed off the internet, or satellite radio, which uses a particular frequency and has a wider footprint. Instead, HD Radio is broadcast in a local market and can only be heard via a HD receiver.
"It allows a radio station to use its analogue FM frequency to broadcast multiple digital audio signals on the [same] frequency," CRTC spokeswoman Patricia Valladao explained in an email.
She said the number of broadcasters adopting it remains small.
"Presently there are no public proceedings or applications before the CRTC related to this issue, nor is it under discussion."
Corus Entertainment has been testing out HD Radio in three of its markets — New Westminster, B.C., Hamilton and Calgary.
But Chris Sisam, vice-president of Corus Radio East, said widespread adoption is still a long way off.
"Really, we're just dipping our toe in the water," he said. "For us, it's just a better way of delivering an AM signal."
Sisam said the number of people listening to the stations via HD Radio remains small — and that's just anecdotal. He said there is no way of measuring those who are listening via traditional FM radio separately from those listening by HD Radio.
Bell Media and Rogers Media, two of the other major Canadian broadcasters, are also experimenting with HD Radio in a few large markets. CBC is running a pilot project with HD Radio in Toronto for its French-radio service.
"At this time, we have no plan to abandon FM radio, but we are starting to explore digital technologies for radio broadcasting," CBC spokeswoman Emma Bédard said in an email.
CBC said it has no plans to kill its FM radio network but has started experimenting with HD Radio, a digital radio technology that is standard in the U.S. (CBC Transmission/Twitter)
"CBC/Radio-Canada supports HD Radio as a voluntary North American digital radio standard. As both U.S. and Mexican radio broadcasters have endorsed this standard, this will help ensure the widespread availability of receivers to North American radio audiences."
But will it catch on?
When it comes to digital radio, America is much further along.
There are around 4,000 stations using HD Radio technology in the U.S. and an HD Radio receiver has become a common feature that's built into new cars. They are being installed with some new car models in Canada, but owning an HD Radio receiver is still pretty rare here.
"We don't have the reception system available," Sisam said. "We could deliver [programming on HD Radio], but no one could receive it."
David Bray, president of the radio consulting firm Bray and Partners, thinks there is a "real possibility" that HD Radio might not catch on here.
"You still face the challenge of getting receivers out there," said Bray, who was also involved with the push for Canada to adopt DAB. "That's a huge practical problem."
Norway is axing FM, but digital hasn't killed Canada's radio frequencies yet. (Isaac Lawrence/AFP/Getty Images)
He thinks the better sound and promise of more channels might not be enough of an incentive for people to go out and buy one.
"How are you going to get the public on board? It's really not that easy," he said, comparing it to DAB's struggles. "Apathy is the insurmountable problem."
Bray suggests creating some unique programming that's only available on HD Radio, similar to what some speciality satellite radio channels offer.
"Digital radio is almost certainly the future, but in what incarnation I'm not sure."The amount of immigration patriotism in Donald Trump’s speech is amazing. I’ve selected a couple of sections and added emphases, but you should probably read and watch the whole thing. (Quotations below are from the Politico version of the speech as prepared.)The take from MSNBC's Chris Hayes:
Trump speech tonight is the *full* Buchanan. Very very dark, dystopic. Straight up nationalism no chaser. — Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) July 21, 2016
Yes!
The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015. They are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with no regard for the impact on public safety or resources. One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska. There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She was 21 years-old, and was killed the day after graduating from college with a 4.0 Grade Point Average. Her killer was then released a second time, and he is now a fugitive from the law. I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family. But to this Administration, their amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth protecting. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.
Trump’s reference of the Sara Root killing has the Five Fast Facts people at Heavy.com actually including immigration status as a “Fast Fact”:
Sarah Root: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
Eswin Mejia's Blood Alcohol Level Was 4 Times Over the Legal Limit, According to Cops In a Congressional Testimony, Root's Mother Said Mejia's Bond Was Less Than the Cost of Her Daughter's Funeral Root Graduated From Bellevue University the Day Before Her Death Mejia Is Now on the ICE's Most Wanted List But Authorities Don't Want to 'Focus' on His Immigration Status
The fifth fact is that the Judge who let Mejia go is scumbag. However, for the record, he’s an Italian-American scumbag, not a Mexican.
More from Trump:
My plan will begin with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders, and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law and order. On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America. A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed by some of our nation’s most powerful special interests. That is because these interests have rigged our political and economic system for their exclusive benefit. Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total control over everything she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings. That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. My message is that things have to change – and they have to change right now.
My opponent has called for a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country under President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there’s no way to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they come from. I only want to admit individuals into our country who will support our values and love our people. Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never will be. Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people. On Monday, we heard from three parents whose children were killed by illegal immigrants Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden, and Jamiel Shaw. They are just three brave representatives of many thousands. Of all my travels in this country, nothing has affected me more deeply than the time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their children to violence spilling across our border. These families have no special interests to represent them. There are no demonstrators to protest on their behalf. My opponent will never meet with them, or share in their pain. Instead, my opponent wants Sanctuary Cities. But where was sanctuary for Kate Steinle? Where was Sanctuary for the children of Mary Ann, Sabine and Jamiel? Where was sanctuary for all the other Americans who have been so brutally murdered, and who have suffered so horribly? These wounded American families have been alone. But they are alone no longer. Tonight, this candidate and this whole nation stand in their corner to support them, to send them our love, and to pledge in their honor that we will save countless more families from suffering the same awful fate. We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs from pouring into our communities. I have been honored to receive the endorsement of America’s Border Patrol Agents, and will work directly with them to protect the integrity of our lawful immigration system. By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will stop the cycle of human smuggling and violence. Illegal border crossings will go down. Peace will be restored. By enforcing the rules for the millions who overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect they deserve. Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security have been denied – and every politician who has denied them – to listen very closely to the words I am about to say. On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office, Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United States are enforced. We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone. But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens. My plan is the exact opposite of the radical and dangerous immigration policy of Hillary Clinton. Americans want relief from uncontrolled immigration. Communities want relief. Yet Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration, and mass lawlessness. Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals, further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder for recent immigrants to escape from poverty. I have a different vision for our workers.
This is great, and he not only talks about illegal immigration, but the negative effects of l egal immigration—a thing that has been known to cause neoconservatives to turn purple with rage.× Overnight drive-by shooting injures 3, including teen
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Three people were shot in the 900 block of North Holmes Street at about midnight Saturday.
Several people were sitting on the front porch of the residence when someone drove by and shot them, police said.
Two of the victims, a 27-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl, were transported to Regional Medical Center in noncritical condition. The third victim, a 23-year-old man, was transported in critical condition.
The victims told police two vehicles were involved in the shooting, but they did not know how many people were in the cars. They described the vehicles as a black Ford F150 and a small dark-colored car. Both were going southbound on North Holmes Street.
Police have not yet made any arrests.The July bar exam may be over, but it is really the gift that keeps on giving. If you thought that after the recent tales of bar exam horror stories you’d heard the worst of it, well you’re in for a treat.
Let’s go down south to the Georgia bar exam, where thing start off reasonably enough:
The convention center requires all of the schools to use the same catering company for the lunches they serve on Day 1 & 2 of the exam.
There is a definite efficiency in having a single process to get everyone fed in a timely manner, but when things go wrong, they can get really bad.
Thought you might appreciate the food poisoning outbreak that occurred at the Georgia Bar this year.
…
On the second day, many of the students who chose the ham or the turkey were affected during the test. There were kids running down the aisles to make it to the bathroom during the multiple choice questions and several had to spend that night in the emergency room for IV Fluids it was so bad.
Oh no. As if the bar exam isn’t stressful enough! But multiple people getting sick in the final bar exam session is no bueno. Puking next to your future legal colleagues isn’t the bonding experience you expect at the bar exam. And a night in the ER isn’t the best to celebrate the end of your legal education.
Hopefully these bodily functions didn’t knock test takers too far off their game.
Earlier: Epic Bar Exam Story Reminds Test Takers Just How Bad It Can Get
Kathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).Borrelia Burgdorferi is the name given to one of many bacteria transmitted by ticks. The name originates from Willy Burgdorfer who studied this. You can read about it here in this article about a mysterious Swiss Agent and the history of this troublesome bacteria. More than this namesake the scientific Latin name of this certain Borrelia (there are dozens of Borrelia strains thought to be 100+ or more worldwide) this website is virtually everything I know or learned about this disease and related illness delivered in an informative and easy to read fashion.
This website and blog is designed to give users this information about Borrelia Burgdorferi and related tick-borne illnesses. It is literally “a space on the Internet” to discuss and inform people Lyme Disease, TBI’s, TBD’s and to serve as a handy directory to links that may help sufferers and their families. Call it education and entertainment, or “edutainment” if you will.
It is not meant as a comprehensive reference just a handy repository of relevant links and articles that will hopefully educate, inform and entertain. There are many sources on the Net for Lyme Disease and tick borne related illness including forums and groups, one of the best websites is LymeDisease.Org as well as countless scientific papers. I have read a number of these sources and it is here that I try to cull and distill this information for ease of understanding.
I hope you will enjoy.
BorreliaBurgdorferi.Space 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.Male fertility is declining, and for years researchers have been trying to figure out why. The numbers may seem shocking, but between 60-80 million couples around the world are having a difficult time conceiving, and there is a likely culprit, especially considering evidence arising from the latest study published at Science Direct.
Titled, “Potential pathways of pesticide action on erectile function – A contributory factor in male infertility,” the study shows that along with heavy metals, radioactivity, and poisonous fumes of organic chemicals, pesticides are largely contributing to erectile dysfunction and the downfall of male fertility. Of course there are numerous “psychological, physiological, pathological, social, environmental, and nutritional factors (plus others), at play.
It is estimated in some studies that as much as 52% of men over 40 are suffering from erectile dysfunction. How is this possible when in times past such a phenomenon was rare? The numbers of birth defects we are observing as a planet are also on the rise. Is this any surprise, though, when Syngenta covers up how their pesticide, Atrazine, was causing frogs to change genders and have serious fertility issues? Or when Monsanto lies about the true effects of their herbicide, glyphosate, on fertility?
To whit, in the April 16 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
“…University of California, Berkeley, developmental endocrinologist Tyrone B. Hayes, associate professor of integrative biology, and his colleagues report that Atrazine at levels often found in the environment demasculinizes tadpoles and turns them into hermaphrodites – creatures with both male and female sexual characteristics. The herbicide also lowers levels of the male hormone testosterone in sexually mature male frogs by a factor of 10, to levels lower than those in normal female frogs.”
Or how about this little ditty published in the Journal of Reproductive Toxicology, titled “Glyphosate impairs male offspring reproductive development by disrupting gonadotropin expression:”
“This study shows, for the first time, the effects on the reproductive development of male offspring from dams treated with glyphosate only in the perinatal period. We conclude that the exposure promotes behavioral changes and histological and endocrine problems in reproductive parameters and these changes are reflected by a hyperse-cretion of androgens and increased gonadal activity, sperm production and libido.”
With evidence like this preceding the latest study proving that pesticides are causing erectile dysfunction, you have to wonder exactly why these chemicals are running rampant in the U.S.? And let’s be clear: there are MANY other problems arising from our gross pesticide use.
Why Pesticides are a “Major Cause” of Male Infertility
The authors call pesticides “A MAJOR CAUSE OF MALE INFERTILITY.” This happens for several reasons:
1. Pesticides are responsible for decreasing testosterone concentration either by inhibiting release of follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) or luteinizing hormone (LH) [62]. Pesticides are also responsible for “apoptosis of leydig cells and hence decreasing overall concentration testosterone.” What’s more, pesticides cause increase secretion of hypothalamic corticotrophin-releasing hormone which stimulates the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol [63]. High cortisol level inhibit gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH). The result? LH and testosterone decrease.
2. Pesticides inhibit acetylcholine esterase, an important chemical that interacts with neurotransmitters in the brain to cause an erection in men.
3. They cause severe oxidative stress.
4. They cause apoptosis and necrosis of cells – a scientific way of saying cells die and shrivel up.
5. Pesticides are endocrine disruptors, which means the hormones which regulate a man’s sexual expression are inhibited or demasculinized.
6. They effect leydig cells which are responsible for creating testosterone and without proper functioning, low sperm count. Glyphosate alone decreases testosterone levels by as much as 37%!
7. Pesticides mess with neurotransmitters that are responsible for creating an erection.
8. They also negatively affect the tunica albuginea, which is the tough fibrous envelope of connective tissue that surrounds the corpora cavernosa of the penis. It consists of approximately 5% elastin, an extensible tissue that is primarily made up of the amino acids glycine, valine, alanine, and proline. The majority of the remaining tissue is collagen, which is made up of lysine, proline, glycine, alanine, and other amino acids [117].
It almost reads as if pesticides were specifically designed to cause infertility.
Follow us: @naturalsociety on Twitter | NaturalSociety on FacebookThe way Chris Bosh finished his final season in Toronto left a sour taste in Raptors general manager Bryan Colangelo's mouth.
Bosh, an unrestricted free agent, left the Raptors earlier this month, joining Dwyane Wade and LeBron James with the Miami Heat in a sign-and-trade deal.
In an interview on 590 The Fan in Toronto, Colangelo said Bosh chose to sit out several games with an injury late in the season as the Raptors battled for the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs -- a race they lost by one game to the Chicago Bulls.
"Despite limited swelling and any excessive damage on an MRI, he felt like he needed to sit for six more games," Colangelo said on 590 The Fan on Monday.
"I'm not even questioning Chris' injury. I'm telling you he was cleared to play subject to tolerance on his part, and the tolerance just apparently wasn't there and he chose not to play."
The team's season was on the brink and the front office was hoping Bosh would return sooner to turn things around, Colangelo said. Now, he's not certain whether Bosh was thinking about the Raptors' playoff run or his own pending free agency.
"Whether he was mentally checked out or just wasn't quite into it down the stretch, he wasn't the same guy," Colangelo said. "I think everybody saw that, but no one wanted to acknowledge it."
Colangelo also said it was hard to build around Bosh as the team's franchise player.
"We tried in vain to put pieces around Chris. Different pieces, different styles. It didn't work out," he said. "No matter what type of player we brought in, it didn't seem to have the right mix with him as that centerpiece."Bloated development costs are perhaps the least of the problems stemming from the current system of drug research. Patent monopolies create absurd problems in paying for drugs that would be relatively cheap in a free market. For example, we are seeing state governments and insurers struggling with the $84,000 that Gilead Sciences is charging for Sovaldi, its new hepatitis C drug.
This rapid run-up in costs is exactly what economists would expect from an industry that is protected from competition by the government. Just as the old system of cost-plus contracts in the military sector led to outrageous charges for weapons purchased by the Defense Department, the system of government-granted patent monopolies gives companies little incentive to control costs and reduce waste. For this reason, it would not be surprising to find that major drug companies are seeing runaway cost increases.
Whether or not the criticisms of the study are valid, $2.6 billion is not a number that should make the pharmaceutical industry proud. It implies that the cost of developing a new drug increased at annual rate of almost 8 percentage points above the overall inflation rate.
In addition, the study itself is not yet publicly available; DiMasi released only a set of slides that summarized its main findings. It is also important to note that this $2.6 billion figure applies only to drugs that involve new chemical compounds and did not rely on any outside funding in the development process, such as research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH); that group of drugs accounts for fewer than one-sixth of the new drugs that are approved each year.
The $2.6 billion figure, which will undoubtedly be used to justify high drug prices, led many health care experts and advocates to raise questions about the study’s methodology. Part of the concern stems from the fact that the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, which DiMasi directs, receives funding from the pharmaceutical industry. The study also relies on proprietary information that was provided by the industry.
There was a modest flurry in the news last week about a new study showing that the cost of developing a new drug is now $2.6 billion. The report, issued by Tufts University economist Joe DiMasi, is an update of his previous studies, the most recent of which found that in 2001 the cost of developing a drug was $802 million.
By comparison, generic producers in India can profitably sell the drug for $1,000 per treatment. We would not see news articles, hand-wringing columns and editorials about whether the government and insurers should be forced to pick up the tab if we were talking about $1,000 rather than $84,000. The patent-protected price of some other drugs is even more astronomical, with many new cancer drugs being sold for prices in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In addition to creating access problems, outrageous patent-protected prices give the drug companies an enormous incentive to misrepresent the safety and effectiveness of their drugs in order to maximize sales. And they act just as economic theory predicts. It’s rare for a month to pass without a new story about a company concealing or misrepresenting its research findings in order to increase sales.
The secrecy promoted by the patent system also slows down research. Drug companies only reveal the information necessary to gain a patent. They have no interest in sharing research findings that could be useful to competitors — a situation that contravenes the open environment in which science advances most quickly.
It would be possible to go on at some length documenting the inefficiency and corruption associated with patent-financed drug research, but the reality of American politics is that this doesn’t matter. The drug companies have enough money that, thanks to their lobbying and campaign donations, they will prevent any major changes to this system as long as they are making tens of billions of dollars a year.
This brings us to India. The one scenario that could lead to a change in this wasteful and corrupt system is if it becomes impossible to market drugs at grossly inflated prices. India’s dynamic generic industry holds out this possibility.
After all, if Indian generics are available at one percent of the price of drugs selling for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the United States, it’s going to be difficult to keep the lower cost drugs away from people here. It would present the same problem as trying to keep cocaine or heroin out of the country. Either the cheap Indian drugs will come here or people will go there.
This is why it is very bad news for people in the United States, India and the rest of the world that India is now reviewing its patent policy at the insistence of Barack Obama’s administration. The White House wants India to adopt a much stronger patent regime that would limit the ability of its generic industry to provide low cost alternatives to expensive drugs in the United States. It has threatened sticks if India doesn’t go along, as well as some serious carrots in the form of improved trading relations if India adopts stronger patent protections.
If India adopts strong patent protections, it will likely doom the United States to maintaining a corrupt and wasteful patent system long into the future. Perhaps more importantly, it will limit the availability of affordable medicine to billions of low-income people in the developing world. But take heart: At least the drug companies will be able to recoup however many billions of dollars they say it costs them to develop a drug.drainers is an abstraction around subprocess.Popen to read and control process output event-wise. It also allows you to abort running processes either gracefully or forcefully without having to directly interact with the processes or threads themself.
Overview
Defining a process A Drainer is a factory and controller wrapper around subprocess.Popen and therefore takes all of the (optional) parameters that subprocess.Popen ’s initializer takes. For example, the minimal Drainer takes a command array: from drainers import Drainer def ignore_event(line, is_err): pass my_drainer = Drainer(['ls', '-la'], read_event_cb=ignore_event) my_drainer.start() But, extra arguments are allowed, too: my_drainer = Drainer(['echo', '$JAVA_HOME'], shell=True, bufsize=64, read_event_cb=ignore_event) my_drainer.start() The only two arguments to Drainer that are reserved are stdout and stderr. Drainer requires them to be subprocess.PIPE explicitly, and sets them for you accordingly.
Defining a callback Drainer ’s strength lies in the fact that each line that is read from the process’ standard output or standard error streams leads to a callback function being invoked. This allows you to process virtually any process’ output, as long as it’s line-based. The callback function can be specified using the read_event_cb parameter to the constructor, as seen in the example above. It is mandatory. The callback function specified needs to have a specific signature: def my_callback(line, is_err):... It should take two parameters: line (a string) and is_err (a boolean). The latter indicates that the line is read from the standard error stream. There is nothing more to it. It does not need to return anything: it’s return value will be ignored. Your callback may be a class method, too, like in the following example. Notice that in those cases, you pass foo.my_method as the value for the read_event_cb parameter: class MyClass(object): def my_method(self, line, is_err):... foo = MyClass() my_drainer = Drainer(['ls'], read_event_cb=foo.my_method) my_drainer.start() The granularity currently is a single line. If you want to read predefined chunks of data, please fork this repo and implement a Drainer subclass yourself. If you want a callback that isn’t invoked after each line read, but after an arbitrary time or amount of lines, you have to implement this yourself. (It shouldn’t be too hard, though. See the examples directory for inspiration.)Since taking the top job, he's peer reviewed two other Ontario hospitals and was the supervisor of Cambridge Memorial Hospital.
"It's definitely big shoes to fill," said Kevin Smith, CEO and President of St. Joseph's Health System. "When I think about where HHS was when Murray started, he's had a huge impact."
Smith says MacIsaac is a "great choice" for Hamilton's next health-care leader.
"The last thing HHS is lacking is people with health-care experience," said Smith. "He's excellent to work with … he knows the community … he's demonstrated he can make the transition between sectors."
MacIsaac has been president of Mohawk for almost five years, gaining respect communitywide for overseeing $80 million in rebuilding the Fennell Avenue campus, significantly improving the school's rankings, increasing student success rates and putting more emphasis on health and technology education and research.
"Rob's left us with a lot of success," says Ryan Chow, president of the students' association. "It's time for him to move up in the world to make a bigger impact."
Before leading Mohawk, he was chair of Metrolinx, which is the transportation authority of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. He served three terms as Burlington's mayor from 1997 to 2006. He has strong connections with the community, the provincial government, city council and key health-care leaders which he believes will be a major asset to HHS during turbulent times for health care.
"When you look at the challenges with health care, there is no doubt it's going to have to be transformed," said MacIsaac. "Health care is going to have to be community based."
Hospital budgets are expected to be frozen for the next three years while costs rise by about 10 per cent so some outside perspective is needed, says Smith.
"He can bring solutions from other domains. Real innovation comes from out-of-the-box thinking."
Front-line workers are optimistic about the appointment.
"I'm hopeful he'll be a forward-thinking CEO," said Dave Murphy president of Local 7800 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. "He did some progressive things in Burlington and I hope he can do the same here. I hope he can stand up for the health-care system and the workers."
Nurses believe it might bring an end to HHS being the only censured hospital in Ontario.
"I'm looking forward to working with him towards removing the censure," said president and Hamilton nurse and president of the Ontario Nurses' Association. Linda Haslam-Stroud.
MacIsaac was chosen by a search firm that shortlisted 10 candidates in just over a year. The hiring committee interviewed the best four leaders.
"I'm really excited about the job," said MacIsaac. "I think it's going to be a big challenge. It's a wonderful opportunity."
[email protected]
905-526-3349 | @JfrketichSINGAPORE - A Singapore-based scientist has earned for the first time the highest professional accolade for academic inventors.
Professor Jackie Y. Ying, executive director of the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), has been named a Fellow of the United States National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
According to the academy, the status is given to academic inventors who have shown a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have contributed to society.
Prof Ying, 51, born in Taiwan but an American citizen raised in Singapore and New York, is one of 155 inventors from around the world who received the honour this year.
The NAI is a non-profit member organisation founded in 2010 to recognise inventors with patents issued from the US Patent and Trademark Office. Based in Florida, US, its goal is to make academic technology and innovation more visible and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.
"It is a great honour to be named a fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors," Prof Ying said in a statement released on Tuesday (Dec 12) by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, or A |
(R-N.J.), and Christine Todd Whitman (R-N.J.), former Sens. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), and former Reps. John Anderson (R-Ill.), Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), Christopher Shays (R-Conn.), and Vin Weber (R-Minn.).Country Music Hall of Famer Earl Scruggs, a singular talent of collective import, died Wednesday at a Nashville hospital. He was 88.
A quietly affable presence, Scruggs popularized a complex, three-fingered style of playing banjo that transformed the instrument, inspired nearly every banjo player who followed him and became a central element in what is now known as bluegrass music.
But Scruggs' legacy is in no way limited to or defined by bluegrass, a genre that he and partner Lester Flatt dominated as Flatt and Scruggs in the 1950s and '60s: His adaptability and open-minded approach to musicality and to collaboration made him a bridge between genres and generations.
Rather than speak out about the connections between folk and country in the war-torn, politically contentious '60s, he simply showed up at folk festivals and played, at least when he and Flatt weren't at the Grand Ole Opry. During the long-hair/ short-hair skirmishes of the '60s and '70s, he played with Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and The Byrds. And when staunch fans of bluegrass — a genre that would not exist in a recognizable form without Scruggs' banjo — railed against stylistic experimentation, Scruggs happily jammed away with sax player King Curtis, sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, piano man Elton John and anyone else whose music he fancied.
"He was the man who melted walls, and he did it without saying three words," said his friend and acolyte Marty Stuart in 2000.
In truth, Scruggs could sometimes be quite loquacious, but he rarely made an utterance that wasn't considered. He said what he thought, but never before he thought.
Asked about recording with Baez during a time when Baez was viewed by many in Nashville as hyper-liberal and undesirable, Scruggs said, "Well, I didn't look at it from a political view. And I thought Joan Baez had one of the best voices of anybody I'd ever heard sing."
Of course, none of that would have been notable or possible had Scruggs not mastered the banjo in a way that no one before him had, and in a way that almost everyone after him sought to.
Before Scruggs came to popular attention in December 1945 when he joined Bill Monroe's Blue Grass Boys on the Grand Ole Opry, the banjo was as likely to be employed as a clattering comedy prop as it was a serious music-making tool.
Perhaps Scruggs did not "invent" the technique of striking the banjo strings with three right-hand fingers in a way that produced sounds of far greater intricacy than could be summoned through the then-popular "frailing" style of banjo playing. But while others in Scruggs' native North Carolina and in neighboring South Carolina practiced with three fingers, Scruggs perfected and popularized the style.
When a 21-year-old Scruggs auditioned for Monroe, the bandleader heard the final piece in a sound he'd been working to construct. And Scruggs' first performance with the Blue Grass Boys, on Dec. 8, 1945, was the "Big Band of Bluegrass," offering a template — guitar, mandolin, upright bass, fiddle and Scruggs-style banjo —still employed today.
During Monroe's performances, Opry boss George D. Hay often introduced Scruggs as "The boy who made the banjo talk." If others had made it speak, Scruggs taught it a master class in what must have seemed a foreign language, offering a vocabulary and clarity of expression never before attained and rescuing the instrument from creeping oblivion.Some reasoning behind Hessian
I launched Hessian yesterday, and the response has exceeded my expectations.
The idea of selling a brand independently of a product is somewhat new, and a bit jarring, so I thought it’d be useful to clarify my thinking a bit:
The core thought with Hessian.tv is that, as designers, we naturally see solutions to problems/opportunities we can’t help but notice in the market. We have concepts that we know are valid and worthwhile, and not only that but we instinctually know how they should be launched, how they should look, how they should work, and who their target audience should be.
HOWEVER, as anyone who has tried building something knows, the actual production and launch of a great idea is incredibly difficult. Not only that, but, as Svpply taught me, launching, leading, growing and managing a product is an entirely different skill set than most designers have or want to have or should be expected to have.
Inversely, there are oceans of MBAs, Managers and Entrepreneurs out there who are passionate and talented at the actual building and leading of companies, but may not actually be great at identifying worthwhile problem/solutions in the market.
- -
So it seems to me that in today’s connected environment, there’s no reason designers shouldn’t be able to create designed product packages, and then sell them to entrepreneurs.
This is the thinking that brought me to Hessian. The only difference being that Hessian is lacking an actual product concept, (which was a choice I made for reasons I won’t get into right now). However, that will not be the case for the next few ideas/brands/products I try and sell! In the future they will be full packages, from product concept to product design and brand, and I will try to sell them for significantly more than $18k.
But we’ll see.
All of this stems from some larger thoughts I have about the false-walls we’ve put up about what can be sold online and who can sell it, which is a line of thinking I’m now directing towards a new marketplace I’m slowly launching called Mined.
Hit me up at [email protected] if this sounds interesting!Image caption Mike Page's photograph has been used by the government in its £9m pro-EU leaflet
A pro-Brexit photographer says he was left shocked when one of his pictures was used in a pro-EU leaflet.
Mike Page took the image of the Port of Felixstowe, Suffolk, for use on the company's website and own promotional literature.
But he was left "livid" to find it in a government leaflet setting out the supposed benefits of staying in the EU, the Eastern Daily Press reported.
A port spokesman said there had been a mistake, which had been resolved.
'Fundamentally disagree'
He added: "It was one of a number of photographs we provided to the government.
"On this particular image there was a misunderstanding on the copyright but this has been resolved to Mike Page's satisfaction."
Aerial photographer Mr Page, 76, of Norfolk, said he had accepted a charitable donation from the port and he would not be taking matters further.
He added: "I absolutely would not have given my permission for this image to be used in this document because I fundamentally disagree with what it says.
Image caption Mike Page said he did not want his work associated with the pro-EU campaign
"They are submitting that leaflet to every house in the UK and it has cost the taxpayers a lot of money.
"I certainly would not wish for my work to be associated with that and they used it without asking."
Mr Page does not benefit commercially from his photography, instead requesting that firms donate money to charity in exchange for their use.
Downing Street said it was given the image by the Port of Felixstowe, which gave permission for its use in the leaflet.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The prime minister recently told students at Exeter University he made "no apology" for the EU leaflet
Prime Minister David Cameron visited the port last month as part of the campaign to stay in the EU.
He appeared before shipping containers arranged to spell out the word "in".
The government has been criticised by Brexit campaigners for spending £9m of public funds on the leaflet.Rap music is hood music. Both in the sense that its lyrics and rhythms evoke the grim realities and fleeting triumphs of quotidian life in the contemporary urban milieu, but moreso because at least half of all rap songs are about neighborhoods. Be it the hood the rapper is from, the one he sells drugs in, the one he used to sell drugs in, or just one he thinks is particularly rough or particularly fancy, you can't swing a cat in a rap track without scratching a shout-out to some spot or another.
While this is a straightforward affair in cities with distinct internal entities like Compton and the South Side, trying to rep your neighborhood in Atlanta isn't so simple. After Sherman burned the place to the ground, Atlanta was rebuilt by a 100-year succession of carpetbaggers, developers, and politicians on the take, leaving the city's map a baffling, decentralized spidermess that conforms to no known human system of logic. Neighborhoods here are amorphous blobs nobody agrees on the boundaries of, and whose names are only used by realtors to convince buyers they're moving to a nicer part of town than they actually are. Street and place names are changed at whim, or doubled up to the point where there are 71 streets named "Peachtree." Good hoods and bad hoods not only touch each other but sometimes are each other. Only in a city this geographically schizophrenic could you have a lifelong East Atlantan like Gucci Mane say "I'm a East Atlanta nigga" and then IMMEDIATELY follow it with "You an East Atlanta bitch."
Thankfully for the city's rappers and trappers, the Atlanta police divided up this maddening tangle into six patrollable zones. Not only does this provide a concrete place to tell people where you hail from, calling your hood "Zone X" makes Atlanta sound like a Logan's Run–esque dystopia in the not-so-distant future. Which, in terms of what's happening in hip-hop, it actually kinda is.
ZONE 1
Zone 1 is home to Bankhead and the Bluff, the titular drug market of the film Snow on tha Bluff. Apart from inspiring Freaknik-era shoulder-dance craze the "Bankhead Bounce," Bankhead is also T.I.'s old stomping ground and the setting for his 2003 genre-christening album Trap Muzik, which may make it the original trap in trap music. Incidentally, Zone 1 is where FDR built the country's first public housing project, Techwood Homes, arguably the first trap in history.
Back when Atlanta was one of America's most dangerous cities, this is where most of that danger was happening. A gang called the Miami Boys brought the crack war up from Florida, funneling coke from the Caribbean straight up I-75 to the Connector and into Zone 1. The city used the 1996 Olympics as a chance to tear down Techwood and drive the Miami Boys out of town, and those who remained were pushed out when the Black Mafia Family moved down from Detroit and started running West Coast coke in exotic rental cars.
While Bankhead has chilled out and now awaits gentrification, the Bluff is still a rough spot for a vacation, even if you're Jeezy. Although these days the violence has given way to more low-key finesses, like letting college kids move in and get comfy for a couple weeks before robbing the bejesus out of them.
Notable Zone 1ers: T.I., Dem Franchize Boyz, Shawty Lo, Curtis Snow, Maynard Jackson, Gladys Knight and two of the Pips, D-Roc of the Ying Yang Twins (and "Bankhead Bounce" fame).
ZONE 2
North Atlanta, including Buckhead and Lenox, comprises Zone 2 and is essentially an amusement park for ballplayers' wives and rich lawyers. This is the part of town that earned Atlanta its "Black Hollywood" nickname and was an obvious choice for a drug lord cum aspiring rap mogul like Demetrius "Big Meech" Flenory, founder of the Black Mafia Family, to make his hub.
The highways supplied a direct pipeline to every major city on the East Coast and Buckhead provided plenty of venues for Meech and his rap buddies to put their proceeds into circulation. BMF members claim to be the first strip-clubbers to "make it rain," which was as much about showing off as it was a rudimentary form of money laundering, much like the Family's public front, BMF Entertainment. Even though the record label only officially signed one rapper, California transplant Bleu DaVinci, Meech's largesse propped up the careers of a number of local studios and rappers, most famously Young Jeezy, in addition to ruining local nightlife for everybody outside the Family's payroll.
After BMF set up shop and consolidated the city's drug industry, it was not uncommon to see 15-car convoys of Day-Glo Lamborghinis commuting (loudly) between Buckhead's myriad bottle-service bars and strip clubs. Nor for those Lambos to cause an hours-long traffic jam as they all tried to stonedly park and unpark in the same lot.
Due to a number of high-profile parking-lot shootings, the City of Atlanta imposed a drinking curfew on Buckhead, and the cops began looking suspiciously at all the guys with quarter-million-dollar cars and chains with the same three letters. Meech didn't help matters by erecting a billboard proclaiming "The World Is BMF's," based on the one from Scarface. Eventually the DEA figured out that BMF entertainment was more than a record label with a single artist, and took down the whole operation, turning off the money faucet that had kept Atlanta hip-hop in diamonds.
Notable Zone 2ers: The Black Lips, Migos (kinda), the current governor.
ZONE 3
For some reason (or no reason, this being Atlanta), here the Zones stop clockwising their way around the city and drop straight down from 12 o'clock to 6. Zone 3 is wedged between the highway and the train tracks running south down to Florida. Atlanta started as a railway town and despite trains being supplanted by planes and automobiles as elsewhere, the tracks are still a vital part of the local economy. See, before it became a more general metaphor for life in the drug trade, the "trap" that trap music is named after was an actual, physical trap used to keep drug buyers from ripping you off. Or to help you rip them off; whichever angle you're playing. Zone 3's narrow, overgrown streets that dead-end into the abandoned railroads make perfect traps: one way in, one way out, no one for blocks to hear you scream or get shot to death.
When we were filming Noisey Atlanta, Trouble from the Duct Tape Army took us to a Zone 3 trap house that was the only building on its block with a roof. It was seriously the set from one of those "after humans" shows. Once you crossed the porch, however, and waited for a person inside to open the door's bank-vault lock system, some ten guys were sitting in a sumptuously air-conditioned living room playing Xbox and doing bench presses with their guns in their laps. It took me a second to figure out what was going on, but what the deal is is: That's their job. They were all "at work." And from the finish of their firearms and jewelry, seems like work's going good.
The fact that a single drug spot can maintain a staff the size of a reputable steakhouse is a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit that drives the Atlanta trap scene. Basically, when BMF collapsed it forced everybody back to the trap house to do it themselves. And not just drug dealing. People DIY everything in their trap houses: They record tracks, shoot videos, and found indie record labels like Gucci Mane's 1017 Brick Squad and Future's Freebandz. Zone 3 is like the Silicon Valley of trap-made rap music.
Of the four trap houses rising trap star Peewee Longway keeps in the various zones ("like Monopoly"), his Zone 3 spot, the Lobby, is the one he always mentions. 2 Chainz's studio probably doesn't count as a trap house considering he has $500 worth of candles on the console, but it's here too. Even iLoveMakonnen and his weird little clique of home recorders are Zone 3 kids. It's the zone where shit gets done.
Notable Zone 3ers: 2 Chainz, Ludacris, Yung Joc, Waka Flocka Flame, Trinidad James (ancestrally), Monica, Jeff Foxworthy, T.I.'s character in ATL, Rich the Kid, Southside, Young Thug.
ZONE 4
Or maybe Makonnen's from here. Fuck, can't remember. While the police zones aren't as fluid as the neighborhoods they overlay, they do change them every few years. One cop whose beat is right at the border of Zones 3 and 6 told us he's arrested multiple guys with crossed-out tattoos from when their zone switched, though this could be one of those cop stories. Like when the NYPD told the New York Post after the stop-and-frisk ruling that criminals were taunting them with guns in their hoodies. Um, that happened in August, guys. Anybody in a hoodie would have sweat themselves to death.
Anyway, wherever Makonnen's from, Zone 4 is the SWATS, which stands for "Southwest Atlanta something something." This is the zone Goodie Mob, Outkast, and all the other Dirty South folks from the late 90s came out of. Although some of them are technically from East Point, which has its own police force sandwiched between Zone 3 and Zone 4. And is, of course, per its name, on the west side of town. Fucking Atlanta.
Notable Zone 4ers: Killer Mike, Outkast, CeeLo.
ZONE 5
Downtown and midtown Atlanta used to look like The Walking Dead after dark, and a bit like a businessman-themed Walking Dead in the day. When Buckhead shut down, the frat crowd headed for East Atlanta while the hip-hop set helped revitalize the intown. Nightmarishly huge clubs like Opera and Harlem Nights opened up featuring flaming champagne bottles, multi-tiered VIP sections catering to 20+ -person entourages, and uniformed Atlanta police officers they hire to—I don't know what. Certainly not to stop anyone from doing drugs. It's entirely possible they're hired just so clubgoers can do drugs in front of a cop.
Right across the highway, a colony of recording studios like Patchwerk and Coach K's Quality Sound run all night, and then down next to the Greyhound station you have institutional titty bar Magic City, where producers take their new tracks directly from the recording booth to the DJ booth for DJ Esco to premiere, bypassing the entire record and radio industries in the process. It's probably the only farm-to-table hip-hop distro operation on earth.
Nobody is really from Zone 5 (though Trinidad James does keep a pied-à-terre overlooking the 75/85 connector), but it's such a studio haven that producers here like Mike Will Made-It, Metro Boomin, Sonny Digital, and TM88 are as famous as the rappers they make beats for. They're like the Wrecking Crew or all those Muscle Shoals session players, and thanks to all the attention they've started forming their own groups, like the Eardrummers and the 808 Mafia, and started releasing their own, un-rapped-over songs. It's like the birth of a whole new genre of music.
Notable Zone 5ers: Trinidad James, Supreeme, Sonny Digital, the ATL Twins, the dancers of Magic City
ZONE 6
The zone du jour. The trappest of all possible zones. If you're looking for Gucci Mane, this is the zone he'll be in. Provided he's not in jail (which, presently, he is). Zone 6 is where Young Scooter jugs out them Section 8 houses, where Future drinks like it's Cinco de Mayo, and where all the hoes stare at Rich Homie Quan when he walks through. It's essentially the capital of the "New Atlanta" that magazines like Complex keep going on about. I wanna say it's where Peewee Longway lives, but I have a hard time understanding him through that grill.
The East Side is also a perfect microcosm of Atlanta's development chaos, with ritzy brunch lofts built directly overlooking some of the most dangerous projects in the city and multiple apartment complexes that claim the title "Little Mexico." (Shootings have thankfully come down enough to obviate the old sobriquet of "Little Vietnam.") It's an area in such churning flux the Zone 6 cops are still on the lookout for gangs that disbanded years ago and think new gangs whose members we met in person are just urban legends. Basically, it's the most confusing, fucked-up, exciting trap in America. No wonder God lives here.
Notable Zone 6ers: Gucci, Young Scooter, Future, OJ da Juiceman, Rich Homie Quan (ancestrally), Childish Gambino.
Watch Noisey Atlanta on Noisey.VICE.com to learn more about Atlanta's Zones and the trap musicians who call them home.How do you beat perfectionism?
So this question assumes that perfectionism is something that *should* be beaten, which I don’t think is always true. For example, if I’m getting open heart surgery, I’d hope very dearly that my surgeon was a perfectionist. I’d wish the same for flight controllers at airports, nuclear weapons engineers, firefighters, the people who program self-driving cars… you get the point. In some cases, mistakes are incredibly costly. So having a rigorous culture that prevents them can be an excellent thing.
But yes, in many other instances in our lives, perfectionism hinders more than it helps. I know this because I’ve been a perfectionist and I used to wear it as a badge of pride. It’s a cool and soothing drink for the ego to say, almost conspiratorially, that you aim for the best. That you do not tolerate mistakes. That you, like Beyonce, aspire for flawless.
The problem is that trying to do things perfectly all the time often leads to worse prioritization decisions when you take a step back. Take the following (rather silly) example: I’m planning a party and I want it to be awesome. I take out my linen napkins from the closet and realize Egads! They are all creased! Well, perfectionism suggests that I should immediately get out my iron to smooth the napkins, which’ll take me about 30 minutes. But wait — what else could I do with 30 minutes? I could go out and rent a karaoke machine (because who doesn’t love karaoke)? Or, I could spend the time to blow up a bunch of silver and black balloons (because that’ll make the place look festive and classy af). Or, I could make a few large pitchers of a potent and tasty concoction that’ll get my guests feeling light as those aforementioned balloons. All of these ideas are probably more likely to make my party awesome than perfectly smooth linen napkins.
The thing is, perfectionism tends to be rooted in fear rather than opportunity. I’m afraid creased napkins will make me look bad.
I might be wrong if I raise hand and share my opinion so I’m going to stay silent.
I should spend the next two hours tweaking the typography of my new user onboarding designs instead of getting feedback from my peers because otherwise the work won’t reflect well on me.
In each of those examples, you’re denying yourself the opportunity to do something even better. I’ve been to many parties in my life and the most memorable ones have nothing to do with the smoothness of the linens. I’ve sat in many meetings and the people who command the most respect speak up and have a voice, even if they’re wrong from time to time. And I’ve attended many design reviews on new user onboardings. In very, very rare instances is the biggest issue the typography.
When you find yourself under the grips of a perfectionism defined by fear, try the following tactics:Looking for news you can trust?
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Obama: “Frustrating to have to mobilize every couple months to keep our leaders from inflicting real human suffering on our constituents.” pic.twitter.com/3J681Xsrel — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 20, 2017
Former President Barack Obama attacked congressional Republicans on Wednesday afternoon for their renewed efforts to repeal his signature law, the Affordable Care Act, better know as Obamacare. “It frustrates,” Obama said. “And it’s certainly frustrating to have to mobilize every couple months to keep our leaders from inflicting real human suffering on our constituents. But, typically that is how progress is won, and how progress is maintained.”
Obama was speaking in New York City at an event hosted by the Gates Foundation. During his wide-ranging remarks, Obama took a moment to offer criticism of the bill currently being considered by Congress, which Republicans are rushing to pass out of the Senate before a September 30 deadline. “When I see people trying to undo that hard-earned progress, for the 50th or 60th time,” Obama said, “with bills that would raise costs or reduce coverage, or roll back protections for older Americans or people with preexisting conditions, the cancer survivor, the expecting mom or the child with autism or asthma, for whom coverage once again would be almost unattainable, it is aggravating. And all of this is being done with no demonstrable economic or actuarial or plain commonsense rationale.”
You can watch the rest of Obama’s speech here.Gay couples protest Cal Poly Chick-fil-A
August 4, 2012
By KAREN VELIE
Same sex couples and their allies showed their support for gay rights at Cal Poly’s Chick-fil-A on Friday.
The fast food restaurant has been embroiled in controversy since its president Dan Cathy came out against gay marriage in June. On Wednesday, gay marriage opponents held signs outside Cal Poly’s food court supporting Chick-fil-A.
The scene on Friday included picketers at all three entrances and a few same sex couples kissing in support of “National Same Sex Kiss Day.”
Members of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance (GALA) held signs with statements such as “What came first the chicken or the gay,” while promoting not eating at the restaurant.
GALA President Will Russell said that after President Barack Obama came out in support of gay marriage, members of the Christian far right have become more involved in the opposition of gay marriage.
“GALA’s stance is that any form of discrimination is not ok,” Russell said. “We want to have the same rights as everyone else.”
Loading...There’s a director who has been nominated for six Oscars. He even won once. His 2015 film was a critical and commercial success. It made over $350 million and has a 98 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
There’s another director who has been nominated for three Oscars. He’s won once. His 2015 film was also a critical success. It has a 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
By most accounts, these men have made two of the best films of the year, and their effort deserves to be recognized with nominations for Best Director at the 88th Academy Awards.
But they won’t be.
Those directors are Pete Docter and Charlie Kaufman. They’re about to get snubbed.
Pete Docter is not a Hollywood director. Yes, his movies get released by one of the biggest companies in Hollywood (Disney grossed over $2.2 billion and counting at the 2015 box office), but Docter himself is far removed from that world. He himself cops to this — his daughter’s BFFs have little-to-no interest, or even knowledge, that he directed a film inspired by their friend’s life — and with a Midwestern charm, politely shrugs off any talk of financial or critical accolades. Docter is so far from Hollywood, both literally and figuratively, that he lives in a treehouse; an honest-to-goodness treehouse that he had built on 15 acres of secluded land in northern California. (Briefly: The tree is artificial, a suspension bridge connects wings of the house and an elevator connects the home to the garage, located 25 feet below.)
Docter commands respect at Pixar — where he was the third employee ever hired and now serves as the Director and Vice President of Creative — not because of blustery tirades or a demanding style, but simply for his creative genius. Docter often walks around Pixar’s sprawling Emeryville campus by himself, blending in with the countless other employees. He eats lunch alongside newbie animators and support staff at Cafe Luxo. That doesn’t mean Docter deserves to be nominated as Best Director, but it partly explains why he isn’t. While Disney/Pixar may seem omnipresent, Docter prefers to keep a low profile. He’s not out politicking or campaigning. He’s already back at work helping shape future Pixar movies like Finding Dory, Coco, and even Cars 3.
Charlie Kaufman and his Anomalisa co-director Duke Johnson are a slightly different case. While Kaufman is well-known and well-regarded in Hollywood circles (he won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ), Johnson has never directed a feature film before; his only previous credit of note is a Christmas episode of Community. If Inside Out and Pixar get notoriety simply because of, well, being Pixar (and being one of the five biggest movies of the year doesn’t hurt), Anomalisa is desperately scratching for attention. An R-rated dramedy featuring stop-motion animated puppets is not an easy sell. Paramount paid over $5 million for the film in September, but to date the film has made less than $500,000 since opening in theaters in late December. (By comparison, Star Wars: The Force Awakens made $12 million last Sunday, its 24th day in theaters.)
Co-Director Duke Johnson filming a scene from the stop-motion animated film, ‘Anomalisa’ (Paramount Pictures)
Paramount, Kaufman, and Johnson have been aggressively campaigning for the film, but it seems to be getting lost in the gulf between live-action films for adults and animated films for kids. Still, few of those who’ve seen it deny its singular genius. As Matt Singer put it in our review, “It is almost certainly the best film of the year.” When Matt put together his year-end “Best Of” list, Anomalisa didn’t quite make the #1 spot. It finished as the runner-up…to Inside Out.
So, why are the Oscar-winning directors of two of the best films of last year being shut out of the Academy Awards?
There are people, blogs, algorithms, and bookies all trying to predict who will win Oscars this year, but none are better at predicting Academy Award success than the Directors Guild of America’s Award for Outstanding Directing. Since the DGA first started handing out awards in 1948, the Director’s Guild and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science have disagreed on the best filmmaker of the year only seven times (most recently in 2012, when Argo ’s Ben Affleck lost the Oscar to Ang Lee for Life of Pi ). That’s a startling 90 percent success rate over the past 67 years. And if the DGA can predict who will win an Oscar, they can also predict who won’t win. Currently both Docter and Kaufman & Johnson are both listed at 100/1 odds to be nominated for an Oscar at GoldDerby.com, which seems generous.
Here’s why this is important for Docter, Kaufman, and Johnson: Feature animation directors are not allowed membership in the DGA (Kaufman became a member after directing 2008’s Synecdoche, New York ). The exact reasoning remains unclear, though it appears to be a remnant of some archaic DGA contract. We reached out to the DGA multiple times for comment and clarification on their bylaws with no response. (On the DGA Award application, it simply states, “Animated films are not eligible.”)
‘I think these movies could change so much,’ says Anomalisa producer Dan Harmon.
If this restriction is coming from the DGA, it certainly does not seem representative of the directors in the guild. We spoke to a group of feature directors, all members of the DGA, and all uniformly expressed their steadfast support of animation directors, hopeful that they would be recognized. As one prominent director of an upcoming blockbuster pointed out with a chuckle, someone has already won an Oscar for directing an animated film. “Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity.”
An animated film can be nominated for Best Picture, and it does happen occasionally ( Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story 3, and Up are all relatively recent examples). An animated film can also be nominated for Best Original Screenplay, which we’ve seen in the past with Finding Nemo, Up, Wall-E, and Toy Story. An animated film can be nominated for Best Original Score. So, why does it seem almost impossible for a director — the one responsible for pulling all these parts together — to be recognized? As live-action directors take on projects with increasing amounts of visual effects, what makes directing a traditionally animated film any different than helming a blockbuster?
While some may argue that animation is a more collaborative art form than a traditional live-action film, few could argue that Inside Out and Anomalisa come directly from the minds of two uniquely talented artists. While both Docter and Kaufman would likely dismiss this notion outright as deference to the many hands who helped create their movies, Inside Out is undeniably a Pete Docter Movie. Anomalisa could not be made by anyone other than Charlie Kaufman. Their creators’ genius seeps through every frame of their films and trickles down through the hands of the individual animators. They are as much directors as their live-action counterparts— or more, if you factor in the extra amount of time and effort it takes to make an animated movie.
I spoke to a number of Pixar employees who privately expressed their frustration at the bias against animation directors. Many shared the excitement of Inside Out writer Meg LeFauve, who squealed “Wouldn’t that be exciting?! Wouldn’t that just be awesome?” at the potential of an animated director being nominated at the Oscars. Some, like The Good Dinosaur director Peter Sohn, were honest enough to admit they had never even explored that possibility themselves. “You know, I’ve never really thought about this. How shameful. Because Brad [Bird], Pete Docter, John Lasseter, Andrew [Stanton], they are incredible directors. They should be nominated and recognized.”
Kelsey Mann, story supervisor on Monsters University and one of the credited writers on The Good Dinosaur, made this case for Docter: “From the ground up, directors at Pixar are in charge of everything from the story to the individual blades of grass. We start from nothing. Literally nothing. And it all has to be built from the ground up. And Pete is involved in every decision.”
‘Inside Out’ Director Pete Docter makes notes on a series of storyboards (Disney•Pixar)
The “every decision” defense is one I hear often, from both camps. In Docter’s office, there were walls and walls of doorknobs. Big ones, small ones, brass ones, wooden ones; all there for Docter’s approval. As the director, he was responsible for selecting and approving every single doorknob for every single house in Inside Out. On a similar, but completely different note, Johnson was responsible for inserting every single body hair — head, armpit, chest and even, pubic — one by one.
“If you watch Duke Johnson’s work,” says Dan Harmon, who executive produced Anomalisa and is a partner at animation studio Starburns Industries, “you can really see his utmost goal is to take this childlike medium and look at it through a very cinematic, severe lens. And the effect is really phenomenal. And that is directing. It’s directing that just takes longer.”
Bill Hader, who worked on Inside Out and has sat inside Pixar story room meetings, says Docter is every bit the director as any other live-action director he’s ever worked with. “[He’s] very intuitive. Pete will always say, ‘That doesn’t feel right.’ He’s never saying, ‘The Act 2 reversal is…’ or ‘the midpoint is on Page 60, so this needs to happen.’ He’s not like that. That’s never part of it at all.”
While it may be too late for Docter and Kaufman & Johnson for these films, they could be the bellwether of change.
“I think these movies could change so much,” says Harmon. “If you look at [a director’s] work and it looks like a movie, treat it like a movie. And I do think that’s how people will start to treat it and I think [ Anomalisa and Inside Out ] could be gamechangers.”
Adds Mann, “I hope to God that I live long enough to see that happen.”
How that change happens remains to be seen. There is the potential for a Director’s Guild Award for Best Directing on an Animated Feature, which would allow animated directors to be recognized, albeit in a different category. That would at least permit animation directors to become members and to receive the same benefits as their colleagues. Curiously enough, theatrical animation directors aren’t currently allowed in the Animation Guild, I.A.T.S.E. Local 839, because they are considered “management.”
Many years ago, when animated films were released more sparingly, there may have been some justification in the DGA and the Academy to keep animation and live-action separate. But as animation becomes a more dominant art form both critically and commercially (five of the 20 highest grossing films of 2015 were animated films), they deserve to be treated as equals. They speak to us, move us, and change our lives just like any other film out there.
“I have a new daughter,” says Sohn, “and because of Inside Out, I feel like I have an entirely new way to communicate with her.”
If audiences can recognize that, why can’t the Academy?The GP2 calendar will support F1 races at the Bahrain, Malaysian and Singapore Grands Prix in 2012.
With the GP2 Asia series ending this year, the main GP2 series will add four Asian races to its schedule. Three of these will support F1 races, plus an additional round |
agreed in May to investigate the whereabouts of alleged Japanese abductees, had presented Japanese officials with a list of survivors.
Sources now say some 30 people are on this list, revealed at a July 1 meeting in Beijing, along with their date of birth, occupation and other information. As of Wednesday, the Japanese government had matched about two-thirds of them with domestic records of missing persons.
Some are among the 12 victims of North Korean abductions recognized by the Japanese government who have yet to return to Japan. The list also contains names of presumed abductees and other Japanese.
The North Korean side says the list was compiled at the start of this year, suggesting it knew the whereabouts of the missing Japanese even before the negotiations leading up to the probe. Pyongyang is supposed to report its initial findings between late August and early September.
It is unclear how the list fits in to the investigation, the start of which was announced on the same day the names were shown to Japanese officials.
Tokyo intends to press Pyongyang to adhere to its promise of a comprehensive probe, not simply look into the people on the list.
(Nikkei)Using Vw and Vh
Viewport width (vw) and viewport height (vh) are viewport-percentage values introduced in CSS3. Given how powerful they are, and with almost complete browser support, they should be everywhere. The aim of this article is to show how to use vw and vh, and how they're not like the percentages you know.
Backgrounds and vh
The vh unit can be used to fill the background of the viewport, aka the browser window.
CSS
.viewport-1 { background-size: cover; background-image: url('../img/float.jpg'); height: 100vh; }.viewport-2 { background-size: cover; background-image: url('../img/hands.jpg'); height: 100vh; }
Example
See the Pen Backgrounds and the vh unit by Steve Pear () on CodePen.
The height property sets the background to the full height of the viewport. The vh unit uses percentages, so 100vh is 100% of the viewport.
Backgrounds and vw
The vw unit can be used to fill viewport backgrounds for horizontally-scrolling sites.
CSS
#container { width: 200vw; }.viewport-1 { float: left; background-size: cover; background-image: url('../img/float.jpg'); width: 100vw; height: 100vh; }.viewport-2 { float: left; background-size: cover; background-image: url('../img/hands.jpg'); width: 100vw; height: 100vh; }
Example
See the Pen Backgrounds and the vw unit by Steve Pear () on CodePen.OP-ED: Working for Affordable Housing, Piece By Piece
Photos
By Margaret Chin
Like many other housing advocates, I applauded and was heartened by the July 10 announcement that Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration had by that point financed more than 8,700 units of affordable housing across the city. And, like the mayor, I'm passionate about working to achieve his goal of building or preserving 200,000 units of affordable housing within the next 10 years.
That's why my office has already identified numerous city-owned lots within my Lower Manhattan district that I believe would be best used for building affordable housing.
Several weeks ago, as part of that effort, I asked the city to consider allowing residential development on a Lower East Side lot that is currently used as a municipal parking garage. The site - which could support around 90 units of affordable housing - had long been identified as a possible location for such development, but was never offered up by the Bloomberg administration.
Large-scale development and zoning changes will play vital roles in accomplishing Mayor de Blasio's 10-year plan, but I believe we should place an equally urgent emphasis on identifying and acting on smaller sites. Along with the obvious fact that they provide us with many additional development options, these smaller sites throughout the five boroughs can often be converted to residential use relatively quickly and easily.
Whether it's another 25, 50 or 100 units of affordable housing here and there, those numbers will really start to add up.
I understand why there's sometimes resistance - from officials or local stakeholders - to certain proposals for new housing on city-owned lots that currently exist as parking garages or open space. It's true that many of these lots already serve some purpose within our communities, and it can be difficult to commit to giving up a public resource in order to make way for housing. As the City Council representative of a district that already includes some extremely dense areas, I certainly recognize the need for open space and adequate transportation options within a community.
There's almost always going to be some argument against giving up one of these city-owned lots. Some people might say, "Don't take away my parking!" Others might say, "Don't take away my green space!"
They all generally lead back to the same question: "Can't you just find a different place for housing?"
But if we're really serious about completing the mayor's plan in a decade, the fact is that all of us - council members, community boards, residents - must make affordable housing a priority in our districts.
That means identifying sites now, and doing our best to act on them, so we can get new residential units under construction as soon as possible. We simply can't spend years trying to find those different places for housing that can please everyone. The sites are there, and we have to take advantage of them as swiftly as possible.
Let's remember something - the sooner these new units are built, the sooner they can house the hardworking low- and middle-income families that make this city great.
So I'll keep pushing for new affordable housing on all of the sites I've already identified within my district. I hope all my council colleagues will join me in taking these small steps that can make a huge impact on achieving our affordable housing goals for New York City.
The mayor's housing effort is undoubtedly one of the most important 10-year plans this city has ever undertaken. And piece by piece, we'll all have to work together to make it happen.
Chin is the City Council member representing District 1 in Lower Manhattan.
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MUST READ NEWS
VIDEOSAbout a year has passed since an elderly woman decided to retouch a painting of Christ and ended up disfiguring the religious image. The botched job, which turned into a source of humiliation for Cecilia Gimenez and spurred a series of memes, has become a lucrative endeavor. Apparently time can heal all wounds.
The small church in Borja, Spain, that houses the infamous work has received an immense influx of tourists, all eager to see Gimenez’s art. The city council decided to charge a euro entrance fee to the church, and now that the painting has attracted more than 40,000 people, it’s added up. The amateur painter’s well-intentioned deed has earned a local charity upward of €50,000 ($66,000).
And that’s without counting the profit from merchandise sales. The Guardian reports:
The council also got lawyers to establish copyright and draw up a merchandising agreement that will see the image put on plates, postcards and cigarette lighters, among other items… Gimenez and [the] local council are to sign a deal next week to share profits from merchandise featuring the image, with the artist getting 49% and the council the rest, said councilor Juan Maria Ojeda, who listed the tourism and income figures. The turnaround is apparently quite a relief for the Spanish retiree, who was overwhelmed by the attention a year ago. “Now it seems like everyone’s happy,” local paper Heraldo de Aragon quoted the once media-shy Gimenez as saying in Sunday’s edition. “I’m grateful that things have quieted down.”
The 81-year-old responsible for bringing this little known artwork that uses the Ecce homo (“behold the man”) motif into the spotlight held an art show that attracted thousands of visitors. And, seeing as the painting cannot be returned to its previous state, her version, nicknamed “Ecce mono” (“behold the monkey”), will outlive its predecessor.
—Posted by Natasha HakimiAnytime there is a discussion on the greatest teams of all-time, the Los Angeles Lakers will always be brought up. Whether it’s the 2001 version that nearly swept through the playoffs, the 1972 version that won 33 straight games, or any number of championship teams in the 1980s, the Lakers have plenty of teams that could be considered for the distinction.
Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James is one of the NBA’s greatest players ever and he recently appeared on The Open Run podcast with Jesse Williams and Stefan Marolachakis.
During a ‘quickfire’ question and answer portion, James was asked which team in history he would’ve loved to play for, and he went with a classic Lakers team:
If you could play on any team in history, what team comes to mind? LeBron: Oh wow. I would play on…give me the ’85 Lakers.
The 1985 Lakers as they were are already an excellent team that many consider the greatest ever. They won 62 games and were led by the Hall of Fame trio of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and James Worthy. Quite frankly adding LeBron James to this roster would have been unfair.
James mentioned that one major reason he would want to play on this Lakers team is because they were a running team and he love to run up and down the floor. For that reason, his choice makes perfect sense as Magic leading a fast break with James on one side and Worthy on the other would be unstoppable. Any chance of the Celtics stopping that Lakers squad would be gone.
The ’85 Lakers are already considered by many as the greatest NBA team of all-time. James clearly recognized that, and his fit on such a team would be perfect, all of which makes his choice a no-brainer.The dispute took a decidedly sinister turn last Thursday morning when Christine Månsson (whose real name has been withheld at her request) woke up and walked out to the family's garden to feed their pet rabbit at their home in Landskrona in southern Sweden.
The scene she stumbled across at the house's front gate left the mother of two in shock.
The rabbit's decapitated head. It's feet and limbs cut off; its entrails strewn across the ground.
“I see the remains of my rabbit’s body…it’s in my mind all the time,” Månsson told The Local. “It’s cruel and it’s cowardly. But it’s too late.”
Police who examined the scene concluded that the rabbit was indeed killed by a human, most likely someone with knowledge about hunting, as the dismemberment was clean-cut and precise.
“I cannot imagine who could do such a horrible thing,” Månsson said. “It’s disgusting.”
The family's garage had been broken into the same night, and Månsson's husband ran outside just in time to see a man biking away in dark clothing, wearing a hat and a jacket with the letter T emblazoned on the back. Thus far that is the only clue.
The brutal butchery of the animal is the latest development in a dramatic dispute between local figure skating clubs that has shaken the coastal town of roughly 40,000 inhabitants. Skates have been stolen, club members have received anonymous threat letters. And now a pet has been killed in an unlikely feud between the town's two figure-skating organizations, GF Sport Figure-Skating, and the Landskrona Figure Skating and Sport Club (LKSK).
For many years, GF was the only place in town for aspiring figure-skaters to learn the finer points of the sport. But in late August, LKSK began training young skaters, creating a second option for disgruntled GK members who began to question the way the town's original club was run.
“I was involved in the other club last year, and I didn’t like its methods,” said Månsson, who thought GF placed too much emphasis on competition and achievement. “I wanted to create a club that was open for everyone, where kids can just have fun without stressing. So we started LKSK. And that’s when things began to happen.”
Shortly after the club’s opening, Månsson purchased skates for the school, realizing that many parents would want to let their kids first try the sport without investing too much.
“It was an advantage for LKSK,” Månsson said. “No other club has skates and helmets available to loan. But then they just disappeared.”
The skates vanished from Månsson’s car, while her Apple laptop was left untouched – leading her to conclude the theft wasn't the work of an ordinary burglar.
And the mystery is not one-sided. Meanwhile at GF, treasurer Pauline Kronvall received a menacing message.
"I found the first letter in my mailbox in September, right after we had opened the skating school for the year," Kronvall told the local Helsingborgs Dagblad newspaper. It said I should leave the club's board, or my kids would be murdered."
Police attempted to investigate the matter but the investigation was dropped when they could not find any clues. Since then, Kronvall has received two addition letters threatening her family.
"I started looking over my shoulder when walking alone in the ice hall," Kronvall said. "I don't know if these are empty threats, or serious."
The death threats were reported to police and members GK and officials with the city were informed. However, the police investigation was later dropped due to a lack of evidence.
Members from both clubs have been threatened, and it is in unclear if there is any connection between the burglaries, the letters, and the rabbit murder. But vendetta or coincidence, Månsson said there is definitely bad blood between the clubs. One 14-year-old skater with LKSK was reportedly threatened by a member of GF, although the exact nature of the threat has not been confirmed. But Månsson intends to carry on as always.
“I don’t know who this is, but I believe the goal is to scare us. The only thing I can imagine is that they want us to quit the club,” Månsson speculated. “But I cannot live my life being afraid. You can’t watch your kids or your house all the time, and you can’t just lock the doors and stay inside all your life.
“I’ve taken what precautions I can. Now my main goal is just stay positive and focused.”
Solveig Rundquist
Follow Solveig on Twitter.As The People v. O.J. Simpson winds down to its finale next week, it’s clear that Sarah Paulson’s performance as prosecuting attorney Marcia Clark will stand as one of the show’s greatest contributions to cultural understanding of the trial. As Paulson explained Stephen Colbert on Thursday, Clark was unfairly maligned by the media at the time of the trial.
“She was really considered to be — and I think I bought this too — she was a strident, really aggressive attorney,” Paulson said. “Is there any other kind of attorney? And also if she were a man, these would all be positive ways to describe an attorney. No one would talk about his bad suit and his bad hair.”
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A new view of Clark isn’t the only thing The People v. O.J. Simpson has given Paulson, though. Clark smoked a lot, forcing the actress to pick up the habit.
“When we first started, I was coughing a lot,” Paulson said. “And then eventually I was ready for a smoke. I was like hey, hey. It got me a little crazy for the ciggies.”
Watch the clip below.Interactive Python is a project of Runestone Interactive. We host a growing number of Open Source, interactive textbooks you can use in a course. Written by award winning authors. Used by some of the best schools.
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Superjail! is characterized by its psychedelic shifts in setting and plot and extreme graphic violence, which give the series a TV-MA-V (for graphic violence, including scenes of bloodshed, dismemberment, torture, and extreme cruelty) rating.[3] These elements are depicted through highly elaborate animated sequences, which have been described as "Baroque and complicated and hard to take in at a single viewing".[4]
The series was the creation of Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick, and Ben Gruber. Christy Karacas was a member of the band Cheeseburger, was a background designer for MTV's Daria, directed Robotomy for Cartoon Network, and later the creator of Ballmastrz: 9009. Stephen Warbrick was originally known for his work on MTV's Beavis and Butt-Head and Daria, was a digital artist on MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch and was also an animatic artist at Blue Sky Studios. Ben Gruber originally wrote for Ultracity 6060 on MTV's Cartoon Sushi, and would also later write for shows like Teen Titans Go!, Breadwinners, and SpongeBob SquarePants.
Karacas originally created a student film in 1997 for MTV's Cartoon Sushi, entitled "Space War". He then partnered with Stephen Warbrick in 2001, creating another film known as "Bar Fight", which caught the attention of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, who allowed them, and Ben Gruber, to create a show of their own.
Setting and premise [ edit ]
The majority of Superjail! is set inside the eponymous prison, located in an alternate dimension identified as "5612". Externally, Superjail is built underneath a volcano which is itself located inside of a larger volcano. Internally, it seems to constitute its own reality, where the fabric of time and space is extremely fluid and changes at the whim of the Warden. It has been indicated that the prison itself has a degree of sentience, and that the nature of the prison is fluid according to the perceptions of the individual. Superjail's inmate population is stated by Jared to be in excess of 70,000, although the show's creators mention that the jail processes "billions of inmates". Superjail is overseen by an individual known only as "The Warden," an amiable psychopath with apparently magical powers who uses the prison (and prisoners) to satisfy his numerous whims.
In the first season, each episode begins with a linear story revolving around an irresponsible scheme concocted by the Warden to satisfy some personal desire. The episode builds up in both violence and surrealism into a climactic, psychedelic blood bath during which dozens of inmates are brutally or gruesomely murdered, either by one another or some external force. Some episode plots have no resolutions at all, with the story simply stopping when events have reached their most chaotic. Regardless, the status quo is always restored by the next episode unless the episode is a multi-part one.
Beginning with the second season, the creators modified the format of the series to focus more on character development and story, as imagined by a revised writing staff.[5] The second-season premiere "Best Friends Forever" demonstrated an immediate break from the first season's template, focusing the episode on Jailbot and Jacknife as opposed to the Warden, setting half of the episode outside of the prison, and lacking an extended murder sequence in the climax.
The third season of the show attempted to meld the formats of the first two seasons, continuing a focus on character development and ongoing storylines while reviving the technique of ending each episode with a complex murder sequence.[6]
Episodes [ edit ]
Season Episodes Originally aired First aired Last aired Pilot 1 May 13, 2007 ( ) 1 10 September 28, 2008 ( ) December 7, 2008 ( 2008-12-07 ) 2 10 April 3, 2011 ( ) June 12, 2011 ( 2011-06-12 ) 3 10 September 30, 2012 ( ) December 9, 2012 ( 2012-12-09 ) 4 6 June 15, 2014 ( ) July 20, 2014 ( 2014-07-20 )
Characters [ edit ]
Main [ edit ]
Recurring [ edit ]
Gary and Bird – Gary is a silent, bespectacled man obviously based on Robert Franklin Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz. However, Gary is mostly a servant to Bird, a small female canary, who appears to be the unofficial "boss" of all of the prisoners in Superjail until Lord Stingray got imprisoned. In the episode Uh Oh, It's Magic, Gary uses his ventriloquism to throw his voice into the Warden's puppet Prison Peedee to stage a break-out. However, the plan is foiled prior to Gary's vocal cords being surgically removed and discarded.
, Gary uses his ventriloquism to throw his voice into the Warden's puppet Prison Peedee to stage a break-out. However, the plan is foiled prior to Gary's vocal cords being surgically removed and discarded. Paul Guaye and Jean Baptiste Le Ghei (portrayed by Christopher McCulloch, Stephen Warbrick) – Two homosexual inmates that can be seen in nearly every episode. They were the leaders of the rival "Purple Pythons" (Jean) and "Double Rainbow" (Paul) prison gangs in Superjail, which parodies the 1961 musical West Side Story. They fell in love as a result and eventually got married. Paul is depicted as being the more feminine of the couple and is somewhat controlling of Jean. Jean is more of the stereotypical male. Despite being violent criminals, the two of them are actually somewhat kind and caring towards others and are respected by the other inmates.
. They fell in love as a result and eventually got married. Paul is depicted as being the more feminine of the couple and is somewhat controlling of Jean. Jean is more of the stereotypical male. Despite being violent criminals, the two of them are actually somewhat kind and caring towards others and are respected by the other inmates. Ash (voiced by Christopher McCulloch) – A severely burned pyrokinetic pyromaniac prisoner. His burns come from a fire caused by his father, a drunk, dropping a cigarette in a movie theater. Ash's personality is almost childlike.
Fatty (voiced by Stephen Warbrick) – A bald, middle-aged, overweight inmate with a high-pitched voice and giggly/creepy personality, with an affinity for trying to show off his genitals, usually towards Gary. It is revealed in the episode "Superjail Grand Prix" that Fatty is a pedophile. Fatty is often killed during the murder scene or at some point in any episode he appears in, only to be inexplicably revived for the next episode.
Peedee (voiced by Dana Snyder) – A live ventriloquist's dummy possessed by Gary's voice box. Originally, he was controlled by Gary and Bird, but his character has been somewhat changed to a foul-mouthed ghostly criminal with a mobster accent and a standard criminal inmate status. He shares a rivalry with Lord Stingray, but the two occasionally work together against the Warden and the other inmates.
The Mistress (voiced by Sally Donovan) – The female warden of Ultra-Prison (a women's prison). She had a brief one-night stand with the Warden while under the effects of Spanish fly. In the season 2 finale, she takes control of Superjail. She engaged in a relationship with Lord Stingray in the season 3 episode "Stingstress". However, after a night of intercourse with Alice, the Mistress returns Superjail to the Warden while she begins a new life-style as a hippie.
Bruce (voiced by Melissa Brown (Ladies' Night) and Chris McCulloch or Stephen Warbrick (Stingstress)) – the head guard at Ultraprison and part of the Mistress' staff. He is the opposite counterpart to Alice, and is thus also transgender.
Nova (voiced by Sally Donovan) – the robot of UltraPrison. While she appears to be the female version of Jailbot, she is also a sleeker, refers to herself as 'newer model' than he is however since they both are custom built prototypes no one can be newer or older.
Charise (voiced by Kamala Sankaram ("Ladies' Night") and Sally Donovan in "Vacation" and onwards) – part of the staff at Ultraprison, acting as both Mistress' personal assistant and her accountant. She is basically the counterpart to Jared.
Theme song [ edit ]
The theme song for the show is "Comin' Home" sung by the group Cheeseburger. An acoustic version (also sung by Cheeseburger) can be heard as the opening to the episode "Time Police Part 2", when, after the shutdown of Superjail, Jacknife is sent to a real-world prison after attempting to rob a bank (this scene could also be a flashback, as Jacknife already had been in a real-life prison at the beginning of the pilot episode, "Bunny Love"). The song is used in every episode except for two: "Bunny Love" and "The Budding of the Warbuxx". "Bunny Love" opens with "Rubber Bullets" by 10cc (which was supposed to be the show's theme song originally, but was changed, as the song's rights were too expensive for the show to use), and "The Budding of the Warbuxx" has no opening song.
Starting from Season four, the episodes' pre-opening sequences no longer feature the "Comin' Home" theme.
Influences [ edit ]
In a Cold Hard Flash interview, creator Christy Karacas said influences for the show were Gary Panter, Robert Crumb, Sally Cruikshank, Mad, Vince Collins, Looney Tunes, Fleischer Studios, Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, School House Rock, Sesame Street, Itchy and Scratchy, kids' art, Muppets, outsider art, underground comics and Pee Wee's Playhouse.[11]
Home releases [ edit ]
DVD name Release date Ep # Features Season One [12] February 23, 2010 11 All episodes in Season One, the music video "Comin' Home", the animatics for episodes 1,9,10, and the pilot. All featured in 2.0 Stereo and closed captioning. Dialogue remains censored in the feature episodes despite the label on the DVD stating otherwise. Season Two [13] March 13, 2012 10 Episode commentary for all episodes but 2 and 7, Cheeseburger concert footage, Cheeseburger animated music video, interview with Christy Karacas and Joe Bradley, script to film comparison of episode 10, animation tests, animatics for episodes 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, and 10, "Introstring" of the episode openings. Dialogue and footage are uncensored. Season Three [14] July 23, 2013 10 Animatics for episodes 1 and 7, animation tests of episodes 6 and 10, "Introstring" featurette. Dialogue and footage remain censored despite the DVD label stating otherwise.Antosca also explains why only a few people will ever really know what's inside The Orb.
[Editor’s Note: The following interview contains spoilers for the ending of “Channel Zero: No-End House.”]
If you’re still thinking about the finale of the Syfy series “Channel Zero: No-End House” by this time in 2018, not only has series creator and writer Nick Antosca done his job, he’s made the kind of show of which he’s a fan.
“There’s a particular trap you can fall into in telling a horror story where you prioritize in-the-moment scares over character development and psychological depth. It’s more important that the character have a complete and fulfilling journey than you jump. The kind of horror I love is the kind that unsettles me a year after I saw it, when I think about it,” Antosca said in a recent interview with IndieWire.
For him, part of making a more dynamic approach to the No-End House story culminated with The Father, the being that takes on the appearance of Margot’s (Amy Forsyth) dead dad while she’s inside the house’s clutches. Wednesday’s finale, written by Antosca and Angel Varak-Iglar, showed that there was more to the character than being a devourer of memories.
Read More:The 20 Best Horror TV Shows of the Last 20 Years
“There’s a version of this story where The Father is just terrifying, purely bad. We wanted to create a nuanced monster. The real kind of monster turns out to be Seth. The Father really does care about her and ultimately sacrifices himself to let her move forward.”
“No-End House” ended how it began, as a story of family and friendship and two women’s journeys back to the outside, offering up one of the show’s most surprising scenes yet: a moment of muted triumph amid the grief.
“To me, the story has a happy ending,” Antosca said. “I would say that I think they made it out of the house and into the real world. But it is built so that you could wonder.”
That farewell image of Margot and Jules (Aisha Dee) closing the door behind them wasn’t always the ending that Antosca had in mind. But some last-minute additions from director Steven Piet gave the season its final flourish.
“Originally, the first draft of the finale ended with the two of them sitting beside the pool, still in House World, after having killed The Father. You’re sort of left to wonder, ‘Will they make it out?’ The implication is that they’re good here and they’re gonna go, but initially my instinct as a beautiful moment to end on was the two of them there,” Antosca said. “But I thought, ‘We should shoot them going out the door, just in case we want it.’ When I was in the edit, Steven and I both felt like you want this final moment. It’s so much more satisfying emotionally. I wanted to see the two of them going out together.”
Allen Fraser/Syfy
Of course, Margot’s journey to that moment was never an easy one. Antosca described how everyone knew that her and Jules’ sacrificial killing of The Father (John Carroll Lynch) would be one of the most vital days of production.
“That’s obviously one of the most important scenes of the entire season. I’m really proud of what everyone was able to do here and that last scene is one of those things that I’m most proud of in the show,” Antosca said. “They all nailed it. Amy is an amazing actress. John Carroll Lynch is obviously phenomenal and I’m really happy we were able to go out on a moment of emotion.”
Of course, Jules had her own literal fight with her past. Aside from helping Margot navigate the treacherous world of the house, her season-long relationship with the ever-present mysterious orb took on a story of its own.
“We called it a number of different things: The Presence, The Succubus, The Embryo. I don’t want to speak too literally about that because obviously it’s supposed to represent something amorphous and mysterious in Jules’ past. We figured out what it meant to her, but we didn’t want to spoon-feed the audience in a traditional way. That image comes from conversations that Steven and I and [special effects artist] Sarah Sitkin and [cinematographer] Isaac Bauman had about dream imagery. Both Sarah and Isaac had had dreams when they were young about an orb or an embryo and we talked about what that meant and what that represented to Jules. Aisha had a really good idea about that, so we incorporated it into the show,” Antosca said.
That bittersweet sense of vanquishing manipulative villains seems particularly timely, given the headlines of recent weeks involving various men in positions of power. But Antosca explains that the kind of real-life villain that Seth (Jeff Ward) represents still felt relevant to him even before the past few weeks.
“It’s a timely thing. Even though it’s particularly timely right now because of what’s in the news, it was a timely thing last year when I wrote it,” Antosca said. “It’s a very specific kind of person who we all know, who thinks of himself as a sensitive person and that because they’re damaged, it’s OK to use and discard people. He thinks of himself as a good person, but he leaves a trail of damaged, empty people behind him. To me, he’s the true villain of the story.”
Allen Fraser/Syfy
Like the exponential growth in the number of women who have come forward about men in power across the industry, the number of Seth’s victims also grew unexpectedly over the course of production.
“I think that in the first draft of the script, we just met the one previous girl in the house. We talked about seeing more and seeing that he’s truly a serial manipulator and a psychological vampire,” Antosca said.
After one particular day in pre-production, the show had a brand new canvas on which to stage the final image of numerous unnamed women, all walking down the driveways of their respective homes on a lonely cul-de-sac.
“Steven was location scouting and called me and was like, ‘You have to see this neighborhood we found. It’s insane. The houses are all identical, they’re in this little circle and it looks like something that we built.’ Our budget is super low. We can’t afford to build a neighborhood, or even a facade. But he sent me a picture and I was like, ‘Holy shit.’ So we went there and wrote that scene with that visual to take advantage of that, because it was such a perfect spot to tell that story. It was very valuable, visually to tell the story of what Margot could become,” Antosca said.
Read More: ‘Inside The Exorcist’ Review: A Fantastically Unnerving Podcast Series for Fans of Horror, Hollywood, and the Unexplainable
The show’s third season, “Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block” will come sometime on Syfy early next year. Starring Olivia Luccardi, Rutger Hauer, and Krisha Fairchild, the season will head back into the city, tracking a series of disappearances that might have to do with a local legend about some mysterious staircases. With shooting already wrapped on “Butcher’s Block,” the team is already hard at work at writing the fourth installment.
“A lot of the themes we explore show up again in future episodes. That’s just a function of our writers room and the kinds of stories that we like to tell that have psychological components. That sad, the first two seasons stylistically are very different. The third season is even more different,” Antosca said. “They’re gonna go some crazy places.”Seven Seas Entertainment announced on Monday that it has licensed Nobuhiko Yanai's manga adaptation of Tsukasa Kawaguchi's Lord Marksman and Vanadis (Madan no Ō to Vanadis) light novel series. The company will publish the manga in single volumes, and plans to release the first on September 13, 2016.
Seven Seas describes the story:
The country of Zhcted is ruled by seven women known as the Vanadis, a group of warriors who are given powerful weapons and dominion over the country's seven territories. Taking advantage of its neighboring nations' civil unrest, Zhcted goes to war against the country of Brune. In a battle that decimates Brune's army, the brave, young Brune nobleman Tigrevurmund Vorn meets the beautiful Eleonara Viltaria—one of the Vanadis. Impressed with his skill as an archer, Elen allows Tigre to live in exchange for his servitude. But the battle is far from over, and extends further than either of them could have imagined. Tigre and his new mistress become caught in the middle of a plot that threatens not only their homelands, but the entire world.
Yanai has been drawing the manga adaptation in Media Factory's Monthly Comic Flapper magazine since 2011, and Kadokawa shipped the eighth compiled volume in September. Kawaguchi launched the light novel series in 2011 with art by Yoshi☆wo, and Media Factory published the 13th volume this month.
Funimation Entertainment streamed the 13-episode anime adaptation, which premiered in October 2014, and plans to release the series on DVD and Blu-ray with an English dub in February 2016.Lasse Vibe celebrates scoring Brentford |
place.
The early end to my race did at least allow me to watch the great race from Lance Stroll, who took his first points in F1. He pulled off a lot of overtaking manoeuvres, confirmed that he has made progress, and in the end delivered a good weekend.
After some difficult times in F1, he needed a breakthrough like this, and I am certain that taking away some points from his home race will allow Lance to continue his rookie F1 season with more confidence.
As the middle of the season draws near, it is inevitable that talk has started shifting to 2018, and I've already started facing questions from the media about my plans for the future – and especially next year.
I feel good, I'm happy doing what I'm doing and I have a great relationship with the whole Williams Martini Racing organisation. Plus, above all that, I know I'm still competitive, which is what matters most.
So on that basis, I would be happy to continue what I have always wanted to do – which is to race in F1.
For now, though, I am just looking ahead to the Baku track, which is another venue where our car could show well. Last year the result were positive, and I think again the circuit will suit our 2017 challenger.Showing evidence
In order to proof that this scenario is possible, two methods were used. A statistical method, and a comparison to the 2015 solar eclipse.
Statistical method
Using a mathematical model it is possible to estimate the amount of PV energy in a power grid at a given time. Based on this model as well as official sources it was determined that an attack like this is statistically possible. For example, the German power grid can (at peak sunshine times) cover 35% up to 50% of its power demand using only PV installations. A cyberattack in this grid at the right time could take out up to 50% of the nation’s power supply. Almost instantly causing a very large (nation-wide, up to continental due to the intertwined power grids) power outage.
Sadly, it is impossible to determine exact numbers on the threshold values (though hearsay shows a range of 3-5 GW). That said, it cannot realistically be expected of a nation like Germany to lose 35 up to 50% (+/- 20-30GW) of its power supply instantly and not see a power outage. It is simply too costly for power regulators to have that amount of power balancing on standby at all times. It may even be impossible, to have that kind of reserves trigger instantly as power plants take quite some time to increase and decrease their overall power output.
Comparison to solar eclipse
Another way of estimating the impact of such a cyber attack, is by comparing it to the 2015 solar eclipse. This solar eclipse happened in the morning when the sun was shining and affected almost all PV-installations in Europe (some more than others). Effectively, the solar eclipse controlled the flow of power from these devices (less sun equals less power from those devices, more sun equals more power from those devices).
The Solar eclipse event was a 2-3 hour long event the power grid regulators were well prepared for. Large solar fields had been temporarily shut off, additional reserves and regulation materials were available, an exact plan of when to regulate in what amounts was calculated based on the expected solar eclipse pattern, extra manpower was available, etc. The power grid stayed balanced that day, due to the effort of all these regulation parties. Had they done nothing, the power grid would have failed without a doubt.
When we compare this to the potential cyber attack it looks very grim. This cyber attack will not take 2-3 hours but +/- a minute. The speed of the peaks and dips will be very hard, if not impossible, to deal with. Besides that, the cyber attack is not something they are prepared for, the additional reserves and regulations are not in place, no extra manpower is present, and no exact plan exists. Another critical point, is that the solar eclipse happened in the morning as the sun was rising. The cyber attack will likely take place in the middle of the day when the sun shines brightest, increasing the impact of controlling the flow of these devices. Then finally, the solar eclipse follows a perfect logical pattern. A cyber attack can follow any pattern the attacker creates. This may in fact be random, or shifting between on and off very fast. For example causing several GW swings per minute. It becomes nearly impossible for power grid regulators to deal with this as it follows no expected pattern and the attacker is capable of controlling the flow faster than the grid regulators. The below shown graph is an example, but the pattern may very well be much more random, with far more peaks and dips than shown below.
Based on this comparison it can be concluded that the cyber attack is far worse. Any power grid with a lot of PV power in it will be affected heavily. Due to the intertwinedness of power grids, large scale power failures can, and should, be expected.
Based on both the statistical information and the comparison to a real life scenario it can be concluded that this type of attack is indeed theoretically possible.A West Palm Beach man managed to get away with a stolen car, but he was later arrested after authorities found his wallet inside, according to a West Palm Beach police arrest report.
Police arrested Ramando Givens, 25, of West Palm Beach, on Wednesday.
An officer watched surveillance video of a Hyundai dealership on May 30 that showed a man walking up to the passenger side of a red, 2013 Hyundai Santa Fe in the employee parking lot, according to the report.
While the video doesn't show him getting into the car, he was the only person seen in the parking lot before the car was spotted speeding away, according to the report.
A GPS tracking system led authorities to the SUV, but the driver was gone. Luckily for police, a fingerprint, along with a black wallet with Givens' driver's license and Social Security card were on the driver's seat, police said.
Givens faces burglary and grand theft auto charges. He was booked into Palm Beach County Jail where he is being held on $8,000 bail.0
There’s no shortage of Disney reboots on the horizon — just yesterday, the studio announced a new Mary Poppins movie is headed our way — but one of the most exciting live-action remakes on the horizon is Bill Condon‘s adaptation of the 1991 animated classic Beauty and the Beast. As if the phrase “Bill Condon’s Beauty and the Beast” isn’t exciting enough, Disney has lined up an exceptional cast featuring Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as The Beast, Ian McKellan as Cogsworth, Ewan McGreggor as Lumiere, the impeccably cast Josh Gad as Le Fou, and Luke Evans as the big bad, Gaston.
While speaking to Evans about Ben Wheatley‘s High Rise at the Toronto International Film Festival, Steve took the opportunity to ask a few questions about his experience on the film. Evans talked about his excitement about the project, working with Condon, his on and off-screen chemistry with Gad, singing live on set, and shared his thoughts on the new songs joining the beloved soundtrack. Check out what he had to say in the video, and read on below for his quotes.
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Evans had nothing but good things to say about his “magical” on-set experience working with Condon, and his excitement about bringing to life one of Disney’s most famous villains.
I’m a huge fan as well and to get to work with Bill — not only to get to work with Bill Condon, but also to be able to do Beauty and the Beast with Bill Condon, I couldn’t have dreamed that magic cocktail up in my head. And the fact that I got to do it — I got to sing, I got to play one of Disney’s most famous bad guys. I can mention Gaston to anybody in the world and they will sing me a line from the song. It’s extraordinary. This is 18 months before the film comes out and I’m already hearing “I use antlers in all of my decorating”, and it’s like wow, “I eat four dozen eggs every morning”, and all that stuff. It’s extraordinary the impact that animated film had all the way back in 1991 when I was 12. It’s part of my life, part of my childhood and I got to bring him to life under the amazing, detailed attention of Bill who loved every second of it, is the happiest man I know and the most pleasant human being I could ever wish to be directed by. He was having the time of his life; we all were. I mean, come on, it’s Disney. Everything about this film was a treat to see, to look, to watch, to be on set. It was magical.
Beauty and the Beast stands unique from Disney’s other recent live-action adaptations by maintaining the musical format, and Evans revealed that while they pre-recorded the songs, they also performed them live on set to offer more options in the editing room.
We pre-recorded every, but some of us sang live on set as well, during the takes. We were mic’d and they recorded that and I think afterwords, in sound, they’ll be able to chose whether the live version is better than the pre-recorded version. We’ll never know! But I’m a singer, so I’ve always been used to singing live on stage, doing eight shows a week for a year or more. So I’m very used to not miming. I’ve never mimed in my life, so I didn’t mime, I sang full out every take to my own voice in the background. So did Josh [Gad]. Josh and I really loved every minute of it, we’re proper theater lovers, me and Josh.
Continuing with the music theme, Evans also spoke a bit about the new songs from original composer Alan Menken (along with his writing partner Tim Rice), admiring how they complement the original soundtrack while bringing something “incredibly unique and different”.
I’m lucky enough to be one of the first people in the world to hear those two songs, which will become songs that children will sing, adults will sing, people in musicals will end up singing them at some point, they’ll become audition piece, they will become part of this amazing legacy of a film we already have, a story that is so ingrained in our — in my childhood memory. These two songs. They’re beautiful, they complement everything so well, but they are incredibly unique and different. And the thought and love that has gone into those two songs honor the work of the original so well. It will be a nice thing, especially for the fans, to hear these two new songs on top of what we already have.
As for the second half of his dynamic duo, Josh Gad’s Le Fou, Evans had high praise for the comedic actor, and talked about how their natural off-screen chemistry bled into their performances.
Josh Gad lives for improv, but what’s wonderful about Josh Gad — he’s a funny man, but he’s an incredibly sensitive actor, and at no point was it “The Josh Gad Show”. Josh is so funny, but he’s so generous as an actor that he helped me be funny many, many times. He’s a very, very generous man. And we’re a duo. We want people to love Gaston and Le Fou, and we didn’t have to try, because I love Josh. He was an absolute dream to work with. He left, sadly, two weeks before I wrapped and it was not the same. For me, it was just not the same. I missed him terribly because his energy is just contagious. He’s just a wonderful person to be around. I feel like the chemistry that we had together off screen — I mean we used to literally giggle to the point of wetting ourselves laughing at points on set. You know, those long nights on set, and we laughed and we giggled and he’s just so easy to be around, but it came to our characters. We brought it into our characters. So our dynamic and our timing just came from who we were as who we were as Luke and Josh, it came into Gaston and Le Fou very easily. So I’m hoping when we see the final cut in 2017, that that energy and that dynamic and that chemistry that we felt, and everybody seemed to see it, will be there.
Beauty and the Beast arrives in theaters March 17, 2017. Look for more from Steve’s interview with Luke Evans soon.Pickingo is the latest hyperlocal delivery startup in India to get funding. The company, which transports items between merchants and customers in six cities, has raised $1.3 million led by Rehan Yar Khan of Orios Venture Partners with participation from Zishaan Hayath.
Co-founder and CEO Rahul Gill says Pickingo plans to improve its tech platform and expand into new cities (it currently operates in New Delhi, Jaipur, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad).
A number of other hyperlocal delivery startups, which appeal to customers who don’t want to face heavily-congested city streets to run errands, have raised funding this year in India.
Many seek to set themselves apart by focusing on a handful of verticals. For example, Zopper delivers bulky items like home appliances, Little focuses on deals, and PepperTap, ZopNow, and Grofers all deliver groceries.
Pickingo, on the other hand, wants to give all local merchants a reliable and affordable on-demand alternative to hiring their own delivery staff. It also takes care of returns, called “reverse pickups,” for e-commerce players like Jabong, Snapdeal, Shopclues and Paytm.
Gill says Pickingo will focus on refining its tech and analytics, which figures out where to allocate delivery staff and vehicles to meet demand in every city. So far, the startup has signed up over 300 local merchants in New Delhi, as well as larger clients like Grofers and Chaayos, a cafe chain. It is currently processing around 700 orders per day in New Delhi and 3,000 orders for reverse pickups in all six of the cities it operates in.Ubisoft and Nvidia’s Gameworks partnership has been extended passed Watch Dogs, Nvidia will now power several upcoming titles including The Division, Far Cry 4, Assassin’s Creed Unity and the upcoming racing sim, The Crew. The Gameworks partnership recently stirred up some controversy after AMD claimed that it wasn’t given a fair chance to work with the Watch Dogs developers to optimise the game for its cards.
Nvidia’s Gameworks includes several exclusive optimised graphical settings such as TXAA Anti-Aliasing, HBAO+ ambient occlusion and PhysX. Ubisoft’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Geoffroy Sardin, gave a statement: “Working with NVIDIA has enabled us to bring an enhanced gameplay experience to our PC players. We look forward to continuing our partnership with NVIDIA on our biggest upcoming titles.”
Nvidia’s VP of Content and Technology, Tony Tamasi, later added: “We’re excited to continue our long-term partnership with Ubisoft in bringing our latest PC technology to their games. Through GameWorks, we have been able to add unique visual and gameplay innovations to deliver amazing experiences for these stellar Ubisoft games. I can’t wait to play them myself.”
Forbes recently released an article that showed an AMD R9 290X trading blows with an Nvidia GTX 770 in Watch Dogs, AMD then commented saying that Nvidia’s gameworks strategy is unfair and significantly hinders optimisation for the company’s competing graphics cards.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Hopefully Ubisoft, Nvidia and AMD will have all learned from the problems that followed the Watch Dogs launch and will work together more co-operatively in the future. What do you guys think of Nvidia Gameworks? Is it bad news for AMD owners? Or should both graphics vendors make more of an effort to work closely with developers?
Source: MCVJust Cause developer Avalanche Studios will announce its closely guarded PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade project in a month, Eurogamer can reveal.
The Stockholm developer is currently working on three unannounced games: a PSN/XBLA title based on "an Avalanche Studios original IP", and two projects based on "very well-known licenses".
One of the projects based on a well-known license is understood to be an action game based on the upcoming flick Mad Max 4: Fury Road. God of War II director and writer Cory Barlog is thought to be spearheading development.
Don't hold your breath for a Mad Max reveal, however. According to the Internet Movie Database Fury Road will be released in 2012. Development of the game itself was confirmed in March 2008.
"Our XBLA/PSN project will be announced in a month or so, but the other two projects will not be announced in the near future," Avalanche founder and original concept creator of Just Cause Christofer Sundberg told Eurogamer.
Avalanche, which has signed with an un-named publisher for the downloadable game, is known for its open-world action series Just Cause.
Its latest release, Just Cause 2, scored an impressive 8/10 in Eurogamer's review.WASHINGTON—Recognizing that he’s a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to walk the face of the earth yet was still on the right side of party lines, the Republican National Committee released their new “He’s A Scumbag, But He’s Our Scumbag” ad Tuesday to endorse Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore. “He’s a horrendous slimeball and a totally fucking despicable lowlife creep, but above all, he’s a republican, and that’s what matters,” said RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, adding that the slogan, which would be emblazoned across campaign banners, buttons, and commercials, embodied the party’s principles even if its ranks happen to include a disgusting, immoral, garbage person like Roy Moore. “We might not all agree on some of his actions, and we may take offense to his vile beliefs, but in the end, he does vote with the party on the issues we need him to. I think the voters will understand that yes, we are asking them to vote for a racist, sexist, xenophobic alleged pedophile but at the same time, he’s our repulsive cesspool of a human being.” At press time, the RNC was reportedly celebrating Roy Moore’s surge in the polls among Alabama republicans in response to the ad.
AdvertisementThe new analysis looks at the least expensive plan in the most popular category, silver. When customers switch plans — this year 43 percent did so — many gravitate toward these plans. Our national average is weighted by the number of people eligible for the marketplaces in the parts of the country we analyzed. The rates in 14 states are still being considered by local regulators.
A broader look at premiums is likely to find even higher average increases. Charles Gaba, who runs the website ACASignups.net, has been scouring public sources of information about next year’s rates. He has calculated an average national rate increase of around 24 percent. Mr. Gaba’s numbers have some limitations compared with the McKinsey data — he is looking at averages across a wide range of individual insurance products, not just those in the Affordable Care Act markets.
And he has examined information only about plans that are returning from 2016, not new plans or carriers. But his estimate, too, is around double what he calculated last year around this time: 12 percent.
The larger premium increases for 2017 are not a surprise. Several predictable factors help explain them. Two government programs that helped insulate the insurance companies from big losses expire at the end of this year. And many insurers with low premiums in the past have found that their prices weren’t high enough to cover their costs. Unexpected losses in this market have led some insurance companies to go out of business, and others to leave the markets voluntarily.
An optimistic view of this year’s price increases is that they represent a one-time market correction, as insurers adjust to the real costs of caring for these customers and to the changes in federal policy. The more pessimistic view is that declining competition and enrollment could lead to rising premiums in future years, too.
Cynthia Cox, an associate director at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has analyzed similar rate filings for big cities, said that on the whole “the factors that are driving premiums to increase in 2017 are one-time factors.” Price trends for future years, she said, will depend on how many people sign up.Detectives are appealing for help to unravel the mystery of a missing woman with Luton links, more than 12 years after she was last seen alive.
Natalia Doherty has not been seen since April 2003 and officers from the Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire Major Crime Unit believe she has been murdered.
An investigation was launched in January 2014 and officers have spent the last 20 months piecing together the puzzle of her disappearance.
The last-known sighting of mother-of-three Natalia, who was also known by the surnames Wilkanowska and Logan, was in April 2003. Since then enquiries have failed to show any sign that she is alive.
Natalia, who was 50 at the time she went missing, is presumed murdered and investigators have been exhausting all possible angles to establish what happened to her.
Now police are appealing for the public’s help in narrowing down the timeline of her last activities.
It is known that she went to stay with her former husband Gerald Doherty in the Regents Arms in Hastings Street, Luton – which has since been demolished – near the time of her last confirmed sighting in Eastbourne, West Sussex, where she was living at the time.
The exact date she left Eastbourne for Luton is currently unclear, but police believe she left on or after 15 April. Gerald has since died.
Detective Inspector Jerry Waite said: “We know Natalia had close links with the Luton area around the time of her disappearance, and we understand she was brought to stay with her former husband in a pub in the town in 2003.
“This is an extremely complex case dating back more than a decade. While all avenues for investigation are being pursued, we would appeal for anyone who recognises Natalia or her late estranged husband Gerald Doherty from their time at the Regents Arms at this time, to get in touch. Any information could help us to establish exactly what happened to Natalia and bring some closure to her family.
“We appreciate a lot of time has passed since 2003, but no murder case is ever closed and this case is no different. Natalia’s children have been unable to rest not knowing what happened to their beloved mother and we are committed to bringing anyone who may have been involved in her death to justice.”
Anyone who recognises Natalia or Gerald, pictured, from their time in Luton and the Regents Arms in 2003, or has any information regarding her disappearance, is asked to contact the tri-force Major Crime Unit on 101.More than 100 prospective buyers finally got their chance to purchase the condominium they've been waiting for after some camped for weeks outside of the planned Langley development.
The lineup outside of Yorkson Creek sales centre started two weeks ago when one person decided to set up camp after hearing the complex's previous phases also had lineups.
Saturday morning, staff distributed numbers to prospective buyers who were shown in five at a time to pick their units. Luca Patillo was handing out those numbers on site, and said today marks the end of a more than two-week-long wait for between 50 and 60 buyers.
"It seems pretty happy, people are pretty excited to get their future homes and pick out the unit that they want," said Patillo.
When word of the development got out two weeks ago, others soon flocked to the spot.
Dan Lefebvre, 44, has been waiting in line for the past two weeks so his mother can buy the specific unit she wants. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
"I grabbed my chair, grabbed my jacket, ran out here and sat in the rain. It rained the first night. It was horrible," said Dan Lefebvre, speaking to CBC News while waiting in line on May 5.
Lefebvre, 44, camped out for the past two weeks for his mother who is looking to be closer to him and his kids.
Most downsizing
Sales managers and real estate agent Amy Ellis says the average age of buyers is 57 and most are looking to downsize.
"We've looked at places in New Westminster. They are so expensive and so small," said Bonnie Berger, who is downsizing from a Victorian-style home in Queen's Park in New Westminster.
Bonnie Berger, who is also looking to buy a unit, says the group has started a list to keep track of people's positions in line. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
The Walnut Ridge 4 development on 208 Street and 82 Avenue is the last phase of the project. The units are 1,100 to 1,600 square feet and include a 200-square-foot retractable solarium. The prices range from $389,900 to $569,000.
The developers have set the prices to discourage bidding wars and have limited each buyer to purchasing one unit — though buyers still have 10 days to change their mind after signing the contract.
The Walnut Ridge 4 will look similar to the other Yorkson Creek developments, but it will include a solarium. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
No bidding wars
The no-bidding promise is what brought Elizabeth Hodgson, 58, rushing up from South Dakota.
Elizabeth Hodgson drove from South Dakota as soon as she heard people were lining up. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
"I'm so sick and tired of the bidding wars," Hodgson said, who is originally from the Lower Mainland and is looking to move back to be closer to her children and grandchildren.
"I was in the car within an hour-and-a-half and was driving down here," she said.
Hiring others to camp out
Since demand is outstripping supply, the group of prospective buyers that were in line started a list to ensure that those who arrived earlier got first pick of the 128 units.
That pushed some buyers to hire students to sit in line for them.
Brothers Andrew and Evan Bouchard were paid $10 an hour to stand guard 24 hours a day.
"We've friends that are sitting for other people too and we have books and computers, so there is a lot of stuff to do," said 14-year-old Andrew Bouchard.
Brothers, Andrew Bouchard (left) and Evan Bouchard (right) have been hired for $10 an hour to sit in line for people 24-hours a day. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
People have been keeping busy by reading books, going on their electronics or doing homework. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
Sights set, hopes high
Everyone had their sights set on a particular unit. For Barb Moewes, it was the ground floor unit that is closest to her mother, who lives in the complex across the street.
Barb Moewes is waiting for a ground floor unit so she can be near her 83-year-old mother. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
"I want to be close to her. She is 83-years-old. Right now, I live about 10 to 15 minutes away from her," she said.
When she spoke to CBC News on May 5, Moewes was number seven in line and said she was sure she would get her desired unit because the upper floors are more popular.
Bruce Haugen is number 50 in the line and isn't sure he will get the chance to buy the one unit he has his eyes on. (Tina Lovgreen/CBC)
Bruce Haugen, on the other hand, wasn't so hopeful. He was number 50 in the lineup.
"We've got two choices that we like and I've just actually looked at another one. We might take that too," Haugen said, who is downsizing from his townhouse in Cloverdale.
The units will be ready in February 2018.The Senate Ethics Committee reviewed 93 instances of alleged wrongdoing in 2010 but ultimately dismissed all but four cases without any public action, according to an annual report released Monday.
According to its annual statistical report, the Ethics Committee received 84 complaints in 2010, including both public requests and reviews initiated within the panel, and carried over nine cases from 2009. At least four investigations remained open at the end of 2010, based on the statistics included in the committee’s report.
The committee dismissed 81 complaints outright. It ruled that it lacked jurisdiction in 56 instances, saying that “even if the allegations in the complaint are true, no violation of Senate rules would exist.” The other 25 cases were dropped because of lack of “any material violation... beyond mere allegation.”
The Ethics Committee’s staff conducted preliminary inquiries in the 12 complaints that weren’t dismissed outright. Half of those were first received by the panel in 2009, the report states.
The committee dismissed eight of those preliminary inquiries for “lack of substantial merit.” None of the preliminary investigations resulted in an adjudicatory review in 2010, nor did the committee dole out any private or public letters of admonition or otherwise punish any Members or aides last year.
One of the four inquiries that were still open by the end of 2010 is likely the panel’s investigation into Sen. John Ensign and allegations that the Nevada Republican tried to cover up an affair with the spouse of his former top aide. Ensign first acknowledged the affair with Cynthia Hampton, a campaign staff member married to administrative assistant Doug Hampton, in June 2009.
Both the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission declined in late 2010 to pursue the allegation against Ensign.
The ethics panel is required to issue annual reports detailing its activities under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007.
In addition to its investigations, the Ethics Committee is responsible for providing training to Senators and their offices, as well as issuing advice on how to comply with the chamber’s rules on issues including travel, gifts and conflicts of interest. The committee also reviews financial disclosures filed by Members and senior staff.Earlier today, we posted a clip from this week's episode of "Arrow," which introduced two of the characters we'll see in "The Flash" spin-off, and now The CW has debuted another clip from "Arrow," and this time it's a bit more explosive. Check it out in the player below!
Titled "The Man Under the Hood," the episode is described as follows:
"Oliver, Canary, Diggle and Felicity return to the lair and find Slade waiting for them. An epic battle breaks out and one member of Team Arrow is sent to the hospital. Thea hits her breaking point, but just as Oliver is about to reach her, Slade intervenes and Oliver is faced with a choice – his battle with Slade or his family. Meanwhile, Laurel struggles with a new secret."
Directed by Jesse Warn from a story by Greg Berlanti & Geoff Johns and teleplay by Andrew Kreisberg & Keto Shimizu, "The Man Under the Hood" is set to air on April 16. "Arrow" airs Wednesdays at 8 P.M. ET/PT on The CW.Restoration of China-Japan trust requires sustained efforts: Chinese premier
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Tuesday voiced hope that Japan's business community will continue to work for the improvement and development of Sino-Japanese relations.
Li made the remarks while meeting with a Japanese delegation of more than 250 business leaders from major Japanese enterprises.
The delegation was led by Chair of the Japan Business Federation Sadayuki Sakakibara, President of the Japan-China Association on Economy and Trade Shoji Muneoka, and Chair of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry Akio Mimura.
The healthy and stable development of China-Japan relations accords with the common interests of both sides, said Premier Li.
This year marks the 45th anniversary of the normalization of China -Japan diplomatic relations, and next year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship.
The key to improving China-Japan relations is mutual trust and the foundation lies in the friendship of the two peoples, said Li.
Trust may be impaired because of a certain incident at a time, but its reconstruction requires sustained efforts by all walks of life, said the premier.
He hoped that both sides could cherish and consolidate the positive momentum of improvement in China-Japan relations and push the bilateral ties forward and along the right track.
The development of Sino-Japanese relations can not be separated from the promotion of economic and trade cooperation, said Li, hoping that Japanese business community would carry forward their fine traditions and exert their own influence to boost exchanges in humanities, youth and local affairs so that peace, friendship and cooperation will become the consensus of all walks of life in Japan over the general direction of the Sino-Japanese relations.
He urged concerted efforts to promote the stable and long-term development of relations on the basis of the four political documents signed by both countries and in the spirit of drawing lessons from history and facing up to the future.
Li briefed the Japanese business leaders on the current economic situation in China.
Noting that China's economy will continue to maintain a stable and positive trend, Li said China will further expand its opening up to the outside world and provide non-discriminatory and fair business environment to Chinese and foreign enterprises.
He hoped that China and Japan will truly regard the other's development as each other's opportunities, giving full play to their complementary advantages and advancing their development through innovative cooperation, so as to achieve reciprocal and win-win results and serve the building of the East Asian economic community.
China and Japan should work together to safeguard economic globalization, speed up the negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and free trade area talks between China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, so as to contribute to the stability and prosperity of the region and the world, said Li.
Japanese business leaders welcomed the positive momentum of improvement in Japan-China ties.
Given achievements made in China's economic restructuring, they expressed confidence in strengthening economic and trade cooperation with China.
While noting that Japan-China cooperation has great potential, the Japanese business leaders believed Japan and China can achieve mutual benefit through enhanced economic cooperation and make contribution to the economic growth in Asia and the world.
They hoped that negotiations on Japan-China-ROK free trade area and the RCEP will produce desired outcomes, striving to build an open international economic and trade system.
The Japanese business leaders were also confident that this year and the next bode important opportunities for improving and growing Japan-China ties, and pledged to continue making unremitting efforts in increasing exchange and cooperation between the two countries.Katy Perry at the Billboard Women In Music luncheon. Image via Billboard.
This week, at its Women In Music luncheon, Billboard awarded Katy Perry its coveted "Woman Of The Year" prize. During her acceptance speech, Perry bluntly stated "I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women."
I'm trying not to get mad.
Women have not always been taken seriously as musicians. Gasp! I know, but check this out: Andrew Loog Oldham admitted he signed Marianne Faithful not because she was talented, but because she was "an angel with tits." If this doesn't piss you off, try reversing it. Imagine if some Epic rep announced that he signed Death Grips because they had big dicks (side note, they probably do). Or if Bono had been called a slut throughout his entire career.
This is nothing new. Even Julie Burchill, a female journalist, was once quoted saying "I know it's a sexist thing to say, but women aren't as good at making music as men, just like they're not as good as men at football." This was in 1994.
These statements seem insane and illogical, because they are, even if you count the fact that both Oldham and Burchill are British. But the level of crazy in Perry's speech is at the exact same level. Perry denies being a feminist, but believes in strong women. What's the difference? And beyond that, why even bother coming down hard on the non-feminist side of the media world? Why not leave the declaration unsaid? In this case, it's far more damaging to say what you aren't, rather than say nothing at all.
Which brings me to my next question: I want to know what's so goddamn awful about calling yourself a feminist. Someone please tell me. I'd like to draw Ms. Perry's attention to this old VICE article, written by Lesley Arfin and Amy Kellner about eight billion years ago:
“We get so mad when some nitwit says she’s not a feminist. I guess if you’re cool with being raped all the time and having no options in life other than being a baby machine or a prostitute, then yeah, you’re probably not a feminist. But if you enjoy birth-control pills and not being beaten up by your owner—I mean, husband—then you pretty much are one so you may as well stop shaving your legs right now. Just kidding. Somewhere along the way feminism got a bad rep, but it doesn’t mean you have to be a sourpuss or that you can’t write tongue-in-cheek articles riddled with silly gender stereotypes. All it means is that you don’t hate yourself.”
Do you hate yourself, Perry? Do you? Oh my God. Wait…. Do you?
Katy Perry, fighting the good fight.
Katy Perry isn't "Woman Of The Year" because she's made any great strides for her gender, or questioned her position in popular culture, or challenged the dominant social structures in her life. She's "Woman Of The Year" because she's done the exact opposite on all counts. She's been quiet, complacent, and pretty, and she's made her executives and managers millions of dollars in the process. She's the version of "woman" the industry wants her to be - that is, the exact opposite of a healthy role model for young girls.
Look, this is all on some Disney princess shit, and I don't think anyone expects anything more or less from her… But that, in its own way, is the worst part.
It's already irritating enough that we need female-centric music awards just so that idiots will pay attention to women. It often ends up feeling like the Special Olympics of music. However, if we're going to live in a world that considers women as second class citizens (Kim Gordon's words, not mine), then I'm going to push my gender in the faces of whoever's looking. Everyone else is doing it for me, so why not fuck with them right back?
At the end of the day, though, I guess there's a reason I'm where I'm at and Katy is where she's at, onstage at a prestigious luncheon in her Spanx and designer dress: She follows the rules of celebrity. The rules of celebrity are fucked, especially when |
so it's more and more consistent signs that the comeback is nigh.This video is no longer available
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QuantumRip
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This episode of Horizon looks at the issues that will change the way we live our lives in the future. Rather than relying on the minds of science fiction writers, mathematician Hannah Fry delves into the data we have today to provide an evidence-based vision of tomorrow. With the help of the BBC's science experts - and a few surprise guests - Hannah investigates the questions the British public want answered about the future. Hannah tries to discover whether we could ever live forever or if there will ever be a cure for cancer. She finds out how research into the human brain may one day help with mental health, and if it is possible to ever ditch fossil fuels. Hannah and her guests also discover the future of transport - and when, if ever, we really will see flying cars. She discovers whether a robot will take your job or if, as some believe, we will all one day actually become cyborgs. The programme predicts what the weather will be like and discovers if we are on the verge of another mass extinction. Hannah's tenth prediction is something she - and Horizon - are confident will definitely happen, and that is to expect the unexpected!
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1,329Dogs give thanks on Thanksgiving at Boarding House in Loomis, CA
many of us may have celebrated this annual tradition with family, friends and those close to us, but in the town of Loomis, CA a group of individuals celebrated Thanksgiving among their comrades in a boarding home because their families had to leave town. These individuals we're referring to are DOGS! This past Thanksgiving many of us may have celebrated this annual tradition with family, friends and those close to us, but in the town of Loomis, CA a group of individuals celebrated Thanksgiving among their comrades in a boarding home because their families had to leave town. These individuals we're referring to are DOGS!
Thanksgiving feast that will make your mouth water! A Meal Fit for Humans
Over at Aunt Cynthia’s Bed and Biscuit Inn, a daycare facility for dogs, the 22 K-9 boarding house guests were served a real Thanksgiving feast spread that will make your mouth water! “We have turkey meat with all the bones and fat removed, we have pea mutt butter biscuits on top of apple stuffing, a little homemade cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes and gravy,” owner Cynthia McCoy said. “So they all just the same kind of meal that the humans get, very healthy meal,” reported CBS13 (Sacramento).
To avoid a K-9 calamity, only a few dogs are allowed to start their feast at a time.
“They’re not going to look up,” she said. “When they get their Thanksgiving dinner plate, they’re going to be looking down and chewing up their food in probably 30 seconds or less.”
Aunt Cynthia's Bed and Biscuit Inn is so popular in the town of Loomis that they have already been booked for next year's Thanksgiving holiday.Welsh professional snooker player, 3-time world champion (2000, 2003, 2018)
Mark James Williams, MBE (born 21 March 1975) is a Welsh professional snooker player who is a three-time World Champion, winning in 2000, 2003, and 2018.[2] As the current World Champion, he is due to defend his title at the 2019 World Snooker Championship in April/May 2019. Aged 43 when he triumphed in May 2018, he became the second oldest winner of the World Championship at the Crucible (Ray Reardon was the oldest winner in 1978, aged 45). Often noted for his single-ball long potting ability, Williams has earned the nickname "The Welsh Potting Machine".
Williams has been ranked the world number 1 for a total of three seasons in his career (1999/2000, 2000/2001, and 2002/2003). His most successful season to date was 2002/2003, when he won the acclaimed treble of tournaments (known as the Triple Crown): the UK Championship, the Masters, and the World Championship. In doing so, he became only the third player, after Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry, to win all three Triple Crown events in one season. In addition, he is the first player (and to date, the only player) to win all three versions of the professional World Championship – the World Snooker Championship, the Six-red World Championship and the World Seniors Championship.
The first left-handed player to win the World Championship,[2] Williams has won 22 ranking tournaments overall, including two UK Championships (1999 and 2002), making him fifth on the all-time list. He has also won the Masters on two occasions (1998 and 2003). His form began to decline after his second World Championship title in 2003; he then dropped out of the top 16 following the 2007/2008 season, but he regained his place for 2009/2010. Having failed to win a tournament from 2011 until 2017, he proceeded to win three events in 2018, including his third World Championship. Williams has compiled more than 450 century breaks during his career, as well as two maximum breaks in competition.
Career [ edit ]
Early career [ edit ]
Williams was born in Cwm, near Ebbw Vale,[3] in the Welsh county of Blaenau Gwent. He started playing snooker at an early age and won his first junior event when he was eleven years old; it was then that he realised that he wanted to pursue a career as a snooker player.[4] He scored his first century break when he was thirteen, and had achieved his first 147 break by the time he was eighteen.[4] As a schoolboy, he was also a promising amateur boxer,[2] remaining undefeated in twelve fights.[5] He was encouraged to play snooker by his father Dilwyn, who was a coal miner. At the age of fifteen, Mark did a 12-hour shift down the mines.[5]
Williams turned professional in 1992 and finished his first season ranked 119th; three years later, he was ranked in the world's top 16 for the 1996/1997 season. His first ranking tournament win came in January 1996, when he won the 1996 Welsh Open title, beating John Parrott 9–3 in the final.[6] After failing to qualify for the 1996 World Championship, he won the first ranking event of the new season in October 1996, the Grand Prix, beating surprise finalist Euan Henderson 9–5.[7] In April 1997, he went on to win the British Open, beating Stephen Hendry 9–2 in the final.[8] He also beat Hendry in a "thrilling" final in February 1998, to take his first Masters title, winning 10–9 in a black-ball finish in the deciding frame, after recovering from 6–9 down.[9] At the 1997 World Championship, he was drawn against his coach Terry Griffiths, who was making his last appearance at the Crucible as a player; Williams eventually beat Griffiths 10–9 on the black, but then lost 8–13 to Hendry in the last 16. He reached the semi-finals of the 1998 World Championship, losing 14–17 to Ken Doherty. The following year, at the 1999 World Championship, he made it through to the final and finished the tournament as runner-up to Hendry.
The 1999/2000 season was a very successful one for Williams who won the UK Championship and the World Championship. These results, along with another ranking title and three runner-up positions, allowed him to capture the world number 1 position for the first time. In the World Championship final he came from 7–13 behind his fellow countryman Matthew Stevens to eventually win 18–16. He also produced a notable comeback in his semi-final match against John Higgins, coming from 10–14 down to win 17–15.[10] Williams won only one ranking event in the following season, the Grand Prix, with a 9–5 victory over Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final,[11] but he was a runner-up in two other ranking events, the UK Championship and the China Open. This was enough to retain his number 1 ranking, although his title defence at the World Championship fell in the second round with a 12–13 defeat to Joe Swail.
In the 2001/2002 season Williams also only won one ranking tournament, as he struggled to find the form from the previous season, winning the China Open, where he defeated Anthony Hamilton 9–8 from 5–8 down in the final. However, he lost to the same player 9–13 in the second round of the World Championship and the number 1 ranking to Ronnie O'Sullivan.
Another strong performance came in 2002/2003 season when he won the UK Championship, Masters and World Championship titles.[12] This made him only the fourth player after Hendry, Davis and John Higgins to hold these titles simultaneously, and only the third player after Davis and Hendry to have won them all in one season.[12] These results enabled him to reclaim the number 1 spot at the end of the season. In the UK Championship final he beat Ken Doherty 10–9, and in the Masters he beat Hendry 10–4.[13] Before the 2003 World Championship he had a scare with his cue when it was damaged and badly bent on his flight with Ryanair to play in the Irish Masters, but he had it repaired before the tournament.[14]
On his way to winning the 2003 World title, he had a relatively untroubled route to the final with wins over Stuart Pettman 10–2, Quinten Hann 13–2, Hendry 13–7 and Stephen Lee 17–8 before facing Doherty in the final. He led 10–2, and looked to be heading for an easy victory, before Doherty fought back to 16–16. Williams regained his composure under intense pressure to win the last two frames and lift the trophy for the second time.[15][16]
The following season, he lost in the first round of the UK Championship to Fergal O'Brien,[17] a match which ended his record run of 48 tournaments in which he had won his first match.[18] His defence at the 2004 World Championship started with a 10–7 win over Dominic Dale, but he lost 11–13 in the second round to Joe Perry, and he endured a run of poor form over the 2004/2005 season, dropping to 9th in the world rankings for 2005/2006.
On 20 April, in 2005 he became the first Welshman, and the fifth player in history, to score a maximum break at the Crucible Theatre in the World Championship. This came in the final frame of a 10–1 first round victory over Robert Milkins,[19][20] but he lost in the second round to Ian McCulloch 12–13, in a high-quality match.
On 26 March 2006, Williams won his 16th ranking event (and his first in two and a half years), the China Open in Beijing, beating Higgins 9–8 in the final.[21] This helped him return to the top 8 in the world rankings, after a dramatic fall in the provisional rankings which saw him facing a possible drop out of the top 16. He also showed good form in the 2006 World Championship, beating Anthony Hamilton 10–1 and Mark Selby 13–8 to set up a quarter-final clash with Ronnie O'Sullivan, the first time the two had met at the Crucible. The match was given extra tension considering they had been rivals (although O'Sullivan has since said that the former feud has been replaced by friendship and respect).[22][23] In a close-fought match, O'Sullivan eventually won 13–11. It was revealed during that tournament that Williams had split with coach Terry Griffiths. The two remained very close friends, but Griffiths would no longer be coaching him. In late 2007, Williams returned to having Griffiths as his coach.[24]
On 2 September 2006, Williams won the Pot Black trophy, after compiling a century break (119) in the final against John Higgins.[25] However, Williams had perhaps the worst season of his career in 2006/2007, losing his first match in a string of tournaments (including the World Championship, for the first time ever), but he retained his top 16 place, mainly through the ranking points he had earned the previous season.
His first win of the 2007/2008 season came in the Grand Prix with a 4–3 win over Ian McCulloch, but he still failed to qualify for the last 16 of the event and was outside the top 32 on the provisional ranking list.
In the UK Championship, he showed a return to some form. He beat Ricky Walden comfortably 9–3 in the last 32, and in the last 16 he faced Mark Allen who led 4–0 and 5–1. However, a cool comeback saw him win the remaining 8 frames to win 9–5. In the quarter-finals, Stephen Maguire was too strong and beat him 9–5. However, reaching the quarter-finals was a sign that Williams may have been returning to form, boosted by the news that Terry Griffiths was coaching him again.
However, after a 2–6 first round loss to Ken Doherty in the Masters, Williams revealed he was considering retirement from the game, although only 32 years old, if he dropped out of the top 32 and was forced to play in all the qualifying competitions.[26] But he also claimed at the Welsh Open at Newport that this statement had been blown out of proportion, and that he would remain a professional. He began to show more consistency for the remainder of the season, reaching the last 16 of three ranking events and a run to the quarter-finals of the China Open, but he could not reach his first semi-final for two years, losing 3–5 to Ryan Day. At the World Championship he defeated Mark Davis; however, a 7–13 defeat to Ronnie O'Sullivan in the second round forced him out of the top 16, pushing him into the qualifiers for 2008/2009. In that match he was on the receiving end of a 147 break from O'Sullivan.[27] On 8 July 2008 it was announced that Williams had split from his management company 110 Sport, following O'Sullivan and Stephen Maguire.[28]
In 2008/2009 he reached the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters and UK Championship, but also suffered three qualifying defeats. The UK Championship particularly saw some return to form as he beat Mark Selby[29] and Graeme Dott 9–7, before losing narrowly 8–9 to Ali Carter.[30] He also qualified for the World Championship but lost 7–10 to Stephen Hendry after leading 7–5. During the end of the match he suffered some trouble with his tip.[31] However, he had done enough to return to the top 16 at the end of the season.
The 2009/2010 season started badly when Williams broke his wrist in a fall at home, less than a month before the first ranking event of the season, the Shanghai Masters.[32] Despite this injury he played in Shanghai, wearing a cast on his wrist because its removal could have caused long-term damage.[33] There he won his first round match against Joe Swail 5–3, but lost in the next round against John Higgins 1–5. In the Grand Prix he secured wins over Stuart Bingham, Stephen Hendry and Robert Milkins on his way to the semi-finals but despite racking up a 142 (the highest break of the tournament) in the first frame against Ding Junhui he lost 1–6.[34]
In the UK Championship he led Graeme Dott 6–2, before Dott retired due to illness and Williams thus won the match 9–2. After this he lost his next match against Peter Lines 8–9. At the Masters he won his wild card round match, beating Rory McLeod 6–2. Then he won his first round match against Ali Carter 6–3 to progress to the quarter-finals of the event, despite being involved in a traffic accident the day before his match against Carter. It was reported that a car drove into the back of the 4×4 that his sponsors had lent him,[35] which was carrying Williams and Stephen Hendry to a restaurant.[36] In the quarter-finals he defeated Shaun Murphy 6–4, but eventually lost a high-quality match in the semi-finals 5–6 against Ronnie O'Sullivan.[37] In the Welsh Open, he reached the quarter-finals, beating Fergal O'Brien 5–2 and Andrew Higginson 5–0 before losing against Stephen Maguire 1–5.
After these signs of form, in April 2010 he won his first ranking tournament in four years – the China Open.[38] On his way he beat Jamie Cope 5–3, the then reigning world champion John Higgins 5–2, Marco Fu 5–1 and Ali Carter 6–4, setting up a clash with Ding Junhui in the final. Trailing 3–5 at one point, Williams eventually won the match 10–6. This was Williams' 17th ranking event win and his 3rd China Open. After his victory Williams said: "I'm over the moon to win again. It's been a long time coming but I've kept working hard and I felt that in the end the results would come."[39]
In the World Snooker Championship Williams defeated Marcus Campbell 10–5 in the first round, but lost his second-round match against Ronnie O'Sullivan 10–13. He finished the season ranked 8th.
Williams opened the season by winning the first event of the Players Tour Championship by defeating Stephen Maguire 4–0 in the final, a new addition to the snooker calendar introduced by Barry Hearn, a series of events that Williams has supported.[40][41][42] Williams finished 6th on the Players Tour Championship Order of Merit.[43]
In the Shanghai Masters Williams won his first round match against Ricky Walden 5–3, but lost narrowly in the second round against Graeme Dott 4–5.[44] He then reached the semi-finals of the World Open, where he lost 2–3 against eventual winner Neil Robertson.[45]
He was selected to compete in the 2010 Premier League, due to his success from the previous season, the first time he has competed in the event for five years,[46] but failed to reach the semi-finals.[47] At the UK Championship he reached the final, his run including a 9–8 victory over Shaun Murphy after trailing 6–8,[48] but lost against John Higgins 9–10 in the final, after leading 7–2, 8–4 and 9–5 at some points of the match, as well as leading the 17th frame by 29 points with only the colours remaining, meaning Higgins needed a snooker to stay in the match.[49] Williams' next tournament was the Masters, where he lost 4–6 in the first round against Ding Junhui.[50] Williams won the first ranking event of 2011, the German Masters, by defeating Mark Selby 9–7 in the final.[51][52] At the China Open Williams lost in the first round 4–5 against Stephen Lee, despite making four centuries.[53]
At the 2011 World Snooker Championship, Williams defeated Ryan Day 10–5 in the first round, and Jamie Cope 13–4 in the second round.[54] He then won his quarter-final against Mark Allen by the same scoreline, and in doing so he reached the semi-final stage for the first time since 2003,[55] but lost 14–17 against John Higgins.[54] As a result of Selby's exit from the tournament Williams became the new world number one after the event.[56]
At the World Cup Williams was partnered with Matthew Stevens to represent Wales, and they reached the semi-finals, losing 1–4 against China.[57] Williams then reached the final of the Australian Goldfields Open, but lost 8–9 against Stuart Bingham, after leading 8–5 at one point of the match.[58] Williams also lost from a winning position in the final of the next major ranking event, the Shanghai Masters. His run included a 6–5 win over Neil Robertson in the semi-final, and he led Mark Selby 9–7 in the final, but lost the last three frames to lose 9–10. The defeat also meant that Selby took the world number one spot from Williams.[59] He was beaten in the last 16 of the UK Championship by Ricky Walden and reached the quarter-finals in his defence of the German Masters, where he succumbed 3–5 to Stephen Lee.[60] Williams suffered a 1–5 defeat to Mark King in the first round of the World Open and by the same scoreline to Ronnie O'Sullivan in the second round of the China Open.[61]
Williams played in 11 of the 12 PTC events throughout the season, but could only reach the last 32 two times, in Event 10 and Event 11. He was ranked 82nd in the PTC Order of Merit, comfortably outside the top 24 who made the Finals.[62]
Williams caused a degree of controversy ahead of the World Championship by stating on his Twitter page that he "hates" the tournament's venue, the Crucible Theatre, and hopes it will be played in China soon. He also swore when describing the Grade II listed building. A spokesman from the WPBSA confirmed a statement would be released regarding the matter.[63] Williams was drawn to play Liu Chuang in the first round and won 10–6 to set up a second round clash with O'Sullivan which he lost 6–13. The result meant that Williams has failed to beat O'Sullivan in over 10 years in ranking events.[64] Williams ended the season ranked world number 3.[65] It was revealed by World Snooker that Williams had been fined a total of £4,000 for his comments made before the World Championship.[66]
2013 German Masters
Williams first ranking event of the 2012/2013 season was the Wuxi Classic, where he beat Tom Ford and Mark Allen, before losing 3–5 to Marcus Campbell in the quarter-finals.[67] He went one better at the Shanghai Masters by seeing off Mark Davis, Ricky Walden and Joe Perry to face Judd Trump in the semi-finals.[67] Trump was 5–1 up and on a break of 53 for the match, but Williams came back to trail 4–5 before losing the next frame to come up short of completing a comeback.[68] Williams then suffered a huge dip in form as he lost in the first round of six successive ranking events; after his defeat to Mark King in the UK Championship he suggested that he was contemplating retirement.[69] During his string of defeats he did beat Matthew Stevens in the non-ranking Masters from 1–4 down (Stevens also missed a pot for 5–1), but then lost 1–6 to eventual champion Mark Selby.[67] At the China Open in March Williams won his first match in a ranking event since September with a 5–2 victory against Lü Haotian and continued his run by defeating Ali Carter 5–4, before losing 1–5 to Selby in the quarter-finals.[67] At the World Championship he lost 6–10 to debuting compatriot Michael White in the first round and admitted afterwards that the season had been one he would be looking forward to forgetting, but he was committed to playing next year.[70] His poor season saw him drop 12 places in the rankings to world number 15.[71]
2014 German Masters
In July 2013 he won the Rotterdam Open, defeating Mark Selby 4–3 in the final.[72] This was Williams' second title in a Players Tour Championship event. However, he had a poor season in the ranking events as he failed to reach a single quarter-final for the first time since the 2006/2007 season.[73] He did earn an encouraging 4–3 win over world number one Neil Robertson at the Welsh Open; Williams said afterwards that he was glad he had ignored his friend Stephen Hendry's advice to retire and believed he still had ranking event titles left in him.[74] He had chances to move 3–0 ahead in the last 16 against Marco Fu, but eventually lost 2–4; afterwards he said that the Williams who won two world titles over 10 years ago was "dead".[75] In the qualifying rounds for the World Championship, Williams lost 8–10 to Alan McManus, meaning he was absent from the tournament for the first time since 1996.[76] Williams finished the campaign as the world number 18, the first time he had ended the season outside of the top 16 in six years.[77]
2015 German Masters
Williams lost in the second round of his first two ranking events of the 2014/2015 season.[78] His first quarter-final of the campaign was at the International Championship and he trailed Ronnie O'Sullivan 0–3, before winning five successive frames with a high break of 120. The match went into a deciding frame, which Williams won to beat the five-time world champion for the first time in 12 years.[79] His semi-final match against Mark Allen also went all the way, after Williams had been 4–7 down, and a miss on the final red proved crucial as he was defeated 8–9.[80] He was beaten 2–6 by Stephen Maguire in the third round of the UK Championship.[81]
After knocking out Judd Trump 4–1 to reach the quarter-finals of the Welsh Open, Williams said that he no was longer expecting to win tournaments and was more concerned with improving his ranking.[82] He then made two centuries in defeating Marco Fu 5–1 to play in the semi-finals of the event for the first time since 2003.[83] Williams took advantage of Ben Woollaston missing chances to send their match into a deciding frame after he had been 3–5 behind, but lost it to just fall short of reaching the final in his home tournament.[84] Williams won through to the final of the minor-ranking Gdynia Open, but was whitewashed 4–0 by Neil Robertson.[85] Despite only being 39 years old, Williams took part in the World Seniors Championship as he would turn 40 before the end of the season and he won the title by beating Fergal O'Brien 2–1.[86] Another ranking event semi-final followed at the Indian Open, where he lost 2–4 to Michael White.[78]
After defeating Thepchaiya Un-Nooh in the first round of the Players Championship Grand Final, Williams produced back-to-back comebacks from 1–3 down to knock out both Mark Selby and Matthew Selt 4–3.[78] He then reached his first major ranking event final in over three years with a 4–2 win over Judd Trump and raced into a 3–0 lead against Joe Perry.[87] However, his highest break in the next four frames was 14 as Perry fought back to triumph 4–3.[88] In a rematch of the 2000 final, Williams played Matthew Stevens in the first round of the World Championship and was thrashed 10–2.[89]
Williams lost 1–5 to Judd Trump in the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters.[90] He reached the final of the non-ranking General Cup, where he was defeated 3–7 by Marco Fu.[91] He drew Ronnie O'Sullivan in the first round of the Masters and was 4–2 ahead. However, the match went to a deciding frame in which Williams missed a risky plant and lost 5–6.[92] He lost in the fourth round of the Welsh Open 2–4 to Mark Selby and in the first round of three other ranking events and in qualifying for the China Open.[91] Williams saw off Graeme Dott 10–4 and Michael Holt 13–8 to reach the quarter-finals of the World Championship for the first time in five years.[91] However, he was then thrashed 3–13 by Ding Junhui in the quarter-final, with a session to spare.[93]
Williams won a trio of frames to force a decider in the semi-finals of the Riga Masters against Michael Holt, but missed the final brown to be defeated.[94] He reached the quarter-finals of the Northern Ireland Open by beating John Higgins 4–1, then lost 4–5 to Kyren Wilson.[95] He recorded another quarter-final at the UK Championship, but was downed 2–6 by Ronnie O'Sullivan.[96] In the third round of the China Open, Williams came from 1–4 down to eliminate Higgins 5–4 and then thrashed Shaun Murphy 5–1.[97] Another comfortable win followed as he saw off Hossein Vafaei 6–1 to play Mark Selby in the final. Williams needed to win to break back into the top 16 and avoid having to qualify for the World Championship. He was 8–7 up, but lost the last three frames to be beaten 8–10, falling short of winning his first ranking event for six years.[98] He made it through to the final World Championship qualifying round, before Stuart Carrington beat him 10–7.[99] Williams was noticeably absent from the cast of players at the Crucible's 40th anniversary, O'Sullivan suggesting that he was bitter about not qualifying for the championship.
Williams won his first ranking title after a six-year drought, the Northern Ireland Open, defeating Chinese rising star Yan Bingtao 9–8 in the final; the victory was emotional for Williams, as he revealed that his wife had been suffering from ill health, and he had considered withdrawing from several tournaments. In the Masters, he faced Mark Selby in the first round, recovering from 3–5 behind to defeat the incumbent World Champion 6–5.[100] He lost 1–6 to Kyren Wilson in the quarter-finals.
Having beaten Oliver Lines 5–1 and Matthew Stevens 5–3 to qualify for the 2018 German Masters, Williams lost the first two frames of his first-round match against Fergal O'Brien but went on to beat O'Brien 5–3, later overcoming Matthew Selt 5–2 and Jimmy Robertson 5–3 to reach the semi-finals. There, he recorded breaks of 109, 68 and 51 in defeating Judd Trump 6–1 to reach the final, where he would face Graeme Dott. In the final, Williams was dominant, making six breaks over 50 and one century, a 110 in the eighth frame. Dott won the third frame to trail 1–2, compiling a break of 64 after an earlier 56 by Williams, but did not win another, as Williams ran out a 9–1 victor.[101]
Williams advanced to the semi-finals of the World Championship fairly comfortably, and before his match with Barry Hawkins in the semi-final said that he would do his press conference naked as the world champion if he won. Hawkins would prove to be Williams' most difficult opponent of the tournament: Williams levelled the match at 15–15 and secured the lengthy, hard-fought frames needed to win at the eleventh hour. Williams reached his first World Championship final since 2003 facing his fellow 'Class of '92' member, John Higgins. The match was described as one of the best finals in the history of the tournament, Williams winning 18–16 to claim his third World Championship making him aged 43 the oldest winner since Reardon who was 45 in 1978, it also marked 15 years since his last title making it the largest time span between titles. [102] Following victory, Williams thanked his late sponsor Ron Skinner, who had died two months earlier, his wife for convincing him not to retire, and coach Stephen Feeney for turning his game around so dramatically from a year ago. As promised, Williams appeared naked at his later press conference, much to the amusement of some news copywriters,[103] but was instructed to wear a towel.[104]
As World Champion, Williams would also win the second event of the season, the 2018 World Open, having come from behind in his quarter final against Jack Lisowski (from 0–3 down to win 5–3),[105] Noppon Saengkham in the semi-final (from 2–5 down to win 6–5),[106] and in the final against Dave Gilbert (from 5–9 down to win 10–9).[107]
Playing style [ edit ]
Williams is believed by some snooker pundits to be one of the greatest long potters in the game.[108] He has compiled over 450 competitive centuries during his career,[109] and is 10th on the all-time list of century makers; this is despite his tendency to play exhibition shots, or to miss on purpose, when he knows that the frame is won. He is also well known for his ability to win "scrappy" frames, using his tactical play and by picking out "shots to nothing".
An unusual aspect of his playing style is a tendency to position his cue directly underneath his body instead of using the rest, a technique that he often brings into play once a frame is secure. He is partially colour blind and has difficulty distinguishing between the red and brown balls; on one occasion, he potted a brown ball believing it to be red.[110]
During the course of his career, Williams has earned the nicknames "Sprog",[111] the "Welsh Potting Machine",[112] and "The Welsh Wonder".[113]
Personal life [ edit ]
Williams is also a keen poker player.[114] He is proud of his Welsh heritage, and has a tattoo depicting the Welsh Dragon eating the English flag. Williams is a keen Manchester United supporter. Williams and his wife Joanne have three sons: Connor (born April 2004),[2] Kian (born 2007)[115] and Joel (born 2013).[116] Williams is good friends with Matthew Stevens and Stephen Hendry, as well as boxer Joe Calzaghe.[117] Williams was awarded an MBE in June 2004.[118]
Performance and rankings timeline [ edit ]
Career finals [ edit ]
Ranking finals: 34 (22 titles, 12 runners-up) [ edit ]
Legend World Championship (3–1) UK Championship (2–2) Other (17–9)
Minor-ranking finals: 3 (2 titles, 1 runner-up) [ edit ]
Non-ranking finals: 17 (6 titles, 11 runners-up) [ edit ]
Legend The Masters (2–1) Premier League (0–3) Other (4–7)
Variant finals: 3 (1 titles, 2 runner-up) [ edit ]
Pro-am finals: 8 (5 titles, 3 runners-up) [ edit ]
Team finals: 4 (2 titles, 2 runner-up) [ edit ]Bethesda’s Collaboration with Titan Comics Expands Game Worlds
Lately, Bethesda has gained a lot of popularity. Sure, the company became somewhat popular thanks to RPG franchises such as The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but ever since Bethesda published games like Dishonored, The Evil Within, and Wolfenstein: The New Order (and DOOM, but we’re not here to talk about that game), it has transformed into a household name beloved by gamers the world over. And what popular game developer/publisher doesn’t have comic book tie-ins? Bethesda has teamed up with Titan Comics to create several tie-in comics, including The Evil Within, Wolfenstein, and seemingly out of left field Quake Champions. Yes, the arena shooter with little-to-no story that revolutionized competitive multiplayer FPS games has its own story-driven comic. Ryan O’Sullivan, Ram V, and Dan Watters joined the panel to tell us a little about these comics.
For those of you who were unaware these comics even existed (I counted myself as one of you prior to the panel), each one expands on their respective game worlds. For instance, The Evil Within comic takes place between the first and second game, but it isn’t a standalone story. No, the comic ties into the upcoming game and gives some important character motivations. The comic, much like the game, is intentionally vauge and emulates The Evil Within‘s ability to show things Americans know and fear through a Japanese lens.
Wolfenstein, meanwhile, primarily takes place between the first and second levels of Wolfenstein: The New Order, after B.J. Blazkowicz got his head filled with shrapnel and before he awoke from his coma to resume killing Nazis. The comic dives into the events that happened after Blazkowicz’s little accident, specifically how the Nazis conquered the world; this knowledge is almost essential for Wolfenstein fans, as the game only alludes to and hints at these events through journal entries and newspaper scraps. More importantly, the comic meshes the disparaging elements of the supernatural Nazi zombies and demons from Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein 2009 and the technological Nazi robots, Supersoldatens, and Panzerhunds from Wolfenstein: The New Order. You might not know this, but Wolfenstein: The New Order is actually a sequel to Wolfenstein 2009, which is a sequel to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. In other words, series antagonist General Wilhelm “Deathshead” Strass canonically tried to enhance the Nazi army though occultism and magitechnology pilfered from the long-dead Thule civilization before he passed off stolen Da’at Yichud technology as his own high-tech inventions. But, readers are supposed to |
of 19,180 in 2013.
Education Ministry statistics showed the dip led to the halving of enrolments from Saudi Arabia, Korea and Brazil. However, since then Brazilian enrolments had increased, as had enrolments from other countries including China and Japan.
Mr Dyer said Infometrics had calculated that language students contributed about $500 million to the economy and their general spending was about 10 times higher than the amounts they paid in tuition fees.
The general manager of the Campbell Institute, Tim Brown, said most language students did not work, but the possibility of doing so was an attraction.
He said getting rid of work rights would badly damage enrolments from some regions.
"We're particularly worried about losing the Latin American markets, which we've worked extremely hard to gain," he said.
"Vast majority of those students have only started coming to New Zealand since work rights were introduced for English language students so we would probably say good-bye to that market overnight."
Mr Brown said language students spent all the money they made in New Zealand.
Photo: RNZ / John Gerritsen
The chief executive of Auckland school Languages International, Darren Conway, said axing work visas for language students would hurt the economy and the government needed to do more research.
"They think that by doing this they think they will be helping local employment, they will in fact cost people jobs both directly in schools but in the flow-on effect that we have from our schools."
Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway indicated English language school students would be allowed to work.
"Any job where a student is using the English language has a potential to support their study in New Zealand, so for that reason English language schools should be confident that their students will be able to work if they choose to," he said.
English language students - source countries in 2016"The Forest is an independent game currently in development for PC and Oculus Rift."
Imagine that you're a survivor of a plane crash. I know that you have already survived the crash, but that's not the end, now you have to survive... The Forest. The obvious thing is that you have to find shelter and gather some supplies, because there is no easy way out of this wilderness. I'm not even sure if you'll ever find your way out, but lets not focus on that, that's not your biggest problem. The real problem starts when it gets dark, and the nearby tribe of human flesh consumers will go hunting. Yep, welcome to The ForestThis game will offer you a lot of freedom, and I mean A LOT. You just find yourself in the woods and pick the direction you want to go, that's the secret formula for an open world game. The game does remind of Minecraft in many ways, but that's what they were aiming for, you're supposed to have your fun from the choices you make, and simply organizing your survival. How long can you make it?(CN) – Prosecutors in Illinois have reportedly refused to defend a 16-year-old state ban on gay marriage against the lawsuit brought by 25 same-sex couples who want marriage licenses.
State Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez say the ban violates the equal protection clause of the Illinois Constitution.
“I took an oath when I was sworn in to defend the constitution of the state of Illinois and I believe that’s what I’m doing,” Alvarez told the Associated Press. “I’m not going to defend something I believe is in violation of the constitution.”
Illinois legalized same-sex civil unions last year, but marriage remains illegal.
In May, the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal sued Cook County Clerk David Orr on behalf of 25 same-sex couples who applied for marriage licenses and were denied.
The two complaints said the law defining marriage as between a man and a woman violates the due-process and equal-protection clauses of the Illinois Constitution.
Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office denied the marriage license though he personally does not oppose gay marriage, according to a statement his office gave The Associated Press in response to the complaint against him.
In their “The time is long past due for the state of Illinois to allow county clerks to issue marriage licenses to couples who want to make that commitment,” the office’s statement said. “I hope this lawsuit clears the last hurdle to achieving equal marriage rights for all.”
Lambda Legal’s marriage project director Camilla Taylor said the fact that the defendants agree with her “reflects the fact that we’re at a tipping point now.”
“It comes at a time when a form of discrimination against a class of people in our society is so shameful and reprehensible that it’s incapable of defense,” Taylor told The Associated Press.
Like this: Like Loading...MONTVALE, N.J. (AP) — A Syrian immigrant mayor says his New Jersey town will not be a sanctuary city for immigrants illegally living in the United States.
Montvale Mayor Michael Ghassali said in message posted on Facebook that mayors should not advocate defying federal laws and he will not sign any executive orders asking the town’s employees to do so.
The Republican who ran for mayor as an independent told The Record (http://bit.ly/2lyTsJi ) he hopes his position is not misconstrued as an indication he’s against diversity.
“My whole network is either a refugee or has a family or friend who is a refugee. I feel it. It is very personal,” Ghassali said.
But the mayor acknowledged that he must remove emotion and personal feelings to do his job the right way.
The Trump administration said Tuesday that any immigrant in the country illegally who is charged with or convicted of any offense, or even suspected of a crime, will now be an immigration enforcement priority.
Trump issued an executive order suspending travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries last month that has been blocked by a federal court ruling. The Republican has said he plans to revise the measure.
Ghassali said Trump’s administration should have spent more time studying how immigration currently works in the U.S. before making changes.
“They should spend the time to look at the current process before causing havoc among the refugees,” he said.
Ghassali became a citizen in 1987 and is married to an Iraqi immigrant.
“Montvale is not against refugees, against immigrants, against diversity,” Ghassali said. “We are as diverse as they come.”
___
Information from: The Record (Woodland Park, N.J.), http://www.northjersey.comThe sixth generation boss of the Ona yakuza, Daisaku Ona, attempts to return to his old gang after three years in prison, only to discover that it has transformed into a corporation and that its new leader is campaigning as a candidate in the municipal election. The deposed boss finds offense at his old gang’s abandonment of tradition and, with the help of his loyal cellmate and bomb-maker Taro, sets out to take revenge against his usurper with a brilliant idea – a bomb hidden within a fountain pen! Based on Cornell Woolrich’s story “Dipped in Blood”, this tale of generational conflict and uneasy Westernization features a tour-de-force performance by its star, Yunosuke Ito, and is constructed by Kihachi Okamoto as a kind of slapstick musical merging broad comedy and black humor with an eclectic mix of musical and theatrical styles.
* * *
Made the year following The Elegant Life of Mr. Everyman, Oh, My Bomb! is probably the least well-known of the titles collected in this proposed Eclipse set. The film is more broadly slapstick than its predecessor, but remains as socially and politically aware, addressing Japan’s cultural shifts and the decline of longstanding Japanese social structures and traditions. Gang boss Daisaku Ona is released from prison after a 3 year stretch without any celebration by his old yakuza crew. He gradually discovers that he has been ousted by his mistress’ brother, Yasaburo Yato, and that his gang has gone legit, having been transformed into the Daiheiwa Corporation. Yato is running for city council, playing the respectable public citizen in the final days of his campaign, and there is no place for the old boss in the new organization. Resentful over his ousting and other changes in his old neighbourhood empire (including a missing mistress, an unfaithful wife, an usurped home, a young heir delivering newspapers, and having to pay for movie tickets), Daisaku enlists his cellmate Taro to help him murder Yato by replacing the candidate’s much brandished fountain pen with an explosive version. Naturally, the deadly pen fails to reach its target and proceeds through various hands in Daisaku’s community. It’s probably better to say that wackiness ensues than reveal too much more of the film’s irony-laden plot.
What makes Oh, My Bomb! so fascinating is not its clever, high concept premise (an explosive pen circulating among a series of criminals and innocent locals), but rather its unique musical and theatrical syntax. Daisaku is a man out of time, embodying a traditional concept of Japaneseness that seems antiquated and passé in a new and modern culture. Accordingly, the musical cues associated with the elder yakuza and the numbers he performs emulate theatrical forms like Noh, kabuki, kyogen, and rokyoku. The majority of the world around him functions through Western musical styles, by choreographed film musical sequences, by international dance forms like the tango or the twist, and by contemporary pop music modes like jazz, kayokyoku, and eleki. Okamoto expresses the tensions between this older Japan and the new most explicitly through these musical textures and elevates a novel crime premise to a musical environment full of play and overflowing with potential. Neither era is preferred over the other. Daisaku is a likable rogue, quaint in a nostalgic sense, but still a criminal with violent impulses. Yato is an avaricious, two-faced gangster himself, lacking any sense of honour or code, but modern Japan has positive figures, like Daisaku’s hard-working and good-natured son Kenny. It is the dance between these two poles that makes the film such a winner.
Ideally, Oh, My Bomb! would be best suited to an audio commentary unpacking the bounty of musical and theatrical references contained within it, but a good set of liner notes might be an adequate substitute. Even without full explication, Okamoto’s narrative methods are still accessible and the film is probably the most cartoonishly enjoyable of those discussed in this set. Criterion only counts 4 Japanese films amongst its comedies and they’re all by Ozu, so Oh, My Bomb!‘s mugging faces and loony violence are dearly needed to the Collection.
AdvertisementsSiofra, developed by Forrest Williams, Senior Security Researcher at Cybereason, is a research tool that can identify DLL hijacking vulnerabilities in Windows programs and has an automated way to craft DLLs to exploit these vulnerabilities. While other scanners have been written to find this type of vulnerability, the scanner in Siofra is the most current.
Additionally, Siofra picked up several high-sensitivity vulnerabilities in Windows Defender, Internet Explorer and WMI, all of which were unknown. Typically, these vulnerabilities are fixed by Microsoft when they're identified. However, in this case, Microsoft has chosen not to repair the vulnerabilities detected by Siofra, saying that "loading binaries from the application directory is by design" and not addressing the actual exploits.
Unfortunately, ignoring this disclosure likely means that these vulnerabilities will now become prevalent in malware since Windows Defender, Internet Explorer and WMI are ideal candidates for malware persistence.
DLL hijacking explained
Dynamic-link library (DLL) hijacking is an attack technique that exploits how Windows applications handle DLLs. Malware places a spoofed DLL file in a Windows directory so the operating system loads the malicious DLL file instead of the legitimate file. At runtime, Windows allows applications to load DLL files. Applications can specify the location of DLLs to load by specifying a path. If these methods are not used, Windows attempts to locate the DLL by searching a predefined set of directories in a specific order. An attacker can abuse this search feature by placing a malicious DLL in one of these directories, so Windows reaches and loads the malicious DLL before finding the legit one.
Using DLL hijacking to persist on a compromised system gives an attacker many advantages.
The malware leaves no footprint on the underlying operating system that can be easily observed by a user, administrator, or most security software: no process of its own, no.exe file, no autorun registry key, no scheduled task and no service. The malware would not appear on msconfig or the task manager. The malware can bypass firewall rules without needing to touch the firewall configuration by camouflaging its own network activity into other processes. The malware removes the necessity to use noisy techniques such as process injection to stay resident in memory or gain access to sensitive process memory spaces.
While investigating an incident of DLL hijacking spotted in one of our customer environments, Forrest had the idea to create something that could generically discover opportunities to exploit DLLs on his Windows 10 machine. So, he created a free tool that he named, Siofra.
DLL hijacking is a well-known attack technique that was first observed in 2000. Almost two decades later, we still spot it in customer environments, but there isn’t much interest or buzz around it in the security community or the media. But, stay interested even though it’s not shiny and new. We must remain aware of this potential attack vector because DLL hijacking vulnerabilities are not going away. By publishing this tool, we aim to help reduce the opportunities for malware authors to exploit these vulnerabilities for hard-to-detect malware.
Cybereason informed Microsoft and received the following reply:
"...If I am interpreting your findings correctly, this report is predicated on the attacker having written a malicious binary to the directory where the application is launched from. As described in the Windows library search order process, loading binaries from the application directory is by design. This does not meet the bar for security servicing."
About Siofra
Siofra is a tool designed to identify and exploit DLL hijacking vulnerabilities in Windows programs. It simulates the Windows loader to give visibility into all of the dependencies (and corresponding vulnerabilities) of a PE on disk, or alternatively an image file in memory corresponding to an active process.
The tool has the ability to easily generate DLLs to exploit these types of vulnerabilities via PE infection with dynamic shellcode creation. These infected DLLs retain the code (DllMain, exported functions) as well as the resources of a DLL to seamlessly preserve the functionality of the application loading them, while at the same time allowing the researcher to specify an executable payload to be either run as a separate process or loaded into the target as a module. Additionally, the tool contains automated methods of combining UAC auto-elevation criteria with the functionality in order to scan for UAC bypass vulnerabilities.
Details surrounding other technical aspects of the tool and OS details related to the Windows loader/search order, UAC, WinSxS etc. can be found in the research paper.
Behind the name
The name Siofra is taken from Celtic folklore, where it is used to describe a changeling child. A changeling child is an infant exchanged by the Gods with a newborn in its crib. Unbeknownst to its parents and the mortal world this changeling child looks and acts identically to its stolen counterpart, but carries within itself a hidden purpose to make manifest on behalf of the God who sent it.
At present, there is a huge number of vulnerabilities that this tool exposes.
“While testing this tool, I encountered only several applications which were not vulnerable out of hundreds which I tested against,” Forrest said. Note that these vulnerabilities can be exploited despite SafeDllSearchMode. A common misconception results from confusing the "current directory" (fixed with SafeDllSearchMode) with the "application directory" (the folder containing the.exe itself). The clear majority of DLL hijacking vulnerabilities currently present in Windows programs stem from the application directory (which comes first in the Windows search order). Several highlights are listed below in the output produced by the scanner in the tool. (The last time these vulnerabilities were tested was in mid-July 2017).
The capabilities of this tool are threefold, each corresponding to one of the execution modes of this tool. Infection mode, file scanning mode, and memory scanning mode.
Some of this tool is open source to help other security researchers understand the technical details of this project. Forrest specifically provided assembler source code for one of the 64-bit implant shellcodes (for 64-bit PE DLL infection when specifying a "process" payload type).
Siofra is available on GitHub.
Blog image: Fuseli, Henry. Der Wechselbalg. 1781, oil painting.Albert Davis Lasker (May 1, 1880 – May 30, 1952) was an American businessman who played a major role in shaping modern advertising. He was raised in Galveston, Texas, where his father was the president of several banks. Moving to Chicago, he became a partner in the advertising firm of Lord & Thomas. He purchased and led many successful ad campaigns. He made new use of radio, changing popular culture and appealing to consumers' psychology. A Republican, he designed new ways to advertise election campaigns, especially the Warren Harding campaign of 1920, and became a philanthropist.
Early life and career [ edit ]
Lasker was born to a Jewish family[1] the son of Morris and Nettie Lasker in Freiburg, Germany on May 1, 1880. Morris had emigrated from Prussia in 1840, while Lasker's mother was an American citizen. They lived in Galveston, Texas, but Morris had moved Nettie to Germany during her pregnancy for better medical care. The family returned to Galveston within six months, and Lasker spent the rest of his childhood in Texas.[2]
Lasker started working as a newspaper reporter while he was still a teenager. He assisted the successful Congressional campaign of the Republican Robert Hawley in 1896.[3] Although Texas politics had been dominated by the Democratic Party since shortly after Reconstruction, in this election, many voters split between the Democrats and the Populist Party, and Hawley won with less than 50% of the votes.
In 1898 his father, who disapproved of journalism,[2] persuaded Lasker to move to Chicago to try an advertising position at Lord & Thomas.[3] After he worked as an office boy for a year, one of the agency's salesmen left, and Lasker acquired his territory. During this time, Lasker created his first campaign. He hired a friend, Eugene Katz, to write the copy for a series of Wilson Ear Drum Company ads. They featured a photograph of a man cupping his ear. George Wilson, president of the Ear Drum company, adopted the ads and his sales increased.
CEO Lord & Thomas [ edit ]
When Lord retired in 1903, Lasker purchased his share and became a partner.[3] He purchased the firm in 1912 at the age of 32.
Chicago, along with New York, was the center of the nation's advertising industry. Lasker, known as the "father of modern advertising," [4] made Chicago his base 1898–1942. As head of the Lord and Thomas agency, Lasker devised a copywriting technique that appealed directly to the psychology of the consumer. Women seldom smoked cigarettes; he told them if they smoked Lucky Strikes they could stay slender. Lasker's use of radio, particularly with his campaigns for Palmolive soap, Pepsodent toothpaste, Kotex products, and Lucky Strike cigarettes, not only revolutionized the advertising industry but also significantly changed popular culture.[5]
Salesmanship in print [ edit ]
Lasker had an inquiring mind about what advertising was and how it worked. In 1904 he met John E. Kennedy, a former Canadian mounted policeman who had entered advertising. Lasker believed that advertising was news, but Kennedy said, "[N]ews is a technique of presentation, but advertising is a very simple thing. I can give it to you in three words, it is'salesmanship in print'".[6]
The pair used this concept with the 1900 Washer Co. (later Whirlpool). Their campaign was so successful that, within four months of running the first ad, they attracted additional clients and their "advertising spend" went from $15,000 a year to $30,000 a month. Within six months, their firm was one of the three or four largest advertising agencies in the nation.
In 1908 Lasker recruited Claude C. Hopkins to the firm, specifically to work on the Van Camp Packaging Company (Van Camp's) account. The relationship lasted for 17 years. Lasker helped create America's infatuation with orange juice. Lord & Thomas acquired the Sunkist Growers, Incorporated account in 1908, when Lasker was 28. The citrus industry was in a slump, and California growers were producing so many oranges that they were cutting down trees in order to limit supply. Lasker created campaigns that not only encouraged consumers to eat oranges, but also to drink orange juice. He was able to increase consumption enough so that the growers stopped chopping down their groves.[7]
Among Lasker's pioneering contributions was the introduction into public schools of classes that explained to young girls about puberty and menstruation (done to promote Kotex tampons). He is also credited as the creator of the soap opera genre, and using radio and television as media driven by advertising.[8][9]
Business interests [ edit ]
Lasker was an early owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He acquired an interest in the team in 1916 and soon purchased majority control. He originated the Lasker Plan, a report that recommended baseball's governing authority be reformed. This led to the creation of the office of the Commissioner of Baseball. Lasker, along with his business partner Charles Weeghman, are credited with moving the Cubs into the club's current home, Wrigley Field. In 1925, he sold the team to one of his minor partners, William Wrigley Jr.
Lasker became the second-largest shareholder in the Pepsodent company,[10] which had become an L&T client in 1916. It was sold to Lever Brothers in 1944.[11]
After developing a private estate, Mill Road Farm, in Lake Forest, Illinois, Lasker had a golf course built on it. The National Golf Review in 1939 rated the Lasker Golf Course as No. 23 on its list of "Top 100 Courses in the World." Following the Great Depression, Lasker donated the entire property to the University of Chicago.[12]
Politics [ edit ]
Lasker continued to be active in the Republican Party, and showed the party how to use modern advertising techniques to sell their candidates. He was a key advisor in the 1920 Harding campaign, which resulted in one of the largest landslides in history, as Warren G. Harding appealed for votes in newsreels, billboards and newspaper ads.[13]
On June 9, 1921 President Harding's appointment of Lasker as chairman of the United States Shipping Board was confirmed by the US Senate. Lasker took the job on the condition that he would serve no more than two years. At the time, he was only the third man of Jewish descent to have been appointed to such a high post in the federal government.[14] Lasker inherited a large mess, with over 2,300 ships under Shipping Board control losing money every day. A full quarter of the fleet were wooden hulled, and by this time were obsolete.[14] He disposed of useless ships at an average price of $30 a ton, incurring criticism from Congress for "throwing our ships away".
His accomplishments included the refitting of the SS Leviathan for passenger service, as well as originating ship-to-shore telephone services.[15] Lasker, who had no previous experience in the shipping business before his appointment, true to his word, ended his service in office on July 1, 1923.[16]
Later years [ edit ]
The mausoleum of Albert Lasker
After 30 years as its chief executive, Lasker sold the firm to three senior executives. It became Foote, Cone & Belding in 1942.[3]
Lasker married thrice. In 1902, he married Flora Warner. The couple had three children before her death in 1934: Mary Lasker Block (born 1904). Edward Lasker (born 1912), and Frances Lasker Brody (born 1916).[2] In 1938, he married actress Doris Kenyon but the marriage ended in divorce a year later.[2] Lasker — and especially his third wife Mary Lasker (married 1940) — were nationally prominent philanthropists. They played major roles in promoting and expanding the National Institutes of Health, helping its budget expand from $2.4 million in 1945 to $5.5 billion in 1985.[17] They founded and endowed the Lasker Award, which has recognized the work of many leading scientists and researchers.[18]
On May 30, 1952, Lasker died in New York at the age of 72.[3] He was interred in a private mausoleum at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow.
Bipolar disorder [ edit ]
The book "The Man Who Sold America" posits that Lasker had Bipolar II disorder, which affected his personal and work life. Lasker operated at a high energy level. He was frequently expansive, irritable, highly verbal, intensely creative, and insomniac—all symptoms of a condition that today would be called hypomania. He never ascended to the level of mania that is generally associated with manic depression, or—again in today’s vocabulary—a bipolar I disorder, although he sometimes behaved erratically, especially under the influence of alcohol. Most likely, he was afflicted by a bipolar II disorder. Recent research suggests that there is an increased risk of bipolar II disorder among people whose family members suffer from the disorder. Eduard Lasker, Albert’s uncle, seems to have had depressive episodes. Morris, too, may have experienced depressions: his rollercoaster financial affairs may have had their root, in part, in some sort of affective illness. Finally, the diagnosis is supported by Lasker’s age when the apparent ailment overtook him. Bipolar I—the affective state that is accompanied by wild, manic excess—usually first manifests itself in the teenage years, while the more subtle, hypomanic form of the illness often stays masked until the mid- or late twenties. Lasker was stricken at age twenty-seven.[19]
Legacy and honors [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]James Gunn says David Bowie was under consideration for a cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
We were shocked and saddened earlier today to learn that rock icon and actor David Bowie passed away at the age of 69 from cancer. Now, James Gunn has revealed on his Facebook that the Ziggy Stardust singer was offered (and interested in) a cameo in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Read Gunn’s heartfelt thoughts below.
“Just a very short while ago Kevin Feige and I were talking about a cameo role in ‘Guardians Vol. 2,’ and he brought up Bowie’s name,” wrote Gunn. “I told him nothing in the world would make me happier, but I heard from common friends he wasn’t doing well. We heard back that he was okay and it could potentially happen. Who knows what that was about? But, for whatever reason, it made my Twitter revelation more of a surprise.”
Even though the director is still reeling from the news, he left open the possibility of including another Bowie track in the sequel.
“Bowie was an idol of mine, huge and omnipresent,” Gunn continued. “Few artists in any field have had as an indelible impression upon me as he has. To my mind, Ziggy Stardust is perhaps the greatest rock and roll album of all time. We featured “Moonage Daydream” in Guardians, but I always thought the album’s character was felt far beyond that, in the aesthetics, in the integral and seemingly-natural linking in popular culture of ’70’s rock and space opera. I’ve been trying to work another song from Ziggy into the sequel, which would make Bowie the only artist to have a song on both Vol. 1 and Vol. 2. I thought this was fair and appropriate. Although I cut the scene it was used in from the script, we have the rights. Who knows. Maybe I can figure a way out.”
The Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 cast will once again feature Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, and Bradley Cooper as unlikely heroes who must team up in order to defeat a cosmic force of epic proportions. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will debut in theaters on May 5, 2017.
[Gallery not found]Ty Dolla $ign (born Tyrone Griffin, Jr.) has cultivated an aesthetic as grimy as it is sexy: His party songs feel sleazy, and his sex songs feel like they're happening in public. You could see glimpses of this direction from his beginnings as one half of the duo Ty & Kory, but it wasn’t until he went solo that he developed the persona that made him a star. He has the skill to make his woozy, grainy songs about parties and women seem so effortless that sometimes it looks like he’s not even trying, which is evident on his latest tape, Airplane Mode.
Airplane Mode feels designed as an afterthought, a placeholder to keep Ty’s buzz afloat until his major label debut, Free TC, arrives. Yet it’s cohesive and engaging even when multiple songs cut out in the middle of verses. This is a purposely unfinished project, one that doesn’t reveal much about Ty that we don’t already know: "I’m a pop a molly, pop a percocet, sippin' Actavis/ My momma mad at me, told me I spend too much money/ I’ve been buying bottles like sure, what, you only live once," he raps on "Do Thangs". He’s still caught up in a tidal wave of women, drugs, money, and never-ending parties. "Back in the City" and "Money Ruin Friendships" are satisfying records that showcase both Ty’s charming singing voice and his gift for making a DJ Mustard beat feel fresh again.
But songs like "No Fake Shit" and "All" are more intriguing, because they hint at a larger "there" with Ty Dolla $ign. "No Fake Shit" is a deeply caring love song and "All" hints at the trappings and boredom of fame. More importantly, the latter ends with a voicemail from his brother TC, who is currently serving a life sentence. The brief moment gives the EP a hint of soul and signals that Ty might have something more to say to us.
Airplane Mode isn't quite that place, though. There are two references to the EP title here, both telling: "These days gotta keep my phone on airplane mode/ To dodge these hoes," Ty croons on the title track. The second comes from TC’s message from jail. In it, TC he acknowledges that Ty’s phone probably went straight to voicemail because it’s on airplane mode, as if this is a common occurrence. Airplane mode is the setting you put your electrical device in to completely disconnect it from the network. You can’t get text messages, phone calls, or access any apps needing the Internet and, at the risk of sounding precious, it is a bit of a metaphor for Ty Dolla $ign the persona. Disconnected from the outside world, yet still functioning in it, he’s garnered a steady buzz and made plenty of great songs by projecting a disaffected cool.Full specialist treatment is best provided at the Royal Free in London. Until then, full isolation and use of fully fluid repellant disposable protective gear should be worn by anyone working in vicinity of patient or with specimens.
When test results are returned it will be known whether this is a Malaria, Ebola or other infection.
What this demonstrates is the vital importance of a fully functioning integrated NHS. It is also a reminder of just how much we owe to the commitment, dedication and professionalism of NHS staff.
Even if this case turns out not to be a case of Ebola - which of course we will all hope - it will be important for the Trust (in concert with NHS Chiefs) to review their success in their handing of this case, the effectiveness of the protocols and (if necessary) the need for further fine tuning.FARMERVILLE, Louisiana – An illegal immigrant suspected of raping pre-teen girls is currently being searched for by Louisiana law enforcement after he was released by federal immigration officials.
Illegal immigrants from Mexico, Christian Ramirez and Mario Rameriz, were both arrested and charged with aggravated rape of pre-teen girls in the northern Louisiana town of Farmerville in 2013, according to KNOE News.
At the time, Mario Rameriz was prosecuted and convicted on the rape charges, as he is now serving a 12-year sentence. Union Parish Sheriff Dusty Gates told KNOE Rameriz was prosecuted quickly “due to the seriousness of the charges.”
Christian Ramirez was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while awaiting trial for the rape charges in 2014.
That is when ICE mistakenly released Ramirez.
“Normally for an individual to be deported he must have no criminal charges,” Gates told KNOE. “This subject was turned over to them, but during the process, and a miscommunication between the prosecutor and the ICE in Alexandria, he was subsequently release.”
Gates said his Sheriff’s Office is working to find the illegal immigrant, saying he has been entered into a national crime database, but admits that he could have already fled back to Mexico.
“His whereabouts are unknown” Gates told KNOE. “There’s a possibility he did flee back to Mexico.”
Gates said the poultry industry in Union Parish is what attracts illegal immigrants to the northern Louisiana region.
John Binder is a contributor for Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.The Mail Online has reported the case of a 53-year-old American who has sent over $100,000 to a woman he has never met in Nigeria.
The man, an obvious victim of online dating scam insists he is only providing financial assistance until she inherits $25.6 million from her dead parents.
Steve appeared on Dr Phil to discuss his unusual relationship with ‘Kelly’ who he met on an online dating website in 2012.
He says the pair are legally married in Nigeria, even though he has never met her and they usually only communicate online.
Steve says he has been giving her the money for the last few years to help her until she receives her inheritance from her parents – she claims they were killed in an Ohio car crash in 2012.
Steve sells his plasma – a yellowish liquid that has to be separated from blood – twice a week to ensure he can make payments to ‘Kelly’ who lives with ‘James,’ her ‘attorney.’
‘I’ve sent Kelly about $103,000 in the last 29 months,’ he said on the show as a flabbergasted audience listened.
‘I’ve not met Kelly, but it doesn’t matter. I love her just the same.
‘She has an inheritance coming, and I’ve always wanted to be a millionaire, so it’s like a match made in heaven.’
‘I just love her. She is very beautiful and warm, kind, caring and loving.’
Steve says he has not met ‘Kelly’ as she needs to stay in Nigeria to help with signing the inheritance forms.
He said that ‘Kelly’ came back to the US he tried to met her, but it didn’t work out.
But when Dr Phil’s team analysed an email she sent Steve claiming she was in South Dakota, the IP address revealed it was sent from Nigeria.
‘Kelly’ told Steve she went to a nursing school in North Dakota, but when the show contacted the school they said no-one with her name had ever been enrolled.
But ‘Kelly’ is not only person Steve is sending money to – he says he is an accountant, and insists he is on the verge of becoming a multi-millionaire from several pending inheritance deals with overseas clients.
He says he is sending them money to cover their legal fees as they fight to obtain their inheritances.
But he is now on probation for cashing a fraudulent check that was sent to him from Africa – he was asked to cash it to help a ‘client whose life was in danger’ and then asked to send $5,000 to five people listed.
However the bank picked up on it and he was arrested.
Steve’s sister, Tammy, says she is worried as he has been scammed in the past.
She is asking him to cut ties with ‘Kelly’ – and his other so-called clients.
‘My brother is delusional,’ Tammy says.
”Kelly’ could be a Nigerian man behind a computer.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2939798/Man-sells-blood-twice-week-send-100-000-wife-Nigeria-s-never-met.html#ixzz3QqNq4kbc
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Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2939798/Man-sells-blood-twice-week-send-100-000-wife-Nigeria-s-never-metA deposition uncovered Saturday shines new light on Bill Cosby’s extramarital relationships and the accusations of sexual assault from many women.
The court documents, first published by the New York Times Saturday, come from 2005 and 2006 depositions related to accusations of molestation from Andrea Constand.
In the questioning, Cosby denies allegations of assault, but admits to the dogged pursuit of extramarital relations, often in an ethically dubious, if still legal, fashion. Here are four things we learned:
Cosby obtained seven Quaaludes prescriptions
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The deposition provides new details about how Cosby obtained the drug Quaaludes, which functions as a sedative. Cosby said in the deposition that he told a Los Angeles doctor that he wanted the drug for back pain, but he assumed the doctor knew that he actually wanted to use it for other purposes. “Quaaludes happen to be the drug that kids, young people were using to party with and there were times when I wanted to have them just in case,” Cosby said.
Asked how he used Cosby used them, the comedian said he never took one himself and instead offered them “the same as a person would say have a drink.”
Cosby made light of the accusations
Even in a deposition where Cosby theoretically had something to lose, the comedian couldn’t help but make light |
and Singapore had aircraft stationed in Texas, and thousands of Canadian troops were poised to take over Michigan. He also claimed the government put computer chips in a flu vaccine.
He had a speech prepared for a regional militia gathering in Kentucky in 2010, but bad weather forced him and others to return to Michigan. Instead, he read it in the van while a secret camera installed by the FBI captured the remarks.
'It is time to strike and take our nation back so that we may be free again from tyranny,' Stone said. 'Time is up, God bless all of you and welcome to the new revolution.'
Mishandled: Defence lawyers said highly offensive remarks were wrongly turned into a high-profile criminal case after the undercover FBI investigation
Mr Swor said the militia leader was a Christian who was bracing for war against the Antichrist.
He said that, for Stone,'This is not the United States government. This is Satan’s army. '
Militia members cleared of all charges were Stone’s wife, Tina, and his son, David Stone Jr.; Thomas Piatek of Whiting, Indiana; Michael Meeks of Manchester, Michigan; and Kris Sickles of Sandusky, Ohio.
'It’s hard to believe it’s over,' said Mrs Stone, crying as she spoke by phone. 'Thank God we live in a country where we do have freedom of speech.'Last Wednesday, I gave a talk at the newly formed Coventry Skeptics in the Pub on the ‘Persistence of Delusion’ – why some alternative medicines appear to thrive.
One of the techniques that ensures a healthy quackery is to obtain official endorsement from statutory and regulatory organisations. Chiropractic and Osteopathy have benefited greatly in the UK by becoming a protected ‘health profession’. Homeopathy is also helped by some regulations that give them special privileges when it comes to medical licensing.
In the morning, I had been on BBC Radio Coventry to promote the new group and to explain what I would be talking about. Naturally, this adverting would reach more types of people than the ‘sceptic community’. And so, a few believers in superstitious forms of medicine did show up.
One believer left at the break and left behind a scribbled note telling me, basically, how short sighted I was. During questions, another asserted that the campaign against alternative medicine was all driven by the government to back their friends in pharmaceutical companies. I begged to differ.
One of the reasons I disagree is that, if true, the government is doing a very lousy job of it. If I was in charge of the Department of Big Pharma Shilling I would do a much better job.
A good example of how government agencies actually assist quackery rather than protect the public from it is the medicines regulator, the MHRA.
The MHRA is charged with regulating medicines and medical devices. Their ’mission statement’ is
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is the government agency which is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe.
This is all good. Except when it comes to superstitious and pseudoscientific forms of treatments, they casually drop the condition that providers should be able to demonstrate that they work.
The result is that absurd and unproven medical treatments are able to compete on pharmacy shelves with products that have proven benefit. For consumers, it is difficult to tell that one product has an evidence base and the other is fantasy. The MHRA appear to adopt labelling policies that deliberately obscure the nature of homeopathic remedies and give ‘approval marks’ to unproven herbal remedies.
When it comes to actually upholding what regulations exist, the MHRA appear to take a ‘see no evil’ approach. The blogger Warhelmet is doing an excellent job at the moment of showing how homeopathic manufacturers appear to operate regardless of regulations.
A group of medics and researchers (all members of Healthwatch) have written to the BMJ this week expressing their deepening concern that the MHRA are “clothing naked quackery and legitimising pseudoscience”.
What has initiated this letter is the recent advertisement for ‘experts’ to sit on a Advisory Board to consider the registration of homeopathic products. The job specification calls for homeopaths who are “recognised by their peers as eminent members of their profession”. The problem is obvious. If you believe nonsense, how can you be an expert? As I have written recently, when the regulator believes in fairies, who protects the public?
Here is their letter in full.Eruv Poles Explained
Once again, the issue of an “eruv” being built (or extended) in a community has brought about much ugliness. Along with the countless articles being written and posted that describes, or attempts to describe, the legal and social issues that come into play, a common misperception of the purpose of the “eruv,” or at least the physical aspect of the “eruv” (meaning its poles and wires), has been repeatedly repeated. I will therefore try to correct this misunderstanding about what the poles at the center of the legal issues are intended to accomplish.
There are 39 categories of activity that are prohibited on the Sabbath, with one of them being “carrying,” i.e. transporting an item from one place to another. Not all “carrying” is prohibited; I can carry anything (as long as its use is permitted on the Sabbath) from my kitchen to my dining room, or from anyplace in my house to another place in the house, even from ne end to the other, or from the basement to the attic and vise versa. As a matter of fact, the size of my house is irrelevant; if, for some reason, I would (and could afford to) purchase a house (or building) that was miles long, and I used it for living purposes (as opposed to, say, a place to grow plants indoors), I could carry from one end all the way to the other, despite it being miles away. So the first thing that needs to be clarified is when and where carrying on the Sabbath is prohibited.
These laws are very complex, with an entire tractate of the Talmud dedicated primarily to it (not to mention numerous lengthy discussions on the subject in other tractates of the Talmud). I will limit this discussion to only deal with things that impact the community eruv, specifically the physical boundary that the poles and wire are designed to create.
Biblically, the prohibition against carrying applies to transferring an item from a public area to a private area (and vice versa) and carrying something a distance of four cubits within a public area. However, not all “areas” fall into the category of being “private” or “public.” Without getting into a complicated discussion of what characteristics an area needs to have in order to be considered “public,” suffice it to say that, pertaining to an eruv making a difference, it would be a town square in a very large city (and the streets that connect to it), or a public thoroughfare that goes from end-to-end in a very large city or metropolis (and the streets that connect to it). If a city is not extremely large (or have a vast amount of people traveling through it on a daily basis), it does not qualify as being a “public” domain. According to the opinion that most rely on (especially if they carry with an area enclosed by an eruv), there are very few cities or communities that qualify as being a “public” domain.
What about those areas that aren’t private, nor qualify as being “public”? Such an area, referred to in the Talmud as a “karmalis,” has no biblical prohibitions of carrying, neither transferring an item from a public or private domain to or from it, nor carrying an item within it (even more than four cubits). However, because of the similarity between a “public” area and a “karmalis,” and a concern that carrying to/from/within it could easily be confused with doing so to/from/with a “public” area, a rabbinic prohibition was placed on carrying to/from/within a “karmalis” as well. Which brings about a very serious consequence; not being able to carry anything outside the home (or any “private” area, such as a synagogue or hotel).
Some things could be easily managed. For example, anything needed in synagogue could be brought there before the Sabbath. Others, though, would be a major inconvenience, such as parents not being able to leave the home the entire Sabbath until their youngest child can walk to the place the parent wants to go, or worse (i.e, those who use the synagogue’s Succah couldn’t carry their food to it on the Sabbath). So in order to accomplish what was intended by the rabbinical prohibition without making observing the Sabbath too burdensome, the concept of an “eruv” was introduced, enabling the “karmalis” to have the same status as a private domain, within which things can be carried on the Sabbath.
Because the eruv cannot impact a “public” domain (as it can only be used where carrying is only rabbinically prohibited), and the area/boundaries of the eruv, within which one can carry, (and its formation and upkeep, including communicating when it is “down,” such as in severe weather, and can not be relied on, or is still “up” despite severe weather) is made known, there is much less of a concern that anyone will violate the biblical prohibitions associated with a “public” domain, while, at the same time, the impact of extending the prohibition to a “karmalis” does not severely impact the communal or private life of Sabbath observers.
This concept is attributed to none other than King Solomon, and is an example of how his extreme wisdom was used to solve several issues (in this case, protecting the sanctity of the Sabbath while not impeding the ability to appreciate and enjoy it).
It is important to note that an eruv does not make anything that was biblically prohibited permissible; it only impacts the ability to carry something when it would have otherwise been rabbinically prohibited. “They” said carrying to/from/within a “karmalis” is problematic, and “they” also said that this prohibition can be avoided.
In order to transform a “karmalis” into an area with the same characteristics as a private home, thereby allowing carrying to/from/within it as if it were one big private property, one of the things that has to happen is that it be physically enclosed. There are numerous ways to enclose an area to make it eligible to be able to carry within it. Obviously, a gated community doesn’t need any additional structure in order to be considered “enclosed.” A sea wall, or a cliff, qualifies, and nothing further needs to be done on that part of the “enclosure.” Many community eruvim (“eruvim” is the plural form of “eruv”) have, as part of its boundary, an area where there is already a physical fence or wall, so no further structure is needed there. Usually, though, a large portion of the boundary of the area to be enclosed has no physical structure, which is where the poles and wires come in.
Just as one can carry within his or her home even when the door is open, as the doorway itself is considered a part of the structure/enclosure, a community eruv can be considered a valid enclosure if part (or, according to most, even if all) of the enclosure is a “doorway,” or a series of “doorways.” A “doorway”consists of the frame of the door; the floor, the top, and two sides. In an eruv, the poles are the sides of the doorway, and (usually) wire is used for the top. (It cannot be too wide of an opening, or it loses its status as being a “doorway,” and there is no enclosure.) That is all the poles (and wires) are used for – making a “doorway” to complete the enclosure. Nothing more, and nothing less. Very often, the poles that form the sides of the frame of the “doorway” are attached to an already existing pole, such as a utility pole, in order to minimize the obtrusiveness of the poles. (The reason the utility poles themselves can’t be used is because the top of the doorway is not attached to the sides of the sides of the frame, but is on top of them. Attaching a wire to the sides of the utility poles does not form a “doorway,” while running a wire on top of two vertical poles does.)
By creating a series of “doorways,” as unobtrusively as possible, an area can be enclosed, making it eligible to bypass the rabbinic aspects of the prohibition against carrying on the Sabbath.
AdvertisementsThe day a shelter dog gets adopted is one of the happiest days of its life. No matter where an animal came from or what it’s been through, suddenly it knows that better times are ahead.
You can see the joy of an adopted shelter dog just by looking at its furry face. Here are 31 lucky pups on the day they headed out to their forever homes!
When shelter dogs are adopted, their lives change forever.
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Suddenly, they’re headed somewhere unknown…
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…but they can tell it’s somewhere good.
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For these dogs, this is the day that someone chose them.
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No more wondering, no more waiting.
Instagram / thenorsedog
These pups are finally about to get what they’ve always wanted:
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A place where they can feel safe…
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…surrounded by the love and comfort they deserve.
Instagram / lunatheborderaussie
When they arrive at their new homes, sometimes it can take a while to get used to the new surroundings.
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So many new sights, sounds, and smells to explore!
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Once they realize this is their forever home, though, they’re as happy as can be…
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…and they can finally relax.
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For the first time, these sweet dogs can sleep soundly.
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They can stretch their legs and get comfortable.
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They know that when they wake up, their new owner will be there to care for them…
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…no matter how silly they look!
Facebook / John Vrydaghs
From this day forward, these dogs’ lives will be full of joy.
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Just look at that tail go!
Reddit / LonelyVelociraptor
There’s no denying that sweet puppy smile!
Imgur / Genetta
Because now they have a true best friend to do everything with.
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To stand by through thick and thin…
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…to go on lots of adventures with…
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…to stop and smell the flowers with…
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…and to shower with kisses all day long.
Imgur / Groovebird
Whether these pups want to play in the grass…
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…cuddle up at home…
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…or get their ears and bellies rubbed…
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…their new humans will be there. Imgur
Because, starting today, they are a team.
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Starting today, these happy dogs are finally home.
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It’s the first day of the rest of their lives.
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So much happiness in these photos!
Share them with your friends who love animals below!Does anyone actually believe this?
I guess Kentucky Republicans who don’t pay attention to politics but who’ll end up deciding this year’s Senate race anyway do. God bless democracy.
“We’re going to pass spending bills, and they’re going to have a lot of restrictions on the activities of the bureaucracy,” McConnell said in an interview aboard his campaign bus traveling through Western Kentucky coal country. “That’s something he won’t like, but that will be done. I guarantee it.”… McConnell risks overreaching if he follows through with his pledge to attach policy riders to spending bills. If Obama refuses to accept such measures, a government shutdown could ensue. Republicans bore much of the blame for last year’s government shutdown, which was prompted by conservative tactics McConnell opposed, and their fortunes rebounded only when the administration bungled the rollout of Obamacare. But asked about the potential that his approach could spark another shutdown, McConnell said it would be up to the president to decide whether to veto spending bills that would keep the government open. Obama “needs to be challenged, and the best way to do that is through the funding process,” McConnell said. “He would have to make a decision on a given bill, whether there’s more in it that he likes than dislikes.”
To repeat: Does anyone actually believe this? McConnell was one of the sharpest Republican critics of the “defund” strategy that produced a government shutdown last fall. Watch the clip below if you need your memory refreshed. He’s fond of saying about it, “There’s no education in the second kick of a mule,” i.e. the GOP paid a political price for the 1995 shutdown and then foolishly paid the same price again in 2013 (although the backlash was blunted by public outrage at the Healthcare.gov meltdown that was happening simultaneously). Quote: “I think we have fully now acquainted our new members with what a losing strategy that is.” He hates shutdowns almost as much as the people in the GOP’s donor class who bankroll him do.
And yet here he is, soothing conservatives who are leery of reelecting him by vowing to take the fight to Obama this time and make him cause a shutdown if he refuses to agree to Republican demands. And he wants you to believe he’s going to do this while prominent Republicans, including his pal Rand Paul, are declaring their candidacies in 2016. It’s the purest nonsense. To believe it, you need to believe that somehow, if Obama vetoes the sort of bill McConnell’s describing here, that the GOP will win the ensuing media war over who “really” caused the shutdown. Which party, do you suppose, will the press hold responsible? Whom did they hold responsible in 1995, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and went head to head with a Democratic president? The party that loves government, the bigger the better, or the one that doesn’t?
McConnell has a history of empty rhetoric about brinksmanship with Obama too. Remember this?
The Senate’s top Republican signaled Tuesday that he will seek to extract concessions from Democrats in exchange for lifting the nation’s debt limit in 2014, potentially foreshadowing a grueling fiscal fight during an election year. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said that he “can’t imagine” that the debt ceiling increase will be a “clean” one — meaning that it will have no conditions attached to it. McConnell, a key negotiator on deals ending the debt ceiling standoff in 2011 and this year during the government shutdown, noted that past significant legislative agreements have been attached to such increases. He was skeptical that the House or the Senate would have an appetite to hand President Barack Obama a clean debt limit hike.
Two months later he voted for cloture on — ta da — a clean debt-ceiling hike, even though Harry Reid had more than enough votes without him to break a filibuster by Ted Cruz. And so we already know what’ll happen next year: McConnell and Boehner will pass a spending bill with some riders attached, Obama will veto it, a shutdown deadline will loom, and eventually McConnell will agree to a clean bill while promising to fight another day. How many times do you need to see this movie to know the plot?
It will, perhaps, not surprise you to learn that Kentucky Democrats are having a field day with the excerpt above, claiming that McConnell’s already cooking up new shutdowns for America. They know which side is helped by shutdown politics. And so does Mitch the Knife, which, again, is why this is an empty threat.Coming Soon
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
An unexpected detour turns a couple's road trip into a terrifying journey through their fragile psyches. Adapted and directed by Charlie Kaufman.
Our Planet
From the creator of "Planet Earth," this series takes viewers on an unprecedented journey through some of the world's most precious natural habitats.
Elisa & Marcela
In 1901 in Galicia, Spain, Elisa Sánchez Loriga adopts a male identity in order to marry another woman, Marcela Gracia Ibeas. Based on true events.
The Last Summer
The summer after they graduate from high school, a group of teens navigate friendship, romance and family relationships before heading off to college.
If I Hadn't Met You
Eduard, a husband and father who loses his family in a tragic accident, travels to parallel universes to seek a better fate for his beloved wife.
Hit and Run
In this political espionage thriller series, a man's life is turned upside down when his wife is killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident.
Sweet Magnolias
Maddie Townsend has a lot on her plate -- including three kids, a cheating husband and one unlikely suitor who has everyone in town talking.
Messiah
When a man in the Middle East appears to be performing miracles, a rift breaks out over whether he's the Messiah or a fraud in this suspenseful drama.The role of food in our daily lives extends beyond its vital function of sustenance. Its variety of tastes, shapes, and colours are central and even symbolic in numerous social gatherings. Memories of specific life events may be associated with a particular dish. Food itself may also conjure a multitude of emotions, ranging from pure joy to intense disgust. The delightful Japanese ‘ramen western’ directed by Juzo Itami entitled “Tampopo” explores the breadth of sensations and feelings associated with delicious dishes. This is accomplished through clever and diverse vignettes, as well as a central story of hope and determination.
Tampopo (Nobulo Miyamoto) is a widowed single mother trying desperately to continue operating her failing ramen noodle shop, “Lai Lai”. A chance encounter with truck drivers Goro (Tsutomo Yamazaki) and Gun (Ken Watanabe) encourages Tampopo to begin a quest for developing and perfecting her ramen recipes. We lovingly watch Tampopo blossom into a supreme ramen queen with the help of self-pronounced ramen experts, occasionally and amusingly tricking fellow competitors into divulging their own secrets! Over the top parodies of westerns and humorous sketches with cuisine as the central player are interspersed throughout the film. Every story told conveys different sentiments experienced with various foods present, including anticipation, elation, fulfillment, nostalgia, frustration, erotica, envy, tranquility, and appreciation.
Tampopo translates in English to the word “Dandelion”. This particular flower has had many uses over the course of history varying from weed to herbal remedy. The range of functions of this plant mirrors the endearing central character’s journey of self-discovery and growing confidence. Blood, sweat, and tears pour into every bowl of ramen subsequent to her decision to improve her craft. Her perseverance and diligence are qualities in which we all strive to emulate in our lives. Passion behind various work or home projects further stimulates us to ensure a high quality outcome. Thus, the achievement of that goal can be extremely rewarding, both or either personally or financially rewarding. As a treat, some would opt to eat delicious ramen to celebrate the fruits of their labour!
I do not own the above image.
Advertisementsmodel_path = '../caffe/models/googlenet_places205/' # path to your neural network model. feel free to download other # models and play with them from the model zoo at caffe. net_fn = model_path + 'deploy_places205.protxt' # specifies the neural network's layers and their arrangement # we load this and patch it to add the force backward below param_fn = model_path + 'googlelet_places205_train_iter_2400000.caffemodel' # Patching model to be able to compute gradients. # Note that you can also manually add "force_backward: true" line to "deploy.prototxt". # In other words, we've included text_format from google.protobuf above just so that we can # add this single line to the file. If you manually add the line to the prototxt, (or in this # case, the misspelled protxt included in MIT's set, you'll be able to get rid of the dependency # on protobuf. model = caffe. io. caffe_pb2. NetParameter () # Load the empty protobuf model, text_format. Merge ( open ( net_fn ). read (), model ) # Load the prototxt and load it into empty model model. force_backward = True # Add the force_backward: true line open ( 'tmp.prototxt', 'w' ). write ( str ( model )) # Save it to a new file called tmp.prototxt net = caffe. Classifier ( 'tmp.prototxt', param_fn, # Load the neural network. Using the prototxt from above mean = np. float32 ([ 104.0, 116.0, 122.0 ]), # ImageNet mean, training set dependent channel_swap = ( 2, 1, 0 )) # the reference model has channels in BGR order instead of RGB # The above code loads up our neural network, but there a few interesting things to note. # -> param_fn - our trained neural network blob # -> mean - the RGB average of our images. we will later subtract and then add this back to our model. # interesting changes can be made by changing these numbers, and for the places dataset, the # numbers above are actually wrong. I couldn't find the proper mean for it. # -> channel_swap - different order of values, with Blue, Green and Red as the matrix order. switches it # to Red, Green, Blue # a couple of utility functions for converting to and from Caffe's input image layout def preprocess ( net, img ): return np. float32 ( np. rollaxis ( img, 2 )[:: - 1 ]) - net. transformer. mean [ 'data' ] # Now this function above is a doozie. Don't let its shortness deceive you, it's doing a lot. # net.transformer.mean['data'] is our image mean we discussed above. it's being subtracted from # np.float32(np.rollaxis(img, 2)[::-1]). This function warrants a discussion about numpy. I'll # dive deeper into it below. def deprocess ( net, img ): return np. dstack (( img + net. transformer. mean [ 'data' ])[:: - 1 ]) # This function does the reverse of preprocess, and I'll go over how it works below too. But # both these functions warrant talking about how they work. def preprocesswithoutmean ( img ): return np. float32 ( np. rollaxis ( img, 2 )[:: - 1 ]) def deprocesswithoutmean ( img ): return np. dstack ( img [:: - 1 ])Feminist News
All | National News | Global News
July-21-10
Lesbian Teen Banned From Prom to Receive Settlement
Itawamba County school district in Mississippi agreed yesterday to pay student Constance McMillen over $35,000 in damages as a result of her lawsuit against the school district's anti-gay policies. The agreement also requires the school district to adopt a non-discrimination policy that includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. McMillen, a lesbian teen who was banned from taking her girlfriend and wearing a tuxedo to prom, sued the school earlier this year. In March, a US District Court judge ruled that the school board infringed upon McMillen's First Amendment rights.
In February, after McMillen requested that her school lift the ban on same-sex couples attending prom, a memorandum was sent to all students, stating all prom dates must be of the opposite sex. McMillen's school eventually cancelled the prom based on the "the education, safety and well-being of [its] students," according to CNN after the American Civil Liberties Union became involved. In April, McMillen was invited to a decoy prom, in order to prevent her from attending a separate prom parents had organized. According to McMillen, "They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them. The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn't invited to," reported the Advocate.
Following the settlement, McMillen said, "I'm so glad this is all over. I won't ever get my prom back, but it's worth it if it changes things at my school," according to an American Civil Liberties Union Press Release.
Christine Sun, McMillen's attorney and senior counsel with the ACLU's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender project said, "We're in a conservative area of the country, where people tend to think we can do what we like. This case sends a strong message that that's not going to fly anymore," reported CNN.
Media Resources: CNN 7/20/10; Feminist Daily Newswire 3/24/10; Advocate 4/5/10; ACLU Press Release 7/20/10Diasporian News of Tuesday, 14 October 2014
Source: Agbeko, Edmund
Ebola Watch: Don’t Cash In On Plague – African Pastors Told!
Just like the popular saying goes, “A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.” It is in this light that residents in notable African communities in Canada have advised Christian pastors who claim to have the cure for Ebola to call a halt to these outrageous and thoughtless claims, reports visiting Ghanaian journalist, Edmund Agbeko.
As Canada is spending millions of dollars to fight the spread of Ebola in 3 countries in West Africa, especially with Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose announcing border agents will start using targeted temperature screens in their effort to prevent people with Ebola from entering Canada, some men of the Gospel in these Ebola infected areas in these countries are claiming to have cure for the disease.
Recently, Prophet TB Joshua, one of Nigeria’s most controversial and richest preachers according to Forbes, recently announced that he sent more than 4,000 bottles of his powerful anointing water, which users claim has worked many miracles, to help victims of the deadly Ebola virus in Sierra Leone, Liberia.
CONCERNS:
Daniel Agyemang, a Christian Ghanaian resident in Toronto said: “I am a Christian and I do believe in miracles but I will urge them [pastors] to tread carefully on this Ebola pestilence. It seems nowadays; every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to make quick money and sees pastoring as a great avenue to get to the top.” “We have seen many fake pastors claiming to be men of God and it hurts to read all sort of awful stories about them. Can you imagine a man of God in South Africa recently, asking his congregation to eat grass, drink petrol and to eat toxic flowers?” a visibly angry Daniel asked.
Tony Obi, a Nigerian resident in Brampton praised the Nigerian health authorities for calling Prophet TB Joshua to order on his claims to have a cure for Ebola. He said: “I must commend the Nigerian authorities for asking T.B Joshua not to invite Ebola patients to the country [Nigeria] for spiritual healing. If he [T.B Joshua] claims to have the cure, can`t he simply fly to these infected areas and cure them? It’s unbelievable to hear such stories from our homeland and we pray the Nigeria authorities will be at the best in the fight against Ebola. These so called men of God just want to make money from the vulnerable in the society. ”
FACTS
As the deadly Ebola epidemic continues to wreck havoc on 3 West African countries, Canada is deeply concerned by the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in a few West Africa, which risks undermining the foundations for economic prosperity, security and social stability in these countries. The Government of Canada has therefore taken a number of actions to date to help bring the outbreak under control.
These include financial contributions in support of humanitarian assistance by international and Canadian organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), Médecins Sans Frontières and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Story by Edmund Agbeko [ [email protected]] with additional information from the African Press OrganizationBy BEN NEARY, Associated Press
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Western environmental groups say they're alarmed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering a plan to end federal protections for gray wolves in vast areas where the animals no longer exist.
The groups say ending federal protections would keep wolves from expanding their range back into states that could support them, including Colorado and California.
"As a matter of principle, I just think it's wrong," said Jay Tutchton, a Colorado lawyer with the group WildEarth Guardians.
Tutchton's group has sued over recent action to end federal protections for wolves in Wyoming. Wolves in most of the "Cowboy State" are classified as unprotected predators and scores have been killed since federal protections ended last fall.
"The Endangered Species Act was designed to protect species, including in places where they no longer reside," Tutchton said. "You were supposed to try to recover them, not throw in the towel."
The Fish and Wildlife Service could announce as soon as this spring whether it will propose a blanket delisting of wolves in most of the lower 48 states. Wolves in the Northern Rockies and around the Great Lakes, where reintroduced populations are well-established, are already off the Endangered Species List.
Chris Tollefson, spokesman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, DC, said Tuesday that the agency hasn't made any decision yet whether it will propose the blanket delisting. An agency report last year proposed dropping wolves from the endangered list in most areas where they're known not to live.
Even if the Fish and Wildlife Service ends federal protections, Tollefson said states would be free to cultivate their own wolf populations. "It's fair to say that there wouldn't be a prohibition, it would simply be left to the states to determine how to manage wolves in their boundaries," he said.
Tollefson said his agency regards the wolf recovery efforts in the Great Lakes states and Northern Rockies as enormous successes.
"Our view, and that of the biological community is that those populations are thriving and no longer require the protections of the Endangered Species Act," Tollefson said. "Obviously, we'll be discussing other areas as we move forward on that."
The prospect of the national delisting has prompted members of Congress on both sides of the issue to lobby the Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe.
Seventy-two members of Congress, most of them Republicans, signed the most recent letter to Ashe on Friday urging him to go through with the delisting. Another group of scores of congressmen wrote to Ashe earlier this month urging him to reject the delisting idea.
"Unmanaged wolves are devastating to livestock and indigenous wildlife," the members of Congress, led by Rep. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and others, wrote to Ashe last week. "Currently state wildlife officials have their hands tied any time wolves are involved."
Lummis said Tuesday that the letter was intended to celebrate the successful recovery of wolves.
"I know some will wring their hands over a delisting, but for the life of me I don't understand why they don't throw a party instead," Lummis stated. "In most suitable habitat, and in states that strongly objected to their presence initially, the wolf is here to stay. For some that is a bitter pill to swallow, for others it's not enough, but the bottom line is there are wolves where there once were none, and everyone but the most litigious among us seem ready to move on."
Bob Brister, wildlife campaign coordinator for the Utah Environmental Congress in Salt Lake City, has been campaigning to restore wolves to Utah, where he said they were extirpated in the 1930s.
Brister said the effect of delisting wolves in Utah and elsewhere where they currently don't exist would be to preclude their ultimate recovery back into their historic range. He noted that wolves are hunted heavily in the Wyoming, Utah and Montana and that states can't be counted on to provide the protections new populations would need to survive.
"It's especially dire here in Utah, because we depend on wolves migrating from Wyoming and Idaho to restore wolves here in Utah," Brister said. "And when they're being hunted so intensely in Wyoming and Idaho, it greatly decreases the possibility of wolves migrating into Utah."
Erik Molvar executive director of the Bioldiversity Conservation Alliance in Laramie, Wyo., also noted that Wyoming, Idaho and Montana allow substantial wolf hunting. He said delisting wolves across the rest of the Lower 48, "would seem to be a very unwise move, given the tenuous status of wolf populations in this area."
Molvar, whose group also is challenging the recent delisting of wolves in Wyoming, said it's clear there are other areas of the West that could support wolf populations.
"It certainly is true that there are places in Colorado, particularly Rocky Mountain National Park, where elk are so overpopulated that they're becoming a nuisance, that wolves are one of the few options to restore the natural balance," Molvar said.
Tutchton said his group and others are likely to fight the sweeping delisting effort.
"I'm very sure that if wolves were delisted in Colorado, we would want to sue. If wolves get delisted in Oklahoma, I don't know. That might be a different question," Tutchton said. "There are some places where wolves would be quite viable."Everyone knows that Red Hat Enterprise Linux is not exactly the trend setter when it comes to adopting the latest packages. The operating system has always operated under the assumption that old means stable, but that is not true anymore. It's possible that RHEL 7.2 will switch to the latest GNOME 3.14 version.
If you've ever opened an RHEL desktop, you might have noticed that it looks like something from the previous decade and you would be right. This was done on purpose in order to accommodate the existing users who are apparently allergic to change. That's about to be fixed and it's unclear how the community will react.
It's a well-known fact that GNOME is implemented by default in Fedora and this distribution is used as a playground for Red Hat OSes. The problem is that new features made available in Fedora usually end up in the RHEL edition after a long time, maybe after they have proven their stability. In any case, the same is true for the desktop environment, which until not so long ago was still featuring the old GNOME 2. It's needless to say just how old that is.
RHEL, welcome to the future
One |
40-ounce bottle of malt liquor, consumed to the top of the label and then re-filled with orange juice, or simply a cocktail made with rum, vodka, and orange juice. Either way, “double R foots the bill most definitely”—that’d be Rick Rubin.
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Brim (“Root Down,” Ill Communication)
A brand of decaffeinated instant coffee, Brim’s ads frequently included the line “Fill it to the rim… with Brim” (hence the “Root Down” line “I’ll fill you to the fuckin’ rim like Brim”).
Captain Bligh, Col. Sanders, Davy Jones’ locker (“Rhymin’ And Stealin’,” Licensed To Ill)
The Beasties trip through maritime history without a compass here: Captain Bligh survived the mutiny on the HMS Bounty; Colonel Sanders made chicken with 11 herbs and spices; Davy Jones’ locker is the bottom of the sea—where dead sailors dwell.
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Carew, Rod (“Sure Shot,” Ill Communiation)
A Hall Of Fame second baseman, Carew’s career stretched from 1967 to 1985 and included long stints with the Minnesota Twins and the California Angels. (Both teams retired his number.)
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“’Cause I’m Pete The Puma, Minnie The Moocher, got every type of flavor that will suit you.” (“Finger Lickin’ Good,” Check Your Head)
Pete The Puma (or simply Pete Puma) is an obscure character from the Looney Tunes universe, known for his mischievous nature and diabolical laugh. “Minnie The Moocher” was a million-selling hit from 1931 by Cab Calloway, who later re-recorded the song for a Betty Boop cartoon.
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Cerrone (“Triple Trouble,” To The 5 Boroughs)
French disco innovator Jean-Marc Cerrone, whose “Love In C Minor” was a major hit in the mid-’70s. He’s also generally credited with being the first person to put the kick drum in the forefront of dance music.
“Chachi and Joanie” (“Get It Together,” Ill Communication)
Teen sweethearts played by Scott Baio and Erin Moran on Happy Days and its short-lived spin-off Joanie Loves Chachi.
Chateauneuf du Pape (“Body Movin’,” Hello Nasty)
A red wine from France’s Rhône valley that Food And Wine says offers “immediate gratification both intellectual and hedonistic in nature,” much like the Beasties when they start to rap.
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Chauncey the Gardener (“Shazam!”, To The 5 Boroughs)
Peter Sellers’ simple-minded character in 1979’s Being There.
Cone of Silence (“We Got The,” To The 5 Boroughs)
A recurring gag on the ’60s TV show Get Smart (and updated in 2008 for the little-loved Steve Carell film): a big plastic tube covers two people’s heads, ostensibly to prevent their conversation from being heard by others.
Cornelius, Don (“Flute Loop,” Ill Communication)
Velvet-voiced creator and star of the syndicated music program Soul Train.
Miss Crabtree/Spanky (“3-Minute Rule,” Paul’s Boutique)
Miss Crabtree was the beautiful young schoolteacher who bewitched the “little rascals” in Hal Roach’s Our Gang shorts, while Spanky was one of the latter-day Rascals. Since the characters never appeared together, it’s highly unlikely that Spanky ever “got over on” Miss Crabtree.
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Crazy Eddie (“Shazam!,” To The 5 Boroughs)
A regional electronics retailer located in the Northeast, Crazy Eddie drew attention in the ’70s thanks to its obnoxious radio and TV commercials featuring the eponymous “Crazy Eddie” (really a local radio DJ named Jerry Carroll) howling that the store’s prices were innnnnsssaaaaannnnneee. Turns out the chain’s billing practices were, too: The company was famously investigated by the SEC in the mid-’80s and eventually went out of business (though the name lives on). Hence Mike D “putting MCs out of business like they Crazy Eddie.”
Cruex (“3 The Hard Way,” To The 5 Boroughs)
An anti-fungal spray/powder used to treat jock itch.
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Dechen (“The Grasshopper Unit (Keep Movin’),” Hello Nasty)
Dechen Wangdu, MCA’s wife. This one goes out to her.
Dee, Kool Moe (“Root Down,” Ill Communication)
See “Harlem World”
Defender, (“Body Movin’,” Hello Nasty)
A 1980 arcade game that featured a “hyperspace” button that would teleport you to a different—and potentially more dangerous—location. The Defender manual warns to use hyperspace “only when you have no other alternative,” a risk-taking attitude Ad-Rock apparently identifies with when he says, “And if you play Defender I can be your hyperspace”
Diallo, Amadou (“We Got The,” To The 5 Boroughs)
The 23-year-old immigrant infamously gunned down by four NYPD officers—who fired a staggering 41 rounds—in February of 1999. All four were later acquitted of wrongdoing.
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D.F.L. (“B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak,” Ill Communication)
Also known as Dead Fucking Last, D.F.L. released an EP on the Beasties’ Grand Royal label with Adam Horovitz playing bass. (Vocalist Tom Davis is the brother of Tamra Davis, wife of Mike D.) The group later released a pair of albums for Epitaph before splitting.
Diller, Phyllis (“Time To Get Ill,” Licensed To Ill)
A thespian and comedian even older than Abe Vigoda, there is also no reason to think that Phyllis Diller knows how to rhyme.
Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (“High Plains Drifter,” Paul’s Boutique)
Susan George and Peter Fonda played the title characters in Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, one of the quintessential existential ’70s car-chase movies, with Fonda as a stock-car-racer-turned-robber and George as his clingy one-night-stand.
DJ Chuck Chillout (“Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun,” Paul’s Boutique)
During the early-’80s heyday of old-school hip-hop, Charles Turner (a.k.a. Chuck Chillout) worked as a DJ at New York’s 98.7 KISS-FM, and later teamed with rapper Kool Chip for the album Masters Of The Rhythm.
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Dolemite (“Egg Man” and “B-Boy Bouillabaisse” Paul’s Boutique)
Through multiple references and quotes, the Beastie Boys helped revive interest in the 1975 blaxploitation comedy Dolemite, starring comedian Rudy Ray Moore (who created the character of the outsized African-American hero in his stand-up act). Dolemite is cited directly in “Egg Man,” and the Dolemite character Joe Blow The Loverman is mentioned in the “Lay It On Me” segment of “B-Boy Bouillabaisse.”
Dorsey, Lee (“Sure Shot,” Ill Communiation)
A New Orleans-based soul and R&B star, Dorsey is best known for his hit “Working In The Coal Mine,” but the reference here draws on his 1969 single “Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On).”
Drakoulias, George (“Stop That Train” from “B-Boy Bouillabaisse,” Paul’s Boutique)
Def Jam A&R man George Drakoulias helped discover the Beastie Boys for Rick Rubin, and later became a producer for Rubin’s American Recordings, working on albums by The Black Crowes, The Jayhawks, and Tom Petty. There’s no record of him ever working at an Orange Julius.
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The Dungeon (“The Move” and “Putting Shame In Your Game,” Hello Nasty)
The New York City-based studio where Beastie Boys recorded the majority of Hello Nasty.
E.F. Hutton (“Rhyme The Rhyme Well,” To The 5 Boroughs)
Another bastion of the TV landscape in the ’80s, commercials for stock-brokerage firm E.F. Hutton had the tagline, “When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.” Any time someone said the company’s name, everyone froze and listened attentively. Right after Ad-Rock says, “Shhh you heard me like I’m E.F. Hutton,” the track drops out for a second. (An endless number of acquisitions and mergers later, the company is now part of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney—we think.)
“Ernest Shackleton, Orde-Lees, pemmican” (“Oh Word?,” To The 5 Boroughs)
MCA gets all historic in this couplet, mentioning famous Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, one of his crew members, Thomas Orde-Lees, and a food made from fat and meat. In 1914, Shackleton led the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, which later became trapped in ice and was forced to live in the elements. Miraculously, all of his crew survived until they were rescued in 1916. Conditions at one point forced the castaways to eat their dogs, hence MCA’s line “I’ll have dog pemmican with my tea.”
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Evans, J.J. (“B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak,” Ill Communication)
See “Walker, Jimmy”
Fad, JJ (“Too Many Rappers,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
JJ Fad was an old-school ’80s girl group in the Salt-N-Pepa mold that scored a big hit with the Dr. Dre-produced smash “Supersonic.” It was one of the only female acts signed to Eazy-E’s Ruthless Records.
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Fresh, Doug E. (“Sure Shot,” Ill Communiation)
An influential early beatboxer, Fresh can be heard on such hip-hop classics as “The Show” and “La Di Da Di,” both released by Doug E. Fresh & The Get Fresh Crew.
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Fruit Stripe gum (“Lay It On Me” from “B-Boy Bouillabaisse,” Paul’s Boutique)
Originally produced by the Beech-Nut company, Fruit Stripe Gum’s slogan “Yipes! Stripes!” has outlasted the brand’s multiple sales to other companies. The Beasties claim to have “more flavor” than Fruit Stripe, which isn’t much of a boast, since Fruit Stripe gum is notoriously weak.
Mr. Furley (“Oh Word?,” To The 5 Boroughs)
The second disapproving landlord—played by Don Knotts—on Three’s Company, who wouldn’t allow mixed-gender cohabitation in one of his apartments, forcing star John Ritter to pretend to be gay so he could live with roommates Joyce DeWitt and Suzanne Somers. He succeeded Mr. Roper. (See also “Mr. Roper.”)
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Gnip Gnop (“3 The Hard Way,” To The 5 Boroughs)
A small-scale cousin of Ping Pong—read the name again—made by Parker Brothers in the early ’70s, Gnip Gnop placed two opposing players in a game of button-mashing. Each side had three buttons, which launched six Ping Pong balls through three holes in a divider separating the sides. The first person to get all six balls on the opponent’s side wins. It was reissued in recent years by Fundex: “Ball Flying Button Smashing Action!”
Goetz, Bernie (“Stop That Train” from “B-Boy Bouillabaisse,” Paul’s Boutique)
In December of 1984, New York electrical engineer Bernhard Goetz was hassled on a subway train by four black youths who were either panhandling or engaging in a mugging (depending on who’s telling the story). Goetz shot and wounded all four with an unlicensed revolver, earning him the nickname “The Subway Vigilante” and touching off a national debate on crime, race, and gun ownership.
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Goldstein, Al (“Flute Loop,” Ill Communication)
Publisher of the pornographic magazine Screw and host of the sex-themed public-access show Midnight Blue, which ran on New York’s Channel J from 1974 until 2003, when Goldstein declared bankruptcy.
The Gong Show (“Slow And Low, Licensed To Ill)
The Gong Show was a talent show that ran in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Terrible acts would be “gonged” by celebrity judges. The Beasties posit that, had they appeared on the show, they would not have been gonged.
“Gonna break it down to the nitty grit, I’m gonna tell you motherfuckers why you ain't shit" (“Live At P.J.’s,” Check Your Head)
This lyric is similar to an extemporaneous rhyme by Kool Moe Dee during one of the first rap battles with Busy Bee: “We gonna get right down to the nitty grit, gonna tell you a little something why you ain't shit.” (See also“Starski, Busy Bee”)
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Grand Royal (“Get It Together,” Ill Communication)
A record label, and later a magazine, headed by the Beastie Boys. The label lasted from 1992 through 2001 and released albums by Atari Teenage Riot, Sean Lennon, Luscious Jackson, At The Drive-In, and others.
Grandmaster Caz (“Long Burn The Fire,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
Also known as DJ Casanova Fly, Grandmaster Caz is a member of the Old School rap group Cold Crush Brothers. Though never credited, he contributed rhymes to the Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight.”
Grape Ape, (“Flute Loop,” Ill Communication)
A mammoth, purple cartoon gorilla featured in the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Great Grape Ape Show. Grape Ape later participated in Laff-A-Lympics as a member of the Yogi Yahooies team.
Groove Merchant (“Professor Booty,” Check Your Head)
A San Francisco record store specializing in rare funk, soul, jazz, disco, and any other record you can dance to and probably can’t find elsewhere, Groove Merchant Records is indeed an ideal place to find fresh beats.
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HAL 9000 (“The Grasshopper Unit (Keep Movin’),” Hello Nasty)
The sentient on-board computer of the Discovery One in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Over the course of the movie, HAL begins to malfunction in increasingly dangerous and suspicious ways, proving that you should, as the Beasties warn, “never trust a HAL 9000.”
Harary, Franz (“Pop Your Balloon,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
Franz Harary is an American magician best known for making the space shuttle disappear on the television program The World’s Greatest Magic.
Harlem World (“Root Down,” Ill Communication)
An early-’80s MC showcase, Harlem World became home to some of the most famous rap battles of the old-school era (including a still-remembered put-down of Busy Bee Starski by Kool Moe Dee, referenced in the same line).
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Harris, Eddie (“So What’cha Want,” Check Your Head)
Harris is a jazz saxophone great, and 1968’s Plug Me In, referenced in the song, came in the midst of one of his most creative periods.
Haze, Eric (“Egg Man,” Paul’s Boutique)
One of the pioneering graffiti artists, Eric Haze was later responsible for the “tag”-style lettering on the cover of the Beasties’ Check Your Head.
Dr. Hfuhruhurr (“Stop That Train” from “B-Boy Bouillabaisse,” Paul’s Boutique)
Steve Martin played the trickily named mad scientist Dr. Hfuhruhurr in the 1983 spoof The Man With Two Brains. In one scene, Hfuhruhurr is pulled over by the Austrian police and asked to complete the most complicated drunk-driving test in the world.
Holmes, John (“Get It Together,” Ill Communication)
The most famous male porn star of the ’70s and ’80s, Holmes was famed for the size of his penis, but he also had off-screen troubles that included drug addiction and a connection to violent crime. Holmes died of AIDS-related illnesses in 1988.
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Holmes, Richard “Groove” (“Groove Holmes,” Check Your Head)
This organ-centered instrumental references Holmes, a jazz organist who recorded many songs that sound like “Groove Holmes.”
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Hörnblowér’s lederhosen (“The Grasshopper Unit (Keep Movin’),” Hello Nasty)
MCA alter-ego Nathanial Hörnblowér, a Teutonic persona Adam Yauch has adopted for various Beastie-related directing projects. MCA appeared—in lederhosen—as Hörnblowér at the 1994 VMAs, storming the stage during R.E.M.’s acceptance speech; more recently, David Cross played the character in one of the DVD extras for the 2006 Hörnblowér-directed Beastie Boys concert film Awesome! I Fuckin’ Shot That!
Howell, Lovey And Thurston (“The Grasshopper Unit (Keep Movin’),” Hello Nasty)
“The millionaire and his wife” from Gilligan’s Island, here equated with Alex and Marilyn Grasshoff. (See also “Alex and Marilyn”)
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Huggy Bear, (“Do It,” Ill Communication)
Character played by Antonio Fargas in the TV series Starsky And Hutch. Huggy had underworld connections, but frequently aided the eponymous police detectives.
“Hurdy Gurdy Man” (“Car Thief,” Paul’s Boutique)
Donovan Leitch’s 1968 hit single “Hurdy Gurdy Man” became a touchstone for psychedelia, despite being creepy as fuck.
Hyman, Dick (“Root Down,” Ill Communication)
Jazz pianist Dick Hyman’s long career includes work on several Woody Allen films. The line “electric like Dick Hyman” references his electronic recordings, which include albums such as Moog: The Electric Eclectics Of Dick Hyman, whose “The Moog And Me” was sampled prominently on the Beck song “Sissyneck.”
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The Freak, The Patty Duke, and the Spank (“Finger Lickin’ Good,” Check Your Head)
Three dances that were popular in New York’s disco and nascent hip-hop scenes in the ’70s.
“I’m like Clyde, and I’m rockin’ steady” (“Pass The Mic,” Check Your Head)
Walt “Clyde” Frazier is one of the best, most iconic players in the history of the New York Knicks, leading the team to its only championships in 1970 and ’73. This lyric nods to Frazier’s book, Rockin’ Steady, originally released in 1974.
“I’m Mike D. and I’m back from the dead” (“Shake Your Rump,” Paul’s Boutique)
Tales of the Beasties’ debauchery on the Licensed To Ill tour filtered down from the rock press to the fan-gossip circuit, where they were frequently distorted and rendered apocryphal. One popular rumor passed around during the Beasties’ layoff between albums was that B-Boy Michael Diamond had died (for reasons that changed depended on who was telling the story). In the days before the Internet, that particular rumor had enough legs that Mike D. could joke about it in a song.
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Ian and Little Zoe (“Unite,” Hello Nasty)
Ian C. Rogers, a web designer who took over the Beasties’ official site in 1995 and was involved with the unreleased CD-ROM Don’t Mosh In The Ramen Shop. In 1998, he ran into trouble with Capitol for posting high-quality MP3s from the Hello Nasty tour, one of the first instances of making downloadable music available on websites. He went on to work for Yahoo! Music and Topspin, and regularly speaks on the future of digital music. Zoe is his daughter.
Inspector Clouseau and Derek Flint (“The Grasshopper Unit (Keep Movin’),” Hello Nasty)
The bumbling detective from The Pink Panther and a James Bond parody played by James Coburn in the 1966 film Our Man Flint, respectively, both encountered here—along with “three fools,” presumably The Three Stooges—on a malfunctioning TV set.
Jacoby & Myers (“Shadrach,” Paul’s Boutique)
If you’ve got a lawsuit to file and $25 bucks in your pocket—and it’s the mid-’80s—feel free to pop into the law offices of Jacoby & Meyers for a consultation.
James At 15 (“Hey Ladies,” Paul’s Boutique)
First a TV movie, and then a critically acclaimed teen drama, James At 15 ran for only one season on NBC in 1977 and 1978, ending in part over conflicts between the show’s producers and the network, the latter of whom were uncomfortable with the frankness of an episode in which James loses his virginity.
JC (“3 The Hard Way,” To The 5 Boroughs)
Beasties manager John Cutcliffe of Silva Artist Management, presented here as an enforcer who will “send you out a FedEx,” presumably a threatening letter.
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Dr. John (“Sure Shot,” Ill Communication)
Stage name of Mac Rebennack, a New Orleans-born singer and songwriter who’s freely mixed styles throughout his career. (The subsequent reference to “ZuZu Man” refers to one of his songs.)
Kenny Rogers Roasters (“Long Burn The Fire,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
A now largely defunct chain of chicken restaurants founded by country singer Kenny Rogers. It was not known to cause any more illnesses than other fast food chains, despite the best attempts of Kramer to convince New York otherwise in an episode of Seinfeld.
“Kick Out The Jams” (“Alright Hear This,” Ill Communication)
Title track from the 1969 debut album of MC5, the Detroit band whose short career would have a major influence on the formation of punk.
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Kojak (“Sure Shot,” Ill Communiation)
A crime drama starring Telly Savalas, Kojak ran for five seasons in the ’70s and was instantly recognizable thanks to its star’s signature bald dome, ever-present lollipop, and “Who loves you, baby?” catchphrase. (It was later revived as a series of Savalas-starring TV movies and for a one-season remake starring Ving Rhames.)
K-Rob and Rammellzee (“B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak,” Ill Communication)
Hip-hop team responsible for “Beat Bop,” a rare hip-hop single that began as a feud between Rammellzee and artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and supplied the theme for the influential 1983 documentary Style Wars.
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Krush Groove (“Body Movin’,” Hello Nasty)
A 1985 film dramatizing the early days of Def Jam, starring Blair Underwood as the Russell Simmons-like founder of Def Jam analogue Krush Groove. The Beastie Boys were one of many then-Def Jam artists to appear as themselves in the film.
Kugel (“Hey Fuck You,” To The 5 Boroughs)
A type of Jewish casserole made with egg noodles.
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Laimbeer, Bill (“Tough Guy,” Ill Communiation)
An NBA great who played primarily for the Detroit Pistons, Laimbeer retired a year before Ill Communication’s release. He also played one of the Sleestaks in Land Of The Lost and later coached the WNBA team Detroit Shock.
Lateef, Yusef (“Alright Hear This,” Ill Communication)
Jazz saxophonist and flutist whose career has frequently incorporated sounds from Indian, Middle Eastern, and East Asian music, as heard on album such as 1961’s Eastern Sounds.
LeVert (“Right Right Now Now,” To The 5 Boroughs)
A purveyor of sexy slow jams throughout the ’80s, LeVert was an R&B trio featuring Gerald Levert and his brother Sean, sons of O’Jays founder Eddie Levert.
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“Leggo my Eggo” (“Make Some Noise,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
Slogan used in a surprisingly confrontational, long-running ad campaign for Eggo, a brand of toaster waffles from Kellogg’s.
LeSportsac (“Unite,” Hello Nasty)
A brand of backpacks and luggage. Ad Rock keeps his rhymes in one.
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Little Cindy Lou Who (“B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak,” Ill Communication)
A character from Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas.
Live At P.J.’s (“Live At P.J.’s,” Check Your Head)
This classic 1971 live album by Kool And The Gang gets an homage in the form of a live-sounding track that borrows the title.
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Ma Bell (“Sure Shot,” Ill Communiation)
AT&T earned its Ma Bell nickname thanks to the monopoly it held over the phone industry prior to its 1984 breakup.
“Maggie’s Farm” (“Johnny Ryall,” Paul’s Boutique)
One of the most bracing songs from Bob Dylan’s first “electric” period, “Maggie’s Farm” has been interpreted by some critics as Dylan flipping off the music business and/or the folk scene that nurtured him, which makes it a doubly clever reference for a song about what becomes of a defiant rockabilly star. (“Washing windows on the Bowery at a quarter to four / ’Cause he ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.”)
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Magilla Gorilla (“Hey Ladies,” Paul’s Boutique)
The title character of Hanna-Barbera’s ’60s cartoon favorite The Magilla Gorilla Show was a simian galoot who got sold to a different owner each episode before being returned, inevitably, to Peebles’ Pet Shop. The show also had a well-known theme song featuring the line, “Take our advice / At any price / A gorilla like Magilla is mighty nice.” (In a probably coincidental bit of Beasties cross-referencing, Magilla Gorilla was voiced by Allan Melvin, a.k.a. Sam the butcher on The Brady Bunch.)
Majors, Lee (“Lee Majors Come Again,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
Lee Majors was a major TV star and unlikely sex symbol in the ’70s thanks to his starring turn on The Six Million Dollar Man. These days he’s perhaps better known as the former Farah Fawcett-Majors’ ex-husband and as the living embodiment of hairy-chested ’70s manhood.
Markie, Biz (“Tough Guy,” Ill Communiation)
One of several references to beatboxer and Beastie Boys pal Biz Markie.
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Mason, Anthony (“B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak,” Ill Communication)
A well-traveled NBA veteran, Mason also appeared in the Beastie Boys video “Root Down.”
McCann, Les (“Alright Hear This,” Ill Communication)
Jazz pianist who later crossed over into soul and R&B and scored a hit in 1969 with “Compared To What.”
McCoy, Bones (“The Brouhaha,” To The 5 Boroughs)
Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, originally portrayed by DeForest Kelley in the original Star Trek series.
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McGill, Mike (“B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak,” Ill Communication)
Skateboarder who achieved fame for his innovative tricks in the ’80s. He also did stuntwork for the 1989 skate drama Gleaming The Cube.
The Meters (“Root Down,” Ill Communication)
A New Orleans band that helped define the city’s take on funk in the ’60s and ’70s. Its membership includes Art and Cyril Neville.
Modell’s (“3 The Hard Way,” To The 5 Boroughs)
A regional sporting goods chain in the northeast that started in Manhattan.
Mothership Connection (“3-Minute Rule,” Paul’s Boutique)
Parliament’s fourth album was a sci-fi/funk mash-up that influenced its wild stage show for years to come and provided two of the band’s biggest hits: “P. Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)” and “Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker).”
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Murray’s Cheese Shop (“Oh Word?,” To The 5 Boroughs)
New York’s oldest cheese shop, located in Greenwich Village.
Neve mic pre (“All Lifestyles” To The 5 Boroughs)
Microphone pre-amps—which boost the signal coming from a microphone—made by Rupert Neve Designs.
Nix Check Cashing (“High Plains Drifter,” Paul’s Boutique)
Looking for a payday loan? Don’t have a bank or an accountant to process your tax refund? Need to buy a bus pass? Live in Southern California? Visit your nearest Nix Check Cashing for all your financial needs.
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Norton, Ed (“Hold It Now, Hit It,” Licensed To Ill)
Young’ns might think this passing reference is to the 25th Hour actor, but it’s a nod to Jackie Gleason’s dopey neighbor on The Honeymooners, played by Art Carney. Are Ted Knight and Mr. Ed self-explanatory?
O.E. (“Hold It Now, Hit It,” “Time To Get Ill,” Licensed To Ill)
Whenever the Beasties were drinking in the early days, O.E. was clearly available—that’d be Olde English 800, likely delivered in a 40-ounce bottle. In “Hold It,” the Beasties suggested pairing the drink—malt liquor, 5.9-8 percent alcohol by volume—with Rice-A-Roni, the cheap boxed rice.
Oh, Sadaharu (“Hey Ladies,” Paul’s Boutique)
Sadaharu Oh played for the Yomiuri Giants from 1959 to 1980, amassing 2,786 hits, 868 of which were home runs—an international record for a professional career.
Orange Julius (“Stop That Train” from “B-Boy Bouillabaisse,” Paul’s Boutique)
A staple of American shopping mall food courts for decades, Orange Julius was founded in 1926 by Julius Freed, and began life as a stand selling a special orange drink that combined juice, milk, sugar, and vanilla. The restaurant has since expanded its product line to include smoothies, sandwiches, and hot dogs.
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Otis, Shuggie (“Too Many Rappers,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
Shuggie Otis is an eccentric singer, songwriter, and composer best known for penning “Strawberry Letter 23” for the Brothers Johnson. He enjoyed a comeback in the last decade but continues to maintain a low profile while remaining a cult hero to music obsessives like the Boys.
Otis the town drunk (“High Plains Drifter,” Paul’s Boutique)
Hal Smith had two main claims to fame in show business: he was an in-demand voice actor and he played The Andy Griffith Show’s lovable alcoholic Otis Campbell, who slept off many a bender in Mayberry’s town jail.
Pannenkoeken (“Super Disco Breakin’” Hello Nasty)
This large, thin pancake cooked in a pan instead of on a griddle is similar to a crêpe and a breakfast-food staple in Holland, which explains why Ad-Rock eats them there.
Perry, Lee “Scratch” (“Sure Shot,” Ill Communiation)
A Jamaican producer who formed the Upsetter label and operated out of a studio called Black Ark (which later burned down), Perry’s career stretches back to the ’50s. In the ’70s, he helped shape the sound of dub. (Perry would guest on the Beasties’ 1998 album Hello Nasty.)
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Popeil, Ron (“Crawlspace,” To The 5 Boroughs)
Inventor, founder of Ronco, infomercial pitchman, and, most famously, the likely originator of the phrase “But wait, there’s more!” The party going on in “Crawlspace” has more product than Popeil.
Powell, Ricky (“Car Thief,” Paul’s Boutique)
Photographer Ricky Powell documented the rise of Def Jam in the late ’80s and hosted the cable access talk show Rappin’ With The Rickster from 1990-96. You do not want your girl to get dicked by him.
Prince Jazzbo (“B-Boys Makin’ With The Freak Freak,” Ill Communication)
A Jamaican musician, producer, and DJ, Prince Jazzbo has collaborated with Lee Perry, Coxsone Dodd, and others.
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Purdie, Bernard “Pretty” (“Alright Hear This,” Ill Communication)
Respected session drummer who has toured and recorded with James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Steely Dan, Herbie Mann, Miles Davis, and many others in addition to releasing solo albums. He’s noted for his command of half-notes and for creating the much-imitated drum pattern known as the Purdie shuffle.
Putney Swope (“Shadrach,” Paul’s Boutique)
Underground filmmaker Robert Downey’s radical 1969 comedy Putney Swope stars Arnold Johnson as the token black man on an advertising company’s executive board, who becomes chairman through a voting snafu and decides to storm the mainstream media with radical honesty. To date there has been no sequel, despite the Beastie Boys’ promises.
Qix (“An Open Letter To NYC,” To The 5 Boroughs)
Qix debuted as an arcade game in 1981 but jumped to Atari 5200 platform a year later, which is likely what’s being referenced here. The game involved blocking off space inside a large rectangle without being caught by the unpredictable Qix (lines that bounce around inside the rectangle).
Rhoda (“All Lifestyles” To The 5 Boroughs)
Rhoda Morgenstern Gerard (Valerie Harper), the titular character of the Mary Tyler Moore spinoff Rhoda, which ran 1974-1978. As “All Lifestyles” mentions, Harper’s character lived in a New York high-rise.
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Rich, Buddy (“Sabotage,” Ill Communication)
Famed jazz drummer Buddy Rich’s career included stints with Artie Shaw, Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, Harry James, and others in addition to a long stint as a bandleader. Rich was also known for his short temper, as captured on a series of widely circulated audio recordings.
Riunite (“Right Right Now Now,” To The 5 Boroughs)
You couldn’t turn on television in the ’80s without seeing the cheesy commercials with a passé disco soundtrack for this bargain-priced Italian wine. We hear it’s nice on ice.
Rizzuto, Phil (“What Comes Around,” Paul’s Boutique)
Phil “The Scooter” Rizzuto played shortstop of the New York Yankees from 1941 to 1956, where he was famed for his slick fielding. He went on to become a well-loved Yankees broadcaster—known for his expression, “Holy cow!”—and a spokesman for The Money Store, an organization with plenty of louie.
“Roaches check in but they don’t check out” (“Make Some Noise,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
Slogan used by Black Flag’s Roach Motel brand of roach traps in the ’70s and ’80s.
Robotron: 2084 (“Sounds Of Science,” Paul’s Boutique)
One of a slew of multi-directional shooting games popular in video arcades in the ’80s, Robotron: 2084 is set in a dystopian future where humans wage war against marauding robot hordes. The game was notable for its hectic pace and colorful, pulsating graphics.
Mr. Roper (“3-Minute Rule,” Paul’s Boutique)
Norman Fell spent three years playing the dim, suspicious landlord Stanley Roper on the ’70s jiggle-com Three’s Company, and an additional two years on its spin-off The Ropers, where the working-class retiree clashed with his snooty neighbors.
Rose Royce (“Three MCs And One DJ,” Hello Nasty)
A soul and R&B band active in the late ’70s and early ’80s, best known for “Car Wash.” Its follow-up and second-biggest hit, “I Wanna Get Next To You,” doubles as a come-on from Mike D.
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“Runnin’ wild like rats in the Taco Bell” (“Long Burn The Fire,” Hot Sauce Committee Part Two)
This line most likely references a much-publicized 2007 incident in which rats more or less consumed control of a Manhattan combination KFC and Taco Bell.
Sabrett (“She’s Crafty,” Licensed To Ill)
A hot dog brand popular on New York street carts. They probably cost more than a dollar by now.
Sagan, Carl (“Hey Fuck You,” To The 5 Boroughs)
Renowned astronomer Carl Sagan had a sort of catchphrase with “billions and billions of stars,” attributed to his famous Cosmos series. MCA contributes his version of that when he says “I’ve got billions and billions of rhymes to flex,” then makes the allusion more direct by adding, “’Cause I’ve got more rhymes than Carl Sagan’s got turtlenecks.” A Google image search backs up MCA’s point about Sagan’s favorite type of shirt.
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Sam the butcher (“Shake Your Rump,” Paul’s Boutique)
Character actor Allan Melvin was a staple of TV sitcoms and commercials from the ’50s through the ’80s, but had his most enduring role on The Brady Bunch, playing a butcher named Sam who dated the Bradys’ maid, Alice (and, undoubtedly, brought her the meat). (See also “Magilla Gorilla”)
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Scilken, Dave / Shadi Rock (“Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun,” Paul’s Boutique / “The Move,” Hello Nasty)
Nicknamed Shadi Rock, Beastie Boys pal Dave Scilken went to high school with Adam Horovitz and sang alongside him in the hardcore band The Young And The Useless. He appeared in the video for “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)” (in which Adam Yauch spat beer in his face) and toured with the Beasties in the early days, serving as their “trim coordinator.” Scilken died of a drug overdose in 1991, reportedly prompting his friends to reconsider their own hard-partying ways. According to “The Move,” he’s waiting at the gates of heaven for the Boys.
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Scooby Snack (“Alright Hear This,” Ill Communication)
Snack of indeterminate origin frequently seen in Scooby Doo cartoons. Though ostensibly |
Yeah, we can do that. Best of all, it's all in the URL, so you can keep your settings.
I show you this at the start because we're going to have put in a little bit of work before we get to the cool parts, and I don't want you giving up part way through. So let's get started.
Abstract the Columns
The first bit of work we'll have to do is abstract the columns. Right now, you can see all 4 of them are hard-coded, both in the header and in the body, so let's move that array to our JavaScript. Here we have the available columns array, and it has important information like the title and the property, as well as the way we want it to be displayed. It's different for plain text versus a date because we'll want to do some processing on the date. Then we have columns, which right now is just an alias for available columns, but will be much more later on.
When we go to the template, we'll want to replace the headers and the body. Let's start with the header. We'll loop through each of the columns and set the title as the column title, and then the sort property as the column property. Then, selected sorts and is ascending will be the same as before. With that, we can delete the hard-coded ones. Let's check and make sure, and it is still displaying like before.
Now we'll pull the same trick with the data display, but it's going to be a little bit harder, as you can see, because all of these are much less homogeneous than the sortable headers are. We start off with our each loop, but then we have a little bit of a problem because we can't just do post.author, like we could down here, because each of these columns is going to have a different property they want to call, and that property is stored on column.property, but that won't work either because then post is going to look for a column property on itself.
ember-get-helper
Luckily, there's an ember add-on for this, ember-get-helper from Jane Murphy. I've already installed the add-on, so we can just use it here, get, and then the object, and then the key, the dynamic key. Let's go ahead and surround this by a TD, and then remove the previous things. When we check, we can see that it's working just like before, but the date isn't formatted quite like we would want, so let's go ahead and fix that.
We have our format date helper, however, we only want to apply it to dates. Luckily, we have our display property, so we can use that. We can check to see what the display property is, and display based on that, and we go back and we see that our dates are much more readable while still not processing the author and title as dates.
A Hint of Awesome
So far in this episode, we've dried up some code and made it a little bit easier to read, but we haven't really done anything powerful yet. Now let me show you how to add a column. That's all you have to do. It's that easy to add columns, whereas before, we would have had to add several rather long lines. It also paves the way for the amazing things we're going to be doing in the next episode, so join us in this week's Pro episode as we learn how to toggle columns at will, and then save that information in the URL. I'll see you soon.I thought it might be interesting to look back and see which Loading Artist comics were viewed the most this year, and then try to give a couple reasons as to why that may be.
Bear in mind these stats do not include any views on reposted versions like on Imgur or on other Facebook pages, etc.
Doing this from 5th to 1st to build that SUSPENSE…!
While I think this one is good enough to gather a lot of views on it’s own merits, I think it being the first ‘gag-a-day’ Loading Artist comic with the new website layout prompted more shares.
Also, I think that’s the best looking girl character I’ve drawn (not that it has anything to do with it (or does it..)).
I think the gag at the beginning is what makes this comic what it is. Also it’s about Bitcoin and that was a hot topic around that time.
FUN FACT: I have an actual ‘Donate Bitcoins’ button beneath that comic.
I’m really happy with the pacing in this one. I feel the overlapping speech bubbles at the end add a lot to the timing.
Also there is a cat.
This is one of my favourite comics I’ve drawn. I’d chalk it up to the combination of colourful visuals (though not too detailed) and length (though not too wordy) with the morbid twist.
‘Born Ready’ was interesting to me because it sparked a lot of ‘I don’t get it’ responses (compared to other ones), and yet it was also many people’s favourite comic in a while.
However I think the reason it is the #1 viewed Loading Artist comic this year is mainly because it was the comic that was up while I disappeared to America for two months.
So there you have it. I hope this was somewhat interesting for you, so it doesn’t just seem like I’m rambling about the greatness of my comics and what makes them so great.
I have one more blog post planned before the end of the year which goes over what happened with Loading Artist in 2014. Thanks for reading!
– GregorWith congressional leaders accustomed to seeing VIPs including world leaders and Hollywood celebrities at the Capitol, Wednesday's visitors drew a special declaration from House Speaker John Boehner:
"This is pretty cool."
Such was the case when space legends John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins were awarded Congressional Gold Medals, the nation's highest civilian honor.
" 'Hero' is an overused word, but I think that all who are assembled here today would not hesitate to describe our honorees as genuine national heroes," said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, top Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.
She said the astronauts have "continued to inspire young and old, even though their path-breaking missions occurred more than four decades ago."
"Walk up to virtually anyone on the street and they’ll be able to tell you the names of our first president, our current president, the first American to orbit the Earth, and the first Americans to land on the Moon," added Rep. Ralph Hall (R-Texas), chairman of the House committee that oversees the space program.
The Capitol Rotunda ceremony was attended by Democratic and Republican congressional leaders, NASA administrator Charles Bolden Jr., retired space shuttle astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Democrat who was shot in the head in an assassination attempt in Tucson in January, and five members of the most recent astronaut candidate class.
It was a bittersweet moment for supporters of the space program, coming as Congress takes up a spending bill that would cut NASA’s budget by $648 million.
“America urgently needs to reassert its pre-eminence in manned space flight," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, top Republican on the Senate committee that oversees the space program, said, alluding to the budget challenges.
In accepting the medal, Glenn, 90, reprised a closing line from a speech he delivered to Congress nearly 50 years ago after his flight in Friendship 7: "As our knowledge of the universe in which we live increases, may God grant us the wisdom and guidance to use it wisely."
Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon. Aldrin, pilot of the lunar module, was the second to step foot on the moon. Collins piloted Apollo 11’s command module. Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth.
Recipients of the Congressional Gold Medal include Wilbur and Orville Wright, Charles A. Lindbergh, Rosa Parks, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Walt Disney.
The presentation ceremony came more than two years after President Obama signed legislation to award the medals to the NASA legends. It was passed by Congress in 2009, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
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-- Richard Simon in Washington
Photo: Buzz Aldrin, right, and John Glenn, center, listen to House Speaker John Boehner, left, speak at a ceremony where the former astronauts would receive the Congressional Gold Medal on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Credit: Michael Reynolds / EPACondensed matter physics – the branch of physics responsible for discovering and describing most of these phases – has traditionally classified phases by the way their fundamental building blocks – usually atoms – are arranged. The key is something called symmetry.
To understand symmetry, imagine flying through liquid water in an impossibly tiny ship: the atoms would swirl randomly around you and every direction – whether up, down, or sideways – would be the same. The technical term for this is "symmetry" – and liquids are highly symmetric. Crystal ice, another phase of water, is less symmetric. If you flew through ice in the same way, you would see the straight rows of crystalline structures passing as regularly as the girders of an unfinished skyscraper. Certain angles would give you different views. Certain paths would be blocked, others wide open. Ice has many symmetries – every "floor" and every "room" would look the same, for instance – but physicists would say that the high symmetry of liquid water is broken.
Classifying the phases of matter by describing their symmetries and where and how those symmetries break is known as the Landau paradigm. More than simply a way of arranging the phases of matter into a chart, Landau’s theory is a powerful tool which both guides scientists in discovering new phases of matter and helps them grapple with the behaviours of the known phases. Physicists were so pleased with Landau’s theory that for a long time they believed that all phases of matter could be described by symmetries. That’s why it was such an eye-opening experience when they discovered a handful of phases that Landau couldn’t describe.
Beginning in the 1980s, condensed matter researchers, including Xiao-Gang Wen – now a faculty member at Perimeter Institute – investigated new quantum systems where numerous ground states existed with the same symmetry. Wen pointed out that those new states contain a new kind of order: topological order. Topological order is a quantum mechanical phenomenon: it is not related to the symmetry of the ground state, but instead to the global properties of the ground state’s wave function. Therefore, it transcends the Landau paradigm, which is based on classical physics concepts.
Topological order is a more general understanding of quantum phases and the transitions between them. In the new framework, the phases of matter were described not by the patterns of symmetry in the ground state, but by the patterns of a decidedly quantum property – entanglement. When two particles are entangled, certain measurements performed on one of them immediately affect the other, no matter how far apart the particles are. The patterns of such quantum effects, unlike the patterns of the atomic positions, could not be described by their symmetries. If you were to describe a city as a topologically ordered state from the cockpit of your impossibly tiny ship, you’d no longer be describing the girders and buildings of the crystals you passed, but rather invisible connections between them – rather like describing a city based on the information flow in its telephone system.
This more general description of matter developed by Wen and collaborators was powerful – but there were still a few phases that didn’t fit. Specifically, there were a set of short-range entangled phases that did not break the symmetry, the so-called symmetry-protected topological phases. Examples of symmetry-protected phases include some topological superconductors and topological insulators, which are of widespread immediate interest because they show promise for use in the coming first generation of quantum electronics. In the paper featured in today’s issue of Science, Wen and collaborators reveal a new system which can, at last, successfully classify these symmetry-protected phases. Using modern mathematics – specifically group cohomology theory and group super-cohomology theory – the researchers have constructed and classified the symmetry-protected phases in any number of dimensions and for any symmetries. Their new classification system will provide insight about these quantum phases of matter, which may in turn increase our ability to design states of matter for use in superconductors or quantum computers.
This paper is a revealing look at the intricate and fascinating world of quantum entanglement, and an important step toward a modern reclassification of all phases of matter.
Further Exploration
About Xiao-Gang Wen
Regarded as one of the world’s leading condensed matter theorists, Xiao-Gang Wen holds the BMO Financial Group Isaac Newton Chair at Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. The BMO/Newton Chair was established by a $4 million gift from the BMO Financial Group in 2010 and, in 2011, Wen joined Perimeter from MIT as its inaugural occupant. Read a lay-accessible overview of his research.KWS fishing from the docks
In this file photo, two boys spend some of their first day of spring break from school fishing at the Bear Lake channel from the docks at the Bear Lake Inn.
(KEN STEVENS)
Fed by Bear Creek, Bear Lake feeds into Muskegon Lake.
LAKETON TOWNSHIP, MI - A local group of citizens hope a new tax assessment could fund cleanup efforts at Bear Lake, linked to Muskegon Lake.
Laketon Township and the city of North Muskegon in recent weeks passed resolutions supporting the creation of a Bear Lake Improvement Board The new entity could hold a public hearing for a tax assessment on all 265 of property owners on the lake, according to Darrell Van Fossan, Chairman of the Bear Lake Property Owners Association.
"Our focus is on invasive plants and water quality," said Van Fossan. Cleaning up the lake could also help native species to come back and improve the fishing in the lake.
"As the food chain is improved, so are the species that once lived there," Van Fossan said.
About 150, or 60 percent of the property owners currently pay into in a voluntary program to clear Eurasian water-milfoil and blue-green algae in front of their properties, Van Fossan said. There are roughly 20 acres of untreated water in the center of the lake.
Bear Lake also has phragmites, and a fourth invasive plant species - starry stonewort - has been found in Muskegon Lake, even the channel connecting it to Bear Lake.
The Bear Lake Improvement Board would include five members by law: Muskegon County Drain Commissioner Brenda Moore, a member of the Muskegon County Board of Commissioners, representatives from North Muskegon and Laketon Township and a property owner on Bear Lake.
North Muskegon city manager Sam Janson and Laketon Township Supervisor Kim Arter would represent their respective areas - Muskegon County would still have to appoint a representative. The four members would then elect the fifth member to represent the property owners.
The group could then hold meetings to determine a list of projects and hold a public hearing for a tax assessment.
"This would all be happening between now and late fall," Van Fossan said. "By Spring of 2017, we'd be rolling ahead with a project plan and treatment plan."
He said the future efforts would occur in sync with the West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission which a year ago obtained a $7.9 million grant to remove phosphorous-laden sediments, restore natural water flow and create wetlands in Bear Creek, which feeds Bear Lake.
Van Fossan said a group of eight Bear Lake property owners has been meeting for about two years to get the project to its current stage.
"It took a couple years, but I think it's something the local community as well as the people on Bear Lake should be proud of," Van Fossan said.I do confess that I find it highly amusing that the god fearing no-infidels allowed holier-than-thou righteous nation of Pakistan still ranks No.1 in the world for Google searches for porn. Yep, you read that correctly, this Muslim nation that is notorious for conservatism, religious orthodoxy, and fanatical censorship seems to actually be the world’s forerunner in sex searches online, and also appears to be maintaining that position.
When I first came across this claim in 2010 it led back to a news story on Fox News as the source. Alas, that was truly sad, because once I discovered that “Fox News” was the source, my “dubious-credibility” alarm started clanging quite loudly. I say sad, because I do indeed find it rather appealing to consider the thought that this nation of god-fearing religious thugs also happens to be a nation of god-fearing religious hypocrites. That original article reported back in July 2010…
Pakistan is top dog in searches per-person for “horse sex” since 2004, “donkey sex” since 2007, “rape pictures” between 2004 and 2009, “rape sex” since 2004, “child sex” between 2004 and 2007 and since 2009, “animal sex” since 2004 and “dog sex” since 2005, according to Google Trends and Google Insights, features of Google that generate data based on popular search terms. The country also is tops — or has been No. 1 — in searches for “sex,” “camel sex,” “rape video,” “child sex video” and some other searches that can’t be printed here.
Well, the latest news on all this is that they are still in the top spot, as reported here in the Hindustan Times.
OK, so how does Google Trends work, and just how accurate is it? Here is what Google says in reply to both of those questions …
How does Google Trends work? Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results – our Search Volume Index graph. Located beneath the Search Volume Index graph is our News reference volume graph. This graph shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News stories. When Google Trends detects a spike in the volume of news stories for a particular search term, it labels the graph and displays the headline of an automatically selected Google News story written near the time of that spike. Currently, only English-language headlines are displayed, but we hope to support non-English headlines in the future. Below the search and news volume graphs, Trends displays the top regions, cities, and languages in which people searched for the first search term you entered. How accurate and up-to-date is the information provided by Google Trends? The data Trends produces may contain inaccuracies for a number of reasons, including data-sampling issues and a variety of approximations that are used to compute results. We hope you find this service interesting and entertaining, but you probably wouldn’t want to write your Ph.D. dissertation based on the information provided by Trends.
So take with a pinch of salt, but yes it certainly is indeed both interesting and entertaining to see how truly embarrassing this is for the mullahs.
As you might imagine, some folks in the Islamic republic of Pornistan (oops sorry, typo there) I mean Pakistan of course, were a tad ticked off about this. Their reaction, like mine, can be best expressed with the thought … “Fox News is your source!! … Really?”, and is also interlaced with a strong emphases upon, “Its not 100% accurate and is just an approximation”. As an example, try here, and also here. However, you need not lean upon Fox News because you can utilize google trends and go check it out yourself. Additionally, you can also note that Pakistan leaps out into the lead by a huge margin, so that also addresses the “Its just an approximation” comment.
You can check it for yourself here now.
Go to www.google.com/trends (click to open in a new window) Enter terms such as: “sex”, “donkey sex”, “animal sex”, “dog sex”, “rape sex” Note who ranks No.1 every time.
As an alternative way of checking this, you can also try Google Insights.
Go to www.google.com/insights/search/ (click to open in a new window)
Now least you wonder about “Google Trends” vs “Google Insight for Search”, both use the same source data. Where they part company is that Google Insight gives you a lot more information and also allows you to break things down a lot more, so you can think of it as a tool that is a wet-dream for Internet marketers.
Anyway, back to the sex trend in Pakistan, is this a surprise? No not really. As has been clearly demonstrated by the Catholic Church, when religious belief steps in and attempts to harness and supress normal sexual behaviour, it soon bursts out and manifests itself again. There have been numerous studies indicating that excessive repression of the sexual instinct leads to an increase in the overall level of aggression in a given society. Societies forbidding premarital sex are plagued by acts of rage and tend to have higher rates of crime and violence. There may also be a link between sexual repression and aggression, insensitivity, criminal behaviour, and a greater likelihood of killing and torturing enemies.
The abnormally excessive repression of the sexual instinct as mandated by Islam, perhaps not only explains this trend data, but may also point to the root cause behind the aggression and violence dished out by the Islamic fanatics.
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Like this: Like Loading...A postdoctoral researcher in the immunology division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and a practising gastroenterologist, Dr Tye-Din believes he and former colleague Dr Bob Anderson may have found a means of eliminating coeliac disease. If clinical trials of the treatment are successful, the approach could also be applied to tackling other autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. Almost as important, though, the discovery could improve the diagnosis of coeliac disease for the 80 per cent of Australians unaware they have it. He says undiagnosed coeliac disease is worrying because its effect on the small intestine means the body is less able to absorb nutrients, leading to loss of weight, fatigue or lack of energy and, in children, stunted growth. Coeliac disease is also associated with a range of even more serious problems such as liver disease, infertility, osteoporosis, other autoimmune disease and cancers such as lymphoma. People with undiagnosed coeliac disease have a two to fourfold higher rate of premature death. "The only treatment available at present is a gluten-free diet and that dates back to the 1950s when gluten was first identified as the cause of the disease. But it is not straightforward: the diet is tricky, you have to be ever vigilant, you have to pay more, put up with food that doesn't taste as good and often people don't always fully heal," Dr Tye-Din says. "Yet healing is critical because persistent damage in the gut is linked to long-term complications such as thinning of the bones and some forms of cancer. I've seen patients, even in their 20s, with bones like an 80-year-old, so people with the disease should have a bone density scan because of the risk of premature osteoporosis. Unfortunately, medical awareness and management of coeliac disease is far from optimal — meaning this doesn't always happen."
Gluten is a complex protein that enhances food texture. It allows bread to rise and imparts fluffiness, while gluten-free breads are heavy, crumbly, and far less tasty. Dr Tye-Din says the average Australian consumes 20-30 grams of gluten a day and the problem for coeliac sufferers is trying to ensure the foods they eat don't contain gluten when so many do — even Vegemite and liquorice. Yet consumption of tiny amounts of gluten as low as 50 milligrams, or a few crumbs from a slice of bread, can damage the small intestine. This fact, plus the complexity, cost and lifestyle restrictions of the gluten-free diet, spurred Dr Tye-Din and his colleagues to look for more effective treatments. "Coeliac disease has evolved from being a simple gut disorder that causes damage to the bowel and poor absorption of nutrients to being recognised as a primary immune condition with a multitude of manifestations — not just in the gut but also other organs. The knowledge certain genes are involved in the way the immune system reacts to gluten is also shaping our understanding. Such advances allow new approaches to be designed so as to improve on the gluten-free diet." Over a decade of tests on more than 300 patients with coeliac disease, the institute researchers discovered that key fragments of gluten — three "toxic peptides" — caused the abnormal immune response in people carrying the common coeliac-associated gene. These three peptides out of more than 18,000 in gluten are the ones, Dr Tye-Din says, "that tell the immune system to react badly to gluten". "Our approach was revolutionary in that it involved feeding people with gluten-containing food for three days and then taking samples of their blood on day six in hospital. That was when we found a lot of T cells — white blood cells — in the bloodstream reacting specifically to gluten. This showed us exactly which fragments were responsible for the immune response and provided a "road map" of what was toxic in coeliac disease."
The world's first therapy enabling coeliac disease patients to return to a normal diet would involve injecting them regularly with tiny quantities of the three peptides. The researchers believe the injections would induce an immune tolerance, allowing patients to again eat food made from wheat, barley or rye. "We showed that just three peptides were responsible for most of the immune response to gluten from all of the toxic cereals. Interestingly, the type of cereal consumed determined which gluten peptide was the most immunogenic," Dr Tye-Din says. "This allowed us to develop and test a peptide-based therapy, Nexvax2, which comprises these three peptides. Further development of the drug is now being led by a Boston-based company called ImmusanT, where Dr Bob Anderson has taken up the post as chief scientist." Discovery of the key peptides also means that improved diagnostic tests can be developed — a significant need given the poor rate of diagnosis in the community, he says. At present, people on a gluten-free diet have to go back to eating foods with gluten for up to eight weeks and then be tested to confirm they do have coeliac disease. In contrast, a new diagnostic test based on Nexvax2 would only need three days. "The first trial delivering injections of Nexvax2 to coeliac disease volunteers was completed in 2010 and showed it was safe and capable of inducing the predicted responses in the immune system. The critical next step will be to test whether Nexvax2 can prevent the adverse effects of dietary gluten and, depending on successful progress, it could be five or more years before a drug to counter coeliac disease is available," Dr Tye-Din says. "The approach of'retraining' the immune system works in mouse models that have other human diseases, but for people with coeliac disease it will be a world first. If such an approach is effective this will have huge implications for the millions of sufferers globally."
He says similar immune-therapies could also be developed for other autoimmune diseases if the relevant disease causing triggers, or "antigens", could be as comprehensively defined as gluten has been — an ongoing challenge for researchers. *The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute and the national organisation Coeliac Australia have formed a three-year, $570,000 partnership to support research into new treatments and diagnostic tests for coeliac disease. The partnership aims to develop better treatments for children with the disease; effective responses to overcome symptoms after accidental gluten consumption; and a diagnostic test for coeliac disease in people with gluten intolerance who are following a gluten-free diet. Loading More information about the disease is available on the Coeliac Australia website at coeliac.org.au. The latest issue of The Australian Coeliac Magazine contains a detailed account by Dr Tye-Din of coeliac disease, its effects and the reasons why some people are susceptible. Information on the clinical trial can be found at immusant.com Read Geoff Maslen's blog atgeoffmaslen.edublog-s.org/Bomb robot pulls object out of a black backpack at Hollywood Transit Center (KATU photo). Inset: Police arrested 59-year-old Wilfredo Reyes on suspicion of leaving the suspicious backpack on the MAX train. (Photo: Multnomah County Sheriff's Office via the Portland Police Bureau)
Police arrested a 59-year-old man who they say left a backpack that looked like a suspicious device on a Green line MAX train Friday.
The suspicious object forced police to shut down the MAX platform at the Hollywood Transit Center.
The Portland police explosive unit evacuated the area and later found the device was not explosive.
Police say Wilfredo Reyes left the backpack on the train and then called 911 around 12:20 p.m. to report the backpack as suspicious.
Around 2:30, a KATU photographer captured video of a bomb robot pulling an object out of a black backpack.
Portland police say the item was not a device, and that it seems someone left it on the MAX so that people would think it was an explosive.
"It had items that were protruding from it that you would associate with something that is of a suspicious nature," said Sgt. Chris Burley with the Portland Police Bureau.
Interstate 84 westbound was closed for more than an hour at I-205 to I-5. Halsey Street was also closed both ways near the Transit Center.
Halsey and the Interstate have since been reopened.
The MAX line reopened just before 4 p.m. after shuttle buses served stations between Northeast 7th Avenue Station and Gateway Transit Center for several hours.
Police said they gathered evidence at the scene that led them to Reyes. They found and arrested him near West Burnside and 5th Avenue shortly after they determined the suspicious object wasn't dangerous.
Just two weeks ago today, a deadly stabbing took place on a MAX train at the Hollywood Transit Center, killing two men and leaving a third seriously injured.
A robot and bomb-sniffing dogs were sent through a large memorial for the victims to investigate.
Reyes was taken to the Multnomah County Jail where he faces charges of false report, second-degree disorderly conduct and interfering with public transportation of a hoax device.
His arraignment is scheduled for Monday.
Following the deadly MAX stabbing, TriMet spokeswoman Roberta Altstadt said TriMet has increased security on the MAX. She said that will continue.Half of U.S. Farmland Being Eyed by Private Equity
WASHINGTON, Feb 19 2014 (IPS) - An estimated 400 million acres of farmland in the United States will likely change hands over the coming two decades as older farmers retire, even as new evidence indicates this land is being strongly pursued by private equity investors.
Mirroring a trend being experienced across the globe, this strengthening focus on agriculture-related investment by the private sector is already leading to a spike in U.S. farmland prices. Coupled with relatively weak federal policies, these rising prices are barring many young farmers from continuing or starting up small-scale agricultural operations of their own.
"This is no longer necessarily about food at all, but rather is a way to reap financial profits." -- Anuradha Mittal
In the long term, critics say, this dynamic could speed up the already fast-consolidating U.S. food industry, with broad ramifications for both human and environmental health.
“When non-operators own farms, they tend to source out the oversight to management companies, leading in part to horrific conditions around labour and how we treat the land,” Anuradha Mittal, the executive director of the Oakland Institute, a U.S. watchdog group focusing on global large-scale land acquisitions, told IPS.
“They also reprioritise what commodities are grown on that land, based on what can yield the highest return. This is no longer necessarily about food at all, but rather is a way to reap financial profits. Unfortunately, that’s far removed from the central role that land ultimately plays in terms of climate change, growing hunger and the stability of the global economy.”
In a new report released Tuesday, the Oakland Institute tracks rising interest from some of the financial industry’s largest players. Citing information from Freedom of Information Act requests, the group says this includes bank subsidiaries (the Swiss UBS Agrivest), pension funds (the U.S. TIAA-CREF) and other private equity interests (such as HAIG, a subsidiary of Canada’s largest insurance group).
“Today, enthusiasm for agriculture borders on speculative mania. Driven by everything from rising food prices to growing demand for biofuel, the financial sector is taking an interest in farmland as never before,” the report states.
“Driven by the same structural factors and perpetrated by many of the same investors, the corporate consolidation of agriculture is being felt just as strongly in Iowa and California as it is in the Philippines and Mozambique.”
As yet, the amount of U.S. land owned by private investors is thought to be relatively low. The report points to a 2011 industry estimate that large-scale investors at the time owned around one percent of U.S. farmland, worth between three five billion dollars.
Last year, however, another industry analyst put this figure at around 10 billion dollars, suggesting that the institutional share of farmland ownership is rising quickly.
“We’ve been seeing a decimation of the family farmer for a long time, but now these processes are accelerating,” Mittal says. “We need a tightening at the policy level before we’re swamped by these trends.”
Demographic collision
In the year after food prices suddenly rose in 2008, global speculation in land rose by some 200 percent. With the international financial meltdown coinciding almost simultaneously with this crisis, investors have increasingly viewed agricultural land as a relatively safe place to put their money amidst rising volatility.
In the United States, investors are particularly eyeing potential future returns from mineral prospecting, water rights and strengthening trends in meat consumption. U.S. farmland is also seen as globally desirable due to a combination of high-tech farming opportunities and lax regulations regarding the use of genetically modified crops.
As a result of this new interest, land prices in the United States have risen by an estimated 213 percent over the past decade. This could now play into two trends at once.
Already, the United States is home to relatively low numbers of farmers, with the country famously home to more prisoners than full-time agriculturalists. But those who do continue to farm are also quickly aging.
While federal agriculture officials are expected to offer updated demographic information within the coming week, the most recent statistics suggest that just 6 percent of farmers are under 35 of age. Further, some 70 percent of U.S. farmland is owned by people 65 years or older.
“The older generation needs to cash out because they have no retirement funds, even as the new generation doesn’t have the capital to get into the kind of debt that [starting a farm] requires,” Severine von Tscharner Fleming, a farmer and co-founder of the Agrarian Trust, a group that helps new farmers access land, told IPS.
“Today there is a huge number of older folks trying to decide what to do with their land, and in many places we don’t have many years to help them make that decision. So in that sense there’s an urgent need, and we don’t have many tools at the federal level to help.”
For the most part, Fleming suggests, U.S. federal agriculture policy today is not aligned to the country’s best interests, instead pointing away from greater agricultural diversity, regional resilience and greater strengthened opportunity for rural economies. Nonetheless, she says that her organisation is encountering a surge of attention from young people that want to start their own farms.
“Over the past seven years, we’ve had an explosion of interest in being trained as a farmer and entering the trade of agriculture, and this is very much related to the crises around the banks and the environment,” she says.
“The problem we’re facing is not one in which nobody wants to farm, but rather the fact that the U.S. economy is structured in such a way that makes it really hard to start a farm in this country.”A stalled national and international economic recovery has prompted a higher-than-projected capital budget in Nova Scotia of $610 million for fiscal 2012-13, the province's finance minister said Friday.
Graham Steele said the money would fund 150 projects — everything from new schools and hospital renovations to information technology and highway work — is more than the $460 million projected in last spring's budget.
Steele said it became evident to officials in his department that the province had to respond when it began the budgeting process in September.
"I think people want us to respond flexibly to conditions and not be rigid about it," he said at a news conference.
The minister said government restraint measures had enabled his department to put more money into capital programs.
"There's a time that you need to respond to the infrastructure deficit while keeping an eye on job creation, and this is the year where I think the people of the province expect us to do that."
Steele said the plan would have a small impact on the province's net debt-to-GDP ratio, a key indicator for capital markets.
The plan includes $281 million for highways, $158 million for building projects and $57.2 million for information technology projects.
Steele said it would create employment equal to 4,500 full-time jobs.
He shied away from calling the funding injection a provincial stimulus plan, but that didn't stop Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie.
"This is just expensive pre-election NDP stimulus. It's not a jobs plan," said Baillie. "As long as the government continues to run a deficit, all of this is being done with borrowed money."
Liberal finance critic Diana Whalen said while the spending levels were probably "reasonable" in a province lacking in upgraded infrastructure, she wasn't buying the government's attempt to rebrand the capital budget as a jobs plan.
"There's very little detail.… It just lists projects and it doesn't give you any breakdown or rationale," said Whalen.
In fact, many of the projects have already been announced, including $79 million to construct and upgrade schools in communities including Glace Bay, New Glasgow and Liverpool.
The capital plan is subject to the approval of the legislature as part of the budget to be tabled next spring.
Last December, the government announced $560 million in capital spending for fiscal 2011-12, down from $711 million in the 2010-11 budget issued at the height of Ottawa's stimulus plan.
The Finance Department said at the time that capital spending prior to the |
in glitter*. Anyway, while I would love to take this constructive criticism seriously, I simply CANNOT. Not when you look like a French lesbian called Tessa that writes deep poetry about her disconnection from life.
And it wasn’t just me who got abuse, it was a number of gay people on Facebook… My friend James received, these eloquent gems:
Joined by his sidekick – because bullies like to breed in packs in case people do decide to stand up to them – Caolan Robertson, who for some unbeknown reason has 33k+ followers on his Facebook profile. Perhaps they don’t know that you’re a racist bigot…
Well, I’m glad you caught it from my video ’cause ain’t nobody banging you with 2003 mosh hairstyle. Did you really think this would just fly under the radar?
In life, you’re always going to encounter vile characters who’s presence is unexplained. But it’s important to remember that words are just words, and they’re frequently not personal. Even when the words themselves are, the attack is only a reflection of that person. Now, I know I say some shady shit on this blog, but it’s never intended to personally offend people (most of the time). But even they’re just words. If you’re being bullied, or are worried about someone who is, contact GLAAD, who can help.
#WorldSpiritDayStarbucks (SBUX) CEO Howard Schultz has never shied away from involving his company in controversial debates, whether those debates are about same-sex marriage, or gun control, or U.S. government gridlock.
But the executive, who oversees a coffee empire with 4,700 U.S. stores, has now taken on arguably the most polarizing political debate in the United States: race relations.
Starbucks published a full page ad in the New York Times on Sunday — a stark, black, page with a tiny caption “Shall We Overcome?” in the middle, and the words “RaceTogether” with the company logo, on the bottom right. The ad, along with a similar one on Monday in USA Today, is part of an initiative launched this week by the coffee store chain to stimulate conversation and debate about the race in America by getting employees to engage with customers about the perennially hot button subject.
Beginning on Monday, Starbucks baristas will have the option as they serve customers to hand cups on which they’ve handwritten the words “Race Together” and start a discussion about race. This Friday, each copy of USA Today — which has a daily print circulation of almost 2 million and is a partner of Starbucks in this initiative — will have the first of a series of insert with information about race relations, including a variety of perspectives on race. Starbucks coffee shops will also stock the insert.
In a video addressing Starbucks’ nearly 200,000 workers, 40% of whom are members of a racial minority, Schultz dismissed the notion that race was too hot a topic business-wise for Starbucks to tackle.
“I reject that. I reject that completely,” he said in the video address. “It’s an emotional issue. But it is so vitally important to the country,” he continued, pointing to that the United States is “so much better” than what the current state of race relations portray it to be.
The initiative follows several months of consultations with employees that started in December, in part as a result of protests that roiled several U.S. cities after grand juries declined to indict white police officers in the killings of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., near St. Louis, and 43-year-old Eric Garner in Staten Island, N.Y.
Schultz has met with almost 2,000 Starbucks employees since then in cities hit most directly by racial tension and anti-police brutality protests in the last year, including Oakland, St. Louis, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Seattle, where Starbucks is based. Cognizant of what a powder keg the issue of race is, Starbucks says its baristas will be under no obligation to engage with customers on the topic. The goal is simply to foster discussion and an exchange of ideas.
The potential exists for arguments to break out (not for nothing this topic is the third rail of U.S. politics), and some may fairly question any move that could potentially slow in-store service. But Schultz has never been a wallflower when it comes to political debates and social activism. In 2013, he led a petition-based push urging Washington politicians to end the federal government shutdown. That year, he also wrote an open letter asking gun owners to refrain from bringing their guns into stores even they were allowed. Two years earlier, Starbucks launched a fund, fueled by the sale of $5 bracelets, to spur U.S. job creation. The company has also pledged to hire 10,000 veterans and military spouses over a five-year period.
And he has also not been shy to slam critics of Starbucks’ or his political stances, including shareholders. Two years ago, after an investor at its annual shareholder meeting said the company’s support for a marriage equality bill in Washington state had hurt sales after a boycott by an advocacy group, Schultz invited him to sell his Starbucks shares if he felt he could find another stock with as a high a return rate.
Schulz will discuss Starbucks’ “Race Together” initiative at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday.(Reuters) - More than one in 10 Americans over the age of 12 takes an antidepressant, a class of drugs that has become wildly popular in the past several decades, U.S. government researchers said Wednesday.
The antidepressant drug Prozac, also known as fluoxetine, are seen on a table in Leicester, central England February 26, 2008 in this posed photograph. REUTERS/Darren Staples
Antidepressants were the third-most common drug used by Americans of all ages between 2005 and 2008 and they were the most common drug among people aged 18 to 44, according to an analysis by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The team analyzed data on more than 12,000 Americans who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys between 2005 and 2008.
They found that antidepressant use in the United States jumped nearly 400 percent in the 2005-2008 survey period compared with the 1988-1994 period, with 11 percent of those over age 12 taking the drugs.
The increase followed the U.S. approval in 1987 of Eli Lilly and Co’s Prozac or fluoxetine, the first of a newer class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors or SSRIs.
According to the survey, U.S. women are 2-1/2 times more likely than men to take antidepressants, and whites are more likely than blacks to take the drugs, researchers.
Once prescribed, many people continue taking antidepressants, with more than 60 percent of Americans who use the drugs report being on them for 2 years or more.
And about 14 percent of Americans taking antidepressant medication have done so for 10 years or longer.
Patients who take the drugs often get them from their regular doctor rather than a so-called mental health professional.
According to the survey, fewer than a third of Americans taking one antidepressant drug and fewer than half of those taking more than one have seen mental health professional in the past year.
Although first introduced for depression, several antidepressants are now used to treat a host of problems, including anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, bulimia and even post traumatic stress disorder.In the latest crackdown by less than tolerant liberals against free speech, on Wednesday night hundreds of protesters at University of California in Berkeley smashed windows, set fires and clashed with police as they forced a controversial "alt-right" speaker to cancel his appearance at the liberal-leaning institution.
Two hours before Breitbart News editor Milo Yiannopoulos was to give a speech at the student union, protesters tossed metal barricades and rocks through the building's windows and set a light generator on fire near the entrance, footage from news outlets showed.
Just toppled a light pole. Craziest protest I've seen in Berkeley by far. Crowd fast turning violent. pic.twitter.com/5ujFLOtA4u — Michael Bodley (@michael_bodley) February 2, 2017
Police ordered protesters to disperse as the school put the campus on lockdown. Protesters also tossed bricks and fireworks at police in riot gear who fired rubber pellets back at the crowd, according to SFGate.com, a news outlet in San Francisco.
"We shut down the event. It was great. Mission accomplished," a protester told CNN.
Some 150 "masked agitators" were responsible for the violence during the otherwise largely peaceful protest of about 1,500 people, the university said in a statement, noting that the school "is proud of its history and legacy as home of the Free Speech Movement" in the 1960s. Many have expressed curiosity if the masked agitators are the same ones who tried to provoke violence during Trump's inauguration and if they are funded by certain financially endowed "liberal" organizations linked to George Soros.
Donald Trump's chief strategist, Steve Bannon, previously headed Breitbart News and CNN reported that many of the protesters voiced opposition to the Republican president.
One protester at Berkeley held a sign that said "No Safe Space for Racists" while other protesters danced to hip hop music, footage from a Facebook Live feed showed. Protesters later marched along streets near the campus where some smashed storefront windows and car windshields while clashing with police, the feed showed.
Yiannopoulos, whose account on Twitter was suspended last year after he was accused of participating in the online harassment of an African-American actress, criticized "the Left", saying in a statement it was "absolutely terrified of free speech and will do literally anything to shut it down."
He also said on Fox News that he was evacuated by police after protesters began throwing rocks and other objects at the building. "Obviously it’s a liberal campus so they hate any libertarians or conservatives who dare to express an opinion on their campuses," he said. "They particularly don’t like me."
On Thursday morning, in a barrage of tweets that touched on topics as far ranging as Rex Tillerson, to the death of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens to the Iran ballistic missile test, Trump also lashed out at UC Berkley, and hinted that the university which "does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view" may see its federal funding yanked.
If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view - NO FEDERAL FUNDS? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017
Fox & Friends ran a segment on the protests just before Trump's tweet, including Milo's comments last night to Tucker Carlson. It appears that Trump may have been inspired by this particular segment.
MILO: What's scary is this riot happened on an American campus where you should be able to have differing opinions (via #Tucker) pic.twitter.com/cT8Jgzkegz — FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) February 2, 2017
It was not immediately clear if any algos were confused by the Trump tweet and interpreted it as referring to interest rates or the Fed's hiking plans.Israeli police arrested a 19-year-old Israeli Jewish man as the primary suspect in a string of bomb threats targeting Jewish community centers and other institutions in the U.S., marking a potential breakthrough in a case that stoked fears across America.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld described the suspect as a hacker. Israeli media identified him as an American-Israeli dual citizen and said he had been found unfit for compulsory service in the Israeli military.
“He’s the guy who was behind the JCC threats,” Rosenfeld said, referring to the dozens of anonymous threats phoned in to Jewish community centers in the U.S. over the past two months.
“Israeli National Police have arrested a suspect threatening to have bombs in schools and other facilities,” a police official said.
Israel’s Channel 10 TV showed footage of the suspect appearing in court in the central Israeli city of Rishon Letzion. He wore tan pants and a blue sweater that he used to cover his face as he walked past reporters. The channel said the young man had lived in the U.S. for a period of time and had been home-schooled. It showed images of a large antenna outside his house and said his father was also arrested.
At the courthouse, the suspect’s lawyer, Galit Bash, told reporters that her client had a “very serious medical condition” that had kept him out of compulsory military service and might have affected his behavior.
He “didn’t serve in the army, didn’t go to high school, didn’t go to elementary school,” she said. “So that’s why the medical condition can actually affect the investigation.” Channel 10 described the condition as a brain tumor.
A judge in Israel has ordered a medical evaluation before the man is charged.
Israeli police said the suspect made dozens of calls claiming to have placed bombs in public places and private companies, causing panic and “significant economic damage,” and disrupting public order, including by the hurried evacuations of a number of public venues around the world. The man is suspected of placing threatening phone calls to Australia, New Zealand and also within Israel.
Rosenfeld said the man called Delta Airlines in February 2015 and made a false threat about explosives aboard a flight from John F. Kennedy Airport. The threat allegedly led to an emergency landing.
Rosenfeld said the man, from the south of Israel, used advanced technologies to mask the origin of his calls. He said police searched his house Thursday morning and discovered antennas and satellite equipment.
“He didn’t use regular phone lines. He used different computer systems so he couldn’t be backtracked,” Rosenfeld said.
Former FBI Agent Manny Gomez commends the intelligence community for tackling the daunting task of tracking cyber criminals.
“Online threats are a big problem now,” Gomez told CBS2. “U.S. intelligence and U.S. law enforcement has to discern throughout the hundreds of credible threats that come in on a weekly and monthly basis.”
After an intensive investigation in cooperation with FBI representatives who arrived in Israel, as well as other police organizations from various countries, technology was used to track down the suspect who had made the threats around the world, Rosenfeld said.
The FBI released a statement confirming the arrest and commending the work of the Israeli National Police, but did not go into details about the investigation.
“Investigating hate crimes is a top priority for the FBI and we will continue to work to make sure all races and religions feel safe in their communities and in their places of worship,” the statement read. “At this time, we cannot provide additional information on the investigation.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions commended investigators in the U.S. and Israel for their joint effort in tracing the suspect’s digital trail.
“Today’s arrest in Israel is the culmination of a large-scale investigation spanning multiple continents for hate crimes against Jewish communities across our country,” Sessions said. “The Department of Justice is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, and we will not tolerate the targeting of any community in this country on the basis of their religious beliefs. I commend the FBI and Israeli National Police for their outstanding work on this case.”
The suspect’s motives remain unclear.
“Was he acting alone? Was he acting with others? What was his intent? Why did he do this? And was the threat real — was he going to act on it,” Gomez said of the ongoing investigation. “It could be an attention-seeking thing, it wouldn’t surprise me that at the end of the day we find out that this is a young man with certain issues and that he was doing this to get attention.”
“I think it’s ironic that he’s Jewish. One would’ve thought that somebody that’s posing a threat to the Jewish community would be an anti-Semite or somebody who has something against the Jewish community,” he added.
It’s still unclear whether the man will be sent back to the U.S. to face charges.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, there have been more than 150 threats against Jewish institutions in 37 states and two Canadian provinces since Jan. 9. The threats were accompanied by acts of vandalism on several Jewish cemeteries.
The ADL said it was “relieved” that there’s been an arrest in the case, but urged the Jewish community to remain vigilant.
“Identifying the suspect who allegedly did the majority of these bomb threats I think can bring some relief to the institutions that experienced these. So in that sense, we’re relieved,” ADL regional director for New York Evan Bernstein said. “We’re happy this is taking place, we’re happy there’s been some resolution here. Now we can’t let our eyes be taken off the ball about some of the other big issues facing the state of New York.”
“Personally, it’s saddening. As a Jew and a as Zionist, to hear that the person is an Israeli Jew is very tough,” he added.
“While the details of this crime remain unclear, the impact of this individual’s actions is crystal clear: These were acts of anti-Semitism. These threats targeted Jewish institutions, were calculated to sow fear and anxiety, and put the entire Jewish community on high alert,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.
“Even though it appears that the main culprit behind the majority of these attacks has allegedly been identified, anti-Semitism in the U.S. remains a very serious concern. No arrests have been made in three cemetery desecrations or a series of other anti-Semitic incidents involving swastika graffiti and hate fliers. JCCs and other institutions should not relax security measures or become less vigilant,” he added.
Relieved and thankful to law enforcement for arresting suspect in #bombthreats to Jewish institutions. Stay tuned for more info. — ADL (@ADL_National) March 23, 2017
Doron Krakow, CEO of the JCC Association of North America, said the organization was “troubled to learn” that the suspect is Jewish.
“We are gratified by the progress in this investigation, and applaud the commitment and leadership of the FBI and other federal agencies, Israeli law enforcement, and local law enforcement across the United States and Canada,” Krakow said. “Throughout this long running period of concern and disruption that we are hopeful has come to an end, JCCs have had the opportunity to review and assess our security protocols and procedures, and we are confident that JCCs are safer today than ever before.”
Jordan Shenker, head of the Kaplen JCC on the Palisades in Tenafly, said he is cautiously optimistic that the man arrested in Israel on Thursday acted alone and that the threats will be over. Shenker, whose center received three phone threats since January, said the arrest has led to a feeling of being able to exhale, but that the center has always prioritized security and will continue to.
“I think there’s a sense of relief that somebody has been arrested and identified as centrally responsible for a large number of these calls,” Shenker told WCBS 880’s Marla Diamond. “Certainly very thankful to the FBI and the international intelligence community for the effort, energy and priority they put on resources to identify who has been responsible for these acts of hatred and intolerance.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he hopes the arrest “brings comfort to those affected by his despicable hate crime.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued a statement saying, “Whatever their source, those threats were an assault on our values and our people.”
“As the proud home of the world’s largest Jewish community, New York City will always stand ready to face down intolerance and stand up for our persecuted neighbors,” de Blasio added. “History teaches us that we can never be indifferent to the scourge of anti-Semitism, and we can never take lightly threats fueled by hate.”
“They found him. I think I stated a couple weeks ago that this would come to a successful conclusion, and it did,” NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill said. “People who engage in this type of behavior are going to suffer the consequences.”
O’Neill couldn’t confirm whether the suspect targeted specific locations in New York.
The threats led to criticism of the White House for not speaking out fast enough. Last month, the White House denounced the threats and rejected “anti-Semitic and hateful threats in the strongest terms.”
Last month, a Missouri man was charged in connection with at least eight threats against the ADL headquarters in New York City and JCCs nationwide. Prosecutors said the threats were made in an effort to harass and vilify his former girlfriend.
In New York City, anti-Semitic incidents – including bomb threats, swastikas on doors and subways, and threatening phone calls and emails — continue to skyrocket.
The latest NYPD statistics show a 177 percent increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes – 72 so far this year compared to 26 for the same period in 2016.
Even with the prime suspect arrested, security experts remain vigilant as we approach the Jewish holidays. The NYPD will increase the police presence at all Jewish institutions in the city for Passover.
“Now the Passover is coming, we may see copycats doing this, but will be investigated and dealt with accordingly as well,” Gomez said.
(© Copyright 2017 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)LONDON (Reuters) - The global spread of bird flu and the number of viral strains currently circulating and causing infections have reached unprecedented levels, raising the risk of a potential human outbreak, according to disease experts.
Multiple outbreaks have been reported in poultry farms and wild flocks across Europe, Africa and Asia in the past three months. While most involve strains that are currently low risk for human health, the sheer number of different types, and their presence in so many parts of the world at the same time, increases the risk of viruses mixing and mutating - and possibly jumping to people.
“This is a fundamental change in the natural history of influenza viruses,” Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease specialist at University of Minnesota, said of the proliferation of bird flu in terms of geography and strains - a situation he described as “unprecedented”.
Global health officials are worried another strain could make a jump into humans, like H5N1 did in the late 1990s. It has since caused hundreds of human infections and deaths, but has not acquired the ability to transmit easily from person to person.
The greatest fear is that a deadly strain of avian flu could then mutate into a pandemic form that can be passed easily between people - something that has not yet been seen.
While avian flu has been a prominent public health issue since the 1990s, ongoing outbreaks have never been so widely spread around the world - something infectious disease experts put down to greater resilience of strains currently circulating, rather than improved detection or reporting.
While there would normally be around two or three bird flu strains recorded in birds at any one time, now there are at least half a dozen, including H5N1, H5N2, H5N8 and H7N8.
The Organization for Animal Health (OIE) says the concurrent outbreaks in birds in recent months are “a global public health concern”, and the World Health Organization’s director-general warned this week the world “cannot afford to miss the early signals” of a possible human flu pandemic.
The precise reasons for the unusually large number and sustained nature of bird outbreaks in recent months, and the proliferation of strains, is unclear - although such developments compound the global spreading process.
Bird flu is usually spread through flocks through direct contact with an infected bird. But Osterholm said wild birds could be “shedding” more of the virus in droppings and other secretions, increasing infection risks. He added that there now appears to be “aerosol transmission from one infected barn to others, in some cases many miles away”.
Ian MacKay, a virologist at Australia’s University of Queensland, said the current proliferation of strains means that “by definition, there is an increased risk” to humans.
“You’ve got more exposures, to more farmers, more often, and in greater numbers, in more parts of the world - so there has to be an increased risk of spillover human cases,” he told Reuters.
BRITAIN TO BANGLADESH
Nearly 40 countries have reported new outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry or wild birds since November, according to the WHO.
FILE PHOTO: A laboratory worker carries out an autopsy on dead wild geese, looking for evidence of the bird flu virus, in the laboratory of the Hungarian national food safety authority in Budapest, Hungary, January 24, 2017. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh/File Photo
In China, H7N9 strains of bird flu have been infecting both birds and people, with the of human cases rising in recent weeks due to the peak of the flu season there. According to the WHO, more than 900 people have been infected with H7N9 bird flu since it emerged in early 2013.
In birds, latest data from the OIE should that outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian flu have been detected in Britain, Italy, Kuwait and Bangladesh in the last few days alone.
Russia’s agriculture watchdog issued a statement describing the situation as “extremely tense” as it reported H5N8 flu outbreaks in another four regions. Hungarian farmers have had to cull 3 million birds, mostly geese and ducks.
These come on top of epidemics across Europe and Asia which have been ongoing since late last year, leading to mass culling of poultry in many countries.
Strains currently documented as circulating in birds include H5N8 in many parts of Europe as well as in Kuwait, Egypt and elsewhere, and H5N1 in Bangladesh and India.
In Africa - which experts say is especially vulnerable to missing flu outbreak warning signs due to limited local government capacities and weak animal and human health services - H5N1 outbreaks have been reported in birds in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria and Togo. H5N8 has been detected in Tunisia and Egypt, and H7N1 in Algeria.
The United States has, so far this year, largely escaped bird flu, but is on high alert after outbreaks of H5N2, a highly pathogenic bird flu, hit farms in 15 states in 2015 and led to the culling of more than 43 million poultry.
David Nabarro, a former senior WHO official who has also served as U.N. system senior coordinator for avian and human influenza, says the situation is worrying. “For me the threat from avian influenza is the most serious (to public health), because you never know when,” he told Reuters in Geneva.
HIGHLY PATHOGENIC H5N1
H5N1 is under close surveillance by health authorities around the world. It has long been seen as one to watch, feared by infectious disease experts because of its pandemic potential if it were to mutate an acquire human-to-human transmission capability.
A highly pathogenic virus, it jumped into humans in Hong Kong in 1997 and then re-emerged in 2003/2004, spreading from Asia to Europe and Africa. It has caused hundreds of infections and deaths in people and prompted the culling of hundreds of millions of poultry.
Osterholm noted that some currently circulating H5 strains - including distant relatives of H5N1 - are showing significant capabilities for sustaining their spread between wild flocks and poultry, from region to region and farm to farm.
“What we’re learning about H5 is, that whether its H5N6, H5N8, H5N2 or H5N5, this is a very dangerous bird virus.”
Against that background, global health authorities and infectious disease experts want awareness, surveillance and vigilance stepped up.
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Wherever wild birds are found to be infected, they say, and wherever there are farms or smallholdings with affected poultry or aquatic bird flocks, regular, repeated and consistent testing of everyone and anyone who comes into contact is vital.
“Influenza is a very tough beast because it changes all the time, so the ones we’re tracking may not include one that suddenly emerges and takes hold,” said MacKay.
“Right now, it’s hard to say whether we’re doing enough (to keep on top of the threat). I guess that while it isn’t taking off, we seem to be doing enough.”There are thousands of things to do in Los Angeles, and it's near impossible to figure out how to make the most of your time on a short trip. Below are some of Party Earth's best well-rounded suggestions for anyone looking to get a 'little' off the beaten path.
1. Take a hike. Runyon Canyon (2001 North Fuller Avenue) and Griffith Park (4730 Crystal Springs Drive) are excellent places to see views of the universally recognized Hollywood sign, along with gorgeous views of Downtown and the LA basin.
2. Go shopping. Rodeo Drive and Robertson Boulevard are designer shopping meccas, while the Grove (189 The Grove Drive) and Third Street Promenade (Santa Monica and 3rd Street) offer a variety of options and entertainment.
3. Go to the Santa Monica Pier/Venice Beach (200 Santa Monica Pier). Enjoy a sunny day in the city with a sun-soaked walk down the historic pier, ride the roller coaster, eat some fresh seafood, and enjoy the views of Malibu and Palos Verdes. Then walk down the boardwalk towards Venice for vintage shopping, muscle beach, and some of the strangest people watching around.
4. See a show. Los Angeles hosts some of the best live music in the country. On any given night there are a dozen shows going on and the chance to see world-class acts in intimate venues. Check out historic places along the Sunset Strip like the Roxy, the Whiskey A Go Go, the Key Club, the Viper Room, as well as the Troubadour (9081 Santa Monica Boulevard).
5. Go to The Getty Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Both are world-class museums, and the former rests on a hilltop in the Santa Monica Mountains, giving visitors panoramic views of the city. Besides its solid permanent displays, LACMA (5905 Wilshire Boulevard) often houses exhibits focusing on cinema and music.There have been no "stealth fixes". We haven't changed anything relating to armour recently. This thread prompted an investigation, and it does turn out a few of the most recently added armour modifiers (not all of which are in the game yet) were applying to generic armour, but not to armour against projectiles (which is a different stat calculation to account for Titucius' Span). The most significant source of armour that was affected by this is the Grand Spectrum unique jewel. This will be fixed for a future patch.
" Mark_GGG
This thread prompted an investigation, and it does turn out a few of the most recently added armour modifiers (not all of which are in the game yet) were applying to generic armour, but not to armour against projectiles (which is a different stat calculation to account for Titucius' Span).
The most significant source of armour that was affected by this is the Grand Spectrum unique jewel.
This will be fixed for a future patch. There have been no "stealth fixes". We haven't changed anything relating to armour recently.This thread prompted an investigation, and it does turn out a few of the most recently added armour modifiers (not all of which are in the game yet) were applying to generic armour, but not to armour against projectiles (which is a different stat calculation to account for Titucius' Span).The most significant source of armour that was affected by this is the Grand Spectrum unique jewel.This will be fixed for a future patch.
thanks for the response, that makes a little bit of sense with my followup test on a different character, as much less of my armor on that test was derived from grand spectrums (only had room for 3, vs the 6-7 i had on the original character in question)
Still, on said original chracter I also had over half of my armor derived from Brass Dome, Devoto's, and some gloves I had... still seems like the damage was too high even for the 20k armor I'd have had without Grand Spectrums in play... with those dried lake archers dealing around 500ish base damage without any armor, the remaining 20k from other sources still should have been reducing damage by around 80%, while in reality I only saw *maybe* 20% reduction. Is it possible there's some other interaction going on? Cuz it still doesn't add up with the numbers I saw while testing.
*edit* Spoiler Yeah, I gotta say this still isn't adding up. I went back to dried lake with my Chieftan character (called Iron_Sirocco_Shppy) that's got a bunch of increased armor and still these numbers aren't working out like they should. Even without Grand Spectrums, even just using nothing but either Brass Dome or Death's Oath for armor, I'm not seeing the reductions I should be seeing against the archers, still certainly not as much reduction as I get against the comparable base damage of the signature melee enemies in the area. There's something very funky about the way these damages are getting calculated somewhere along the lines.
The melee guys seem to be doing 500-700 damage while I'm naked (0 armor), and when I toss on Brass Dome to move up to 9500 armor, they never do more than 300... plugged into the armor formula, the expected amount of damage I should take when hit for 700 damage with 9500 armor would be just a hair over 300... that adds up.
Yet going over to a bow enemy (and again his regular attacks, not the Tshots), I'm seeing about 450-650 damage while naked. But when I throw on that same Brass Dome and nothing more, i'm legitimately not seeing *any* difference. It's the same 450-650 or so... at worst I should be taking less than 300 again, just like in the melee case. I swapped over to my Death's Oath too, which puts my armor at 4100, and should mean I take at most 400 damage per hit, but nope, still the same range.
This is really funky, cuz now this 3rd round of testing puts me right back to matching the results of my initial tests, while my second round of testing with my eponymous character *seemed* to work correctly. Now I've gotta go back and check things out on him.
*edit #2* Spoiler Went back to my eponymous character, Shppy, for more testing, since he's the one that seemed to perform "normally", contrary to my first round of testing. Found some more interesting tidbits. So first of all he's Iron Reflexes. Now, with nothing equipped, he's still got 1200 armor rating, but both the melee and ranged enemies do pretty close to full damage, as expected.
So now, when I equip my normal gear setup of 13k armor, which involves Devoto's, Cherrubim's, and some pure evasion rares, I see a reasonable amount of damage reduction, enough so that I wouldn't question it even if it's not quite exactly right. However, when I take all that off and equip a Brass Dome, which leaves me at 15k armor, once again the bow guy seems to deal full damage. Switching to my Death's Oath, leaving me at 7.5k armor, feels no different.
Now, after equipping *only* my cherrubim's, leaving me at 8.5k armor, I'm seeing a little reduction in damage, down to about 400-450ish per hit, but still above the 300 or so i *should* be taking according to the formula.
Additionally, after taking off all of my gear and simply activating level 20 Grace, which puts me at about 11k armor, now the bow guys deal very low damage, a little over 200 or so, which adds up pretty much perfectly with the formula.
Finally, I tried simply equipping my Devoto's and nothing else, with no more Grace. This left me at 4.5k armor. It seemed like I was taking about 300-350 damage like that (although I saw one shot spike up to 500... probably a crit), which seems to roughly align with the proper armor formula.
So... idk. Armor derived from evasion via IR seems to work just fine, for starters. But at the very least armor derived from a chestpiece does not seem to do anything. It's hard to tell if the armor from my helm did anything, as over half of Devoto's is evasion which seems to work properly regardless of where it comes from, but...
...well, the fellow who also tested earlier in the thread said his tests showed armor working pretty much exactly as expected, but he used a shield for his base armor. The common factors I've been using to test have been Grand Spectrums (that have been pointed out to not be working properly) and chestpieces. And at least to some degree Cherrubim's, which is partly evasion, seems to help, while pure armor chestpieces are doing nothing.
So I'm thinking that armor (but not evasion converted to armor) from from chestpieces is not properly contributing to this 'armor vs projectiles' stat. Perhaps it has something to do with changes made to implement the Unbreakable notable in the Juggernaut tree? After all, that only applies to chestpieces, and only to armor (not converted evasion) from those chestpieces... sounds like more than coincidence to me.
Anyway, I hope these tests have provided you a little more help in determining what's wrong. I do believe I've managed to find the source of all the discrepancies both within my tests and involving the tests of the other fellow, so hopefully this has narrowed it down quite a bit for you. I can most certainly assure you it isn't *just* Grand Spectrums, it's definitely gotta be something more. thanks for the response, that makes a little bit of sense with my followup test on a different character, as much less of my armor on that test was derived from grand spectrums (only had room for 3, vs the 6-7 i had on the original character in question)Still, on said original chracter I also had over half of my armor derived from Brass Dome, Devoto's, and some gloves I had... still seems like the damage was too high even for the 20k armor I'd have had without Grand Spectrums in play... with those dried lake archers dealing around 500ish base damage without any armor, the remaining 20k from other sources still should have been reducing damage by around 80%, while in reality I only saw *maybe* 20% reduction. Is it possible there's some other interaction going on? Cuz it still doesn't add up with the numbers I saw while testing.*edit**edit #2*Anyway, I hope these tests have provided you a little more help in determining what's wrong. |
is still in garda custody following an attempted sexual assault on a woman in St Stephen's Green.
Man tells of rescue of deaf and speech-impaired woman during attempted sex assault in St Stephen's Green
The man, aged in his 30s and said to be homeless, was arrested following the horrific attack on the woman in the busy Dublin park on Monday afternoon.
General view of Garda forensics at scene. St. Stephen's Green, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn General view of Garda forensics at scene. St. Stephen's Green, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn General view of Garda forensics at scene. St. Stephen's Green, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn
The attack was thwarted by the courageous actions of Dubliner Pat Flynn, who beat the man off the woman with a tree branch.
Mr Flynn told the Herald he was standing with a horse and buggy outside the main entrance to the park when he heard screams coming from the bushes.
Fighting
"There's always drinkers and drug users in there fighting, so nobody pays any heed anymore. But I knew these screams were different," said Mr Flynn.
"I called the gardai and ran into the park. I followed the shouts into the bushes.
"And then I saw this man that I recognise with his trousers down, and he had a very distressed young lady on the ground with her trousers down and he was roaring at her," he added.
"I could see the girl scratching at the ground trying to get away from him, and he wouldn't get off her, so I picked up a big branch that was lying on the ground and I hit him with it across the back and head. I knocked him off her," he said.
Pat said the girl ran away from the man and curled up in the bushes.
"She folded up like a wounded, frightened animal. I've never seen anyone as distressed," he said.
"The gardai arrived then and they went into the bushes to get him out, but I think he tried to bite one of them. A lady guard went in to get the girl and helped her out and she was taken to hospital," he added.
"There was a whiskey bottle on the path that I think he threatened her with."
Meanwhile, gardai investigating a serious assault outside the Dandelion nightclub on Stephen's Green in the early hours of Monday morning which left the 45-year-old victim battling for his life have arrested a man in relation to the incident.
It is believed the man was struck once in the face but fell to the ground, subsequently hitting his head against the pavement.
Read more: Woman attacked in broad daylight in St Stephen's Green
Online EditorsMedieval metal is a subgenre of folk metal that blends heavy metal music with medieval folk music. Medieval metal is mostly restricted to Germany where it is known as Mittelalter-Metal or Mittelalter-Rock.[1][2] The genre emerged from the middle of the 1990s with contributions from Subway to Sally, In Extremo and Schandmaul. The style is characterised by the prominent use of a wide variety of traditional folk and medieval instruments.
History [ edit ]
Precursors [ edit ]
The medieval folk band Corvus Corax, was formed in 1989 and released a debut album in the same year.[3] The group relies on period instruments that include the cister, hurdy-gurdy, biniou, buccina, davul, riq and cornetto curvo with the most prominent being the shawm and bagpipes. They are also known for their use of source material, adopting melodies from medieval literature written in an old system of notation called neumes but otherwise using their own interpretations for arrangements and the rhythm. They describe their approach as "louder, dirtier and more powerful than any interpretation of medieval music before."[4] The result has been associated more with medieval taverns and pubs rather than the royal courts or church.[3]
While medieval metal is a German phenomenon,[5] one of the inspirations for the genre is the English folk metal band Skyclad. Formed in 1990 as a thrash metal band, they added violins from session musician Mike Evans on several tracks from their debut album, The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth, with the song "The Widdershins Jig" acclaimed as "particularly significant" and "a certain first in the realms of Metal".[6] The band added a full time violinist to their ranks[7] and has since been credited not only as the originators and pioneers of folk metal but also as a direct inspiration for medieval metal bands.[6][8]
Origins [ edit ]
Subway to Sally, seen here performing live at the 2005 Sundstock Openair, has been credited as setting off this genre of music.
The East German band Subway to Sally was formed in 1992 as a folk rock band, singing in English and incorporating Irish and Scottish influences in their music. With their second album MCMXCV released in 1995, the band adopted a "more traditional approach" and started singing in German. Taking Skyclad as an influence,[8] Subway to Sally performs a blend of hard rock and heavy metal music "enriched with medieval melodies enmeshed in the songs via bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, lute, mandoline, shalm [sic], fiddle and flute" and combined with "romantic-symbolic German-speaking poetry" in their lyrics.[9] With chart success in their native Germany, they have since been credited as the band "that set off the wave of what is known as medieval rock."[5]
In the year 1994, a concert was organised in Berlin that featured a collaboration between a rock band known as Noah and members of the aforementioned medieval group Corvus Corax.[10] The result of this mix of medieval and rock music saw the group Noah turning into In Extremo. They began with two acoustic medieval albums before releasing a metal album Weckt die Toten! in 1998.[11][12] They have since found chart success in Germany with their "medieval style stage garb and unashamed usage of such bizarre instruments as the Scottish bagpipes."[13]
Corvus Corax also joined in the fray with the release of an EP in 1996 that featured metal music with bagpipes.[3] The EP was titled Tanzwut and the group has since continued exploring medieval metal as a side project by that name. Their style blends not only medieval music and heavy metal but also industrial and electronic beats.
The year 1999 also saw the release of Schandmaul's debut album.[14] Describing themselves as the "minstrels of today,"[5] the Bavarian outfit employs a musical arsenal that includes the bagpipes, barrel organ, shawm, violin and mandolin.[15] Like Subway to Sally and In Extremo, Schandmaul has experienced chart success in their native Germany.[14][15] Other groups that also emerged during the late 1990s and early 2000s included Letzte Instanz,[16] Morgenstern[17], Saltatio Mortis and Schattentantz.[18]
Musical characteristics [ edit ]
Tanzwut are seen here performing with bagpipes and other woodwind instruments.
Like its parent genre, medieval rock features the same typical instruments found in heavy metal music: guitars, bass, drums and vocalist. Bands in the genre are known to supplement their sound with a wide range of folk and traditional instruments. Woodwind instruments like the bagpipes, flutes and shawm can be found in the music of Corvus Corax, Tanzwut,[3] In Extremo,[13] Schandmaul,[15] Morgernstern,[17] Schattentantz[18] and Subway to Sally while string instruments like the violin, lute, hurdy-gurdy, cello, harp and mandolin are employed by Subway to Sally,[9] In Extremo,[13] Schandmaul,[15] Morgernstern,[17] and Schattentantz.[18]
List of bands [ edit ]
See also [ edit ]It all started when the hacker managed to hijack an old Hotmail account of Roger by answering the security questions.
"Let's be honest I will sell [SSN REDACTED] + your information to fraudsters that will credit f*** you then get your moms social and credit f*** her too and ruin both your lives"
37.6 BTC reward for information that leads to the arrest of the hacker that is trying to hack all my stuff at the moment. details to come!
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) May 23, 2014
"Goodbye, Sir, I am sincerely sorry I am just a middleman I was being told what to tell you."
Roger Ver, the man known as "Bitcoin Jesus, who is the Angel investor in lots of Bitcoin startups, announced a 37.6BTC reward(about $20k) for information that leads to the arrest of the hacker who hijacked his Hotmail account and threatened to ruin his life.According to reddit, the attacker used the hotmail account to gain access to Roger's old facebook account and one of his domain accounts at register.com. The attacker also attempts to hack his primary email account and domain name.The attacker using the screen name'savaged' contacted Roger via Skype and demanded "37.63289114 BTC""I think we both know this won't be pleasent and let's be honest there is nothing you can do to have me caught, I've been around too long" The attacker said.The hacker also claimed he is the one who hacked @UberFacts twitter account which has 6.7 M followers.But, Roger decided to follow a technique used in the movie called 'Ransom': Rather than giving the money to criminals, he posted he was putting a bounty on the hacker instead.When the attacker learned of the bounty on his head, he got scared and deleted Roger's hotmail and gave the password for all other accounts and ran away."I just need to raise funds for my mother, but since you aren't going to help, all your passwords are: Nigger55" The person on the end of skype said.Roger said in his tweets the things are back to control and not a single Bitcoin was stolen.We’ve already reported that the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge both have fantastic cameras that are capable of blowing the iPhone 6s out of the water in terms of quality, and we’ve shared a short movie highlighting just how great the shooter’s video capturing functionality is, but now we’re bringing you a comparison of the 12-megapixel camera’s Autofocus technology.
You may or may not be aware that the Galaxy S7 is the first smartphone on the market to feature a Dual Pixel autofocus (AF) system, which was previously only adopted for use on DSLR’s. Canon has always been referred to as the pioneer of the AF industry, so it comes as no surprize to learn that a Taiwan-based YouTuber decided to put Samsung’s offering against the best-selling Canon 70D DSLR camera, and the results, which are pretty astonishing, can be seen below:Former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is out of the woods and back to criticizing the Trump administration just four months after an embarrassing electoral defeat. This time she's accusing the White House of putting American lives at risk.
These are more than statistics, they’re American lives at risk because this administration willfully ignores the science. https://t.co/gacdRsTcQp — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 29, 2017
Clinton's tweet came shortly after President Trump signed an executive order rolling back President Obama's climate change agenda, which the administration argues will spur American energy while protecting the environment.
"My administration is putting an end to the war on coal," Trump said at EPA headquarters Tuesday. "I want to thank the miners. You know, my guys get enough thanks. These guys haven't had enough thanks. They've had a hard time."
"We’re going to have safety, we’re going to have clean water, we’re going to have clean air, but so many [regulations] are unnecessary, so many are job-killing,” Trump continued.
You can read the entire executive order here. The first policy in the order states, "It is in the national interest to promote clean and safe development of our Nation's vast energy resources, while at the same time avoiding regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production, constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation." A far cry from "American lives at risk."When you think about Atlanta, the first thing that probably comes to mind is a flashback to those Bravo commercials you've seen with The Real Housewives. But forget NeNe and Kandi -- Atlanta is much more than fake-brawling and McMansion suburbs. This city is one of the most amazing cities in America, and these are the reasons why:
1. The tourist "traps" are actually awesome.
Every city has big attractions, but Atlanta's are pretty hard to beat. The city has one of the world's largest aquariums, with over 60 exhibits and an astounding 10 million gallons of water. Something else unique to the aquarium? Swimming with whale sharks. Don't worry, it's safe.
2. Atlanta is home to every kind of Coke.
If your city is going to have a permanent sugary exhibit, it better be the World of Coca-Cola. Our favorite activities? Attempting to break into the secret vault to steal the formula and trying all of the Cokes from around the world.
3. Fox Theatre reigns supreme.
4. Atlanta's most famous restaurant is older than "Gone With The Wind."
The Varsity is not only the world's largest drive-in, but it's also arguably Atlanta's most famous restaurant. Most days, the restaurant claims to go through an estimated two miles of hot dogs, 2,500 pounds of potatoes and 300 gallons of chili. In ONE DAY. Those figures are still relatively slow compared to Georgia Tech game days, when The Varsity is visited by an estimated 30,000 people. Another fun fact? The Varsity's been around longer than the famous Atlanta novel, "Gone With The Wind."
5. You're either in, or you're out.
In Atlanta, you don't give directions or ask people where they live by referencing "uptown" or "downtown." In this city, the only thing that's relevant is whether you're inside the perimeter (ITP) or outside the perimeter (OTP). The perimeter is defined by I-285, which forms a ring around the city.
6. They LOVE their peaches.
Especially when it comes to naming streets. Every single street has the same name: Peachtree. Every. Single. Street. (Depending on who you ask, there's at least 65 or so).
7. Breakfast. Breakfast ALWAYS wins.
Other cities may love their breakfast food, but nothing compares to Atlanta. Atlanta has EIGHT out of the "21 Most Popular Waffle Houses" in the nation. And while waffles are taken seriously, biscuits are a close second. If you're not parked at a Waffle House, then you're definitely at The Flying Biscuit.
8. Street art is allowed, and even encouraged.
But really only when you're an artist invited to participate in Atlanta's "Living Walls, The City Speaks" Conference. Last year, the conference got well-known street artists from all around Atlanta (and the world) to work on building "a platform for a much needed dialogue in the city." What better way to do that than turn the streets into an open-access museum?
9. Samuel L. Jackson is the face of the Falcons.
Founded in 1966, the Atlanta Falcons are the city's resident NFL team. Thirty-two cities have NFL teams, but only one has Samuel freakin' Jackson as the face of the franchise. What do Falcons do? RISE UP.
10. A crucial part of American history still lives on here every day.
11. Sweet tea is a way of life.
You can always tell who's from the North by what sort of tea they order. If you're looking for unsweetened tea, you'll just get sideways sympathy glances from Atlanta folk. The best place to get it? Chick-fil-A. When you've got the headquarters here, it's even harder to say no! We're no fan of their politics, but nothing beats sweet tea and waffle fries.
12. A strip club is (almost) a national landmark.
13. The city is a hip-hop mecca.
Outkast, Usher, Ludacris, T.I., 2 Chainz, Goodie Mob, Waka Flocka, Gucci Mane -- the list of famous Atlanta hip-hop acts and artists could go on forever. For likely over a decade, Atlanta has been considered a hip-hop mecca -- consistently discovering new hip-hop artists and featuring them on V-103, Hot 107.9 or Street 94.5. As Atlanta music expert Neima Abdulahi told The Huffington Post -- "It's so hard to even go in depth about the hip-hop music scene here... It's more than just a genre."
14. There's a famous highway full of food.
While Atlanta might normally be associated with comfort food and sweet tea, Buford Highway has some of the best Vietnamese, Chinese and Korean food you'll ever have.
15. When in doubt, you can head to a festival.
In the spring, you can find one of the best art festivals in the nation at the famous Atlanta Dogwood Festival in Piedmont Park. When you're not cheering at the U.S. Disc Dog Southern Nationals, go fill your face with funnel cake. The Virginia Highlands Summerfest and Music Midtown are other must-see-festivals where you're sure to get down and dirty.
16. Shootin' the hooch is a "thing."
Normally reserved for lazy spring or summer days, moseying on down the Chattahoochee River on a raft is one of life's greatest pleasures.
17. Sweetwater Brewery is always the place to be.
SweetWater is our very own Atlanta microbrewery, and it's the most popular on Friday afternoons. Everyone enjoys the dog-friendly atmosphere and live music on the patios as well as and sampling one of the many brews on tap. Sweetwater also hosts one of Atlanta's most famous events, the SweetWater 420 Fest (no explanation necessary).
18. It's essentially a city in a forest.
Atlanta takes its outdoor activities seriously, whether it's going for a run on the new Beltline, hiking Stone Mountain or spending the day in Piedmont Park. Atlanta also ranks first among major American cities in tree coverage percentage, at 53.9 percent. They're so protective of their trees that the city once fined Tyler Perry $177,000 for unauthorized deforestation on his own property.
19. Even the gridlock has its upsides.
Hey, no city is completely perfect! Even though public transportation is terrible (cough cough MARTA) and traffic on Spaghetti Junction is horrendous, the long commute will give you time to catch up with your reading via audiobooks or catch up with friends and family via your hands-free phone, of course.
20. And if you can't find what you're looking for...I started building iPhoneception merely as a test to see if I could mimic the iPhone interface with HTML, Javascript, and CSS. I was delighted to accomplish it in a very short period, and then the idea was just too obvious to do some wacky things to the buttons. Thus, iPhoneception was born!
All of the code is completely original, aside from jQuery (duh), and with the exception of the gravity version which makes use of code from Eric Seidel's gravity! demo, which in turn derives code from Erin Catto's ridiculously awesome Box2D physics engine. I simply didn't have enough experience with Box2D or any canvas library for that matter, and as this was purely for fun, I just wanted to see the end result without spending weeks tearing my hair out learning how. So thank you to those two fine gentlemen.
So enjoy. Prank your friends. Prank your family. And if you forget that you've opened it on your own phone, you might even prank yourself! (as have I, several times, while building it)
-Henry KuoWe had to wait six years for the Czech Republic to return to the contest and to make up for it, they sent to singers as Marta Jandová and Václav Noid Bárta have been internally selected by the broadcaster.
The duo was formed for the contest so let’s find out who they are:
Marta Jandova has had a successful career in Germany as the lead singer of Die Happy. She also colaborated with Revolverheld and worked with Oomph to win the Bundesvision Song Contest. She was born in Prague and now gets to represent her country at the biggest song festival in the world.
Václav Noid Bárta was previously part of the band Dolores Clan and was also born in Prague.
According to this source, their song is called “Hope Never Dies” and was selected by a special jury. It consisted of music writer and journalist John Dědek, talent scout Červinka Martin, editor of Czech Radio Jitka Benesova and musicians Michal Horror and Michael Kocáb.
The song will be revealed in time so check back soon for additional information.
And don’t forget to join our conversation HEREImage copyright Getty Images Image caption A woman walks past a board listing currency exchange rates in Moscow
Global oil prices have fallen sharply over the past seven months, leading to significant revenue shortfalls in many energy exporting nations, while consumers in many importing countries are likely to have to pay less to heat their homes or drive their cars.
From 2010 until mid-2014, world oil prices had been fairly stable, at around $110 a barrel. But since June prices have more than halved. Brent crude oil has now dipped below $50 a barrel for the first time since May 2009 and US crude is down to below $48 a barrel.
The reasons for this change are twofold - weak demand in many countries due to insipid economic growth, coupled with surging US production.
Added to this is the fact that the oil cartel Opec is determined not to cut production as a way to prop up prices.
So who are some of the winners and losers?
Russia: Propping up the rouble
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The falling rouble and plunging oil revenue are some of President Putin's biggest challenges
Russia is one of the world's largest oil producers, and its dramatic interest rate hike to 17% in support of its troubled rouble underscores how heavily its economy depends on energy revenues, with oil and gas accounting for 70% of export incomes.
Russia loses about $2bn in revenues for every dollar fall in the oil price, and the World Bank has warned that Russia's economy would shrink by at least 0.7% in 2015 if oil prices do not recover.
Despite this, Russia has confirmed it will not cut production to shore up oil prices.
"If we cut, the importer countries will increase their production and this will mean a loss of our niche market," said Energy Minister Alexander Novak.
Falling oil prices, coupled with western sanctions over Russia's support for separatists in eastern Ukraine have hit the country hard.
The government has cut its growth forecast for 2015, predicting that the economy will sink into recession.
Former finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, said the currency's fall was not just a reaction to lower oil prices and western sanctions, "but also [a show of] distrust to the economic policies of the government".
Given the pressures facing Moscow now, some economists expect further measures to shore up the currency.
"We think capital controls as a policy measure cannot be off the table now," said Luis Costa, a senior analyst at Citi.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Russia's economy is forecast to fall into recession in 2015 if oil prices do not regain ground
While President Putin is not using the word "crisis", Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has been more forthright on Russia's economic problems.
"Frankly, we, strictly speaking, have not fully recovered from the crisis of 2008," he said in a recent interview.
Because of the twin impact of falling oil prices and sanctions, he said the government had had to cut spending. "We had to abandon a number of programmes and make certain sacrifices."
Russia's interest rate rise may also bring its own problems, as high rates can choke economic growth by making it harder for businesses to borrow and spend.
Venezuela: No subsidy cuts
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Venezuela saw mass anti-government protests earlier this year
Venezuela is one of the world's largest oil exporters, but thanks to economic mismanagement it was already finding it difficult to pay its way even before the oil price started falling.
Inflation is running at about 60% and the economy is teetering on the brink of recession. The need for spending cuts is clear, but the government faces difficult choices.
The country already has some of the world's cheapest petrol prices - fuel subsidies cost Caracas about $12.5bn a year - but President Maduro has ruled out subsidy cuts and higher petrol prices.
"I've considered as head of state, that the moment has not arrived," he said. "There's no rush, we're not going to throw more gasoline on the fire that already exists with speculation and induced inflation."
The government's caution is understandable. A petrol price rise in 1989 saw widespread riots that left hundreds dead.
Saudi Arabia: Price versus market share
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Saudi Arabia is not expected to cut production to prop up oil prices in the short term
Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter and Opec's most influential member, could support global oil prices by cutting back its own production, but there is little sign it wants to do this.
There could be two reasons - to try to instil some discipline among fellow Opec oil producers, and perhaps to put the US's burgeoning shale oil and gas industry under pressure.
Although Saudi Arabia needs oil prices to be around $85 in the longer term, it has deep pockets with a reserve fund of some $700bn - so can withstand lower prices for some time.
"In terms of production and pricing of oil by Middle East producers, they are beginning to recognise the challenge of US production," says Robin Mills, Manaar Energy's head of consulting.
If a period of lower prices were to force some higher cost producers to shut down, then Riyadh might hope to pick up market share in the longer run.
However, there is also recent history behind Riyadh's unwillingness to cut production. In the 1980s the country did cut production significantly in a bid to boost prices, but it had little effect and it also badly affected the Saudi economy.
Opec: Not all are equal
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Some Opec members need oil to be above $120 a barrel to avoid hard spending choices
Alongside Saudi Arabia, Gulf producers such as the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have also amassed considerable foreign currency reserves, which means that they could run deficits for several years if necessary.
Other Opec members such as Iran, Iraq and Nigeria, with greater domestic budgetary demands because of their large population sizes in relation to their oil revenues, have less room for manoeuvre.
They have combined foreign currency reserves of less than $200bn, and are already under pressure from increased US competition.
Nigeria, which is Africa's biggest oil producer, has seen growth in the rest of its economy but despite this it remains heavily oil-dependent. Energy sales account for up to 80% of all government revenue and more than 90% of the country's exports.
The war in Syria and Iraq has also seen Isis, or Islamic State, capturing oil wells. It is estimated it is making about $3m a day through black market sales - and undercutting market prices by selling at a significant discount - around $30-60 a barrel.
United States: Fracking boom
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption US domestic oil production has boomed due to fracking
"The growth of oil production in North America, particularly in the US, has been staggering," says Columbia University's Jason Bordoff.
Speaking to BBC World Service's World Business Report, he said that US oil production levels were at their highest in almost 30 years.
It has been this growth in US energy production, where gas and oil is extracted from shale formations using hydraulic fracturing or fracking, that has been one of the main drivers of lower oil prices.
"Shale has essentially severed the linkage between geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East, and oil price and equities," says Seth Kleinman, head of energy strategy at Citi.
Even though many US shale oil producers have far higher costs than conventional rivals, many need to carry on pumping to generate at least some revenue stream to pay off debts and other costs.
Europe and Asia: Mixed blessings
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Growth in the European Union remains weak
With Europe's flagging economies characterised by low inflation and weak growth, any benefits of lower prices would be welcomed by beleaguered governments.
A 10% fall in oil prices should lead to a 0.1% increase in economic output, say some. In general consumers benefit through lower energy prices, but eventually low oil prices do erode the conditions that brought them about.
China, which is set to become the largest net importer of oil, should gain from falling prices. However, lower oil prices won't fully offset the far wider effects of a slowing economy.
Japan imports nearly all of the oil it uses. But lower prices are a mixed blessing because high energy prices had helped to push inflation higher, which has been a key part of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's growth strategy to combat deflation.
India imports 75% of its oil, and analysts say falling oil prices will ease its current account deficit. At the same time, the cost of India's fuel subsidies could fall by $2.5bn this year - but only if oil prices stay low.Last week, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed announced the details of a plan to effectively remove the governorate of al-Hudaydah from the Yemeni civil war. The plan does far more than propose a ceasefire for the vital port city; it also includes the payment of salaries to civil servants, and spells out the role of the international community. If implemented, the “al-Hudaydah Plan” could serve as a model for a nation-wide peace agreement. The Government of President Hadi and the Government of Egypt have reportedly announced their support for the plan, it is not yet clear whether any of the other warring parties will agree to the plan. Below is the YPP’s English translation of the plan, as presented by the UN Special Envoy to the Arab League.
Provisions of the Agreement:
The declaration, by the United Nations, that the Governorate of al-Hudaydah is a safe zone, free from armed conflict.
The halting of any military intervention against the province by the Saudi-led coalition.
The withdrawal of armed Houthis from all the directorates of the governorate, in addition to the withdrawal of revolutionary committees or any faction that does not belong to the governmental institutions or departments.
The governorate to be managed through a third Yemeni party who is not affiliated with the legitimate government nor the Houthi-Saleh alliance. This is to be done through the Supreme Council of the Governorate of al-Hudaydah.
The various key parties can participate in the council with one member each (Al-Mu’tamar (GPC), Ansar Allah (Houthi Movement), Islah Party, and the Hadi government), along with three to five persons who are not affiliated with the mentioned parties. One of those nonpartisan members will be assigned as the president of the council.
The formation of the main sub-committees of the Council (to include those who have not participated in the military operations or were not previously a part of the administrative parties):
1) The security and military committee
2) The Port reconstructions and operation committee
3) The airport reconstructions and operation committee
4) The services Committee
The members of the province’s local council should work with the aforementioned committees and the local cadres of the council should work with the administration of those committees.
The United Nations and the international community should support the Supreme Council of the Governorate of al-Hudaydah with a full team of experts in various sectors (administrative, economic, and security) to help provide the necessary advice during the work of the Supreme Council.
The Central Bank of Yemen is obliged to open a branch in the governorate, provided that the branch administration is assigned to Arab cadres approved by the United Nations. The administration of the branch should be assigned to the branch staff who were present before 2010.
The Yemeni commercial banks are obliged to open branches in the province.
The World Bank or a U.N. entity will supervise the central bank branch in al-Hudaydah.
The international community must ensure the distribution of the employees’ salaries in the various governorates of the Republic according to the statements of entitlement for 2014, and the customs and taxes should be collected and supplied to the Central Bank branch in al-Hudaydah. Additionally, the oil and gas revenues should be supplied for the Central Bank of Yemen in al-Hudaydah.
The international community must cover the salary deficit for at least one year through the World Bank.
The salaries of three last months should be paid in lump sum, and the salaries of the remaining past months must be scheduled to be paid in four installments with each installment to be paid in a due month.
The administrative and technical staff that worked in 2010 will manage the services facilities of the province of al-Hudaydah and will provide the necessary expertise from outside the governorate or from outside Yemen if required.
The military cadres that worked in 2010 and were based in al-Hudaydah will protect the facilities in al-Hudaydah Governorate. The command of these units shall be assigned to military officers who have not participated in the military operations by the main two parties of the conflict.
To create trust and ensure the implementation [of these articles], the following countries shall open their consulates in the governorate of al-Hudaydah, United States; United Kingdom; Russia; China; France; Germany; Jordan and; Egypt. Any other Arab or foreign country can open its consulate as it desires.
To ensure the flow of aid, humanitarian organizations should open branches in the province of al-Hudaydah.
Yemen Airlines is required to operate three flights a day to ensure Yemen is connected to the outside world.
Operating weekly flights to one of these Arab countries either Jordan or Egypt.
The formation of a Shura Council consisting of natives of al-Hudaydah and includes people from:
Business
Civil society organizations
Unions and federations
Scholars and sheikhs [clerics]
Young people
Women
To total thirty members.
The international community must ensure the provision of the basic services described below:
1) The reconstruction of the port and the provision of 6 cranes
2) The reconstruction of al-Hudaydah Airport
3) Providing 200 MW of electricity
4) Providing diesel and oil with international prices without increasing
5) The reconstruction of the water and sewage sector and the provision of equipment
6) The reconstruction of the cleaning sector.
7) The reconstruction of the health sector and the provision of support from foreign cadres.
8) The reconstruction of the education sector
9) The provision of financial support for the maintenance of the province in accordance with the budget to be agreed upon by the international community.Abstract
In a long-running ruby process with a highly dynamic object-space, we encountered performance degradation and finally memory-allocation failure due to heap fragmentation. The problem can be mitigated by linking ruby against ptmalloc3.
Hi all! I’m writing this mail in the hope that my experiences may point you in the right direction, if you ever encounter a similar problem. Naturally I would be delighted to read your comments and advice on my conclusions and the steps taken.
http://ch.oddb.org [1] provides information on the swiss health-care market. Behind an Apache/mod-ruby setup lies a single ruby-process, which acts as a DRb-Server. Predating Ruby on Rails, the application is based on self-baked libraries [2-4].
A couple of weeks ago we experienced a spike in user requests. Although the application seemed to scale well most of the time, we began experiencing outages after a couple of hours. Whenever that happened, CPU-Load rose to 100% and DRb-Requests were hanging, sometimes for several minutes. At the same time, memory usage started rising considerably. If left to run for enough time, the application would crash with a NoMemoryError: ‘Failed to allocate Memory’ – even though there was still plenty of Memory available in the system.
Thanks to Jamis Buck [5] and Mauricio Fernandez [6] I was able to determine that the application was stuck for several seconds in glibc’s realloc, which may be called (via ruby_xrealloc) from basically anywhere within ruby where a new or enlarged chunk of memory might be required.
Having stated the diagnosis: heap fragmentation [7], there were a couple of things I could try to improve the performance of our application, all revolving around the principle of creating fewer objects, and in particular fewer Strings, Arrays and Hashes. By eliminating a number of obvious suspects (mainly to do with the on-demand sorting of values stored in a large Hash), I was able to raise the life-expectancy of our application considerably – close, but no cigar.
And then – all praise bugzilla – I found a bugreport [8] describing almost exactly my problems and leading me to ptmalloc3 [9]. Glibc’s malloc implementation is based on ptmalloc2, and may be replaced by simply linking ruby against ptmalloc3.
As far as I understand, ptmalloc3 does not eliminate heap fragmentation. However, due to the bit-wise tree employed in the newer version, it finds free chunks of the right size in shorter time by several orders of magnitude. Additionally, it seems that glibc 2.5 abandons its attempts to find a best-fit chunk after a while (possibly after 10000 tries), instead expanding the heap as long as possible and finally failing to allocate memory – causing first the fast rise in memory usage and later the observed NoMemoryError.
At this time, http://ch.oddb.org has run – powered by ruby and ptmalloc3 – for a little more than 24 hours without displaying any of the signs I have come to associate with heap fragmentation. Significantly less time is spent in allocating memory – and consequently in GC, and the overall memory-footprint has decreased by about 30%.
I hope this is of use – thanks in advance for any thoughts you want to share.
Hannes Wyss
[1] Open Drug Database
http://scm.ywesee.com/?p=oddb.org;a=summary
[2] Object-Database Access and Object Cache
http://scm.y |
had complained about Manweller after a meeting with him turned into a dinner that she said felt like a date.
Earlier this week, CWU placed Manweller on leave, saying it is now pursuing a new investigation of allegations of inappropriate conduct. Manweller’s first wife, who was just out of high school when the couple married, has also said recently that Manweller kissed her when she was 17 and that she believes Manweller was grooming her when she was a high-school sophomore and he was a teacher at the school.
Manweller, R-Ellensburg, has denied wrongdoing at CWU, in Olympia and with his first wife. He said in a text message Thursday that the current environment makes his role in leadership a “distraction.”
“Right now I plan to focus solely on my district and step away from my leadership roles,” Manweller said. House Majority Leader Pat Sullivan, D-Covington, has called on Manweller to resign from the Legislature, but Manweller has said that will not happen.
The Legislature has rarely seen personnel changes amid accusations of misconduct. Former Democratic Rep. Jim Jacks resigned in 2011 after accusations of inappropriate behavior toward a female staffer, but legislative leaders did not detail the circumstances of his departure until last month.
But amid a national discussion about sexual harassment, the issue has surged to the forefront in Olympia. More than 200 women have signed a letter demanding changes to the culture of politics in Olympia, saying it has been silently permissive of harassment and inappropriate behavior.
Kristiansen didn’t say in his statement why he wanted Manweller to step down. He said “leadership will continue to evaluate facts and monitor any new information.”
The first investigation at CWU occurred in 2012 as Manweller was running for office. The inquiry looked primarily at allegations from a student several years prior. Manweller, who began working at CWU in 2003, was not disciplined after that first investigation, but it concluded there was evidence to suggest he had violated the school’s sexual harassment policies.
The second investigation began soon after the first and again closely scrutinized his actions in years prior. That investigation also concluded that there was evidence to suggest policy violations, and the university issued a letter of reprimand and ordered Manweller to undergo training to prevent sexual harassment.SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- As Gov. Andrew Cuomo was on the cusp of awarding $2 billion in economic development money in Albany this morning, a top U.S. prosecutor made it clear that he was watching.
As alleged, this is my official Twitter account. And this, allegedly, is my first tweet. Stay tuned... — US Attorney Bharara (@PreetBharara) December 10, 2015
It was a chilling first tweet from the prosecutor who is looking into state contracts awarded in Cuomo's key Upstate project -- the Buffalo Billion.
Twitter was quick to respond.
If that doesn't qualify as Preet trolling Cuomo, I don't know what does. — Jimmy Vielkind (@JimmyVielkind) December 10, 2015
Preet's sense of timing, as always, is fascinating. — Nick Reisman (@NickReisman) December 10, 2015
An ominous thing to read as you watch the state give out $2 billion... https://t.co/Tkr2iAnrCH — Will Brunelle (@WillBrunelle) December 10, 2015
Bharara is the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He's been targeting political corruption in Albany for more than a year.
Former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was convicted by a federal jury last week. Former Senate leader, Dean Skelos, is, at this moment, awaiting a jury to decide his fate.
Those were two of the three men in a closed-door room who traditionally decided the bulk of state policy and spending. Cuomo, as governor, is the third. Cuomo has not been publicly accused of any wrongdoing by Bharara.
Instead, the prosecutor keeps leaving these "stay tuned" bread crumbs.
Bharara is also looking into Cuomo's disbanding of the Moreland Commission, a panel the governor created to ferret out political corruption.The Bugalugs Bum Thief (1991) is a children's novel by Australian author Tim Winton.
Story [ edit ]
The Bugalugs Bum Thief is a comedic mystery story about Skeeta Anderson. When Skeeta wakes to find his bum is missing he discovers that everyone in Bugalugs is also missing their bum. Skeeta decides to find the bum thief.[1]
Review [ edit ]
Reviews by readers :[2]
I really enjoyed this book. It was very quick to read, but it was fun. I would recommend this book for younger readers and older readers who are looking for a quick, funny read. My mum ejoyed [sic] reading it to my youger[sic] brother and sister as well.
The book is OK, but only if you are interested in bums. My younger bro liked it, so its probably best for kids around 4-7 that love bums.
Hilarious! I laughed my bum off!
Theatrical Adaptation [ edit ]
The monkey baa theatre company has toured extensively with a production of The Bugalugs Bum Thief. The first tour was in schools New South Wales (NSW) in 1988 followed by a second tour in 1989 through NSW, ACT, Victoria, and Tasmania to schools, libraries and community halls. During that tour they also staged performances at Glen Street Theatre in Sydney. They toured again in 2002 to 13 theatres in New South Wales, the ACT and to the Arts Centre, Melbourne.
In 2005 and 2006 they toured the production in Queensland in conjunction with the Queensland Arts Council.[3]
There were further monkey baa productions staged at several venues in Sydney Theatres in April - May 2015.[4]
Series [ edit ]
Aussie Bites - a series of Australian children's books published by Puffin.[5]
Awards [ edit ]
1994 Winner CROW Award (Children Reading Outstanding Writers): Focus list (Years 3-5) [6]
1998 Winner YABBA Awards: Fiction for Younger ReadersWhy not celebrate SysAdmin Day by worrying about a data breach at incident management peddler PagerDuty? An attacker managed to get into the company's systems on 9 July, and a belated 21 days later the company did the decent thing and informed its customers about the incident.
'Fessing up to the breach on its website, PagerDuty admitted that it detected an unauthorised intrusion by an attacker who exfiltrated "some information" about its customers back in early July.
An email sent to customers and seen by The Register is more revealing about what was exposed. The company acknowledged the attacker "gained unauthorised access to our users' names, email addresses, public calendar feed URLs, and hashed, salted and peppered passwords".
Andrew Miklas, the company's co-founder and CTO, stated that there is no evidence the attacker was able to access the pepper, which he states "makes it computationally infeasible that the hashed passwords can be used in any way by the attacker".
A concern noted by Scott Arciszewski, among others, however, raises questions regarding the pepper.
Referencing a blog post by Anthony Ferrara, Arciszewski reminded Miklas that a common, and improper implementation of the pepper may make it redundant.
"Passwords are hashed with a salt and pepper" @pagerduty 40ch salt+40ch pepper for bcrypt? https://t.co/GlRNInB6y1 pic.twitter.com/j2cotLj3D6 — Michal Špaček (@spazef0rze) July 30, 2015
The CTO, who has been otherwise active in the comments, has yet to provide an answer.
Miklas stated an absence of evidence (which, of course, is not necessarily an evidence of absence) that either "corporate, technical, financial or sensitive end-user information, including phone numbers" had been exposed.
The CTO additionally apologised for the incident and encouraged concerned customers to contact the company directly. He explained:
Based on the investigation, the attacker bypassed multiple layers of authentication and gained unauthorised access to an administrative panel provided by one of our infrastructure providers. With this access, they were able to log into a replica of one of PagerDuty’s databases. The evidence indicates that the attacker gained access to users' names, email addresses, hashed passwords and public calendar feed URLs.
Asked by a customer if the company would be posting a postmortem explaining how the attackers got in and how the company would prevent future breaches, Miklas stated: "The attacker gained unauthorised access to an administrative panel provided by one of our hosting providers. At the request of law enforcement, we are not able to provide additional information."
As a precautionary measure, the company is asking its users to set new strong passwords following the breach.
Users that do not reset their password by Monday, August 3 at 12:00pm Pacific Time will be automatically logged out of the website and will receive an email prompting them to reset their password. At no time will alert delivery be affected by this process.
PagerDuty additionally recommends that customers reset calendar feed URLs and revoke and re-add access to any mobile devices linked to their PagerDuty account. ®I have a penchant for an alternative Afternoon Tea, it has to have something unique and original to get me to commit, so over the past couple of years, I’ve been to a few and what I promise to do, is add to this post over time, every time I find another little gem, or one you should avoid like the plague ( in my sound opinion of course)
Side Note: ( Only issue i have with all afternoon teas when they leave the menu on the table, as it displays the price – a tad annoying when you’ve bought it for someone as a gift!)
Now you can either go on the individual websites or I always use www.afternoontea.co.uk as well
Afternoon Tea @ Sanderson Hotel ( Mad Hatter’s Edition )
Date of Visit: May 21st 2015
Number of people: 3
Seating Time: 3pm
The Sanderson is located on Berner’s Street in London’s West End, just off Oxford Street. Its a 50’s building that doesn’t look particularly impressive from outside, but it more than makes up for it once those glass doors are opened for you. It has most definitely been brought into the 21st Century by Phillippe Starck with it’s stunningly immaculate modern quirky cool vibe. Upon entry we walked towards the reception area and was directed over to the restaurant in the opposite direction. We were warmly greeted by a young lady at the reservation desk and shown to our seats in the wonderful Courtyard. With stunning weather we were happy to see we were placed outside on this occasion. Though think marquee as opposed to being outside along with the elements, with a pashmina at each table should you need it! A touch that impressed us…
Our waiter then informed us about the menu ( which was actually presented in an old book!) and the amazing selection of teas which included: strawberries and cream, mint choc chip and apple pie to name just a few. As the tea came out, you couldn’t help but notice the relationship with the design collective, Luna & Curious. The attention to detail was truly enchanting. Not only with the crockery, but the magical box that held the sugar in, which brings back memories of being a child! ( All of which you can purchase I’ve just found out!)
We were then presented with our savoury and sweet part of the menu.
Savoury was: Smoked Cumbrian Ham with wholegrain mustard on sundried tomato bread, cucumber and chive cream cheese on spinach bread, cold smoked salmon and lemon butter on dark rye bread and egg mayonnaise with watercress and smoked sea salt on lemon bread and the daily quiche- All very tasty, but what we loved most was the variation of breads which made it even more interesting, even for me who never typically enjoys egg mayonnaise – I was encouraged to try these ones and was glad I did.
Now for the Sweet: All was expertly created with attention to detail and included: carrot and ginger meringue on a bead of pea shoots, “strawberries and cream” homemade marshmallow mushrooms, “tick tock” traditional victoria sponge, Melting mango cheesecake encased in white chocolate, Matcha Green tea and white chocolate mousse served in chocolate tea cup and a Drink Me Potion – which was a smoothie with both passion fruit and coconut, quite potent, but enjoyable, you almost wanted a little more. Also a selection of homemade savoury and sweet scones with herb butter, strawberry jam and clotted cream
My fav was actually the victoria sponge, but the mango cheesecake was a close second – I’m very much a fan of white chocolate ( or vanilla) so anything involving that will always catch my eye! It really was a journey of flavours in such an interesting way and I can definitely see why friends recommended this particular one to me.
Lovely finishing touch….a lil somethin’ for the birthday girl…
After indulging for two whole hours, we decided to stop at their bar, ” The Long Bar” and enjoy a glass of Veuve Cliquot before heading home ( and unfortunately not upstairs to admire some fantastic rooms I’ve seen pictures of!) My only gripe? The barman allowed me to pour my own and my guests drinks when we finished our first glasses finished ( shock horror.. lol) Other than that – a fantastic experience that I’d highly recommend ( Well I already have to those of you who’ve had to endure my photos already) – and make sure you have a look at the lifts in the main lobby – they are truly stunning. ( and of course the big red lips chair – which I completely forgot to take a picture of)
Officially one of my favourite afternoon teas and quickly looking for a reason to return.
Price was £38 per person ( £30 for 4 – 11 yr olds) or £48 with Champagne ( £58 with Rose Champagne)
More information and how to book can be found here: Sanderson Hotel Mad Hatters Info Site
Afternoon Tea @ Conrad St James ( Alice in Wonderland Edition)
Date of Visit: May 7th 2015
Number of people: 2
Seating Time: 2pm
The Conrad St James is conveniently located across the road from St James’ Park Underground Station. We greeted by a cheerful porter, Dave who kindly showed us inside, and already knew we were here for the afternoon tea. To mark the 150th Anniversary of the book, this particular tea paid homage to the Alice in Wonderland Book.
Once inside, we were given the choice on where to sit and was then introduced to our waiter for the afternoon, Gabriel. He immediately had us laughing which made for a great afternoon tone.
He poured our first glass of champagne and then explained to us about the teas and the order in which things would come out etc. We chose the Rooibus Tea ( I think it was called) which I enjoyed, but as we opted for free flowing champagne, we stuck to that.
The savoury menu was Curious Oyster Shells with smoked mackerel pate, Mini club sandwich, smoked salmon sandwich and Stromboli. All which tasted really nice.
The sweet menu followed soon after with Checkerboard chocolate truffle tower, mini toadstool lemon tarts, elderflower macarons, Eat Me Earl Grey Panna Cotta & Ginger bread biscuit and “painting the roses red” cake with freshly baked plain and fruit scones with clotted cream, jam and additionally pink grapefruit curd. The detail from the pastry chef was amazing, each item was well thought out and all tasted amazing ( I didn’t really enjoy the Earl Grey panna cotta which i thought tasted like coffee – but that’s simply because I don’t like coffee or Earl Grey.. lol – but the biscuit was delightful.
and a birthday treat for the birthday girl!
Each table has a 1 hour and 30 minutes allocation but as it wasn’t particularly busy, I expect, we were there until just gone 5pm.
P.S The toilets were stunning also – as was the decor throughout!
Price was £49 per person with free flowing champagne or £35 per person without. Conrad St James Dining Options
Afternoon Tea @ One Aldwych ( Charlie & the Chocolate Factory Edition)
Date of Visit: April 16th 2015
Number of people: 2
Seating Time: 2:30pm
We travelled into Charing Cross station, but bear in mind its probably about a ten minute walk from here, as it’s closer to the Strand, on Aldwych specifically and can be found opposite the ME hotel. The tea is actually served in their Axis Bar. We were greeted and taken downstairs to the restaurant and placed amongst others who were mid way or just starting their afternoon teas.
The decor was just modern and classic, nothing unique, but we were immediately greeted by our waiter, who was absolutely lovely. He went through what to expect and the various teas you could have to match your selection. There was also a menu on the table with a wonderful drawing depicting The Gloop Family.
Absolutely everything on the Savoury menu was delightful and were in various forms not just cut sandwiches as in traditional afternoon teas. They were in a variety of breads and included: smoked salmon and her creme fraiche, egg mayonnaise with watercress, roast beef and mustard mayonnaise but with the addition of a heritage tomato tart and leek and stilton quiche – All amazingly flavoursome and I was incredibly happy when they asked if we wanted a top up on the ones we like the most!
Sweet menu – I’m afraid sounded and looked better than it tasted. It was Golden Choc egg filled with vanilla cheesecake and mango ( I can’t believe I’m saying this but it was wayyy too chocolatey and maybe some biscuit with the vanilla would have made it not so sweet) Home made candy floss ( you had to guess the flavour – so i’ll leave that a secret!) Lime, Coconut and White Chocolate cake pop ( I’m a connoisseur of both white chocolate and cake pops) couldn’t really taste the white choc and it wasn’t as moist as a cake pop should be. i was really looking forward to that one.
Chocolate caramel milk – like a milkshake but in these cute looking bottles with a straw and a shot glass filled with Eton Mess – was delightful!
Cocoa bean financier – which was like a chocolate cake in the shape of a cocoa bean was lovely! Also the blueberry brioche ( should have been warm and softer really) but a great concept and was tasty as were the scones ( which i always love) with the normal trappings of clotted cream / jam etc.
I tried a selection of the teas – Smooth Caramel and Queen of Berries – both were great and complimented it well.
What stood out for me the most was really the service, our waiter was fantastic, he kept us informed, always told us what everything was, checked on us in a timely fashion and we never felt rushed at any point. I loved the selection of stuff but I’d like to see them develop the taste of them to a next level, as the selection was so unique.
Price: £34.50 per person or £45 with a glass of Champagne or a Cocktail. One Aldwych Afternoon Tea Info
“Not Afternoon Tea” @ Oxo Tower Bar & Brasserie
Date of Visit: May 6th 2014
Number of People: 2
Seating Time: 3pm
We decided to opt to arrive at Blackfriars station and take the short walk over the bridge which takes you directly to the Oxo Tower ( Definitely the scenic route on a sunny day) Although too windy to sit outside, the oxo tower has some stunning riverside views of London. We were probably one of handful of people in the restaurant at that time but we were greeted with big smiles and lots of helpful staff.
We were first given our glass of Champagne, followed by the savoury element of our ” not afternoon tea” which was Goat’s Curd and Prosciutto Bruschetta then followed by a cocktail.
After that came our Sweet sharing plate, everything tasted amazing, a nice touch was that it came with cream and Ice – cream and with a lovely birthday message for the birthday girl.
There are actually a few packages to choose from at the Oxo, we opted for the “Something to Celebrate” which was £99 for two glasses of Bollinger, Two Cocktails of your choice, The savoury option and the dessert sharing plate. There are ones which start at £24.50. So check out the options here: http://www.harveynichols.com/news/2015/02/03/not-afternoon-tea/
Afternoon Tea @ Cafecito, Asia de Cuba
Date of Visit: February 2nd 2014
Number of people: 8.5 (.5 being the baby niece in tow)
Seating Time: 1:30pm
If you like modern architecture but with a feel of classic Cuba, this really is the place to visit. The quirky parts of this afternoon tea have made this one of my all time favourites so far. This Asian Cuban Fusion Cuisine really was a winner for me.
We were actually running really late, due to it being Chinese New Year and Covent Garden having a lot of the roads closed, but they were sooo accommodating which was great! Stunning entrance into the St Martin’s Lane Hotel where you’ll find Asia de Cuba situated.
We had old fashioned cigar boxes placed on each of table places, which had an old newspaper which was actually today’s menu and your cutlery and tea strainer.
The menu started with an Aperitivo which was Mango, Kiwi and Strawberry layered bottle.
In the Savoury section was smoked salmon tart with quails eggs & chipotle hollandaise, Cubano pressed sandwich with BBQ pulled pork, swiss cheese & ham. Beef & Veg empanadas with Caribbean hot sauce, Fresh green mango, cucumber & mouli summer roll. Hot & sour chicken & avocado spring roll and lastly savour scones served with Mojito Butter.
Sweet selection was: chocolate chilli cream & pistachio crumble, banana spring rolls filled with white chocolate and coconut ganache, mini mexican doughnuts filled with butterscotch sauce & key lime pie topped with a soft meringue.
And of course some extra doughnuts for a birthday surprise as well, which was great.
Plenty of stunning Asian teas and also a section of cocktails to choose from.
Everything tasted amazing and flavoursome with such a mix of uniqueness, I would definitely recommend this place to people and I’ll definitely be back to sample those cocktails.
Price: £35 with one cocktail or £25 without. Sadly I’ve heard they are no longer doing afternoon tea which is a real shame! Hopefully it makes a return. I’ll definitely be back for Dinner or Lunch… ( or just dessert!) Asia de Cuba Restaurant
Hope you’ve enjoyed – Remember to save the page and keep returning to see updates of new ones!
AdvertisementsPaul Elam and I recently wrote a piece called “Colleges push anti-male sex policies to the edge,” about how colleges are bending, stretching, twisting, and pounding the definition of sexual misconduct to include all manner of things that, by any rational measure, are not sexual misconduct. We explained that this stems from an extremist feminist tradition of rape advocacy that encourages purported victims to engorge the definition of “rape” and “sexual assault” to include all manner of alleged violations that are neither “rape” nor “sexual assault.”
The past few days have given us stellar examples of how that extremist tradition has become the norm.
First up is Lauren R. Taylor of the Washington Post, who defends the sexual violence study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That study, in the words of Christina Hoff Sommers, “suggests that rates of sexual violence in the United States are comparable to those in the war-stricken Congo.” How does the new study arrive at the conclusion that sexual violence is rampant? By “careless advocacy research,” Ms. Sommers explains, and by asking respondents if they had sex while inebriated or if someone pressured them by by repeatedly asking, showing they were unhappy, telling them lies, or making false promises. In short, the study defines sexual violence “in impossibly elastic ways,” as Ms. Sommers puts it.
Well, impossibly elastic is just fine by Lauren R. Taylor, thank you very much! She proclaims: “The questions [in the study] are vague and broad, because the reality of sexual violence is vague and broad.”
The statement is as inane as it is dangerous. The sine qua non of sexual violence is the absence of consent. Either there is consent or there isn’t, and there’s nothing “vague” or “broad” about that. While some manifested assertions of assent are so tainted by impropriety that our law does not consider them legally operative (an example is a promise obtained by duress), nagging for sex and the other things asked typically aren’t among them.
Next up, a Harvard student named Emma Wood, who pooh-poohs the prevalence of false rape claims. Emma is in a class by herself. Aside from slinking into the easily-mouthed clichés of radical feminism, Emma lobs the following bomb, presumably with a straight face: “I am convinced that no umbrella definition of sexual assault can exist. Just as each person defines his or her sexuality for him or herself, each person defines sexual assault on a similarly personal level.”
There you have it. Rape is in the eye of the beholder. In Ms. Taylor’s and Ms. Wood’s world, sexual assault isn’t a crime that needs to be defined with sufficient due process specificity to put the accused on notice of the conduct it proscribes. It is a free-floating clearinghouse to redress any sexual encounter deemed unsatisfactory at the caprice and whim of a self-anointed victim.
For eons, rape had a widely accepted, horrific meaning. Now, according to the people who dominate the public discourse on it, it means nothing — because it means everything. Carefully crafted criminal laws, honed by centuries of thoughtfully constructed judicial decisions, have been scrapped in favor of a 1970’s mood ring.
That tells us all we need to know about the people who dominate the public discourse on rape.Craig Troccia mugshot (Dauphin County Jail)
A 54-year-old Virginia man was arrested on Monday afternoon after he went on a drunken rampage at a truck stop in Dauphin County.
According to PennLive.com, Craig Troccia was at the Flying J Truck Plaza on Highway 81 when he bashed in the windshield of his own vehicle, then poured a cup of urine — presumably his own — inside.
Witnesses say Troccia told a passing black man to “go back to Africa” and then pulled down his pants, exposing his genitals to the man and everyone else in the parking lot.
It was then that Troccia pulled a gun and said he would kill the black passerby and everyone else at the truck stop.
Virginia State Troopers arrived on the scene, which sent Troccia into a frenzy.
“I’ll f*cking kill you for calling the police!” he shouted as officers closed in on him. Troccia threatened a trooper and members of the officer’s family before being taken into custody and loaded into a police cruiser.
During transport, police reports said, Troccia continued to spew death threats against the arresting officers and repeatedly slammed his head and body into “the various panels of the vehicle.”
At the Dauphin County Jail, Troccia was charged with 34 criminal counts including ethnic intimidation, aggravated assault, indecent exposure, open lewdness, public drunkenness, simple assault, terroristic threats, intimidation of a witness, resisting arrest, criminal mischief and harassment.
PennLive said that Troccia is currently being held at the jail on $25,000 bail. His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Aug. 31.
The website CraveOnline.com joked:Israel has pummelled Gaza for a 14th day, raising the Palestinian death toll to more than 580, as ceasefire efforts continue in Doha and Cairo.
With air strikes and shelling raining down across the besieged coastal enclave, Israel's army on Tuesday said two of its soldiers had been killed the day earlier, bringing the Israeli toll to 27 troops and two civilians in the bloodiest Gaza conflict since 2009.
Washington urged Israel to take "greater steps" to prevent innocent casualties, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon appealed for the violence to "stop now" as it emerged most of the dead were civilians.
Hamas insisted on a lifting of Israel's siege of Gaza and the release of prisoners in order to agree to any ceasefire accord.
US Secretary of State John Kerry pledged $47m in humanitarian aid to Gaza as he called for an end to the violence.
"We are deeply concerned about the consequences of Israel's appropriate and legitimate effort to defend itself," he told reporters as he met with the UN chief.
Kerry, Ban, and Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi urged Hamas to accept the Egyptian-proposed ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, held talks in Doha, the Qatari capital, pledging to work together for a ceasefire and to lift the blockade on Gaza.
Hamas reiterated the necessity on a lifting of Israel's blockade of Gaza and the release of prisoners to halt its rocket fire.
"The conditions for a ceasefire are... a full lifting of the blockade and then the release of those recently detained in the West Bank," its leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said on television.
"We cannot go backwards, to a slow death," he said, referring to the Israeli blockade in force since 2006.
Hospital bombed
Monday's attacks across Gaza killed at least 56 people including 16 children, bringing the overall death toll since Israel launched its operation on July 8 to 583 Palestinians, according to figures provided by Gaza emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra. More than 3,600 Palestinians have been injured in the attacks.
In the costliest single Israeli bombardment, an air strike hit a residential tower block in central Gaza City, killing 11 people, including five children.
It came after Israeli tank shells struck a hospital in Deir al-Balah, killing at least five people, including doctors, officials said, indicating at least 70 people were wounded.
Rights group Amnesty International warned Monday that the shelling of the hospital as well as the "continuing bombardment of civilian homes" in Gaza, "add to the list of possible war crimes that demand an urgent independent international investigation".
Since the Israeli operation began on July 8, huge numbers of Palestinians have fled their homes, with the UN saying more than 100,000 people have sought shelter in 69 schools run by its Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA).
Deadly clashes in southern Israel
Violence also broke out in the West Bank, where an Israeli shot dead a Palestinian who had been throwing stones at his car, Palestinian security sources said.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said the military was investigating the death, which she said took place during "a violent riot".
Israeli police said Palestinians had rioted in East Jerusalem neighbourhoods Monday night, with no casualties.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, an Israeli was wounded after a Palestinian opened fire at him from a travelling car, the army said.
On Monday, Israeli forces killed more than 10 fighters who had infiltrated southern Israel, the army said, later announcing it had lost four soldiers in that battle.
The troops who died in that clash were among seven killed in 24 hours, said the Israeli army, adding 30 soldiers were wounded over the same period. Two soldiers were also killed in the Gaza Strip, the army said on Tuesday.
That brought its toll to 27 soldiers killed since the start of the operation, including 13 on Sunday, the bloodiest single day for the Israeli military since the Lebanon war of 2006.
At least 116 rockets hit Israel on Monday, one striking the greater Tel Aviv area, and another 17 were shot down, the Israeli army said.Thanks to my female staffers and their friends for assembling their top tips for women. — Rick Steves
Every year, thousands of women, young and old, travel to Europe on their own. You can, too, by using the same good judgment you use at home. Begin with caution and figure out as you travel what feels right to you. Create conditions that are likely to turn out in your favor, and you'll have a safer, smoother, more enjoyable trip.
Theft and harassment are two big concerns for women. If you've traveled alone in America, you're more than prepared for Europe. In America, theft and harassment are especially scary because of their connection with assault. In Europe, you'll rarely, if ever, hear of violence. Theft is past tense (as in, "Where did my wallet go?"). As for experiencing harassment, you're far more likely to think, "I'm going to ditch this guy ASAP" than, "This guy is going to hurt me." Here are some tips for safe and pleasant travels:
Use street smarts. Be self-reliant and well prepared, so that you don't need to depend on someone unless you want to — carry cash, a map, a guidebook, and a phrase book. Walk purposefully with your head up; look like you know where you're going. If you get lost in an unfriendly neighborhood, be savvy about whom you ask for help; seek out another woman or a family, or go into a store or restaurant to ask for directions or to study your map.
When you use cash machines, withdraw cash during the day on a busy street, not at night when it's dark with too few people around.
Be proactive about public transportation. Before you leave a city, consider visiting the train or bus station you're going to leave from, so you'll know where it is, how long it takes to reach it, if it feels safe, and what services it has. Reconfirm your departure time. If you're leaving late at night and the bus or train station is sketchy, ask your B&B owner if you can hang out in their lounge or breakfast room — generally untouched in the evening — until you need to head for the station. Cafés, including busy Internet cafés with long hours, are also a safe and productive place to wait.
When taking the train, avoid sleeping in empty compartments. You're safer sharing a compartment with a family. If available, rent a couchette for overnight trains. For a small surcharge, you'll stay with like-minded roommates in a compartment you can lock, in a car monitored by an attendant. You'll wake reasonably rested with your belongings intact.
It's possible to ask for a female roommate on overnight trains. (You'll have better luck if the train isn't crowded.) Some countries, such as Spain, are better about accommodating these requests than others. On France's night trains, a one-bed compartment closest to the conductor is set aside for women, but it's the most expensive type of accommodation. In general, ask what your options are, make the request to bunk with other women, and hope for the best — but don't count on it.
Unless you're fluent in the language, accept the fact that you won't always know what's going on. Though it might seem worrisome, there's a reason why the Greek bus driver drops you off in the middle of nowhere. It's a transfer point, and another bus will come along in a few minutes. You'll often discover that the locals are looking out for you.
Learn how to deal with European men. In small towns, men are often more likely to speak English than women. If you never talk to men, you could miss out on a chance to learn about the country. So, by all means, talk to men. Just choose the man and choose the setting.
In northern Europe, you won't draw any more attention from men than you do in America. In southern Europe, particularly in Italy, you'll get more attention than you're used to, but it's usually in the form of the "long look" — nothing you can't handle. But be aware that in the Mediterranean world, when you smile and look a man in the eyes, it's often considered an invitation. Wear dark sunglasses and you can stare all you want.
Dress modestly to minimize attention from men. Take your cue from what the local women wear. For young women, even wearing a shapeless sack and sensible shoes may not ward off unwelcome advances. Try to stay with a group when exploring, and avoid walking alone at night, particularly in unlit areas with few people around. Don't be overly polite if you're bothered by someone; it's important to create boundaries to protect yourself. Use facial expressions, body language, and a loud firm voice to fend off any unwanted attention. If a man comes too close, say "no" firmly and loudly in the local language. That's usually all it takes.
If you feel like you're being followed or hassled, trust your instincts. Don't worry about overreacting or seeming foolish. Start screaming and acting crazy if the situation warrants it. Or head to the nearest hotel and chat up the person behind the desk until your would-be admirer moves on. Ask the hotelier to call you a cab to take you to your own hotel, hostel, or B&B.
Wear a real or fake wedding ring, and carry a picture of a real or fake husband. There's no need to tell men that you're traveling alone, or whether you're actually married or single. Lie unhesitatingly. You're traveling with your husband. He's waiting for you at the hotel. He's a professional wrestler who retired from the sport for psychological reasons.
If you're arranging to meet a guy, choose a public place. Tell him you're staying at a hostel: You have a 10 p.m. curfew and 29 roommates. Better yet, bring a couple of your roommates along to meet him. After the introductions, let everyone know where you're going and when you'll return.
By using common sense, making good decisions, and above all else, having confidence in yourself and your ability to travel on your own, you'll be rewarded with rich experiences — and great stories to tell your friends.During her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by gods, witches, and spirits, and where humans are changed into beasts.
After her werewolf lover unexpectedly dies in an accident while hunting for food for their children, a young woman must find ways to raise the werewolf son and daughter that she had with him while |
A gang of four men have been found guilty of sexually exploiting and drugging vulnerable underage girls who prosecutors say were passed around 'like commodities'. Newcastle Crown Court heard the offences - including trafficking for sexual exploitation, sexual activity with a child and supplying drugs - were committed between 2007 and 2014. Girls as young as 13 and 14 became 'in thrall' to men who controlled them and lured them to properties where drugs and alcohol were made available, the Evening Chronicle reported. The case is the latest set of convictions to be secured under Northumbria Police's Operation Sanctuary, and follows recent recent sentences for another Newcastle gang for similar offences. Ribas Asad, 29, was convicted of sexual assault and sexual activity with a child; Palla Pour, 25, was found guilty of sexual activity with a child; Soran Azizi, 28, was convicted of sex trafficking; and Saman Obaid, 29, was found guilty of supplying drugs.
2. Kissing couple attacked outside Rome mosque
A 24-year-old Malaysian national was arrested Sunday night for allegedly attacking a couple who were walking hand-in-hand and kissing near an Islamic centre in Rome's Esquilino quarter. The man reportedly told them "you can't kiss in front of the mosque" before pushing the young woman and punching and kicking the young man. The assailant also allegedly attacked police who came to the scene. A Carabiniere was slightly hurt.
3. VIDEO: Muslim children in Burma training for violence, armed with sticks
https://www.bitchute.com/video/lieLmlRUzl3r
4. Most dangerous city in Europe is in France, with 40 per cent Muslim population
Muslims have now set up unofficial checkpoints in various parts of Marseille. The eruption has refocused attention on Marseille’s long-standing reputation as a European drug-smuggling hub, a place where entire neighborhoods have slipped away from police control and fallen under the command of gangsters who earn millions importing and selling North African hashish and settle turf disputes with AK-47 assault rifles. “Marseille is sick with its violence,” Interior Minister Manuel Valls said. Vowing to squash the drug trade and end the violence, Valls last week dispatched 250 paramilitary and other national police officers to reinforce the usual deployment of around 3,000.
5. AfD member and his family attacked by far left extremists
6. Israel: Border policemen, two security guards killed in Har Adar
Two security officers and a border policeman were murdered Tuesday morning in a suspected terror attack in the town of Har Adar outside Jerusalem. Another Israeli was badly wounded. According to the Border Police, the Palestinian assailant approached the town's gate posing as a laborer. When the officers manning the gate grew suspicious of him because of his unusual clothing, he pulled out his weapon and opened fire.
7. Swedish mosque in no-go-zone gutted by arson
Note: The Swedish media have ducked the issue of no-go-zones by renaming them as “vulnerable areas”, in order to ascribe the problems of “higher criminality” to poverty instead of a large Islamic population.
Swedish police have arrested a man suspected of starting a fire that destroyed parts of a mosque in the central city of Örebro. The blaze in the Vivalla district mosque began around 2am Tuesday, with early reports suggesting it may have been started deliberately. Swedish newspaper Expressen quotes the Örebro Moske caretaker, Hassan Mountagui, as saying he witnessed a masked intruder in the building prior to the blaze. Meanwhile, Aftonbladet report that the mosque has been the subject of threats in the past.
(Police say that there is no religious motive for the arsonist.)
8. Alice Weidel, an open lesbian, explains why she ran for election with the AfD in Germany
9. UK: Pharmacist “showed child beheading video and said ISIS were not bad people”
Zameer Ghumra allegedly told the children they would have to recruit for Isis to stay in the UK. A Leicester man attempted to "indoctrinate" two boys by showing them beheading videos on his phone, a court heard. The man also told the school-age children that members of Isis were not "bad people". Zameer Ghumra, a 38-year-old pharmacist, allegedly taught the children how to "survive a bomb attack" and fight with knives, the BBC reported. He is accused of disseminating "terrorist propaganda" in the form of a graphic Twitter video on his mobile phone from January 2013 to September 2014.
10. Grooming ring probe in Glasgow after teenagers “exploited for sex”Illinois’ first full-blown meadery should open this month in Beverly. Despite delays from securing permits, Wild Blossom Meadery’s Greg Fischer said they’ll soon serve fresh mead, beer and ciders at their new tasting room. The tasting room is part of Bev Art’s new facility where they’ll host private events, offer brewing classes and, of course, keep bees.
They’ll concentrate on honey beers and incorporate fruit from California in their elixirs. Fischer said they’re about “99 percent” finished with construction. The design has changed quite a bit since last spring. The tasting room will have room for about 60 people, featuring 10 high tops and eight seats at the bar with a granite countertop. They just finished installing a 24-tap system and will feature guest drafts, as well as a large selection of craft bottles and cans. There’s wine, too. Food trucks, always a friend to breweries, will be courted to take care of the eats.
Mead is the ancient boozy beverage made with fermented honey. It’s heavily referenced in Norse mythology, as Thor and his viking pals imbibed quite a bit of it.
The location backs up to the Dan Ryan Woods near the Rock Island 91st Street Metra Station. That will provide a scenic backdrop when Wild Blossom opens up its outdoor area. Fischer said he’s consulting with the Chicago Botanical Garden for advice on landscaping.
Bev Art has offered brewing classes for years at their current location at 10033 S. Western Ave. When they move, they’ll have more room at their new digs for retail and classes. Fischer said Wild Blossom will enable Bev Art to offer a barrel share program, where participants split barrels with so they could see how barrel-aging affects the taste of their home-brewing attempts.
“It’s pretty new and unique,” Fischer said. “Other places have done it before with wine.”
Wedding planners should also take note: They’ll have a catering kitchen onsite. That’s a big boon as some restaurants, including those owned by chef Rick Bayless, won’t cater events unless they’re able to cook on the premises. Stay tuned for more.By Charlotte Cox
The first quarter of 2013 was the wind industry's worst first quarter since 2006, with the industry installing only 384 MW over the period compared to 1,912 MW a year ago, according to SNL data.
The weak quarter comes in the wake of a huge surge of installations in 2012, which saw 13,329 MW installed ahead of the scheduled expiration of the production tax credit. The fourth quarter of 2012 alone saw 8,054 MW of capacity brought online, more than twice the amount in any prior quarter. The fourth quarter of each year since 2000 has been the industry's strongest, particularly in years when the production tax credit was scheduled to expire.
That trend may continue, but fourth-quarter booms are likely to be reduced by latest version of the production tax credit passed by Congress early this year. That revised policy extends the PTC through 2013, but requires only that projects begin construction or meet a safe harbor clause by the deadline instead of begin commercial operations, putting less pressure on projects to all come online at the same time.
Given that safe harbor provision and the time required to build a wind project, turbine manufacturers expect only limited installations this year followed by an increase in new capacity in 2014 as projects are able to begin operations.
The solar industry, meanwhile, had its best first quarter ever for utility-scale solar generation. The 297 MW completed during the quarter more than doubled the 123 MW completed in the first quarter of 2012. Along with wind, solar capacity peaked in the fourth quarter of 2012, with 841 MW installed, more than twice the amount in any prior quarter. Solar projects are subject to different federal incentives, including the investment tax credit, which steps down from 30% to 10% at the end of 2016.
In the first quarter of 2013, renewable capacity made up 77% of the total completed capacity and 53% of the total announced capacity. Wind powered the most completed renewable capacity, but solar shone through to top the announced renewable capacity.
Almost 73% of the renewable capacity completed in the first quarter was in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, which covers most of the western U.S., including California — a hotbed of renewable activity. The rest of the completed renewable capacity is spread out across the remaining regions. For the announced renewable capacity, while WECC dominated with almost 52%, a single wind unit pushed the Electric Reliability Council of Texas Inc. into second with 165 MW. Another single wind unit put Hawaii in third with 120 MW.
Wind accounted for 50% of completed renewable capacity, followed by solar at 39% and biomass at 10%. Of the 384 MW of wind capacity completed in the first quarter, 300 MW is from two units, the Pinyon Pines Wind I and II, which officially entered service Jan. 1. Recently acquired by MidAmerican Wind from renewable developer Terra-Gen Power LLC, the plants sell power to Southern California Edison Co. for their entire capacities under a PPA that extends through 2035. MidAmerican Wind is a subsidiary of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., which Warren Buffett referred to as one of his "powerhouse five" in his March 2013 letter to shareholders.
The third-largest renewable unit completed in the first quarter was a 100-MW unit at the Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One, owned by Exelon Corp. subsidiary Exelon Power. An additional 130-MW phase at the plant is under construction and expected online in December. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. has a 25-year PPA for the plant's capacity. The fourth unit on the list is also solar — the 66-MW unit at Alpine Solar, which is owned by NRG Solar LLC. Pacific Gas and Electric also has a 20-year PPA for the plant's entire capacity. Developer First Solar Inc. sold Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One to Exelon in September 2011, and provided engineering, procurement and construction service for Alpine Solar.
Apple Inc. owns the 20-MW unit at its Apple Maiden iCloud Data Center plant, ranked ninth on the list. Apple is now powering all of its existing data centers, as well as its Cupertino Infinite Loop headquarters, entirely on renewable power. On April 19, Google Inc. announced that it will expand its North Carolina data center and participate in a plan with Duke Energy Corp. to buy renewable power under a new renewable energy rate plan the utility is creating.
Solar powered the largest share of announced renewable capacity in the first quarter of 2013 by a slim margin, with 49%. The largest announced renewable unit was the 300-MW Maricopa Solar Park, owned by Marisol Energy 2, an Italian company. The plant is in Maricopa County, Ariz.
Wind gave solar a run for its money, coming in a very tight second with almost 47% of announced renewable capacity. The second-largest renewable unit announced during the quarter was the 80-turbine, 165-MW Cameron Wind Project. Cameron is owned by Apex Wind Energy, a developer with 2,155 MW of wind capacity in development. The 40-turbine, 120-MW Auwahi Wind unit was the third largest renewable unit announced. It will join the eight-turbine, 24-MW unit that began operating in December 2012 at the plant, owned by BP Wind Energy North America Inc. and Sempra U.S. Gas & Power.
Prolific North Carolina-based solar developer Strata Solar announced the 7-MW Carthage Farm, ranked ninth on the list and projected to come online in June 2014. Strata currently owns 59 plants, all of which are in North Carolina, making Strata the company with the most planned solar capacity in the state. Carthage will add to the company's 88.3 MW of operating solar capacity and 223 MW of planned solar capacity, 33 MW of which is under construction.
Use SNL Energy's power plant projects, power plant unit projects and regional power plant outlook templates to generate a list of active power plant and power plant unit projects and a summary of operating power plants by fuel type and NERC region.Dozens have been injured at Istanbul Airport, according to Sputnik sources in Turkish security services.
At least 36 people have been confirmed dead. Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has also confirmed that three attackers were involved in incident, with all three opening fire before blowing themselves up.
Taxis are reportedly carrying injured people away from the airport. Turkish broadcaster Haberturk reports that at least 147 people are injured.
Local media reports that the blasts occurred outside as the attackers attempted to enter the terminal. The attackers reportedly detonated the explosive after being fired on by police. Officials say the attackers had not yet gone through the x-ray security checkpoint.
The attackers reportedly used a Kalashnikov.
— Michael Horowitz (@michaelh992) June 28, 2016
— Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) June 28, 2016
Outbound flights have been grounded and some incoming flights were diverted. With some aircraft left circling above the airport, officials say planes in the air have been given permission to land. All additional flights have been cancelled until 8:00 am local time.
All flights between the US and Istanbul have been suspended for the time being.
A Moscow flight en route to Istanbul is returning to Russia.
The Turkish prime minister called for the creation of a crisis center.
— Conflict News (@Conflicts) June 28, 2016 — Yannis Koutsomitis (@YanniKouts) June 28, 2016 Police blocked entrances and exits to the airport and moved to secure the location.WSU picked up the second verbal of its 2016 recruiting class when linebacker Jihad Woods of Helix (La Mesa, California) High School committed to play for Mike Leach and the Cougars. He announced his decision on Twitter.
Woods has not yet been evaluated by any of the major recruiting services (although Rivals has slapped the standard two-star tag on him), and WSU was his first and only offer -- one that came in about three weeks ago. According to Rivals, Washington, Boise State and San Jose State also were sniffing around.
Here's what our Brian Anderson had to say about Woods based on his highlights, which you can watch for yourself at the end of the post:
"He's listed at 4.76 but it looks like he plays much faster than that. Most of his highlights show him playing downhill; not a ton of his work in coverage was on there. He seeks out contact and goes 99 mph right through it -- really physical player. He makes great contact on the ball and drives, finishes every tackle, also shown forcing a few fumbles this way. He's scrappy in a gang tackle situation, and it's already second nature for him to rip at the ball. He's probably a little undersized to play in the middle but could be an aggressive OLB."
It's a little unusual for a kid to commit just a few weeks after receiving his first and only offer, and those kinds of commitments are the ones that sometimes don't stick. Just something to keep an eye on -- don't be stunned if he's looking around as more offers roll in.
And I'll just go ahead and say what Brian didn't: This kid will remind you a lot of Fotu Leiato. And the Cougs might be in a similar kind of battle once his recruiting heats up.
Woods joins three-star quarterback Ian Book out of El Dorado, California, in the 2016 class.DOVER, Del. (AP)- A proposal to open Delaware's environmentally protected coastal zone to new heavy industry passed its first legislative hurdle Wednesday, clearing a House committee despite complaints from environmental groups and other opponents about the lack of public input.
The bill, supported by Gov. John Carney establishes a permitting process for new use of 14 existing industry sites, including abandoned and polluted brownfields.
It also allows the currently prohibited transfer of bulk products such as oil, grain and minerals at sites that had docking facilities or piers before enactment of the Coastal Zone Act in 1971.
The bill would not allow certain heavy industry uses that did not exist in 1971, including oil refineries, paper and steel mills, incinerators and liquefied natural gas terminals. The Delaware City oil refinery would remain grandfathered, however.
Supporters of the bill, including the state chamber of commerce and organized labor, say the Coastal Zone Act's restrictions on industry have been an impediment to economic development, and that modifying it could spur manufacturing and job creation.
"This Coastal Zone Act is a nonstarter for corporations," said Kevin McGowan, who runs a corporate real estate consulting business.
But environmentalists say the existing law has played a key role in protecting ecologically sensitive areas along the Delaware River and Bay, as well as coastal beach resorts that are the lynchpin of Delaware's multibillion-dollar tourism industry. They also complain that they have not been allowed input on the bill.
"We are simply asking for a public dialogue," said Brenna Goggin, advocacy director for the Delaware Nature Society.
Opponents are especially concerned about the bill's provision allowing bulk product transfers of cargo such as crude oil between ship and shore.
"Just one spill could have disastrous consequences along the entire length of the river," said Peggy Schultz of the League of Women Voters.
State environmental secretary Shawn Garvin said the administration believes that legislation offers a path toward putting the sites back into productive use, whether heavy industry or manufacturing, while ensuring that the coastal environment is protected.
The full House could vote on the measure as early as next week.Rodeo Houston shooting video shows panic, confusion break out after shot fired
A videographer shooting livestock show footage on the popular video site Periscope captured a first-person account of the confusion Wednesday night when a gunshot was first fired at the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo.
Periscope user, @WoFat/Lou Tzu, captured the footage Wednesday night from inside NRG Arena.
Initially the footage offered a lighthearted look at some of the rodeo animals on display, which was interrupted when a hoard of people began running past the cameraman explaining that they'd heard gunfire.
MORE N THE SHOOTING: Suspect in custody after reports of shots fired at Rodeo Houston
NRG Arena was cleared out, as police rushed to the livestock area of the building. Others in the building were evacuated by Houston police. At one point, officers can be seen rushing to the site of the alleged shooting.
A second video, captured from high above the fairgrounds by attendee Nathan Sims shows the crowds outside NRG Arena begin to run in unison to flee the scene of the gunfire. Sims was unaware at the time that a shooting had taken place and thought the crowds were trying to get inside NRG Stadium in time for the night's concert.
[WARNING: Video contains graphic language.]
While officials initially said there was no shooting, things changed on Thursday afternoon when the Houston Police Department announced that Raymond Nathan Colbert, 17, was in custody.
A videographer shooting a lamb exhibit captures the panic as rodeo attendees run for the exits and Houston Police draw their weapons to provide cover. A videographer shooting a lamb exhibit captures the panic as rodeo attendees run for the exits and Houston Police draw their weapons to provide cover. Photo: @WoFut On Periscope? Lou Tzu Photo: @WoFut On Periscope? Lou Tzu Image 1 of / 59 Caption Close Rodeo Houston shooting video shows panic, confusion break out after shot fired 1 / 59 Back to Gallery
Colbert was arrested late Wednesday night and charged with misdemeanor evading arrest. A weapon has not been recovered, but police found shell casings.
See the gallery above for a look at this year's rodeo highlights.Okamiden
Capcom
Rated By Our Customers Compatible with Nintendo DS™ (NDS™) Works on all systems sold worldwide, a correct regional account may be required for online features. 1-2w Usually ships within 1 to 2 weeks.
US$ 34.99
Manufacturer Capcom Compatible With Nintendo DS™ (NDS™) Version Works on all systems sold worldwide, a correct regional account may be required for online features. Works on all systems sold worldwide, a correct regional account may be required for online features. 1-2w Usually ships within 1 to 2 weeks Price US$ 34.99 add to cart or save for later
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Okamiden
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features The touch screen and stylus of the Nintendo DS™ are the ideal tools to simulate Okamiden’s trademark celestial brush. The stylus brushstrokes are pressure sensitive which helps to accurately depict the look and feel of Sumi-e artwork – a graceful watercolour art
Using the in-game Partner System, players can join forces with new characters in the game, each possessing unique abilities that will help Chibiterasu defeat enemies and conquer puzzles
The beauty of the highly stylised Japanese calligraphy and scroll paintings are depicted in pixel-perfect handheld glory
Employ brush techniques learned from various celestial deities such as Power Slash or Bloom, and battle a diverse lineup of monsters and demons rooted in Japanese folklore
Draw bridges into existence, transverse canyons, and connect winding paths through space by using the celestial brush and the abilities of Chibiterasu’s partners
The main character, Chibiterasu, is a youthful sun god that has taken the form of an adorable wolf pup. Chibiterasu partners up with an equally endearing cast of characters that aim to restore order to the land while learning lessons from majestic, playful deities. Many characters will be easily recognisable to fans of Ōkami™ while several are new to the series
Ōkamiden tells an amazing story that is both morally impactful and fun. With a complex mix of themes like friendship, responsibility and love between parent and child, players are promised a memorable experience that will be appreciated for its depth, humour, and universal truths
description Ōkamiden is a picturesque action adventure game for the Nintendo DS. Taking place a few months after the events of Ōkami, Ōkamiden will follow the adventures of Chibiterasu – a young sun god who is summoned to protect the land. Following in the footsteps of its parent Amaterasu, the sun-god-turned-wolf in Ōkami, Chibiterasu takes the form of an adorable wolf pup for the mission ahead. Chibiterasu will join forces with a rich cast of characters to fight off a new threat that has leeched the world of its vibrant colour. Beyond the battles, Chibiterasu and friends will come to realize their inner potential and accept the kinship that comes with being the children of great heroes and gods.Using the DS stylus, players will wield a celestial brush controlled by Chibiterasu. This powerful tool can attack enemies, paint helpful objects and structures into existence and help Chibiterasu perform exceptional feats that will change the world before the player’s eyes. Chibiterasu’s partners in the game will have unique abilities of their own that help the player conquer puzzles and face an onslaught of perilous challenges. By blending vivid myth, artistic action and the innovative Nintendo DS, Ōkamiden has all the makings of a handheld classic. Ōkamiden takes the best elements of the Ōkami series and combines them with invigorating new features delivering an extraordinary adventure sure to please fans of the series and newcomers alike.
further info Official Release Date Mar 15, 2011 Genre Action Adventure Version US ESRB Everyone 10
Titles rated E10+ (Everyone 10 and older) have content that may be suitable for ages 10 and older. Titles in this category may contain more cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes. PAX-Code PAX0003098114 Catalog No. NTR-P-BOOE Item Code 0013388320219
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Charities are also subject to restrictions on the amount of time they may spend focusing on political activity, and particularly strict restrictions on political activity during general election periods.The season has not gone as expected for the Winnipeg Jets. Many people anticipated this would be a team more likely to contend for a top three position in the Central Division than a bottom three position in the Western Conference.
What went wrong? Well, goaltending has been a big problem as 23-year-old Connor Hellebuyck proved unready for the role as undisputed No. 1. Former starter Ondrej Pavelec was sent to the AHL at the start of the season, but things got so bad for the NHL team in the crease that they had to call him back up in January for a number of starts. He won half of his nine appearances and posted an.888 save percentage and 3.55 GAA.
But the goalies can’t be blamed for everything that’s gone wrong this season — the Jets also lack a little skill on the bottom half of their forward unit, have been bitten by the injury bug on defence lately, and cancel out the gains they’ve made on offence by being among the 10 worst teams in shots allowed per game.
GM Kevin Cheveldayoff is known for taking a conservative approach with this roster, so with the team’s playoff hopes up in the air, we’d expect smaller, subtle moves and nothing too big at the deadline. They could also decide to sell off, in which case things could get very interesting.
Tape II Tape Ryan Dixon and Rory Boylen go deep on pucks with a mix of facts and fun, leaning on a varied group of hockey voices to give their take on the country’s most beloved game.
NEEDS
There’s no question the Jets need to do something about their goaltending, whether it’s at the trade deadline or in the summer.
Just four points separate the Jets from a playoff spot, although they have played more games (60) than any other NHL team at the moment. With a number of goalies available, from Marc-Andre Fleury to Ben Bishop to Jaroslav Halak to potentially even Brian Elliott, Winnipeg may look to add a veteran netminder to help get them into a wild card spot this season.
If they don’t do that, they’ll want to address it in the off-season to avoid starting next season with just Connor Hellebuyck again. Goaltending is Winnipeg’s most obvious need, so if they make a “big splash” acquisition, it’ll probably be in net.
If the Jets do decide they have a shot at this year’s playoffs, they’d also be wise to search for a bottom pair defenceman, considering Tobias Enstrom will miss a couple weeks and Tyler Myers may miss the rest of the regular season, or at least close to it.
They have a nice collection of young forwards for the top six and a couple more on the way, but if they make a playoff push, they should also be looking to acquire one or two upgrades to the bottom six.
However, there’s a very real possibility that GM Kevin Cheveldayoff recognizes the uphill battle ahead is too steep and that he needs to become a seller. If that’s the case, the Jets not only need to move some of their pending UFAs, but also need to consider trading other veterans if they can, such as long-time Thrasher/Jet Enstrom and 29-year-old Mathieu Perreault.
POTENTIAL TARGETS
Forwards: Patrick Eaves, Rene Bourque, P-A Parenteau
Defence: Brendan Smith, Fedor Tyutin, Roman Polak, Dennis Seidenberg, Dmitry Kulikov, Erik Gudbranson, Cody Franson
Goaltending: Brian Elliott, Ben Bishop, Peter Mrazek/Jimmy Howard, Ryan Miller
PENDING FREE AGENTS
UFAs:
Drew Stafford, 31, $4.35 million
Chris Thorburn, 33, $1.2 million
Paul Postma, 27, $887,500
Ondrej Pavelec, 29, $3.9 million
RFAs:
Marko Dano, 22, $925,000
Andrew Copp, 22, $925,000
Ben Chiarot, 25, $850,000
Connor Hellebuyck, 23, $667,500
POTENTIAL ASSETS TO MOVE
From the roster:
Drew Stafford: With dwindling ice time and an expiring contract, Stafford is the kind of sizeable depth line forward that a team in the playoffs might be interested in acquiring for a draft pick. He doesn’t seem to be a fit with the Jets moving forward, so it’s time to get what they can for him.
Mathieu Perreault: Although his new four-year contract kicks in next season, the Jets may be interested to move Perreault to a team that needs depth now and will pony up a few extra assets for the term that comes with him. His shooting percentage has been unusually low the past two seasons as he’s struggled to produce offence, but he’s approached 20 goals a few times in the past and he’s 29 years old. With Kyle Connor likely to make a push for the roster next season, is Perreault’s $4.25 million cap hit worth it for the Jets to use on a third-liner, or are the assets they could acquire in a trade better?
Chris Thorburn: If they can get anything for the longtime member of the franchise, they need to do it now. Thorburn has an expiring contract and shouldn’t be part of the plan moving forward.
Jacob Trouba: It’s probably unlikely that Trouba moves at the deadline when teams are more restricted by the salary cap, but given his past request to move, there’s always a possibility it happens.
Tobias Enstrom: Although still a useful part of this team, the 32-year-old has only one more season after this left on his contract and you have to wonder if he’ll be worth re-signing at that time. The Jets should at least consider moving Enstrom if he is willing to waive his no-movement clause to go to a playoff team. He’d be a valuable add for any one of the many teams looking for puck-moving depth on the blue line.
Draft picks:
2017: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th (own), 7th (Canadiens)
2018: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th
ONE BOLD MOVE THE TEAM COULD MAKE:
With so many teams looking for a blue chip defenceman and seemingly not that many available, the Jets could get bold and decide now is the time to move Trouba, one year before he hits restricted free agent status again. The trade request is in the past for now, but is bound to bubble to the surface when his contract comes up again. Trouba is averaging nearly 25 minutes a night, plays all situations, and is on pace to smash his career best in points. If they moved him, the Jets could bring in a significant haul as he would become one of the best and the most controllable defenceman available.
BUT THE JETS SHOULDN’T…
Move anything that may help them in the long-term future. While they are just four points out of a playoff spot now, the Jets have a tough road when you look at points percentage, so they can’t be all-in (or even really half-in) for a playoff push this season. It’s been a disappointing year but it would be made worse by trading away an under-23 player who could find his way into the NHL lineup some time in the next two or three years, or even a first- or second-round draft pick. By that time, the Jets’ star players will be squarely in their primes and they should be in a better spot to go for it than they are now. This deadline is either about selling, or making small upgrades/adjustments, but any mortgaging of the future is out of the question.“I scheduled my book tour dates around World Cup games I could not miss—yes, it’s that serious.” Last month, moments after I told a man this—and that my favorite soccer team was Barcelona—he told me he didn’t really follow the sport (“football” he told me they called it in Europe—although he knew I lived in Portugal). Then he asked if I knew that Barcelona’s biggest star wanted to go to another team.
Did I know? How could he, someone who doesn’t follow soccer (or if we are being fancy, football), know something about the team that I didn’t? Also, he was wrong. Neymar was not Barcelona’s biggest star— he was just the one he’d heard of, probably from an ESPN headline.
A week later, the day Donald Trump blamed “both sides” for Charlottesville, I was sitting in a café reading a book in Lisbon, trying to forget about the train wreck running the United States of America. A man nearby asked me a question in Portuguese. I answered, and when he heard my American accent, he started talking about how bad things are in the U.S. Next, he told me how things wouldn’t get better for Black people until they stood up and recognized the extent of their plight. But of course the system was set up so we would never do this, what with the CIA, crack, and ghettos.
I wanted to jam my novel into his windpipe.
I wanted to jam my novel into his windpipe.
His idea of Black people needing to put down our crack pipes and rise up amounted to the most insulting kind of misinformed liberal racism. But the idea that he, a white Canadian man who works in interior design, had the authority to tell it to me, a Black American woman who he knew was a journalist, that was something else: classic mansplaining.
Mansplaining is when a man decides he is going to put a woman up on something and give her all the facts. Manplaining is a man deciding that every interaction with a woman can be a teachable moment for her. Mansplainers don’t consider what the woman being addressed has accomplished—she may have PhD in the topic and all he did was read a tweet. In the world of mansplaining, having a penis equals having power, privilege, and intellect. All of it. Mansplaining isn’t just annoying, it’s insulting.
To stress that this is not just my bad luck with men, I asked a few female friends about their experiences. Not one of them said, “Mansplaining who? Mansplaining what?” They started listing things men have tried to tell them about, from how to have a baby to the color of the sky she was looking at. And it’s not something just a few women are ticked off about; it’s a huge topic of conversation on social media. This epic Twitter thread has a lot of choice examples on everything from mothers being told how to mother to professionals being told how to be more professional because a lot of men can’t stop, won’t stop when it comes to mansplaining.
Manplaining is a man deciding that every interaction with a woman can be a teachable moment for her.
Let’s take a moment to understand what mansplaining is not. A guy explaining something to you is not automatically classified as mansplaining. To take it back to soccer, the way I learned was by asking questions of a man I knew was a fan—and listening to his answers. Not once did I get the impression that he thought I was an idiot. That’s called communication. But mansplaining isn’t that. It’s talking at a woman. It’s talking down to a woman.
Are you, or someone you love, guilty of mansplaining? A simple test to determine if you are a man about to mansplain: Did she ask you for a differing view on a topic that is her (but not your) field of expertise? Did she say she was confused about how something worked? Did she specifically say that she needed you to explain it to her? If the answer is no, shhhhh.
That day at the café, the Canadian stopped solving America’s race problem long enough to actually ask me something: Would I be interested in a date? I imagined what that would be like, what wisdom he’d share with me over wine, what knowledge I would gain after just one cocktail. He didn’t need to explain anything, I already knew to just say no.
Ayana Byrd is a writer, editor and author.‘The trouble is we’ve got an old house |
for cannabis offenses. The resolution stated "it is not the policy of the City or its law enforcement agency to target possession of small amounts of cannabis and the consumption of non-medical cannabis in private by adults".[49][50][51]
Celebrity controversies [ edit ]
In 1982, John Belushi died of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood, adjacent to WeHo. On the night of his death, he was visited separately by friends Robin Williams (at the height of his own drug exploits)[52] and Robert De Niro,[53] each of whom left the premises, leaving Belushi in the company of assorted others, including Cathy Smith. This is just one of many notable sordid events at the location. A 1930s movie executive reportedly said, "If you must get into trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont".
In 1961, comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested on obscenity charges at The Troubadour in then-unincorporated West Hollywood. The arresting officer was a young deputy named Sherman Block, who would later become the sheriff of Los Angeles County.
In 1989, actor Christian Slater was arrested in West Hollywood for leading the police on a drunken car chase that ended when Slater crashed his car into a telephone pole.
Actor River Phoenix died at age 23 of a drug overdose at approximately 1:00 AM on Halloween night in 1993 at the Viper Room, a club that was opened that year and was partly owned by actor Johnny Depp until 2004.[54]
On January 8, 2006, New Zealand film director Lee Tamahori, dressed as a woman, was arrested for allegedly offering an undercover police officer oral sex on the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Lodi Place.[55] He was convicted only of criminal trespass, having pleaded no contest in exchange for other charges being dropped.[56]
On November 17, 2006, during a performance at the Laugh Factory, a cell phone video captured Michael Richards[57][58] shouting "Shut up" to a heckler in the audience, followed by repeated shouts of "He's a nigger!" to the rest of the audience[59] (using the word six times altogether), and also making a reference to lynching.[60]
Politics and government [ edit ]
Local [ edit ]
The city government is headed by a five-member city council, including a mayor and a mayor pro tem who serve one-year terms. The positions of mayor and mayor pro tem are largely-ceremonial positions which rotate between the council members, and both positions are largely not re-elected in concurrent terms, although council members serve multiple non-concurrent terms in both offices.
West Hollywood was the first city in the country to have a city council with a majority of gay members.[61][62] The current Mayor is John Duran. Council member John Heilman is the city's longest-serving council member (having served almost continuously since 1984).
On February 19, 2001, West Hollywood became the second city in the United States (after Boulder, Colorado) to change the term pet "owner" to pet "guardian" in their municipal codes.[63]
With West Hollywood being one of the most prominent gay-friendly cities in the United States, Proposition 8 had a higher rate of rejection than it did in any other city in Los Angeles county: 86% of the city voted against the amendment, which restricted marriage to heterosexual couples.[64]
State and federal representation [ edit ]
In the California State Legislature, West Hollywood is in the 26th Senate District, represented by Democrat Ben Allen, and in the 50th Assembly District, represented by Democrat Richard Bloom.[65]
In the United States House of Representatives, West Hollywood is in California's 28th congressional district, represented by Democrat Adam Schiff.[66]
Public health and safety [ edit ]
The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department operates the West Hollywood Station.[67][68]
The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services operates the Hollywood-Wilshire Health Center in Hollywood, serving West Hollywood.[69]
Fire protection in West Hollywood is provided by the Los Angeles County Fire Department. LACoFD operates Station 7, the battalion headquarters, and Station 8, both in West Hollywood, as a part of Battalion 1.[70]
Emergency Medical Services are provided by LACoFD and McCormick Ambulance.
Social services [ edit ]
West Hollywood, with a gay male population of about 39%,[71] has been disproportionately affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic which has ravaged its gay male population since the early 1980s. The city funds or subsidizes an array of services for those living with HIV or AIDS. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation parks a Mobile HIV/STD testing van outside of the city's busiest nightclubs on Friday and Saturday nights, and again on Sunday afternoons. This outreach attempts to intervene with those young people most at-risk for HIV infection. Project Angel Food receives city funding to deliver hundreds of fresh lunches and dinners daily which are prepared under the supervision of a registered dietitian who tailors the meals to meet individual client's nutritional needs. AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) is a national leader for AIDS policy and advocacy issues and provides assistance to clients navigating the maze of available public benefits. APLA also provides free dental, psychotherapy and pharmaceutical services. Aid for AIDS provides direct financial support by assisting clients with rent, utility and pharmacy expenses. The city also subsidizes agencies that help clients train for a return to the workforce. The city permits all residents living with HIV/AIDS to have up to two pets in his or her home regardless of a landlord's specifications in the property's lease.
West Hollywood subsidizes programs for its growing population of children through a partnership with the USDA and local schools. "Healthy Start West Hollywood" is a program of the city's Social Services division that introduces pre-Kindergarten through High School age kids to the benefits of good nutrition through such activities as collective vegetable gardens and yoga.
The special needs of senior citizens are addressed through a variety of programs. West Hollywood either funds or subsidizes agencies that offer adult day care, a roommate matching service, and nutritious meals. The West Hollywood Senior Center provides recreational programs, excursions, and socializing as well as counseling and case management.
West Hollywood also seeks to address the health needs of residents who do not have adequate insurance by subsidizing the LA Free Clinic and The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. Residents can access free medical, dental, legal and mental health services between these two sites.
The West Hollywood's Public Safety Division publishes guides on sexual assault prevention, nightclub safety, and how to access rape services.[72]
Arts and culture [ edit ]
West Hollywood has many ongoing programs to celebrate the vibrant arts and unique culture of the city. The literary community is acknowledged with the year-round author series WeHo Reads, featuring new and noteworthy authors at the West Hollywood Library with a full day literary event each fall.[73] An annual PowPow is presented by AIDS Project Los Angeles Red Circle Project and the City of West Hollywood. This event, held at Plummer Park promotes HIV awareness and prevention among the Native communities and features dance, music, food, and educational resources.[74]
West Hollywood inaugurated the first City Poet, Steven Reigns, during the regular City Council Meeting regular meeting on October 6, 2014.[75]
Media [ edit ]
West Hollywood News [76]
WEHOville: West Hollywood News[77]
The PickUp [ edit ]
In August 2013, the City of West Hollywood launched a free Friday and Saturday night shuttle, the PickUp, connecting the eastern and western parts of the city. The goal of The PickUp is to provide an alternative to the automobile and bring an energetic and playful transit option to one of West Hollywood’s busiest nighttime districts.[78] The Public Relations Society of America Los Angeles Chapter (PRSA-LA) has recognized the City of West Hollywood with a PRism Award of Excellence in the category of New Product/Service Launch for the city’s kick-off campaign for the PickUp.[79]
The Sunset Trip shuttle service [ edit ]
Sunset Trip route map
In June 2018, the City of West Hollywood launched a new free shuttle service called The Sunset Trip.[80] This service focuses on shuttling riders on Sunset Boulevard, but also crosses the PickUp shuttle route to allow transfers. The free shuttle operates on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Legislation [ edit ]
West Hollywood has inclusionary zoning laws governing development. The city established the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 1986[81] requiring developers to either provide affordable housing in new projects or pay a fee in-lieu to the city which it directs towards other affordable housing projects.[citation needed]
West Hollywood adopted one of the nation's first mandatory green building ordinances on October 1, 2007.[82]
Traffic congestion, public transport and parking are critical issues in the city due to its location between access to areas such as Greater Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley to the east and the area of the Los Angeles West Side, with the Hollywood Hills creating a natural impediment to the north. Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard are critical east-west arteries in the metropolitan area, and Laurel Canyon Boulevard is a popular shortcut through the hills. Nearly 600 employees and 260 buses in the District 7 fleet of the LACMTA are based in a large facility on prime real estate near San Vicente Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard. The Crenshaw/LAX Line extension to the Hollywood/Highland station is likely to pass through, or along, the edge of West Hollywood.[83]
West Hollywood City Hall on Santa Monica Boulevard
Residents of West Hollywood vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party.
In 1985, West Hollywood was the first city to create a same-gender domestic partnership registration for its residents, as well as to offer same-gender domestic partner benefits for city employees. West Hollywood's comprehensive Domestic Partnership Ordinance[84] allows those couples that are prohibited from marrying (same-sex) and those who can marry but choose not to (heterosexual), to register their union with the city. These unions are treated on an equal basis with legal marriages with respect to city-level benefits and services. In California as a whole, same-sex couples may enter domestic partnerships which offer them all of the state rights of marriage.[85]
In 1993 the West Hollywood City Council voted for West Hollywood to become the first official pro-choice city in America.[86]
Legislation prohibiting discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation is widely recognized as the toughest in the nation.[citation needed] The city is also one of 92 jurisdictions in the country where it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of gender identity or expression.[87]
City legislation also bans the sale of handguns, prohibits smoking in public places, and restricts the city from doing business directly or indirectly (via vendors) with any country known to violate human rights. Also, the city is one of 19 in California that has banned the use of gas-powered leaf blowers.[88]
The city designed a law that pets are to be called "companions" and their owners "guardians" and was the first city in the country to outlaw the de-clawing of cats.[89]
In 2011, West Hollywood became the first city in the United States to ban the sale of clothing with real animal fur; the ban took effect on September 21, 2013.[90][91] In May 2014, the ordinance was upheld by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, after a local business had challenged the prohibition as unconstitutional.[92][93][94]
On May 28, 2018, Mayor John Duran announced that Stormy Daniels would receive the "Key to the City" alongside her attorney, Michael Avannati. “In these politically tumultuous times, Stormy Daniels has proven herself to be a profile in courage by speaking truth to power even under threats to her safety and extreme intimidation from the current Administration”, said the mayor.[95]
Mayors of West Hollywood [ edit ]
Education [ edit ]
Primary and secondary schools [ edit ]
West Hollywood Elementary School
West Hollywood is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District.[101] The area is within Board District 4.[102] As of 2008 Marlene Canter represents the district.[103] Canter announced that she will not seek re-election after her term expired in June 2009.[104]
Elementary schools that serve sections of West Hollywood include:
West Hollywood Elementary School [105] [106] K–6
K–6 Rosewood Avenue Elementary School [107] K-6
K-6 Laurel Elementary School [108] K-7
K-7 Melrose Elementary School [109] K-5
K-5 Gardner Street Elementary School[110] K-6
(Some areas jointly zoned to Rosewood and West Hollywood)
Most of West Hollywood is zoned to Bancroft Middle School. Some portions in the south are zoned to John Burroughs Middle School. Students living in the Los Angeles area known as Beverly Hills Post Office, usually attend West Hollywood Elementary but then go to Emerson Middle School.
Private Schools in West Hollywood:
All of West Hollywood is zoned to Fairfax High School; some areas are jointly zoned to Fairfax High School and Hollywood High School.
The Center for Early Education and Pacific Hills School are private schools in West Hollywood.
Public library [ edit ]
The West Hollywood Library viewed from across the street in front of the Pacific Design Center
County of Los Angeles Public Library operates the West Hollywood Library at 625 North San Vicente Boulevard.[112]
Until early September 2011, the library was based at 715 North San Vicente Boulevard in a building designed by architect Edward H. Fickett. On September 6, 2011, the City of West Hollywood demolished that building, which aroused controversy among some community members, including the architect's wife.[113][114][115]
The current library building officially opened to the public on October 1, 2011.[116] The building, which was designed by architects Steve Johnson and James Favaro, received a favorable review in the Los Angeles Times that ended by calling the it "...a tremendously encouraging achievement".[117] Exterior surfaces of the library building and adjacent parking structure are decorated with murals by Shepard Fairey, Kenny Scharf and Marquis Lewis (aka Retna), and the interior incorporates design work by Fairey and David Wiseman.[118]
Demographics [ edit ]
Historical population Census Pop. %± 1960 28,870 — 1970 34,622 19.9% 1980 35,703 3.1% 1990 36,118 1.2% 2000 35,716 −1.1% 2010 34,399 −3.7% Est. 2016 36,698 [8] 6.7% U.S. Decennial Census[119]
2010 [ edit ]
The 2010 United States Census[120] reported that West Hollywood had a population of 34,399. The population density was 18,225.6 people per square mile (7,036.9/km²). The racial makeup of West Hollywood was 28,979 (84.2%) White (77.9% Non-Hispanic White),[121] 1,115 (3.2%) African American, 103 (0.3%) Native American, 1,874 (5.4%) Asian, 34 (0.1%) Pacific Islander, 1,049 (3.0%) from other races, and 1,245 (3.6%) from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3,613 persons (10.5%).
The census reported that 34,290 people (99.7% of the population) lived in households, 109 (0.3%) lived in non-institutionalized group quarters, and 0 (0%) were institutionalized.
There were 22,511 households, out of which 1,141 (5.1%) had children under the age of 18 living in them, 3,060 (13.6%) were opposite-sex married couples living together, 852 (3.8%) had a female householder with no husband present, 431 (1.9%) had a male householder with no wife present. There were 1,094 (4.9%) unmarried opposite-sex partnerships, and 1,321 (5.9%) same-sex married couples or partnerships. 13,434 households (59.7%) were made up of individuals and 2,606 (11.6%) had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.52. There were 4,343 families (19.3% of all households); the average family size was 2.42.
The population was spread out with 1,578 people (4.6%) under the age of 18, 2,407 people (7.0%) aged 18 to 24, 16,228 people (47.2%) aged 25 to 44, 9,061 people (26.3%) aged 45 to 64, and 5,125 people (14.9%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40.4 years. For every 100 females, there were 128.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 129.9 males.
There were 24,588 housing units at an average density of 13,027.4 per square mile (5,029.9/km²), of which 4,976 (22.1%) were owner-occupied, and 17,535 (77.9%) were occupied by renters. The homeowner vacancy rate was 3.6%; the rental vacancy rate was 5.9%. 7,874 people (22.9% of the population) lived in owner-occupied housing units and 26,416 people (76.8%) lived in rental housing units.
During 2009–2013, West Hollywood had a median household income of $52,649, with 15.8% of the population living below the federal poverty line.[121]
2000 [ edit ]
As of the census[122] of 2000, there were 35,716 people, 23,120 households, and 5,202 families residing in the city. The population density was 18,992.7 inhabitants per square mile (7,335.1/km²). There were 24,110 housing units at an average density of 12,821.0 per square mile (4,951.6/km²), making West Hollywood one of the most densely populated cities in the US. The racial makeup of the city was 86.4% White, 6.4% African American, 3.8% Asian, 0.4% Native American, 0.1% Pacific Islander, 2.9% from other races, and 3.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 8.8% of the population.
There were 23,120 households out of which 5.8% had children under the age of eighteen, 16.4% were married couples living together, 4.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 77.5% were non-families. 60.5% of all households were made up of individuals, and 12.0% included someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 1.53, and the average family size was 2.50.
In the city, the population was spread out with 5.7% under the age of 18, 6.3% from 18 to 24, 48.6% from 25 to 44, 22.3% from 45 to 64, and 17.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females, there were 123.4 males. For every 100 females aged eighteen and older, there were 125.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $38,914, and the median income for a family was $41,463. Males had a median income of $45,598 versus $35,750 for females. The per capita income for the city was $38,302. About 7.3% of families and 11.5% of the population were below the poverty line, including 10.0% of those under age 18 and 10.5% of those age 65 or over.
According to a 2013 survey, 39% of the city's population is made up of gay men.[71]
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
References [ edit ]A central feature of the React framework is that a component will re-render when its properties change. Additional action, or deliberate inaction, can also be taken on a change of properties using componentWillRecieveProps() -- at which point you’ll do your own comparison of the new and old props. In both cases, if the two properties in question are objects, the comparison is not so straightforward. How do I easily modify and compare javascript objects by some set of their inner fields?
Note: Immutable.js is a great solution to this problem. It allows you to create immutable objects and provides utilities for doing easy comparison and duplication -- to name only a few features. But as software engineers, we are often developing within constraints. You can’t always leverage new libraries at will. With that in mind, the following patterns can serve as a decent solution to the problem without introducing any new libraries.
Key understanding: Javascript objects are not immutable, and this must be considered when modifying and comparing objects.
Here’s an example of how this can come into play with property comparison.
ComponentA:
class ComponentA extends React.Component { constructor(props) { super(props); this.updateStateObject = this.updateStateObject.bind(this); this.state = { objectA: { field1: 'value1', } }; } // Updates the this.state.objectA.field1 to 'value2' updateStateObject() { const newObjectA = this.state.objectA; newObjectA.field1 = 'value2'; this.setState({ objectA: newObjectA, }); } render() { return ( <ComponentB prop1={this.state.objectA} prop2={this.updateStateObject} /> ); } }
ComponentB:
class ComponentB extends React.Component { // This method fires everytime ComponentB's props change componentWillReceiveProps(newProps) { // Print out the new and old props console.log(`old props: ${this.props.prop1.field1}`); console.log(`new props: ${newProps.prop1.field1}`); } render() { return ( <div onClick={this.props.prop2}> {this.props.prop1.field1} </div> ); } } ComponentB.propTypes = { prop1: React.PropTypes.obj, prop2: React.PropTypes.func, };
When ComponentA renders, it will render ComponentB, passing in its this.state.objectA as ComponentB's prop1 property and its updateStateObject() method as prop2. Although ComponentB is receiving properties, its componentWillReceiveProps() will not fire since the method is not called on the initial render of a component.
Now let's say we want to call ComponentA.updateStateObject() by clicking on our rendered div from ComponentB (the function has been set to the div's onClick attribute). This will update the value at objectA.field1 to 'value2'. At this point, ComponentA will re-render, also re-rendering ComponentB with new props. This will fire ComponentB’s componentWillReceiveProps() method, printing out prop1.field1 for the new and old props with the following output:
old props: 'value2' new props: 'value2'
Wait, I thought we were printing the new and old props here, so why are the values the same?
This is because the new and old props variables are pointing to the same object in memory. If we look at updateStateObject(), notice how we don’t create a new object.
class ComponentA extends React.Component { constructor(props) { super(props); this.updateStateObject = this.updateStateObject.bind(this); this.state = { objectA: { field1: 'value1', } }; } // Updates the this.state.objectA.field1 to 'value2' updateStateObject() { // newObjectA is just a pointer to this.state.objectA and is not a new object. // The variable used in ComponentB is still pointing to this same location in memory. const newObjectA = this.state.objectA; // When we modify newObjectA, we are also modifying the value referenced in ComponentB newObjectA.field1 = 'value2'; this.setState({ objectA: newObjectA, }); } render() { return ( <ComponentB prop1={this.state.objectA} prop2={this.updateStateObject} /> ); } }
In order to avoid this, instead of creating a new pointer to this.state.objectA, we actually want to create (and modify) an entirely new object that is a copy of this.state.objectA.
How do I easily create a copy of an object?
A quick and dirty way to do this is to stringify your object, and then parse that JSON string back into a brand new object. I recommend creating a utility function, since you’ll likely want to re-use this throughout your app. Below is an example:
function deepCopy(obj) { if (obj!== undefined && obj!== null) { return JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(obj)); } return null; }
And here's the correct way to set the value in ComponentA:
updateStateObject() { const newObjectA = deepCopy(this.state.objectA); newObjectA.field1 = 'value2'; this.setState({ objectA: newObjectA, }); }
Running through the previous scenario again with the updated code, the output of ComponentB's componentWillReceiveProps() on the first re-render will be what we expect:
old props: 'value1' new props: 'value2'
Now that I correctly created two distinct objects for comparison, how do I go about comparing them?
The simplest way would be to directly compare individual fields in an if statement.
componentWillReceiveProps(newProps) { if (this.props.prop1.field1 === newProps.prop1.field1) { // Do stuff here } }
However, if the objects have a large number of fields, or have several levels of nested objects, this pattern can be cumbersome. A simple way to do this is to stringify both objects, and then directly compare the strings:
componentWillReceiveProps(newProps) { if (JSON.stringify(this.props.prop1) === JSON.stringify(newProps.prop1)) { // Do stuff here } }
This method generally safe to use, but is not guaranteed to work, since object ordering is not always guaranteed. It's important to test this out in your component to verify.
So now that I can safely modify and compare objects, is there a way for me to control when components render?
Yes! The best way to do this is to use the method shouldComponentUpdate(). shouldComponentUpdate() comes directly after componentWillReceiveProps() in the React lifecyle, and is also only called after the initial rendering. componentWillReceiveProps() allows you take action before a re-rendering, and shouldComponentUpdate() serves as a secondary intervention point, to either stop or allow the component to re-render. The same comparison techniques used for componentWillReceiveProps() can be used in shouldComponentUpdate().
Hope you found these React tips on comparing objects helpful! Check out some of our other posts to learn more about React.Statue of Roger Ebert to Be Unveiled on Second Day of Ebertfest April 10, 2014 |
It was announced this week that the life-size bronze sculpture of Roger Ebert that will reside outside of the Virginia Theatre in Champaign, Illinois will take its place on Thursday, April 24, 2014 at noon. Donna and Scott Anderson will reveal the statue to the public at that time. Donna Anderson drove the creation of the statue (created by artist Rick Harney) and Scott Anderson has been instrumental in raising the funding for its creation, still resting $25,000 short of his goal as of Friday. You can help finance the sculpture by clicking here.
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The campaign to pay for the sculpture of Roger has really picked up steam in recent weeks, according to Anderson, with a $3,000 pledge from Beyond Normal Films. Martin Scorsese donated $5,000 earlier in the process. The contract with the artist allowed for the creation and unveiling of the statue before its fully funded but the Andersons hope to reach their goal over Ebertfest, which includes appearances by Brie Larson, Patton Oswalt, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Ramin Bahrani, and many more.
Source: News-Gazette
Next Article: My Favorite Roger: Olivia Collette Previous Article: Love Itself: My Year Without Roger
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DisqusGLOBAL fast food giant McDonalds can't build a 24-hour restaurant in Guildford after its application was knocked back on Monday.
In what’s been described as a win for the people, Guildford residents had been campaigning against the application since the plans first went public.
McDonalds had wanted to build a 24-hour restaurant at the site behind the Guildford Hotel.
But on Monday, a development assessment panel refused the plans, citing a lack of car bays, the close proximity to a local primary school and that the new store could diminish the character of the suburb.
Camera Icon An artist's impression of the proposed outlet. Picture: PerthNow
While local residents are celebrating the decision, the fight could continue.
McDonalds can now appeal the decision at the State Administrative Tribunal, but the fast food giant is yet to comment on its next move.Chandigarh: The change of guard at the Centre and in the state has not changed anything for senior IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who was on Wednesday once again transferred to an inconsequential posting by the BJP government in Haryana.
This is Khemka's 45th transfer in 24 years.
After the news was reported, Khemka took to microblogging website Twitter to express how painful the moment was for him in the middle of his efforts to address corruption in the transport department where he was currently posted.
Tried hard to address corruption and bring reforms in Transport despite severe limitations and entrenched interests. Moment is truly painful — Ashok Khemka, IAS (@AshokKhemka_IAS) April 1, 2015
Khemka, as per the latest orders of the Haryana government, has been posted as Secretary, Archaeology and Museums Department and Director General, Archaeology and Museums.
Meanwhile, Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar has defended Khemka's transfer while describing him as an honest officer. He stressed that officers are transferred and posted as per needs.
"He's an honest officer. He has been transferred on administrative grounds, it’s a routine transfer," Khattar said. "Depending on the need, officers are transferred. It's a routine process," he added.
However, state's Health Minister Anil Vij came out in Khemka's support, saying he will talk to the Chief Minister regarding the officer "who had worked to weed out corruption during the previous Congress regime".
Vij further told reporters in Ambala, "I will talk to the Chief Minister regarding Khemka's transfer."
Vij, an outspoken BJP leader and Ambala Cantt MLA, said that he had always stood by Khemka, "who had worked to weed out corruption during the previous Congress regime".
Notably, the government did not mention any reason for his transfer. Chief Minister Khattar's OSD Bhupeshwar Dayal termed it as an administrative matter.
Khemka was appointed as transport commissioner and secretary, Transport department, last year after Khattar assumed office as chief minister of the first BJP government in Haryana.
At that time, Khemka, who had blown the lid off from the controversial multi-million-rupee land deals of Congress president Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra, was touted to get an important assignment. However, he was posted in the transport department.
However, Haryana's Transport Minister Ram Bilas Sharma maintained that "transfer is not a punishment" and stressed that it was a "routine" matter.
"Transfer is not a punishment, a promotion or demotion. Transfer of senior officers is a routine matter. There is nothing special or extraordinary about it," he said while replying to queries on the issue.
He said decisions are taken after the Chief Minister holds consultations with his council of ministers.
Notably, as Transport Commissioner, Khemka had refused to issue fitness certificates to over-sized trucks and trailers for carrying automobiles, leading to a truckers' strike in January.
Later, the truckers in Haryana withdrew their strike after the state government gave them one year's time to get their vehicles modified as per the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (CMVR), 1989.
Khemka, in a tweet then, had said that "60 percent of road accidents due to overloaded and over-sized transport vehicles. Industry cooperation needed to stop this road menace."
The Transport Minister denied that the move to replace Khemka as Transport Commissioner was related to his decision regarding truckers.
"No. Nothing like that. It is a routine matter," he said to a query on the issue.
In one of his tweets last week, Khemka while quoting Rabindranath Tagore had mentioned: "If no one responds to your call, then go your own way alone".
Meanwhile, nine other senior officers were also transferred by the Haryana government.
Among those transferred were SS Dhillon, a former principal secretary to previous chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda, who has now been made additional chief secretary, Transport and Civil Aviation Department.
Additional Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Khattar, Sumita Misra, has been posted as Principal Secretary, Tourism department.
Earlier in 2012, when Khemka was posted as Director-General of Land Consolidation and Land Records-cum-Inspector General of Registration, he had brought land deals of businessman Robert Vadra, son-in-law of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, under the scanner.
During the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government, the official had cancelled the mutation of the multi-crore land deal between Vadra's company Skylight Hospitality Pvt Ltd and DLF, terming it as illegal. However, the previous Hooda government gave clean chit to Vadra in the land deal.
Last week, Khemka in a tweet had said that his action in Vadra-DLF land-licence deal has been "vindicated in the CAG report."
"Undue favours" to builders, including Robert Vadra's Skylight Hospitality, by the Haryana Government during the Congress regime has come under attack from the Comptroller and Auditor General.
(With Agency inputs)Context: At SDCC 2017, Rebecca Sugar was asked about LGBT representation in her show. After saying that the next season of Steven Universe would have more LGBT representation, Rebecca Sugar went on to discuss the origins of Pride.
Rebecca Sugar: Um, and… yes, oh, yes! [laughs] There’s a fascinating document called the Queer Nation Manifesto, um, from the 90s that is very, uh, inspiring. I, I did a lot of reading about Brenda Howard. She is, she was very important to, um, inventing the concept of Pride.
Uh, and I think it’s a little hard to think about now, but somebody had to - a group of people had to get together and be like, “we should change the narrative - we should change how people talk about this, and we should get to be proud of ourselves?”
That’s a conversation people had to have and strategize, because…
Ian-Jones Quartey: It just didn’t exist.
Rebecca Sugar: Yeah! And, and, I love reading about the, um, like the people who came together to make, to make gay pride a thing. And I think now it’s a thing that we, maybe… I don’t think we take it for granted ‘cause it’s something…
Ian-Jones Quartey: It’s something you know about. You never think that there was a meeting where people had to really come up with the concept…
Rebecca Sugar: Right, where [inaudible]… I think it’s really exciting and it’s really beautiful and the thing that makes me excited is that, um, if we can find each other and have these conversations about what it would take to make our lives better, we can start taking action in the world, just like people did years ago. Um, that is so, um, just beautiful and exciting to me…
Um, yeah, I think, uh, uh, I think a lot of people are probably familiar with Queer Nation, they invented “we’re here, we’re Queer, get used to it”… that’s them! These are things that people, uh… [quietly] you know… people… [laughs nervously]… these are things that people came up with, to help improve each other’s lives. We can, we can, we can do this. Um… sorry. Thank you so much.
[Audience applauds]GLASGOW City Council have taken influence from some of the most vibrant cities in the world to renovate the city’s lanes.
Draft plans to turn 90 lanes in to vibrant hotspots were approved by councillors which will see the veins of the city cleaned up and redeveloped.
It is hoped the project will encourage independent shops, bars and restaurants to start up business and add more vibrancy to Glasgow.
The report, approved by the executive committee, looked at the ways cities like Melbourne, Montreal and New York have renovated their lanes and adapted its findings to the draft proposal.
Experts also looked at the historic and current use of each lane, their individual characteristics and the impact of planning policies.
Now having been passed by the council, the plans are now being put forward to a public consultation.
The report said the network of lanes is a valuable part of the city’s rich heritage and character.
Some already have a variety of uses including independent shops, restaurants and bars which contribute to the city’s night-time economy.
But others are unused and attract antisocial behaviour, are poorly maintained with illegal parking and unsightly refuse disposal schemes.
Councillor Archie Graham, who chaired the committee meeting, said: “Lanes are a very important party of the city and these plans are a great way to bring some life to them.”
The public from citizens to business owners, have been given the chance to give their input over an eight-week engagement programme.
A council spokesman said: “The lanes network in the city centre is flourishing in some areas but could undoubtedly be improved in others.
“The regeneration of these lanes would play a significant role in the ongoing transformation of the city centre and the draft strategy aims to deliver that.
“The public consultation will help shape the final plan for |
Episode #63: Change Jar 4.0
Episode 63
June 05, 2016 — 57 mins
Let’s face it: embracing change is no fun. Everyone likes staying in his or her comfort zone. After all, they call it a “comfort” zone for a reason—even the term itself stirs up deep feelings of calm, relaxation and security. But eventually, something comes along to shake us out of it. We welcome the Lawnmower.io team back onto the show for a third time as they revealing their latest update & expansion plans. Most importantly, they removed “spare change” and replaced much of the branding and screens centered around this concept, and in place have some brand new functionality, screens, and hopefully a much smoother user experience. What could be bad about a fresh new “Analytics” page with a bunch of cool data on your account & trading performance? We dive into this and more!
Download:
They just pushed our latest update to the App & Play Stores:
iOS & AndroidExpress Features By
CHENNAI: They can be as different as chalk and cheese. Like human beings, animals have their own food habits and they differ with breeds. Talking to City Express about the ideal diet pattern one must set for their pet pooches, Senthil Sadasivam, founder of petwish.in, an online portal for high-end food for pets, shares some insights into the ideal diet for pets.
Must Haves
Primarily meat-based diet consisting of chicken, fish and lamb with a good balance of fruits and vegetables to give sufficient amount of vitamins and minerals. Its better to avoid those foods that are produced by the byproducts of meat. Ideally, home-cooked food is the best for your pet. As when it’s cooked at home, it has the right balance of proteins, carbohydrates and the essential fat.
Have Nots
For dogs, one must avoid chocolates, coffee, alcohol, onions, garlic, among others, which would trigger vomiting and diarrhoea. It might also cause damage to the nervous system and heart. It might also affect the red blood cells and make your dog anaemic. Fish bones should also be avoided as it might cause injury to the dog’s digestive tract. Also avoid raisins or grapes as they contain a toxin that causes kidney failure. Raw eggs should also be avoided as it contains an enzyme called ‘avidin’, which reduces the absorption of Vitamin B.
Making the Right Choice
It is better to make sure that the food contains fresh meat or meat meal so that the quality of protein provided is very good. It should be ensured that the food does not contain corn as a primary ingredient, as its used as a filler and binding agent and it does not much nutritional value, just trans-fats. Corn is also difficult to digest and in some cases it would cause allergy to pets
Health Watch
One should ensure that the pet is active always and also check their stool periodically. It should be firm. If found to be otherwise, there could be a chance of worm infestation, which will be shown in the stool. They must be given proper medication if found infected.
Different Diet, Different Breed
Yes, it differs based on the activity level of the breed. Though the overall diet remains the same, the amount we feed varies. For example, a breed like Great Dane, we need to feed about 400 gms of processed food per day, whereas for a smaller breed like Lab, around 250-300 gms per day would suffice. It also depends about upon how active the breed is. Agile dogs need more protein, whereas less agile dogs need lesser protein and lesser fat content as Labs tend to put weight easily.When deciding a location for our interview, the rapper formerly known as Chipmunk, now as Chip, asked if we could meet at his barbers in Finsbury Park. As we settled into a sofa tucked away in the corner of the room, the rest of the place buzzing with a constant flow of customers, a bubbling radio and endless short back and sides, it was pretty clear Chip feels at home anywhere in North London these days.
Whether he’s caught your attention through recent beefs, or his name still brings the words “Chip Diddy Chip” to mind, there is no denying that the 25 year old MC has seen a sudden re-emergence of late in the UK scene. “I’ve had to do things,” he says, “to programme my mind, to think like a hungry dog again. But now, I’m completely on the other side of this whole course that started when I first came through. I feel like Chipmunk again.”
Having been known on the grime scene for a short while, the Tottenham kid first shot to notoriety in 2007, at the age of just 17, scoring chart hits and winning a MOBO for ‘Best Newcomer’. Singles like “Diamond Rings” with Emeli Sande earned him more pop than grime stripes, and “Oopsy Daisy” went number one in the UK, morphing him from an underground name – played out of Sony Ericssons on school buses – into a primetime chart figure. By 2009, he was beating Eminem and Kanye West to the MOBO ‘Best Hip-Hop Act’ award.
From there though, you could say Chip's respectability on street level wasn't exactly soaring. From pop songs with Keri Hilson, chart fodder with Jessie J, and performances at places like Sainsbury's Super Saturday festival, your average UK rap and grime fan wasn't exactly coming Chip's way for fresh bars of fire. Basically, you were more likely to see him on SMTV than SBTV. And while a lot of that might still haunt Chip now, it’s easy to forget that before all that fame first began - before the millions of YouTube hits and Myspace plays - he was a 14 year old, juggling school with recording mixtapes, and balancing a rising profile with life in the ends.
“When I was younger, I remember the anxious feeling of getting on a bus on my own, knowing that I was this kid Chipmunk now and that people knew that. I remember a designer called Scribbler when I was 14. The first time I went to meet him I had to get the bus through Edmonton. They had proper on site beef with Northumberland Park which is the area that I use to MC from with Shoddy Crew. I caught the bus and I was shitting myself the whole way, cos if you’re from there and you get rushed… well, that’s it.”
It’s important to recognise Chip’s early days in the context of how he has revived the reputation he has again today, as a fairly respectable contender, despite rivals rushing to write him off as pop act, sell out or faded star. Even aged 14, when his Whatever the Weather mixtapes were getting picked up by Wiley, there was a method, meaning and motive behind everything he did. In his words, “there was a whole circuit of work and income” before those hits came.
I half expected him to be reticent about discussing that mainstream era of his career, particularly given the resolute realness and decidedly non-mainstream friendly qualities of his latest EP Believe & Achieve. But he has a lot of pride about what went down. “Making a pop song isn’t a joke,” he explains. “Not many MCs can just turn around and master those structures and those formulas.” As for the question of how it affected his truly authentic origins? “I don’t care. I made pop when it was authentic to me.”
The journey from mixtape to red carpet is seen by many as what stifled grime the first time around. The movement built momentum so quickly, many major players didn’t know what to do with it and were forced into making calls on which direction to take their sound in, without necessarily knowing what the long term consequences would be for the culture. “A lot of these new dons are fortunate because they’ve had an era of music before them. They can look at it and say, ‘I would do that, I wouldn’t do that’. But we had to actually try things, bruv. We had to risk it, for you, bruv.”
Following the major fame years of 2009-11, he felt the need to stretch his vision further afield. “Grime wasn’t challenging me anymore, pop wasn’t challenging me anymore.” With the sense that the world he had created for himself was getting too small, he headed for America, and signed with TI’s Grand Hustle. To him, this period was important for honing his craft more than anything else, working alongside the likes of Meek Mill, and getting himself to a point where he could “spit over any beat, against any rapper.” Yet while the time he spent in Atlanta was important, it is clear from talking to him that his current focus is firmly homeward bound.
“For so long I’ve been so detached from so many realistic things that really made my bars.” Speaking about his home town is possibly the only time during our conversation that he notably breaks from his otherwise impenetrable confidence. “People do get stabbed here, people do die here," says Chip. "It’s real. Young brothers are passing away and these are all people who actually grew up around here and know.” But as Chip is more than happy to reason, it's often the strife of such places in London that makes the talent of the artists coming out of there so raw and exciting. “There’s obviously something in this town,” he says.
We leave the barbers and walk to the corner shop up the road. I start to see a little of what Chip was chatting about earlier. Almost everyone stops to say hello, or turn their head. But it quickly becomes apparent that this isn’t celeb spotting. These are just local faces that know him. It’s his community; the owner of the local off licence, a kid he went to school with, a friend of the family. At one point, he heavily tips the waitress in a cafe because he's so impressed with the texture of the croissants. He’s been major label, he's been that pop kid, and he’s been America – but back in Tottenham, he looks, sounds and feels more Chip than ever.
Which all brings us to him in 2015, the Chip we see today. He’s been a scared kid on a bus, an anonymous internet sensation, a grime saviour, a pop star, a protege and a prodigy, all before he turned 25. He laughs at this thought, “I can see that my past journey is confusing.”
Given the amount of history behind him, and his vast experience of just how fickle the music industry can be, he’s more than past-caring when it comes to any discussion of the grime feuds that have seen his name re-emerge so rapidly over the past twelve months. “If I could say ‘I don’t care’ in an optimistic way, then that’s where I’m at.”
“I’m a human being. If your opinion doesn’t work with mine, I’m going to say ‘alright, safe’, turn the other way and go and spread my message to more people. But there are people who, if they don’t like your view, then they want to do something.” As he sees it, the diss tracks he makes now aren’t just about taking down one MC, they’re about showcasing his strength of focus, and redirecting attention to the ground level interests of his people and his message. “What do I get out of blasting MCs that I know lyrically cannot test me? Take your crazy dumb energy to other crazy dumb people. I know how to handle idiots. I’m not an idiot. MCs don’t scare me, because real life runs deeper.”
It’s Chip’s thick skin that’s helped him survive a decade in the music industry. Major label systems, criticism from the press, networking and self-promotion are all things he has learnt to take in his stride. Listening to new EP Believe & Achieve it’s striking just how literally he is putting this accrued knowledge to use – making music that sounds like grime, but has the foresight to shoot for something bigger than turf wars and micro-aggressions.
He understands that beefing with other rappers is going to distract attention in the short term, particularly in a scene where feuding is seen as so central to the energy. Yet for him, the challenge is maintaining his optimistic mission throughout all the bullshit. As he put it, “the media thrives off negativity, which puts a positive guy in a tricky position.” That being said, when I ask him if he ever doubts his own capabilities to come out on top, he laughs at me, “Nah...once you get your head around it, and around the times, it’s light work as long as you step steady.”
Spending any time with Chip, you can see how he’s courted so much attention over the years. His confidence is mesmerising and infectious, and I'll admit I feel like I’ve subconsciously bought into his new vision. Not in some small-fry “Chip is a sicker MC than XYZ” way, because that’s not the battle he’s really fighting right now. His perception of the scene is self-aware, and his ambition for his own future has come full circle. After this long in the game, man knows where to get a good hair cut.
You can follow Angus on Twitter.Israel should be proud of itself for having active human rights organizations in the country, including Breaking the Silence. Soldiers are allowed to expose the wrongs, and there are wrongs. The problem is that in the past few years, the organization has undergone a complete changeover.
Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter
The organization, which started off by exposing wrongs in a bid to fix them, has turned into an organization that is ceaselessly spreading lies against the State of Israel. This isn’t about the organization’s spokesman, Dean Issacharoff, who has been caught telling a blatant lie. It’s about the system. It’s about the organization.
Breaking the Silence members. A complete changeover as a result of funding (Photo: Amit Magal)
Breaking the Silence Director Avner Gvaryahu responded to the exposed lie by insisting that the story about Issacharoff brutally attacking a Palestinian during his military service was true. Issacharoff’s comrades testified that it never happened. The Palestinian testified that it never happened. But that doesn’t matter, because instead of insisting on exposing the truth, the organization is insisting on spreading lies.
There are serious incidents which should be exposed. The problem starts when the organization’s leaders turn IDF soldiers into bloodthirsty monsters interested in committing nonstop war crimes.
Noam Chayut, one of the organization’s three board members, published an article titled “The exceptional person is one who is unwilling to kill civilians.” He is the moderate of the three. The other two are supporters of the anti-Israel boycott campaign. There is no surprise, therefore, in the fact that Issacharoff and Gvaryahu have gone from exposing wrongs to disseminating lies. When you get money from pro-BDS bodies, you act like the BDS movement.
It’s not just one story. It’s the system. In a lecture at Columbia University, Gvaryahu presented a picture of a mosque bombed by IDF soldiers. Unfortunately for him, there was an American soldier there who had served in Gaza. He told the audience that two soldiers had been shot and killed by terrorists from that same mosque.
In most of these lectures, there is no one to refute the lies, so Gvaryahu and others can travel the world and create the impression that IDF soldiers are monsters. They’re getting a fortune to do so, and they’re delivering the goods.
Issacharoff’s lie, and many other lies, were exposed by members of Reservists on Duty, led by Amit Deri. I have met these decent and concerned young people, who come both from the Left and from the Right. They have political disagreements. They are in favor of exposure, but they are against lies and against generalizations that create demonization.
Breaking the Silence’s changeover is the result of funding. When you receive money from pro-BDS bodies, you become part of the BDS movement. It’s no longer a battle aimed at fixing things. It’s a battle in the service of a campaign opposing Israel’s actual existence.
This isn’t the intention of all of the organization’s activists, but it’s the result. And as long as the Knesset doesn’t work to ban foundations affiliated with the BDS movement from funding Israeli organizations, nothing will stop this kind of demonization, like the one promoted by Breaking the Silence. There’s no need to act against rights organizations, but there is a need to act against demonization funded by the campaign for Israel’s destruction.A 54-year-old woman in the police watchlist of new drug personalities was arrested with about a P1 million worth of drugs in Barangay Duljo Fatima, Cebu City on Saturday evening.
Chief Insp. Christopher Navida, head of the Cebu Intelligence Branch (CIB) of the Cebu City Police Office (CCPO), said the suspect, Gloria Gayonot, also a resident of Barangay Duljo Fatima, has been under police surveillance for some time and was arrested after operatives caught her placing sachets of alleged white crystalline powder believed to be shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride) into a blue pouch.
Goyonot is considered a high value target by the CCPO and has been one of the subjects in the police’s intensitified operation against known or new drug traders in the city, according to Navida.
Seized from Gayonot were six medium packs and one large pack of suspected shabu with a total value of P1,003,000, Navida revealed.
He said Gayonot is now detained at the CCPO stockage pending the filling of charges against her..
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Ever wondered how freelance writers find markets for their writing talent and the ability to write online articles too? Or where you could offer articles/blogs with a link to your book’s sales page – as described in a former blog post: Smart Authors Get Paid for Marketing Their Books
Don’t look further than to these websites, which are regularly updated, either on a weekly basis and sometimes even more often. These links will lead you not only to get the latest job openings but also great sources of publishing and writing knowledge:
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http://www.absolutewrite.com
This site consists of valuable content, including some international market listings. Funny to read their FTC compliance…
http://www.duotrope.com
Their Motto: Write. Re-write. Submit. This free database contains more than two thousand writer markets for short fiction, poetry and novels/collections. Try out their custom searches of thousands of market listings to find exactly what you are looking for!
http://www.fundsforwriters.com
Author C. Hope Clark writes since many years a great weekly blog on freelance writing, writing jobs (full-time), grants, markets, contests, and fellowships. Sign up for her free e-newsletter – you will be glad that you did. It is one of the very few newsletters that are truly worth subscribing!
http://www.fwointl.com
Freelance Writing Organization Intl. is a free online database with thousands of job listings and freelance opportunities. Over 5000 Free Writing Resources & Links, thousands of Writing Jobs Opportunities.
http://writersweekly.com/misc/guidelines.php
This website and email newsletter is for professional writers, publishing articles on how to make a living writing.
http://www.journalismjobs.com
Daily job listings for journalists, editors, online media and more.
http://www.marketlist.com
This database of markets and contests is helping freelance writers for over ten years.
http://www.mediabistro.com
Every freelancer should bookmark this site and visit often for the latest industry news and the great job listing section.
http://www.mediajobsearchcanada.com
“Job Search & Find” site for Canadian writers, journalists, editors, marketing & PR-specialists, and radio or TV personnel.
http://www.mediajobmarket.com
Media Job Market lists hundreds of job postings and several fantastic must-read articles on job hunting in the writing industry.
http://www.writergazette.com
Writer Gazette’s regularly weekly newsletter, forum, writer service listing and most important of all: More than 500 submission calls to paying markets.
http://jobs.problogger.net/
The ProBlogger Job Board is where professional bloggers looking for jobs and companies looking for bloggers to hire.
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Essentials are: Learn to write for the web, know how to write press releases, and study potential contract givers’ websites thoroughly. Update your portfolio regularly, and don’t forget: the decision makers can also be found on social media sites, such as Google+ or Twitter. Keep your author appearance on Social Media professional, and post links to the best of your writing. Being familiar with you and your writing can for sure improve your chances of getting more assignments.
Do you know any other useful websites for writing jobs?
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Or visit http://www.e-book-pr.com/book-promo/ to advertise your new book, specials, your KDP Select Free Days or the new Kindle Countdown Deals.
Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 840+ of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.
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Hyper Smash
PingateThe annual Guardian “hits and misses” feature, canvassing publishers about their high points and regrets of the year, always makes me wonder about what my friends and allies in the small-press world think about their own successes and failures. About whether they’d lament the same missed books and share the same triumphs as those in the corporate world. Or whether the small-press universe is entirely different. I put the questions to them once again and their replies were as intriguing as ever.
Sarah Davis-Goff
Co-director, Tramp Press
The book that made my year
Solar Bones by Mike McCormack: it won the Goldsmiths prize, the Bord Gáis Energy Irish book award for novel of the year, garnered rave reviews from impressive people, is appearing on all the end-of-year lists for best books of 2016, and is selling like mad thanks to great word of mouth – and somehow, we feel like it’s just getting going. We haven’t been able to submit it for some of our shared market’s big awards, but watch this space! More satisfying than any of this, however, is to see this cult Irish writer finally get some of the recognition he deserves.
Our book that deserved to do better
We are so proud to have published an Irish edition of Joanna Walsh’s eye-wateringly brilliant Vertigo earlier this year, to great acclaim (Julian Gough called it “terrific and terrifying”) – but in our eyes, a work as great as this can never do well enough.
I wish I’d published
Sarah Crossan’s One (Bloomsbury) is exceptional and Deirdre Sullivan’s Needlework (Little Island) is great; she’s seriously one to watch.
Philip Gwyn Jones
Editor, Scribe
The book that made my year
It was wonderful to see the acclaim pour down on Tommy Wieringa’s A Beautiful Young Wife, an immaculate dissection of a middle-aged man’s delusions, written with unsparing economy, a perfect ear for the unguarded remark, and unforgettable imagery. This newspaper was among many to sing its praises, describing it as “reminiscent of Updike at his very best”. Tommy is world class, and more and more readers in English are coming to realise it.
Our book that deserved to do better
The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney marries the familiar – a tale of a marriage imploding, a search for meaning, and a family battered by loss – with the unusual: a living argument between Enlightenment and Romance, embodied in an ancient house, its inhabitants and the landscape. And overlays it with allusion galore. Praised by good literary bloggers and notables such as Richard Holmes and Jim Perrin, it was largely ignored by the broadsheets and bookshops on publication this summer.
I wish I’d published
The book that left its teethmarks on me was Svetlana Alexievich’s Second-Hand Time (Fitzcarraldo), ugly-frank, full of a strange, cruel nostalgia, artless yet artful, and devastatingly real in baring a host of Russian souls chorally, in all their challenging complexity. The most beautifully uplifting book was Christopher de Hamel’s Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts (Allen Lane).
Daniela Petracco
Director, Europa Editions
The book that made my year
Guapa, Saleem Haddad’s debut. Over the course of 24 hours, a young Arab gay man confronts questions of home and belonging after his grandmother catches him in bed with his lover. It’s a moving and wryly humorous novel that bridges cultures in all sorts of ways.
Our book that deserved to do better
Night Prayers by Santiago Gamboa, a story about the strength of the bond between siblings, a foretold mystery, and an account of a troubled time in the recent history of Colombia all rolled into one. We’re publishing Gamboa’s new novel in 2017, and I very much hope he starts getting the recognition he deserves.
I wish I’d published
Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project (Saraband). I read it earlier this year and loved it. It’s the kind of book that requires the reader’s complete participation, the sense of place is so strong you feel you inhabit the remote crofters’ community, and it bends and blends genres with apparent effortlessness.
Kit Caless and Gary Budden
Co-directors, Influx Press
The book that made my year
An Unreliable Guide to London. It was a real privilege to publish fantastic new short stories about our city from the likes of M John Harrison, Courttia Newland, Chloe Aridjis, Nikesh Shukla, Irenosen Okojie, Will Wiles and many others.
Our book that deserved to do better
The Foreign Passion by Cristian Aliaga (translated by Ben Bollig). Patagonian poetry in translation is never going to be a bestseller, but this book has a really insightful analysis of Europe told from the outer edges of Argentina.
I wish I’d published
Kit: I wish we had published Mama Can’t Raise No Man by Robyn Travis
(published by OWNIT!). It’s an excellent debut novel about black masculinity told through a series of prison letters. Publisher Crystal Mahey-Morgan has done amazing things this year and deserves serious recognition.
Gary: I wish we had published the second collection of short fiction from Livia Llewellyn. Like a feminine Thomas Ligotti with a very high sex drive, Furnace is a nightmarish wander through lust, violence and treacle-thick darkness. Its stories are lodged in my brain like a particularly unwholesome parasite.
Tom Chivers
Director, Penned in the Margins
The book that made my year
Sunshine by Melissa Lee-Houghton has just been shortlisted for the Costa awards, which is a big deal for a small publisher like us. Melissa speaks about things we don’t want to talk honestly about as a society: suicide, mental health, pornography. Sunshine is incredibly hard-hitting, but also stylish, surreal and funny. It’s essential poetry reading right now.
Our book that deserved to do better
It’s still early days, but November’s Cenotaph South: Mapping the Lost Poets of Nunhead Cemetery deserves a wide audience. Chris McCabe is on an epic quest to uncover all the lost poets of London’s Magnificent Seven cemeteries, and this latest instalment is full of Blakean mysteries, strange encounters and unexpected delights.
I wish I’d published
I’m currently reading The Hatred of Poetry by Ben Lerner (Fitzcarraldo Editions). It’s both a love letter to and a critique of the genre we all love to hate. As someone who spends his days (and nights) embroiled in poetry, I would have published this in a flash.
Nathan Connolly
Director, Dead Ink
The book that made my year
This has to go to Harry Gallon’s The Shapes of Dogs’ Eyes after coming runner-up in Sabotage’s best novella category. Gallon captures a particular millennial malaise as his protagonist is caught between stasis and growing up. Gallon’s magic is in how he turns this into something both hilarious and subversive with his hypnotic prose.
Our book that deserved to do better
Described by WordRiot as a novel that “highlights the creative importance of small publishers”, Lochlan Bloom’s The Wave is impossible to describe succinctly as it moves through prose and screenplay, crossing realities as it shifts. It is a mystery that can’t be satisfied, and that’s sort of the point!
I wish I’d published
Vertigo by Joanna Walsh – and I’ll keep recommending it way past everyone getting tired of me doing so. As soon as I finished the first story I was green with envy that And Other Stories had published this and not Dead Ink. If you ask me this question next year, I might just give the same answer.
Kevin Duffy
Director, Bluemoose Books
The book that made my year
The Handsworth Times by Sharon Duggal: how one family struggles to cope after losing a son in the riots of 1981, when the National Front marched through the inner cities and communities fought against racism and injustice, struggling for their dignity.
Our book that deserved to do better
If You Look at Me I Am Not Here by Sarayu Srivatsa. Set in post-partition India, it is a saga about history, identity and loyalty. So far, so Rushdie, you may think – but what sets this apart is the deftness of touch, a true intimacy, and characters who are so much more than mere cyphers or symbols.
I wish I’d published
Moonstone by Sjón (Sceptre): One of the best writers around, simply sublime.
Becky Harrison
Engagement Manager, Comma Press
The book that made my year
Having only joined Comma at the final stages of production, working on Iraq + 100 was about as exciting a baptism of fire as I could get. The variety of coverage that the book received was incredible, and I loved the strange futures and darkly humorous stories that arose from the commission. Glass of blood wine, anyone?
Our book which deserved to do better
Scent: The Collected Works is a compendium of Dinesh Allirajah’s delicately understated short stories, his extraordinary, intellectually acrobatic blogposts, and his jazz-inspired poetry. As a writer who spent more time supporting others in the region than promoting himself, Din deserved to be better known in his tragically short lifetime than he was ; this book is our chance to redress that.
I wish I’d published
I recently finished The Power by Naomi Alderman and it certainly lived up to expectation. Its clever inversion of gendered society is as funny and dark and disturbing as it should be, and, as all good SF does, it invites you to take a long hard look at the world around you. I would have loved to be involved in its creation!
Sam Jordison
Co-director, Galley Beggar Press
The book that made my year
Publishing Feeding Time by Adam Biles was a joy. Partly because of the simple delight of helping bring something so good into the world and knowing how funny it was, how unsettling and how full of human warmth. But also because it got some stonking reviews and we were lucky enough to launch it in Shakespeare & Company. That was one of the proudest, and most enjoyable experiences of my career, let alone this year.
Our book that deserved to do better
Forbidden Line by Paul Stanbridge has only just come out, and, in all honesty, I’m hoping the best is yet to come. It’s already had some pretty astonishing praise and I’m crossing my fingers for good coverage in the new year. But, like every publisher, I think it should have been announced with trumpets in heaven, all traffic coming to a standstill and frantic announcements on the News at Ten. This book is incredible and I just want it to get the attention it deserves.
I wish I’d published
Scary Old Sex by Arlene Heyman (Bloomsbury). By some measures, this one possibly also deserved to do better and receive more attention here in the UK. But it is also brilliant and hilarious and true – and that’s what counts. People will be enjoying it for years to come and I’ll get a pang every time I see it.
Candida Lacey
Director, Myriad Editions
The book that made my year
It has been a joy to publish Elizabeth Haynes’s new novel, Never Alone. This is rural noir at its best – a woman alone, an isolated farmhouse, snow, dogs and delicious plotting. Haynes excels at placing ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances and, as with her bestselling debut Into the Darkest Corner, this novel is touching people’s lives.
Our book that deserved to do better
Will Volley’s masterly graphic novel, The Opportunity exposes the unforgiving world of door-to-door selling. Reviewers have likened it to David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross and heralded a modern-day Death of a Salesman but it hasn’t yet reached the wider audience it deserves.
I wish I’d published
Refugee Tales (Comma Press) takes its lead from Chaucer and charges modern-day storytellers, including Ali Smith, Chris Cleave and Patience Agbabi, to relate the plight of those held indefinitely at Gatwick’s airport’s immigration detention centres. With The Detainee’s Tale, The Lorry Driver’s Tale, The Dependant’s Tale and others, we cannot fail to be moved and better understand the fate of refugees.
Eric Lane
Publisher, Dedalus
The book that made my year
Wonders Will Never Cease by Robert Irwin: The Game of Thrones with real history or “a sort of marriage between AS Byatt and Terry Pratchett: one you can enjoy greatly on the first reading, but which will be even better second time round, as it’s so densely packed with learning and allusions. This is a lightning trip around 15th-century culture, European culture and indeed world culture. Bravo.” (Tibor Fischer in the Guardian).
Our book that deserved to do better
The Interpreter by Diego Marani (translated by Judith Landry): “The Interpreter isn’t merely the sequel to New Finnish Grammar and The Last of the Vostyachs: it is a singular and deeply felt thesis … Marani’s ideas are typically far-reaching and provocative.” (Thea Lenarduzzi in the Times Literary Supplement.)
I wish I’d published
The Transylvanian Trilogy by Miklós Bánffy (Arcadia).
Sam Mills
Co-director, Dodo Ink
The book that made my year
Our debut title, Dodge and Burn by Seraphina Madsen – a beautifully written, drug-infused, psychedelic road trip. Seraphina explores a literary territory that is usually dominated by male authors; she was influenced by Burroughs and Hunter S Thompson but has carved out a niche all of her own. We were very proud when it received rave reviews from book bloggers, was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness prize and chosen by Foyles (Charing Cross) as a staff pick.
Our book that deserved to do better
Wood Green by Sean Rabin – a tale of a dangerous game played out between two writers in a strange, Twin Peaks-style town in Tasmania. The novel was originally published in Australia, where it has been shortlisted for several prizes. We pushed hard for reviews and were disappointed that we didn’t get more – but at least the coverage we did get was positive, such as a fantastic review in Bookmunch.
I wish I’d published
A Field Guide to Reality by Joanna Kavenna (Quercus). A kind of quantum Alice in Wonderland – intellectually playful, inventive, mind-bending, and involves a scene where the heroine gains insights into the universe via a psychotropic tea party. The Dodo is a big fan.
Adrian Searle
Director, Freight Books
The book that made my year
Laura Powell’s The Unforgotten is a psychological thriller set in 1950s Cornwall. It’s about a transgressive love affair between a 15-year-old girl and 30-year-old journalist, set against the background of a series of murders of young women. It’s a great page-turner, is brilliantly written and has sold strongly.
Our book that deserved to do better
Neil Mackay’s The Wolf Trial is a novel based on the true story of Peter Stumpf, the first convicted serial killer in history – who was tried as a werewolf in Germany in 1563. It’s a brilliant epic, combining elements of literary fiction and horror. While it has been successful, selling well in hardback and international sales, it received virtually no press interest outside Scotland. I hope the paperback, due in June, attracts the attention this fabulous work deserves.
I wish I’d published
It has to be Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Booker-shortlisted His Bloody Project (Saraband) for all the obvious reasons.
Deborah Smith
Director, Tilted Axis
The book that made my year
Panty by Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay, translated by Arunava Sinha. This condensed, surreal exploration of sexual politics and alienation in contemporary Kolkata got great reviews and has become a book-club favourite, meaning we sold out our first print run – of our first ever book! Cue a celebratory selfie with the author and translator at the wonderful Dhaka Lit Fest.
Our book that deserved to do better
One Hundred Shadows by Hwang Jungeun, translated by Jung Yewon. An award-winning novel by one of the rising stars of South Korean literature; a spare, beautiful tale of romance in the age of |
, but who can spare the cash for it?
Product photo via Nest
The majority of commentary on Google’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Nest, the makers of a well-regarded smart thermostat, has been skeptical of the value proposition. Alongside the soaring stock market and a few other recent mega-acquisitions, for many it’s the latest data point in an ongoing story about a bubble mentality in Silicon Valley. But in this case, the skepticism about Nest isn’t skepticism about the business model. Selling manufactured goods through stores and websites works for many firms. Nor is it about the merits of the product. Everyone agrees Nest makes good stuff. It’s about price. Does anyone really want to spend this much to get something better? And that, in turn, is a sad commentary on the state of the American economy.
To many conservatives, recent attention paid to income inequality is at best a distraction from the real challenge of growth and innovation. But in reality these issues are inextricably linked. The development of new and better kinds of products is key to producing long-term economic growth. But determining what kind of products to develop and bring to market hinges crucially on whether or not people will be able to buy them.
Reviewing the Nest Protect smoke detector for Slate, Seth Stevenson had only two criticisms. One is easy to fix—he wanted more options for voices. The other is harder. “It’s $129 for each one,” he wrote, almost a $100 premium over pedestrian detectors.
The same is true of Nest’s original product, a thermostat. Farhad Manjoo raved about it in his review. But $250 is a lot to pay for a thermostat, when basically every house already has one and new basic ones sell for less than 20 bucks.
At the same time, the sums of money involved here are hardly astronomical. Since the year 2000, inflation-adjusted hourly pay has been just about flat, but productivity has risen 23 percent. If those productivity gains had been more evenly shared, the typical American household’s income could easily be $10,000 higher than it is today. That’d be plenty of money to upgrade the thermostat one year, upgrade the smoke detectors the next year, and still have enough left over to pay off old debts or increase retirement savings. In fact, the roster of innovative, useful, and yet rarely owned household devices is rather long at this point. I don’t have any Nest products, but inspired in part by Rob Mifsud’s article on them, I do now have an immersion circulator and companion vacuum sealer. I enjoy them both, but the reality is they’re hardly everyday necessities and not everyone has a few hundred dollars to spare on extra cooking gadgets.
On a grander scale, if you ask what’s the biggest barrier to efficient hybrid cars or home solar panels, the answer is primarily price, not technology.
Peter Thiel, the libertarian billionaire and proponent of the technology stagnation thesis, is fond of saying that “we were promised flying cars and instead what we got was 140 characters.” It’s a funny observation, but there’s another way of putting it that might be less congenial to his ideological commitments: In a world where all the income gains are accruing to a tiny minority, the only reliable way to build a mass-market product is to make it free. Ad-supported social networks are the perfect innovation for a cash-strapped population. If you have to sell something, then it’d better be in the realm of computer hardware, where component costs are falling so rapidly that this year’s state of the art will be cheap in two years’ time.
The other option is to make luxury goods. Bloomberg reports that 2014 should be a good year for the yacht industry. Earlier this month, Jaclyn Trop took a great look at the booming market for ultra-luxury six-figure cars.
But the purchasers of this kind of super-premium good are at least as interested in buying exclusivity and branding as they are in buying actual product quality. Consequently, a booming market for luxury goods doesn’t necessarily spur technical innovation in the same way that a booming mass market does. But if even well-received, well-reviewed new products can’t actually move inventory in a world where people can’t afford new stuff, then innovation will be channeled elsewhere, stymied, or hidden.
In his fascinating 2012 book Great Leap Forward, Alexander Field argued that the 1930s were actually a decade of amazing technological progress—the progress simply wasn’t evident to the people living through those years, because it was also the Great Depression and relatively few people were actually in the market for cool new stuff. Adoption rates of technologies ranging from automobiles to electricity stalled out. Things changed after World War II, when firm government commitments to full employment and broadly shared prosperity led to mass adoption of all the new conveniences.
My guess is we’re living through something similar. Innovative product ideas languish in semi-obscurity or simply can’t get financing because in general we don’t have the kind of broadly rising incomes that would support new products. It’d be nice to think that Google’s rather generous offer for Nest represents a bold bet that the situation is about to change. But more likely it’s the reverse. Google is the ideal owner of Nest, because Google has the business model to make Nest work. Get the devices into more homes by subsidizing the cost. Make it up by feeding the data gathered from smart appliances into Google’s all-knowing hive mind and develop even better ad targeting. It’s a bold, aggressive play by a company that’s really perfected the kind of innovation that works in a world of wage stagnation.
But to truly see human ingenuity blossom, we need a mass market for products that don’t necessarily serve a large-scale advertising scheme. For that, we need some pretty substantial political change to reverse the recent pattern of growth that benefits the few much more than the many.Researchers from Duke University in Durham, NC, may have discovered a new way of killing off cancer cells.
The modified poliovirus appears to enable T cells to attack cancer cells (shown here). The modified poliovirus appears to enable T cells to attack cancer cells (shown here).
The team was jointly led by Dr. Matthias Gromeier, a professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, and Prof. Smita Nair, who is an immunologist in the Department of Surgery.
The new research - which is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine - shows how a modified poliovirus enables the body to use its own resources to fight off cancer. The modified virus bears the name of recombinant oncolytic poliovirus (PVS-RIPO).
PVS-RIPO has been in clinical trials since 2011 and preliminary results have offered hope to patients with one of the most aggressive forms of brain tumor: recurrent glioblastoma. So, the researchers set out to investigate more deeply how exactly PVS-RIPO works.
Explaining the rationale behind their research endeavor, Dr. Gromeier says, "Knowing the steps that occur to generate an immune response will enable us to rationally decide whether and what other therapies make sense in combination with poliovirus to improve patient survival."
Poliovirus attacks tumors, inhibits regrowth
The researchers examined the behavior of the poliovirus in two human cell lines: melanoma and triple-negative breast cancer. They observed that the poliovirus attaches itself to cancerous cells. These cells have an excess of the CD155 protein, which acts as a receptor for the poliovirus.
Then, the poliovirus starts to attack the malignant cells, triggering the release of antigens from the tumor. Antigens are toxic substances that the body does not recognize, therefore setting off an immune attack against them.
So, when the tumor cells release antigens, this alerts the body's immune system to start attacking. At the same time, the poliovirus infects the dendritic cells and macrophages.
Dendritic cells are cells whose role it is to process antigens and "present" them to T cells, which are a type of immune cell. Macrophages are another type of immune cell - namely, large white blood cells whose main role is to rid our bodies of debris and toxic substances.
The cell culture results - which the researchers then verified in mouse models - showed that once PVS-RIPO infects the dendritic cells, these cells "tell" T cells to start the immune attack.
Once started, this process seems to be continuously successful. The cancer cells continue to be vulnerable to the immune system's attack over a longer period of time, which appears to stop the tumor from regrowing.
As Prof. Nair explains, "Not only is poliovirus killing tumor cells, it is also infecting the antigen-presenting cells, which allows them to function in such a way that they can now raise a T cell response that can recognize and infiltrate a tumor."
"This is an encouraging finding, because it means the poliovirus stimulates an innate inflammatory response." Prof. Smita Nair
Speaking to Medical News Today about the clinical implications of the findings and the scientists' directions for future research, Dr. Gromeier said, "Our findings provide clear rationales for moving forward with clinical trials in breast cancer, prostate cancer, and malignant melanoma."
"This includes novel combination treatments that we will pursue," he added.
More specifically, he explains, because the study revealed that after treatment with the poliovirus "immune checkpoints are increased on immune cells," a future strategy the researchers plan to explore is "[oncolytic] poliovirus combined with immune checkpoint blockade."As debates over gay marriage spread from state to state, there has been a small but growing opposition from the left. One of the sites in which opposition has emerged is in the work of the Against Equality collective. Calling into question the primacy of marriage, military service, and hate crimes legislation as the Holy Trinity of queer movement politics, the collective published its first anthology last fall: “Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Marriage”.
The driving force behind Against Equality is its co-founders: Yasmin Nair, a Chicago-based writer and activist, and self-described “outlaw artist, terrorist academic, and petty thief,” Ryan Conrad. They were joined in conversation by Montreal-based Joshua Pavan, community organizer and co-founder of Pervers/Cité, Montreal’s radical queer summer festival.
Joshua V Pavan: So given that we’re gathered here in the Motive issue, can you start by explaining what prompted the Against Equality (AE) project (and specifically that name)?
Yasmin Nair: It began in November 2009, when Ryan came up with the idea of a digital archive. Before that, we’d got to know each other via FB (I think it started when I caught sight of Ryan’s photo session of himself in a bridal gown, holding a sign that said “Gay marriage will cure AIDS,” and knew I’d found a kindred soul). We realized there was a real need to have all this amazing, radical queer analysis, activism, and artwork archived on the web. We knew there had been powerful critiques of gay marriage from the start of gay and lesbian organizing and activism, but hunting them down was a vast task. As for the name – I know we wanted to be provocative, yes – the name would definitely draw attention. But we were and are serious about questioning this specious notion of “equality.” The word is loosely thrown about, and it’s assumed that we should all know exactly what that means and what it stands for, but what does it really mean in a country where “marriage equality” is simply another way to ensure that the unmarried should be left out of a basic benefits structure? And what does equality mean when the system set up only ensures an insurmountable amount of economic inequality?
JVP: Yeah, in the ways that “equality,” has been emptied of all but the sort of warm, positive feelings around it, similar arguments can be made of “Pride,” or “Community.” Nevertheless, a lot of queer activists have found it important for these words to be the battleground of their more radical politics, both for their historical significance and intelligibility across movements. How do you see Against Equality fitting in with that?
Ryan Conrad: I think that examining the deployment of the rhetorical, affective appeal and the kinds of inequities it obscures is key to our project, in order to get people engaged in a conversation and to reflect back on what these actually mean within the context of neoliberalism. For me, it’s about rejecting that rallying cry to invest ourselves in a deeply unequal heteronormative present and demand and fight for a radically equitable and queer future.
YN: I think what AE challenges with regard to “community,” is the notion that the only kind that matters is the sort represented by Gay Inc. At the same time, in asking for a politics that considers how “marriage equality” leaves out large groups of people, we’re asking for a politics that looks beyond “community-based” solutions. What would marriage look like if we thought of it less as something that benefits specific “communities” (straights, gays and lesbians) and more as an institution that unequally and systemically grants benefits to specific kinds of family formations favoured by capitalism?
JVP: When people hear “neoliberalism,” the common understandings or associations would be around government economic policies of austerity, privatization and deregulation. What role does marriage play in this project?
YN: Marriage, as configured in the U.S, is neoliberalism’s handiest little tool. It allows for the most intense privatization of resources by placing the responsibility for people’s welfare squarely in the realm of the family. Need health care? If you don’t have a job that gives you that, or have parents who can put you on their plan, or a spouse with a job that allows you access to the same, you’re screwed. In that sense, neoliberalism loves marriage – it’s an effective and economical way to ensure that the state can abdicate from its responsibility for people’s health and well being.
RC: The entire framework that we use to understand our “resources,” like health care or housing or knowledge, etc. is of the economic model of capitalism and scarcity. Here in the States, through marriage we see the privatization of what we believe are collective benefits, like access to health care, to specifically classed family units. Instead of fighting for everyone’s right to live, like queer folks did so loudly and proudly here and elsewhere in the 80s, we see LGBTs now demanding that only married people have the right to these things.
JVP: So this privatization with marriage is less about shifting state functions into the private sector, as much as it is into the private sphere?
RC: I don’t think you can separate, on one hand, economic models that rely on a massively privatized public from, on the other hand, the shift towards championing the right to privacy/private sphere. Both the economic and affective/cultural shift to the private mutually reinforce the naturalness and inevitability of the other.
YN: Take, for instance, the rhetoric around public school education here in the States. People are being persuaded to believe that demanding charter schools or vouchers for private schools is about “taking back their schools and communities,” and being able to voice their wishes for their children’s education. The constant emphasis on a “taking back” rests squarely in the realm of the affective private sphere and disguises the corporatization of public schools.
JVP: So while you’re not the first to launch a queer critique of marriage, you’re one of the first to frame it as a “politics of inclusion,” rather than a “politics of assimilation.” Is this an effort to escape an argument of culture? Is it to thwart the intentionality of “I’m getting married, but not because I believe in marriage”? Why this shift?
YN: I think the anti-assimilationist argument still matters, but not in the way it’s being propounded. Queers are not naturally anti-assimilationist; there’s nothing in our genetic makeup that says that we are always outside the norm. Rather, we have come to stand for and nurture alternative forms of communities/affiliations/sexual lives because our outsider status both forced us and allowed us to do so. And through that we have historically achieved tremendous political reconfigurations of politics and the public sphere.
Some queers, like Dan Savage and Holly Hughes, like to bash the queers who criticize gay marriage by claiming they are either not assimilationist, or that their marriages are somehow quite different than what we might imagine (as in Savages’s constant references to non-monogamy), or that we are simply “threatened” by coupledom or because our major problem with marriage is that it is conservative (as Hughes puts it). I think that just shows the limits of the anti-assimilationist argument. So we insist on talking about the costs of inclusion because anti-assimilation lets people off the hook; they can pretend that it’s not marriage’s central role in the state that’s the problem – it’s just how marriages are conducted. Which is bosh, of course. You can marry naked and hanging upside down from a hot air balloon and share your marital bed with multiple strangers every day – none of that will change how the state endows your marriage with benefits it will not give to the unmarried.
JVP: What about this argument of “I don’t believe in marriage, but I need adoption rights/ immigration papers/ whatever else.” People can be on board with a critique, but there’s a real need underpinning support for marriage.
YN: None of us have ever told people that they can’t get married. Hell, if it helps you stay in the country, or get health care, or keep your savings, whatever, or if you just have an emotional need for the institution, get or stay married. We’re not purists who blame people for getting married.
But when people tell me that they need to get married for x and y, and so want nothing to do with our critique, my response is: why are these things separate? Ironically, most of my straight married friends probably have a better critique of marriage because so many of them have been effectively coerced by the state – because of health care issues or child custody problems. But they’re fully with us in discussing ways to evolve a system that would not demand marriage from people. Using the utilitarian arguments is nothing more than an act of political cowardice. It’s pretending that political change can only come about if a perfect state of things is first achieved. But who among us is ridiculous enough to say that?
RC: I’m still not convinced that marriage is the best way of gaining protections for one’s partner. The gay marriage movement needs to be called out in its trouncing of domestic partnership benefits. In Connecticut, for example, upon ratification of gay marriage all domestic partnerships were dissolved, destroying many peoples’ (gay and straight) protections for their intimate and non-intimate partners. This idea that gay marriage is the only thing we should be fighting for, at the cost of reducing the number of ways in which all people can create partnerships actually reduces the number of ways people can access protections and collective benefits.
YN: Also, the right isn’t just trying to keep us from marrying, they are taking away our collective bargaining rights as queer workers, they are defunding all essential social services geared towards queer and trans people, they are reducing access to public and higher education, defunding any and all programs doing HIV prevention and treatment, they are rolling back human rights protections for queer and trans people, they are blocking any iteration of immigration reform. But somehow marriage is the battle being brought to “us,” one for which we should be prioritizing all our time, energy and money?
JVP: In that context, how do you see Against Equality as fitting into a broader landscape of social critique in America? At a time when it seems to be polarizing between work being done in academic institutions, and the sort of punditry of the Daily Show – Rachel Maddow circuit, how do you walk that line?
RC: I think a great thing about Against Equality is that it is both an intellectual and activist project. All of us involved in the project are all engaged in direct work within our communities. Being activists informs our intellectual work and our intellectual work informs our activist work. I am primarily engaged in queer and trans youth empowerment in an isolated working class town as well as HIV prevention and anti-stigma work. There isn’t some huge disconnect between who and how we think through our theoretical engagement and work through our material reality.
YN: And the phenomenal response to our work and the many people who’ve told us that just coming to our presentations or reading our book has emboldened them to carry on these conversations and make changes elsewhere is evidence that there is a need for a different kind of discursive space where critique can continue.
JVP: How do you gauge the success of the project? Given the materialist framework, presumably it’s more than just starting conversations. What does it mean to fight to win in the marriage debates?
YN: We didn’t get into this to win any debate. Yes, arguing with people and making our points clearly and effectively is definitely a strategy, but in the end that’s only been one of the rhetorical and discursive strategies we’ve employed. We wanted people to understand that there are real, material problems with this focus on gay marriage and that it’s a contradiction to support it as a “liberal/progressive/left” cause.
For example, a number of immigration rights groups have decided to uncritically support gay marriage as some kind of progressive “let’s get behind the gays and they’ll support immigration rights,” tactic.
Those same immigration agencies have been trying to get the law changed so that people on spousal visas – who have no access to even social security numbers, driving licenses, work permits, all of which makes them frighteningly dependent on their spouses – might have more rights and be able to petition for themselves in the event of abuse.
Our critique matters tremendously, but not because we’re trying to win a debate with people on the pro-gay marriage side who are, for the most part, too deeply invested to care. It matters because it gives people who are in fact working in places like immigration agencies a way to say, “Wait a minute, how can we possibly support this issue uncritically when we’re actually trying to dislodge the centrality of relationships in so many other ways?”
RC: The point for me has never been about winning the gay marriage debate, but about creating more time and space for the queer political imagination to exist. The overwhelming emphasis on the so-called practical successes (i.e. gay marriage, hate crimes, overturning DADT, etc.) has collapsed the realm of the imaginable into a narrow vision of futurity with all its glaring inequalities. How do we build strategies to fight for a radically equitable queer future if we can’t even fathom that time or place as possible, let alone desirable? Perhaps it’s that I am deeply invested in the materialist framework, but without losing site of the fact that materiality can limit the imagination, which in turn limits our materialist framework.
I’m looking forward to new, more ambitious projects that we have on the horizon with the Against Equality project, particularly with this idea we have been chatting about around doing an international think tank addressing the issues of inclusion politics. I think it’s here that we have the opportunity where we (radical activists, artists, academics, etc.) can overlap conversations around materiality and the queer political imagination in interesting ways that will lead to strategies to actualize the most fantastic queer futures and survival tactics for the present.
Against Equality: www.againstequality.org
Yasmin Nair: www.yasminnair.net
Ryan Conrad: www.faggotz.org
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Joshua V Pavan is an Alberta-bred queen relocated to Montreal where she works as a trade unionist and community organizer. In the summer of 2007, he was one of the co-founders of Pervers/Cité, Montreal’s radical queer summer festival. When not engaged in solidarity work with the Prisoner Correspondence Project or as Lady Gaza, he can be found defending the honour of misunderstood popstars.
Yasmin Nair is a Chicago-based writer, academic, and activist. She is a member of Gender JUST and the Against Equality collective. Her work has appeared in publications like Bitch, Time Out Chicago, Maximum RockNRoll, makeshift, Discourse and the first AE book, Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage. Nair is currently at work on a book about affect and neoliberalism, and can be reached at http://www.yasminnair.net
Ryan Conrad is an outlaw artist, terrorist academic, and petty thief from a mill town in central Maine. He is the founder of Against Equality digital archives and continues his involvement in the project as a member of the editorial collective. His work as a visual and performing artist has exhibited internationally in Europe and across the United States and Canada. He continues to write for both academic and non-academic presses as well as present his written and visual work at academic and activist conferences. All his work is archived on faggotz.org along with this well-established record of work as an activist and organizer.
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Comments from old site:
Submitted by wag (not verified) on Sun, 07/03/2011 – 17:08.
“ensure that the state can abdicate from its responsibility for people’s health and well being.” What responsibility is that? Did the law of the land change, or is the author simply suggesting that law is not important? This is a slippery slope, as the law is what protects against things like hate crimes.
Submitted by Debbie Gordon (not verified) on Wed, 07/06/2011 – 19:51.
Read the interview. They didn’t say the law shouldn’t protect; they’re saying that the law should 1) do more than protect against–i.e. the state has a responsibility toward its citizenry to also recognize rights in the affirmative, material sense such as providing health care (not letting its citizens die of AIDS, untreated illnesses, because people cannot afford to access health care) 2) legal fights should not be reduced to narrowly construed “interests” in which politics is conceived of as founded on separate, interchangable “groups,” that then fight it out for scarce resources of the state, resources that are bound to capital. At least this is one way of understanding what I hear them saying which is actually richer and more interesting than even my description. Have I got it right, Ryan, Yasmin?
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My guest for this episode is Mark Krawczyk, a permaculture designer and teacher from Vermont. He is also the co-author, along with Dave Jacke, of forthcoming book Coppice Agroforestry – Perennial Silviculture for the 21st Century.
Mark and I sat down and talked about keyline design and coppice work. Along the way we touch on three species he recommends experimenting with for a beginner to coppice, as well as his tool kit for this woods work. We also spoke about what species coppice well, including both deciduous hardwoods and some evergreens. This is an episode that contains a number of resources, which you’ll find links to below.
If you find value in what you hear in this episode, or any of those in the archives, please make a contribution to the show. You can find out how at www.thepermaculturepodcast.com/support.
There’s quite a lot in this episode for anyone looking to implement keyline design or work the woods. If you’re interested in getting started below you’ll find links to the specialty stores Mark mentioned for Yeoman plow shanks, as well as places in the U.S. and abroad where you can find the various coppice species, as well as some of the specialty tools, including the Woodsman’s Pal. Also, one of my preferred vendors for hand tools, Lee Valley, happens to carry a billhook and froe. I have both on order and will review them when they arrive.
You can reach Mark via email: [email protected] and learn more about his work at:
Keyline Vermont
Coppice Agroforestry
Three Species for a Beginning Coppicer
Basswood / Linden (Tilia americana)
Willow (Salix L.)
Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)
Mark’s Recommended Tools for Coppice Work
Chainsaw
Bowsaw
Billhook
Sledgehammer and Wedges
Froe
Evergreens that Coppice
Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens)
Monkey Puzzle (Araucaria araucana)
Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida)
Bald Cypress (Taxodium distichum)
Pinyon Pine (Spp. unknown)
Juniper (Spp. unknown)
Resources:
Keyline Design Plow Shanks
A.H. Tuttle
Market Farm
Coppice Species Sources
Willow
Basswood / Linden
Black Locust
Specialty Tools for Coppice
Morris Tools (ToolNut.co.uk)
Woodsman’s Pal
Lee Valley Bill hook
Lee Valley Froe
Are you practicing keyline design? Working the woods? Have questions after this episode? Let me know:
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 717-827-6266
Facebook: Facebook.com/ThePermaculturePodcast
Twitter: @permaculturecst
The Permaculture Podcast with Scott Mann
P.O. Box 16
Dauphin, PA 17018
(Episode: MarkKrawczyk)Family and friends of a Fort Worth woman who has not been seen since early last weekend are continuing their efforts to find her. (Published Friday, Sept. 5, 2014)
Plano police have released new surveillance video showing a missing Fort Worth woman walking with a friend shortly before she went missing early Saturday morning.
Christina Marie Morris, 23, was last seen near the Shops at Legacy.
According to police, Morris had been visiting friends on the 5700 block of Scruggs Way.
In the surveillance video, Morris and a friend walked into the parking garage at 5715 Legacy Drive before they separate to go to their cars.
Surveillance Video Shows Missing Woman
New surveillance video shows 23-year-old Christina Morris the night she disappeared from the Shops at Legacy in Plano. Morris' family handed out hundreds of flyers in the area Friday. (Published Friday, Sept. 5, 2014)
Morris's silver Toyota Celica was later found nearby, but there has been no trace of her.
Police said the man in the video has been very cooperative is not considered a suspect in the disappearance. He and Morris have been friends for a long time, police said.
Morris's family said they hope the video may generate new information.
"I am angry. I am hurt. I am losing hope, but I still have faith. It has been seven days. That is a long time," said Morris's mother, Jonni McElroy.
Family members returned to the area Friday to pass out flyers and ask anyone with information to come forward.
"Very little sleep. We are just beside ourselves," said sister Sara Estes.
Police, Volunteers Search for Missing Woman
Police and volunteers continue searching for a Fort Worth woman who hasn't been seen Saturday in Plano. (Published Friday, Sept. 5, 2014)
Christina Morris is described as white, 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing about 100 pounds, with brown eyes and blonde hair.
The family said Christina Morris is always in touch with them, but hadn't been as much the past few days.
Thursday evening, a search team of more than 50 volunteers, mostly made up of friends, fanned out to scour a wooded area selected by Plano police.
Family of Missing Woman Hands Out Flyers in Plano
Christina Morris' family is handing out flyers in the area where the Fort Worth woman was reported missing in Plano. (Published Friday, Sept. 5, 2014)
The search area is bounded by Parkwood Boulevard and Hedgcoxe Road and is located a short distance away from where Morris' car was found.
Police requested the team of volunteers to help locate any potential evidence or belongings of Morris' that may have been discarded by an assailant.
"Hopefully we're gonna find her alive. That's the main hope that we have. But there's always the unknown," said Quinn Meredith, who referred to Morris as a "friend-of-a-friend."
Meredith volunteered to use his all-terrain vehicle to search the fields and along the tree lines.
One group of volunteers located some clothes in a field, which will be tagged as potential evidence, according to David Tilley, with the Plano Police Department. The clothes, however, do not match the description of what Morris was last known to be wearing.
Plano police asked that anyone with information about Christina Morris contact them at 972-424-5678.
NBC 5's Ben Russell contributed to this report.Desiigner’s ‘Panda’ is the number one song in America right now. His detractors say he’s ripping off Future, but the controversy surrounding the 19-year-old New Yorker’s rise to fame is rooted in something much bigger. Andrew Friedman unravels the latest episode in New York’s history of borrowing from other rap regions.
Desiigner’s rise to fame is the stuff of legend. ‘Panda’, the Brooklyn rapper’s breakout hit about a black and white car that may or may not actually exist, was one of the first things he ever recorded. He bought the beat from a producer in England for $200. The track was good, and after earning a little local buzz, it somehow made its way to Kanye West. Yeezy ended up repurposing ‘Panda’ into ‘Father Stretch My Hands Pt. 2’ on The Life Of Pablo and signing Desiigner to his label, G.O.O.D. Music.
Since that bump, ‘Panda’ has become ubiquitous. This week it topped the Billboard Hot 100, making it the first #1 by a rapper from New York in a decade. Kanye’s interpolation sits around #50 in the chart (impressive for a track not pushed as a single). Meanwhile, every rapper on Earth is rushing to record their own ‘Panda’ freestyle, from Lady Leshurr to Lupe Fiasco to Meek Mill.
To say ‘Panda’ is inspired by Future would be putting it extremely lightly. Desiigner’s woozy, subtly Auto-Tuned raps juxtaposed with hype ad libs are the best Future impression imaginable. When Kanye debuted ‘Father’ at his Madison Square Garden listening party for The Life Of Pablo, most fans assumed that was Future talking about his broads in Atlanta.
New York has a checkered history of capitalizing on the music of other regions
The awkward fact is that ‘Panda’ is now, by official metrics, more successful than any single Future has ever released. Future has never charted higher than #5. Granted, Future was already famous when the chart compilers began folding streaming numbers into their figures, so it’s not a direct comparison. But Desiigner has the hottest song in the country right now, and though Future has three singles in the current Hot 100 (‘Low Life’ with The Weeknd at #21, ‘Jumpman’ with Drake at #25, and ‘New Level’ with A$AP Ferg at #100), he’s still yet to return to the heights of last year’s all-consuming DS2. It’s hard not to feel like Desiigner is eating Future’s food.
Last week, someone I respect expressed surprise at the disdain people have for Desiigner. After all, they reasoned, Future is an extremely influential artist; of course there will be imitators. And that’s fair on some level. While biting is generally frowned upon, it’s also ingrained in rap history: Snoop Dogg lifted a lot of E–40’s slang, Master P lifted Tupac’s whole style, and Shyne was a bootleg Biggie. On ‘Rapper’s Delight’, Big Bank Hank is literally spitting Grandmaster Caz lyrics, and even says Caz’s name in the track. Right or wrong, Desiigner is not the first rapper to break out with a version of another artist’s sound.
But this goes a little deeper than lack of creativity. The bigger issue is that Desiigner is a Brooklyn rapper who sounds like an Atlanta rapper, and New York has a checkered history of capitalizing on the music of other regions of late. Before a weapons charge landed him in jail, Bobby Shmurda (and his GS9 partner Rowdy Rebel) rode Chicago-born drill rap to success. A$AP Rocky borrowed his style from Memphis. While French Montana is obviously influenced by Harlem’s Max B, he also came up trapping alongside Waka Flocka Flame.
The problem goes back decades. Hip-hop caught on fast after its inception in the late ‘70s in the Bronx, and while a skeptical and pretty racist music industry saw it as a fad and limited its investment, rap continued to grow and develop its own machinery. A network of labels, distributors, promoters and A&Rs came together on the fly, rooting the industry in the five boroughs, and hip-hop was biased towards New York from that point on. During the time when it seemed like anyone in the tri-state area who could hold their own in a cipher was landing a major deal, independent rap labels were popping up across the country. But while the indie hustle could be profitable, the majors offered a whole other level of success. The best shot at getting New York’s attention was to sell thousands of tapes out of your own trunk. The second best shot was to sound kind of like the rapper in your city who was selling thousands of tapes, and hope a label that lost a bidding war for them would sign you instead.
The results of that approach have been mixed. That kind of bandwagon-chasing gave us the likes of Boss (highly underrated), YAGGFU Front (amusing) and Chingy (likeable but ridiculous). But at least the talent was somewhat credible and often local. Things get more dicey as artists are signed further from the source, and that’s an increasingly important now that the internet allows trends to transcend geography. A decade ago, an A&R looking to sign a bootleg version of Future would have at least had to get on a plane to find one. Now they can just get in a cab.
There’s no reason to hate an artist strictly for not rapping like where they come from, but New York rappers aren’t held to the same standards as everyone else. The myth that rap peaked in 1994 still carries a lot of weight in the city, as does the idea that no Southern rapper in their prime can spit except J. Cole. Brooklyn’s Maino beefs with Trinidad James, someone swings at iLoveMakonnen while he’s on stage in Manhattan, and Philly’s Lil Uzi Vert gets reprimanded because he doesn’t want to rap on a DJ Premier beat, all in the name of authenticity. So when a fake Future from Brooklyn jumps over the actual Future |
doors/obstacles (using an easy to use online editor). A custom URL would then be generated for permanently viewing and sharing the map. Sharing a map will be as easy as sending a link.
Maps which are free for public use can be shared. I plan to add community features to the site for sharing free maps. For maps with copyright or license restrictions, more restrictive use would apply, such as scanning a map and only using it within your own adventuring group.
The site will be completely free and have no advertising. It also won't require registering for an account. There will never be any paid membership options - all features will be free for everyone. The Kickstarter funds should be enough to cover the cost of hosting the site indefinitely. So far I have only made the demo, so the rest of the site will only be created with Kickstarter's help!
Here are some additional maps similar to the demo above:
Salt Hall: http://www.byronknoll.com/dungeon2.html
This map was created by Daniel Somerville and used here with his permission. You can find this map and more at his DeviantArt gallery.
Welshly Arms Inn: http://www.byronknoll.com/tavern.html
This map was created by the Skirmish! VT team (www.skirmish-vt.com) and used with their permission.Weiner admitted in court that he transferred obscene material to a minor. It’s a federal offense that will force him to register as a sex offender, CBS2’s Marcia Kramer reported.
Weiner has been under investigation by the feds since last fall when reports surfaced he was exchanging sexually explicit messages for months with a then-high school sophomore that Weiner reportedly knew was under age.
The case had more far-reaching consequences, helping to upend Hillary Clinton ‘s presidential bid.
Electronic devices seized in the probe turned up emails to Abedin that lead to the stunning surprise announcement by then FBI Director James Comey in late October that he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s emails.
The probe ended two days before the election.
Abedin stuck by Weiner after a sexting scandal cost him his seat in Congress in 2011 and damaged his bid for the Democratic mayoral nomination two years later.Witness the reveal of our latest product live, together with the OnePlus team. Go hands-on with the OnePlus 5T, you'll be among the first. Goodies, goodies and goodies exclusive prepared for you. Ticket proceeds will go to charity. Stay tuned for more details during the event!
Eastern United States (ET): 11 AM.
United Kingdom (GMT): 5 PM.
Europe (GMT+1): 6 PM.
India (IST): 9:30 PM.
Hi everyone,With a New View, we’re giving you more ways than ever to be a part of the OnePlus 5T Launch. It all starts at on November 16, at 12 PM Eastern Time. This is the event for everything you’ve ever wanted to know about our upcoming Flagship, on top of the latest on OxygenOS, and the OnePlus Community.Go beyond streaming and join the OnePlus Family in Brooklyn yourself. We’re opening up our a New View to the entire OnePlus community, but tickets are limited so make sure to act fast when sales start on November 8, 11 AM ET. Get your ticket right HERE. Here’s what this ticket gets you:OnePlus fans will be able to tune from around the world to watch our Launch live. Check out www.oneplus.net/event to add A New View to your calendar. Find out when our Keynote kicks off in your region below:We’ll also be airing the event live in 5 theaters across India. Experience the OnePlus 5T in cinematic fashion and buy your ticket now at our event page ( HERE ).Cheers,DavidCAIRO (AFP) -- The Egyptian authorities are erecting a wall around the Israeli embassy in Cairo as relations between the two neighbors who signed a peace treaty in 1979 are at a delicate phase.
The wall, about two meters high, consists of prefabricated cement slabs that are being installed around the building that houses the Israeli embassy overlooking a bridge in Cairo.
Part of the wall has been painted with Egypt's national colors: black, white and red.
Outraged Egyptians last month staged huge protests outside the embassy and called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador over the border deaths of Egyptian policemen killed as Israel hunted militants.
Egypt has asked Israel for an official apology and demanded a probe into the deaths of the five policemen.
During one of the anti-Israeli protests, an Egyptian man scaled the building housing the mission, removed Israel's Star of David flag and replaced it with Egypt's colors, as the crowds cheered him on.
Egyptian officials quoted by the local media have meanwhile stressed that the wall being erected around the embassy was aimed at protecting residents of nearby buildings.
Ali Abdel Rahman, the governor of Giza district where the embassy is located, told Al-Gumhuriyya newspaper the wall "has nothing to do with the protection of the Israeli embassy" but is for the protection of private citizens.
Egyptian opposition party Al Wafd said Sunday that a private contractor had begun to build a security wall around the Israeli embassy in Cairo, Israeli news site Ynet reported.
Egypt is the first Arab nation to have signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.Let me be clear: libertarians have not always been the best when addressing the rights of gay people. While most libertarians are against a federal ban on gay marriage, many vote against gay marriage in their home states. This is done under the paper-thin veil of “states rights” (because we all know that territory drawn out in arbitrary borders can have rights). I would like to argue that anyone who calls themselves a libertarian and votes against gay marriage is a hypocrite. Libertarians, when abiding by libertarian philosophy, must support the right to associate.
I thought this was old news until I read Pocket Full of Liberty’s embarrassment of an article, “The Libertarian Case For Traditional Marriage.” The guest author, Mike Gannon, runs through a litany of tired, neo-conservative arguments opposing gay marriage. When shuffling through the rambling defense, it becomes clear that Gannon sees himself as Gannon the God, the holy man who will deliver the magic pill that will cure society of government and social ills: legislating marriage.
Gannon is quick to point to dystopian literature as evidence for declining family values equating to a larger state (because, clearly, fiction is the best place to turn for empirical evidence against gay marriage). For example, he cites Brave New World, where the family “has been replaced entirely by casual sex and cloning vats.”
As someone who has actually read Brave New World, I know that casual sex in the novel was used as escapism from the cold, calculating world that Huxley had created. It was certainly not the root of that London’s problems. If Gannon hopes to use literature to back his claims, he should at least do so correctly.
Next, Gannon tries to enforce the “collective psyche.” You read that right—Gannon, the supposed libertarian, tries to collectivize all of Western society, and argue that we all “know” that the traditional family is what’s “natural.” He writes,
“As previously stated, there are many ways in which Man organizes himself in a free society, many grouping and associations into which he may enter. What defines his family, though, rests on our traditional understanding of marriage: one man and one woman coming together in a lifelong commitment out of which children may naturally arise.”
Okay, so “Man” (let’s try “people”—men consist of less than half of the world’s population) can organize himself into many groupings and associations, and they don’t all look alike. For example, there have been countless instances of matriarchal societies. Polyamory, including in the Old Testament, has a long and rich history. And, most damningly, there have been accepted homosexual relationships internationally, all the way back to ancient Egypt. The nuclear family that Gannon defends is largely a cherry-picked historical concept. Indeed, people in many different societies have chosen to associate in a variety of ways, to their heart’s content. There is no “natural” form of association—and, as a libertarian, Gannon should know better than to advocate state intervention to enforce his vision of a perfect society.
The true irony in Gannon’s piece is that he writes, “family remains as the last line of defense between the naked exercise of state power over the will of the individual.” He is trying to use traditional marriage as a way to fight the state… but he wants to use the state to enforce traditional marriage. If the state is defining what marriage is, then the individual loses his or her sovereignty to define it for his or herself. In defining marriage for everyone, Gannon is advocating for the state to grow.
Gannon believes that he knows what is natural and right for society, and he wants to enforce his ideas. This makes him no different than those throughout history who have used power to enforce their personal utopia. What Gannon needs is a humility check. He does not know what is best for each individual, gay or straight, what is best for the family, what is best for society, or what natural order even looks like. For him to claim that his argument is libertarian, he would have to address the knowledge problem, the right to associate, and the right for private institutions to marry gays if they wish. None of these issues arose in his article.
“The Libertarian Case for Traditional Marriage” is a piece that shames libertarianism as a whole. There is no libertarian argument against gay marriage; freedom cannot be enforced by coercion of the state. If Gannon regards himself as a libertarian, he should become more educated on the system he is propagating.The homage paid to Shinji Ono by the Western Sydney Wanderers faithful last Saturday at Parramatta Stadium was a highpoint after a fortnight of sadness and tragedy in sport. It was goosebumps material.
I haven’t seen a bunch of Westies so passionately lauding a Japanese subject since the early 80s at the Sundowner in Punchbowl, when Chisel played “The Rising Sun”. But it was more dignified than that. (No, really!)
As the 34-year-old former Japanese international took the field for his final regular season A-League game at Wanderland, the active supporters group, the Red and Black Bloc, held aloft an enormous and quite beautiful banner featuring a portrait of the club’s marquee man that had an appropriately Japanese art style about it.
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Either side of the main banner were two banners showing the number 21, Ono’s jersey number, and some Japanese text, which I never did get translated. (Roar crowd… anyone?)
There was confetti, fireworks, Shinji masks and the torch-like effect of hundreds of mobile phones held aloft in the grandstands, as well as a range of lovingly crafted, appreciative signs on display all around the stadium. The word “tensai” (Japanese for genius or master) got a good run.
In the 21st minute, again a reference to his jersey number, there were more fireworks, more confetti and the Red and Black Bloc started up a chant. When they called “Shinji!” from the northern end of the ground, the grandstands replied in unison “ONO!” and it was repeated over and over again at such a volume it was almost deafening, even from inside the ABC Radio broadcast box.
Now, I go right back to the days of the awe-inspiring “Lillee, Lillee, Lillee!” chants at the SCG, that gradually accelerated with great fast bower’s run up, so I’m not new to the sights and sounds of goosebump-making mass adulation. I’ve been at Lang Park when the Queensland Origin side runs out and heard the thunderous roar of the crowd.
But there was something different, something special about this surge of support for Shinji Ono. And it took me a while to put my finger on it. The answer started to unfold for me when, in the 89th minute, Ono was substituted – coach Tony Popovic’s way of letting the crowd once again show their appreciation for the individual.
As the crowd roared, the slightly-built star stood on the sideline and gave a respectful little Japanese bow. The crowd went nuts.
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What dawned on me about the nature of the very vocal and visual support was that it wasn’t intended to rev up the little red-and-black wearing tensai, it was simply an expression of appreciation and adoration. A tribute to what he’d brought to the club.
Sure, the Wanderers decided to let Ono go. Indeed he hasn’t been as influential this season as he was last season, when at least two of the goals he scored were gobsmackingly gorgeous. His delicate chip over the keeper from just outside the box against Brisbane and the lobbed pass over the defence that he regathered and scored from against Wellington will live long in my memory.
And yes, I’ve seen other leading lights in various sports sent off with glorious shows of appreciation from their faithful supporters. But Shinji Ono couldn’t be more different to a Dennis Lillee, or a Barry Hall or a Freddy Fittler.
He was in the twilight of his career when he arrived at Western Sydney. He was not glamorous. Let’s face it, as a Wanderers fan, hearing that Sydney FC were getting Alessandro Del Piero, Newcastle were getting Emile Heskey and we were getting Shinji was like hearing that two of you colleagues were bringing George Clooney and Brad Pitt to the office Christmas party, while your date was the nerdy little guy from IT.
Shinji Ono didn’t win over fans by being physically imposing or handsome, by getting belted and bravely playing on, or by being cocky and aggro or saying outrageous things. He was polite, technically outstanding, and, ok, I’ll say it: Asian.
Walk around any public place in any major city in Australia and how many Asian faces do you see? It’s quite clear the Asian population is growing rapidly. You can like it, love it, or resent it (as I know some do) but the truth is that’s who we are now. The wonderful thing about the A-League is it reflects and represents that reality.
If a bunch of Westies can worship a smiling, polite, 30-something Japanese guy, that’s impressive. That’s important. That’s why I went home feeling so warm and fuzzy on Saturday night.Let’s call it summer camp--for baby Jaws.
The waters just off the shore of Long Island’s Great South Bay have revealed a nursery where young sand tiger sharks swim up from the south and bask in New York waters each summer.
Related: Tiny shark that glows discovered in the deep ocean
According to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), young sharks in this particular location first piqued their interest in 2011. After learning that the sharks have been spotted and caught for years by the local boaters and anglers, the organization began tracking sharks; it has been catching and releasing them ever since.
The shark nursery provides juvenile sand tiger sharks up to five years of age with a place to feed and grow while protecting them from predators, according to the WCS. Sand tiger sharks are classified as globally “Vulnerable” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Populations in parts of Australia and Argentina are classified as “Critically Endangered.”
Related: Rare ‘sofa shark’ stuns scientists
WCS also said that further research needs to be done because scientists are not sure how much of the bay is used by the sharks, they don’t know the number of young sharks in the bay each summer, and they don’t know what the sharks are eating. In addition, WCS is conducting outreach to the public to help improve the conservation status of sand tiger and other local sharks and rays.
In a press release, Jon Dohlin, Vice President and Director of WCS’s New York Aquarium, said “We hope to raise awareness about our local marine environment and the need to manage our natural wonders.”According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, former Boston College RB Montel Harris made the long-rumored transfer to Temple complete. The school's all-time leading rusher has been added to the Owls roster and will be eligible to play immediately.
Harris is reunited with former Boston College staffers Ryan Day (Owls offensive coordinator / wide receivers coach) and Kevin Rogers (quarterbacks / assistant head coach) in Philadelphia.
The Owls are looking to replace NFL-bound Bernard Pierce in the backfield. Harris will join a backfield that includes rising senior Matt Brown (155 carries, 916 yards, 6 TDs) and sophomore Kenny Harper. The Temple rushing offense, paced by Pierce, ran for a MAC best 256.38 yards per game last season. Should Harris return to form, he figures to fit in well with Steve Addazio's system.
This season marks Temple's first season back in the Big East after a seven-year absence. The Owls open the season on August 31 against Villanova before hosting the ACC's Maryland in week two. In three meetings with the Terps, Harris rushed for 116, 142 and 116 yards.
Best of luck to Harris at Temple.History hasn't been kind to Herbert Hoover. The 31st president of the United States had only been in office a few months in 1929 when the Great Depression struck, and although he took some hesitant and fumbling steps to counter it or at least prevent it from worsening, he was inevitably blamed for it by the rank and file millions of Americans who suddenly found themselves standing in breadlines. And Hoover himself certainly made things no better when he made morose and petulant remarks like, “Well, it could be worse.” The kindest standard characterizations of the man paint the picture of an unimaginative plodder hopelessly out of his depth on the national or international stage.
Charles Rappleye's new book Herbert Hoover in the White House: The Ordeal of the Presidency aims to correct that impression, to flesh out the standard picture of Hoover by using a greater array of primary sources – newspaper accounts, government documents, private diaries – than any previous account.
In this he largely succeeds. His book seldom rises to the sheer readability of Richard Norton Smith's Hoover biography "An Uncommon Man," but what his narrative loses to Smith's salty panache it more than recovers with a greater gravitas and psychological insight than any biography of a US president to appear so far this year.
Rappleye dispenses with the basics of Hoover's early life fairly quickly: born in Iowa, raised Quaker, trained as an engineer, elevated to great wealth as a mining financier, made head of the US Food Administration under President Woodrow Wilson and Secretary of Commerce under President Warren Harding. Although disliked or distrusted by many leading Republicans in the 1920s (including their standard-bearer, President Calvin Coolidge), Hoover was their candidate in the 1928 presidential election and won it handily, running mainly on promises of greater economic prosperity. As journalist Anne O'Hare McCormick wrote: “The whole country was a vast, expectant gallery, its eyes focused on Washington.… We had summoned a great engineer to solve our problems for us; now we sat back comfortably and confidently to watch the problems being solved.”
Taking Hoover's surprising victory as his starting point, Rappleye writes, “[His] conquest of a hostile Republican Party, and the resounding victory he registered in the presidential election, is one of the more remarkable stories in the annals of American politics.” Hoover ran as a largely self-financing “outsider” to an electoral process dominated by party machines, and although he had no elective experience of any kind, he swept into office on a wave of low-information populism. Rappleye worked on his biography for many years – the research evident in these pages is impressive – but random timing is clearly also on his side, as the 2016 Republican Party prepares to nominate another business-world “outsider” with no experience at the work of governing.
The results in Hoover's case were nothing short of disastrous. Although he “made prosperity his core message,” he was caught completely off guard when the Stock Market Crash of October, 1929 widened into a Great Depression that paralyzed trade, sparked a wave of bank closures, and put millions of people out of work and often out on the street. Rappleye's detailed and gripping account of the ordeal is the superb narrative highlight of his book.
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However thrilling it makes the central failure of Hoover's administration, the book can't exonerate him from it, and Rappleye deserves credit for not trying too hard to do that. His Hoover may not be the “clay-footed conservative” of the textbook accounts, “who preached the old dogmas of laissez-faire while the false idols of capital came crashing down; handmaiden to the elite, scourge of the huddled masses," but there's a fatal ease in how quickly such characterizations come to mind. And again, the biographer is scarcely helped by his subject, who “treated his inner life as a sanctuary and a secret, a forbidden zone that he protected so fiercely that he appeared to fear even his own inquiries.” It's tough to write a compelling biography of a life that went unexamined by the person actually living it.
This Hoover, like all the others encountered by previous biographers, is “surly, easily frustrated, and sometimes vindictive” while in office, a man who “regarded his enemies and often his friends with suspicion.” That Rappleye is able to dig deeper and elicit as much sympathy as he does for Hoover – a man who was, after all, personally responsible for an enormous amount of charitable hunger relief in the course of his life, at a time when many of his fellow financiers couldn't be bothered – is a testament to the winning power of Herbert Hoover in the White House. Hoover's been treated harshly but fairly by most biographers as a failure of a president at precisely the time when a success was most needed. Rappleye doesn't contest this verdict, but his criticisms are tempered with some perhaps long-overdue sympathy.Kellie Leitch, the Conservative MP and candidate for her party's leadership, caused a stir last week when she e-mailed supporters with a questionnaire that asked them, among other things, whether the federal government should screen potential immigrants for "anti-Canadian values."
Ms. Leitch was duly criticized, but she didn't back down. "Screening potential immigrants for anti-Canadian values that include intolerance towards other religions, cultures and sexual orientations, violent and/or misogynist behaviour and/or a lack of acceptance of our Canadian tradition of personal and economic freedoms is a policy proposal that I feel very strongly about," she said Friday.
It's now clear that Ms. Leitch is all too happy to play identity politics. This is the same person who, as minister for the Status of Women during the federal election campaign last year, announced the creation of a tip line for people to report "barbaric cultural practices." She later claimed she was misunderstood. She wasn't. It's clearly her practice to sell policies that raise fears of Muslim immigrants based on inaccurate stereotypes about their culture and beliefs.
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There are two kinds of politicians today: those who exploit tensions created by immigration and terrorism to gain power; and those who recognize the tensions, and look for solutions. Donald Trump is in the former camp. Ms. Leitch apparently wants to join him. For the good of our country, Conservatives must reject this.
The suggestion that there are government-defined "Canadian values" is frightening. In this country, new citizens swear an oath to "faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfill [their] duties as a Canadian citizen." There are no prescribed religious or cultural beliefs, just a vow to respect our constitution and our laws, and to accept the consequences of failing to do so.
What Ms. Leitch is toying with – a government that tells people what to believe and how to think – is itself anti-Canadian. Yes, Canadians have values. No, the state doesn't get to tell you what Canadian values are.I think conservative areas would have just as much if not more WMAF than AMWF if there were actually more AF around, but AF tends to be in cities. Is there actual reliable reports that WMAF:AMWF is less skewed in conservative areas? Because from what I have seen, conservative states like Indiana, WMAF is explicitly encouraged just as much as anywhere else. Literally the only acceptable interracial pairing. And the conservative white man going to Asia for submissive traditional wives is a huge phenomenon in rural areas.
I mean, the 1st place in the American Lu championship cup is probably Michelle Malkins, who inhabits conservative area.
This idealization of conservative America to have less white worship amongst Asians as a reaction to how bad it is in urban areas, is the same as our I-hope-now-debunked belief/idealization that Asia is less white worshipping than Asian America.Liverpool are on the verge of signing Norweigan centre-back Vegard Forren from FC Molde for a reported fee of £4m.
Reliable Norweigan TV2 report that Modle have accepted a bid for the player and he will undergo a medical on Tuesday.
Forren, 24, has been linked with rivals Everton and Man United in recent weeks and has been likened to Arsenal centre-back Thomas Vermalaen, or indeed Liverpool’s Daniel Agger. Forren is left-footed and comfortable on the ball.
He made his competitive debut for Norway in October last year. The Norweigan LFC website, liverpoolblogg.no, describe Forren as having “Played all 30 games this season in Norway (Molde), made huge strides and a national regular now. Great on the ball, great on the head, leftfooted, can also play left back. A playing centerback, like Agger.”
They claim Liverpool first scouted Forran as far back as 2008, and that Southampton and Fulham are also interested in him.
Forren’s arrival is expected to mean Sebastian Coates will head out on loan this January.
UPDATE: The Liverpool Echo tonight claim reports of a deal for Forren are “premature” but that he will train with the club on a trial.KJR’s Dick Fain asked a very valid question today. Are we expecting too much from the Seahawks?
Earlier in the day, Mike Holmgren admitted on the same radio station he expected more from Seattle in Washington. He’s not the only one. Former Seahawk Nate Burleson told the NFL Network after the game he didn’t believe Seattle was as “invincible” as last year.
The Seahawks have entered this peculiar world where only the complete and utter destruction of an opponent will be acceptable. Not necessarily to the fans who follow the team every week, but to the outside world. The non-Seahawks fan has been sold the idea of a team so good they might as well be from another planet.
Most of that expectation comes from the surprisingly easy Super Bowl victory over a historically good Broncos team. If they can do that to such a dominating opponent, what are they going to do to the rest of the league?
In reality, this is a false position. And it’s creating an unfair level of expectation.
Sure, they beat the Broncos 43-8 in the Super Bowl. Yet as Fain correctly points out — they also had a few stinkers too. They lost at home to the Cardinals despite a four-interception game by Carson Palmer. They struggled mightily against an 0-8 Tampa Bay team at home, squeezing by in overtime. They probably should’ve lost road games in Houston and St. Louis — but found a way to win. It’s still remarkable how they beat the Rams that night.
Last season was not a relentless series of beat-down’s culminating in the ultimate Super Bowl performance. It was a struggle at times. There were games where they couldn’t do anything to stop the run. There were games where the receivers couldn’t make a play. Marshawn Lynch had a little tough stretch. Russell Wilson had the most average spell of his career to finish the regular season.
One of the great characteristics of this team isn’t that it blows everyone away week after week. It’s battle tested. It keeps things tight.
The Seattle Seahawks will never go into a game like the Bengals did on Sunday night and be beaten on the first drive. Cincinnati had no answer to a pumped up New England team. As soon as Tom Brady led that first scoring drive they could’ve boarded the plane back to Ohio. The body language screamed, “Oh crap.”
Seattle had a tough day in San Diego facing a similarly prolific Philip Rivers in 120 degree heat. They were pushed around, they struggled. And yet late in the fourth quarter they had the ball with a chance to drive for the game winning score. That’s Seahawks football.
Beating a pretty pathetic looking Washington side 27-17 shouldn’t be seen as a negative. They won the game handsomely despite having to combat the laundry list of penalties and miscues. Without those fixable mistakes this could’ve been the 40-0 bullying people seemed to expect.
We’ve seen a quarter of Seattle’s season now and here’s my take on it — they don’t have the same depth as 2013, but the overall quality of the two starting units is superior.
The run defense is hitting new heights this year (conceding just 62.2 YPG) and while the sack totals are low (six in five games) this is a league-wide trend through five weeks. Sacks also don’t equal guaranteed success, given the five teams at the top of the sack charts are the New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs and Washington. Seattle’s defense has faced Rodgers, Rivers and Manning already and generally done an exceptional job — particularly against Denver. For all the concern over the departure of Red Bryant and Chris Clemons — Kevin Williams has been a revelation and Bruce Irvin had a terrific performance last night at defensive end.
Seattle’s defense in terms of its starters is getting better, not worse.
Football Outsiders currently has Seattle ranked at #4 on defense — down from #1 last year. Remember who they’ve faced though. According to DVOA the Seahawks have had the toughest opening schedule in the NFL. The rest of the way they have the 28th toughest schedule. The defensive ranking will be back at #1 soon enough.
Percy Harvin has provided the offense with a new dimension and a legit top-five weapon. Marshawn Lynch is as productive as ever and despite last nights problems with penalties — the offensive line is improving (particularly the play of the two guards). Russell Wilson continues to progress as a quarterback and playmaker. Only Philip Rivers has been more prolific in these opening five weeks. You could make a case for the NFL MVP race going 1) Rivers 2) DeMarco Murray 3) Wilson at this early stage.
DVOA ranks Seattle’s offense at #2 this year so far, up from #7 at the end of 2013. In four games they’ve faced the #2 defense (Denver), the #12 defense (Green Bay), the #13 defense (San Diego) and the #18 defense (Washington). Sunday’s opponents, Dallas, are ranked at #24. They then face St. Louis (#30), Carolina (#27) and Oakland (#22). So there’s a chance to be even more prolific over the next few weeks.
This is a superior team. Believe it, embrace it. And don’t be surprised either — the youth of the roster always leant itself to continued development.
They don’t need to blow-out bad teams to prove it. They just need to keep winning.IT WAS 2009 when Levi Parks, then 7 years old, posed with his prize-winning fainting goat, Hildie, at the Tazewell County Fair in southwestern Virginia. But the corn-fed image feels so classic, it could have been taken decades, even a century, ago. Clad in dungarees, a crisp white button-down, and a bolo tie, this clean-cut 4-H kid paints a reassuring picture of American agriculture as an honest pursuit unsullied by politics or private business interests.
In reality, the United States Department of Agriculture (or more specifically, the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture) designates millions of annual Cooperative Extension Program dollars for regional “youth development” initiatives – a total of $68 million in 2015, much of that going to 4-H. The youth organization also receives funding from the nonprofit National 4-H Council, which spent approximately $48 million last year, and accepts donations from a veritable who’s who of Big Ag: Monsanto, ConAgra, DuPont, and Altria each gave at least a million dollars in 2015.
Don’t miss A Brief History of 4-H: A Visual Timeline
You may be tempted to draw a straight line connecting those corporate contributions with the corruption of an institution espousing old-timey ideals. Don’t. Though often viewed through the hazy lens of nostalgia, 4-H was always intended as an important step in the march toward modernization. Its roots can be traced back to the early 1900s, when many rural farmers were resistant to newfangled advancements, such as soil testing and better seed selection, suggested by scientists at land-grant universities.
Those university researchers began partnering with county school superintendents throughout the Midwest and South to develop corn, tomato, and other crop clubs for children. From the get-go, local businesses provided financing for projects and cash prizes for competitions. In 1911, Ohio Farmer magazine reported that the top 100 corn-club boys had produced an average yield of 133.3 bushels per acre, more than five times the U.S. average of 25 bushels per acre. According to 4-H National Program Leader Jim Kahler, “Parents who didn’t want to bet the farm on whether or not a new corn variety might work became believers when they saw those results.”
The USDA took notice, too. In 1914, the Smith-Lever Act formalized the relationship between land-grant universities and nearby farms, establishing the Cooperative Extension System to help underwrite the researchers’ outreach efforts. And by 1921, those disparate youth farming clubs had come together under the uni ed umbrella of 4-H – short for the “head, heart, hands, and health” members must engage “to make the best better.” Almost immediately, the USDA sought control over the organization, eventually gaining full ownership of the name and iconic four-leaf-clover emblem in 1939.0 Untreatable super-gonorrhea spreading orally, WHO warns
Gonorrhea, one of the most common sexually transmitted infections in the U.S., is getting harder and harder to treat, and unsafe oral sex is making the STI particularly dangerous.
>> Read more trending news
That’s according to a warning issued Friday by experts at the World Health Organization, whose researchers examined data from patients with gonorrhea in 77 countries showing drug-resistant gonorrhea is getting harder, and sometimes impossible, to treat.
“The bacteria that cause gonorrhea are particularly smart,” WHO medical officer Teodora Wi said in a news release. “Every time we use a new class of antibiotics to treat the infection, the bacteria evolve to resist them.”
An estimated 78 million people are infected with gonorrhea each year by unprotected vaginal, oral and anal sex. It disproportionately affects women.
>> RELATED: New study on STDs finds Georgia among ‘most diseased’ states
Gonorrhea can infect the throat, genitals and rectum, but according to Wi, scientists are particularly concerned about the throat.
Wi told BBC that introducing gonorrhea bacteria into the throat through oral sex can lead to what’s referred to as super-gonorrhea, a drug-resistant strain that is often untreatable.
>> RELATED: HIV epidemic afflicting Georgia, the South a ‘public health emergency’
This happens because antibiotics taken to treat the infection mix with the super-gonorrhea in the throat and create resistance, Wi said.
The rise in resistant gonorrhea is largely due to decreased condom use, increased urbanization and travel, poor infection detection rates and either inadequate or failed treatment, according to the WHO.
Read the full WHO news release.
False-colour transmission electron micrograph (TEM) of Neisseria gonorrhoeae (the gonococcus) the species of bacteria causing sexually- transmitted disease gonorrhoea. CNRI/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images/Science Photo Libra
© 2019 Cox Media Group.Post by sara albers
I could not resist making a stuffed bunny for Harper’s Easter basket this year. What could be cuter than a little bunny made from modern designer fabric?! I started making my own pattern for the bunny and then stumbled onto Martha Stewart’s stuffed menswear bunny. I printed her pattern but wanted to add a little something to the front to make it special. I had this amazing gray and white modern fabric that works perfectly for this bunny. Read more for supplies and tutorial.
Supplies: 1/3 yard of fabric for bunny // scrap fabric for bunny ears and pocket // fill // sewing machine // fabric paint // pattern
I followed Martha’s tutorial but made a few changes to add a pocket on the front to make it extra special. Harper still loves to keep little treasures in little purses and pouches so I wanted to add a little place for her! I also simplified the face of the bunny by using fabric paint to add the eyes and nose instead of embroidery thread. I was so happy with how the bunny turned out!
Enjoy – Sara
All photos by Sara Albers for alice & lois design studios. All rights reserved.
facebook // instagram // twitter // pinterestJ.L. Granatstein is a fellow of the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. William Kaplan is a Toronto lawyer and historian.
Stephen Harper was right. It's not fashionable today to say that about anything the Prime Minister says or does. It's especially against the current to praise his foreign policy which, most critics agree, is distinguished only by its unbalanced megaphone style and simplistic good versus evil rhetoric. But how can anyone deny that on Vladimir Putin, Mr. Harper, from the get go, got it right on the money?
Consider the recent record. After Russia orchestrated the absorption of Crimea into the Soviet Union – oops – into Russia, the Prime Minister told a German audience that Mr. Putin was a "throwback" to the USSR. "Unfortunate as it sounds," Mr. Harper observed, "it's increasingly apparent to me that the Cold War has never left Vladimir Putin's mind." Then the Prime Minister added, "we simply … cannot afford the risk of Europe going back to being a continent where people seize territory … where the bigger military powers are prepared to invade their |
the first organs to show toxicity. Pulmonary toxicity occurs only with exposure to partial pressures of oxygen greater than 0.5 bar (50 kPa), corresponding to an oxygen fraction of 50% at normal atmospheric pressure. The earliest signs of pulmonary toxicity begin with evidence of tracheobronchitis, or inflammation of the upper airways, after an asymptomatic period between 4 and 22 hours at greater than 95% oxygen,[34] with some studies suggesting symptoms usually begin after approximately 14 hours at this level of oxygen.[35]
At partial pressures of oxygen of 2 to 3 bar (200 to 300 kPa)—100% oxygen at 2 to 3 times atmospheric pressure—these symptoms may begin as early as 3 hours after exposure to oxygen.[34] Experiments on rats breathing oxygen at pressures between 1 and 3 bars (100 and 300 kPa) suggest that pulmonary manifestations of oxygen toxicity may not be the same for normobaric conditions as they are for hyperbaric conditions.[36] Evidence of decline in lung function as measured by pulmonary function testing can occur as quickly as 24 hours of continuous exposure to 100% oxygen,[35] with evidence of diffuse alveolar damage and the onset of acute respiratory distress syndrome usually occurring after 48 hours on 100% oxygen.[34] Breathing 100% oxygen also eventually leads to collapse of the alveoli (atelectasis), while—at the same partial pressure of oxygen—the presence of significant partial pressures of inert gases, typically nitrogen, will prevent this effect.[37]
Preterm newborns are known to be at higher risk for bronchopulmonary dysplasia with extended exposure to high concentrations of oxygen.[38] Other groups at higher risk for oxygen toxicity are patients on mechanical ventilation with exposure to levels of oxygen greater than 50%, and patients exposed to chemicals that increase risk for oxygen toxicity such the chemotherapeutic agent bleomycin.[35] Therefore, current guidelines for patients on mechanical ventilation in intensive care recommends keeping oxygen concentration less than 60%.[34] Likewise, divers who undergo treatment of decompression sickness are at increased risk of oxygen toxicity as treatment entails exposure to long periods of oxygen breathing under hyperbaric conditions, in addition to any oxygen exposure during the dive.[31]
Eye toxicity [ edit ]
Prolonged exposure to high inspired fractions of oxygen causes damage to the retina.[39][40][41] Damage to the developing eye of infants exposed to high oxygen fraction at normal pressure has a different mechanism and effect from the eye damage experienced by adult divers under hyperbaric conditions.[42][43] Hyperoxia may be a contributing factor for the disorder called retrolental fibroplasia or retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in infants.[42][44] In preterm infants, the retina is often not fully vascularised. Retinopathy of prematurity occurs when the development of the retinal vasculature is arrested and then proceeds abnormally. Associated with the growth of these new vessels is fibrous tissue (scar tissue) that may contract to cause retinal detachment. Supplemental oxygen exposure, while a risk factor, is not the main risk factor for development of this disease. Restricting supplemental oxygen use does not necessarily reduce the rate of retinopathy of prematurity, and may raise the risk of hypoxia-related systemic complications.[42]
Hyperoxic myopia has occurred in closed circuit oxygen rebreather divers with prolonged exposures.[43][45][46] It also occurs frequently in those undergoing repeated hyperbaric oxygen therapy.[40][47] This is due to an increase in the refractive power of the lens, since axial length and keratometry readings do not reveal a corneal or length basis for a myopic shift.[47][48] It is usually reversible with time.[40][47]
Mechanism [ edit ]
The lipid peroxidation mechanism shows a single radical initiating a chain reaction which converts unsaturated lipids to lipid peroxides,
The biochemical basis for the toxicity of oxygen is the partial reduction of oxygen by one or two electrons to form reactive oxygen species, which are natural by-products of the normal metabolism of oxygen and have important roles in cell signalling.[50] One species produced by the body, the superoxide anion (O
2 −),[51] is possibly involved in iron acquisition.[52] Higher than normal concentrations of oxygen lead to increased levels of reactive oxygen species.[53] Oxygen is necessary for cell metabolism, and the blood supplies it to all parts of the body. When oxygen is breathed at high partial pressures, a hyperoxic condition will rapidly spread, with the most vascularised tissues being most vulnerable. During times of environmental stress, levels of reactive oxygen species can increase dramatically, which can damage cell structures and produce oxidative stress.[19][54]
While all the reaction mechanisms of these species within the body are not yet fully understood,[55] one of the most reactive products of oxidative stress is the hydroxyl radical (·OH), which can initiate a damaging chain reaction of lipid peroxidation in the unsaturated lipids within cell membranes.[56] High concentrations of oxygen also increase the formation of other free radicals, such as nitric oxide, peroxynitrite, and trioxidane, which harm DNA and other biomolecules.[19][57] Although the body has many antioxidant systems such as glutathione that guard against oxidative stress, these systems are eventually overwhelmed at very high concentrations of free oxygen, and the rate of cell damage exceeds the capacity of the systems that prevent or repair it.[58][59][60] Cell damage and cell death then result.[61]
Diagnosis [ edit ]
Diagnosis of central nervous system oxygen toxicity in divers prior to seizure is difficult as the symptoms of visual disturbance, ear problems, dizziness, confusion and nausea can be due to many factors common to the underwater environment such as narcosis, congestion and coldness. However, these symptoms may be helpful in diagnosing the first stages of oxygen toxicity in patients undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy. In either case, unless there is a prior history of epilepsy or tests indicate hypoglycaemia, a seizure occurring in the setting of breathing oxygen at partial pressures greater than 1.4 bar (140 kPa) suggests a diagnosis of oxygen toxicity.[62]
Diagnosis of bronchopulmonary dysplasia in newborn infants with breathing difficulties is difficult in the first few weeks. However, if the infant's breathing does not improve during this time, blood tests and x-rays may be used to confirm bronchopulmonary dysplasia. In addition, an echocardiogram can help to eliminate other possible causes such as congenital heart defects or pulmonary arterial hypertension.[63]
The diagnosis of retinopathy of prematurity in infants is typically suggested by the clinical setting. Prematurity, low birth weight and a history of oxygen exposure are the principal indicators, while no hereditary factors have been shown to yield a pattern.
Prevention [ edit ]
The label on the diving cylinder shows that it contains oxygen-rich gas (36%) and is boldly marked with a maximum operating depth of 28 metres.
The prevention of oxygen toxicity depends entirely on the setting. Both underwater and in space, proper precautions can eliminate the most pernicious effects. Premature infants commonly require supplemental oxygen to treat complications of preterm birth. In this case prevention of bronchopulmonary dysplasia and retinopathy of prematurity must be carried out without compromising a supply of oxygen adequate to preserve the infant's life.
Underwater [ edit ]
Oxygen toxicity is a catastrophic hazard in diving, because a seizure results in near certain death by drowning. The seizure may occur suddenly and with no warning symptoms. The effects are sudden convulsions and unconsciousness, during which victims can lose their regulator and drown.[65] One of the advantages of a full-face diving mask is prevention of regulator loss in the event of a seizure. As there is an increased risk of central nervous system oxygen toxicity on deep dives, long dives and dives where oxygen-rich breathing gases are used, divers are taught to calculate a maximum operating depth for oxygen-rich breathing gases, and cylinders containing such mixtures must be clearly marked with that depth.[22]
In some diver training courses for these types of diving, divers are taught to plan and monitor what is called the oxygen clock of their dives. This is a notional alarm clock, which ticks more quickly at increased oxygen pressure and is set to activate at the maximum single exposure limit recommended in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Diving Manual.[22] For the following partial pressures of oxygen the limits are: 45 minutes at 1.6 bar (160 kPa), 120 minutes at 1.5 bar (150 kPa), 150 minutes at 1.4 bar (140 kPa), 180 minutes at 1.3 bar (130 kPa) and 210 minutes at 1.2 bar (120 kPa), but it is impossible to predict with any reliability whether or when toxicity symptoms will occur.[68][69] Many nitrox-capable dive computers calculate an oxygen loading and can track it across multiple dives. The aim is to avoid activating the alarm by reducing the partial pressure of oxygen in the breathing gas or by reducing the time spent breathing gas of greater oxygen partial pressure. As the partial pressure of oxygen increases with the fraction of oxygen in the breathing gas and the depth of the dive, the diver obtains more time on the oxygen clock by diving at a shallower depth, by breathing a less oxygen-rich gas, or by shortening the duration of exposure to oxygen-rich gases.[71]
Diving below 56 m (184 ft) on air would expose a diver to increasing danger of oxygen toxicity as the partial pressure of oxygen exceeds 1.4 bar (140 kPa), so a gas mixture must be used which contains less than 21% oxygen (a hypoxic mixture). Increasing the proportion of nitrogen is not viable, since it would produce a strongly narcotic mixture. However, helium is not narcotic, and a usable mixture may be blended either by completely replacing nitrogen with helium (the resulting mix is called heliox), or by replacing part of the nitrogen with helium, producing a trimix.
Pulmonary oxygen toxicity is an entirely avoidable event while diving. The limited duration and naturally intermittent nature of most diving makes this a relatively rare (and even then, reversible) complication for divers. Established guidelines enable divers to calculate when they are at risk of pulmonary toxicity.[74][75][76]
Hyperbaric setting [ edit ]
The presence of a fever or a history of seizure is a relative contraindication to hyperbaric oxygen treatment.[77] The schedules used for treatment of decompression illness allow for periods of breathing air rather than 100% oxygen (oxygen breaks) to reduce the chance of seizure or lung damage. The U.S. Navy uses treatment tables based on periods alternating between 100% oxygen and air. For example, USN table 6 requires 75 minutes (three periods of 20 minutes oxygen/5 minutes air) at an ambient pressure of 2.8 standard atmospheres (280 kPa), equivalent to a depth of 18 metres (60 ft). This is followed by a slow reduction in pressure to 1.9 atm (190 kPa) over 30 minutes on oxygen. The patient then remains at that pressure for a further 150 minutes, consisting of two periods of 15 minutes air/60 minutes oxygen, before the pressure is reduced to atmospheric over 30 minutes on oxygen.
Vitamin E and selenium were proposed and later rejected as a potential method of protection against pulmonary oxygen toxicity.[79][80][81] There is however some experimental evidence in rats that vitamin E and selenium aid in preventing in vivo lipid peroxidation and free radical damage, and therefore prevent retinal changes following repetitive hyperbaric oxygen exposures.[82]
Normobaric setting [ edit ]
Bronchopulmonary dysplasia is reversible in the early stages by use of break periods on lower pressures of oxygen, but it may eventually result in irreversible lung injury if allowed to progress to severe damage. One or two days of exposure without oxygen breaks are needed to cause such damage.[14]
Retinopathy of prematurity is largely preventable by screening. Current guidelines require that all babies of less than 32 weeks gestational age or having a birth weight less than 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) should be screened for retinopathy of prematurity at least every two weeks.[83] The National Cooperative Study in 1954 showed a causal link between supplemental oxygen and retinopathy of prematurity, but subsequent curtailment of supplemental oxygen caused an increase in infant mortality. To balance the risks of hypoxia and retinopathy of prematurity, modern protocols now require monitoring of blood oxygen levels in premature infants receiving oxygen.[84]
Hypobaric setting [ edit ]
In low-pressure environments oxygen toxicity may be avoided since the toxicity is caused by high partial pressure of oxygen, not merely by high oxygen fraction. This is illustrated by modern pure oxygen use in spacesuits, which must operate at low pressure (also historically, very high percentage oxygen and lower than normal atmospheric pressure was used in early spacecraft, for example, the Gemini and Apollo spacecraft).[85] In such applications as extra-vehicular activity, high-fraction oxygen is non-toxic, even at breathing mixture fractions approaching 100%, because the oxygen partial pressure is not allowed to chronically exceed 0.3 bar (4.4 psi).[85]
Management [ edit ]
The retina (red) is detached at the top of the eye.
The silicone band ( scleral buckle, blue) is placed around the eye. This brings the wall of the eye into contact with the detached retina, allowing the retina to re-attach.
During hyperbaric oxygen therapy, the patient will usually breathe 100% oxygen from a mask while inside a hyperbaric chamber pressurised with air to about 2.8 bar (280 kPa). Seizures during the therapy are managed by removing the mask from the patient, thereby dropping the partial pressure of oxygen inspired below 0.6 bar (60 kPa).
A seizure underwater requires that the diver be brought to the surface as soon as practicable. Although for many years the recommendation has been not to raise the diver during the seizure itself, owing to the danger of arterial gas embolism (AGE), there is some evidence that the glottis does not fully obstruct the airway.[87] This has led to the current recommendation by the Diving Committee of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society that a diver should be raised during the seizure's clonic (convulsive) phase if the regulator is not in the diver's mouth – as the danger of drowning is then greater than that of AGE – but the ascent should be delayed until the end of the clonic phase otherwise.[65] Rescuers ensure that their own safety is not compromised during the convulsive phase. They then ensure that where the victim's air supply is established it is maintained, and carry out a controlled buoyant lift. Lifting an unconscious body is taught by most diver training agencies. Upon reaching the surface, emergency services are always contacted as there is a possibility of further complications requiring medical attention.[88] The U.S. Navy has procedures for completing the decompression stops where a recompression chamber is not immediately available.
The occurrence of symptoms of bronchopulmonary dysplasia or acute respiratory distress syndrome is treated by lowering the fraction of oxygen administered, along with a reduction in the periods of exposure and an increase in the break periods where normal air is supplied. Where supplemental oxygen is required for treatment of another disease (particularly in infants), a ventilator may be needed to ensure that the lung tissue remains inflated. Reductions in pressure and exposure will be made progressively, and medications such as bronchodilators and pulmonary surfactants may be used.[90]
Retinopathy of prematurity may regress spontaneously, but should the disease progress beyond a threshold (defined as five contiguous or eight cumulative hours of stage 3 retinopathy of prematurity), both cryosurgery and laser surgery have been shown to reduce the risk of blindness as an outcome. Where the disease has progressed further, techniques such as scleral buckling and vitrectomy surgery may assist in re-attaching the retina.
Prognosis [ edit ]
Although the convulsions caused by central nervous system oxygen toxicity may lead to incidental injury to the victim, it remained uncertain for many years whether damage to the nervous system following the seizure could occur and several studies searched for evidence of such damage. An overview of these studies by Bitterman in 2004 concluded that following removal of breathing gas containing high fractions of oxygen, no long-term neurological damage from the seizure remains.[19][92]
The majority of infants who have survived following an incidence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia will eventually recover near-normal lung function, since lungs continue to grow during the first 5–7 years and the damage caused by bronchopulmonary dysplasia is to some extent reversible (even in adults). However, they are likely to be more susceptible to respiratory infections for the rest of their lives and the severity of later infections is often greater than that in their peers.[93][94]
Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in infants frequently regresses without intervention and eyesight may be normal in later years. Where the disease has progressed to the stages requiring surgery, the outcomes are generally good for the treatment of stage 3 ROP, but are much worse for the later stages. Although surgery is usually successful in restoring the anatomy of the eye, damage to the nervous system by the progression of the disease leads to comparatively poorer results in restoring vision. The presence of other complicating diseases also reduces the likelihood of a favourable outcome.
Epidemiology [ edit ]
[96] Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) in 1997 was more common in middle income countries where neonatal intensive care services were increasing; but greater awareness of the problem, leading to preventive measures, had not yet occurred.
The incidence of central nervous system toxicity among divers has decreased since the Second World War, as protocols have developed to limit exposure and partial pressure of oxygen inspired. In 1947, Donald recommended limiting the depth allowed for breathing pure oxygen to 7.6 m (25 ft), which equates to an oxygen partial pressure of 1.8 bar (180 kPa). Over time this limit has been reduced, until today a limit of 1.4 bar (140 kPa) during a recreational dive and 1.6 bar (160 kPa) during shallow decompression stops is generally recommended. Oxygen toxicity has now become a rare occurrence other than when caused by equipment malfunction and human error. Historically, the U.S. Navy has refined its Navy Diving Manual Tables to reduce oxygen toxicity incidents. Between 1995 and 1999, reports showed 405 surface-supported dives using the helium–oxygen tables; of these, oxygen toxicity symptoms were observed on 6 dives (1.5%). As a result, the U.S. Navy in 2000 modified the schedules and conducted field tests of 150 dives, none of which produced symptoms of oxygen toxicity. Revised tables were published in 2001.[99]
The variability in tolerance and other variable factors such as workload have resulted in the U.S. Navy abandoning screening for oxygen tolerance. Of the 6,250 oxygen-tolerance tests performed between 1976 and 1997, only 6 episodes of oxygen toxicity were observed (0.1%).[100][101]
Central nervous system oxygen toxicity among patients undergoing hyperbaric oxygen therapy is rare, and is influenced by a number of a factors: individual sensitivity and treatment protocol; and probably therapy indication and equipment used. A study by Welslau in 1996 reported 16 incidents out of a population of 107,264 patients (0.015%), while Hampson and Atik in 2003 found a rate of 0.03%.[102][103] Yildiz, Ay and Qyrdedi, in a summary of 36,500 patient treatments between 1996 and 2003, reported only 3 oxygen toxicity incidents, giving a rate of 0.008%.[102] A later review of over 80,000 patient treatments revealed an even lower rate: 0.0024%. The reduction in incidence may be partly due to use of a mask (rather than a hood) to deliver oxygen.[104]
Bronchopulmonary dysplasia is among the most common complications of prematurely born infants and its incidence has grown as the survival of extremely premature infants has increased. Nevertheless, the severity has decreased as better management of supplemental oxygen has resulted in the disease now being related mainly to factors other than hyperoxia.[38]
In 1997 a summary of studies of neonatal intensive care units in industrialised countries showed that up to 60% of low birth weight babies developed retinopathy of prematurity, which rose to 72% in extremely low birth weight babies, defined as less than 1 kg (2.2 lb) at birth. However, severe outcomes are much less frequent: for very low birth weight babies—those less than 1.5 kg (3.3 lb) at birth—the incidence of blindness was found to be no more than 8%.[96]
History [ edit ]
Paul Bert, a French physiologist, first described oxygen toxicity in 1878.
Central nervous system toxicity was first described by Paul Bert in 1878.[105][106] He showed that oxygen was toxic to insects, arachnids, myriapods, molluscs, earthworms, fungi, germinating seeds, birds, and other animals. Central nervous system toxicity may be referred to as the "Paul Bert effect".[14]
Pulmonary oxygen toxicity was first described by J. Lorrain Smith in 1899 when he noted central nervous system toxicity and discovered in experiments in mice and birds that 0.43 bar (43 kPa) had no effect but 0.75 bar (75 kPa) of oxygen was a pulmonary irritant.[29] Pulmonary toxicity may be referred to as the "Lorrain Smith effect".[14] The first recorded human exposure was undertaken in 1910 by Bornstein when two men breathed oxygen at 2.8 bar (280 kPa) for 30 minutes while he went on to 48 minutes with no symptoms. In 1912, Bornstein developed cramps in his hands and legs while breathing oxygen at 2.8 bar (280 kPa) for 51 minutes.[3] Smith then went on to show that intermittent exposure to a breathing gas with less oxygen permitted the lungs to recover and delayed the onset of pulmonary toxicity.[29]
Albert R. Behnke et al. in 1935 were the first to observe visual field contraction (tunnel vision) on dives between 1.0 bar (100 kPa) and 4.1 bar (410 kPa).[107][108] During World War II, Donald and Yarbrough et al. performed over 2,000 experiments on oxygen toxicity to support the initial use of closed circuit oxygen rebreathers.[39] Naval divers in the early years of oxygen rebreather diving developed a mythology about a monster called "Oxygen Pete", who lurked in the bottom of the Admiralty Experimental Diving Unit "wet pot" (a water-filled hyperbaric chamber) to catch unwary divers. They called having an oxygen toxicity attack "getting a Pete".[110][111]
In the decade following World War II, Lambertsen et al. made further discoveries on the effects of breathing oxygen under pressure and methods of prevention.[112][113] Their work on intermittent exposures for extension of oxygen tolerance and on a model for prediction of pulmonary oxygen toxicity based on pulmonary function are key documents in the development of standard operating procedures when breathing increased pressures of oxygen. Lambertsen's work showing the effect of carbon dioxide in decreasing time to onset of central nervous system symptoms has influenced work from current exposure guidelines to future breathing apparatus design.[21][22]
Retinopathy of prematurity was not observed before World War II, but with the availability of supplemental oxygen in the decade following, it rapidly became one of the principal causes of infant blindness in developed countries. By 1960 the use of oxygen had become identified as a risk factor and its administration restricted. The resulting fall in retinopathy of prematurity was accompanied by a rise in infant mortality and hypoxia-related complications. Since then, more sophisticated monitoring and diagnosis have established protocols for oxygen use which aim to balance between hypoxic conditions and problems of retinopathy of prematurity.[96]
Bronchopulmonary dysplasia was first described by Northway in 1967, who outlined the conditions that would lead to the diagnosis.[116] This was later expanded by Bancalari and in 1988 by Shennan, who suggested the need for supplemental oxygen at 36 weeks could predict long-term outcomes.[117] Nevertheless, Palta et al. in 1998 concluded that radiographic evidence was the most accurate predictor of long-term effects.[118]
Bitterman et al. in 1986 and 1995 showed that darkness and caffeine would delay the onset of changes to brain electrical activity in rats.[23][24] In the years since, research on central nervous system toxicity has centred on methods of prevention and safe extension of tolerance.[119] Sensitivity to central nervous system oxygen toxicity has been shown to be affected by factors such as circadian rhythm, drugs, age, and gender.[120][121][122][123] In 1988, Hamilton et al. wrote procedures for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to establish oxygen exposure limits for habitat operations.[74][75][76] Even today, models for the prediction of pulmonary oxygen toxicity do not explain all the results of exposure to high partial pressures of oxygen.[124]
Society and culture [ edit ]
Recreational scuba divers commonly breathe nitrox containing up to 40% oxygen, while technical divers use pure oxygen or nitrox containing up to 80% oxygen. Divers who breathe oxygen fractions greater than of air (21%) need to be trained in the dangers of oxygen toxicity and how to prevent them. In order to buy nitrox, a diver has to show evidence of such qualification.[125]
Since the late 1990s the recreational use of oxygen has been promoted by oxygen bars, where customers breathe oxygen through a nasal cannula. Claims have been made that this reduces stress, increases energy, and lessens the effects of hangovers and headaches, despite the lack of any scientific evidence to support them.[126] There are also devices on sale that offer "oxygen massage" and "oxygen detoxification" with claims of removing body toxins and reducing body fat.[127] The American Lung Association has stated "there is no evidence that oxygen at the low flow levels used in bars can be dangerous to a normal person's health", but the U.S. Center for Drug Evaluation and Research cautions that people with heart or lung disease need their supplementary oxygen carefully regulated and should not use oxygen bars.[126]
Victorian society had a fascination for the rapidly expanding field of science. In "Dr. Ox's Experiment", a short story written by Jules Verne in 1872, the eponymous doctor uses electrolysis of water to separate oxygen and hydrogen. He then pumps the pure oxygen throughout the town of Quiquendone, causing the normally tranquil inhabitants and their animals to become aggressive and plants to grow rapidly. An explosion of the hydrogen and oxygen in Dr Ox's factory brings his experiment to an end. Verne summarised his story by explaining that the effects of oxygen described in the tale were his own invention.[128] There is also a brief episode of oxygen intoxication in his "From the Earth to the Moon".[129]
See also [ edit ]
Effect of oxygen on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
Nitrogen narcosis – Reversible narcotic effects of respiratory nitrogen at elevated partial pressures
References [ edit ]
Sources [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Lamb, John S. (1999). The Practice of Oxygen Measurement for Divers. Flagstaff: Best Publishing, 120 pages. ISBN 0-941332-68-3. OCLC 44018369.
Lippmann, John; Bugg, Stan (1993). The Diving Emergency Handbook. Teddington, UK: Underwater World Publications. ISBN 0-946020-18-3. OCLC 52056845.
Lippmann, John; Mitchell, Simon (2005). "Oxygen". Deeper into Diving (2nd ed.). Victoria, Australia: J.L. Publications. pp. 121–4. ISBN 0-9752290-1-X. OCLC 66524750.
General
The following external site is a compendium of resources:
Rubicon Research Repository. – Online collection of the oxygen toxicity research
Specialised
The following external sites contain resources specific to particular topics:As journalists have started to flood into Sochi to cover the Olympic games, they've found that their accommodations are a bit rough around the edges. Reports range from broken heating units and dirty tap water to missing trash cans, but Sochi guests may have something more important to worry about than a hastily thrown-together hotel room: their own privacy. Dmitry Kozak, a Russian deputy prime minister in charge of preparations for the Olympics, mistakenly revealed during a press conference that at least some hotel guests are under video surveillance in their own bathrooms. "We have surveillance video from the hotels that shows people turn on the shower, direct the nozzle at the wall and then leave the room for the whole day," the official told members of the press, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Kozak was attempting to argue that foreign journalists were biased against Russia and were intentionally working to paint the Sochi games as a disaster. But in the process, he may have just spooked everyone assigned hotel rooms to attend the games. The Wall Street Journal reports that an aide quickly diverted the conversation and prevented any follow-up questions concerning bathroom video surveillance.
"We have surveillance video from the hotels..."
But such heavy-handed surveillance was expected in Sochi, which has turned into the most expensive Olympics of all. Terrorist threats are a top concern, and in response Russia has deployed a so-called "ring of steel" around the city to protect it. Reports recently said that part of the efforts include surveillance on athletes, journalists, and other guests, and it now seems that may include video cameras that keep tabs on visitors in their rooms. Considering other reports that Russian intelligence agencies have backdoor access to Wi-Fi connections, it will be hard to keep anything a secret in Sochi — even what you're singing in the shower.
Update: A spokesperson for Kozak has now offered another take on the Russian official's statement. The Wall Street Journal reports that the spokesperson says there is no surveillance of occupied hotel rooms or bathrooms. He suggests that the footage Kozak referred to was captured while the hotels were being built and cleaned in preparation for the games. It's unclear how or why a visitor would be inside a hotel room and turning on a shower during this period of time.COLUMBUS, Ohio - State school board members accused the Ohio Department of Education Tuesday of breaking state law by throwing F grades for online schools out of a key charter school evaluation this year.
Members of the state school board and state Sen. Peggy Lehner said David Hansen, ODE's school choice director, was required by state law to include online schools and dropout recovery schools in evaluations of charter school oversight agencies.
But after questioning Hansen Tuesday, Lehner and the board confirmed a June 14 Plain Dealer report that he had left failing grades for those schools out of the evaluations.
That deliberate omission boosted the rating of two oversight agencies, who could now be eligible for new state perks.
Hansen, who has close ties to Gov. John Kasich, offered rushed and muddled explanations for that decision in his appearance before the board. He said he wanted to look at other, stronger schools instead, because online struggles "mask" successes elsewhere.
And Hansen said he left online schools out because they all started receiving low grades after the state changed some grading rules a few years ago. At the same time, Hansen admitted to the board that those changes made the grades more accurate.
But school board President Tom Gunlock told The Plain Dealer that Hansen's reasons don't matter. State law says the schools should be counted in measuring the academic performance of the oversight agencies, he said, so they should have been.
"If you don't like the law, change it," Gunlock said. "Until such time, you have to obey it."
Gunlock said he will discuss with state Superintendent Richard Ross how to handle the already-completed evaluations that would be affected by the exclusion.
Ross, who is Hansen's boss, sat by him as he was questioned but offered no comment.
Ross later said, in a prepared statement, that ODE will include online school and dropout recovery school grades in future years. But he made no comment about whether he would continue leaving those grades out as evaluations continue this year.
"We will include academic performance data of e-schools and dropout prevention and recovery schools in our evaluation process as soon as we get the data we need from the 2014-15 school report cards," he wrote. "This evaluation process is still new, but we will work to get it right."
The key beneficiary of the exclusion - so far - was the Ohio Council of Community Schools, a non-profit agency which collects about $1.5 million in sponsor fees a year from the more than 14,000 students attending Ohio Virtual Academy and OHDELA, the online school run by White Hat Management.
Those schools received F grades on state report cards, which would have likely blocked the agency from receiving the state's top oversight rating.
The Buckeye Community Hope Foundation, another charter school sponsor, has much smaller online schools under its wing, but was still affected by the exclusion.
Gunlock, who previously served on a charter school board in the Dayton area where he lives, told The Plain Dealer before Tuesday's meeting that he disagrees with excluding online schools that have thousands of students and collect millions in state tax money.
Not just for legal reasons.
"I think that is way out of bounds," said Gunlock, a Republican who was appointed to the board by Kasich. "These kids are no different than any other child in Ohio and the schools are no different than any other school. Why should they be treated any differently?"
He added: "Somebody's going to have to explain to me the reasoning to make that decision. It doesn't make any logical sense to me whatsoever."
Board member Mary Rose Oakar, of Cleveland, had also told The Plain Dealer before today's meeting that she also wanted an explanation of that decision.
But they let Lehner question Hansen.
Hansen at first didn't appear before the board. Though the board and ODE had planned a lengthy explanation to the board about charter school law this morning, and the desire of board members to question Hansen was well-known, Hansen sent two of his staff instead.
When sponsor evaluation came up in that presentation, Lehner said, "I have not been able to get an answer why those schools were excluded."
Joni Hoffman, ODE's charter school director replied: "I don't want to try to explain that so I don't say anything that's wrong."
She said she would talk to her boss (Hansen) and get back to Lehner.
But Gunlock jumped in.
"I was going to ask the same question," he said, asking to have Hansen come down from his office upstairs to talk to the board.
ODE officials said Hansen had been working on a grant application with a deadline.
After Hansen arrived, Lehner told him that state law only allows two types of schools to be excluded from these sponsor evaluations - new schools younger than two years and schools for disabled children.
Hansen said that online schools and dropout recovery schools have low grades that "mask the success" of other charter schools that do well in struggling urban areas.
"We wanted to focus our portfolio (of schools) evaluation system on learning taking place in those schools," Hansen said.
Hansen also said that ODE changed rules a few years ago covering which students are counted in calculating grades on state report cards.
ODE officials have told The Plain Dealer that many students had not been counted in calculating grades in previous years, particularly at online schools that draw students scattered across the state, because ODE had trouble verifying previous test scores for those students to measure their year-to-year progress.
When ODE resolved that issue, more students started being counted and grades for most online schools fell from Bs and Cs to Fs.
Hansen told the board that he was more concerned with "brick-and-mortar" charter schools - schools with fixed buildings where kids attend - than online schools. So he used previous grades for online schools as a "baseline" to measure future improvement from.
That didn't satisfy Lehner, who said, "The law didn't permit you take take out e-schools and dropout recovery schools."
Hansen said they were included, just as a base year. Lehner pressed him again, before he finally conceded, "No, they didn't actually get included."
Board members did not press Hansen or Ross for additional explanation for his reasoning.
That was enough of an answer for board member and former judge A.J. Wagner of Dayton, who said Hansen's answers confirm that he did not follow the law.
And Wagner said Hansen's avoidance of answering directly - at first - is the latest example of a pattern of ODE giving the board half-answers on a regular basis.
"You ask a question and you don't get a direct answer," he said.
Oakar said she was not satisfied with Hansen's answers and that Ross should also have responded to questions.
"The superintendent is his boss," Oakar said. "He should have answered the questions."
And she attributed the exclusion of online schools to regular donations by charter school operators to Republican legislators.Honorary Degree Recipients also Include Pianist Lang Lang, Mathematician Peter Lax, Humanitarian Graça Simbine Machel, Immunologist Jan Vilcek
Whitney Museum Director Adam Weinberg to Receive the Rudin Award, Businessman John Paulson to Receive the Gallatin Medal
NYU President John Sexton and Board of Trustees Chairman Martin Lipton today announced the names of those to be honored at the University’s 183rd Commencement Exercises, which will be held Wednesday, May 20, 2015 in Yankee Stadium.
Sherrilyn Ifill – President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, attorney, author, legal scholar, NYU Law School graduate, and leading U.S. voice on race and civil rights – will address the graduates and guests on behalf of all the degree recipients. Ms. Ifill will receive a Doctor of Laws degree, honoris causa, at the ceremony.
This year’s other recipients of honorary doctorates are:
• Lang Lang – an internationally renowned pianist who has played with the world’s leading orchestras – will receive a Doctor of Fine Arts degree, honoris causa.
• Peter D. Lax – Abel Prize-winning mathematician, professor emeritus at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and an NYU alumnus – will receive a Doctor of Science degree, honoris causa.
• Graça Simbine Machel – political leader, humanitarian, and advocate on behalf of women and children in Africa and throughout the world – will receive a Doctor of Humane Letters degree, honoris causa |
in magazines talking about the limited career opportunities for black Americans in the State Department. Was that any cause for concern? TODMAN: The only thing they had blacks doing then was serving as messengers and secretaries. So it was starting out in rather difficult circumstances. I remember people coming to my office for meetings, and they’d come and say, “We’re here to see Mr. Todman.” And I’d say, “Well, I’m Mr. Todman, come on in.” And it was, “You’ve got to be kidding!” It took them a little while, several people, to accept the fact that I could be the person responsible for some activities. It was a different world…. The arrangement for meals, the possibility for black Americans to be able to eat in the State Department cafeteria. This was in 1957. The State Department had just established a Foreign Service Institute over in, I think it was Rosslyn, Virginia. And the courses, the introductory courses on countries, for people who were going overseas were held there. When I was assigned to go to New Delhi I therefore had to attend courses over at the Foreign Service Institute. When I got there I discovered that the only thing they had for any meal arrangements was a very small coffee shop where you could basically get some coffee cake and some coffee, tea, or whatever. And at lunchtime all of the white officers went across the street to a regular Virginia restaurant and had their meals. On my first day, when I went to the coffee shop and saw there were no eating facilities, I asked where I could have lunch. They said they were sorry, this was all they had. And I said, “Well, I’m accustomed to a good warm lunch at midday and I’d like to be able to do that, so how can we work that out?” I said I was willing to go into town across the bridge, if that were necessary, but it meant that I couldn’t go and get back in time for the class. So we would have had to adjust the class schedule. Or they would have to find some place where all State Department people could eat. They regretted that they were in Virginia, and the laws of Virginia didn’t allow blacks and whites to eat together and they had no control over the policies of the restaurant; it was privately owned and run. I said, well, no one forced them to move there. There were other places they could have gone where this would not have been a problem. And this got to be a major issue. It went up to the Under Secretary for Management. They said people had gone there before I had and no one else had complained; they had just managed to get by on it; they had taken it. I said, that’s fine, they took it, but I’m not going to and so we need to work something out. The outcome of this, after a lot of unhappiness on the part of many people, was that the State Department leased a half of the restaurant and a partition was put up. The same kitchen was used, the same waiters, but one half belonged to the State Department, or was leased by it, and the other half was a regular private restaurant. And so we were able to go over to the State Department leased part and have lunch there. And you ran into ridiculous situations where one side would get full and then overflow into the other. But basically the State Department recognized that it had to make provisions of an equal nature for all its employees. And eventually, of course, with the changes, then the restaurant gradually became integrated in fact, because people were moving back and forth. As I said, the same kitchen, the same waitresses, and so the matter was resolved. But I was considered a troublemaker, and that was all right. But it was an important change for everyone else who went to the institute after that, to know that things were being done properly…. “That business about not being able to send blacks to the Middle East was concocted within the State Department” Q: I came across a number of State Department documents, all the way from the 1940s, all the way, really, up into the 1960s talking about where the State Department could and could not send black Americans to serve because of the country’s practices and so forth. One of the areas that they seemed very tense about, was sending black Americans to Arabic nations. Did you find any problem? TODMAN: Absolutely not! I am prepared to say that that business about not being able to send blacks was purely concocted within the State Department; it was made out of whole cloth. It was a total lie. I never found in any of the places that I went to that there was any question of any resentment or anything. The only question that people ever had, and you would get this as they got to talk to you, you would feel some doubt: “Does this person have the influence with his own country to be able to get for us what we need?” But as far as color, as far as any of those other things were concerned, zero. The problem has been, and is, in the United States of America. The only opposition that I ever found, anywhere, has been from Americans. I found it in Costa Rica: Americans, only Americans. In Spain: Americans, only Americans. In the Arab world? Not a hint, absolutely not a hint of it. And the Arab world would be the last place. You go through the Arab world and how many blacks do you find? And you find them doing everything. You find them in positions of importance, in their own country and they’re all over. So, this was story concocted by Americans to keep from doing these things. It’s damned nonsense. Q: Well, that certainly goes along with what I’ve heard from fellow ambassadors. That all of these that were sort of set aside as “Can’t send blacks there can’t send blacks there…” TODMAN: Nonsense, Nonsense! And the business of sending blacks to Africa is one of the worst. Because, again, the African countries are looking for the same thing any other country is: what influence does this guy have? And when you’re up on the ambassadorial level, they want to know about that. Many people assume that the ambassador can pick up the phone and talk to the president and get something done. And it’s one of the reasons, quite frankly, why in many places a political appointee is much preferred. Because they assume if this guy isn’t career, yet the president picked and sent him here, he must be a buddy. And if anything happens he can, ”Hey, Prez,” and it’s done. That’s what a country is looking for. They’re looking for a channel of direct communication and a person of influence. So that’s the only thing and that has nothing to do with color. And I think, frankly, that the career people are at a slight disadvantage in this, in terms of what the countries would like, because of their perception that the instrument of influence would be more a political than a career. But that’s the only place where it exists. And the business about racial preference, absolutely not!… The Lack of Progress in the Lily White State Department Q: At least publicly, and in some of the actions the State Department took, Secretary Rusk said that one of his priorities was to try and get more black Americans in the State Department. Prior to 1961 it was still being called in many of the black newspapers the “lily white State Department” and so forth. And there were some programs set up by Richard Fox and others in the State Department to do that. Did you see any of that effort resulting in any changes in the makeup? TODMAN: Nothing significant, nothing significant. In fact, it was just after that we had to go out and bring in senior people from USIA and AID because we didn’t have anybody at senior levels in the State Department. And the recruiting efforts didn’t produce very much. There was no lateral entry, so you weren’t bringing in people at the mid-levels or above the entry level. The record of the State Department had been horrendous; it’s been terrible throughout. There have been spurts at attempts to do things. Dick Fox tried some things, Eddie Williams tried some things, there were a few university programs to try and train some people. Something’s better than nothing, but you’re always talking about very little. Q: Not to break off from the development of your own career here, but why do you think that’s been such a consistent problem? TODMAN: A couple of reasons. One is American society as such. But another one is the Foreign Service, the Foreign Service corps. There’s a group that develops; it’s an in-group. Once you’re there, you preserve and protect it, and you want only people like you. Then it’s a heck of a lot easier to protect your own position. Also, it’s an elite group and one of the ways to insure that you maintain the sense of elitism is to not have too many people in who’ll be different. That’s part of the elite too. If you have a different accent, nowadays maybe it’s good to have one, but if you don’t fit the mold, then the people within the group make sure that you don’t get in. And it’s done from inside, because these are the people who man all the positions that are responsible for opening it up. You get senior leadership which says, “Yeah, we’re committed to change.” But the commitment never involves any follow-through of a personal nature. The one case in which I’ve ever seen that to work was in AID when the man who was head of the Africa Bureau said, “You will bring blacks into this bureau.” I wrote about it sometime and made a speech on it, because it was so impressive. He refused to allow anybody else to be appointed. He got, as you always get, the same story: “We can’t find anyone qualified who will do it,” and then you say, “OK, if you can’t find anyone, then I guess I’ll have to yield.” But he said, “We won’t fill it.” And after a while the people who needed to get the work done realized that it was better to go ahead and get someone because he was serious about it. But that was the rare exception. People come in and make a lovely statement, you know, “This is what I believe in, this is what I’m going to do.” And I wouldn’t question the sincerity of the top people in making those statements. But I will state with absolute certainty there was never any follow-up to insure that it took place. And if you don’t have that follow-up you have a built-in, protective group that wants its own kind and is able to ensure that it goes that way. And wanting your own kind doesn’t imply and is not intended to suggest any animosity towards others. Exclusion often isn’t because you hate one group or that you don’t want them; it’s often because you want some others and that effectively keeps out the other side, without there being any, “I don’t want you around.” It’s not, “I don’t want you around.” It is, “I want him around and I only have room for one.”… Problems with the “Ghetto” Assignment Process Q: Your next assignment was back in Washington. You came back from Togo into the Bureau of African Affairs. You had mentioned before that, being made DCM, you assume that’s really a stepping stone to those higher positions. Did you look upon this as a sort of a disappointment assignment back home? TODMAN: I did, because the assignment to Togo, as far as I was concerned, was out of area. I considered myself an Arabist. I had been trained in Arabic. I used the language, I knew it, I had served in the Arab world, I had shown that I could do that very well. My assumption was that on coming back I would be assigned to one of the desks having to do with the Arab world. I could think of nothing that would say, “You go to Africa,” except that, there again, there’s this fixation. It has been and remains that if you’re black you have to be associated with Africa. I realized that’s what had happened. It didn’t make any sense to me. Furthermore, it was East Africa, about which I knew nothing except that which came from my time at the United Nations.… Q: And you got your first ambassadorial appointment and that was to Chad. Was that an “out of left field” appointment, was that unexpected, or was this something… TODMAN: No, out of left field. As a career officer I knew very well how ambassadorial appointments are made and we know better than to expect ever that we are going to get one. So it had to be out of the blue, totally unexpected. Furthermore, I wasn’t at the seniority level or the rest of that which would have led me to expect an ambassadorship. I was, as far as blacks were concerned, very senior, because there weren’t any others around. But I was not looking at blacks being assigned separately from non-blacks. I was looking at the Service and I didn’t see anything at that point that would say that I would go out as ambassador. But I was the senior black and I guess since they decided, if they were going to appoint one, there wasn’t anybody else to appoint. But I hadn’t even been thinking about that. And it came out of the blue, and then to Chad…. Q: You say that you were eager to get out of Guinea, anyplace… TODMAN: Out of Africa, out of Africa. Q: But Costa Rica, when that came up, was that an exciting possibility for you? TODMAN: It was getting out of Africa, it wasn’t where I was going to. I wasn’t looking to go to Costa Rica. What I have insisted all along, and I continue to insist, that Foreign Service officers, whoever they are, should have the opportunity and the possibility to serve anywhere in the world. I resented, and I still resent, the “ghetto” assignment of blacks to Africa or to Caribbean nations. I resent it. I resented it then and I still do. And the United States still does that. We haven’t learned a thing over all these years. Q: Right, it’s about eighty percent [of black appointments go to Africa or the Caribbean.] TODMAN: And it was the old story then about, you know, the Costa Ricans wouldn’t like this, wouldn’t take this. The only people who ever showed any reserve were the Americans living in Costa Rica. And I could care less, because I was not appointed to them. And the Costa Ricans could not have been nicer. And once they saw, those Americans, the nature, closeness, and strength of relations with the Costa Ricans, then they all sort of came around. Because to be in with the ambassador becomes a great thing and I knew that that’s what it would be. So they came around and I said, “Well, if I get some time I’ll see you.” It worked its way out after a while. But, you know, it wasn’t for me, “How exciting, I’m going to Costa Rica.” For me it was, “I am breaking out of this ridiculous mold of being assigned only to black countries.” Here I was trained as an Arabist, but they can’t send me to an Arab country. Once they got their hooks into me in Africa, “This is it buddy. You escaped for a while, but we’ve got you now.” But I was determined that that was going to end. I’m thoroughly delighted that it turned out to be Costa Rica, because I haven’t lived with a more wonderful people ever, a nicer people, a great place. And I was there during an exciting time also, because it was a time when the Nicaraguan movement, the Sandinistas, started spilling over the border as the fight with Somoza got to be bigger…. On Being Named Assistant Secretary Q: In 1977, with the coming to power of the Carter administration, you were called back to Washington and made assistant secretary of state for Inter-American Affairs, the first black to ever be made head of one of the geographical divisions. Was that quite a surprising job offer for you from the Carter administration? TODMAN: It sure as hell was! It certainly was. I couldn’t believe it. As a matter of fact it’s rather curious, because I got this call from Peter Tarnoff saying that Secretary Vance, the designate, would like me to be assistant secretary for Latin American Affairs. I said, “Gee, thanks a lot. I’d like to come up and talk to the secretary about it.” And he said, “Look, there’s a lot of pressure to name someone and the secretary has inquired all around about you and all the reports have been favorable and he wants you to have it. He has a very busy schedule and he wants to announce it right away.” And I said, “Well, you know, I’m very flattered by all the he things you’ve said, and I know a couple of positions the secretary has held, but I’ve never met him and I haven’t inquired about him and I really would like to meet him before giving an answer on this.” He said, “Are you turning down the position?” I said, “No, I’m not turning it down; I’m asking for a meeting so I can decide.” He said, “Look, the Secretary’s preparing for the hearings. He’s terribly busy; there are all kinds of things that have to be done. He really doesn’t have any time for a meeting.” I said, “Look, I’ll meet with him at breakfast, in the middle of the morning, at lunch, in the middle of the afternoon, for a drink at the end of the day, at dinner, any time that he says. I can’t believe that he wants me to be his assistant secretary and he doesn’t have any time that he can meet with me. Is that what you’re telling me?” He said, “Well, I’ll have to go back to him.” I said, “Please do and then let me know.” And then I got back a call saying, OK, Mr. Vance can see you on such and such a date and time. I said, “OK, I’ll be there for the meeting.”… In retrospect, I realize now that I was risking blowing a major opportunity. You know, for a black American to be an assistant secretary of state and head a geographic bureau, and I hesitated. But it was important to me to do that…. Q: Well, what reasons, when you had this talk with Secretary-designate Vance, what reasons did he give for having selected you? TODMAN: None. We didn’t talk about why he selected me. We talked about how we viewed Latin America. The issues, the opportunities, the kinds of things that had to be dealt with, the approaches and that’s what we talked about. We never talked about why he had selected me. It didn’t matter to me. What mattered to me was, are we going to be working on a job and are we going to be doing it together? Are we on the same wavelength for getting something accomplished? And that’s all that I wanted to establish. Once I was able to establish that and once I met him and knew that this was a person that I could deal with, you know, that I could relate to, that I could say things, get things back, communicate with, then that took care of it. The “why” didn’t matter. It was can I sit down and have a conversation with him about issue and know that we’re going to be talking about issues and dealing with them…? The Importance of Clearances While I was director of East African Affairs, during that same period, I noticed that cables were being sent out directly from the Department of Defense to posts in the field without clearance by the State Department. One thing that was established and was practiced very much was that messages had to be cleared and that instructions went from the secretary of state. And people were continuing to violate this, and a couple of messages went out from the Pentagon, instructing the ambassador to do things without ever having been cleared with the State Department. And I sent out a cable one Friday afternoon, referring to one that went out in the morning and saying, “Ignore the instructions. They have not been cleared.” And I sent a copy of my cable to the Pentagon. The next Monday morning a four-star general was on the phone raising hell with the assistant secretary, saying, “Who the hell is this that is sending out messages countermanding instructions that I have sent to the field?” When the assistant secretary called me, I reminded him of our regulations, that nothing goes out unless cleared by the Department, he said, “You’re right,” and he called back the general and said, “You send them here for clearance in the future. They are not supposed to go and no ambassadors are to follow instructions if they’re not cleared.” I think, again, this is very important, because one of the things that this country needs, has always needed, and needs today, is some kind of clear direction for its foreign policy. The president of the United States relies on the secretary of state and his department to insure that. And when the State Department does not function in that way, then there’s no coherence, there’s no telling where our foreign policy is, because each agency then decides to do whatever it wishes. What I was doing was taking a stand for a principle that I considered to be fundamental. Obviously when the general was called on it and reminded about this, he had to concede. But this was something that otherwise just would not have happened. I thought it was worth mentioning because there you have a critical point in the establishment and management of United States foreign policy…. On Human Rights and Foreign Policy Q: One of the issues that is so associated with the Carter administration is the issue of human rights, and you mentioned the human rights abuses going on in Latin America. Of course it was a policy that came under severe criticism at the time afterwards. What did you think of that new accent on human rights by the Carter administration? TODMAN: It was a difference in nuance and approach. I kept insisting that showing value for human rights, the human person, for the well-being of the individual, had to be an integral part of every single thing we did, that you shouldn’t separate human rights from other activities, as if it was something that could be dealt with by itself. But you made sure that it was incorporated into everything that you did, that it was part of a value system. That was extremely important for me. The other thing was to insure that we did not add to the suffering of poor, suffering people as a way of getting to the despicable leaders. This was critical. Because there were many people who felt that if the leader of a certain country were not behaving properly then the thing that you did was to punish the entire country. And we had one thoroughly outrageous thing that occurred. I think it was in Paraguay, where people were dying from water-borne diseases. There was a project being financed by one of the international financial institutions. It was quite clear that the project was bona fide, that it was going for water purification, and the position taken by some people in the administration was that we must oppose doing this project. Of course, the decision of the United States on projects and IFIs [International Financial Institutions] was critical. And I said, “For God’s sake, these people are dying of water-borne diseases now. This is something that’s going to at least save some of their lives. How can we oppose this?” And the basis for the opposition was, this was to make sure that General Alfredo Stroessner didn’t get any credit. So, it’s OK to go ahead and see hundreds more Paraguayans killed in order to be sure that Stroessner doesn’t get any credit? Well, Stroessner wasn’t going to get credit anyway; but even if he did, for God’s sake, if it’s credit for saving people’s lives, then get it. And this was one of the issues, because there were some people there who wanted to save the world and this was “let’s go out and do that.” I suppose the third thing is that I was and am results-oriented, and I believe in pressing, screaming, cajoling, doing what is necessary to obtain the results that you establish, that you want to get. And sometimes this is done by getting up on a public platform; sometimes it’s done by going in and quietly twisting somebody’s arms. The methods vary depending on the case. There were a number of people around who believed that the answer to everything was a great deal of shouting. And it seemed to me that the consideration was what was going to make them feel good: “I have gone out and shouted about it. What happens to the individuals after, that’s not important. I’ve gone and shouted. So, I’ve done a great deal.” And, quite frankly, I resented that, because my concern was the suffering people and wanted to see things done that would ease the suffering. And I recognized that sometimes this is a whisper in the ear, sometimes it’s a poke with your finger, it’s different things. And I don’t think that it’s possible to say that the same kind of approach would work in every situation. And I found that in many cases there were people who were not willing to be nuanced in dealing with the issues. Q: What was the reception to this new emphasis on human rights in those nations? Were they confused by it; were they concerned with it? TODMAN: They were concerned by it, but they were concerned by the fact that people were screaming at them rather than sitting down and pressing things with them. And in every case, I brought up particular cases on every visit that were concerning us, that we wanted something done about, to try and get acceptance of visits by human rights commissions, which have that as their agenda. And I was able to get that in many cases. I remember in Uruguay, for example, there was one time that I just went straight out in the public square, answered some questions, and said the military has no business running the country. You know, “Uruguay has been known for a long time for its democracy and Uruguay should come back to being a democratic nation. And the military should find a way to get out of this position as soon as possible.” It’s rather interesting, because some of these things I had forgotten. Then I saw the president of Uruguay at the inauguration of President Menem, and he came over and thanked me for what I had done; he said, this was the thing that gave hope to the people that the change would occur and that the United States was ready to stand up to see those changes occur. That kind of thing warms the heart, because you know that it made a difference.… Q: At the end of your time in Spain you were assigned to Denmark in 1983. I sent you a copy of an article from the New York Times which was talking about some of the very heavy criticism of the Reagan administration, especially early on, about its non-use of black personnel in the Foreign Service, its misuse and so forth. And your case, in that article, was specifically cited, that, well, “Here’s a perfect example. A career Foreign Service officer being sent from a class-one embassy–Spain, to a class-three embassy–Denmark.” First, I want to ask you, in general, do you think those criticisms of the Reagan administration were warranted. And secondly, let’s go particularly to your case with the assignment to Denmark and what you thought about that. TODMAN: I don’t think the Reagan administration thought about, you know, I don’t think they paid much attention to, “Are we going to be sending blacks? There’s a certain number that will be taken care of, and, OK, we’ll do that.” I don’t think it was a particular issue with them. And in my case, I asked for Denmark…. Denmark, a member of NATO, really very important. But I had sentimental reasons. I’m from a former Danish island. I’d been exposed to things Danish before, and the thrill of being able to be the American ambassador in the country which used to formally own my island was something which was just great. Also Denmark, I knew from Spain and the NATO connection, was extremely important to us. Denmark with its EC connections and its leadership role were extremely important. Really, although Denmark is a small country, its voice isn’t at all small. It is heard in councils because it has the courage to speak up. And Denmark, in terms of social organization and so on, represented something. Denmark wasn’t formerly available for career appointees at all. So a chance to go to Denmark was one that I just…I decided that I wanted to go there. I had to go from Spain; I knew that. The people who talk about, you know, class-one posts, whatever they mean by that…. Where was I going? You mean I had to be sent to Paris, or to Bonn, or to London? You know, that’s crazy. And the people who talk about that don’t have a realistic sense of how the business works. It’s what’s available at the moment, who is pressing, and there are some posts that are not available for career people. So you look at the gamut and you say what it is you want. No, it was a choice. It was not by any means a put-down and not regarded so by me.… “The position of ambassador has lost importance” Q: You held ambassadorial positions for about a quarter century, from the late-60s into the early-90s. Did you see any changes in the status and the position of the ambassador in terms of the foreign policy making chain of command in the United States during that period? Did the ambassador lose importance, gain importance? What kinds of changes took place, it any? TODMAN: I think that the ambassador lost importance. I think that it started when you got a peripatetic secretary of state, who decided that if there’s any important issue he would have to go out personally and deal with it. And as this occurred you got chiefs of state saying that it’s not worth talking to the ambassador because that means it’s not important enough; we need to discuss it and we need the secretary to come. There used to be more roving ambassadors who would come and bring a special message sometimes, which was OK. But the Secretary of State was at home controlling the whole thing and looking at it, and you could go back and ask about it. That’s gone. I think some areas of the world get neglected, totally, because there’s nobody back home minding the shop who can send out the serious kinds of instructions that you want. You don’t get the consistency you need. And some other areas get over-attended, but attended at a level that they shouldn’t be getting, at least in personal and direct terms. I think it’s a change for the worse. I don’t know whether or when we can ever recoup from that, but it’s unfortunate. The change in the news media, the ready availability of news, has made an enormous difference also, because you’re not now often taking in news, you’re commenting on it. Because some story has broken and people have heard about it or seen it, and so when you go in, so what’s new? And one of the more irritating practices that we continue to have in the Foreign Service is to send cables out after the thing has been on the news instructing you to go tell the country that this has happened. For Christ’s sake, what do you think they’ve been doing? They saw it on CNN ten hours ago. Go wake them up at 2:00 in the morning to tell them that this is what happened? That has had a major difference in the way diplomacy is practiced, because now there’s a need for a lot more thoughtfulness and giving more rationale for action rather than telling what the action is– precision about what happened and explanations of why it happened, and bringing people along. And the other way the role of the ambassador has been diminished, which is even worse, is by the number of direct contacts that are made between senior U.S. government officials and senior host country officials. Increasingly, people bypass the embassy totally and pick up the phone and call somebody that they met in a conference. And it doesn’t have to be from the Secretary, from the Department of State even, where at least you’d know what was going on, but it can be from any department that has business overseas, any of them, directly to counterparts in foreign governments, with the result that the department, the ambassador, may or may not know. And I found increasingly in my last time, at the end of my period there, that I would learn from the Argentines things what U.S. government officials had done. I would be the first to learn of it outside, and then I would inform the State Department of what had happened. State would not have known at all. But these things were done, and conversations were going on, and I would know only because of the nature of my relations with the host country. In many countries I’m sure the ambassador never gets to know until the thing is signed, or done, or some consequence of it appears. They’re the kind of things that concerned me, and that I wanted very much to talk to the secretary of state about. Because I think that they are creating problems for the United States and they will create even more serious problems. “Most of your problems are with your own government” The concerns I’ve had, and I’ve raised with all of them, is what we do about black Foreign Service officers, on which I think we do a terrible job. In every meeting I’ve ever had with a secretary of state, I have tried to discuss, apart from the matters of substance, the question of doing better on the position of minorities. I have always contended, and continue to contend, that you don’t do this for the minorities, you do this for the United States. We need, as a country, the very best input that we can get into policy formulation and policy implementation. There are sensitivities that people bring into a meeting that you can’t get otherwise, and sometimes the very composition of the meeting, even if the person does nothing, becomes a reminder, when things are being considered, how they ought to be treated. It just clicks something there. And the same person would see things differently, or speak about things, or approach things, in one context with one group of people, from the way he or she would do with a different group. And it’s not because of any bad intentions or anything else, it’s just that the circumstances, the atmosphere, bring out things that it’s important to have as input into our policy formulation and execution. We’re denying ourselves of this by not bringing in minorities. When we’re talking about China, Japan, and other Asian countries, it would make an enormous amount of difference to have some people of Asian background sitting in that meeting as we discuss what we’re going to do. Just seeing them there, one would react differently. And inputs and sensitivities that they would have would make a difference. So, as I look for what is good for the United States, which is the bottom line for me, I think we’re doing ourselves an enormous disservice. And so I’ve raised it constantly over the years, and it’s just because there is no desire to act on it that nothing has happened.… The unfortunate thing is that most of your problems are with your own government, because people don’t have a perspective of dealing with others. And we’re so accustomed, in this country, to having everything, to doing what we want, making what we want happen, that we’re not always as conscious about people out there. And we’re very quick to accuse people of localitis, which is unfortunate, because if the people who are on the scene don’t express what they’re seeing, then who is going to? And the other thing that is disturbing is that the country is not aware of the importance of the role of the Foreign Service officer, the diplomat, for the country, the benefit that this brings to the United States. And actually when you consider that we’re so involved in the world, that so many livelihoods depend on this, the American economy depends on what we do abroad. Unless there are people from the Foreign Service that are out there making sure that the relations can be kept on a sound basis, the United States would suffer. And I’m not sure that that is understood at all. It’s largely our fault, Foreign Service people, because we don’t do very much to let people know what we do and what difference it makes. We let the false images of some kind of strange or high life be spread out there, and we’re considered as sort of extras not involved. And Foreign Service people are far from that. But if we don’t go out and make it known, we’re not out there spreading it, then people obviously aren’t going to know about it. I used to spend a lot of time, as I spoke in communities around the United States, reminding people that much of what they made was sold overseas, much of what they used, consumed in the U.S., was made overseas, that they live in an interdependent world where the ties are everywhere. And you need some people who are doing the job of making sure that these things work and work primarily for the interest of the United States. I think we get caught up also in military might, that we forget sometimes that that doesn’t solve anything. And so the role of the diplomat is somehow undervalued, even by people who are in government, in policy making. I think today we’re arriving at a time in the United States when we somehow feel that physical, military, security is the only thing that we should look for, and we don’t work with people if they’re not making a definite contribution to that. I think that we can lose a great deal if we get carried away with that, because there are issues of justice, there are issues of decency, of humanity, that are important. On human rights for a long time we never considered social or economic well-being as human rights; we looked only at torture. So people could starve to death and it didn’t matter, or if they had no place to sleep, it didn’t matter. But if they were in prison, then that was it. And we’ve come a long way, because at the last major meeting on human rights we acknowledged that there might be some validity to including economic rights among the human rights. But it has taken very, very, very many years and a lot of difficulty for that to be brought into our consciousness and to our acceptance. So we’re moving, but the movement is slow and you get times of regression.The Telica volcano located in northwestern Nicaragua has once again erupted, after it started spewing smoke on Wednesday.
According to the AFP, civil defense officials in the region have described dense volcanic ash settling over the six surrounding villages. Evertz Delgadillo, a member of the local municipal |
support the Krita team with this plan?
Lukáš: If you want to use krita on a professional level!
Boudewijn: It is cheaper than a licence of Corel Painter. Not that I would object to any donations the size of a Corel Painter license...
Will code for food! Will code for food!
Boudewijn: And it can fill in a gap in the Free Software world. MyPaint is here for quick sketching, and Gimp is real good at image manipulation but we don't have a good digital painting appliation with all the features artists need. We have been working on this many years and we're close - this is the chance for the big leap forwards. If you care about this, a donation will make a big difference. We can do this!
Jos: Sounds like a plan. Thanks for the interview and of course for the work on KOffice and Krita!
You've all read it, go on to the Donations page and help make Free Software provide a real alternative for digital artists! Be sure to notify others and spread the word...
Read more on the Krita site.The trapped Chilean miners have given a video tour of the underground space in which they pray, play dominoes and plan for their release.
Most of the 33 men who have been trapped since the roof collapsed on Aug 5 feature in the grainy film, all shirtless and sporting scraggy beards but apparently in good health and most in good humour. They wave at the camera, make victory signs and link arms and shout: "Long live Chile. Long live the miners."
The 45-minute video was shot after colleagues on the surface sent a camera down the narrow hole through which they have been providing supplies since the group was found alive last Sunday.
It was shown on a large screen to emotional families living at "Camp Hope" near the mouth of the mine.
In the video, a miner uses a head torch to light the way to show their minimal comforts, which include first aid boxes, cards and a domino set. A thermometer showed the temperature to be 29.5C.
The guide showed some mats in a corner to lie on and pointed out a "cup to brush our teeth". "We have everything organized," he said.
Filming men playing dominoes, he added: "This is where we entertain ourselves, where we play cards. We plan, we have assemblies here every day so that all the decisions we make are based on the thoughts of all 33."
One domino player joked: "This is our casino." Another gestured at a colleague and said: "This guy doesn't want to get out of here because then he'll have to take a shower."
One miner jokes about his comrade's "mattress" as the man sleeps on some rocks.
But there were signs of stress, with some of the miners' voices trembling as they spoke, and some bitterness against the mine owners.
The guide said: "This place should have been prepared to shelter us, but when this happened the power was cut, everything was cut."
One miner could be heard saying "get us out of here soon", but another looked at the camera and told his family: "Be calm. We're going to get out of here."
The men have now been told it could take until December to dig a shaft big enough to lift them out. Doctors said the biggest risk is how they will cope mentally until then.
Psychologists who viewed the video said the men displayed a trait that is key to keeping motivated and optimistic - a sense that they have a role in their own destinies. The men have divided themselves into three working parties: one for the "doves" - the metal tubes that carry food, messages and medication; another for ensuring there are no more rock falls, securing the 32ft by 16ft [10m by 5m] chamber in which they are living and the third group is in charge of health.
On Thursday, the miners received their first proper meal - apple puree with nuts and bread.
Jaime Manalich, the Health Minister, said four Nasa officials will arrive in Chile this weekend to advise how to care for people in confinement.
Video:Throughout your career, there are signs that you've made it -- platinum records, Grammy awards, sold out stadiums, a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction... and being represented on a Garbage Pail Kids card?
That latter one is pretty specific, but Axl Rose and Red Hot Chili Peppers can count themselves among those represented in the new music-themed Garbage Pail Kids card series. Topps have parodied the musicians, along with Beck, Death Cab for Cutie, The Roots, Radiohead, Bob Weir, Morrissey, Arcade Fire and the Cure.
As you can see below, Rose's cards spotlight the singer's dual roll on the road this summer, fronting both Guns N' Roses and AC/DC. With the titles "Overworked Axl" and "Gunnin' for Rose," the musician appears to be pawed at by members of both bands. Meanwhile, the Red Hot Chili Peppers card finds the band members with strategically placed chili peppers showing plenty of skin while the titles on the cards are for "Fiery Flea" and "Affable Anthony."
To see more of the cards and to place your orders, head over to Topps here.
Axl Rose Garbage Pail Kids Cards
Topps
Red Hot Chili Peppers Garbage Pail Kids Cards
Topps
12 Unforgettable Axl Rose Onstage MomentsMilton Friedman on Racial Discrimination By David Henderson
Kentucky candidate for U.S. Senate Rand Paul has made waves lately by saying that he would not have supported the part of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that violates private persons’ freedom of association. He stated that the parts of the Act that forbade discrimination on racial grounds by government were parts he agreed with but that private businesses should be allowed to discriminate on any grounds they chose. He has since waffled, and even some libertarians have stated that they would have supported coercive government measures to forbid racial discrimination in hiring. George Mason University law professor David Bernstein, was quoted as saying:
Therefore, to break the Jim Crow cartel, there were only two options: (1) a federal law invalidating Jim Crow laws, along with a massive federal takeover of local government by the federal government to prevent violence and extralegal harassment of those who chose to integrate; or (2) a federal law banning discrimination by private parties, so that violence and harassment would generally be pointless. If, like me, you believe that it was morally essential to break the Jim Crow cartel, option 2 was the lesser of two evils. I therefore would have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
I would be interested in David’s evidence that there was such a cartel. The fact of the matter is that this country moved from segregation required by law to segregation forbidden by law without trying freedom of association for a millisecond. So I don’t presume to know how much or how quickly segregation would have broken down without the law. There are strong incentives for employers, unhindered by law, to hire the best person for the job, regardless of race, and it would have been nice to see how well and quickly freedom of association would have worked.
Interestingly, Jennifer Roback has given evidence that among the strongest opponents of laws requiring segregated seating on street cars in the South were... street car companies.
It’s interesting to revisit what Milton Friedman wrote about these issues in his 1962 book, Capitalism and Freedom. Here’s an excerpt:The Moto X Style isn't the only new flagship that Motorola revealed at its press conference this morning. The new Moto X Play is basically a "Maxx" version of the phone, with a smaller 1080p screen, but a gigantic 3630mAh battery (plus Turbo charging) for what Motorola calls "48 hours of mixed use." The price will reflect the slightly lower specs, since Motorola claims that this phone will be "$300-400 cheaper" than flagship phones from the competition.
That will get you a 5.5-inch screen (bigger than the 2014 Moto X, slightly smaller than the Moto X Style), an impressive 21MP camera (5MP front-facing), 16 or 32GB of storage depending on model plus a MicroSD card slot, and a Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB or RAM. The body is smaller and thicker than the Moto X Style thanks to the smaller screen and bigger battery, but the rear plastic is textured and the sides and horizontal accent are metal. It gets the same water resistance as the rest of Motorola's current line. While the Moto X Play will get access to Moto Maker, it's not currently known whether or not the Play will have access to more exotic materials like leather or wood, or whether those are reserved for the Style. Software is Android 5.1.1 at launch.
Unfortunately, it looks like the Moto X Play won't get a release in the US, at least not initially. Various outlets are reporting that the X Play isn't intended for the US market, and Motorola's American website has been updated with information on the new Moto G and the Moto X Style, but not the middle model. (The UK, Germany, and Brazilian sites all mention the Moto X Play, so it's safe to assume a wide release.)
The price isn't known yet, but the Moto X Style has been confirmed with a starting price of $399, so presumably the Moto X Play will be $50-100 less (in local currency). Motorola may or may not expand the device to the US market at a later date. The Moto X Play's release, for whichever markets do get the phone, is scheduled for August.Trading in financial instruments and/or cryptocurrencies involves high risks including the risk of losing some, or all, of your investment amount, and may not be suitable for all investors. Prices of cryptocurrencies are extremely volatile and may be affected by external factors such as financial, regulatory or political events. Trading on margin increases the financial risks.
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Fusion Media may be compensated by the advertisers that appear on the website, based on your interaction with the advertisements or advertisers.We hear a lot about how Derek Carr has taken on this Raiders team as a leader entering his second season in the league. He isn't the only second-year pro on this Raiders team who is stepping into a leadership role early on. The man the Raiders drafted ahead of him is also taking on the responsibility of being a leader on this team.
Khalil Mack doesn't appear off the field to be the kind of guy to lead men. That isn't a knock on him at all. He is just not a loud, outspoken type which you typically associate with a player to rally his teammates. But you can see after a season and even after a week of training camp, just how much more comfortable he has become as the face of this defense and the leadership that goes along with it.
"No doubt," Mack responded. "I was just talking to [Justin] Tuck about that; the fact that he wasn't out there yesterday and I had to step into that position, especially being with the guys that we had, and step up talk and bring that leadership role to the table. They really do listen, and I'm seeing that more and more every day. That's something that I have to learn as well."
Being a leader on an NFL team so early in his career is not something that just happened for Mack.
"It's something you have to adjust to, but the thing about being a leader is you have to be a teammate first. I'm just trying to be a good teammate and slowly, slowly go into that role."
Mack is well loved and respected by his teammates for his workmanlike approach as well as his dominant performances on the field both in practice and in games. He is the best player on this defense and goes about his business in such a way that leads by example. Bringing the energy every practice even in the heart of training camp is where it starts. A letdown is something even Mack has to battle.
"It's kind of like a thing where you have to teach yourself over and over again to bring that energy and bring that enthusiasm. In the game it's naturally done, but in practice, that's when you have to bring it and practice it. That's when you can turn it over into the game."
The first game of this season comes up in five days at which point Mack will get to see the fruits of his labor as well as those of his teammates. He personally takes on the responsibility of taking the energy his defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr displays in practice and translating it to the playing field.
"He (Ken Norton) is looking at us to take the torch as far as taking the energy onto the field," said Mack. "He can't be on the field with us, but we have to bring that spirit and his energy out there on the field and celebrate on everything we do positive as a defense."
"Everyone's excited for that. We get to see what everybody can do and then we get to see the young guys and see what we taught them and if they use it. Friday's going to be a good day for us."
Follow @LeviDamienOTTAWA — One week after defeating Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s attempt to open MPs’ expenses to public scrutiny, the NDP has come up with a proposal of its own.
New Democrat MP Peter Julian has tabled a motion aimed at creating an independent body to oversee House of Commons spending, including MPs’ expenses.
The new oversight body would replace the secretive board of internal economy, a multi-party committee that is currently responsible for the financial administration of the Commons.
Julian says the idea is to enhance transparency and ensure that MPs are no longer in charge of policing themselves.
But whereas Trudeau’s proposals — dismissed by the NDP last week as a “stunt” — would have taken effect immediately had he won unanimous consent, Julian’s proposals could take almost a year to produce any result.
His motion will not be debated until the fall; if it passes, it calls for public hearings — involving the auditor general and the Commons chief financial officer — to examine the creation of a new oversight body.
It’s time to have a serious debate about this issue. We need to move beyond stunts and political games
It anticipates that any resultant changes to the disclosure and reporting of MPs’ expenses would not be implemented until April 2014.
The NDP says it has been working on the proposals for over a year.
“We hope the Conservatives and the Liberals will look at this proposal seriously,” Julian said in a written statement.
“It’s time to have a serious debate about this issue. We need to move beyond stunts and political games.”
It gives members of Parliament a chance to think about it over the summer
Conservatives supported Trudeau’s attempt last week to require MPs to publicly post their travel and hospitality and office expenses quarterly, among other things. New Democrat MPs denied unanimous consent so his effort failed.
Trudeau has said Liberal MPs will begin posting their expenses online in the fall, regardless of what other parties choose to do.
Julian said the NDP is deliberately taking its time because the matter is too serious to be dealt with “at a moment’s notice,” as Trudeau tried to do.
“It gives members of Parliament a chance to think about it over the summer,” he said in an interview.Patrol Boat P-61 is on the scene of the incident.
More than 200 migrants were rescued after their boat capsized south of Lampedusa this evening, but 27 have been confirmed dead, and their number is expected to rise.
The operation, coordinated by the Malta Rescue Centre took place just inside the Malta Rescue Zone some 60 miles off Lampedusa and 118 miles off Malta. 150 of the rescued migrants were picked up by a Maltese patrol boat.
The first on the scene, at about 4 p.m., was an aircraft of the Armed Forces of Malta which dropped a life raft, an action which saved many lives.
A frigate of the Italian coast guard and Maltese patrol boat P-61 were quickly deployed to the scene, followed later by another two patrol craft from Lampedusa and another from Malta.
P-61, the AFM's biggest patrol boat, picked up 150 people, who are being brought to Malta. They are expected to arrive early in the morning.
Another 56 migrants were picked up by the Italians.
Video: Mark Zammit Cordina
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told a press conference at the Auberge de Castille that the Maltese patrol boat had, up to 9 p.m., also picked up four corpses, three of which were of very young children.
He said 27 people were confirmed dead, and there were fears that the number could rise 'drastically'.
He said that in agreement between Malta and Italy, the migrants rescued by the Maltese patrol boat would be brought to Malta. However those who were too weak for the journey would be transferred to a hospital in Lampedusa.
Dr Muscat said Mater Dei Hospital was on alert, and the disused mortuary at St Luke’s Hospital had been reopened in case it was needed.
He said he had spoken with Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta and the two would insist on concrete action by the European Union when heads of government meet later this month.
"The time for words is over," he insisted.
So far, Europe has been just talk- Prime Minister Joseph Muscat
Dr Muscat said Malta and Italy had so far seen no real action from the EU, even though this was a European problem.
“No real action has been taken so far. No solutions, even short term ones, have been provided...
"Malta and Italy share a common position. We are on Europe’s frontier but this is a European problem.
"We did our duty. We saved scores of people from certain death. Had it not been for the AFM many more people would have died.
"The AFM are our heroes, Europe’s heroes."
However, Dr Muscat said, Malta would remain strong on issues on principle.
So far, Europe had been just talk...
“We will be very strong with European politicians. I am not willing to come out of the Council meeting saying I am satisfied unless concrete action is taken,” Dr Muscat said.
"The seas around us have turned into a cemetery."
He said that action which could be taken included increased assistance to Libya to control its borders, changes to the Dublin II rules and amendments to enable migrants to enter Europe legally.
This was the second major migrant tragedy in a week, with more than 300 having died off Lampedusa when their boat caught fire and sank earlier his week.Body cams and dash cams are becoming the norm for police departments across the nation as the public clamors for a technological solution for police oversight in the wake of the Ferguson, Missouri shooting death of an unarmed teen-ager last summer.
Among a host of fresh concerns, however, is that the police might turn off the camera gear when footage is needed most. The Oakland Police Department in California, for example, has disciplined police officers 24 times for disabling or failing to activate body-worn cameras.
That's similar to what happened in the case of a St. Louis man arrested for marijuana possession, resisting arrest, and unlawful use of a weapon. Dash cam video, released Monday, shows a suspect, Cortez Bufford, being pulled from the vehicle he was driving before being kicked and shocked with a taser.
Further Reading Taser selling boatloads of body cameras to police forces post-Ferguson
"Hold up. Hold up, y’all. Hold up. Hold up, everybody. Hold up. We’re red right now. So if you guys are worried about cameras, just wait," an officer shouts seconds before the dash cam is shut off.
Bufford is suing the department on allegations of excessive force. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis Police Officers' Association said the incident "reflects a proper escalation of force applied against a resisting suspect who was lucky he didn’t get shot when he reached for a gun."
Charges against Bufford were dropped after the camera being turned off "diminished the evidentiary merits of the case," police said.
According to CNN, Bufford's attorney, Joel Schwartz, said, "I don't think an officer on the scene should have the capability to stop the camera from rolling. Otherwise it defeats the entire purpose of having body cameras and or dash cams."
The St. Louis officer who turned off the cam has been recommended for disciplinary action, which is being appealed.
Police pulled over Bufford last year after his vehicle matched the description of one involved in an earlier shooting. The officers smelled and found marijuana, and Bufford had a handgun, police said.
Police said Bufford became "increasingly hostile" during the stop and was reaching for a pants pocket. Police said they kicked him with a "foot strike" to prevent him from grabbing a gun. An officer is heard yelling "gun" in the video.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, claims Bufford has $6,500 in medical bills for various abrasions suffered during the arrest. He claims he was struck after the camera was switched off.
Brian Millikan, a police union lawyer, told local media that there was probable cause to stop the Ford Taurus and the stench of marijuana was enough grounds to remove Bufford from the vehicle.
The officers involved, he said, were "moving up the chain of the escalation-of-force policy and they deliver some very targeted, directed strikes to his arm and leg. When that doesn’t work, they move up the ladder again to the taser. And the taser ultimately is what makes the suspect comply.”
Listing image by YouTubeLess than a week after treating alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos to a disturbingly jovial interview, Bill Maher is taking credit for the former Breitbart editor’s swift downfall.
And in the mind of Bill Maher, he made it all happen.
Speaking to The New York Times by phone Tuesday night, Maher made the claim that his decision to book Yiannopoulos on “Real Time” served as the catalyst for the events of the past 48 hours ― events many believed were already long overdue.
“What I think people saw was an emotionally needy Ann Coulter wannabe, trying to make a buck off of the left’s propensity for outrage,” Maher told the NYT. “And by the end of the weekend, by dinnertime Monday, he’s dropped as a speaker at CPAC. Then he’s dropped by Breitbart, and his book deal falls through. As I say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. You’re welcome.”
Unfortunately, Maher’s comments to The Times betray the fact that the hair-raising interview was both friendly and uncritical of Yiannopoulos’ long history of bigoted and incendiary language.
Not only did Maher’s segment help normalize Yiannopoulos to viewers who might never have heard of him, but it gave the former Breitbart editor a national platform on which to claim that transgender people suffer from a “psychiatric disorder.” Yiannopoulos also stated that he “makes no apologies for protecting women and children from men who are confused about their sexual identity” when it comes to the issue of transgender bathroom access.
In short, Maher provided a far-right troll who has a long history of vehemently racist, xenophobic and misogynistic ideologies a platform to spew transphobia completely unchecked.
When Maher invited Yiannopoulus to join the panel discussion during the show’s “Overtime” segment, panelists Larry Wilmore, Malcolm Nance and Jack Kingston confronted Yiannopoulos and the dangerous views he’d affirmed earlier in the show. Maher also appeared more confrontational towards Yiannopoulos throughout the part of his show that doesn’t actually air on television.
Todd Williamson via Getty Images
And now, what seems to be missing from Maher’s analysis of the fallout is the widespread damage done by Yiannopoulos’ interview on his program ― before Larry Wilmore gratifyingly told Yiannopouos to “f**k off ― especially when it comes to public perceptions of trans people.
All across the country, transgender people are fighting for the basic human right of existing in public space ― of being able to use public bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
Over the course of the last year, bills requiring trans people to use bathrooms designated for the gender they were assigned at birth entered legislative houses all across the country. Some, like North Carolina’s House Bill 2, passed and continue to do significant damage.
Now, on March 28, SCOTUS is set to hear the case of 17-year-old Gavin Grimm who is fighting for the right to use the boy’s restroom at his Virginia public school. The ruling of this case will have profound implications for the transgender community on a national level.
And today, the White House confirmed that they intend to roll back federal protections for transgender students to the state level.
“Real Time” reaches an incredibly mainstream audience ― many of which probably have never met a transgender person before and have now heard a gay man spewing transphobic, fake ideas that were then validated by Maher himself.
So no, Bill Maher, we don’t have very much to thank you for.
This post has been updated to include additional information about Yiannopoulos’s exchange with Maher and “Real Time” panelists during the show’s web-only “Overtime” segment.Welcome to Free-Usenet! Usenet is an internet service consisting of thousands of newsgroups. Established in 1980 it is one of the oldest forms of computer network communications still actively used today. Users can post to newsgroups and access articles from years ago.
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Law enforcement officers investigate the scene in rural Montgomery County where the FBI arrested the alleged killer of Gelareh Bagherzadeh Thursday, May 22, 2014, in Conroe. Bagherzadeh was shot to death outside her Galleria area town home in January of 2012. less Law enforcement officers investigate the scene in rural Montgomery County where the FBI arrested the alleged killer of Gelareh Bagherzadeh Thursday, May 22, 2014, in Conroe. Bagherzadeh was shot to death... more Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 13 Caption Close Feds search home in connection with slaying of Iranian student 1 / 13 Back to Gallery
A 56-year-old Conroe man has been indicted in the mysterious shooting death of Gelareh Bagherzadeh, an outspoken Iranian activist who was killed two years ago outside her parents' affluent Galleria townhouse complex.
A grand jury indicted Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan two weeks ago in the 30-year-old's murder, according to Harris County charging documents released Thursday. A Harris County sheriff's deputy spokesman said he was not in the agency's custody, though he could be with another law enforcement agency.
Bagherzadeh's death shocked Houston's close-knit Iranian community and fueled widespread speculation about whether foreign governments were to blame or if it was an honor killing.
The molecular genetics student had spoken out publicly against the Iranian government and converted to Christianity. In Iran, Christian converts can be executed. Crime Stoppers even offered its biggest award yet - $200,000 - for tips in her slaying.
On Thursday, federal authorities searched a home on Irwin Keel Lane, a dead-end street near Conroe, in connection with Bagherzadeh's slaying. Montgomery County sheriff's spokesman Brady Fitzgerald said his agency is assisting federal investigators in the search.
Several blocks away from the home that was searched, crime scene tape surrounded a house on White Oak Road where one neighbor says a man was taken into custody Thursday morning.
William Orr, a 42-year-old electrician who lived next door, said the man was pulling up to check on the property Thursday morning when agents in special operations garb "swooped in like a SWAT raid with flash grenades and assault rifles."
Orr said he had observed the man acting strangely on the property in recent months, showing up at "all hours of the day and night to walk the perimeter, check the fence line, weird stuff." Orr said he also witnessed the man's son on the property in the middle of the night, doing what looked like "paramilitary training."
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office Southern District said FBI agents were in Montgomery County investigating an ongoing federal fraud case. She said in a statement that three people were taken into custody and are expected to appear before a U.S. magistrate judge on Friday.
Bagherzadeh, who had moved to Houston from Tehran to join her parents in 2007, was studying at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
On Jan. 15, 2012, she was driving home from her boyfriend's house when she was fatally shot as she turned into her parents' town home complex in the 800 block of Augusta near Sugar Hill. She was chatting with a friend on the phone, who told police he heard her scream, then her car crash into a garage.
Police say the assailant fired fewer than five bullets at close range through the glass of her passenger window. Her iPhone and a wallet stuffed with credit cards were left untouched.
The car belonged to her father, a renowned chemist embroiled in an ugly patent lawsuit over $20 million.
The mystery deepened 11 months later, in November 2012, when the twin brother of Bagherzadeh's boyfriend was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds inside his northwest Harris County apartment.
Harris County sheriff's deputies would not confirm at the time whether there was a connection between the killings of Bagherzadeh and 28-year-old Coty Beavers. Record show Beavers and Nesreen Ali Irsan applied for a marriage license in 2011.
It was not immediately clear if she was related to Ali Mahwood-Awad Irsan.
On Thursday, a Harris County sheriff's deputy spokesman referred all questions in Beavers' killing to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Meanwhile neighbors in the quiet Conroe subdivision which federal officials were searching Thursday said they have complained about hearing what they described as "deep booms" and assault weapons fired from the Irwin Keel Lane property.
They said a double wide trailer and an RV camper could be seen on the 10-acre property, whose residents they said are from Jordan.
Vickie Davis, whose husband is a minister, said she saw two of the residents running along the street near her home around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. She said she believed agents were searching three different locations on the property.
Over the past two years, she said FBI agents have been spotted in the area and that she had seen people in hazmat suits on the property in recent months.Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press
Sidney Crosby's mom decided to become more involved in women's hockey because of a conversation with her daughter.
Trina Crosby, mother of NHL superstar Sidney, accepted an invitation from former Canadian team captain Cassie Campbell-Pascall to join the board of the Canadian Women's Hockey League this season.
Sidney's younger sister Taylor is a goaltender at the prep school Shattuck-St. Mary's, where Sidney also played before graduating to major junior hockey and then to the NHL.
Taylor, 17, was identified by Hockey Canada as a goaltending prospect and invited to a camp in Calgary earlier this year.
She was at home in Cole Harbour, N.S., on a break from school and having lunch with Trina one day when Taylor lamented she could already see the end of her hockey career.
"She started talking about how much she loved playing hockey," Trina recalled.
"She said it's scary to think she'd have to give it up and wouldn't be part of her life. I said 'what do you mean?' and she said she'd go to college and university and then what? What after that?"
Trina realized while Sidney lives his hockey dream playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins and winning a Stanley Cup, Taylor's prospects of high-level hockey after college depend on the CWHL.
"It stayed with me, so when Cassie asked, I immediately thought of that and thought 'well, even if I could help in some small way,"' Trina said.
She joins former Canadian team defenceman Cheryl Pounder, former U.S. forward Caitlin Cahow and Toronto lawyer Jill McCutcheon as the new members elected to the CWHL board.
Campbell-Pascall, who captained the Canadian women's team to a pair of Olympic gold medals, is vice-chairman of the five-team CWHL with clubs in Toronto, Brampton, Montreal, Boston and Alberta.
Almost 40 players who were in the league last season are now preparing to represent their country at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia in February.
Among them are Canada's Caroline Ouellette, Megan Agosta-Marciano, Tessa Bonhomme and Meaghan Mikkelson, as well as American players Hilary Knight, Kelli Stack, Gigi Marvin and Julie Chu and Swiss goalie Florence Schelling.
The CWHL opens its seventh season Nov. 2. The Clarkson Cup, a trophy donated by former governor-general Adrienne Clarkson, is awarded to the victor of the championship tournament in March. The Boston Blades are the defending champions.
Trina Crosby admits not knowing a lot about the CWHL, but expects to get a crash course Wednesday at a board meeting in Toronto.
"I have a son who is living his dream. He's living a wonderful life too. I'm motivated to ensure that little girls have some place to dream of," she said. "I've been around hockey a lot.
"I've been around Sidney being in the NHL for a lot of years now. I just have a perspective. I understand what's going on at the grassroots level for the girls."
Trina points out that Jessica Wong, the first overall selection in this year's CWHL draft by the Alberta Inferno, is from Nova Scotia as was NHL first overall draft pick Nathan MacKinnon.
Campbell-Pascall feels Trina Crosby brings a unique perspective to the CWHL as a hockey mom of both Sidney and Taylor.
"I think her passion for the game and the fact she has a daughter that plays... she's connected and we need people like that," Campbell-Pascall said. "Any time I've asked her for help, she's never hesitated."
The CWHL is coming off a 2012-2013 season of improved finances and stability after years of expansion and contraction.
The NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs entered into a five-year sponsorship of the Toronto Furies last season worth $30,000 annually to the women's team.
The Calgary Flames followed with a four-year sponsorship of the Alberta Inferno worth $20,000 per year. The Inferno logo and name were revealed at a Flames pre-season game Monday.
Kraft Foods was among the companies that came on board as a league sponsor. Attendance averaged between 500 and 700 per game last season, according to CWHL commissioner Brenda Andress.
"Last year was absolutely phenomenal for us," Andress said.
The league's model is similar to Major League Soccer, meaning the league owns the teams, hires general managers and pays expenses. There are no individual owners of teams.
The CWHL can't yet afford to pay players, but pays coaches and covers the cost of equipment, ice time and travel. Andress has said a single team's budget is about $200,000.
Increased sponsorship dollars means the league can afford to pay for players' meals on the road and purchase more seats for players on flights, Andress said. The league was also able to hold an awards dinner at the 2013 Clarkson Cup to recognize the league's stars.
"Every decision we make is to make it better for the players," Campell-Pascall said. "We still need funds. If a major sponsor left, we'd be in trouble."
Further expansion into the United States is in the league's plans.
"I think we are in a position to start to look at that opportunity," Andress said. "Obviously the next expansion we'd have would be in the States. I think the CWHL would look at all opportunities and see where the good grassroots programs are."
The CWHL will be without many of its stars this winter because they are training full time with their country's respective Olympic teams. Those players can return to the CWHL for the final month of the season after the Winter Games conclude.
The loss in star power is short-term pain for long-term gain because those players draw attention to the CWHL and the profile of women's hockey in general is boosted post-Olympics.
"For us, it's 'yahoo, our women are going there,"' Andress said. "Everybody is excited about whatever sport they believe in at that particular time. It's a great opportunity for us |
24 U.S. House seats to take control of the chamber. And former Florida Rep. David Jolly, a Republican who lost his swing seat in the St. Petersburg area to former Gov. Charlie Crist last year, said Ros-Lehtinen’s seat is lost.
“Put a point on the board for the Democrats,” Jolly said. “This is not a district that Republicans win in an open seat in 2018. I can’t speak for the NRCC, but they won’t spend a dime in that district. They’re worried right now about traditional seats, like [Miami Rep. Carlos] Curbelo.”
Like Ros-Lehtinen, Curbelo is more of a centrist Republican who was reelected even though Clinton won his district. He was targeted by Democrats in 2016, though he ended up winning comfortably, and had been considered a bigger target than Ros-Lehtinen heading into 2018, before his congressional neighbor retired.
Curbelo’s adviser, David “DJ” Johnson, said the Ros-Lehtinen “seat is difficult for Republicans in the classic sense. It’s an Ileana Republican-type seat, someone who has been there for decades. And that’s not a lot of people … Just look at all the maps Democrats are tweeting out right now. Every day, the district becomes more blue."Move aside Vancouver, Toronto, Calgary and Edmonton.
There's a new contender as a potential home for Amazon's second headquarters, though it's not an official bid.
This one comes from Rob McKinley, publisher of the Lac La Biche Post, who penned an open letter to the company in an effort to convince it to set up shop in his hamlet.
"I think it was just a little bit of fun," says McKinley. "It's definitely a column, it's kind of like a little letter to Santa that a kid would write."
Amazon recently sent out a request for proposals for new locations, saying it plans to hire up to 50,000 employees over the next 15 years for its second location.
That would be quite a boost for a hamlet of 2,300 people.
McKinley admits the letter started as a joke, but as he wrote he began to think the idea might have merit.
"Definitely tongue firmly in cheek," he says. "However, there's a little thought in the back of your mind... maybe, maybe this might work."
McKinley is taking a page out of Amazon's playbook by offering a massive discount.
Will Lac La Biche be able to roll out the welcome mat for Amazon? (Google maps) "What is the lowest bid for your new North American distribution location so far?" he asks in the letter. "Lac La Biche County in beautiful northeastern Alberta will offer 40 per cent less!"
McKinley also points out the low cost of living.
"A loaf of bread is a couple of bucks. An average-tasting bottle of wine is $10, a sheet of half-inch 4X8 plywood is $17."
But that's not all.
The deal also comes with a quality of life that McKinley calls exceptional.
"We have a giant recreation complex where you can swim, skate, run, bike, skydive, hunt," brags McKinley. "Of course, we're talking about the biggest recreation area with a roof of clouds and walls of trees. The Great Outdoors is on our doorstep."
It's an ambitious pitch for a community that has struggled to get its own Tim Hortons.
"The community often will say, 'Look, everyone else has Timmy's, why don't we?' " says McKinley. "It's been an ongoing thing for five or six years in the community, as far as trying to get new business into the town."
McKinley believes attracting Amazon might be enough to bring in a Tim Hortons as well.
"Maybe the Amazon would have a Tim Hortons for its staff and the community inside the building."
As for infrastructure, Lac La Biche has that covered.
"With an airport in our community, major highways, a rail yard... we have all your distribution needs covered," writes McKinley.
Never mind Amazon, some Lac La Biche residents would settle for a simple gas bar or a Popeyes restaurant. (Facebook)
McKinley says while the proposal is a joke, it does serve another purpose.
"Clearly it was written as more in jest than anything else, but it gives us a little bit of promotion," he says. "It's a little bit of a shot in the arm, a little boost to say, 'Look, we have this much potential, this much opportunity for economic development.' "
Reaction on Facebook seems to suggest that McKinley has set his sights too high.
One person just wants a gas bar. Another thinks they should shoot for a Popeyes fast-food restaurant instead.So the most recent Insiders Dunedin video is on Jon Thom. Originally from Central Otago, Jon runs his own company Moodie Tuesday here in Dunedin, his works are mainly done in charcoal.
I was lucky enough to go see Jon being featured in the Artists Room here in Dunedin last year, it was a great opportunity to see his work in person. The textures his work contains are stunning and provide a wonderful feeling of depth to his pieces.
I was also able to attend Undone and Moodie Tuesday’s Fashion Week Showcase for iD Fashion Week here in Dunedin. My favourites from the showcase were a pair of skull paintings that glowed due to the fluorescent lighting used at the showcase. Found here on Moodie Tuesday
Jon also works with Motion Sickness Studio (who made the above video), which has been open less than a year and already has contracts around Dunedin.
So basically, go look at Moodie Tuesday, Motion Sickness Studio and support one of our own if you can!
Jon’s personal website is also here.In the wake of accumulating scandals and low popularity plaguing President Donald Trump’s White House and the failures of the even more unpopular Republican Congress, Democrats eagerly anticipate huge electoral victories in the 2018 midterm elections, perhaps taking both the House and Senate.
Democrats’ high hopes for 2018 overlook one huge complication. Republicans may not allow anything resembling a free election in the 27 states where they hold complete legislative/executive control or veto-proof legislatures — or nationally, if Congress (under Section 1, Article 4 of the Constitution) imposes voting restrictions on states. Montana’s special congressional election, in which Republican billionaire Greg Gianforte defeated Democrat Rob Quist despite choke-slamming a reporter on the eve of the election, received a ton of national news coverage. But what didn’t get enough attention is that Gianforte was helped by the record-low turnout Republicans had hoped for, proving yet again that Democrats depend on vigorous voter participation.
Despite some promising recent Supreme Court rulings, Democrats may not be able to count on the judiciary to protect the right to vote. Chief Justice John Roberts declared that “nothing should be read” into the Court’s decision to let stand the Fourth Circuit’s rejection of North Carolina’s brazenly racist voting law based on narrow issues of standing, not merits.
The Court—whose newest member, Neil Gorsuch, harbors evident support for Republican-instigated voter suppression—may soon have another seat for a right-wing ideologue to fill. That eventuality, despite an encouraging ruling against gerrymandering (in which Gorsuch didn’t participate), would likely mean the rubber-stamping of almost all voter suppression tactics by the Court.
To provide the rationale for suppression, Trump has appointed a “Presidential Commission on Election Integrity” stocked with key politicians committed to disenfranchising the Democrats’ young, urban, nonwhite base. The commission chair is Vice President Mike Pence, and co-chair is Kansas Secretary of State Chris Kobach, the most extreme official champion of drastic limits on voting based on blatantly false fear-mongering.
Kobach, among many demagogueries, baselessly accused supposed illegal Somali voters of stealing an election, promised he would prosecute “hundreds” of “likely” illegal-immigrant voters, and was the source for “the president’s unsupported claim that millions of illegal votes tipped the popular vote in Hillary Clinton’s favor.” Kobach also baselessly claimed that out-of-state residents voted illegally in New Hampshire to defeat Republicans.
Armed with prosecutorial authority (the only Secretary of State so empowered) to investigate electoral fraud in his six years in office—during which a total of four million Kansans voted in general elections—Kobach identified a whopping nine cases to prosecute. Famous for being laughed out of court and destroyed by informed reporters, Kobach’s electoral “fraud” convictions consist mainly of catching elderly whites voting twice—not illegal immigrants or city-dwelling vote packers. Judges who ruled against Kobach in voting rights cases accused him of engaging in “word play meant to present a materially inaccurate picture,” including misrepresenting studies that actually show noncitizen and illegal voting near zero.
Trump’s voter-fraud commission also includes J. Kenneth Blackwell, whose former tenure as Ohio’s Secretary of State and as Bush/Cheney campaign chair brought “thousands of complaints of fraud, malfeasance, or incompetence.” Between Kobach and Blackwell, Trump’s commission is set up to weave vast conspiracies of immigrant and urban voter fraud demanding “solutions”: white-friendly ID laws, voter roll purges, and other selectively repressive legal procedures along with administrative shenanigans designed to manufacture long voter lines, truncated polling periods, and chaos in cities and on campuses.
North Carolina’s voter ID law provides the legal model, crafted from carefully researched bigotry. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals findings in NAACP v. McCrory should be required reading for liberals who think 2018’s elections will be free and fair. “Before enacting that law,” the court found in a detailed ruling, North Carolina’s Republican legislature
requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans... With race data in hand, the legislature amended the bill to exclude many of the alternative photo IDs used by African Americans... [and] retained only the kinds of IDs that white North Carolinians were more likely to possess.
North Carolina Republicans studied five aspects of voting procedure: types of ID, early voting, same-day registration, out-of-precinct ballots, and pre-registration for teenagers. Without presenting “even a single individual who has ever been charged with committing in-person voter fraud” resulting from these procedures, the legislature then acted with “surgical precision” to restrict or eliminate only those used more by African Americans and young people.
When research showed that African Americans were more likely to use the first seven days and “souls to the polls” Sundays for early voting, Republicans eliminated only the first week and one of the Sundays of early voting. Research also showed whites were more likely to use absentee ballots, so Republicans exempted absentee voting from ID requirements — even though lawmakers “did have evidence of alleged cases of mail-in absentee voter fraud.”
Explicit voter suppression, outlawed by the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights era victories, has been supplemented by procedural suppression. Blackwell’s “intentional misconduct and illegal behavior” in Ohio leading up to the 2004 presidential election was a clinic in administratively manufactured chaos, as Mark Crispin Miller argued in a 2005 Harper’s magazine investigative piece. These concerns were backed by a federal judge’s denunciation of Blackwell’s “vigorous, indeed, at times, obdurate opposition” to compliance with state law in Ohio’s 2004 election.
As Miller noted in but one example, Blackwell engineered:
a wide discrepancy between the availability of voting machines in more minority, Democratic and urban areas as compared to more Republican, suburban and exurban areas.... At Kenyon College in Gambier, for instance, there were only two machines for 1,300 would-be voters, even though a surge of late registrations promised a record vote. Gambier residents and Kenyon students had to stand in line for hours, in the rain and in “crowded, narrow hallways,” with some of them inevitably forced to call it quits. In contrast, at nearby Mt. Vernon Nazarene University, which is considered more Republican leaning, there were ample voting machines and no lines.
If Trump is allowed to appoint another reactionary ideologue to the Supreme Court, or if Congress (citing the predictable “findings” of Trump’s fraud commission) enacts national restrictions on student, minority, and urban voting, then the Republicans’ past success at election-rigging will come to look like child’s play. Millions or tens of millions of Democratic votes in 2018 and beyond could simply disappear. Assuming Republicans “just wouldn’t do that” is a bygone luxury. Democrats must prepare for the worst.
But what do they do? Democrats’ voter registration, ID, and turnout drives are viable strategies; Republicans may not be able to implement widespread suppression measures in time for the 2018 election. However, more vigorous action is needed. That, as Phil Keisling argued in January, means a proactive response to expand voter rights, not continued—and potentially futile—defensive reactions.
Nineteen states allow voters to propose constitutional amendments via initiative petition by gathering requisite signatures, circumventing the legislature and governor and forcing a public vote (California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Dakota). Of these, the last 12 currently are Republican-dominated.
A powerful strategy, ideal for mobilizing activists, would be to launch initiative petitions in targeted states proposing constitutional amendments to create a system of universal voter registration (implemented in Oregon and variously approved in seven other states) and voting by mail (as is now done in Oregon, Colorado, and Washington) while prohibiting various forms of voter suppression. Companion state-constitution amendments could be initiated to create independent, nonpartisan redistricting commissions to draw legislative and congressional districts to abolish gerrymandering, and to require the state’s presidential electors to vote for the national popular vote winner (states allowing constitutional initiatives by citizens hold 232 of the 272 electoral votes needed to elect the president).
None of this would be easy. These reforms would engender volcanic Republican opposition. But that could in turn further energize progressive activists and contribute to higher voter turnout in 2018. What’s clear is that it’s time—past time—to act. If Democrats’ voting is severely curtailed in 2018 and 2020, the party’s last chance to rescue anything resembling democracy may be lost for decades.1.6k SHARES Share Tweet Linkedin Reddit Pinterest Whatsapp
Wes Anderson Screenplays
Wes Anderson has created a unique writing and directing style that is exclusively his. You know that you are watching a Wes Anderon film or reading a Wes Ander Screenplay from the first minute.
I put together this screenwriting resource for you to dive into Wes’ world. His style and technique is something we all can learn from. Take a listen to what makes a good film below. Enjoy!
(NOTE: For educational and research purposes only).
Take a Listen to the Bulletproof Screenplay Podcast #1 Screenwriting Podcast for the Rest of Us! Guests include Jim Uhls (Fight Club), Doug Richardson (Bad Boys), Michael Hauge, Chris Vogler & much more.
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SaveSaveThe House overwhelmingly voted Thursday to impose new sanctions on North Korea amid heightened tensions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The vote, 419-1, targets North Korea’s shipping industry and use of slave labor.
It also requires that the Trump administration report to Congress within 90 days on whether North Korea should be reinstated on the government’s state sponsors of terror list. Such a designation would trigger more sanctions, including restriction on U.S. foreign assistance.
Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the top American military officer in the Pacific, has warned lawmakers that it's a question of when, not if, Pyongyang successfully builds a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the U.S.
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., was the sole member to vote against the measure. The Senate will take it up next.
The bipartisan legislation is aimed at thwarting North Korea's ambitions by cutting off access to the cash the regime needs to follow through with its plans.
The measure is sponsored by Rep. Ed Royce of California, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the committee's senior Democrat.
Specifically, the bill bars ships owned by North Korea, or by countries that refuse to comply with U.N. resolutions against it, from operating in American waters or docking at U.S. ports. Goods produced by North Korea's forced labor would be prohibited from entering the United States, according to the legislation.
Anyone who uses the slave labor that North Korea exports to other countries would be subject to sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the bill states. At times when the nation is facing unusual or extraordinary threats, the president has wide authority under the law, including the power to block or prohibit transactions involving property located in the U.S.
Royce said companies from Senegal to Qatar to Angola import North Korean workers, who send their salary back to Pyongyang, earning the regime billions of dollars in hard currency each year.
"This is money that Kim Jong-un uses to advance his nuclear and missile program, and also pay his generals, buying their loyalty to his brutal regime," he said. "That is what the high-level defectors that I meet with say. So let's squeeze his purse."
Last weekend, a North Korean midrange ballistic missile apparently failed shortly after launch, the third test-fire failure this month but a clear message of defiance. North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they're seen as part of the North's push for a nuclear-tipped missile that can hit the U.S. mainland.
The launch comes as both sides in the escalating crisis are flexing their military muscle. President Donald Trump has sent a nuclear-powered submarine and the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to Korean waters. North Korea last week conducted large-scale, live-fire exercises on its eastern coast.
The U.S. and South Korea are installing a missile defense system and their two navies are staging joint military drills.
The missile defense system, known as THAAD, employs six truck-mounted launchers that can fire up to 48 interceptors at incoming missiles detected by the system's x-band radar.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Kevin de Bruyne and Samir Nasri return to full training ahead of Man City’s trip to Bournemouth. Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho will be assessed after a long-haul flight back from Paraguay, whilst Arsenal stopper Petr Cech is optimistic of returning this weekend.
Midfield boost for Pellegrini
Kevin De Bruyne and Samir Nasri returned to full training on Wednesday, boosted their chances of being passed fit for the trip to Bournemouth this weekend. In addition, Fabian Delph could be available for the Sky Blues’ Champions League encounter with Paris Saint-Germain next Wednesday. Meanwhile, Martin Demichelis has been charged by the FA for placing bets on football matches.
The Scout Says: De Bruyne’s imminent comeback could act as the catalyst for a Man City offense that posted blanks in three of their last four match-ups. Assuming the Belgium international is available for the Vitality Stadium clash, Fantasy managers who are adopting a Gameweek 33 wildcard strategy might be tempted to snap him up prior to the Sky Blues’ double Gameweek 34 (che & new). Taking his time of absence (two months) and City’s Champions League matches into account, though, it remains to be seen whether his minutes will be managed by Manuel Pellegrini. As for Demichelis’ situation, Dan Gosling breached the same rule (E8) in 2014 and was forced to pay a £30,000 fine, which suggests that the Argentine centre-back will escape a ban.
Coutinho to be assessed
Due to his long-haul flight back from South America, Philippe Coutinho is set to be assessed on Thursday to determine his fitness ahead of Tottenham Hotspur’s visit two days later.
The Scout Says: Although Coutinho had to negotiate a 13-hour journey following Brazil’s 2-2 draw against Paraguay, the fact he clocked just 23 minutes across Selecao’s two fixtures works to his advantage with regards to potential fatigue. Roberto Firmino – who’s also a doubt for the Spurs clash with a minor hamstring knock – remains the choice route into Liverpool’s attack because of his recent form (three goals and assists in four starts), yet Coutinho (three goals in five across all competitions) is also courting attention as the Reds prepare for nine fixtures in the final nine Gameweeks. Despite the fact that Daniel Sturridge scored in his last two league starts, the former Chelsea man’s pockmarked injury record renders him a rotation risk during a seven-day stretch in which Liverpool embark on a trio of fixtures.
Cech hopeful on Hornets return
Petr Cech is confident that he’s on track to shake off a calf injury in time for Arsenal’s home tie against Watford this weekend:
“I should be fine after the national team break. It’s nothing serious. I’m still motivated and excited for each training [session].”
The Scout Says: Following a three-match spell that yielded seven goals for their opposition, Arsenal produced a resolute performance at Goodison Park last time out, surrendering just five shots inside the box and zero big chances. Consecutive shut-outs could well be on the cards, too, considering that the Hornets drew seven blanks in their previous 10 outings. Looking forward to the Gunners’ double Gameweek 34 (CRY & WBA), their stellar home record (10 goals conceded) and the lacklustre nature of West Bromwich Albion’s and Crystal Palace’s attacks (both rank in bottom six for goals since Gameweek 20) promotes investment in their rearguard. On that note, Cech (5.9) represents the cheapest secure option in light of the fact that Nacho Monreal (5.8) and Gabriel Paulista (4.3) are slight rotation risks.
Shaw nears training return
Luke Shaw is aiming to re-join Manchester United’s training sessions within the next seven days.
The Scout Says: The severity of Shaw’s injury (broken leg) should ensure that the Southampton academy product is afforded several weeks to rehabilitate. As such, reports indicate that Louis van Gaal has challenged Shaw to get fit for a potential FA Cup final on 21 May, implying that he’s unlikely to start another league match this term. Ultimately, his absence reduces the competition for places at the left-back berth, which has been occupied by Marcos Rojo for the Red Devils’ last four outings. Van Gaal will certainly be reluctant to displace the Argentine defender, given that Man United recorded six clean sheets in his nine league starts. Although he remains a slight rotation risk, Rojo’s pricing (5.0) makes him an intriguing prospect for an excellent double Gameweek (AVL, CRY) for those prepared to gamble, given that Chris Smalling comes in at 6.5 and has a single assist to his name this term.
Mixed news for Potters
Shay Given has recuperated from a knee complaint and is desperate to be selected for Stoke City’s upcoming home clash against Swansea City:
“I haven’t spoken to the manager yet about Saturday. It is an opportunity for me to get on the plane (to France) like the rest of the boys. I feel I could play at the weekend – it has given me a lift and I had a buzz in training today.”
Elsewhere on the Potters’ injury front, Ryan Shawcross (back) is struggling to recover before the weekend, though Erik Pieters (calf) is expected to be in contention. Jon Walters, meanwhile, is reportedly set to undergo minor knee surgery in order to be fit for Euro 2016.
The Scout Says: Given’s (4.3) budget price point would pique our interest if it wasn’t for the unforgiving nature of Stoke’s schedule (SWA, liv, TOT, mci) and their lack of a double Gameweek in the closing stages. Moreover, Shawcross’ continued absence gives us little faith in a defence that recorded just one clean sheet in the last seven matches he sat out – incidentally, that solitary shut-out arrived when Newcastle, who chart bottom for away goals (seven), made the trip to the Britannia Stadium.At a recent health retreat in Utah with the awesome team of Albion Fit, I hosted a nutrition lecture and had several questions come up about blood sugars and the dreaded 2-4pm energy slump. Regardless of your current health, everyone can benefit from knowing how to maintain healthy blood sugar from diet and lifestyle and using these tools for life. Reducing the overall amount of sugar in our diet is crucial to our health, but what about balancing our blood sugars as a whole? Remember, carbohydrates aren’t bad, it’s all about knowing how to balance of them, strategically use them, and the quality. Let’s dive into what you can do today to reduce the rollercoaster of high and low blood sugars.
10 Ways To Maintain Healthy Blood Sugar
No. 1
Don’t fear the fat. In a nutshell (ha, pun intended) healthy fats from nuts, seeds, avocados, coconut oil, etc. take longer to digest which helps our body slow the absorption of sugars found in carbohydrates. Fats also don’t cause our insulin levels to spike, which isn’t necessarily a “bad” thing and there’s always a time and place, but overall we want our body to maintain nice, steady insulin levels. Many of my clients, if not all, who deal with sugar cravings, digestive issues, or are trying to reverse/prevent blood sugar issues, are on higher fat, moderate protein, lower carbohydrate diets. With these diets they see significant improvements in their HA1c (a measure of blood sugar levels overtime) and non-clinical based outcomes like how they feel, energy, sleep, weight loss, etc. Give healthy fats (mainly from plants) a chance if you want to maintain healthy blood sugars and receptive insulin!
No. 2
Bulk up on fiber. Fiber, like healthy fats, takes longer to digest which helps our body slowly absorb sugars found in the carbohydrates that we consume. If you’re eating a diet high in whole foods from the earth like vegetables, greens, fruits, nuts, seeds, and legumes, then chances are you’re getting plenty of fiber. Aim for 30-50g/day, and this can be adjusted depending on your digestive system and energy intake.
No. 3
Befriend smart supplements. There are supplements that may help our body manage blood sugars and help improve carbohydrate metabolism such as chromium, Coenzyme Q10, chlorogenic acid, ground cinnamon, L-carnitine, and fish oil just to name a few. As always check in with your physician or dietitian before starting any of these. Read more on supplements here.
No. 4
Be your own health advocate and detective. As much as I lead the way for my clients, one tool and skill I teach them and try to ingrain into their life is to be their own health advocate and detective. Learn from the changes you make in your diet and lifestyle and record any changes you feel whether positive or negative, then go on from there. You know your body best, so pay attention to what foods affect your blood sugars and which ones keep you feeling a steady energy all day long.
No. 5
Move that bod! We all know that exercise is part of living whole and feeling your best, but did you know that exercise drastically improves the way your body responds to sugar? It does! Exercise can help improve insulin resistance, especially in those with diabetes or blood sugar issues (6, 7).
No. 6
Stress less. Stress can not only trigger a hormonal response and increase levels of cortisol, but feeling stress can also lead to sugar cravings and consuming more sugar, which of course is going to contribute to elevated and imbalanced blood sugars. Be mindful of stress and try some of these stress boosting strategies here.
No. 7
Sleep more. We all know how important sleep is, and when we don’t get enough we tend to reach for sugar laden foods and carbohydrate foods to instantly increase our energy and blood sugars to get moving! But, don’t grab that sugar just yet – start with analyzing your sleep patterns. Some studies show that sleep deprivation or sleeping less than 6 hours a night can actually increase insulin resistance (1). Having trouble falling asleep? Cultivate your bedtime routine here.
No. 8
Drink moderately. First off, when drinking alcohol stay away from simple syrups, juices, and sweet mixes as much as possible if not completely for the optimal option. Drinking alcohol can have opposite effects depending on your biological makeup (i.e. diabetics will notice these effects greater). For example, drinking a couple drinks may increase blood sugars, whereas excessive drinking can cause low blood sugars (2). Side note, alcohol can increase cortisol levels overtime, not the best thing for our waistlines amongst other things (3). Still want to know if alcohol is unhealthy? Read up here.
No. 9
Don’t get artificial. Artificial sweeteners may seem okay in the long term because they haven’t been around long enough for us to know, but so far science says no to artificial sweeteners on many accounts. I still recommend avoiding artificial sweeteners, if you do use any use a very small amount of stevia occasionally. Try to train your body to go sugar-free (more on this later in the year!) (4, 5).
No. 10
Balance it out. Aim for balance at meal and snack time! Get plenty of fibrous vegetables and greens (the goal is to make 60-75% of your meal non-starchy veggies) then fill up the rest with high quality proteins and healthy fats. Carbohydrates like fruits, grains, beans, etc. can be toppers/additions in small amounts. This will provide plenty of vitamins, minerals, and a powerful blood stabilizing combination!
I hope these tips are helpful for you in managing your blood sugar levels and keeping your energy balanced, but if you’ve tried these and feel like you need support from a registered dietitian, reach out through the Services page!
xx McKel
Resources:
(1): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2084401/
(2): http://www.rd.com/health/wellness/10-things-to-remember-about-alcohol-and-blood-sugar/
(3): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2266962/
(4): https://authoritynutrition.com/artificial-sweeteners-blood-sugar-insulin/
(5): http://www.wsj.com/articles/research-shows-zero-calorie-sweeteners-can-raise-blood-sugar-1410973201
(6): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10683091
(7): http://jap.physiology.org/content/99/1/338Prosperity, stability, security – these are things people generally desire. Obama did a great job alluding to these ends in his State of the Union speech a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, a disastrous problem arises when you choose the wrong means to achieve desired ends. The mistake of choosing the wrong means occurs when people have the wrong ideas about the cause and effect relationship between the means and ends. Obama’s economic agenda is a perfect example of this problem. His State of the Union address typifies this problem of using the wrong means to achieve the stated ends of prosperity and economic recovery. Most of what he talked about made apparent his ignorance of economic calculation. Obama is completely lost on the role of profits and losses in the economy.
On Economic Calculation:
Obama talked a lot about manufacturing jobs and high-tech jobs. He apparently wants to see more of these in the US. I question this goal of his. Who is Obama to decide that America is the best (most efficient) place to manufacture cars? Who is Obama to decide that America is the best place to assemble iPhones? What rational basis does this man have to decide that America should manufacture more goods within its borders instead of importing them?
The truth is that he has absolutely no rational basis for these assertions. Only entrepreneurs guided by profit and loss can make resource efficient decisions regarding the technicalities of production such as where a good should be produced. Entrepreneurs seeking the highest possible return on their investment guide resources into their most efficient uses. This is not to argue that cars or iPhones emphatically shouldn’t be produced in the US. What this means is that no one can know this information outside the profit and loss framework of the market economy.
Obama also stated that he wanted to get Detroit-made cars onto the streets of Seoul. But what about the car manufacturing jobs in Korea!!! If Obama thinks America should produce a bunch of cars, why not Korea too? The inability of Obama to rationally answer this question should illustrate the unreasoned nature of his entire proposal to get more manufacturing jobs into the US. His agenda is nothing more than an appeal to the unexamined, popular opinions of the masses.
Additionally, Obama referenced the large supply of natural gas in the US and stated that his “administration will take every possible action to safely develop this energy.” Really? His administration is going to lead the way in natural gas development? This was just after he got done talking up his support for the innovation created by entrepreneurs. Why not let entrepreneurs on the free market, the people with real incentives to produce in a way that satisfies consumers, develop natural gas technology?
He then praised the government-funded research that resulted in the technology to extract the natural gas. This praise of government-funded research is, however, entirely misplaced. The resources put to use in researching that technology could not have been efficiently allocated. We know this because economic calculation is not present outside the profit and loss framework of the free market. Once again, the only people who can efficiently allocate resources are entrepreneurs. This is because they use profit and loss as their guide. If a good is profitable to produce, this indicates that consumers value that use of the resources more so than alternative uses of the resources. In this way, entrepreneurs searching for profit improve the material well-being of humanity.
An entrepreneur considering whether or not to produce something must consider all the costs associated with that production process. These costs include research and development. If he doesn’t think he can make more money than he puts into research, he won’t do the research and society will be better for it. Societal wealth is squandered in government research labs because they aren’t geared toward satisfying the real, demonstrated preferences of consumers. As is the case with all things green, government funding for research is allocated based on political considerations rather than considerations of consumer satisfaction and the betterment of mankind. The private-public partnership Obama gives such high praise is a nightmare of waste and resource misallocation. This type of partnership between the state and private enterprise is more commonly known as fascism.
The building projects Obama wants to engage in suffer from the same problem of economic calculation. The government has no way of knowing whether or not their building projects add or subtract to societal wealth. The result is that they bid away scarce resources from entrepreneurs who actually satisfy the demonstrated preferences of consumers.
On Outsourcing:
According to Obama, outsourcing jobs to foreign countries “weakens the economy.” This is a completely fallacious statement. What really weakens the economy is the regulations and taxes within the US that make foreign countries more profitable to operate a business in. Outsourcing is merely consequence of an overbearing, wealth-destroying government. Entrepreneurs only outsource because they are eager to earn the highest return on their investment and satisfy consumer preferences.
Modifying tax codes to make outsourcing less appealing to entrepreneurs will have one of two consequences. The first possibility is that Americans will have to pay more for products that could be more efficiently produced overseas. This is only a possibility if Americans can afford to pay the higher price. This brings us to option number two.
The second possibility is that the products simply won’t get produced. If consumers do not value a product more than the cost of the land, labor, and capital required to produce it, no entrepreneur will produce it. If the business can’t produce at price consumers are willing to pay, all the American jobs that were the initial goal of the tax reform would be lost or diverted into other, less wealth producing activities. As a result of the tax, society would lose out on the product, the foreign jobs, and the residual, managerial jobs left in America. This is yet another demonstration of how futile attempting to correct the ill effects of past interventions with new ones really is.
Both the increased price of the product and the total shut down of the company will result in a net loss of jobs, and more importantly wealth. Wealth creation is the real goal of the economy. Much of our socio-economic interactions with others exist because they make our lives easier and more enjoyable. If jobs were the goal, I could simply throw a brick through a window, bingo, job created. Now the victim of my hypothetical vandalism will employ a glazier to replace the window. Unfortunately, the full set of consequences arising from the destructive act mean that society will now only have a window instead of a window and whatever the victim would have bought with that same money.
The higher prices Americans will pay for non-outsourced goods mean that they will have less money to spend on other things. The result is a decrease in the overall amount of goods they can consume. This will also result in fewer overall jobs in the economy. If, due to restrictions on outsourcing, I have to spend $50 for a pair of American made jeans instead of $20 for the Chinese made jeans, I will no longer be able to spend $30 on other goods. Whoever would have produced that $30 worth of goods I would have bought is now out of a job.
Obama’s State of the Union address was a catastrophe of economic fallacies. Not only were his ends and means completely misaligned, he (predictably) demonstrated no knowledge of how resources are efficiently allocated in the economy (economic calculation, profit and loss). The result is a country straying further and further from free market principles. The effect of eschewing those good ideas (free market ones) will be a continued recession and stifled economic growth.Cloture Club wants to wish you a HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Below are some of the ghoulish stories that have been cataloged throughout the history of the US Capitol. We hope you enjoy them and remember to keep your eyes open as you walk around the Capitol grounds to see if you have any ghostly sightings of your own.
10 Ghost Stories of the US Capitol
The Deadly Clash of Press and Politics
On 10 December 1887, Charles Kincaid, a reporter for the Louisville Times wrote an article describing the shameful actions Representative Preston Taulbee (D-KY) engaged in with a young female clerk and their frequent “tr |
: free lunch. He would take several hundred of the city’s homeless people to lunch at the Central Park Boathouse, Chen announced in full-page ads in the Times and the Journal, and at the end, give them all $300 in cash. The latter part of the plan was quickly nixed by the city’s homeless shelters, on the grounds that many of their residents have addictions and a sudden influx of cash would not be helpful to them. But the New York Rescue Mission agreed to take its residents to the event on Wednesday, where upwards of 200 of them dined on filet mignon and seared tuna and listened to their host perform a warbling rendition of “We Are the World.”
As Chen predicted, this was a stunt New York City could not ignore. “Seems like there’s more media than actual guests,” Business Insider’s Julia LaRoche tweeted from the event. So many reporters had shown up, in fact, that many were forced to wait outside. “We’re not letting anymore in,” a gruff security guard who looked like a character actor playing a security guard told reporters from outlets like the AP, the BBC, and NPR.
When a guest with a chin piercing escaped from behind the gated area where the lunch was being held, they fell upon him like a pack of hungry dogs. “It was weird,” the guest recalled, visibly shaken. “He was doing magic tricks. And there was a puppy …” Another shelter resident circulated, offering to show video of the proceedings on his Android for cash donations. He was wearing a People’s Liberation Army uniform given to him by Chen’s people. “This is all mine,” he said proudly, smoothing the red armband. “They ain’t getting this back.”
Photo: Jessica Pressler
That was, apparently, all he was getting. “He’s lying about the $300!” another resident yelled, as the gates to the Boathouse closed. “Lying!” As the residents made their way back to the bus, a rumor began circulating that Guangbiao was going to pass out the promised $300 down at the shelter. “If he don’t, he gonna have a problem,” said one resident. “They got like 250, 300 people down there, and they gonna get angry.” But this man was taking off in the opposite direction. “I got a belly full of filet, and I got places to be,” he said. “I’m not running all over town for $300.” He snorted, unimpressed. “In New York, that’s like $3.”Welcome to Episode 134 of Speculate! The Podcast for Writers, Readers and Fans. In this episode we begin a new triptych of shows on the work of multiple Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Award winning author Ken Liu, focusing on his debut novel, The Grace of Kings. Ken’s reputation speaks for itself, and as we discuss in this show, it’s easy to see in his character creation and worldbuilding how he’s earned that reputation…to say nothing of his grasp of Chinese history and politics (and airships!) which are so often in evidence in the book. If you enjoy the discussion, don’t forget to check back next week when we’ll interview the author himself (a conversation we’re really looking forward to) about the process of writing The Grace of Kings. And if you haven’t already, please check out our Patreon and consider becoming a patron so we can continue to bring you analysis of the best authors, editors and artists in speculative fiction. Thanks for supporting us here and via our Patreon page, and thanks as always for listening to and spreading the word about the show!
Like this: Like Loading...Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk believes that cars you can control will eventually be outlawed in favor of ones that are controlled by robots. The simple explanation: Musk believes computers will do a much better job than us to the point where, statistically, humans would be a liability on roadways.
"I don't think we have to worry about autonomous cars, because that's sort of like a narrow form of AI," Musk told NVidia co-founder and CEO Jen-Hsun Huang at the technology company's annual developers conference today. "It would be like an elevator. They used to have elevator operators, and then we developed some simple circuitry to have elevators just automatically come to the floor that you're at... the car is going to be just like that." So what happens when we get there? Musk said that the obvious move is to outlaw driving cars. "It's too dangerous," Musk said. "You can't have a person driving a two-ton death machine."
Even if that were to be the case, Musk cautioned what would be a slow sea change in the automotive industry, something that's already been the case with hybrid and electric vehicles.
Self-driving cars would take 20 years to replace regular cars
"I think it is important to appreciate the size of the automotive industrial base," Musk said. "There's 2 billion of them." Moving everything to autonomous vehicles would take 20 years, he added, noting that the sheer capacity of car and truck production is limited to about 100 million new vehicles a year.
Tesla has already added some self-driving features to its cars, but is working on technology that will let the car drive itself completely. An "autopilot" mode introduced for the Model S will do things like change speed, brake, and keep you in the correct lanes using on-board sensors. The next logical step is combining that with highway driving and navigation features to let the car drive the driver. In an interview last October, Musk said models the company was working on for this year would be "90 percent capable of autopilot."
Verge Video: Elon Musk's self-driving Tesla Model S
Today, Musk noted that the hardest part of helping cars drive themselves is what happens when vehicles are traveling between 15 and 50 miles per hour. "That's where you get a lot of unexpected things," Musk said. That list includes road closures, open manhole covers, children playing, and bicyclists. Lots of things that your robot car could run into without human remorse.
15 to 50 miles per hour is hard
Aiding in that are automated systems that scan what's around them. NVIDIA's solution, called Drive, can identify people, road signs, and other objects, with the promise of learning behavior over time. That goes hand in hand with a digital dashboard and Nvidia's Drive PX, a computer with two Tegra X1s that can process imagery from up to a dozen cameras in real time. Nvidia's building that system for automakers with the hopes of powering self-driving cars of the future. Today Nvidia said it would be releasing a kit for developers in May for $10,000.
Tesla doesn't want its car fleet hacked
Besides improving onboard sensors and computers, Musk noted that there are some basic security concerns to square away before we can sit back and be driven around by cars. Tesla is trying to make sure that people won't be able to hack into its vehicles, be it a single vehicle or multiple cars. "We've put a lot of effort into that, and we've had third parties try to hack it," Musk said.
One thing that can remedy the security issue are frequent software updates, which Musk says will be arriving on Tesla's cars later this year. Details about that are coming in a separate press conference on Thursday, though Musk teased that the company would "end range anxiety," in a tweet earlier this week. It's unclear whether that means it will do a better job indicating a cars current usage and approximate range, or if Tesla's rejiggered its driving software to goose more miles out of a charge.
Update March 17th, 3:01PM: With additional quotations from the interview and link to the full keynote.
Update March 18th, 1:33PM: Following the on-stage interview, Musk elaborated on Twitter, saying that Tesla was "strongly in favor of people being allowed to drive their cars," and that he personally did not want drivable cars to be outlawed:
To be clear, Tesla is strongly in favor of people being allowed to drive their cars and always will be. Hopefully, that is obvious. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2015
However, when self-driving cars become safer than human-driven cars, the public may outlaw the latter. Hopefully not. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2015
Verge Video: Will cars ever drive themselves?Electromigration is due to the momentum transfer from the electrons moving in a wire
Electromigration is the transport of material caused by the gradual movement of the ions in a conductor due to the momentum transfer between conducting electrons and diffusing metal atoms. The effect is important in applications where high direct current densities are used, such as in microelectronics and related structures. As the structure size in electronics such as integrated circuits (ICs) decreases, the practical significance of this effect increases.
History [ edit ]
The phenomenon of electromigration has been known for over 100 years, having been discovered by the French scientist Gerardin.[1] The topic first became of practical interest during the late 1960s when packaged ICs first appeared. The earliest commercially available ICs failed in a mere three weeks of use from runaway electromigration, which led to a major industry effort to correct this problem. The first observation of electromigration in thin films was made by I. Blech.[2] Research in this field was pioneered by a number of investigators throughout the fledgling semiconductor industry. One of the most important engineering studies was performed by Jim Black of Motorola, after whom Black's equation is named.[3] At the time, the metal interconnects in ICs were still about 10 micrometres wide. Currently interconnects are only hundreds to tens of nanometers in width, making research in electromigration increasingly important.
Practical implications of electromigration [ edit ]
[4] Top vizualization of electromigration under scanning electron microscope of a nanoconstriction (60 nm width) on silicon oxide substrate.
Electromigration decreases the reliability of chips (integrated circuits (ICs)). It can cause the eventual loss of connections or failure of a circuit. Since reliability is critically important for space travel, military purposes, anti-lock braking systems, medical equipment like Automated External Defibrillators and is even important for personal computers or home entertainment systems, the reliability of chips (ICs) is a major focus of research efforts.
Due to difficulty of testing under real conditions, Black's equation is used to predict the life span of integrated circuits. To use Black's equation, the component is put through high temperature operating life (HTOL) testing. The component's expected life span under real conditions is extrapolated from data gathered during the testing.[3]
Although electromigration damage ultimately results in failure of the affected IC, the first symptoms are intermittent glitches, and are quite challenging to diagnose. As some interconnects fail before others, the circuit exhibits seemingly random errors, which may be indistinguishable from other failure mechanisms (such as electrostatic discharge damage). In a laboratory setting, electromigration failure is readily imaged with an electron microscope, as interconnect erosion leaves telltale visual markers on the metal layers of the IC.
With increasing miniaturization, the probability of failure due to electromigration increases in VLSI and ULSI circuits because both the power density and the current density increase.[5] Specifically, line widths will continue to decrease over time, as will wire cross-sectional areas. Currents are also reduced due to lower supply voltages and shrinking gate capacitances.[5] However, as current reduction is constrained by increasing frequencies, the more marked decrease in cross-sectional areas (compared to current reduction) will give rise to increased current densities in ICs going forward.[6]
In advanced semiconductor manufacturing processes, copper has replaced aluminium as the interconnect material of choice. Despite its greater fragility in the fabrication process, copper is preferred for its superior conductivity. It is also intrinsically less susceptible to electromigration. However, electromigration (EM) continues to be an ever-present challenge to device fabrication, and therefore the EM research for copper interconnects is ongoing (though a relatively new field).[6]
In modern consumer electronic devices, ICs rarely fail due to electromigration effects. This is because proper semiconductor design practices incorporate the effects of electromigration into the IC's layout.[6] Nearly all IC design houses use automated EDA tools to check and correct electromigration problems at the transistor layout-level. When operated within the manufacturer's specified temperature and voltage range, a properly designed IC device is more likely to fail from other (environmental) causes, such as cumulative damage from gamma-ray bombardment.
Nevertheless, there have been documented cases of product failures due to electromigration. In the late 1980s, one line of Western Digital's desktop drives suffered widespread, predictable failure 12–18 months after field usage. Using forensic analysis of the returned bad units, engineers identified improper design-rules in a third-party supplier's IC controller. By replacing the bad component with that of a different supplier, WD was able to correct the flaw, but not before significant damage to the company's reputation.
Electromigration due to poor fabrication processes was a significant cause of IC failures on Commodore's home computers during the 1980s. During 1983, the Commodore 64 computer for a time had a nearly 50% customer return rate.
Electromigration can be a cause of degradation in some power semiconductor devices such as low voltage power MOSFETs, in which the lateral current through the source contact metallisation (often aluminium) can reach the critical current densities during overload conditions. The degradation of the aluminium layer causes an increase in on-state resistance, and can eventually lead to complete failure.
Fundamentals [ edit ]
The material properties of the metal interconnects have a strong influence on the life span. The characteristics are predominantly the composition of the metal alloy and the dimensions of the conductor. The shape of the conductor, the crystallographic orientation of the grains in the metal, procedures for the layer deposition, heat treatment or annealing, characteristics of the passivation and the interface to other materials also affect the durability of the interconnects. There are also grave differences with time dependent current: direct current or different alternating current waveforms cause different effects.
Forces on ions in an electrical field [ edit ]
Two forces affect ionized atoms in a conductor: 1) The direct electrostatic force F e, as a result of the electric field, which has the same direction as the electric field, and 2) The force from the exchange of momentum with other charge carriers F p, toward the flow of charge carriers, is in the opposite direction of the electric field. In metallic conductors F p is caused by a so-called "electron wind" or "ion wind".
The resulting force F res on an activated ion in the electrical field is
F r e s = F e − F p = q ⋅ Z ∗ ⋅ E = q ⋅ Z ∗ ⋅ j ⋅ ρ {\displaystyle F_{res}=F_{e}-F_{p}=q\cdot Z^{*}\cdot E=q\cdot Z^{*}\cdot j\cdot \rho }
Electromigration occurs when some of the momentum of a moving electron is transferred to a nearby activated ion. This causes the ion to move from its original position. Over time this force knocks a significant number of atoms far from their original positions. A break or gap can develop in the conducting material, preventing the flow of electricity. In narrow interconnect conductors, such as those linking transistors and other components in integrated circuits, this is known as a void or internal failure open circuit. Electromigration can also cause the atoms of a conductor to pile up and drift toward other nearby conductors, creating an unintended electrical connection known as a hillock failure or whisker failure (short circuit). Both of these situations can lead to a malfunction of the circuit.
Failure mechanisms [ edit ]
Diffusion mechanisms [ edit ]
In a homogeneous crystalline structure, because of the uniform lattice structure of the metal ions, there is hardly any momentum transfer between the conduction electrons and the metal ions. However, this symmetry does not exist at the grain boundaries and material interfaces, and so here momentum is transferred much more vigorously. Since the metal ions in these regions are bonded more weakly than in a regular crystal lattice, once the electron wind has reached a certain strength, atoms become separated from the grain boundaries and are transported in the direction of the current. This direction is also influenced by the grain boundary itself, because atoms tend to move along grain boundaries.
Diffusion processes caused by electromigration can be divided into grain boundary diffusion, bulk diffusion and surface diffusion. In general, grain boundary diffusion is the major electromigration process in aluminum wires, whereas surface diffusion is dominant in copper interconnects.
Thermal effects [ edit ]
In an ideal conductor, where atoms are arranged in a perfect lattice structure, the electrons moving through it would experience no collisions and electromigration would not occur. In real conductors, defects in the lattice structure and the random thermal vibration of the atoms about their positions causes electrons to collide with the atoms and scatter, which is the source of electrical resistance (at least in metals; see electrical conduction). Normally, the amount of momentum imparted by the relatively low-mass electrons is not enough to permanently displace the atoms. However, in high-power situations (such as with the increasing current draw and decreasing wire sizes in modern VLSI microprocessors), if many electrons bombard the atoms with enough force to become significant, this will accelerate the process of electromigration by causing the atoms of the conductor to vibrate further from their ideal lattice positions, increasing the amount of electron scattering. High current density increases the number of electrons scattering against the atoms of the conductor, and hence the speed at which those atoms are displaced.
In integrated circuits, electromigration does not occur in semiconductors directly, but in the metal interconnects deposited onto them (see semiconductor device fabrication).
Electromigration is exacerbated by high current densities and the Joule heating of the conductor (see electrical resistance), and can lead to eventual failure of electrical components. Localized increase of current density is known as current crowding.
Balance of atom concentration [ edit ]
A governing equation which describes the atom concentration evolution throughout some interconnect segment, is the conventional mass balance (continuity) equation
∂ N ∂ t + ∇ ⋅ J → = 0 {\displaystyle {\frac {\partial N}{\partial t}}+
abla \cdot {\vec {J}}=0}
where N ( x →, t ) {\displaystyle N({\vec {x}},t)} is the atom concentration at the point with a coordinates x → = ( x, y, z ) {\displaystyle {\vec {x}}=(x,y,z)} at the moment of time t {\displaystyle t}, and J {\displaystyle J} is the total atomic flux at this location. The total atomic flux J {\displaystyle J} is a combination of the fluxes caused by the different atom migration forces. The major forces are induced by the electric current, and by the gradients of temperature, mechanical stress and concentration. J → = J → c + J → T + J → σ + J → N {\displaystyle {\vec {J}}={\vec {J}}_{c}+{\vec {J}}_{T}+{\vec {J}}_{\sigma }+{\vec {J}}_{N}}.
To define the fluxes mentioned above:
J → c = N e Z D ρ k T j → {\displaystyle {\vec {J}}_{c}={\frac {NeZD\rho }{kT}}{\vec {j}}} e {\displaystyle e} electron charge, e Z {\displaystyle eZ} ρ {\displaystyle \rho } resistivity of the conductor where atom migration takes place, j → {\displaystyle {\vec {j}}} k {\displaystyle k} Boltzmann’s constant, T {\displaystyle T} absolute temperature. D ( x →, t ) {\displaystyle D({\vec {x}},t)}
J → T = − N D Q k T 2 ∇ T {\displaystyle {\vec {J}}_{T}=-{\frac {NDQ}{kT^{2}}}
abla T} Q {\displaystyle Q}
J → σ = N D Ω k T ∇ H {\displaystyle {\vec {J}}_{\sigma }={\frac {ND\Omega }{kT}}
abla H} Ω = 1 / N 0 {\displaystyle \Omega =1/N_{0}} N 0 {\displaystyle N_{0}} concentration, H = ( σ 11 + σ 22 + σ 33 ) / 3 {\displaystyle H=(\sigma _{11}+\sigma _{22}+\sigma _{33})/3} hydrostatic stress and σ 11, σ 22, σ 33 {\displaystyle \sigma _{11},\sigma _{22},\sigma _{33}}
J → N = − D ∇ N {\displaystyle {\vec {J}}_{N}=-D
abla N}
Assuming a vacancy mechanism for atom diffusion we can express D {\displaystyle D} as a function of the hydrostatic stress D = D 0 exp ( Ω H − E A k T ) {\displaystyle D=D_{0}\exp({\frac {\Omega H-E_{A}}{kT}})} where E A {\displaystyle E_{A}} is the effective activation energy of the thermal diffusion of metal atoms. The vacancy concentration represents availability of empty lattice sites, which might be occupied by a migrating atom.
Electromigration-aware design [ edit ]
Electromigration reliability of a wire (Black's equation) [ edit ]
At the end of the 1960s J. R. Black developed an empirical model to estimate the MTTF (mean time to failure) of a wire, taking electromigration into consideration. Since then, the formula has gained popularity in the semiconductor industry:[3][7]
MTTF = A J n e E a k T. {\displaystyle {\text{MTTF}}={\frac {A}{J^{n}}}e^{\frac {E_{\text{a}}}{kT}}.}
Here A {\displaystyle A} is a constant based on the cross-sectional area of the interconnect, J {\displaystyle J} is the current density, E a {\displaystyle E_{\text{a}}} is the activation energy (e.g. 0.7 eV for grain boundary diffusion in aluminum), k {\displaystyle k} is the Boltzmann's constant, T {\displaystyle T} is the temperature in kelvins, and n {\displaystyle n} a scaling factor (usually set to 2 according to Black).[3] The temperature of the conductor appears in the exponent, i.e. it strongly affects the MTTF of the interconnect. For an interconnect to remain reliable as the temperature rises, the maximum tolerable current density of the conductor must necessarily decrease. However, as interconnect technology advances at the nanometer scale, the validity of Black's equation becomes increasingly questionable.
Wire material [ edit ]
Historically, aluminium has been used as conductor in integrated circuits, due to its good adherence to substrate, good conductivity, and ability to form ohmic contacts with silicon.[5] However, pure aluminium is susceptible to electromigration. Research shows that adding 2-4% of copper to aluminium increases resistance to electromigration about 50 times. The effect is attributed to the grain boundary segregation of copper, which greatly inhibits the diffusion of aluminium atoms across grain boundaries.
Pure copper wires can withstand approximately five times more current density than aluminum wires while maintaining similar reliability requirements.[9] This is mainly due to the higher electromigration activation energy levels of copper, caused by its superior electrical and thermal conductivity as well as its higher melting point. Further improvements can be achieved by alloying copper with about 1% palladium which inhibits diffusion of copper atoms along grain boundaries in the same way as the addition of copper to aluminium interconnect.
Bamboo structure and metal slotting [ edit ]
A wider wire results in smaller current density and, hence, less likelihood of electromigration. Also, the metal grain size has influence; the smaller grains, the more grain boundaries and the higher likelihood of electromigration effects. However, if you reduce wire width to below the average grain size of the wire material, grain boundaries become "crosswise", more or less perpendicular to the length of the wire. The resulting structure resembles the joints in a stalk of bamboo. With such a structure, the resistance to electromigration increases, despite an increase in current density. This apparent contradiction is caused by the perpendicular position of the grain boundaries; the boundary diffusion factor is excluded, and material transport is correspondingly reduced.[9][10]
However, the maximum wire width possible for a bamboo structure is usually too narrow for signal lines of large-magnitude currents in analog circuits or for power supply lines. In these circumstances, slotted wires are often used, whereby rectangular holes are carved in the wires. Here, the widths of the individual metal structures in between the slots lie within the area of a bamboo structure, while the resulting total width of all the metal structures meets power requirements.[9][10]
Blech length [ edit ]
There is a lower limit for the length of the interconnect that will allow higher current carrying capability. It is known as “Blech length”.[2] Any wire that has a length below this limit will have a stretched limit for Electromigration. Here, a mechanical stress buildup causes an atom back flow process which reduces or even compensates the effective material flow towards the anode. The Blech length must be considered when designing test structures for electromigration.
Via arrangements and corner bends [ edit ]
Particular attention must be paid to vias and contact holes.The current carrying capacity of a via is much less than a metallic wire of same length. Hence multiple vias are often used, whereby the geometry of the via array is very significant: multiple vias must be organized such that the resulting current is distributed as evenly as possible through all the vias.
Attention must also be paid to bends in interconnects. In particular, 90-degree corner bends must be avoided, since the current density in such bends is significantly higher than that in oblique angles (e.g., 135 degrees).[9]
Electromigration in solder joints [ edit ]
The typical current density at which electromigration occurs in Cu or Al interconnects is 106 to 107 A/cm2. For solder joints (SnPb or SnAgCu lead-free) used in IC chips, however, electromigration occurs at much lower current densities, e.g. 104 A/cm2. It causes a net atom transport along the direction of electron flow. The atoms pile up at the anode, voids are generated at the cathode and back stress is induced during electromigration. The typical failure of a solder joint due to electromigration will occur at the cathode side. Due to the current crowding effect, voids form first at the corner of the solder joint. Then the voids extend and cause a failed circuit. Electromigration also influences formation of intermetallic compounds.
Electromigration and technology computer aided design [ edit ]
The complete mathematical model describing electromigration consists of several partial differential equations (PDEs) [11] which need to be solved for three-dimensional geometrical domains representing segments of an interconnect structure. Such a mathematical model forms the basis for simulation of electromigration in modern technology computer aided design (TCAD) tools.[12] Use of TCAD tools for detailed investigations of electromigration induced interconnect degradation is gaining importance. Results of TCAD studies in combination with reliability tests lead to modification of design rules improving the interconnect resistance to electromigration.[13]
Electromigrated nanogaps [ edit ]
Electromigrated nanogaps are gaps formed in metallic bridges formed by the process of electromigration. A nanosized contact formed by electromigration acts like a waveguide for electrons. The nanocontact essentially acts like a one-dimensional wire with a conductance of G = 2 e 2 / h {\displaystyle G=2e^{2}/h}. The current in a wire is the velocity of the electrons multiplied by the charge and number per unit length, I = v e N / L {\displaystyle I=veN/L} or G = v e N / L V {\displaystyle G=veN/LV}. This gives a conductance of G = v e 2 N / L E {\displaystyle G=ve^{2}N/LE}. In nano scale bridges the conductance falls in discrete steps of multiples of the quantum conductance G = 2 e 2 / h {\displaystyle G=2e^{2}/h}.
Electromigrated Nanogaps have shown great promise as electrodes in use in molecular scale electronics.[14] Researchers have used feedback controlled electromigration to investigate the magnetoresistance of a quantum spin valve.[citation needed]
Reference standards [ edit ]
EIA/JEDEC Standard EIA/JESD61 : Isothermal Electromigration Test Procedure.
: Isothermal Electromigration Test Procedure. EIA/JEDEC Standard EIA/JESD63: Standard method for calculating the electromigration model parameters for current density and temperature.
See also [ edit ]
Notes and references [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]
Books [ edit ]
Media related to Electromigration at Wikimedia CommonsJerusalem (CNN) -- Two Palestinian teens were killed on Thursday, one in a shooting and the other by an explosion, medical and security sources said.
Israeli settlers in the West Bank shot and killed a 19-year-old Palestinian on Thursday, Palestinian medical officials said.
The Israeli Civil Administration that oversees the West Bank said it is investigating the incident and could provide no immediate details. The incident occurred in the village of Iraq Burin, south of Nablus.
A group of armed settlers from the nearby settlement shot at the teen while he was tending his field, said Ghassan Douglass, the Palestinian official In charge of the settlement activity on the north of the West Bank.
He said it's not the first time armed settlers and Israeli troops raided the village and opened fire.
In March 2010, two Palestinian residents of the village were shot dead by the Israeli army, according to Palestinian officials.
In Gaza, a 14-year-old Palestinian Bedouin shepherd was killed during a blast near the unoperational crossing of Sufa, south of Gaza, medical and security sources said.
The sources said the boy was minding his flock close to a section of the Israeli border known for incursions.
The Israel Defense Forces said it has no knowledge of any incidents in the area.hello
Madhu Krishnamurthy/[email protected] of the audience listen to Elgin resident Ed Bailey, who has five sons attending U-46 schools, address a school board member's controversial Facebook posts on Monday night in Elgin.
Dozens of parents, teachers and community members chastised an Elgin Area School District U-46 school board member Monday night over a Facebook post about Black History Month, with some calling for her resignation.
The Feb. 1 post by school board member Jeanette Ward quotes author Jason L. Riley's book "Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed." It was posted on Ward's U-46 board member Facebook page.
Ward quoted Riley as saying, "Blacks have become their own worst enemy, and liberal leaders do not help matters by blaming self-inflicted wounds on whites or'society.' The notion that racism is holding back blacks as a group, or that better black outcomes cannot be expected until racism has been vanquished, is a dodge. And encouraging blacks to look to politicians to solve their problems does them a disservice."
It created a firestorm of criticism. Speakers Monday called Ward's post "racist speech" and "irresponsible" coming from a school board member under the guise of honoring Black History Month.
"When we honor Black History Month, we ought to know what black history is all about," said Myrna Becker adding she was appalled by the racism embedded in Ward's post.
Ward, who is white, has said her Facebook post on a page where she is identified as a U-46 board member was intended to offer a different perspective on Black History Month.
Danise Habun, a member of the Elgin Human Relations Commission, said there is nothing about Ward's post that honors black history.
"There was nothing respectful toward or celebratory of Black History Month contained in the passage posted by Ms. Ward," Habun said. "If her words and the quoted passage from the book is indeed to offer a fresh perspective, it appears as if there has been a failure to communicate. It continues to blame the victim, and ignores institutionalized racism. As an official elected to represent all members of the U-46 school district, Ms. Ward is to be held to a high standard of behavior and conduct."
Rabbi Margaret Frisch Klein of Congregation Kneseth Israel of Elgin called the controversy "a teachable moment."
"Freedom is an awesome responsibility. Leadership is an awesome responsibility. Facebook, too, comes with a responsibility," she said. "I would urge the U-46 school board to have a Facebook policy in place."
Ward was not without supporters in the audience.
Scott Swanson, a Bartlett resident, said regardless of race, color or creed, people should be able to freely express their First Amendment rights as citizens.
"We should emphasize personal responsibility and self determination," he said, adding that Ward was echoing sentiments of some black leaders.
Streamwood resident Bill Wright urged school board members to leave personal agendas aside and focus on representing the district's more than 40,000 students.
"Where are the students? Where are they in all of this conversation?" Wright said. "Put aside your personal differences, get together, go out there, get to know your community a little bit.... Kids have shown far more responsibility, more openness and tolerance, than we as adults have done."
At the end of public comments, Ward unapologetically said her Facebook page represents only herself and not the entire school board.
"I want all people to succeed. There is one race -- the human race. Did I not honor that African-American author by quoting him? I stand by quoting Jason L. Riley," she said.
School board member Traci O'Neal Ellis said the community's message has been heard loud and clear. "Either everybody counts or nobody counts," she said.The Environmental Protection Agency’s new administrator, Scott Pruitt, has called for a “back-to-basics” or “originalist” approach to the agency. It is unclear what he means, but in a 22 May memo he said he would prioritize the EPA’s program that handles heavily contaminated waste areas, known as “Superfund sites”.
In the memo, Pruitt heralds that under his administration, “Superfund and the EPA’s land and water cleanup efforts will be restored to their rightful place at the center of the agency’s core mission”.
Trump's alarming environmental rollback: what's been scrapped so far Read more
For Pruitt, the primary role of the EPA is janitorial: using taxpayer money to clean up after polluting industries. But that is neither how the EPA was originally envisaged, nor how the Superfund program was conceived.
The EPA began in 1970 as an agency charged with curbing pollution. Throughout the 1970s, Congress gave the EPA power to set limits on air pollution, regulate automobile emissions, define appropriate water treatment technology, set drinking water standards and regulate pesticides. Outside of minor provisions, this legislation was about the EPA preventing pollution, not cleaning it up.
In 1976, rising concern about uncontrolled dumping and burning of hazardous materials prompted passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which allowed the EPA to regulate hazardous waste from cradle to grave.
Unfortunately, there were already thousands of hazardous waste “graves” in existence. For decades, companies dumped hazardous waste haphazardly.
In the 1940s and early 1950s, for example, the Hooker Chemical Company filled an old canal – Love canal, as it was known – with some 21,800 tons of chemicals, some of which Hooker knew to be hazardous.
In 1953, the company covered the canal with dirt and sold it to a local school board for a dollar. The city built a school and playground atop the dump, and residents built houses along its edge.
As knowledge of the hazardous legacy at Love Canal and similar places emerged in the 1970s, it generated fear, outrage and grassroots, anti-toxic movements. These movements in turn bolstered support for an EPA program to address existing hazardous waste sites.
In 1980 – 10 years after the birth of the EPA – Congress passed the Superfund Act. The law imposed strict liability for the cost of cleanup on entities responsible for hazardous waste sites. It also established a small tax on chemical and petroleum industries that were associated with hazardous waste.
Money from the tax fed a large trust fund, a “Superfund”, which the agency could draw on to clean up “orphan” sites, where responsibility could not be determined. In both cases, the idea was that the “polluter pays”, either as a directly responsible party or as part of an industry generally responsible for hazardous waste.
The Superfund tax survived for 15 years, building up a large trust fund used for cleanup. Two Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, signed off on reauthorizing the tax in the 1980s and 1990s. As the Superfund program developed, the EPA discovered thousands of new sites, making funding for the program all the more important.
But rightwing Republicans who took control of Congress in 1994 rebuffed Bill Clinton’s urging to renew the tax. It expired in 1995.
The trust fund peaked in 1996 at about $5.5bn (in 2016 dollars). But without a source of replenishment, the well ran dry by 2003, leaving taxpayers with the bill for cleanup. Since then, Congress has trickled general revenue money into the program with smaller and smaller appropriations ever year. Without adequate funding, the EPA’s progress on cleanup has slowed dramatically.
In 2010, the EPA asked Congress to renew the tax, arguing that doing so would “ensure that parties who benefit from the manufacture or sale of substances that commonly cause environmental problems at hazardous waste sites, and not taxpayers, help bear the cost of cleanup”. Barack Obama and legislators have also pushed to renew the tax, but without avail.
It is time to bring the Superfund tax back. No doubt, the program can be made better. Superfund taxes on industry, for example, could be better calibrated with the amount and degree of hazardous waste produced. Supplements from general tax revenues are reasonable.
US has nothing to apologize for on climate change, says defiant EPA chief Read more
But the bedrock idea that industries connected to pollution should fund hazardous waste cleanup should stay in place. It is a fairer, if imperfect, system than putting the burden on taxpayers. And it is the only way to assure adequate funding over time and thus to make Superfund cleanup |
read, that of which she is commonly taken to be the symbol merely?” As he sees it, the realm of spirit is the physical world, which has a sacred meaning that can be directly perceived. Accordingly, he seeks “to be always on the alert to find God in nature” (Journal, 9/7/51), and to hear “the language which all things and events speak without metaphor” (Walden, IV). Thoreau’s metaphysical convictions compel him to “defend nature’s intrinsic value,” in a way that situates him philosophically in a place “far removed from Emerson and most transcendentalists” (Cafaro 2004, 132–133). In his journal, Thoreau reports that his goal is to “state facts” in such a way that “they shall be significant,” rather than allowing himself to be blind to “the significance of phenomena” (Journal, 11/9/51 & 8/5/51). Evidently, he does not accept that whatever we register through our aesthetic and emotional responses ought to be viewed as unreal. Indeed, Thoreau would argue that the person who is seldom moved by the beauty of things is the one with an inadequate conception of reality, since it is the neutral observer who is less well aware of the world as it is.
To say that nature is inherently significant is to say that natural facts are neither inert nor value-free. Thoreau urges his reader not to “underrate the value of a fact,” since each concrete detail of the world may contain a meaningful truth (“Natural History of Massachusetts”). Note the phrase: the value of a fact. Thoreau does not introduce an artificial distinction between facts and values, or between primary and secondary qualities, since he understands the universe as an organic whole in which mind and matter are inseparable. When we perceive sights, sounds, and textures, we are not standing as disembodied consciousness apart from a world of inanimate mechanisms; rather, we are sentient beings immersed in the sensory world, learning the “essential facts of life” only through “the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us” (Walden, II). The philosopher who seeks knowledge through experience should therefore not be surprised to discover beauty and order in natural phenomena. However, these properties are not projected onto nature from an external perspective—rather, they emerge from within the self-maintaining processes of organic life. And the entire environment, the “living earth” itself, has something like a life of its own, containing but not reducible to the biotic existence of animals and plants (Walden, XVII). This is what he elsewhere describes as the “slumbering subterranean fire in nature which never goes out” (“A Winter Walk”).
Thoreau remarks upon the “much grander significance” of any natural phenomenon “when not referred to man and his needs but viewed absolutely” (Journal, 11/10/51). The world is rich with value that is not of our making, and “whatever we have perceived to be in the slightest degree beautiful is of infinitely more value to us than what we have only as yet discovered to be useful and to serve our purpose” (Faith in a Seed, 144). It is when we are not guilty of imposing our own purposes onto the world that we are able to view it on its own terms. One of the things we then discover is that we are involved in a pluralistic universe, containing many different points of view other than our own. And when we begin to realize “the infinite extent of our relations” (Walden, VIII), we can see that even what does not at first seem to be good for us may have some positive value when considered from a broader perspective. Rather than dismissing squirrels as rodents, for instance, we should see them as “planters of forests,” and be grateful for the role they play in the distribution of seeds (Journal, 10/22/60). Likewise, the “gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house to-day is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me” (Walden, V). Our limited view often keeps us from appreciating the harmonious interdependence of all parts of the natural world: this is not due to “any confusion or irregularity in Nature,” but because of our own incomplete knowledge (Walden, XVI). Thoreau declares that he would be happy “if all the meadows on the earth were left in a wild state,” since in tampering with nature we know not what we do and sometimes end up doing harm as a result (Walden, X). In many cases we find that “unhandselled nature is worth more even by our modes of valuation than our improvements are” (Journal, 11/10/60).
In nature we have access to real value, which can be used as a standard against which to measure our conventional evaluations. An example of the latter is the value that is “arbitrarily attached” to gold, which has nothing to do with its “intrinsic beauty or value” (Journal, 10/13/60). So it is a mistake to rush to California “as if the true gold were to be found in that direction,” when one has failed to appreciate the inherent worth of one’s native soil (Journal, 10/18/55). In the economy of nature, a seed is more precious than a diamond, for it contains “the principle of growth, or life,” and has the ability to become a specific plant or tree (Journal, 3/22/61). The seed not only provides evidence that nature is filled with “creative genius” (Journal, 1/5/56), but it also reminds us that a spark of divinity is present in each human being as well. One of Thoreau’s favorite analogies—not only a metaphor, as he sees it—is that between the ripening of a seed and the development of human potential. “The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling” (Walden, I). What he calls “wildness” is not located only in the nonhuman world; the same creative force is also active in human nature, so that even a literary work of art can reasonably be praised as a manifestation of wildness (see “Walking”). There is “a perfect analogy between the life of the human being and that of the vegetable” (Journal, 5/20/51), and thoughts “spring in man’s brain” in just the same way that “a plant springs and grows by its own vitality” (Journal, 11/8/50 & 4/3/58). Thoreau’s exhortations to follow the promptings of one’s genius are based on the idea that by obeying our own wild nature we are aligning ourselves with a sacred power. What inspires us to realize our highest potential is “the primitive vigor of Nature in us” (Journal, 8/30/56), and this influence is something we are able neither to predict nor to comprehend: as he describes it in the “Ktaadn” chapter of The Maine Woods, nature is “primeval, untamed, and forever untamable,” a godlike force but not always a kind one.
At one point in Walden, Thoreau quips that he usually does not count himself among the “true idealists” who are inclined to reject “the evidence of [their] senses” (Walden, XIV). On the other hand, he has nothing but scorn for the sort of materialism that fails to penetrate the inner mystery of things, discovering “nothing but surface” in its mechanistic observations (Journal, 3/7/59). Instead, he argues that we must approach the world as “nature looking into nature,” aware of the relation between the form of our own perception and what we are able to perceive (Correspondence, 7/21/41). There are reasons for classifying Thoreau as both a naturalist and a romantic, although both of these categories are perhaps too broad to be very helpful. His conception of nature is informed by a syncretic appropriation of Greek, Roman, Indian, and other sources, and the result is an eclectic vision that is uniquely his own. For this reason it is difficult to situate Thoreau within the history of modern philosophy, but one plausible way of doing so would be to describe him as articulating a version of transcendental idealism. If Thoreau is indeed “the American heir to Kant’s critical philosophy,” as he has been called (Oelschlaeger 1991, 136), it is because his investigation of “the relation between the subject of knowledge and its object” builds upon a Kantian insight that Emerson, who viewed the senses as illusory, arguably did not grasp (see Cavell 1992, 94–95). Yet in order to understand why this might be an accurate categorization, we must proceed from Thoreau’s metaphysics to his epistemology.
3. The Ethics of Perception
If one were asked to name the cardinal virtue of Thoreau’s philosophy, it would be hard to identify a better candidate than awareness. He attests to the importance of “being forever on the alert,” and of “the discipline of looking always at what is to be seen” (Walden, IV). This exercise may enable one to create remarkably minute descriptions of a sunset, a battle between red and black ants, or the shapes taken by thawing clay on a sand bank: but its primary value lies in the way it affects the quality of our experience. “It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look” (Walden, II). Awareness cannot be classified as exclusively a moral or an intellectual virtue, either, since knowing is an inescapably practical and evaluative activity—not to mention, an embodied practice. Thoreau portrays himself not from a presumably neutral or impersonal vantage point, “but from an embodied point of view” in which his somatic sensory experience puts him “knowingly in touch with” his surroundings (Goodman 2012, 36). For such reasons as these, he has sometimes been interpreted as a “philosopher of the senses” (Mooney 2009, 195), who offers an original response to the central problem of modern philosophy as a consequence of recognizing that knowledge is “dependent on the individual’s ability to see,” and that “the world as known is thus radically dependent on character” (Tauber 2001, 4–5).
One of the common tenets of ancient philosophy which was abandoned in the period beginning with Descartes is that a person “could not have access to the truth” without undertaking a process of self-purification that would render him “susceptible to knowing the truth” (Foucault 1997, 278–279). For Thoreau, it was the work of a lifetime to cultivate one’s receptivity to the beauty of the universe. Believing that “the perception of beauty is a moral test” (Journal, 6/21/52), Thoreau frequently chastises himself or humanity in general for failing in this respect. “How much of beauty—of color, as well as form—on which our eyes daily rest goes unperceived by us,” he laments (Journal, 8/1/60); and he worries that “Nature has no human inhabitant who appreciates her” (Walden, IX). Noticing that his sensory awareness has grown less acute since the time of his youth, he speculates that “the child plucks its first flower with an insight into its beauty and significance which the subsequent botanist never retains” (Journal, 7/16/51 & 2/5/52). In order to attain a clear and truthful view of things, we must refine all the faculties of our embodied consciousness, and become emotionally attuned to all the concrete features of the place in which we are located. We fully know only those facts that are “warm, moist, incarnated,” and palpably felt: “A man has not seen a thing who has not felt it” (Journal, 2/23/60). In this way, Thoreau outlines an epistemological task that will occupy him for the rest of his life; namely, to cultivate a way of attending to things that will allow them to be experienced as elements of a meaningful world.
Since our ability to appreciate the significance of phenomena is so easily dulled, it requires a certain discipline in order to become and remain a reliable knower of the world. Like Aristotle, Thoreau believes that the perception of truth “produces a pleasurable sensation”; and he adds that a “healthy and refined nature would always derive pleasure from the landscape” (Journal, 9/24/54 & 6/27/52). Nature will reward the most careful attention paid by a person who is appropriately disposed, but there is only “as much beauty visible to us in the landscape as we are prepared to appreciate,—not a grain more. The actual objects which one person will see from a particular hilltop are just as different from those which another will see as the persons are different” (Journal, 11/4/58). One who is in the right state to be capable of giving a “poetic and lively description” of things will find himself “in a living and beautiful world” (Journal, 10/13/60 & 12/31/59). Beauty, like color, does not lie only in the eye of the beholder: flowers, for example, are indeed beautiful and brightly colored. Nevertheless, beauty—and color, for that matter—can exist only where there is a beholder to perceive it (Journal, 6/15/52 & 1/21/38). From his experience in the field making observations of natural phenomena, Thoreau gained the insight “that he, the supposedly neutral observer, was always and unavoidably in the center of the observation” (McGregor 1997, 113). Because all perception of objects has a subjective aspect, the world can be defined as a sphere centered around each conscious perceiver: wherever we are located, “the universe is built around us, and we are central still” (Journal, 8/24/41). This does not mean that we are trapped inside of our own consciousness; rather, the point is that it is only through the lens of our own subjectivity that we have access to the external world.
What we are able to perceive, then, depends not only upon where we are physically situated: it is also contingent upon who we are and what we value, or how our attention is focused. “Objects are concealed from our view, not so much because they are out of the course of our visual ray as because we do not bring our minds and eyes to bear on them…. A man sees only what concerns him” (“Autumnal Tints”). In other words, there is “no such thing as pure objective observation. Your observation, to be interesting, i.e. to be significant, must be subjective” (Journal, 5/6/54). Subjectivity is not an obstacle to truth, according to Thoreau. After all, he says, “the truest description, and that by which another living man can most readily recognize a flower, is the unmeasured and eloquent one which the sight of it inspires” (Journal, 10/13/60). A true account of the world must do justice to all the familiar properties of objects that the human mind is capable of perceiving. Whether this could be done by a scientific description is a vexing question for Thoreau, and one about which he shows considerable ambivalence. One of his concerns is that the scientist “discovers no world for the mind of man with all its faculties to inhabit”; by contrast, there is “more humanity” in “the unscientific man’s knowledge,” since the latter can explain how certain facts pertain to life (Journal, 9/5/51, 2/13/52). He accuses the naturalist of failing to understand color, much less beauty, and asks: “What sort of science is that which enriches the understanding, but robs the imagination?” (Journal, 10/5/61 & 12/25/51) For Thoreau, the most reliable observer is one who can “see things as they are, grand and beautiful” (Journal, 1/7/57)—in other words, the beauty and grandeur of the world really are there to be seen, even if we are not always capable of seeing them. We can easily fail to perceive the value of being if we do not approach the world with the appropriate kind of emotional comportment.
Thoreau sometimes characterizes science as an ideal discipline that will enrich our knowledge and experience: “The true man of science will know nature better by his finer organization; he will smell, taste, see, hear, feel, better than other men. His will be a deeper and finer experience” (“Natural History of Massachusetts”). He observes that scientific terminology can provide the means of apprehending something that we had utterly missed until we had a name for it (see Walls 2012, 108). Yet he also gives voice to the fear that by weighing and measuring things and collecting quantitative data he may actually be narrowing his vision. The scientist “studies nature as a dead language,” and would rather study a dead fish preserved in a jar than a living one in its native element (Journal, 5/10/53 & 11/30/58). In these same journal entries, Thoreau claims that he seeks to experience the significance of nature, and that “the beauty of the fish” is what is most worthy of being measured. On the other hand, when he finds a dead fish in the water, he brings it home to weigh and measure, covering several pages with his statistical findings (Journal, 8/20/54). This is only one of many examples of Thoreau’s fascination with data-gathering, and yet he repeatedly questions its value, as if he does not know what to make of his own penchant for naturalistic research. At the very least, scientific investigations run the risk of being “trivial and petty,” so perhaps what one should do is “learn science and then forget it” (Journal, 1/21/53 & 4/22/52). But Thoreau is more deeply troubled by the possibility that “science is inhuman,” since objects “seen with a microscope begin to be insignificant,” and this is “not the means of acquiring true knowledge” (Journal, 5/1/59 & 5/28/54). Overall, his position is not that a mystical or imaginative awareness of the world is incompatible with knowledge of measurable facts, but that an exclusive focus on the latter would blind us to whatever aspects of reality fall outside the scope of our measurement.
One thing we can learn from all of Thoreau’s comments on scientific inquiry is that he cares very much about the following question: what can we know about the world, and how are we able to know it? Although he admires the precision of scientific information, he wonders if what it delivers is always bound to be “something less than the vague poetic” (Journal, 1/5/50). In principle, a naturalistic approach to reality should be able to capture its beauty and significance; in practice, however, it may be “impossible for the same person to see things from the poet’s point of view and that of the man of science” (Journal, 2/18/52). In that case, the best we can do is try to convey our intimations of the truth about the universe, even if this means venturing far beyond claims that are positivistically verifiable: “I desire to speak somewhere without bounds; like a man in his waking moment, to men in their waking moments; for I am convinced that I cannot exaggerate enough even to lay the foundation of a true expression…. The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures” (Walden, XVIII). We should not arbitrarily limit our awareness to that which can be described with mathematical exactitude: perhaps the highest knowledge available to us, Thoreau suggests, consists in “a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before … it is the lighting up of the mist by the sun” (“Walking”). And perhaps this is not a regrettable fact: “At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable” (Walden, XVII). By acknowledging the limits of what we can know with certainty, we open ourselves up to a wider horizon of experience.
As one commentator points out, Thoreau’s categories—so to speak—are dynamic, since they are constantly being redefined by what we perceive, even as they shape our way of seeing (Peck 1990, 84–85). Every now and then “something will occur which my philosophy has not dreamed of,” Thoreau says, which demonstrates that the “boundaries of the actual are no more fixed and rigid than the elasticity of our imaginations” (Journal, 5/31/53). Since the thoughts of each knowing subject are “part of the meaning of the world,” it is legitimate to ask: “Who can say what is? He can only say how he sees” (11/4/52 & 12/2/46). Truth is radically perspective-dependent, which means that insofar as we are different people we can only be expected to perceive different worlds (Walls 1995, 213). Thoreau’s position might be described as perspectival realism, since he does not conclude that truth is relative but celebrates the diversity of the multifaceted reality that each of us knows in his own distinctive way. “How novel and original must be each new man’s view of the universe!” he exclaims; “How sweet is the perception of a new natural fact,” for it suggests to us “what worlds remain to be unveiled” (Journal, 4/2/52 & 4/19/52). We may never comprehend the intimate relation between a significant fact and the perceiver who appreciates it, but we should trust that it is not in vain to view nature with “humane affections” (Journal, 2/20/57 & 6/30/52). With respect to any given phenomenon, the “point of interest” that concerns us lies neither in the coolly independent object nor in the subject alone, but somewhere in between (Journal, 11/5/57). Witnessing the rise of positivism and its ideal of complete objectivity, Thoreau attempts “to preserve an enchanted world and to place the passionate observer in the center of his or her universe” (Tauber 2001, 20). It is an admirable goal, and one that remains quite relevant in the philosophical climate of the present day.
4. Friendship and Politics
Thoreau’s ethic of personal flourishing is focused upon the problem of how to align one’s daily life in accordance with one’s ultimate ideals. What was enthusiasm in the youth, he argues, must become temperament in the mature person: the “mere vision is little compared with the steady corresponding endeavor thitherward” (Journal, 11/1/51 & 11/24/57). Much of our time ought to be spent “in carrying out deliberately and faithfully the hundred little purposes which every man’s genius must have suggested to him…. The wisely conscious life springs out of an unconscious suggestion” (Wild Fruits, 166). Character, then, can be defined as “genius settled”—the promptings of conscience in themselves are only potentially moral, until we have integrated them into the fabric of our everyday existence and begun to hold ourselves responsible for living up to them (Journal, 3/2/42). Hence, we need to cherish and nurture our capability to discern the difference between the idea and the reality, between what is and what ought to be. It is when we experience dissatisfaction with ourselves or with external circumstances that we are stimulated to act in the interest of making things better.
It follows that the greatest compliment we can pay to another person is to say that he or she enhances our life by inciting us to realize our highest aspirations. So Thoreau views it as deplorable that “we may love and not elevate one another”; the “love that takes us as it finds us, degrades us” (“Chastity and Sensuality”). He speaks of “love” and “friendship” as closely related terms which are tainted by the “trivial dualism” which assumes that the one must exclude the other (Journal, undated 1839 entry). Clearly, what he is concerned about is the kind of love the Greeks called philia—and in his sustained consideration of friendship, as in so many other respects, Thoreau is “squarely in the virtue ethics tradition” (Cafaro 2004, 127). In his ethical writings, the notion of wishing good on behalf of another person is often taken to a severe extreme, as if he does not think it possible to ask too much of love and friendship. In A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, he says: “I value and trust those who love and praise my aspiration rather than my performance” (A Week, “Wednesday”). This is fair enough, but Thoreau may be going too far when he proclaims that a friend should be approached “with sacred love and awe,” and that we profane one another if we do not always meet on religious terms; it is no wonder that he finds himself doubting whether his “idea of a friend” will ever actually be instantiated (Journal, 6/26/40). Nonetheless, as a recent interpreter of Thoreau has pointed out, the “exalted and rarefied ideal” of friendship that he upholds does not imply that a friend is merely instrumental to one’s own self-realization (see Hodder 2010, 129–142). Above all, Thoreau’s discussion of love and friendship provokes us to reflect upon what we can and cannot expect from our closest human relationships, and on their role in a good life.
It would be a mistake to consider Thoreau’s political views in isolation from other aspects of his thought. It is, for example, his understanding of wild nature that informs his sociopolitical ideas. As was noted above, nature is a point of reference outside the polis which can provide valuable moral guidance, reminding us that society is not the measure of all things. Considering the human being as “an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature,” rather than a cultural artifact merely (“Walking”), he looks to the nonhuman natural world and to our inherent “wildness” as a source of evaluation which can empower us to discover that the standards of our civilization are profoundly flawed. His conviction that nature provides us with “a different, truer, and more significant moral reality” than what we find in society provides the “crucial and often overlooked political core” to what has been called his “pastoral environmentalism” (Taylor 1992, 12-24). Withdrawing into the natural world allows us to view the state in a broader context and to conceive of ways in which social values and political structures could be improved radically. This includes unjust laws that ought to be reformed, about which more will be said in a moment, as well as the unwritten rules embodied in prevailing expectations about how one ought to live and what matters. Anticipating Heidegger’s critique of Das Man in section 27 of Being and Time, Thoreau describes the source of these culturally prevalent attitudes as the “They” (Walden, I; see also Bennett 1994, 18-19) and is critical of their pervasive and corrupting influence, their way of making people content with distorted values. For instance, most of his fellow citizens of Massachusetts are able to greet each other politely on the street and in church, thinking of themselves as morally decent while remaining complacent to uphold and perpetuate the institution of slavery in America (see “Slavery in Massachusetts” and “A Plea for Captain John Brown”). In denouncing a specific pernicious attitude that is widespread among his contemporaries, Thoreau also seeks to identify and analyze the general tendency it exemplifies to defer to public opinion: for this reason, his project of social critique is not only relevant to his parochial context but has universal implications. He is acutely conscious of the threat that shared modes of discourse can pose to authentic intersubjectivity.
Thoreau is only half-joking when he tells us that, after becoming frustrated with society, he turned “more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known” (Walden, I). Not only is it true that a degree of solitude and distance from our neighbors may actually improve our relations with them, but by moving away from the center of town we liberate ourselves from a slavish adherence to prevailing attitudes. “The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad,” he claims, providing this kind of example: “If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer; but if he spends his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bald before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen” (Walden, I and “Life Without Principle”). This warped sense of value is all too common amidst the desperation of modern life, with its “restless, nervous, bustling, trivial” activity (Walden, XVIII). Thoreau builds a critique of American culture upon his conviction that “the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality” (“Life Without Principle”): his polemic aims at consumerism, philistinism, mass entertainment, vacuous applications of technology, and the herd mentality that conforms to the dictates of an anonymous “They.” During his life Thoreau spoke out against the Mexican War and the subjugation of Native America, and campaigned aggressively in favor of bioregionalism and the protection of animals and the natural environment. (It is outrageous that he is often stereotyped as a lifelong recluse and hermit.) Above all, the political issue that aroused his indignation more than any other was slavery. Because Thoreau understood philosophy as a way of life, it is only fitting that philosophical ideals would lead him into political action.
He was an activist involved in the abolitionist movement on many fronts: he participated in the Underground Railroad, protested against the Fugitive Slave Law, and gave support to John Brown and his party. Most importantly perhaps, he provides a justification for principled revolt and a method of nonviolent resistance, both of which would have a considerable influence on revolutionary movements in the twentieth century. In his essay on “Civil Disobedience,” originally published as “Resistance to Civil Government,” Thoreau defends the validity of conscientious objection to unjust laws, which he claims ought to be transgressed at once. Political institutions as such are regarded by him with distrust, and although he arguably overestimates the extent to which it is possible to disassociate oneself from them, he convincingly insists that social consensus is not a guarantee of rectitude or truth. One of the most valuable points he makes against the critics of John Brown is that a person should not be dismissed as “insane” by virtue of dissenting from the majority: Brown’s anger is grounded upon an awareness of the fact that slavery is a violation of human rights, and Thoreau berates the law-abiding citizens of Massachusetts for looking the other way (“A Plea for Captain John Brown”). Passively and quietly allowing an unjust practice to continue is tantamount to collaborating with evil, he claims, articulating a principle of noncompliance that would inspire the philosophically informed nonviolent resistance of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, among others.
When Thoreau argues that all of Brown’s actions were justified because he was an inspired reformer with a sacred vocation, he is appealing to something like the notion of natural right. His essay in this respect has a more general pertinence to debates about the individual moral reformer in relation to community norms. It also raises the issue of whether political violence can be justified as the lesser of evils, or in cases where it may be the only available way of ending injustice. Usually, he prefers nonviolent forms of advocacy such as creating “counter friction to stop the machine” by opposing, and acting in defiance of, practices and laws that are not righteous (“Civil Disobedience”). Speaking about the act of protest that led him to spend a night in jail, he expresses characteristic irony by saying that “I might have resisted forcibly with more or less effect, might have run amok against society; but I preferred that society should run amok against me, it being the desperate party” (Walden, VIII). Although at times it sounds as though Thoreau is advocating anarchy, what he demands is a better government, and what he refuses to acknowledge is the authority of one that has become so morally corrupt as to lose the consent of those governed. “There will never be a really free and enlightened State, ” he argues, “until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly” (“Civil Disobedience”). There are simply more sacred laws to obey than the laws of society, and a just government—should there ever be such a thing, he adds—would not be in conflict with the conscience of the ethically upright individual.
5. Locating Thoreau
Thoreau has somewhat misleadingly been classified as a New England transcendentalist, and—even though he never rejected this label—it does not fit in many ways. Some of his major differences from Emerson have already been discussed, and further differences appear when Thoreau is compared to such figures as Orestes Brownson, Margaret Fuller, and Bronson Alcott. A history of transcendentalism in New England which appeared in the late nineteenth century mentions Thoreau only once, in passing (Frothingham 1886, 133). And a more recent history of the movement concludes that Thoreau had little in common with this group of thinkers, who were for the most part committed to some version of Christianity, to a dualistic understanding of mind and matter, and to the related idea that sense experience is unreliable (Boller 1974, 29–35 & 176). A crucial step in Thoreau’s intellectual development occurred when he “disassociated himself from Emerson’s Transcendentalist view of nature as symbol” (Slicer 2013, 181), as a current scholar notes. It was suggested above that a better way of situating Thoreau within the Western philosophical tradition is to consider him a kind of transcendental idealist, in the spirit of Kant. For reasons that ought to be obvious by now, he should be of interest to students of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling—all of whom he studied at first or second hand—and possibly Schopenhauer. Thoreau was a capable and enthusiastic classicist, whose study of ancient Greek and Roman authors convinced him that philosophy ought to be a lived practice: for this reason, he can profitably be grouped with other nineteenth-century thinkers, such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, who were critics of philosophy in the early modern period. Yet he also has the distinction of being among the first Western philosophers to be significantly influenced by ancient Chinese and Indian thought. He anticipates Bergson and Merleau-Ponty in his attention to the dynamics of the embodied mind, and shares with Peirce and James a concern for problems of knowledge as they arise within practical experience.
Contemporary philosophers are increasingly discovering how much Thoreau has to teach—especially, in the areas of knowledge and perception, and in ethical debates about the value of land and life. His affinities with the pragmatic and phenomenological traditions, and the enormous resources he offers for environmental philosophy, have also started to receive more attention—and Walden itself continues to be encountered by readers as a remarkable provocation to philosophical thought. Still, it remains true that the political aspect of Thoreau’s philosophy has come closer to receiving its due than any of these others: whether or not this is because such prominent figures as Gandhi and Martin Luther King cited Thoreau as an inspiration, it has resulted in a disproportionate focus on what is only one part of an integral philosophy, a part that can hardly be understood in isolation from the others. Even if it is a sign of Thoreau’s peculiar greatness that subsequent American philosophy has not known what to make of him, it is a shame if his exclusion from the mainstream philosophical canon has kept his voice from being heard by some of those who might be in a position to appreciate it. Then again, as Thoreau himself notes, it is never too late to give up our prejudices. Others have observed (see Slicer 2013, 182–183) that, based on the amount of prominent work on Thoreau as a philosopher which has recently appeared, his profile seems to be ever so gradually rising on the American philosophical landscape.Shortly after the apocalyptic signs in the sky and what-not, Facebook went down. Again. Facebook officials claimed that it was due to “configuration issues,” but insiders admit it was the sheer weight of Bernie Sanders supporters that caused the problem.
By August 22 Bernie Sanders page had received 1,218,879 likes and the number continues to climb. Hillary Clinton had only received 1,205,437 and apparently more of hers came from Baghdad than any American city. [1] While President Obama has been accused of just about everything else, so far as I am aware, no one has as yet accused him of extending American voting rights to Iraq.
Apparently Clinton has over 18,150 followers in Myanmar. Myanmar is not a county in Alabama, by the way. It’s a country in Asia where either a great many people are interested in the American election process or where there are “click farms” where Facebook “likes” can be purchased.
By contrast, Senator Sanders share of foreign “likes” is much smaller and comes primarily from Western Europe which |
4 Indians as led by Sam McDowell.
— Specifically, Justin Masterson had his 11th start of at least 5 innings with one run or less last night. He became just the sixth Indians pitcher to pull off that feat since 1975. The last five: Cliff Lee, 2008; CC Sabathia, 2006; CC Sabathia, 2005; Charles Nagy, 1992; Greg Swindell, 1989.
— Tonight’s starter, Ubaldo Jimenez, had his best start of the season in his last outing, as measured by Game Score (81). He worked eight shutout innings for the second time this year. It was officially his best start as a Cleveland Indian, surpassing his outing on June 1 (80). His last better outing per Game Score (84) was Oct. 2, 2010, with Colorado.
— Overall, the Indians have allowed just 58 runs (seven unearned runs) in their last 21 games since July 7. Only eight other MLB teams have had better 21-game pitching stretches thus far in 2013.
[Related: Indians 6, White Sox 1: You can bring your green hat!!]“Trump on the verge of presidency, world in shock,” Alex Jones read to his viewers on YouTube. It was a headline from The Drudge Report. In a stunning upset, the presidency was about to be called for Donald Trump.
Minutes beforehand, as Fox News called Wisconsin for Donald Trump, Jones was in the midst of an elongated commercial break for supplements that promised to make him “more crazed” and gave him “more energy.”
Jones and his website, Infowars, spent the days before the election posting articles with headlines like “Hillary ‘Regularly’ Attended Witch’s Church” and subheadlines like “Hillary linked to child sex ring, emails suggest.”
But on Tuesday night, by 11 p.m., flanked by Trump political operative Roger Stone on his webcast, Jones and his fellow alt-right leaders were claiming total victory.
“For me, it’s better ecstasy than bagging the prom queen. It’s so ethereal I can’t believe that Trump is tuned into reality,” he said. “Trump’s tuned into America. His sons are tuned into America. They’re retweeting us every day.”
David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, claimed the victory on behalf of America’s white supremacists. “This is one of the most exciting nights of my life - make no mistake about it, our people have played a HUGE role in electing Trump!” he wrote on Twitter. “GOD BLESS DONALD TRUMP! It’s time to do the right thing, it’s time to TAKE AMERICA BACK!!!”
Richard B. Spencer, a white nationalist who refers to himself as the “Karl Marx of the alt-right” and has called for “peaceful ethnic cleansing” for a “white homeland,” rejoiced on Twitter shortly after midnight.
“The Alt-Right has been declared the winner. The Alt-Right is more deeply connected to Trumpian populism than the ‘conservative movement,’” he tweeted. “We’re the establishment now.”
Shortly after the AP called Pennsylvania for Donald Trump at 1:40 Wednesday morning, the top post on all of Reddit—the eighth-most-visited website in the United States—was a submission from Trump’s subreddit.
“IMMINENT VICTORY THREAD,” it read. “THIS IS NOT A DRILL. WE ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO WIN THIS. SJWs (social justice warriors), SUCK OUR DICK.”
As results poured in on Infowars’ early YouTube telecast, the conversation tended to the standard gripes of Infowars talkers—about a government so intrusive, as one host said, it “gives us anal exams at the airport.”
But over the course of the night, the mood became slightly jubilant, if unsurprised. Stone, as he said repeatedly, knew Trump would win all along.
At about 1 a.m., Stone and Jones began commenting on pool footage of disappointed Hillary Clinton fans at the Democratic nominee’s Election Night party, waiting for the candidate’s concession speech.
“Right now, you’ve gotta start thinking Bill’s thinking about what prison’s gonna be like,” said Stone.
Stone and Jones began drafting up a Cabinet. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions will be a great secretary of defense, Stone said.
“They admit [Trump] doesn’t listen to many people. He admits: He listens to you [Stone], he listened to me a few times,” said Jones. “He listens to us. Why does that scare them?”I've changed many things in my software development workflow over the past year or so. I've tweeted about bits and parts of it. There is one thing change that stands out above all else. I started to use make and it changed everything about how I build and test my software.
It all started by using docker exclusively. This required a new workflow that I hadn't encountered before. I needed a binary based tool (read: no language stack required), could map files to other files (e.g. these files are used in this Dockerfile ), and could run arbitrary commands as part of the wider development workflow. I also wanted something simple so I could create a similar development experience across all projects (e.g. there is a similar workflow for building the project and running its tests). Naturally this is a solved problem. Make solved it some 30 years ago.
Make is a tool for building projects--most commonly for compiled languages like C. The Makefile declares the rules for producing files and dependencies between files. For example you can have a rule that *.c should produce *.o to create a complex graph. Make also provides functionality to execute arbitrary tasks that do not produce any files (e.g make install ). Together make has enough proven functionality to handle most projects.
Changes happened slowly. First I needed something to handle building multiple docker images. This was before docker introduced docker build -f. Turns out with a pattern rule and symlinks solved it easily. make images/app would take the appropriate file from dockerfiles/app and coordinate the process in the root folder. Then I need something to pull dependencies and setup the environment. make environment took care of that. Things really started rocking as I iterated on a generic Makefile.
Then something strange and interesting started. I started to use make to launch docker containers as part of the environment target. I combined those with -d & --name, save container ids to a file with a redirect and voilla. There's a way to start long running processes with a single command. This is not a revolutionary idea but it allowed me to do things I'd never done before. I think docker is also responsible because -d makes it simple to manage (start/stop) processes. I started to see the entire codebase as processes and only processes. Processes have their owned defined public interfaces (ports) and can be tested as such. Naturally it would be possible to start another process that could communicate over the public interface as a smoke tests. Does the process speak HTTP? Great, fire some curl commands. Does the process speak thrift? Great, start a thrift client and make some RPCs. Does the code base have some CLI utils to go with it? Great, then write a make target to call those things.
This unrelated workflow change has completely changed how I view my software and the verification of process deliverables. This is something I never expected. I stopped thinking in a whitebox and shifted to more on black box deliverables. There are only so many things you can do if you only focus on internals. If you never start the process and communicate with it your testing is a lie--pure and simple. These workflows have also drastically increased software quality more than anything I've done since I started doing TDD.
At this point my workflow goes like this:
make dependencies - build any dependencies (may pull down external libraries, compile things, or anything like that) make - build the project make environment - build the project; start processes delivered by the project and any other long running processes needed in development make test - quick unit tests; should execute as quickly as possible and may not by exhaustive make test-ci - run every possible test make clean - remove project artifacts and stop anything
Then there are various other test targets. Ruby projects always have make test-boot. This actually start the process in a given environment. If the process has some CLI utils there is make test-cli. The list goes on and depending on the project.
This workflow dramatically increased my work quality. I suggest you look into these things as well. They may be as transformative for you as they are for me.
If you want concrete examples, then wait for the next post. That post is about replacing rake with make for great good.Playing the AWS ec2 Spot Market
Matthew Powers Blocked Unblock Follow Following Nov 27, 2016
The ec2 spot market fluctuates based on the supply and demand for ec2 instances. You can save a lot of money by timing the market and using more computing resources when they’re cheap.
Here is how to save the most amount of money:
Run calculations when the market price is cheap Use the cheapest zone Abort calculations if the market price unexpectedly rises
How the Spot Market Works
Amazon sells excess ec2 capacity on the spot market for any bids greater than the market price. If the market price rises above the spot bid price, then Amazon automatically shuts down the spot instance. “However, unlike traditional bidding, when your Spot instances start running, you pay the live Spot market price (not your bid amount).”
Spot Instances “allow you to bid on spare Amazon EC2 computing capacity for up to 90% off the On-Demand price” and can provide massive cost savings.
Introduction to ec2 Spot Instances
ec2 spot instances function the same as on demand or reserve instances — the only difference is the pricing model.
Spot Pricing History
This AWS guide explains how to view the spot market price for the past day, week, month, or three months. Let’s take a look at the pricing for r3.xlarge instances for the past day.
r3.xlarge Pricing Past Day
From 7PM until 6AM, the spot pricing was quite low. Starting at 8AM, the spot price increased dramatically and started fluctuating rapidly.
r3.xlarge on demand instances cost $0.33, so the overnight spot rate of $0.07 represents a 79% discount. Big savings!
The spot pricing for the past week shows that prices are low during the weekends.
r3.xlarge Pricing Past Day
On Saturday, November 5th and Sunday, November 6th, the prices stayed in the $0.05 range and were always below $0.10.
Running big calculations during the weekend is a great way to save money.
Key Takeaway
The spot price is high during peak working hours and low at night and during the weekends. Running computations at night or on the weekend is the main way to save money with ec2 spot instances!
How much money can you save?
Suppose you need to run a calculation on a 40 node cluster for 8 hours.
40 on demand clusters costs $105.60 (40 nodes * $0.33 * 8 hours)
40 spot nodes at $0.07 costs $22.40 (40 nodes * $0.07 * 8 hours)
Timing the spot market saves $83.20 for this computation. If you run this computation on a daily basis, you’ll save $2,500 a month.
Finding Cheap Prices
Running computations with spot nodes when the market price is low is the key to saving money. It’s all about delaying the computation until the market price is cheap and running the computations in the cheapest zone.
Pricing by Zone
Regions have many zones, each with their own market price. At 9:31PM on November 20th, the us-east-1c and us-east-1d zones were significantly cheaper than the us-east-1a and us-east-1e zones.
Spot Price — All Zones
The us-east-1c zone was at $0.0512 compared to an on-demand price of $0.33 — a 84% discount. The us-east-1a zone was 455% more expensive than the us-east-1c zone. Choose the zone wisely!
Warning!
There are data transfer fees when moving data between zones! I run computations and write out results to S3, so I’m not transferring data between zones — make sure to factor this into your analysis.
Spot Bid Price
Remember the spot market will accept bids when the spot bid price is higher than the market price, but will only charge the market price — you don’t need to pay the bid price. If the market price is $0.06 and you make a bid of $0.15, you’ll pay $0.06 and will lose the instances if the market price rises above $0.15.
Setting the spot bid price is a great way to cap the amount you’ll spend on a calculation. If the market price unexpectedly rises, you might want to abort a computation and run it some other time.
Let’s look at the worse case overnight spot prices over the past week in the us-east-1c region:
November 15th at 1:18AM: $0.18
November 15th at 10:10PM: $0.10
November 18th at 12:09AM: $0.20
November 19th at 1:09AM: $0.17
The market quickly normalized after these price spikes, so it probably wouldn’t have been worth aborting overnight calculations this week. To play it safe, you can set the spot bid price at 100% of the on demand price in case of a highly irregular overnight price spike.
Advice from Amazon
Here’s a video by AWS on how to determine your spot bidding strategy.
Deciding Your Spot Bidding Strategy
Success Stories
Several AWS users have cut ec2 costs by using the spot market.
Pintrest cut costs 63% by using spot instances and implementing other cost saving measures
University of Melbourne saves 56% by using spot instances
Vimeo saves about 50% by bidding 10% over the current spot price
Amazon acquired an ec2 spot market savings startup
ec2 Spot Bid Advisor
The Spot Bid Advisor “analyzes Spot price history to help you determine a bid price that suits your needs.”
The web page presents: “Savings compared to On-Demand based on the selected bid price, and calculated over the last 30 days, excluding any time your instance would not be running because you would have been outbid.”
When the bid price is set to 100% of on demand, the r3.xlarge savings over on demand is 73%. The market price of spot instances is generally much lower than on demand instances and you’ll still save a lot with a high spot bid price because the market price is used for spot node billing.
The ec2 spot bid advisor is a great way to estimate the cost saving potential of playing the spot market, but it doesn’t provide the real-time, specific information that’s needed to implement the cost saving strategy. I’d be awesome if the advisor analyzed historical data and provided information on the optimal times and zones to run calculations for different clusters.
Should You Play the ec2 Spot Market?
The ec2 spot market is best for computations that can be run when the market price for ec2 instances is cheap. Companies can save thousands by running computations at night or during the weekend.
Simply using ec2 spot instances with a spot bid price of 100% the on demand price and falling back to on demand instances when the spot price is higher would also offer huge savings.
It’s fun to time the market and cut your ec2 bill in half.
Additional Reading
Databricks and recently released an awesome article on using the spot market with their platform.OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - California’s ban on gay marriage goes to trial on Monday in a federal case that plaintiffs hope to take all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and overturn bans throughout the nation.
Same-sex couples Paul Katami (L), Jeff Zarillo (2nd L), and Kris Perry (2nd R) and Sandy Stier pose for photographs before the start of their trial in San Francisco, January 11, 2010. California's ban on gay marriage goes to trial on Monday in a federal case that plaintiffs hope to take all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and overturn bans throughout the nation. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
Victory for gay rights groups in the Supreme Court, which might not choose to take the case if it is appealed that far, would make marriage a fundamental constitutional right without exception and overturn laws and state amendments limiting marriage to a man and a woman in 40 states.
A loss in the top court, two ranks above the action that starts on Monday, would derail efforts to win in state courts that have been a hallmark of the gay rights movement thus far.
The case begins in a San Francisco court presided over by District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker, who clearly enjoyed preliminary sessions, joking with lawyers between barrages of pointed questions.
The United States is divided on gay marriage. It is legal in only five states, although most of those, and the District of Columbia, approved it last year.
The approval of California’s Prop 8 in November 2008 was a sweet victory for social conservatives in a state with a liberal, trend-setting reputation and showed off the resounding success conservatives have had at the ballot box on the issue.
California’s top court had legalized gay marriage in the summer of 2008, months before Prop 8 passed.
Gay rights lawyers in the case describe their battle as a continuation of the fight against racist laws that had stopped whites and blacks from marrying. Marriage is a fundamental constitutional right and, in addition, gays and lesbians deserve special protection from discrimination, they say.
The lawyers defending the ban say long traditions limit marriage to heterosexual couples and that a state, without malice, can be cautious about changing the institution. Heterosexual couples can have children, which society needs to continue, they add.
While a court battle to the Supreme Court would stretch over years, the trial beginning on Monday may take only two weeks.
GAY PARENTS
“Issues about parents and children and the role of child rearing will be central to this case,” said Joan Hollinger, a lecturer in family law at the University of California, Berkeley.
The lack of societal acceptance of same-sex marriages was a problem for children of those relationships — an argument for allowing gay marriage, she said.
Ted Olson and David Boies, two high-powered lawyers who faced off over the legality of George W. Bush’s election win as U.S. president against Al Gore in 2000, have joined forces in an odd-couple team fighting for gay marriage.
Andrew Koppelman, a professor of constitutional law at Northwestern University, said an appeal is certain no matter who wins in court in San Francisco.
If the appeals court were to side with the ban, the Supreme Court would probably leave it, but a victory by the gay rights advocates in the appeals court would force the Supreme Court to act, since it could not ignore such a momentous change.
“There is no way to keep this out of the Supreme Court if they win,” said Koppelman, who has written books arguing in favor of same-sex marriage but sees this push as ill-timed due to the composition of the nine-member top court.
“Who are going to be your five votes on the Supreme Court? I have trouble getting to one.”I Don't Care If You Read This Article
Enlarge this image toggle caption Ethan Miller/Getty Images Ethan Miller/Getty Images
I'm still not sure what precipitated it, but the other night at San Francisco's Jackson Fillmore restaurant, over a couple large bowls of linguini with butter and cheese, my four year-old son raised his fork and tried to stab my two year-old daughter in the head. His mother quickly restrained him while I checked the white tablecloth for any signs of splattered blood or dislodged eyeballs. Once I confirmed no metal-to-flesh contact had been made, I delivered a classic parenthood right-of-passage line: "We never stab our family members with forks, especially in public."
My son apologized. My daughter — magnanimous and probably more than a little relieved to be entirely intact — quickly forgave him. Unprompted, they hugged. It was an extended, cheek to cheek, smiling, giggling, It's Gonna Be Us Against The World Long After We've Forgotten Your Droning Parental Speeches And Your Silly Overbearing Neurotic Rules About A Little Forkplay hug. Soon, my wife and I were giggling too. Regardless of the preceding events, the moment was beautiful. The love, joy and gratitude I felt at that moment can't be measured.
And that's one of the things I liked most about it. I experienced something. I felt it. That was it. There was nothing to measure or count or rank.
The Internet measures everything. And I am a slave to those measurements. After so many years of pushing much of my life through this screen, I've started measuring my experiences and my sense of self-worth using the same metrics as the Internet uses to measure success. I check my stats relentlessly. The sad truth is that I spend more time measuring than I spend doing.
I used to feel an immediate sense of accomplishment when I wrote an article or came up with a joke that I thought was good. Now that feeling is always delayed until I see how the material does. How many views did my article get? Did it get mentioned the requisite number of times on Twitter and Facebook. I need to see the numbers.
And I define myself by those numbers.
I judge the quality of my writing by looking at the traffic to my articles. I assess the humor of my jokes by counting retweets. My status updates, shared links, and photos of my kids need a certain number of Likes to be a success. How am I doing? That depends on how many friends I have, how many followers, how much traffic.
My shrink recently asked me how my current projects are coming along. I said, "Let me put it this way. Lady Gaga has 10,329,595 more Twitter followers than I do."
Sure, as the fork incident made clear, there are many ways to judge success, accomplishment and pleasure other than numerical rankings. I keep telling myself that. But the Internet keeps telling me the opposite.
A couple months ago, notable web designer Jeffrey Zeldman addressed this conundrum with a tweet: "Popularity on Twitter won't cook you breakfast in the morning."
My first reaction was to exclaim, "Yes, of course, Zeldman got it right!" My second reaction was to check how many retweets he got.
For the past several weeks, my friends Alex and Brian worked with me to design and build Delivereads, a service that enables me to send out a handful of great articles to the Kindle of anyone who subscribes. It's a passion project. Everyone worked for free. Brian's design is one of his best. Alex's coding and workflow is fantastic. And the three of us had a great time working on the project. I couldn't have been happier with the process and product.
Then it launched. And for two days, almost nothing happened. The numbers were not there. No traffic. No subscribers. The pride and fellowship I felt went out the window. I viewed the entire experience as a failure. I guaranteed my wife and friends that this was it. I was done with the web for good. The last decade and a half in this business had been one massive waste of time.
That all changed when, after getting some nice reviews from a couple of popular bloggers, the subscriptions started to pour in. With each refresh of my subscription numbers page, my self-esteem and pride inflated. I was back. I loved the web. I was a success.
But then I thought: what if I just stop refreshing that page? What if I try to stop judging the experience using Internet stats as my only yardstick? Of course, anyone who works on a site hopes that if you build, they will come. But the thing about this project that makes me most happy is the passion, joy and satisfaction I felt while working on it with two guys who I like building stuff with. And over the long haul, those feelings far outweigh any collection of numbers amassed on a stats page.
The project was great before anyone signed up. Period. I can't put a number on it.
It's a struggle, but I try to remind myself that there's more to life than the rank order of things. I love this article. It is a pure reflection and honest confession of how coming of age on the Internet affected the way I perceive myself. You might like it. You might tweet about it or forward it or share it on Facebook. But no matter what the reaction, I'll try to remember my opinion of these words right now, when it's just me and them alone.
Last night my wife and I worked up our courage, loaded up the car, and took the kids out to another restaurant. On the way, my two year-old daughter called out from the backseat, "Mama and Dadda. I have to tell you something."
Yes?
"I didn't choke Veronica in school today."
And I was reminded again that the proudest achievements in life just can't be measured.
Dave Pell is a San Francisco based, Web-addicted insider, investor and entrepreneur. He has been blogging for more than a decade. This post first appeared on his blog Tweetage Wasteland. You can also follow Dave on Twitter.The Linux digital audio workstation - Part 1
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The contemporary DAW—digital audio workstation—is a system of hardware and software parts assembled to record, edit, and play digital audio and MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) data. Hardware components include the host computer, one or more interfaces for audio and MIDI I/O, input devices (e.g. a MIDI keyboard), and a speaker system for playback. The software component—also commonly referred to as the DAW—is typically a program dedicated to displaying, editing, and saving the captured data. In the world of recording, the DAW is the heart of the digital studio.
This article presents a personal sampling of the variety of DAWs available to Linux users. It doesn't explain how to set up Linux to meet the requirements of professional audio, nor does it provide details of installing and configuring the software I present here. Complete information is available at each program's Web site, and many mainstream Linux distributions have sub-projects dedicated to advanced audio configuration. Search Google to find pointers to distribution-specific documentation regarding system configuration for professional audio.
If you're new to the terminology of digital audio, you should consult the comprehensive—and comprehensible—glossaries at The Sonic Spot and Sound On Sound. Those lists should suffice to define any unknown or confusing terms you encounter in the article.
Common characteristics
A modern DAW should perform at least the following tasks:
Record and edit synchronized multitrack/multichannel audio and MIDI at variable sampling rates and bit depths.
Import and export a variety of audio and MIDI file types.
Mix new tracks and previously recorded material with sample-accurate timing.
Support the use of audio and MIDI processing plugins in various formats.
Provide total recall of all session parameters.
Manufacturers add interesting features beyond this basic set, but these characteristics meet the minimum requirements for a usable modern DAW. A Linux DAW should offer the basic feature set listed above, with the important addition of JACK support. JACK is an audio server specifically designed with pro-audio capabilities, such as multitrack/multichannel recording with realtime effects processing. However, JACK requires an audio back-end, and fortunately the Linux kernel provides the ALSA system. Support for JACK should be considered mandatory for Linux DAWs.
From sequencer to HDR to DAW to sequencer
In the middle 1980s, the advent of MIDI fueled a phenomenal drive in the development of new hardware and software for digital music and sound production. The MIDI data recorder—a.k.a. the MIDI sequencer—arrived in hard and soft formats, and both did essentially the same things: record (sequence), edit, process, and play back MIDI data. Early drum machines and performance synthesizers included basic sequencers, but MIDI—especially computer-centric MIDI—gave new life to the design of the sequencer.
By the late 1980s, sophisticated MIDI sequencing programs were available for every popular desktop computer. Those platforms included machines from Apple, Atari, Commodore/Amiga, IBM, and a horde of PC-clone/compatible manufacturers. Some MIDI hardware and software was available for UNIX systems, but few (if any) of the popular commercial programs were ported.
By the early 1990s, MIDI software capabilities expanded as the capabilities of the host computers advanced. As the hardware grew more powerful, it became possible to create an affordable hard-disk recorder (HDR) designed to run on the new desktop machines. The classic HDR was a standalone digital recorder built to accommodate high-quality analog-to-digital (ADC) and digital-to-analog (DAC) converters for audio I/O. The converters may or may not have been built into the device, and the user would typically need to provide further external support such as mixers and signal processors. These hardware HDRs had been available for desktop recordists but the boxes were often expensive to purchase and maintain—parts were rarely off-the-shelf components—and each machine's internal software was strictly proprietary for the device's operating system and data formats.
Fortunately, the increased power and lower entry cost of the general-purpose desktop computer paved the way for the software HDR, which eventually opened the way for the melding of software MIDI sequencer and the software HDR—with mixer and processors—into a single program called a digital audio workstation, i.e. a DAW.
The term "DAW" could be applied equally well to some of the machines built by SGI in the 1990s. Multichannel output was built into the hardware, and software had been developed to take advantage of the sonic possibilities. Unfortunately for SGI, the i386 continued its march forward to desktop domination—along with other computing niceties such as greatly enhanced video and massive storage capabilities—until the power of an average desktop machine rivaled SGI's bigger iron, at a much lower cost.
These days a DAW is also simply called a sequencer, perhaps as an unconscious reminder of the word's original use. Of course the very definition of a digital audio workstation continues to evolve as programs such as Ableton Live and Renoise present characteristics not commonly associated with a conventional DAW.
The Linux DAW
The blessing—or curse—of choice is in full effect when it comes to the Linux DAW. The DAW selection in this article is not exhaustive, and my descriptions present only a few salient characteristics of each program. With that admission out of the way, we'll take an alphabetical tour of Linux DAWs.
Ardour
The Ardour user interface will be familiar to anyone who has worked with the famous Pro Tools DAW. The interface model is loosely based on the multitrack tape recording paradigm in which recorded tracks are arranged in vertical order, much like the individual bands of a multitrack tape. Of course the similarity is primarily visual—the technology of hard-disk recording differs profoundly from its tape-based ancestry—but the tape-based interface model is deeply embedded in the contemporary digital recording industry.
Ardour is currently available in two distinct versions. The 2.x series is the stable public release track, but it lacks some of the features considered essential in a modern DAW. The soon-to-be-public 3.x series includes just about everything you can find in a DAW, including extensive MIDI support, the feature most notably missing in the 2.x releases. Of course Ardour synchronizes with external hardware and software by various means, including MTC (MIDI Time Code), MIDI Clock, and JACK. Open Sound Control (OSC) messaging is also supported, giving Ardour the opportunity to control or be controlled by other OSC-savvy programs.
Plugin support is extensive, though both the 2.x and 3.x lack support for the DSSI plugin API. Native Linux VST plugins are welcome, and it is possible to compile a version of Ardour that will host native Windows VST plugins. This capability is not unique to Ardour and, like any other Linux DAW with such support, its performance will vary according to initial conditions. Those conditions include the version of Wine used during the build, the conformance of the plugins to Windows programming standards, and the availability of required DLLs. Copy-protection schemes, especially hardware-based keys, are almost certain to block the use of the protected plugins.
Unfortunately none of the DAWs reviewed here include integrated video capabilities, but Robin Gareus and Luis Garrido are working to fill that gap with their Xjadeo project. Xjadeo is essentially a video display (shown in the Ardour screen shot above) that slaves to JACK or MTC, and all SMPTE framerates supported by Ardour are likewise supported by Xjadeo. It is not an editor, but it is incredibly useful, and I suspect that at some point in Ardour's development Xjadeo will be fully integrated into the DAW.
Ecasound
Developer Kai Vehmanen has developed his great ecasound DAW since 1995, the same year I began using Linux. Ecasound is a complete DAW with no GUI at all, a remarkable achievement in today's visually-dominated world of sound and music software. I must emphasize the "complete" aspect of ecasound—as far as I can tell it has every feature common to all DAWs, including MIDI and synchronization capabilities, and its command-line interface guarantees a unique position among its more colorful brethren.
Given its text-based UI, ecasound has some very appealing aspects to the recordist. Above all, the program is fast, and its happy lack of a dependency-laden GUI gives it an edge in the stability department. Ecasound can also be extensively and elaborately scripted—in essence you can define the program's available capabilities on a per-project basis. For example, I use a simple ecasound script when I want to record something very quickly and with high quality. Typically I'll then import my ecasound-recorded tracks into Ardour for detailing, arrangement, and the final mix. In truth, I could script ecasound to do all that too, but I like to keep everyone busy in my studio.
By the way, if you must have a GUI for ecasound take a look at Joel Roth's Nama or Luis Gasparotto's TkEca. Both programs provide GUIs for nearly complete control over ecasound's powers. And if you need to be convinced that ecasound can be used to make real music, check out the music of Julien Claassen.
Though its native UI is humble and unassuming, ecasound is awesomely powerful. I've used it for so long and for so many purposes I simply can't imagine my Linux audio life without it. In my opinion, the compleat Linux studio requires ecasound.
EnergyXT2
EnergyXT2—eXT2 to its users—is an inexpensive cross-platform, commercially available DAW designed chiefly by Joergen Aase. It is a complete DAW with the expected audio and MIDI record/edit/playback functions, though the demo version (shown at left) comes with restricted recording and file-saving capabilities.
Configuration and installation is uncomplicated, and the demo version worked out of the box for me on my AV Linux 5.0.1 system. I loaded the demo songs and played them without xruns (JACK-speak for audio buffer over or under-runs) or other audio discontinuities being reported by JACK, but I expect that kind of stability from a mature application (I tested version 2.6).
eXT2's plugin support is limited to native Linux VSTs, of which fortunately we have quite a few these days. However, it partially atones for that limitation by including a built-in synthesizer/sampler and a very nice multi-effects processor. The full version of energyXT2 also bundles 400+ loops and 32 instruments from Loopmasters, so there are plenty of goodies to get you started.
EnergyXT2 is a popular program that's easy to learn and master. If you do get stuck there's plenty of help available within the program and on-line. See the unofficial eXT2 Wiki and the energyXT2 forum at KVR-audio for opinions, suggestions, and advice from eXT2 users world-wide.
LMMS
LMMS—a.k.a. the Linux MultiMedia Studio—has its roots in the design philosophy behind programs such as the original FruityLoops and GarageBand. Those programs were designed to get the user into making music as quickly and efficiently as possible. Like the programs it is modeled on, LMMS proves that efficiency does not necessarily arrive at the expense of power. (For examples, see the compositions of Louigi Verona.) Be assured, LMMS is a true DAW. It is a lot of fun to play with, but it is no mere toy.
LMMS is designed for loop-based composition. You can record and import audio and MIDI loops, or you can manually enter your own MIDI loops on a piano-roll display. Alas, there is no automated time/pitch stretching. Plugin support is limited to the LMMS internal plugins and plugins in LADSPA or Windows VST formats, but it must be noted that the LMMS internal plugins sound pretty good to my ears. I think they look pretty good too.
Control automation—graphic curve control of signal processing parameters—is a strength of the program. LMMS provides excellent graphic control curve editing, a necessary feature for accurately synchronizing sweeps and other effects to your material. Check out some of the demo songs to hear and see how easily LMMS handles the task.
In early versions, LMMS had problems with its JACK support, but recent releases have mitigated those problems. LMMS is perfectly comfortable in an ALSA-only environment, though; on my systems, I get better performance from LMMS with pure ALSA anyway. Your mileage may vary.
With its colorful and well-organized GUI, LMMS presents itself as an upbeat environment for making music. At development version 0.4.9, LMMS still shows some rough edges, but its usability rates high. It works out of the box, it's very easy to learn, and it's great fun. The LMMS interface is unlike any other presented in this article, but I find it attractive and conducive to productivity.
Mixbus
I thought about including Mixbus in my description of Ardour—Mixbus is based on the Ardour 2.x release series—but it is in a class of its own and deserves separate treatment.
Mixbus is a commercially-available cross-platform DAW created by Harrison Consoles, a company dedicated to the manufacture of some of the most prestigious audio mixing desks in the professional recording industry. Harrison's Web site lists the |
, as well."
Islamic terrorism could be prevented through international redistribution of wealth to promote economic development in poorer societies, said Obama.
Obama previously posited his Marxist analysis of the drivers of Islamic terrorism in August while speaking at the Young Africans Summit in Washington, D.C.:
"When you have regional conflicts, and young people are displaced, and they are without education, and they are without prospects, and they are without hope, then the possibilities of them being recruited into, you know, and organization like ISIL, or Al-Qaeda, or Boko Haram, even if it’s just a tiny small percentage, is obviously gonna be higher than if people are given opportunity and there’s stability in their lives.
The Obama administration’s counterterrorism doctrine since 2009, at least rhetorically, has been grounded in the aforementioned Marxist analysis of Islamic terrorism as a function of economic hardship."
Click here for a list of ten prominent Islamic terrorists whose backgrounds undermine the narrative of poverty as a driver of Islamic terrorism. Just as Western proponents of socialism, communism, or contemporary neo-Marxism are often found among the “middle class” as an ideology of decadence, Muslim subscribers to Islamism and Jihadism are widely dispersed across various economic strata.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter.Chinese Company XJ to Manufacture AMSC Proprietary Wind Turbines for the Chinese Market
October 17th, 2008 by Amiel Blajchman
American Superconductor (AMSC) has licensed a proprietary 2 megawatt wind turbine design to China’s XJ Group Corporation.
Under the terms of the contract, AMSC will provide the XJ Group with designs for its WT2000df, a 2 megawatt (MW) doubly fed induction wind turbine. AMSC will also provide core electrical components for the 2 MW wind turbines manufactured by XJ Group.
According to Li Fusheng, President of the XJ Group:
The wind power market in China and around the world continues to expand at a dramatic rate. We selected AMSC Windtec because of its proven turbine designs, its ability to help us localize our supply chain and its high-performance wind turbine electrical systems. In addition to utilizing standard AMSC Windtec designs for the WT2000df, AMSC Windtec and XJ Group will jointly adapt the turbine for specific environmental and wind conditions, such as the low average wind speeds, low air density and severe climates encountered in certain regions of China.”
XJ Group plans to have its first prototypes installed and commissioned by the end of 2009 and expects to begin shipping wind turbines to customers in 2010.WARRINGTON Wolves will be without the services of two of their overseas stars for at least a month.
Wolves' head of coaching and rugby Tony Smih has confirmed that Kurt Gidley has a small fracture in his fibula and is expected to be sidelined for five weeks.
He will miss Wolves' home date with Widnes Vikings tomorrow, Thursday, and at least the opening three games of the Middle 8s series when The Wire seek to secure their Super League status.
Kevin Brown, fit again after a foot injury, is set to replace Gidley in the halves against his former club tomorrow.
Smith has also revealed that Ben Pomeroy, who has formed a solid partnership on the right with fellow newcomer Peta Hiku, has fractured a toe and looks set to be absent for four weeks.
Matty Russell will replace him on the right wing against Widnes.
Both Gidley and Pomeroy finished the game with limps when Wolves won 16-10 at Wigan last Thursday.Bitcoin’s recent market surge and the subsequent selling from a number of major parties has resulted in lost attention for Litecoin. The latter token, which acts as a supporting token for BTC, rose through the ranks over the past week and appears primed for another major threshold before years end. Litecoin hit an all-time high on December 9th, peaking at just over $165.
A suspected downturn has seen the current price dip under the $160 mark, but optimistic viewpoints remain the norm. Litecoin has long stood as a complementary piece to Bitcoin. Whether it first hosted certain test aspects or reigned in other areas, LTC often stands as a piece to watch for Bitcoin’s own future moving forward.
Bitcoin’s market dominance surged with the token’s value increase. Now resting above the 60% mark, alternate coins are receiving heavy investment or are being abandoned in favor of the more notable names. Litecoin may stand well below the leading market cap, but continued growth grants faith moving forward. The LTC market cap is holding steadily above $8,000,000,000 with the $9B and $10B marks appearing more feasible into 2018.
It was prudent to sell any owned tokens following a near 40% daily increase last week, but it is once again time to buy as investors target the $200 valuation for Litecoin. Improving with over 50% increase to the token’s worth during the past week, more than 167% since last month, and 4000% across twelve months, short-term expectations are becoming increasingly likely. Rather than the pipedreams that encompassed much of cryptocurrency at the beginning of the year, these new monumental thresholds are nothing more than a matter of time away.
Read also:An internal review published by Metro says mechanics who work on track maintenance vehicles receive varying amounts of formal training.(Photo by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)
Metro officials say they are working to create a more standardized instruction program after a internal review found mechanics responsible for track maintenance machinery have not all undergone a formal training process.
The 91-page report, “Metrorail Car Track Equipment Maintenance,” is one of the most recent of several internal reviews mandated by General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld to uncover persistent problems in departments throughout the agency.
In the report, auditors raised concerns that mechanics working on rail maintenance vehicles did not participate in a formal training, and that their on-the-job training was not sufficiently recorded.
[Metro station managers unprepared for emergency scenarios, new report finds]
The quality control team “discovered [on-the-job] training is not being properly documented and there is no proficiency checklist throughout the … training process,” one auditor recorded during an interview with maintenance supervisors and mechanics.
“Some mechanics have received the necessary or some of the [necessary] technical training,” auditors noted in another part of the report, “while others have not received any [Metro] instructor led courses.
[For Metro’s track inspection department, small problems may be the most difficult to solve]
The amount of training received varied from mechanic to mechanic, according to the review.
“Management has no guidelines for [on-the-job] training and no assigned [on-the-job] training instructors,” the report said. “Senior technicians accompany junior mechanics during jobs as means of knowledge transfer.”
These training issues had previously been raised by the Federal Transit Administration. As of early September, three on-the-job training instructors had been selected by Metro management, but those experienced mechanics are still awaiting their own training — on how to become adept instructors and mentors.
Formal instruction checklists have been drafted, but not incorporated into day-to-day training operations.
Mechanic training, the report said, “is still being conducted informally.”
In a response to questions this week, Angel Peña, managing director of Metro’s Quality Assurance, Internal Compliance & Oversight unit, said the concerns raised in the report did not necessarily mean that workers were unqualified to perform their jobs. Instead, he said, there needs to be formal documentation to ensure that standards are met across the department.
“[Car track equipment maintenance] mechanics receive appropriate training for their primary duties and responsibilities, and possess knowledge and experience from previous work on similar systems and components,” Peña said.
“There is a greater need for a more formalized process to document on-the-job training,” he added. “Work is underway to ensure these activities are captured effectively and consistently across multiple maintenance groups.”
Faiz Siddiqui contributed to this report.Dietitian Heather Russell provides information on going vegan throughout all life stages if you or your child is affected by soya, peanut or nut allergies.
According to estimates available on the Allergy UK website, 1-10% of people are affected by food hypersensitivity, and 7% of breastfed infants in the UK are affected by food allergy. Research carried out last year suggests that over half a million Britons are eating a vegan diet, compared to an estimate of 150,000 ten years ago, so there are likely to be more and more people going vegan who are affected by food allergy.
Do you suspect a food allergy?
If you suspect a food allergy, please speak to your doctor. Without professional support, you could end up cutting out foods unnecessarily, and you might need to see a specialist.
Your doctor can refer you to an NHS allergy clinic, where tests can be carried out. There are dietitians who specialise in the diagnosis and management of food allergies. They can help you to ensure your diet is both nutritionally balanced and free from any allergen that needs to be avoided. This may involve developing your abilities to interpret food labels and plan ahead for eating out.
Soya
Which nutrients are found in soya products?
You may have heard that soya is a source of good quality protein. Also, calcium-set tofu and fortified milk and yoghurt alternatives are valuable sources of calcium because both the content and absorbability are pretty good. These characteristics make some soya products particularly useful, but there many other good protein sources for vegans, as well as calcium-fortified plant milks that do not contain soya.
Soya allergy
Soya is classed as a major allergen in the EU, and must be highlighted on food labelling. It is found in a lot of food products in various forms. Some people with a soya allergy need to avoid all forms of soya. However, others may be able to tolerate, for example, soya lecithin and soy sauce. Working out your level of avoidance is important so that you can avoid unnecessary dietary restrictions.
Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding requires a few extra grams of protein daily (11g during the first six months, and then 8g) and a lot of calcium. In fact, the recommended daily calcium intake for breastfeeding is 1250mg, compared to a general recommendation of 700mg for adults. To put that into perspective, 100g of calcium-set tofu (uncooked weight) would provide about 28% of the calcium requirement for breastfeeding, and 200ml of fortified plant milk would provide 19%.
What if you have to avoid soya?
If you’re breastfeeding with a soya allergy, soya alternatives to milk and yoghurt and calcium-set tofu are off the menu. In order to hit your daily calcium target, you may need to rely heavily on soya-free fortified plant milks, such as oat or almond milk. Make sure that your daily diet contains other good sources of calcium, such as kale, pak choi, okra, spring greens, dried figs, chia seeds and almonds.
Infants
Generally, it is recommended to introduce food to babies when they are six months old, and this can include soya products. For vegan infants, unsweetened fortified soya milk can be used in cooking initially, and then offered as a drink from one year of age. This milk alternative is readily available, and may be the cheapest option too. Some varieties are a source of protein, calcium, riboflavin and vitamin B12. Calcium-set tofu and plain fortified soya yoghurt can also be offered to help ensure a good source of calcium in every meal.
What if soya has to be avoided?
If your baby has been diagnosed with a soya allergy, please ask to see a registered dietitian. They will help you ensure that your little one consumes a soya-free and nutritionally balanced diet. For example, if soya products are off the menu, it is recommended that vegan infants are given unsweetened fortified oat milk in cooking from six months to one year of age, and it can then be offered as a drink too. Oat milk contains less protein than soya, but more calories. Kale, pak choi, okra, spring greens, chopped and softened dried figs, ground chia seeds and almonds (ground or butter) are other sources of calcium that can be included in your little one’s daily diet.
11-18 year olds
Daily calcium requirements for 11 to 18 year olds are 1000mg for boys and 800mg for girls due to the demands of growth and development. Including calcium-fortified foods or calcium-set tofu in meals helps vegans in this age group to hit these targets.
What if you have to avoid soya?
Vegan teens with a soya allergy need to look for calcium-fortified plant milks that do not contain soya, such as oat or almond milk. They can also boost their calcium intake by including other good sources in their daily diet, such as kale, pak choi, okra, spring greens, dried figs, chia seeds and almonds.
Older adults
Soya products come in handy among older adults, who need to consume a bit more protein per kilogram of body weight to promote muscle health. Anyone aged 65 years or over should ensure that every meal contains a good source of protein. Soya milk and yoghurt contain more protein than other alternatives to milk products, and are therefore good choices for older vegans.
What if you have to avoid soya?
Soya is a good plant-based source of protein, but there are many others. The table below provides lots of ideas to help ensure that every meal is packed with protein:
Type of food Good sources of protein Legumes Beans, lentils, chickpeas, peanuts Starchy foods Buckwheat, quinoa, wild rice Nuts Cashew nuts, pistachio nuts Seeds Chia seeds, ground linseed, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds Meat alternative Vegan Quorn, seitan made without soya
Conclusion
Eating vegan with a soya allergy requires some additional planning, particularly for young children, teens, breastfeeding parents and people over 65. People affected should pay particular attention to their calcium intakes, and make sure they’re consuming enough protein-rich foods. However, there is no reason why people with a soya allergy can’t eat a well-balanced vegan diet. For vegans who do not need to avoid soya, it is safe, healthy, and a valuable source of nutrition for people of all ages.
Peanuts and nuts
You’ll notice in the table above that peanuts are actually a type of legume, not a type of nut (or tree nut as they are also called)! Like soya, peanuts and nuts are classed as major allergens in the EU, so they have to be highlighted on food labelling.
Which nutrients are found in peanuts and nuts?
We all need a bit of fat in our diets, and peanuts and nuts are valuable sources. For example, walnuts are rich in essential omega-3 fat. Peanuts and some types of nut are good sources of protein too. The table above shows that cashew nuts and pistachio nuts fall into this category.
Peanut and nut allergies
According to information available on the Allergy UK website, around 1 in 50 children are affected by peanut allergy. If your baby has been diagnosed with a peanut and/or nut allergy, please ask to see a registered dietitian. They will help you ensure that your little one thrives on a diet free from the allergen(s) involved.
It is rare for someone to react to both peanuts and soya. However, many people with a peanut allergy are also allergic to tree nuts, such as hazelnuts or Brazil nuts. It is possible to be allergic to only one type of tree nut, or more than one type. It is best to avoid peanuts and nuts unless you’re sure that you don’t react to certain ones. Also, even if you don’t react to peanuts and/or certain nuts, it is important to be aware that foods containing these ingredients are more at risk of contamination by the nut(s) and/or peanuts you’re avoiding.
What if you have to avoid peanuts and/or nuts?
Most people with peanut and/or nut allergies don’t react to seeds. Hemp seeds, chia seeds and ground linseed are good sources of both protein and omega-3 fat. Avocado is another healthful source of fat, and nut-free oils like olive oil can be included in your diet in small amounts.
Conclusion
If you’ve got a peanut and/or nut allergy and you’re going vegan, a bit of extra planning will ensure that you get all the nutrients you need whilst managing your allergy. For vegans who do not need to avoid peanuts and nuts, they can make valuable contributions to protein and fat intakes.
Further information
• Allergy UK’s website
• British Dietetic Association (BDA) advice about allergy testing
• BDA advice about food allergies
By Heather Russell, registered dietitian
We've recently updated our nutrition pages so that they're full of up to date information on getting all the nutrients you need as a vegan. Take a look!Manufacturer Williams Release date June 1997 System Williams WPC-95 Design Brian Eddy Programming Lyman Sheats Artwork Greg Freres
John Youssi Mechanics Robert C. Friesl Music Dan Forden Sound Dan Forden Voices Tina Fey
Scott Adsit
Andrea Farrell
Greg Freres
Vince Pontarelli
Kevin Dorff Production run 4,016
Medieval Madness is a Williams pinball machine released in June 1997. Designed by Brian Eddy and programmed by Lyman Sheats, it had a production run of 4,016 units.[1] It is often regarded by many to be the greatest pinball machine of all time.[2]
On October 18, 2013, Planetary Pinball Supply announced that they would be taking $1,000 pre-order deposits for a reproduction run of Medieval Madness.[3]
Playfield [ edit ]
The centerpiece of the playfield is an animated castle with a solenoid-controlled portcullis and motorized drawbridge. One of the game's primary objectives is to "destroy" six castles by hitting the castle's entryway with the pinball. A specific number of hits will lower the drawbridge, exposing the portcullis; additional hits will cause the portcullis to rise, and shooting the ball into the castle entrance generates an explosion effect on the dot matrix display, a lightshow, and a sizable award of points. Medieval Madness also features two Trolls, animated targets that are normally concealed below the playfield, but can pop up during certain gameplay modes. Other objectives can be scored by shooting the left and right ramps, the left and right orbits, and the catapult ramp in the lower left corner of the playfield. The game's ramps introduced a patented feature that would prevent a failed ramp shot from draining straight down the middle between the flippers.[4]
Gameplay [ edit ]
Missions: In order to get to the Wizard Mode "Battle for the Kingdom" one has to achieve the following goals:
Joust Champion : Shooting the loop(s) advances Joust and finally lights Joust Madness.
: Shooting the loop(s) advances Joust and finally lights Joust Madness. Patron of Peasants : Shooting the left ramp advances the Peasants and finally lights Peasant Madness.
: Shooting the left ramp advances the Peasants and finally lights Peasant Madness. Catapult Ace : Shoot the catapult to shoot various items at the castle (Catapult Madness).
: Shoot the catapult to shoot various items at the castle (Catapult Madness). Defender of Damsels : Shoot up the right ramp to advance the Damsel. The final shot up the tower lights Damsel Madness.
: Shoot up the right ramp to advance the Damsel. The final shot up the tower lights Damsel Madness. Master of Trolls : Light the Trolls by hitting the targets in front of the castle. Collect the Trolls in "Merlin's Magic" and finish them off by three shots at the head each to light Troll Madness.
: Light the Trolls by hitting the targets in front of the castle. Collect the Trolls in "Merlin's Magic" and finish them off by three shots at the head each to light Troll Madness. Castle Crusher: Destroy the castle.
All these goals have to be repeated several times to get the corresponding insert in front of the castle to light up.
Multiballs:
Castle Multiball : Light the Lock at the broad side (hole to the left of the castle gate) and lock three balls (same hole). Once activated, the player must shoot either ramp five times to collect the jackpot (denoted by Payne Guards). After all five jackpots have been claimed, the broad side hole lights up, and sinking it scores the Super Jackpot and an Extra Ball. The remaining jackpot ramps light up and the player can continue collecting the Super Jackpots. Once all the Super Jackpots have been claimed, the multiball reverts to the guards.
: Light the Lock at the broad side (hole to the left of the castle gate) and lock three balls (same hole). Once activated, the player must shoot either ramp five times to collect the jackpot (denoted by Payne Guards). After all five jackpots have been claimed, the broad side hole lights up, and sinking it scores the Super Jackpot and an Extra Ball. The remaining jackpot ramps light up and the player can continue collecting the Super Jackpots. Once all the Super Jackpots have been claimed, the multiball reverts to the guards. Multiball Madness : Each of the sub-missions (except for "Castle Crusher") can light an insert in front of "Merlin's Magic". Collecting at least one can start the Multiball by shooting into "Merlin's Magic": In this phase, all the jackpot ramps are lit and the player can score Jackpots by shooting the lit ramps. If a player hits a ramp that is denoted by a completed sub-mission, the player would score a Super Jackpot instead. If the player shoots the broad side hole, a Double Super Jackpot would be awarded instead. For each madness completed, the number of balls is denoted as follows: Single Madness: 2 Balls. Two to Four Madnesses: 3 Balls. Five Madnesses: 4 Balls.
: Each of the sub-missions (except for "Castle Crusher") can light an insert in front of "Merlin's Magic". Collecting at least one can start the Multiball by shooting into "Merlin's Magic": In this phase, all the jackpot ramps are lit and the player can score Jackpots by shooting the lit ramps. If a player hits a ramp that is denoted by a completed sub-mission, the player would score a Super Jackpot instead. If the player shoots the broad side hole, a Double Super Jackpot would be awarded instead. For each madness completed, the number of balls is denoted as follows: Barnyard Multiball : Shoot all catapult items at the castle.
: Shoot all catapult items at the castle. Battle for the Kingdom This two-phased Wizard Mode starts once the player pockets the ball in the castle, with five balls on the playing field. In the first phase, the player has to score all the Battle Jackpots by hitting the madness targets. Once all the Battle Jackpots have been scored, the second phase of the mode starts and the player must hit the castle gate seven times, and get inside to score the final jackpot. Unless the player has any "Troll Bombs", two trolls will be in the way of the gate making hitting the gate very challenging. If the player succeeds in scoring the final jackpot, all remaining balls are drained and the display shows the King of Payne's demise and Merlin announces you are the new King of the realm, and the game continues, also for the rest of the current ball, all major shots are lit for victory laps.
Music and voices [ edit ]
The music and sounds for this game were composed by Dan Forden. Much of the game's dialogue was written by Scott Adsit and Kevin Dorff, at the time members of The Second City in Chicago. Adsit also provided voice work alongside fellow Second City member Tina Fey.
Tina Fey and Andrea Farrell provided the voices of the various princesses (one of which has a "valley girl" accent), while Greg Freres provided the voices of the jousting announcer and one of the trolls, and Vince Pontarelli provided the voices of Francois Du Grimm and the other troll. The rest of the male voices, including the various knights and the Wizard were provided by Scott Adsit and Kevin Dorff.[5]
Reception [ edit ]
It was an immediate critical success, earning well on location and achieving widespread popularity among collectors. Demand for the machine soon outstripped supply significantly; as of 2005, Medieval Madness machines often sell for prices well in excess of $8,000,[6] sometimes much higher if in pristine condition (when purchased new in 1997, the machine cost approximately $3,000). It is considered by many to be the greatest pinball machine of all time.[7][not in citation given]
Digital versions [ edit ]
Medieval Madness is included as part of the Williams volume 1 tables for Pinball FX 3 on October 9, 2018. It was previously available as downloadable content for The Pinball Arcade until June 30, 2018, when all Williams tables were removed due to licensing issues. Medieval Madness is also a playable table in the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, and was also included in the arcade game UltraPin.
Remake [ edit ]
In 2013, the Chicago Gaming Company released two editions of the classic Williams title:[8][9][10][11] Medieval Madness Remake, and Medieval Madness Remake Limited Edition.[12] Both editions of the game include LED lighting on the playfield and a new color display.
See also [ edit ]The price of printers and related accessories could rise in the future as print giants such as HP, Canon and Fujitsu face the prospect of huge payments to copyright holders for selling devices that allow such works to be reproduced.
A ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) agreed that all printers that facilitate the reproduction of copyrighted works, by being connected to a computer, are liable for financial levies.
However, UK businesses might avoid any printing price increases, at least in the short-term, as the nation approaches copyright law differently to other European countries.
Vanessa Barnett, technology and media lawyer at law firm Charles Russell LLP, told V3 that the UK does not have a private copying permission under copyright law, which is the basis for the levy system existing in many other countries.
"The levy system is essentially a way to compensate copyright owners for private copying by placing a levy on items which are used to copy. [Outside of the UK] this obviously has cost consequences for suppliers and users," Barnett said. "But the UK shouldn't feel too smug: the possibility of a levy system in the UK still does rear its head every now and then. It's particularly relevant right now, because of the push in the UK for a private copying right to be introduced into UK law. If that does happen, a levy may not be far behind."
The ruling was made by the court at the request of the German Court of Justice for clarification on a case brought by publisher VG Wort against Canon, Epson, Fujitsu, HP and Xerox on the issue of payments for its copyright works that their printers allow to be reproduced in private.
“It is open to the member states to put in place a system in which the fair compensation is paid by the persons in possession of a device contributing, in a non-autonomous manner, to the single process of reproduction of the protected work or other subject-matter on the given medium,” the EU ruling reads.
In reality, this means printer companies will assimilate the levy into their pricing at the point of sale, thereby increasing the price of their goods, such as printers or printer ink, in a move that is likely to lead to higher prices for consumers and businesses alike.
Furthermore, because the decision has been handed down from the ECJ and is binding across all member states, it opens up for the possibility for all copyright holders to demand levies from printer companies. The potential costs to the affected IT firms could be huge, forcing printing prices to rise significantly.
HP told V3 it would comply with the EU copyright rules, but declined to comment on whether this would lead to price rises. "We believe HP’s printing systems provide the best overall value by offering customers an unrivaled combination of quality, reliability, speed and ease of use at competitive prices. We will continue to aim to protect our customers’ interests and the value we offer while diligently complying with European copyright framework,” the firm said.
V3 also contacted Canon, Epson and Fujitsu for comment but had received no reply at the time of publication.Humans have been putting spherical objects in hoops for centuries, but until the invention of the dunk, the fast break, and face dribbling, it wasn't an activity worth watching. See if "basketball" lives up to the hype with today's Groupon, which scores you a ticket to see the New Jersey Nets in the Prudential Center from one of two seating zones:
For $35, you get a red seating ticket in section 5, 11, 16, or 22 (a $100 value)
For $75, you get a blue seating ticket in section 7, 9, 18, or 20 (a $200 value)
Spectators can choose from five different regular season games:
against the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday, November 23 at 7 p.m.
against the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday, November 28 at 7 p.m.
against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Wednesday, December 1 at 7 p.m.
against the Washington Wizards on Thursday, December 16 at 7 p.m.
against the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday, December 19 at 1 p.m.
Already off to a strong start this season, the Nets have hurdled any possible hang-ups over last year and are ready to take on Eastern Conference juggernauts, including the Celtics and Heat. New head coach Avery Johnson has programmed his sentient squad of basketball cyborgs for full-court domination with smothering defense and a balanced offensive attack. Point guard Devin Harris has pushed his speed to superhuman levels to leave sluggish competition swatting at Devin Harris–shaped afterclouds, while young star Brook Lopez looms over undersized competition to pluck rebounds out of the air like pesky biplanes. Rookie Derrick Favors is banging boards against professional competition and will help defend the Nets' home turf from encroaching invasions of dunking birds of prey, hardwood sorcerers, lane-driving trains of covered wagons, and the rumbling cannonade made by Kevin Durant as he casts bolts from his throne in Basketballhalla.
Whichever game you attend, the 18,500 seats of Prudential Center—also known as "The Rock"—will put you in range to rattle opposing centers with distracting haikus, then watch them shed a single tear on the eight-sided scoreboard. With two years left before the seeds planted in Prospect Heights grow into a coniferous sports arena, today's Groupon makes it easy for Brooklyn to get acquainted with its new home team.Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption Judge Dredd was launched in the second issue of 2000 AD, and was an instant hit with readers
Grim, gun-toting lawman Judge Dredd was launched on the comic stands in 1977. Now aged 40, the character's satirical take on authoritarian attitudes is as relevant now as ever, argue his writers.
It was in a London office above the Fleet River in March 1977 that Judge Dredd was born.
Outside, the punk scene was at its height. The Sex Pistols and The Clash were storming the charts and young comic readers now had their own anti-hero to cheer.
Drawing on a perceived increase in right wing politics, and inspired by the 1971 film Dirty Harry, Dredd was a no-nonsense 21st Century lawman. He patrolled over a hugely over-populated metropolis in an extremely right wing North America.
"It took the irreverence of punk and put it into hard-edged adventures," says current artist Matt Brooker, who works under the name D'Israeli.
"It was pointing out the emperor's got no clothes, and pulling down the trousers of authority."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption 2000 AD artist D'Israeli sketches Judge Dredd
In Dredd's first ever appearance in the comic 2000 AD, he tackled a gang of killers who had been ambushing his comrades.
His response? He casually shot two of the men dead and - after punching the third in the face - gave him a life sentence on the spot.
Dredd's unbending, unsentimental approach satirised right wing approaches to law enforcement, while also injecting a large dollop of humour. Instead of being sent to prison, the criminal was marooned on an extremely busy traffic island with no hope of escape.
"There was no way I was going to approve of a fascist cop," original editor Pat Mills insists. "It had to have a satire, so it wasn't saying we were approving of this guy."
Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption Judge Dredd came down hard on those that broke the law, whatever the crime
Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption But he was also portrayed heroically, coming to the rescue of his city
The character was created by writer John Wagner and artist Carlos Ezquerra.
Covered head-to-toe in body armour, his face has never been shown in 40 years, remaining concealed beneath a mask.
With the combined powers of a police officer and judge, he hands out sentences for everything from littering to murder, with the result that sympathetic characters are often unfairly treated.
But Dredd lives in Mega-City One, a chaotic and crime-ridden city which the writers treated as a character itself.
Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption Steve Dillon, who died in 2016, was one of Judge Dredd's most celebrated artists
Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption Mega-City One is an over-populated metropolis that survived a nuclear war
"Mega-City One had 800 million inhabitants, which would be a major job for any police force to look after, so it was an excuse for the judges to be like that," says Alan Grant, one of the strip's early writers.
"He was a heroic fascist cop who had no sense of humour himself, but the stories were liberally laced with humour."
"It was largely anti-authority, and that was what drew me to it, because I've always had a strong bias against authority," he adds.
"We tried to mix fascism with black humour. It paid off in terms of reader loyalty.
"We ran a survey and asked 'Do you think Dredd's too heavy-handed?' and 90% of readers said he wasn't heavy-handed enough, so we went with that.
"He's a very, very right wing policeman, in a very, very right wing society."
A playground in which to conceive outrageous scenarios, Mega-City One featured fashion-conscious citizens deliberately making themselves ugly via plastic surgery, while others were gigantically obese, only able to get around on wheels.
Meanwhile the city's massive and violent housing blocks were often named incongruously, after people like Enid Blyton, Frank Zappa, or Betty Crocker.
According to Dan Abnett, who has worked on the comic since the 1990s, writing it is a "tricky balance".
"There's a very fine line to walk between making it very action-orientated and exciting, but also to retain the essential satire.
"The greatest stories over the years have acknowledged the mockery of American society and excess."
Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption Dredd: A'very, very right wing policeman, in a very, very right wing society'
Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption For artist D'Israeli, the key to understanding Dredd's character is through the city he lives in
Dredd's adventures are now overseen from the Oxford-based computer games company Rebellion, which took over the publication in - appropriately - the year 2000.
Current editor Matt Smith says writers were "looking at news reports, coming up with a satirical version, and transplanting it into the future".
"Dredd is part of a totalitarian system in which democracy has been sidelined for the sake of order and rule," he adds.
"He's the villain in lots of ways. But he's the guy you want on your side when the criminals turn up, so he's very complex, and that makes it an interesting strip to read, and is part of its success."
Predicting President Trump
Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption A 2000 AD story called 'The Day the Zombo Died' predicted Donald Trump as president
The makers of 2000 AD, the comic anthology where Judge Dredd strips appear, have got several predictions right. One of their most notable was casting a certain TV reality star as a future president.
As editor Matt Smith explains, the world of the story in question, published in 2011 as The Day the Zombo Died, was "run by this rubbish government getting everything wrong".
A ruthless President Trump is seen firing members of his staff, similar to the contestants on his hit show The Apprentice.
"That's 2000 AD picking cultural figures and lampooning them, not realising how close to the bone it would end up being," Smith concludes.
Dredd's success later resulted in him getting his own comic, Judge Dredd Megazine, as well as spin-off computer games, books, newspaper strips, and even Royal Mail stamps.
He also made it to the big screen, with portrayals by Sylvester Stallone in 1995 and Karl Urban in 2012.
Image copyright 2000 AD/Rebellion Image caption Sylvester Stallone played Judge Dredd in 1995, and Karl Urban in 2012
Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Original editor Pat Mills believes today's riot police look scarier than Judge Dredd
But while weighty themes of law and order, and the freedom of the individual, chimed with readers when sprinkled with absurdity, neither film set the box office alight.
Grant thinks it's because the world has become "more and more Judge Dredd-like".
"When you see riot police they look like Dredd - anonymous, behind helmets, hard to attack behind riot shields, and with the heaviest duty weapons for fighting back," he says.
"It's horrible to think you're predicting the future, when all you meant to do was write a funny story. To see it playing out in reality is a shock."
Smith says Dredd has "become a shorthand for harsh law enforcement, so it's become a very important strip in that sense".
"Modern cops in certain countries actually look scarier than Dredd," Mills adds.
"The future has not |
. However the FRB, in an internal statement, had advised that “passwords were not compromised”.
The hacking group Anonymous used this latest attack as �a protest against the prosecution and recent death of Aaron Swartz. It is widely thought that pressure put on Swartz by his impending prosecution caused the 26 year-old to take his own life. Swartz, a co-founder of such internet landmarks as RSS news feeds and the social news website Reddit, was to be prosecuted on allegations of infiltrating the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and stealing data, which could have resulted in a 35 year prison sentence.
Anonymous have been behind many infamous cyber-attacks in recent years, such as an attack on UK Government websites, as well as the Pentagon and News Corporation. The inspiration behind many of Anonymous’s attacks are internet censorship and surveillance, although this particular attack was linked strongly to the death of Aaron Swartz.
This latest attack raises questions for the banking sector, who will want to know more about how the hack was achieved and if it’s something they should be worried about. What was the “temporary vulnerability”, and why did it exist in the first place? Despite the fact that this attack did not affect “critical operations”, US banks, who have to share information with the FRB, this attack potentially puts their sensitive data at risk.�Aside from that, banks will be worried that if the FRB can be hacked into, what’s to stop their own IT security from being breached?
In all of this is the message that despite a recent prosecution of an Anonymous member, the group is still able to wreak havoc in a variety of �ways and affect a range of organisations.ST. PETERSBURG — A man driving a stolen vehicle no faster than 25 mph nevertheless led police on a 90-minute chase through north St. Petersburg neighborhoods Saturday night before they could arrest him.
That's because the vehicle was a 20-ton front-end loader stolen from a construction site and officers had no means to corral it.
Each time officers tried to cut off the machine's path with a police car roadblock, Donald John Clark, 32, the man authorities said was behind the wheel, plowed ahead. Officers were forced to clear a path at the last second in a recurring game of chicken.
The chase, really more of a shadowing of the plodding vehicle, finally came to an end in Shore Acres when the front-end loader ran out of gas. Clark, of St. Petersburg, was taken into custody after he tried to flee from officers, resisted attempts to arrest him and was subdued by a Taser, police said.
Police first received a report of someone driving the front-end loader erratically near 16th Street and 62nd Avenue N, according to police. An officer began following the vehicle, a $250,000 Volvo L110G, on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street N and used sirens and emergency lights to try and stop the driver, but Clark ignored him. He drove onto side streets and through neighborhoods, hitting curbs and running stop signs.
The pursuit took Clark and responding officers along 38th Avenue N, as well as both north and south on Fourth Street and in and out of adjacent neighborhoods. It came to an end in the 1900 block of Arrowhead Drive NE in Shore Acres, police reported.
Police have determined the vehicle was stolen from a construction site near the Valpak complex west of Interstate 275 in St. Petersburg.
Clark is being held in lieu of $35,000 bail at the Pinellas County jail. He has been arrested on several occasions for operating a vehicle while his license was suspended, disorderly conduct and driving under the influence. He served time in jail for a DUI in 2012.Rome (CNN) While the rest of the world has its eyes on the outcome of Catalonia's tussle for independence from Spain, two of Italy's most prosperous regions voted overwhelmingly in favor of greater autonomy from Rome in non-binding referendums on Sunday.
More than 95% of voters who cast ballots in Veneto and Lombardy -- two northern regions which account for around 30% of Italy's GDP between them -- opted to vote "yes" to more autonomy, according to officials in both regions.
Turnout was more than 57% in Veneto, the region's spokesperson told CNN. In Lombardy, turnout was about 39%, that region's spokesperson said.
The referendums were called by the two regions' governors, both of whom are part of the right-wing Northern League -- a party that once favored secession -- and were aimed at securing further powers over spending, immigration, education and healthcare.
Five regions in Italy already boast autonomous powers, including Sardinia and Sicily, as well as Veneto's neighbor, Friuli-Venezia.
Read MoreLobbyists spent a record €1.7 billion influencing the European institutions in 2016, with 95 percent of that figure coming from countries that joined the bloc before 2004, according to an analysis of data in the EU's transparency register carried out by POLITICO.
At a time when many Central and Eastern European countries complain of a pro-Western bias in lawmaking and in the apportioning of EU benefits — such as the medicines and banking agencies moving from London after Brexit — the data reflect the dominance of firms, think tanks and NGOs headquartered in older member countries but with powerful lobbying operations in Brussels.
"We see that the odds are not exactly in our favor," said Jan Němec, who is setting up a Brussels-based trade association representing Czech and Slovak transport associations in response to the dominance of trucking lobbyists from Western countries in the Brussels debate about the rights of posted workers — people who move to work in another EU country temporarily.
"If you look at the contact in the [European] Parliament, I have to say the Western view is prevailing there... They know how to lobby, they have resources, they are more experienced," he said.
Influencers based in Belgium naturally top the list with spending of €427 million because of the preponderance of Brussels-based lobbying operations. Next on the list are Germany-based institutions, who spent €181 million in the last year, followed by the U.K. at €154 million and France at €106 million. By contrast, Poland, which has the EU's sixth largest population, came in behind Austria, Denmark and Portugal in terms of the amount of money spent by its lobbyists. With Belgium in the mix, 95 percent of the total lobbying spend originates from old Europe, but even excluding that country, the disparity is huge with 93 percent coming from old Europe and 7 percent from countries that joined in 2004 or later.
"It's inevitable that companies and organizations with greater resources — most of which come from the older member states — are able to invest the most in seeking to influence policy processes," said Arnaldo Abruzzini, CEO of Eurochambres, a trade association representing 20 million businesses in 43 countries that spent up to €1.6 million last year on lobbying in Brussels.
Some of the disparity may be a reflection of cultural differences between nations. "Countries have different cultures and some countries like the U.K. have a long tradition of lobbying, while other countries know it less and influencing politics is done differently," said Transparency International EU's Daniel Freund, adding that the activity tends to be more developed in liberal democracies.
The EU's transparency register was set up almost a decade ago and is operated jointly by the European Parliament and Commission. It is used by firms, associations and NGOs to officially record how much they are spending on lobbying the EU institutions, as well as state how many people are lobbying for them and which areas of legislation they seek to influence.
The number of lobbying entities on the register has multiplied by 35 since its introduction, with big upticks in the past few years. This is likely due to lobbying organizations acting on draft proposals to make signing up to the register compulsory in order to gain access to the EU institutions. Currently, lobbyists can only access senior officials in the Commission if they are on the register, but that does not apply to lobbyists seeking to influence MEPs and Council officials.
Financial disclosure on the transparency register — as well as all other information provided — is voluntary, and there's no external audit to check whether companies have understood what is being asked and whether their entries are accurate.
Over the last two years, POLITICO has vetted financial entries from entities listed as high spenders in the register and adjusted any outlying figures based on research into each lobbying entity's true effort (some firms record their total lobbying spend in the register rather than the amount spent on EU lobbying). By systematically gathering information from the database, the analysis also gives a deep insight into the lobbying environment in Brussels. The research, based on data disclosed on the register as of summer 2017, put the amount spent lobbying in 2016 close to €1.7 billion. The unvetted sum is much higher.
The figure suggests a lobbying bonanza in Europe's capital that is now approaching spending in Washington. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a U.S. transparency NGO, a total of $3.15 billion (€2.7 billion) was spent on lobbying the U.S. capital in 2016.
Money talks
The top 20 big spenders include pan-EU trade associations like the European Chemical Industry Council — which tops the list at €12.1 million — and BusinessEurope (€4.2 million). Also among the big money are consulting firms like FleishmanHillard (€7 million), Burson Marsteller (€4.7 million) and Interel (€5 million). The figures are for the rounded upper limit of a range given by companies and organizations in the transparency register.
NGOs complain that they are massively outspent by corporate interests when it comes to influencing legislation. "It is no secret that corporate interest representatives in Brussels outweigh civil society organizations both in number and in the financial resources they have for lobbying EU decision-makers, which has dire consequences for public interest policymaking," said Vicky Cann, a campaigner at Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), an NGO campaigning against corporate capture in Brussels.
POLITICO's corrected data bear this out. Sixty-six percent of lobbying spend comes either from companies themselves or law firms and consultancies working for them. NGO spending accounts for only 19 percent of the total, although within that category some organizations also sometimes share the interests of corporates — for example, the European Digital Rights Initiative, which receives funding from companies like Google and Microsoft or IFOAM-Organics International, which is backed by the organics industry. The rest is made up of research and academic institutions and regional organizations.
Some of the top spenders are trade associations representing financial services sectors, like the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (€4.7 million), Insurance Europe (€7 million) and the European Banking Federation (€4.2 million). Individual firms like Deutsche Bank, Google, Microsoft and extractive industry firms ExxonMobil and Shell also feature in the top 20 lobbyists.
"If you compare all the biggest philanthropies... it's nothing compared to what states have available as money, and it's nothing compared to corporates," said Inge Wachsmann, program manager at the Swiss-registered Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation, which donates around €9 million a year to NGOs such as CEO and Finance Watch, which campaigns on financial services regulation.
But it is the extent of the disparity between East and West that will likely be most surprising.
For example, firms and NGOs from Morocco, which is currently lobbying the EU institutions on an update to its lucrative trade agreement with the bloc, spent more money than seven EU member countries this year. Kenyan organizations spent more on lobbying than four EU countries (Slovenia, Latvia, Croatia and Estonia).
"We need to be more present here," said Kinga Grafa, head of the Brussels office of Lewiatan, Poland's 18-year-old business lobby, adding that there was a growing recognition by Polish industry that having a presence in Brussels mattered.
Grafa is one of the association's two staffers based in Lewiatan's Brussels office, and one of four on staff who lobby the EU institutions, with an annual spend of up to €200,000. In contrast, the Confederation of Danish Industry discloses 12 individuals lobbying the EU institutions with an annual spend of up to €1.2 million.
"Government advocacy and lobbying is still not rooted in our political systems," said Liberal Czech MEP Martina Dlabajová, explaining why so few firms spend money lobbying in Brussels. "We still didn't get that negotiating and transferring information to policymakers is crucial if you want to make your voice heard."
"Policy business is a new kind of business for [companies in the Western Balkans]" — Natko Vlahovic, founder of a Croatian consultancy
And the lobbying imbalance extends beyond business. "It’s a fact that trade unions — and presumably NGOs — in many of the newer member states have fewer resources than those in the older, Western European member states," said Julian Scola, a spokesman for the European Trade Union Confederation, which spends up to €1.2 million on lobbying the institutions.
But for associations representing smaller EU countries that joined the bloc in 2004 or later, a significant part of the challenge is waking up their business communities to the threats — and opportunities — presented by European law.
"It has been a very steady learning curve among Lithuanian businesses to really take developments in Brussels seriously," said Tomas Vasilevskis, the director of the Lithuanian Confederation of Industrialists in Brussels, adding that there had been a big uptick in interest in "the last three or four years."
For companies in the Western Balkans, they simply "do not understand to what extent Brussels impacts their policy and regulatory environments," according to Natko Vlahovic, founder of Vlahovic Group, a Croatian consultancy that recently opened an office in Brussels. "Policy business is a new kind of business for them," he added.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the trade association being set up in Brussels by Jan Němec. The association will represent Czech and Slovak transport associations.Please enable Javascript to watch this video
LEWISBURG -- A police officer in Union County finds himself on the other side of the law after he was arrested for threatening to kill his wife and her kids.
According to court papers, the officer was drunk and taking prescription medication to help with an addiction.
Officer Shawn Kuhns, 40, from the Buffalo Valley Regional Police Department near Lewisburg is suspended from the force with pay while there is an investigation.
According to court papers, his wife ran to the home of another police officer for help when Kuhns threatened to kill her and her sons.
Court papers show Kuhns was off duty when he went out for dinner and drinks with his family. When they got home, Kuhns went to his bedroom and started destroying the furnishings inside the room. His wife and her sons tried to stop him and at this time he pushed, shoved, and swung at the three and repeated, "I'm going to kill you!"
"How can we depend upon police officers if this is what they're doing," Brenda Terrell asked.
Police say Kuhns got so drunk he needed to be helped out of the restaurant. Paperwork indicates he got drunk so fast because he was also under the influence or prescribed medication for addiction to opioid pain medication and he is not supposed to have alcohol when taking this medication.
"I certainly wouldn't want him protecting me, no," Tina Prowant said.
"I think that it's not a very promising sign. I'm not exactly sure about the appropriate action that has to be taken," Alex Damjamovic said.
The Buffalo Valley Regional Police Chief says Kuhns has been suspended with pay, pending the results of an internal investigation. All of his equipment has been confiscated, but that's as far as the chief would comment.
"He should end up being -- as far as I'm concerned -- not working and not getting paid for what he did," Prowant said.
Shawn Kuhns faces several charges, including terroristic threats and harassment.
"I do believe he needs to be rehabilitated and hopefully will never, ever carry a gun," Terrell said.
Shawn Kuhns was arrested and taken to the Columbia County Jail. He posted bail Wednesday.Ukraine and the United States are close to signing new defense agreements enabling Kyiv to purchase more defensive U.S. military equipment and play a role in manufacturing such equipment, a Ukrainian defense executive said on June 30.
The agreements were announced during Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's June 20 visit to Washington, but details are still being negotiated. They are aimed at facilitating military sales and promoting joint research and development, and will be signed soon, said Denys Hurak, an executive at Ukroboronprom, a Ukrainian defense conglomerate.
Ukraine needs equipment such as radar systems, drones, and secure communications as it battles Russia-backed separatists in the east of the country in a war that has killed more than 10,000 people since 2014.
The first agreement aims to free up Ukraine's access to the U.S. defense market as well as make it easier for Ukraine to sell its own defense equipment to the United States.
'Strategic Partner'
The agreements do not contemplate the sale of U.S.-made lethal weapons to Ukraine. But Ukraine anticipates receiving U.S. funding to develop new military technologies under the second joint research agreement, which would also pave the way for some U.S. Army equipment to be partly manufactured in Ukraine, Hurak said.
The agreements "will show that we are a strategic partner for America in the defense complex," Hurak told Reuters.
"We are asking for help, but we are also ready to be America's partner and we have something to offer -- namely, production capacity, outsourcing production, [and] cheaper production of components for them."
Hurak told Reuters that he has negotiated with U.S. companies about setting up facilities in Ukraine to manufacture, for example, radio and communications gear.
He told Interfax that the agreements are intended to "implement the initiatives the U.S. announced in 2014 to compensate for losses to the Ukrainian defense-industrial complex from the break-off of its military-technical cooperation with Russia."
Ukrainian factories were once an integral part of Russia's military-industrial complex, but Moscow recently announced that it has found replacement sources for most weapons parts formerly manufactured in Ukraine.
Poroshenko earlier said that U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis is expected to visit Ukraine in the coming months to sign the defense agreements.
"These are absolutely clear and concrete agreements, unprecedented ones. Ukraine has never had such agreements in its relations with the United States," Poroshenko said.
With reporting by Reuters and InterfaxLENOX, GA—Cringing at the thought of the embarrassing blunder being forever preserved on film, a local garter snake was reportedly humiliated Friday after a documentary crew caught footage of it completely whiffing while lunging at a toad. “Dammit, I almost never miss, but of course as soon as the cameras are rolling I totally botch it,” said the snake, bemoaning the fact that its rare misfire would now likely be seen by millions of people worldwide and possibly played multiple times in slow motion. “I bet when that thing airs they won’t even bother to mention the hundreds of other toads I’ve snagged throughout my lifetime. The other day, I plucked a mouse right off a log. Where were those cameras then?” At press time, the predatory reptile reportedly expressed additional frustration when the documentary crew managed to record it striking out big time with a female garter snake.
AdvertisementThe Truth and Reconciliation Commission has missed a golden opportunity.
And it’s unfortunate they have. Because until Canada gets to the root causes of the economic hopelessness, the family breakdowns, the addictions and the disenfranchisement plaguing hundreds of aboriginal communities, nothing will improve for First Nations in this country.
The TRC and its commissioner Justice Murray Sinclair released a summary of its final report Tuesday into Canada’s residential schools. Its six-year investigation has produced corroborating evidence of physical and sexual abuse, institutionalized child neglect, higher than normal mortality rates in schools, and horrific government-directed assimilation tactics.
The report confirms much of what we already knew or suspected about the federal government’s apartheid-like assimilation policies and how they were driven by a European sense of racial superiority. The TRC’s work was critically important to ensure Canadians have a full understanding of their history.
But among the commission’s 94 recommendations — some of which were good and some of which were not so good — there was one glaring omission. It was a deliberate omission because the commission obviously didn’t want to open that can of worms. It’s a can of worms not all leaders in the aboriginal community have found consensus on. But it’s one this country will eventually have to deal with if it ever wants to see meaningful improvements in the lives of affected aboriginal people.
Not once in the commission’s recommendations did they mention the federal Indian Act, the central obstacle that prevents First Nation communities from taking charge of their own lives and getting out from under the thumb of government. The Indian Act is a paternalistic piece of legislation that presumes aboriginal people aren’t fit to make their own decisions, can’t handle owning their own property, and are incapable of deciding among themselves who is and who is not a real “Indian.”
Until it’s repealed, or at least phased out over time, there’s almost no chance of fixing the social and economic ills the commission identifies, including high rates of poverty, incarceration, victimization, poor health, and chronic joblessness.
The argument against repealing the Indian Act is no one knows what to replace it with. Other than constitutionally-protected treaties, there is no other legislative framework that provides First Nations with predictable funding, some form of political system, and a definition of a status Indian, no matter how arbitrary that definition may be.
But there are alternatives. The problem is neither the politicians, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the federal bureaucrats, nor many First Nations chiefs want to do the heavy lifting required to explore those alternatives. It’s easier to stick with the status quo than to take risks that could lead to meaningful change. Besides, many First Nations chiefs and councils, as well as federal bureaucrats, benefit from the status quo, including good salaries and financial security. Some don’t want to give that up, even if it means perpetuating the squalor and misery the Indian Act inflicts on so many rank-and-file First Nations people.
The alternatives can be found in places like the Nisga’a Nation in northern British Columbia. The Nisga’a negotiated their own treaty with government in the late 1990s and freed themselves from the shackles of the federal government in 2000. They no longer operate under the Indian Act, they make their own decisions under a municipal-like governance model, pay taxes, and can now even own their own homes and plots of land. It’s revolutionary. They have emancipated themselves from the colonial rule that has kept their people down for so many generations.
“We are no longer beggars in our own land,” Nisga’a president Joe Gosnell announced to a cheering crowd in Gitwinksihlkw, B.C., in 2000. “We are free to make our own mistakes, savour our own victories, and stand on our own feet.”
This is an alternative to the Indian Act. It’s not perfect and the Nisga’a have their problems, too. But it’s a vast improvement over the Indian Act’s reprehensible reserve system.
It’s a shame and a lost opportunity that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission didn’t recommend this course of action. Because in the long run, the entrenched problems that plague First Nations communities can only be solved through freedom and self-determination.For the Canadian baseball team, see London Monarchs (baseball)
The London Monarch were a professional American football team in NFL Europe and its predecessor league, the World League of American Football (WLAF). The Monarchs played their final season in 1998 as the England Monarchs. In 1999, they were replaced by the new Berlin Thunder.[1]
Early years [ edit ]
The WLAF operated in 1991 and 1992 and included six US teams, one Canadian team, and three European-based teams, including the Monarchs, that was organised in three divisions (North American West, North American East, and European Divisions). The WLAF suspended operations prior to the 1993 season, but was revived in 1995 as the World League, featuring six European-based teams, again including the Monarchs. The World League was renamed "NFL Europe League" in 1998. This league played its games in the spring so as not to conflict with the traditional American football season of autumn and early winter.
In 1991 and 1992 the Monarchs played their home games at the famed Wembley Stadium. In the 1991 season the team won the first World Bowl at Wembley, beating the Barcelona Dragons 21–0, the only team to have beaten them in the entire season. In the first season of the World League, crowds at Wembley averaged 40,483 for the five games. However dwindling interest – even with the advent of a new regional rivalry with the Edinburgh-based Scottish Claymores – forced the team to shift its home ground to White Hart Lane, home of Tottenham Hotspur F.C., when the league resumed play in 1995, and that year average attendance fell to 16,343.
Because of the comparatively small size of the pitch at White Hart Lane, special dispensation had to be applied for to use a shortened field and it was granted: the pitch at White Hart Lane measured 93 yards (as opposed to the standard 100 yards in American football). In 1996, the Monarchs were forced to find an alternative venue for their final home game and chose Stamford Bridge, where they would play all of their home games in 1997.
England Monarchs [ edit ]
Towards the end of the 1997 season, the WLAF was starting to re-evaluate the team's situation in its market, believing that the return to London had not been as big a success as hoped. In conjunction with general manager Alton Byrd, the team was rebranded the England Monarchs and travelled the country, playing home games at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London, Ashton Gate (home of Bristol City F.C.) and Alexander Stadium, an athletics stadium in Birmingham – another step down in the size and quality of the stadiums used. This venture divided opinion dramatically amongst the Monarchs support and rather than increase interest in the team, attendances slumped to an average of 5,944. The announcement at the end of the 1998 season that the league would add a new team, the Berlin Thunder, led to weeks of speculation that either one of the existing teams would be shut down, or that the Monarchs and Claymores would be amalgamated into a single British team. Confirmation that the Monarchs were to close down came in July that year.
Like other WLAF/NFL Europe teams, most of the Monarchs' players were young American developmental players assigned from teams in the National Football League. The league paid these players' salaries, as well of that of the coaches, who tended also to be Americans, though there were exceptions – in the early Monarchs Walter McKone, D.O. was a team osteopath and Stewart Parkinson a team manager. A few players of European extraction also participated, primarily as kicking specialists, although league rules required the participation of at least one player of European extraction on every other series of four downs. The league's points leader in 1991 was Phil Alexander, kicker with the Monarchs, who is currently Chief Executive of Crystal Palace football club. One exception to the "kicker phenomenon" was Victor Ebubedike (later Victor X Ebubedike, and later still Victor Muhammad) who played as running back for the Monarchs for a number of years, and who became the first European to score a touchdown (versus the Orlando Thunder) in 1991. Notable players for the Monarchs included Stan Gelbaugh, William "The Refrigerator" Perry, Obafemi Ayanbadejo, Steve "Hollywood" Brooks, Kevin "Roly Poly" O'Brien, Tim Simpson, Doug Marrone, and Brad Johnson, a quarterback who would go on to win Super Bowl XXXVII with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Also of note was Dedrick Dodge, a special teams maven who went on to win a number of Super Bowl rings with the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos and LaVar Ball, a tight end whose sons play basketball, including Lonzo Ball of the Los Angeles Lakers, who was the second overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft.
Season League Regular season Postseason Won Lost Ties Win % Finish Won Lost Win % Result London Monarchs 1991 WLAF 9 1 0.900 1st (European) 2 0 1.000 World Bowl '91 champions 1992 WLAF 2 7 1.250 3rd (European) — — — — 1993 WLAF suspended operations from 1993 to 1994 1994 1995 WLAF 4 6 0.400 4th (League) — — — — 1996 WLAF 4 6 0.400 5th (League) — — — — 1997 WLAF 4 6 0.400 6th (League) — — — — England Monarchs 1998 NFLE 3 7 0.300 5th (League) — — — — Total 26 33 1.442 2 0 1.000
Head coaches [ edit ]An archive photo from August 24, 2013, shows Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, right, and France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius shaking hands following their meeting in Ramallah.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced Friday that France will try to convene an international peace summit in the next few weeks to renew diplomatic efforts between Israeli and the Palestinians. Fabius threatened that should the diplomatic offensive fail, France will formally recognize a Palestinian state.
Israel rejected the initiative, with a senior official in Jerusalem saying the threat to recognize Palestine only encourages Palestinians not to negotiate.
Speaking in Paris at a conference of French diplomats, Fabius said "unfortunately, [Israeli] settlement construction continues. We must not let the two-state solution unravel. It is our responsibility as a permanent member of the UN Security Council."
Fabius noted that France hopes the international peace summit will be attended by Israelis and Palestinians, as well as other international actors like the U.S., EU states and Arab nations.
"France will engage in the coming weeks in the preparation of an international conference bringing together the parties and their main partners, American, European, Arab, notably to preserve and achieve the two-state solution," he said.
"If this attempt to achieve a negotiated solution reaches a dead end, we will take responsibility and recognize the Palestinian state," said Fabius.
A senior Israeli official rejected the new bid for peace shortly after Fabius' comments, saying the threat to recognize a Palestinian state should talks reach a dead-end effectively incentivizes the Palestinians to try to see the talks end in deadlock.
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The PLO's negotiations affairs department however, led by chief negotiator Saeb Erekat, welcomed the announcement in a statement, saying: "We welcome the call made by France for serious international involvement towards ending the Israeli occupation that began in 1967."
Erekat continued, "We will be contacting France, as well as other international partners, to advance in that direction (International Conference). We have been calling upon the International community to have an international conference for Palestine based on International law and UN resolutions."
The new effort to restart peace talks may be the last that Fabius makes before leaving his post as foreign minister in a few months' time. Since the failure of U.S.-brokered peace talks in 2014, Fabius tried to push for international efforts on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but none bore fruit.
In December 2014, France tried to push for a UN Security Council resolution to lay down a framework for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, these efforts failed due to opposition from Israel and the U.S. on one hand, and an unwillingness of the Palestinians on the other to compromise on the exact wording of the decision in order to win final approval from the Obama administration.
In the summer of 2015, France raised the possibility of creating an international support group for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. This group met on the sidelines of the UN last September. The meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of Quartet-member nations (U.S., Russia, the EU and the UN) together with another 30 Western and Arab countries - but without Israel or the Palestinians
Since that meeting, Fabius tried to push for a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements, but this effort also failed to gain traction. In the last few weeks, Fabius and other French officials held talks with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and other PA officials. The Palestinians expressed support for the creation of an international peace committee to be based on the Arab peace initiative. Fabius' comments on Friday were, in effect, the response to this Palestinian proposal.Newberry’s was a five-and-dime that had three locations in Portland: Lloyd Center (now a Dollar Tree), downtown (now a Ross Dress-for-Less) and at the ghost in the shell, Eastport Plaza (the mall has been razed and turned into a movie theater, Jo-Ann Fabrics & Crafts and Walmart, surrounded by mini-mall satellite stores and fast food joints).
Newberry’s was the source of most of the birthday and Christmas presents that I received as a kid, and all the ones I bought for my family with my bottle-and-can savings. My mom would drag us there to do her shopping, park me and my brother in a cartoon booth in the store basement to watch a Heckle and Jeckle Terrytoon, put in a quarter, and walk away (we’d amble after her when the cartoon was finished, getting distracted in the toy aisle on the way).
I remember the wan pallor of the flickering fluorescent lights, the hum of the escalator ride down to the store’s basement floor where I used to loiter in the pet department, wishing for a kitten. When I was very little, my mother had been wrongly accused of passing a counterfeit bill at a Newberry’s, and had successfully sued the company in small claims court for the humiliation of being arrested in the store like a common criminal (at a value of $200). Though she vowed never to return, these were the pre-Walmart days and there wasn’t really anywhere else for low-income people to shop in Portland. Nowhere on a bus line, anyway.
When I was about 5 or 6, my grandma Laverne used to pick us up on some Saturdays and we’d walk around the Lloyd Center – back when it was an open-air mall with only two floors – and we’d eventually settle into Newberry’s so she and my mom could do a little shopping. If we’d behaved as expected, my brother Jeremy and I might be treated to lunch at the Newberry’s lunch counter. Being a typical kid, I always ordered a burger or a grilled cheese sandwich and fries with a soda. The first time I heard the phrase “greasy spoon,” it was used by Laverne to describe that place.
Newberry’s was the bane of my middle school existence. It was where imitation Keds sneakers and saggy, off-brand sweat pants were purchased for my much-maligned wardrobe. My first training bra was purchased there, despite my mom’s disbelief that my flat chest required harnessing. I used to spend my babysitting money on Wet & Wild cosmetics, Dep hair gel and the Designer Imposters version of Exclamation! body spray, but I was always mortified if anyone I knew caught me going in or coming out.
The last Newberry’s closed in 1997. I couldn’t have cared less.
These are all of the things I remember about Newberry’s. Every detail stored in my memory bank is a 3×5 card – a crisp flash of lightning across my hippocampus. There’s something so gut-wrenching about childhood nostalgia – even though I didn’t particularly love anything about Newberry’s when I was young, sifting through the tin box full of my mental index cards has shaken something loose in my soul. Now I’m wistful for that food, and that place, and I ache in my marrow to recreate it.
My search for a copy of the Newberry’s menu has been mostly fruitless. I found one scan of a menu from the Pheonix, AZ Newberry’s, circa 1938, but this isn’t the menu of my childhood. Nonetheless, it pricked a nerve and I found myself with a primal hanker for a deviled egg sandwich (and a chocolate malted, though this jones wasn’t as immediately sated).
I hard-cooked 6 eggs, cracked them gently all over and peeled them under running water. I halved each lengthwise and popped out the creamy yolks into a bowl. I wanted these to be particularly devillish, so in addition to mayo, I added jalapeño mustard, hot paprika and curry powder, plus a few pinches of salt and pepper, some smoky pimentón dulce and a dash of mustard powder. Next I added parsley, pickled onions (my own) and sweet-hot peppadews (in lieu of Laverne’s favorite pimentos), each minced finely. I blended the yolk mixture with a fork until smooth, then added the whites, coarsely chopped. I smeared toasted nutty wheat with mayo, added a handful of shredded lettuce and spooned on about 2.5 egg’s worth of the deviled egg salad. I sprinkled on another dash of hot paprika for good measure, and devoured the sandwich standing at my kitchen counter (intermittently plying Zephyr, demanding “mo! mo!” with spicy, eggy nibblets). It hit the spot, but a chocolate malted would’ve been a toe-curl.
I am on a quest, now, to find all of these quasi-memory foods. In the meanwhile, I guess I’ll just be poring over vintage menus and eating what strikes my fancy.These Radiation Protection posters were produced at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the late 1940s, where the most of the work was done on the Manhattan Project. Before the Cold War was in full effect, these posters warned of dangers that would come to define a generation.
Health Physics Surveyors are trained and equipped to help you avoid radiation exposure
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Radiation need not be feared – but it must command your respect
Immediate Care for Contaminated Wounds
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energised electrical circuit. The plug has protruding pins (referred to as male) that fit into matching apertures (called female) in the sockets. A plug is defined in IEC 60050 as an accessory having pins designed to engage with the contacts of a socket-outlet, also incorporating means for the electrical connection and mechanical retention of flexible cables or cords, a plug does not contain components which modify the electrical output from the electrical input (except where a switch or fuse is provided as a means of disconnecting the output from input). There is an erroneous tendency to refer to power conversion devices with incorporated plug pins as plugs, but IEC 60050 refers to these as 'direct plug-in equipment' defined as equipment in which the mains plug forms an integral part of the equipment enclosure so that the equipment is supported by the mains socket-outlet. In this article, the term 'plug' is used in the sense defined by IEC 60050. Sockets are designed to prevent exposure of bare energised contacts.
To reduce the risk of users accidentally touching energized conductors and thereby experiencing electric shock, plug and socket systems often incorporate safety features in addition to the recessed contacts of the energized socket. These include plugs with insulated sleeves, sockets with blocking shutters, and sockets designed to accept only compatible plugs inserted in the correct orientation.
The term plug is in general and technical use in all forms of English, common alternatives being power plug,[2] electric plug,[3] and plug top.[4] The normal technical term for an AC power socket is socket-outlet,[5] but in non-technical common use a number of other terms are used. The general term is socket, but there are numerous common alternatives, including power point,[6] plug socket,[7] wall socket,[8] and wall plug.[9] Modern British sockets for domestic use are normally manufactured as single or double units with an integral face plate and are designed to fit standard mounting boxes.
Electrical sockets for single phase domestic, commercial and light industrial purposes generally provide three electrical connections to the supply conductors. These are termed neutral, line and earth. Both neutral and line carry current and are defined as live parts.[10] Neutral is usually at or very near to earth potential, being earthed either at the substation or at the service entrance (neutral-to-earth bonding is not permitted in the distribution board/consumer unit).[citation needed] Line (commonly, but technically incorrectly, called live) carries the full supply voltage relative to the neutral. The protective earth[11] connection allows the exposed metal parts of the appliance to be connected to earth, providing protection to the user should those exposed parts inadvertently come into contact with any live parts within the appliance. Historically, two-pin sockets without earth were used in Britain, but their use is now restricted to sockets specifically designated for shavers and toothbrushes.
An adaptor (in the context of plugs and sockets) is defined in IEC 60050 as a portable accessory constructed as an integral unit incorporating both a plug portion and one or more socket-outlet portions. (There is an alternative spelling, adapter, but adaptor is the form usually used in standards and official documents.)
Common characteristics [ edit ]
There are certain characteristics common to British mains plugs and sockets intended for domestic use. The brass pins appear relatively solid and large compared to others. British Standards for plugs (with the exception of BS 4573) have always specified side entry flex (entry in other types is usually parallel to the axes of the pins). Since 1934, the contacts of a socket have been specified in terms of the pins of the plug, rather than by specifying the contact dimensions.[12] The pins of both round pin and rectangular pin plugs are arranged in a triangular fashion, the earth pin being the larger and longer pin at the apex. Earthed sockets are designed to be incompatible with two-pin plugs. Both BS 546[13] and BS 1363[14] sockets, when viewed from the front with the earth uppermost, have the line aperture at the lower right.
British plugs and sockets regulatory system [ edit ]
A Statutory Instrument, the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1987[15] was introduced to specifically regulate plugs and sockets in the United Kingdom. This was revised by the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1994.[16] The guidance notes to the 1994 regulations[17] state:
The Plugs and Sockets, etc. (Safety) Regulations 1994 (the “Regulations”) were introduced to provide a regulatory regime to address issues regarding consumer safety. There were concerns that consumer safety was compromised by the substantial quantity of counterfeit and unsafe electrical plugs and sockets being placed on the UK market and also by the provision of electrical equipment without an appropriate means to connect it to the mains supply in the consumer’s home.
The regulations include a requirement that all plug types must be tested and certified by a nominated approval body (normally BSI, ASTA-Intertek or NEMKO). They also require that all mains appliances for domestic use in the UK be supplied with approved BS 1363 plugs, but there is an exception for plugs fitted to shavers and toothbrushes which are normally a UK shaver plug (BS 4573) but may also be a Europlug (BS EN 50075). The regulations also contain a provision for the approval of non-BS 1363 conforming plugs when "the plugs are constructed using an alternative method of construction which provides an equivalent level of safety in respect of any risk of death or personal injury to plugs which conform to BS 1363 and is such that plugs of that type may reasonably be expected to be safe in use." Certifying bodies have used this provision by developing their own standards for novel devices, thus allowing the introduction of innovative developments; an example is the plastic ISOD (insulated shutter opening device) which was originally approved against either an ASTA Standard[18] or the BSI PAS 003 before becoming incorporated into BS 1363-1:1995.
There is no European Union regulation of domestic mains plugs and sockets; the Low Voltage Directive specifically excludes domestic plugs and sockets.[19] EU countries each have their own regulations and national standards and CE marking is neither applicable nor permitted on plugs and sockets. Despite this CE Marking is sometimes fraudulently used, especially on universal sockets.[20]
Early history [ edit ]
Lampholder plug from 1893 GEC Ltd (London) Catalogue
When electricity was first introduced into houses, it was primarily used for lighting. As electricity became a common method of operating labour-saving appliances, a safe means of connection to the electric system other than using a light socket was needed. According to British author John Mellanby[21] the first plug and socket in England was introduced by T. T. Smith in 1883, and there were two-pin designs by 1885, one of which appears in the (British) General Electric Company Ltd. catalogue of 1889. Gustav Binswanger, a German Jewish immigrant[22] who founded the (British) General Electric Company Ltd,[23] obtained a patent (GB189516898) in 1895 for a plug and socket using a concentric (co-axial) contact system.
The earthed consumer plug has several claimants to its invention. A 1911 book[24] dealing with the electrical products of A. P. Lundberg & Sons of London describes the Tripin earthed plug available in 2.5 A and 5 A models. The pin configuration of the Tripin appears virtually identical to modern BS 546 plugs. In her 1914 book Electric cooking, heating, cleaning, etc[25] Maud Lucas Lancaster mentions an earthed iron-clad plug and socket by the English firm of A. Reyrolle & Company. The 1911 General Electric Company Ltd. (GEC) Catalogue included several earthed sockets intended for industrial use.
British two-pin plugs and sockets [ edit ]
Early GEC 2 pin plug and socket as depicted in the 1893 GEC Catalogue
The earliest domestic plug and socket is believed to be that patented by T.T. Smith in 1883.[26] This was shortly followed by patents from W.B. Sayers and G. Hookham; these early designs had rectangular plugs with contact plates on either side. In 1885, two-pin plug designs appeared and in 1889 there were two-pin plugs and sockets in the GEC catalogue.[27] The 1893 GEC Catalogue included 3 sizes of what was described as Double plug Sockets with capacities described not in amps, but as 1 to 5 lights, 5 to 10 lights and 10 to 20 lights. These were clearly recognisable as two-pin plugs and sockets, but with no indication as to pin size or spacing, they were sold as pairs. The same catalogue included lampholder plugs for both BC and ES lampholders (capacity unspecified), and also a type of two-pole concentric plug and socket (similar to a very large versions of the concentric connectors used for laptop PC power connections) in the 1 to 5 lights and 5 to 10 lights capacities. Crompton and Company introduced the first two-pin socket with protective shutters in 1893, and the Edison Swan Company was also manufacturing two-pin plug and sockets in the 1890s.[26]
By the time the 1911 GEC Catalogue was published two-pin plugs and sockets were being offered with specifications in amps, but still with no indication as to pin size or spacing. The Midget Gauge was rated at 3 A, the Standard Gauge rated at 5 A, and the Union Gauge rated at 10 A. Also offered were two-way and three-way "T pieces" or multi-way adaptors for the 3 A and 5 A plugs, two-way only for the 10 A. Versions of the concentric plug and socket were now offered rated at 5 A and 10 A. At the same time Lundberg were offering the 2.5 A Dot; 5 A Universal and 15 A Magnum, and Tucker were offering a range of 5 A, 10 A and 20 A plugs and sockets.[26]
BS 73 Wall plugs and sockets (five ampere two-pin without earthing connection) was first published in 1915, and revised in 1919 with the addition of 15 A and 30 A sizes. By the 1927 revision of BS 73 four sizes of two-pin plugs and sockets were standardized: 2 A, 5 A, 15 A and 30 A. This was later superseded by BS 372:1930 part 1 Two-pin Side-entry Wall Plugs And Sockets for Domestic Purposes. Following the introduction of BS 4573 in 1970 there were no longer any UK domestic uses for two-pin sockets except for shavers, so BS 372 was renamed ""Two-pin Side-entry Wall Plugs And Sockets For Special Circuits"" and subsequently withdrawn.
Characteristics of BS 73:1927 (BS 372:1930 part 1) two-pin plugs
Current rating 30 A 15 A 5 A 2 A Pin diameter 0.312 inches (7.9 mm) 0.278 inches (7.1 mm) 0.200 inches (5.1 mm) 0.140 inches (3.6 mm) Pin length 1.125 inches (28.6 mm) 0.812 inches (20.6 mm) 0.625 inches (15.9 mm) 0.500 inches (12.7 mm) Distance between pin centres 1.25 inches (32 mm) 0.875 inches (22.2 mm) 0.656 inches (16.7 mm) 0.473 inches (12.0 mm)
BS 4573 (UK shaver) [ edit ]
Comparison of (top) the BS 4573 shaver plug with its parallel 5.1 mm pins that are 16.66 mm apart with the Europlug with its 4 mm pins converging slightly from a distance of 19 mm apart
UK shaver supply unit marked with shaver symbol. Accepts BS 4573, Europlugs, US Type A, and Australian 2-pin plugs. Dual voltage, with isolating transformer.
BS 4573 British Standard Specification for two-pin reversible plugs and shaver socket-outlets defines a plug for use with electric shavers, the pin dimensions are the same as those of the 5 A plug specified in the obsolete BS 372:1930 part 1 (as shown in the table above).[28] Unlike the original, the plug has insulated sleeves on the pins. Electric toothbrushes in the UK are normally supplied with the same plug. The sockets for this plug are rated at (and limited to) 200 mA. BS 4573 has no explicit specification for the plug rating, but Sheet GB6 (BS 4573, dated 2002-06-03, written by BSI committee) of IEC 60083[29] states that a rating of 0.2 A applies to all BS 4573 accessories.
The BS 4573 socket is for use in rooms other than bathrooms.[30] For safety reasons it is now normally found incorporated into a shaver supply unit which includes an isolation transformer and meets various mechanical and electrical characteristics specified by the BS EN 61558-2-5 safety standard to protect against shock in wet areas.[31] Shaver supply units also typically accept a variety of 230 V two-pin plug types including BS 4573, Europlug Type C, and Australian two-pin plugs. The isolation transformer often includes a 115 V output that supplies a two-pin US Type A socket. Shaver supply units must also be current-limited; BS EN 61558-2-5 specifies a minimum rating of 20 VA and maximum of 50 VA.[32] BS 4573 and BS EN 61558-2-5 both require sockets to be marked with the shaver symbol defined in the IEC Standard 60417-5225, the words "shavers only" are also often used but not required.
British three-pin (round) plugs and sockets [ edit ]
Illustration of "Tripin" 3-pin earthed plug dated 1911. Note that the plug has the basic characteristics of the modern BS 546 plug, three round pins, the earth pin being longer and thicker than the other two, and with a side cable entry.
In the early 20th century, A. P. Lundberg & Sons of London manufactured the Tripin earthed plug available in 2.5 A and 5 A models. The Tripin is described in a 1911 book[24] dealing with the electrical products of A. P. Lundberg & Sons and its pin configuration appears virtually identical to modern BS 546 plugs.
The first British standard for domestic three-pin plugs was BS 317 Hand-Shield and Side Entry Pattern Three-Pin Wall Plugs and Sockets (Two Pin and Earth Type) published in 1928. This was superseded in 1930 by BS 372 Side-Entry Wall Plugs and Sockets for Domestic Purposes Part II which states that there are only minor alterations from BS 317. In 1934, BS 372 Part II was in turn superseded by the first edition of BS 546 Two-Pole and Earthing-Pin Plugs and Socket Outlets. BS 546:1934 clause 2 specifies interchangeability with BS 372 Part II which includes the same four plug and socket sizes. (BS 372 Part I was a standard for two-pin non-earthed plugs which were never included in BS 546 and which were incompatible due to different pin spacings.)
Also in 1934 the 10th Edition of the IEE’s “Regulations for the Electrical Equipment of Buildings” introduced the requirement for all sockets to have an earth contact.[27]
Prior to BS 546, British Standards for domestic plugs and sockets included dimensional specifications for the socket contact tubes. In BS 546 there are no dimensions for socket contacts, instead they are required to make good contact with the specified plug pins.
Before the introduction of BS 317, GH Scholes Ltd (Wylex) introduced (in 1926) an alternative three-pin plug.[27] in three sizes, 5 A, 10 A and 15 A with a round earth pin and rectangular live pins, a fused 13 A version of this continued to be available after the introduction of BS 1363, illustrating that BS 546 was not used exclusively at any time.
Although still permitted by the UK wiring regulations, BS 546 sockets are no longer used for general purposes. Some of the varieties remain in use in other countries and in specialist applications such as stage lighting.
When BS 546 was in common use domestically in the UK the standard did not require sockets to be shuttered, although many were. The current revision of the standard allows optional shutters similar to those of BS 1363. Current UK wiring regulations require socket outlets installed in homes to be shuttered.
BS 546 [ edit ]
BS 546 plugs. Left to right: 15 A, 5 A and 2 A.
There are four ratings of plug and socket in BS 546, (2 A, 5 A, 15 A and 30 A). Each has the same general appearance but they are different physical sizes to prevent interchangeability, they use pin spacing which is also different from the two pin plugs specified in BS 372, so earthed plugs will not fit into unearthed sockets, and vice versa. Plugs fitted with BS 646 fuses have been optional since the original BS 546:1934 with maximum fuse ratings of 2 A in the 2 A plug, and 5 A in the 5 A, 15 A and 30 A plugs. In practice most BS 546 plugs are unfused with fused versions being unusual and expensive.
The 15 ampere (A) sockets were generally given a dedicated 15 A circuit. Multiple 5 A sockets might be on a 15 A circuit, or each on a dedicated 5 A circuit. Lighting circuits fused at 5 A were generally used to feed the 2 A sockets. Adaptors were available from 15 A down to 5 A and from 5 A down to 2 A so in practice it was possible for an appliance with the smallest size of flex to be protected only by a 15 A fuse. This is a similar level of protection to that seen for portable appliances in other countries, but less than the protection offered by the BS 1363 fused plug.
The larger top pin is the earth connection, the left hand pin is neutral and the right hand pin is line when looking at a socket or at the rear of a plug.[13]
2 ampere [ edit ]
This plug was used to connect low power appliances (and to adaptors from the larger socket types). It is sometimes still used to connect lamps to a lighting circuit.
5 ampere [ edit ]
5 A switched socket-outlet to BS 546
This plug corresponds to Type D in the IEC table.[33] In the UK it was used for moderate sized appliances, either on its own 5 A circuit or on a multi socket 15 A circuit, and also on many adaptors (both multi socket 5 A adaptors and adaptors that also had 15 A pins). This 5 A plug, along with its 2 A cousin, is sometimes used in the UK for centrally switched domestic lighting circuits, in order to distinguish them from normal power circuits; this is quite common in hotel rooms. This plug was also once used in theatrical installations for the same reasons as the 15 A model below.
15 ampere [ edit ]
15 A switched socket-outlet to BS 546
This plug corresponds to Type M in the IEC table.[34] It is the largest in domestic use and is commonly used in the UK for indoor dimmable theatre and architectural lighting installations.[35][36]
30 ampere [ edit ]
The 30 A plug is the largest of the family. This was used for high power industrial equipment up to 7.2 kW, such as industrial kitchen appliances, or dimmer racks for stage lighting. Plugs and sockets were usually of an industrial waterproof design with a screw locking ring on the plug to hold it in the socket against waterproof seals, and sockets often had a screw cap chained to them to be used when no plug was inserted to keep them waterproof. Use of the BS 546 30 A plugs and sockets diminished through the 1970s as they were replaced with BS 4343 (which later became IEC 60309) industrial combo plugs and sockets.
Characteristics of BS 546 three-pin plugs [ edit ]
BS 546:1950 (current version confirmed October 2012) specifies pin dimensions only in decimal fractions of an inch, as shown below. The metric values are conversions provided here for convenience. Note, the original lengths of the line and neutral pins on the 15 and 5 amp versions were slightly longer at 0.812 inches (20.6 mm) and 0.625 inches (15.9 mm) respectively.
Current rating 30 A 15 A 5 A 2 A Diameter, line and neutral pins 0.312 inches (7.9 mm) 0.278 inches (7.1 mm) 0.200 inches (5.1 mm) 0.140 inches (3.6 mm) Length, line and neutral pins 1.125 inches (28.6 mm) 0.733 inches (18.6 mm) 0.585 inches (14.9 mm) 0.500 inches (12.7 mm) Diameter, earth pin 0.375 inches (9.5 mm) 0.343 inches (8.7 mm) 0.278 inches (7.1 mm) 0.200 inches (5.1 mm) Length, earth pin 1.437 inches (36.5 mm) 1.125 inches (28.6 mm) 0.812 inches (20.6 mm) 0.625 inches (15.9 mm) Distance, L and N pin centres 1.437 inches (36.5 mm) 1.000 inch (25.4 mm) 0.750 inches (19.1 mm) 0.570 inches (14.5 mm) Distance, perpendicular, E pin centre and axis of L and N pin centres 1.562 inches (39.7 mm) 1.125 inches (28.6 mm) 0.875 inches (22.2 mm) 0.570 inches (14.5 mm)
BS 1363 three-pin (rectangular) plugs and sockets [ edit ]
Left: a typical moulded BS 1363 plug, showing the fuse access from the underside of the plug. Right: a typical rewireable plug; the large central screw releases the cover, allowing access to the terminals and also the fuse
BS 1363 is a British Standard which specifies the common single-phase AC power plugs and sockets that are used in the United Kingdom. Distinctive characteristics of the system are shutters on the line and neutral socket holes, and a fuse in the plug. It has been adopted in many former British overseas territories. BS 1363 was introduced in 1947 as one of the new standards for electrical wiring in the United Kingdom used for post-war reconstruction. This plug corresponds to Type G in the IEC table.[37] BS 1363 replaced the BS 546 plug and socket (which are still found in old installations or in special applications such as remotely switched lighting). Other exceptions to the use of BS 1363 plugs and sockets include equipment requiring more than 13 A, low-power portable equipment (such as shavers and toothbrushes) and mains-operated clocks.
History [ edit ]
BS 1363:1947 "Fused-Plugs and Shuttered Socket-Outlets" which resulted from the report "Post-War Building Studies No. 11, Electrical Installations"
In 1941 Lord Reith, then the minister of Works and Planning, established committees to investigate problems likely to affect the post-war rebuilding of Britain. One of these, the Electrical Installations Committee, was charged with the study of all aspects of electrical installations in buildings. Amongst its members was Dame Caroline Haslett, President of the Women's Engineering Society and an expert on safety in the home.[38] Convened in 1942, the committee reported in 1944, producing one of a set of Post War Building Studies that guided reconstruction.[39]
The plug and socket-outlet system defined in BS 1363 is a result of one of the report's recommendations. Britain had previously used a combination of 2 A, 5 A and 15 A round pin sockets. In an appendix to the main report (July 1944), the committee proposed that a completely new socket-outlet and fused plug should be adopted as the "all-purpose" domestic standard. The main report listed 8 points to consider in deciding the design of the new standard. The first of these was stated as, “To ensure the safety of young children it is of considerable importance that the contacts of the socket-outlet should be protected by shutters or other like means, or by the inherent design of the socket-outlet.” Others included flush fitting, no need for a switch, requirements for terminals, bottom entry for the cable, and contact design.[40] The appendix added 5 further "points of technical detail" including requirements that plugs could not be inserted incorrectly, should be easy to withdraw, and should include a fuse.[41]
This requirement for a new system of plugs and sockets led to the publishing in 1947 of "British Standard 1363:1947 Fused-Plugs and Shuttered Socket-Outlets".[42]
One of the other recommendations in the report was the introduction of the ring circuit system (often informally called a "ring main"). In this arrangement a cable connected to a fuse, or circuit breaker, in the distribution board was wired in sequence to a number of sockets before being terminated back at the distribution board, thus forming a ring final circuit. In the ring circuit, each socket-outlet was supplied with current by conductors on both sides of the 'loop.' This contrasts with the radial system (which is also used in the UK, often in the same installation) wherein a single cable runs out radially, like a spoke, from the distribution board to serve a number of sockets. Since the fuse or circuit breaker for a ring circuit has to be rated for the maximum current the ring could carry (30 A or 32 A for a breaker), additional protection is required at each socket-plug connection. Theoretically, such protection could have been designated either within the socket or within the plug. However, to ensure that this protection has a rating matched to the appliance flexible cord fitted to the plug, a fuse rated between 1 A and 13 A is incorporated into each plug. Wired connections may also be connected to the ring, and these are also required to include a suitably rated fuse. The ring circuit in the UK requires the use of BS 1363 plugs and sockets, but the BS 1363 system is not limited to use with ring circuits.[43]
Chronology [ edit ]
An early MK plug to original version of standard. Note the unsleeved Line & Neutral pins, and the inspection hole for the purpose of making the connection of an earth conductor visible with the cover in place (as required by BS 1363:1947 clause 15.)
BS 1363 is periodically revised, and with supplements and amendments issued between major revisions. BS 1363:1984 and earlier versions dealt only with 13 A plugs and sockets. From 1989 onwards the standard was rearranged into five parts as follows:
Part 1: Rewirable and non-rewirable 13 A fused plugs
Part 2: 13 A Switched and unswitched socket-outlets
Part 3: Adaptors
Part 4: 13 A fused connection units: switched and unswitched
Part 5: 13 A fused conversion plugs
The following chronology shows revisions, supplements and significant amendments.
June 1947: BS 1363:1947 "Fused-Plugs and Shuttered Socket-Outlets" published.
May 1950: BS 1363:1947 Amendment 3, title changed to "Specification for two-pole and earthing-pin fused-plugs and shuttered socket-outlets for A.C. circuits up to 250 Volts (not intended for use on D.C. circuits)".
January 1957: BS 1363:1947 Amendment 5, added clause permitting operation of shutters by simultaneous insertion of two or more pins (in addition to original method using only earth pin).
January 1957: BS 1363:1947 Supplement No. 1 added specification for surface mounted socket-outlets.
1957: Complementary standard published, BS 2814:1957 "Two-pole and earthing-pin flush-mounted 13-Amp switch socket-outlets for A.C. circuits up to 250 Volts". A separate standard specifying a switched version of the BS 1363 socket-outlet for use with BS 1363 plugs.
December 1960: BS 1363:1947 Supplement No. 2, added specification for Resilient Plugs.
December 1961: BS 2814:1957 Amendment 2, title simplified to "13 Ampere Switch Socket-Outlets".
1962: BS 2814:1957 Supplement No. 1 added specification for surface mounted switch outlets.
September 1967: BS 1363:1967 "Specification for 13A plugs, switched and unswitched socket-outlets and boxes" published. This standard superseded both BS 1363:1947 and BS 2814:1957. Only 3 A and 13 A fuses are specified. Resilient Plugs are included.
August 1984: BS 1363:1984 "Specification for 13 A fused plugs switched and unswitched socket-outlets" published. This standard superseded BS 1363:1967. Changes include introduction of sleeved pins on Line and Neutral, metric dimensions replacing inches, specifications added for non-rewirable plugs and portable socket-outlets. The standard was aligned, where possible, with the proposed IEC standard for domestic plugs and socket-outlets.
February 1989: BS 1363-3:1989 "13 A plugs socket-outlets and adaptors - Part 3: Specification for adaptors" published. This new standard covers adaptors for use with BS 1363 socket-outlets and includes conversion adaptors (those which accept plugs of a different type), multiway adaptors (those which accept more than one plug, which may or may not be of a different type) and shaver adaptors. All adaptors (except for those accepting not more than two BS 1363 plugs) require to be fused. All sockets, including those to other standards, must be shuttered.
1994: A Product Approval Specification, PAS 003:1994, "Non-Rewirable 13 A Plugs with Plastic Socket Shutter Opening Pins" published. PAS 003 allowed for the design and approval of plugs without earthing intended for class II applications only. This was superseded by BS 1363-1:1995 but the PAS was not withdrawn until 23 July 2013.
February 1995: BS 1363-1:1995 "13 A plugs socket-outlets adaptors and connection units - Part 1: Specification for rewirable and non-rewirable 13 A fused plugs" published. This standard, together with BS 1363-2:1995, supersedes BS 1363:1984. The provisions of PAS 003 are incorporated, but the plastic pin is redesignated as an "ISOD"
September 1995: BS 1363-2:1995 "13 A plugs socket-outlets adaptors and connection units - Part 2: Specification for 13 A switched and unswitched socket-outlets" published.
September 1995: BS 1363-3:1995 "13 A plugs socket-outlets adaptors and connection units - Part 3: Specification for adaptors" published. Supersedes BS 1363-3:1989
November 1995: BS 1363-4:1995 "13 A plugs socket-outlets adaptors and connection units - Part 4: Specification for 13 A fused connection units switched and unswitched" published. A new standard.
August 2008: BS 1363-5:2008 "13 A plugs socket-outlets adaptors and connection units - Part 5: Specification for 13 A fused conversion plugs" published. A new standard.
May 2012: BS 1363-1:1995 +A4:2012 (Title unchanged) published. This amended standard allows switches to be incorporated into plugs, and introduced new overload tests amongst others. BS 1363-1:1995 remained current until 31 May 2015.
May 2012: BS 1363-2:1995 +A4:2012 (Title unchanged) published. This amended standard adds a requirement that it shall not be possible to operate a shutter by the insertion of a two-pin Europlug, and introduced new temperature rise tests amongst others. BS 1363-2:1995 remained current until 31 May 2015.
May 2012: BS 1363-4:1995 +A4:2012 (Title unchanged) published. Minor changes to BS 1363-4:1995 which remained current until 31 May 2015.
November 2012: BS 1363-3:1995 +A4:2012 (Title unchanged) published. This amended standard adds a requirement that it shall not be possible to operate a shutter by the insertion of a two-pin Europlug, and added specifications for switched adaptors amongst others. BS 1363-3:1995 will remain current until 31 December 2015.
August 2016: BS 1363-1:2016 (Title unchanged) published. Added requirements for incorporated electronic components and for electric vehicle charging. BS 1363-1:1995 +A4:2012 will remain current until 31 August 2019.
August 2016: BS 1363-2:2016 (Title unchanged) published. Added requirements for incorporated electronic components and for electric vehicle charging. BS 1363-2:1995 +A4:2012 will remain current until 31 August 2019.
August 2016: BS 1363-3:2016 (Title unchanged) published. Added requirements for incorporated electronic components. BS 1363-3:1995 +A4:2012 will remain current until 31 August 2019.
August 2016: BS 1363-4:2016 (Title unchanged) published. Minor changes only. BS 1363-4:1995 +A4:2012 will remain current until 31 August 2019.
August 2016: BS 1363-5:2016 (Title unchanged) published. Minor changes only. BS 1363-5:2008 will remain current until 31 August 2019.
BS 1363-1 Rewirable and non-rewirable 13 A fused plugs [ edit ]
BS 1363 plug, with a plastic pin insulated shutter opening device (ISOD) and sleeved pins.
A BS 1363 plug has two horizontal, rectangular pins for line and neutral, and above these pins, a larger, vertical pin for an earth connection. Both line and neutral carry current and are defined as live parts.[10] The earth pin also serves to operate the basic shutter mechanism used in many sockets. Correct polarity is established by the position of the earth pin relative to the other two pins, ensuring that the line pin is connected to the correct terminal in the socket-outlet. Moulded plugs for unearthed, double-insulated appliances may instead have a non-conductive plastic pin (an Insulated Shutter Opening Device or ISOD) the same size and shape as an earth pin, to open the shutters. When looking at the plug pins with the earth uppermost the lower left pin is line, and the lower right is neutral.
UK Consumer Protection legislation[16] requires that most domestic electrical goods sold must be provided with fitted plugs to BS 1363-1. These are usually, but not necessarily, non-rewirable. Rewirable plugs for hand-wiring with a screwdriver are commonly available and must be provided with instructions.[44]
Nominal dimensions [ edit ]
BS 1363-1 specifies the dimensions of plug pins and their disposition with respect to each other in precise, absolute terms.[45] The line and neutral pins have a rectangular cross section 6.4 mm by 4.0 mm, 17.7 mm long and with centres 22.2 mm apart. The protective-earth pin is a rectangular cross section 8.0 mm by 4.0 mm, 22.3 mm long and with a centre line 22.2 mm from the line/neutral pin centre line. The dimensions were originally specified in decimal inches with asymmetric tolerances and redefined as minimum and maximum metric dimensions in BS 1363:1984.
Dimensions are chosen to provide safe clearance to live parts. The distance from any part of the line and neutral pins to the periphery of the plug base must be not less than 9.5 mm. This ensures that nothing can be inserted alongside a pin when the plug is in use, and helps keep fingers away from the pins. The longer earth pin ensures that the earth path is connected before the live pins, and remains connected after the live pins are removed. The earth pin is too large to be inserted into the line or neutral sockets by mistake.
Pin insulation [ edit ]
Initially, BS 1363 did not require the line and neutral pins to have insulating sleeves. Plugs made to the recent revisions of the standard have insulated sleeves to prevent finger contact with pins, and also to stop metal objects (for example, fallen window blind slats) from becoming live if lodged between the wall and a partly pulled out plug. The length of the sleeves prevents any live contacts from being exposed while the plug is being inserted or removed. An early method of sleeving the pins involving spring-loaded sleeves is described in the 1967 British Patent GB1067870.[46] The method actually adopted is described in the 1972 British Patent GB1292991.[47] Plugs with such pins were available in the 1970s, a Southern Electricity/RoSPA safety pamphlet from 1978 encourages their use.[48] Sleeved pins became required by the standard in 1984.
Fuses [ edit ]
BS 1362 fuses (for BS 1363 plugs)
There are two common misconceptions about the |
fact of cosmetic surgery - it’s only a symptom of the poisonous power of celebrity culture.
What began as a menu of options to help women feel better or more empowered has become an unbearable pressure in which we no longer have the choice not to engage.
We can no longer say, with conviction, where the line between ‘normal’ and ‘dangerous obsession’ ends.
What’s the difference, really, between dying your hair and liposuction? If we diet and work out, why not reach the bits that diet and exercise can’t with surgery?
In a world that’s become shaped by celebrity role models and the seductive power of ‘transformation’, we can no longer tell the difference.
It leaves all of us dissatisfied, and feeling anxious and inadequate, obsessing about our bodies and neglecting or undervaluing everything else in our lives. So, thanks for that Ulrika. Thanks a lot.
How has she done it?
She says her life has been transformed after spending £11,000 on reduction, lift and reshaping of her breasts. But as Ulrika strolled on the beach in Los Angeles this week, with her flat stomach and stretched belly button, it seemed her chest was not the only part of her body to have received surgical attention.
Yesterday, she said everything but her new breasts was down to running around after her four children. If so, the results are miraculous. JENNY STOCKS asked London plastic surgeon Mark Ho-Asjoe to assess every aspect of her remarkable new look...
Turning back the clock: Ulrika Jonsson shows off her post-surgery figure while on holiday in Los Angeles this week (left) and how she looked in 2003 (right)
MAKING IT LAST
Mark says: ‘It’s not obvious in this photograph, as she is not laughing or frowning, but past pictures suggest Ulrika might have had Botox. The tell-tale sign is when someone can’t wrinkle their forehead when they look up. The forehead can also get shiny as it isn’t used, as seen on Madonna. The treatment, which is usually administered around the eyes, forehead and nose area, stops the muscles from contracting. Many women this age use it to smooth out wrinkles.’
UNDERARMS
Mark says: ‘When you have large breasts, you always have some excess tissue under the arms called accessory breast tissue. Some people can get quite a bulge here despite being thin, but it can easily be removed at the same time as a mastoplexy (breast lift). Ulrika admits to having had work on this area, which probably happened at the same time as her breast surgery — you either remove it with liposuction or cut it out.’
TUMMY
Mark says: ‘Ulrika has an enviable washboard stomach, but this doesn’t quite fit with a woman who has had four children. I’ve had patients who have run marathons and are really fit, but they always still have loose skin on the stomach. Even Julia Roberts has a bit of wrinkled skin.
‘When you stretch the skin in your 20s, it will often return to normal, but when you repeatedly stretch it, it loses elasticity. So it’s certainly possible Ulrika’s had work on her stomach to look that good. She could have had liposuction with a mini abdominoplasty, otherwise known as a mini tummy tuck, or she might even have had a full one.
‘A full tummy tuck pulls the skin from the upper part of the stomach down over the lower stomach. It leaves a scar around the belly button, as it has to be repositioned. A mini tummy tuck doesn’t touch the belly button, as the skin is yanked down on either side around it. Not everyone is suitable for this procedure, but celebrities often like it, as it doesn’t leave a scar.
‘Ulrika could also have had her muscle repaired in her lower stomach. There are two muscles called the rectus abdominis in the lower middle part of the stomach. When women have children, the muscle spreads to accommodate the baby and often doesn’t come back together again, especially after multiple pregnancies. Surgery can repair this damage and close the gap between the muscles.’
BELLY BUTTON
Her body might be slightly twisted in the pictures, but there is no disguising the fact that Ulrika’s belly button seems to be slightly to the right of centre, and perhaps rather too high on her stomach.
Mark says: ‘During tummy-tuck surgery, a new hole is cut for the belly button, so it is down to the surgeon’s precision to position it correctly. With a full tummy tuck, the upper skin is pulled down and the lower skin is removed, so the surgeon has to cut a new hole for the belly button. It remains attached to the stomach wall, so when a hole is cut it pokes back through. If the hole isn’t positioned correctly, it can go off-centre.
The tell-tale sign of a tummy tuck is a scar around the belly button, but it’s not always apparent in pictures.’
FACE
Mark says: ‘She is on holiday, but Ulrika’s face looks very fresh for a woman of 41. In pictures from last year, her cheeks were sagging down, but now they’re tighter and appear much less lined. This might be because she has lost some weight,
but in my opinion, she’s had a surgical procedure done too, possibly IPL (intense pulsed light).
‘IPL is a needle-free treatment — it acts like a laser, but uses radio frequency on the face to leave the skin looking rejuvenated. The theory is that the heat which is generated by the laser results in a tightening of the dermis — the layer of skin just below the surface — and stimulates collagen production without damaging the skin.
‘Otherwise, she might have had a cosmetic filler injected into her cheeks to replenish the facial volume. As you get older, your cheeks start coming down, and fillers can help hold the skin up a bit better.’
BREASTS
Swelled up: Ulrika reached an I Cup
Ulrika had a 32AA chest as a teenager, but by her early 20s she had grown to a D cup. During her four pregnancies her breasts swelled, reaching an I cup. Earlier this year, she spent £11,000 on a reduction to a 32C, and got her breasts lifted at the same time, leaving her with what she’s happily described as ‘the breasts of a 16-year-old’.
Mark says: ‘A mastoplexy like this is quite common in women in their 40s who have finished with pregnancies. The breasts look more proportionate to her size now she is quite thin. But while they appeared plump and rounded for her first post-surgery photoshoot, they have now drooped (which is natural, after the swelling from the operation has gone down) and are much lower.
‘During the procedure, the plastic surgeon would have removed breast tissue and excess skin, possibly re-sited the nipple, moved breast tissue upwards and tightened the skin.
‘When you remove breast tissue and have an uplift, you should have quite round breasts. But after a couple of months, depending on the type of breast tissue, they can drop.
‘Surgery like Ulrika has had doesn’t work as well for women who have had multiple pregnancies.
As the glands in the breasts shrink with age, the breast tissue becomes less firm.
Even implants won’t help because they add more weight, and gravity is constantly
working on the breasts.’
HIPS/ LEGS
Mark says: ‘I believe Ulrika could have had some liposuction to the sides of her hips and thighs. Her hips are a boyish shape, with no bulging at the side.
When a woman wears a skirt just below the waist, there is usually some bulge at the top, however small.
‘This masculine shape is very hard to achieve through exercise. If it is solely down to working out, whoever her personal trainer is, I’m very impressed.
‘You can easily combine liposuction with a tummy tuck, and the procedure is very common on women of all ages, because excess fat around the hip joint is notoriously hard to shift.
‘While Ulrika’s look is quite androgynous, surgeons don’t have to take out all the fat during the procedure. It’s now called lipocontouring or liposculpture, a procedure where you can just ‘sculpt’ the sides of the hip by taking out smaller amounts of fat.’Frozen in time The electrochemical processes occurring in a battery are highly dynamic. To understand the complexities of the charge and discharge cycles, you need to be able to watch the processes in situ or to freeze the battery rapidly for ex situ analysis. Li et al. applied cryo–electron microscopy techniques commonly used for studying biological samples to examine batteries. They identified the solid electrolyte interphase that forms, observed the interactions of Li with the interphase, and captured the formation of dendrites that can be detrimental to the lifetime of a battery. Science, this issue p. 506
Abstract Whereas standard transmission electron microscopy studies are unable to preserve the native state of chemically reactive and beam-sensitive battery materials after operation, such materials remain pristine at cryogenic conditions. It is then possible to atomically resolve individual lithium metal atoms and their interface with the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI). We observe that dendrites in carbonate-based electrolytes grow along the <111> (preferred), <110>, or <211> directions as faceted, single-crystalline nanowires. These growth directions can change at kinks with no observable crystallographic defect. Furthermore, we reveal distinct SEI nanostructures formed in different electrolytes.
A typical lithium-ion battery consists of a negative electrode (anode), a positive electrode (cathode), a polymer separator, and an organic liquid electrolyte. Although each battery component is macroscopic in practice, research has focused on the microscopic, nanoscopic, and atomistic features to probe more fundamental aspects of battery operation. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been used to study battery materials (1–8), but imaging was limited to samples with reasonable stability under an electron beam. Many battery components [e.g., some lithium-containing electrode materials, organic liquid electrolytes, solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer] are chemically reactive and sensitive to electron-beam irradiation, so TEM studies of batteries in their native environment are problematic.
In particular, both Li metal and the organic liquid electrolyte are unstable during battery charge and discharge. Li metal is repeatedly deposited and stripped during battery operation, resulting in large structure changes that are exacerbated by dendrite growth (9). The organic electrolyte decomposes onto the surfaces of battery anodes (10–12) (e.g., Li metal, silicon, graphite, etc.) by an electrochemically driven process to form a SEI layer composed of organic (e.g., polymeric) and inorganic (e.g., carbonates, oxides, fluorides) components. These two phenomena are intimately related. The fragile SEI influences the structure of the Li metal, which, if unstable, will result in SEI fracture and continued electrolyte consumption. Elucidating the Li metal and SEI nanostructure is critical for developing potential solutions to these failure modes.
Unfortunately, current understanding is limited to ensemble studies using low-resolution TEM (6–8), indirect-imaging (13, 14), and surface-sensitive (15, 16) techniques. Although the general morphology of Li dendrites and chemical composition of the SEI can be observed, their detailed nanostructure and crystallography are important aspects that have not been explored on the single-particle level. For example, the distribution of organic and inorganic components in the SEI layer and their effect on dendrite growth cannot be explained without spatially resolving these structures at the nanoscale. However, because of sample damage from high electron dose rates necessary for high-resolution imaging (figs. S6 and S7), single-particle studies of pristine Li metal and the SEI have not been possible. Here we use cryo–electron microscopy (EM) techniques to characterize the detailed structure of Li metal and its SEI, demonstrating that atomic-resolution imaging of sensitive battery materials in their native state is possible at cryogenic conditions.
At room temperature, Li metal is very reactive and corrodes upon brief air exposure (17) during sample transfer into the TEM column. Additionally, a low melting point and weak atomic bonding make the light Li atoms extremely unstable under an electron beam (18). To overcome these challenges, we developed a cryo-transfer method (Fig. 1) based on cryo-EM procedures used in structural biology. First, we electrochemically deposit Li metal onto a copper TEM grid using standard battery conditions (figs. S1 and S13). We then wash the grid with electrolyte and immediately flash-freeze the specimen in liquid nitrogen (19). At cryogenic temperatures, Li metal does not react with the liquid nitrogen or ice so that the dendrites retain their electrochemical state with the relevant structural and chemical information preserved. Because we directly visualize individual dendrite structures instead of reconstructing three-dimensional models (necessary for biomolecules), atomic resolutions of 0.7 Å are possible (20, 21) for the spherical aberration–corrected TEM (operating at 300 kV) used in our experiments.
Fig. 1 Preserving and stabilizing Li metal by cryo-EM. (A) Li metal dendrites are electrochemically deposited directly onto a Cu TEM grid and then plunged into liquid nitrogen after battery disassembly. (B) The specimen is then placed onto the cryo-TEM holder while still immersed in liquid nitrogen and isolated from the environment by a closed shutter. During insertion into the TEM column, temperatures do not increase above –170°C, and the shutter prevents air exposure to the Li metal.
Figure 2A is a cryo-EM image of Li metal dendrites formed after the first electrochemical deposition. In general, sample regions were exposed to electron (e) dose rates of ~1000 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s in high-resolution images and <1 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s in low-resolution images (details in figure captions). In Fig. 2A, the dendritic structures appear much lighter in contrast than the lacey carbon (atomic number 6) from the TEM grid, suggesting that they have a lower atomic number. Electron energy-loss spectroscopy and energy-filtered TEM data confirm the identity of these dendritic structures as Li metal (figs. S12 and S16), indicating that the dendrites were successfully preserved during the cryo-transfer. A smooth and thin layer (thickness ~10 nm) appearing slightly darker in contrast is identified as the SEI layer that forms on Li metal during battery cycling. In contrast to cryo-transferred samples, Li metal that was inserted into the TEM at room temperature (19) was quickly consumed by environmental exposure (Fig. 2B). These air-exposed Li dendrites have a much rougher surface and darker contrast than the cryo-transferred Li dendrites because of the formation of polycrystalline artifacts, as shown by the corresponding selected-area electron diffraction (SAED; Fig. 2B, inset). The main rings in the SAED pattern of Fig. 2B (outlined in orange) correspond to lattice spacings of 4.38, 2.76, and 2.56 Å, indicating the presence of lithium hydroxide (22). Furthermore, any attempt to image Li metal dendrites using standard TEM at high resolution (electron dose rate ~500 e Å–2 s–1 for ~1 s) results in sample destruction, as evidenced by the holes burned into the Li dendrite from the electron beam (Fig. 2C). These control experiments illustrate major reasons why atomically resolved images of Li metal have not been possible under standard TEM conditions.
Fig. 2 Atomic-resolution TEM of Li metal dendrites. (A) Cryo-EM image of Li metal dendrites. Electron dose rate <1 e Å–2 s–. (B) Standard TEM image of Li metal dendrite with ~1 s air exposure at room temperature. Inset, corresponding SAED pattern. (C) Standard TEM image of the dendrite from (B) after exposure to electron dose rate of ~500 e Å–2 s–1 for ~1 s. The three holes were formed immediately after this exposure. (D) Time-lapse images of Li dendrite from the green-outlined area in (A) after continuous electron-beam irradiation at a dose rate of ~50 e Å–2 s–1. (E and H) TEM images of Li metal dendrites growing along the <211> (E) and <110> (H) directions. Inset, corresponding SAED pattern showing that the dendrites are single-crystalline. Electron dose rate <1 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s. (F and I) Magnified image of boxed regions in red (F) and blue (I) from (E) and (H), respectively, showing the Li metal lattice at high resolution. Electron dose rate ~1000 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s. (G and J) Atomic-resolution TEM images resolving individual Li atoms along the [111] (G) and [001] (J) zone axes. Electron dose rate ~1000 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s.
Figure 2D shows time-lapse images of the dendrite from Fig. 2A (boxed in green) under constant electron-beam irradiation at dose rates of ~50 e Å–2 s–1 in cryogenic conditions. No damage in dendrite morphology is detected even after 10 min. Two such dendrites and their corresponding SAED patterns are shown in Fig. 2, E and H. With the TEM tuned for rotational calibration (figs. S8 and S9), we can index their SAED patterns to the body-centered cubic (BCC) crystal structure of Li metal with the zone axis along the [111] (Fig. 2E) and [100] directions (Fig. 2H). This analysis allows us to assign the growth direction (long axis) of these dendrites to be along <211> and <110> for Fig. 2, E and H, respectively.
High-resolution images of the Li metal dendrites (Fig. 2, F and I) at cryogenic temperatures resolve individual Li atoms, showing that the Li dendrites are single crystalline. All high-resolution TEM images were taken under negative C s (spherical aberration) imaging conditions with a defocus value of ~5 to 8 nm and a C s value of –15 μm. Image simulations confirm that the areas of bright contrast correspond to atomic columns (figs. S10 and S11) (19). At the atomic scale, the dendrite growth directions are visible and parallel the directions previously assigned at lower magnifications. From the atomic-resolution images (Fig. 2, G and J), we measure the lattice spacings of the {110} and {211} planes to be 2.48 and 1.44 Å, respectively (fig. S2). These measurements match well with previous x-ray diffraction data on bulk Li metal, with values of 2.48 and 1.43 Å for the {110} and {211} planes, respectively (23). Despite prolonged imaging (~30 s) at electron dose rates of ~1000 e Å–2 s–1, the Li atoms from the acquired images remain stable.
Our observation that Li metal dendrites grow as single-crystalline nanowires along different directions is a surprising one. Therefore, we conducted structural characterization of many dendrites (~100) to further investigate their growth behavior. We observed three primary growth directions along <111>, <110>, and <211>, whose representative TEM images with their corresponding SAED patterns are shown in Fig. 3, A, B, and C, respectively. The data show a preference (49% by number) for Li metal dendrites to grow along the <111> direction in carbonate-based electrolyte (Fig. 3D), followed by <211> (32%) and <110> (19%). The apparent growth preference along <111> can be rationalized by considering Li surface energies. In the BCC crystal structure, the {110} family of planes is the most densely packed and thus has the lowest-energy surface according to the broken bond model (24). Thermodynamically, we expect a single-crystalline Li metal dendrite to favor facets exposing the {110} planes as the side surface. For detailed observations of the dendrite facets, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is complementary to TEM owing to its large depth of field. Faceting behavior is difficult to observe using standard techniques because side reactions in ambient air corrode the sharp-angled facets, forming curved surfaces shown in typical ex situ SEM images (Fig. 3E). We adopted our cryo-transfer method to SEM (19) and observed the growth facets on Li metal, confirming the dendrite morphology (Fig. 3F), with triangular (Fig. 3G), hexagonal (Fig. 3H), and rectangular (Fig. 3I) cross-sectional Li dendrite structures. In the BCC crystal system, a triangular or hexagonal cross section is appropriate for dendrites growing along <111>, as all three or six of the facets would expose {110} planes and thus minimize the dendrite surface energy (Fig. 3, G and H, insets). When tilted to a grazing angle, a dendrite growing along <111> in the TEM appears to have a hexagonal cross section (fig. S3). For dendrites growing along <211> or <110>, the sidewalls cannot all expose {110} facets (Fig. 3I, insets). However, by maximizing the surface area of their existing {110} facets, <211> and <110> dendrites can reduce their surface energy, elongating the rectangular cross section into the observed ribbonlike structure. Our data here suggest that surface energies of the facets play a large role in influencing the Li dendrite growth direction. However, the system is complicated by the existence of an SEI layer, conditions of battery cycling, and the electrolyte used, parameters that all may affect the surface energy and, thus, growth direction.
Fig. 3 Faceting behavior of Li metal dendrites. (A to C) Li metal dendrites and their corresponding SAED patterns (insets) growing along <111> (A), <110> (B), and <211> (C). Electron dose rate <1 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s. (D) Statistics showing preferred growth direction is along <111>. (E) Standard SEM image of Li metal dendrites after brief exposure to air. Facets cannot be observed because of corrosion in air. (F) Cryo-SEM image of Li metal dendrites. Facet morphology is preserved by the cryo-transfer method. (G to I) Diagram of triangular (G), hexagonal (H), and rectangular (I) cross-sectional structures for dendrites, exhibiting clear faceting behavior. The low-energy (110) facet should be exposed according to thermodynamic considerations. Insets, diagrams of atomic projections from various zone axes. The shapes correspond to the cross-sectional structures observed in cryo-SEM.
In the carbonate-based electrolyte system, Li metal dendrites do not always grow as straight single-crystalline nanowires along a linear direction. They will often change crystallographic growth directions at regions we refer to as kinks. In Fig. 4A, one such kinked region is shown to change between the <211> and <110> growth directions. Starting from the right, the Li metal dendrite initially grows along <211> and changes to <110> at the first kink (dashed yellow line). After growing along <110>, the growth direction switches to a different orientation of <211> at the second kink. Atomic-resolution TEM images of the left and right kink are shown in Fig. 4, B and C, respectively. There are no observable crystal defects at either kinked region. This contrasts with other nanowire crystal systems, in which defects like twin boundaries or stacking faults typically govern changes in growth directions (25–30). For the BCC crystal structure of Li metal, however, defects are not a prerequisite for switching between the <211> and <110> growth directions. The schematic in Fig. 4D depicts the atomic structure of the kinked dendrite (not to scale) as reconstructed from the atomic-resolution images (Fig. 4, B and C). From this diagram, a defect-free transition from <211> to <110> and back to <211> is possible if the kinks have an angle of 30°, the theoretical angle between the <110> and <211> direction in a pristine BCC lattice; this is observed for both kinks from Fig. 4A. Thus, the Li metal dendrite remains single crystalline despite kinking, as further evidenced by the SAED pattern (Fig. 4A, inset). The reason for kinking may be due to a variation of the SEI composition and/or structure during the growth of Li dendrites.
Fig. 4 Atomic-resolution TEM of kinked Li metal dendrite and SEI interface. (A) TEM image of kinked Li metal dendrite that changes from a <211> to <110> and back to <211> growth direction. Inset shows corresponding SAED pattern. Electron dose rate <1 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s. The dashed yellow lines indicate change in growth direction. (B and C) Magnified images of red region I (B) and blue region II (C) outlined in (A) showing both kinks at high resolution. Electron dose rate ~1000 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s. (D) Schematic of the single-crystalline nature of the kink. (E) Atomic-resolution image of green region III outlined in (A) revealing the interface between Li metal and the SEI. The lattice spacings of small crystalline grains of inorganic material dispersed throughout the amorphous film can be matched to Li carbonate (Li 2 CO 3, orange circles) and Li oxide (Li 2 O, red circles). Electron dose rate ~1000 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s. (F) Schematic of the observed mosaic-type structure formed on Li dendrites in EC-DEC electrolyte. (G) Integrated pixel intensities of Li oxide (red) and Li carbonate (orange) lattice. The peaks and valleys represent rows of atoms and the gaps, respectively. a.u., arbitrary units. (H) Atomic-resolution image of the SEI formed in FEC electrolyte. Electron dose rate ~1000 e Å–2 s–1 for ~30 s. (I) Schematic of the observed multilayered structure formed on Li dendrites in FEC electrolyte.
To determine the structure and composition of various SEI films, we investigated the SEI formed in (i) a standard electrolyte and (ii) an electrolyte mixed with a fluorine-functionalized additive. The SEI layer formed in the widely used carbonate-based electrolyte ethylene carbonate–diethyl carbonate (EC-DEC) is shown in Fig. 4E and fig. S14. From the atomic interface between Li metal and the SEI, it is observed that the SEI contains small crystalline domains (diameter ~3 nm) dispersed randomly throughout an amorphous matrix that coats the Li metal. These crystalline grains are the inorganic components of the SEI, identified to be Li oxide and Li carbonate by matching their lattice spacings (Fig. 4G). The amorphous matrix is likely the organic polymer formed by carbonate electrolyte decomposition. The SEI formed in this standard electrolyte resembles the mosaic structure predicted by Peled et al. (31), which describes the SEI as a heterogeneous distribution of inorganic and organic components (Fig. 4F). We observe a completely different SEI structure (Fig. 4H and fig. S15) when it is formed in a carbonate-based electrolyte with 10 volume % fluoroethylene carbonate (FEC), a common additive used for improving battery performance (32). Instead of a random distribution of organic and inorganic components, the SEI formed in the presence of FEC is more ordered and appears to have a multilayer structure, consistent with the multilayer system proposed by Aurbach et al. (33). The inner layer appears to be an amorphous polymer matrix, whereas the outer layer is determined to be large grains (~15 nm) of Li oxide with clear lattice fringes. The Li fluoride (LiF) lattice cannot be detected, even though LiF is considered to be a primary reason for performance enhancement (34).
We further probed the chemical composition of both SEI structures using energy-dispersive x-ray (EDX) spectroscopy. Dendrites remain undamaged after 5 min of continuous EDX spectra collection with electron dose rates of ~100 e Å–2 s–1 (fig. S4). No obvious difference in chemical composition can be detected for either the SEI formed in fluoroethylene (FEC) additive or standard EC-DEC electrolyte (fig. S5). Both EDX spectra have similar intensities for fluorine, which likely forms by decomposition of the Li hexafluorophosphate salt used in both electrolytes (12). The only clear difference between these SEI layers is the distribution and arrangement of their chemical species. Thus, the favorable effect of the FEC additive may be due to its influence on forming a more-ordered SEI nanostructure. We hypothesize that the ordered nature of a multilayer structure can offer increased mechanical durability, making it more robust during battery cycling, whereas a random distribution of inorganics is more likely to fracture during cycling.
This work presents a simple methodology to preserve and image sensitive battery materials with atomic resolution, revealing detailed nanostructures. The insight gained from these experiments can lead to a more complete understanding of the failure mechanisms in high-energy batteries. For example, changes in SEI nanostructure and dendrite crystallography formed in different environments can potentially explain the efficacy of certain electrolyte systems. Although we use Li metal as an example to demonstrate the utility of cryo-EM, the experiments described here can potentially be extended for other studies involving beam-sensitive materials, such as lithiated silicon or sulfur.
Supplementary Materials www.sciencemag.org/content/358/6362/506/suppl/DC1 Materials and Methods Supplementary Text Figs. S1 to S16 References (35–40)The UN Secretary-General says he lacks authority to order a probe into alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. A video shown by Channel 4 News formed part of the evidence of a UN report into the killings.
Channel 4 News obtained a leaked copy of the United Nations report which points to crimes against humanity during the Sri Lanka civil war.
It indicated that actions by both the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) could amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report blames both sides for deaths in Sri Lanka. But the elimination of the LTTE’s leadership by the government and its definitive defeat of the insurgency in May 2009 means that only government forces would be held to account in any inquiry.
The UN report specifically accuses the government of widespread shelling including targeting field hospitals, denying humanitarian aid, and committing rights violations against people inside and outside the conflict zone.
Read more: Channel 4 News special report on Sri Lanka
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he lacks the authority to personally order a probe into the mass killings.
A UN panel appointed by Ban said during the 2008-2009 fighting in northeastern Sri Lanka that there was evidence that the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam were guilty of war crimes.
It recommended that those crimes be investigated and suspects prosecuted.
The panel urged the UN chief to proceed to establish “an independent international mechanism” to investigate the quarter-century war’s final stages.
But Ban said he could not automatically follow the recommendation of his advisory panel, whose report was rejected as biased and fraudulent by the Sri Lankan government.
Video broadcast by Channel 4 News used as evidence
The 26-year war officially finished in summer 2009, when the Sri Lankan army defeated the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) in an area the government named the "no-fire zone".
On the 25 August 2009 Channel 4 News received a video via email from a group calling itself Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka.
It showed naked, bound men being executed with a shot to the back of the head by two men in khaki uniforms on what appears to be a dirt road. It is bookended by two executions; by the end the bodies of nine naked men lie in the wasteland.
Read more: Sri Lanka execution video appears authentic
International pressure for investigation
A spokesman for Ban Ki-Moon said without consent of Sri Lanka’s government or a decision by the UN Security Council, General Assembly, Human Rights Council or other international body, Ban will not move to set up a formal investigation of the civilian deaths.
UN officials concede that Colombo would never consent to such an investigation of its conduct in the conflict.
Sri Lanka is not a member of the International Criminal Court, which means the Hague-based court would require a referral by the UN Security Council to investigate any possible war crimes there.
The council has only referred two previous situations to the ICC: the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region and Libya’s violent crackdown against anti-government rebels that sparked a Security Council decision to impose a no-fly zone over Libya.
In response to international pressure, Sri Lanka set up its own probe. Ban said it was important for the country to pursue “genuine investigations” into the civil war actions.
US envoy to the United Nations Susan Rice said the UN panel report showed “the need for an independent and full accounting of the facts … to ensure that allegations of abuse are addressed and impunity for human rights violations is avoided.”
In a statement, she added that Washington supports Ban’s call for Sri Lanka “to respond constructively to the report.”
Philippe Bolopion of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch disagreed with Ban’s assessment and urged him to set up an international inquiry. Despite Russian and Chinese reluctance, other Security Council members would support a formal UN investigation, he said.
“While we think such intergovernmental support would be highly desirable, we don’t consider it necessary to the creation of an investigative mechanism by (Ban),” he said.Share This!
Just in time to cool off in the summer heat, I’m back to rank the top ten best ice cream offerings in Walt Disney World! This may be my most divisive list yet – everyone’s got their sentimental favorites when it comes to this tasty treat. Check out my rankings to see where your favorites fall!
Best Ice Cream in Disney World
10. Ghirardelli Soda Fountain & Chocolate Shop (Disney Springs)
A longtime staple of Downtown Disney and now Disney Springs, the Ghirardelli Soda Fountain offers overflowing sundaes, floats, scoops, and cups of several flavors of ice cream, complete with specialty chocolate treats like decadent brownies and cookies, or milk and dark chocolate hot fudge. Lines here are often long, but for a picture-perfect classic sundae, chock-full of chocolate, it’s hard to resist.
Vivoli il Gelato (Disney Springs)
World-famous gelato, straight from Italy… What more can you ask for on a hot day in the middle of central Florida? With tons of flavors and serving options (cups, cones, shakes, and even tasty espresso-soaked gelato called affogato), Vivoli il Gelato is the perfect stop in The Landing for a sweet treat.
Landscape of Flavors (Disney’s Art of Animation Resort)
Hidden in a corner of the Art of Animation food court lies a secret stash of sweetness – a small selection of gelato and toppings is available on a rotating basis in the cold counter just next to the refrigerated grab-and-go food section of Landscape of Flavors. Cast Members will scoop and top your selection for you, and while it’s a smaller flavor selection (usually only four or five a day) than most other ice cream locations around Walt Disney World, the flavor and texture of the gelato here is perfect, plus, bonus: toppings!
Plaza Ice Cream Parlor/Plaza Restaurant (Magic Kingdom)
A staple for many family vacations and visits to Magic Kingdom, Plaza Ice Cream Parlor and Restaurant feature standard sundaes packed with nostalgia for many visitors. While nothing here is out of the ordinary (except maybe the new donut breakfast sundae offered at breakfast!), it’s hard to beat enjoying a sundae or scoop while overlooking Cinderella Castle.
Beaches and Cream Soda Shop (Disney’s Beach Club Resort)
Whether it’s tackling a Kitchen Sink with your family (a whole can of whipped cream! 10 scoops of ice cream? Why not?!), or just enjoying a scoop or two after a dip in Stormalong Bay, Beaches and Cream is wildly popular for its ice cream offerings for guests of Disney’s Beach Club resort, and even those who just wander over from Epcot, just steps away. Personally, I always love trying to finish a No Way Jose or classic Banana Split before walking it off around Crescent Lake.
50’s Prime Time Café (Disney’s Hollywood Studios)
While 50’s Prime Time may not be the first place you think of when you hear “great ice cream”, it does feature one of the more unique and best ice cream treats in all of Walt Disney World – the peanut butter and jelly milkshake. It might sound weird, or even off-putting, but it’s really a treat! Salty peanut butter flavors mix with sweet jelly and vanilla ice cream to create a perfect dessert. Bartenders at Tune-In Lounge will even kick it up a notch for the adults, and add a shot of your favorite cordial (Chambord and Godiva are among the popular favorite add-ins).
TIE: Aloha Isle Refreshments AND Sunshine Tree Terrace (Magic Kingdom)
Any “best of” list for ice cream at Walt Disney World has to feature Dole Whip, right? (Yes, the Dole Whip is dairy-free, so not technically ice cream, but could you leave it off a list like this?) Who can resist the creamy, slightly tangy pineapple soft serve from Aloha Isle on a hot day? But here’s a secret (and I don’t want to create a ruckus, here!)… I actually prefer the citrus swirl when it comes to fruity-ice cream-desserts-in-theme-parks, available nearby at Sunshine Tree Terrace. The sour orange slush swirled with vanilla soft serve is the perfect pairing, reminiscent of a classic orange creamsicle.
Mickey Premium Bar (Outdoor quick service carts all around Walt Disney World)
It’s hard to top the original Disney treat, the Mickey premium bar, when it comes to nostalgia. Perfect for nearly all occasions |
Dershowitz wants the school to be held accountable for violating the First Amendment.
“They are bound by the First Amendment. So they can’t impose one rule on pro-Israel speakers and one rule on anti-Israel speakers, one rule on conservatives and one rule on liberals,” Dershowitz said.
Dershowitz says the standards that deem a speaker “high profile” is unclear and used as a barrier to block certain views.
“What is the definition of high profile? Would they actually turn down President Trump if he said I want to speak there in a week?” Dershowitz asked.
The longtime Democrat put the public school on notice threatening legal action in a case he said he was confident he’d win.
“I’m not going to let Berkeley get away with that they are a public university, and they are going to have to comply with the First Amendment,” he said.
Latest VideosOTTAWA -- America's newly confirmed defence secretary is a friend to Canada, one of two at the cabinet table who have close ties to their neighbour to the north, former top soldier Tom Lawson says.
Lawson, Canada's former chief of the defence staff, says Gen. James Mattis's appointment to U.S. President Donald Trump's cabinet is "a tremendous point for Canada."
"Jim Mattis is a great friend to Canada," Lawson said in an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CTV's Question Period.
Mattis "is a brilliant deep thinker. He will give good, calm, unfettered advice on all defence issues to his president. And his friendship and knowledge of Canada really suggests good things ahead for the relationship," Lawson said.
The former top soldier, who served in the role from 2012 to 2015, oversaw the end of Canada's mission in Afghanistan and served as deputy commander of NORAD in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Gov. Gen. David Johnston, on Lawson's advice, in 2013 awarded Mattis the meritorious service cross for leadership in the U.S. Armed Forces and NATO in Afghanistan. The commendation notes Mattis provided unprecedented access and championed Canadian participation in critical policy and training events, and strengthened Canada-U.S. relations by demonstrating unequivocal support and unwavering commitment to Canada.
Canada has other military ties to the new Trump cabinet: Gen. Jonathan Vance, Canada's current chief of the defence staff, is very close to Lieut. Gen. Mike Flynn, Lawson noted. Flynn has been named Trump’s national security adviser.
"That'll be very useful to our prime minister and defence minister as they go ahead. These friendships were cast during Afghanistan.... So these are good things. They will mean there's open dialogue between these top players in defence administration."
NATO a challenge if Trump has lost faith
One point of concern, Lawson said, is Trump's stance on NATO.
"The greatest challenge will be that if Mr. Trump and his entire administration loses faith, or has truly lost faith, in NATO and starts to back off on their support, the rest of the NATO members who look to the Americans for support both financially and militarily are in a little bit riskier position as we go forward," Lawson said.
That could have an impact on Canada's coming mission in Latvia, to which the government has committed 450 troops early this year.
"This is one of four brigades that don't represent really a tripwire, but a presence, and one that would have to be taken into Russia's consideration," Lawson said.
"If that starts to fall apart, then all of this has to be reconsidered."
Trump has criticized NATO as obsolete and suggested as president he will withhold military support from members who aren't carrying their share of the burden. That's raised concerns among NATO member countries about what it could mean for the alliance, particularly with recent Russian aggression in Crimea.
"It's certainly relevant to Mr. [Vladimir] Putin [Russia's president] as he goes forward," Lawson said.
For Canada, Trump's comments suggest he'll harden American requests for Canada to increase its defence funding. NATO members agreed in 2014 to spend two per cent of their GDP on defence. Canada spends less than one per cent of its GDP on defence.
"What Canada has said is our one per cent of GDP is less about how much and more about how we use it, and every NATO operation in recent years has been supported by Canada and well-supported," Lawson said.
"That's a good defence and one that many NATO nations can't use because they haven't supported it. "
That said, he continued, "we're at one per cent. That's difficult to defend."DNC Convention Delegate for Hillary Clinton Pushes Latest Unsubstantiated Trump Accuser Story
Gloria Allred was a DNC Convention delegate for Hillary Clinton.
Today Allred, a Hillary Clinton delegate, held a press conference with the latest unsubstantiated Trump accuser.
Media won’t note Gloria Allred was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Not just a disinterested lawyer. pic.twitter.com/gbHEW0W6QY — Joel B. Pollak (@joelpollak) October 14, 2016
Summer Zervos, became the first person fired on the 5th season of The Apprentice after making the mistake of interrupting The Donald during the show’s boardroom session.
Today Summer accused Trump of kissing her and “thrusting his genitals at her” during a private meeting at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007.
Gloria Allred represented her.
And we’re supposed to believe this was not all planned months ago!Associated Press ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — When they took out a mortgage on a small two-room apartment seven years ago, Oksana Li and her husband hoped to make a new home for themselves and their young son.
Now, like thousands of other Russians, they are seeing that dream unravel as they are unable to make payments — even by working longer hours and a second job.
That's because they are part of a minority of Russians who took out mortgages denominated in a foreign currency to take advantage of lower interest rates abroad. As Russia's currency collapsed in recent months, the cost of repaying those mortgages has gone through the roof.
"In November, we gathered my entire monthly salary and that of my husband and took it to the bank, but the sum was still not enough to cover the new monthly payment," said Li, a 35-year-old office manager whose mortgage is in Swiss francs.
When the Li family took out their mortgage in 2008, their monthly payment was equivalent to 38,000 rubles. By the end of 2014, it was 129,000 rubles.
Taking mortgages in a foreign currency was an accepted practice in countries like Russia before 2008. The borrower gained by enjoying the interest rates of the country whose currency the loan was denominated in. Switzerland's main interest rate, for example, is now near zero, while Russia's is at 17 percent.
But the benefits of the cheaper rates come at the risk of fluctuations in the currency. In the case of Li, her monthly payments have more than doubled as the ruble fell by half since last year.The percentage of Russian mortgages that are currently denominated in dollars, euros or other foreign currencies is only about 3.5 percent, according to banking analysts. But that is still tens of thousands of mortgages.
The All-Russia Mortgage Borrowers Community, which was founded on a social networking site in late November, claims that at least 250,000 people live in homes covered by foreign-currency mortgages.
Vladimir Putin Wikimedia Commons
Selling the property is not a solution. Since the homes are based in Russia, they would be sold in rubles, whereas the debt remains in a foreign currency. That leaves the mortgage holders in so-called negative equity.
"Many people find themselves in a situation where the price of the apartment does not cover all of the debt," said Yuri Yufyakov, a real estate agent in Moscow.
Li said that if they do not cover their mortgage payments for three months, the bank can take their apartment back.
She said that's all the more difficult to stomach because of the sacrifices she and her husband had made to hold onto the apartment.
"We pinched and saved, forgoing vacations, sick leaves and any nights out," she said. "I personally worked 12 hours a day and my husband had two jobs." She lamented that they had not spent enough time with their son, now 12.
Li was among about a dozen people who held a picket on a recent Sunday in St. Petersburg. To avoid possible police detention, they stood one at a time in the cold.
On the same day in Moscow, where the protest was sanctioned, as many as 2,000 people joined the rally.
Sergei Ignatyev, coordinator of the group of mortgage holders in St. Petersburg, said they are demanding that banks convert the mortgages to rubles at the rate as of Jan. 1, 2014, when the Russian currency was trading at about 32 to the dollar. The ruble on Tuesday was trading at 63 to the dollar after hitting 80 in mid-December.
Russia's energy-dependent economy has suffered a severe shock over the past few months, largely because oil prices have tanked. Western sanctions over Moscow's course on Ukraine also have had a negative effect, particularly on the banks.
Ignatyev said the banks would be unable to solve the problem unless the Russian Central Bank gets involved. The Central Bank, while insisting it has no right to interfere, issued a statement in December saying it would be in the interests of both the banks and their customers to restructure the mortgages and convert them into rubles at a "reasonable rate."
The protests appear to have gotten the government's attention. Russia's parliament is expected to take up legislation to address the situation when the long New Year and Orthodox Christmas holidays end on Monday.
Some mortgage holders decided not to wait and have managed to convert their debts from foreign currency into rubles, albeit at unfavorable rates.
St. Petersburg couple Dmitry Dervenyov, 50, and his wife Svetlana Suvorova, 32, reached an agreement with their bank in December to convert their 15-year, dollar-denominated mortgage into rubles at a rate that still doubles their payment compared with the start of 2014. On the plus side, they are protected from any further increases and can plan ahead.
"At least now we have hope that we will not lose the apartment," Suvorova said.
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Nataliya Vasilyeva and Iuliia Subbotovska in Moscow contributed to this report.As members of #TeamBlackBerry already know, ShopBlackBerry is the one-stop-shop for the latest unlocked BlackBerry devices and official BlackBerry accessories.
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As always, ShopBlackBerry has one of the lowest BlackBerry Passport prices around. These prices can’t be beat, so visit your local store to take advantage:Mets ace Matt Harvey honored slain NYPD Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo Wednesday by making a visit to the cop’s Bronx station house, where he greeted Tuozzolo’s widow and gifted her small, signed jerseys for the couple’s two young boys.
The pitcher dubbed the “Dark Knight” met with dozens of officers at the 43rd Precinct and offered condolences to Tuozzolo’s grieving wife, Lisa.
Harvey signed Mets jerseys in black marker as a gift to the Tuozzolo children, Austin, 4, and Joseph, 3.
Lisa was all smiles as she asked Harvey, “can you make this one out to Austin, he’s going to love this.”
Harvey, along with Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon and team general manager Sandy Alderson also gave a framed Mets jersey with Tuozzolo’s name on it and his shield number, 870, to the precinct station house.
“In memory of Sgt. Paul Tuozzolo and to the wonderful men and women of the 43rd Precinct, we thank you for your service to the city. Fondly, the New York Mets,” the plaque on the frame read.
Harvey posed for a photo with nearly 100 officers before leaving the station without speaking to a reporter. Each officer got a Mets T-shirt.
Tuozzolo of Huntington, LI was gunned down on Nov. 4 in The Bronx by a career criminal who had taken his estranged wife hostage.
Thousands of cops from across the country gathered on Long Island last week for the funeral of Tuozzolo who was remembered as an “American hero.”
Police Commissioner James O’Neill announced at the funeral that he posthumously promoted Tuozzolo sergeant-special assignment.Getting bigger, stronger and more physical has been the theme of the Redskins’ offseason. General manager Scot McCloughan has emphasized being tougher, particularly in the trenches. On the offensive side of the ball, that means the end of the Mike Shanahan era of offensive linemen. Shanahan built a line full of smaller, more agile players to run the zone-blocking scheme. Jay Gruden wanted to bring more power and gap running plays to the Redskins, but didn’t necessarily have the personnel to do it last year.
This season, however, McCloughan has provided fifth overall pick Brandon Scherff and fourth-round pick Arie Kouandjio to beef up Gruden’s offensive line. Last year’s third-round pick Spencer Long is expected to compete for a starting spot at right guard too. Washington also brought in Bill Callahan as their new offensive line coach, replacing Chris Foerster, who was hired in 2010 to work under Shanahan.
All of these moves should help Gruden and the Redskins become more physical in the trenches. But there will be a transition period. Washington has spent the majority of the past five seasons running the outside zone, otherwise known as the stretch play in the zone-blocking scheme.
This is a perfect example of the base running play the Redskins have used recently. It comes from Washington’s 2013 season, Mike Shanahan’s last in the nation’s capital. It is the stretch play to the right.
Notice how all five offensive linemen take almost a drop step to the play side of the run. The zone scheme asks its linemen to be mobile enough to block to the sideline and reach the second level. Other traits in the zone scheme are noticeable here. Where it can, the offensive line works tandem blocks to help the smaller offensive linemen deal with the bigger defensive linemen. In this example, the left guard and center work one tandem block, while the right tackle and tight end work another.
In the zone scheme, the back-side blockers are taught to seal their blocks inside. As you can see here, both guards do a good job getting play side of their blocks and pinning the defenders inside. The left tackle and the center work to the second level to block the linebackers.
On the play side of the run, the blockers kick out the edge defenders. When both the play-side and back-side blocks are executed properly, it creates one big cutback lane for the running back, as you can see here.
In the zone scheme, the running back has specific reads he has to make, which determine precisely where he should aim to cut back to.
This is a zone run to the left. The running back’s first job in the zone scheme is to identify the end man on the line of scrimmage (EMOLS). On this occasion, the Giants defense has four down defensive linemen, which makes the defensive end the end man on the line of scrimmage. That is the running back’s first read.
The back always has a specific aiming point. Every stretch play will start with the running back aiming to the tight end. On this play, there wasn’t a tight end on the play side, but the back still runs to where the tight end would have started. The runner will read the EMOLS defender, and his position will tell the back if he should continue on his path to the edge or cut back inside. Here, the defender has positioned himself on the outside of his blocker, telling the back to cut inside and work to his second read.
If the first read tells the back to cut inside, then the back moves on to his second read. His second read is the first defender between the EMOLS and the center on the play side of the run. Here, that is the defensive tackle. The back again reads the defender’s position, which tells him to cut further back inside or go outside. Like before, the defender has outside leverage, which tells the back to cut further inside.
Those reads lead the back cleanly through to the second level of the defense.
The zone-blocking scheme has been very effective for the Redskins. The 2012 rushing attack that made Washington one of the best offenses in the league was built off the base of the zone scheme. But in recent years, the smaller linemen required to run it have been vulnerable to bigger, stronger defensive linemen that can drive blockers into the backfield.
Transitioning to the power scheme won’t be easy. It will require a lot of hard work to learn the principles of the scheme and how to execute it effectively. The offensive line and the running backs will have a new set of rules and way of doing things.
First, let’s look at the offensive line. This is a power run to the left. San Francisco is actually running this play with an unbalanced line, moving the right tackle to the play side between the left tackle and left guard, while the tight end shifts inside to fill the gap vacated by the right tackle. That gives the line extra strength on the play side of the run, which is something the Redskins might look to do with Scherff down the road.
In the power scheme, the play-side offensive linemen all have specific gaps to block. They are all told to down block, meaning to block the gap away from the play side of the run. Their first rule is to block a man in their back-side gap, or work to the second level if they have no defender in their gap. The right tackle, shifted to left tackle on this play, has a defender in his gap, so he will down block to the B gap and take on that defender. The left guard will help him initially pick up the block before working up to the second level. The center has perhaps the toughest job, but we’ll come back to that.
The play-side offensive linemen all down block, leaving the edge defender and the ‘point’ linebacker unblocked. The edge defender is left for the fullback or H-back to ‘kick-out,’ meaning to block him outside, sealing him on the edge and opening a hole for the running back. The back-side guard is told to pull from his position and work around as a lead blocker. His aiming point will be the ‘point’ defender, which here is the Sam, or strong-side, linebacker. The back-side tackle has a relatively simple job of walling off the back-side defender.
With the back-side guard pulling, the center has to cover two gaps. The center is already tasked with down blocking to the back-side A gap, but now he has to also cover the back-side B gap vacated by the pulling guard. In this case, the block is fairly simple as there is a defender in the A gap. But had the defense shifted that defensive tackle and put him in the B gap, the center would have had a tough assignment of reaching across to wall him off.
The ideal result of the basic power run is exactly what you see here. The play-side linemen all down block and move their defenders back off the line of scrimmage. They seal off a large portion of the defense on the back-side of the run. The fullback manages to kick out the edge defender and the pulling guard has the point defender in his sights.
Those are fairly significant changes from the offensive-line standpoint. But the role of the running back also changes in this scheme. Instead of following a strict set of rules and making one single cut in the zone scheme, the back has a bit more freedom in the power scheme. His initial instruction is to follow his lead blockers, the fullback and the pulling guard. But once he gets to the hole, he’s given more freedom.
You can see here, 49ers running back Frank Gore has multiple options, rather than one big cutback lane like we saw before. Running backs in the power system have to be a bit more instinctual. The zone scheme tells the back exactly where to go, whereas the power scheme asks the back to think on his feet and make quick decisions.
Getting skinny in the hole is a nice trait to have for a back in the power scheme. Running lanes aren’t often open for long in this scheme, so backs need to be able to burst through the hole and stay skinny while doing so, which means don’t give the defenders much of a target to tackle. You can see above just how small Gore makes himself as he bursts through the hole and avoids defenders.
Making multiple quick cuts on a single play isn’t uncommon in the power scheme. In the zone scheme, the Redskins running backs have been taught to make one cut and then get up the field. In the power scheme, the back needs to be more reactive. Here, Gore has already made one cut, but then a defender manages to win a block. Gore has to react quickly and make another cut in the hole to find the open space and elude the defender.
The power scheme will take some adjusting and getting used to for both the Redskins offensive linemen and running backs. It’s a big change from the zone-blocking scheme they’ve been accustomed to in recent years. But with bigger bodies provided by McCloughan and new coaching provided by Callahan, the Redskins should be better equipped for Jay Gruden to run the power scheme he wants this season.
Mark Bullock is The Insider’s Outsider, sharing his Redskins impressions without the benefit of access to the team. For more, click here.
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More NFL: Home page | Sports Bog | Early Lead | Fancy Stats
Follow: @MikeJonesWaPo | @lizclarketweet | @InsiderIn an attempt to give you the tools you need to win your weekly matchups DFF now brings you weekly rankings.
Below are our in-season matchup experts rankings for this week. Each of our experts were asked to provide their top 24 at the running back position this week, and we’ve also provided you the top 31 Expert Consensus Ranks.
*Please note for optimal viewing experience on a mobile device use landscape mode*
Beginning next week we will be sure to post these rankings every Thursday morning during the football season.
Ranker RB RANK Anthony Michael Jerry Johnny 1 Jay Ajayi Le’Veon Bell Le’veon Bell Le’Veon Bell 2 Le’Veon Bell Ezekiel Elliott Ezekiel Elliott Jay Ajayi 3 Todd Gurley Jay Ajayi Kareem Hunt Kareem Hunt 4 Ezekiel Elliott Ty Montgomery Jay Ajayi Devonta Freeman 5 Kareem Hunt Todd Gurley Todd Gurley Ezekiel Elliot 6 Ty Montgomery Kareem Hunt Devonta Freeman Melvin Gordon 7 Melvin Gordon Carlos Hyde Carlos Hyde Ty Montgomery 8 Devonta Freeman Devonta Freeman Melvin Gordon Todd Gurley 9 Carlos Hyde Isaiah Crowell Ty Montgomery Carlos Hyde 10 Christian McCaffrey Melvin Gordon Marshawn Lynch Christain McCaffrey 11 LeSean McCoy DeMarco Murray Leonard Fournette Dalvin Cook 12 Dalvin Cook C.J. Anderson Mike Gillislee CJ Anderson 13 C.J. Anderson LeSean McCoy LeSean McCoy Marshawn Lynch 14 Marshawn Lynch Mike Gillislee CJ Anderson Tarik Cohen 15 Javorius Allen Dalvin Cook Dalvin Cook Isaiah Crowell 16 Isaiah Crowell Javorius Allen Frank Gore LeSean McCoy 17 DeMarco Murray Christian McCaffrey Javorius Allen Tevin Coleman 18 Leonard Fournette Marshawn Lynch Christian McCaffrey Chris Carson 19 Ameer Abdullah Leonard Fournette DeMarco Murray Leonard Fournette 20 Tarik Cohen Jacquizz Rodgers Lamar Miller Theo Riddick 21 Frank Gore James White Ameer Abdullah Lamar Miller 22 Lamar Miller Chris Carson Isaiah Crowell Mike Gillislee 23 Tevin Coleman Samaje Perine Jacquizz Rodgers Jonathan Stewart 24 Chris Carson Duke Johnson Chris Carson Javorius Allen
RB ECR 1 Le’Veon Bell 1.3 2 Jay Ajayi 2.5 3 Ezekiel Elliot 3.3 4 Kareem Hunt 4.3 5 Todd Gurley 5.3 6 Devonta Freeman 6.5 7 Ty Montgomery 6.5 8 Melvin Gordon 7.8 9 Carlos Hyde 8 10 C.J. Anderson 12.8 11 Dalvin Cook 13.3 12 LeSean McCoy 13.3 13 Christain McCaffrey 13.8 14 Marshawn Lynch 13.8 15 Isaiah Crowell 15.5 16 Leonard Fournette 16.8 17 DeMarco Murray 18 18 Javorius Allen 18 19 Mike Gillislee 18.3 20 Tarik Cohen 21 21 Frank Gore 21.8 22 Chris Carson 22 23 Lamar Miller 22 24 Ameer Abdullah 22.5 25 Tevin Coleman 22.5 26 Jacquizz Rodgers 23.3 27 Theo Riddick 23.8 28 James White 24 29 Samaje Perine 24.5 30 Duke Johnson 24.8 31 Jonathan Stewart 24.8There is a 9 percent chance of a magnitude-9 earthquake off the Aleutian Islands within the next 50 years – and this could spell trouble for Hawaii, say researchers.
Although the Aleutians are off the coast of Alaska, a strong earthquake there would send a mega tsunami directly towards the Hawaiian Islands. A tsunami of this proportion could cost billions of dollars and impact more than 300,000 people.
By studying “paleotsunamis” of the distant past, a team of researchers calculated the probability of such an event.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Rhett Butler, a geophysicist at the UHM School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology (SOEST) and lead author of the paper, says in a press release. “Having no recorded history of mega tsunamis in Hawai’i, and given the tsunami threat to Hawai’i, we devised a model for Magnitude 9 earthquake rates following upon the insightful work of David Burbidge and others.”
As Dr. Burbidge found with his tsunami probability assessments for Western Australia in 2008, predicting when and where “a significant tsunami runup might occur” requires either “an extensive catalogue of historical tsunami inundation events, or sophisticated numerical modeling of the shoaling and inundation that occurs when a tsunami reaches the shoreline.”
Compiling an account of historical tsunamis is helpful because, when an earthquake ruptures, it relieves stress on the boundary between two plates, and it is this stress-relieving action that causes a tsunami. Therefore, after a certain area ruptures, a major earthquake is not expected again for some time.
Burbidge and his co-authors were forced to rely on shoaling models – an analysis of how a wave builds as it moves from deep to shallow waters – to predict the future of tsunamis in Western Australia because of inadequate historical assessments. Butler and his co-authors also faced a lack of historical catalogues for Hawaii’s tsunamis, so they built their own.
The authors studied the five largest earthquakes since 1900 and then refined future probability estimates by using evidence from geological layers to predict the power of timing of tsunamis even further in Hawaii’s past.
“We were surprised and pleased to see how well the model actually fits the paleotsunami data,” says Butler in the press release.
The state of Hawaii has already estimated that the damage from such a tsunami would cost $40 billion. So according to the authors’ probability model of a 9 percent risk, this equate to an annualized risk of roughly $72 million.
Despite this probability – and potential price tag – Butler is optimistic. An annualized risk assessment can help Hawaii officials prioritize the human and financial impact of a mega tsunami with other threats.
“This is a new step forward,” Butler tells the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.
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There are no known prevention strategies against the forces of Earth’s tectonic plates, but the scientists say knowledge is power.
“The researchers say the study can help officials better plan for these natural disasters and prioritize their emergency preparations,” explains the Hawaii Tribune-Herald. “While existing tsunami warning signs aren’t expected to change, a separate and much larger evacuation area might be set aside for when the ‘big one’ strikes.”Departing Resolute Support Mission commander John F. Campbell has been trying to convince DC politicians that the war against the Taliban and Islamic State in Afghanistan is nowhere near won – and that US boots will need to be on the ground for years.
“We shouldn’t sugar-coat it,” the four-star general who has led the US deployment in Afghanistan since July 2014, told The Washington Post. “I do believe we’re going to have to have a continued modest forward presence for years to come.”
In his testimony to the House Armed Services Committee this week, and in multiple media interviews, Campbell, who is retiring at 58, repeatedly warned that a mooted US troop withdrawal would “put the whole mission at risk,” allowing the Taliban to “wait us out.” US President Barack Obama initially planned to return almost all American troops from the country by the end of his term in January 2017, but the White House has recently spoken of reducing numbers from 9,800 to 5,500 through the current year as a compromise.
"Afghanistan is at an inflection point," Campbell told congressmen. "Afghanistan has not achieved an enduring level of security and stability that justifies a reduction of our support… 2016 could be no better and possibly worse than 2015."
Some have claimed that the resurgent Taliban is control of up to 30 percent of the mountainous country, but Campbell has insisted that the Islamist group is only in charge of 2 percent of districts, and “has influence” in 4 percent more. Campbell said it has been distracted by in-fighting with rival Islamists, Islamic State, as well as remnants of Al-Qaeda.
Yet, the horizon is not in sight.
Read more
The international force, supplemented by NATO allies, consisting of officers and experts has primarily worked in organizing and training the local army. Campbell said its performance was “uneven but not unexpected” last year, and compared the process of its training to “building an airplane while in flight.”
Incidentally, close air support – aircraft, helicopters and drones working with ground forces on a million – has been the Achilles Heel of the anti-Taliban force. In previous years, the US provided up to 150 attack helicopters, while the native helicopter force has now been reduced to a mere three Indian-made craft.
“One of the things the Afghan forces ask for every day is close air support. Close air support is just a capability gap that we knew was going to take years and years to build,” said Campbell. “We need to realize that if we recruit a guy now you’re not going to see him [as a pilot] for two to three years.”
Read more
Campbell’s replacement, Lt. Gen. John W. “Mick” Nicholson Jr., who has already been confirmed by senators, is expected to do his own ground assessment, once he flies out to Kabul. But recent Pentagon thinking has shifted, from the idea of aborting the “endless war,” to an admission that a quick withdrawal would nullify all the sacrifices made since the US invaded Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 in 2001.
“The local forces need air support, intelligence and help with logistics. They are not going to be ready in three years or five years. You have to be there for a very long time,” a senior Pentagon source told the Washington Post last week.
Yet Ali Aqbar Qasemi, himself a former military commander and current parliamentary deputy, told RT that “the US has promised to build an effective army here for fifteen years, why believe that they can do it now all of a sudden?”
“All the foreign powers in Afghanistan follow their own agendas, none of them have the country’s interests at heart,” said the politician.
Prominent anti-war activist Dave Swanson is also unsure that staying the course will bring benefits to anyone but the Pentagon’s military contractors.
“What the US commanders are doing in the country is to their own knowledge counter-productive, and as incompetent as it can be, yet they want to continue it,” he said in an interview with RT.This has been floating around for a couple years, but it's news to us and there's no better time to share it than now.
Chris Webber is at the game "[r]eppin' Michigan" tonight, but he and the school have had a strained relationship since he left following the infamous timeout call in 1993 and the Ed Martin scandal.
Just four days after Webber's lowest moment, though, then-President Bill Clinton decided to drop him a line and cheer him up.
Transcript:
April 9, 1993
Dear Chris,
I have been thinking of you a lot since I sat glued to the TV during the championship game.
I know that there may be nothing I or anyone else can say to ease the pain and disappointment of what happened.
Still, for whatever it's worth, you, and your team, were terrific. And part of playing for high stakes under great pressure is the constant risk of mental error. I know. I have lost two political races and made countless mistakes over the last twenty years. What matters is the intensity, integrity, and courage you bring to the effort. That is certainly what you have done. You can always regret what occurred but don't let it get you down or take away the satisfaction of what you have accomplished.
You have a great future. Hang in there.
Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
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Bill Clinton: awesome dude.
The Letter Bill Clinton Wrote Chris Webber in 1993 [Mental Floss]
Part of playing for high stakes under great pressure is the constant risk of mental error [Letters of Note]If Donald J. Trump’s first news conference as president-elect was a raucous, chaotic affair on Wednesday – and it was – the parody of it on “Saturday Night Live” was somehow calmer and more organized than the actual event.
Still, the “S.N.L.” sketch pulled few punches as it swung at the show’s most powerful, persistent critic, mocking Mr. Trump on a range of subjects, including the perceived lack of star power at his coming inauguration; his opaque plan to divest himself from his businesses; and the possibility that Russia possessed unverified compromising information on him.
Saturday night’s episode, the first new one of 2017, once again featured Alec Baldwin as Mr. Trump. He started off the faux news conference by vowing to answer what he said was “the question that’s on everyone’s mind.”
“Yes, this is real life,” he said. “This is really happening. On January 20, I, Donald J. Trump, will become the 45th president of the United States.”Introduction
You want your web app to feel responsive and smooth when doing animations, transitions, and other small UI effects. Making sure these effects are jank-free can mean the difference between a "native" feel or a clunky, unpolished one.
This is the first in a series of articles covering rendering performance optimization in the browser. To kick things off, we'll cover why smooth animation is difficult and what needs to happen to achieve it, as well as a few easy best practices. Many of these ideas were originally presented in "Jank Busters," a talk Nat Duca and I gave at Google I/O talk (video, slides) this year.
Introducing V-sync
PC gamers might be familiar with this term, but it's uncommon on the web: what is v-sync?
Consider your phone's display: it refreshes on a regular interval, usually (but not always!) about 60 times a second. V-sync (or vertical synchronization) refers to the practice of generating new frames only between screen refreshes. You might think of this like a race condition between the process that writes data into the screen buffer and the operating system reading that data to put it on the display. We want the buffered frame contents to change in between these refreshes, not during them; otherwise the monitor will display half of one frame and half of another, leading to "tearing".
To get a smooth animation you need a new frame to be ready every time a screen refresh happens. This has two big implications: frame timing (that is, when the frame needs to be ready by) and frame budget (that is, how long the browser has to produce a frame). You only have the time between screen refreshes to complete a frame (~16ms on a 60Hz screen), and you want to start producing the next frame as soon as the last one was put up on the screen.
Timing is Everything: requestAnimationFrame
Many web developers use setInterval or setTimeout every 16 milliseconds to create animations. This is a problem for a variety of reasons (and we'll discuss more in a minute), but of particular concern are:
Timer resolution from JavaScript is only on the order of several milliseconds
Different devices have different refresh rates
Recall the frame timing problem mentioned above: you need a completed animation frame, finished with any JavaScript, DOM manipulation, layout, painting, etc, to be ready before the next screen refresh occurs. Low timer resolution can make it difficult to get animation |
about me is none of my business …." Billy said. "It's my life and my decision to make."
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(Photo:.)
Getting to know Billy
So who is Billy?
He's Billy Gene Huff, social activist. He is involved in Visuality, an LGBT center, the LGBT Community Fund of Southwest Florida and Standing Up for Racial Justice. He is a faculty adviser for the Gay Straight Alliance at FGCU.
He is an assistant professor of communication and researcher focused on the study of gender.
“I congratulated him and said, 'I'm really proud of you for making the decision that you are most comfortable with, and if there is anyway I can support you, I'd be happy to do that.” Robert Gregerson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at FGCU
Billy has three degrees — a bachelor's degree in communications from Valdosta State University, a master's degree in Internet technology from the University of Georgia and a doctorate degree in communications from Georgia State University.
Billy's thoughts about gender don't match what most of society thinks.
"I am really into my teaching, especially when I teach gender," Billy said. "I want my students to feel, literally like look through my experience... question their own and understand that their genders were learned.
"And that everybody falls short of these ideals that were set up by our society as to what a real man and a real woman should be. I think they can relate and understand more if I am open."
Billy's name and his decision to transition partly were inspired by his beliefs.
"I am pretty sure that if it wasn't for my studies of gender academically I don't think I would be doing this," he said.
Billy's name came about through conversations with his best friend, colleague and roommate, Mohamad Al-Hakim, an assistant professor of philosophy.
CLOSE Born Kimberly Huff, FGCU assistant professor of communication, Billy Huff, is transitioning toward being a male. Huff shares the story of his tattoos. Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com
Al-Hakim said the name Billy came about because of Billy's curiosity and the questions he asked him about being a male.
He said Billy's middle name resulted from him joking with Billy about how he sometimes reacted to things in a way society would stereotypically call a male's way. He said he eventually told Billy "maybe you have a type of gene that makes you express that way."
"So I made this joke that your... name should be Gene, meaning that there is a Billy Gene there," he said.
“Leave this life as battered and bruised as you can or else you didn't live it, I guess.” Billy Huff
Part of Billy's story of transitioning can be told through some of the tattoos on his arms, like the Pinocchio on his left arm.
The smiling Pinocchio's left eye is missing. There are cracks below the eye and below Pinocchio's mouth.
Billy said what the tattoo artist was trying to convey through the look of the tattoo is that the process of becoming anything in life is not easy.
"I wouldn't want to get through it unscathed," Billy said. "Leave this life as battered and bruised as you can or else you didn't live it, I guess."
Above Pinocchio are the words, "You Make Me Real."
"I got the 'You Make Me Real' because it's actually other people recognizing me as a guy that actually makes me a guy," Billy said. "Nothing else does."
Billy's Voice Billy Huff his teaches his students at Florida Gulf Coast University that they have a voice, and they should use it. The News-Press asked Billy to use his voice to share his thoughts on politics, gay marriage, Caitlyn Jenner and the presidential election.
Political Leaning "I am about as far left as you can get. My family is all Republican. That might be why I ended up the way I did. But as an activist I am completely devoted to social justice so that informs my politics as well as my activism and my life."
The Presidential Election "I am a fan of Bernie Sanders. His politics are the closest to mine. Hillary (Clinton) is too establishment for me, and obviously, I would never vote Republican. I think that when you talk to people in Southwest Florida about Bernie they say, 'He's a socialist.' But they take socialist as a bad thing and to me it's not. I think the whole thing is kind of a mess - politics. But you vote for who think is the least bad."
Thoughts on Caitlyn Jenner "I always have a problem when celebrities come out one day and then the next day they are the icon of the movement. And coming from such a privileged position is problematic. I have watched a couple of episodes of the show and they actually do bring that out in the show - the fact that she's privileged, and that there are people that don't have access to the surgeries, money and jobs that she does. And she very much tells this I was always a woman in a man's body kind of story and seems to be very stereotypical about the way that she performs being a woman. So (the show) talks a lot about makeup and hair and clothes."
Gay Marriage "I have nothing against gay people who want to marry each other. That's fine. That one issue took over the movement.... And it's really just a privileged kind of segment of the movement that is so worried about marriage. People are worried about survival. I was bothered by the way it just took over. Most people think that was the issue and now that's resolved gay people should be happy and fine."
Growing up as Kimberly
Billy grew up in Lilburn, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, as Kimberly Huff, dressing and acting like a girl.
"In middle school, all my friends were mainly girls, and I went to slumber parties," said Billy, who was a Brownie and Girl Scout as a child.
He said when he was a young girl, he enjoyed dance activities, like tap, ballet and jazz. But he said, "I was never graceful."
Billy later switched from dancing to athletics. He played softball, basketball and soccer. He also took karate lessons.
Peter Pan is one of Billy Huff's favorite tattoos.
(Photo: Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com)
Billy was a clarinet player in his middle and high school bands. He was in the flag corps in high school.
The thought of being a boy trapped in a little girl's body never crossed his mind, Billy said.
"It's interesting because people want trans to be something that's been there from the beginning that you are born with, and I don't think that," Billy said. "I don't believe that because I don't think we are born with a gender. I think we learn it.
"People want to look at pictures of me before and pictures of me in dresses, looking for this trans-ness that was always already there, and it just wasn't."
Laura Jacobs, a New York-based psychotherapist, said the notion that all transgender people identify with a gender other than the one assigned at birth when they are children is a stereotype.
"That story is in everybody's mind that you knew it when you were 5. It was always there. Maybe you buried it. Maybe you lived in denial of it," Jacobs said. "But that doesn't really fit everybody.
"The idea that you didn't know at 5 is just as valid as for people who feel like they did know at 5. There is no right answer to something like that."
Born Kimberly Huff, FGCU assistant professor of communication, Billy Huff, is transitioning toward being a male. "I'm striking out for a place that doesn't really exist," says Huff of his journey.
(Photo: Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com)
I'm a gay man
Billy's questions about his identity came after he got older.
"I know that when I was much younger, like 18 years old, I used to think, 'I'm a gay man,'" he said.
In high school, Billy didn't have the dating life of a typical teen girl. He said he dated boys whom he knew were gay.
Billy's personal life made another change in college. He decided he was a lesbian and started to date women.
“It's weird because something about being in a relationship always felt queer to me, but I didn't know how to put my finger on it, if that makes sense,' he said. 'Because I never felt like a lesbian, I have always said that even when I was in relationships with women, 'I'm not a lesbian.” Billy Huff
"It's weird because something about being in a relationship always felt queer to me, but I didn't know how to put my finger on it, if that makes sense," he said. "Because I never felt like a lesbian, I have always said that even when I was in relationships with women, 'I'm not a lesbian.'"
"You have to be a woman to be a lesbian," Billy joked and then laughed.
When Billy was 20 years old, there was another dramatic change. He married a man — a gay man.
"And at 20, it seemed to make perfect sense," he said.
The marriage didn't last, ending after three months.
"I really liked the way that he related to me, and it's something that since that ended I haven't experienced or had," he said.
On the left is a tattoo of Bettie Paige, and on the right is Emma Goldman, two of Billy's favorite tattoos.
(Photo: Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com)
The act
Billy moved to Fort Myers in July 2010 after accepting a teaching position at FGCU. He came here after year-long visiting teaching roles at colleges in Minnesota, New Mexico and Las Vegas.
When Billy moved to Fort Myers, he was still going by Kimberly Huff and wore women's clothes and makeup.
"It was something that I did consciously and always, always aware, though, when I was doing that," Billy said. "It was kind of an act that I was putting on. It kind of felt like drag in a way if that makes sense."
Billy decided two years ago to give away his women's clothes and shoes, and he stopped wearing makeup. He gave his things to Goodwill and friends.
"The types of things that girls typically are supposed to like and are expected to do I just never wanted to do," Billy said. "And I don't want to say never because it's not true.
"There were times when I enjoyed wearing makeup and dresses and the positive feedback I would get back from people. When I did those things, obviously, I enjoyed that, too. That was in a context when I thought I really didn't have a choice but given the choice I have made it."
Billy started talking to friends in 2013 about transitioning to see how they would react.
“It takes a lot, especially when it comes to gender transition, for people to kind of open up about it, because it is such a taboo and ostracized idea within society and culture today, especially in Southwest Florida.” Julian Montalvo
"People were pretty much like, 'No, you shouldn't do that. It's pretty extreme,'" he said. "But the more I said it out loud, the more I just decided to do it."
Billy announced his decision to begin transitioning to his students during a class at FGCU last fall.
Before telling the class, Billy shared his plan with one of his students, Julian Montalvo, a 21-year-old senior who identifies as gender non-binary. Montalvo, who wears a beard, makeup and mostly women's clothing, said Billy was worried about how the class would react.
Pinocchio is one of Billy Huff's favorite tattoos.
(Photo: Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com)
"It takes a lot, especially when it comes to gender transition, for people to kind of open up about it, because it is such a taboo and ostracized idea within society and culture today, especially in Southwest Florida," Montalvo said.
"I was honored when he told me, and it was exciting because we could both kind of feed off of each other."
Billy did most of the talking the day he told his students about his plan to transition. A few students asked questions, but no one expressed an opinion about it, either positively or negatively, Montalvo said.
"Sitting in the class it was interesting to kind of see everybody's reaction because people's faces read as completely surprised, unsure of what it meant," he said. "It was a very interesting reaction in the room."
The Talk
The decision to transition has come with some consequences for Billy.
"For most of the people that knew me, this wasn't completely out of left field," Billy said. "For a couple of people, it was. For my parents, it was very much. But my parents didn't even really know transgender existed. They didn't know it was a thing, so they had a hard time with it."
He said his decision has put a strain on his relationship with his mother and stepfather. Billy said when he told his parents during the Christmas holidays in 2014, they said, '"You know we will never call you, 'My son.'"
He said they also vowed to never call him Billy. He said they still won't.
Billy Huff poses for a picture with his mother when he was still living as Kimberly Huff. Billy said his transition from woman to trans man has been difficult for his mother to accept.
(Photo: Special to The News-Press)
"I told my mom, 'That's fine, but you are going to look silly one day when you are introducing me to somebody as your daughter, and I have a full beard," Billy said.
Billy said it's tough on him, too, because he understands what he is putting his parents through. He said he delayed going through with the transition because he knew it would be hard for his parents to accept.
"My mom was very much into me being a girl," he said. "When you have kids, you have these fantasies of what they are going to be — the whole marriage and kids. That's what she wanted for me, and I went in a very different direction. It's hard, and I think it's hard for most parents. They still love me. They are still supportive of me."
Jacobs, the New York psychotherapist, said the way families react to someone transitioning varies. She said some struggle to understand at first but eventually come around, and others don't because of their religious or cultural backgrounds.
“I told my mom, 'That's fine, but you are going to look silly one day when you are introducing me to somebody as your daughter, and I have a full beard.” Billy Huff
She said for the person who is transitioning, it's a vulnerable time.
"You are going through physical change," Jacobs said. "The hormones are affecting your body. You are under a lot of stress. You are trying to make sure you are making the right decision.
"And so for the person, it can be a really, really stressful time to deal with your own internal feelings and anxieties as well as the stuff that is happening in the people around them."
Jacobs said families need time to adjust to the news and learn about transitioning. They also have to come to the realization their dreams for the person who is transitioning aren't going to happen, she said.
"They have to grieve this sometimes not unlike a death," Jacobs said. "The daughter that they had is not going to be around anymore. That's where families can sometimes take a lot of time."
Born Kimberly Huff, FGCU assistant professor of communication, Billy Huff, is transitioning toward being a male. "I'm striking out for a place that doesn't really exist," says Huff of his journey.
(Photo: Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com)
Questions
The process of transitioning has been mixed for Billy. There have been challenging, exciting and hurtful times.
There are questions swirling in his mind. What bathroom to use? What box to check on forms — male or female?
There are issues Billy can't resolve. He wants to legally change his name to Billy but can't afford it. He also wishes he had the option to change the name on his doctoral degree.
"I am going to always have to display a doctoral degree that says, 'Kimberly Huff,' even 10 years from now when there is nothing about me that says, 'Kimberly', and I might be somewhere where nobody has even known me as that," Billy said.
Billy said he is going through the toughest part of transitioning.
"People notice that I have really hairy legs out in public, and it just doesn't go together," he said. "I get a lot of stares."
“I hope that we one day actually see people for who they are and... see beyond all these differences.” Mohamad Al-Hakim
The worst moment for Billy came during the summer while visiting Washington, D.C. He said he was at a coffee shop when a group of people began to loudly say disparaging things about him.
Billy said he was called Caitlyn Jenner and was referred to as "it."
"They were... asking me, 'What I was trying to be?' Said, 'Maybe, it was homeless and couldn't afford a razor,' and things like that," he said.
Caitlyn is former Olympic hero Bruce Jenner. In April, Jenner appeared on "20/20" and talked about her gender identity struggles.
Three months after the interview aired, the reality TV star appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine as Caitlyn.
For Billy's friends, their hope for Billy is for a world that is more accepting of him and unlike the one he encountered in Washington.
A cupcake is one of Billy Huff's favorite tattoos.
(Photo: Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com)
"I hope that we one day actually see people for who they are and... see beyond all these differences," said Al-Hakim, Billy's friend.
At work, Billy has found a supportive environment.
"I congratulated him and said, 'I'm really proud of you for making the decision that you are most comfortable with, and if there is anyway I can support you, I'd be happy to do that,'" said Robert Gregerson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at FGCU.
Billy said he tries not to focus on moments like the one in Washington.
He said he spends time wondering about his future. How will his voice sound? What will he look like? How will his life change when he is perceived by society as a man?
"Having no idea what I am going to look like is kind of exciting," Billy said. "I'm kind of likening it, and I have never done it before, to jumping out of an airplane. You are so excited. You want to do it..., but you are at the same time petrified and scared. I love that mixture of excitement and fear and severeness and all that. I think that's living."Former Montreal forward Gilles Tremblay, who won four Stanley Cups with the Canadiens in the 1960s, has died. He was 75.
An exceptional skater known for his contributions on both ends of the ice, Tremblay helped Montreal win four Cups between 1965 and 1969 before injuries and illness forced him to retire.
Tremblay suffered from asthma during his career and took doses of cortisone in his playing days and into his later career as the first former player to act as an analyst on French-language hockey broadcasts on Radio-Canada.
He had also battled intestinal cancer in recent years.
Tremblay played his entire career with Montreal, scoring 168 goals and adding 162 assists over 509 regular-season games.
My sincere condolences to the Tremblay family. Gilles was a pioneer and an ambassador for the Canadiens and the game of hockey. — Geoff Molson (@GMolsonCHC) November 26, 2014
Rejean Houle, who joined the Canadiens in 1969 just as Tremblay was about to leave, called the stocky winger an “offensive, defensive player.
“When you play with Jean Beliveau and Yvan Cournoyer, you need to have skill offensively, but he was the one who was always coming back.”
Houle, who got to play only 10 games with Tremblay, remembered him as a popular teammate with a gift for telling funny stories.
The native of Montmorency, Que., from a family of 14 children made his NHL debut on Nov. 12, 1960 as Montreal faced Detroit at the Forum. The 22-year-old winger started on a line with future Hall of Famers Bernard (Boom Boom) Geoffrion and Beliveau and was tasked with shadowing legendary Red Wings star Gordie Howe.
But Tremblay said in his biography “Gilles Tremblay: 40 an avec le Canadien” (40 Years With The Canadiens) that it was Chicago Blackhawks right-winger Ken Wharram he found most difficult to cover “because he skated just as fast as me.”
In an era when scoring 20 goals in a season was considered a significant achievement, Tremblay reached that plateau five times. He scored a career-high 32 goals, one shy of team leader Claude Provost, in his second season.
Various injuries and acute asthma forced Tremblay to retire after the 1968-69 season, when he was only 31.
Tremblay remained close to the game he loved, launching a successful career as a colour analyst for the French television broadcasts of Canadiens games on Radio-Canada.
“During his 27 years on La Soiree du Hockey, many of them as part of a formidable announcing team with Rene Lecavalier, Gilles’ insights brought a national audience the stories of hundreds of games and eight more Canadiens titles,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. “We send heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of someone who brought great dignity and professionalism to his duties on and off the ice.”
In a 30-year career as an analyst, and was given the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for broadcasting excellence in 2002.
“I took a lot of pride in that and I opened the door for many others,” Tremblay said.This week the Leave campaign takes the most narrow of leads among definite voters, making gains among all respondents whilst narrowing the expectations gap to an all-time low.
Building on last Monday’s poll gains, the Leave camp now leads among those definite to vote on referendum day, according to the ORB’s latest poll for the Telegraph.
Leave has increased its vote share by two points to attract 49 per cent of definite voters compared to Remain’s stagnant 48 per cent, reversing its net position from a one-point net negative position last week.
Unlike last week, however, Leave’s gains have now also translated to the trend among the electorate as a whole, suggesting that last week’s figures were a reflection of a broad change among public attitude and not just a fleeting bump in the poll numbers.
Forty-four per cent of all respondents (both those who are certain of voting and all others) now say they are intending to vote for Brexit in just over a weeks’ time, a notable increase of 4 points, while 49 per cent say they will vote to stay in the EU, a three-point fall.Open letter from Liverpool FC's owners re new ticket price strategy
Dear Liverpool Supporters:
It has been a tumultuous week. On behalf of everyone at Fenway Sports Group and Liverpool Football Club we would like to apologize for the distress caused by our ticket pricing plan for the 2016/17 season.
The three of us have been particularly troubled by the perception that we don’t care about our supporters, that we are greedy, and that we are attempting to extract personal profits at the club’s expense. Quite the opposite is true.
From our first days as owners we have understood that serving as custodians of this incredible institution is a distinct privilege and as such, we have been driven solely by the desire to return LFC to the pinnacle of football. In the world of modern football, growing the club in a sustainable way is essential to realizing this objective.
To that end, we have never taken a single penny out of the football club. Instead we have injected vast sums of our own money to improve the playing squad and modernize LFC’s infrastructure—exemplified by the £120 million advance from FSG to build the new Main Stand. This massive undertaking was made in order to provide more supporters access to Anfield and also to produce additional revenue to help us compete financially with clubs that have greater resources. When it opens in August this year the stand will accomplish those goals thereby fulfilling a promise we made upon acquiring LFC in 2010.
We were strongly engaged in the process to develop the ticketing plan for 2016/2017. We met directly with representatives of LFC’s Supporters’ Committee and along with LFC management, wholeheartedly agreed with major concerns raised, notably: access for local and young supporters; engagement and access to Anfield for local children; access to Premier League matches for those in Liverpool most challenged by affordability.
We believe the plan successfully addressed these concerns and are disappointed that these elements have been either lost or, worse, characterized as cynical attempts to mask profiteering in the plan as a whole. Rather, we prefer to look at them as the parts of the ticketing plan we got right.
On the other hand, part of the ticketing plan we got wrong.
In addition to the other elements of the plan we proposed price increases on a number of tickets. These pricing actions generated growth in General Admission ticketing revenue on a like for like basis exclusive of revenue from newly added GA seats.
We believed by delivering a vastly improved seat offering in what will be the newest stand in English football, concentrating the price increases on those tickets typically purchased by fans least sensitive to affordability, and for LFC to begin repaying the £120million advance from FSG for the new Main Stand that these increases were supportable even in the context of growth in revenues from the new Premier League TV deal.
However, the widespread opposition to this element of the plan has made it clear that we were mistaken.
A great many of you have objected strongly to the £77 price level of our most expensive GA seats and expressed a clear expectation that the club should forego any increased revenue from raising prices on GA tickets in the current environment.
Message received.
After an intense period of consultation with LFC management we have decided to make major revisions to our ticketing structure for 2016/17:
• Removal of game categorisation – regardless of the opposition fans will pay the same price for matchday tickets.
• The pricing of tickets will be readjusted to result in zero revenue growth from GA ticketing on a like for like basis.
• Though individual ticket prices may move marginally from this season, we are freezing our 2016/17 GA ticket revenue at the 2015/16 level exclusive of newly added seats in the new Main Stand.
• The price of our highest General Admission ticket will be frozen at the 2015/16 level - £59.
• The price of our highest Season Ticket will be frozen at the 2015/16 level - £869. The lowest price reducing a further £25 from the 2015/16 level to £685, as well as all other tiers being frozen or reduced.
• £9 GA seats will be offered for each and every Premier League match, an allocation of more than 10,000 tickets across the season.
We would hasten to add that the other initiatives announced last week in the 2016/17 plan will remain:
• 17-21 young adult concession – 20,000 tickets across the Premier League season available at a 50% reduction for young people.
• 1,000 tickets to Premier League matches across the season will be given away free of charge to Liverpool school children based on merit, as recommended by their teachers.
As a sign of our commitment to this improved ticketing structure, we are further announcing that this plan shall be in effect for both the 2016/17 and 2017/18 seasons. For the next two seasons, LFC will not earn a single additional pound from increasing General Admission ticket prices.
We believe we have demonstrated a willingness to listen carefully, reconsider our position, and act decisively. The unique and sacred relationship between Liverpool Football Club and its supporters has always been foremost in our minds. It represents the heartbeat of this extraordinary football club.
More than any other factor by far, that bond is what drives us to work tirelessly on behalf of the club and its future. We have great conviction in our world class manager and our young, talented squad and know that in time the on-pitch success we all crave will be realized.
We look forward to sharing in that success with you.
John W Henry Tom Werner Mike Gordon
Reply · Report PostIndia’s top court ruled this week that non-Hindu minority communities, including Muslims and Christians, can now adopt children with full rights as natural parents.
A bizarre quirk in the Indian law — aimed at reconciling the various beliefs and practices of different communities — had meant that only Hindus (and breakaway religious communities like Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs) were previously allowed to properly adopt minors. Non-Hindus could only act as guardians or foster parents, both of which restrict the child’s right to inherit.
(MORE: In Bihar, a Village Struggles to Come to Terms With School Deaths)
In truth, the state gave non-Hindus full rights to adopt almost a decade ago. However, objections that Sharia law doesn’t recognize adoption, raised by the Muslim personal board in 2006, meant the issue remained shrouded in confusion.
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On Wednesday, the court, acting on a petition by Muslim social activist Shabnam Hashmi, finally struck down the objection and made clear that any person can adopt a child irrespective of their religion, and even if the personal laws of their faith forbids it. (Hashmi first challenged the law in 2005 when she became guardian to a one-year-old girl.)
“The [Juvenile Justice] Act 2000 is a secular law enabling any person, irrespective of the religion he professes, to take a child in adoption,” said the judgment, stressing that while personal beliefs are important, they cannot dictate the “operation of the provisions of an enabling statute.”
“In many parts of the country, adoption was not being done even after 2006. Courts were very confused,” says Colin Gonsalves, a human rights lawyer who represented Hashmi. “This judgment strengthens the secular law while making it clear that it is an enabling law. There is no compulsion on any community to follow it.”
Experts are optimistic that this ruling will bring fresh hope for around 12 million Indian orphans. The adoption rate in India is dismally low with only around 4,000 children finding new families each year.
“Now the doors are open for all communities to adopt and as the judgment is reported throughout the country adoption rates will go up,” says Gonsalves. “We are happy now because there are millions of orphan children waiting for a home.”
MORE: India’s Rent-a-Womb Industry Faces New Restrictions
Contact us at [email protected]. Hertzler, known as Martok to "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" fans, will take his seat in Ulysses, N.Y., in January.
John Hertzler, veteran "Star Trek" franchise actor, stands outside his home in Ulysses, N.Y. (Photo: Gannett Albany Bureau) Story Highlights Hertzler has played as many as 10 characters in the 'Star Trek' franchise
Moved to Finger Lakes region several years ago
Opposes natural gas fracking, passionate about rural schools
ALBANY, N.Y. -- A Klingon warrior has been elected to a town board in New York.
John Hertzler has played as many as 10 different roles in the Star Trek franchise, most notably as Martok – a Klingon warrior known for skill and leadership on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
On Jan. 1, he will become one of five board members in Ulysses, a town of 5,000 people in Tompkins County near Ithaca.
"I hope to be able to accomplish something," Hertzler said of his new role.
Larry Nemecek, a Star Trek expert from Burbank, Ca., said he couldn't recall any other recurring Star Trek characters that have won elected office.
Hertzler said he has taken his passion as an actor and translated it in community involvement. He still travels the world to attend Star Trek conventions in character as the powerful Klingon leader who rose to chancellor.
"I have no designs on the presidency," Hertzler joked about his local election. "But I do want to do my best in terms of serving the folks here."
Hertzler, 63, known professionally as J.G. Hertzler, moved to the Finger Lakes area several years ago after coming to the Northeast from California. He performed in Rochester at Geva Theatre and then came to Cornell University in Ithaca as a visiting professor in acting.
He has stayed in the area, doing performances and getting active in local politics. As he campaigned this fall, he took time to do a performance of Sleepy Hollow on Halloween at the local library.
People in the town knew he was an accomplished actor, but it wasn't widely known that he was a Star Trek character adored by loyal fans, said Ulysses Town Supervisor Elizabeth Thomas.
Thomas said she only learned about his Star Trek role shortly before Tuesday's election. They campaigned together on the same Democratic ticket.
"I knew he was an actor. I didn't know he was an actor on Star Trek. He was very modest about that," Thomas said. "It's very exciting."
A former linebacker at Bucknell University, Hertzler is an imposing figure at 6 feet 2 inches and 225 pounds. He makes for a fan favorite at Star Trek conventions, where he has been paired with actor Robert O'Reilly, who played fellow Klingon Gowron.
"They are fan favorites because they are big, gregarious guys," Nemecek said. "They slap people on the back. They have a good time. They tease people back. They do it for the audience."
Nemecek said it takes skill to act in science-fiction roles, and Hertzler became a popular actor on the show because of his dramatic talents.
"One of the things on Star Trek and any of these sci-fi shows, for an alien wearing a prosthetic, is to be able to act through that," Nemecek said. "And he was good at doing that."
Nemecek recalled that Star Trek star George Takei ran in the early 1970s for Los Angeles City Council and lost. Jeri Ryan, another Star Trek actor, was married to former Illinois Senate candidate Jack Ryan; Kate Mulgrew, who also starred on the show, is married to Timothy Hagan, who ran for Ohio governor in 2002.
Hertzler has become politically active in New York, particularly in opposition to hydraulic fracturing. New York has not decided whether to move forward with the controversial drilling technique for natural gas, but Hertzler said he's concerned it would destroy the picturesque region.
"This is a pastoral, bucolic wonderland here in the Finger Lakes and should be preserved," Hertzler said.
On the town board, Hertzler said he wants to fight for more state aid for local schools because his daughter goes to high school there. Rural schools have been stung by a loss of aid, which has meant cuts to programs and staff, he said.
He said he draws his inspiration, in part, from the role of Martok and feels a personal connection to it.
Martok had humble roots and rose to power despite not being of "noble blood." Hertzler's father died when he was 25 and never got to see him perform.
"My whole being is supported by a foundation of passion," Hertzler said. "And there is no more passionate character that I've ever come across than a Klingon."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1hsa7J3Sufism, Ancient Persia, Ancient India [ edit ]
The article is quite biased and i think the semi-protection status makes this worse. I suggest to do not add information without sources to the article, and to not make generalisations, this is making it to be very imprecise one.
In ancient persia the zoroastrian religion was not pro-gay, in fact there are clear admonitions against homosexuality found in various texts of zoroastrian literature. You can see more about this in the wiki article about homosexuality and zoroastrianism. regarding hinduism, the article shold make clear that there are many variations of hinduism, most are anti-gay, some are pro-gay. The kama-sutra actually speaks negatively of homosexuality.
And finally, regarding sufism, the claim that sufism has a gay doctrine is absurd. There were a small number of sufis who did this practice but the vast majority rejected it as sinful.
Turkey is twice in list [ edit ]
please check this :)
Sufism, Ancient Persia, Ancient India [ edit ]
The article is quite biased and i think the semi-protection status makes this worse. I suggest to do not add information without sources to the article, and to not make generalisations, this is making it to be very imprecise one.
In ancient persia the zoroastrian religion was not pro-gay, in fact there are clear admonitions against homosexuality found in various texts of zoroastrian literature. You can see more about this in the wiki article about homosexuality and zoroastrianism. regarding hinduism, the article shold make clear that there are many variations of hinduism, some are anti-gay, some are pro-gay. The kama-sutra actually speaks negatively of homosexuality.
And finally, regarding sufism, the claim that sufism has a gay doctrine is absurd. There were a small number of sufis who did this practice but the vast majority rejected it as sinful.
hinduism is not pro gay but probably neutral in that context. anti-gay religious movements were probably due to feminists and penis envy.
There is a typo in reference 6 [ edit ]
Reference 15 is "Tritiya-Prakriti: People of the Third Sex" and there is a link but reference 6 is ritiya-Prakriti: People of the Third Sex, p. 40 without 'T'
Chechnya - Misleading information [ edit ]
To say "homosexuals are abducted and sent to concentration camps based on their perceived sexual orientation" is incredibly misleading. No physical evidence of these camps was found. I'm not saying that these things aren't happening, but aren't we innocent until proven guilty? Even the article about these camps starts by saying "it has been reported". People can report anything, but it doesn't mean that it happened. The fact that the original story came from Novaya Gazeta makes me want to question things more.
Does WP need to include a new column for rights? [ edit ]
It has been a year since Trudeau offered an apology to the LGBTQ2S community in the |
ignominious dynasty, also one of the world’s richest families with roots in Europe’s aristocracy. This family built its palaces on the other side of the Atlantic in a former British colony, declared a republic but governed even today by uncrowned monarchs and untitled nobility.
The Du Pont family, or correctly the family founded by a French aristocrat by the name of Pierre du Pont de Nemours, owns among other things the State of Delaware. Of course, there are no gaily-dressed soldiers or quaintly hatted police to distinguish the Duchy of Delaware from the less noble principalities in the Union. Yet I can also attest that the first time I was transported through this state on I-95 toward the republic’s capital I felt the aura of an ugly but nonetheless peculiarly aristocratic dominion. Before I had ever heard of the family behind the name of the great chemical firm, I can remember telling my parents we must be travelling through the “Duchy of Du Pont”. Little did I know then that I was not the first person to make this observation. Nor did I grasp the significance of what I only concluded from the ubiquity of the name “Du Pont” between the New Jersey and Maryland state lines.
Pierre du Pont responded to the impending threat to his head in revolutionary France by sending some of his family aboard the American Eagle to the United States, complete with furniture, clothes and some 241,000 francs, in search of freedom—to live and get rich—like so many thieves who have found refuge on the Eastern seaboard. There his children brought their share of the plentiful slave labour available in the “land of the free” and began a new life.
In 1802 the Du Ponts bought Broome farm on the banks of the Brandywine Creek, a tributary of the Christina River that flows through Pennsylvania and Northern Delaware.
“Here Irenée found Frenchmen, men who shared his culture, language, and even his political conservatism, being refugees from the successful slave revolt of Santo Domingo.” Within a decade Broome Farm would be the country’s largest powder plant. By 1810, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company was the largest producer of gunpowder in the United States. In 1824, Irenée du Pont was appointed a member of the board of directors of the Bank of the United States, with a monopoly over US currency. This centre of financial corruption bolstered the fortunes of many of America’s bluebloods until its charter expired and attempts to continue a second bank were defeated by Andrew Jackson’s political faction.
The US Civil War offered the Du Pont family further enrichment to the tune of more than a million dollars from the sale of powder.
In 1876 a financial crash, marked by the collapse of Jay Cooke’s bank, started the long depression, lasting until the end of the century. As in all economic crises—perhaps they ought to be called major economic wars—DuPont was able to create the Powder Trust by sweeping together the remains of desperate or ruined competitors. Of course, the Du Ponts were not unique here. Rockefeller and Carnegie did the same thing in oil and steel respectively, joined in banking by J P Morgan. It was a great time for plutocrats to make money and an abysmal time to earn wages, if one was even employed.
However, like all trusts there remained a potential threat from small producers who did not follow the rules. Surely there were a battery of business tactics that could be used to tame or kill competitors but there is probably no better instrument for regulating commerce (for the benefit of the 1%) than the State itself. While “progressives” were beginning to agitate for trust busting, wage and hour laws, and edible food, the State eased the pains of its baronial class by declaring war: in this case, against Spain. As in the past, war meant gunpowder and with a little help from their friends, the company’s coffers were brimming while at the same time ruining those with no access to the Treasury or War Department. A war to seize the last of Spain’s overseas possessions gave DuPont another chance to expand at taxpayers’ expense.
Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders had no horses at San Juan Hill, but they did have an enthusiastic reporter, Richard Harding Davis. And “Long John” Thompson may have made only 18 cents an hour, but in four months DuPont delivered 2.2 million pounds of brown prismatic powder to the government at 33 cents a pound and Alfred (du Pont) was declared an unsung hero of the war. What also went unsung was the fraud the Du Ponts were committing. The powder they sold the government cost them only 8 cents a pound to produce. That was 320 per cent profit, extortion in anyone’s book. From that short war, Du Ponts made over half a million dollars.
Following a long established tradition of amassing wealth through cheap labour and government contracts, the Du Pont family would enter the 20th century as the nation’s premier weapons manufacturer.) It also understood how to steal public assets for its own benefit. For example, despite DuPont’s claims to have perfected smokeless powder, it was the US Government that did. US Army officers had actually developed the new powder and the military actually held the patents. DuPont simply appropriated them. Friends in the military could be induced to help—with a few shares in the company. Afterwards they could, of course, increase the price to the government for products based on their new invention.
But as the 19th century was drawing to a close, popular opposition to the vast economic concentration that had occurred during the Long Depression was forcing even the corrupt in the nation’s capital to react. DuPont’s Powder Trust became the target of congressional investigation and prosecution under the new 1890 Sherman (Antitrust) Act. The intent of the legislation was to “protect competition” at least as an ideal. Corporate arrangements—often wholly or partly secret—which were intended to restrain competition, were to be prohibited by US law. Hence antitrust investigations were launched to determine whether business combinations restrained competition in interstate commerce (the only jurisdiction the federal government had under the Constitution) and to examine companies to identify unfair practices or arrangements. Although the Sherman Act was considered progressive in its day it was filled with ambiguities and constrained by the notion that the law should protect “competition” but not competitors.
In any case as the investigations proceeded. DuPont could again rely—at least in part—on friends. Having noted William H. Taft’s generally pro-business attitudes, DuPont donated 200,000 dollars to his campaign, a gift no doubt worthy of the friendship expected. DuPont was able to use this influence to stall and eventually neutralise the effects of trust busting directed at the firm. All it took was a tiny threat to have the investigation side-tracked. In a meeting with President Taft and his Attorney-General Wickersham, a former DuPont attorney, Alfred du Pont threatened to create a million unemployed if Du Pont were deprived of its military powder monopoly.
Do you mean to threaten the United States Government?” thundered Taft. Of course not, replied Alfred quietly, and then quietly repeated his threat of closing the plants the nation depended upon for commercial explosives; Taft’s resistance collapsed… The Dollar Diplomacy of armed intervention was for Big Business, not against it. The government of the United States, which could invade whole countries in Latin America, was simply no match for the Du Ponts of Delaware. Within a few hours it meekly surrendered.
World War I was “a great banquet of gold” for the Du Ponts who grossed over one billion dollars during the war. The Du Ponts asked themselves what to do with this ever-expanding fortune—to keep it expanding, of course. The 1920s were the key years of Du Pont’s transition from powder to chemicals. The end of WWI would curtail the demand for powder in the US so DuPont went in search of foreign markets. DuPont sent its publicity chief C K Weston to find out who was representing the US at the armaments conferences in Geneva. With intensive lobbying, proposals for government control — e.g., of chemical weapons — were dropped from the agenda. DuPont owned substantial shares in the German chemical companies Köln-Rottweiler and Nobel, Ltd. (part of Imperial Chemical Industries, the successor to the Nobel dynamite firm in England). As early as 1924 DuPont’s European representative Colonel William Taylor was already confirming German rearmament to company headquarters.
DuPont lobbying and the active support by Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover assured that the US government would do everything in its power to support American exports—including weapons. In fact, the most important interest group represented at the Geneva Armaments Conference was not the peace movement but the weapons manufacturers. Allen Dulles was chief of the Near Eastern Division of the State Department (and later head of the CIA) at the time. He made it clear that control of the arms traffic would have to ignore the fact that Germany was exporting arms and munitions in violation of its treaty obligations—arguing that from a diplomatic standpoint, to mention Germany or any of the Central Powers in this connection was impossible since they were supposed to abide by the treaties that put an end to the World War. This point is remarkable because it is already apparent that deliberate omission accompanies or substitutes for less seemly blatant lying.
1923 and 1925 began DuPont’s reputation as not only “the merchants of death” on the battlefield but in seemingly ordinary factories at home. DuPont’s Deepwater “dyes” plant on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River was a collaboration between DuPont and General Motors (at that time controlled directly by the Du Ponts). The Chambers Works is where tetraethyl lead was first produced, supposedly an anti-knock compound for internal combustion engines which would increase fuel mileage. Standard Oil and General Motors (run by Pierre du Pont) formed the Ethyl Gasoline Corporation in 1924 and began promotion of leaded gasoline worldwide. Gasoline was becoming a generic product reducing prices and profits for Standard Oil. Mixing gasoline with a very expensive patentable additive was one way to stabilise profitability. Building cars with motors that needed this type of fuel would certainly help. It took until 1996 before the US government banned the use of this enhanced toxin in automotive fuels—more than seventy years to counter this corporate conspiracy. The plant was also producing phosgene and chlorine gases and deadly benzol based chemicals. Workers who died in the plant were even given death certificates for such diseases as typhoid. Since not only the DuPont plant physicians knew how to behave, but also local authorities, Deepwater remained a mystery. As late as 2015 DuPont’s Chambers Works in Deepwater are still being fined for environmental violations.
Gerald Colby Tilg wrote a book that came as close to being banned as a book can come in Corporate America. There are other books about the Du Pont family. Colby Tilg wrote his without the consent or cooperation of the family. In fact, the Du Ponts did everything they could to prevent its publication and once published to inhibit its circulation. That, of course, is one reason why Open Road has reissued it as an e-book in the Forbidden Bookshelf series. The original book is even very difficult to find second-hand and then at ridiculous prices. I finally managed to find a copy—not only because I find it easier to work with hard copy books—but also because I wanted to see what was published in the original form. It is a remarkable and rare piece of investigative and historical research but even more it is incredibly well written. Nearly 600 pages describe not only the history of the family, its dynastic pretensions and intensive consanguine marriages that make one think of the Habsburgs, but the reader will find a genealogy of American capitalism. As the oldest and richest capitalist family in the United States, the offspring of Pierre du Pont de Nemours have not only played a crucial role in the organisation of the US economy, they have also shaped the character of US imperialism. Not only have the Du Ponts been the armorers of the nation, they established and controlled—and as a family owned—the world’s largest corporation, General Motors. It was only divested in 1965.
Much is made about corporate lobbying and how it corrupts the legislatures of the world. However, if one tries to argue that any given policy or action by government, whether legislative, judicial or executive, was the direct consequence of a corporate plan and agenda, the response is usually a polite smile or a jeer about “conspiracies” or an indication from some liberal that there are too many competing interests for any one company to exercise grand control over the government. Colby Zilg does not turn Du Ponts into the “power behind the Oval Office” Yet it is not difficult to see why Du Ponts or their innumerable holdings are rarely threatened by oversight and on the contrary always find a way to turn a profit.
The Cold War administrations of both Truman and Eisenhower were filled with former Du Pont lieutenants and allies. Tom Clark, a former Texas lobbyist for the DuPont–owned Ethyl Gas Corporation, charged in the 1930s with unethical practices by a Texas Senate Investigating Committee, became Truman’s Attorney General in May 1945. Dean Acheson, a lawyer for the Du Ponts, became Secretary of State. Lewis M. Douglas, a GM director, was chosen for the important post of ambassador to Great Britain. Louis Johnson, one of the key American Legion figures allegedly involved with Du Ponts in the abortive 1934 coup, was made the second Secretary of Defense in 1949, after the suicide of James Forrestal. Four years later, Charles Wilson, who had earlier won the hearts of Wilmington with his purchase of GM tires from Du Pont-controlled US Rubber, became Eisenhower’s Secretary of Defense. Eisenhower’s CIA director was Allen Dulles, a Du Pont confident as far back as the 1920s and president of United Fruit, in which the Du Ponts held a substantial block of stock.
From 1945 until 1960, Du Ponts had direct lines to the Cabinet, especially the War/Defense department where the family traditionally made its best profits. After Du Pont chemist Crawford Greenwaldt was given the task of building what would be uranium enrichment plants for the Manhattan Project, DuPont essentially obtained for free all the atomic know-how needed to corner this lucrative business in new weapons of death and destruction. Today DuPont is still churning out profits in the atomic industry running the Savannah River Site on the border between South Carolina and Georgia. Since US federal law practically immunises the companies operating atomic power plants from civil liability and “national security” interests prevail in other key decisions, DuPont can benefit from risk-free profits, too.
DuPont and Standard Oil also teamed with chemists at Harvard to invent napalm, a standard terror weapon used in the wars against Korea and Vietnam—where it became infamous through some untimely photojournalism. From 1950 – 1952, GM (still in Du Pont hands) grossed 5.5 billion dollars in war contracts. While DuPont had annual profits of 13.3 per cent, GM was earning profits at an annual rate before tax that was six times what it earned in 1929—and that had been a boom year.
Behind the Nylon Curtain does not just tell the story of unopposed capitalist greed and unrestrained power. Every once in a while fellow capitalists have tried to teach Wilmington that discretion is the better part of valour. In 1955, Du Ponts announced they were making another major investment in GM. In the past, the US government had always found compromises in favour of the Du Ponts and to avoid disturbing this pillar of American capitalism. That included playing down Du Pont’s control of GM. The announcement of the new investment touched off a powder keg. Antitrust law had changed and a new legal consensus about tolerable monopolies had been reached which offended the paleo-conservative Du Ponts. Corporate liberals had agreed that a monopoly should no longer be held by a single family, although it was fine for many groups to exercise financial domination. Du Ponts would have to divest themselves of GM. This set Du Pont family lawyers in action to protect the family holdings, especially from taxes. The sale of the shares threatened to increase the family’s taxes—well over a billion dollars under the tax code at the time. With the help of Clark Clifford, when the US was escalating its counter-insurgency war against Vietnam. He also served as Defense Secretary (1968-69), the year of the Tet Offensive.)), who along with serving DuPont also simplified business for ITT—and by the way was an advisor to Presidents—Du Ponts received special tax treatment, while keeping an estimated 17 per cent of GM through a network of trusts and in-laws. In public they occasionally were dealt a black eye, but in the corridors of power Du Pont wealth usually got its way. By 1965 the divestiture had been completed.
In 1965 the US invaded Vietnam with regular troops, landing Marines at Da Nang. Thus began the DuPonts’ next adventure in profit:
Of the top ten war contractors, three (North American Rockwell, Boeing, General Motors) represented large investments of the Du Pont family. Of the top forty Pentagon contractors, eight (North American Rockwell, Boeing, General Motors, Newport News Shipbuilding, Du Pont, Hercules, and Uniroyal) or one-fifth, were Du Pont interests. Du Pont Company alone reaped over one billion dollars in war contracts.
It is now forty years since the US stopped flying aircraft and dropping bombs or sending ships with troops to murder peasants in Indochina. But the US has not stopped waging war around the world or building atomic weapons, so it is certain that DuPont is still profiting from the fight against the “enemy of the day”.
Colby Zilg does not confine his story to the nearly two centuries of war profiteering. He also describes using the example of the oldest family, how the daily interlocking of private capital and the State have consistently facilitated and enhanced the exploitative capacity of a very small elite in the United States, not since 2008 or since 1972 or even since 1893 when McClure’s Magazine began publication or even the notorious Grant administration. No, from the very beginning the wealth, power and dignity of the ruling elite in the US has been acquired by cheap labour, “free” land, and government favours (whether political, monetary or military). This is not unlike the story Gustavus Myers wrote and first published in 1901. Myers starts with the seldom discussed colonial land tenure and labour systems, including slavery, that survived into the first years of the republic, forming the basis upon which Astors and Vanderbilts followed by Morgan, Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, to name a few of the better-known names, could make the US a paradise for Capital. Myers writes this about Du Pont:
However abbreviated, a competent description of the origin and expansion of the du Pont fortune would entail chapter after chapter. It would have to begin more than a century and a quarter ago when a du Pont established the first small gunpowder plant in Delaware and give the history up to the present E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, leading manufacturer of explosives.
Du Pont is exceptional because of the dynasty’s longevity, its peculiar family character which kept the company a partnership for almost a century, and its penetration of virtually every sector of the economy and politics. As the leading explosive manufacturer in the US it was wedded to the projects for empire and domestic repression from the very beginning.
Although the Rockefeller, Morgan and Mellon banking families probably control more corporate assets, the Du Ponts have more personal wealth. In fact, no family in America has been richer longer than the Du Ponts. They are the country’s oldest industrial family, producing gunpowder sixty-eight years before Rockefeller was identified with oil, eighty-six years before Carnegie with steel, ninety years before Ford with automobiles. The Vanderbilts, it is often pointed out, survive as rich people; the Du Ponts survive as a corporation… It should be emphasized, however, that the company has not ruled the family, as is so commonly suggested; rather, the family has ruled the company. Throughout its history, the main concern of the family has always been the family, not the company. In fact, the main concern of Du Pont Company was always the Du Pont family.
A cursory examination of books written about Business in the US and especially about businessmen (and women) in any bookstore will without doubt show how fantastic the leading corporate executives are, what terrific commercial and product innovations are brought to a needy (or greedy) consumer, how, in short, with all its failings there’s no business like business in the US. This is especially nauseating when it comes to the great billionaires. At the beginning of the 20th century the richest men in America—like John D. Rockefeller—were feared. Today Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are presented as a nice guy from around the block to meet for a non-alcoholic beverage and some kind of health-food sandwich, the other could come round for a round of canasta with your grandmother.
Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays began what came to be called public relations. Bernays came to use the term, although he had published a book on the subject called Propaganda in 1928, because it had fewer negative connotations. However, both Lee, who polished Rockefeller’s public image, and Bernays who helped make corporate policies seem more palatable or even popular, were in the business of deception. After Colorado national guardsmen had massacred workers, including families, during a strike at Rockefeller-owned mines in Ludlow, Lee went to work to perform damage control. Lee is credited with managing Rockefeller’s public appearance so that he seemed more like a kindly old gentleman rather than a ruthless thief. Ever since the extremely wealthy and powerful, whether individuals or corporations, spend enormous amounts to manage the way they are seen or the image of what they do. In addition to plain press and media relations work, there are charities and covert action. One of Bernays’ covert PR actions was the famous New York City Easter Day Parade in which he had selected women, dressed in a style associated with middle class suffragettes all light cigarettes and smoke while parading down Fifth Avenue. The prepared press releases spoke of women “lighting up torches of freedom”—the point was for Bernays to help his client sell more cigarettes to the as yet untapped women’s market.)
The Du Pont dynasty had its own share of public disasters or targets to be influenced. Much of what DuPont produces may not even be noticed as such—e.g. the wide variety of synthetic materials and packaging used today. However, the Du Ponts have tended to use vigorous political power for the most part in immediate areas of economic interest. To protect their wealth they have created as many as thirty or more tax-exempt foundations. In contrast to some of the other super-rich families, the Du Ponts concentrate their tax-free foundations in the field of preserving the memorabilia of their ancestors and the elegant estates they modelled after pre-revolutionary French ostentation. Longwood palace has gardens that rival those of Versailles and are preserved by the Nemours Foundation. There is a “public” library at the original gunpowder mills with the family archives. However, the Eleutherian Mills – Hagley Foundation treats everything after 1933 as if it were “classified”. When Du Pont foundations award grants there are no strings, per se—but because these are mainly disbursed as “matching grants” control is always implied. Of course, there are endowed chairs at universities and prizes; e.g., for journalism, too.
DuPont became a household word for products like nylon and Teflon, today a metaphor for anyone to whom nothing sticks; i.e., criticism, criminal charges, etc. The company has managed to stay in business for over two centuries. The family has ruled Delaware without serious interruption for just as long. Its palaces have been subsidised by taxes unassessed or unpaid, built with extortionate profits from government contracts and the cheapest possible labour. Princes of the realm have occasionally worked in government service, only rarely held public office outside the “Duchy” itself. Hence they do not appear in power and yet it is safe to assume that they hold power even today.
Today’s great magnates shun ornament and regalia, although Bill Gates has stooped to accept honorary knighthood in the Order of the British Empire. Wealth is celebrated with almost plebeian modesty. Individual American fortunes like those of Buffet, Gates, Soros, are lauded in books and magazine articles detailing entrepreneurship rather than bloodline. Their limousines are parked outside venues like the World Economic Forum in Davos or the Munich Security Conference. Warren Buffet still draws his fans to Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meetings where the “sage of Omaha” (as opposed to the “nihilist of Nebraska”) basks in modest reputation for “value investing”. Unlike his one-time rival Steve Jobs, Bill Gates cannot animate the revival tent. In short, the wealthy and powerful today—at least in the United States—rarely hold public office. They deny holding power in public, preferring to present themselves as bearers of business acumen, commercial wisdom and financial virtue. These are purportedly qualities which make them at least potentially equal to the men and women beneath them. After all the US is the “land of opportunity” for everyone, isn’t it?
The Du Ponts are proof that it isn’t. While the Great, like Gates and Buffet, try to demonstrate that they are also the Good, Du Pont wealth stands for itself.
Behind the Nylon Curtain—the allusion to the Cold War expression might be unfamiliar to readers born after 1989—is a unique royal biography of capitalism in which pageantry and propaganda are shown for what they are. It is a story of the corporate support for radical right wing politics—as a matter of course—and the conscious funding and deployment of organised terror, like the Ku Klux Klan in Alfred du Pont’s Florida empire and the Black Legion in GM territory (Michigan). It is a sober, detailed study of dynastic power and how it has been exercised for the entire history of the United States! Colby Zilg produced a genealogy of immorality that transcends personalities and can only be understood by staring the system in the face. This book demands that the evils of capitalism be recognised in the actions of real people who can be named and whose actions can—if one pays attention—be seen and not just imagined—once one transcends the pageantry of Business.
It is a kind of “trooping of the colours” without the fancy dress. The criminal dynasty is assembled on parade. And like at the British monarch’s birthday celebration—all can see Du Pont’s weaponry and the soldiers in its employ, protecting the plunder. However, there are no uniforms and marching bands to distract the reader from the smell of powder, gas, and napalm or the cancerous contamination that accompany its grandeur. From Deepwater, NJ to Miami, from the Savannah River to the Nevada desert, from the gas chambers in Poland to the dioxin drenched valleys of Vietnam, DuPont and the Du Pont family have embodied American capitalism in all its glory. Gerald Colby Zilg’s chronicle forces the reader to see the gore at the heart of that glory.
• Dupont, Behind the Nylon Curtain was revised and reissued in 1984. It has just been reissued in 2014 by Open Roads (Forbidden Bookshelf). The e-book is based on the 1984 edition.Nearly a year out from the 2016 elections, every day seems to bring a new poll of who's up and who's down. In recent months, this has helped determine who gets a national platform at the Republican debates; which candidates get more media coverage; and which may get a fundraising edge. Just one problem: Over the past several years, polling has proved less and less accurate in predicting the actual outcome of elections.
Nearly a year out from the 2016 elections, every day seems to bring a new poll of who�s up and who�s down.
In recent months, this has helped determine who gets a national platform at the Republican debates; which candidates get more media coverage; and which may get a fundraising edge.
Just one problem: Over the past several years, polling has proved less and less accurate in predicting the actual outcome of elections. In addition to the notoriously unreliable indication that early primary and caucus polls give on elections, pollsters themselves say that changes in technology and behavior have made it difficult to get an accurate read on voters.
Michael Curtin, now a Democratic state representative from Marble Cliff, was a longtime journalist who presided over The Dispatch�s poll, conducted by mail ahead of elections and well-regarded for its accuracy, in the 1980s and 1990s. Curtin attributes today�s polling woes to several key factors.
�Technology � everyone has a cellphone now,� Curtin said. �The ubiquity of unwanted phone calls. Telemarketing kind of ruined the polling business; people just stopped answering the phone... and we�re in a hyper-partisan age, where people are suspicious of who�s calling them and why.�
Societal and technological changes are adopted most quickly among young people, meaning they are more likely to be underrepresented in phone polls. Conversely, young people and other voting blocs that typically skew Democratic may be overrepresented in online polling.
An overall decline in respondents coupled with underrepresentation of particular groups can lead to suspect poll results. In September, Bloomberg News reported that a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey of the Republican race �represents the preferences of only 230 likely GOP voters. Analysis of certain subgroups, like evangelicals, could be shaped by the response of a single voter.�
Polling always has been part science, part art, but the old ways of massaging the numbers to represent the general electorate often no longer work. These same forces have been seen in elections around the world in just the past year; a polling inquiry panel was formed by the British Polling Council, after polling for the May re-election bid of Prime Minister David Cameron proved woefully off. One member of the panel noted that �Electorates are more volatile. They are de-aligned from parties.�
In June, a New York Times article asked: �What's the Matter With Polling?� It described election polling as being �in near crisis� in the face of the cellphone revolution and the unwillingness of people to take part in surveys. This year�s annual conference of the American Association for Public Opinion Research featured sessions with titles such as �Cell Phone Multiplicity: Should Polls Correct for Adults with More than One Cell Phone?� and �How Can We Produce Estimates When We Can�t Call You?: Revisiting Keeter�s Method to Adjust for the Phoneless Population.�
Candidates, media outlets and other groups aren�t going to stop using polling. As in every business sector, marketing research drives decisions and helps determine where money and resources are allocated. So how to fix it? Ironically, Curtin says it ultimately might be going back to the future.
�Polling really began household to household,� Curtin said. �I think the future of polling might depend on going household to household again. If polls were run for methodological purity rather than based on cost, that�s the way they�d all be done today.�Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT) and Rackspace Hosting, Inc. (NYSE: RAX) announced today that they have won a federal court decision granting early dismissal of all claims in a lawsuit brought by the patent assertion entity Uniloc USA, Inc.
Plaintiff Uniloc USA, Inc. is a frequent litigator, having brought patent lawsuits against many high-tech companies including Adobe, Microsoft, Sony and Symantec. Rackspace provides its customers with managed servers running the Linux operating system. Red Hat, which supplies Linux to Rackspace, provided Rackspace’s defense as part of Red Hat’s commitment to standing behind customers through Red Hat’s Open Source Assurance program.
Uniloc USA, Inc. filed the complaint against Rackspace in June 2012 in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas. The complaint alleged that the processing of floating point numbers by the Linux operating system violated U.S. Patent 5,892,697. Rackspace and Red Hat immediately moved to dismiss the case prior to filing an answer. In dismissing the case, Chief Judge Leonard Davis found that Uniloc’s claim was unpatentable under Supreme Court case law that prohibits the patenting of mathematical algorithms. This is the first reported instance in which the Eastern District of Texas has granted an early motion to dismiss finding a patent invalid because it claimed unpatentable subject matter. In the ruling released today, Judge Davis wrote that the asserted claim "is a mathematical formula that is unpatentable under Section 101."
"The early dismissal of this case delivers a clear message that patent assertion entities can’t expect quick settlements on weak claims, a tactic many patent assertion entities use to monetize questionable patents," said Alan Schoenbaum, Rackspace General Counsel. "We salute Red Hat for its outstanding defense and for standing firm with its customers in defeating this patent troll. We hope that many more of these spurious software patent lawsuits will be dismissed on similar grounds."
"This is a major victory for open source software," said Michael Cunningham, Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Red Hat. "We are gratified to have beaten another patent for open source and for our customer. We also believe that the thoughtful dismissal by Chief Judge Davis on a 12(b)(6) motion will encourage earlier decisions by other courts on invalid software patents, reducing vexatious litigation by non-producing entities and their corrosive effect on innovation."
About Red Hat
Red Hat is the world's leading provider of open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to reliable and high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization technologies. Red Hat also offers award-winning support, training, and consulting services. As the connective hub in a global network of enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending; the effects of industry consolidation; the ability of the Company to compete effectively; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
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Red Hat and JBoss are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.Conventional wisdom says managers should load up on as many DGW players as they can. Choosing players that from stronger teams or with the most favorable matchups tends to lead to massive scores. This is also where managers really begin to separate from the pack or make up ground in the standings. But DGW’s come with their own hidden costs.
With all DGWS, overloading on players from one team can lead to massive imbalances in your squad. Unwise transfers can leave you stuck with a sub-optimal squad or taking a -4 hit to correct the mistake. Getting an extra 3-5 points on the defensive line is great one week, but not if it comes at the expense of a more valuable or cost effective player later.
The upcoming DGW also marks a first for FMLS where two weekends of games are combined. The first weekend will see only six teams play during an international window that threatens to take a lot of players. Keep an eye on the senior and U23 national team rosters around CONCACAf and the team news for call-ups. The four teams on doubles stand to lose quite a few players.
For Round 4, the trap is set. Guys like Diaz, Porales, Castillo, and Urutti, are probably safe bets. Swapping out one premium forward or mid for another shouldn’t cause too much issue, but the deeper down the roster, the worse things look. The value players are not top priorities at the moment.
Goalkeepers
Goalkeeper transfers don’t help the team much, but if you are in the situation where you need to or want to burn an extra transfer, looking at Shuttleworth or Worra is the best option. Worra is cheap, but playing behind a somewhat shaky defense, $4.1 for a starter is hard to pass up. If you prefer a bit more reliable points in the back, Shuttleworth is the guy and his defense appears to be the least likely to be affected by the international weekend during the DGW. Gonzalez and Ousted were preseason favorites this year and solid options. They may not be the prime targets for the DGW, but they are definitely solid options for the long haul.
Defenders
Dallas has the most cost effective defenders of the set, but many will be away on national team duty. DC has been hit or miss in the back and is hard to trust. Vancouver hasn’t fared well against two strong attacks; they will be facing Houston who put up 5 goals against Dallas and a potent LA Galaxy. New England appears to be the best option, but even they have tough games starting the set in NYC and then playing the Red Bulls at home.
Midfielders
New England’s midfield will likely be without Nguyen and Fagundez may get called up as well. |
'Esc' key. The rooms and robots will be re-arranged, and the computer will generate a new set of puzzles.
SCORING
The game clock (on the pocket computer display) starts at 12:00 the game end when the clock reaches 6:00.
LOSING TIME
Each time you fall of the bottom of the screen or get zapped by a robot or floating orb, you are penalized 10 minutes.
Each time you use the phone, you are penalized two minutes. When the game ends, you are awarded points as follows:
1 point for each second remaining on the clock 100 points for each puzzle piece found. 100 points for each snooze & lift init password found. 500 points for each puzzle solved. 1000 points for completing the mission.
HINTS
Here are some playing hints from the author of Impossible Mission:
Some rooms are harder than others. If a room seems too hard (presumably because you don't have any passwords to reset the lifts and turn off the robots), come back to it after you've acquired some passwords.
Each robot has a different behavior program. Some robots move faster than others, some of them shoot lightning bolts, and some have no sight or hearing. So watch them closely. You can often figure out what program a robot is running before you try to get past it.
Your pocket computer will let you combine any two pieces that don't overlap, but this isn't always enough. Puzzle pieces which don't overlap may not really belong together. If you find that it's impossible to finish a partially-completed puzzle, you may have combined the wrong puzzle pieces.
You don't have to somersault over every hole in the floor. If a gap is no wider than a lifting platform, try stepping across it. But don't let up on the joystick until you get to the other side, or you'll fall.
If you have to cross a very large chasm, you can actually have one foot in the abyss before you press the fire button to jump. If you do this just right, it will give you the extra distance you need.So he liked it… put a ring on it… and now you have to find a dress for the big day. Oh the woes of the curvy girl trying to find a wedding gown when most shops don’t carry samples in your size. Being a bride-to-be myself, this has caused me much anguish & anxiety, but I found my dress and now I am here to help you find yours. Some of you saw on Twitter (@garnerstyle) that I have partnered with TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress: Big Bliss. The Big Bliss shows are about women sizes 14+ who go the famous Kleinfield store in NYC. It is probably one of the few stores that carry both straight & plus size sample sizes. Every Tuesday I will be recapping each week’s episode, giving styling tips for the big day and recommendations for how to shop for a wedding dress… curvy girl style! Now on to our first week’s recap…
The People Closest to You...
One of my favorite themes of this week’s episode was the support that I saw from each bride’s family and friends. I have watched many bridal dress shows and sometimes the opinionated family & friends can be more of a distraction than help. Tip #1: Choose the people you bring with you while you hunt for your dress VERY carefully. This is YOUR time and you don’t need any extra added stress from people who think their opinions reign supreme (you know the person I’m talking about). I know there are some people that you can’t leave at home, but this is a great time to work on your diplomacy skills. You can appease the more aggressive opinionated family member by trying on one dress that they suggested. Get it out of the way early, so you can focus on what you are really looking for in a dress.
“Brittany wants a ball gown but her family is afraid it will make her look like a cupcake.”
Tip 2: Bigger is not always better. Oh my goodness when I heard ball gown I thought to myself, “EEK!” I don’t want to say that ball gowns are out for the plus size bride, because there are always exceptions to every rule, but a ball gown skirt can be very problematic. Ball gowns are usually very voluminous and can add a lot of bulk to the body. You can become engulfed by this humungous dress, especially if you are petite like Brittany. One thing I liked about Brittany was that she appeased “team mermaid” by trying on a mermaid gown even though she knew it would probably not be best for her body type. By the way, the first gown she tried on had to be probably the hardest to wear for the plus size body. The gathering right underneath the stomach is just an epic fail in my opinion. Even the curvy girl with the flattest stomach still has tummy enough that the brooch and gathering could make her look pregnant. Brittany’s final pick was beautiful and she still had a bit of the princess-y look, but the fit kept her from looking like a cupcake.
“Cari is using her appointment as a time to bond with her long lost half sister Cynthia.”
Tip 3: Fit is always key. It saddened me that Cari was trying to hide her body underneath an A-line skirt. On your wedding day you should be glamorous to say the least. Hiding your body in everyday clothing isn’t flattering and so the same rule should be applied when choosing wedding gowns. You want to accentuate the parts of the body that you like on your wedding day. I especially love the shape that Cari gets from the ruching of the gown. Ruching smoothes and can help to create a curvy silhouette.
“Romance wants to find a gown that will "knocks her fiancé's socks off."
Tip 4: Wear your hair similar to the fitting. When searching for such an important dress you should come to the fitting with a similar look. For instance, Romance’s hair was up and short. I assume that her hair was a wig. In her actual wedding photos her hair was up (or off of her neck as well). Romance also showed up with make-up on. She didn’t show up being overly made-up or with this grand updo, but she did set the stage for her look for her actual wedding. Sometimes dresses can look different with different hairstyles & make-up. I’m saying all this to say don’t go searching for your dress looking like you just rolled out of bed. It could distort your own image of yourself in the gown that you try on.
As I watched the show it was obvious that the dresses that fit closer to the body were much more flattering on all three ladies. I think one of the best ways to pick out what kind of style dress will look best on you is to think about your favorite outfits, especially your dresses, and why they work for you and your body type.
Married gals, engaged ladies, and any girl thinking about purchasing a wedding dress: Share your tips that you used or will use when you pick(ed) out your wedding gowns for the big day.Kippt is shutting down
Kippt is a bookmarking service founded in 2011 which has helped hundreds of thousands of people store and share knowledge, ideas and inspiration from around the web.
Since 2014 we have moved work on other projects and decided to keep Kippt running for people still using it. You can read more from our blog post. As time has gone by, our energy towards maintaining Kippt has gone down and the cost of running the service has gone up. With a heavy heart we have decided to end the journey of Kippt for now and shut the service down.
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– Jori & KarriWelcome back seven point 62 of Don sabres GM to Marie is with us much over the bulldogs. Nine games left. What that I Iraq UN needs of nine games left. Progress. Yeah. I think every game you have somebody something different a look at. Brady also plays flat efforts in the National Geographic and so. There's always somebody to drive is always somebody that critical. And given night so. Who do you love. With that in mind are there are decisions. That. But how happy you made the key performance. In these games with the playoffs are. And really you know you're not fairly well I think is. An individual performances that you can still. Guys. Norwood sleepwalking and I do very. Play hard and try and take some pride and throw. And something north of how much he. Judge coach's rule. Well I think we all that constantly every. You conceive and soul. I'll be evaluated by ownership again. Players soldiers will be evaluated by the end here and that this season Athlon sports and again here yet you sit down with. For players so I will you know players and get their feedback and he was supposed to get their feedback and. It doesn't remove. All season all these conversations we've had a lot of them. Got to the point where you say something like. You are. That's stretching he's always a little but he you know and now we're at a point where we know with the how you look at the overall we've been talking a lot to be about the future. As it happens so quickly fills. You you're not only from. The betting lines you're not only from where outsiders predicted you would be that. Those that. The is that we in the day over what your own expectations were you like. No more don't expect our internal expectations for. Think way more important than what we were monster that just has to say and what what the experts. Thought we'd be. So our expectations to be a playoff team and were not sold. We have to deal with. Does the process of figuring out what needs to change. Is that something that he called the year goes honored that took him weeks until that last game. Well I think we've we've heard you make judgments every night but. Again myself you have to meet and clerical stuff in here. So into the ownership in the years old. Could become clear that. Through evaluating every game you're evaluating. It's always something good could. That's it no lineup right now because of injuries. I think by the week it will help some of and troopers box so we'll. Couple baskets in the lineup at his case. Is still. Games here at the school games in Rochester is still a lot of it will be done. And to really get a plan together on how to get better that's obviously wasn't good enough issues. You know the the future. Has seemed pretty bright. Going back to the night of the draft drifting you might hurt your performances. Since ride the future I think. Most people hockey would say that about receivers. You feel. If you changed your your view on the long term because of the season or other things. Don't know I think guys. You know I think we have a lot of think we have a lot of depth up front that this a lot of talent up front I said I think on the shoulder. You know the blue White House to be has he improved. I thought that the start the year with those blue line that it. It might be good enough to be a playoff to Mike I didn't think he's good enough to use them up. Content or. Talk. The top ten team league but I thought playoff life that's true. It might be good enough. Robinson followed through with Michael. We have some. What do you think most is most responsible. That sort. But he wanted to. Set off next door please. Some other batteries like what what what happened. Like I think that when it came from to a golf that I thought that was good news talk treatments and I didn't know who plays. All. You're with the Selena is hot week yet or if it was going to be somebody else there and then and solidify. The bottom four months. I think you have to let. I your pre season than you first came into full play out to see exactly were you guys did on those in your organization but. Yeah I think that's that had to be part of it. Again watch him watch him play off Florida. I was pretty excited you wouldn't that you'll find me. Right now we could all sit here and say that it didn't work out and and I accept that it is responsible for the sole. We have to find a way to get younger. Record in more skilled on the back end. That's not easy but that's got to be or we have to find wouldn't do not so. Again we have a lot of talent up front we've I think Bolton. Very solid this year I think the goaltenders in the organization on the team that played here. With Fulmer and Peterson. And I think it's. Strength for us. I think performs consistent thing for us I think that. You know we've had three drops here and it seemed to him because policemen involved in forward. Heisman guys then we happen. Been able to pick that's that Princeton and that falls right on the end on the skeleton staff that they'll work. Under the Michael Jackson. It's something that we that we have to go. There was a report about a Russian league player of the receivers were accident and you might have been Lester this time we're talking about PC Nelson being Simon told us the background on. I assume like that those kinds of things a player like Elson reviewed a college region where we can tell that everything like you. Like everything's in play including trades for. Fourteen with teams that may have the issue was. That's definitely. Sold. I. Our scouting staff knows the deal. Knows what we're looking. All options are being put through. I think any GM sitting here right now. The paperwork for the you don't think the public about the tough to beat him. I think we recognize we're. We have to get better and and it's it's. It certainly. Our goal and it's it's on my mind. I think which you don't want here Baltic. We don't wanna yours look good when certain things and if that's that's don't want her Xavier that we know well and what are your plans with Peter's these are you picked up. At this point that these employees exceed two. Are you. Hoping to get him to turn won't sign with you please explain. What does what's on the way to lower worker who respect kids. His opinion that people but I mean we've made our opinion pretty clear that you know. What works you have to accomplish that in college level. It's like going there. They don't work forcefully there are some thoughtful he's produced and he's he's played the minutes thing. 85 straight starts whenever the numbers are huge number. And you'll start again this weekend sold. Like he obviously a lot of the prospect. You play with audio workers of the body of work with our development. That's many more. He's done to developing a better playing. Time for games. Console. Ideally. Confirmed pearl would be. Exactly. Hey indicated to you and all that they would be looking to you wanna present level golf at the end of this you don't need to get knocked out we've made it feel. You know that we would be through and watching him a lot we fatter. He's got a good relationship with after our political victory relationship with. Famous poet who an excellent let's go forth and that's concentrate on gold and our player development staff led by these long. Conservator routes with the very important. From buffalo. Quote guy's sold the it's communication and the and that you mentioned the effort that wouldn't. Well without the we hope button without the don't tax him five times today without without looking like we're. Somewhat and had a cold weather can get insider not sudden that's that's accompanied him his family and his. Tickets. I think that her. Got a good job with them. I think that's. Who treated were converted by the organization I think that's you have to do with them you have to have them apple wants to be part of your organization. When we got there with this that we don't really. Have though he. He has an option. If he decides to leave school walked away from New York patience he dropped college players that is that's concerned and that is that often that. That they have. And if you get past. These. So it's something you have to deal with the what's the relationship that's why the relationship that you cultivate without where rodents. Whether it's three years four years but very important. The relationship to big part of it but also opportunities because. We can play an opportunity here we think it's an opportunity for him from. Start this is still. In the American hockey atmosphere. And that continues this think that that time so that's. Those who like rules. Like nearly always ideally you would make two you have got loose. At least that at some level contract with a guy that you have drafted and spent a lot of time with so. I concede word it's. Organizations that have lost their it's heartbreaking because we're all we never have enough that. He spent a lot of time. I don't know people understand them miles. Time and effort into him. Scouting guys to draft them and in that effort continues miles between. You leave it to me to develop enough player. Bring them in the buffalo in the summertime. So there's a lot of effort a lot of ones that. Two developing players sold. It is kind of it could ask you. Organizations. For the first four partners control two continue to welcome good teams who were in the gulf. This is Kelsey Peterson nobody would listen to know where that line you want. If he wants he's from its August August August. Is it a lot like BC. Those of Maria version of religion XP or gotten them. Coca simmering for us which opened in the book it's a six yard expansion draft home. Well sent our receivers won't experience recipes. What would you guys. Who were there. The problem. Levine and and also I'll watch as the expansion draft mean we're the view and you poignant last. Many months. While you're always aware that your own the word. Criteria that. Four with people like that. So we're in good shape we'll make our final decisions that end here on. People but we will meet the criteria goaltenders. Or no question that without signing him but yet for the off. These teams not signing. Tropical the American hockey. Your attention. And think that. In fact got custody I think I'd recommend to. Our trade deadline would lose. Who who could play out. Two teams are. Are very aware. Rules and but you have to move on after the fact so it has affected if it's a little bit but I. Ferocity wounded Houston. I won't say that we made a final decision on. We'll set forth. We if we have players that can fit that criteria that the other team that losses. Are you perhaps to figure and you favorite 73 only supposed to it was a couple of today out. Years over because this happened. It wouldn't that we'll discuss all the differences but as great now that's. That's where we. You mentioned that he expected. The trade deadline. In some ways wasn't real busy deadline we don't know. You think maybe the opposite will be true once he expansion draft picks here but once in Las Vegas frozen their players. Maybe they'll choose a lot of defenseman repeat it seems like you need to make trades for different. What they'll they'll they definitely making field. We've made an old soul I think that there very good guys I had a pharmacy from the two tour. On who I would like to lose. And how we can make that happen. So. I am I as I suspected he's extremely busy I expect that he's had a trying to pull some teams especially teams that are a little more found out that we are. We could definitely have to fold. I think that. You know they can. Make a lot of fields that are kind of teammate is three now. From now on that's definitely. And they don't have to you know make public. Or you can tell the rest and that. They've got to deal with Minnesota for example if they do and it's more about. Your soul. It's a little bit of an unknown there so you have to look. You have to look at that team roster who. And we've done that we need to. Its efforts. And we do different things but he also working class what can jump up rookie. I assume that you thought he. Coming to talk about that and this guy could have thirty. Open source for Drexel who think like if you have thirty additional. Planets were all the team week. But he really expects. It is who's been. Like publicly you have to go to the drop. So. He certainly has to take thirty players in the team to play next year. And cylinder and bought the club sold. His shot is not either. Ladies but. May accumulate a lot of picks the couple drops him. But frankly I would suggest that the vehicle and I I would think that you feel thing. So just hypothetically if we can make this about Minnesota. Another team you want. You say to Vegas. We appreciated if you didn't clean this player will be exposed. What do you do for them. What do you make a deal with that then you're you're trading of media better draft pick that you otherwise look. Might something going right for you treat the players who have protected otherwise why would he was exposed. Maybe I've got to deal with swords in the past that. Was considered somewhat of a favor. You've got had a conversation with him. It's reminded him of that and he remembered. The L word of that deal. Late word for word which I was very happy here so parenthood. There are things that happens team that's. They make you only do a favor when it suits you you know you do a favor with somebody work. You know you can afford to do that favorite now knowing that down the road that you might be something and that's what they've learned. For guys like constantly evaluate these tree it's probably. It's going to be it's going to be extremely hard to evaluate expansion draft can be extremely hard to. Seeing that the players took from LA was the player they wanted. You'll find out after forgetting this economic team. You may never find out that. Good relationship with the paper involved there were without. It's going to be. It's going to feel hurt hurt. Thought process to. Analysts into each individual thing that they make you feel about that guy or is there. It was not a trade off for him. It the next time we go to shows about how I think people luxuries. That. Certain fans dislike winner for the wrong reasons. And the number one reason that I hear it is the cost of first round where would I be. Right soon one of these shows that comes off today listen. I actually just play the tape of the last two minutes and say sometimes or more of these deals that you know whether or fevers and that's. I think that there are behind the scenes stuff that. Forget dot. Relationships in the game I think that salt. There is no conspiracy theories through them like I'll let into this incident only sciences business real quick as the Philadelphia tiny mutual. For the record I have twenty treatment and are with us. I have little doubt in my office so you're gonna you know something's gonna get on Twitter and favoritism. Roughly. Seventy I think our people. You are yes. That's that's the end then. Vocalist and become public for so. It was really upset when the pulpit to schools and beyond or no doubt it was. But this. And it was GM some. Well not everything I mean I don't think double when I got back it was created all the press but that 30 AM to bring that because of the ball might not have been birdies there. For 31 dessert for anyone know what you might have been. Top Victoria. Since these different. They don't have a TV show out. Or they let. I don't know I don't I don't really care is could be fun almost like it's interesting to me it was. Listeners that just. All all the decisions you have to they can you estimate that's part of the point of view. Into the offseason which analyzed why site I think sometimes that is fun. Sometimes. Watching the game as well. I don't know if lesson last felt bad that fortunately the plot and that go undefeated fighter and they wanted to visit my guess that put. Sometimes watch the game fun. Yeah I had brought quote was what I. Sometimes forget about it yes. I could be told I told him I thought last night watching captain. With one I didn't I didn't think it is bad rap when my husband and 8 o'clock. I just love watching him on an idea either and I think that's it since he's been documentary that watching him on. Sometimes. Sometimes what's in front you. Pointing publicly as human beings that speculation. On that topic again. We're talking business that look like I'm not you guys are. This. Buy from them. Most news. What I hear. I think a lot it. We can do a lot of problems and get a lot of insults. It went from natural. Instincts are real and not my case okay never needed it. Which you respects it is not let him. That's a lot of complaints that moment that's right I get it for that's what I want it's going over people's lives. Right to seek the peace that we did use. The first time ever loosen them up the toughest thing. Beyond that who's that knowledge the experience we all have and there are people who boosts him. Everybody although it does listen it's art you know it's excellent change. Like this year's us open. But soon the errors and the trick I was on here that you trade deadline like. The first time this guy ever showed up to one of these swap meets the. And it wasn't like this I tried to Iraqis. I wouldn't think it through. But yeah it was a difficult day. And very very difficult. Yeah you know I I believe you should acquire assets to. In this book is suspected players and all I'm content wherever it. But I think you should try to acquire assets to our players that are going to walk away and whether it's their decision or your decision. Where the teams. Got something. I was I was it was heard is that. Would make that happen again with. Placed into my mind and in this. There was interest on that's for them all the players and men who were a lot of these that we're lucky that this besides. There and striking distance and we couldn't straighten this time this year two points four points. And you think it's that African commodities by talking. Where you know where they a couple months but a couple of these where they bought last year didn't get it and that's. That's tough. They'll swallow. You know my. At your boss you know starting to question you. Sold to a lot of guys did a lot of those if you. I don't have this feeling again. I said often you know we've had two plus years that. Signed guys seem to do their work in the playoff you sign guys that didn't have interest in that lineup these guys in the second quarter report. I don't know when it's over but it is applicable to. To Marie. Savers freak accident that you can you.Match Summary
Chelsea struggled to a victory against Queens Park Rangers in an exciting West London derby.
The Blues, who were struggling to break down QPR, finally crossed the line thanks to an Eden Hazard winner from the penalty spot. Oscar’s earlier strike, which would have been more than worthy as a winner, was cancelled out by Charlie Austin’s deft flick.
It was a typically cagey start in a match between two rival clubs. Harry Redknapp could not afford for more pressure to be placed on his shoulders so opted to defend; Mourinho’s men were therefore struggling to inject any real impetus.
That changed after the half-hour mark. Cesc Fabregas’ ninth assist brought Oscar’s fourth goal of the campaign, a delicious curling right-footed shot from the outside of the boot. The ball was coming at pace and the Brazilian whacked it in first-time: 1-0.
Would that settle Chelsea? Yes. Would it allow them to push on? No. Costa, who had missed the last four matches through injury, had a chance before the half-time whistle blew, whilst Hazard had a go just after the break.
The next goal was to be QPR’s, however. Vargas’ drive was well-stopped but Austin back-heeled from Fer’s rebound.
Chelsea were not in danger of losing their 100% unbeaten streak of the season but could they secure all the points here? They could. Vargas was rash to bundle over Hazard on the edge of the box and the Belgian, as he has in of his Premier League penalties to date, slotted home his eighth from the spot.
What are your thoughts from the game? Leave your thoughts in the Comments section below!
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Man of the Match
OSCAR: The Brazilian ducks in and out of good form but the last few weeks have been good for him. An excellent free-kick against Crystal Palace and now a sublime goal today shows to the world the Brazilian is starting to realise his actual talent. Mourinho shall no doubt now demand more consistency and a better impact against the top teams. 8/10
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Manager Reaction
Mourinho felt his side could have done better: “My team didn’t play well… I was expecting more. For 90 minutes I think [Oscar] was our best player. Not for the goal, but for the dynamic, for the intensity, for the transitions. He was always sharp.”
Harry Redknapp was disappointed with the penalty award: “It was harsh. It was a shoulder to shoulder charge and our guy was a bit stronger. To get no points is obviously disappointing. However, there’s lots of positives. We showed a great attitude and I think we have got enough to stay in this division.”
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Post written by Martin Li. Martin has had three years’ blogging experience, writing for the likes of Bleacher Report and SWOL. He runs his own Chelsea blog — The Chelsea Chronicle — which has match reaction and analysis from every Chelsea match. You can follow him on Twitter.
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© Martin Li and The Chelsea Chronicle, 2011-2014. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this Blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Martin Li and The Chelsea Chronicle with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.PlannedAssault is a web-based mission generator targeting large scale combined arms battles for the ArmA/Arma2 games and VBS2 simulators. PlannedAssault simplifies and automates most of the creation of large scale battles. In the generated mission, each unit is given their part of an overall plan, resulting in purposeful and realistic behavior at both squad and company level, with either NPCs or human participants.
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Watch the tutorial movie on Youtube
Mission creation with PlannedAssault is as simple as: Use your web browser to pick and place squads and platoons, set objectives and define the situation. Next, wait for PlannedAssault to generate the corresponding mission and download it. Then enjoy your large battle in any role you fancy!
[ArmaII gamer]: "Have just played through my first, extremely hastily thrown together mission but even that had an incredible and believable atmosphere I rarely find in missions. It really did feel like being part of a large battle where both sides had a clear plan and I was caught in the middle. I was absolutely gobsmacked when the OPFOR AI called in a fire mission on the centre of the village I was defending prior to their assault, even more so when a BLUFOR squad commander called in some [indirect fire] on an enemy position on a ridge."
[ArmaII gamer]: "I'm no noob when it comes to the [Arma2] editor but 5 minutes using this software has helped me make one of the most complete missions i've ever made in my arma2 history!"
VBS2 AS-90 platoon firing a pre-planned artillery mission
Watch the troop transport movie on Youtube
Coordinated advance of Bradley IFV and infantry
PlannedAssault missions have the following (generated) ingredients:
coordinated land maneuvers, with armor platoons and infantry squads advancing side by side in lanes
artillery missions from AI operated batteries, either pre-planned or dynamically invoked by the AI or called by the player
air strikes from AI or player operated aircraft, either pre-planned or dynamically invoked by the AI or called by the player
air landings (helicopter insertions, fast-ropes and para drops) with multiple aircraft delivering multiple squads in landing zones near the objective
flanking attacks, multiple pronged attacks and defensive counter-attacks
briefings and tasks for every unit on the player's side, clarifying the player's targets and larger plan
transport actions, with infantry fighting vehicles and trucks loading, moving and unloading multiple infantry squads
deployment of crew served weapons and camouflage nets (Arma2 only)
PlannedAssault's mission generator knows how to 'do' waypoints, triggers, script calls and briefings so you don't have to!
Infantry uses transports when possible
Your role is clarified by in-game task updates
Download your custom mission
To ease mission creation, PlannedAssault offers a large database of carefully configured squads, sections, batteries and platoons for the most popular Arma and ArmaII mods, and key VBS2 units.
PlannedAssault's mission generator is built on top of a preference based HTN planner working in 'plan-space', designed by William van der Sterren.
Armed Assault, ArmA2, ArmA2:Operation Arrowhead and ArmA2:Combined Operations are games by Bohemia Interactive. VBS2 is a a simulator by Bohemia Simulations. This site is not affiliated or endorsed in any way by Bohemia Interactive or Bohemia Simulations.
The PlannedAssault web-site uses the'silk' and 'flags' icons by Mark James.The California Raisins may be to blame
For whatever reason, a lot of characters from Japanese games and cartoons who have dark, decidedly human-colored skin in their original designs are given inhuman, almost tumorous-looking purple skin when their visages are localized for outside territories. Oil Man from Mega Man: Powered Up, and Mr. Popo, from Dragon Ball Z are a couple of examples of this very specific, very strange editing process. While I get that this practice probably comes from an effort to be culturally sensitive, it also effectively erases the appearance of dark skinned people (or Pokemon) with pronounced lips from their respective stories.
Though there's definitely exceptions to this rule, I think that it's most often better to allow some potentially "problematic" representation marginalized groups into a game than to offer no representation at all, especially when it comes to race. For example, Barret from Final Fantasy 7 may be a cartoonish stereotype, but like Amos and Andy before him, he paved the way for the inclusion of better defined Black characters in the years that followed. That's part of why I thought it was cool that Jynx retained her black skin in the original Western release of Pokemon Yellow, and am sad to see that Nintendo reversed that decision with the game's re-release on the 3DS Virtual Console.
It would be one thing if Jynx somehow bought into common negative racial stereotypes, but as a blonde haired ice witch who just happens to have features that many associate with folks hailing from Africa, I figure that Jynx's original look didn't do much to reinforce any particular idea about people (or Pokemon) with dark skin and pink lips. The only idea that she conveys is that people (or Pokemon) that look like her do, in fact, exist. I get that characters with those features were once used to spread hateful racist propaganda in mainstream media, but there are also plenty of actual human beings in the world today with those features who would surely like to see more people (and Pokemon) who look like them represented in games and animation.
I also wonder why these characters always turned purple. Is it because the publishers in question take classic films like The Color Purple, Purple Rain and The California Raisin's Christmas Special as a sign that to Americans, "Purple" is synonymous with "Black"? More so, if they did in fact intend for the original versions of these characters to be racial stereotypes, do they really think a simple Grape-colored skin switch-a-roo would be enough to hide their original intentions? It reminds me of people who think that as long as they use terms like "People of Color" (or in this case, "Purple of Color") instead of traditional racial slurs, that they can make all the racist statements they want without being seen as actually racist.
As terrible as it is when games and/or people overtly voice racist ideas, at least they let us know upfront where they stand, so we can act accordingly. Bigots who hide behind a facade of political correctness are a lot more dangerous.
You are logged out. Login | Sign upTugs secure bulk carrier adrift in Coral Sea
Updated
Sorry, this video has expired Video: Stricken bulk carrier secured by tug (7pm TV News NSW)
Several tug boats have reached a bulk carrier adrift in the Coral Sea near the Great Barrier Reef in far north Queensland.
The Hong Kong registered carrier, ID Integrity, had been drifting since its engines broke down on on Friday night en route to Townsville.
It was feared the vessel was going to run aground at Shark Reef, about 175 nautical miles north-east of Cairns, but it just cleared the natural hazard.
A small tug boat initially arrived at the ship's side and attached a line to secure the vessel, before several other boats arrived.
The CEO of Australian Reef Pilots Simon Meyjes says the carrier is being towed to |
our team with every opportunity to succeed.
“Working with such great teammates, coaches and support staff makes for a great environment and as a player it’s hard to ask for more.”
Geelong’s General Manager of Football Simon Lloyd is thrilled to have both Selwood and Taylor recommit to the club in time for the beginning of 2018.
“Joel and Harry live our club values and epitomise what it is to be a Geelong person,” Lloyd said,
“They are not only outstanding in the way they represent the club on and off-field but they are exceptional leaders in the way they engage with the community.
“It is fantastic to have both Joel and Harry recommit to the club and will make for a great start to 2018.”Image copyright AFP Image caption A funeral convoy of Islamist militants in Sinai in 2013
Suspected Islamist militants have killed 12 soldiers and injured eight in an attack on an army checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula, Egyptian security sources say.
The army says 15 militants were also killed in the attack, which took place near the town of Bir al-Abd.
Gunmen from the Sinai Province group are reported to be behind the attack.
It is Egypt's most active insurgent group, which pledged allegiance to so-called Islamic State in 2014.
Officials said a gun battle erupted after the militants opened fire on the checkpoint with light arms and heavy machine-guns.
Friday's attack was the latest in what appears to be a surge in the number of operations launched by the militants.
Sinai Province: Egypt's most dangerous insurgents
Originally called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Supporters of Jerusalem), but changed its name after it pledged allegiance to so-called Islamic State in November 2014
Began with rocket attacks on Israel but refocused on targeting Egyptian security forces after the removal of President Morsi
Its aim is thought to be to take control of the Sinai peninsula to turn it into an Islamist province
Deadliest attacks include killing of 33 security personnel in North Sinai in October 2014
The number of active members is believed to be between 1,000 and 1,500
Believed to have cells in Cairo, Giza and the Western Desert
Profile: Sinai Province
However, the army has appeared to have had a degree of success in suppressing the militants recently, and it is some time since the fighters carried out an attack on the scale of this one.
Egypt has battled militants in Sinai for years, but Islamist militancy has risen since the army deposed President Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013.
In August, the Egyptian military said it had killed the leader of Sinai Province, along with dozens of its fighters.Scream (1996)
What’s your favourite scary movie? Not a question anyone can really answer easily, anyone who can really hasn’t put much thought into their choice. Sometimes you can even struggle to come up with a Desert Island Discs of horror films. It’s not a question that’s easy to answer without it turning into a full-blown discussion. A lot of the time people know the problems in answering this question, so why do they ask it? Before Scream (1996) it’s unlikely that anyone would ask you that question, and certainly not with that knowing and half-joking smile on their face. At a time when the horror genre was in a nadir the mixture of horror fan newcomer screenwriter Kevin Williamson, genre legend director Wes Craven, Bob Weinstein’s money, and a host of already established young actors gave the genre a much needed shot in the arm and for a number of years was the high water mark of a successful horror film. As you may know our reviews always contain spoilers, so be warned before you read on.
By the time of the mid-90s the horror genre was on the wane, years of nothing but decreasing budgets and quality of slasher franchise sequels before going straight to DVD meant that a genre that had never been well thought of at the best of times was perhaps a few more years of declining quality away from going on the same shelf as the softcore pornography in Blockbuster. Even films that are unmistakably horror but were of a higher quality than most marketed themselves as thrillers rather than horror to avoid the stigma (see multiple Academy Award winning The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and critically acclaimed Se7en (1995)). It was in this climate that screenwriter Kevin Williamson, in need of a quick cash injection, combined a recent news story about a home invasion serial killer with his love of the great horror movies of the 1970s and 1980s, going so far as to listen to the soundtrack to John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) whilst writing what he called at the time Scary Movie. Taking inspiration from the early slasher films the identity of the killer is part of a whodunit rather than going for the unstoppable monster that characters like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees would become by the late 1980s, it works so much better for such a self-aware film that the audience is constantly guessing who the killer is as opposed to just having constant POV shots of some lurking figure peering at the characters from the bushes.
A lot of credit must be given to the direction and the acting in screen that translated the films horror and humour so well from script to screen. The use of actors already established on either television or film lends it a depth of acting talent that had been missing from much of the horror output of the 1980s, to the point where killing off the film’s most famous actor (Drew Barrymore) in the first fifteen minutes – which has to be the boldest move since Janet Leigh never made it out of the shower in Psycho (1960). Although most of the main cast for the most part look too old to be high school students, the characters are played convincingly enough that it’s never jarring. We get most of our comedic value from David Arquette as dopey local deputy Dewey Riley, Courtney Cox as tabloid reporter Gale Weathers, Jamie Kennedy as horror aficionado Randy Meeks, and Matthew Lillard as class clown turned serial killer Stu Macher. Rounding out the main cast we have Neve Campbell in her best girl next door mode as final girl Sidney Prescott, Rose McGowan as her best friend Tatum Riley, and Skeet Ulrich seemingly possessed by Johnny Depp in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) as her boyfriend and murderer Billy Loomis. Most of the cast had a least a few credits under their belt already that helps the film maintain your attention through good performances, but would such casting have been made under another director. Wes Craven has always been gifted with getting good naturalistic actors for his films. Even more than luck with casting he has always managed to bring a real humanity to all of his horror films, albeit sometimes a depraved humanity. Craven’s direction always really lends itself well to the creation of tension and suspense, sometimes better than actual horror. It can be difficult sustain threatening phone calls as a source of terror for as long as this film does (witness When a Stranger Calls (1979) as an example) yet Scream manages to keep the entire first act engaging based entirely around these; which really comes down to the script, the performances (in particular Roger L. Jackson as the voice of the killer), and Craven’s direction of slowly building tension into dread into terror during these sequences.
There is a very long and possibly heated argument to be had on whether Scream is more of a comedy or a horror film, with one smug idiot in the corner saying it’s neither and it’s actually a mystery thriller. Whilst it is all three of these it is unmistakably a horror film, there’s sincerity to the horror that you don’t get in most outright comedy horrors. Can Scream be considered truly scary though? The short answer is yes; the long answer is yes but you’ll need to look elsewhere if you’re looking for a “jumpy” horror. Take for example the opening scene, while most home invasion films that have come since have quickly resorted to having faces at the window and shadowy figures crossing doorways behind the protagonists while violins screech, here the horror is conveyed entirely through the characters interaction with a voice on the phone – almost like a good stage play or audio drama. It is a pretty comedic film as well though, mainly achieved through dialogue when the film isn’t scary and then only from a few characters. Matthew Lillard deserves specific mention, managing to make the character of Stu Macher even funnier after it’s revealed he has murdered multiple people. After finding out the police are on their way he tearfully laments that “My mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me” before having the phone wrenched from his hands by his partner in crime and thrown back at his head, causing Stu to scream “why’d you hit me with the phone, dick?” Of course it’s all in Lillard’s delivery and along with David Arquette and Jamie Kennedy provides a number of laugh out loud moments in the film. As a whodunit Scream is serviceable, providing enough suspects and red herrings for the audience to have fun guessing who the killer is. Like a lot of whodunits (especially those written by Mrs. A. Christie) the actual killer is suspected quite early on only to be given an alibi that proves they aren’t the killer then in the final act revealing the presence of two killers one of whom is the obvious suspect who was previously eliminated. In spite of well tread ground of mystery twists we believe this was the first time it had been done in a slasher film, even the early whodunit slashers (Prom Night (1980) or Terror Train (1980)) leaving only one possible suspect left standing by the final act or introducing someone we’ve never met before.
A lot of the times with film you can’t tell if something going to be truly a milestone under years after it had been released, awards and box office are no method of telling. One way of judging how effective a film has been is through its imitators. Scream managed to inspire copycats within a year of being released and initially written off as a bomb that defied expectations. The late 1990s saw a resurgent boom of teen slasher films, all of them with a post-modern twist inspired by this film. Even once the boom had died down the trend of genre savvy almost self-referential characters continued for long after, in some ways it has never gone away. Screams importance to the horror genre cannot be overstated from where it was before the film came out, swiftly becoming purely straight-to-video sequels with only a handful of films released in the cinemas of which the most ambitious would call themselves thrillers, to going back to mainstream success that really hasn’t gone away since with mainstream horror releases numbering in double digits for most years of this century. That’s not to say that Scream was the first self-referential or meta horror film (as we examined in our 1990s handful), but it was the one that got people flocking to horror films in numbers that hadn’t been seen since the early 1980s. The genre would have reached these successes again eventually even without Scream, but it was Scream that achieved it and twenty years later its success can still be seen.
Scream is a milestone of the horror genre, it’s well written, well directed, and well acted; but while it’s scary the first time you see it like most slasher mystery films it is one that doesn’t stick with you long after it. The film is also so of its time in the mid 1990s that at times you can feel like you’re watching the cast of Saved by the Bell kill each other (which would have been better than Hawaiian Style (1992) but I digress). Considering all the film has going for it these are a few minor flaws though, and as such Scream gets an A- rating from both Kris and me, Ryan. If you want to spend an evening watching Scream and other late 90s slashers (and let’s face it, who wouldn’t?) then we recommend a four course feast of Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), Urban Legend (1998), and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) (this last can be eliminated for something smaller); if you like Scream and only Scream then you can follow up the original with Scream 2 (1997), Scream 3 (2000), and Scream 4 (2011). With all of that out of the way now, what’s your favourite scary movie?
Ryan’s Grade: A-
Kris’s Grade: A-
Odds & Ends
For evidence of how horror films were calling themselves thrillers to avoid the stigma of being horror check out the tagline on the poster at the top of the review.
Henry Winkler (The Fonz) appears the high school principle, I always forget this and never get over it when I remember.
Scream gave us three rules for surviving a horror film – 1: don’t drink or do drugs, 2: don’t have sex, 3: never say “I’ll be right back”. Like most genre rules these don’t hold up once you pass the point of no return of watching horror films almost religiously.
There is a Scream TV show from MTV, your reviewers have watched the first couple episodes and it is not worth the effort. I’d go into more detail but I’d end up punching the screen.
Look out for Wes Craven’s cameo as janitor Fred – complete with red and green striped jumper and fedora.
We mentioned in the review that Williamson’s original title was Scary Movie, this later became the title of horror movie parody Scary Movie (2000) from the Wayans brothers. It mostly parodies Scream which has never made much sense to me parodying what is already pretty much a parody, but it has nostalgia value for people who grew up in that period. Unfortunately this means there are people who conflate Scream and Scary Movie into one film.
Some aspects of technology really date this film to the late 1990s, probably the worst example is when Sidney suspects her boyfriend is the killer because he’s carrying a mobile phone. It gets even funnier when the Sheriff is interrogating Billy and enquires “Just what are you doing with a cellular phone”. This dated the film I think even four years later.
One of the reasons it was presumed the film would do badly was the time of year it was released. One week before Christmas. Yes, Scream was technically a Christmas film and it celebrates it’s twentieth anniversary on the date of this review (18th December, 2016).Singapore is Southeast Asia’s premier market for research and consulting services, and Callbox is the leading marketing partner for consultancies looking to grow their client base in the region.
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Find out how our marketing solutions can drive revenue and growth for your consulting company. Contact us today.AUSTIN, TEXAS –-(Ammoland.com)- The Texas chapter of Students for Concealed Carry is throwing its support behind Texas House Bill 631, a bill “relating to a public awareness campaign on firearm safety and suicide prevention.”
This bill by Rep. Donna Howard (D-Austin) would direct the Texas Department of Public Safety to design and implement a public awareness campaign focused on suicide prevention, the safe handling and storage of firearms, and prevention of firearm accidents involving children. The program would be funded by license to carry fees, matching funds, and private donations.
Because this initiative would address issues that are of paramount concern to parties on both sides of the campus carry debate, Texas SCC has concluded that HB 631 would further the organization's goal of ensuring that vetted, licensed adults are able to safely and legally defend themselves on college campuses. Furthermore, the directors of Texas SCC believe that the bill's fiscally responsible funding model adequately addresses any concerns the organization's members might have about supporting a public awareness campaign.
SCC Southwest Regional Director Brian Bensimon, the ranking director in SCC's Texas chapter, commented, “Too often, gun-control activists mistake gun-control measures for gun-safety measures, and gun-rights activists mistake gun-safety measures for gun-control measures. From our standpoint, this is a genuine gun-safety measure that would only make campus carry safer and make the public more comfortable with licensed concealed carry in general. We see HB 631 as a win for everyone involved.”
ABOUT STUDENTS FOR CONCEALED CARRY
Students for Concealed Carry (SCC) is a national, non-partisan, grassroots organization comprising college students, faculty, staff, and concerned citizens who believe that holders of state-issued concealed handgun licenses should be allowed the same measure of personal protection on college campuses that current laws afford them virtually everywhere else. SCC is not affiliated with the NRA or any other organization. For more information on SCC, visit ConcealedCampus.org or Facebook.com/ConcealedCampus. For more information on the debate over campus carry in Texas, visit WhyCampusCarry.com or tweet @CampusCarry.There’s a lot to criticize about President Obama’s handling of Syria. He failed to make a strong case for military action and probably should never have entertained bombing without Congress’ support. That said, much Beltway elite criticism, which has focused largely on process and theatrics, is deeply misguided and disconnected from how Americans view the situation. A new Post/ABC News poll illustrates this clearly.
The poll finds an overwhelming 79 percent of Americans support the proposed deal for international control over Syria’s chemical weapons Obama has embraced. There’s continued public opposition to strikes, with only 30 percent in support. The public gives Obama’s overall handling of the situation low marks.
At the same time, the poll finds a leading elite criticism of Obama’s handling of the crisis — that his changing of mind along with shifting circumstances showed a vacillation that risks projecting wavering intent — isn’t shared by the public. Sixty percent say he “sticks with his principles,” roughly unchanged since January 2012. A plurality thinks the initial threat of missile strikes helped the situation by pressuring Syria to give up its chemical weapons — meaning Americans accept Obama’s argument about the impact of the threat (even if they oppose action) and don’t see his change of course as somehow diminishing it. A plurality also says Obama made a good case in his speech the other night — despite widespread pundit derision.
It’s true Obama’s “commander in chief” qualities have slipped. But even here they remain in solid majority territory. Fifty two percent say he’s a “good commander in chief of the military,” which is down a few points but only within the margin of error. Fifty four percent say he’s a strong leader — down from 61 percent in January, but the drop could reflect any number of things (such as the economy), and indeed, it’s now higher than it was at other points in Obama’s presidency. These variations just don’t mean much in the real world. They certainly don’t confirm elite pundit conclusions.
Indeed, yesterday’s Pew poll finds overwhelming support for the diplomatic deal, and also finds a plurality sees Obama’s change of course as “leadership and a willingness to adapt to changing circumstances,” rather than “weakness.”
How do you square all this with public disapproval of his handling of the mess? Simple: Obama proposed strikes, and the public opposes them. As the Fix notes, Obama still has not made the “sale” on Syria. That is unquestionably true. But the way to look at that failure is not as one of process, but one of policy. Strikes were a bad idea. The public continues to say so. The opportunity of diplomacy presented itself. Obama took that opportunity. The public supports that decision. Does anyone really imagine Americans care whether it was a verbal flub by John Kerry — or a changing of mind in response to new circumstances — that put us on the road to the outcome they want?
There is just no evidence Americans see this through the prism favored by elite pundits — that adapting to shifting circumstances is not “resolute” or :decisive,” and is therefore inherently a bad thing that has “weakened” the presidency and the country. In the Post poll, only 32 percent say it weakened the country (which is higher than say we’ve benefited but is still a distinct minority). Indeed, a plurality of 46 percent say Obama’s handling of the situation “has not made much difference to U.S. leadership.”
These numbers will mostly go ignored today. But their meaning is plain. What we really need is a reevaluation of all the unstated assumptions that shape elite discourse about these matters. What we don’t need is any more paint-by-numbers punditry.
* CONSERVATIVE GROUPS GAIN POWER IN SHUTDOWN PUSH: Robert Costa has a must read on how the continuing pressure from conservative groups for a confrontation to defund Obamacare is looking more and more likely to result in a government shutdown, infuriating GOP leaders. This is very well put:
These organizations, ensconced in Northern Virginia office parks and elsewhere, aren’t worried about the establishment’s ire. In fact, they welcome it. Business has boomed since the push to defund Obamacare caught on. Conservative activists are lighting up social media, donations are pouring in, and e-mail lists are growing.
That’s what this is about. The scam is working, successfully persuading untold numbers of GOP base voters Obamacare’s demise is at hand. There’s no sign GOP leaders know what to do about it or can get the votes to keep the government open.
Meanwhile, Steve Benen has a good take on how outsized influence is being wielded over the process by “the extremist base that writes checks in response to far-right fundraising appeals, shows up at Tea Party rallies, never changes the channel from Fox News, and shows up to participate in GOP primaries.”
* DEMS LAUNCH OFFENSIVE AGAINST GOP SHUTDOWN PUSH: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will announce today:
The DCCC is launching a paid grassroots campaign to urge 27 vulnerable House Republicans not to shut down the government over their Obamacare fight. The DCCC’s automated phone calls connect Americans to their Member of Congress so that constituents can directly ask their representatives to “stop the nonsense and focus on common sense solutions that protect our health care and grow our economy.”
Of course, as I noted here yesterday, polling shows the desire for lawmakers to try to make Obamacare fail is running very strong among GOP primary voters, which appear to matter far more to many GOP lawmakers than anything else.
* PUSH FOR YELLEN GAINS STEAM: The New York Times gets inside the process and reports that the campaign for Janet Yellen as Fed chair is gaining momentum in the wake of Larry Summers’ defeat. This is key:
[T]he choice of Ms. Yellen — which months ago might have been celebrated as historic — is likely to be seen as Mr. Obama’s reluctant capitulation to his party’s left wing. That prospect, and Mr. Obama’s distaste for being pressured into some action, could prompt him to consider other candidates, several former administration officials said.
It’s well known the White House recoils at being pushed into decisions, but it would be real folly if this were to turn out to be a factor.
* GET READY FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF AUSTERITY WARS: The Center for American Progress has released a new study documenting the degree to which the conversation has shifted to the right over what constitutes acceptable levels of austerity. The report notes the level of spending being accepted by Senate Dems is now roughly in line with previous Republican spending cut demands — even as House Republicans are preparing to demand another round of cuts.
All of this is a reminder that Washington remains trapped in a conversation over how much more austerity to impose, even as the recovery struggles.
* TIME TO INCREASE PRESSURE ON GOP OVER IMMIGRATION? Immigration advocacy groups are growing impatient with House GOP foot-dragging over immigration reform, and want Dems to exert more political pressure on Republicans to act. My sense of the situation is that the bipartisan House “gang of seven” plan — a potential vehicle for comprehensive reform — may get rolled out in October after the government shutdown fight is resolved. Barring that you may see votes on piecemeal measures.
Or maybe House Republicans will do nothing. If immigration reform dies, it will only be because House GOP leaders decided to kill it.
* AN OBAMACARE MILESTONE: Jonathan Cohn has a nice piece detailing the meaning of Pennsylvania’s decision to try to opt into the Medicaid expansion, meaning more than half of states are now doing so. As Cohn notes, such expansions could ultimately benefit Obamacare politically, because “many people opposed to (or at least ambivalent about) the law simply don’t know much about it. Many also have no health insurance, which means they stand to benefit most dramatically and immediately.”
Meanwhile, “With most of the law’s coverage provisions not yet in place, the law’s critics are able to dominate the political conversation.” That could very well change.
* AND OBAMA AND “STYLE POINTS”: The latest Obama quote to attract criticism is his claim that he’s “less concerned about style points” than about “getting the policy right.” Surely process matters to some degree, but policy matters more. If folks want to make the case that getting the “style points” wrong has repercussions for the country, that’s fine, but that shouldn’t be divorced from the question of whether Obama did, indeed, get the policy right. By the way, he didn’t get it right initially, in my view. But folks should say whether they support or oppose the decision to pursue diplomacy.
What else?The Spur Posse was a group of high school boys from Lakewood, California, who used a point system to keep track of and compare their sexual attacks and statutory rapes, some with girls as young as ten.
The founder of the group chose the name "Spur Posse" when a favorite basketball player of theirs, David Robinson, signed with the San Antonio Spurs.
The group came to national attention on March 18, 1993, when the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department arrested a number of the members for various sexual crimes. Prosecutors later dropped all but one of the charges after being unable to prove most of the encounters were nonconsensual, although many were with underage girls, some as young as ten.
One girl who was later interrogated by police said she had been in bed late one night when a teenager appeared at her window and demanded sex from her. She complied because of rumors that the Spurs would harm women who resisted.[citation needed]
Police had the opportunity to prosecute the considerably older boys for statutory rape, but declined to do so.[citation needed]
Members of the Spur Posse proceeded to make the rounds on the tabloid-TV talk-show circuit.
In popular culture [ edit ]
The main villains in the 1999 horror film The Rage: Carrie 2 were based on the Spur Posse.
They are mentioned in the Bratmobile song "Brat Girl."
They are mentioned in Joan Didion's Where I Was From.
They are the subject of Joan Didion's Trouble in Lakewood, "Letter from California" July 26, 1993 Issue of The New Yorker.[1]
Law & Order based an episode, "Performance", on the case.
The X Files mentions them in an episode, "Red Museum" with the throw away line "I think the Spur Posse just rode into town."
Hugo Bonnard is currently writing a book on them entitled How many points?: A tale of Women's survivals.Dan Pearson European Editor Thursday 26th June 2014 Share this article Share
Companies in this article Devolver Digital
Devolver's stand at E3 isn't front and centre in one of the main halls, despite the fact that the nine game line-up would make it one of the best populated if it were. Instead, it's in a Hooters' carpark across the road from the LA convention centre: a corral of burnished Airstream trailers horseshoed around a huge gazebo offering shade from the blazing California sun. There's a food truck dishing out incredible BBQ and free beer.
It's pretty popular.
It's also massively relaxed. I get trolled by the security at the gate as I come in - wound up mercilessly by two men in uniform for a good five minutes before they collapse into laughter and easy grins and usher me towards the shimmering column of deliciously scented air which hovers above the BBQ trailer. They recommend the brisket sandwich and the Boston beans. I'm told, with an uncertain degree of seriousness, that the entire set-up cost less than one of the huge, field-sized posters draped on the outside wall of the conference itself.
Each of the nine trailers here hosts a game and its developer - one screen, one coder. PR staff are dotted around, and potter about helpfully, but they're there to make sure everyone is fed, watered and happy with the access they're getting. They find me space in the caravans for a few hands on demos, but then they immediately disappear - they're not there to mediate, to censor or clock watch - once you're in a room with the game and the developer, they're happy to leave you to sort things out amongst yourselves.
It's a refreshing approach. In most of the interviews I've been in, there's at least one PR keeping a watchful eye. It's not bad practice - everyone has a managed schedule of information release which has to be adhered to - but it does change the atmosphere, and I often sense that the interviewees can find it just as restrictive as the interviewer. Devolver is happy to let its developers take responsibility for themselves, and it's an ethos which permeates the publisher as a whole.
"Ironically, given that I'm doing this interview, we don't really push the Devolver thing at all," says Graeme Struthers, Code Enforcement Officer and 1/6th of Devolver. "It doesn't feel to us like it's got any real value. I think when you deal with press, they shouldn't be interested in us, they should be interested in the games. Liz, who does PR for us in the US, we don't get between her and the press. If she wants to put someone directly in touch with a dev, we don't even necessarily know about it.
"This isn't any sort of pitch but Devolver is six people. We don't see it as a brand or that we have any particular values to be promoted, we're all friends who've worked with each other before. There are no plans whatsoever to increase staff, this is as big as it gets for us, there's no plans to change that. This is our living, it's what we love. There's nothing to sell. I hope that's why the developers like being around us, that what we're interested in is them.
"This is our living, it's what we love. There's nothing to sell. I hope that's why the developers like being around us, that what we're interested in is them"
"It's just you and the the developers, there's no crowd control, no spun messages. You can just talk to them and they can answer whatever they want."
It works. Devolver is the indie publisher du jour, home to a catalogue which would be the envy of many a larger company. At this E3 alone they're showcasing platform shooters like BroForce; the way-too-cool-for-any-school Hotline Miami 2; a beautiful roguelike boss-fighting adventure game called Titan Souls; The Talos Principle, a first-person puzzler from the Serious Sam developers Croteam and the frankly insane high school pigeon dating sim Hatoful Boyfriend, just to name a few. It's undoubtedly the most eclectic collection of titles I've ever seen curated by any one team. I ask Struthers if there's a defining element.
"I'm not being evasive, but I really don't think we have one at all," he admits. "When we did Serious Sam we did three indie games - we gave the IP to indie developers to see what they wanted to do with it. That's how we met Vlambeer, how we met Mommys Best Games. From that point we were introduced to Jonatan and Dennis, who were working on what became Hotline Miami. I think we earned some trust when we did the Serious Sam games.
"We all play a lot of games, and we all go off in a lot of different directions, but we tend to be on the peripheral side of things. I don't play FIFA, Call of Duty etc - I've always been a PC gamer. When we got in touch with Jonatan and Dennis, who became Dennaton, we discovered we'd already been playing some of the games Jonatan had released as Cactus."
Struthers might know the scene he works in inside out, but he's not strutting his coolier-than-thou hipster credentials by name-checking edgy developers. He's well aware that he's got some evangelists spreading the word on his behalf.
"Without the introduction from Vlambeer I don't know if we'd ever have even got to that game," he says of Hotline Miami. "That's kind of what's happened. Every game that we've done has led us to other people that developer knows. Everything on this lot, with the exception of Talos and Hatoful Boyfriend has been put in front of us by a developer that we've been working with, they've recommended us to them."
Devolver's first game, and its best selling IP, is Croteam's Serious Sam, an anything-but serious shooter which has branched out into side-scrolling shooters and a turn-based RPG - the game which brought Devolver and Vlambeer together. Sam was an already established IP, but Devolver's co-founders had already had a hand in its growth.
"The ethos of Gathering of Developers was kind of the opposite of most other companies of that time: that developers should always retain their own IP, that it was never a deal point"
"When we were Gathering of Developers, when Mike and Harry who founded the company, Croteam was one of the developers which was part of that. The ethos of GoD was kind of the opposite of most other companies of that time: that developers should always retain their own IP, that it was never a deal point. So all those Gathering developers had their own IP. When the idea of Devolver was forming, we reached back out to all those developers because we knew they could bring that IP with them - that they'd retained all the rights. Croteam were keen - we'd obviously not annoyed them that much, because they let us back in. To me, they're the foundation that the company is based on. I'm very thankful for that."
That foundation is proving to be quite the springboard. Devolver was one of the featured developers in Sony's indie-rich showcase during its high-powered E3 press conference, heralding a deal which expands the publisher's deal with the platform holder considerably. I ask Struthers if he can expand on the details.
"At the conference we had Not a Hero, BroForce, Titan Souls, Hotline Miami 2 and the Talos Principle, so that's essentially it. There's other things that they're talking about that they'd like us to get involved in. We're fully engaged with Microsoft as well, though. They've come back from last year having taken a few kicks.
"There's something I'd stress about both of those companies. They might seem like huge, faceless companies but to us they're individuals. Shahid, Lorenzo, they play our stuff, sometimes even before we make them, they'll sign stuff they already know about. Mark Maslowicz at Microsoft is basically the same. They're just nice people who play games. I'm going to hazard a guess that this is all quite liberating for them, too, quite a relief. Not to have to go through layer upon layer of bureaucracy and PR."
Devolver's natural home isn't on console, though - it's on PC. That's probably not going to change radically, but Struthers is unequivocal in his support of the success of both PlayStation and Xbox. Readers of a less robust disposition should probably look away now.
"The other thing I really like about what they've done is, thank fuck, I was so fed up of people telling us we should do free-to-fucking-play, in-app-fucking purchases, whatever the fuck that is, and that consoles were dead. So fuck all of those people and their fucking shitty stance. I don't really engage a lot with the industry, but I went to one of these BAFTA things and these people were lecturing the audience about why we should all be going in that direction. I was sat there thinking 'fuck you'.
"I was so fed up of people telling us we should do free-to-f***ing-play, in-app-f***ing purchases, whatever the f*** that is, and that consoles were dead. So f*** all of those people and their f***ing shitty stance. Consoles aren't dead."
"Consoles aren't dead. I still find that there's a thing when you sit down and turn on your console, that's a different experience to any other. So hats off to them, consoles are good for all of us."
I heartily agree, albeit in less forceful language, and we both recognise that free-to-play isn't inherently wrong, evil or doomed to failure. What rankles us both is the idea that it's a zero-sum game between that model and the console market. Speaking of the sector, I proffer the idea that the Vita has been a tremendous boost to the fortunes of Devolver and the indie scene in general.
"I think it's It's the other way around actually. Without the indies that thing would be gathering dust," he laughs, with obvious affection. "No, we start off with PC every time. It's PC and Steam. Without Steam we don't exist. Even if we blow up and are successful on Microsoft and Sony, even if they get really big in the indie scene it still wouldn't get anywhere near what Steam represents, so PC is our priority, every single time. Also, GoG are a great partner, as are |
king of the ring at CEO 2016 Tokido's victory at the CEO 2016 Street Fighter V tournament was nothing short of spectacular. The top 8 gave us a preview of how the competition will shape up at Evo.
Cydonia wins HCT Americas, pulls off upset with Young Dragonhawk What did we learn from the HCT Americas? Midrange Shaman, Priest, and Paladin are still out of commission but upsets from the most unlikely cards are still possible. 2 Related
While it's currently uncertain exactly who on the mousesports lineup he may replace, sources say that he was originally signed to replace Chris "chrisJ" de Jong. However, due to chrisJ's recent revigorated performances, it's likely that if oskar becomes a part of the starting lineup, it will be in place of Johannes "nex" Maget.
Oskar currently has contracts with both HellRaisers and mousesports, with the mousesports contract set to begin following the expiration of his HellRaisers agreement. Sources say that contract ends at the end of September, lining up with the one-year anniversary of his time with HellRaisers on Oct. 6, 2015.
As a result of his actions, HellRaisers dismissed him from its starting Counter-Strike lineup. Furthermore, the team said, in a news release on its site, that its members became aware of Oskar's forward contract around half a year ago, putting pressure on the team's environment. It says that replacing Oskar will help alleviate that pressure.
"I hope he will succeed in his future esports career," HellRaisers team manager Maxim Bednarsky said in the release. "Oskar will remain on the team as a streamer until the end of his contract. Ivan 'Johnta' Shevtsov, the acting coach of team HellRaisers, will be the one looking for a fifth player."
Instead of buying out Oskar, mousesports will wait until the contract expiration date, unless anything changes from this point. HellRaisers currently claims he will remain a part of the organization until his contract expiration.
Mousesports did not respond to a request for comment on this report.Nov 6, 2014; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) attempts a free throw during the third quarter against the San Antonio Spurs at Toyota Center. The Rockets defeated the Spurs 98-81. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
On Monday night, James Harden and the Houston Rockets defeated the Indiana Pacers 110-100. Harden posted an outstanding stat line of 44 points, four rebounds, sevens assists, two blocks and two steals. But, his most impressive numbers came at the free-throw line, where he knocked down 21-of-22 attempts.
Combined with a trio of three-pointers, Harden was able to score his 44 points despite making only 10 field goals. Along with Kevin Durant, Harden became just the second NBA player in more than 30 years (and third ever) to pull off such a feat.
What makes Harden’s foul shooting all the more impressive is that he managed a similar accomplishment just five days earlier:
James Harden (21-22 FT) has made 20 free throws in a game 2x in last 5 days. The rest of the NBA has yet to have one such game all season. — ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) March 24, 2015
In a victory over the Denver Nuggets on March 19, Harden scored 50 points while going 22-for-25 at the free-throw line. In that contest Harden connected on just 12 shots from the field (including four three-pointers), putting him on a list with only three other players ever to hit the 50-point mark with so few made field goals.
As the tweet mentions, no one else in the league has made 20 free throws in a game this season. Before last week, it hadn’t happened in the NBA since Dec. 26, 2013. The guy who did it on that day? Also Harden.
In the past five years, just five players have hit 20 or more foul shots in a game: Harden, Durant, Deron Williams, Chris Bosh and Dwight Howard (more on Howard later). Harden’s most recent 20-FT game was the 101st time it’s ever happened (going back to 1963-64 when Basketball-Reference.com began keeping track).
His 21-of-22 free-throw effort Monday ranks among the greatest single-game foul shooting performances in league history. Only 25 times before has a player hit 20 or more free throws while missing one or fewer. Harden’s.955 percentage is one of the top 20 ever recorded in a 20-FT game.
As far as total number of free throws made in a single game goes, Harden has come within six of the all-time NBA record. On Jan. 4, 1984, Adrian Dantley nailed 28-of-29 foul shots to lead his Utah Jazz past the Rockets.
Dantley actually owns three of the four most prolific free-throw shooting games ever. He also hit 27 on Nov. 25, 1983, and 26 on Halloween night in 1980. The only other player to make as many as 26 foul shots in a game is Michael Jordan, on Feb. 26, 1987.
Next on the list is Howard, who made 25 on March 12, 2013. A career 57 percent free-throw shooter, Howard actually took 39 attempts that day, the most ever on record. It was the second time he’d reached that mark in his career.
On Jan. 12, 2012, Howard went 21-for-39, a rather embarrassing display, but still much better than the 8-for-30 (.267) showing put forth by Wilt Chamberlain on Dec. 1, 1967.
Back to Harden, the Rockets’ guard has hit a total of 606 foul shots this season, far and away the most in league. The Oklahoma City Thunder’s Russell Westbrook is second with 448, less than 75 percent of Harden’s number. Rudy Gay of the Sacramento Kings ranks among the top 10 with 303 free throws made, exactly half of Harden’s total.
The Rockets have 12 games remaining. At his current pace of roughly 8.8 per game, Harden is on track to finish the year with 711 made free throws, which would be the 14th-most all time.When police stopped John Stamos for swerving through Beverly Hills in his silver Mercedes, the most surprising part of the celebrity’s DUI arrest was that he was charged with driving under the influence of “date rape drug” GHB. The central nervous system depressant is best known as a substance slipped into drinks to aid sexual assault, yet Uncle Jesse was reportedly taking it on purpose to “lean out” body mass before shooting his new TV show.
Among celebrity circles and fitness-conscious professionals who post on anonymous online forums and whisper to trainers at Gold’s Gym, GHB—or gamma-hydroxybutyric acid—is making a comeback.
It’s a drug with a bizarre back story. Depending on whom you ask, it’s either the perfect party drug—or pure evil. The substance, which is produced naturally in small amounts by the body, was used in 1960 as an anesthetic. In the late 1980s, the drug became popular among gym-goers and club kids.
Fans claim that GHB—often sold as Easy Lay, G, Georgia Home Boy, Goop, Grievous Bodily Harm, Liquid Ecstasy, Liquid X, and Scoop—provides the euphoria of alcohol without the sloppy side effects like slurred speech or hangover. Bodybuilders say that it increases production of human growth hormone (HGH) and promotes sounder sleep.
When users overdose, however, GHB can cause a coma-like sleep—and mixing it with alcohol the increases the depressant effect, quickly leading to unconsciousness. This led to the substance being labeled, along with Rohypnol (“roofies”), as the drug of choice for sexual predators. In 2001 the government listed GHB alongside heroin and LSD as a Schedule I substance, and popularity declined.
I was first offered a (then-legal) nail polish-sized vial of “Liquid X” in the mid-90s, when I was 14 and dating a popular 17-year-old athlete who maintained a 4.0 average in spite of his heavy partying habits. When he told me that the drug “burns fat, won’t give you a hangover, makes you want to have sex, and can’t get you busted for booze,” I was in.
But as he pressed the bottle of clear liquid into my palm, my date, like the wise Mr. Wing in Gremlins, laid out the three GHB rules: Don’t take it with strangers, don’t take too much, and NEVER mix it with alcohol. For a few weeks, GHB was a wonder drug. I could party all night, was less inhibited about hooking up, and maintained straight A’s on four hours of sleep.
According the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) fact sheet, the average GHB dose is 1 to 5 grams and takes effect in 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the dosage and purity of the drug. The DEA fact sheet also warns that GHB overdose can result in “seizures, slowed heart rate, greatly slowed breathing, lower body temperature, vomiting, nausea, coma, and death.”
But on the street, drug dealers don’t usually carry measuring spoons. So GHB doses are measured by the capful, at a cost of $5 to $30 each.
I became a real-life cautionary tale a few weeks later at a New Year’s Eve bash, when I drank a beer and took an extra capful of GHB when my regular dose stopped doing the trick. Four hours later, I woke up in a puddle of my own vomit and my concerned friends standing over me trying to find a heartbeat. Thankfully, they had thought to turn me on my side—GHB can inhibit the gag reflect, which can cause users to choke when trying to throw up.
That night, I discovered the razor-thin margin between being the life of the party on GHB and being dead. I never touched it again.
Even hardcore G-fans, including one online commuter who called the substance “a truly magical substance that changed my life,” warn that careful dose measuring is crucial. “With its small quantity there was no boundary on how much a person’s stomach could hold. Any idiot could swallow 10 caps of GHB and wake up in a hospital,” the user wrote on Bluelight. “Taking 10 shots of vodka in a row would be an accomplishment. Thus, the dark passenger of drug culture is revealed: a lack of self-discipline.”
“One gram of GHB can be like a can of beer, two grams can be like three cans, and three grams can be like a case,” Steven Fowkes, the controversial chemist and executive director of the Cognitive Enhancement Research Institute (CERI), told The Daily Beast. However, he believes that the culture that forces users to go underground and mix their own substances at home is the problem, and points out the “hypocrisy” of the FDA approving a GHB derivative, Xyrem, to treat narcolepsy while claiming that it is a dangerous drug on other fronts.
Fowkes, who presented a case to the California State Legislature in 1997 to keep GHB available, maintained that his solution would be to make the drug legal—and regulated. He added that GHB has a bad rap because on its own, it has no anesthetizing effect—it’s only when the drug is combined with something that does, like alcohol, which causes problems.
Sixteen thousand people have overdosed on GHB and 70 have died since 1990, according to data provided by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. This is, admittedly, a tiny number when compared with the 100,000 deaths reported annually by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) due to alcohol—but many experts believe that, because GHB is often undetected, these may only be the tip of the iceberg.
In March, only a few weeks before BuzzFeed reported on the resurgence of the drug among emergency room doctors and gay clubbers in San Francisco, two people overdosed on GHB at a popular club in Park City, Utah. In July, the LAPD reported that one woman died and two were left in critical condition after they took the drug while partying at a Venice Beach house.
A recent New York University study that examined the connection between rave culture and drug use in high school seniors found that the use of illicit “club drugs” including GHB and ketamine were almost six times more prevalent among “teen ravers” than students who did not attend EDM events.
So why do ravers take the risk?
Not surprisingly, young clubbers who smuggle the liquid in water, Gatorade, or eye drop containers love the drug for the same reason as their older celeb counterparts: It’s very difficult for police to detect and leaves the blood within a few hours, making it ideal for those who have been through rehab, or face regular drug tests for other substances.
“I call it the Nick Nolte effect,” said former LAPD detective Trinka Porrata, who now runs ProjectGHB, a nonprofit focused on GHB addiction and recovery. Porrata was referring to the 2002 incident in which the actor was arrested while driving under the influence of GHB, which resulted in the now-infamous wild-haired mug shot. She explained that hospital emergency rooms do not have the technology to test for GHB on site, so they have to send out for additional lab work, which can be expensive and time- consuming. “They do it because no one, including judges, knows what GHB is. The system forces them into it,” she says.
Nolte spoke fondly about GHB binges is a recent interview with GQ. Stamos was released from the hospital the day after he was arrested. He then checked into a residential facility a few days later, where he successfully completed treatment.
Others find that it’s hard to quit once the party is over. The DEA reports that regular use of GHB can lead to addiction and “withdrawal that includes insomnia, anxiety, tremors, increased heart rate and blood pressure, and occasional psychotic thoughts.”
Porrata says that, in her experience dealing with addicts, GHB is “harder to quit than heroin.”
Former Mr. America Mike Scarcella died from GHB withdrawal in 2003, and after baseball star Mike Piazza’s friend and personal trainer Mike Fox shot himself while trying to give up GHB, his mother told the media that the drug is “evil.”
One of the Venice Beach victims warned reporters at the time that the drug that made her feel like a sexual superwoman quickly started to ruin her life. “It instantly made me feel completely euphoric, increased my sex drive; I just felt so at peace,” she said.
Before long, she admitted: "I was urinating myself. I passed out in the shower. I would wake up and not remember anything that happened.” She said that she wants her story out there in hopes people won’t even take that first sip.Signup to receive a daily roundup of the top LGBT+ news stories from around the world
A gay teen in Chechnya has been brutally killed by his uncle after he was outed to his family.
The anonymous 17-year-old was pushed from a balcony from the ninth floor of a building.
The teenager’s family was reportedly encouraged to “wash the shame” away of their gay relative.
The heart wrenching story of the teen’s murder comes after a survivor of the gay purge in Chechnya opened up to a Russian magazine about their experience of growing up in the extremist region.
The anonymous survivor explained that while he managed to escape the dire region, where hundreds of men have been detained and killed for their sexuality, others were not so lucky.
He said: “Others were caught, killed and their bodies were thrown into the yard of their families, in some cases, the bodies just passed away, because according to Islamic laws, gay bodies are not necessary to bury.”
Speaking to Snob magazine, the survivor explained that the story of the teen was recounted to him after he came out as gay to his religious leader.
The anonymous man said that after he came out he was met with “horror, disappointment and disgust” from the “mullah” – a Muslim leader training in Islamic theology and sacred law.
The religious leader reportedly told the man that he should leave Chechnya because of the “shame”.
“As a Chechen and as a man I do not want to see you here. Neither in the mosque, nor in this district. I want you to leave now, because everything you said is the most disgusting thing you can find out.
“I hope your relatives have the dignity to wash away your shame. Go away,” the religious leader said.
Petition: Stop the persecution of gay men in Chechnya
The anonymous survivor said that the persecution in the region had been going on since 2009, and many people were forced into paying the police up to 100,000 rubles ($1,720) to avoid torture.
Disabled people and BME minorities also being targeted according to the man.
Police in Chechnya issued a warning to parents of gay people to kill their children before police had to kill them in torture camps.
Reports have revealed concentration style camps that homosexual men are being forced into, sparking an outcry from LGBT and human rights activists across the world.
The Russian Government finally announced today that it would investigate the persecution of gay men in the region, just days after German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to do just that during a rare summit between the two leaders.Image caption Epilepsy can begin at any age
Adding "calm down" genes to hyperactive brain cells has completely cured rats of epilepsy for the first time, say UK researchers.
They believe their approach could help people who cannot control their seizures with drugs.
The study, published in the journal Science Translation Medicine, used a virus to insert the new genes into a small number of neurons.
About 50 million people have epilepsy worldwide.
However, drugs do not work for up to 30% of them. The alternatives include surgery to remove the part of the brain that triggers a fit or to use electrical stimulation.
Buzzing
The brain is alive with electrical communication with individual neurons primed to fire off new messages. However, if a group of neurons become too excited they can throw the whole system into chaos leading to an epileptic seizure.
Researchers at University College London have developed two ways of manipulating the behaviour of individual cells inside the brain in order to prevent those seizures.
Both use viruses injected into the brain to add tiny sections of DNA to the genetic code of just a few thousand neurons.
One method boosts the brain cells' natural levels of inhibition in order to calm them down.
Analysis: Gene therapy This treatment is a form of gene therapy, a field which is often criticised for failing to deliver on decades of promise. Europe approved its first gene therapy only in November 2012. Early trials had problems with patients developing leukaemia and in one a teenager died. One of the issues was where the new piece of DNA was inserted into the genetic code as it could disrupt other genes. There were also concerns about the safety of the virus. The lentivirus used in this study should insert genes into a set, safe, piece of the genome. Researcher Dr Robert Wyke said it looked like "it's going to be a safe thing".
After a fortnight the number of seizures dropped dramatically and the mice were "effectively cured" within a month.
One of the researchers, Dr Robert Wyke, told the BBC: "It's the first time a gene therapy has been used to completely stop these seizures.
"Obviously we're very hopeful for this. Drugs haven't done anything for epilepsy in the last 20 to 30 years, just less side effects.
"There's a real need for a new therapy, we're very excited about this."
The other technique harnessed a gene from algae which can be controlled by light. After the therapy the function of the neurons did not change until a light was shined on them with an implanted laser.
The light prevented the neurons from firing, preventing a seizure. The researchers think this method could work in a similar way to an implanted defibrillator, which is used to control an irregular heartbeat.
'Very encouraging'
Much more testing of the epilepsy gene therapies would be needed before it could be used in patients.
If further animal tests are successful the first patients involved in any trial are likely to be those who are suitable and prepared for brain surgery. If there were problems or if the treatment did not work, the offending region of the brain could still be removed.
Philip Lee, the chief executive of Epilepsy Action, said: "Gene therapy research is an important development in our understanding of epilepsy. It is very encouraging that progress is being made in this arena to help people with epilepsy.
"Currently, there is no treatment to cure epilepsy other than surgery, which is only effective for small numbers and around 30% of people with epilepsy do not respond to traditional drug therapies.
"It is therefore vital that there are as many treatment options available as possible to help people with epilepsy achieve seizure control.
"Although it is too early to say if this research will directly benefit people with epilepsy in the future, we hope it helps us to move closer to more effective treatments."Mohammed Fathi, right, and other locals play pool at Captain, a popular club in Mosul, Iraq, last month. Fathi used to coach football under the Islamic State, giving youths a reason to do anything besides joining the militants’ ranks. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)
Inside the Captain pool hall in eastern Mosul there are few signs that a war still rages in this city or that earlier this year the Islamic State was in control here.
A gathering place for pool and snooker lovers since the 1990s, the smoke-filled room tiled with grimy beige marble exudes a faded charm, one mirrored in its customers, now back at the tables after being deprived of their favorite pastime for more than two years.
Shortly after the Islamic State took control of Mosul in the summer of 2014, hitting brightly colored balls with a well-chalked cue was among the many activities the group ruled un-Islamic and a distraction from jihad, and it ordered the halls to be shut down.
With the militants now expelled from the city’s east, Captain is one of more than a dozen pool halls that have reopened as residents try to bring back a sense of normalcy to their lives. New clubs have also opened up, betting that residents will indulge in some of the pleasures that were banned by the militants.
“We don’t seek winning, we seek joy,” said the owner, Faris al-Abdali, an international snooker referee, as he finished up a game. “The wheel of life is turning again, but it’s slow.”
No one flinches at the sounds of distant explosions that occasionally ring out above the music, also banned in the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate, along with the cigarettes and water pipes that fuel the clientele.
Iraqi boys play pool at Captain in Mosul last month. Residents of eastern Mosul are gradually returning to their normal lives, including activities like pool, which was forbidden under Islamic State control. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)
Mosul is divided, with Iraqi forces still fighting a grueling battle against the Islamic State on the other side of the Tigris River, which cuts through the heart of one of Iraq’s largest cities. After a seven-month war, the militants are besieged in the few districts they still control, along with hundreds of thousands of residents trapped alongside them, short on food and living under daily bombardment.
But since the city’s eastern side was fully recaptured earlier this year, life has gradually returned. Students are back in school and attempting to catch up on years of missed education. Shops have reopened, with mannequins in newly replaced store windows showing off colorful clothing that was banned under the militants.
Still, mortars fired from the other side of the river shake the fragile peace, along with occasional car bombs, while new waves of families from the west arrive every day to seek refuge. The traumatized population knows the militants are not far away.
Faris al-Abdali, owner of the popular billiards club, Captain, checks a customer's bill. He spent time in an Islamic State jail after arguing with militants who told him to shut down his business. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)
Abdali was apprehensive when he reopened his doors two months ago. He posted a lookout on the street to keep an eye out for suspicious activities. He worries that his club could be a target for a bomb attack.
“I was very nervous. We still don’t have full trust in the army,” he said, recalling how government soldiers deserted the city en masse in the face of the Islamic State’s attack nearly three years ago.
Abdali had just returned from refereeing an international snooker tournament in the United Arab Emirates when the militants took control. He said he argued with them when they turned up at his business and told him to shut down. A week later they arrested him. He spent 37 days in an Islamic State jail, all but two in pitch-dark solitary confinement.
“I’m still suffering from that psychologically,” he said.
Abdali, 56, learned to play snooker in the 1970s — Korean construction workers who worked with his father had a table and taught him.
Pool and snooker took off in Mosul in the 1980s, Abdali said, becoming popular among students in the university city. There were more than 400 pool halls in the city before the Islamic State’s rule, he added.
Abdali opened Captain in 1997, after running another of the city’s popular pool halls. A wooden ship’s wheel hangs on one wall, in line with its nautical theme, and tarnished brass trophies are displayed on a shelf on another.
He fondly recalls when national tournaments were held at the club and he had a large staff who wore formal uniforms.
Balls are racked for a game at the Captain club in Mosul. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)
The city’s pool hall owners began to struggle long before the Islamic State took control. The group and its predecessor, al-Qaeda, demanded extortion money as they tightened their grip. Since 2005, Abdali had paid $200 a month in protection money to keep Captain open. “We had no choice,” he said. “If you didn’t, they’d put a bomb outside.”
Complaints to the corruption-riddled Iraqi authorities were pointless, he said. Now, for the first time in decades, he can operate without paying bribes to the extremists. He hopes that it will last and that life will fully return.
For the moment, people still worry about coming out at night, and a curfew in the area means customers can stay only until 8 p.m. On the other side of the street is the campus of the University of Mosul, once one of the most respected educational institutions in the region, its ruins now a reminder of the mammoth task of rebuilding the city.
The Iraqi government stopped paying public workers in Mosul in 2015 to cut off funding to the Islamic State, leaving many residents without an income for two years. Salaries have not been restarted, although some workers, such as teachers, have returned to their jobs in the city’s east.
Without income, many residents are scraping together money for food and can’t afford extras like pool and snooker, Abdali said. Still, some of his regulars are back.
Iraqi Federal Police members take a break at Captain, one smoking a water pipe and both checking their cellphones. (Alex Potter/For The Washington Post)
Salim Younes, a wiry former Iraqi air force pilot, comes most days. Dressed in a bright white tracksuit with purple, blue and neon green flashes, his favorite game is the pool variant “three ball,” which is met with some bemusement by the younger customers — one of whom dismissed it as a “70s game.”
Younes said life has been on “standby” until now. “Step by step we will get there.”
Boys who gathered to play pool swapped stories of their exploits under the militants. Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old who serves drinks, secretly sold cigarettes, and he spent time in Islamic State prisons after being caught. The last packet he sold was for 32,000 dinars, about $25. A packet now sells for just 500 dinars.
Mohammed Fathi, a 37-year-old gym teacher, shows videos of children at the soccer club he ran under the militants.
“I was doing this so they’d go in another direction, away from Islamic State,” he said.
Many still have relatives trapped in Islamic State areas on the other side of the river. There, the fight has been more ferocious, with entire neighborhoods flattened, making rebuilding more of a challenge.
“The joy has returned, but it’s not complete yet,” Fathi added. “Not until the western side is finished. As for the future, we don’t know what will happen.”
Mustafa Salim contributed to this report.
Read more:
‘I thought, this is it’: One man’s escape from an Islamic State mass execution
Yazidis who suffered genocide are fleeing again, but this time not from the Islamic State
Inside the battle for Mosul
Today’s coverage from Post correspondents around the world
Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign newsWe all want to see better returns on our investments.
Whether you are building an income portfolio and want to, eventually, make it work for you in terms of viable revenue, or whether you are just hoping for decent returns for the long-term, what you do now can make a difference later.
If you want to see better investment returns, here are some things to keep in mind to boost returns over time:
1. Don’t Give in to Knee Jerk Reactions
One of the worst things you can do for your investment portfolio is to give in to knee jerk reactions.
It’s easy to let panic drive you into abandoning some part of your investment strategy. However, this can be a terrible idea.
When you have a knee jerk reaction, you make choices without thinking them through, and blind response like that is a good way to ruin your portfolio. Instead, stop and think about the situation. Think about the investment, and what you want to have happen. Look at the fundamentals, and think things through. If nothing’s changed with the fundamentals, chances are that there is no reason to panic and sell on a knee jerk reaction.
2. Look for Good Value
Next, look for investments that offer good value.
Look at valuations, and pay attention to how likely it is that your investment choices will grow in the future. Finding investments that are undervalued, so that you can buy low, can be difficult work and mean a great deal of time spent.
However, if you aren’t going to do the index thing, and you are going to focus on individual investments, you need to learn about identifying value.
Take the time to learn about P/E ratios, and to learn how to read a balance sheet. Get a good feel about what constitutes value in an investment, and look for investments that are priced lower than they should be.
3. Minimize Your Fees
You might be surprised at how much your investing fees can cut into your real returns over time. If you want to boost your investment returns over time, pay attention to the fees you are paying.
There are a number of fees out there, from transaction fees to those fees charged by funds.
Look for ways to trade for less, and stay away from funds that come with high fees. If you want to invest in funds, consider index funds and ETFs. These have lower costs, and you are more likely to see reasonable results.
By watching the fees you pay, you’ll keep more of your money, and it will be more effective over the long term.
4. Keep the Long View in Mind
One of the reasons that investors fail so miserably is that they don’t take the long view. It can be difficult to take the long view in some cases, especially since you might be worried about what is happening this week, or next month.
During the short term, most investments are choppy. You can see the volatility, and it can make you nervous about your investing strategy, and the choices you are making.
Instead of focusing on the short term, look to the long term. Over time, trend lines tend to smooth out.
Consider this, and remember that your investing plan is meant to provide you with returns over a longer period of time.
5. Consider Taxes
One of life’s realities is taxes.
You will have to pay taxes, and that can eat into your overall returns. You don’t want to do anything illegal, but there are ways to arrange your situation so that you reduce your tax liability when you decide to sell your investments, or when you shift into income mode.
Think about the future, and your likely tax bill. You can make decisions to harvest tax losses and offset other income, or you can look for other ways to reduce your tax bill.
One of the best ways to do this is to used tax advantaged accounts. Retirement accounts and other tax advantaged accounts can provide you with a way to build wealth while reducing the tax impact.
Finally
Look at your situation, and consider your investments. With a little planning, you can boost your returns over time, without taking on unnecessary risk.
What tips do you have for increasing your investment returns?A modern "useless machine" about to turn itself off
A useless machine is a device which has a function but no direct purpose. It may be intended to make a philosophical point, as an amusing engineering "hack", or as an intellectual joke. Devices which have no function or which malfunction are not considered to be "useless machines".
The most well-known "useless machines" are those inspired by Marvin Minsky's design, in which the device's sole function is to switch itself off by operating its own "off" switch. More elaborate devices and novelty toys, having some obvious function or entertainment value, have been based on these simple "useless machines".
History [ edit ]
The Italian artist Bruno Munari began building "useless machines" (macchine inutili) in the 1930s. He was a "third generation" Futurist and did not share the first generation's boundless enthusiasm for technology, but sought to counter the threats of a world under machine rule by building machines that were artistic and unproductive.[1]
The version of the useless machine that became famous in information theory (basically a box with a simple switch which, when turned "on", causes a hand or lever to appear from inside the box that switches the machine "off" before disappearing inside the box again[2]) appears to have been invented by MIT professor and artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, while he was a graduate student at Bell Labs in 1952.[3] Minsky dubbed his invention the "ultimate machine", but that sense of the term did not catch on.[3] The device has also been called the "Leave Me Alone Box".[4]
Minsky's mentor at Bell Labs, information theory pioneer Claude Shannon (who later also became an MIT professor), made his own versions of the machine. He kept one on his desk, where science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke saw it. Clarke later wrote, "There is something unspeakably sinister about a machine that does nothing—absolutely nothing—except switch itself off", and he was fascinated by the concept.[3]
Minsky also invented a "gravity machine" that would ring a bell if the gravitational constant were to change, a theoretical possibility that is not expected to occur in the foreseeable future.[3]
Commercial products [ edit ]
In the 1960s, a novelty toy maker called "Captain Co." sold a "Monster Inside the Black Box", featuring a mechanical hand that emerged from a featureless plastic black box and flipped a toggle switch, turning itself off. This version may have been inspired in part by "Thing", the disembodied hand featured in the television sitcom The Addams Family.[3] Other versions have been produced.[5] In their conceptually purest form, these machines do nothing except switch themselves off.
It is claimed that Don Poynter, who graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1949 and founded Poynter Products, Inc., first produced and sold the "Little Black Box", which simply switched itself off. He then added the coin snatching feature, dubbed his invention "The Thing", arranged licensing with the producers of the television show, The Addams Family, and later sold "Uncle Fester's Mystery Light Bulb" as another show spinoff product.[6][7] Robert J. Whiteman, owner and president of Liberty Library Corporation, also claims credit for developing "The Thing".[8][9] (Both companies were later to be co-defendants in landmark litigation initiated by Theodor Geisel ("Dr. Seuss") over copyright issues related to figurines).[10][6]
Both the plain black box and the bank version were widely sold by Spencer Gifts, and appeared in its mail-order catalogs through the 1960s and early 1970s. As of 2015, a version of the coin snatching black box is being sold as the "Black Box Money Trap Bank" or "Black Box Bank".[citation needed]
Do-it-yourself versions of the useless machine (often modernized with microprocessor controls) have been featured in a number of web videos[11] and inspired more complex machines that are able to move or which use more than one switch.[12] As of 2015, there are several completed or kit form devices being offered for sale.[13]
Cultural references [ edit ]
In 2009, the artist David Moises exhibited his reconstruction of The Ultimate Machine aka Shannon's Hand, and explained the interactions of Claude Shannon, Marvin Minsky, and Arthur C. Clarke regarding the device.[14]
Episode 3 of the third season of the FX show Fargo, "The Law of Non-Contradiction", features a useless machine[15] (and, in a story within the story, an android named MNSKY after Marvin Minsky).[16]
See also [ edit ]For the last decade, Marjorie Carvalho and her husband have produced Star Wars Action News, a podcast dedicated to Star Wars collectibles of all sorts. Predictably, they've had a lot to talk about, as waves of action figures and other collectibles have been launched in the run-up to the much-anticipated release of Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens next week.
On Tuesday, a SW Action News staffer saw something he shouldn't have—and bought it. A 3 3/4" action figure |
were the most expensive portion of their business and they needed to be convinced to make the change. The company began to do that with national advertising featuring the exclusive bottle. The first national calendar featuring the bottle appeared in 1918 and by 1920, most of the bottlers were using the distinctive bottle.In 1923, the patent for the bottle was renewed. It was the custom of the patent office to issues the patent on the Tuesday of each week. For the 1923 patent, that Tuesday just happened to fall on December 25! As the new patent was issued, the date on the side of the bottle was changed to December 25th, 1923 and the bottle was quickly nicknamed the “Christmas Bottle.” Patents expire after 14 years (the bottle patent was renewed again in 1937,) by 1951, all patents on the shape had expired. The company approached the Patent Office that the bottles shape, “distinctively shaped contour,” was so well known that it should be granted Trademark status. While it was highly unusual for a commercial package to be granted that status, on April 12th, 1961, thebottle was recognized as a trademark, in part bolstered by the fact that a 1949 study showed that less than 1% of Americans could not identify the bottle of Coke by shape alone.Now you know why the bottle happened, so how has it permeated culture over the years?The Coke bottle has been called many things over the years. One of the more interesting of the nicknames is the “hobbleskirt” bottle. The hobbleskirt was a fashion trend during the 1910s where the skirt had a very tapered look and was so narrow below the knees that it “hobbled” the wearer. The bottle was also called the “Mae West” bottle after the actress’s famous curvaceous figure. The first reference to the bottle as a “contour” occurred in a 1925 French Magazine, La Monde, which described thebottle with a distinctive contour shape. To the general public, the shape is just “the Coke bottle.”One of the interesting notes about the shape is that while it is almost universally recognized, the form has evolved over the years. Just as the original patent from 1915 was a slightly fatter shape than the bottle that went into production, todays aluminum bottle is a 22nd century update of the classic design. When King and Family sized packaging were introduced in 1955, Raymond Loewy was part of the team that worked to recast the bottle but still keep the proper proportions. The Company took advantage of this classic shape on the cover of the 1996 Annual Report when we placed a silhouette of the bottle with the caption, “Quick, Name a Soft Drink.”While Andy Warhol is the artist most known for using the Coke bottle in art, the first popular artist to incorporate the bottle in a painting was Salvadore Dali, who included a bottle in his 1943 work, Poetry in America. Later artist like Sir Eduardo Paolozzi also used the form in the late 1940s. Robert Rauchenberg includedBottles in his 1957 sculpture, APlan. However, Warhol’s use of the bottle in his 1962 show, The Grocery Store, cemented the “pop art” movement and enshrined the bottle as a favorite or succeeding generations of artist. Warhol’s quote from his 1975 book, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, sums up the artist choice of the bottle to represent mass culture.What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see, and you know that the president drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the president knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.Today, as we celebrate 100 years of the patent of the famous contour shapedbottle, it is indeed a shape for all who want to enjoy an ice cold, delicious and refreshingKiss the Past Hello: 100 Years of theBottleby Cate Patricolo
After tense months of speculation, Occupy organizers finally declare victory, as the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Export Grain Terminal (EGT) operating at Local Port 21 in Longview, WA have finalized a collective bargaining contract. The contract was signed by representatives of both parties on February 10, 2012, and signifies the official end to the longshore workers’ strike. On December 12, 2011, Occupy Portland activists stood in solidarity with the workers by successfully blocking grain shipments to Port 5 on the Columbia River. The shipments in question were intended to be received and unloaded by scab workers, and would have continued to undermine the efforts of the ILWU to reach a bargain on behalf of the longshore union members.
The ILWU was elected by majority vote on January 31 to represent over 50,000 longshore workers in Oregon, Washington, California, Alaska, Hawaii, and British Columbia. Ground was made by the ILWU when the EGT Local 21 voluntarily agreed to recognise ILWU as the official collective bargaining representative for the workers on February 2. The new contract will cover both maintenance and production work at the $200 million Local 21 facility in Longview, Washington as well as all other EGT facilities on the Pacific. It also covers all workers in all states and facilities, both on- and off-shore, and promotes safe working conditions, worker welfare, job security, and fair wages.
EGT, LLC is a joint venture between three Agribusiness conglomerates worth a net of at least $2 billion: The North American arm of Bunge Limited; the US subsidiary of the Japanese trading corporation ITOCHU International, Inc.; and the South Korean bulk carrier corporation STX Pan Ocean. The strike by the workers against the EGT began in July along the West Coast, and was focused on poor working conditions, forced overtime, and a pension fund that was only at 64%. The EGT continued to run a scab operation at the ports after the strike took effect, which reportedly violated a 75-year agreement with the ILWU.
Workers gained traction on September 7, when union supporters successfully blocked grain shipments at Local 4 in Vancouver, Washington, followed by a successful block at Local 21. Over 30,000 Occupy Oakland activists led the Occupy movement into solidarity with the longshore workers by shutting down Local 6 on November 2. Other ports all along the West Coast were shut down as Occupy protesters joined the workers’ cause, but Local 21 remained as a scab operation and was considered the final hurdle for a settlement between ILWU and the EGT. A day after the official February 10 agreement, longshore workers identified the Occupy Movement as crucial to their ability to reach a final settlement with the EGT and remain in their jobs.
“This is a victory for Occupy in their involvement in forcing negotiations. Make no mistake – the solidarity and organization between the Occupy Movement and the Longshoremen won this contract,” said Jack Mulcahy, ILWU officer with Local 8. “The mobilization of the Occupy Movement across the country, particularly in Oakland, Portland, Seattle, and Longview were a critical element in bringing EGT to the bargaining table and forcing a settlement with ILWU local 21.”
Monday, February 13, marked the first unloading of grain shipments by longshore workers at the docks of Local 21 since the beginning of the strike, and scab workers were officially sent home. Both parties appear to be pleased with the results of the bargaining efforts. In a press release, ILWU Local 21 President Dan Coffman said, “People are happy to see we can all move forward now and do what we’re here to do, which is work hard and support our community.” ILWU President Robert McEllrath was just as optimistic: “The men and women of the ILWU have crafted hundreds of collective bargaining agreements over the past several decades that have made many companies profitable while also providing family wage jobs for communities like Longview.” EGT CEO Larry Clarke said in his press release, “This is a positive development for EGT, the ILWU and the Longview community… We appreciate the efforts of Governor Gregoire and ILWU President McEllrath, who helped make this possible so our operations can expand economic benefits to the local community.”
The agreement reached has a five-year duration, after which it may be open to re-negotiation. The extent of possible financial damage to EGT caused by the strike is not immediately known.JTA
The top security official for Jewish organizations was named to a consulting body to the Department of Homeland Security.
Paul Goldenberg, the director of the Secure Community Network, was appointed to a three-year term on the Homeland Security Advisory Council.
The Jewish Federations of North America, a sponsor of the SCN, announced Goldenberg’s appointment on Monday, which was made by Janet Napolitano before she resigned earlier this month as secretary of Homeland Security.
“With Paul at its helm, SCN has played a vital leadership role in educating our community and raising awareness about security, helping protect our community from potential harm,” JFNA President Jerry Silverman said in a statement.
The panel, with 35 members, is chaired by William Webster, a former chief of the FBI and CIA, and includes William Bratton, a former Los Angeles police chief; Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley; New York police chief Raymond Kelly; Lee Hamilton, a former chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee; and Fran Townsend, a commentator who was a security adviser to President George W. Bush.
The council “provides advice and recommendations to the Secretary on matters related to homeland security,” according to the department’s website and “comprises leaders from state and local government, first responder communities, the private sector, and academia.”
The Secure Community Network is a joint initiative of JFNA and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Goldenberg, who helped found the SCN in 2005, has developed close working relationships with top Homeland Security officials and advised other faith communities in setting up similar networks. He is a veteran of police forces in New Jersey and Florida.
Read more: http://forward.com/articles/184369/jewish-expert-named-to-homeland-security-panel/#ixzz2fjVNsQQVStray Dogs
Protesting against Maneka Gandhi's compassion towards rising stray dogs, protesters leave dead dogs at post office.
Playing to public sentiment against stray dogs in Kerala, members of the Youth Front (Mani) on Monday killed around 10 stray dogs to protest against the menace.
The cadres of the youth wing of the Kerala Congress Mani group beat the dogs to death, tied a few to a pole and paraded them in Kottayam town.
They were protesting against the recurrent attacks by stray dogs and Union Minister Maneka Gandhi's approach towards the stray dog problem in Kerala. The Minister has many a time come down heavily on the state for its poor handling of the menace.
The protestors took the dog carcasses to the post office in the town and demanded that the dogs be sent in a parcel to the minister. As a token gesture, they left the dead dogs at Kottayam West post office gate with Maneka Gandhi's address duly written on it.
Inaugurating the protest, Youth Front President Saji Manjakadambil said that Maneka Gandhi's approach towards stray dogs despite them posing a huge threat to the people was suspicious.
He added that Maneka Gandhi was "an agent of pharmaceutical companies" and that the BJP must make its stand clear on the issue.
“I love dogs; I have dogs in my house. Our protest was against dangerous dogs and we hope that seeing the protest in Kottayam, people across districts do the same,” Saji told TNM. "So many people in Kottayam have been attacked by dogs. Dog lovers are okay with any other animal getting slaughtered, why this bias only towards dogs," he asked.
Saji insisted that his cadres had beaten only ‘dangerous’ dogs to death. How did they identify dangerous dogs? “One can understand when one sees dangerous dogs. We identified dogs that were attacking people or were simply rotting in the streets,” he said. He also rubbished the calls for sterilising street dogs and said, "Dogs don't attack people for lust. How will sterilising them help?"
According to reports, the local administration officials later cleared the dead dogs from the post office gate and buried them in a nearby ground.
Kottayam West police have registered a case against the protestors for cruelty against animals and said that the bodies will be exhumed and sent for post mortem on Tuesday.
"We have charged a case against 15 people under section 428 and 429 of IPC and Section 11 of Prevention of Cruelty against animals. Nobody has been arrested yet," Nirmal Bose Kottayam West Circle Inspector told The News Minute.
Notably, the Malayalam media's treatment of the incident also needs to be highlighted. A prominent Malayalam paper called it "a protest with a difference." A local paper said “murderous dogs have been given capital punishment.”
According to the state Health department, in 2013, 88,172 people were bitten and 11 died of dog bites. The numbers of dog bites increased to 1,19,000 in 2014 and 10 died of dog bites. In 2015, over 10,000 were bitten and the number of deaths stayed at 10. Up until August 2016, over 51,000 were bitten and 4 had died of bites.
The Kerala Congress (Mani) group, a breakaway faction of the Indian National Congress was an ally of the United Democratic Front for many decades and split from the front only recently. They have five members in the Kerala Legislative Assembly.
Both that party and its youth front have organised similar protests in the past few weeks. On 16 September, Gils Periappuram -a Muncipality ward councillor of Piravam in Ernakulam, also a Kerala Congress (M) member, was arrested by the police for killing ten stray dogs. He was later given bail.
Gils Periappuram posing with the culled dogsMinnesota United FC would need less than 10 acres to build a stadium in St. Paul for Major League Soccer, but city emails in June show team owner Bill McGuire saying an adjacent 25 acres “now is essential.”
“Concept would involve the stadium, office, retail, housing, hospitality, etc.,” wrote McGuire, who also inquired about the possibility of city or state government offices moving into the proposed spaces.
Starting in 2013, McGuire emailed St. Paul’s then-planning and economic development director about a “broad plan” for development near Interstate 94 and Snelling Avenue in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood. The plan included 10 acres owned by the Metropolitan Council and its vacant Metro Transit “bus barn” and 25 acres owned by commercial developer RK Midway.
United is exploring options to build an 18,000-plus-seat stadium in St. Paul or Minneapolis as home to an MLS expansion team by 2018. Plans in Minneapolis to help with property tax and sales tax exemptions on the privately financed stadium fizzled in the spring, and St. Paul moved to the forefront in July.
McGuire’s partners include the Pohlad family, which owns the Minnesota Twins and United Properties, a commercial development company that is believed to be the proposed developer for the St. Paul site.
McGuire, whose direct role in the proposed development is unclear, wrote in an email June 1 that he requested documents and pricing expectations from RK Midway, adding that a non-disclosure agreement had been executed.
Mayor Chris Coleman’s spokeswoman Tonya Tennessen said Monday that the stadium “could be a catalyst that would allow us to realize our vision for the site.” Tennessen said the city’s plans to optimize the site could include city money for infrastructure — sewers and the street grid — and green spaces.
However, Neil deMause, co-author of “Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit,” said the belief that stadiums generate further private development is false.
“At this point, the evidence is unequivocal that stadiums in particular are really lousy catalysts for development,” said deMause, who has studied dozens of stadium deals since 1995. “It doesn’t necessarily hurt development, but they’re not going to get you development that you wouldn’t get otherwise.”
A stadium would be host to about 20 MLS matches each season, with at least five dates for championship-level high school games and five dates for youth athletic association games, according to a legislation draft included in the city emails released last week. The stadium also could include other community events.
“That’s still well over 300 days a year that it’s a big dark hole,” deMause said.
CHS Field, the home of the independent league St. Paul Saints, provides another story. During a July 16 meeting at the new Lowertown ballpark, Saints executive vice president and general manager Derek Sharrer told McGuire that the city-owned facility had held 113 events in its first 137 days. That total includes all levels of baseball games as well as community events, but didn’t include the 26 Saints home games in that timeframe.
With Saints games included, the site averages more than one event per day.
“We’ll know more about what these numbers mean down the road, but what we know now is that this public-private partnership is over-delivering on its promise,” according to a copy of Sharrer’s speech shared with the Pioneer Press.
St. Paul Saints co-owner Mike Veeck said Wednesday that halfway through the season, his baseball team had sold more than 350,000 tickets as of Tuesday night, exceeding projections for the entire season.
“I’m very welcoming of the MLS, and I hope it’s successful,” said Veeck, pointing to how Saints games have drawn visitors to St. Paul’s event-driven downtown night life. “I think more is better, always.”
DeMause, a Brooklyn-based journalist, sees a comparison between St. Paul and development around Red Bulls Arena, the Harrison, N.J., home of MLS’ New York Red Bulls.
What St. Paul and Harrison have in common is proximity to commuter rail. Harrison has a system that feeds into Manhattan; St. Paul has the Green Line that connects its downtown to Minneapolis’.
Development in New Jersey is “happening less by the soccer stadium,” deMause said. “Maybe the soccer stadium put Harrison on the map a little bit but, really, all you needed to do was put up a sign saying ‘renovated (rail) station’ and people were going to come to your door to buy condos.”
In 1997, Harrison designated 250 acres for redevelopment, and Red Bulls Arena was opened in 2010. Other development has included improved infrastructure with projects for parking, commercial, residential and hotels, Harrison city documents show.
St. Paul’s plan for the southeast corner of Snelling and University avenues has been three years in the making, said Matt Kramer, President of the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce.
“In the last 24 months we’ve begun driving this and saying, ‘Hey, the city plan is coming to fruition, and this is a pretty freaking cool site,’ ” Kramer said.
The “bus barn” location has been vacant since 2002 but was used as a staging area for construction of the Central Corridor light-rail line until 2014.
The Metropolitan Council said the Twins’ Target Field has 10 percent of its fans arriving for games via the Blue Line that connects downtown Minneapolis to the Mall of America in Bloomington.
Steve Cramer, president and chief executive of the Minneapolis Downtown Council, said the combination of Target Field and Target Field Station “has been an accelerator” for development in its North Loop neighborhood. Cramer estimated the amount of office and residential development to be more than $100 million, with top projects being the renovation of Ford Center and the current construction of the Be The Match building across the street from the ballpark.
“It’s also true that those projects were done in an area of Minneapolis that was experiencing positive development momentum,” Cramer said. “It was a perfect storm of circumstances.”
However, when the Metrodome opened on the east side of downtown in 1982, it was built in a “sea of surface parking lots,” said Kramer, who has been involved in Minneapolis community development since 1979.
“It was put in a part of downtown that was not subject to any other positive development momentum,” he said. “And (there was a belief) that on its own it would generate that momentum. I think that just proved to be an inaccurate assumption.”
Kramer said the St. Paul development’s goal would be to keep a few city blocks together for the stadium while carving up the rest of the 35 acres with a street grid for multiple uses. He acknowledged that he views economic impact from a stadium construction both “positively and skeptically.”
“I will be the first to argue that the economic development argument around stadiums is spurious at best,” Kramer said. “They are job creators when they are under construction, and those construction jobs go elsewhere. They are entertainment creators when you create and design that right mix.”
Kramer said that proper ingredients include not only bars and restaurants often associated with stadiums but also housing and office spaces.
“You want it to be an economic destination, not just for people that are going for the entertainment value, but as a hub as an otherwise vibrant neighborhood,” Kramer said.
Sports economist Rob Fort said teams and cities are wise to include broader economic development in their stadium proposals. Politicians at the State Capitol cited “stadium fatigue” as a reason in April for their reluctance to provide tax help to build a stadium in Minneapolis.
“If folks don’t go for the stadium part of it, they have a hard time rejecting the other development aspects,” Fort was quoted in “Field of Schemes.” “And I think politicians know that as well as team owners.”
Fred Melo contributed to this report. Follow Andy Greder at twitter.com/andygreder.Update: the October 5 vote in the LIBE committee has now been postponed to an indefinite future date.
If you've been following the slow progress of the European Commission's proposal to introduce new upload filtering mandates for Internet platforms, or its equally misguided plans to impose a new link tax on those who publish snippets from news stories, you should know that the end game is close at hand. The LIBE (Civil Liberties) Committee is the last committee of the European Parliament that is due to vote on its opinion on the so-called "Digital Single Market" proposals this Thursday October 5, before the proposals return to their home committee of the Parliament (the JURI or Legal Affairs Committee) for the preparation of a final draft.
The Confused Thinking Behind the Upload Filtering Mandate
The Commission's rationale for the upload filtering mandate seems to be that in order to address unwelcome behavior online (in this case, copyright infringement), you have to not only make that behavior illegal, but you also have to make it impossible. The same rationale also underpins other similar notice and stay-down schemes, such as one that already exists in Italy; they are meant to stop would-be copyright infringement in its tracks by preventing presumptively-infringing material from being uploaded to begin with, thereby preventing it from being downloaded by anyone else.
But this kind of prior restraint on speech or behavior isn't commonly applied to citizens in any other area of their lives. You car isn't speed-limited so that it's impossible for you to exceed the speed limit. Neither does your telephone contain a bugging device that makes it impossible for you to slander your neighbor. Why is copyright treated so differently, that it requires not only that actual infringements be dealt with (Europe's existing DMCA-like notice and takedown system already provides for this), but that predicted future infringements also be prevented?
More importantly, what about the rights of those whose uploaded content is flagged as being copyright-infringing, when it really isn't? The European Commission's own research, in a commissioned report that they attempted to bury, suggests that the harm to copyright holders from copyright infringement is much less than has been often assumed. At the very least, this has to give us pause before adopting new extreme copyright enforcement measures that will impact users' human rights.
Even leaving aside the human impact of the upload filter, European policymakers should also be concerned about the impact of the mandate on small businesses and startups. A market-leading tool required to implement upload filtering just for audio files would cost a medium-sized file hosting company between $10,000 to $25,000 per month in license fees alone. In the name of copyright enforcement, European policymakers would give a market advantage to entrenched large companies at the expense of smaller local companies and startups.
The Link Tax Proposal is Also Confused
The link tax proposal is also based on a false premise. But if you are expecting some kind of doctrinally sound legal argument for why a new link-tax ought to inhere in news publishers, you will be sorely disappointed. Purely and simply, the proposal is founded on the premise that because news organizations are struggling to maintain their revenues in the post-millennial digital media space, and because Internet platforms are doing comparatively better, it is politically expedient that the latter industry be made to subsidize the former. There's nothing more coherent behind this proposal than that kind of base realpolitik.
But the proposal doesn't even work on that level. In fact, we agree that news publishers are struggling. We just don't think that taxing those who publish snippets of news articles will do anything to help them. Indeed, the fact that small news publishers have rejected the link tax proposal, and that previous implementations of the link tax in Spain and Germany were dismal failures, tells you all that you need to know about whether taxing links would really be good for journalism.
So as these two misguided and harmful proposals make their way through the LIBE committee this week, it's time to call an end to this nonsense. Digital rights group OpenMedia has launched a click-to-call tool that you can use, available in English, French, German, Spanish, and Polish. If you're a European citizen, the tool will call your representative on the LIBE committee, and if you don't have an MEP, it calls the committee chair, Claude Moraes. As the counter clicks closer to midnight on these regressive and cynical copyright measures, it's more important than ever for individual users like you to be heard.Once upon a time, someone in 14th-century Europe told a tale of two girls—a kind one who was rewarded for her manners and willingness to work hard, and an unkind girl who was punished for her greed and selfishness.
This version was part of a long line of variations that eventually spread throughout Europe, finding their way into the Brothers Grimm fairytales as Frau Holle, and even into Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. (Watch a video of the Frau Holle fairytale.)
In a new study, evolutionary psychologist Quentin Atkinson is using the popular tale of the kind and unkind girls to study how human culture differs within and between groups, and how easily the story moved from one group to another.
Atkinson, of the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and his co-authors employed tools normally used to study genetic variation within a species, such as people, to look at variations in this folktale throughout Europe.
The researchers found that there were significant differences in the folktale between ethnolinguistic groups—or groups bound together by language and ethnicity. From this, the scientists concluded that it's much harder for cultural information to move between groups than it is for genes.
The study, published February 5 in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, found that about 9 percent of the variation in the tale of the two girls occurred between ethnolinguistic groups. Previous studies looking at the genetic diversity across groups in Europe found levels of variation less than one percent.
For example, there's a part of the story in which the girls meet a witch who asks them to perform some chores. In different renditions of the tale, the meeting took place by a river, at the bottom of a well, or in a cave. Other versions had the girls meeting with three old men or the Virgin Mary, said Atkinson.
Conformity
Researchers have viewed human culture through the lens of genetics for decades, said Atkinson. "It's a fair comparison in the sense that it's just variation across human groups."
But unlike genes, which move into a population relatively easily and can propagate randomly, it's harder for new ideas to take hold in a group, he said. Even if a tale can bridge the "ethnolinguistic boundary," there are still forces that might work against a new cultural variation that wouldn't necessarily affect genes.
"Humans don't copy the ideas they hear randomly," Atkinson said. "We don't just choose... the first story we hear and pass it on.
"We show what's called a conformist bias—we'll tend to aggregate across what we think everyone else in the population is doing," he explained. If someone comes along and tells a story a little differently, most likely, people will ignore those differences and tell the story like everyone else is telling it.
"That makes it more difficult for new ideas to come in," Atkinson said.
Cultural Boundaries
Atkinson and his colleagues found that if two versions of the folktale were found only six miles (ten kilometers) away from each other but came from different ethnolinguistic groups, such as the French and the Germans, then those versions were as different from each other as two versions taken from within the same group—say just the Germans—located 62 miles (100 kilometers) away from each other.
"To me, the take-home message is that cultural groups strongly constrain the flow of information, and this enables them to develop highly local cultural traditions and norms," said Mark Pagel, of the University of Reading in the U.K., who wasn't involved in the new study.
Pagel, who studies the evolution of human behavior, said by email that he views cultural groups almost like biological species. But these groups, which he calls "cultural survival vehicles," are more powerful in some ways than our genes.
That's because when immigrants from a particular cultural group move into a new one, they bring genetic diversity that, if the immigrants have children, get mixed around, changing the new population's gene pool. But the new population's culture doesn't necessarily change.
Atkinson plans to keep using the tools of the population-genetics trade to see if the patterns he found in the variations of the kind and unkind girls hold true for other folktale variants in Europe and around the world.Bob Smith returns with a guest-essay about the cultic characteristics of Islam.
Five Reasons Why Islam is a Cult
Unpleasant fact — worldwide consequences
by Bob Smith
1. A Muslim who quits Islam has to worry about being killed by another Muslim.
This is the first rule of Islam. This is why so few Muslims quit the faith. This simple fact — alone — makes Islam a cult. It is hard to understate the significance of this cold hard fact about Islam.
This practice is widely followed today throughout the Islamic world. The most frequently quoted Islamic theological source is Sahih Al-Bukhari Number 6922:
Allah’s apostle said, “if anyone changes his (Islamic) religion, then kill him.”
WikiIslam.net says the following: “the rejection of faith, is a serious offense in Islam. The punishment for apostasy as prescribed by Prophet Muhammad is death”.
Don’t let any Muslim try to deny this fact by quoting the Islamic phrase “there is no compulsion in religion”. All Muslims know the Islamic doctrine of “abrogation” negates this phrase. And Muslims only use this phrase when they are trying to deceive non-Muslims
In Afghanistan, NATO had to use a promise of asylum in Europe to get Said Musa out of prison for the crime of converting to Christianity.
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI.org), in clip #3926, translated a broadcast from Al-Arabiya TV on June 14, 2013, which quotes Egyptian Islamist Abu Al-’Ela Abd Rabbo, one of the assassins of secularist Farag Foda in 1992:
Interviewer: What was the religious justification for the assassination of Farag Foda? Abu Al-’Ela Abd Rabbo: The punishment for an apostate is death, even if he repents.
Need more proof? Simply Google “quit Islam” or, click the this link for an insightful discussion on the issue.
2. Muslims are encouraged to commit violence in the name of Islam.
Muslim theological documents — the Koran, Hadith, and Sunna — are filled with statements which encourage devout Muslims to commit violence in the name of Islam.
Here are just a few:
Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them(2:191)
Make war on the infidels living in your neighborhood (9:123)
When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them (9:5)
Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax (9:29)
Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable (3:85)
The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them (9:30)
Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticize Islam (5:33)
The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque (9:28)
Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies (22:19)
Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them (47:4)
The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them (8:65)
Muslims must not take the infidels as friends (3:28)
Terrorize and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an (8:12)
Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorize the infidels
In addition to the Muslim theological documents mentioned above, Islamic social norms encourage violence. It is widely noted that Friday is the most likely day when jihad attacks will occur within Muslim society. This is because the mullahs use their Friday pulpits to encourage their flock to commit violence in the name of Islam.
In Muslim societies, even the media become involved in the incitement to violence. MEMRI.org has translated thousands of articles from print and electronic media. These translated articles are filled with direct incitement to commit violence in the name of Islam.
Remarkably, some of the most glaring examples of incitement to violence come from new “converts” to Islam. Why would a new convert to Islam commit violence? The obvious answer is the “theological” incitement from their new religion — Islam’s core texts.
There is an unfortunate PC effort to deny, ignore and whitewash this Islam inspired violence. The amount of violence committed worldwide since 9/11 is simply too high to overlook.
The web site The Religion of Peace has been collecting, counting, and publishing a list of deadly Islamic terror attacks worldwide since 9/11/2001. As of January 1, 2014 the number was 22,178. Don’t let the PC crowd tell you it is just the same as the Christians, Buddhists, Hindus or the Jews — make them prove it. Only an intellectual buffoon would try to deny the relationship between Islam and violence.
3. Islam does not allow criticism or change.
Islam considers anyone who criticizes or tries to change Islam guilty of blasphemy. And blasphemy is an capital crime under Sharia law. As a result any Muslim who even critiques or attempts to change Islam has to worry about being murdered by some devout Muslim.
In Denmark in late 2013, an 18-year-old Muslim named Yahya Hassan received numerous death threats after reading one of his Islam-critical poems on TV.
It is bad enough that Muslims can’t criticize Islam, but this rule even applies to non-Muslims in non-Muslim societies. Just look at what happened to Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam. He made a short movie about women in Islam. As Van Gogh walked to work one morning, he was murdered by a devout Muslim named Mohammed Bouyeri. At his trial the murderer told the court Van Gogh had insulted Islam. “What moved me to do what I did was purely my faith,” Bouyeri went on. “I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off the head of anyone who insults Allah and his prophet.”
The Comedy Central series “South Park” parodied Islam in a couple of 2010 episodes. What happened? According to the New York Times:
Mat Stone and Trey Parker the creators of South Park were threatened by the Islamic web site RevolutionMuslim.com. It warned Mat and Trey “what they are doing is stupid, and they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.”
In Seattle, the cartoonist Molly Norris thought she could counter Islamic reality. She declared May 20, 2010 “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”. She published a cartoon with a number of household items (a spool of thread, a cup and saucer, a domino…) all claiming to be Mohammed. Within a week Norris had received numerous death threats. Eventually the Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki put a fatwa on Norris’ head. After talks with the FBI she ultimately had to implement her own “cartoonist protection program”. She has reportedly changed her name, left Seattle, and gone underground.
To make matters worse, Islam encourages devout believers to be “self-initiating” in the enforcement of Sharia law. This means any devout Muslim believer anywhere might commit violence in the blink of an eye, if he finds you doing something he considers offensive to Islam.
4. Muslim theology teaches hatred of non-Muslims.
This practice is widespread within Islamic society. It has been documented by numerous authors literally thousands of time. (See a long list of articles below.)
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI.org) has recorded and translated hundreds of television broadcasts in which Muslim religious leaders encourage hatred and violence against non-Muslims, and especially the Jews.
Here is a screen shot from one:
To make matters worse, this Islamic hate-theology is being taught right here in Western society right under the noses of politically correct governments.
In the United States, the Freedom House Center for Religious Freedom published in 2005 an investigative report titled “Saudi Publications on Hate Ideology Invade American Mosques”. This extensive analysis states: “The Saudi Arabian publications in this study, which espouse an ideology of hate and purport to be the authoritative interpretation |
new skills which they can adopt and use to improve their general livelihood.
For residents of Star Shelter in particular, this is important because it is difficult for them to gain access to such professional services on their own for free, said the SCWO spokesperson.
One in three interested in SBV
According to the 2014 Individual Giving Survey (IGS) conducted by the National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre (NVPC), one in three Singaporeans are interested in skills-based volunteering which indicates an interest in this brand of volunteerism.
Echoing similar sentiments, 30-year-old Ms Angeline Yong of the Singapore Red Cross said: “Skills-based volunteering has become more prevalent in Singapore over the last five years. At the Singapore Red Cross, we are seeing more individuals and corporate groups volunteering their skills, usually in areas related to their professional life, to support our staff and beneficiaries.”
Related article: Growing up poor motivates 65-year-old to give back
The head of membership and volunteer development cited The Body Shop as one of their corporate volunteer partners who starting out by feeding the residents and decorating the dormitories of the Red Cross Home for the Disabled, and is now organising wellness sessions to pamper the nurses of the home.
Staff of The Body Shop hosting a wellness session. Image Source: SRC
Starting their own initiatives
And just when we think that’s all there is to SBV, there are individuals who have taken it one step further by starting their own initiatives.
Take Ms Li Woon Churdboonchart, one of the founders of The Volunteer Switchboard, as an example. With 20 years of volunteering experience shared among them, 39-year-old Churdboonchart and her friends saw a need to improve the quality of volunteer events.
“Some events were not well organised so they did not achieve the objectives intended. Sometimes, expectations were not properly managed so we didn’t know what we were going to do nor what to expect next. There was also too much downtime and volunteers were idle with nothing to do, which was a waste of their time,” she recalled.
Deciding to pool their expertise, The Volunteer Switchboard was created to design bite-sized and purposeful volunteer programmes. As professionals in banking operations and IT sales, the founders used their expertise to aid in the running of the organisation, especially in areas such as project management, operations management, technology and branding.
Founders of The Volunteer Switchboard at Project Home Sweet Home. Image Source: Li Woon Churdboonchart
As The Volunteer Switchboard celebrates its fourth birthday this year, Churdboonchart is proud of how far their collective skills have taken them. An example would be the application of their data management skills when the organisation started. By using a volunteer management tool, they were able to better understand what the volunteers want, as well as collate critical data of the beneficiaries to better improve interaction and engagement with them.
She remarked: “Sustainability is definitely a benefit as VSB is operated by a bunch of volunteers with full-time jobs and we are still going strong!”
Using talents, skills and abilities to make an impact
Commenting on the impact SBV has on an organisation and its beneficiaries, Darrel Lim, head of the strategic partnership team at NVPC, said: “Using the talents, skills and abilities we already have to help others isn’t difficult for us, but this can result in a huge impact to others. This can be professional skills but also non-professional skills and personal passions such as photography, cooking or art, which makes it meaningful and fun.
“We can help in ways that are enjoyable and fruitful which not only benefit others, but also help further develop our own competencies.”
Related article: Bombs and bullets don’t stop this Singapore-based doctor from saving lives
In another example of SBV, Dr Marcus Ang brings healthcare to the underprivileged via his Mobile Eye Clinic project. Image Source:Dr Marcus Ang
On that note, Emmanuel has some parting advice for volunteers, especially those in the fields of education, medicine and legal.
“It would not do to be outdated,” she cautioned. “Some responsibility falls on a volunteer to constantly update their skills and knowledge to be effective to the beneficiaries. Half-baked knowledge is a dangerous thing.”Contents
Summary
In 2016, Issa Rice and I conducted several surveys of Wikipedia usage. We collected survey responses from Slate Star Codex readers, Vipul’s Facebook friends, and a few United States audiences through SurveyMonkey Audience and Google Surveys (known at the time as Google Consumer Surveys). Our survey questions measured how heavily people use Wikipedia, what sort of pages they read or expected to find, the relation between their search habits and Wikipedia, and other actions they took within Wikipedia.
The surveys are part of our work to understand the impact of contributing to Wikipedia. Both of us regularly contribute to the site, and we are also getting more people to work on editing and adding content to Wikipedia. Therefore we want to understand how people use Wikipedia, how much they use Wikipedia, what types of people tend to use Wikipedia, and so on, so that we can direct efforts more strategically.
Our three main takeaways:
Wikipedia consumption is heavily skewed toward a profile of “elite” people, and these people use the site in qualitatively different ways. (More)
As a result, we’ve revised upward our estimate of the impact per pageview, and revised downward our estimate of the broad appeal and reach of Wikipedia. (More)
The gap between elite samples of Wikipedia users and general United States Internet users is significantly greater than the gap between the different demographics within the United States that we measured.
It is comparable to the gap between United States Internet users and Internet users in low-income countries. (More)
This post goes over the survey questions, the responses of participants, and other survey data (specifically, data from the New Readers surveys by the Wikimedia Foundation) and then explains the takeaways.
Surveys
First SurveyMonkey survey (S1)
At the end of May 2016, Issa Rice and I created a Wikipedia usage survey on SurveyMonkey to gauge the usage habits of Wikipedia readers and editors.
Audiences for S1
SurveyMonkey allows the use of different “collectors” (i.e. survey URLs that keep results separate), so we circulated several different URLs among four locations to see how different audiences would respond.
The audiences were as follows:
SurveyMonkey’s United States audience with no demographic filters (62 responses, 54 of which are full responses). We will refer to this audience as SM, or S1SM if needed to avoid ambiguity. Acquisition cost: $100 ($2 per response for 50 responses, 4 extra responses given gratis)
My Facebook timeline (post asking people to take the survey; 70 responses, 69 of which are full responses). For background on the timeline audience, see my page on how I use Facebook. We will refer to this audience as “Vipul’s Facebook friends” or V for short. Acquisition cost: None
The Wikipedia Analytics mailing list (email linking to the survey; 7 responses, 6 of which are full responses). Note that due to the small size of this group, the results below should not be trusted, unless possibly when the votes are decisive. We will refer to this audience as AM. Acquisition cost: None
Slate Star Codex (post that links to the survey; 618 responses, 596 of which are full responses). We will refer to this audience as SSC. While Slate Star Codex isn’t the same as LessWrong, we think there is significant overlap in the two sites’ audiences (see e.g. the recent LessWrong diaspora survey results). Acquisition cost: None
In addition, although not an actual audience with a separate URL, several of the tables we present below will include an “H” group; this is the heavy users group of people who responded by saying they read 26 or more articles per week on Wikipedia. This group has 179 people: 164 from Slate Star Codex, 11 from Vipul’s timeline, and 4 from the Analytics mailing list.
We ran the survey from May 30 to July 9, 2016 (although only the Slate Star Codex survey had a response past June 1).
Questions for S1
For reference, here are the survey questions for the first survey. A dummy/mock-up version of the survey can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PDTTBM8.
The survey introduction said the following:
This survey is intended to gauge Wikipedia use habits. This survey has 3 pages with 5 questions total (3 on the first page, 1 on the second page, 1 on the third page). Please try your best to answer all of the questions, and make a guess if you’re not sure.
And the actual questions:
How many distinct Wikipedia pages do you read per week on average? less than 1
1 to 10
11 to 25
26 or more On a search engine (e.g. Google) results page, do you explicitly seek Wikipedia pages, or do you passively click on Wikipedia pages only if they show up at the top of the results? I explicitly seek Wikipedia pages
I have a slight preference for Wikipedia pages
I just click on what is at the top of the results Do you usually read a particular section of a page or the whole article? (Multiple options can be selected) Particular section
Whole page How often do you do the following? (Choices: Several times per week, About once per week, About once per month, About once per several months, Never/almost never.) Use the search functionality on Wikipedia
Be surprised that there is no Wikipedia page on a topic For what fraction of pages you read do you do the following? (Choices: For every page, For most pages, For some pages, For very few pages, Never. These were displayed in a random order for each respondent, but displayed in alphabetical order here.) Check (click or hover over) at least one citation to see where the information comes from on a page you are reading
Check how many pageviews a page is getting (on an external site or through the Pageview API)
Click through/look for at least one cited source to verify the information on a page you are reading
Edit a page you are reading because of grammatical/typographical errors on the page
Edit a page you are reading to add new information
Look at the “See also” section for additional articles to read
Look at the editing history of a page you are reading
Look at the editing history solely to see if a particular user wrote the page
Look at the talk page of a page you are reading
Read a page mostly for the “Criticisms” or “Reception” (or similar) section, to understand different views on the subject
Share the page with a friend/acquaintance/coworker
For the SurveyMonkey audience, there were also some demographic questions (age, gender, household income, US region, and device type). These questions were not filled by respondents at the time of the survey, but rather, are filled in by respondents in order to be able to participate in these surveys. You can learn more on the SurveyMonkey Contribute page.
Second SurveyMonkey survey (S2)
After we looked at the survey responses on the first day, Issa and I decided to create a second survey to focus on the parts from the first survey that interested us the most.
Audiences for S2
The second survey was only circulated among SurveyMonkey’s audiences:
SurveyMonkey’s US audience with no demographic filters (54 responses). Acquisition cost: $50 ($1 per response for 50 responses, 4 extra responses given gratis)
SurveyMonkey’s US audience with the following filters: ages 18–29 with a college or graduate degree (50 responses). Acquisition cost: $125 ($2.50 per response for 50 responses)
We first ran the survey on the unfiltered audience again because the wording of our first question was changed and we wanted to have the new baseline. We then chose to filter for young college-educated people because our prediction was that more educated people would be more likely to read Wikipedia. The SurveyMonkey demographic data does not include education, and we hadn’t seen the Pew Internet Research surveys in the next section, so we were relying on our intuition and some demographic data from past surveys) for the “college-educated” part. Our selection of the age group was based on the fact that young people in our first survey gave more informative free-form responses in survey 2 (SurveyMonkey’s demographic data does include age).
Questions for S2
For reference, here are the survey questions for the second survey. A dummy/mock-up version of the survey can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/28BW78V.
The survey introduction said the following:
This survey is intended to gauge Wikipedia use habits. Please try your best to answer all of the questions, and make a guess if you’re not sure. This survey has 4 questions across 3 pages. In this survey, “Wikipedia page” refers to a Wikipedia page in any language (not just the English Wikipedia).
And the actual questions:
How many distinct Wikipedia pages do you read (at least one sentence of) per week on average? Fewer than 1
1 to 10
11 to 25
26 or more Which of these articles have you read (at least one sentence of) on Wikipedia (select all that apply)? (These were displayed in a random order except the last option for each respondent, but displayed in alphabetical order except the last option here.) Adele
Barack Obama
Bernie Sanders
China
Donald Trump
Google
Hillary Clinton
India
Japan
Justin Bieber
Justin Trudeau
Katy Perry
Taylor Swift
The Beatles
United States
World War II
None of the above What are some of the Wikipedia articles you have most recently read (at least one sentence of)? Feel free to consult your browser’s history. Recall a time when you were surprised that a topic did not have a Wikipedia page. What were some of these topics?
As with the SurveyMonkey Audience responses for S1, the responses for S2 also came with demographic information that the respondents had previously filled in.
Google Surveys survey (GS)
We ran a third survey on Google Surveys (known at the time as Google Consumer Surveys) with a single question that was a word-to-word replica of the first question from the second survey. The main motivation here was that on Google Surveys, a single-question survey costs only 10 cents per response, so it was possible to get to a large number of responses at relatively low cost, and achieve more confidence in the tentative conclusions we had drawn from the SurveyMonkey surveys.
Audiences for GS
We bought 500 responses at 10 cents per response, for a total acquisition cost of $50. The responses were from a general United States audience.
GS uses a “surveywall” methodology to collect survey responses: the survey questions are shown to people who want to access a piece of content (article or video) and they need to answer the question to access it.
Overall, Google Surveys in the United States is reasonably close to representative of the voting US population and the Internet-using population. Also, the sample size of the survey was largest. Therefore, among the surveys we did, this survey comes closest to approximating the behavior of the Internet-using population in the United States.
You can learn more at the Wikipedia page for Google Surveys.
Questions for GS
This survey had exactly one question. The wording of the question was exactly the same as that of the first question of the second survey.
How many distinct Wikipedia pages do you read (at least one sentence of) per week on average? Fewer than 1
1 to 10
11 to 25
26 or more
One slight difference was that whereas in the second SurveyMonkey survey, the order of the options was fixed, the Google Surveys survey did a 50/50 split between that order and the exact reverse order. Such splitting is a best practice to deal with any order-related biases, while still preserving the logical order of the options.
You can read more on the questionnaire design page of the Pew Research Center.
The GS responses come with inferred demographic and geographic data (age, gender, income level, location). The geographic data is generally reliable because it is based on IP address, but inferred age and gender data is not as reliable as the self-reported data that we get from SurveyMonkey Audience. For more on the accuracy of the inferred data, see the Pew Research Center’s comparison.
Wikimedia Foundation New Readers survey (NR)
In late 2016, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Global Reach team published the results of New Readers phone surveys. The questions in these surveys have some overlap with the questions in our surveys, so we have updated our post to include a discussion of these surveys and how the results compare with ours.
Audiences for NR
The NR surveys were conducted in the following five countries: Nigeria (2768 responses), India (9235 responses), Mexico (2568 responses), Brazil (5343 responses), and Egypt (3976 responses). The surveys were conducted by phone.
For the first three countries (Nigeria, India, and Mexico), results of additional in-person surveys have also been published.
We were not able to find information on the cost of the surveys, but considering the large audience size (23,890 in total), the survey length, and the labor-intensive method of conducting the survey, we estimate that it cost tens of thousands of dollars. For comparison, an article about survey firm GeoPoll suggests that $10 per response is a fairly good rate for conducting surveys in some African countries.
Questions for NR
We will compare the results of our surveys with the results of the New Readers surveys. To shed light on this comparison, we include below the list of questions in the New Readers phone survey.
Not all questions were presented in all surveys. The Egypt survey, which is the more recent, had the longest list of questions, and we provide this list below. The numbering is mostly based on the Egypt survey, though off by one for later questions due to a question missing from the Egypt survey.
Our later analysis will focus on the first, fourth, and seventh question, which are together comparable against the first question of S1, S2, and GS.
Do you use the Internet? Yes
Said no, but uses Facebook
No What do you use the Internet for the most? (for those who said Yes to Q1) Look up info
Social media
Entertainment
News
Others What’s the biggest reason you don’t use the Internet? (for those who said No to Q1) Too expensive
Not sure it’s useful
Not sure what it is
Other Have you ever heard of Wikipedia? Yes
No Where did you find out about Wikipedia? Internet
School
Friends and family
Radio or TV
Not sure What do you use Wikipedia for? School
Work
Entertainment
Other How often do you use Wikipedia? Daily
Weekly
Monthly
Rarely
Never How interested are you in reading Wikipedia? (for those who answered “Rarely” or “Never” to the previous question) Not interested
Somewhat
Very interested What’s the largest barrier keeping you from reding Wikipedia? (for those who answere “Very interested” to Q8) Don’t trust content
Expensive data
Not interesting enough
Can’t find it
Other What would make you more likely to use Wikipedia? (for those who answered “Not interested” to Q8) Trusted the content
Cheaper data
More interesting articles
Known how to find it
None Do you have a mobile phone? (This question was in some other country surveys though not in the Egypt one. Hence the numbering for later questions is one more than the numbering in the actual Egypt survey) Yes
No Can you use the Internet with your phone? Yes
No How do you access the Internet on your phone? Cellular
Wifi and cell
Wifi only
No Internet
Not sure What is your usual network speed? 2G / Edge
3G
Better than 3G
Not sure Do you download and use Apps? Yes
No What is your gender? Male
Female What is your age? Under 18
19–31
31–50
over 50
Prefer not to say What is your location? Urban
Rural
Not sure What is your geographical zone? (options specific to Egypt)
Other surveys
Several demographic surveys regarding Wikipedia have been conducted, targeting both editors and users. The surveys we found most helpful were the following:
The 2010 Wikipedia survey by the Collaborative Creativity Group and the Wikimedia Foundation. The explanation before the bottom table on page 7 of the overview PDF has “Contributors show slightly but significantly higher education levels than readers”, which provides weak evidence that more educated people are more likely to engage with Wikipedia.
The Global South User Survey 2014 by the Wikimedia Foundation
Pew Internet Research’s 2011 survey: “Education level continues to be the strongest predictor of Wikipedia use. The collaborative encyclopedia is most popular among internet users with at least a college degree, 69% of whom use the site.” (page 3)
Pew Internet Research’s 2007 survey.
There is also the New Readers survey mentioned earlier, that we examine in detail in this post.
Motivation
Issa and I ultimately want to get a better sense of the value of a Wikipedia pageview (one way to measure the impact of content creation), and one way to do this is to understand how people are using Wikipedia. As we focus on getting more people to work on editing Wikipedia – thus causing more people to read the content we pay and help to create – it becomes more important to understand who is reading the content, and how they engage with it.
For some previous discussion, see also my answers to the following Quora questions:
Wikipedia allows relatively easy access to pageview data (especially by using tools developed for this purpose, including one that I made), and there are some surveys that provide demographic data (see “Other surveys” above). However, after looking around, it was apparent that the kind of information our survey was designed to find was not available. This was before the New Readers survey results had been published.
Results
In this section we present the highlights from each of the survey questions. If you prefer to dig into the data yourself, there are also some exported PDFs below provided by SurveyMonkey. Most of the inferences can be made using these PDFs, but there are some cases where additional filters are needed to deduce certain percentages.
For the SurveyMonkey surveys, we use the notation “SnQm” to mean “survey n question m”. The Google Surveys survey question is referred to as GS, and the New Readers questions are referred to with the notation “NRQm” for question m of the survey.
S1Q1: number of Wikipedia pages read per week
Here is a table that summarizes the data for Q1. Note that SMM and SMF don’t add up to SM as some respondents did not specify their gender.
How many distinct Wikipedia pages do you read per week on average? SM = SurveyMonkey audience, V = Vipul Naik’s timeline, SSC = Slate Star Codex audience, AM = Wikipedia Analytics mailing list, SMM = SurveyMonkey males, SMF = SurveyMonkey females. Response SM (N=62) V (N=70) SSC (N=618) AM (N=7) SMM (N=28) SMF (N=26) less than 1 42% 1% 1% 0% 25% 58% 1 to 10 45% 40% 37% 29% 46% 42% 11 to 25 13% 43% 36% 14% 29% 0% 26 or more 0% 16% 27% 57% 0% 0% pgs/wk lower 1.88 9.29 11.35 16.65 3.65 0.42 pgs/wk upper 8.17 22.76 26.21 34.90 12.10 4.70
The “pgs/wk lower” is obtained as the average pages read per week if everybody read at the lower end of their estimate (so the respective estimates are 0, 1, 11, and 26).
The “pgs/wk upper” is obtained as the average of pages read per week if everybody read at the upper end of their estimate, except the “26 or more” case where we assume a value of 50 (so the respective estimates are 1, 10, 25, and 50). We choose 50 as a reasonable upper bound on what the average person who views more than 26 pages likely views, rather than a strict bound on every individual.
There are two reasons to compute the “pgs/wk lower” and “pgs/wk upper” numbers:
Having these ranges makes it easier to quickly compare different audiences.
The (very approximate) estimates of pages/week can be validated against known information about total pageviews.
The comments indicated that S1Q1 was flawed in several ways: we didn’t specify which language Wikipedias count nor what it meant to “read” an article (the whole page, a section, or just a sentence?).
One comment questioned the “low” ceiling of 26; however, the actual distribution of responses suggests that the ceiling wasn’t too low.
An interesting potential modification of the survey would be to ask further questions of people who selected an extreme response, to better bucket them.
S1Q2: affinity for Wikipedia in search results
We asked Q2, “On a search engine (e.g. Google) results page, do you explicitly seek Wikipedia pages, or do you passively click on Wikipedia pages only if they show up at the top of the results?”, to see to what extent people preferred Wikipedia in search results.
The main implication to this for people who do content creation on Wikipedia is that if people do explicitly seek Wikipedia pages (for whatever reason), it makes sense to give them more of what they want. On the other hand, if people don’t prefer Wikipedia, it makes sense to update in favor of diversifying one’s content creation efforts while still keeping in mind that raw pageviews indicate that content will be read more if placed on Wikipedia (see for instance Brian Tomasik’s experience, which is similar to my own, or gwern’s page comparing Wikipedia with other wikis).
The following table summarizes our results. Wikipedia has been shortened to WP to conserve column width.
On a search engine (e.g. Google) results page, do you explicitly seek Wikipedia pages, or do you passively click on Wikipedia pages only if they show up at the top of the results? SM = SurveyMonkey audience, V = Vipul Naik’s timeline, SSC = Slate Star Codex audience, AM = Wikipedia Analytics mailing list, H = heavy users (26 or more articles per week) of Wikipedia. Response SM (N=62) V (N=70) SSC (N=618) AM (N=7) H (N=179) SMM (N=28) SMF (N=26) Explicitly seek WP 19% 60% 63% 57% 79% 25% 12% Slight preference for WP 29% 39% 34% 43% 20% 39% 23% Just click on top results 52% 1% 3% 0% 1% 35% 65%
An oversight on our part was not to include an option for people who avoided Wikipedia or did something else. This became apparent from the comments. For this reason, the “Just click on top results” options might be inflated. In addition, some comments indicated a mixed strategy of preferring Wikipedia for general overviews while avoiding it for specific inquiries, so allowing multiple selections might have been better for this question.
S1Q3: section vs whole page
This question is relevant for us because the work we fund is mainly whole-page creation. If people are mostly reading the introduction or a particular section like the “Criticisms” or “Reception” section (see S1Q5), then that forces us to consider spending more time on those sections, or to strengthen those sections on weak existing pages.
Responses to this question were fairly consistent across different audiences, as can be see in the following table.
Do you usually read a particular section of a page or the whole article? SM = SurveyMonkey audience, V = Vipul Naik’s timeline, SSC = Slate Star Codex audience, AM = Wikipedia Analytics mailing list, H = Heavy users (26 or more articles per week) of Wikipedia, SMM = SurveyMonkey males, SMF = SurveyMonkey females. Response SM (N=62) V (N=70) SSC (N=618) AM (N=7) H (N=179) SMM (N=28) SMF (N=26) Section 73% 80% 74% 86% 70% 68% 73% Whole 34% 23% 33% 29% 37% 39% 31%
People were allowed to select more than one option for this question. The comments indicate that several people do a combination, where they read the introductory portion of an article, then narrow down to the section of their interest.
S1Q4: search functionality on Wikipedia and surprise at lack of Wikipedia pages
We asked about whether people use the search functionality on Wikipedia because we wanted to know more about people’s article discovery methods. The data is summarized in the following table.
How often do you use the search functionality on Wikipedia? SM = SurveyMonkey audience, V = Vipul Naik’s timeline, SSC = Slate Star Codex audience, AM = Wikipedia Analytics mailing list, H = heavy users (26 or more articles per week) of Wikipedia, SMM = SurveyMonkey males, SMF = SurveyMonkey females. Response SM (N=62) V (N=69) SSC (N=613) AM (N=7) H (N=176) SMM (N=28) SMF (N=26) Several times per week 8% 14% 32% 57% 55% 14% 0% About once per week 19% 17% 21% 14% 15% 21% 19% About once per month 15% 13% 14% 0% 3% 14% 12% About once per several months 13% 12% 9% 14% 5% 7% 19% Never/almost never 45% 43% 24% 14% 23% 43% 50%
Many people noted here that rather than using Wikipedia’s search functionality, they use Google with “wiki” attached to their query, DuckDuckGo’s “!w” expression, or some browser configuration to allow a quick search on Wikipedia.
To be more thorough about discovering people’s content discovery methods, we should have asked about other methods as well. We did ask about the “See also” section in S1Q5.
Next, we asked how often people are surprised that there is no Wikipedia page on a topic to gauge to what extent people notice a “gap” between how Wikipedia exists today and how it could exist. We were curious about what articles people specifically found missing, so we followed up with S2Q4.
How often are you surprised that there is no Wikipedia page on a topic? SM = SurveyMonkey audience, V = Vipul Naik’s timeline, SSC = Slate Star Codex audience, AM = Wikipedia Analytics mailing list, H = heavy users (26 or more articles per week) of Wikipedia, SMM = SurveyMonkey males, SMF = SurveyMonkey females. Response SM (N=62) V (N=69) SSC (N=613) AM (N=7) H (N=176) SMM (N=28) SMF (N=26) Several times per week 2% 0% 2% 29% 6% 4% 0% About once per week 8% 22% 18% 14% 34% 14% 4% About once per month 18% 36% 34% 29% 31% 18% 15% About once per several months 21% 22% 27% 0% 19% 29% 15% Never/almost never 52% 20% 19% 29% 10% 36% 65%
Two comments on this question (out of 59) – both from the SSC group – specifically bemoaned deletionism, with one comment calling deletionism “a cancer killing Wikipedia”.
S1Q5: behavior on pages
This question was intended to gauge how often people perform an action for a specific page; as such, the frequencies are expressed in page-relative terms.
The following table presents the scores for each response, which are weighted by the number of responses. The scores range from 1 (for every page) to 5 (never); in other words, the lower the number, the more frequently one does the thing.
For what fraction of pages you read do you do the following? Note that the responses have been shortened here; see the Questions for S1 section for the wording used in the survey. Responses are sorted by the values in the SSC column. SM = SurveyMonkey audience, V = Vipul Naik’s timeline, SSC = Slate Star Codex audience, AM = Wikipedia Analytics mailing list, H = heavy users (26 or more articles per week) of Wikipedia, SMM = SurveyMonkey males, SMF = SurveyMonkey females. Response SM (N=54) V (N=69) SSC (N=596) AM (N=7) H (N=169) SMM (N=28) SMF (N=26) Check ≥1 citation 3.57 2.80 2.91 2.67 2.69 3.43 3.73 Look at “See also” 3.65 2.93 2.92 2.67 2.76 3.43 3.88 Read mostly for “Criticisms” or “Reception” 4.35 3.12 3.34 3.83 3.14 4.32 4.38 Click through ≥1 source to verify information 3.80 3.07 3.47 3.17 3.36 3.86 3.73 Share the page 4.11 3.72 3.86 3.67 3.79 4.11 4.12 Look at the talk page 4.31 4.28 4.03 3.00 3.86 4.21 4.42 Look at the editing history 4.35 4.32 4.12 3.33 3.92 4.36 4.35 Edit a page for grammatical/typographical errors 4.50 4.41 4.22 3.67 4.02 4.54 4.46 Edit a page to add new information 4.61 4.55 4.49 3.83 4.34 4.57 4.65 Look at editing history to verify author 4.50 4.65 4.48 3.67 4.73 4.46 4.54 Check how many pageviews a page is getting 4.63 4.88 4.96 3.17 4.92 4.68 4.58
The table above provides a good ranking of how often people perform these actions on pages, but not the distribution information (which would require three dimensions to present fully). In general, the more common actions (scores of 2.5–4) had responses that clustered among “For some pages”, “For very few pages”, and “Never”, while the less common actions (scores above 4) had responses that clustered mainly in “Never”.
One comment (out of 43) – from the SSC group, but a different individual from the two in S1Q4 – bemoaned deletionism.
S2Q1: number of Wikipedia pages read per week
Note the wording changes from S1Q1: “less” was changed to “fewer”, the clarification “at least one sentence of” was added, and we explicitly allowed any language. (The explicit allowing of any language was in the introduction to the survey and not part of the question itself). We have also presented the survey 1 results for the SurveyMonkey audience in the corresponding rows, but note that because of the change in wording, the correspondence isn’t exact.
How many distinct Wikipedia pages do you read (at least one sentence of) per week on average? SM = SurveyMonkey audience with no demographic filters, CEYP = College-educated young people of SurveyMonkey, S1SM = SurveyMonkey audience with no demographic filters from the first survey, SMM = SurveyMonkey males, SMF = SurveyMonkey females, CEYPM = College-educated young males of SurveyMonkey, CEYPF = College-educated young females of SurveyMonkey. Response SM (N=54) CEYP (N=50) S1SM (N=62) SMM (N=25) SMF (N=26) CEYPM (N=24) CEYPF (N=26) Fewer than 1 37% 32% 42% 32% 42% 29% 35% 1 to 10 48% 64% 45% 40% 54% 67% 62% 11 to 25 7% 2% 13% 16% 0% 4% 0% 26 or more 7% 2% 0% 12% 4% 0% 4% pgs/wk lower 3.07 1.38 1.88 5.28 1.58 1.11 1.66 pgs/wk upper 9.02 7.82 8.17 11.92 7.02 7.99 7.55
The “pgs/wk lower” is obtained as the average pages read per week if everybody read at the lower end of their estimate (so the respective estimates are 0, 1, 11, and 26). The “pgs/wk upper” is obtained as the average of pages read per week if everybody read at the upper end of their estimate, except the “26 or more” case where we assume a value of 50 (so the respective estimates are 1, 10, 25, and 50). For more, see the S1Q1 explanation.
Comparing SM with S1SM, we see that probably because of the wording, the percentages have drifted in the direction of more pages read. It might be surprising that |
times.
Strictly speaking, you could argue Bush reduced income inequality in his final two years.
This is, of course, absurd. There was a recession and financial crisis that caused huge investment losses for the rich, wiping out a big part of their income. The downturn also increased unemployment and eliminated wage pressure at the bottom, far outweighing gains caused by the increase in the minimum wage.
As you can see in the following chart (gray highlights a few recessions), declines in market inequality are often a side effect of economic contractions. In the 13 recessions since the onset of the Great Depression, all but two ended with market inequality lower than it was before the recession started. Nobody would say a president should seek to cause a recession in order to shrink inequality.
4. This is why I argue Obama reduced inequality. Obama has put in place tax code changes and subsides for the poor that are narrowing post-policy inequality significantly.
This is true if you look at post-policy inequality between the rich and the poor, and post-policy inequality between the rich and the middle, although it's much less dramatic in the latter case.
The key policies Obama introduced include: higher tax rates on the wealthy, new levies on upper-income Americans in the Affordable Care Act and expanded refundable tax credits for the poor. They also include a more generous program of health insurance for low- and moderate-income Americans, achieved through subsidies and expanded Medicaid.
The new taxes took effect last year, and the Affordable Care Act’s expanded insurance provisions began this year. Unfortunately, CBO does not have data beyond 2010. So I turned to the non-partisan Tax Policy Center to do an analysis comparing market and post-tax inequality today, versus a world in which Obama’s tax policies never took effect.
(The center’s analysis is different than the CBO’s, so you can't do apples-to-apples comparisons between the two. For instance, the center includes Social Security and food stamps in pre-tax income, and it doesn’t take into account non-cash benefits like Medicare and Medicaid. But it’s the closest approximation we currently have).
As I wrote last week, the center’s analysis showed that after taxes, the top 1 percent on average makes 84 times what the bottom 20 percent takes home. Without Obama policies, it would have taken home 91 times what the bottom takes home. The top, meanwhile, takes home 22 times what the middle takes home, versus 23 times without Obama policy.
(Tax Policy Center)
You can extend the analysis to include the ACA’s subsidies and Medicaid expansion. This year, the CBO estimates that the subsidies and Medicaid expansion will cost $37 billion, growing to $139 billion by the time the ACA is fully implemented in 2016. Make no mistake: This is a transfer of income to the poor and middle class worth $1.8 trillion trillion over a decade.
Here's a back-of-the-envelope, illustrative calculation. With over 100 million households among the bottom 60 percent of earners, the ACA is likely to add around $1,200 in income (in the form of health insurance) for the average family in this group. It would be worth more at the lower end. If you add $1,400 to the income of the bottom 20 percent -- an 11 percent increase in income -- the ratio of the top 1 percent to the bottom 20 percent would fall further, from 84 today to 76.
5. Obama has done a lot to shrink the gap between the poor and rich, but very little to shrink the gap between the middle class and rich. And the future is working against him.
I haven't said, and I don't mean to suggest, that Obama has done enough to reduce income inequality. In fact, I'm not even arguing that it's good that Obama has taken any steps at all to reduce inequality. Instead, I'm trying to convey, as best as possible, what the impact has been, and make an argument for why it is significant.
By reducing the post-policy income of the rich, and increasing the post-policy income of the poor, Obama has made progress on his goal of reducing the income gap. To the degree that he also wanted to narrow the gap between the middle class and rich, he hasn't been particularly successful. Given the stagnation of middle class incomes -- with the theory being that income is flowing to the top rather the middle -- this must be a disappointment for him.
For those who wish see inequality narrow further, the future doesn't look bright as this chart shows. Between 2013 and 2017, the Tax Policy Center's model estimates that market income for the bottom 20 percent will grow 19 percent, without adjusting for inflation, while market income for the top 1 percent will grow 48 percent. Post-policy inequality will increase, from a multiple of 84 today to 95 in 2017.
It's true that the ACA and tax code will continue to reduce post-policy inequality as Obama wraps up his presidency. But market forces will be continuing to widen inequality.Auston Matthews not guaranteed; still a remote chance that John Chayka attempts a kidnapping.
We had so fun at our last party, that we’ve decided to throw one again! With the picks set in stone as book-enders (1st and 30th), it’s our pleasure to announce that The Leafs Nation will be hosting our first-ever Draft Night party! Here’s what you need to know.
Last Time
On April 30th, we convened as a group for the first time in site history, assembling to witness the most nerve-wracking game of the season; the draft lottery. After months and months of watching the Leafs get blessings from the PDO gods to just barely become the 30th seed, we crossed our fingers that 20% odds would lead to 100% elation.
It did. We practically tore the roof off of the place in excitement. Shortly after the card flipped, I came out of hiding with the world’s most makeshift Auston Matthews tee. It was awesome. If you missed it, I feel bad for you. But you can redeem yourself.
Round Two
With that said, we’re going to do this all over again. There probably isn’t much speculation about who the Leafs are going to pick first (sorry, one person in the comments who still wants Laine), but there’s still a matter of the Pittsburgh pick at 30th that will leave many debating, especially as players begin to rise and fall. Maybe there’s a trade or two? Oh, and hey, we’ll get to see that sweet new sweater for the first time too!
To add further incentive, we’re going to be giving away some sweet NationGear, and might have some other cool giveaways as well. Members of the TLN Staff will be around, and maybe a few other people. Trivia will be played, and maybe we’ll even do a live rendition of the mailbag. One thing’s for sure, though: it’s going to be a ton of fun.
A Time and A Place
We’re not messing with success. Our last arrangement led to Auston Matthews, so we’ll hope this leads to, say, Laine dropping 28 spots. Probably not, but a website can dream. We’ll be back at The Titled Kilt at 38 The Esplanade next Friday night. As mentioned before, The Esplanade is as good of a location as any for a meetup; it’s a five-minute walk from Union Station, meaning that it’s easily accessible via TTC/GO/Via, which is great for those deciding to drink.
We’ll be kicking things off around 6:00 PM, giving plenty of time for you to get your first beverage and some dinner in before the various GM’s begin to thank an everlasting list of people for their opportunity to force a teenager to play for their hockey team.
If you’re interested in coming, make sure to say so on our Facebook Event Page! We went into the last event not knowing who would show up, but if we know there’s a good crowd coming, we might be able to up some ante and make this an even bigger night than the last one!After months of reportedly going into hiding, the outspoken Tunisian feminist who sparked a trend of “topless jihad” has been found and arrested by Tunisian authorities earlier this week and may be charged for conducting “provocative acts.”
Amina Tyler, 19, was found in the midst of police scuffles with hardline Salafist group Ansar al-Shariah in the central Tunisian city of Kairouan on Sunday.
Tyler previously described herself as a member of the Ukrainian feminist group Femen, which uses nudity in protests.
Witnesses said she allegedly scrawled “Femen” on the wall near the main mosque and may have intended to hang a banner on the building before an angry crowd gathered and started shouting at her to leave, according to The Associated Press.
Video posted by the Tunisian online Nawaat news site shows Tyler, with dyed blonde hair, clutching a banner and being hustled away by police and put into a van as residents chased her.
A local resident shouts at the camera: “She is dishonoring us. We will protect our town, but a dirty girl like her shouldn’t come among us.”
Mohammed Ali Aroui, the spokesman for the Tunisian interior ministry, described her acts as provocative and said she was under investigation and may be charged for her behavior on Sunday. He added that he understood the angry reaction of local residents to her appearance.
The ministry had banned Ansar al-Shariah’s annual conference, citing it as a threat to security and public order, and sent 11,000 soldiers and police to prevent hardline Muslims, known as salafis, from entering Kairouan.
In March, Tyler posted pictures of her topless body with the phrase “my body is my own” scrawled on it, and she went into hiding after receiving death threats. Her family took her to stay with relatives outside the capital before she escaped and hid with friends.
A month later, Tyler had been trying to leave Tunisia, her former lawyer said after a video surfaced in which the woman recounted being drugged and given virginity tests by relatives.
“Free Amina” rallies held by bare-breasted Femen activists hit Paris last month as Tyler’s supporters feared she would soon face criminal prosecution.
Last Update: Tuesday, 21 May 2013 KSA 09:31 - GMT 06:31“India has one of the largest unbanked populations, 50% of the population is unbanked, I think Bitcoin can play a part in banking the unbanked.” - Sunny Ray, Unocoin Co-Founder
Bitcoin and the Indian market being a rare combination, especially after early central bank disapproval makes Sunny Ray and Sathvik Vishwanath, the co-founders of Unocoin, amongst the few in the league of Bitcoin entrepreneurs in India.
Sunny Ray graduated an Electrical engineer from The University of Toronto and spent a few years in clean energy before he left to get into financial services.
Just around 2008-09, when the financial meltdown occurred. He vividly remembers asking a lot of questions about how the financial system worked and asking the question, “what is money?”
And even though he had accumulated several licenses and met many a financial whiz, nobody could truly explain to him, what money was. This led him to eventually leave financial services and foray into a passion of his, robotics, which he pursued for 7-8 years before eventually discovering Bitcoin.
That’s when everything changed both for Sunny and arguably the Indian Bitcoin market.
Unocoin became the first Indian Bitcoin start-up to be funded internationally in August 2014 when legendary investor Barry Silbert infused US$250,000 in Unocoin.
Today, the Bangalore based start-up has more than 11,000 registered users and is growing at a rate of more than 25% month over month (across the board).
Cointelegraph: How would you describe the position of the Bitcoin community in India?
Sunny Ray: I would say it’s on the rise. But it’s still 2-3 years behind the rest of the world when compared to China or USA.
CT: You were one of the founders of Bitcoin Alliance India, what initiatives have you’ll spearheaded there?
SR: The alliance started off with me and my wife and two other guys and eventually grew close to 1,000 people in Bangalore alone. So through those meet ups we had bankers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, technologists and other people come together and talk Bitcoin. We eventually threw the Global Bitcoin Conference in Bangalore and took some big attempts at mining. We also began distributing physical bitcoins in an effort to educate the public and policymakers.
“If you look at the Internet, India was fairly late to that party as well but once they showed up, there was no stopping them. I think the same thing is happening with Bitcoin.”
CT: The rise of Bitcoin seems to be very slow in India, where do you think the resistance in acceptance lies? Do Indians seem inclined to accept and understand Bitcoin?
SR: Being a Canadian raised by Indian parents, the one thing I know about Indian people is that they always show up late to parties, but once they show up, there is no stopping them. I think the same principle follows in other aspects of India. If you look at the Internet, India was fairly late to that party as well but once they showed up, there was no stopping them. I think the same thing is happening with Bitcoin.
India is the golden place for Bitcoin for a couple of reasons:
Bitcoin is often referred to as digital gold and India is the largest importer of gold, India has the largest number of IT professionals, people who actually have the technical chops to understand Bitcoin, so if you mix those two elements, digital gold definitely has a huge potential here. So that’s one big reason. The remittance market is about a US$700 billion market with about US$70 billion coming into India, so India is the largest inward remitter. India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, a couple of months ago in front of the G-20 mentioned that one of the main goals of the country is to try and bring down the cost of remittance and I think Bitcoin is positioned to do that. With Bitcoin you could easily bring the cost of remittance down from 10% to 1%. I also think that India has one of the largest unbanked populations, 50 % of the population is unbanked, I think Bitcoin can play a part in banking the unbanked.
CT: You mentioned earlier the applicability of Bitcoin in microfinance and helping the unbanked. With the latest changes in RBI regulation towards payment bank policy, do you think Bitcoin could play a bigger role in the Indian microfinance sector? And would that be a play that Unocoin would be interested in?
SR: Yeah, we’re definitely very interested in potentially being able to help the unbanked. But Bitcoin the way it stands today I don’t think is very well positioned to help the unbanked because it is volatile, while say for a millionaire to loose 5-10% of the asset value in a week wouldn’t be a big deal but for someone in a rural area with an income equal to US$5-10 it would be extremely risky. So I don’t think that BTC as a savings mechanism makes lot of sense for the poorest but the protocol of Bitcoin could definitely help in the rural sector.
There are companies such as blockstream and colorstream, which are working towards launching a digital rupee or digital dollar that would have all the benefits of Bitcoin. Being able to move it around fast, freely and cheaply but at the same time it would be tied to the national currency, so I think something of that sort would be a safer option for the poor immediately. However, in time we’re sure that Bitcoin itself could also help with microfinance.
“Unocoin is the leading Bitcoin Company in India and we are a wallet service similar to Coinbase[.]”
CT: How has Unocoin managed to integrate Bitcoin in the average Indian’s wallet?
SR: Unocoin is the leading Bitcoin Company in India and we are a wallet service similar to Coinbase where we enable people to come onto our system and buy and sell Bitcoin. This off course after you get through our extensive registration and KYC process. You can send us money from your bank account and we send across the equivalent in bitcoin or you could send across bitcoin and we would send the equivalent in Rupees, so our main role has been to be the bridge between the old and the new financial system in India.
CT: With the various innovations taking place in the Bitcoin space, one such innovation being the Gemini exchange in New York, which seeks to have a regulatory approach towards Bitcoin, what kind of approach in terms of regulations would you foresee in India in terms of dealing with Bitcoin?
SR: So far the main source of concern for regulators in India has been protection, so governments want to make sure that if people are dealing with bitcoin or Bitcoin companies in India that people are not left in the wind. So most of the regulation should be around protocols like Know Your Client (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and most of that we take care of at Unocoin, so we require anyone who uses our system to go through the process of providing legal documentation, we do a phone verification and then we do all of that in the absence of regulation, but we believe that in the near future that those types of verification will come into play.
I know that our investor Barry Silbert has just launched the Bitcoin Investment Trust, which will now enable anyone in the US through their 401 (k) or their retirement savings plan to actually invest in bitcoin. All these institutions are making sure they play fair with regulators so that is definitely a big step.
CT: What would you say is the typical path of a Bitcoin entrepreneur in India?
SR: Well, it’s definitely riddled with failure and trying different things. Like for us we’ve explored mining, throwing conferences, using physical bitcoins, we just kept trying different things, which were exciting for us. Then finally we discovered that a trading platform would be most useful, especially because we ourselves in India were in the need of a trading platform where we could buy and sell bitcoin easily and safely.
So scratching your own itch is a big part of entrepreneurship especially in India.
Did you enjoy this article? You may also be interested in reading these ones:Surging unemployment and financial disarray have stoked a fever of separatism in Catalonia, a comparatively prosperous part of Spain whose leaders say their wealth is being sucked dry by the central government.
Crowds waved red and yellow striped Catalan flags – one of the oldest still in use in Europe – and sang the Catalan anthem on a national day marking the conquest of Catalonia by Spain's King Philip V in 1714 after a 13 month siege of Barcelona.
The regional government said the crowd was 600,000 strong. Local police gave figures as high as 1.5 million.
Marchers said the sheer size of the crowd – swollen with people from around the region who descended on its capital in bright sunshine – would at last make Madrid hear their message.
"This is a blow for the government. People like me came from everywhere. I don't think they were expecting something as big," said 53-years-old Teresa Cabanes, who came from Santa Coloma de Gramanet, in the outskirts of Barcelona, to march.
"We feel that the central government is fooling with us. We Catalans are giving away a lot of money to Spain."
With Spain's economy in freefall from the euro zone debt crisis, Catalans complain of paying billions of euros more in taxes than they receive back from Madrid, even as their regional government has been forced to fire workers and cut services.
The colossal outpouring on Tuesday was a sign that the economic crisis has transformed issues of cultural identity into a mainstream political movement bent on autonomy. A poll by the regional government in July showed for the first time that more than half of Catalonia's population favours independence.
Source: ReutersUpdate: Check out the 2018 list of the NHL's most valuable teams.
Combine lots of playoff hockey and a cash-rich arena with the National Hockey League's biggest market and you get the sport's most valuable franchise.
For the first time since 2004 the New York Rangers are the most valuable team in the NHL, worth $1.2 billion. The Rangers generated the most revenue ($229 million) in the league during the 2014-15 season, cashing in on the $1 billion renovation of Madison Square Garden and drives to the Stanley Cup finals in 2014 and Eastern Conference Finals in 2015. The Rangers took in more than $95 million from premium seating and advertising at MSG last season, tops in the NHL.
Moving up from third in 2014 to second are the Montreal Canadiens, worth $1.18 billion, 18% more than last year. Of the seven Canadian teams, Les Habitants were the only one to increase in value over the past year. Last season, the Canadiens began a long-term local television deal with Réseau des sports that will pay the team an average of C$68 million a season, more than double their previous agreement.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, meanwhile, are the third most valuable team in hockey after falling 12%, to $1.15 billion. The Leafs had held the top spot since 2006 (Forbes did not compile valuations in 2005 due to the 2004-05 lockout) but have been undone by bad hockey and a weaker Canadian currency relative to the Greenback. Toronto has only been in the playoffs once since 2006 and the team’s 13-year sellout streak at the Air Canada Centre was broken last March.
The average NHL team is now worth $505 million, which is a 3% increase from 2014. Revenue averaged $133 million per team for the 2014-15 season, 8% more than the previous season (Note: Although our valuations are based on multiples of revenue, last year's NHL valuations--18.6% higher than 2013--were adjusted for the league's new 12- year media rights deal with Rogers Communications, even though the agreement did not began until the 2014-15 season). Meanwhile, operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) averaged $15 million, almost identical to the 2013-14 season.
Another drag on this year's financial results: During the 2014-15 season the value of the Canadian dollar fell 10% against the U.S. dollar compared with the 2013-14 season. This was particularly harsh for Canadian teams (the 23 U.S. teams were also hurt by the devaluation of the Rogers media deal) because they collect revenue (tickets, advertising, local media) in Canadian dollars and pay their players with U.S. dollars.
Special Report: The Business Of Hockey
Hockey is by far the most tribal of the major North American sports. During the 21014-15 season, over 80% of the NHL's revenue was generated from local (non-shared) sources, like tickets, luxury seating, advertising and television. With a sport where the regular season is often a break-even proposition, team values are driven by the playoffs and cable television deals.
The Chicago Blackhawks, for example, with three Stanley Cups over the past six seasons, are arguably the league's first dynasty since the Edmonton Oilers of the late 1980s. Chicago's value rose 12% this year, to $925 million. Team owner Rocky Wirtz owns 50% of the United Center and by my calculations earned an additional $25 million of operating income or so each of those three championship seasons.
The Washington Capitals value increased 13%, to $565 million, over the past year. Owner Ted Leonsis, who also owns the NBA's Wizards, is reportedly close to inking a new media deal for both teams with Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic. The Capitals’ average rights fee could more than double, to roughly $28 million per year. Although the new agreement would not begin until the 2017-18 season, we conservatively adjusted our value of the Capitals for a new local television deal because independent sources have verified a more more lucrative agreement is pending.
Notice that some teams lost money last season yet increased in value. The Tampa Bay Lightning's trip to the finals did not quite enable the team to turn a profit last season but did give them a much better shot this year. The Lightning, up 15%, to $260 million, sold 3,000 new season tickets since the playoff push, putting them up to 13,500 total for the 2015-16 season. Owner Jeff Vinik's strategy is to strengthen the Lightning's brand as part of a his broader game plan to develop Tampa real estate.
The St. Louis Blues posted an operating loss of $7 million in 2014-15, but rose 15% in value, to $270 million. Tom Stillman's group took control of the team in 2012 and I think the franchise is on more solid ground than it was under the previous owners, who front-loaded concession and TV deals to make debt payments. Stillman cut overhead and the team's attendance and average non-premium ticket prices both increased 9% last season.
The most bullish signal for the league since the Rogers media deal was the agreement reached with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, baseball's internet and technology arm, this summer. MLBAM will pay the National Hockey League $100 million annually starting next year to operate the NHL.com website, and the NHL Network will also distribute out-of-market games online through NHL GameCenter Live and through television providers on NHL Center Ice. In addition to the rights fees that MLBAM will pay, the NHL will get a stake of 7% to 10% in BAM Tech, which could fetch between $3 billion to $5 billion if it were carved out of its parent.
Drew Dorweiler, an expert on team valuations, says: "The NHL's deal with MLBAM provides highly visible platforms with proven success on which NHL content will be provided to an international audience. Most importantly, NHL franchise values will be enhanced, both immediately through the incremental revenues to be achieved over the deal term, as well as intangibly, over a longer horizon, as this new digital media technology company will attract additional fans, both domestic and international, who will become engaged followers."
Revenues and operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization are for the 2014-15 season and net of revenue sharing and arena debt service. Team values are enterprise values (equity plus net debt). Using past transactions as a guide (for example, the lone NHL deal completed in 2015 for a significant stake were the Minnesota Wild for $370 million), we use comparable multiples of revenue, adjusted for pending arena and media deals.
Full List: NHL Team Values 2015
Our valuations include the revenue teams get from their arenas and regional sports networks, but exclude the equity value of interests team owners may have in them. In contrast, we do include the equity stakes the league has with non-NHL businesses, such as Fantatics and Outerstuff, because the equity in those businesses is shared equally among the NHL's 30 teams and would be part of any team sale.
Indeed, I suspect two reasons why there has not been a team sale recently is because owners are waiting to see how much MLBAM's tech arm is worth, and the belief that virtual reality rights will add significant revenue to the league.
Special Report: The Business Of HockeySteve Hilton says he found ‘much to welcome’ in Labour leader’s ascent, and predicts victory for Donald Trump in US
Steve Hilton, the prime minister’s former “blue skies thinker,” has said the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has been “bullied” by the Westminster establishment because of his unconventional approach to politics.
David Cameron used a Commons encounter with Corbyn in February to take him to task for not properly fastening a tie, saying: “I know what my mother would say. I think she’d look across the dispatch box and she’d say: put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem.”
But Cameron’s former adviser, in London this week to promote the UK edition of his book More Human, told the Guardian: “What I really hated about the reaction to Corbyn at the very beginning was this immediate, … very bullying ganging-up by the political establishment to say: this guy is not doing it the way we are used to doing it; he’s not wearing a tie; he’s not reshuffling his cabinet in the way we’re used to doing it.” He added: “I thought it was incredibly unattractive.”
Hilton said he found “much to welcome” when Corbyn, with his unpolished style and appeal to a “kinder, gentler politics”, won the Labour leadership race – though he feared Corbyn did not have the skills required for the role.
“The point of being leader of the opposition is that it’s quite a tough job, in terms of pure management. It’s not easy, and I think that’s where he’s coming unstuck. But that kind of impulse of really representing a break with the way things are done is something I really share.”
Britain’s two-party political system isn’t working | Steve Hilton Read more
Hilton believes Corbyn’s popularity reflects the same anti-establishment forces that have propelled Donald Trump to a compelling lead in the US Republican primaries, and allowed the avowed socialist Bernie Sanders to run Hillary Clinton far closer than many commentators expected.
“I think that Corbyn’s success, just as the success of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, is a reflection of this frustration that people have that whatever they do, in terms of voting for different parties, nothing much seems to change,” he said.
Hilton was a central figure in the modernisation of the Conservative party, brought into No 10 by Cameron to foster radical ideas including the “big society”. He was notorious for roaming barefoot around Downing Street, and was parodied as the jargon-spouting Stewart Pearson in the political satire The Thick of It.
After leaving No 10 for California in 2012, Hilton says he has lost faith in the capacity of mainstream politicians to improve people’s lives, and barely follows the fortunes of the Conservatives, the party that once brought him into the heart of government.
He has started a tech company, Crowdpac, which aims to help raise money to fund independent candidates to run for public office without the backing of a party.
“I think that is something I feel very, very strongly about, which is for decades now there’s been this growing reality that whoever has been in office, the same people are in power,” he said. “When Corbyn was elected, I found there was a lot to welcome there.”
In language that could equally be used by Corbyn’s lieutenant and shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, Hilton said: “It is a technocratic elite of bankers, bureaucrats and accountants that push a particular agenda, which is all about centralisation of economic power in the hands of fewer and fewer big businesses, and centralisation of political power, which means that people at grassroots level feel they have less and less control over the things that matter to them, and people are getting more and more fed up with it.”
More Human by Steve Hilton – digested read Read more
He believes Trump, rather than being the extreme figure that US liberals fear, would help to tackle some of the deep-seated problems in the country’s political life.
“I think that he’s going to win,” Hilton said. “I think it could be a really refreshing change, frankly. That doesn’t mean I agree with everything he’s saying, but I very much agree with the arguments he’s making about the rottenness of the current system in America.”
He added: “Trump makes really, really powerful arguments, for example in relation to healthcare. He talks about the cartels and the concentration of power and the health insurance companies effectively having monopolies and ripping people off.”Disclaimer: This story is based on the characters and world created by JK Rowling. Anything you do not recognise is my own creation. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
To Linus: without your father, this story would not exist.
'No spell can reawaken the dead' – Albus Dumbledore
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
– CHAPTER ONE –
Death of an Alley Rat
A man, terrified, darts through the heavy darkness of Knockturn Alley. His squat legs carry him away from his impending doom. He tries once more to Apparate, but to no avail. He glances over his shoulder, his bloodshot eyes wide and lidless. But, naturally, his pursuer is nowhere to be seen.
He hesitates. The Alley is utterly still; nothing moves. There is a chance – a sliver of a chance – that Death has found new prey. Pipe hanging limp in his mouth, he comes to a stuttering halt. He is wheezing and wracked with pain, but his eyes are active, darting this way and that, intent on finding the predator.
The crooked Victorian buildings that once signified all he cared about in the world - making a quick Galleon - seem to close in around him. Each one could be in league with Death, each one could betray him.
A sudden breeze picks up and autumn leaves caress his shaking ankles. With it comes a fell voice …
'Mundungus … Mundungus …'
Clang!
The sound of his own pipe hitting the cobbled street makes him jump a foot in the air. In an instant, he draws his wand and fires a hopeful spell into the distance.
Can he hear laughter, or is he imagining it?
He takes flight once more, sure now that Death is playing with him first before it delivers the fatal strike.
His pounding footfalls and quick, rasping breaths pierce the silence. He searches desperately for an avenue of escape, or a safe haven.
Then he disappears; the only sign of him is the gently swinging door of the nearby tavern. But that is the only sign Death needs.
The tavern is almost empty. A ceiling of smoke writhes like a menacing weather system. Its source is a group of hags in the corner whose skin is as green as the crumbling wallpaper. The boil-covered barman scrubs a lop-sided table with a cloth filthier than the surface.
A gust of wind whistles through the establishment, plunging it into darkness.
The darkness is pierced by a brilliant green light that illuminates the pub. Then another. And another.
The candles relight. Only two figures remain standing.
One is Mundungus Fletcher, disguised as a hag. He desperately clambers over the two dead hags in an attempt to get clear of the other figure: Death. But there is no escape.
Knowing this, Mundungus shouts, 'Premo!'
Death bats away the curse with the merest flick of its wand.
'Delibro! Fammipio! Lacero! Avada Kedavra!'
Death side-steps the Killing Curse with ease and laughs.
'You dare use that curse against me?'
Its voice is barely above a whisper, but causes Mundungus to freeze in horror.
'Y – You?' mumbles Mundungus, his wand trembling.
'That stick is no longer of any use to you,' says Death.
A jet of golden fire issues from Death's wand and races towards Mundungus'. Upon contact, Mundungus' wand explodes, showering the floor with sawdust. Mundugus stares, aghast, at the spot where his wand had once been. He falls to his knees. Slowly, he looks up at Death.
'P – Please, 'ave mercy!'
Death places the tip of its wand on Mundungus' forehead. Mundungus clenches his eyes shut and mumbles a prayer. His fear trickles down his thighs and forms a sodden pool around his knees. The stench of it hangs in the air.
'Do you deserve mercy?' whispers Death.
'E – Ev'rythin' I've d-done … c – circumstances …' Mundungus' quivering voice is barely audible.
'Circumstances? Yes, I can understand that. You see, thief, circumstances called me here tonight.'
''Ave anythin'! Y – You want g – gold?'
Mundungus' produces a bag from his pocket. Death throws back its head and laughs. 'Gold?'
Death lowers its wand and Mundungus' eyes open, renewed hope mingled with the fear. But Death has other plans. With the merest hand movement, Mundungus' bag of gold goes the same way as his wand and he stares, horrified, at the plume of golden rain.
'I have no need for your metal trinkets, thief. You have nothing I need, nothing but information; information I could get from any other Alley rat.'
'A – Anythin' … please …'
'Some days ago,' says Death, 'I finally came to claim Harry Potter. But I was unsuccessful.'
'W – What?' breathes Mundungus, staring up into Death's black hood.
'Were there any eye-witnesses?'
'B – Bu' y – you –'
'Consider your wand and bag of gold. Consider, next, your head and answer me.'
'I s – swear I don' know!' cries Mundungus. In his blind panic, he yells, 'L – Lazarus! Lazarus migh' know. Swear to Merlin I don'!'
'Thank you, Mundungus.'
Death turns its back on Mundungus, much to the thief's relief. But the relief is short-lived.
Death disappears. The heavy silence of Knockturn Alley is disturbed by the deafening screams of a dying man.While eSports are in fact being considered for inclusion in the 2024 Olympic Games, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach isn’t keen on giving a spotlight to games that promote any kind of violence.
In comments given to the South China Morning Post, Bach explains he favors competitive games based around playing football or “other sports virtually," potentially over some of the more popular but violent eSports staples that could go against what he defines as "Olympic values".
"We want to promote non-discrimination, non-violence, and peace among people. This doesn't match with video games, which are about violence, explosions, and killing,” said Bach. “And there were have to draw a clear line."
While Bach doesn’t name specific games as examples of what is or is not appropriate for Olympic audiences, his comments later in the interview seem to imply that the International Olympic Committee is more interested in featuring digital athletics rather than giving a platform to potentially violent eSports mainstays like Overwatch and League of Legends.
“So if ever somebody is competing at playing football virtually or playing other sports virtually, this is of high interest,” he tells the China Morning Post. “We hope that, then, these players are really delivering sports performance. If [fans] at the end would even play the sports in the real world, we would even be more happy."
The ongoing Olympic eSports conversations got its start earlier this month when the Paris Olympic Bid committee pitched the idea ahead of the 2024 Summer Games. At the time, |
comes to the split between the Obama administration and the Israeli government, these Democrats are siding with Israel against President Obama. In response to the administration's position, Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-NV) said, "My concern is that we are applying the pressure to the wrong party... I think it would serve America's interest better if we were pressuring the Iranians to eliminate the potential of a nuclear threat from Iran, and less time pressuring our allies and the only democracy in the Middle East to stop the natural growth of their settlements." This may come as a surprise to Rep. Berkley, but Israel is not the only democracy in the Middle East. The other one is Turkey, which is coincidentally predominantly Muslim. And according to Rep. Berkley, when threats come from places like Iran, we must preemptively stop them, but if they are from Israel in the form of illegal settlements on occupied land, it's "natural growth."
Meanwhile, Rep Anthony Weiner (D-NY) also attacked President Obama's position, saying, "There's a line between articulating U.S. policy and seeming to be pressuring a democracy on what are their domestic policies, and the president is tiptoeing right up to that line." Memo to Rep. Weiner: Settlements are not a legal part of Israel, and therefore, Israel's settlement policy is not Israel's "domestic" policy. And Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY) made a similar comment, saying "I don't think anybody wants to dictate to an ally what they have to do in their own national security interests." So if one of our allies pursues a policy that is completely contradictory to what we stand for as a country, we have to accept its behavior over our own principles and interests? If we are to accept any behavior by our ally, then why are we being so selective in picking allies to begin with? Why not just call Iran our ally too and overlook everything they do because they will be our ally? What is the point of having allies if having them will require us sacrificing our nation's own self-interest?The nomination of Rep. Jim Bridenstine James (Jim) Frederick BridenstineNASA names facility for 'Hidden Figures' inspiration Katherine Johnson SpaceX could disrupt NASA plan to return humans to the moon Hillicon Valley: Lawmakers press officials on 2020 election security | T-Mobile, Sprint execs defend merger before Congress | Officials charge alleged Iranian spy | Senate panel kicks off talks on data security bill MORE (R-Okla.) to lead the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) is only the most recent sign that the Donald J. Trump administration is serious about an expanded role for the United States in space. Recent advances in the private sector are expanding commercial opportunities, raising the urgency of expanding space research and operational capabilities for the Department of Defense as well as NASA.
And space isn’t cheap.
As Secretary of Defense 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 and Bridenstine (if confirmed) look for ways to close the gap between growing need and available resources, they should look north to Canada, a longstanding partner and ally that can and should be invited to do more with the United States.
Defense beyond NORAD
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Canada and the United States jointly defend North American airspace through the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) command, but Canada’s contributions have been limited to air-breathing threats. Canadian governments have historically been opposed to space “militarization,” however in June, the Trudeau government announced that the country would commit to increasing defense spending from the current $18.9 billion to $32.7 billion by 2027, an increase of 73 percent. The spending hike included prioritizing space capabilities such as satellite communications and surveillance, and allowing for “critical investments in important areas such as space and cyber.”
Additionally, Canada has launched a new “Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security” (IDEaS) program that targets support for research and development of space-related technologies. IDEaS is expected to receive $1.6 billion over the next 20 years, and is tasked with identifying national security problems and seeking innovative solutions from both academia and the private sector.
The U.S. should consider promoting cooperation between IDEaS and the U.S. Department of Defense programs like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx). Cooperative efforts could include cost-sharing and cross-border public-private partnerships, which can benefit both governments as well as the universities and private entities with whom they work.
Joint U.S.-Canadian projects have led to cost-sharing and improved project management before. The United States and Canada successfully partnered in the development and deployment of the successful Sapphire satellite, a Canadian-made satellite currently providing data to the U.S. Space Surveillance Network to improve situational awareness in space.
Canada’s Department of National Defence is asking the United States and other allies to invest in their Enhanced Satellite Communication Project, which would provide 24/7 surveillance of the Arctic and is estimated to cost anywhere from $1.5 billion to $2.4 billion. National security would benefit from improved domain awareness in the Arctic for U.S. Northern Command, and the Canadian program would share the burden financially with Canadian taxpayers.
NASA and the Canadian Space Agency
Additionally, the Canadian Space Agency has partnered with NASA on many projects dating back to 1969. While CSA funding has been declining overall, CSA has found ways to make progress with limited resources, such as the comparatively low cost $80.9 million investment in radar equipment intended to survey Mars and for investigating the use of quantum computing technology in space.
And CSA continues to develop innovative products through partnering with domestic industry. The RADARSAT program has been a leading radar imaging satellite program for over two decades, beginning in the 1990s with the launch of their first satellite, RADARSAT-1. CSA is currently working on their third model, the RADARSAT Constellation, to be launched in 2018 by U.S. commercial space pioneer SpaceX.
Trump’s recent re-establishment of the National Space Council was preceded by the renewal of the Canadian Space Advisory Board. The first goal of the advisory board is to assist Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development with the development of a new space strategy through outreach to stakeholders. Coordination with the U.S. National Space Council should be a priority.
U.S.-Canada Space Collaboration
The number of innovative U.S. and Canadian firms exploring the commercial potential of space will grow in support of terrestrial applications such as communications and navigation. In Ottawa, this has prompted calls for Canada to acquire greater capacity to protect national interests in the freedom of space navigation, with the Canadian Senate’s Standing Committee on National Security and Defence recommending earlier this year that Canada’s space assets be designated as “critical infrastructure.”
Separately, Trump has called on other countries to share the burdens of international peace and security and views space exploration as an area where the United States needs to re-engage. By expanding on the existing relationships between the U.S. and Canadian militaries and space programs, the United States and Canada can achieve more, and make their budget dollars boldly go where no one has gone before.
Christopher Sands is a senior research professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, and a nonresident senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Sean Kelly is the internship program and operations manager at Hudson Institute. Additionally, Sean monitors aerospace, defense policy and industry developments for Hudson research staff and has written on space and foreign policy for several publications.High levels of PM2.5 particulate matter were recorded Friday in parts of western Japan, prompting the city of Fukuoka to issue a warning amid growing concern that the pollution crisis in China will keep affecting Japan.
In Osaka Prefecture, PM2.5 levels of 35 micrograms per cu. meter or more were recorded at noon at 14 of 17 monitoring stations, with the highest level reaching 58 micrograms per cu. meter of air.
The city of Fukuoka issued a PM2.5 alert in the morning after levels of 38.3 micrograms per cu. meter were recorded, warning those with respiratory ailments and allergies to be careful.
The central government’s safety standard for PM2.5 exposure is a mean of 35 micrograms per cu. meter over a 24-hour period, and 15 micrograms per cu. meter annually. Health warnings are issued by the central government if levels reach 70 micrograms per cu. meter.
Many local governments in western Japan, unlike Tokyo, are providing detailed hourly PM2.5 figures on their websites and have adopted stricter policies. The city of Fukuoka starts to warn its residents when PM2.5 levels of 35 micrograms per cu. meter are reached.
Japan’s PM2.5 exposure standard is not as strict as those set by the World Health Organization, which are a mean of 25 micrograms per cu. meter for a 24-hour period and a mean of 10 micrograms per cu. meter annually.
Friday’s readings in Fukuoka and Osaka followed a week of higher than allowable PM2.5 readings in many parts of the country. Earlier this week, Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, saw levels briefly reach 60 micrograms per cu. meter. In Chiba Prefecture, the city of Kashiwa saw levels hit 53 micrograms per cu. meter.
Heightened PM2.5 levels in Japan are due to the ongoing pollution crisis in many parts of China, where thick concentrations of PM2.5-laden smog have plagued the country in recent weeks. At one point, the northeastern city of Harbin saw PM2.5 levels rise to more than 1,000 micrograms per cu. meter. Coal-burning plants, water shortages leading to dust storms, and the increased use of agricultural chemicals are all cited as reasons for the smog problems.
Using data from the U.S. government as well as from Chinese environmental groups, the website aqicn.org tracks, in English, air quality in Beijing and six other cities. As of 11 a.m. Friday, Beijing had a PM2.5 reading of 179 per cu. meter, while PM2.5 levels in Nanjing stood at 291 micrograms per cu. meter.
In May, Japan, China, and South Korea agreed to share data on PM2.5 levels. Finding cross-border solutions to the problem will not be easy, given political tensions between Tokyo and Beijing and Seoul over historical and territorial issues.After lengthy negotiations, FX has renewed comedy Wilfred for a third season with a 13-episode order. The pickup was never in doubt, but it took longer than usual as FX had been trying to hammer out a new deal with the series’ showrunner David Zuckerman. (Most FX series have their showrunners locked in for the first two years only). In the end, Zuckerman, who adapted Wilfred for American television and has served as executive producer and showrunner for the first two seasons, closed a pact to continue as an executive producer but opted to step down as showrunner. He will still be involved in the show on a daily basis, likely not full-time.
Wilfred writer/producers Reed Agnew and Eli Jorné, who have been on the show since the beginning, have been upped to executive producers and showrunners for the upcoming season. They had been groomed for the showrunner job by Zuckerman. “As John (Landgraf) said at the summer TCA, it was only a matter of time before we picked up the show, we just had to work some things out,” said FX’s EVP Nick Grad. “David Zuckerman has done an amazing job adapting and reconceiving Wilfred for FX. It was his decision to step down from the Showrunner’s post, but we’re very happy he is going to stay involved with the show. Both we and David have great faith in the ability of Reed and Eli to seamlessly step up and take over the reins. I have no doubt they’ll do a great job.” Writers are expected to convene to begin work on Season 3 sometime this month.
FX Prods.’ Wilfred, an adaptation of Jason Gann and Adam Zwar’s Australian comedy, stars Elijah Wood and Gann as a guy and his neighbor’s foul-mouthed, pot-smoking dog. Wilfred joins Louie, which was picked up for a fourth season in August. Season 2 of the show averaged 2.63 million Total Viewers and 1.71 million Adults 18-49 per week on a first-run basis. Exec producing Wilfred are Zuckerman, Gann, Agnew, Jorné, Rich Frank, and Jeff Kwatinetz of Prospect Park, Randall Einhorn, and Joe Connor and Ken Connor of Renegade, producers of the Australian version of the series. Einhorn also serves as director. Agnew is with ICM Partners; Jorne and Zuckerman are with UTA.Jesse and the gang survived the Sea Temple, but they brought home a little more than they bargained for: a lost adventurer, a powerful device, and a colossal enemy capable of grinding Beacontown to dust. There may be more to this fearsome foe than meets the eye, but to find out, Jesse - together with a few trusty friends - must embark on another adventure, this time into the icy unknown...
Minecraft: Story Mode - Season 2 continues Jesse's saga in a five-part series developed by Telltale in collaboration with Mojang and members of the Minecraft community. This second season includes Telltale's unique multiplayer 'Crowd Play' feature, which allows friends and family to engage with the adventure together by helping to decide the direction of the story from any mobile device with an online connection.
Telltale also confirmed today that Minecraft: Story Mode - The Complete Adventure will be available on Nintendo Switch starting August 22, 2017 in North America and August 25 in Europe and other regions. Available as both a digital download and a physical cartridge at retail, 'The Complete Adventure'includes all eight episodes from the first season of Minecraft: Story Mode: five episodes from the original season pass, plus the three bonus episodes from the 'Adventure Pass' add-on series.
In Minecraft: Story Mode, players embark on a perilous adventure across the Overworld, through the Nether, to the End, and beyond. While attempting to enter EnderCon and meet Gabriel the Warrior, Jesse and friends discover that something is wrong... something dreadful. Terror is unleashed, forcing Jesse to set out on a quest to find The Order of the Stone in hopes of saving the world from oblivion.
Minecraft: Story Mode - The Complete Adventure will be available for US$39.99 or equivalent, and was rated 'Everyone 10+' for Fantasy Violence and Mild Language by the ESRB. Both The Complete Adventure and Minecraft: Story Mode - Season 2 are standalone products separate from the core Minecraft game. A retail version of Minecraft: Story Mode - Season Two will become available on disc this fall.I have heard an absolute heap of unpleasantness about the rebranding of the Android Market today. Google Play is childish. It's unprofessional. It makes Google look less than serious about its content business. The logo is weird. The name is ambiguous - play what? It reminds people of Sony products. There are endless gripes and, let's face it, there always will be when a company rebrands a popular product.
Tomorrow, countless analysts and "experts" will weigh in on whether the move was a good one, hawking over Google's stock price like a cardiograph readout. Some will say it was terrible - what was Google thinking abandoning the Android branding of their content hub? Others (you know, like me) will claim it foreshadows a breakout moment for Google into the content industry.
Now, I'll admit I can be a bit of a Google fanboy at times. Watching Google unveil a new product is a bit like getting a peek into the Lockheed Skunk Works - you're seeing the culmination of a lot of debate, thinking, and work by a lot of very, very smart people. Not only that, but the products you see today are often a sort of sneak-preview those you'll be using tomorrow. Think about something like Goggles - an app that can now continuously scan what your phone sees for recognizable objects. Now, about the rumors of a set of Google HUD glasses with augmented reality and other features. I think everyone can connect the dots.
Sure, it's all tea-leaf reading to some extent, but I think we can make some fairly concrete extrapolations from Google's announcement today about the future of Android and Google's content business.
There's Always A Better Name
Whenever an old product gets a new name, people inevitably get upset. It's like someone walked into your garage and re-badged your car. In neon pink and comic sans. But like most things that in reality have zero consequences for your day-to-day life, people tend to sort of just get over it. Unless you do something monumentally stupid like actually attempt to un-consolidate your services (goodbye, it that shall not be named).
Google Play isn't the best product name ever conceived. But it's certainly not the worst. It also avoids being too descriptive of the product, and we'll discuss why that's important a bit later.
The one thing I think people can agree on with the change of branding for the Android Market is the logo - it's better. Is it the most amazing thing in the universe ever? No, and I think that all comes down to a matter of opinion. But come on, the Market logo was getting pretty tired, even after its numerous facelifts:
There's also the issue that the Market, and its logo, were inextricably tied to Android. Obviously, Android is one of Google's crown jewels, but leaving the Market and its riches (apps, games, music, and movies) so closely associated with Android was inherently limiting for Google. Why would you go to the Android Market to watch a movie or listen to music on your Windows or Mac computer? It just didn't make sense.
Playing It Up
It's pretty clear that Google's strategy with this rebranding effort is to makes its content business a distinct entity, as opposed to a bloated limb of its mobile operating system. It makes sense. Apple is doing it. Microsoft is doing it. Our world is quickly getting appified - more and more we consume byte-size (pun very much intended and highly inaccurate) morsels of content, as opposed to grazing in all you can eat monthly fee buffets (admittedly, I still subscribe to Netflix streaming). We're spawning the world's first "$0.99 millionaires."
Easy-to-use "1-click" (please don't sue me, Amazon) payment solutions and high-speed broadband internet have turned us all into micro-impulse buyers. $0.99 here and there for an app, game, or that one song you just remembered and really want to listen to right now because you haven't heard it in years. Maybe a few bucks for a movie rental a couple times a month at RedBox or Amazon Instant Video and, if you're feeling splurgy, that new game that costs $5 but gets so many 5-star reviews you can't help yourself any longer.
So, why limit that paradigm shift to digital content commerce to the mobile space, or more specifically, Android? Google wants you to make these itty-bitty purchases from your desktop computer, laptop, tablet, smartphone, TV, and probably eventually your refrigerator. And they want you to be able to do it regardless of the fact that you own a Windows fridge or an iOS car. Google Play wants to be your one-stop, multi-platform content shop.
The Android Market name just didn't allow for this kind of vision, and I think you can see why, now - Android is just one facet of Google's larger world domination strategy (of smiles, of course).
Look at where companies like Amazon are going with content - I've rented movies on Amazon through a Blu-ray player, my desktop, and my laptop. And millions of people are doing the same on their Kindle Fires. You can buy your Kindle eBook and read it on your Android, iOS, or Kindle device. You can download your Amazon MP3 music collection onto your computer, or you can stream it to your smartphone from anywhere. It's not hard to see why Google wants in on this content revolution.
Is the name kind of silly? Sure. But it's also just ambiguous enough that Google could use it to sell, stream, or otherwise beam you almost anything, and that's certainly an exciting prospect looking into the future. Play is about giving you what you want, anywhere, any time, and not worrying about drivers, operating systems, or proprietary formats. Yeah, that's marketing-speak mumbo-jumbo, but I get it. Google has been a pioneer and an advocate for making the digital world a seamless place regardless of how you connect to it, and I think Play is just Google doing what it always has. Namely, making it easier to do this:This article is from the archive of our partner.
Think of The Atlantic 50 as our all-star team. These are the most influential commentators in the nation, the columnists and bloggers and broadcast pundits who shape the national debates. To compile the list, our team spent months collecting and analyzing data, tracking a group of 400 names that eventually became our 50. Our in-house methodology relies on three streams of information:
Influence: We conducted surveys of more than 250 insiders – members of Congress, national media figures, and political players – asking respondents to rank-order the commentators who most influence their own thinking. These surveys were done with National Journal.
Reach: We collected and analyzed data to measure the total audience of each commentator.
Web Engagement: In partnership with PostRank, a company specializing in filtering social media data, the Wire analyzed top commentators on 16 measures of webiness, including mentions on Twitter and performance on popular social media sites like Digg and Delicious.
The final list is the result of an algorithm that brings together these three factors.
After we identified the Atlantic 50, we set out to monitor their opinions: to read everything they write, to listen to everything they say, to organize their views in a useful format. Our profile and topic pages allow you to track the national debate by commentator or by subject. The goal is to keep you informed about the ideas and personalities driving the conversation.
This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.“…it’s an ongoing thing, I think having a break freshened things up, and then being able to go back out on tour and playing songs kind of gives you a hunger and wanting more, really.”
From tour release: Following the release of the bands fourth studio album, ‘Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action’ in August, and the daring, defiant and unmistakable Franz Ferdinand will be hitting Australia for east coast shows this November. The follow-up to Tonight (2009), ‘Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action’ is an exuberant, unencumbered record that sees the Glasgow band rediscovering the imagination, vitality and fun found on their classic, era-encapsulating debut Franz Ferdinand. It’s an ecstatic rejection of the drab convention’s often accompanying that level of attention and expectation.
Ahead of their headline shows of Australia, we chatted to Bob of Franz Ferdinand about the shows as well as their new album ‘Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action’…
Thanks for your time today, Bob, and obviously you were due to come for Harvest, but thankfully still able to come for some of your own shows, are you excited to be coming back to Australia?
It was annoying because obviously we were looking forward to coming down as we don’t get to come down to Australia very often, so yeah we were annoyed but we made sure that we booked our own shows so we could come down. We really enjoy coming to Australia, it’s always sort of special when you go so far away from home and there are people there that want to come and see your band play, so it’s exciting. Plus the weather’s great compared to the UK at this time of year. *laughs*
Do you have a great memory of a previous tour you can share with us?
Loads, yeah I mean the Big Day Out, that was a big highlight for us, of our entire career really, it was such an amazing festival, and getting to play so many amazing places in Australia. We came down in 2008 for New Year’s Eve, going in to 2009, that was great; we played down by Lorne in Melbourne on New Year’s Eve that was incredible. Loads of stuff really, only good memories in fact…
What can we expect this time around at the shows?
Well obviously the new record came out in August, so we’ll be playing a bunch of stuff off that, mixed in with material from the previous three albums really. It’d be crazy to come all the way to Australia and not play the earlier singles that people kind of want to hear, and equally it would be crazy not to play the new stuff, so we’ll mix them together.
Your newest album ‘Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action’, as you mentioned has been out for a couple of months now, how has the reaction been to it so far?
Good you know? It’s been going down well live and fits into the set quite nicely and fans are kind of reacting to songs well, and people down the front know the words so that’s always nice.
I have to ask about the title and what it represents to you…
I think it’s a very positive way to live your life if anything. The title kind of came right towards the end of the process, we’d recorded everything; we’d compiled the album and sort of had the running order and everything. Then came the title, so we trawled through the lyrics of the songs and tried to find something appropriate and that phrase from the song ‘Right Action’ seemed to jump out as a very positive and full of energy title, and it was just how we were feeling as a band and how we feel about the album. It’s just really positive really.
In the four years since your last album, what inspired the song that ended up on the new album?
All sorts of things really… Between the third and the fourth record we took a bit of a break and recaptured with our real lives, our friends and our family again, so that’s a big way to find ideas for songs really, is to have a bit of real life. So yeah it covers a broad spectrum of things; some of them are inspired by films, and books or postcards that Alex found in a flea market, a very wide sort of area where ideas for songs had come from really.
Did you set out to do anything differently this time around?
This time around this record we tried to make it different from the previous record in some ways. On the ‘Tonight’ album we went into a studio and wrote and recorded simultaneously, and so it developed songs out of grooves and jams and things. Whereas this time around we wouldn’t go near a recording studio until we had written songs and kind of back to front really, but that gave us the chance to record them very quickly and maintain your energy level which we thought can get lost sometimes if you’re trapped in a studio for months on end. So we wouldn’t go anywhere near a recording studio until we had the songs figured out and that was a big key difference in the process between the third and the fourth albums.
Is that a process that you’d stick with? Is it something you felt worked?
I think so, yeah, obviously within that there’s room for changes and sometimes a song might appear in a different setting and we just go with it I think that’s a good way for us to work otherwise, but obviously there are exceptions.
At over ten years as a band now, what do you think the biggest lesson you’ve learned is about being in this band?
Probably how to play bass… *laughs* I never played an instrument before when we started the band, so it was kind of like a bit of a learning curve, but now I think I can play pretty well. *laughs*
Other side of that, out of everything you’ve done over your career so far, has there been one moment that stands out above all the rest?
There’s quite a few really, a lot of firsts… like the first time you play a big show in Glasgow in the home town, or the first time you play a show outside of the UK, or the first time you come to Australia, they’re all sort of big moments that you never expected when you started the band, when they do happen it’s like ‘bloody hell this is insane’ like for example, coming to Australia which is such a long way away, and it’s the sort of place I didn’t think I’d get to in my life because it’s not like a regular holiday destination I guess for normal people in Britain. Then to go there with your band and have people come to your show is pretty special.
A song like ‘Take Me Out’ is coming up to ten years old but is still played on radio to this day, what do you think it is about that song specifically that worked?
It’s just a good song I think, it’s got a good beat, and the lyrics are non-specific in certain areas that it can appeal to everybody. There’s also a lot of humanity in it, especially the intro, I think I don’t know really.
You mentioned that you had a four year break, but are you still in writing mode?
Yeah we had a lot of material, for the record, we wrote and recorded twenty and picked the best ten, so there are certain things left over and also new ideas kicking around, but we’re going to have a bit of time over Christmas and January and February and be working on stuff. Yeah it’s an ongoing thing, I think having a break freshened things up, and then being able to go back out on tour and playing songs kind of gives you a hunger and wanting more, really.
Were you worried that you’d lost that hunger for a little while there?
No I don’t think so, I think the break was important just to get our heads straight again really, after doing three albums and touring them on the trot was kind of exhausting, and it was kind of good to get back into real life and reconnect with friends and stuff, that was important, but I think we if anything, we came back with more passion about the band and music in general really, a little bit of space helped with that.
What does 2014 have in store for Franz Ferdinand?
We’ll do a bit of writing at the beginning of the year, and then we’re going to go off and do a European tour and then back to The States I imagine, and the European festivals, actually festivals worldwide over the summer and then at the end of the year maybe back into writing a bit of recording, I don’t know.
Lastly, do you have a message for your Australian fans?
We’re looking forward to coming out and come to the shows and have a drink and it’ll be fun.
Catch Franz Ferdinand in Australia at the following tour dates this November:
THURSDAY 14 – MELBOURNE, THE FORUM – 18+
www.ticketmaster.com.au
FRIDAY 15 – SYDNEY, THE METRO – Licensed All Ages
www.ticketek.com.au
SUNDAY 17 – BRISBANE, THE TIVOLI – 18+
www.ticketmaster.com.au
Essential information
From: Glasgow, Scotland
Band members: Paul Thomson – Drums, Alex Kapranos – Vocals / Guitar, Nick McCarthy – Guitar, Bob Hardy – Bass
Current Release: Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action – (Domino / EMI Music Australia)
Website: http://www.franzferdinand.com
Comments
commentsAlpha a7S II Mirrorless Digital Camera (Body Only) is rated 4.6 out of 5 by 232.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Darren from My first camera since my Canon 5DM2 As of this writing, I've been using my Canon 5DM2 since 2009, and Canon always seemed to underwhelm with their M3 and 7DM2. While I love the Canon colors, the ability for 4K, slomo, and great low light capabilities always seemed to elude Canon. I almost went with the first A7S, but the lack of 4K internal recording was a no-go. Only a year later, and they came out with the A7Sii with 4K internal and six axis stabilized sensor! I have no regrets in getting this camera. If the $3K price tag may seem too much, consider this: The 5DM2 cost $3,500 when it came out EIGHT YEARS ago! So the bang for your buck in 2016, is just amazing!! Oh yeah, slomo (120p) in HD!?!? SWEET
Rated 4 out of 5 by Mike from Crop Factor at 120fps I am new to Sony cameras and like the camera and the quality from it. My only complaint is about filming at 120fps. Maybe this is ignorance on my part but when filming at 120fps using the Sony 24-70mm FE full frame lens there is a significant crop factor, probably 2X. I called B & H and the support person did not know anything about the issue but I later had a support chat with Sony and they said this is normal when filming at the high frame rate and the only solution is to press record then re-compose your shot. This makes filming slow motion a little more of a challenge but it still works and the shots come out great.
Rated 4 out of 5 by nmphojo from Made the switch from Nikon I bought this camera after having an allegiance to Nikon for a long time. I am a news video journalist looking to add some more creativity into my work with a new videography venture. This camera seems to be the perfect start to my new gear setup. I was originally a stills photographer and debated on getting the a7rii for the much larger 42MP. And I would recommend that camera for people looking to do stills. However I wanted to use this for probably 90% video work and loved the low light capability. I am new to shooting slog video and I am excited about the few test runs I have tried. There is a great range of options and customizable functions on this camera.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Larson from Detail w 12 giant MPs on A7S ii, no need for 42 MP A7R ii This Camera is the best camera I've ever owned! Reading the reviews, I had concern for softness due to the low pixel count compared to the A7r II's 42 MPs, Not to be concerned, this cameras' full frame and light gathering ability stopped to F4. (sweet spot on my old manual nikon F1.4 Lens) has every bit of detail in 4k video and stills! The ability to sharpen the image at night stopped to F4 and have practically no noise is unheard of. I bumped the ISO up to 2000 to 3200. (of course the ISO can go way beyond this) but this was the sweet spot for me for incredible sharpness at night, street light lighting only, no noise, what a beast this is in a small package. It is so sharp across the lens at F4 with all my old Nikon lens! who needs AF and who needs high MP count?
Rated 5 out of 5 by Anonymous from Sony A7s II is excellent Purchased the a7s ii and have been loving it. The internal 4k is obviously a notable factor however the build quality and customization options were better than anticipated. Loving the image stabilization as well, keeps moving shots steadier than any camera I have used to date. I purchased one which noted minor damage to the packaging but the camera remained in tact and overall I am pleased. I do find it mildly annoying that the packaging didnt come with any menus, warranties, or what have you inside; just the gear and that's it. Its possible it mentions this on the advertisement but it would have been nice to have some walk through on the technical side of things. Nothing youtube can't fix!
Rated 4 out of 5 by Anonymous from Great camera (Best for video use) It's a great camera. I bought it as an upgrade of the A7s. Is it worth it? For me, yes: internal 4k video and IBIS (that's a really nice feature indeed). The rest it's the same. Rolling shutter too... Or maybe worse? With my Rokinon Cine 85mm it's ridiculously unbearable, you really can't do fast pans. But at least I can shoot hand-held with a 85mm unstabilized (thanks to IBIS). That's life, nothing it's perfect. So, you can't go wrong with this camera: light, good quality build (slightly bigger than the previous version), a lot of lenses (with the right adapter), internal 4k, low light monster. In general, it's a camera aimed at videographers. Video it's of great quality. For stills, the A7rii is better (however, stills are really good with this camera too, I can't complain). Last thing: buy a lot of spare batteries.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Anonymous from Switched from canon, glad I did Love this camera. Was a canon guy for the last 9 years, started a new job and got to purchase a camera of my choice. I struggled with making the switch to sony after being a canon guy my whole career. I was really worried about the lens options but sony is starting to figure that out, I have the patience to wait on them to create some new lens. The camera body does have a lot of buttons, way more than I am use to. But like any thing new and different you need to learn about it and understand it. Overall I am glad I made the switch. The low light it great and the different frame rates and 4k is great. I do also use it for stills and the quick auto focus is good. It takes a while to figure out all the different setting for autofocus but once you do it can be very powerful. All in all glad I made the switch.New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. has been away from the team since shortly after their crushing wildcard playoff loss to the Green Bay Packers last season.
The superstar missed the team’s wrap-up breakfast, bailed on Eli Manning’s Duke University workouts and then skipped the entirety of organized team activities (OTAs).
However, with mandatory mini-camp approaching — camp gets underway on Tuesday — Beckham took to social media to announce he’s finally back.
In a Sunday night Instagram post, Beckham made the announcement alongside a customized video that appears to show |
place to give birth. She accused Planned Parenthood of pressuring Ireland to change its laws and of spreading "global hysteria." Lila pontificated that "we should look up to Ireland" which is "under attack from powerful abortion interests." Huckabee thanked her for all she does "for the cause of life."
There is so much to say but all I can say to Mike Huckabee are the words of my Irish sisters who marched for Savita: We are all Savita. Never again!
From DublinToyota Chairman Eiji Toyoda, left, and General Motors Chairman Roger B. Smith shake hands in front of a Chevrolet Nova at the United Motor Manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif., that was Toyota’s first step into manufacturing outside Japan. (Paul Sakuma/AP)
Eiji Toyoda, who spearheaded Toyota Motor Corp.’s expansion in the United States as the automaker’s longest-serving president, died Sept. 17 in Toyota City, Japan. He was 100.
Toyota Motor announced the death and said the cause was a heart ailment.
Mr. Toyoda helped reshape a maker of Chevrolet knockoffs into an automaker whose manufacturing efficiency became the envy of General Motors and Ford Motor Co. By the time Mr. Toyoda stepped down in 1994, the company was assembling Corollas in the United States, had started the Lexus luxury brand and had initiated a project that would develop the world’s most successful gas-electric hybrid, the Prius.
Toyoda was a younger cousin of Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of the company that bears a slightly altered version of the family’s name. He was one of six company presidents to come from the family.
During the 69 years he worked at the company, based in central Japan’s Toyota City, it rose from assembling its cars out of parts made by GM to being 16 times more valuable than the Detroit-based automaker. Eiji Toyoda pushed his company to learn from Ford and GM about mass production of automobiles.
Mr. Toyoda became president of Toyota Motor Co. in 1967 and served for 15 years — longer than anyone before or since. In 1982, Toyota Motor and Toyota Motor Sales Co. merged to form Toyota Motor Corp. Mr. Toyoda became chairman of the combined company and served until 1992. He was made honorary chairman of the company upon retirement and kept the title of honorary adviser.
Under his stewardship, the carmaker set up at least 10 new factories, began exporting to dozens of countries and built a reputation for manufacturing excellence.
The Corolla, introduced in 1966, became the best-selling car of all time. Mr. Toyoda stressed the importance of manufacturing concepts that became central to Toyota’s production methods, such as “kaizen,” or continuous improvement, and “jidoka,” the use of machines that shut down when irregularities are detected.
His greatest achievement may have been laying the foundation for the company to apply its manufacturing expertise overseas, which led to the formation of Toyota’s first venture in the United States in 1983 — a year after Mr. Toyoda passed the presidency to his cousin, Shoichiro.
That venture, New United Motor Manufacturing, in partnership with GM, began production in 1984 in Fremont, Calif. Its success showed that Toyota’s manufacturing principles could be applied across cultures, giving the company the confidence to make its own independent plants in Kentucky, Canada, England and France, according to Mr. Toyoda.
He also oversaw Toyota’s development of the Lexus, approving development of the luxury car in 1983 to compete with Mercedes-Benz and BMW. The first vehicle, the LS 400, went on sale in the United States in 1989.
The U.S. Automotive Hall of Fame inducted Mr. Toyoda in 1994, making him the second honoree from Japan, after Soichiro Honda.
Eiji Toyoda was born Sept. 12, 1913, near Nagoya in central Japan. He grew up inside his father’s textile mill, schooled from an early age in machines and business, according to his autobiography, “Toyota: Fifty Years in Motion.”
Mr. Toyoda graduated from the University of Tokyo with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1936 and joined Toyoda Automatic Loom Works Ltd., working for his uncle, Sakichi Toyoda, inventor of a loom that automatically shut itself off when a piece of fabric broke.
At the time, Sakichi’s son, Kiichiro, was heading an automobile division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works. In 1937, Kiichiro founded Toyota Motor and took his younger cousin with him.
Eiji Toyoda, then in his 20s, started on the factory floor before being promoted to production planning and director. From the outset, he was given broad freedom to pursue interests ranging from fixing cars to helping establish the company headquarters in Toyota City. He became a director in 1945.
Toyota and Ford held discussions on jointly making cars in the United States, but they were cut off after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Talks resumed after World War II but did not lead anywhere.
In 1950, during its occupation of Japan, the U.S. Army sent Mr. Toyoda to Dearborn, Mich., to learn about mass production from Ford. The United States wanted Toyota to build trucks for its troops in Korea.
“We were producing 40 cars a day,” he later recalled. “Ford was making 8,000 units, a 200-times difference.”
But Mr. Toyoda concluded that Ford was barely ahead of the much-smaller Toyota in terms of technology. Back in Japan, he concentrated on making cars in small batches at maximum efficiency. He began using IBM machines to cut production costs, according to Kazuo Wada, professor of economics at the University of Tokyo and author of “A Fable on Manufacturing: Ford to Toyota.”
Building on the work of his cousin, Mr. Toyoda developed what became known as the Toyota Production System, which aimed to eliminate excess inventory of parts and other waste. The manufacturing system became so successful it was eventually adopted by other carmakers and by manufacturers outside the automotive industry.
He had four children with his wife, the former Kazuko Takahashi. Survivors include his eldest son, Kanshiro, according to Toyota.
Bloomberg News
Washington Post staff writer Adam Bernstein and Laurence Arnold and Masatsugu Horie, both of Bloomberg News, contributed to this report.Fluorescent mice as seen in a archive photo.
Scientists working in coördination with a U.S. conservation group say they’ve established an evolution-warping technology called a “gene drive” in mammals for the first time and could use it to stamp out invasive rodents ravaging seabirds on islands.
Gene-drive technology, so far demonstrated only in insects and yeast, is a powerful way of biasing the inheritance of DNA such that wild animals can be genetically altered as they reproduce, including to cause a population crash.
Now two scientific teams—one in Australia and one in Texas—say they’ve genetically engineered the house mouse, Mus musculus, so that its genome also harbors genetic surprises that could be unleashed on wild populations. The modified rodents were born in the last two months and the results are still preliminary.
The effort to establish gene drives in mammals is being coördinated by Island Conservation, a hard-charging conservation group based in Santa Cruz, California, whose specialty is bombing small islands with rat poison in order to save endangered seabirds. Its motto is “preventing extinctions.”
But poison doesn’t work to extirpate rodents on larger islands or heavily populated ones. That’s why the group thinks gene drives could be the “transformative technology” that allows it to extend its campaign to thousands more islands it says are infested. “We were looking for something really out of the box,” says Karl Campbell, a program director at the nonprofit, which has plans to spent about $7 million a year to speed the technique toward an initial test on a remote island surrounded by miles of ocean, if authorities allow it.
Campbell says they are pursuing the creation of “daughterless” mice, which, due to a gene drive, are only able to have male offspring. The gender-biasing effect would drive down mouse populations on an island, possibly to zero if it proves effective.
The mice are an early glimpse of an idea being called “synthetic conservation,” in which genetic engineering is viewed as a means to revive extinct animals, offer genetic refills for endangered species with shallow gene pools, or knock out invasive pests ravaging native plants and animals.
And rodents are high on the list of troublemakers. Brought by shipwrecks or sailors, they swarm over oceanic islands, imperiling native seabirds. While rats are the bigger problem, mice cause havoc, too. On Pacific islands, mice have been filmed gnawing on albatross chicks, which are defenseless against them.
The group’s plans have divided ecologists, however, some of whom see a devil’s bargain in the dizzying new power to modify nature. “Conservation means caring for the natural world, not reëngineering it,” says Claire Hope Cummings, an environmental lawyer who says she dropped her support for Island Conservation over its gene-drive work.
Even proponents of gene-drive technology say it needs to be carefully studied and cautiously deployed, and also say it may not work as advertised. Last year, the U.S. National Academies advised a go-slow approach noting that “proof of concept in a few laboratories” isn’t enough to “support a decision to release gene-drive organisms into the environment.”
But it’s hard not to see the potential. New Zealand, whose flightless birds were overrun starting in the 19th century by species brought by Westerners, this year announced plans to become “predator free” within 30 years by eliminating hundreds of millions of rats, possums, and weasels. The country’s parliament has said that gene drives could be the very “breakthrough” that lets them achieve the goal.
“No holds barred? That’s what we’d do. That would be phenomenal,” says Campbell of clearing invasive predator species off New Zealand. “Then once we got through those, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be thinking about mainland areas” like slums or ecosystems which rats have also invaded, he says.
Daughterless mice
A man-made gene drive was first demonstrated in fruit flies only in 2015. Within a few months the concept had been extended to mosquitoes, and already the technology is viewed as promising enough to have landed $75 million from Bill Gates, whose foundation is betting that extinguishing mosquitoes could eradicate malaria from Africa.
So it was only a matter of time—less than two years, it turned out—before the technique was adapted to mammals.
The two groups of scientists coördinating their work with Island Conservation agreed to reveal the extent of their technical progress to MIT Technology Review, citing the need to develop powerful gene-drive technology in the open rather than behind closed doors.
“It’s the perfect time to discuss the risks of the technology,” says Paul Thomas, a mouse geneticist at the University of Adelaide, in South Australia. “We still have to see if it works at all. And it’s not just showing it works, but how efficient and stable it is.”
Thomas says he and his students created gene-drive mice using CRISPR, the powerful DNA-editing technology. To do it, Australians fashioned CRISPR into a “selfish gene” designed to transmit itself to nearly all of a mouse’s offspring, rather than just half, as would be expected. To track its spread, they have also attached a fluorescent protein so mice who inherit it will glow red when you shine a black light on them.
With critics fretting over the possibility that a gene-drive organism could escape from the lab, Thomas says his lab has taken precautions to prevent a mishap, including designing safety features so the drive can’t yet be transmitted to wild mice. When I spoke to him in January, Thomas said he was about to start breeding the first set of lab animals to determine if the drive works as predicted. This step, carried over a few generations, will take several months.
The other team is based at Texas A&M University and led by mouse geneticist David Threadgill, who says his lab has engineered first-generation “daughterless” mice. Some are now being bred to determine if the male-only trait is passed to future generations, as is hoped.
Instead of CRISPR, Threadgill’s lab used a different strategy, harnessing a naturally occurring group of genes called the “t-complex.” This genetic element also manages to spread itself selfishly by harming sperm that don’t have it, and favoring those that do, so they end up fertilizing eggs and making more mouse pups. Versions of the t-complex are already present in many wild mice.
In order to make the mice daughterless, Threadgill’s team introduced an additional modification. They attached to the t-complex an extra copy of Sry, a gene that is normally found on the Y chromosome and which determines whether a mammal turns out to be male. If the drive operates as intended—something that should be clear inside of a few weeks—more than nine in 10 mouse pups could inherit Sry and have male sex organs. Released in large enough numbers on an island, the daughterless rodents could, over the course of several months to a few years, result in a mouse population that is, so to speak, all Mickey and no Minnie. Then the mice would die out.
Rat Island
Island Conservation was formed in the 1990s, and its early exploits removing cats, goats, and even feral donkeys from Baja California are recounted in Rat Island, a book-length account of global island-clearing efforts, which by now have eradicated rodents from 500 islands.
The drawback is how conservation groups have relied on brodifacoum, a toxin said to be 100 times as potent as the rat poison warfarin. Rodents bleed to death after they eat it. So do any bald eagles and gulls unlucky enough to chomp the poisoned prey.
In theory, a gene drive is the perfect solution. It would affect only one species, and it is entirely painless. But some scientists caution that the technology may never work as planned. Coddled lab mice put on an island would be the first to get grabbed by a raptor. And females might be able to sniff out the gene drive, shunning certain males, or even develop resistance to it. “I think there are actually a hell of a lot of things that could go wrong,” says Neil Gemmell, a researcher at the University of Otago in New Zealand. “If you think you are just going to release things and they are going to eradicate for you, it’s a big mistake.”
Island Conservation, which initially said it planned to try an offshore test by 2020, has since backed away from that prediction, citing open-ended technical and regulatory questions.
That’s not to say Gemmell isn’t interested. In 2016, New Zealand’s government formally launched “Predator Free 2050”—its ambitious plan to kill every rat, possum, and weasel across its 103,483-square-mile territory. Program documents call gene drives a “realistic prospect,” and Gemmell is a part of a committee looking at the options.
Using a genetic assault along with poison and traps is probably the only way to ensure the eradication comes off “cheaply and quickly,” says Gemmell, but the hurdles look daunting. Even if the drives work in mice, no one has ever before genetically engineered an opossum or a weasel. And what would a breeding center able to turn out thousands of GM possums a week even look like? What’s more, because possums breed only once a year, it could take many years, or decades, for a gene drive to have its lethal effect.
The use of gene drives won’t be able to move forward without wide public support. And that could be difficult to win given how it is already dividing conservationists. Some groups, like Friends of the Earth, are deeply suspicious of any genetic engineering and call genes drives a “false solution to the real problem of biodiversity loss.”
Cummings, the environmental lawyer who is also the author of a book critical of GMOs, says she’s also alarmed by the plans to target female mice. “Daughterless anything is a problem,” she says. “The whole ‘eliminate the female’ concept needs to be looked at philosophically and ethically.” Cummings, who has listened to Island Conservation’s arguments, says she’s come to the conclusion that saving seabirds from rats is being used to “whitewash this technology, give it moral cover, when it might be the world’s most dangerous bioweapon.”
The two sides debated several times last year, most recently in December, at a meeting in Cancun of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, where activists including Friends of the Earth and ETC Group rallied about 170 civil society groups calling for a moratorium on gene drives. A letter signed by luminaries including the primatologist Jane Goodall warned that “genocidal genes” could have “consequences beyond our comprehension.”
The effort to compel a ban fell short.SPIEGEL: Mr. Juncker, have you recently found yourself looking at your mobile phone anxiously when you wake up each morning?
Juncker: No. Why would you think that?
SPIEGEL: We thought you'd want to know what Donald Trump tweeted during the night.
Juncker: If Mr. Trump has tweeted anything worth mentioning, I'll be told. It doesn't cause me to sit up agitated in bed in the morning.
SPIEGEL: But it's different when Angela Merkel sends you a text in the morning, isn't it?
Juncker: She texts me directly and never without reason. And that interests me. We have a solid and close relationship.
SPIEGEL: Does Donald Trump represent the last chance for Europe?
Juncker: That may be going a little too far. Trump is a partner for us who cannot be easily categorized. Putting it in the noblest way possible, his understanding of politics is a little different from ours here in Europe. The way he acts forces us Europeans to take on a new responsibility. We are not standing with our backs up against the wall, but, to put it as pithily as the German chancellor has: We can no longer rely on the U.S. the way we could in the past.
SPIEGEL: The result of just a few months of Trump's tenure is sadly clear: The new president is laying waste to the climate agreement, he is damaging trust in NATO and has shown contempt for the EU. Has the strategy of containing Trump failed?
Juncker: This attempt hasn't even really happened yet to the full extent. Trump's climate decision is a mistake. We tried in vain at the G-7 summit in Sicily to dissuade him from it. Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron were very strong, and even my humble self tried to persuade him. Trump knows that he is encountering a complete lack of understanding in Europe, but it's apparent that he's not very impressed by it. My experience, however, has been that American presidents take a greater interest in Europe over the course of their term.
SPIEGEL: Europe's peace and prosperity in the past decades has in no small part hinged on the stability and military protection granted by the Americans. Is the West witnessing the end of trans-Atlantic cooperation?
Juncker: I have no doubt that the U.S., even under Trump, will stick to the mutual defense commitment in the NATO treaty in the event of an emergency. Trump described NATO as being obsolete during his election campaign, but he made clear afterward that he considers the alliance to be an indispensable necessity. Still, it would have been preferable if he had clearly said that in Brussels instead of lecturing the Europeans on defense spending.
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SPIEGEL: Your new paper on defense policy seems strikingly ambitious. It speaks of the expansion of EU military operations, of operations against terrorist groups and of naval deployments in hostile environments. Are you not raising false expectations in suggesting that the EU will be capable of defending itself in the future?
Juncker: I am not pursuing a militarization of the EU, but we can no longer afford our small-state mentality when it comes to defense policy. Let me give you a simple example: In Europe we spend almost half of the military budget of the U.S. on defense, but we achieve only 15 percent of the Americans' efficiency. There are 178 weapons systems in Europe, and 30 in the U.S. We have 17 types of combat tanks; the Americans have one. If we more strongly consolidated procurement, we could save 25 to 100 billion euros. We will not be conducting global affairs with brute force -- the EU wasn't conceived for that. But because the world has become what it is, global affairs is something that we Europeans are going to have to learn.
SPIEGEL: Do the Europeans have an alternative to the Americans?
Juncker: I am a champion of trans-Atlantic relations and I do not believe there is any other option available to us than working closely together with America -- including Canada. There is no other alliance option, but the same is true for the U.S.
SPIEGEL: Trump obviously sees things differently. His Rose Garden speech was sheer aggressive nationalism. He spoke of "us" and "you" and that he had been elected to represent the people of Pittsburg and not Paris...
Juncker:... which prompted an immediate denial from the mayor of Pittsburgh. Trump's comparison was also unfortunate because the people of Pittsburgh didn't vote for him -- they voted for Hillary Clinton. And we must also remember that even though Trump makes decision for the U.S., many large cities and American states are still committed to the climate treaty. There hasn't been a total loss of the U.S. -- many in American society think like Europeans and not like Trump.
SPIEGEL: The other strongman Europe is currently having problems with is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. You recently had a private meeting with him. What is your impression: Does he still even want his country to become a member of the EU? And: Do you want it to?
Juncker: I told Erdogan that Turkey needs to come to terms with its European intentions. Many people in Turkey are pro-European minded, but that sentiment is very limited within the government. It appears to be aiming to hinder EU accession and pin the blame on Brussels. That, in my opinion, is not in the interest of the Turkish people. I am holding to my agreements. We declared Turkey to be an accession state at the 1999 Helsinki Summit. That still applies.
SPIEGEL: Did you discuss the detention of Turkish-German journalist Deniz Yücel with Erdogan?
Juncker: I discussed the general situation for journalists there, but I didn't directly refer to Yücel. The man is apparently being wrongly held in jail and not even staff at the German consulate have proper access. It's absolutely scandalous. The Turks know that if they want to join the EU, then they must respect our rules. We are a union of beliefs, not a bunch of squawking chickens. But if we continue talks with Erdogan, that doesn't mean we have to bow down to him.
SPIEGEL: Is the EU still credible when it insists that countries like Turkey adhere to human rights? Even among its own member states, the EU tolerates countries that are acting in increasingly authoritarian ways. Poland's government is staging an attack against the rule of law and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wants to shut down universities he doesn't like.
Juncker: If I may, there are still differences between Poland and Hungary, on the one hand, and those parts of the world that deny human rights, including elements in Turkey, on the other. It is, however, true that we inside the Commission are currently engaged in a contentious debate with Poland and Hungary. We are making very clear in what areas we do not share these governments' interpretation of the law. For that, we need the kind of patience that you do not seem to have, but which I am going to have to muster.
SPIEGEL: The German government is also losing its patience and is calling for countries that violate the foundations of a constitutional state to be denied European subsidies. You've rejected such calls. Why?
Juncker: To be totally honest: There are times when I, too, would like to revoke subsidies for stubborn countries. But reason and experience have shown me that it would not be the right way. We don't need to sow any new discord in the European Union.
SPIEGEL: The British historian Timothy Garton Ash has accused the EU of appeasement in its dealings with Orbán and Co. Consistent with that interpretation is the instance when you jovially greeted Orbán with the words, "Hello, dictator."
Juncker: I have spoken to Orbán like that for years. But that last time, someone was hanging around with a directional microphone and caught it, thus drawing more attention to it. I get along well with Orbán, at least personally. In terms of policy, there is less understanding. We often clash.
SPIEGEL: What's it like when the two of you fight? Does Orbán get angry?
Juncker: No, he never flips out. I'm more likely to do that. What riles me are the questionnaires he sent to Hungarian households in which he said: "Stop Brussels." I told him: By doing that you are stopping yourself, because you are also Brussels. After all, he takes part in every decision. Acting as though Brussels was a foreign power that is secretly infiltrating Hungary with a hostile, anti-Hungarian network is something I cannot accept.
SPIEGEL: There's also disagreement over the refugee issue. It appears that member states will once again fail to reach an agreement at the EU summit in two weeks over the permanent mechanism for redistributing refugees within Europe. The thinking of many countries is that the Germans invited the refugees, so it is up to them to solve the problem. Are you considering opening infringement procedures against member states that fail to adhere to the agreement -- who, in other words, don't take in enough refugees?
Juncker: We shouldn't be criticizing Germany's refugee policies -- not in the slightest. That was a humanitarian emergency. All the refugees at that train station in Budapest -- you don't even have to think for a moment about what image it would have created for Germany if the chancellor had said: Take care of your own problem, I don't care one iota. Angela Merkel did the right thing. Her decision and the extraordinary willingness of the German people to take in refugees conveyed an image of Germany that is still having positive repercussions today. Unfortunately, people in Germany are no longer seeing that.
SPIEGEL: But since then, Greece and Italy have been left on their own in dealing with refugees. The EU has failed on this point.
Juncker: Now people are criticizing Europe, the European Commission, Juncker and the whole lot because the distribution of refugees didn't succeed immediately. But you also have to recognize that close to 20,000 refugees have already been redistributed. There are only a few member states that do not want to take part. And we will have to address the issue next week of whether we will open infringement procedures or not.
SPIEGEL: Against Slovakia and Hungary?
Juncker: Those and other countries. Those that do not take part have to assume that they will be faced with infringement procedures. The decision hasn't been made yet, but I will say this: I am for it -- not to make a threat, but to make clear that decisions that have been made are applicable law, even if you have voted against it. At issue here is European solidarity, which cannot be a one-way street. The traffic has to move in both directions.
SPIEGEL: Following the elections in Austria, the Netherlands and France, do you think the danger of the right-wing populists has been averted?
Juncker: No. With their enthusiasm over the recent election results, people are overlooking the fact that the threat of the far-right is still there. The monster is still going strong. The right-wing populists gathered millions of votes in all three countries. The problem is that many in the traditional parties parrot everything the populists do. In doing so, they become populists themselves rather than standing in their way.
SPIEGEL: Europe has a new poster boy, freshly elected French President Macron. Does this ever make you a little jealous?
Juncker: No. Why would I be jealous?
SPIEGEL: We had that impression. You recently mentioned that you were already winning elections with pro-European policies 30 years ago.
Juncker: It's true. But that's also easier in Luxembourg than in France. I like Macron a lot and I very much welcome him -- particularly the fact that he made Europe one of the main topics of the election debate.
SPIEGEL: Should the German government make overtures to him?
Juncker: Now we're sliding into the romantic depths of the German-French relationship. Many in Germany are saying that Macron should be helped. That's also how I see it. But Germany cannot solve France's problems. The French president and his government will have to seriously knuckle down in order to pull France out of its slump.
SPIEGEL: Who is better suited to push Europe forward at France's side after Germany's national election this fall? The chancellor or your friend Martin Schulz?
Juncker: I understand the hostile intention of your question and am not amused. So here you go: Both can do it.
SPIEGEL: Elections in Britain on Thursday did not deliver the clarity which had been hoped for. Theresa May's party has lost its absolute majority and has to rely on the support of other parties. What will that mean for Brexit negotiations?
Juncker: The dust still has to settle in Britain. We have been prepared to negotiate for months now. We could start early tomorrow morning. The ball is now in the British court.
SPIEGEL: Many observers are anticipating the talks will collapse early on. Do you have a Plan B?
Juncker: No. I have a plan. It entails leading to a fair deal and relationship with the British. We will be reasonable, but we will also negotiate firmly and without gullibility. I believe we must come to an agreement for the people of Britain and the people on the Continent, but not under exclusively British terms.
SPIEGEL: With all due respect to your optimism...
Juncker:... I am not optimistic at all...
SPIEGEL:... you can't really deny that a confrontation is approaching. The EU first wants to talk about the rights of its citizens and the money Britain will owe, but the British want to talk about future relations. How can this dilemma be solved?
Juncker: We must discuss the terms of the divorce first before we can enter into a detailed discussion about future relations.
SPIEGEL: The outside world has learned very little that was flattering about the dinner you had with Theresa May. Are the British really entering Brexit negotiations with such naiveté?
Juncker: It was a very friendly and open discussion, during which our contradictory views became apparent. I sincerely regret that the content of our discussion wasn't always perfectly accurately portrayed to the public, even though we are constantly accused of not being transparent. But this kind of transparency is not something I wanted.
SPIEGEL: Why, then, did your head of cabinet leak details of the dinner to the press?
Juncker: We don't know where the leak came from. I also didn't ask my cabinet chief because I trust him. He does good work and I have an excellent team.
SPIEGEL: You recently said: "I assumed office to bring the EU to a point from which there is no going back. Instead, I am having to unwind the EU to a certain extent." Would you say that Brexit is your greatest political defeat of your career?
Juncker: No. Contrary to the widely held belief, I don't feel responsible for Brexit. We didn't interfere in the referendum campaign. But it is true that negotiating Brexit is not a pleasant future task. It is the unwinding of a grand vision. I continue to see Brexit as a tragedy. I enjoy getting married more than I do getting divorced. And now I am spending most of my workweek on Brexit.
SPIEGEL: You recently affirmed that you do not intend to continue beyond the end of your term in 2019. What great deeds can we still expect from you?
Juncker: They have long since gone on record.
SPIEGEL: There's nothing left to come?
Juncker: Let me tell you why I announced that I wouldn't seek a second term: So that the parties involved can get used to this terrible event. I haven't yet given everything: I am still full of energy. But I wanted to make it clear that I don't have to make unwarranted concessions to national governments or to parliament. I want to avoid the impression that I am doing things just to ensure that I am re-elected. That's not the case. I have had my career.
SPIEGEL: Mr. Juncker, we thank you for this interview.Hey everybody,
My name's Gentleman Gustaf, I'm a writer for LoLEsports (http://gentlemangustaf.com/esports/lcs/lolesports-posts/)and Cloth5 (http://cloth5.com/author/gentlemangustaf/), as well as my own website (http://gentlemangustaf.com), as well as an ex-writer for A Different View (http://www.reignofgaming.net/blogs/a-different-view/gentleman-gustaf). Recently, I shifted over to making infographics, and cutting and pasting so many splash arts really struck home the way that champions are characterized by gender, so I thought I'd bring my experience with blogging and data to bear on this issue. My original post can be found here, but it is pretty long (~4500 words), so I figured I'd try to summarize it here as best as I can. My hope is to get a response from and a dialogue with reds (maybe IronStylus), because I believe that these are issues that he understands, is aware of, and has talked about in the past (specifically regarding his decision to put Leona in heels).
Because I know this is long like WOAH, I'm putting this near the top. I was asked by Apollo Starling "How many champions and skins would Riot have to release in a row following your guidelines in order to balance the scales of representation?"
This is my answer.
"No well-intentioned effort is ever wasted. There's no quota which needs be enforced, a good-faith attempt to do would do wonders to destigmatize gaming as a boys-only club (something which is false; 45% of gamers are women, and the average age is 30).
TBH, If Riot made one good female monstrous champion, I'd think "exactly, they understand the concept" and trust them to handle champion releases from then on. I'd want, but I understand the practicalities they're dealing with.
Honestly, the best solution I can think is small visual upgrades to Diana and Leona (like they did with Sejuani) to emphasize the aspects of their character that make them different by referencing them in their art. Make both of them a bit stronger and fuller, remove the heels from the Leona skin. Even the 'fan service' Leona skin is very good. Riot is on the right track, more than almost any mainstream game I can think of. They just need constant nudges to keep them going."
Im about to present a mountain of data, and I implore you to read it all. But if you want to read my suggestions for first, before you do so, here they are.
Diversify monsters: make some truly monstrous champions that are female. Im sure your community (not to mention your already employed concept designers) have plenty of ideas for that. Change what revealing means. Make more revealing skins for male champions, and allow some female champions to go without revealing skins. Change what sexy means. The variety in male champions shows you understand this distinction. Some champions are sexy because theyre trying to be sexy. Some champions are just inherently sexy, but it isnt their main attribute. Allow more female champions to fall into that camp: let them be sexy without forcing sexy. Let your creations speak for themselves. Dont overstate something when subtlety will do, because it adds depth to the overall presentation.
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Malzahar-381900182
http://justsayins.tumblr.com/post/14957660366/this-needs-to-stop-and-let-me-tell-you-why
http://eschergirls.tumblr.com/post/33633416168/minna-wickbom-i-couldnt-help-myself-when-i-saw#disqus-thread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEwne-IEG9s&feature=player_detailpage#t=337
Diversify monsters: make some truly monstrous champions that are female. Im sure your community (not to mention your already employed concept designers) have plenty of ideas for that. Change what revealing means. Make more revealing skins for male champions, and allow some female champions to go without revealing skins. Change what sexy means. The variety in male champions shows you understand this distinction. Some champions are sexy because theyre trying to be sexy. Some champions are just inherently sexy, but it isnt their main attribute. Allow more female champions to fall into that camp: let them be sexy without forcing sexy. Let your creations speak for themselves. Dont overstate something when subtlety will do, because it adds depth to the overall presentation.
Quote: Surakai: it isn't an issue you overly-sensitive POS.
Quote: Jesus thy Lord:
Manginas and feminists should go climb a tree... and then blame the "patriarchy" when gravity takes its toll.
Quote: Surakai: are you liberal extremists still crying about retarded sh*t?
Quote: Potato Chip: What kind of out of control ****ty feminist needs to beg this much for nude male cartoon characters
Quote: AntiMage II: Oh look, more feminist gender "equality" bullshit. Not like there isn't enough of that around already.
Quote: Azerain: Too much text, going to assume that OP is a ****** and that he should kill himself.
Quote: Surakai: mentally retarded people rely on being more 'civil' because they think it automatically makes them right no matter how much of a ****ing idiot they happen to be.
http://forums |
appeal," over 100 top, well-known Roman Catholics have attached their names to an ad in today's San Francisco Chronicle, asking Pope Francis to replace Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, whom they say does not reflect their values.
The Chronicle reports the big names among the signatories include "Brian Cahill, the retired executive director of Catholic Charities, former city commissioner and Boudin Bakery executive Lou Giraudo, retired Swinerton Builders Chairman David Grubb, businessman and former political consultant Clint Reilly and his wife, Janet, San Francisco attorney Michael Kelly, and Charles Geschke, chairman of Adobe Systems and former head of the University of San Francisco Board of Trustees. Also on the list is Tom Brady Sr., father of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady."
Among the issues the group is complaining about is Cordileone's morality clause he inserted into new contracts for Catholic school teachers, and statements in school handbooks like this one that reads, "all extra-marital sexual relationships are gravely evil, including adultery, masturbation, fornication, the viewing of pornography and homosexual relations."
In their ad, which could have cost tens of thousands of dollars, they say the Archbishop "sets a pastoral tone that is closer to persecution than evangelization."
And they complain about a Cordileone hand-picked pastor who "provided elementary-school children with a pamphlet about sexuality that asked whether they had masturbated, engaged in sodomy or undergone an abortion."
But one of the San Franscisco Catholic community's biggest complaints about Archbishop Cordileone is what they see as his "single-issue agenda" against same-sex marriage.
The full ad can be seen at the Chronicle.
Image by American Life League via Flickr and a CC license
See a mistake? Email corrections to: [email protected]Can math be evidence? Not ordinarily, but recent calculations are compelling because they show that particles predicted by the theory of quark-gluon interactions but never observed are being produced in heavy-ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), located at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
They just need to be detected. These heavy strange baryons, containing at least one strange quark, still cannot be observed directly, but instead are making their presence known by lowering the temperature at which other strange baryons "freeze out" from the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) discovered and created at the RHIC.
This would not be the first time that it was accepted that something must be there, it just needs to be found. Before the LHC discovered the Higgs boson, it was known that if the Higgs exists, it had to have been found at Fermilab first, but that experiment's lower luminosity meant it was taking a lot longer to sort it out. Later, it was shown to be in Fermilab data.
RHIC is one of two experiments where scientists create and study a primordial soup of unbound quarks and gluons-akin to what existed in the early universe some 14 billion years ago. The research is helping to unravel how these building blocks of matter became bound into hadrons, particles composed of two or three quarks held together by gluons, the carriers of nature's strongest force.
BS correlations normalized to the second cumulant of net strangeness fluctuations. Results are from (2+1)-flavor lattice QCD calculations performed with a strange to light quark mass ratio m s /m l = 20 (squares) and m s /m l = 27 (diamonds). The band depicts the improved estimate for the continuum result facilitated by the high statistics N t = 6 and 8 data. arXiv:1404.6511
"Baryons, which are hadrons made of three quarks, make up almost all the matter we see in the universe today," said Brookhaven theoretical physicist Swagato Mukherjee, a co-author on the paper describing the new results in Physical Review Letters. "The theory that tells us how this matter forms-including the protons and neutrons that make up the nuclei of atoms-also predicts the existence of many different baryons, including some that are very heavy and short-lived, containing one or more heavy'strange' quarks. Now we have indirect evidence from our calculations and comparisons with experimental data at RHIC that these predicted higher mass states of strange baryons do exist," he said.
Added Berndt Mueller, Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics at Brookhaven, "This finding is particularly remarkable because strange quarks were one of the early signatures of the formation of the primordial quark-gluon plasma. Now we're using this QGP signature as a tool to discover previously unknown baryons that emerge from the QGP and could not be produced otherwise."
Freezing point depression and supercomputing calculations
The evidence comes from an effect on the thermodynamic properties of the matter nuclear physicists can detect coming out of collisions at RHIC. Specifically, the scientists observe certain more-common strange baryons (omega baryons, cascade baryons, lambda baryons) "freezing out" of RHIC's quark-gluon plasma at a lower temperature than would be expected if the predicted extra-heavy strange baryons didn't exist.
"It's similar to the way table salt lowers the freezing point of liquid water," said Mukherjee. "These 'invisible' hadrons are like salt molecules floating around in the hot gas of hadrons, making other particles freeze out at a lower temperature than they would if the'salt' wasn't there."
To find evidence, the scientists performed calculations using lattice QCD, a technique that uses points on an imaginary four-dimensional lattice (three spatial dimensions plus time) to represent the positions of quarks and gluons, and complex mathematical equations to calculate interactions among them, as described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD).
"The calculations tell you where you have bound or unbound quarks, depending on the temperature," Mukherjee said. They were specifically looking for fluctuations of conserved baryon number and strangeness and exploring how the calculations fit with the observed RHIC measurements at a wide range of energies.
The calculations show that inclusion of the predicted but "experimentally uncharted" strange baryons fit better with the data, providing the first evidence that these so-far unobserved particles exist and exert their effect on the freeze-out temperature of the observable particles.
These findings are helping physicists quantitatively plot the points on the phase diagram that maps out the different phases of nuclear matter, including hadrons and quark-gluon plasma, and the transitions between them under various conditions of temperature and density.
"To accurately plot points on the phase diagram, you have to know what the contents are on the bound-state, hadron side of the transition line-even if you haven't seen them," Mukherjee said. "We've found that the higher mass states of strange baryons affect the production of ground states that we can observe. And the line where we see the ordinary matter moves to a lower temperature because of the multitude of higher states that we can't see."
Preprint: A. Bazavov, H.-T. Ding, P. Hegde, O. Kaczmarek, F. Karsch, E. Laermann, Y. Maezawa, Swagato Mukherjee, H. Ohno, P. Petreczky, C. Schmidt, S. Sharma, W. Soeldner, M. Wagner, 'Additional Strange Hadrons from QCD Thermodynamics and Strangeness Freeze-out in Heavy Ion Collisions', arXiv:1404.6511The director of Guardians of the Galaxy has revealed that Marvel has already approached him about making another sequel.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is currently filming at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia and the shoot is expected to continue until June.
Doctor Who star Karen Gillan is returning as Nebula, alongside Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Michael Rooker, Sean Gunn and Glenn Close.
In the latest fan Q&A on his Facebook page, writer/director James Gunn was asked about what he’s got coming up after making Vol. 2 and revealed that Marvel has already discussed the possibility of making a third Guardians of the Galaxy film with him.
Gunn wrote: “Right now I really am just concerned with doing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2. I’m not sure what I’m going to do after this… Marvel has talked to me about continuing on. I’m not sure if that’s what I want to do or if that’s not what I want to do. I really just want to make Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 the greatest possible movie that I can, and something that’s as honest and sincere and true as it can possibly be”.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 will be released in UK cinemas on 28 April 2017.
> Buy Guardians of the Galaxy on Blu-ray on Amazon.
The director recently confirmed that Karen Gillan will have a bigger role in the sequel: “It’s exciting to have Karen Gillan and Michael Rooker around more.”
Are you hoping for more Guardians of the Galaxy movies? Let us know below…Texas To Build Wind Power Superhighway
July 25th, 2008 by Ariel Schwartz
We’ve all heard of the Information Superhighway; Now it’s time to welcome the Wind Power Superhighway.
In what is purported to be the largest investment in clean, renewable energy in US history, Texas has been given preliminary approval for a $4.9 billion plan to build transmission lines to carry wind power from West Texas to urban areas such as Dallas.
Texas is already the national leader in wind power, but the new transmission lines will make sure wind energy is used to its fullest potential, since most of Texas’ wind power is produced in windy West Texas. The new plan won’t directly create new turbines, but it will add enough transmission lines to move 18,000 megawatts. That’s enough energy to power 4 million homes.
The superhighway won’t just help facilitate the spread of wind power; supporters think it will also create jobs, lower energy costs, and reduce pollution.
Texas citizens will have to assist with the plan’s construction; they will pay an extra $3 to $4 per month on their bills for the next few years. But this pales in comparison to the amount they can save with lower energy prices.
Renewable energy companies are eager to jump on the bandwagon. Yesterday, Oncor, an electric distribution and transmission business, filed with the Public Utility Commission in Texas to indicate its desire to build a large portion of the superhighway.
With a proposal that could provide Texas with more wind energy than the next 14 states combined, perhaps the state’s legacy will be one of wind, not oil.
More Posts on Wind Energy:A BBC Trending article about the lampooning of Malaysia's prime minister on social media was blocked in Malaysia for several hours on Wednesday and Thursday.
The blog post - which had the headline "Be careful what you say about spinach" - explained how remarks by Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak about the price of kangkung, or water spinach, had caused a huge social media reaction. Readers in Malaysia began to report problems accessing the story at about 16:00 GMT on Wednesday, with tweets to the @BBCTrending Twitter account. "Can't believe @BBCtrending's kangkung article is blocked. Not only don't we have freedom of speech we don't even have rights to information," tweeted @rueying.
There were dozens of responses to a tweet we later sent out via @BBCWorld and on #BBCtrending asking Malaysians if they could access the article - with many complaining it was blocked. Problems seemed to be experienced largely by users of Telekom Malaysia's TMnet internet service provider. The block appears to have been lifted at about 04:00 GMT on Thursday - though some people were still reporting problems accessing it.
Tests run by the Sinar Project - an NGO which works on internet freedom in Malaysia - suggested a filter was in place blocking that specific article. The rest of the BBC News website was unaffected - and most were able to access the story via their mobile phones or the main BBC Trending index. Khairil Yusof, co-founder of the group, said there were reasons "to be suspicious", and that a similar pattern of filtering was used during the general elections last year.
Freelance IT solutions provider, @sniiffit also told the BBC he was "almost 99%" sure this was a case of filtering. But both say that the page could have been blocked by an individual employee at TMnet - and not necessary a senior figure. Telekom Malaysia have not responded to our request for a comment - but a spokesman told the Malay Mail they are investigating and plan to issue a statement.
Malaysia's main media regulatory body acknowledged the issue but said they had not blocked the story or asked internet service providers to do so. Sheikh Raffie Abdul Rahman of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said: "We understand that there could have been some temporary difficulties in accessing it, but at the time of this statement this disruption has been resolved." The story was one of the most shared on the BBC News website on Wednesday.
All our stories are at BBC.com/trending
Follow @BBCtrending on Twitter and tweet using #BBCtrendingUsing analytics to cater to the multi-touchpoint customer
I recently had the opportunity to moderate a panel discussion at the Argyle Executive Summit’s Leadership in Digital Marketing conference in New York. The topic of the panel was, “How analytics can be used to better cater to the multi-touchpoint consumer.” I was joined on the panel by Paul Butcher, Head of Digital Communication at Citibank, Clay Stobaugh, Chief Marketing Officer at John Wiley & Sons, Vicky Robertson-Mack, Marketing Director at Sears Home Services and Carol McNerny, Senior Vice President- Marketing Strategy, Insights and Analytics at Pitney Bowes. It was a great discussion that saw the thought leaders put forth a number of interesting viewpoints that cut across industries. A synopsis of the conversation forms the basis of this blog post.
A recent McKinsey study found that the probability of a brand being chosen is directly proportional to the number of digital touchpoints it has with a consumer. What exactly is a customer touchpoint? Wikipedia defines it as an interface of a brand (product or service) with customers before, during and after a transaction. But my favorite description is, “a moment of truth.” It is the point at which a customer forms an impression, often a lasting one. As marketers, that touchpoint becomes our single most important tool.
When talking about multi-touchpoint customers, it is important to remember that customers do not want to be defined by a channel. A customer engages with you to achieve something, be it a product purchase or an experience. In the course of that journey, they will reach out to you in whatever way they find convenient and as marketers, it is our role to understand that end-goal and help the customer achieve it, seamlessly and consistently.
So, is there an optimum number of interactions a marketer should aim to have? This is completely based on the consumer. Our role is to ensure the brand is available to engage and provide the right offer or information. The consumer will decide when they want to engage and what they want to talk about. This is one of the most powerful applications for analytics.
By analyzing digital data, we know what stage of purchase a consumer is in and when they engage, we’re able to ensure they get what they are looking for. We’re able to provide them with customized experiences. And, just as importantly, we’re able to measure every interaction at each touchpoint.
So, what should we measure? Is there one right metric or should we be looking at multiple things? In order for analytics to enable an organization, the panel suggested we follow a three stage process – Mindset, Toolset, Skillset. The first step, Mindset, is about defining what it is that the organization is trying to achieve. Individual departments should not be allowed to set their own KPIs and metrics that are only relevant to their own environments. Only once everyone is streamlined to the same metrics, should we look at tools and build the required skills.
If your goal is to optimize consumer experience across channels, you need to ensure that is what you are measuring across departments. This is where dashboards play acrucial role; they bring a certain discipline into an organization and help create a away for different constituents within companies to all view the same metrics, the same way.
As analytics partners, we work with companies at various stages of the analytics curve. The ability to get an entire organization to measure the same set of metrics to determine success and to use the same sources of data in doing so, is one of the marks of a highly mature organization.
When it comes to B2B businesses, does any of this change? Our panel said “not really”. Even in a B2B business, it’s still a person making the decision to purchase. B2B companies need to become more client-centric and realize that different things are going to appeal to different people, even if they are from the same company. It is still about making them the right offer at the right time.
The Challenges
Across the board, the panelists agreed that data availability is often a big challenge, especially for companies that do not sell directly to the end-consumer (CPG, for example.) Even so, data quality is often a serious concern. It is important to understand what the source of bad quality data is and to fix it. It might involve, for example, making the sales organization understand the importance of collecting complete customer data.
Another big challenge in a multi-touchpoint environment is in ensuring that positive brand associations remain consistent, across channels. Simply put, this translates to ‘ensuring trust.’ For example, Sears Home Services customers trust the brand enough to let a stranger into their homes to fix an appliance. That’s a huge responsibility for the people who manage the brand. They are very aware that they need to ensure that level of trust across every other touchpoint as well. Consistency is key in a multi-touchpoint environment.
In summary, analytics can help marketers understand consumer preferences and their stage of purchase, thereby making it easier to have meaningful interactions at various touchpoints. It can also help marketers measure and maintain consistency across these touchpoints. In today’s world, the journey of customer conversion is multi-device, multi-channel and multi-screen; this makes the multi-touchpoint experience the go-to metric for high impact marketing strategies.German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday her efforts to form a three-way coalition government had failed, thrusting Germany into a political crisis and pushing Europe's largest economy closer to a possible new election.
The pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) unexpectedly pulled out of more than four weeks of negotiations with Merkel's conservative bloc and the ecologist Greens, citing irreconcilable differences.
The euro hit a two-month low against the yen soon after FDP leader Christian Lindner said on Sunday that his party was withdrawing from the talks as the three would-be partners could not find common ground on key issues.
A tired looking Merkel said she would stay on as acting chancellor and would consult with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on how to move forward, adding that a deal had been
within reach.
"It is a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany," Merkel told reporters. "As chancellor, I will do everything to ensure that this country is well managed in the difficult weeks to come."
It was a sobering moment in the career of a woman who during 12 years in power became a symbol of stability, leading the euro zone during its debt crisis and building compromise within the European Union on a deal with Turkey to stem migrant arrivals.
Merkel was weakened after a September election as voters angry with her decision in 2015 to open Germany's borders to more than a million asylum seekers punished her conservatives by voting for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) far-right party.
The break down of the talks leaves Germany with two unprecedented options in the post-World War Two era: Merkel forms a minority government, or the president calls a new election if no government is formed.
The center-left Social Democrats (SPD), Merkel's current coalition partners who were the second-biggest party in the election, have ruled out a repeat of an alliance with her conservatives, who won the vote but were left with fewer seats.
There is little appetite for a new election. The main parties fear that the AfD would win more than the almost 13 percent of votes it secured to enter parliament for the first time as the third-biggest party.The almost-great escape: Panda cub Wen Li makes break for freedom from nursery pen
Testing the boundaries is part of growing up.
So Wn Li the panda club was only doing what comes naturally when she struggled up the side of her playpen to explore.
First one paw appeared, then the other and finally she pulled herself up to the top.
I'm going for it: Wen Li grips the sides of her playpen with her paws as she hoists herself up - while twin sister Ya Li ignores her in the background
This is tougher than it looks: Wen Li gets one paw over the edge
I can taste freedom!: Wen Li gets her other front paw over - and goes for the back foot
Gotcha! Wen Li actually makes it over the edge of her pen - but is quickly collared by her amused handler
Unfortunately, her sense of balance is still a bit wobbly and she toppled over the side, ending up with little more than an upside-down view of the inside of her pen.
The failed attempt did not appear to deter Wen Li, however. She was later spotted in what seems to be her favourite position once more - dangling from the edge of her playpen again.
These images of Wen Li - and her apparently quieter and better-behaved twin sister Ya Li - were taken at the Chengdu Giant Panda Research Institute.
Wen Li and Ya Li were born on July 19, 2009.
Sister Act: The failed escape does not appear to have deterred Wen Li, as she dangles from the edge of the pen once more - and sister Ya Li appears to be trying to get in on the fun
What's in here? The boisterous Wen Li is distracted by the joys of exploring a plastic box
Just four pandas were born at the institute in 2009, compared to 18 babies born in 2008, researchers said.
The reason? Leading researchers believe the mothers at the institute were too 'exhausted' to have any more babies.
The mischievous Wen Li's mother Li Li may have a thing or two to say about that.
Watch me, Mom! Wen Li frolics with her mother, the 'exhausted' Li Li
Greetings to my fans: Wen Li is taken to be bottle fed at the nursery in ChinaIt’s amazing that nobody sees the similarities.
You’d think they’d know just from arguing in favor of their own favorites that their own perspectives are contextualized for time and place.
Like arguing A Tribe Called Quest versus The Migos.
Who your favorite is probably depends on your age group.
If you’re younger, you might respect that Tribe shit, but you be hard pressed to explain to some geezer why The Migos are what they are.
If you’re older, all that new shit sounds the same to you anyway.
Similarly, when people get to arguing about basketball, as Michael Jordan himself – easily the best 2-guard to ever play and I won’t accept a counter argument – set folks to doing by positing that Kobe Bryant’s 5 rings make him better than LeBron because LeBron only has 3, a position that I do not, by the way, agree with, everybody on Twitter starting bringing up Bill Russell because he famously has 11.
What bothers me tho, is that too many people were bringing him up sarcastically.
Like, yeah, then this old fucker’s The Goat.
Well, you know what?
Yeah, he is!
I know I’ve written this before but if you’ve got the most rings, as Russell does with 11 and all 11 of your teammates changed around you while you played, then you certainly have an advantage over most, Jordan in particular, in the Greatest of All Time argument, if only because Jordan never won a ring with teammate and sidekick Scottie Pippen and, quite honestly if anybody really wanted to be a dick, they could argue that Jordan was actually Scottie’s sidekick because during Jordan’s first retirement, Scottie took the eventual Eastern Conference Champion Knicks to Game 7 in the semis and in their pursuits with other teams, Scottie went to the playoffs with the Rockets and the Trailblazers while Jordan ain’t take his Wizards team nowhere.
Also, Mike never got out of the first round without Scottie as a teammate.
Now, Russell takes a beating because at 15.1 ppg, he didn’t really score that much and his 44% FG meant that his shooting percentage was for shit, but his 22.5 rebounds per are and were nothing to sneeze at and if you’re keeping it all the way real and know basketball, then you understand that in a league where almost everybody comes scoring, a guy that voluntarily does everything else becomes the most valuable person on the squad.
Why do you think Dennis Rodman got 5 rings?
What’s Golden State without Draymond Green?
Jordan having the highest ever ppg scoring average is the real reason most imbeciles think he’s the best, which would make, in order, Jordan, Wilt, Elgin Baylor, Kevin Durant (so far), LeBron (so far), Jerry West, Allen Iverson, Bob Pettit, George Gervin and Oscar Robertson the 10 best players in history.
Now, does that sound right to you?
No Shaq, Magic, Kobe, Duncan or Bird?
And, of course, Russell won his last two as Player/Coach.
So, basically, if you were putting together a team and wanted to win, then you’d certainly grab first a guy that won in his very first season in the league and 10 more times over the course of 12 more years way before you’d get a guy that took 7 years to discipline himself enough to win, burning through 4 head coaches along the way.
If Mike was the Goat, then he’d have come in winning and left winning – like Russell – and he did neither.
Sorry.Ford and the universe.
I just had a huge Gravity Falls realization:
remember in the finale when Ford is saying how if Bill spared Dipper, Mabel and Stan then he would let him take over the universe?
Let’s rewind to Not What He Seems and A Tale of Two Stans.
In NWHS, Dipper, Mabel and Soos discover a last secret message before the portal is opened:
“The device, if fully operational, could tear our universe apart!”
“If the clock ever reaches zero our universe is doomed!”
After Ford’s discovery that Bill was not on his side back in the 80s when the portal was being built, he shut it down and wrote that the fate of the universe was at stake should it ever be reopened.
Now to quote Ford from AToTS:
“This was an insanely risky move, opening the portal!”
Clearly Ford values the universe highly. Wouldn’t anyone?
Fast forward to Weirdmageddon 3:
“I have to play the only card we have left: Let Bill into my mind. He might be able to take over the galaxy, and maybe even worse. But at least he might let [you and] the kids free.”
Look at that. Ford values Stan, Dipper, and Mabel higher than the fate of the galaxy. He’d sacrifice the universe just to keep his family alive.
Damn.
Excuse me while I go sob in the corner about how amazing this show is.Adam Hunger-USA Today Sports
One thing we hear a lot at Gillette Stadium: “Do your job.”
How about we get more specific: “Do your job, which can change in an instant depending on a number of outside factors, and which may not become immediately clear until the job has begun.”
Perhaps wide receivers in the New England Patriots’ offense should live by the more specific version of those two similar but different mantras. For years, we have seen the headaches of what should be a dream job: catching passes from Tom Brady.
How many times have you heard someone say something like this about Brady:
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“He expects you to be exactly where he wants you to be every route. Not a yard off, not a yard too deep, not a yard too short. He expects you to be exactly where he wants you to be because he’s going to put the ball placement exactly right.”
That quote comes from wide receiver Brandon LaFell, but it could easily have come from any receiver to walk through the halls of Gillette Stadium. Learning the Patriots offense can be difficult for receivers because of the heavy verbiage, the importance of understanding coverages, and the range of factors that can determine a receiver’s assignment on a given play.
With so much to learn, it makes sense that the jump-off point would be the most simple point of the offense.
“First things first, you’ve got to learn formations,” said LaFell. “Man, we’ve got a million formations, and we’ve got a million personnel groups. I was just trying to get all that down pat, because at least if I know where I’m lined up, I can kind of figure out what everybody else is doing based on the concept of the play. And second, learning the terms of the plays that we use and different code words we use, because one play I can be the X receiver and if we go to a hurry-up offense, depending on where the ball is spotted, I can be the Z receiver the next play. I have to know the whole play, but first, learning the formations, personnel groups, second, learning the plays and the concepts and just go from there with it.”
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It’s not enough to simply know one or two assignments. Receivers can be asked to carry out multiple assignments based on alignment, coverage, personnel groupings, where the ball is spotted, and myriad other factors.
With so much to learn, it can be difficult to get it all right in one offseason — as we learned last year.
Then-rookies Aaron Dobson, Kenbrell Thompkins, and Josh Boyce were thrown into the spotlight, with the tall task of learning the offense and getting in synch with Brady just a few months after entering the league.
“It was tough,” Dobson said of the learning curve in the Patriots offense. “Just coming in, it’s definitely a hard offense to learn. Very demanding. Tom Brady expects a lot from you, so just coming in, and not knowing anything, just trying to learn it all, and learn the different positions, it was tough. I think me and a couple of guys I came in with — Kenbrell and Josh — I feel like we kind of grouped together and just helped each other study and just kind of depended on each other and leaned on each other, and I think that helped us out a lot.”
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Those tribulations have not been limited to rookies and young players. Talented veterans like Joey Galloway, Chad Johnson, and Brandon Lloyd have struggled, and ultimately crawled to their demise.
It’s a difficult offense to learn, but it’s not enough to simply study the offense. One of the defining characteristics of the Erhardt-Perkins offense — the system the Patriots run — is that receivers and quarterbacks must see the defense through the same set of eyes. The receivers run their routes using sight adjustments, in which they are responding to what the defense is doing.
“You have to be smart to play in this offense,” said wide receiver Brian Tyms. “You can’t be — I don’t want to say a dumb football player — but if you don’t know coverages, you might as well go somewhere else. The quarterbacks expect you to be in a certain spot. It’s kind of like basketball: set a pick, got a roll, got a motion here, it’s the same thing.”
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The basketball analogy works perfectly to describe the receiver’s job in the offense, because the receivers will usually run their routes to open spaces in the field. The spacing concepts, and how they affect the receiver’s job, are sometimes determined by whether the middle of the field is open (“MOFO”) or closed (“MOFC”).
But it goes even deeper than that.
“Most places I’ve been, it’s been more so — you know, if it’s Cover 2, you have a small adjustment. But over here, it’s like if there’s a different coverage, there’s a different route, for every route,” Tyms said. “Usually, in most offenses, the receiver’s job is simple. It’s like ‘okay, if it’s Cover 2, I’ve got this. If it’s off, I got this. If it’s man, I got this.’ But in this offense, it’s like, ‘if this dude comes (on a blitz), I’ve got this. If the linebacker floats under me, I have this now. If it’s Cover 2, I have this that converts to this if the corner keeps funnelling with me.’ You’ve got to think as you go, man.”
That’s a lot of information to process, and the receivers don’t have a lot of time to process it once the ball is snapped.
“After your first one or two steps into the route, you should know exactly what you’ve got to do,” said LaFell, “based off if the safety is rolling, if the corner is rolling down hard to Cover 2, or if he’s bailing. Off your first one or two steps, you should have a great idea of exactly what you have to do.”
The receivers and quarterback can gather information based off pre-snap reads, but those reads can change significantly if a defense is disguising coverage. If a defense shows its hand, the offense’s job is easy; if they can conceal their assignment until the last possible moment, they can make things tougher for the offense.
“It’s difficult because defenses are going to try to trick you,” Dobson said. “They’re going to try to stay in one-high as long as they can, and then at the snap, roll to two-high. Receivers just have to be alert to what they’re doing, really pay attention in the scouting reports, really be alert to what the down and distance is, what are they expected to do on second-and-long and other situations. We’ve just got to put ourselves in a situation to know what coverage they like to use and try to stay ahead of the game.”
If a defense does a good job of hiding what they’re doing, they can cause bad reads that create miscommunications between the quarterback and receivers. For that reason, it is supremely important that the quarterback and receiver see the defense through the same set of eyes. That’s not always easy to do, especially when playing alongside a quarterback who has seen it all in his playing career.
“It’s difficult,” Dobson said. “You’ve really got to be alert to what he’s seeing and what we’re seeing. In meetings, we’ve all got to be on the same page. We’ve got to pay attention and see what the quarterback is seeing. What’s he looking for first? What side of the field is he reading first? Things like that, just so we can all know when he’s likely to throw us the ball and when he’s not. For us, it’s good to get a better understanding so we can all be on the same page.”
That should all happen a little more readily this season, now that these receivers have spent a full season in the offense and working with Brady. That being said, they probably won’t be at Brady’s level of understanding just yet.
Brady has played his entire 14-going-on-15-year career in the Patriots offense, which gives him a much deeper level of understanding not only of what the Patriots are trying to accomplish, but how opposing defenses might try to attack it.
That sometimes leaves his receivers awestruck.
“It’s not no blame, he’s just that good,” LaFell said. “We were watching film one day, and we were looking at this different set that this team was showing us, and he’s giving us the play, and we’re like ‘Man, I don’t think that’s going to work,’ and he’s like, ‘No, just wait, because if this guys comes on a blitz, then these two guys have to drop.’ Nobody had ever seen the play yet. As soon as the ball was snapped, the guys did exactly what he said. So being on the same page with him, he’s going to make you right, no matter what.”
One of the keys to last season was the lack of familiarity between Brady and the receivers, and the receivers’ lack of experience in the Patriots offense. The Patriots infamously lost 76 percent of the team’s receptions from 2012 to 2013, and 72 percent of the team’s receiving yards. This year, however, they will carry over no less than 95 percent of the receptions and 94 percent of the receiving yards.
Last year, the only receiver with any prior experience in the Patriots offense was Julian Edelman. This year, the only receiver without any prior experience in the offense is LaFell.
With a year of playing time and a year with Brady under their belt, the Patriots receivers should take a step forward. Just remember, no matter how hard it looks to play wide receiver in the Patriots offense, it’s probably harder.
Follow @ErikFrenzThe recent border dispute has again raised the spectre of Chinese encirclement. It comes close on the heels of India’s boycott of the ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) summit in China. What is unfortunate, though, is that the dreaded encirclement may have already occurred and, if anything, the recent dispute highlights the fraught and schizophrenic nature of the India-China relationship.
The fresh skirmish at the tri-junction of India, Bhutan and China is part of on-going border tensions. The stand-off continues with both sides raising the temperature gradually, much like the dial on a thermostat; apart from incendiary statements, China recently increased its fleet presence in the Indian Ocean Region. In the past, many similar border misunderstandings were resolved quietly. The latest one burst into the headlines with impeccable timing during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US.
India ignored the BRI summit because it objects to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which passes through Pakistan-occupied disputed territory. India’s contention is that CPEC is a unilateral validation of Pakistan’s claim on disputed territory. There are other reasons for India’s nervousness. China’s BRI is viewed as a strategic encirclement of India: Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, CPEC traversing west China via Gilgit-Baltistan all the way to Gwadar port in Balochistan, a road from Yunan province cutting through Myanmar to end at a deep-sea port in Kyaukpyu.
But, apart from the geopolitical squeeze, developments seem |
http://gty.im/855273358
These numbers clearly show that when the Lions diverge from their strict first down tendencies, they are far more successful. When they stick with running the ball from under center or out of the pistol on first down, the defense knows what is coming. Play action passes have been universally unsuccessful, because defenses blitz and sell out to stop the run. Play action passes take longer to develop and Stafford is put in situations where he is under fire before he can even scan the defense.
Typically play action is effective when a team is expecting a run. You want to get linebackers out of position and get receivers behind defenders. Against the blitz, often this doesn’t work, because teams know that they are rushing their linebackers, and players are ready to cover for them. When you don’t have to respect a quick pass on first down, you can afford to sell out your linebackers. That is what teams have been doing to the Lions.
Second Down
With the Lions’ offensive struggles on first down, the team is often in a bad situation on second down. The Lions’ average yards to the sticks on second down is 9.1. Outside of moving the sticks on first down, the Lions average less than a yard on first down. That is a really good way to bring drives to a halt.
To make matters worse, The Lions are facing second down with 11 or more yards to go 23.9% of the time. Almost one out of every four second down plays features an offense that has more yards to go than when they started.
Third Down
Ideally, after first and second down, a team has put itself in a manageable position to convert on third down. The league averages having six or less yards to go on third down about 50.8% of the time. The Lions are at a meager 33.3% of the time. Two out of every three third down opportunities, they are facing third and long. their average yards to the first down marker is 8.9 yards on third down, just over a yard from where they started.
The Lions’ offensive struggles have largely been attributed to third down conversion rate. This is true, but there is more to it than that. The Lions are doing a poor job of putting themselves in favorable situations for third down. Compared to league average, the Lions have done fairly well on third down in the individual situations, they just aren’t putting themselves in the better positions to convert.
Stafford has converted passes for 11 first downs on 17 attempts with six or fewer yards to go. With seven or more yards to go, he has converted only 6 first downs on 27 passing attempts.
The strange part of this, is that while the Lions run consistently on first down, they don’t bother to try and convert third down plays on the ground. Through 11 third downs with four or less yards to go, the Lions have only run twice. They have not run the ball on third down with four to six yards to go.
When teams know that you won’t try to run the ball on third and short, they can key in on the pass. This is another contributing factor to the Lions’ third down conversion rate. Even when they put themselves in favorable situations on third down, the defense knows what is coming. There are very few curve balls coming from Jim Bob Cooter on third down.
http://gty.im/856403278
Third Down Targeting
Anquan Boldin was obviously a huge loss for the Lions in this past off season. He was a threat in the red zone, but more importantly it seems, a threat on third downs. With Boldin no longer on the team, Stafford had to find different ways to convert.
Two of Matthew Stafford’s favorite targets on third down are also two of the most ineffective third down converters. Stafford has targeted Golden Tate 15 times out of his 45 third down passing attempts. Tate has only converted six of these passes into first downs.
Similarly, Stafford has targeted Theo Riddick six times and has only converted one of those targets into first downs.
While fans hold both these players in high esteem, they were among the worst converters of first downs last year as well. Tate converted only 14 of his 42 targets. Riddick gained a first down on only three of his 16 targets. Those were among the worst on the team. The important thing to note here is that Tate and Riddick are Stafford’s best “catch and run” targets. Stafford is often throwing short of the sticks and asking his pass catchers to get yards after the catch. While his completion percentage is adequate, the team often fails to pick up first downs.
On the other side of things, two of the most criticized Detroit Lions have been among the best at picking up first downs. Eric Ebron has had three first downs on five targets. This is a small sample size, but Ebron also converted 17 of 26 last year. He was quietly among their most efficient receivers on third down.
Stafford has targeted Marvin Jones nine times on third down. He has converted four of those. Last year, he converted 17 of 28.
The Lions are focusing in on Golden Tate, Marvin Jones, and Theo Riddick on third down. This may not be surprising, because they are among the Lions’ top options. What is surprising is the ridiculous inefficiencies of two of those receivers. This may be on the play calling. This may be on Stafford. It’s tough to pin down blame here. What is clear is that the Lions are throwing the ball short of the sticks and it is resulting in fourth downs.
Lions’ Offensive Struggles In Review
Third down has been a problem for the Lions. These problems stem from their first down failures. Everything stems from first down. The teams’ problems on first down come directly from predictable play calling. These are the tendencies that teams are recognizing. If I’m seeing them, you better believe that the people who get paid to look at these things are recognizing them. This probably contributes to the lack of success that the Lions’ offensive struggles on first down.
One key area of improvement is that the Lions need to stop committing penalties on first down. That may mean more disciplined play. That may mean different play calling. It may mean both. Continually being forced to dig out of first and long is a recipe for failure. It is a recipe that the Lions have tried far too many times.
Second down should be a bridge play. It should be either picking up a first down, or building on the previous down. Second down has been a recovery down for the Lions. More often than not, they are not aiming for the first. They are not trying to build on first down. They are trying to get back the yards they lost on the previous down. This has to change.
While it starts with first down, the philosophy needs to change on second down. Getting to third and nine has not been an effective course of action thus far. It shouldn’t be expected to be effective. The Lions need to position themselves better so that they can open their playbook a bit on third down.
http://gty.im/836557096
Third down conversions are a problem. Better situations mean more conversions. That said, better play calling means more conversions as well. The Lions have to run the ball on third and short from time to time. It may not be effective all the time, but passing the ball hasn’t either. Running the ball will make passing more effective.
Setting up the run is only effective if you actually throw the ball. If you run the ball every time on first down, what are you setting up? The Lions need to diversify their play calling and let the other team believe that any play could go either way. Running the ball only in certain situations doesn’t fool anyone. It doesn’t help the offense and it hasn’t been effective.
*While most stats were manually collected, Pro Football Reference was used during the data collection process*
Thanks for checking out the article everyone. Go Lions! You can follow me on Twitter @Lanny1925 and be sure to join the community on the Detroit Lions subreddit.The former Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he can no longer call the Taliban militants as brothers after the barbaric attack on the Shaheen army corps in Balkh province.
Speaking during a press conference in Kabul, Karzai called on Taliban to stop committing atrocities against the Afghan nation.
He said each move and each bullet fired by the Taliban insurgents serve the interests of the outsiders who are pursuing their specific goals and interests in the instability of the country.
The former President also warned that the specific circles are working in the country to spark ethnic tensions among the Afghan people as he insisted that the Afghan people should get closer than any other time to maintain unity.
Karzai once again raised his voice against the use of the Mother of All Bombs in Achin district of Nangarhar and said he has taken his votes back which he had casted for the government of national unity, protesting against the government for allowing the use of the massive bomb.
However, Karzai said he attended the funeral ceremony in ARG Palace to show solidarity with the Afghan nation and pay respect to the victims of the base attack in Balkh.
The Afghan government declared a nationwide national day of mourning after the attack on Shaheen corps base in Balkh.
According to reports, more than 100 people lost their lives in the attack although the exact number has not been confirmed by the government so far.Thunder goes 3-1 on the road trip. Closes regular season at home tomorrow night vs Nuggets. #ThunderBasketball pic.twitter.com/qbqUbIwv1y — OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) April 12, 2017
In a game that essentially meant nothing as far as postseason placement goes, the Oklahoma City Thunder came out undermanned, but ready to play. Russell Westbrook, Andre Roberson, and Taj Gibson all sat out with rest, but that did not stop the Thunder from playing some excellent basketball. After a few lead changes to start the game, Oklahoma City trailed 9-10 before they went on a 24-6 run to end the first quarter with a 33-16 lead. The Thunder reserves kept up the intensity in the second period as they extended the lead to 22 at one point, but the Timberwolves kept things interesting as they managed to cut the deficit to 13 as Oklahoma City led 56-43 at the half.
Minnesota continued their push to close in on Oklahoma City as they ran off 8 straight points before the Thunder could score to stop the bleeding. The Timberwolves would outscore the Thunder 29-15 for the period to finish the quarter leading Oklahoma City 72-71. The fourth quarter would prove to be the most evenly balanced period of the night as there were 13 lead changes, but the Thunder came out on top 100-98 to move to 47-34 on the season with the finale coming up tomorrow.
Oladipo Ices the Game
With Russell Westbrook, the Thunder’s leading scorer by a lot, resting for the night, Victor Oladipo had to come into the game with the mindset that he was going to have to score if the Thunder were going to come away with a win. Oladipo did not shoot a lot, taking only 16 shots, but he made 8 of them to go along with 3 free throws to tally 20 points as he led Oklahoma City in scoring.
Oladipo was able to contribute in other ways besides scoring as well as he grabbed a team-tying high 9 rebounds and team-tying high 6 assists. He struggled at times to take care of the ball as he turned it over 8 times, but he was in charge of running the offense pretty much the entire time he was on the floor.
The best part of Oladipo’s performance was his play during the fourth quarter. When the Thunder are in a close game and time is winding down, the ball is undoubtedly always in Russell Westbrook’s hands, but that was not possible tonight, so the responsibility fell to Oladipo. Victor scored 9 points in the final period, including the eventual game-winner with only 6.3 seconds left.
Another 👀 at Vic's shot and the bench reaction! pic.twitter.com/l3i5pUMaGP — OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) April 12, 2017
Seeing Oladipo show up and have a solid game, especially hitting a clutch shot at the end to win it, is exactly what the Thunder needs headed into the playoffs. Russell Westbrook has played well all season, and he has been a monster lately, but he has to have help against a talented Houston squad, which means Oladipo is going to have to step up and be that right-hand man to Russ that Thunder fans know he is capable of being.
Team Effort Fuels Thunder Win
Despite three starters out for rest, the Thunder had very little issue taking care of business tonight. As a team, Oklahoma City had six guys score in double digits as the team shot a decent 43% from the field, 32% from three, and 76% from the free throw line, and the Thunder assisted on 22 of 37 made field goals.
The numbers.
Oladipo 20p-9r-6a
Sabonis 19p-9r
Cole 12p
Singler 11p
Adams 10p-8r
Kanter 10p
Thunder 54 rebounds pic.twitter.com/ybHMreAffk — OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) April 12, 2017
After Victor Oladipo’s team-high 20 points, Domantas Sabonis showed up with an impressive stat line as he filled in at starting power forward. He scored 19 points while shooting 6/16 (37.5%) from the field and 6/6 (100%) from the free throw line to go along with 9 rebounds and 3 assists. Sabonis has really struggled in the second half of the season, but tonight’s performance showed that he has a lot of potential and room to grow.
Domas Sabonis 🔥
19 points 8 rebounds
Thunder leads by 5.
4:19 left. #OKCvsMIN pic.twitter.com/2W4l1kdp9J — OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) April 12, 2017
Norris Cole came off the bench to play a solid 23 minutes as he scored points on 4/11 (36.4%) shooting from the floor, including a clutch three late in the 4th quarter, as well as 3/4 (75%) from the free throw line. He also had 3 assists and 2 rebounds.
Kyle Singler played 28 minutes, his third-most of the season, as he filled in for Andre Roberson in the starting lineup. He tallied 11 points and 4 rebounds. Thunder big men Steven Adams and Enes Kanter added 10 points apiece to finish out the double-digit scoring Oklahoma City, and they also grabbed 8 rebounds each.
Steven Adams at the rim 💪 Thunder on 16-2 run, leads 25-12 late in Q1. #OKCvsMIN pic.twitter.com/OBUVZ1hm87 — OKC THUNDER (@okcthunder) April 12, 2017
Fan-favorite Jerami Grant came off the bench to play 22 minutes, and while he scored only 6 points, which included an incredible dunk, he also had 8 rebounds and a monster block near the end of the game.
Jerami Grant Throws It Down! 🛠 pic.twitter.com/5vSNNEyzia — NBA TV (@NBATV) April 12, 2017
Nick Collison played a brief 8 minutes, but he went 2/2 from the floor for 4 points to go along with 3 rebounds and an assist. He had a dunk at a key point in the third quarter when Oklahoma City desperately needed a bucket.
Play of the year candidate by Nick Collison pic.twitter.com/ir71XAk2dz — Jon Hamm (@JonMHamm) April 12, 2017
Tonight’s game was a lot of fun, and though it changes nothing in playoff standings, it was a good look at what the Thunder are capable of doing without Russell Westbrook on the floor. As a team, Oklahoma City has not played particularly well the last few weeks, but tonight was a good start. Hopefully they are able to carry some of that success into the first round of the playoffs against the Houston Rockets.
Season Finale At Home
The Thunder will host the Denver Nuggets at Chesapeake Energy Arena on Wednesday in the final game of the season. Oklahoma City effectively eliminated the Nuggets from the playoffs on Sunday when Russell Westbrook not only set the single-season triple-double record with 42 total, but he also hit a ridiculous buzzer beater to help the Thunder to a 106-105 win. Neither team has anything special to play for as Oklahoma City is locked in at the 6-seed in the Western Conference, and the Nuggets will be headed to the offseason when the game is over, but it should still offer some entertainment. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and former single-season triple-double record holder Oscar Robertson will both be in attendance to honor Westbrook for his incredible season. Tip-off is set for 7:00 PM CDT and will be televised on FSOK. It will also be broadcast on the radio at WWLS 98.1 FM.
Article written by Zack Low. Follow @TheThunderGuys on Twitter and Instagram.
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The Constitution’s eligibility requirements for the presidency are spare, and in every formal sense, at least, Donald J. Trump meets them all: He was elected with a majority of electoral votes in a fashion that comports with the Twelfth Amendment. While he famously questioned his predecessor’s birth certificate and citizenship, nobody seems to doubt his. Trump is, as Article II, Section I, Clause 5 requires, “a natural born citizen”; he has “attained to the age of thirty five years”—with some years to spare, actually; and he has certainly “been fourteen Years a resident within the United States.”
And finally, on January 20, 2017, in apparent accordance with Article II, Section I, Clause 8, “Before he enter[ed] on the execution of his office, he [took] the following oath or affirmation:—‘I do solemnly swear... that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.’”
There’s only one problem with Trump’s eligibility for the office he now holds: The idea of Trump’s swearing this or any other oath “solemnly” is, not to put too fine a point on it, laughable—as more fundamentally is any promise on his part to “faithfully” execute this or any other commitment that involves the centrality of anyone or anything other than himself.
Indeed, a person who pauses to think about the matter has good reason to doubt the sincerity of Trump’s oath of office, or even his capacity to swear an oath sincerely at all. We submit that huge numbers of people—including important actors in our constitutional system—have not even paused to consider it; they are instinctively leery of Trump’s oath and are now behaving accordingly.
This reality, and we argue here that it is a reality, is already conditioning the Trump presidency in overt ways visible every day. What’s more, we submit that these doubts about the President’s oath will inevitably shape public and institutional reaction to his service. And as a predictive matter, we believe that doubts about the President’s oath will have important and negative implications for the future of the American presidency.
To be clear, we are not suggesting that the sincerity of the presidential oath presents any sort of justiciable question. To the contrary, what makes the problem of Trump’s oath vexing and difficult is precisely that it is quite improper for the judiciary to look behind a person’s formal compliance with Article II, Section I, Clause 8—any more than the courts have mechanisms to verify that the content of a State of the Union address really meets the requirements of Article II, Section 3. It's the very definition of a political question.
Rather, our argument is both subtler and, in some respects, more dramatic: It is that the presidential oath is actually the glue that holds together many of our system’s functional assumptions about the presidency and the institutional reactions to it among actors from judges to bureaucrats to the press. When large enough numbers of people within these systems doubt a president’s oath, those assumptions cease operating. They do so without anyone’s ever announcing, let alone ruling from the bench, that the President didn’t satisfy the Presidential Oath Clause and thus is not really president. They just stop working—or they work a lot less well.
That is, we argue here, what we’re seeing now. And the disruption in our expectations of the presidency, and our civic and legal responses to it will, we suspect, have a very long tail.
ii
The day after the election, one of us wrote the following about his posture towards the new President-elect and the way he personally intended to cover Trump’s administration on Lawfare:
Trump’s election will fundamentally change my work on this site over the next few years, and probably off the site too. Because at least for me, Trump does not enter office with a presumption of regularity in his work. He does not enter office with a presumption that as President he will pursue a vision of what national security means that is remotely related to my own or that he will do so in a rational fashion—or even that he and I share a common idea of what aspects of this nation we are trying to secure.
The sentiment received a fair bit of criticism from people who thought that no president deserved such a presumption:
This is the skepticism that citizens, and especially journalists, should apply to *all* Presidents. But either way, welcome @benjaminwittes! https://t.co/DkcR5zEz1n — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 10, 2016
Is Trump really different from any other president? Why would an analyst attach a presumption of regularity to the conduct of a president in the first place?
There’s a big, if somewhat ineffable, difference between opposing a president and not believing his oath of office. All presidents face opposition, some of it passionate, extreme, and delegitimizing. All presidents face questions about their motives and integrity. Hating the President is a very old tradition, and many presidents face at least some suggestion that their oaths do not count. Obama, after all, was a foreign-born Muslim to his most extreme detractors.
Yet, for a variety of reasons we discuss below, there is something different about the questions about Trump’s oath, and it is how widespread and mainstream the anxiety is. It’s also, and we want to be frank about this, how reasonable the anxiety is when applied to a man whose word one cannot take at face value on the pre-political trust the oath represents. That person does not get certain presumptions our system normally attaches to presidential conduct.
If you’re a liberal, one who voted against George W. Bush twice, do the following thought experiment: Did you ever doubt, even as you decried the Iraq War and demanded accountability for counterterrorism policies and actions you regarded as lawless, that Bush was acting sincerely in the best interests of the country as he understood them? Yes, people used the slogan “Bush Lied, People Died,” but how many of them actually in their hearts doubted that Bush was earnestly trying to do his duty by the electorate, even if they differed in their understandings of what that duty entailed? Some, to be sure, we suspect many more accepted that Bush was honestly doing his best.
One of those people, notably, was Barack Obama. Over the summer, on Face the Nation, he answered a question about his predecessor by saying, “first of all, George W. Bush, despite obviously very different political philosophies, is a really good man.”
Now ask: Would you answer this question the same way about Trump as you would about Bush—and do you think Obama would?
Conversely, if you’re a conservative who voted against Obama, do the same thought experiment in reverse: Did you ever doubt, even as you decried Obamacare and fumed that Obama was weakening America, that he was acting sincerely in the best interests of the country as he understood them? Did you ever doubt that he was earnestly trying to do his duty by the electorate? And would you answer this question the same way about Trump?
Bush’s own reaction to his successors is instructive here. Bush notably chose to remain largely silent about Obama. And he explicitly tied this reticence to his respect for Obama’s presidency. In a 2009 speech, he said, “I love my country more than I love politics,” memorably adding: “He deserves my silence.”
The mutual respect between Bush and Obama is not simply the cordiality of two establishmentarians who are both part of the Presidents Club, though that may be part of the story. It is, we believe, the cordiality of two people who respect one another’s good faith—that is, who respect one another’s oaths of office.
And it stands in sharp contrast to the deference Bush has not shown to Trump. Over the last week alone, Bush has given two interviews containing barely disguised criticisms of the 45th president. On the Today show, he emphasized the role of an independent press as “indispensable to democracy” (in obvious reference to Trump’s attacks on the media as “the enemy of the people”), answered a question on Trump’s travel ban on refugees and immigrants from seven majority-Muslim countries by saying that “a bedrock of our freedom is the right to worship freely,” and indicated support for an investigation into connections between the Trump administration and campaign and the Kremlin. In People magazine, he said of the mood under the new administration, “I don’t like the racism and I don’t like the name-calling and I don’t like the people feeling alienated.”
There’s actually a good reason, lots of good reasons, why people react differently to Trump—why, that is, they don’t merely oppose him politically but seem to doubt whether he’s earnestly committed to trying to the best of his ability to do right by the country.
To be sure, the doubt is by no means universal. As we write this, 43 percent of Americans approve of the president’s performance so far—an unusually low figure for a new president but nevertheless a significant portion of the country. Presumably, citizens who approve of Trump also believe in the integrity of his oath of office.
But that leaves a huge number of people who are harboring doubts. And the doubts are not limited to the fringe. On the contrary, the belief that there is something different about this president is extraordinarily common among sober commentators of both the left and right—and, even more notably, among many of those with significant experience in government in both career and political roles.
So why the doubts? For one thing, Trump’s highly erratic statements and behavior include any number of incidents that seem to reflect a lack of understanding of his office or its weight. It’s not just the tweets. This is a person, after all, who suggested before the election that he might not even serve as president if he prevailed; who then said that he would accept the results of the election “if I win”; who made up a whole lot of voter fraud; who promised to prosecute his opponent; who, in his first public address following the inauguration, stood in front of the CIA’s Memorial Wall and bragged falsely about the number of people who attended his inaugural ceremony; who has made use of the immense power of the bully pulpit to publicly complain about the “unfair” decision by a private retail company to drop his daughter’s fashion line; who approached the process of selecting a Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, and nominee to the Supreme Court in a manner more fit for reality television than the office of the presidency; who refused to accept responsibility for the death of a Navy SEAL in a botched counterterrorism raid conducted on his orders, claiming instead that “this was something they [the generals] wanted to do,” before standing in front of Congress and apparently ad-libbing that the SEAL was looking down with happiness from Heaven because Trump received extended applause during his address; and whose most memorable quotation coming out of the presidential campaign was the inimitable, “Grab ‘em by the pussy”—a phrase he then dismissed as “locker room talk.”
Moral seriousness and respect for his office just isn’t his thing.
This is also a person whose campaign was rife with promises to commit crimes and to abuse the powers of the very office for which he then took the oath.
The combination of the sprawling nature of his business and the intentional obscurity of his finances is also a factor. A person who takes an oath yet maintains financial entanglements that create potential conflicts of interests—conflicts he refuses to acknowledge—and who shrouds the entire affair in a secrecy far in excess of predecessors whose finances presented far less complexity invites doubt. He invites questions about what else, other than his oath, may be guiding his behavior. This is particularly true when the financial relationship coexist with his bizarre solicitude for Russia—with which several of his aides have maintained financial and political relationships and regarding which rumors have swirled about his own ties. One doesn’t have to be a conspiracy theorist, given these circumstances, to ask the question about Trump’s oath: What else is going on here?
Then there’s Trump’s strange and adversarial relationship with the truth—a matter about which one of us has written at length. While Trump produces a stream of obvious and easily falsifiable fabrications—and the Washington Post keeps a convenient tally of presidential lies since his inauguration, a tally which currently stands at 190—the President is less of a liar than a bullshitter, in the sense described by the philosopher Harry Frankfurt. A bullshitter in this technical sense is a person who does not aim to obscure the truth so much as operates without any relationship to truth whatsoever. The liar, Frankfurt says, must have some knowledge of the facts at hand, in order to conceal them. But to the bullshitter, facts are nothing more than an irrelevance.
In Frankfurt’s argument, this is what makes bullshit dangerous: the liar makes the key concession that “there are indeed facts that are in some way determinable or knowable.” Bullshit, on the other hand, glibly rejects the value and even existence of knowable facts.
Trump’s bullshit raised questions of its own when he was in the running for the presidency. But now that he has sworn the oath of office, we are forced to confront what it means for a bullshitter to have promised to faithfully execute the office of President and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the country’s larger legal system. Bullshit, after all, is kind of the opposite of law, which is an organized system of meaning.
There is a related concern about the Take Care Clause, which—echoing the oath’s requirement that the president “faithfully execute” the duties of the office—mandates that the president “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Can a bullshitter, whose entire method of engaging with the world is incompatible with the concept of fidelity and whose fundamental slipperiness and laxity in shouldering responsibility makes impossible the notion of “taking care,” really fulfill the requirements of this clause? But the Take Care Clause presentation of the problem necessarily presents the question in its specific, as-applied sense: Did the president take care in a particular instance that the law was faithfully executed? The oath presents the concern in general.
It makes us ask: What does it even mean for a person who contradicts himself constantly, who says all kinds of crazy things, who has unknown but extensive financial dealings that could be affected by his actions, and who makes up facts as needed in the moment to swear an oath to faithfully execute the office?
iii
The Presidential Oath Clause is not, shall we say, one of the Constitution’s rock stars. The Federalist Papers barely mention it. It doesn’t have a particularly extensive academic literature. No famous Supreme Court cases overtly turn on it or interpret it. An admittedly unscientific but nonetheless illustrative Twitter survey suggests that discussion of the oath is not dominating constitutional law classes either: Among 1,203 respondents, 90 percent recalled either no discussion (70 percent) of the oath in their classes or only a “brief mention” (20 percent); only three percent recalled “lots” of oath talk.
Question for people who have taken a Con Law class: How much discussion did you have of the presidential oath clause of the Constitution? — Benjamin Wittes (@benjaminwittes) February 26, 2017
The presidential oath was introduced into the Constitution by one John Rutledge, who would later become the second Chief Justice of the United States. In its initial form, the oath read briefly: “I solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States of America.” The Convention then added a second clause (“will to the best of my judgement and power, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States”), following a proposal by George Mason and James Madison.
The oath was then tweaked to replace “judgement and power” with “abilities and power,” and then to replace that with simply “ability.”
Amidst these revisions, James Wilson—who would soon be appointed to the Supreme Court by George Washington—objected that the provision for a separate presidential oath was redundant given the Constitution’s preexisting requirement that government officials all swear an oath. Notably, while this clause—listed in Article IV, Section 3 of the Constitution—requires that “all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution,” the Constitution leaves it up to Congress to determine the oath itself. Wilson’s objection did not carry the day, however, and the result is the anomaly that the text of the presidential oath of office, but no other, is spelled out in the Constitution itself.
The oath makes only scant appearances in Supreme Court case law, and figures not at all in most of the seminal cases involving the scope of presidential power.
But don’t let that fool you. It is actually a fundamental underpinning not only of many of our cultural assumptions regarding presidential behavior, but also of the judiciary’s willingness to grant deference to the executive branch, particularly in the realm of national security. This point is actually not limited to the presidency. Oaths of office are, more generally, a foundational component of inter-branch deference and comity. When the courts presume a statute constitutional, they do so because it was passed by a coordinate branch of government whose members swore oaths to protect the Constitution. The presumption of constitutionality is, in other words, a deference to the institution of a coordinate branch as populated by people who swear oaths to the Constitution. Similarly, when the courts presume regularity in executive behavior or defer to the executive branch on a matter entrusted to it, the source of the presumption is that the office-holder has sworn an oath too.
To understand the relationship between the oath and the deference to the president in national security matters, start with Joseph Story. In Commentaries on the Constitution, Story wrote of the oath of office generally:
Oaths have a solemn obligation upon the minds of all reflecting men.... If, in the ordinary administration of justice in cases of private rights, or personal claims, oaths are required of those, who try, as well as of those, who give testimony, to guard against malice, falsehood, and evasion, surely like guards ought to be interposed in the administration of high public trusts, and especially in such, as may concern the welfare and safety of the whole community.
Of the presidential oath particularly he said:
No man can well doubt the propriety of placing a president of the United States under the most solemn obligations to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. It is a suitable pledge of his fidelity and responsibility to his country; and creates upon his conscience a deep sense of duty, by an appeal at once in the presence of God and man to the most sacred and solemn sanctions, which can operate upon the human mind.
Once a government official, and particularly a president, swears the oath of office, in other words, we assume that the oath binds the person to a certain degree of public virtue and good faith, along with inculcating a sense of duty and responsibility. That is something we can defer to.
For a practical example of this idea in the national security litigation space, consider the controversial 2011 Guantanamo habeas case in the D.C. Circuit, Latif v. Obama, which turned on the question of whether an intelligence report of uncertain reliability was due a “presumption of regularity.” Writing for the court, Judge Janice Rogers Brown held that the report could be presumed to be a reliable record of Latif’s statements on the grounds that, “in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, courts presume that [public officers] have properly discharged their official duties.” This “presumption of regularity,” Brown wrote, “is founded on inter-branch and inter-governmental comity.”
In other words, the presumption of regularity follows from the “common experience” that “public officials usually do their duty,” as Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in her concurring opinion in the case. And this “common experience” derives from the fact that, in doing their duty, public officials are honoring their oaths.
Follow the line of cases cited in Latif and you’ll quickly arrive at the 1827 case of Martin v. Mott, which the D.C. Circuit cited in American Federation of Government Employees v. Reagan as the source of the presumption. In Mott, the Supreme Court held (regarding the reviewability of the president’s decision to call up the militia) that, “Every public officer is presumed to act in obedience to his duty until the contrary is shown.” While the Court acknowledged the potential danger of deferring to the executive on a militia muster, it wrote that mitigating this concern are “the high qualities which the Executive must be presumed to possess, of public virtue, and honest devotion to the public interests.”
Chief Justice Roger Taney made a similar point some twenty years later in Luther v. Borden. Citing Mott, the Court declared nonjusticiable the question of whether President John Tyler had, after recognizing Rhode Island’s incumbent government as legitimate over the rebel government during the Dorr War, rightly made the determination to support the state’s Charter Government in calling up the militia. Despite the potential for abuse of the presidential power to muster the militia, the Court held: “[T]he elevated office of the President, chosen as he is by the people of the United States, and the high responsibility he could not fail to feel when acting in a case of so much moment, appear to furnish as strong safeguards against a wilful abuse of power as human prudence and foresight could well provide.”
In both Mott and Luther, in other words, the Court argues that it owes the president deference because |
attorney who began questioning McGarry's autopsies more than 20 years ago, when Minyard's office ruled that Adolph Archie, who had killed a police officer, died from a fall rather than from a police beating. "There have been serious questions raised about thoroughness and bias."
Gary Bizal, another attorney who has sued the New Orleans Police Department on behalf of people killed by officers, agreed, saying McGarry gave more credence to police versions of events and discounted civilian testimony.
Although he declined to discuss specific cases in an interview this week, Minyard defended McGarry and the work he did during his almost 30 years with the coroner's office. "I think Dr. McGarry was a fine forensic pathologist," he said. "He gave this office many, many years of good service."
McGarry did not return messages left for him at the Harrison County coroner's office in Missisippi, where he still performs autopsies.
Minyard, who usually classifies the manner of death instead of leaving it to the pathologist who does the autopsy, also chafes at the notion that he favors law enforcement.
'I'm only interested in the truth'
"For me, my problem is that I have been accused of protecting the police. That gets to the forensic integrity of the office, the people who work here," Minyard said. "If I was to give in, do everything that these defense lawyers and these civil rights lawyers want me to do, I would not be carrying out my integrity in the forensic area. I'm uninterested in who wins or loses. I'm only interested in the truth."
James Traylor, a forensic pathologist at the LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, backed up the coroner.
He said that during his time at the Orleans Parish coroner's office he "butted heads" a few times with Minyard on how to classify individual deaths. But Traylor said the office absolutely maintained its independence from police and the Sheriff's Office, noting that he came to conclusions in several autopsies that weren't in the best interest of the jail staff.
"When I was there, never was I ever asked -- not once -- to do anything that was unethical," Traylor said.
Traylor also defended McGarry's work. "He has probably forgotten more than I know," he said.
The Adolph Archie case
Questions about the office's objectivity bubbled up in 1990, after the death of Adolph Archie, who fatally shot a New Orleans police officer and then was subsequently beaten by officers. He later died at the hospital.
After an autopsy by McGarry, Minyard initially called the death accidental, saying Archie was injured in a fall. Howell, who represented Archie's family, commissioned independent autopsies that found McGarry missed injuries on Archie's body that could not have been the result of a fall, but were instead caused by blunt-force trauma.
After various groups protested that his office had essentially fixed the autopsy results to favor police, including an officer who was a good friend of his, Minyard changed his ruling to homicide by police intervention.
Under state law, it's up to the parish coroner to determine whether people who die suddenly or violently did so from natural causes, or from an accident, a suicide or homicide. In cases that can't be figured out, a coroner can also rule a case "undetermined." No cases are more difficult than in-custody deaths, when a person dies at the hands of a police officer or while in the custody of a jail or law enforcement agency.
Minyard, 81, was elected coroner in 1973 and has faced a challenger only twice since. He trained as a gynecologist. He does not perform any autopsies. But he does determine the manner of deaths, which he says he does in consultation with his pathologists.
The Henry Glover case
Glover's case was without doubt a tough one. On Sept. 2, 2005, several days after Hurricane Katrina, Glover was shot by a New Orleans police officer in Algiers. His body was later incinerated in a car by another officer. Although Glover's family made repeated efforts to get police to find out what happened, almost nothing was done until an FBI investigation began in early 2009.
Dana Troxclair, the forensic pathologist who did the Glover autopsy, recounted during the trial that the pieces of charred flesh and bone she received at St. Gabriel, the temporary morgue after the storm, provided very few clues as to what happened to Glover. She and another pathologist x-rayed the remains and examined them closely. They found no bullets.
"All we could find were little metal fragments of what appeared to be the car," she testified.
During the trial neither prosecutors nor defense attorneys asked Troxclair whether the coroner's office had been told the burned man was shot.
But in a conversation with the lead FBI agent in the case, Glover's sister said she told Minyard and another coroner's office employee in the months after the storm that her brother had been shot by either police or National Guardsmen, according to an FBI report. It is unclear whether the coroner's office communicated the family's suspicion to police or federal authorities, but no NOPD detectives who testified at trial mentioned receiving any information from the coroner except that the case was "unclassified."
In an interview this week, Minyard declined to talk about the Glover case, noting the three convicted police officers had pending appeals. But in a March 2010 interview, Minyard said said he didn't know of anybody at the coroner's office talking to the family about what had happened to Glover.
The Raymond Robair case
Robair's death, on July 30, 2005, should have been less complicated to assess, but it too sparked controversy. Civilian witnesses in Treme say they saw police stomp and hit Robair. The two officers now accused in the case say were helping Robair, who they say they found stumbling around and clutching his chest. To get him quick medical assistance, the officers took the unusual step of taking the man to the hospital themselves.
A grand jury indictment handed up last summer accuses officer Melvin Williams of kicking Robair and hitting him with a baton. His partner that day, Matthew Dean Moore, is accused of helping write a false report about what happened.
The indictment notes that an autopsy found that Robair suffered fractured ribs and a ruptured spleen. But the latter detail wasn't noted by the Orleans Parish coroner's office. The autopsy done by McGarry listed the fractured ribs, but states only that the spleen is absent, removed in surgery. Minyard classified the death as accidental.
A second autopsy, performed 10 days later by Dr. Kris Sperry, the chief medical examiner in Georgia, recounts that doctor's efforts to track down the spleen, which had been cut into sections. Sperry put the spleen back together, finding lacerations that indicated to him a rupture caused by blunt force to the abdomen, according to the autopsy.
Sperry, who also conducted the second Archie autopsy in 1990, found evidence of blows to Robair's thighs and the back of his legs, which is not mentioned in McGarry's report. McGarry's report does not mention dissecting the lower body and Sperry's report specified that he discovered only a 5-centimeter incision in the right thigh from the earlier autopsy. The nature of the injuries made it unlikely that Robair had been hurt before he encountered the police officers, Sperry found. He ruled the death a homicide.
In an interview last March, Minyard said McGarry would have mentioned Robair's legs if they were relevant. "In autopsies you don't usually put down all the normal things," he said. "You put down the abnormal things."
Minyard said he actually believes the death should have been labeled "unclassified" instead of accidental. He was cautious about the civilian accounts because one witness said a specific police officer was involved in the beating. Evidence showed she was on her honeymoon in Hawaii at the time.
Frank DeSalvo, who represents Williams, said che onsidered McGarry's autopsy to be "pretty thorough."
"You would really have to look to see something wrong with that autopsy," DeSalvo said, noting that he hopes to call McGarry at trial. "He is the most respected pathologist in the state of Louisiana. I don't think there is any question about that."
Disputes between pathologists
But pathologists hired by families to conduct follow-up examinations have frequently criticized McGarry's failure to fully examine some victims' bodies and to note serious injuries in some cases. The critiques date back to the Archie case, in which McGarry failed to notice a fractured larnyx and hemorrahaging around the neck.
Years later, in the case of 45-year-old Gerald Arthur, a pathologist hired by the man's family found that McGarry failed to dissect neck muscles, even though civilian witnesses claimed he was choked by police in December 2006.
Dr. Douglas Posey Jr., the pathologist, called the failure "gross negligence" and "a major mistake." Unlike McGarry, who did not photograph the autopsy, Posey took pictures, which he said showed the undissected muscles.
But during a federal civil trial in the Arthur case, McGarry defended his practices. Although it is not specifically described in the autopsy, McGarry said he did dissect the muscles. In general, he said that the hired pathologists were finding injuries that were the result of dissection during his autopsies, not injuries caused before the person died.
Disputes between experts might be resolved if the office required pathologists to photograph all autopsies, but particularly those that involve in-custody deaths, Howell said. In states that use appointed medical examiners rather than elected coroners, photographs are standard procedure, Posey said. He added that pathologists in the medical examiner offices he has worked in are particularly careful to document every move for in-custody death autopsies because of their controversial nature.
While McGarry did not customarily take photographs, Minyard said photographing autopsies has become standard procedure in his office.
However, Minyard chafed at another of Howell's suggestions, that pathologists hired by a family be allowed to observe autopsies as they are being conducted. While not ruling out that he would allow such observation -- common practice in many offices -- he said it could be insulting to his pathologists.
The last McGarry autopsy for Minyard's office to spark controversy was that of Cayne Miceli, a New Orleans woman who died after a brief stint at the Orleans Parish jail in early 2009. Miceli was arrested on municipal charges at Tulane University's hospital after she sought treatment for her severe asthma. She ended up in the jail's oft-criticized psychiatric ward after a suicide attempt.
Despite her asthma, she was tied down on her back in five-point restraints, which a federal lawsuit brought by Howell against the Orleans Parish sheriff's office argues directly led to her death.
Minyard declined to discuss the Miceli case, but the initial autopsy is puzzling. Minyard at first classified Miceli's death as accidental, finding it was "drug-related." But Howell said the toxicology report came back clean.
The initial classification seems to stem from the "multiple fresh and recent injection sites of the forearms" mentioned in McGarry's report. But McGarry did not make note of a logical explanation for those marks: Miceli was hooked up to life-support equipment before she died.
The drug finding was removed from a subsequent death certificate and autopsy that was issued by Minyard's office more than a year after the McGarry autopsy. The second autopsy notes the pulmonary disease found in Miceli's body. Her death certificate was also changed, removing "drug intake" and replacing it with "bronchial asthma."
*******
Laura Maggi can be reached at [email protected] or 504.826.3316.Arsène Wenger has confirmed his interest in the Napoli striker Edinson Cavani but has denied submitting a bid to Crystal Palace for their in-demand winger Wilfried Zaha.
Wenger, asked about speculation linking Arsenal with the Napoli striker, who has scored 16 Serie A goals this season, said: "Cavani is a player that I like. Will he cost a lot of money? That's for sure. Nobody would deny that. [But] our banker lives just next to me at the moment and he is ready if we find the right player."
On Zaha, he said: "We are looking at him, but at the moment we have not made any bid for him. I don't know if Manchester United are in for him. Anyway, if you call any club for any player, they will tell you Man Utd, Milan, Real Madrid are as well in for him, but it is always difficult to know if it is true or not."
Wenger said he was happy to play a waiting game in an effort to secure his targets at the right price. "The prices always go up at the start of the transfer market and go down in the last week. Sometimes as well they go up in the last week, but it depends. Most of the time they go down in the last week and you know as well that 90% of transfer activity happens in the last week, if not in the last 48 hours."
He also revealed that he is now "99% certain" that a contract extension can finally be agreed in the coming days with Theo Walcott.
Walcott would have been a free agent at the end of the season, and the club have been in negotiations to agree terms on a lucrative extension which would make him among the highest-paid players at the club.
"I was scared at some stage, yes, that he could leave because it is like that with the experience I have in negotiations," Wenger said. "When things last too long, it is never a good sign. In this case, it took us some time to get where we want to get. It is still not finalised, but hopefully it will be done by this weekend. There is a possibility. My optimism is at 99% now."Foto: Inquam Photos / Octav Ganea
ACTUALIZARE 11.30. „Procurorii din cadrul Direcției Naționale Anticorupție - Secția de combatere a corupției au instituit măsura sechestrului asigurător, asupra mai multor clădiri și terenuri situate în municipiul București, respectiv județul Ilfov și Giurgiu ce aparțin inculpaților Oprea Gabriel, Nicolae Gheorghe și Pavel Gabriel-Nicolae, până la concurența sumei de 410.000 lei.
Această măsură asigurătorie a fost dispusă de procurorii anticorupție în vederea recuperării pagubei produse prin săvârșirea de către inculpați a infracțiunii de abuz în serviciu, dacă funcționarul a obținut pentru sine ori pentru altul un folos necuvenit, reținută în sarcina lor.
Inculpaților Oprea Gabriel, Nicolae Gheorghe și Pavel Gabriel-Nicolae le-a fost adusă la cunoștință ordonanța privind dispunerea măsurilor asigurătorii, în conformitate cu dispozițiile CPP”, a comunicat DNA.
Măsurile asiguratorii se iau atunci când procurorii estimează de un prejudiciu. În acest caz e vorba de 410.000 de lei prejudiciu, preţul maşinii de lux folosite exclusiv de Gabriel Oprea.
Gabriel Oprea a fost azi la DNA unde i s-a comunicat această măsură.
În acest dosar, Gabriel Oprea a fost pus sub urmărire penală pentru abuz în serviciu de procurorii DNA, în urma avizului dat de Senat. DNA cercetează „presupuse acte asimilate corupției săvârșite de persoane din conducerea Departamentului de Informații și Protecție Internă (D.I.P.I.)”.
În acest context, procurorul șef al Direcției Naționale Anticorupție a transmis procurorului general referatul cauzei, în scopul sesizării Senatului cu formularea cererii de efectuare a urmăririi penale față de Gabriel Oprea, la data faptei viceprim-ministru pentru Securitate Națională și ministru al Afacerilor Interne.
„La data de 13 iulie 2015, Oprea Gabriel, în calitate de ministru de Interne și ordonator de credite, cu ajutorul suspecților Nicolae Gheorghe, secretar de stat în cadrul Departamentului de Informații și Protecție Internă și Pavel Gabriel-Nicolae, șef al serviciului juridic, a dispus suplimentarea cu suma de 410.000 lei a fondurilor pentru cheltuieli operative ale acestei structuri de poliție și a aprobat achiziția unui autoturism Audi A8 în scopul declarat al asigurării protecției demnitarilor.
Acest lucru s-a realizat cu încălcarea prevederilor legale care limitează achiziționarea autovehiculelor din fondurile operative ale Ministerului Afacerilor Interne, strict la situații legate de folosirea lor în activități de urmărire penală a infracțiunilor de corupție.
Ca urmare a încălcării atribuțiilor de serviciu, bugetul de stat a fost prejudiciat cu suma de 410.000 lei.
În perioada 21 august – octombrie 2015, ministrul de Interne a beneficiat de folosința exclusivă a autoturismului Audi A8, achiziționat astfel.
Denunţători în acest caz sunt trei ofiţeri din MAI a căror identitate este protejată de procurorii DNA. Ofițerii l-ar fi dat de gol pe Oprea că a folosit banii ministerului, mai exact, de bugetul serviciului de informații DIPI, pentru o mașină de lux și o cabină de duș cu hidromasaj. Gabriel Oprea a spus că acuzațiile sunt nefondate.
Fostul ministru de Interne Gabriel Oprea mai este acuzat de abuz în serviciu în dosarul "Girofarul", pentru că ar fi beneficiat de coloană oficială fără a avea dreptul la aceasta. Mai mult, în baza unui protocol între instituții, el i-ar fi dat dreptul și lui Tiberiu Nițu la coloană oficială, deși legislația prevede că de aceasta pot beneficia doar președintele, premierul și președinții celor două camere ale Parlamentului.
În urma acestei anchete, Tiberiu Niţu a demisionat din funcţia de procuror general.
În acest dosar, Gabriel Oprea a fost pus sub urmărire penală pentru abuz în serviciu de procurorii DNA, în urma avizului dat de Senat. DNA cercetează „presupuse acte asimilate corupției săvârșite de persoane din conducerea Departamentului de Informații și Protecție Internă (D.I.P.I.)”.
În acest context, procurorul șef al Direcției Naționale Anticorupție a transmis procurorului general referatul cauzei, în scopul sesizării Senatului cu formularea cererii de efectuare a urmăririi penale față de Gabriel Oprea, la data faptei viceprim-ministru pentru Securitate Națională și ministru al Afacerilor Interne.
„La data de 13 iulie 2015, Oprea Gabriel, în calitate de ministru de Interne și ordonator de credite, cu ajutorul suspecților Nicolae Gheorghe, secretar de stat în cadrul Departamentului de Informații și Protecție Internă și Pavel Gabriel-Nicolae, șef al serviciului juridic, a dispus suplimentarea cu suma de 410.000 lei a fondurilor pentru cheltuieli operative ale acestei structuri de poliție și a aprobat achiziția unui autoturism Audi A8 în scopul declarat al asigurării protecției demnitarilor.
Acest lucru s-a realizat cu încălcarea prevederilor legale care limitează achiziționarea autovehiculelor din fondurile operative ale Ministerului Afacerilor Interne, strict la situații legate de folosirea lor în activități de urmărire penală a infracțiunilor de corupție.
Ca urmare a încălcării atribuțiilor de serviciu, bugetul de stat a fost prejudiciat cu suma de 410.000 lei.
În perioada 21 august – octombrie 2015, ministrul de Interne a beneficiat de folosința exclusivă a autoturismului Audi A8, achiziționat astfel.
Denunţători în acest caz sunt trei ofiţeri din MAI a căror identitate este protejată de procurorii DNA. Ofițerii l-ar fi dat de gol pe Oprea că a folosit banii ministerului, mai exact, de bugetul serviciului de informații DIPI, pentru o mașină de lux și o cabină de duș cu hidromasaj. Gabriel Oprea a spus că acuzațiile sunt nefondate.
Fostul ministru de Interne Gabriel Oprea mai este acuzat de abuz în serviciu în dosarul "Girofarul", pentru că ar fi beneficiat de coloană oficială fără a avea dreptul la aceasta. Mai mult, în baza unui protocol între instituții, el i-ar fi dat dreptul și lui Tiberiu Nițu la coloană oficială, deși legislația prevede că de aceasta pot beneficia doar președintele, premierul și președinții celor două camere ale Parlamentului.
În urma acestei anchete, Tiberiu Niţu a demisionat din funcţia de procuror general.
Etichete:
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,Despite the best efforts of the No campaign to keep it under wraps, the reality of a No vote in this year's referendum on Scottish independence is slowly seeping out.
Chancellor George Osborne gave the game away this week when he launched his search for a further £25 billion of cuts to public spending, with at least £12bn set to come from social security.
Welfare cuts have been a key ideological target for the current Coalition Government and with Labour's welfare spokeswoman Rachel Reeves claiming they would be even tougher than the Tories, it appears that there is no let-up in sight, no matter which party forms the next Westminster government.
The cuts in welfare to date mean that by 2014-15, Scotland will have seen annual spending on welfare reduced by £2bn. The cuts Osborne announced this week will make things even worse.
And we already know what effect these drastic cuts are having. There are daily reports of the impact of the iniquitous bedroom tax on people who are disabled, who need a spare room to care for their children or who have raised their family in council or social housing and now face being charged as soon as those children grow up and leave home.
It is important to remember who these cuts are hurting. More than half of children in poverty live in families with at least one person working. The effective way to reduce the welfare bill for those in work is to encourage a living wage and a ensure a decent minimum wage - this would mean that workers received a fair day's pay for a fair day's work and be less reliant on state support.
Instead, cuts to child benefit mean that families with two children have lost a total of £1400 a year in vital support so far. Child tax credits have been cut, the working tax credit which compensates for low wages has been cut and the disabled have felt the brunt of much of Westminster's so-called reforms.
The Child Poverty Action Group estimate that Westminster's current programme of cuts will push up to 100,000 more children into poverty. It's not the "scroungers" of Conservative rhetoric that are paying the price, it is working families and children across the country.
A No vote and a new round of welfare cuts will pile further pressure on the 600,000 families in Scotland in receipt of child benefit or working tax credits and this will push even more children into poverty. Cuts to housing benefit could affect 32,000 under-25s in Scotland, making it harder for our young people - many of whom will be taking the first steps into work and creating a family life - to have homes that are safe and secure.
There is an alternative.
The Scottish Parliament has a strong track record of supporting those in need. Our decision to set up a council tax reduction scheme when Westminster abolished council tax benefit has helped more than half-a-million people. It has also acted where Westminster has failed and is providing an additional £20 million of support this year and next to people affected by the bedroom tax.
In the Scotland's Future White Paper, we set out the principles that would underlie our social security system and the first steps we will take to reverse Westminster's damaging approach.
An independent Scotland will not continue with the rollout of the chaotic and ill-thought-out Universal Credit or personal independence payments, and we will ensure that housing benefit remains a standalone benefit that can be paid directly to social landlords to secure housing for some of our most vulnerable citizens.
And just as we will ensure the minimum wage keeps pace with inflation, we will do the same for benefits and tax credits so the poorest families do not fall further into poverty.
A Scottish social security system, integrated with tax policy, will seek to protect people from poverty and help them to fulfil their potential. It will be a system that everyone should contribute to during their lives, on the understanding that they will benefit from it should they ever need to.
And we can choose to protect key elements of our welfare state - the right to healthcare, for example - in a written constitution, ensuring that they cannot be eroded.
In September, people across Scotland have a choice of two futures. We do not have to sit back and accept what will be done to us by Westminster governments. We can take responsibility into our own hands and protect the values that underpin social security for all.The Ontario government is quietly gearing up for legalized marijuana sales, the Star has learned. With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau set to allow recreational cannabis use as early as next year, Queen’s Park has begun work on how distribution and retailing will eventually be handled.
People smoke marijuana at Toronto's Yonge-Dundas square in April during 420 celebrations. The Star has learned that Queen's Park has quietly begun work on how distribution and sales of legal recreational marijuana would be handled. ( Randy Risling / Toronto Star file photo )
Finance Minister Charles Sousa says a working group has been struck comprised of bureaucrats from his department, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of the Attorney General. “We’re working with the feds. With their commitment to legalize, regulate and restrict access to marijuana, we are going to work with them,” Sousa said in an interview. “We’re guided by their commitment, but at the same time we’re having an across-ministry working group. We’ve got senior officials involved. We’ve begun some research and background (work) already in terms of what Ontario’s approach should be,” he said.
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“But it’s complex. There’s different viewpoints. There’s different inputs from several ministries. We’re at it. We’re close. But I don’t want to jump the gun on any of this stuff... because I want us to take a steady approach as to what’s ultimately going to take place.” Echoing Premier Kathleen Wynne, who advocates for marijuana sales to be restricted to provincially owned LCBO stores, Sousa said he wanted “to send out the signal” that the era of storefront weed dispensaries is soon coming to an end. “I, at least, don’t see that being the distribution mechanism. It’s going to have to be controlled,” the treasurer warned. There are more that 100 illegal dispensaries now operating in Toronto with more popping up weekly despite a recent police crackdown. “Marijuana possession and trafficking, it’s illegal. Medical users are authorized, but under federal law all marijuana storefront dispensaries are illegal, too,” said Sousa.
Medicinal marijuana is only legally available with a prescription from a medical doctor and supplied by one of 31 federally licensed producers who must deliver the drug via registered mail. Like Wynne, Sousa does not believe in free-for-all weed retailing.
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“Frankly, we’ve got a lot to draw on. We’ve got a lot of experience already when it comes to regulating alcohol, regulating tobacco (and) regulating gaming. I have all these agencies reporting up to me right now relative to this. That is helpful as we proceed in this discussion,” the finance minister said. “It is early and it’s not really clear yet how it will unfold and what options we’ll use. There’s a lot of options that are being made available that are being examined and all of them have implications,” he said. “In terms of speculating where it’s going to be distributed or the impact fiscally, my concern right now is ensuring that a framework is in place (and) the ministries are engaged.” Genevieve Tomney, a spokesperson for the LCBO, said the 650-outlet agency is closely monitoring developments at Queen’s Park and in Ottawa. “Should decriminalization of recreational marijuana occur at the federal level, LCBO would take direction from the provincial government as to any role it may have in retailing cannabis,” said Tomney. “It is premature to speculate as to what that role may be, but we are paying close attention to the process as it unfolds and reviewing publicly available information that may help us if given this added responsibility,” she said. Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union that represents LCBO workers, has said government-owned liquor stores are the safest place to sell marijuana. Thomas has noted the LCBO’s secure warehouses and well-trained staff are best equipped to keep legalized weed out of the hands of underage Ontarians. Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, now the Liberal MP for Scarborough Southwest, is currently at work on updating Canada’s cannabis laws. Blair has praised the licensed producers and warned of the dangers of the profiteering storefront drug dealers. Blair has also expressed support for marijuana retailing to be limited to the LCBO. In January, he noted that it is “very difficult” for a youth to buy booze in Ontario. “You’re going to come up against a government employee who’s got regulations to enforce and is going to ask for identification and if a person’s underage, they’re not going to be able to buy that,” said Blair. “And that’s a far better way to regulate access (to marijuana) for kids than leaving it up to some criminal in a stairwell. Frankly, in most urban centres across this country, it is far easier for a kid, an underaged youth, to acquire marijuana than it is to acquire alcohol.” Proponents of continued sales at dispensaries have argued they are merely providing medicine to their customers.A man accused of shooting another driver in a road rage incident last year has been found not guilty on all charges.Edward Furr, 44, was facing two counts of felonious assault for a June 2013 incident along Interstate 275 in Forest Park.Fredrick Grissom Jr., 26, was shot in the leg.Furr was indicted on the charges more than two months after the shooting."I don't know where we went wrong. I thought they proved the case 100 percent, but I guess they didn't," Grissom's mother Patricia Dorsey said. "It's just sad, its just really sad that he got away with what he did to my son, to our son. It's sad."The judge said that Furr acted in self defense because Grissom was carrying a knife.
A man accused of shooting another driver in a road rage incident last year has been found not guilty on all charges.
Edward Furr, 44, was facing two counts of felonious assault for a June 2013 incident along Interstate 275 in Forest Park.
Fredrick Grissom Jr., 26, was shot in the leg.
Furr was indicted on the charges more than two months after the shooting.
"I don't know where we went wrong. I thought they proved the case 100 percent, but I guess they didn't," Grissom's mother Patricia Dorsey said. "It's just sad, its just really sad that he got away with what he did to my son, to our son. It's sad."
The judge said that Furr acted in self defense because Grissom was carrying a knife.
AlertMeReacting strongly to the Indian government's tough stand on the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh, Chinese state-run media on Wednesday said that unlike his predecessors, Prime Minister Narendra Modi seemed to have taken a different stance on the Dalai Lama issue.
It further said that the Indian Prime Minister is doing this because 'New Delhi is dissatisfied with Beijing's stance over its membership bid to the Nuclear Suppliers Group and its request to name Masood Azhar, head of Pakistani militant group, to a UN Security Council blacklist'. "Therefore, New Delhi attempts to play the Tibet card against Beijing," the Chinese media said.
Interestingly, the article justified China's stand on India's request to list Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar as a designated terrorist under the 1267 Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council. It said: "China has never thought of making trouble for India, and is handling these issues in accordance with international practices and UN regulations."
The latest round of fiery exchange between India and China started earlier this month when Chinese Foreign Ministry warned India of "serious damage" to bilateral ties if it allows Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh. It asked asked India to make a "choice".
However, India refused to come under Chinese pressure and said no "artificial controversy" should be created around the visit. Calling it a purely religious visit, India said: "No additional colour should be ascribed to his (Dalai Lama) religious and spiritual activities and visits to various states of India."
Making India's position clear on Arunchal Pradesh, Minister of State for Home Kiran Rijiju said: "Arunachal Pradesh is an inseparable part of India and China should not object to his visit and interfere in India's internal affairs." China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of south Tibet.
Despite India's firm reply to China, the State-run media said that the Dalai Lama has long been active in anti-China separatist activities under the guise of religion. "New Delhi inviting the Dalai Lama to sensitive region gravely damages the China-India relationship," the state-run Global Times said.
It reminded India that many countries have pledged not to extend invitations to the Dalai Lama. "New Delhi should overcome its suspicions against Beijing. China doesn't allow India to free ride on its economic growth while jeopardizing Beijing's core interests," the Global Times said.
The response from the Chinese media is not in isolation as it recently admitted that China would have to deal with a bolder India if Modi won the next general elections and dealing with New Delhi on border disputes could become difficult.
The article was published soon after the BJP recorded unprecedented victory in assembly elections that were believed to be a referendum on the Prime Minister's economic policies undertaken in his first half.
"If Modi wins the next election, India's current firm and tough manner is bound to continue. It will be without question good news for the country's own development. Nevertheless, it will likely mean more difficulties in making compromises in rows with other countries," the article had said.How can people know if they have an elevated level of radon in their homes?
Testing is the only way to know if a person’s home has elevated radon levels. Indoor radon levels are affected by the soil composition under and around the house, and the ease with which radon enters the house. Homes that are next door to each other can have different indoor radon levels, making a neighbor’s test result a poor predictor of radon risk. In addition, rain or snow, barometric pressure, and other influences can cause radon levels to vary from month to month or day to day, which is why both short- and long-term tests are available.
Short-term detectors measure radon levels for 2 days to 90 days, depending on the device. Long-term tests determine the average concentration for more than 90 days. Because radon levels can vary from day to day and month to month, a long-term test is a better indicator of the average radon level. Both tests are relatively easy to use and inexpensive. A state or local radon official can explain the differences between testing devices and recommend the most appropriate test for a person’s needs and conditions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommends taking action to reduce radon in homes that have a radon level at or above 4 picocuries per liter (pCi/L) of air. About 1 in 15 U.S. |
, have been
brought to the frontier. Most of
them have been concentrated In
the passes of the Alps which Ital
ians must cross before an Inva
sion of Austria can be made.
BISHOP TO CONFIRM
200 AT ST. LEO'S
Blßhop E. L. ODea will con
firm a class of 200 adults at St.
Leo's church at 10:30 o'clock to
morrow.
FIND MRS. DIFFLEY
GUILTY OF ASSAULT
THAT KILLED CHILD
miss, in i:ni \ nunrunr.
A jury of 1 2 men today brought
in a verdict of guilty in the sec
ond decree assault case ijgainxt
Mrs. Bertha Diffley.
Not until Judge Curd made the
formal announcement that lie
would not Impose sentence at
once, did the defendant or mem
bers of her family break down.
On hearing that statement, her
parents, daughter, grandchild ana
herself broke into violent weep
ing.
One woman In the throng
threw a bouquet of flowers at the
Jury.
The possible penalty Is impris
onment up tp 1(1 years. The jury
recommended clemency.
PUGILIST BEATS TAXI
MANAGER NEARLY TO
DEATH; UNDER ARREST
frank Piatt, manager for the
Tacoma Taxicab & Delivery Co.,
lies with a fractured Bkull in the
Tacoma General hospital as the
result of an encounter at an early
hour this morning with Jack
Mace, South Tacoma prizefighter.
The two men were.waiting!
about 12:30 a. m. for a South.
Tacoma caiv A quarrel arose.'
and Mace is said to have beaten
down the business man.
He then attempted to run away,
BURGLAR IN STOVE
John Glliigan, a laborer out of
work, saw a splendid chance to
burglarize a 14th street saloon
last night- and took it.
When ths bartender wasn't
looking, John crawled Into tho
big sheet-iron stove of tha saloon,
which fortunately contained no
fire. He remained crouched ln
the Booty stove until after tbe
saloon had been closed for the
night.
Then Gilligan fared forth. He
collected cash, some suitcases
and several flasks of liquor, and
was about to make his escape
with the loot when his craving
for a drink overcame his caution.
One drink led to another, and
ROSE SHOW PRIZE
LIST ANNOUNCED
Lists.if cups and prises for
rose exhibits at the annual show
of ihe Tacoma Rose society, to
be held early in June, were an
nounced today.
Rose* exhibits are classed in
nlno divisions. The smallest
number of roses permitted ln any
exhibit is three. Tacoma mer
chants, lodges, business men and
rose enthusiasts have offered
cups.
Thirty-nine cups are offered
for tfie best groups of roses and
Individual roses entered at the
-bqw.
rri'i _, m _ L _ _ nn^—-_^ _-__-*■
Ine lacoma 1 lmes
i 1 THE ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER IN TACOMA. J „ n ™
3f) c I... - attumi.
MONTH I VOL. XI I. NO. 132. TACOMA, WJkSH., SATURDAY. MAY 22. 1816. EDITION
' _ I,
The assault charges was a pun
ishment visited on little Clarence
Hall which resulted in his death.
Mrs. Diffley worked in the Hall
home at the time as housekeeper.
A. B. Comfort, attorney for
Mrs. Diffley, could not say nt
noon whether nn appeal would lis
taken. He said he thought the
judge should give Mrs. Diffley the
minimum of six months, in view
of the jury's recommendation and
that she already has been impris
oned four months.
The woman who threw flowers
at the jury bofore she could be
restrained by a bailiff was Mrs.
Cynthia Bates, South Tacoma.
She has recently been rejected for
jury service.
with Officer Oochran in pursuit,
in his efforts to escape he broke
in the door of the Olympic drill,
Commerce st. near 9th, and there
was captured.
He is held on an open charge.
His real name is J. A. Johnson,
and he has gained considerable
local renown as a heavyweight
fighter. He is 24 years old.
Piatt has a family and re
sides at 4310 Park ay.
Those attending him say he
may not survive.
soon Oilllgan felt so good that
he lay down for a nap. He was
found asleep this morning, and
Patrolmen Fllklns and Morris ar
rested him.
"I had a good scheme. Judge,
but it simply didn't work," said
Gilligan in police court today.
"Thirty days," was the court s
reply.
County
Men In
a Break
The"first symptoms of a politi
cal fight in the board of county
commissioners came today when,
at the pavn>g contest between the
Washington Paving Co. and Jo
seph Warter, sr., before Judge
Clifford, Chairs aa Slayden and
Commissioner Williams took one
side of tbe room, and ex-Chair
nian Heed the other.
Reed y>'as as strongly for War
ter as were Slaydeu and Williams
for the big pa-lug concern.
Arguing for Warters, Attorney
John D, tivans declared that the
letting of the contract wiis unfair
because specifications were fixed
so that there was no real compe
tition.
lie alleged also thai the time
element had been omitted from
the contract altogether, no that
the commissioners might by indi
vidual and arbitrary rulings
throw out one bidder and choose
another. This, he asserted, they
actually did when they rejected
Wurter's bid and accepted that of
the Washington Paving Co., on
the pretense that the latter could
do the work more promptly than
Warter.
He asked an Injunction against
the execution of the proposed
contract.
For Ihe Washington Paving
Co., Attorney Danghorne argued
that the commissioners had acted
within their legal discretion, and
that thus it was not within the
powers of the court to question
their judgment.
Fight On
For Boy
With little Gilbert Hamilton
clinging to Ills mother's arm as if
he feared that he would be
snatched away from her again,
the fight between Mrs. Pearl
I.inn', the mother, and Mrs. Eba
Hamilton, the grandmother, was
begun today before Superior
Judge Chaupmau.
On an order which originated
from an appneatfon of the grand
mother, Mrs. I,.im' brought the
little fellow to court.
When she left the court, the
mother was no longer the custo
dian of the child. But neither
was the grandmother.
Judge Chapman, witli attorneys
for both siili's agreeing, placed,
the child under the custody of-
Juvenile Officer Healy until" the
case can lie heard further.
It was set for May 31.
Attorney Harvey for the gra'i I
mother said he was afrai.l td
leave the child with the mother,
for fear she would flee with it.
♦ * ♦
«> FINDS NRW UHE FOB h
m HOT WATER. HOTTLK 8>
<$
«> MINNEAPOLIS, May 22 \
. —By placing eggs on a hot *
-.♦■ water bottle and covering *
<S> them with a feather duster, <*>
4> Jerome Jackman claims to *
♦ have raised three broods of *>
-%■ chickens in his room at the '•$■
-* Y. M. C. A..»
■» He says he will continue ♦
* the business, the profit be- ♦
* ing fine. *
♦ ♦.
THE HERO OF SYRACUSE HILL
He Still Is T. R.
The Ntalulpat bund which
• ■vi.. < i.-il lo capitalize the
trade depression duo to the
European war by using It as
a means of electing a reac
tionary.president next year
today sustained a second
body blow.
I In- first was tbe Immense
accession In popular approv
al which followed the presi
dent's masterful handling of
tin laivltjinm crisis.
Now comes the Syracuse
jury with a verdict against
BARNES NOW A BOSS
IN EYES OF THE LAW
SYRACPSE, May 22.—William
Barnes Is a boss, the jury in Su
preme Justice Andrews' court de
cided in awarding a verdict for
Roosevelt In the $50,000 llb-'l
suit brought against him became
the former president linked the
name of the Albany leader with
crooked business and corruption.
The Jury had been deliberating
ever since sent back yesterday by
the judge. Its verdict for the de
fendant was unanimous.
Roosevelt could not restrain his
Joy. >
T?be announcement of the ver
dict was greeted by a storm of
applause. Scores of spectators
grasped Roosevelt's hand, but be
swept them aside and hurried to
grasp the hand of Juror Burns,
WHEN A MAN'S MARRIED
William ItnriieM.
ibis lerdict amounts to
an official confirmation of
Hie truth of T. It.'-, charges.
Tbe Albany boss ls branded
as un undesirable. ill/in and
■ corrupt overlord of New
York politics.
His in mm nii M was conceiv
ed solely with the Intent to
break down the influence of
America* first private > ili
/<-'i. and thus further the
conspiracy of tlie special
privilege plotters.
who had been responsible for the
long deadlock, but finally vot-id
In the colonel's favor.
Expreses Appreciation.
After the judge dismissed the
jury Roosevelt led the members
into an adjoining room.
Foreman Somers explained that
the jury had taken 41 ballots.
Apparently moved, Roosevelt
expressed his appreciation.
"There is only one return 1 can
make and 1 assure you," said lie,
"that all my life I will act in
public and in private affairs In.-,
,way which will give none of you
a reason to regret your verdict.
I will behave, as an American citi
zen should, feeling it my treble
duty under the ootigation which
you have imposed."
—ffe-— r ___, '
WEATHER
Tacoma and vicinity: Showers
tonight and Sunday.
Washington: Showers, wes; fair,
east portion.
He failed, as he was cer
tain to fail before an uiipre
iuili.-i-il Judge and jury. His
failure makes all the more
ni 1.1 in that no man of the
1t... t. Merrick, Weeks or
Fairbanks tgf. will succeed
Woodrow Wilson.
And iin for Roosevelt, who
can say? The Times does not
like, and it believes the peo
ple generally do not like, his
recent, attitude toward our
foreign relations and Ids
(oiiiih-iiin embarrassing to
the ailiiiiiiiNiriiiii.il.
lII'T.UK HTIM. IS TEDDY
noOSEVKLT!
100 Die
In Wreck
CARLISLE. England, May 22.
—More than a hundred persons
are reported killed ln a collision
of three passenger trains on the
Caledonia railway near Qretna.
Those who perished were
crushed or burned when the
trains came together and the
wreckage caught fire.
Forty bodies have been recov
ered. Three hundred are in
jured.
A troop train seems to have
collided with a-passenger and an
other passenger then crashed Into
the wreck. The boiler of the
third engine exploded.
Balkan
Nation
Ready
NOME, Mny 22—With a gen
eral understanding that Rumania
and Italy will act in concert In
their expected war against Ann.
tria, Rumania has mobilized Its
entire Hrmy at Bucharest.
It Is likely that war notes will
be sent from both Italy and Ru
mania to Austria tonight. King
Victor Kniinunuel this afternoon
put his seal giving Ihe cabluet
plenary powers In dealing with
Austria.
The armies of both Italy and
Austria are at the border, await
ing the word which will send
them into a collision.
Rumaula up to the present h.is
been unablo to decide whether to
participate In the war because of
the fact that outside Influen.-us
almost completely dominate the
government.
Russia probably Is the strong
est factor, but If concessions of
land and added Independence
were guaranteed by the allies,
this influence probably would be
ignored.
Tbe country has an army of
2.-.0.000 ftien, nnd a small navy.
Force Germans Rack.
PKTROCRAD. May 22-By dn
tennined counter attacks, the
Russians In (lalida have for.-cd
Uen. yon Mackenzen's left wing
to retire to the east bank of the
Ban, 30 miles north of Przemy il.
Allies I'm Gas.
HKRI.IN, May 22.- The char.?n
uns made today that the allies nee
using mines which give off pois
onous gases, west of Lille and la
Argonne.
French I'se Itayonet.
PARIS. May 22. -By daring
bayonet charges, tlie Krench ha.;e
advanced their lines near Notrn
Dame.
Vote Next Week.
HKRI.IN. May 22.—Cermanv'«
reply to President Wilson's imte
will be completed Monday,r
Tuesday, so Foreign Minister yon
Jagow today informed Ambassa
dor Gerard.
Buy-at-Home
Day Succeeds
Are you a man?
Then do your duty.
Make a purchase today. lt'»
Men's Buy-at-Home day, and yon
will be branded as a traitor to
the cause of upbuilding Tacoma,
If you don't assist in the cam
paign to build up Tacoma's n
ternal trade.
During the early portion of the
day, stores dealing in men's goods
reported a phenomenal sale.
When to Buy
When to buy ia always tlie
big question.
Buying at the right time
is responsible for the big.
gest fortunes ln thla city.
Now is certainly the right
time to buy real estate.
No arguments are needed
on tills point.
Every Saturday The Time*
carries the very best offer.
lugs from the real estate
dealers of Taroma. Page 7.The bungalow that serves as the entrance to the Kelvedon Hatch Nuclear Bunker
The Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch, in the Borough of Brentwood in the English county of Essex, is a large underground bunker maintained during the Cold War as a potential regional government headquarters. Since being decommissioned in 1992, the bunker has been open to the public as a tourist attraction, with a museum focusing on its Cold War history.
Building and intended purpose [ edit ]
The bunker was first built as an air defence station (an 'R4' Sector Operations Control or SOC) as part of the RAF ROTOR air defence project.[1] Upon the demise of the ROTOR SOC the remaining Nuclear Reporting Cell and UKWMO elements were incorporated into a Home Office 'Regional Seat of Government' or RSG. The bunker was able to hold various numbers (in the hundreds) of military and civilian personnel, the numbers changing over the years as the role of the building changed from SOC to RSG and in its later years; 'Regional Government Headquarters' or RGHQ. In the event of a nuclear strike the RSG / RGHQs etc. would be tasked to organise the survival of the population and continue government operations.
History [ edit ]
The Kelvedon Hatch bunker was built in 1952–53 as part of ROTOR. ROTOR was a programme to improve and harden Britain's air defence network. It was constructed by Peter Lind & Company of London who still trade today. The bunker was a hardened (three level 'R4') Sector Operations Centre (SOC) for RAF Fighter Command. It was to provide command and control of the London Sector of Fighter Command.
During the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early into the 1990s, the UK government (Home Office) maintained the bunker as an emergency regional government defence site. Eventually in the early 1990s when nuclear threat was seen as diminished, the bunker was sold back to the farming family who had owned the land in the 1950s. It is now a Cold War museum and retains many of its original ROTOR and RSG/RGHQ features.
Inside the bunker [ edit ]
Inside the bunker
The bunker is built 125 feet (38 m) underground and the entrance is through an ordinary looking bungalow (a standard ROTOR 'Guard House') set amongst trees. The inside of the bungalow leads to a 100 yards (91 m) tunnel entering the R4 at its lowest floor (of three). Above are two more floors, the 'hill' which covers it, and a radio mast.
The bunker was able to accommodate some hundreds of personnel (the numbers changing as function and form varied over the years) and could sustain them for up to three months. The bunker has air conditioning and heating (using the original ROTOR AC-Plant but replacing the original coolant with a more'modern' type [c.1980s]), its own water supply (mains water and its own deep bore hole) and generators, and was equipped with many types of radio equipment, protected (EMP) telecommunications, teleprinter (MSX) networks and various military systems: MOULD (system to provide communications between Regular Army, TA Battalions and the Army District and Regional Headquarters) and CONRAD (radio government communications systems post nuclear strike) etc.
Modern times [ edit ]
By 1992 the bunker was no longer required, so was decommissioned and the land was sold back to the original owners. It has now been renovated and made into a museum and tourist attraction; many locals appreciate the irony of the many brown tourist road signs in the area, clearly directing people to the "Secret Nuclear Bunker". The BBC TV show Top Gear featured the signs.[2]
The bunker was used as a "Killer's Location" for The Murder Game. Both the living quarters and the operational zone were set up for the "Killer's Game" in the finale. It also played a significant role in an episode of New Tricks titled "The Queen's Speech", first broadcast on BBC1 on 20 October 2014.
In 2010 the independent British post-apocalyptic/horror film S.N.U.B! was filmed in the bunker.[3]
The 2016 full-motion video game The Bunker, which uses live-action footage, was fully filmed inside the bunker.[4]
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Coordinates:This time in 2015, when Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens premiered, there was much talk about who the main character Rey (Daisy Ridley) might be related to. Theories were declared, scenes were examined, and fans were determined, but ultimately, The Force Awakens left us without an answer. Then, the trailers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hit, and folks immediately began to speculate on who the movie's new badass female lead, Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) might be. Since Rogue One is set around the time of Episode IV: A New Hope, it was totally resaonable to think that Jyn Erso is Rey's mother. But is she? Now that the film is out, we know for sure, since Rogue One answers the question for good.
Major spoiler alert! It's only natural that people are curious about how all of the Star Wars characters are related. The twin siblings of Luke and Leia and the twist reveal of their parentage was a major factor of the original trilogy, and made Star Wars essentially a family saga. That saga has continued with TFA, with Lei and Han's son Ben/Kylo Ren embracing the Dark Side and becoming the movie's main villain. So going forward, fans are going to assume that everybody is related to somebody, and that just makes the drama all the more exciting.
Who Rey's parents are became a big focus of TFA's aftermath, and once we were given another brave, white, brunette hero in the Rogue One teaser, it was only natural that fans got to theorizing that Jyn would end up being Rey's mom. They're both powerful, inspiring female characters and it would make sense for them to be connected. From Jyn and Rey's shared accents, to that scene in which Leia hugs Rey immediately upon meeting her in TFA, to the timeline, there's a lot of good evidence that Jyn is Rey's mom. But there's also a lot supporting the idea that it's super unlikely. Not everyone has to be related, and introducing a main-saga character's lineage in what is technically a side anthology movie might not make total sense. So is Jyn Erso actually Rey's mother?
Nope. Jyn Erso is not Rey's mom. And how do we know? Sadly, Jyn does not make it out of Rogue One alive. Her mission is a sacrificial one. Her brave death allows the Rebel Alliance to get a hold of the Death Star plans, as we know, and since we've never heard of her or seen her in any of the following films, it's kind of predictable that she'd not make it. It's also not really possible that Jyn would have a secret child stashed away somewhere. If Rey is about 20 years old during TFA, and 35 years have passed between it and A New Hope, Jyn would have had to have Rey at some point in the future.
So Rey's parentage and family remain a mystery, gang. On to Episode VIII.
Images: Walt Disney StudiosKell Brook WILL get his dream venue for his next fight - at Sheffield United’s ground.
On Wednesday the Blades-fan will confirm at a press conference that he is taking on unbeaten American southpaw Errol Spence Junior at the stadium on May 27. Both boxers will be at the Lane. It will be Kell’s first fight since breaking a bone above his eye, in his only career defeat, at middleweight to Gennady Golovkin.
Spence is confident he can beat Brook in his own back yard.
But Brook is on a mission to boil back down to 147lbs and defend the IBF welterweight belt he treasures.
Local boxers will be scrambling to get on the Pay Per View undercard - fighters like Adam Etches, Gavin McDonnell, David Allen, Kid Galahad could make the cut and help in the same of tickets for the outdoor venue.
Brook is due to return from one of his training camp at Fuerteventura tomorrow, but could head back there to complete his preparations.The Smiler – should it be torn down? (Picture: PA)
A man who was on-board the Alton Towers rollercoaster that crashed has told how he ‘thought he would die’.
The 25-year-old passenger, who does not want to be named, screamed at staff to stop the Smiler when the carriage he was in smashed into an empty one on Tuesday – leaving four with serious leg injuries.
The man, from Kent, has told of his nightmare ordeal and says the ride should be torn down.
He told the Mirror: ‘I actually saw the other carriage on the track ahead of us. It was at the top that we all started shouting to the staff telling them to stop.
‘I was swearing and shouting “no, no, no”. I was absolutely petrified.
‘I thought it was going to be the end of my life.’
MORE: Video shows Alton Towers Smiler rollercoaster come to dramatic stop
Those pictured on the row nearest the front suffered serious leg injuries (Picture: PA)
MORE: Teenage couple on ‘first date’ among those injured in Alton Towers Smiler rollercoaster crash
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Guests said the ride experienced numerous technical problems that day and was constantly stopping and starting.
He continued: ‘My mind went completely blank when I saw it was going to crash. I remember the impact. It was just massive and rocked the whole carriage.
‘Straight away people were crying and screaming. There was blood everywhere. One person had it all over his face.’
‘I thought, “oh God, someone must have died”.’
MORE: Alton Towers Smiler rollercoaster crash victim who ‘broke both legs’ speaks out for first time
The underside of one carriage is buckled after the impact (Picture: PA)
He suffered severe bruising in the incident but escaped with minor injuries.
He added: ‘I really think they should tear that ride down because I can see it happening again in the future.
‘It’s not safe.’
The Smiler has been plagued with problems since it opened in May 2013.
Just two months later it was closed amid safety fears – visitors queuing raised the alarm when they saw a piece of metal fall to the ground.
Then, in November 2013, it was closed again after a wheel came loose and hit people in the front row.
An air ambulance lands at the scene (Picture: SWNS)
The four seriously injured in the crash have now been named.
Joe Pugh, 18, of Barnsley, who is reported to have broken both legs, was on a first date with Leah Washington.
Leah and Joe (Picture: Ben Lack)
The other two crash victims who suffered serious leg injuries have been named as Daniel Thorpe, 27, of Buxton and Vicky Balch.
Vicky Balch (Picture: PA)
Daniel Thorpe (Picture: PA)
The park has been closed since Tuesday and will remain closed while an investigation is carried out.
It is believed the park is losing £500,000 every day it stays shut.By Fidel Castro Ruz
December 4, 2008 -- Following Barack Obama’s speech, on May 23, 2008, to the Cuban American National Foundation established by Ronald Reagan, I wrote a reflection entitled ``The empire’s hypocritical policy''.
In that reflection I quoted his exact words to the Miami annexationists: “[…] together we will stand up for freedom in Cuba; this is my word and my commitment […] It's time to let Cuban American money make their families less dependent upon the Castro regime. […] I will maintain the embargo.”
I then offered several arguments and unethical examples of the general behaviour of the presidents who preceded the one who would be elected to that position in the November 4 elections. I wrote:
I find myself forced to raise various sensitive questions: 1. Is it right for the President of the United States to order the assassination of any one person in the world, whatever the pretext may be?
2. Is it ethical for the President of the United States to order the torture of other human beings? 3. Should state terrorism be used by a country as powerful as the United States as an instrument to bring about peace on the planet? 4. Is an Adjustment Act, applied as punishment on only one country, Cuba, in order to destabilise it, good and honourable, even when it costs innocent children and mothers their lives? If it is good, why is this right not automatically granted to Haitians, Dominicans,and other peoples of the Caribbean, and why isn’t the same Act applied to Mexicans and people from Central and South America, who die like flies against the Mexican border wall or in the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific? 5. Can the United States do without immigrants, who grow vegetables, fruits, almonds and other delicacies for Americans? Who would sweep their streets, work as servants in their homes or do the worst and lowest-paid jobs? 6. Are crackdowns on illegal residents fair, even as they affect children born in the United States? 7. Is the brain-drain and the continuous theft of the best scientific and intellectual minds in poor countries moral and justifiable? 8. You state, as I pointed out at the beginning of this reflection, that your country had long ago warned European powers that it would not tolerate any intervention in the hemisphere, reiterating that this right be respected while demanding the right to intervene anywhere in the world with the aid of hundreds of military bases and naval, aerial and special forces distributed across the planet. I ask: is that the way in which the United States expresses its respect for freedom, democracy and human rights? 9. Is it fair to stage pre-emptive attacks on 60 or more dark corners of the world, as Bush calls them, whatever the pretext may be? 10. Is it honourable and sound to invest millions upon millions of dollars in the military industrial complex, to produce weapons that can destroy life on Earth several times over?
I could have included several other issues.
Despite the caustic questions, I was not unkind to the African American candidate. I perceived he had greater capacity and command of the art of politics than his adversaries, not only in the opposing party but in his own, too.
Last week, the US president-elect Barack Obama announced his Economic Recovery Program.
On Monday, December 1, he introduced his national security and foreign policy teams:
“Vice-president-elect Biden and I are pleased to announce our national security team […] old conflicts remain unresolved, and newly assertive powers have put strains on the international system. The spread of nuclear weapons raises the peril that the world's deadliest technology could fall into dangerous hands. Our dependence on foreign oil empowers authoritarian governments and endangers our planet.”
“…our economic power must sustain our military strength, our diplomatic leverage, and our global leadership.”
“We will renew old alliances and forge new and enduring partnerships […] American values are America's greatest export to the world.”
“…the team that we have assembled here today is uniquely suited to do just that.”
“…these men and women represent all of those elements of American power […] they have served in uniform and as diplomats […] they share my pragmatism about the use of power, and my sense of purpose about America's role as a leader in the world.”
“I have known Hillary Clinton…”, he says.
I am mindful of the fact that she was president-elect Barack Obama’s rival and the wife of US President Bill Clinton, who signed the extraterritorial Torricelli and Helms Burton Acts against Cuba. During the presidential race she committed herself with these laws and with the economic blockade. I am not complaining, I am simply stating it for the record.
“I am proud that she will be our next Secretary of State”, said Obama. “[She] will command respect in every capital; and who will clearly have the ability to advance our interests around the world. Hillary's appointment is a sign to friend and foe of the seriousness of my commitment …”
“At a time when we face an unprecedented transition amidst two wars, I have asked Robert Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense…”
“[…] I will be giving Secretary Gates and our military a new mission as soon as I take office: responsibly ending the war in Iraq through a successful transition to Iraqi control.”
It strikes me that Gates is a Republican, not a Democrat. He is the only one who has been defence secretary and director of the Central Intelligence Agency, that is, he has occupied these positions under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Gates, who is aware of his popularity, has said that first made sure that the president-elect was choosing him for as long as necessary.
On the other hand, while Condoleezza Rice was travelling to India and Pakistan under Bush’s instructions to mediate in the tense relations between these two countries, two days ago, the minister of defence from Brazil gave the green light to a Brazilian company to manufacture MAR-1 missiles, but instead of one a month, as had been the case until now, it will produce five every month. One hundred of these missiles will be sold to Pakistan at an estimated cost of 85 million euros.
In a public statement, the minister said that “these missiles that can be attached to planes have been designed to locate ground radars. They allow the effective monitoring of both the ground and air space.”
As for Obama, he continued unflappable his Monday statement: “And going forward, we will continue to make the investments necessary to strengthen our military and increase our ground forces to defeat the threats of the 21st century.”
On Janet Napolitano, he indicated: “[She] offers the experience and executive skill that we need in the next Secretary of Homeland Security…”
“Janet assumes this critical role having learned the lessons – some of them painful – of the last several years, from 9/11 to Katrina[…] She understands as well as anyone the danger of an insecure border. And she will be a leader who can reform a sprawling Department while safeguarding our homeland.”
This familiar figure had been appointed a district attorney in Arizona by Clinton in 1993, and then promoted to state attorney general in 1998. Later on, in 2002, she became a Democratic Party candidate and then governor of that bordering state, which is the most common incoming route used by illegal immigrants. She was elected governor in 2006.
About Susan Elizabeth Rice, he said: “Susan knows that the global challenges we face demand global institutions that work… We need the UN to be more effective as a venue for collective action – against terror and proliferation; climate change and genocide; poverty and disease.”
On National Security Advisor James Jones he said: “[…] I am convinced that General James Jones is uniquely suited to be a strong and skilled National Security Advisor. Generations of Joneses have served heroically on the battlefield – from the beaches of Tarawa in World War II, to Foxtrot Ridge in Vietnam. Jim's Silver Star is a proud part of that legacy[…] He has commanded a platoon in battle, served as Supreme Allied Commander in a time of war [he means NATO and the Gulf War), and worked on behalf of peace in the Middle East.”
“Jim is focused on the threats of today and the future. He understands the connection between energy and national security, and has worked on the frontlines of global instability – from Kosovo to northern Iraq to Afghanistan.”
“He will advise me and work effectively to integrate our efforts across the government, so that we are effectively using all elements of American power to defeat unconventional threats and promote our values.”
“I am confident that this is the team that we need to make a new beginning for American national security.”
Obama is somebody we can talk to anywhere he wishes since we do not preach violence or war. He should me reminded, though, that the stick and carrot doctrine will have no place in our country.
None of the phrases in his latest speech shows any element of response to the questions I raised last May 25, just six months ago.
I will not say now that Obama is any less smart. On the contrary, he is showing the mental faculties that enabled me to see and compare his capacity with that of his mediocre adversary, John McCain, who was almost rewarded for his “exploits” merely due to the traditions of US society. If it had not been for the economic crisis, television and the internet, Obama would not have won the elections against the omnipotent racism. It also helped that he studied first in the University of Columbia, where he graduated in political sciences, and then in Harvard where he graduated as a lawyer. This enabled him to become a member of the modestly rich class with only several million dollars. He is certainly not Abraham Lincoln, nor are these times similar to those. That society is today a consumer society where the saving habits have been lost while the spending habit has multiplied.
Somebody had to offer a calm and serene response even though this will have to swim up the powerful stream of hopes raised by Obama in the international public opinion.
I only have two more press dispatches left to analyse. They all carry news from everywhere. I have estimated that only the United States will be spending in this economic crisis over US$6 trillion in paper money, an amount that can only be assessed by the rest of the peoples of the world with their sweat and hunger, their suffering and blood.
Our principles are the same as those of Baraguá. The empire should know that our homeland can be turned to dust but the sovereign rights of the Cuban people are not negotiable.
[This article first appeared at http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/2008/ing/f041208i.html.]President Donald Trump has regularly complained about coverage he views as unfairly critical, labeling stories, reporters and entire outlets “fake news.” | Alex Brandon/AP Trump suggests challenging NBC's broadcast license The veiled threat opens a new front in the president's feud with the media.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that NBC’s broadcast license should be pulled as punishment for the network's reporting on his national security meetings, opening a new front in the president’s long-running battle with the press.
NBC News published a report Wednesday morning stating that Trump had surprised his national security advisers by proposing a nearly tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal during a July meeting. The meeting was what allegedly led Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to call Trump a “moron” — a comment that NBC first reported last week.
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Trump lashed out at NBC, appearing to make a threat that is not even possible, given that the Federal Communications Commission doesn’t directly license networks.
“Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a ‘tenfold’ increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!” Trump wrote on Twitter, equating the two TV news outlets he has most often lashed out against. “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for |
as feat Nicole McKenna released under Tytanium Recordings
3. Magenta by Giuseppe Ottaviani released under Black Hole Recordings
My weekly 2 hour trance show, In the mix airs on surgeradio.org every Saturday at 10pm (ET), 7 pm (PT)
In the mix also airs on FEVAH.fm every Thursday from 10 pm-12 am
Episode 100 is just few days away. Check it out. https://www.facebook.com/events/331906106940666/
Thanks and have a wicked weekend!More groups sue to force USDA to restore online animal welfare records
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today restored some of the tens of thousands of animal welfare documents that it removed from its website early this month.
In this announcement, the agency says that it is “posting the first batch of annual reports of research institutions and inspection reports” resulting from a “comprehensive review” that began with the complete removal of previously public documents that are generated by the agency as it enforces the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and the Horse Protection Act. The new announcement points readers to the reposted information on the USDA website, here.
Those familiar with the records say USDA has so far restored only a small number of the previously posted documents. Among the data still unavailable are the vast majority of reports from regular inspections of animal-holding facilities that are monitored under AWA, including puppy mills and zoos. A number of groups have sued USDA to force it to repost all of the records.
“Under duress, the USDA is now attempting to get away with reposting only a tiny fraction of the animal welfare records it suddenly and indefensibly deleted … and that does not satisfy PETA [People for the Ethical Treatmeant of Animals] or the other plaintiffs in the pending lawsuit against it,” said Brittany Peet, director of captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation in Washington, D.C. PETA has sued the agency to force it to restore the records, and says it won't drop the suit until USDA complies.
Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) in Washington, D.C., stated: "This is an important turnaround and a good start, but the USDA has a lot more to do here. Lawmakers, the press, animal advocates, and even the regulated community want transparency and accessible records." HSUS also noted that the agency has failed to repost documents that it agreed to make public under the terms of a 2009 legal settlement with the animal welfare group.
Another reaction came from Speaking of Research, a group that supports the use of animals in research and has offices in the United States and the United Kingdom.
"Speaking of Research welcomes the decision by the USDA to repost many annual reports and inspection reports to its website,” it said in a statement. “Such information helps foster and encourage a global trend towards openness in animal research. Nonetheless, there is more to do; all institutions which conduct or fund animal experiments should have a clear statement online, explaining how and why they do this, in order that the public can understand the important role of animals in research."
The first batch of records being reposted, USDA wrote, come from U.S. research labs regulated under AWA. The department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service oversees more than 7800 animal holding facilities from zoos to circuses and aquariums, including roughly 1100 labs, some of them run by the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tanya Espinosa, a spokesperson for USDA in Riverdale, Maryland, added in an email: “This first batch of [documents] … was reviewed for personal information and reposted. We will continue posting documents over the next few weeks.”
Complaints from Congress
Members of Congress from both parties and both sides of Capitol Hill are not satisfied.
Representative Vern Buchanan (R–FL), one of two co-chairs of the congressional Animal Protection Caucus, called the USDA response “insufficient,” adding: “This website protects animals and the database should be fully restored.”
“Many questions still remain,” said Senator Debbie Stabenow (D–MI), the senior Democrat on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, which oversees USDA. Stabenow said she wants “clarity” about why the documents were removed to begin with.
The USDA announcement also noted that reports of some enforcement actions—when USDA moves against violators of the law—are available for public viewing at the website of the agency’s Office of Administrative Law Judges.
The move comes after a public outcry that included, in the last few days: a lawsuit by animal welfare groups; a letter of protest sent to the agency from 18 Senate Democrats; and this letter to President Donald Trump, sent by a bipartisan group of 101 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, demanding that the information be immediately reposted on the public website. The organizations that opposed the document blackout included groups that support medical research with animals, pet store chains, zoos and aquariums, and animal welfare groups. All argued that the lack of transparency would damage public trust and enforcement of animal welfare laws.
More groups sue
On 22 February, another coalition of animal welfare groups sued USDA to force reposting of the documents. Like organizations that sued the agency last week, the groups—the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), the Companion Animal Protection Society, Stop Animal Exploitation Now, and Animal Folks—invoke the Freedom of Information Act in arguing that USDA is legally obliged to restore the records.
But in their lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Northern District of California, the groups add a new legal twist. They argue that USDA also violated the Administrative Procedures Act. That law prohibits government agencies from taking actions that are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law[.]” And the four groups say that USDA’s action in removing the records fits this description.
“The information blackout is a tremendous blow to transparency and undermines advocates who are working to protect hundreds of thousands of animals across the country,” Stephen Wells, executive director of ALDF, said in a statement.
ALDF is based in San Francisco, California; the Companion Animal Protection Society and Stop Animal Exploitation NOW describe themselves as national nonprofits; and Animal Folks is based in St. Paul.
Update: legislation introduced
Six Senate Democrats led by Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced a bill on 2 March that would return to public view thousands of animal welfare documents generated during enforcement of the Animal Welfare Act. USDA removed the documents from its website on 3 February. It began restoring them piecemeal on 17 February, but that has not satisfied critics, including some in Congress.
“This legislation will ensure the restoration of all the data USDA recently wiped from its website,” Menendez said in a statement.
In the House of Representatives, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and at least 30 cosponsors are planning to introduce an identical version of the Senate bill early next week. Called the Animal Welfare Accountability and Transparency Act, it would also take away a valuable tax benefit for five years from companies that violate the Animal Welfare Act or the Horse Protection Act.
*Update, 3 March, 4 pm: Information on the introduction of a bill in Congress was added. It would force USDA to return all documents removed from its website to public view.
*Update, 22 February, 4:25 p.m.: Information on the lawsuit brought by ALDF and other groups was added to the story.
*Update, 17 February, 4:25 p.m.: Comments from Senator Debbie Stabenow and Representative Vern Buchanan were added, as was an example of the kind of data still missing from the USDA website.
*Update, 17 February, 2:30 p.m.: Comment from the PETA Foundation was added.Texas, supposedly America’s most patriarchal state, doesn’t believe a woman should be indicted for orally raping a man while he was asleep. She is now a free woman after a grand jury “no billed” the case. Prosecutors had no choice but to dismiss the already weak (relative to the allegations) charges against her.
Megan Rae Davis, who additionally goes by Megan Hoelting and presumably “Walking Pussy Pass,” admitted that she broke into the home of her husband’s friend in the middle of night and wrapped her legs around him in bed. The alleged victim went further, asserting that he felt his penis being put in Davis’ mouth. Considering that Davis gripped her legs around the man, clearly a sexual act, Davis sexually assaulted him from the outset, even if we gave her the benefit of the doubt over the oral rape (which I won’t be doing). When the man came to, he found Davis astride him, only “dressed” in her panties.
Although The Huffington Post carried the original story of Davis’ arrest in October 2014, the situation has been largely or completely ignored by the bigger outlets, especially when the case was thrown out recently. After the feminist and mainstream media outrage which accompanied the thirty day sentence for (male) teacher rapist Stacey Rambold, he was re-sentenced to fifteen years, including five suspended.
It beggars belief, despite the admittedly very serious nature of Rambold’s crime, that Davis’ free ride in the justice system should be incongruently kept out of the major media spotlight. A victim is a victim. Unless you’re a man, I suppose.
But when a man is accused?
Men are regularly tried and convicted with no evidence other than the testimony of the woman alleging rape or sexual assault. Many times both parties are agreed that the defendant or pre-trial accused was not trespassing when the alleged crime took place. Contrasting this, Megan Rae Davis has admitted that she illegally forced her way into the home of the man.
By itself, this is more concrete evidence or overall context than the majority of sexual assault cases leveled against male accused, yet Davis still gets her pussy pass. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, right? I guess that now includes sexually assaulting your husband’s friend when you get the “sexual munchies.”
Davis is also a living embodiment of criminal dysfunction. In the same month she sexually assaulted the man, she had three other encounters with police. Once again, the justice system enables such women to get away with obvious contraventions of the law. Any time spent “languishing” in the county lock-up is just the “pause button” before they’re released and can re-ingrain themselves back to their “normal” life of playing the gender card.
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As the evidentiary standards for men accused of sexual crimes in both colleges and courts continue to be watered-down, women like Davis avoid even the specter of actual sexual assault charges. When finally confronted by the law over the break-in, the charges she faced included attempted sexual assault.
What threshold does a woman have to cross to be accused of a sexual assault, rather than its attempt? As you might have read in past weeks, women like braindead “comedienne” Farah Brook are excused for sexual assault and harassment by kissing while men are arrested and convicted for trying it.
Praise be to the Internet
The glory of our technological age is that we can make examples of these women. There are undoubtedly many people, in Davis’ own community to boot, who will make excuses for her, fail to reevaluate any good opinions they previously had of her, and all-round rationalize what she did (“it wasn’t really sexual assault anyway”).
Yet large swathes of others, both nearby and far away from her, will gossip about her, chide her actions, mock and exclude her. This is what we want. Although a far cry from true justice, the exposure of terrible, sociopathic human beings like Davis is creating waves.
Importantly, women like Davis are highly superficial, unintelligent and vacuous. Her booking photos, which make her look like a meth addict, are probably to her the worst things to come out of this case. It certainly isn’t the dignity, wellbeing, and rights of her victim, or the feelings of her cuckolded husband. To the internet, Davis’ actions have announced, “I’m a sexual deviant slut.” And now we know that, sans make-up, she looks like one, too.
Where art thou, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand?
I will presume professional superheroes like New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand utilize a pre-1845 map of America which does not include Texas. Once they finally figure out that Texas is indeed a state within the Union, they’ll surely arrive on the scene in the interest of fairness to all sexual assault victims. Davis’ victim will be invited to the State of the Union address next year as Gillibrand’s guest and she’ll spend countless hours advocating on his and other men’s behalf.
Or not.
The massive let off for Megan Rae Davis underscores that all men within our special community must contribute to the outing, shaming, and misery of women who escape proper legal sanction via the gender card. Every time, era, and epoch has its builders and protectors of justice. We, my friends, are those men, wearing today’s clothes.
Read More: Why Black America Must Be CarefulAfter a successful relaunch in April, Moogfest will return in 2016, becoming a biennial event to bring technologists, entrepreneurs and music fans to town, and the potential for more tech companies.
The audience uses 3-D glasses for a Kraftwerk performance at Moogfest on April 24. The festival will return in 2016, taking a year off. (Photo: Rich Orris, Special to the Citizen-Times )
After a successful relaunch in April, Moogfest will return in 2016, becoming a biennial event to bring technologists, entrepreneurs and music fans to town, and the potential for more tech companies.
"We think that doing Moogfest every two years makes the event a little more special," said Mike Adams, president of Moog Music Inc. "That also gives us more time to curate the level of programming that we need."
The festival will take a break in 2015.
The 2014 event successfully placed Asheville at the intersection of art, technology and entertainment, Adams said. Moogfest and Asheville received 1.3 billion mentions from media outlets worldwide in technology, science and science fiction, as well as music.
Moog Music invested $3 million in the festival; the event ended up $1.5 million in the red, a huge investment for the privately held company.
Moogfest success? : Adams takes the long view
Financial picture: Moogfest 2014 loses $1.5 million
"We had to look at the financial health of the company. We couldn't put the level of investment into it each and every year," Adams said.
But the finances weren't the deciding factor in the decision. Rather than returning within the next 10 months, the extra time allows employees of Moog Music to catch their breath after a huge investment of staff time and energy, said Emmy Parker, Moog's brand director.
"Even if we had $10 million, we would opt for every two years," Parker said. "Ten months is not enough time to secure the level of talent that we need."
Adams and Parker said they were confident that corporate sponsorship would step in to make the festival financially sustainable every two years going forward. The 2014 festival attracted corporate visitors from SAS, the $3 billion software company in Raleigh, along with Redhat and Google.
He said he was grateful for the early support of both Asheville and Buncombe County. The festival received $90,000 in funding from the county and $40,000 from the city of Asheville, along with another $50,000 in in-kind services.
"It was good return on investment. You can't buy that type of exposure," said David Gantt, chairman of the Buncombe Board of Commissioners. "Moogfest gives a vehicle to get to people who might not consider Asheville as a place for technology otherwise. Impressions are one of the economic indicators of the new age. It's not the traditional economic development model, I think it's the future."
Organizers never portrayed Moogfest as a moneymaker in its first year, said Mayor Esther Manheimer.
"We have a company based here willing to put forward their own capital to produce a citywide event in part to help expand our footprint in technology business. That was a good investment," Manheimer said.
Moogfest was put on pause in 2013 after Moog Music, an electronic music instrument manufacturer, split with A.C. Entertainment, a Tennessee concert promoter and festival organizer. The company partnered with A.C. Entertainment to produce a multiday music festival in downtown Asheville 2010-12.
The company decided it wanted to develop a festival format that emphasized technology and innovation more in line with the pioneering spirit of company founder and inventor Bob Moog.
Organizers touted the revamped arts and technology festival as a way to bring more attention to Asheville as a place to do high tech business.
"I've met tech entrepreneurs who had the problem we have in hiring people. There's not a critical mass of tech companies and talent here. The Economic Development Coalition does a good job in traditional recruitment. We see Moogfest as a way to enhance that economic development," Adams said.
The April event included more than 100 musical performances, 105 speakers, panels, multimedia installations and public art exhibits and expos, housed in almost 20 venues in downtown Asheville.
Photos: M.I.A, Chic concert
Photos: Kraftwerk Moogfest performance
It attracted 7,000 badge holders, with some traveling from as far as Tokyo and Guatemala to attend. More than 25,000 people filled the streets of downtown for the free programming.
An economic study was conducted during the event through the Asheville Chamber of Commerce, and students from Western Carolina University will provide more data. It's expected to be released later this month.
Manheimer would like to see Moogfest become a signature event for the city every two years.
"That would be my hope," the mayor said. "Moogfest is a unique collision of arts and technology that says Asheville to me. It's a good fit and valuable from economic development standpoint."
Drawing attention
According to a Fame House report made public Tuesday, Moogfest garnered more than 1 billion impressions in print and digital efforts — meaning the number of times content was seen.
The study looks at media generated from March to early May. Fame House is a music and entertainment company with expertise in digital marketing and strategy, with clients such as artists Eminem and Tiesto, and festivals like Electric Zoo in New York City.
The study says 100 percent of the press that mentions Moogfest also mentions Asheville.
Traditional impressions totaled 1.38 billion, according to the report. The major sources of impression: Huffington Post at 205.2 million; People Magazine, 42.8 million; New York Times, 18.8 million; CNET Magazine at 11.3 million, Time Magazine at 3.3 million impressions, Billboard at 400,000.
The top media outlets represent a range — from traditional news outlets like NPR and CBS Radio to traditional music publications like Spin and Rolling Stone — as well as tech-centric outlets like CNET and Engadget.
Moogfest was also covered by major British outlets, BBC and The Guardian.
When it comes to user-generated content — not from Moogfest itself — roughly 60 percent of users who mentioned Moogfest also mention Asheville in the same post.
"It's one way if we go out and say Asheville is so great," Parker said. "It's another thing when we invite people from all over the world to come here, experience Asheville and go off and tell everyone else it's true. Asheville is so great."
High-profile Twitter users also posted about the spring festival. DJ and Moogfest performer Mix Master Mike tweeted "the entire blocked rocked Moogfest much love Asheville nc!! Blessing!" to his 45,800 followers.
The Fader shared two Moogfest mixes on its Twitter account to 202,000 followers. Cool Hunting shared the Moogfest daily lineup to 240,000 followers, for example.
This generated close to 30 million impressions for Asheville, the study says.
And Moogfest speakers will continue to inspire new audiences when the videotaped keynote addresses and panel discussions are posted online at Moog's website.
Parker also emphasized that this media portrayal is different than the typical celebration of this region, which often makes national headlines for city's food and beer scene, as well as natural beauty and outdoor recreation.
"There is another conversation — in addition to that conversation — that can be had," she said. "Moogfest was a great way for us to show that within five days."
Moogfest by the numbers
100 musical performances
105 speakers, panels, multimedia installations and public art exhibits and expos
20 venues in downtown Asheville
7,000 badge holders
25,000 people filled the streets of downtown for the free programming
1.38 billion traditional media impressions between March-May
Statistics from 2014
Read or Share this story: http://avlne.ws/1mFgRQDby: David Jaimes
George Fox had a vision.
“I came near a very great hill, called Pendle Hill, and I was moved of the Lord to go up to the top of it; which I did with difficulty, it was so very steep and high. When I was come to the top, I saw the sea bordering upon Lancashire. From the top of this hill the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered.”
I wonder what Fox might have seen. How vast was this group of people? What kinds of people were there? And if today, the Quaker diaspora were to gather with George Fox there as witness, would we confirm his vision?
I don’t think so.
As a new Friend, I do not see that these questions are being answered sufficiently. For instance, it takes only a glance to see that there is but little progress in reaching diverse people groups here in the U.S., especially when compared to our efforts abroad. But what if the Latino Church is the next face of American Christianity? This possibility helps me to understand more of what the Lord wants from his people and allows me to catch a glimpse of what Fox saw on that great hill.
It should also concern us.
We should be concerned about the unjust way our nation treats its immigrants. If the Latino Church is the next face of American Christianity, then the cause of immigration reform is a cause for every Quaker.
Immigrants face separation from family, marginalization because of their heritage and language, the abuse of their labor, obstacles to citizenship in spite of their investment. These are moral concerns. And such inhumane treatment must stop.
In addition, the Latino community among us has a rich perspective on life and especially the spiritual reality that we live out. The life of an immigrant is a powerful metaphor for the Christian journey. The Latino people thrive in community, love God and others, deeply desire to serve. Which is why their lack of influence in the North American Church today shows that there is much to be done if there are many to be gathered.
To be a great people, we must include the marginalized people around us. Jesus said that the first shall be last and the last shall be first. There is no greater posture than to put someone else before yourself. Christ did, and so must we as a people of the Light, especially as a people called by God to gather the people of God.Originally published August 20, 2009 at 10:39 AM | Page modified August 20, 2009 at 12:46 PM
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Every health-care compromise President Obama offered in the name of bipartisanship was read as a sign of weakness by Republicans, writes columnist Froma Harrop. For the GOP, sticking it to the Democrats trumps doing what's good for the country. The heck with them.
Early on as New York mayor, Ed Koch went to battle against entrenched interests that were bankrupting the city. The yelling and screaming was such that reporters asked him whether he was interested in having a second term. Koch responded that he didn't care about a second term, which was why he was going to have one. And he did.
Democrats should remember that as they go it alone on health-care reform. It should be obvious by now that Republicans are bent on sabotage.
The last straw was Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley's giving credence to the "death panel" nonsense. (Grassley was supposed to be one of the reasonable Republican negotiators.) Party leaders just shot down the idea of consumer-run insurance co-ops, designed to appease Republicans as an alternative to the public option.
Every compromise President Obama offered in the name of bipartisanship was read as a sign of weakness. For Republicans, sticking it to the Democrats trumps doing what's good for the country. The heck with them.
Reforming health care should be both a liberal and conservative mission. Securing medical coverage for all Americans is the liberal part. The conservative part is containing the explosive rise in health-care spending, which fuels government deficits and hurts American business in the global marketplace.
Democrats will have to be both the liberals and the conservatives on health care. They must have been rolling in the aisles this week when Sen. Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, announced, "There is no way Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill."
Republicans already have. In 2006, their Medicare drug-benefit legislation was projected to cost $1.08 trillion over 10 years. (This was just one benefit serving one slice of the population.) Last year, the estimate was reduced to a tad under $1 trillion, and Republicans rejoiced over the great deal they had struck.
There was nothing traditionally conservative about the Medicare drug benefit. Republicans were simply shoveling taxpayer dollars to their friends in the insurance and drug industry. This was crony capitalism, Chinese-style.
And the drug benefit was certainly not fiscally conservative. The Bush administration and Congress had absolutely no thought of paying for the thing — other than borrowing the money and passing the bill onto future generations.
After recent electoral beatings, Republicans repented and insisted they were returning to their core conservative principles. But now they're at it again, taking care of their pals in the health-care industry.
Note how they demagogue every proposal to curb health-care spending, even as the spiraling costs burden businesses, taxpayers and individuals alike. Their undying hostility to a public option is an example.
Republicans pounced on the public option as "government-controlled health care." The public option is a government plan that would compete with private insurers, forcing them to spend more on health care and less on executive compensation and dividends. It would help everyone who pays medical bills get more for their dollar.
No one is putting private insurers out of business. Reform would give them millions of new subsidized customers, many young and healthy. Meanwhile, the public plan would have to rely on premiums (no extra funds from the Treasury). The playing field would be level.
Regional co-ops are not an awful idea, but they can't do as good a job moderating costs as the public option. With Republicans out the picture, Democrats can wholeheartedly support the better idea.
Democrats: Don't worry about November 2010 at the moment. Voters gave you the White House and commanding majorities in Congress to fix America's long-festering problems. Let Republicans go to their corner and holler, afraid that Democrats might get credit.
Democrats have the power to reform health care now and to do it right. They should use it.
Providence Journal columnist Froma Harrop's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is [email protected] CITY – There was no sound system or even a megaphone and the speaker had to stand on a bench to be heard.
Some already went home because there was no clear schedule or program.
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The prayer rally for “peace, rule of law and justice” had little semblance of organization but hundreds who came did not mind.
“We are praying not just for Mayor (Jed Patrick) Mabilog but for Iloilo City as whole,” said Normandy Notes, an evangelical pastor who led a prayer rally at the historic Plaza Libertad here.
“We are saddened with what has been happening and because Iloilo has been unfairly labeled as most shabulized,” he said.
He said the repeated statements of the President describing Iloilo as having the worst drug problem in the country are affecting how other people view all Ilonggos.
“I have been living here for 30 years and we all know what is true,” he said.
At least 300 gathered at the plaza, many of whom lit candles while praying.
At least 200 more had earlier attended Mass at the San Jose Church a few meters from the plaza.
Those who attended included friends and schoolmates of Mabilog, businessmen, civic leaders and religious groups. But many others just came there in response to invitations from social media.
“The bullying must stop. They are instilling fear so that we will not speak up,” a landowner said.
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“They’re not just destroying Jed. Iloilo is being destroyed,” said business executive Manny Gruenberg.
The prayer rally was held two days after the assignment of Chief Insp. Jovie Espenido as officer-in-charge of the Iloilo City Police Office.
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LATEST STORIES
MOST READStructure Edit
Functions Edit
Food intake Edit Breastfeeding Because they have their own muscles and bordering muscles, the lips are easily movable. Lips are used for eating functions, like holding food or to get it in the mouth. In addition, lips serve to close the mouth airtight shut, to hold food and drink inside, and to keep out unwanted objects. Through making a narrow funnel with the lips, the suction of the mouth is increased. This suction is essential for babies to breast feed. Lips can also be used to suck in other contexts, such as sucking on a straw to drink liquids. Articulation Edit The lips serve for creating different sounds—mainly labial, bilabial, and labiodental consonant sounds as well as vowel rounding—and thus are an important part of the speech apparatus. The lips enable whistling and the performing of wind instruments such as the trumpet, clarinet, flute, and saxophone. People who have hearing loss may unconsciously or consciously lip read to understand speech without needing to perceive the actual sounds. Tactile organ Edit The lip has many nerve endings and reacts as part of the tactile (touch) senses. Lips are very sensitive to touch, warmth, and cold. It is therefore an important aid for exploring unknown objects for babies and toddlers. Erogenous zone Edit Lips of a young woman wearing red lipstick Lips of a young man Because of their high number of nerve endings, the lips are an erogenous zone. The lips therefore play a crucial role in kissing and other acts of intimacy. A woman's lips are also a visible expression of her fertility. In studies performed on the science of human attraction, psychologists have concluded that a woman's facial and sexual attractiveness is closely linked to the makeup of her hormones during puberty and development. Contrary to the effects of testosterone on a man's facial structure, the effects of a woman's oestrogen levels serve to maintain a relatively "childlike" and youthful facial structure during puberty and during final maturation. It has been shown that the more oestrogen a woman has, the larger her eyes and the fuller her lips, characteristics which are perceived as more feminine.[8] Surveys performed by sexual psychologists[who?] have also found that universally, men find a woman's full lips to be more sexually attractive than lips that are less so.[citation needed] A woman's lips are therefore sexually attractive to males because they serve as a biological indicator of a woman's health and fertility. A woman's lipstick (or collagen lip enhancement) attempts to take advantage of this fact by creating the illusion that a woman has more oestrogen than she actually has, and thus that she is more fertile and attractive. Lip size is linked to sexual attraction in both men and women. Women are attracted to men with masculine lips, that are more middle size and not too big or too small; they are to be rugged and sensual. In general, the researchers found that a small nose, big eyes and voluptuous lips are sexually attractive both in men and women.[10] The lips may temporarily swell during sexual arousal due to engorgement with blood.[medical citation needed] Facial expression Edit The lips contribute substantially to facial expressions. The lips visibly express emotions such as a smile or frown, iconically by the curve of the lips forming an up-open or down-open parabola, respectively. Lips can also be made pouty when whining, or perky to be provocative.
Clinical significance Edit
As an organ of the body, the lip can be a focus of disease or show symptoms of a disease: One of the most frequent changes of the lips is a blue coloring due to cyanosis; the blood contains less oxygen, and thus has a dark red to blue color, which shows through the thin skin. Cyanosis is the reason why corpses sometimes have blue lips. In cold weather cyanosis can appear, so especially in the winter, blue lips may not be an uncommon sight.
Inflammation of the lips is termed cheilitis. This can be in several forms such as chapped lips (dry, peeling lips), angular cheilitis (inflammation of the corners of the mouth), herpes labialis (cold sore, a form of herpes simplex) and actinic cheilitis (chronically sun damaged lips). A child with cleft lip Cleft lip is a type of birth defect that can be successfully treated with surgery.
Carcinoma (a malignant cancer that arises from epithelial cells) at the lips, is caused predominantly by using tobacco and overexposure of sunlight. Alcohol appears to increase the carcinoma risk associated with tobacco use. It is most often a diffuse and often hyperkeratinised lesion, occasionally has the form of nodules and grows infiltratively, and can also be a combination of the two types. It more often occurs at the lower lip, where it is also much more malign. The lower lip carcinoma is exclusively planocellular carcinoma, whereas at the upper lip, it can also be basocellular carcinoma.
Society and culture Edit
Pierced lips Lips are often viewed as a symbol of sensuality and sexuality. This has many origins; above all, the lips are a very sensitive erogenous and tactile organ. Furthermore, in many cultures of the world, a woman's mouth and lips are veiled because of their representative association with the vulva, and because of their role as a woman's secondary sexual organ.[11] As part of the mouth, the lips are also associated with the symbolism associated with the mouth as orifice by which food is taken in. The lips are also linked symbolically to neonatal psychology (see for example oral stage of the psychology according to Sigmund Freud). Lip piercing or lip augmentation is sometimes carried out for cosmetic reasons. Products designed for use on the lips include lipstick, lip gloss and lip balm.
Other animals Edit
This Asian arowana has large, protruding barbels In most vertebrates, the lips are relatively unimportant folds of tissue lying just outside the jaws. However, in mammals, they become much more prominent, being separated from the jaws by a deep cleft. They are also more mobile in mammals than in other groups, since it is only in this group that they have any attached muscles. In some teleost fish, the lips may be modified to carry sensitive barbels. In birds and turtles, the lips are hard and keratinous, forming a solid beak.[12] Clevosaurids like Clevosaurus are notable for the presence of bone "lips"; in these species the tooth-like jaw projections common to all sphenodontians form a beak-like edge around the jaws, protecting the teeth within.[13]
See also Edit
References EditWashington: Lowa State University engineers are developing ideas and technologies to save the Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids.
Recent events have certainly highlighted the threat of asteroid strikes. There was the 15-meter (49-foot) meteor that exploded an estimated 12 miles over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on Feb. 15, damaging buildings and injuring more than 1,000 people. That same day, the 45-meter (148-foot) asteroid 2012 DA14 passed within 17,200 miles of Earth.
"It`s not a laughing matter," said Bong Wie, the director of the Asteroid Deflection Research Center at Iowa State University and the Vance D. Coffman Faculty Chair and professor of aerospace engineering.
"DA14 was a serious near miss," Wie said. "If that impact had happened, it would have been the equivalent of 160 Hiroshima nuclear bombs.
Wie`s studies lead him to believe it will take a one-two nuclear punch to break an asteroid into harmless pieces when there isn`t sufficient warning to use non-nuclear defenses.
Here`s how it would work:
A satellite carrying a nuclear device would be launched into orbit.
The satellite`s trajectory would intercept an incoming asteroid that`s 50 to 300 meters (164 to 984 feet) across, the typical size that threatens Earth. The satellite could travel up to 30 days to reach the asteroid.
The satellite would hit the asteroid at a speed of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) per second, creating a large crater in the asteroid.
Just before impact, the nuclear device would be released from the back of the satellite, creating a slight delay in detonation and allowing the device to fly into the middle of the crater.
The explosion from inside the crater would blast the asteroid apart.
"The overall effect of an explosion under the surface is 20 times larger than an explosion on the surface," Wie said.
The asteroid chunks would spread into a large debris cloud. By the time Earth reached the cloud, Wie said less than 0.1 percent of the chunks would enter the atmosphere. And those should only be 5-meter (16-foot) pieces that aren`t likely to do much harm.
We have all the technology to make it work, Wie said.
"We don`t need anything new. But we need to engineer, integrate and assemble these technologies. And we need practice," he said.
To date, Wie, his Iowa State research team and Brent Barbee of NASA`s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland have been working with data generated by computer simulations.
Wie said it`s time to integrate the necessary technology, build an unarmed prototype satellite and launch an actual test to see if a target asteroid can be hit.
NASA engineers and scientists have already accomplished a very similar mission.
In July 2005, the impactor from NASA`s Deep Impact Mission crashed into Tempel 1, a comet that measures 7.6 by 4.9 kilometers (4.7 by 3 miles). The impact was designed to create a crater 25 meters deep (82 feet) and 100 meters wide (328 feet), exposing the comet`s interior. The mission`s flyby spacecraft passed over |
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The Konjiki no Gash Bell soundtracks were composed by Kow Otani. The first Original Soundtrack was released in Japan on August 27, 2003 which contained 25 tracks. The second Original Soundtrack was released on January 7, 2004 and also contained 25 tracks. The third and last Original Soundtrack of the anime was released on March 24, 2006 and contained 28 tracks. The first movie Original Soundtrack titled Gekijôban Konjiki no Gash Bell!! 101-banme no mamono Original Sound Track was released on September 26, 2004 and contained 36 tracks. The second movie Original Soundtrack titled Gekijôban Konjiki no Gash Bell!! Mecha-Vulcan Strikes Back Original Sound Track was released on August 3, 2006 and contained 27 tracks. Konjiki no Gash Bell-Collection of Golden Songs was released on March 24, 2004. It contained the most popular character songs from the first season of the anime. Collection of Golden Songs 2 was released on February 23, 2005 which contained character songs from the second season of the anime. Collection of Golden Songs 3 was released on February 22, 2006 and contained character songs from the third season of the anime. Other CDs including character singles, character song series and character song duet series were released during the period the anime ran.
Video games [ edit ]
Reception [ edit ]
In 2003, the manga won the Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen title of the year.[39] The Konjiki no Gash Bell!! anime ranked twentieth in animage's anime popularity poll in 2005.[40] The anime ranked 64th of the Top 100 anime in 2005 according to a web poll conducted by TV Asahi.[41]
Mania.com's Jarred Pine's review of the first volume said that the art style was odd yet crude. He also mentioned the art style and explosive action scenes with moments of humor save the series from being recycled material.[42] Anime News Network's Zac Bertschy review of the anime adaption described it as "...mind-numbingly over-the-top, so enthusiastically bizarre, that it's difficult to not get sucked into its strange little world" but criticized how it was like a "battle your way to the top while learning important lessons about teamwork and courage" anime. He commented how the "sheer exuberance and energy" saves the show from being a bland anime and how it would be the perfect show for kids.[43] IGN's review of the series was mostly negative. IGN's Jason Van Horn criticized the animation, plot, and dubbed voice acting.[44] IGN's JKB stated the books are more interesting than the animation.[45]
Common Sense Media describes the story as "isn't just about violence". They also say that there is always challenges, adversities, and questions of identity that the characters face especially Zatch and Kiyo. They compliment how the characters often think aloud when talking about their painful experiences or flashbacks. They applaud on how each of the characters problems in the series are not far off on what kids deal with today. They criticized how the battles uses visuals, languages, sound effects, and dramatic effects that often get drawn out and sometimes become hard to watch. Overall, they said with the graphic violence and the internal struggles that the different characters face throughout the series some parents may not find Zatch Bell! appropriate for their children under ten years old.[46]
References [ edit ]
EnglishPersona 5 anime being developed by studio behind Sword Art Online In addition to today's release date announcement for Persona 5, we've learned an anime is also in the works at A-1 Pictures.
Today is a big day for Persona fans as we finally have a release date for Persona 5, although as of now, it’s only for the Japanese version. In addition to today’s release date announcement, Atlus has announced the game is already getting an anime adaptation, called Persona 5 The Animation: The Day Breakers.
Persona 5 The Animation: The Day Breakers won’t be a retelling of the events of the game itself, like Capcom’s recent anime adaptation of it’s popular Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games. Instead, the anime will tell a prologue story for Persona 5 and will dive into a particular mission the Phantom Thieves took part in when they were younger. In fact, the Persona series director Katsura Hashino says the anime will be an original story that’ll be linked to a specific sub-episode in the game.
A-1 Pictures, which is the studio behind the Sword Art Online series, the Fairy Tail series, Valkyria Chronicles, and more, will be working on Persona 5 The Animation: The Day Breakers. Original characters from the anime will also appear in Persona 5.
[Via Siliconera]Rental prices in Los Angeles held steady in September, according to a report from Apartment List. The median price of rent neither rose nor fell during the month, ending a streak of seven consecutive months of climbing prices.
The median cost of rent stands at $1,350 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,740 for a two-bedroom unit.
That’s still a 4.5 percent increase over September of 2016, giving Los Angeles greater year-over-year rent growth than the California-wide average of 4.3 percent and the national average of 2.8 percent.
Apartment List uses Census data to calculate median rental prices and the report gives a good sense of what people across the city are currently paying. But new arrivals and residents looking for a new place could be staring at a bleaker picture.
A separate report from Abodo, which primarily relies on listings on the apartment finder’s website, finds the median price in Los Angeles to be $2,112 for a one-bedroom (that steep price is actually down 1 percent since August). By Abodo’s calculations, Los Angeles is the seventh-most expensive rental market in the United States.
According to Apartment List, rents in other Southern California cities also stayed relatively flat in September, though other areas have seen larger year-over-year increases. Prices in Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Santa Clarita shot up more than 5 percent last year, with Santa Clarita tenants facing a particularly steep rise of 6.6 percent.
Earlier this year a UCLA report predicted LA renters would face gradually climbing prices as supply of available housing continues to lag behind demand.Justice Department Reverses Position On Texas Voter ID Law Case
Enlarge this image toggle caption Ron Jenkins/Getty Images Ron Jenkins/Getty Images
This post has been updated
The Department of Justice is reversing the federal government's position in an important voting rights case, involving a Texas voter ID law. The switch was not unexpected following the election of Donald Trump and confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Both Trump and Sessions claim voter fraud is a major problem and have backed voter ID laws.
In a motion filed Monday, DOJ asked a federal court to dismiss the department's earlier claim that the ID law was enacted with the intention of discriminating against minority voters. That claim was made by the Obama administration as part of a broader legal challenge to the law, which is among the strictest in the nation.
But the Trump administration notes that the Texas legislature is now considering changing the law to address concerns that it hurts minorities. DOJ says those efforts should be allowed to proceed.
Voting rights advocates, who worked with the Obama Justice Department for years on the court challenge, expressed outrage at the reversal.
In a written statement, Gerry Hebert of the Campaign Legal Center, which represents some of the plaintiffs, said, "I am appalled and disgusted that DOJ would abandon their claims, that they have advocated for the last six years, that TX's photo ID law was enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose."
He and others have argued that hundreds of thousands of legitimate voters in the state lack the required ID, such as a driver's license or gun permit, and that many of them would have a difficult time acquiring one. They also claim that the state legislature passed the law with the intention of discriminating against minority voters, primarily Hispanics, who are less likely to have the required ID.
A federal appeals court last year agreed that the law had a discriminatory impact, but asked the lower court to reconsider its findings that the law was passed with a discriminatory intent.
The DOJ's move comes amid continued partisan debate over the need for tough new ID requirements, and the impact such laws have on minority voters. Republicans say voter ID laws are needed to prevent voter fraud, but Democrats argue the laws are intended to block legitimate voters who tend to favor Democrats.
The Justice Department under the Obama administration actively challenged such laws in Texas and several other states.
The new administration sent signals almost immediately that it might switch sides.
DOJ filed a motion Jan. 20 — Inauguration Day — requesting that a hearing on the case be delayed until Feb. 28th to give the new administration time to assess its position. That motion was granted.
Then last week, the Justice Department joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in asking the court to delay the case until June to allow the state legislature to revise the law. Legislators are considering a proposal to allow those without a required photo ID to vote if they sign an affidavit declaring that they face a reasonable impediment to getting one. The measure also includes strict penalties for those who falsely make that claim.
However, the judge denied that request and the hearing on whether the law was passed with discriminatory intent is still scheduled for Tuesday in federal district court in Corpus Christi. Voting rights groups say they'll continue to pursue the case, even without DOJ support.
The switch in the government's position comes amid unverified — and widely discredited — claims by Trump that millions of people voted illegally in November. He has asked Vice President Mike Pence to lead an investigation into those claims. Voting rights activists are worried that the new administration and state legislatures under Republican control will use the inquiry to justify more voting restrictions.Google has teamed up with LyricFind to display song lyrics directly in its search results. The Toronto-based company signed a multi-year licensing deal with Google, allowing the search giant to offer song lyrics in the U.S. and international markets.
Speaking to Billboard, LyricFind CEO Darryl Ballantyne talked about how the deal would create an additional revenue model for musicians and songwriters:
It should be a significant revenue stream. We expect it to be millions of dollars generated for publishers and songwriters as a result of this. It's all based on usage. Royalties are paid based on the number of times a lyric is viewed. The more it's viewed, the more publishers get paid.
While there are several unlicensed sites, LyricFind's business model involves tying up with publishers for rights to lyrics. Currently, it counts over 4,000 publishers, and licenses its services to Deezer and Amazon. Google, meanwhile, gets to serve up links to Play Music, where users can see the full lyrics and purchase the song, or listen to a radio station.
The lyric feature is now live to those in the U.S., and should be available in other regions shortly.Also maybe could tell me via PM why Herb Beas left CGL.
That was revealed long ago, in A Guide to Covert Ops. Throughout the book are in-character sidebars (such as the message from Caradoc Trevena; ignore the ones that are not in-character). If you start with the one on p. 8, take the 47th letter within each paragraph and write them out on a piece of paper, but only the ones on even-numbered pages. Then do the odd-numbered pages, but with the 74th letter, counting back from the end of each paragraph. Add those to the end of the even-numbered letters. Forewarned: you'll have to figure out the spaces and punctuation yourself, but that's the easy part. And if you start to see a thread develop early about a feller named Chuck Manson, understand that the Marilyn mentioned is neither his wife nor sister.Have fun.Related criminal and civil cases against a Rutgers University at Newark philosophy professor, alleging she sexually assaulted a man with cerebral palsy, are raising questions among disability studies scholars about what constitutes consent and autonomy, and are renewing debate about a contested method of communication for those with some types of disabilities.
In 2008, according to court documents, Anna Stubblefield taught a course in which she discussed facilitated communication. The method’s validity is disputed, but Stubblefield, whose work centers on race and ethics and intellect as a social construct, has advocated its efficacy. Proponents say facilitated communication can help those who can’t otherwise communicate do so, using a “facilitator’s” arm to point to a keyboard or other technology to share their thoughts. Critics say there’s no way to tell whose thoughts are coming across – the disabled person’s, or the facilitator’s.
In that 2008 class was the brother of a man with cerebral palsy. He asked Stubblefield if she could help his brother communicate. She allegedly began working with the brother, identified in court documents as “John Roe,” meeting with him at Rutgers, his home, and other locations. The relationship developed into a kind of research partnership, with Stubblefield arranging for her and “Roe” to present at out-of-state conferences in 2010. Their work together is apparently documented in a 2011 Disability Studies Quarterly article written by the man, facilitated by Stubblefield, called “The Role of Communication in Thought.”
“Thinking does not need communication,” the article, which lists DMan Johnson as author, says. “I might not be able to talk, but I think grammatically perfectly. The mostly believable idea that grammar is learned through talking is not true.”
Johnson concludes: “I got my means of communication later than most people. But people know how to think in their heads before they learn to talk.”
Stubblefield also allegedly took the man, now 33, to a pool party that year.
In 2011, Stubblefield allegedly met with the man’s parents to inform them that the relationship had become sexual. The parents, who were appointed as their son’s legal guardians in 2005 and are identified in court documents as “Jane Roe” and “Richard Roe,” say Stubblefield molested their son. They say he was physically and intellectually incapable of consent and has the cognitive ability of an 18-month old. But Stubblefield says that she informed the parents that she and John Roe were in love, and that their sexual relations were consensual.
The parents allege that the professor’s work with their son was a “farce,” according to court documents, and informed Rutgers of their concerns. Court documents say that Rutgers informed local police and “separated Stubblefield from the community.”
A university spokesman said the associate professor, who formerly was chair of her department, is on leave. Saying the case concerned legal and private, personnel matters, he declined to comment further.
Rutgers initially was listed as co-defendant in the civil suit by the man's parents, but a judge in 2013 and again in January granted requests by Rutgers to be released from the suit. The man’s parents, in different court filings, allege that the university had followed an “unofficial” policy of “turning a blind eye” to illegal human research so as not to trigger an investigation that could jeopardize federal grants. Rutgers did reimburse Stubblefield for her conference travel with John Roe, but the court found that the plaintiffs failed to present more than a “speculative” case against the university.
The civil case against Stubblefield remains. That’s on hold for now, however, pending the criminal case against the professor, in which she faces charges of aggravated sexual assault. She and the Roes are expected to appear in court this week for a hearing to determine whether or not John Roe needs further testing to determine his ability to offer consent, The Star-Ledger first reported.
Stubblefield could not immediately be reached for comment. Her lawyer, James Patton, did not respond to a request for comment. Patton told The Star-Ledger that because John Roe is not a minor, the case will center on his ability to offer consent, which Stubblefield contends he gave.
While many questions in the case remain to be answered, it’s already caught the attention of disability studies scholars and advocates.
Michael Bérubé, professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, has written extensively about disability studies, and about the fact that his son has Down syndrome. He said the Stubblefield case would renew the debate about facilitated communication – something Bérubé says works -- drawing out its detractors.
“No doubt this will be yet another opportunity for people to claim that [the method] is a fraud,” he said. “I understand the basis for skepticism but have seen it at work with people who cannot possibly be being manipulated," including the nonverbal son of a colleague, who is now attending college.
A discussion on the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund’s Facebook page started by a Stubblefield supporter, for example, has evolved into a discussion about the merits and criticisms of facilitated communication.
One of the participants in that discussion, Jason C. Travers, an assistant professor of student development at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, has studied autism spectrum disorders and assistive technology. In an email, he said the Stubblefield case "demonstrates the potential for catastrophic harm associated with [facilitated communication, which was] long ago debunked by numerous well-designed empirical research studies." He called it "a manifestation of the well-known and understood ideomotor effect (the phenomenon responsible for the Ouija board effect)."
Travers said even facilitators "usually do not realize they are authoring the messages, but every credible study indicates that they are," and that Stubblefield herself may have been "duped" by the method.
Bérubé said of the case: “[W]hether this man was being manipulated by Stubblefield, I have no idea, and really don't want to speculate.”
The charges of sexual assault add another layer of complexity to the debate, he added.
Tammy Berberi, president of the Society for Disability Studies and associate professor of French at the University of Minnesota at Morris, said she couldn’t offer extensive comment on the case, in part because of conflict of interest issues (the society produces the journal in which Stubblefield and John Roe published). But she said that the society generally advocates empowerment of disabled persons, and that on its face the Stubblefield case seems to raise questions of “agency” and “autonomy.” Berberi pointed to the recent case of a New York man and woman, married and both with developmental disabilities, who fought to share the same bedroom in a group home.
“It’s very similar,” she said of the some of the issues raised.
Andrew Gordon, a professor of movement studies at Teachers College at Columbia University, studies cerebral palsy and rehabilitation. He said via email that cognitive levels of those with cerebral palsy vary widely, and aren't necessarily apparent through communication abilities.
"Certainly there are many individuals with [cerebral palsy] who have very limited communication," he said. "Their cognition can vary tremendously. The cognitive aspect can certainly be perceived as impaired simply by virtue of the lack of, or poor quality, of communication."The way I see it, there are two ways for bands in the densely-populated contemporary metal scene to find a distinctive voice. The first is to find a previously unexplored artistic direction to pursue — which is getting to be pretty much impossible thanks to the genre’s age and insanely deep bench. (Plus, it’s risky. You don’t want to end up as the world’s foremost ska/thrash hybrid.) The second is use the work of past innovators as a starting point and to refine or recombine their ideas into something that itself feels fresh and new. This tactic doesn’t sound glamorous, but it can produce great results; Black Sabbath themselves were arguably just a clever refinement of the day’s loud rock tropes at first.
France’s Plebeian Grandstand — love that name! — pursue this second route to incredible effect. As of False Highs, True Lows, their upcoming third LP, the Grandstand sound has two components:
1. The drug-nightmare scarytimes dissonance of black metal countrymen like Deathspell Omega and Aosoth.
2. The stark, personal intensity and tumbling rhythms of American ‘mathcore’ acts like Converge and Botch.
In practice, Plebeian Grandstand sound more like the former set of bands — this is probably 95% metal on a riff-by-riff basis — but ruthlessly compressed and stripped of the cinematic bells and whistles that spooky black metal acts love so much. The resultant songs are suffocatingly aggressive, so heavy on withering blastbeats and jagged time shifts that they can feel like a particularly weird species of death metal if you’re not paying attention.
But False Highs, True Lows bears a seriousness of purpose and resonance that extreme metal of any description rarely captures. Even as Plebeian Grandstand’s rhythm section lash themselves through one sequence of punishing, lopsided meters after another, guitarist Simon Chaubard constantly unspools skeletal, somber arpeggios, a boney clatter that’s strangely emotive in the context of the band’s violence. As with a lot of technically-inclined metal, Plebeian Grandstand’s music often evokes feelings of claustrophobia and isolation, but there’s a real sense of searching and defiance in those ever-shifting guitar chords — the sound of life, trapped in a dark hole to be sure, but endlessly striving to escape. Listen.
False Highs, True Lows will be out 4/29 via Throatruiner Records (USA preorders via Deathwish Inc.).We've gathered together Dr. Plotnick's CAT MAN DO top EDUCATIONAL blog posts of 2011
13) The Cat Age to Human Age Comparison (Part Three) - A New Chart Helps Pet Parents Calculate Their Cats' Age in Relation to Human Years
12) What We Tell Our Clients When their Cat is Diagnosed with Ringworm - Despite the name, ringworm is not a “worm”. It is a fungal infection (dermatophytosis) of the hair and skin. It is also one of the few feline infectious diseases that can be transmitted from cats to hum ans. Cats that test positive for ringworm need some kind of treatment. Treatment plans may vary somewhat for each individual cat, but they all involve three basic steps – topical therapy (bathing) with some type of shampoo, oral medication, and environmental decontamination.
11) Tropic of Cancer (a.k.a. lymphosarcoma. a.k.a. lymphoma) - I see a lot of cancer in my cat practice. A major reason is that cats are living longer than ever before. Now that they’re living to 17, 18, (and even longer), they’re living long enough to develop cancers that we never saw when they died at 12 or 13. Another reason is that major medical advances have given us the technology to detect cancers that previously went undiagnosed. An increased awareness of cancer, coupled with more sophisticated technology, has allowed veterinarians to become pretty adept at making the dreaded diagnosis. The diagnosis of cancer in a beloved cat can be devastating. However, it is important to realize that, as in human cancers, many types of cancer in cats can be treated, managed, and sometimes even cured.
10) Heart Murmurs: What’s the Scoop? - Everyone has heard of heart murmurs, but not everyone knows exactly what they are, and what their significance may be. I’m hoping this blog post can help.
9) Hot-Weather Tips for our Cat & Dog Companions - When summer arrives, it is very important that we take the proper precautions when dealing with our pets. Here are a few important tips and facts that should help protect our furry friends.
8) Language Barriers - I run an all-feline veterinary hospital, and we have a fairly large Japanese client base. This is not by accident. One of my technicians, Hiromi, is Japanese, and she made it clear to me when I hired her 8 years ago that she would like to actively help me cultivate a Japanese clientele. In speaking with her cat-owning Japanese friends and acquaintances, Hiromi has heard countless tales of frustration, as they described the difficulty in explaining exactly what it is about their cat that had them worried, as well as their inability to fully understand what the doctor had told them.
7) First Aid and Your Kitten: What to Do in an Emergency - Most kittens endure kittenhood relatively unscathed. A few, however, deplete several of their nine lives in the course of growing up. Knowing the principles of first aid can be invaluable in seeing that your kitten survives that turbulent first year of life.
6) First Aid and Your Cat: What to Do in an Emergency - If you came home from work and found your cat having convulsions, paralyzed, or bleeding, would you know what to do? April is "Pet First-Aid Awareness Month". The American Animal Hospital Association, (AAHA) states that 1-out-of-4 pets would survive an accident or illness if pet owners were familiar with and capable of providing first aid when necessary. Owners that are aware of proper life saving techniques and how they apply to our pets are better equipped to handle emergencies as they arise.
5) Why You Should Spay or Neuter Your Cat - Cat overpopulation is a very serious problem in the United States. There are simply too many cats and not enough people to care for them. Responsibility is the key to cat ownership, and a major part of that responsibility is guaranteeing that your cat doesn’t reproduce. Neutering and spaying are two of the most commonly performed elective procedures. Not only do they help curtail cat overpopulation, they also bring many health and behavior benefits to both you and your cat.
4) Top 5 Healthy Cat Treats - Cats require a nutritionally complete and balanced diet to live an active, healthy life. Life is meant to be enjoyed, however, and every now and then it’s OK to toss your cat a tasty treat.
3) Early Spaying and Neutering in Cats. Get ‘em while they’re young - Every year in the U.S., animal shelters and humane organizations euthanize millions of homeless and unwanted dogs and cats. Spaying and neutering has to remain the cornerstone of any program designed to reduce overpopulation of dogs and cats. In my practice, clients will often bring me a kitten for examination and vaccination. Our protocol is typical for most veterinary practices: we vaccinate around 8 or 9 weeks of age, and again at 11 or 12 weeks of age, and once more at 15 or 16 weeks of age. Then, at 24 weeks of age, we neuter or spay. This protocol of spaying and neutering around 6 months of age has been the professional standard for years. This posed a problem for shelters, however.
2) How Pet Owners Can Best Help Veterinarian Make their Diagnoses - Veterinarians are faced with a variety of diagnostic challenges on a daily basis. The ability for a veterinarian to obtain a detailed and complete history is our most important diagnostic tool. When accurately interpreted, this information lays the groundwork for a logical diagnostic and therapeutic plan, and may prevent unnecessary diagnostic testing and needless discomfort to the patient and cost to the owner.Bilderberg, the annual gathering of the world’s most powerful politicians and business magnates, is clearly shaping global policies by positioning its favored politicians as world leaders, determining the timetables of military conflicts and influencing the economic policies of nearly every nation on the planet, impacting the lives of billions around the globe.
Daniel Estulin, an author and expert on the Bilderberg Group, has learned from his internal sources several items on Bilderberg’s agenda for this year’s conference in Copenhagen, Denmark which began yesterday:
1) Nuclear diplomacy – how Russia, China and even Iran could work together to erode western hegemony.
2) The recent gas agreement between Russia and China – how this and other long-term projects between the two countries will likely reduce dependency on the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency.
3) The rise of nationalism within Europe that is challenging the power structure of the European Union – the recent victories of the populist United Kingdom Independence Party, which opposes the European Union, is particularly concerning to the Bilderberg Group because the EU, and its Euro currency, were formulated by the group at its second annual meeting in 1955.
4) The European Union’s Internet privacy regulations – what they mean for the United States.
5) The rise of cyber warfare – the government could deceptively use the threat of cyber attacks to strengthen censorship and other Internet regulations.
6) From Ukraine to Syria – Is Obama’s foreign policy doomed?
7) The “climate change” agenda – the deindustrialization of targeted nations as a result of “climate change” treaties and legislation.
And there’s likely more that will be discussed during this year’s three-day conference.
But to truly absorb the importance of these agenda items and the influence of the Bilderberg Group, it’s critical to look back at several of the world’s most significant events in the past several decades, which were not as random as they appear but were rather planned by design inside the eloquently-furnished meeting rooms of past Bilderberg conferences.
As previously mentioned, the 1955 Bilderberg meeting in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, West Germany focused on the creation of the European Union and a single European currency, both of which occurred in the early 1990s after decades of gradual implementation.
In 1991, the then governor of Arkansas, who was relatively unknown at the time, was invited to attend the Bilderberg meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany. Just over one year later the governor, William Jefferson Clinton, became the President of the United States.
The former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, likewise came to power as the UK’s Leader of the Opposition one year after attending a Bilderberg meeting in 1993.
Now we see that the current Democratic mayor of Atlanta, Kasim Reed, was invited for this year’s Bilderberg conference in Copenhagen.
“He’s seen as one of the few legitimate Democratic candidates for higher office in Georgia,” a Republican strategist told Roll Call in 2012, adding that he will be a formidable adversary to the GOP.
It would appear that Bilderberg is grooming him for just that.
Besides modern-day king making, the Bilderberg Group also has tremendous influence in economics and geopolitical events.
In the early 2000s, late investigative journalist Jim Tucker correctly predicted that Operation Iraqi Freedom would commence in March 2003 and not in late 2002 as so many defense analysts were suggesting at the time.
But how did Tucker know? Because he wasn’t just guessing; sources inside Bilderberg told him.
Estulin also correctly predicted the 2007 collapse of the housing bubble a year before it happened after receiving information from his own sources inside the Bilderberg Group.
A few years later, in 2009, Tucker predicted that Bilderberg would use the resulting economic slowdown to erode America’s national sovereignty.
This is now coming to fruition through multiple ways, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership, which allows transnational mega-corporations to tighten their grip on individual countries such as the United States.
And representatives for many large companies are in attendance at this year’s Bilderberg meeting.
“You have 50 to 60 key CEOs of the world’s most powerful corporations from the western world [in attendance],” Estulin said.
Last year, Ed Balls, a British politician and a Bilderberg member, downplayed the influence of Bilderberg live on BBC, yet this year he was caught on camera holding a gigantic stack of papers before entering the conference.
The fact that Balls was carrying enough papers to fill a large phone book invalidates his prior denial of Bilderberg’s importance.
In reality, the Bilderberg Group is pushing ahead with its anti-free market, state-corporate takeover designed to destroy independent nations as well as the individual in order to make the population dependent on a system controlled by the tiny elite well-represented at the conference.Flickr/Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design
A big sign that reads "America's best urban schools" hangs in the window of the building where Long Beach Unified School District board meetings are held, says Sarah Omojola, one of the coauthors of a damning report released Tuesday that admonishes the California district for mistreating its students of color.
It's ironic considering "Untold Stories Behind One of America's Best Urban School Districts" describes how such students are disproportionately punished, suspended, and policed. The report was compiled by the Children's Defense Fund-California, a nonprofit child advocacy organization, and Public Counsel, a nonprofit law firm that provides services to low-income Americans.
Long Beach Unified School District, which serves 78,000 students and is California's third-largest school district, describes itself as having "earned a reputation as one of America's finest school systems." In 2003, the education nonprofit Broad Foundation awarded LBUSD a $1 million prize for urban education. And in 2012, Batelle for Kids, another nonprofit, listed it as one of the world's five highest-performing school systems. LBUSD has also been the subject of many flattering profiles about its successes.
But Tuesday's report casts doubt on the district's shining reputation.
The result of a public records request by Public Counsel, "Untold Stories" reviews and analyzes previously unreleased data collected on LBUSD's disciplinary practices over the past decade. Black students, according to the report, are nearly 14 times as likely to be suspended as their white counterparts. Latinx and Pacific Islanders are four times as likely to be suspended.
Flickr / US Department of Education
One curious statistic revealed that suspensions went down by 53% in LBUSD from 2011 to 2015, a positive trend that mirrored the rest of California. But the 2012-2013 school year saw 11,752 suspensions— the highest number of suspensions recorded in the district's recent history. Though black and white students in LBUSD each made up 15% of enrolled students that year, black students made up 38% of suspensions, while white students accounted for 7%.
And it isn't just suspensions that are damaging the district's image. Over the past four years, LBUSD has spent 200 times more of its budget on law enforcement — a change that has disproportionately affected students of color —according to the report. Over two school years, 2011-2012 and 2014-2015, the district spent more than $35 million on policing students. Black and Latinx students bore the brunt of this increased police presence since they made up 86% of those who come into contact with the police, despite representing only 69% of students in LBUSD, the report says.
LBUSD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
"Untold Stories" offers the district a comprehensive list of solutions, including a code of conduct that provides every school in LBUSD with the same guidelines and practices, implicit bias training, restorative justice training, and a transparent method to creating a "holistic" approach to school safety.
"Other school districts recognize the responsibility they have, but also the social, emotional wellness of students," Angelica Salazar, a coauthor of the report, told me. "In Long Beach [the district], they've symbolically signed onto restorative justice, but it hasn't reached the students."
Other cities have adopted policies to reduce the disproportionate punishment of black and Latinx students. Chicago and New York City both saw declines in suspensions, but black students are still suspended at a much higher rate than their white counterparts in both cities.Dany Kvyat and Carlos Sainz appear to be at loggerheads at Toro Rosso after the Spaniard hit out at his team mate in Montreal for using and abusing of slipstreaming tactics.
Sainz complained that he never got the benefit of a tow in qualifying, but that plenty of others were riding his tail, starting with Kvyat.
"I was not happy about it because we are not given good chances," Sainz said on Saturday.
"When you are not being given good chances, you’re giving away four tenths on the straight, you don’t get to enjoy it much.
"It was planned for me to go in front," Sainz added.
"But to go the four sessions in front, the four times you are out in front, for me it’s not fair."
Kvyat did not see the problem in the same light however.
"We change the order the cars go out at every race and everyone in the team knows it," said the Russian.
"From my side everything is clear, so if he is brave, he should come and talk to me. But it seems that he prefers to talk to me through journalists.
"From my side I have nothing to say to him. I know that I behaved properly.
"In Baku he should be behind me but now I'm not sure I want to work with him after everything he said. I'm not sure that we want to cooperate in the qualifying."
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Gallery: All the pictures from Montreal
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and TwitterCharles Edward "Chip" Kelly (born November 25, 1963) is an American football coach who is the head coach for the UCLA Bruins. He was a head coach in the National Football League (NFL) twice, with the Philadelphia Eagles from 2013 until 2015, and with the San Francisco 49ers in 2016. Before coaching in the NFL, he was the head coach of the Oregon Ducks from 2009 to 2012, leading the program to four consecutive BCS bowl game appearances including the 2011 BCS National Championship Game.
Early life and education [ edit ]
Kelly was born in Dover, New Hampshire. He attended Manchester Central High School[1] and earned his Bachelor of Science in physical education from the University of New Hampshire in 1990.[2] He played quarterback at Manchester Central and defensive back at the University of New Hampshire.[3] Additionally, he played ice hockey and basketball during his high school years.[1]
Coaching career [ edit ]
Early coaching years [ edit ]
Kelly broke into the coaching ranks in 1990 at Columbia University, where he served as secondary and special teams coach for the freshman team. The next year, he was outside linebackers and strong safeties coach for the varsity team. In 1992, he went to the University of New Hampshire as the running backs coach. He left to become the defensive coordinator at the Johns Hopkins University for one season. He returned to his alma mater as the running backs coach for the next three seasons (1994–96). He was just in time to devise a zone-blocking scheme for star Jerry Azumah. From 1995 through 1998, the speedy back raised the profile of UNH football as he rushed for what |
't quite living up to the advance hype. Owed $8.5 million, WWE eventually forced Genius into involuntary bankruptcy in 2011.
Then, there's the alleged malfeasance put forward by Chapter 7 trustee Alfred Siegel in a $130 million fraud lawsuit in bankruptcy court.
At the same time that Harvey Weinstein was allegedly renting luxury hotels to harass and assault women, Siegel accuses Weinstein's company of essentially treating Bannon's old company as his piggy bank.
According to the complaint, Genius' supposed independence was a sham. In 2008, when Genius was running out of money, majority ownership was transferred to an investment firm, but Genius was allegedly forced to sign an "onerous and one-sided" amended distribution deal with TWC, and later a restructuring agreement that "no independent distributor would have entered into."
Genius had become insolvent, according to Siegel, and those other licensors — ESPN, Discovery, WWE — became unwitting funders of Weinstein's endeavors.
As the complaint puts it, "In order for [Genius] to operate at a loss to facilitate the Weinstein scheme, the Debtor needed third parties to extend credit, which borrowed funds could be used to make transfers to Weinstein and pay overhead expenses. To obtain such borrowed funds, the Debtor entered into distribution agreements with third party licensors at market terms. Pursuant to the distribution agreements, the Debtor was obligated to timely pay proceeds to the licensors after retention of the negotiated distribution fee. Instead, the Debtor used the proceeds to make transfers to Weinstein and pay overhead expenses, thereby turning the third party licensors into unsecured creditors who were not paid timely."
In total, more than $130 million was counted as being transferred by Genius to TWC after Dec. 27, 2007, which Siegel is now claiming is recoverable as fraudulent transfers. A judge has trimmed the claims, but is nevertheless allowing the lawsuit to proceed.
Additionally, Siegel briefly sued Bannon Strategic Partners in an effort to recover money while also going after Drinkwater for an alleged breach of fiduciary duty in the relationship with TWC. (The latter was recently resolved. Drinkwater couldn't be reached for comment.)
No trial date has been set in the Chapter 7 trustee's lawsuit against TWC, but as investors in Weinstein's business eye potential claims against him, the ongoing investigation into TWC's finances may be spotlighted in forthcoming summary judgment papers. It's unclear how prominently Bannon himself will figure in all of this.Captain America: Civil War was screened in over a dozen cities last night, and - incredibly - Marvel's embargo on reactions was only a few hours long. Note that this isn't the same as "actual, full-length reviews", but apparently they let people (critics and fans) go wild in posting about specific characters and scenes on their social media platform (kinda surprising we weren't invited to any of the screenings, given the "Marvel Shill" contract we signed a few years ago).
The interesting comparison here is, naturally, with Batman v. Superman, which didn't allow critic reactions to social media until the Tuesday before the movie was released. Meanwhile, Civil War is allowing critical reactions A WHOLE MONTH before the film premieres. And the reactions seem to tell us why - it sounds like they knocked it out of the park, with Tom Holland's Spider-Man and the airport action scene getting the majority of the praise.
But, to keep expectations tempered a bit....
In short, Marvel, please honor the terms of our Shill agreement and GIVE US A SCREENING NOW.At dinner with friends at a restaurant that won’t split the check? No cash on hand? A new app lets you beam your money across the table.
Circle, available for free download on Android phones and iOS devices, is made by a Boston company of the same name.
Mobile money transfer apps are getting popular — among them giant PayPal’s Venmo, and Square Cash. They all work similarly: Create a profile with an e-mail address, link bank account or credit card info, and tap-tap-tap to send a payment to a friend on the same network.
But among them, Circle is unique, because it didn’t begin as a way to take US dollars from your pocket and put them into your friend’s. Until this week, you could only use the app to send people bitcoin, the virtual currency. In fact, the dollar-transfer function of Circle is just one step toward the company’s grand plan – to make international money transfers easier, using bitcoin as an engine.
The first step is in place: If you want to send bitcoin to someone in Argentina, it’s free to do that using Circle. But not many people use bitcoin because transacting requires some technical savvy, and also because it’s notoriously volatile. (One bitcoin is currently worth around $230, down from a high of more than $1,200 in 2013.)
The new cash transfer feature is a way to attract new customers. After that, Circle plans to allow customers to make free international transfers — dollars to euro or yuan, and back. That could tap into a huge market: immigrants and workers abroad who send money to family in their home countries through clunky exchanges and transfers, which typically charge a fee.
A bigger user base is a first step to Circle’s profitability. Like many consumer tech companies, Circle is using investor funding to test the field. The free product will build a core group of users, the reasoning goes, after which the firm will offer a paid premium version.
For now US users can give the app a spin. You can send dollars or bitcoin to anyone with a bitcoin wallet; if the receiver is accepting dollars, they too must have an account with Circle. You can enter your bank account details or link the app to a debit or credit card, and transfers are supposed to take place instantly.
Two-factor authentication is mandatory each time you sign into the app, adding a layer of security.
Circle can take up to a day or two to verify new users. And brand-new accounts start out with a spending limit of $300 per month, which allows the company to gauge new customers’ trustworthiness. Use the app a while and the limit will go up.
Circle won’t reveal how many transactions are currently being carried out, or how many users it’s collected. But Circle vice president of marketing Josh Hawkins does say they have customers in 100 countries so far.A Pirate Party branch founded last November has scored a win in regional elections in Switzerland, with the city of Eichberg to fly the pirate flag under new mayor, Alex Arnold.
The 31-year-old software developer is a local to the town and works for works as a developer for VRSG, which focuses on software and systems integration for the Swiss public sector.
Arnold defeated two candidates from the Swiss Peoples Party to take the part-time mayoralty and took 60 percent of the vote. But the Party made no dent on elections for the parliament of St Gallen and Gosseau, the Cantons around Eichberg.
The mayoral chains of Eichberg won't give the Pirate Party an enormous platform from which to push its policies: Wikipedia states the town's population is 1,481.
The win is nonetheless a fillip for the Pirate Party, which had its first successes in Germany soured by reports that the organization is in disarray in that country. Earlier this month, reports emerged of organizational problems – including non-payment of fees, in-fighting, and poor strategy.
The German organisation was also embarrassed last week when it emerged that party executive Julia Schramm’s publisher Random House is using DCMA takedown notices against those who pirate her book.
Swiss site 20Minutes Online said the Pirate Party’s earlier foray into politics in March harvested just 1.3 percent of the vote in local elections. ®Chinese officials are subjecting United States technology companies to so-called security reviews.
The private questionings have targeted Apple (aapl) and other big foreign tech firms, the New York Times reports, citing unnamed sources.
Other companies that may have been secretly interrogated include Microsoft (msft) and Cisco (csco), the Times suggests. The paper alludes to a 2014 story in the state-sponsored newspaper China Daily (likely this one) that also names Yahoo (yhoo), Google (goog), and Facebook (fb); however, they do not operate in the country.
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The reviews apparently focus on aspects of these companies’ products and technology—such as data storage and encryption—and whether they might endanger China’s national security. Chinese officials conduct these reviews in person, the Times reports.
Few other details about the nature of the program have surfaced, though tantalizing tidbits do occasionally pop up in local Chinese media outlets before. For instance, this 2015 report in The Beijing News suggests Apple’s security reviews in China commenced at the beginning of last year.
The Cyberspace Administration of China, the bureau that apparently carries out the reviews, told the Times that, as the paper paraphrases, “many countries carried out security reviews and that the inspections did not target any particular country or product.” Unlike tech reviews in countries such as the U.S. and Great Britain, the ones in China do not appear to limit themselves solely to military and government technology. China inspects consumer gadgets too.
For more on China, watch:
Apple’s general counsel Bruce Sewell told the U.S. Congress last month that the Chinese government had requested access to the company’s source code, which the company denied.
The purported aim of the reviews includes preventing tech firms from aiding foreign government spying or otherwise exploiting people’s information. Some fear that the reviews could give China leverage to steal tech from these companies, allowing the country to build more products at home, or to provide the country’s hackers with knowledge about breaking into U.S. systems.
Apple, Cisco, and Microsoft did not immediately reply to Fortune’s request for comment.Welcome to another Heat Check podcast with Wes Goldberg and David Ramil.
Headlines: We take a look at all of the injuries facing the Miami Heat yet again, and how they have been limping through it rather impressively (except that game against the Hawks, we don’t need to talk about that).
Finishing Each Other’s Sandwiches: Wes and David play fill in the blanks. They talk about Udonis Haslem‘s resurgence, Michael Beasley‘s theme song, who should play more off the bench, what Dwyane Wade has in common with Batman and the Heat’s ceiling this season.
Performance of the Week: Dwyane Wade dropped 40 in a win against the Detroit Pistons Sunday. Wes and David talk about just how impressive that was.
Cereal or Not Cereal: It’s a tradition. Wes and David breakdown Miami’s upcoming slate of games and ask the age old question. Cereal, or not cereal?
Thanks for listening and, as always, you can subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes, follow us on Soundcloud and leave your comments below.
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Subscribe via the RSS feedOne way to really understand someone is to look at the books on their bookshelf. Here's a picture of mine and it's a picture of my soul:
It's disorganized with technical books mixed in with science fiction, non-fiction, philosophy and art. Like many book lovers I tend to dive deep into an author and immerse myself in a subject in a way that social media and search results can't provide. After decades of this behavior I realize it's an addiction and respite from the trials and tribulations of everyday life.
But there is something missing. I don't keep a record of what I've read and the worlds I've explored. I take notes but I don't keep them in one place or summarize my discoveries. I don't share. I keep these treasures all to myself.
I do have accounts on Amazon and Goodreads. Sometimes I write Amazon reviews but they look and feel like comments, not analysis. Sometimes I go to Amazon for recommendations but my disjointed genre-bending tastes break every recommendation engine known to human or machine. I don't know about you, but the best way for me to discover a book to read about is to read a blog post by one of my favorite authors. When I got tired of waiting for George RR Martin to finish his epic A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) series I went to Martin's blog and started reading the fantasy books that had inspired him.
I thought I was walking alone on this path and then I ran into BookLikes -- for the second time.
The first time I ran into BookLikes was in 2011 when I spoke with the participants at Seedcamp in NYC. Seedcamp is a startup incubator and BookLikes was one of the startups that interested me. They were building a book recommendation engine and discovery service. I met the founder Dawid Piaskowski and we had a great talk about books and his home country of Poland. I was at Spotify at the time so naturally we talked about a "Spotify of Books" which would be a subscription service that would give a reader access to all the worlds texts at a low monthly subscription rate. One day when the Internet of Things is complete there will be a Spotify of Things and a HuffPost of Things and I will never leave the house.
I lost track of BookLikes for awhile. But one day in January of 2012 I got an email from BookLikes with the subject, "BookLikes is back!" Where did they go? I still have the email and here's a bit of it:
What happened? We entrusted our data to Xxxxxxxxx, one of the biggest US server hosting companies. Unfortunately, our data and all backups were damaged. So we changed our server host and after few very long days and nights we managed to recover everything that was lost. And now we believe that BookLikes is much better protected from hardware failures.
It would not be until later this year that I spoke to Dawid Piaskowski and learned the whole story. BookLikes would have gone to startup heaven had it not been for a devastating server crash, a dedicated and tenacious team, and a very supportive venture funding community.
BookLikes was started as a book recommendation engine and social network before Goodreads became that very thing. But Goodreads acquired their own recommendation technology and BookLikes was falling behind. It was time to pivot and pivot big, but the signals were confusing. Dawid and his co-founder Joanna Grzelak-Piaskowski discovered that the key component of BookLikes, its excellent recommendation engine, in which they had invested so much, was not important to their users:
... users weren't using our recommendation engine. Nobody noticed when we'd switched it off for two days...
That's pretty scary news for a technology startup! And then came the server crash of 2012:
Our servers were shut down for two weeks and all of our data (and backups) were lost...
... one of founders, our CTO, resigned from the project.
[Our] company bank account was nearly empty, we had to dismiss employees.
We thought about finishing up and shutting down the company.
The future looked bleak for BookLikes. The world already had Amazon and Goodreads! Did it need yet another book discovery service?
This is the part of the story that I find most exciting. Dawid and Joanna had really good reasons to pack up the business and find something else to do -- I know founders who have given up on their ideas for less devastating reasons -- but they didn't. They hung on and something wonderful happened.
BookLikes won an award as the most innovative small business in Greater Poland. The recognition gave them the courage to let go of what was holding BookLikes back and really listen to their customers. They used everything that they learned from before the server crash and re-imagined BookLikes as a home base for book lovers in the way that Tumblr is a home base for edgy teens. This time around they build an MVP (a minimum viable product) and tested it with an enthusiastic community. BookLikes isn't a catalog of books anymore, it is a place where you can create your own blog, follow authors and bloggers, earn money from your blog posts through book sales, and get free or discounted books.
Inspired by Tumblr, we created service for book lovers but much more personalized than our previous trial. Instead of typical book-social site we came out with the idea of blog platform designed for book lovers.
Here is my BookLikes profile: http://johnpavley.booklikes.com/
I think it will fill a void that I didn't know I had. A place where I can record my book discoveries and share them with the world.
Dawid and Joanna have big plans for BookLikes, user-driven plans, that you're not going to find on Amazon and Goodreads or anywhere else. You can check out Dawid's blog to learn more about BookLikes.I don't see any published version of syntactic whose signature for sugarSym uses those exact type names, so I'll be using the development branch at commit 8cfd02^, the last version which still used those names.
So, why does GHC complain about the fi in your type signature but not the one for sugarSym? The documentation you have linked to explains that a type is ambiguous if it doesn't appear to the right of the constraint, unless the constraint is using functional dependencies to infer the otherwise-ambiguous type from other non-ambiguous types. So let's compare the contexts of the two functions and look for functional dependencies.
class ApplySym sig f sym | sig sym -> f, f -> sig sym class SyntacticN f internal | f -> internal sugarSym :: ( sub :<: AST sup, ApplySym sig fi sup, SyntacticN f fi ) => sub sig -> f share :: ( Let :<: sup, sup ~ Domain b, sup ~ Domain a, Syntactic a, Syntactic b, Syntactic (a -> b), SyntacticN (a -> (a -> b) -> b) fi ) => a -> (a -> b) -> b
So for sugarSym, the non-ambiguous types are sub, sig and f, and from those we should be able to follow functional dependencies in order to disambiguate all the other types used in the context, namely sup and fi. And indeed, the f -> internal functional dependency in SyntacticN uses our f to disambiguate our fi, and thereafter the f -> sig sym functional dependency in ApplySym uses our newly-disambiguated fi to disambiguate sup (and sig, which was already non-ambiguous). So that explains why sugarSym doesn't require the AllowAmbiguousTypes extension.
Let's now look at sugar. The first thing I notice is that the compiler is not complaining about an ambiguous type, but rather, about overlapping instances:
Overlapping instances for SyntacticN b fi arising from the ambiguity check for ‘share’ Matching givens (or their superclasses): (SyntacticN (a -> (a -> b) -> b) fi1) Matching instances: instance [overlap ok] (Syntactic f, Domain f ~ sym, fi ~ AST sym (Full (Internal f))) => SyntacticN f fi -- Defined in ‘Data.Syntactic.Sugar’ instance [overlap ok] (Syntactic a, Domain a ~ sym, ia ~ Internal a, SyntacticN f fi) => SyntacticN (a -> f) (AST sym (Full ia) -> fi) -- Defined in ‘Data.Syntactic.Sugar’ (The choice depends on the instantiation of ‘b, fi’) To defer the ambiguity check to use sites, enable AllowAmbiguousTypes
So if I'm reading this right, it's not that GHC thinks that your types are ambiguous, but rather, that while checking whether your types are ambiguous, GHC encountered a different, separate problem. It's then telling you that if you told GHC not to perform the ambiguity check, it would not have encountered that separate problem. This explains why enabling AllowAmbiguousTypes allows your code to compile.
However, the problem with the overlapping instances remain. The two instances listed by GHC ( SyntacticN f fi and SyntacticN (a -> f)... ) do overlap with each other. Strangely enough, it seems like the first of these should overlap with any other instance, which is suspicious. And what does [overlap ok] mean?
I suspect that Syntactic is compiled with OverlappingInstances. And looking at the code, indeed it does.
Experimenting a bit, it seems that GHC is okay with overlapping instances when it is clear that one is strictly more general than the other:
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances, OverlappingInstances #-} class Foo a where whichOne :: a -> String instance Foo a where whichOne _ = "a" instance Foo [a] where whichOne _ = "[a]" -- | -- >>> main -- [a] main :: IO () main = putStrLn $ whichOne (undefined :: [Int])
But GHC is not okay with overlapping instances when neither is clearly a better fit than the other:
{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances, OverlappingInstances #-} class Foo a where whichOne :: a -> String instance Foo (f Int) where -- this is the line which changed whichOne _ = "f Int" instance Foo [a] where whichOne _ = "[a]" -- | -- >>> main -- Error: Overlapping instances for Foo [Int] main :: IO () main = putStrLn $ whichOne (undefined :: [Int])
Your type signature uses SyntacticN (a -> (a -> b) -> b) fi, and neither SyntacticN f fi nor SyntacticN (a -> f) (AST sym (Full ia) -> fi) is a better fit than the other. If I change that part of your type signature to SyntacticN a fi or SyntacticN (a -> (a -> b) -> b) (AST sym (Full ia) -> fi), GHC no longer complains about the overlap.
If I were you, I would look at the definition of those two possible instances and determine whether one of those two implementations is the one you want.Fallout 4 is exactly what you hope it is, as long as you were hoping for more of the same. While that may sound like an obvious statement to make at the start of a review dedicated to a numbered sequel, the build to release - fueled by rabid fan anticipation - has seen it painted as some type of game-changer. It's not. But it is incredible.
Easily the developer's most accomplished title to date, Fallout 4 takes everything that made its predecessor such a success and refines it, rather than fundamentally altering it. Be it the gunplay, the story, the world, or just how seamlessly everything fits together, this feels like the zenith of the model Bethesda has been working on for a significant period of time.
It's the gunplay that will be of interest to the majority of players who loved (and hated) it in previous games, especially as much has been made pre-release about the involvement of id Software, brought on board for its 'point gun and kill' expertise. VATS still dominates proceedings and is far more polished than it ever has been - its rhythmic nature when you find your combat flow proving to be excellent - but your more standard shooting experience is much improved.
Every weapon now has a certain individuality to it, meaning you'll warm to specific models that match your playstyle. Even the first pistol you stumble across snaps back and explodes like you'd want an instrument of death to do. It's an incredibly important area to get right, and Bethesda has, but those who would rather ignore VATS are still in for a rough ride. If you want to use the system as a last resort - instead approaching Fallout 4 as a first-person shooter - you most certainly can. That doesn't mean it's all of a sudden Call Of Duty, but nor does it need to be. Taking this route will make proceedings a hell of a lot harder, though, and trust me when I say this is one of the toughest challenges you'll have faced all year.
No matter the improvements, VATS will still confound as many as it delights, but Fallout games live and die by their world building and quests, and Fallout 4 is a showcase for how far the developer has come as a story-teller. While many of its older games - Fallout 3 especially - managed to sink its hooks in almost instantly before slowly petering out, Fallout 4 does the complete opposite. What starts as a fairly obvious tale - identify the bad guy, get people to help you find the bad guy, kill the bad guy - which does little to intrigue soon evolves into a fascinating and,more importantly, engrossing plot that you're desperate to unravel. Do be warned that events do drag initially, almost painfully so.
Get past it, however, and you'll realise that instead of having'main' quests and'side quests', there's now the feeling that everything is linked, with factionalism playing a huge role. What often begins as a fun aside soon starts to weave itself into every aspect of an overarching theme. It's masterfully done and encourages you to continually jump from faction-to-faction, mission-to-mission, all the while getting new insights into your journey.
This is extra impressive given how formulaic everything seems at the start of such distractions. The Brotherhood Of Steel, for example, stumble into the picture as if it's 2008 all over again. Nostalgia and familiarity are wonderful tools, but a small part of you may initially be disappointed. Whereas in the past these groups made a strong initial impression before fading from the story, here they're so well balanced you remain interested in them, their lives, and their missions right up until the finale.
Conversations and moral quandaries serve a significant role throughout your adventure as well. As before, your actions can play a part in how some situations pan out, and there is a need to consider your actions given that there could be consequences. (Better get that charisma perk ready). It shifts events from simply relying on firing a bullet into someone's skull, and asks that you play slightly smarter: with the right tools there is a certain amount of social power you can wield.
The conversation system, too, is broadly the same as before, but again the finer points of it are interpreted better: dialogue trees feel more expansive, and it's less like you're cycling through options trying to get the right one.
Fallout 4 isn't just a retread of what's come before, however, with the biggest additions coming in the form of weapon crafting - which while pleasant is as you would expect it to be - and the ability to construct entire towns. It's the latter which could be the most addictive extra to any game this year.
While what's here isn't revolutionary, it's so simple to understand and yet so satisfying to carry out don't be surprised if you lose hours as you embark on a digitally-inspired architecture career. Taking Sanctuary - the first town you stumble across - as a template, almost everything you can see can be scrapped for a specific resource: a car can be recycled for steel, a table for wood, and so on. You can then access dozens of buildable items which can be used in order to bring life back to a settlement while also strengthening its defences against incoming attacks.
This all ties into the many factions you can join and protect, ensuring there's multiple threads happening simultaneously in Fallout 4, and yet it never comes across as too overwhelming. Sure, there's a learning curve, but once again it makes you feel less like a man with no name hunting someone through a desert and more like an agent of influence, no matter how limited it actually turns out to be. It's exceedingly well pulled off.
The same can be said for the Wasteland itself. When you watch Fallout-related marketing that's filled with recognisable music and Dogmeat running around, gleeful look etched on his face, it's easy to forget that the setting is post-apocalyptic. Lives have been ruined. People have been killed. Misery is rampant. It's not a fun place in the slightest, but this is exactly the point. The fact that Todd Howard and company have managed to achieve this desolate, hope-deprived atmosphere for a second time is a credit to everyone involved. It makes brighter moments all the more special, and also allows the darkest depths to be truly harrowing. Expect to be more than just a little uncomfortable.
This is Fallout 4's skill, however, made all the more enticing by how it aims to surprise even over 50 hours in. Whether it's the moment-to-moment gameplay that you won't see coming, or the occasional spectacular set piece designed to make your jaw slack, you'll be desperate to discuss these with others (secretly hoping what you saw was for your eyes only).
It's obvious that Fallout 4 is a contender for the game of the year, and if you've never played its elder brother then adding an extra point onto this score wouldn't be too far out of the realms of sanity.
The fact of the matter is, though, that this is more of the same, even if that'same' has been pushed to new heights. If you hated Fallout 3, then there's not much to get you onside here. If you loved it, then you'll love this all the more, because of its differences as well as its similarities.
Version Tested: PS4. Buy Fallout 4 now on PS4, Xbox One or PC.On average, it takes children 90 seconds longer to run a mile than their counterparts did 30 years ago, according to the American Heart Association. Mike Egerton/PA Wire/AP
Today's youth around the world run slower than their parents did when they were young, according to an analysis studying millions of children.
On average, it takes children 90 seconds longer to run a mile than their counterparts did 30 years ago. Heart-related fitness has declined an average of 5 percent per decade since 1975 for children ages 9 to 17.
The American Heart Association, whose conference featured the research on Tuesday, says the study is the first to show that children's fitness has declined worldwide over the past three decades.
"It makes sense. We have kids that are less active than before," said Dr. Stephen Daniels, a University of Colorado pediatrician and spokesman for the association.
Health experts recommend that children 6 and older get 60 minutes of moderately vigorous activity accumulated over a day. Only one-third of American kids do now.
"Kids aren't getting enough opportunities to build up that activity over the course of the day," Daniels said. "Many schools, for economic reasons, don't have any physical education at all. Some rely on recess" to provide exercise.
Greg Welk, chair of FITNESSGRAM Scientific Advisory board, told Al Jazeera that though the federal government and non-profit organizations are doing "tremendous things" to combat obesity, physical activity should be encouraged at home as well.
"More responsibility should fall on parents. There's too much pressure on school," Welker said. "Physical activity has to be facilitated by parents" otherwise children will resort to indoor, sedentary activities.
"Physical inactivity is both a cause and a consequence of being overweight," Welk added. FITNESSGRAM, a tool used to track exercise and activity across the U.S., is also the assessment test used for the Presidential Youth Fitness Program.
In a speech to the conference on Monday, Sam Kass, a White House chef and head of first lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move program, stressed the need to get kids to be more active.
"We are currently facing the most sedentary generation of children in our history," Kass said.
The new study was led by Grant Tomkinson, an exercise physiologist at the University of South Australia. Researchers analyzed 50 studies on running fitness — a key measure of cardiovascular health and endurance — involving 25 million children ages 9 to 17 in 28 countries from 1964 to 2010.
The studies measured how far children could run in 5 to 15 minutes and how quickly they ran a certain distance, ranging from half a mile to 2 miles. Today's kids are about 15 percent less fit than their parents were, researchers concluded.
A separate report by the Bogalusa Heart Study found that the proportion of American children 5 to 17 years of age who were obese was five times higher in 2008-09 than in 1973-74. The study said that more than 23 million children in the U.S. are obese.
The decline in fitness seems to be leveling off in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and perhaps in the last few years in North America. However, it continues to fall in China. Japan never had much falloff — fitness has remained fairly consistent there. About 20 million of the 25 million children in the studies were from Asia.
In China, annual fitness test data show that the country's students have become slower and fatter over the past several decades.
Other research discussed global declines in activity.
Fitness is "pretty poor in adults and even worse in young people," especially in the United States and Eastern Europe, said Dr. Ulf Ekelund of the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences in Oslo, Norway.
World Health Organization numbers suggest that 80 percent of young people globally may not be getting enough exercise.
Ehab Zahriyeh contributed to this report. Al Jazeera and The Associated PressShare 0 SHARES
THE Irish public were this morning united in fury after Greek ministers declared today to be a bank holiday, in a bid to quell civil unrest at the banks in Greece.
Alexis Tsipras, the Greek Prime Minister, made the declaration following crunch talks with the ECB, in which the offer of bailout funding to the Greek economy was withdrawn amid rumours of a possible default and exit from the Euro.
Placing limits on withdrawals from ATMs to only €60, Greek depositors were today unsure as to the future of their involvement in the European Union, with many fearing substantial losses to their savings.
Meanwhile, Irish minister for finance Michael Noonan has come under heavy fire from several members of the public, who claim he “never even tried” to get us an extra bank holiday during his meetings with the heads of the ECB.
“Look at the Greeks, with their three day weekend,” said Pascal O’Mahon, furious at the fact that he had to get up and go to work this morning.
“Our lot don’t even try to help out the public, they’re just trying to stay in right with the fuckers in Germany, so that our banks can stay open and our money is secure. But the lads in Greece, they can go to the ECB with a half of a plan and fuck all else, and all of a sudden they’re having a long weekend? It’s well for some, so it is”.
As the newly enforced bank holiday continues in Greece, the streets of Athens are beginning to fill with crowds throwing stones and screaming abuse at police, much like a bank holiday in Ireland.President Trump Pardons Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio
Enlarge this image toggle caption Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
President Trump has pardoned controversial former Sheriff Joe Arpaio for a misdemeanor criminal contempt conviction.
A statement issued by the White House Friday night said, "Today, President Donald J. Trump granted a Presidential pardon to Joe Arpaio, former Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona."
Known as "America's Toughest Sheriff," Arpaio gained a reputation for his harsh — his critics would say cruel — treatment of immigrants in the country illegally.
Arpaio was convicted of criminal contempt earlier this summer for defying a judge's order that his deputies stop detaining immigrants because they lacked legal status. His deputies carried on the practice for 18 months.
Trump hinted at the pardon last week and again at a Phoenix rally Tuesday night.
Last week, he told Fox News he was "seriously considering" a pardon and that Arpaio is a "a great American patriot" who has done "a lot in the fight against illegal immigration." Tuesday night, he asked the crowd of supporters: "Do the people in this room like Sheriff Joe?"
"You know what, I'll make a prediction: I think he's going to be just fine," he said. "OK? But I won't do it tonight, because I don't want to cause any controversy."
The statement issued by the White House said:
"Arpaio's life and career, which began at the age of 18 when he enlisted in the military after the outbreak of the Korean War, exemplify selfless public service. After serving in the Army, Arpaio became a police officer in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas, NV and later served as a Special Agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), formerly the Bureau of Narcotics. After 25 years of admirable service, Arpaio went on to lead the DEA's branch in Arizona. "In 1992, the problems facing his community pulled Arpaio out of retirement to return to law enforcement. He ran and won a campaign to become Sheriff of Maricopa County. Throughout his time as Sheriff, Arpaio continued his life's work of protecting the public from the scourges of crime and illegal immigration. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is now eighty-five years old, and after more than fifty years of admirable service to our Nation, he is worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon."
In an interview with NPR's Wade Goodwyn last Thursday, Arpaio had equally effusive praise for Trump, predicting that he will end up regarded as the greatest president in American history. He also said he thought that, like him, Trump had been unfairly smeared as a racist. "We need him and I feel sad how they're trying to destroy him. It makes me sick," he said. "I'll tell you one thing, he's got guts and courage and that's what this country needs."
Arpaio said he didn't ask for a pardon and, as of late last week, had not spoken directly to Trump about one. The misdemeanor conviction carries a possible sentence of up to six months.
Among his most controversial measures, the sheriff instructed his deputies to detain Hispanic residents and inquire about their legal status. He then disregarded a federal judge's ruling that he didn't have the legal authority to do so.
In the 1990s, at the start of his tenure, Arpaio opened Tent City jail, which housed inmates outdoors in the blistering Arizona sun. For years, activists criticized it as inhumane. But the newly elected sheriff, Sheriff Paul Penzone, said it was voluntary and inmates preferred it. Counter to Arpaio's claims, Penzone said, there was no evidence that the tough reputation of the jail made people less likely to commit crimes. The city began tearing it down earlier this year.Irish cabinetmaker Gerard Minogue was recruited to Canada at a job expo in Dublin in 2012, when Canadian employers were desperately looking for foreign skilled-trade workers. After three years of multiple work visas in Canada, Minogue and many others in the skilled trades who are here on temporary permits — the vast majority from the now defanged Celtic Tiger — are trying to become permanent residents. But they find themselves left in the lurch under Ottawa’s new Express Entry immigration system.
Cabinetmaker Gerard Minogue, with wife Clare Hayes and daughter Ayesha. Minogue |
Klux Klan leader mounting a comeback run as a Republican for U.S. Senate in Louisiana, has sent out robocalls urging voters to cast their ballots for him and Donald Trump in order to take back the country.
In the calls, which BuzzFeed News first reported on Monday, Duke warns, "Unless massive immigration is stopped now, we'll be outnumbered and outvoted in our own nation. It's happening."
"We're losing our gun rights, our free speech. We're taxed to death. We're losing our jobs and businesses to unfair trade. We're losing our country," he continues. "Look at the Super Bowl salute to the Black Panther cop killers. It's time to stand up and vote for Donald Trump for President and vote for me, David Duke, for the U.S. Senate."
Duke confirmed to BuzzFeed that the calls came from his campaign. In a statement to TPM, the Trump campaign said they had no knowledge of the robocalls.
"Mr. Trump has continued to denounce David Duke and any group or individual associated with a message of hate," the campaign said in the statement. "There is no place for this in the Republican Party or our country. We have no knowledge of these calls or any related activities, but strongly condemn and disavow."
Enthusiastic endorsements from Duke and other avowed white nationalists have for months dogged Donald Trump's campaign. The GOP nominee eventually denounced Duke's support earlier this year.
Duke again praised Trump for embracing "most of the issues I've championed for years" when he launched his Senate campaign last month.
Former leader of the Ku Klux Klan David Duke (L) arrives at the Louisiana Secretary of State's office along with campaign coordinator Mike Lawrence to file to run as a Republican for United States Senate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S. July 22, 2016. Bryn Stole/Reuters
Here's the full text of the call:
Hi, this is David Duke. I'm sorry I missed you. I'm running for U.S. Senate, and I'll tell the truth that no other candidate will dare say. Unless massive immigration is stopped now, we'll be outnumbered and outvoted in our own nation. It's happening. We're losing our gun rights, our free speech. We're taxed to death. We're losing our jobs and businesses to unfair trade. We're losing our country. Look at the Super Bowl salute to the Black Panther cop killers. It's time to stand up and vote for Donald Trump for President and vote for me, David Duke, for the U.S. Senate. I'd love to hear from you. To find out more, contribute, or volunteer for the DavidDuke.com. Go to Davidduke.com. Together, we'll save America and save Louisiana. Paid for by the Duke campaign.
And listen to the audio via BuzzFeed:Ver Party Suggestion HP Stone Time Like Memo 5.00
Reply ~10000 0 ~3 min 0 By Aqua : Purely farmable except ARa, no match needed when lilith max skill, just poison and make non match then laser. 5.00
Reply ~45000 0 ~3 min 0 By Bira : Lilith to begin, crush the other three rounds with Rodin / Rodin / Ra. 5.00
Reply >6667 0 ~3 min 0 By King Spin : Friend lead can be any monster that makes the hp barrier. Rcv should be high enough to cover non synced devi hit. Stall floor 1 until skills come up and pop one per floor for devastation. 2.20
Reply ~1000 0 ~3 min 0 By Chris : Stall round one until Mask Skill is activated. Pop Skill 7777 damage kill errybody!!! 5.00
Reply ~18000 0 ~3 min 0 By JwaL : All max level/skill. F.1~3 mass attack with 5 orbs. Boss: OHKO with Haku, Hanzo, D.Meta;) 6.02
Reply ~15000 0 ~10 min 0 By CAFC : CDD to absorb dark damage from ChibiDra. 831 was actually 1058 Holy Dragon Stone - a defence breaker. Stall for defence breaker then pop it and OHKO all floors. Poisoner (BAOVC) in case you run into trouble while stalling for defence breaker. Another CDD instead of Odin and a healer like a Carbuncle instead of Isis works too. 6.10
Reply ~15000 0 ~10 min 0 By ゴリキ１０１ : stall on first round. then pop droid dragon, sweep until boss use odin to kill tamadra to try to get drop. easy. 5.00
Reply ~10000 0 ~10 min 1 By Victor : The friend leader can be anything, but preferably dark or godin. The last monster should also be dark. Stall on first wave until ghostring active skills pop up. pop one skill a turn and move 1 orb. 6.02
Reply ~10000 0 ~5 min 1 By Curtis : CDD to absorb dark damage from ChibiDras. Any def 100% def breaker works. Stall until def breaker ready and sweep entire dungeon. Poisoners are in case you run into trouble while stalling for def breaker. You can really use any team you want as long as you have a monster that completely breaks defense. 5.00
Reply ~1000 0 ~3 min 4 By ✰Pollux✰ : Takes about 30 seconds. The team starts with 10 skills boosts with everything awoken, use a poison each floor and win. The leaders can be any monster with 3 skill boosts so Tengu, Blodin, Rodin, Mithril and anything else I missed. Nothing needs to be max skilled. Credit to 月華剣士 on Youtube. 5.00
Reply ~12000 0 ~5 min 2 By cam : Easy build for us noobs, a couple evo'd collabs and a farmable lilith. Drawn joker for leader to reduce chibidra damage on floor 1. yes there is ALWAYS a chibidra on floor 1. Any high HP friend will do, once you stall on floor one for Lilith,Bane,Ivy then your set. 1 0 ☸ Shelli Δ : FYI: I just entered and F1 was 4 Tamas, no Chibidras. 5.00
Reply ~13000 0 ~3 min 0 By Dtfer : Easily farmable. Can replace rodin+'?' with double/triple skill boost (odins/sonias/ogres) or echidna(s) (prevents animations, match water/wood/heart). Clear floor one, pop echidna if you have her and burn turns. Sweep remaining floors with with Bane/Bane/Rodin. Bane>Lilith, shorter unskilled cd and faster animation. 100% ~2m 0 0 epharian : Nothing with Rodin is 'Farmable', since it's REM only. WTF? 5.00
Reply ~30000 0 ~3 min 12 By OneTrueJew : stall 2 turns and then press all the shiny odins 5.00
Reply ~10000 0 ~4 min 1 By Dark Cloud : Have leaders that either block damage (Shining Lance Odin) or that buff HP and RCV. Your attack does not matter at all. Have 2 Lilith or someone who can use poison. Just move orbs through f1-f2, then hit Lilith on f3 and other Lilith f4. So fast it hurts. 5.00
Reply ~5000 0 ~3 min 1 By kandjar : Technically 1 or 2 min per run. With everyone awoken; and lilith's max skilled, you enter the dungeon with them charged up. Clear one floor (doesn't have to be the first one, if the dark tamadra is there), then activate lilith's poson the rest of the way. done. 6.02
Reply ~20000 0 ~3 min 0 By escmechSA : Ping team. 60 seconds no stalling run unless chibidras appear on floor 1-3. Everything but Luci & Beel must be max skilled. Mass attacks deal 10 damage to every enemy, so the babies & tamadra die in 1 turn. Use Hanzo and Voice on floor 1 & 2 if less than 5 dark orbs are on the board. Pandora on turn 3. lilith on the last floor. 5.00
Reply ~14000 0 ~5 min 7 By gargoyle : Odins max awoken. F1. Stall for banes, then just solar lazer each floor. No muss no fuss. 5.00
Reply ~11000 0 ~5 min 8 By -Striku- : Charge up skills for both Ra leads. Make sure you kill the Chibidra first before stalling. The chibi Hakus are there for moral support! :3 5.00
Reply >13000 0 ~3 min 4 By Mügü : For fast farming, bring monsters like Lilith and Darkseid which can penetrate the TAMADRA's defenses. Your other monsters should have one or more skill-boost awakenings in order to decrease the time before Lilith/Darkseid are up. 6.10
Reply >18000 0 ~5 min 12 By Karen : Just stick to healing and charging up skills then unleash the fury of poison on these little sh*ts. No need for Echidna to stall because they have high defense but I put her there because she's hot and sexy. Unless the Chibidra gives you a hard time then use Echidna. Good luck.Earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing in Western Canada are becoming stronger and more frequent, according to a study from the University of Alberta.
From December 2013 to February 2016, researchers detected 250 seismic events within 100 kilometres of Fox Creek, Alta., that measured greater than 2.5 on the Richter Scale.
During a three-year period from 2010 to 2013, they recorded fewer than 10 seismic events in the same region.
"Since December 2013, there has been a pronounced increase in the rate of seismicity in the Fox Creek region related to nearby hydraulic fracturing," the research paper concludes.
Hydraulic fracturing is a process in which liquid is pumped thousands of metres underground with enough pressure to cause rock formations to split, making natural gas extraction more efficient.
"Hydraulic fracturing is designed to cause small earthquakes," said Ruijia Wang, one of the study's co-authors and a PhD candidate at the U of A.
"This is how they create fractures to let the gas flow back. But normally we wouldn't call these earthquakes, because they're below magnitude zero so they won't be felt and they can hardly be detected."
University of Alberta PhD candidate Ruijia Wang's research on industry-induced earthquakes won an award at the 2016 American Geophysical Union meeting. (Supplied/Ruijia Wang)
Tremors usually aren't felt until they measure higher than magnitude 4.0 on the Richter Scale, Wang said. Damage is unlikely unless an earthquake measures 5.0 or higher on the same scale.
"Those are the earthquakes that we might want to control and monitor," Wang said.
Red light, green light
Alberta's strongest fracking-related tremor in the past decade was a magnitude 4.8 earthquake near Fox Creek in January 2016.
The town's mayor, Jim Ahn, said that one felt like a truck driving by.
"It was just a low vibration and it lasted three seconds," he said.
The Alberta Energy Regulator has detected more than 250 earthquakes triggered by hydraulic fracturing near Fox Creek since December 2013.
Ahn said he's not aware of any damage or injuries caused by fracking-related earthquakes in the town of about 2,000 people.
"We don't know how damaging it is in the long run, but we know that right now, presently, there's no damage and everything's working," he said.
A fracking operation, owned by Repsol Oil & Gas, was shut down while the AER investigated the January 2016 earthquake near Fox Creek.
Energy companies that use hydraulic fracturing in Alberta are subject to an AER regulation colloquially known as the "traffic light protocol."
Companies have a green light for operations that cause quakes lower than magnitude 2.0, while tremors that measure between 2.0 and 4.0 are cautioned with a yellow light.
If a fracking-related earthquake spikes into red light territory, measuring higher than magnitude 4.0, the operation is required to shut down immediately.
'Things are still under control'
The AER started to research fracking five years ago.
"It's quite important to basically be able to discern which [fracking operations] are seismogenic and which ones aren't," said Ryan Schultz, an AER seismologist and lead author of the U of A study.
"If we can quantify that, then we can regulate more responsibly, because then you can pick out which wells would and wouldn't cause [earthquakes]."
Less than half of one per cent of Alberta's hydraulic fracturing operations are associated with earthquakes, Schultz said.
Wang said she hopes the paper contributes to an emerging field of study, to help refine AER regulations governing hydraulic fracturing.
"The majority of the hydraulic fracturing wells aren't causing earthquakes, so I won't go that far to say we should stop everything just to avoid them happening," Wang said.
"To date, they are doing a good job, to me, because there's no damage and things are still under control. They're barely reaching magnitude 4."
'It's a very expensive operation'
Calgary-based Questerre Energy and many other companies follow their own fracking rules to prevent unintended — and often costly — consequences.
Keith Wilford is an engineering and operations consultant with Questerre Energy. (Supplied/Keith Wilford)
"When you hydraulically fracture a well, you're trying to achieve the best possible outcome," said Keith Wilford, an engineering and operations consultant with Questerre Energy.
"In other words, spend the least amount of money to get the most amount of economic return."
The total cost to drill, complete and hydraulic fracture a single deep well in Alberta could cost up to $15 million, Wilford said. In order not to waste money, the company reviews pumping procedures, pressures and flow rates before beginning a fracture.
"It's a very expensive operation that we run," Wilford said. "It's only a small amount, incrementally, to do a very good job versus not doing a good job, so virtually there's no benefit to not doing a good job."
Wilford said he has not been involved in a fracking operation that caused an earthquake. He said Questerre does not drill near Fox Creek.I have a number of research projects lined up for my upcoming dissertation, and, as anyone familiar with my ideas can tell you, they’re all brilliant. You can imagine my disappointment, then, to find out that not only had one of my experiments been scooped by another author three years prior, but they found the precise patterns of results I had predicted. Adding insult to injury, the theoretical underpinnings of the work are all but non-existent (as is the case in the vast majority of the psychology research literature), meaning I got scooped by someone who doesn’t seem to have a good idea why they found the results they did. My consolation prize is that I get to write about it earlier than expected, so there’s that, I suppose…
What? No, I’m not crying; I just got something in my eye. Or allergies. Whatever.
The experiment itself (Morewedge, 2009) resembles a Turing test. Subjects come into the lab to play a series of ultimatum games. One person has to divide a pot of $3 one of three ways – $2.25/$0.75 (favoring either the divider or the receiver) or evenly ($1.50 for each) – and the receiver can either accept or reject these offers. The variable of interest, however, is not whether the receiver will accept the money; it’s whether the receiver perceives the offer to have been made by a real person or a computer program, as all the subjects were informed beforehand that the proposers they would encounter were drawn randomly from a pool of computer programs or real players. In essence, the experiment was examining whether or not participants perceived they were playing with an intentional agent (a human) or a non-intentional agent, representing chance (a computer), contingent on the outcome. A brilliant experiment that I thought of first, a mere three years after it had already been published.
Overall, the subjects were no more or less likely to suggest they were playing against a person or a computer, and were also no more likely to see a person or a computer as being responsible when they received an even split. However, this was not the case across the other two offers: when subjects received an unusually positive offer ($2.25 for themselves), they tended to attribute this offer to a computer; when the offer was negative ($0.75 for themselves) they overwhelmingly attributed it to a person. When causation was ambiguous, “harm” (used rather loosely here) seemed to trigger the perception of an intentional agent, whereas a benefit tended to have the opposite effect; a decrease in perceptions of intentionality.
This pattern of results could be explained by referencing some kind of self-interested motive: given what we know about people (they seem to prefer more money to less), an unusually altruistic offer is just that – unusual. It would seem more likely that selfish offers come from self-interested agents, rather than an altruistic offer coming from a selfish agent. In an attempt to remove such thinking from (conscious) consideration, a second experiment was run. This time, the person deciding how the pot would be split had no personal stake in the decision; that is to say, subjects were told that their partners would not receive any payment from the games. No matter whether the proposer offered $0.75 or $2.25, no matter whether the offer was accepted or rejected, proposers made no money. However, the results in this case still looked similar: selfish offers were seen as being made predominately by people, and altruistic offers were seen as being made predominately by computers.
But so help me if a computer has been screwing me over again…
In the next two experiments Morewedge (2009) got a bit more explicit about the role of chance. In the first case, subjects came into the experiment and met a confederate before both were taken into separate rooms and seated at computers. On the computer was a circle divided up into five sections with a spinning arrow in the middle. Each of the five sections of the circle was filled with one of two colors, with the numbers of each color varying from one to four across each spin (so the circle could have 4 blue and 1 yellow slots in one round, then 3 blue and 2 yellow in the next, and so on). Subjects chose one color for the experiment beforehand, and if the spinner landed on their color in any given round, they would win the amount of money listed on the screen; if it didn’t land on their color, they would lose the amount on the screen. These amounts varied between zero and one dollar in $0.25 increments.
The subjects were informed of two other things: first, that the confederate was in a similar position (the confederate had picked one of the two colors as well, so they might both have the same color or not), and second, that the confederate could control the outcome of five of the forty rounds that would be played. It was the subject’s job to report the extent to which they felt the confederate had used their influence on each round. When the subjects had lost money, they tended to attribute responsibility for the action more towards the confederate than chance, and this tendency was exacerbated as the monetary stakes got higher. This effect is all the more interesting when considering the fact that subjects couldn’t be sure whether the confederate had similar or divergent interests. If they had the same interests, the confederate would be hurting both of them if he used his influence to purposely lose. Also of interest is that, when asked to estimate how much money they had ended up with – $5 in all cases; the initial endowment they were given – subjects underestimated, reporting that ended up with only $2.89 on average. They were either bad at math, or their memory was distorted towards recalling losses selectively.
Finally, the last experiment used a paradigm similar to that typically used for children: how long participants would spend looking at something. In this case, that something was information presented to the participant following a round with the spinner. The set up was similar, except the subjects were told a confederate could control half of the outcomes, and after each round the subject was told whether the confederate had controlled the round or not. Once presented with this information, subjects had to press a button to proceed to the next screen, and the amount of time they waited before pressing that button was used as a measure of the time participants were processing the information on the screen. Participants ended up spending more time looking at the screen when it was revealed that the confederate was responsible for their win, relative to being responsible for their loss, but looked equally as long when chance was implicated as responsible. This result could tentatively suggest that participants found it surprising that the confederate was responsible for their wins, implying that the more automatic process might be one of blaming others for losses.
For example, I’d be surprised if he still has that suit and that prostitute after the dice land.
Now to the theory. I will give credit where credit is due: Morewedge (2009) does at least suggest there might have been evolutionary advantages to such a bias, but promptly fails to elaborate on them in any substantial way. The first possible explanation given is that this bias could be used to defer responsibility for negative outcomes from oneself to others, which is an odd explanation given that the subjects in this experiment had no responsibility to defer. The second possible explanation is that people might attribute negative outcomes to others in order to not feel sad, which is, frankly, silly. The forth (going out of order) explanation is that such a bias might just represent a common a mild form of “disordered” thinking concerning a persecution complex, which is really no explanation at all. The third, least silly explanation, is that:
“By assuming the presence of antagonist, one may better be able to avoid a quick repetition of the unpleasant event one has just experienced” (p. 543)
Here, though, I feel Morewedge is making the mistake of assuming past selection pressures resembled the conditions set up in the experiment. I’m not quite sure how else to read that section, nor do I feel that experimental paradigm was particularly representative of past selection pressures or relevant environmental contexts
Now, if Morewedge had placed his findings in some framework concerning how social actions are all partly a result of intentional and chance factors, how perpetrators tend to conceal or downplay their immoral actions or intentions, how victims need to convince third parties to punish others who haven’t wronged them directly, and how certain inputs (such as harm) might better allow victims to persuade others, he’d have a very nice paper indeed. Unfortunately, he misses the strategic, functional element to these biases. When taken out of context, such biases can look “disordered” indeed, in much the same way that, when put underwater, my car seems disordered in its use as a submarine.
References: Morewedge CK (2009). Negativity bias in attribution of external agency. Journal of experimental psychology. General, 138 (4), 535-45 PMID: 19883135The New Yorker is known for its rigorous fact-checking. Every quote, every detail, every attribution, every everything is checked for accuracy. What’s less well known is that this process extends to the cartoons.
In the interest of accuracy, let me state that the process is less grueling when it comes to cartoons. It has to be, to permit wise-cracking animals and plants.
But fact-checking is a factor. Leo Cullum had to modify the following cartoon, not because dogs don’t wear suits, but because the buttons were on the wrong side of his suit.
And this cartoon of Jack Ziegler’s was never published
because, I-95 does not, in fact, separate New York from Connecticut.
But sometimes the issue is not so clear-cut:
This Mischa Richter cartoon was flagged by fact-checking. There are nine justices on the Supreme Court, but only eight columns on the building where they sit.
It’s impossible to be accurate on both counts. In this case, we decided, by a 5-4 ruling, to let the funny trump the strictly factual.
All in all, the cartoon department is grateful for the unflagging vigilance of fact-checking, and the cartoon editor, always respectful, never says, “Oh, puh-leeze! It’s a cartoon!” Wants to, sometimes, but never does.
But we’re also grateful that eighty years ago, nothing got in the way of this iconic Thurber cartoon:
“Touché” is used to acknowledge a hit in fencing by the opponent, so the guy who has just been beheaded should be saying it. Thurber’s cartoon would still work that way—but it wouldn’t be as funny.You know those gigantic IKEA bags that are scary strong and more valuable than thirty golden geese when it comes time to move apartments or do laundry in NYC? Well, some dog food bags are made of the same stuff!
Below is another simple BarkPost tutorial on how to convert your empty dog food bags in to super useful, super durable totes. Although you might want to let them air out a few days before you use them as grocery or laundry totes… Don’t want your bananas or undies to smell like kibble. ; )
You Will Need:
– 1 dog food bag
– a sewing machine
– an iron
– an old t-shirt or towel
To start, just lay the dog food bag on the ground and decide how tall you want your tote to be.
Then cut off the top of the dog food bag with an extra inch or so added into your height calculation.
With the remaining piece of dog food bag that you cut from the top, cut two 2.5” strips for the handles.
Next, take the bottom of the dog food bag and fold down the edges where you cut.
With your iron on low, just iron that fold into place so that it’s crisp as a piece of iceberg lettuce.
After you’ve ironed everything down, stitch the folded-over flap on the bottom of your dog food bag in place. For my sewing machine I had to stitch slow to keep my sewing machine from being like, “WTF BRO? YOU’RE SEWING a DOG FOOD BAG???”
For the straps, repeat a similar process. Fold the strap in half and then iron it to crispytown.
Then stitch that little guy.
After you’ve stitched the straps, fold them over about an inch and then place them where you want them to go on the base of the tote.
To securely attach the strap, stitch a rectangle with an X through it. And you’re good to go!
Congratulations, you’ve just graduated from crazy dog person to CRAFTY crazy dog person. Ba-bam. (Not to mention incredibly good-looking, charming, and cool.) ; )
Also, we found the best way to get rid of the dog food smell was a bit of dish detergent and a couple days of air-dryin’.By Edward Chaykovsky
Amir Khan (31-3, 19KOs) is hungry to face Manny Pacquiao in a high profile fight, but he also wants to get revenge on Danny Garcia (31-0, 18KOs) for a 2012 knockout loss.
Khan fought Garcia in a WBC/WBA junior welterweight unification bout at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. After winning two and a half round of the fight, Garcia caught him cold with a big hook at the end of the third round and Khan never recovered. Two more knockdowns and the fight was stopped in the fourth.
The fight would seem like a natural rematch to make. Both fighters are with manager Al Hyamon, both fight on the Premier Boxing Champions platform and both are now competing at the welterweight limit.
If Khan had his way, he'd like to face Garcia on a date in December and then move forward with a Pacquiao fight in the first half of 2016, and then fight IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook in a huge domestic encounter.
“If we’re able to make it happen so that I get a rematch with Danny Garcia in December, Manny Pacquiao in May and then Kell Brook late next year in Wembley, that would be absolutely amazing," Khan told Yahoo Sports.
“Not only that but if we can line up those three fights and I can emerge victorious from them all, that would put me very high in the pound-for-pound rankings, especially now Floyd Mayweather says he is done.”
If he's able to pull the first two off, in the order, and win - he predicts a showdown with Brook would be as big as the Carl Froch vs. George Groves rematch, which drew a record crowd of 80,000 fans to Wembley.
“If Brook has a few more top fights between now and late 2016, and I’m able to get Garcia and Pacquiao, I really think Kell and I could follow in the footsteps of Froch-Groves II and sell out Wembley Stadium," Khan said.
“That would be massive, so I know Brook v Khan is something boxing fans want, and we really feel it will work for next year when it’s the biggest fight it possibly can be. We both know it’s a huge British fight that can happen in Britain, and it will be massive for both of us, when the time is right.”It’s not a secret that many Horde players have been complaining about the underwhelming nature of Horde racial abilities in PvP this expansion. Faction imbalance has grown to the point where we’ve seen Mercenary Mode added to the game, allowing Alliance players to queue to play on the Horde side of a Battleground (and vice versa) in order to address it. Now with Patch 6.2.2 announced for September 1st, we also have news of another change aimed at PvP — several Horde racial abilities are being buffed.
What’s the intent behind this change? Well, according to CM Lore:
@Supatease The goal is not to push everyone over to Horde, just shore up some Horde racials that are underperforming. — Lore (@CM_Lore) August 19, 2015
He later specifies that these changes are intended for PvP and are expected to have very little PvE impact. Based on the changes in question, I’d have to agree with him, but it’s still a pretty big deal to see racial abilities changed like this for not one, not two, but five Horde races. Five of the Horde’s seven races are considered to have underperforming racial abilities? Wow. That’s a pretty huge change, all told, and a sign that the designers are accepting the prevailing wisdom in terms of the Horde vs. Alliance in PvP.
What exactly are the changes?
Rygarius (Official Post) Originally Posted by Blood Elf Arcane Torrent now Silences all enemies in an 8 yard radius for 3 seconds (up from 2 seconds), and cooldown has been reduced to 1.5 minutes (down from 2 minutes). Goblin Rocket Barrage now has a 1.5-minute cooldown (down from 2 minutes).
Rocket Jump now has a 1.5-minute cooldown (down from 2 minutes). Orc Hardiness now reduces the duration of Stun effects by an additional 20% (up from 15%). Troll Voodoo Shuffle now reduces the duration of all movement impairing effects by 20% (up from 15%). Trolls still be flippin’ out mon! Tauren War Stomp now stuns enemies for 3 seconds (up from 2 seconds), and cooldown has been reduced to 1.5 minutes (down from 2 minutes).
Now, none of these changes are enormous when taken on their own. An extra second on War Stomp and a slightly faster cooldown isn’t going to break the PvP game wide open or anything. But taken as a whole, it’s a pretty big change and a tacit admission that yes, the Horde really does suffer from some lackluster racials in comparison to the Alliance, at least in terms of their PvP applications. It’ll be interesting to see how things shake out once the changes go live.Just to confirm that he’d rather play political games than help get the subways fixed, Mayor de Blasio over the weekend dropped a “plan” to tax the city’s rich to get the MTA more cash.
Naturally, it’s something he can’t actually do himself: The Legislature and Gov. Cuomo would have to change state law.
And never mind he’s been claiming the subways aren’t his responsibility, or that he utterly ignored them (including never riding the trains) until the crisis struck — and then went into blame-everyone-else mode.
Or that he’s now contradicting the main argument he’s been making, namely that the city is already covering its fair share of the MTA’s budget, since the new revenue would come entirely from the five boroughs.
Or that the agency needs reliable streams of revenue — while income-tax collection from the rich is one of the most unstable sources of cash. (A bad year for Wall Street bonuses, and it plummets.)
No: Plainly, all the mayor cares about is signaling his own progressive virtue with yet another version of a tax hike he’s been pushing for years.
Actually, he likely sees this as a two-fer, since he thinks it’ll cause political trouble for folks he hates with a passion: Gov. Cuomo and the leaders of the state Senate.
In other words, his “solution” is entirely self-serving, not any practical compromise to resolve a crisis that’s creating daily hell for his constituents.
And of course it comes with de Blasio’s trademark bull: “We are asking the wealthiest in our city to chip in a little extra,” his statement claimed. No, a tax hike isn’t “asking,” it’s ordering. “Asking” would be a call for donations.
(The problems of one in-between approach, selling the right to name a station after your company, were humorously exposed over the weekend when the porn channel RedTube said it would love to be a sponsor.)
Yes, Cuomo is playing politics here, too: His promises of new MTA cash are utterly vague, and it’s his pick for MTA chairman, Joe Lhota, who put the idea of a 50-50 state-city split of the emergency-funds bill on the table.
But Cuomo has also taken real steps toward fixing things, putting the universally respected Lhota in charge and adding the highly competent Pat Foye to the MTA’s leadership team. All de Blasio has done is hold a (disastrous) press conference and issue statements about what other leaders should do.
If the mayor wants anyone to take him seriously, he should come up with a few things he’s going to do to help out.
Quit kibitzing from the peanut gallery, and be a leader.Series looking at pioneering synthetic organ surgeon Paolo Macchiarini, who has been accused of using terminally ill patients as human guinea pigs and falsifying his science.
Paolo Macchiarini is one of world's most famous surgeons. He hopes to revolutionize medicine by creating a new type of synthetic organ - a vision that could save many lives. But the Italian surgeon has also been accused of using terminally ill patients as human guinea pigs as well as falsifying his science. Is he a genius - or is he behind one of medicine's biggest scandals?
This gripping investigative series gains access to Macchiarini's closed world of organ transplants, animal experiments and stem-cell research. From his base at one of the world's most prestigious medical institutions - the Karolinska Institute, home of the Nobel Prize in Stockholm, Sweden - the series explores the fallout from his work across the world, from London to Russia. It poses a fundamental ethical question - how far can you risk a human life in the name of cutting-edge science?President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office. AP Photo Two months before he hosted a conference on narcotics at the White House, President John F. Kennedy smoked marijuana with his mistress, American socialite Mary Meyer, according to retired history professor Michael O'Brien, who wrote the book "John F. Kennedy: A Biography."
During the experience, Kennedy apparently realized that pot might prevent him from adequately handling a national-security crisis.
Meyer, a close friend of Jackie Kennedy's and the ex-wife of a top CIA agent, reportedly came over to the White House on the evening of July 16, 1962, after Kennedy joked that he wanted to smoke cannabis. O'Brien wrote that Washington Post executive Jim Truitt said he provided Meyer with the pot:
The president smoked three of the six joints Mary brought to him. At first he felt no effects. Then he closed his eyes and refused a fourth joint.
'Suppose the Russians did something now,' he said. Kennedy allegedly told Mary that the pot 'isn't like cocaine,' and informed her that he would get her some cocaine.
That same month, the Soviet Union signed a secret agreement with Cuba's Fidel Castro to deter any future invasions by the US after the Bay of Pigs. Nikita Khrushchev began supplying Cuba with Soviet nuclear missiles, other weaponry, and military personnel.Near the end of Baylor coach Art Briles' news conference Sunday, after he had been asked more than a few times to describe his feelings about the Bears being left out of the inaugural four-team College Football Playoff, he'd apparently had enough.
"We're in a room that feels like we just lost a football game," Briles said. "That to me is a travesty. That's what I hate. We won a big game last night, and we're Big 12 champions. Get happy or get your ass out.
"That's the way I feel. I mean, seriously. I mean, my goodness, somebody ask me about winning. We won. Our guys are good."
On Saturday night, the Bears defeated Kansas State 38-27 to earn a share of the Big 12 championship with TCU, which was a 55-3 winner over Iowa |
whom Barack Obama once organized) over widespread voter registration fraud and other outrages. The watchdog group True the Vote -- whose founder's businesses and family have been harassed by the IRS and other federal agencies -- documents voter fraud prosecutions in 46 states since 2000. Which brings us to a report that aired earlier this month on NBC's local affiliate in Ft. Myers, Florida. WBBH-TV reporter Andy Pierrotti managed to track down dozens of local residents who were (a) both non-US citizens and (b) registered to vote in the swing state. Many of them had illegally voted in recent elections. Here's the full report, followed by some analysis:
"We don't know how widespread this problem is because elections offices don't keep track of where non-citizens live," Pierrotti reports, "So we decided to do something that they'd never tried to do before: We found them on our own." The investigation began by examining state forms on which residents had declined jury duty by checking a box indicating that they weren't US citizens, and were therefore ineligible to serve. Pierrotti then cross-referenced those results with local voter rolls, identifying at least 94 people who were registered to vote in the state of Florida. Next, he visited some of these people at their homes, where they admitted that they weren't citizens and professed ignorance as to how they were registered to vote in the first place. But voting records confirmed that they'd exercised their "right" to vote that, as non-citizens, they do not actually possess. The NBC 2 team interviewed a number of these illegal voters on camera, including a Jamaican national who simply attested that he was a US citizen on a voter registration form, and -- voila! -- he joined the American electorate. It was a felony, but it was that easy. And if a news crew hadn't connected the dots, no one would have ever known. This passage in the report is crucial:
REPORTER: County supervisors of elections tell me they have no way to verify citizenship. Under the 1992 "Motor Voter" law, they're not required to ask for proof. HARRINGTON: We have no policing authority. We don't have any way of bouncing that information off of any other database. REPORTER: The only way supervisors of elections can investigate voter fraud is if they get a tip, so that's what our list became. HARRINGTON: It could be very serious. It could change the whole complexion of an election.
Here's the problem: This handful of wrongs are now being looked at and dealt with, but it took an enterprising and creative journalist to uncover them. These are 94 cases he uncovered in his own backyard alone, using just one narrow method. How many people in this country are registered to vote, and actually do vote, who are not US citizens? We don't know. It is lunacy that election supervisors "have no way to verify citizenship" in many places, even at the point of registration. It's further lunacy that we would not require every potential voter to produce valid proof of citizenship before casting a ballot, from coast to coast. These steps are so basic, so fundamentally fair, and so rudimentary that it's difficult to accept that an entire political party is dead-set against these voter integrity efforts for reasons that are not nefarious. Only US citizens are allowed to participate in US elections under the law. Citizens who don't have proper identification ought to be able to obtain them quickly and easily. That's the reasonable recourse for the "suppression" non-problem. But every single person who wants to vote should prove that they're doing so legally. That's not racism; that's painfully basic common sense. Oh, and it's overwhelmingly supported by Americans of all political stripes.
Parting thought: A quick calculation, as a point of reference. This local reporter found 94 illegally registered voters in one small region using one narrow verification method. If you extrapolate his number over Florida's 67 counties, that's nearly 6,300 people. In 2000, the United States Presidency was determined by 537 Florida votes.Story highlights Philippines government confirms Canadian has been beheaded
Robert Hall was one of four people kidnapped by Abu Sayyaf militants
Fellow Canadian John Ridsdel was executed on April 25
(CNN) A Canadian national has been beheaded in the Philippines by Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf after a ransom payment deadline passed, the Philippines government confirmed Tuesday.
Robert Hall was one of four people kidnapped by the group last September in the southern Philippines. His execution follows that of fellow Canadian hostage John Ridsdel on April 25 when the militants did not receive the requested ransom.
"We strongly condemn the brutal and senseless murder of Mr. Robert Hall, a Canadian national, after being held captive by the Abu Sayyaf group in Sulu for the past nine months," the statement from Sonny Coloma, a Presidential spokesperson.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday that it was likely Hall had been executed: "It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since September 21, 2015, has been killed by his captors," Trudeau said in a statement, adding that officials were working to officially confirm his death.
JUST WATCHED What is Abu Sayyaf? Replay More Videos... MUST WATCH What is Abu Sayyaf? 01:07
"The vicious and brutal actions of the hostage-takers have led to a needless death. Canada holds the terrorist group who took him hostage fully responsible for this cold-blooded and senseless murder," Trudeau said.
Read MoreStellar Lumens (XML) takes a big leap due to IBM’s contribution, rated now at #15 in total market cap at coinmarketcap the Stellar project expects major attention in 2018. IBM contributed to this project through 8 new validators spread across the globe as seen below.
Image 1 – IBM’s validators of Stellar Lumens. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellar/
Also recent announcements through their website, https://www.stellar.org/ claim that new partnerships such as Remitr, a global platform for cross border payments, licensed in Canada. After Joyce Kim a co-founder for the Stellar Lumens (XML) made some exciting appearances on social media, the project shows progress all over the pacific rim.
This partnership with IBM, Forbes #19 top companies will indeed bring them visibility.
Introducing: Stellar Lumens (XLM) new Hardware
Stellars (XML) next step towards securing payment processing will be units through IBM hardware. This will happen through processing units called validators managed by Stellar Corporation with collaboration with IBM’s both network and net worth.
This is big for the Stellar community, we’ve seen major gains in value from XML. IBM, a company with a net worth of an astonishing 168 billion dollars and a 79 billion-dollar yearly sales revenue, could very much be the stepping stone for Stellar to become a top #10 player early this year.
Stellar Lumens Core
Stellar Lumens (XLM) is an open source project that relies on Protocol (SCP) – Stellar Consensus Protocol. A presentation by Professor Dadid Mazières discloses this method as a federated Byzantine agreement (FBA). This method answers to some problems regarding systems that must be closed in order to record financial transactions. The consensus method enforces an increase in what they call asymptotic security.
Also, Joyce Kim was a co-founder for the Stellar Lumens (XLM). After graduating Cornell University with only 19 years of age she also took degrees in both Columbia Law School and Harvard. She was until recently vice-chairman on Freestyle Capital and claims to be an entrepreneur.
Joyce Kim of Stellar Lumens (XLM) is very active on social media, having around 16 000 followers on Twitter. She practices as Director’s Fellow at the MIT Media Lab currently as well. She is valued depply by the community behind Stellar, just recently back in South Korea she visited CoinOne towards a productive presence of their new network.
Image 2 – Joyce Kim Source: Twitter
She stated 2 days ago on a tweet:
“Visited my first cryptocurrency exchange since arriving back home. Amazed and proud of how much the Korean blockchain community has grown. Thank you for hosting me @coinone_info!”
Link: https://twitter.com/joyce/status/936224875039006721
Now besides getting to know the project described through their website now all you can do is look ahead.
Market Analysis
This year, just like almost every other project that showed progress, Stellar Lumens (XLM) saw a big leap, jumping from a third of a USD cent in April to an almost overwhelming 0.10 USD today, which translates is a 3000% gain.
Image 3 – Stellar Lumens (XLM): https://coinmarketcap.com
Stellar Lumens (XML), through establishing their presence as top 20 crypto will not only get notoriety amongst potential investors, it also lures new exchanges. Currently being traded around 15 exchanges including Poloniex, Bittrex and Kraken that represent the majority of the volume in transactions (83%).
What’s Next
Looking at 2018 the market seems optimistic in general for investors. Stellar Lumens (XLM) might continue to climb towards the holidays where the hype is going to get people to invest on the latest news in the tech world, Blockchain Technology.
After a probable slide after New Year’s we’ll be likely headed to another outburst making the crypto markets reach the trillion-dollar capitalization. At the turn of Spring we might already be seing Stellar Lumens (XLM) as token equivalent to the dollar. This would represent 1000% gains in yet another 4 month cycle.
The mark for 1 USD for Stellar Lumens (XLM) is near. In sum, be ready.
Ads by CointrafficLowest Ratings SORT BY: | Highest Ratings 15 Reviews. Average Rating: 5 of 5 Stars! 5 stars: 100% (15 of 15) 4 stars: 0% ( of 15) 3 stars: 0% ( of 15) 2 stars: 0% ( of 15) 1 star: 0% ( of 15) Display All Reviews Reviewed By: Matt M on 12/06/2018 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
I am a firm believer, if JMB had lived a little longer, this would have been the end result! A modern, \"fighting\" pistol, with \"target\" pistol accuracy. When I first ordered this pistol, I thought it would be a range toy, when it arrived, it screamed at me, \"shoot me, shoot me a lot!\" There was no break-in period with this firearm, it shot one hole groups from three to ten years and cloverleafed all day long at 25, off-hand!
If you are not used to a DA/SA, it will take some time. In fact, even after several thousand rounds, I find myself still adjusting to the transition. I have learned, the best way is to ignore the transition all-together and just shoot the thing! The double action is long and heavy, but custom revolver smooth and the single action breaks like a custom 1911.
Sig Sauer P-Series pistols are not cheap, but they are worth every penny. This gun has become my work gun, my class gun and my EDC. It has taken the place of several, higher-priced firearms and I see no reason to go back! Reviewed By: William D on 08/24/2018 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
Had one of these for a little over a year now. Absolutely excellent pistol, very accurate and good looking too. Like it so much it became my carry gun almost immediately. Very satisfied with this pistol. Reviewed By: Carl J on 07/25/2018 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
Very happy with my new Sig.
The order process and shipping went flawless. Reviewed By: Jose D L on 05/18/2018 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
Sig P220 is a good looking pistol. No problem on the range. It will eat any ammo you throw on it. Budsgunshop was the cheapest price Reviewed By: Larry M on 04/04/2018 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
I've only shot it a little so far, but it seems like a very high quality pistol. After hearing so much good comment about Sigs in general and finding this one at Bud's at a lower price than most other Sigs, I felt compelled to get it, and I'm glad I did! Reviewed By: David K on 01/06/2018 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
I have a love for Sig Sauer Pistols this is my third one so I know what they are. Shopping with Buds has been a great experience this is my second pistol I have bought from Buds. There online store seems to have whatever I am looking for at that time. I am never disappointed at anytime. The experience I have had has been nothing short of stellar the shipping process is very fast. I receive emails about where in the process my pistol is at they send it to my FFL done deal. I have never had a bad experience with anything I have bought from Buds. I will continue shopping with buds. Reviewed By: Gary s on 12/19/2017 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
awesome,beautiful,sweet shooting,very pleased Reviewed By: Nathan H on 12/12/2017 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
Great gun, especially for the price - classic Sig quality all the way around. The only things this P220 lacks - if you could call it that - is the SRT trigger package. Otherwise, out of the box it's a very well equipped gun. Sweet shooter, very accurate & reliable, I'm very happy with this pistol, and with my transaction through Buds. Reviewed By: Terry L on 10/31/2017 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
Well what can I say... It's a SIG. Beautiful gun as usual from a SIG product. The 2 tone looks amazing, it is definitely more of a anodized gold color rather than true FDE. The rubber Hogue grips are very grippy (if that's a word). Personally I didn't like the Hogue grips as they made the gun feel kinda bulky, but for some it may be perfect. I actually switched them out to the G-10 Piranha Green grips and they look FANTASTIC and feel much better for me at least. One thing I wish the gun came with is at least one 10 round mag as it comes with just 2 8 rounders. One thing to note, and this has nothing to do with Buds is that the 2 mags I received do not like Hollow Points, regular ball ammo is find, but with the HP I couldn't load more than one round in either of the mags. I have contacted SIG and they are sending out 2 new mags. So maybe I just got lucky enough to receive 2 bad mags. Other than that I love the gun and is now my EDC gun. Reviewed By: Blake B on 10/31/2017 Rating: 5 of 5 Stars!
The firearm is absolutely awesome. Works exactly as intended. The same can't be said for Bud's customer service. Show More ReviewsShare. Bringing Attitude to a Revolution Bringing Attitude to a Revolution
Change is inevitable. In the world of professional wrestling, change can come in the blink of an eye. One match. One move. One speech. The simplest things can change the fortunes of many in an instant. Over the past year, the WWE has undergone a sort of revolution, a shift in tone that has allowed two distinct ideas - sports entertainment and wrestling - to co-exist better than they have in the past. The show and the sport are finding equal footing, and it’s largely due to the efforts of one man, CM Punk.
“ THQ introduced major changes with WWE '12, but its work wasn't done.
Within WWE’s revolution, CM Punk is its visionary. Almost one year ago, Punk sat down on a stage in front of millions around the world and did something remarkable for a form of entertainment that is as orchestrated as it is raw and real - he spoke his mind. His electric speech struck a nerve with passionate fans who love the art of wrestling more than the theater that surrounds it, but don’t always feel listened to. Punk proclaimed himself the ‘Voice of the Voiceless’, vowing to change things for the better - or quit. Since that fateful day, things have been different. Talented performers who couldn’t catch a break started to appear on television more. Storylines started to become more interesting, using talent in smarter ways. The line between wrestling’s intertwined notions of reality and fiction began to blur. Many found themselves, for the first time in a long time, more captivated than captive.
Mirroring those changes, THQ drastically changed its approach to wrestling video games. Discarding the notion of ‘Smackdown vs. RAW’, the publisher rebranded and revamped its core wrestling simulation product into something entirely different - WWE ’12. The simple motivating factor? The product had grown stale. The changes introduced in WWE ’12 would be significant, but they wouldn’t address everything. This wasn’t by accident. THQ knew that the development time for one game couldn’t contain all of the alterations it wanted to make. The publisher and its development team had committed to a multi-year plan. This year more of that vision will be revealed in WWE ’13.
The Cult of Punk
Continuing its focus on refining and evolving its products, the development team has kept what worked and throw out what didn’t, going so far as to discard the entirety of the ambitious, yet flawed, single-player design from WWE ’12. Much as Punk’s vision for the WWE looked to wrestling’s past to empower its sports entertainment future, THQ looked to the past for its future - it is bringing the Attitude Era back to video games, bigger and louder than ever.
Exit Theatre Mode
Who is CM Punk? Learn more about WWE '13's cover athlete.
The foundation of WWE ’13 is firmly rooted in its predecessor. The game’s mechanics, visuals and controls are fundamentally the same as they were last year. Matches still have a heavy emphasis on momentum, forcing players to escalate the quality of their grapple-based moves, from standard to stunned, as they wear down their opponent. ‘Breaking Point’ submissions, limb-targeting systems and time-based pinning are all back, with many subtle tweaks, including continuous refinements to animation and move fluidity, along the way. In many respects, WWE ’12 found a great balance between showcasing the technical elements of wrestling while preserving the engaging, accessible element necessary for video game fans. If it’s not broken, it doesn’t need fixing... Just a ton of adjusting.
“ THQ is bringing the Attitude Era back to video games, bigger and louder than ever.
That said, THQ’s additions to WWE ’13 are still numerous and significant. The biggest of these deals with context-sensitive power moves that enable players to recreate some of the most memorable and spectacular moments in WWE history. These actions, which range from literally breaking the ring with super heavyweights to bulldozing a rival through the ring barrier to catching a finisher in mid-air, can only be enabled by certain wrestlers in specific locations and instances. Much like the appearance of a ‘Finisher’ icon, an ‘OMG!!’ logo will appear above a character’s head when they are capable of executing these devastating maneuvers, which can quickly change the tide of a match - or even end it. The developers are also in the process of creating specialized visual and audio methods of presenting these moments, ensuring they feel as significant in the game as they do on television.
WWE '13 Roster
Big Show From: Tampa, FL Finishers: Chokeslam, Knockout Punch OVERALL RATING* 92
Chris Jericho From: Winnipeg, Manitoba Finishers: The Codebreaker, Walls of Jericho OVERALL RATING* 92
CM Punk From: Chicago, IL Finishers: GTS, Anaconda Vise OVERALL RATING* 93
Mankind From: Long Island, NY Finishers: Mandible Claw, Double Arm DDT OVERALL RATING* 91
Mark Henry From: Silsbee, TX Finishers: World's Strongest Slam OVERALL RATING* 89
Sheamus From: Dublin, Ireland Finishers: Brogue Kick, High Cross OVERALL RATING* 89
"Stone Cold" Steve Austin From: Victoria, Texas Finishers: 'Stone Cold' Stunner OVERALL RATING* 94
The Undertaker 'Attitude Era' Version From: Death Valley Finishers: Tombstone, Hell's Gate OVERALL RATING* 95
Anyone who has watched wrestling for any period of time understands that different broadcasts require matches of different lengths. The amount of time superstars might have to compete on an average two-to-three hour Monday Night RAW, for example, differs greatly from what would be possible on a three or four hour Pay Per View. In the past, wrestling games didn’t take this concept into account. WWE ’13 does.
Alongside selecting arenas, characters and the number of finishing moves available at the start of a match (a new option, which can range from 0 to Infinite), players will be able to adjust a setting called ‘Match Experience’. Three settings - “Quick”, “Normal” and “Epic” - will affect the overall pacing of a fight, independent of AI difficulty. Factors such as momentum, damage, enemy aggressiveness and even kick out and reversal rates will be affected. The difference can be staggering. Quick matches feel lightning quick compared to epic ones, where superstars seem to have limitless stamina - and health. Best of all, this concept will make its way into the single player campaign as well.
Match Experience modes and Spectacular Moments are some of the flashier ideas that will accompany a still-in-development overhaul of the overall audio experience, which will attempt to better capture the atmosphere of a live event, including the reactions of WWE’s own announcers to some of the stunning developments that happen on television each and every week.
All of this is in addition to the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of subtle tweaks the game’s designers make day in and day out. WWE ’13 is currently still in an "Alpha" state, meaning the team has another six or so weeks to tune and tweak features before it goes into an aggressive three-month campaign to eliminate bugs. That means more moves are being added. Better weight detection is being implemented, so the smaller Rey Mysterio can’t body slam the 500 pound Big Show. In fact, super heavyweights like Mark Henry or Show now have different frames to better capture their enormous size. Pinning is now not only influenced by damage, but the power of the move that was previously executed. Non-tagged partners can now be controlled. Replays are being adjusted to be more relevant.
THQ’s ambitions don’t stop there. Not satisfied to continually perfect its core game mechanics, the developers took another hard look at its approach to single player campaign design, the focus of much criticism for WWE ’12. The team decided to do something rather bold, particularly given the ambitious, original storyline it crafted for existing and created stars last year. Rather than continuously iterate on the same concept in hopes of finding a sweet spot, the team threw everything out, and started from scratch. In doing so, the designers were free to consider any idea. Given the changes going on in the modern day WWE, it seemed only fitting that THQ turned to one period of time for inspiration. The wrestling revolution that forever changed the perception of sports entertainment. The Attitude Era.
The Return of Attitude
The Attitude Era symbolizes all that can be rebellious, shocking and brazen about wrestling. In many ways it embodies the best of the industry, and was responsible for some of the greatest personalities and storylines of all time. During the late '90s, the WWE lived on the edge, and sometimes crossed the lines of decency, to beat its competition. The result was a period of unprecedented success.
As much as the modern era of the WWE is forging its own path, it owes much to the stars that emerged some 15 years ago. The Attitude Era created a new world for the WWE. It rewrote the rules. It’s unlikely the company, or the sport, will ever see such radical thinking again. Born mostly out of necessity, those in charge seemed to literally do anything and everything that came to mind, at first in hopes that something would work, and eventually to keep that momentum going.
The ‘Road to Wrestlemania’ experience for WWE ’12 attempted to tell an original storyline focusing primarily on three wrestlers - Sheamus, Triple H and a created wrestler of the player’s choosing. In an effort to dictate the overall narrative, many matches ended through scripted cutscenes that took control away from the player. Whether because of the limited character selection, or the fact that the storyline removed match control from the player, many were averse to the entire concept. It turns out THQ has been listening. ‘Road to Wrestlemania’ is dead. That's where Attitude Era Mode comes in.
Despite the fact that the Attitude Era is a well-documented part of history, THQ’s goal here is not to reinvent the past, to change things just for the sake of doing so. This single-player mode is an abridged recreation of a memorable time in sports entertainment, allowing players to journey through various storylines as eight of the most popular superstars of that time, including “Stone Cold” Steve Austin.
The chapter-based saga moves through WWE’s struggle and eventual triumph during the so-called “Monday Night Wars,” which saw the company on the brink of defeat at the hands of a powerful rival, WCW. Told from the perspective of the WWE during that period, matches and in-game cutscenes are supplemented by superb video packages assembled by WWE’s own editors. These short vignettes put matches, feuds and larger industry developments into perspective, not only keeping the overall story going, but giving a bit of a history lesson in the process.
“ Road to Wrestlemania is dead. Enter: Attitude Era mode.
THQ isn’t simply relying on the allure of legendary stars to boost its Attitude endeavors. It has learned from previous ‘Road to Wrestlemania’ efforts. Seeing this new mode in action proves that. First off, the vast majority of matches are just that - matches. While there is certainly a desire to stay true to history, and tell the stories the way they played out on television, the developers of WWE ’13 are mindful that wrestling fans want a fun game first and foremost. Therefore each match is broken down into a series of main or side objectives, which are clearly labeled when on-screen, can be easily accessed, and will disappear from a list when they are completed.
In general, main objectives are simple (pin your opponent, grab the title), allowing players to advance the storyline simply by winning matches. However optional side objectives are more meticulous by nature, setting more specific victory conditions - asking players to put an opponent through a table, for example. Those looking to get the most out of WWE ’13 will want to pay attention to all the game asks of them. A wealth of bonus material can be unlocked by completing all side tasks, and there can be several per match. The developers have even included a few ‘hidden’ objectives, opening up further rewards if players decide to pursue a more comprehensive strategy for beating the mode.
There’s an emphasis here on the core game experience, without the clutter and complication that can arise by trying to dictate the conclusion of a match, robbing players of the feeling of victory or control. Backstage sequences were particularly guilty of this, placing players in odd environments that the game’s mechanics poorly supported. There’s some good news on this front: they have mostly been removed, with the exception of a few matches that take place outside the ring.
WWE ’13 is such a massive product that describing gameplay changes and a radically overhauled single player concept just scratches the surface. THQ has yet to fully reveal the Attitude Era mode, which has substantial depth. Universe Mode hasn’t surfaced. Create-a-Superstar has its upgrades. New matches, rings and moves are on the way. And all of this is to say nothing about the roster, which contains stars from the past and present, including a formidable array of wrestlers from the late ‘90s. THQ’s revolution may have started last year, but if WWE ’13 is any indication, the publisher is continuing to radically reinvent the way it approaches its sports entertainment video games. Wrestling fans couldn’t ask for more.He referred to Canada's historic loss in 2010 to tiny, economically-battered Portugal for a temporary, two-year seat on UN Security Council, saying a Liberal government "would certainly make sure we don't lose an election to join the Security Council at the United Nations."
The Harper government has said previously it isn't considering another run for the Security Council, where Canada has served six times, about once a decade, since the UN was formed in 1945.
Trudeau said the government's approach impacts Canada's influence in places as distant from each other as the Middle East and the Arctic.
"Canada needs to be once again a constructive actor on the world stage focusing on our national interests, which include security and stability in places like the Middle East."
Canada could best help check actions such as Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to bomb targets in Syria by joining in with its allies, he said.
"That's why Canada needs to once again re-engage as a robust and helpful member of the international community. That's where we have to turn it around by re-engaging as a strong partner in international efforts to hold bullies like Vladimir Putin to account."
Actions such as accepting more Syrian refugees would also boost Canada's clout, Trudeau added.
The Liberal leader's comments came as Montreal La Presse endorsed him in an editorial.
"This choice is motivated a lot by Justin Trudeau's leadership style," the newspaper said. "Contrary to Mr. Harper and, to a certain degree, Mr. Mulcair, Mr. Trudeau believes in a constructive notion of politics.
"Instead of exploiting division and prejudice, he believes in dialogue and looks for consensus and compromise. He avoids personal attacks. He likes people and people like him in return. There is some Laurier in him."
The newspaper said Trudeau has shown he is ready.
"After 10 years of a destructive government that lives on meanness and narrow-mindedness, Canada needs a government based on intelligence, dialogue and optimism. That is why La Presse is hoping that Justin Trudeau's Liberal party is elected."
The newspaper supported the Liberals in 1993, 1997 and 2000 and the last time it backed a party was in 2006, when it endorsed the Conservatives.
The Liberal leader flew to Fredericton later on Wednesday to address students at St. Thomas University on voter engagement.
The riding is currently held by the Tories but polls suggest the Liberals could make a much-needed breakthrough in the region.
By Bob Weber, The Canadian PressTHE Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank under Israel’s wary eye, is nearly broke. Israel collects $100m-plus every month on the PA’s behalf in customs dues and other credits from abroad and is supposed to hand over the money to the PA in Ramallah, its headquarters. But earlier this year, after the Palestinians applied to join the International Criminal Court, Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, froze such transfers to mark his annoyance.
Israel has dished out this form of punishment before, though rarely for longer than a month or so. But this time Mr Netanyahu is unlikely to relent before the general election on March 17th, lest his right-wing foes accuse him of weakness. Thereafter it may take weeks, even months, for a government to be formed. So the Palestinians may have to stagger along without the transfers, which make up two-thirds of their budget, for a lot longer than usual.
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By scraping together some loans, the PA managed to pay 60% of its public-sector salaries in January and February. But banks are starting to balk at lending more. The PA may struggle to pay its dues for March. Around 140,000 of the West Bank’s 2.4m people are public employees.
Gaza, the other slice of Palestinian territory, which is controlled by Hamas, an Islamist movement, is even worse off. Last year Hamas signed a unity pact with the nationalist Fatah movement, which runs the PA. It was supposed to ensure public-sector workers in Gaza were paid. But Gaza’s security forces have not had their salaries for the past eight months.
Israeli security forces rely on the PA to co-operate with them on security. But General Benny Gantz, who recently stepped down as Israel’s military chief, has warned of the danger that might ensue if the Palestinian forces can no longer be paid. Israel’s defence minister and its national security adviser have both recently urged Israel’s main electricity company to relent, after it twice cut off supplies to the West Bank cities of Nablus and Jenin because the PA is said to owe it $500m.
Already violence has risen. Car-bombings and attempted assassinations have increased. Militants in Gaza calling themselves the Islamic State have threatened Palestinian intellectuals and have briefly kidnapped a local journalist. Palestinian leaders are to meet on March 8th to discuss cutting security co-operation with Israel. Jibril Rajoub, a former security chief, has given warning that violence could spread still faster.
Such threats have previously tended to prove empty. This time things may be different. The PA is increasingly unloved by Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas, its president, is nearly 80, ten years into a four-year term, and suffering from a loss of public credibility with peace talks hopelessly deadlocked. The Israeli army has preemptively stepped up raids in the West Bank, detaining suspected militants and seizing ammunition caches. Officers fear that any small confrontation—like a shoot-out near Bethlehem this week that left a Palestinian teenager dead—may explode into a much wider conflict.Nissan has unveiled what it claims to be the world's first mass-market electric car — a five-door hatchback called Leaf which its Sunderland plant is vying to build for the European market.
The family-sized car, which has a maximum range of 100 miles and a top speed of about 90mph, will be in showrooms in Britain, Europe, the US and Japan by the end of next year.
The Leaf is the first of Nissan's new range of fully electric powered cars, which produce no carbon emissions, unlike hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, which uses a petrol-powered engine as well as an electric battery. Nissan's range of electric cars will include small, medium-sized and large saloon cars.
A Nissan spokeswoman would not disclose how much the Leaf would cost consumers, other than to say it would be similarly priced to other family-sized cars in the £10,000-£15,000 bracket. This excludes the cost of the electric battery, which drivers would have to buy at a cost of several thousands pounds, or lease for a monthly fee.
The Japanese carmaker announced last month that it had selected its Sunderland plant to make lithium-ion batteries for the European market at a new £200m factory. But the north-east plant is also bidding to make the cars. The factory is up against plants in France, Spain and Portugal also owned by Nissan and its French partner Renault.
Nissan is in discussions with the British government about what financial support could be offered because the economics of making electric cars on a large scale are unproved. The European Investment Bank has already offered the company a €400m (£340m) loan to build environmentally friendly cars in Europe but this needs to be guaranteed by the government for the UK to get a slice of production.
Business secretary Lord Mandelson has assembled a £2.3bn package of loan guarantees for the car industry but none have been extended yet, despite growing frustration from companies.
Nissan hopes that the Leaf will become the world's first truly mass-market electric car. Unlike its Japanese rival Toyota, which makes the hugely popular Prius, Nissan is focusing its energies and investment on "pure electric" cars.
Electric cars currently on the market have a niche appeal with motorists put off by their limited range, size and speed. The tiny G-Wiz in Britain, for example, has been popular among commuters in large cities such as London, where it is exempt from the congestion charge. But even the latest model has a speed limit of only 51mph and a maximum range of 70 miles before it needs recharging, limiting its use.
High performance electric cars are prohibitively expensive. Tesla Motors, maker of the Tesla Roadster, has spent years trying to get costs down to about $100,000 (£60,000) for each sports car.
The Leaf car battery can be charged to 80% capacity in about 20 minutes, compared with almost three and a half hours needed for the G-Wiz. The first batch of cars, primarily for the Asian and North American markets, will be made in Japan and the US.U.S. Supreme Court (Photo: File photo)
A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts of America to bar a gay man from being a Scout leader more than 16 years ago could be an impediment for anyone seeking to sue the Scouts or other private organizations over related issues, legal experts say.
But experts also said the 2000 ruling might not be an insurmountable bar in cases of children banned from Scouting because it involved a leader who had been outspoken about gay rights. The Supreme Court said forcing the Boy Scouts to hire that leader, James Dale of Monmouth County, violated the organization’s First Amendment right to express itself on the issue of homosexuality.
The Scouts have since reversed long-standing policies barring gay leaders and gay Scouts. But last month, Kristie Maldonado, the mother of an 8-year-old transgender boy from Secaucus, said that she was told by local Scout leaders that her child could no longer be a Cub Scout because he was born a girl.
The Dale decision "was about the right to choose leaders people see as role models,” said Jon Davidson, the legal director of Lambda Legal. “Here, we’re talking about an 8-year-old boy in the Cub Scouts. I’m not sure Dale would apply."
In the Dale case, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts had violated the state’s law against discrimination. The court ruled that while the Boy Scouts of America is a private organization, it is a public accommodation under the law and, therefore, subject to anti-discrimination laws because it “invites the public to join, attend or participate.”
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned that decision on the grounds that requiring the Scouts to accept Dale as an assistant scoutmaster “runs afoul of the Scouts’ freedom of expressive association.” It said the Boy Scouts had taken a position that “homosexual conduct is not morally |
Mapping to English Names Vasanta Mid-March Mid-May Chaitra, Vaishakha spring Greeshma Mid-May Mid-July Jyeshtha, Ashadha summer Varsha Mid-July Mid-September Shraavana, Bhadrapada monsoon Sharad Mid-September Mid-November Ashwin, Kartika autumn Hemanta Mid-November Mid-January Maargashirsha, Pausha early winter Shishira Mid-January Mid-March Magh, Phalguna prevernal or late winter
The Bengali Calendar is similar but differs in start and end times. It has the following seasons or ritu:
The Tamil calendar follows a similar pattern of six seasons
Tamil season Gregorian Months Tamil Months IlaVenil (Spring) April 15 to June 14 Chithirai and Vaikasi MuthuVenil (Summer) June 15 to August 14 Aani and Aadi Kaar (Monsoon) August 15 to October 14 Avani and Purattasi Kulir (Autumn) October 15 to December 14 Aipasi and Karthikai MunPani (Winter) December 15 to February 14 Margazhi and Thai PinPani (Prevernal) February 15 to April 14 Maasi and Panguni
"Official" seasons [ edit ]
As noted, a variety of dates and even exact times are used in different countries or regions to mark changes of the calendar seasons. These observances are often declared "official" within their respective jurisdictions by the local or national media, even when the weather or climate is contradictory.[18] However they are mainly a matter of custom only, and have not generally been proclaimed by governments north or south of the equator for civil purposes.[19][20] In Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology defines Summer as the calendar months December, January, and February, Autumn as March, April, and May, Winter as June, July, and August, and Spring as September, October, and November.[21]
Non-calendar-based reckoning [ edit ]
From bottom, clockwise:
prevernal, vernal, estival, serotinal, autumnal, hibernal The six modern mid-latitude ecological seasons.From bottom, clockwise:prevernal, vernal, estival, serotinal, autumnal, hibernal
Seasonal changes regarding a tree over a year
Ecologically speaking, a season is a period of the year in which only certain types of floral and animal events happen (e.g.: flowers bloom—spring; hedgehogs hibernate—winter). So, if we can observe a change in daily floral/animal events, the season is changing. In this sense, ecological seasons are defined in absolute terms, unlike calendar-based methods in which the seasons are relative. If specific conditions associated with a particular ecological season don't normally occur in a particular region, then that area cannot be said to experience that season on a regular basis.
Modern mid-latitude ecological [ edit ]
Six ecological seasons can be distinguished which do not have fixed calendar-based dates like the meteorological and astronomical seasons.[22] Oceanic regions tend to experience the beginning of the hibernal season up to a month later than continental climates. Conversely, prevernal and vernal seasons begin up to a month earlier near oceanic and coastal areas. For example, prevernal crocus blooms typically appear as early as February in coastal areas of British Columbia, the British Isles, but generally don't appear until March or April in locations like the Midwest USA or parts of eastern Europe. The actual dates for each season vary by climate region and can shift from one year to the next. Average dates listed here are for mild and cool temperate climate zones in the Northern Hemisphere:
Prevernal (early or pre-spring): Begins February (mild temperate), to March (cool temperate). Deciduous tree buds begin to swell. Some types of migrating birds fly from winter to summer habitats.
(early or pre-spring): Begins February (mild temperate), to March (cool temperate). Deciduous tree buds begin to swell. Some types of migrating birds fly from winter to summer habitats. Vernal (spring): Begins mid March (mild temperate), to late April (cool temperate). Tree buds burst into leaves. Birds establish territories and begin mating and nesting.
(spring): Begins mid March (mild temperate), to late April (cool temperate). Tree buds burst into leaves. Birds establish territories and begin mating and nesting. Estival (high summer): Begins June in most temperate climates. Trees in full leaf. Birds hatch and raise offspring.
(high summer): Begins June in most temperate climates. Trees in full leaf. Birds hatch and raise offspring. Serotinal (late summer): Generally begins mid to late August. Deciduous leaves begin to change color in higher latitude locations (above 45 north). Young birds reach maturity and join other adult birds preparing for autumn migration. The traditional "harvest season" begins by early September.
(late summer): Generally begins mid to late August. Deciduous leaves begin to change color in higher latitude locations (above 45 north). Young birds reach maturity and join other adult birds preparing for autumn migration. The traditional "harvest season" begins by early September. Autumnal (autumn): Generally begins mid to late September. Tree leaves in full color then turn brown and fall to the ground. Birds migrate back to wintering areas.
(autumn): Generally begins mid to late September. Tree leaves in full color then turn brown and fall to the ground. Birds migrate back to wintering areas. Hibernal (winter): Begins December (mild temperate), November (cool temperate). Deciduous trees are bare and fallen leaves begin to decay. Migrating birds settled in winter habitats.
Indigenous ecological [ edit ]
Indigenous people in polar, temperate and tropical climates of northern Eurasia, the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and Australia have traditionally defined the seasons ecologically by observing the activity of the plants, animals and weather around them. Each separate tribal group traditionally observes different seasons determined according to local criteria that can vary from the hibernation of polar bears on the arctic tundras to the growing seasons of plants in the tropical rainforests. In Australia, some tribes have up to eight seasons in a year,[10] as do the Sami people in Scandinavia. Many indigenous people who no longer live directly off the land in traditional often nomadic styles, now observe modern methods of seasonal reckoning according to what is customary in their particular country or region.
The Noongar people of South-West Western Australia recognise maar-keyen bonar[23], or six seasons. Each season's arrival is heralded not by a calendar date, but by environmental factors[24] such as changing winds, flowering plants, temperature and migration patterns and lasts approximately two standard calendar months. The seasons also correlate to aspects of the human condition, intrinsically linking the lives of the people to the world that surrounds them and also dictating their movements, as with each season, various parts of country would be visited which were particularly abundant or safe from the elements.[25]
Noongar season Approximate Months Cultural Parallel Birak (First Summer) December to January Season of the Young Bunuru (Second Summer) February to March Season of Adolescence Djeran (Autumn) April to May Season of Adulthood Makuru (The First Rains) June to July Fertility Season Djilba (The Second Rains) August to September Season of Conception Kambarang (Wildflower Season) October to November Season of Birth
The timing and feel of the seasons has been noted as having changed due to the current trends in climate change.
The North American Cree and possibly other Algonquian speaking peoples used or still use a 6 season system. The extra two seasons denoting the freezing and breaking up of the ice on rivers and lakes.[26]
Cree season Approximate months English translation Pipon Jan/Feb Winter Sekwun Mar/Apr Break-up Mithoskumin May/Jun Spring Nepin Jul/Aug Summer Tukwakin Sep/Oct Autumn Mikiskaw Nov/Dec Freeze-up
Tropical [ edit ]
Wet and dry seasons
In the tropics, where seasonal dates also vary, it is more common to speak of the rainy (or wet, or monsoon) season versus the dry season. For example, in Nicaragua the dry season (November to April) is called'summer' and the rainy season (May to October) is called 'winter', even though it is located in the northern hemisphere. In some tropical areas a three-way division into hot, rainy, and cool season is used. There is no noticeable change in the amount of sunlight at different times of the year. However, many regions (such as the northern Indian ocean) are subject to monsoon rain and wind cycles.
Floral and animal activity variation near the equator depends more on wet/dry cycles than seasonal temperature variations, with different species flowering (or emerging from cocoons) at specific times before, during, or after the monsoon season. Thus, the tropics are characterized by numerous "mini-seasons" within the larger seasonal blocks of time.
In the tropical parts of Australia in the northern parts of Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, wet and dry seasons are observed in addition to or in place of temperate season names.[27]
Polar [ edit ]
Any point north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle will have one period in the summer called 'polar day' when the sun does not set, and one period in the winter called 'polar night' when the sun does not rise. At progressively higher latitudes, the maximum periods of "midnight sun" and "polar night" are progressively longer.
For example, at the military and weather station Alert located at 82°30′05″N and 62°20′20″W, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, Canada (about 450 nautical miles or 830 km from the North Pole), the sun begins to peek above the horizon for minutes per day at the end of February and each day it climbs higher and stays up longer; by 21 March, the sun is up for over 12 hours. On 6 April the sun rises at 0522 UTC and remains above the horizon until it sets below the horizon again on 6 September at 0335 UTC. By October 13 the sun is above the horizon for only 1 hour 30 minutes and on October 14 it does not rise above the horizon at all and remains below the horizon until it rises again on 27 February.[28]
First light comes in late January because the sky has twilight, being a glow on the horizon, for increasing hours each day, for more than a month before the sun first appears with its disc above the horizon. From mid-November to mid-January, there is no twilight.
In the weeks surrounding 21 June, in the northern polar region, the sun is at its highest elevation, appearing to circle the sky there without going below the horizon. Eventually, it does go below the horizon, for progressively longer periods each day until around the middle of October, when it disappears for the last time until the following February. For a few more weeks, "day" is marked by decreasing periods of twilight. Eventually, from mid-November to mid-January, there is no twilight and it is continuously dark. In mid January the first faint wash of twilight briefly touches the horizon (for just minutes per day), and then twilight increases in duration with increasing brightness each day until sunrise at end of February, then on 6 April the sun remains above the horizon until mid October.
See also [ edit ]
Seasons portal
Seasons portal Indian summer
Persephone, Greek mythological figure associated with the rebirth of vegetation in the spring
Sun path
Vertumnus, Roman god of the seasons
References [ edit ]For the longest time everybody was sure who the first NFL head coach to get fired in 2016 would be. Almost nobody thought the name Mike McCoy.
Most of the predictions hovered around Rex Ryan in Buffalo and Jeff Fisher in Los Angeles. After all neither has made the playoffs yet with their current teams. They also started out the seasons poorly. The Rams were shutout 21-0 by the lowly 49ers. Buffalo lost back-to-back heartbreakers to the Ravens and Jets. It just goes to show that things can change so fast in a matter of a few weeks in the NFL.
Then there is McCoy. After getting the Chargers to the playoffs in 2013, posting a 9-7 record in 2014, he is suddenly on the chopping block. His 4-12 season in 2015 helped to enhance those cries and a 1-3 start to 2016 isn’t helping. Like last year his roster has undergone a ridiculous string of injuries including the loss of wide receiver Keenan Allen for the season. Such things are out of a coaches’ control. Still McCoy is the man in charge and must shoulder the blame when the team loses.
Not only is there a belief he could be fired within the next couple weeks if it continues, but there are whispers it almost happened already. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network has more.
“According to sources informed of the situation, McCoy now faces a critical two-game stretch, one that could decide his future. San Diego travels to Oakland to play the Raiders on Sunday, then hosts the Broncos on Thursday. If it goes poorly, hard decisions could be made quickly. Based on the schedule (and the need to get the team ready on a short week) it’s highly unlikely a change would be made after Sunday. But two poor performances, coupled with the team already blowing fourth-quarter, double-digit leads against the Chiefs and Saints, could mean bad news for McCoy. In fact, some in the Chargers’ building thought a change would be made after the Saints loss, sources said.”
McCoy has done everything in his power to help the Chargers win. They had a chance in every game they’ve played this season. By rights they were mere minutes away from being 4-0 had their defense been able to hold the lead. That issue was compounded by another thing out of McCoy’s control.
The contract standoff between the Chargers front office and 1st round pick Joey Bosa. Combined with the ongoing threat of a possible franchise move to a new city? It’s hard for a head coach to win with so many distractions. Yet that is where things stand. Maybe not entirely fair for Mike McCoy under the circumstances. Even so, if they came close to firing him already, odds are he’ll be out sooner than later.Kansas City quarterback Alex Smith threw for 368 yards and four touchdowns and rookie running back Kareem Hunt gained 148 yards on the ground and scored three touchdowns (one rushing, two receiving) as Kansas City rolled to a 42-27 win against the New England Patriots in each team's season-opener Thursday night at Gillette Stadium.
On a night when the Patriots celebrated their fifth Super Bowl win, Kansas City's offense rolled up 537 yards and scored six touchdowns, the most yards ever given up by a team coached by Bill Belichick.
Smith completed 28-of-35 passes for 368 yards and he finished with a rating of 148.3 as Kansas City scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to break open the game. Hunt caught five passes for 98 yards and two touchdowns.
New England quarterback Tom Brady completed 16-of-36 passes for 267 yards and he was sacked three times in the game. Running back Mike Gillislee scored three touchdowns.
PREGAME
Tom Brady will be a closely watched quarterback during the 2017 regular season. The scrutiny begins when seemingly ageless Brady leads the New England Patriots as they begin defense of their Super Bowl title against Kansas City in the regular season opener on Thursday Night Football (5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET, KGW-8, NBC).
Get everything you need to know including the latest score and stats provided above and complete details about how you can watch the game on TV on online provided below.
Brady is coming off one the greatest seasons in his 18-year career, when he threw 28 touchdown passes and just two interceptions during the regular season. He followed up with a historic performance in Super Bowl 51, leading the Patriots on a comeback from a 25-point deficit to win in overtime.
Brady, who turned 40 in August, says he wants to play at least five more years, but the Patriots and others will be watching for any signs of decline. The Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, who suffered a season-ending torn ACL during a preseason game. But have plenty of firepower to help Brady. They traded to acquire wide receiver and former Oregon State star Brandin Cooks and tight end Rob Gronkowski is healthy after he missed the Super Bowl with a back injury.
Kansas City won eight of its last nine games to win the AFC West title, before losing to Pittsburgh in a divisional playoff game. Kansas City coach Andy Reid has led the team to the playoff in three of the four seasons he has been with the team.
Quarterback Alex Smith has won more regular season games than anyone not named Tom Brady or Russell Wilson during the past four seasons, but he doesn't command the same respect as those other two quarterbacks. However, Smith in 1-3 in playoff games and Kansas City fans seem to doubt if Smith is capable of leading the team to the Super Bowl.
Here's everything you need to know to watch the game, or follow along as we bring you the latest score, live updates, photos and video highlights in the comments section below.
What: New England Patriots vs. Kansas City
When: Thursday, Sept. 7, 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET
Where: Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA
TV: KGW-8, NBC
Watch online: You can watch a live stream of the game on gamepass.nfl.com. If the NFL Network is part of your cable package, you can also live stream the game through the NFL app on XBox, Apple TV, or Roku device on your TV.
Local players to watch: New England - WR Brandin Cooks (Oregon State), S Patrick Chung (Oregon), P Ryan Allen (West Salem H.S.), TE Jacob Hollister (Mt. View H.S.). Kansas City - CB Steven Nelson (Oregon State), CB Terrance Mitchell (Oregon), CB Kenneth Acker (Grant High School Generals), WR De'Anthony Thomas (Oregon).
Don't hesitate to jump into the comments and chat with us as the game rolls along.
-- Geoffrey C. Arnold | @geoffreyCarnoldBased on a glitch Pokémon found in Pokémon Yellow.
Encounter video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DB6RN…
For more info: bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wik…_.
Collections based upon eyewitness testimony of encounters. Typical encounter rate is extremely rare, with years between sightings. Vast majority of those encountering ♀. do not survive encounter.
Moveset:
Teleport: Subject appears to move solely through the use of Teleport. Move appears to circumvent common disabling effects that would affect Teleport, such as Shadow Tag. No further testing possible due to subject's sole attack move.
Pain Stare: All sentient beings, Pokémon or Human, in direct line of sight of Pain Stare are paralyzed and frozen in place through apparent psychic/( as of yet unknown?) effects. Pain Stare induces extremely severe and disturbing auditory, visual, and tactile hallucinations, and inducing crippling pain throughout the central nervous systems and sensory organs, with targets rendered completely unaware of outside stimuli of any magnitude. Pain Stare alters the affected target's perception of the passage of time, causing seconds to pass as hours, days, or in prolonged exposure, months. Affected subjects suffer cardiac arrest or loss of consciousness followed by death within 7-10 minutes under direct influence of Pain Stare. No known Pokémon or Human is as of yet shown to be immune to its effects.
Effective Range of Pain Stare is unknown. ♀. has been seen to observe Human trainers at great distances, often disappearing and reappearing at distance as subject attempts to flee. ♀. home location and resting places are unknown, if any, and has appeared throughout various regions over decades. Subject population unknown, however encounter survivors appear to believe that ♀. is the sole specimen of this type based upon memetic 'knowledge' written into their memories during the attack.BOUNTIFUL — He hit the mother lode, but not once did Josh Ferrin even think of laying claim on the more than $45,000 cash that he found in his garage.
In fact, he gave it all back.
"You can't make plans for money like this that's found in a situation like this," Ferrin said. "It just doesn't feel right to do anything but give it back."
Within an hour of closing on his first home, Josh Ferrin, an artist for the Deseret News, used the keys to take his first official look inside.
You can't make plans for money like this that's found in a situation like this. It just doesn't feel right to do anything but give it back." -Josh Ferrin, Bountiful homeowner
While taking it all in, he noticed a tiny scrap of carpet peeking out of a small door in the ceiling of a workshop at the back of the garage. He got a ladder and climbed up to explore the unseen space. It was dark and musty, but Ferrin could see a black metal box sitting there.
It was a heavy metal box — the kind used to haul ammunition during World War II — and it was filled with cash, old stamps, bond certificates and other random memorabilia.
"I immediately closed it, locked it in my truck and called my wife. 'You won't believe what I just found,'" he said. Tara Ferrin immediately knew the couple had to return the money to its rightful owners.
However, Arnold Bangerter, the former homeowner, passed away in November 2010 and his youngest son, Dennis Bangerter, the executor of Bangerter's estate, had just signed the 1950s red-brick rambler away.
"When we were thinking about selling the house, I thought that now was a good time and we needed to get it ready," he said. "I had the feeling that it could be hard, but if the right family came along, it would sell quickly."
He said he knew the Ferrins were "a good family" from the moment he met them. Dennis Bangerter said he wished they could have met his father.
"Going through those boxes, I felt like I had a peek into his life," Josh Ferrin said about the man who left the surprising find. "This is a beautiful outcome and it feels good to be a part of it. It's a rare opportunity to be able to do something extraordinarily honest."
Lincoln and his father, Josh Ferrin, who recently closed on a new home, unloads bags of money and ammo boxes to turn over to Dennis and Kay Bangerter (not pictured), sons of the former owner at the home in Bountiful Wednesday, May 18, 2011. Ferrin found the stash of money in the attic over the garage, two hours after he took ownership of the home.
Arnold Bangerter, an fisheries biologist for the former Utah Department of Fish and Game, had purchased the home in 1966 and lived there with his wife, who died in 2005.
The Ferrins felt right about buying the home from the moment they walked inside, and a giant sequoia redwood tree in the backyard sealed the deal. Little did they know they'd be getting so much more.
"It's a story that will outlast our generation and probably yours as well," Kay Bangerter, the oldest of the Bangerter's six children, said Wednesday. He wasn't all that surprised at the money, as he had previously found cash taped to the bottom of a chest of drawers left in his father's home, albeit in much smaller amounts.
"He grew up in hard times and people that survived that era didn't have anything when they came out of it unless they saved it themselves," he said. "He was a saver, not a spender."
No one knows when Arnold Bangerter started stashing the cash, but the bills and coins found in the garage are dated back to the 1970s and 1980s.
One-, five-, 10- and 20-dollar bills had been meticulously coiled in bundles of hundreds and five-hundreds. Nearly every roll was wrapped with a tiny bit of twine. Ferrin hauled eight ammo boxes out of the crawl space. The boxes also contained a plastic bag of large bullets and a hand-written note that reads: "I was born on a lousy day."
It took at least three hours for the Ferrins to sort and count the new-found cash, all the while teaching a lesson of honesty to their two young sons, who wanted to keep "just one" of the bundles and kept trying to slip coins into their pockets.
"The house needs some work," Josh Ferrin said. "I could use the $45,000 for remodeling, but he didn't save that money for us. He saved it for his family."
Josh Ferrin said he "felt guided" to the house, which was one of at least two others they considered buying in the area. He also felt guided to that money.
They'll be fixing up the home before they officially move in and in the meantime, life will go on just as it did before discovering a small fortune.
"I never considered the money mine," Josh Ferrin said. "You can't allow yourself to think like that."
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Written by Wendy Leonard with contributions from Sarah Dallof.
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PhotosThere are those who perennially insist that Apple has 'lost its touch', or that it just doesn't have the same appeal that it once did, or that people are starting to realise that there are better products out there, or... whatever.
Despite these ramblings, Apple just keeps on raking in cash at an absolutely phenomenal pace, and every time it launches a new device, we're reminded of its immense appeal among consumers of all ages, as people queue - sometimes for days - to get their hands on one.
Those who still insist that the Apple brand has lost its lustre will probably want to stick their heads in the sand right about now. For the third consecutive year, Apple has been voted the UK's coolest brand, beating Aston Martin and Nike, which came in second and third places respectively.
The UK CoolBrands index is independently assessed by The Centre for Brand Analysis, and is based both on the opinions of a panel of experts and 'influencers' - including the likes of fashion designer Julien Macdonald OBE, actress Sadie Frost, model Jodie Kidd and singer Charlie XCX - and on votes cast by a sample of 'ordinary' Brits. Factors including style, innovation, originality, 'authenticity', desirability and uniqueness are those that define a 'CoolBrand'.
Google wasn't too far behind Apple in the 2014/15 CoolBrands list, slotting in at number 6, just ahead of YouTube in 7th place, which is also a Google brand, of course. Netflix made its way onto the list for the first time this year, making an impressive debut at number 10.
Instagram also made its first appearance on the list in 14th place - particularly interesting, given that rival social network Twitter has now been dropped from the top-20 list for the first time in three years. Here's the full list:
Apple Aston Martin Nike Chanel Glastonbury Google YouTube Dom Perignon Rolex Netflix Bang & Olufsen Ray-Ban Alexander McQueen Instagram Bose Liberty Selfridges Sony Virgin Atlantic Stella McCartney
Stephen Cheliotis, spokesperson for CoolBrands, said that "this year's rankings illustrate that a solid reputation is hard to undermine or, in the case of rivals, overcome" - a reference to the numerous brands that have remained in the top-20 for several years.
However, he added that "it was refreshing to see unique and original brands such as Instagram and Netflix join the top 20. Both have had an impact on the market, shaking up the status quo and forcing rivals to up the ante."
It doesn't look like Apple should be too worried about losing its top spot though. Cheliotis said that Apple "continues to dominate the listing and remains untouchable for now."
Source: CoolBrands via The GuardianOn Tuesday, we told you that Microsoft was planning on testing Windows 10 with power users sporting the Android powered Xiaomi Mi 4. Xiaomi is assisting Microsoft with the tests although it stresses that it is not partnering with Microsoft. Further details about the testing reveal that the version of Windows 10 being used will override the Android OS that comes out of the box with the Mi 4.The end result with the testing is a Windows 10 flavored Xiaomi Mi 4 that features all of Microsoft's mobile services. Consider this a simple customization of an Android device with the Xiaomi Mi 4 user opting to install a ROM containing Windows 10 instead of Cyanogen, for example. This ROM allows the Android user to have close to a native Windows 10 experience on his phone, which Microsoft hopes will be so positive that the Android user switches to Windows 10.Xiaomi's handset is just the first being tested. Eventually, Microsoft hopes to have similar ROMs available for other Android phones down the road. The company picked Xiaomi first because its customers provide feedback religiously on Xiaomi's weekly software updates.source: TechCrunchWhat investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson told me about vaccines
by Jon Rappoport
February 10, 2015
NoMoreFakeNews.com
“The complete failure of this year’s flu vaccine, even by conventional standards, is a major scandal at the CDC. To distract the press and public, we now have a fake epidemic of measles, and pressure to take the vaccine, take all vaccines all the time. This is called a psyop. Psyops build fake realities.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)
As my readers know, I’ve written many articles about vaccines, covering: mandatory shots; the pseudoscience of vaccination; severe adverse effects; poisons in shots; disastrous vaccination campaigns, and so on.
This article is about something else. It’s about who is allowed to speak fully in mainstream media.
If truth were the objective of news, you would see reasoned debates between pro and anti-vax proponents on major networks—-but that’s a joke because no reasoned debates are permitted on any sensitive subject.
When it comes to vaccines, major media are all about “what doctors tell us.” If I may be so bold, who cares what doctors say?
Who cares?
Why are doctors a privileged class? Why do they get a free pass?
Let’s see…oh yes, it’s because government and drug companies back them up. The last time I looked, this has nothing to do with the truth.
It has to do with monopoly, though.
“I’m a doctor, and of course I’m pro-vaccine.”
“Welcome, Doctor, good to have you on the show.”
Or: “I’m not a doctor.”
“Sorry, you’re out.”
Or: “I’m a doctor, and I’m against vaccines.”
“You’re suffering from a mental disorder, Doctor, and you’re a traitor to your profession and a threat to the future of the human race.”
Media construct this premise: the pro-vaccine “experts” are truthtellers, and the people who question vaccines are “denialists.” That’s how the issue is framed. Ahead of time. On purpose.
The millions of brainwashed people who watch the news every night and genuflect and live inside that dream are content to believe “the good doctors.” They have to believe someone, because they have no opinion of their own. They don’t have the tools to form a reasoned opinion. If a doctor told them that four shots of bull sperm would protect their children from a virus floating in from the Orion Belt, they’d line up their kiddies at clinics and drug stores for the “free” jab.
An anti-vaccine reporter at a local TV station once told me she’d been labeled “trouble.” She wasn’t permitted to air any vaccine story, for fear that through word or gesture she might trigger a scandal.
Part of that scandal? Scores of viewers would contact the station and side with the anti-vaccine reporter. The execs knew those viewers were out there and were also “trouble.”
On August 27, 2014, a long-time researcher at the CDC, William Thompson, confessed in print that he and his colleagues had cooked a vital vaccine study to “prove” the MMR vaccine had no connection to autism…when in fact that was a lie. The vaccine did have a connection.
A media storm should have followed. A respected researcher coming out of the woodwork and saying, “I lied”? That’s a huge story for major media and medical media.
But? There was a virtual blackout on the story. There still is.
The vaccine establishment must be protected.
In the fall of 2009, Sharyl Attkisson, working at CBS News, blew the doors open on a huge Swine Flu scandal at the CDC:
The CDC, whose job it was to accurately report the number of Swine Flu cases in the US, had stopped counting. Stopped counting.
Why? Because the overwhelming number of blood samples from diagnosed or likely Swine Flu patients, coming back from testing labs, showed these people didn’t have Swine Flu or any flu.
That fact torpedoed the entire CDC propaganda- fear campaign aimed at convincing Americans to take the Swine Flu vaccine.
So…Sharyl Attkisson’s effort to move this story from the CBS News website on to the national nightly-news television broadcast was shot down.
Here is a piece from a 2014 interview I did with Attkisson:
Q: In 2009, you spearheaded coverage of the so-called Swine Flu pandemic. You discovered that, in the summer of 2009, the Centers for Disease Control, ignoring their federal mandate, stopped counting Swine Flu cases in America. Yet they continued to stir up fear about the “pandemic,” without having any real measure of its impact. Wasn’t that another investigation of yours that was shut down? Wasn’t there more to find out?
A: The implications of the story were even worse than that. We discovered through our FOI efforts that before the CDC mysteriously stopped counting Swine Flu cases, they had learned that almost none of the cases they had counted as Swine Flu was, in fact, Swine Flu or any sort of flu at all! The interest in the story from one [CBS] executive was very enthusiastic. He said it was “the most original story” he’d seen on the whole Swine Flu epidemic. But others pushed to stop it and, in the end, no broadcast wanted to touch it. We aired numerous stories pumping up the idea of an epidemic, but not the one that would shed original, new light on all the hype. It was fair, accurate, legally approved and a heck of a story. With the CDC keeping the true Swine Flu stats secret, it meant that many in the public took and gave their children an experimental vaccine that may not have been necessary.
Q: You’ve revealed serious problems caused by vaccines. Have you run into opposition as a result of covering these stories?
A: This is a long discussion but yes, it is one of the most well funded, well orchestrated efforts I’ve ever seen on a story. Many reporters, if not all, who have tried to factually cover this topic have experienced the same opposition as have researchers who dared to uncover vaccine side effects. Those who don’t want the stories explored want to censor the information from the public entirely, lest the public draw the “wrong” conclusions about the facts. The media has largely bought into the conflicted government, political and medical complex propaganda on the topic that marginalizes researchers, journalists and parents who dare to speak to the scientific facts they’ve uncovered or to their own experiences. It’s a giant scandal of its own.
Q: I know you’ve had problems with your Wikipedia page. What happened there?
A: Long story short: there is a concerted effort by special interests who exploit Wikipedia editing privileges to control my biographical page to disparage my reporting on certain topics and skew the information. Judging from the editing, the interest(s) involved relates to the pharmaceutical/vaccine industry. I am far from alone…
Does that tell you something about the way major media cover vaccine stories?
There is even more.
The staggering capper on this tale? Roughly three weeks after Attkisson’s Swine Flu revelations appeared in print, the CDC, obviously in great distress over the exposure, decided to double down. The best lie to tell would be a huge lie.
Here, from a November 12, 2009, WebMD article is the CDC’s response: “Shockingly, 14 million to 34 million U.S. residents — the CDC’s best guess is 22 million — came down with H1N1 swine flu by Oct. 17 [2009].” (“22 million cases of Swine Flu in US,” by Daniel J. DeNoon)
The CDC had no facts or stats or lab tests to confirm ANY of their reported numbers of Swine Flu cases in America. So they said: 22 MILLION CASES.
But don’t worry. Be happy. Everything the government tells you about disease and the need to take vaccines is perfectly true.
Perfectly, absolutely.
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at NoMoreFakeNews.com or OutsideTheRealityMachine.If you love baseball and history, and love the idea of immersing yourself in both, there is a group looking for more members to help it celebrate vintage baseball.
The Monmouth Furnace "Base Ball" Club, which plays its home games at the Historic Village at Allaire, is looking for more players. The club plays by 1864 rules, with wood bats and without fielding gloves, and plays against other vintage baseball clubs around the tri-state area.
The club is organized by Rich Wieland of Toms River and Frank Siracusa of Manchester.
An information meeting for interested ballplayers will be held at noon on Sunday, Jan. 22 at Café Anna Bella, 1800 Route 34, Wall Township |
made by Kaspersky Lab.
The move came after Bloomberg alleged that the Russian security firm had worked particularly closely with Russia’s spy agency. Kaspersky denies the claims.
Now, Reuters is reporting that the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre [NCSC] has never certified any of Kaspersky’s products. That much is true, but not for the reasons some might think.
In its own words, Kaspersky provides “antivirus & internet security software [that] offers premium protection against viruses, malware, spam & other threats for your home or business”.
NCSC doesn’t certify anti-virus software. A search through its public list of certified products reveals just one from Symantec, a US rival to Kaspersky, and it’s an encryption tool.
When NS Tech asked NCSC about the statement reported by Reuters and followed up by other publications, a spokesperson said: “The NCSC is not a regulator, and does not mandate or ban any products.
“We provide advice and guidance on how organisations can protect their networks. Our certification schemes do not currently cover anti-virus or anti-malware services.
“Kaspersky, like any other supplier, is welcome to participate in NCSC certifications. We welcome engagement from all industry partners as we develop and improve our initiatives.”
Kaspersky Lab’s Adam Maskatiya reiterated the message: “The NCSC is not a regulator and they do not certify anti-virus products.
“We work closely with public sector across the world and where required with regulatory and certification bodies.”
The US government’s General Services Administration (GSA) removed Kaspersky from its list of approved vendors last week.
It followed a Bloomberg report alleging the firm had built tools that captured information about hackers which could then be passed on to Russian intelligence services.
In a statement refuting claims at the time, the firm said:
“Regardless of how the facts are misconstrued to fit in with a hypothetical, false theory, Kaspersky Lab, and its executives, do not have inappropriate ties with any government. The company does regularly work with governments and law enforcement agencies around the world with the sole purpose of fighting cybercrime.”Since there is still some confusion over the material from Dick Cheney’s interview with Patrick Fitzgerald that, DOJ says, cannot be made public, I decided to provide a more detailed description of what was in the interview with handy links for any media outlets that are too busy selling access to lobbyists to do their own work. What follows are the page-specific references in the DOJ FOIA response to material that appears in the FBI report of the interview. That document is 28 pages long, total, so this is a pretty good outline of what’s in the interview. I treat information that appears on the same page together, so a couple of these descriptions cover a number of separate issues raised in the filing.
Vice President’s discussion of the substance of a conversation he had with the Director of the CIA concerning the decision to send Ambassador Wilson on a fact-finding mission to Niger in 2002. (Page 3, lines 15-17, 21-28); The name of a covert CIA employee (Page 3)
As you recall, Libby first learned of Valerie Plame’s covert identity from a conversation with Dick Cheney some time during the week of June 9, 2003. He recorded his conversation with Cheney in a note which was a central focus of Libby’s grand jury testimony. When asked, Libby said Cheney may have learned of Valerie’s status from Tenet. And, when Fitzgerald was questioning Libby about Cheney’s notations on Joe Wilson’s op-ed, Libby explained that Cheney had asked Tenet earlier in June or July about the CIA sending ambassadors to gather information.
Q. When the Vice President asked you the question, "have they done this type of thing before," question to that effect, Vice — did the Vice President ever ask you has the Agency ever done this sort of thing before where an ambassador was sent out? A. I think he may have at some point. Q. And what did you do in response to that question, if anything? A. I don’t know if I did anything particularly about it. I think he may have taken it up with, with Tenet rather than asking me. [snip] Q. What did he talk to the official that you do know he talked about? A. About, you know, how this came about. I have a sense that he had talked to Tenet or somebody about, about that. Q. And what time frame was that? A. Summer, June, July, something like that.
In other words, this conversation appears to be the conversation Cheney had during the week of June 9 in which he learned of Plame’s identity. That makes the reference to "a covert CIA employee’s identity" all the more interesting. While that might be a reference to Valerie’s colleague who first suggested sending Joe, it might well be a reference to Valerie herself. While we know the CIA still wants to hide details of Plame’s career, it would be the height of absurdity if CIA tried to prevent us from seeing Fitzgerald ask Cheney about Plame.
In any case, DOJ is probably attempting to prevent us from learning of Cheney’s account of how he learned of Plame’s identity before he passed it on to Scooter Libby.
Names of a foreign government and liaison services. (Pages 2, 7, 9)
The names of foreign governments appear just before the discussion of Cheney’s conversation with Tenet and before the discussion of the oppo research OVP did the week of June 9, 2003. This means discussions of Niger is almost certainly one of the countries mentioned, but a discussion of the Niger claim more generally may have elicited a discussion of the British White Paper (to which the uranium claim in the State of the Union was purportedly attributed) and Italy, where the forgeries came from.
Vice President’s discussion of his requests for information from the CIA relating to reported efforts by Iraqi officials to purchase uranium from Niger. (Page 6, lines 30-33, 39-40); Name of a CIA briefer. (Page 6, line 41); The methods CIA uses to assess and evaluate intelligence and inform policy makers. (Pages 6, 16, 17)
On February 13, 2002, Cheney asked his briefer, David Terry, for an assessment of the report that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from Africa. The following day, CIA provided Cheney with a review of the Niger claims and told him clandestine services would seek additional information. This information–along with Terry’s name–has already been made public in significant part.
Then, on June 9, 2003, apparently in response to Bush voicing concern about Joe Wilson’s then-anonymous Niger allegations, OVP made multiple requests for information from CIA. Libby asked his briefer, Craig Schmall, for information during the briefing. Schmall later gave Libby verbal assurances that there was no record that OVP knew of Wilson’s report, then faxed over a bunch of information (including the earlier tasking). That same day, Hannah wrote a memo summarizing all the information from CIA. Some time in the next day, Cheney presented a story that, by that point, he should have known was inaccurate to John McLaughlin at CIA, along with some questions.
The VP apparently heard the below story and had questions on it. The DDCI needs a response before his noon meeting tomorrow (Wednesday [June 11]) with the VP, so if you could get back to me by 1000 or 1100 tomorrow, I’d appreciate it. Thanks a million. Story: In Februay 2002, CIA received an initial report of a shipment of uranium from Niger to Chad [sic]. Former Ambassador to Cameroon [sic] Joe Wilson (an old friend of the Agency and former Charge d’Affaires in Baghdad) was supposedly sent by CIA to Niger to investigate the story. He did so, and he concluded that there was no truth to it. Wilson said that he was debriefed by a CIA case officer who flew in (to where is unclear) [redacted]. VP Questions: Is this story true? Do we have a chronological account of the above events? What is the nature of Wilson’s relationship with CIA? What exactly did Wilson report to us? Was this in a reporting cable [redacted] (if it was, can somebody send me a copy of it? Will you also send me a copy of the intel? [redacted] Didn’t the Brits come out with a similar report detailing a Niger-Iraq uranium connection? [redacted]
And, as noted above, Cheney also, apparently, spoke directly with Tenet.
Then, having received information from Schmall, McLaughlin, and probably Tenet, Libby called Robert Grenier while he was meeting with Cheney and Cathie Martin to ask the same questions.
Now, the reference in the DOJ filing may just relate to Cheney’s February 2002 request. Or, it may relate to the relentless requests from OVP to CIA the week of June 9, 2003 which resulted in Cheney learning of Plame’s identity and passing it on to Libby. But in any case, much of this information–along with the names of the two CIA briefers involved–has already been made public.
DOJ, however, doesn’t want Americans to see whether Cheney’s version of all this matches that presented in detail at trial.
Description of a confidential conversation between the Vice President and the President. (Page 12, lines 9-11) [Also, FBI notes on "apparent communication between Vice President and President" on interview outline]
The "conversation between the Vice President and the President" could be one of several things; Fitzgerald did ask, for example, whether Libby’s notation of Bush’s concern about the Niger allegations on June 9, 2003 came through Cheney, and (as I’ll show), Scottie McClellan believes Cheney spoke to Bush personally about exonerating Libby.
But the most likely conversation in question pertains to whether and how Bush authorized Cheney to insta-declassify a range of materials to rebut Joe Wilson. Of particular note, Libby described Cheney reassuring him that he had talked to Bush about insta-declassifying material that Libby subsequently leaked to Judy Miller and others.
Q. And do you know when the Vice President talked to the President to get the permission for you to discuss this with the press and in effect in your mind declassify the document? A. No, sir. Q. And were you present for that conversation? A. No sir. Q. What did the Vice President tell you about that conversation? A. He told me he had talked to the President and we should go ahead and, you know, talk to the press about the Q. And do you know if the Vice President told the President what the legal issue was in terms of sharing (classified information? A. I don’t know what happened in that conversation. But the Vice President knew that we needed to have the President’s authority to talk about the document, or that section of the [NIE]. [snip] Q. And do you know if the Vice President and the President talked about it in person or by telephone? A. I don’t know.
This was a conversation which Fitzgerald asked Libby about numerous times, one which went directly to the issue of whether Cheney’s orders to Libby to leak information were legal or not. So it is likely that Fitzgerald asked Cheney about this directly.
But DOJ doesn’t want us to know whether or not the President of the United States authorized his Vice President to insta-declassify a bunch of information, up to and possibly including a CIA officer’s identity, or whether the Fourth Branch just made that decision on his own.
Names of non-governmental third-parties and details of their extraneous interactions with the Vice President. (Page 14, lines 25-28, 29, 33-34, 36)
While we can’t be sure, it is likely Fitzgerald asked Cheney about his direct contacts with journalists, particularly Andrea Mitchell, with whom Cheney dined (at a dinner honoring Mitchell’s husband, Alan Greensppan, and President Ford) just before Mitchell called Joe Wilson and told him the White House had told her "the story" was Wilson’s wife. Cheney may have also had contacts with other journalists that–so long as he maintained that Plame and Wilson didn’t come up–might be described as "extraneous interactions" with Cheney.
Vice President’s recollection of the substance of his discussions with the National Security Advisor while she was on a trip to Africa. (Page 15, lines 17-21); Vice President’s description of government deliberations, including discussions between the Vice President and the Deputy National Security Advisor, in preparation of a statement by the Director of CIA regarding the accuracy of a statement in the President’s 2003 State of the Union Address. (Page 15, line 28 – page 16, line 2; page 16, lines 14-18, 25-33)
There are various reports of how, when Wilson’s op-ed came out, there was a squabble between NSC and CIA over who would take responsibility for the 16 words in the State of the Union. At first (according to reports), Condi accepted she would have to share responsibility for the 16 words with the CIA. But some time along the way, Condi changed her mind and publicly blamed Tenet for it all. After which, in a public statement, Tenet took some responsibility while at the same time making it clear that CIA was not entirely to blame.
We know a substantial amount of the negotiations that went into this. Both Libby (in his grand jury testimony) and Cathie Martin (in her trial testimony) described the process. In addition, we’ve got two documents that describe Cheney’s role directly.
Notably, Libby took notes during a July 10, 2003 meeting between himself, Cheney, and McLaughlin. Libby quotes Cheney as saying, "Anything less than full and complete disclosure is a serious mistake." Libby’s notes include a "CP"–Libby’s abbreviation for CounterProliferation and/or Colin Powell–written in the margin next to Hadley’s statement, "Wilson is declassified." And he records Hadley passing along the news from Condi that she "spoke to [the President], he’s comfortable."
In addition, we have the draft of Tenet’s statement received by the White House. In what appears to be Cheney’s handwriting, the statement is marked "unsatisfactory."
In other words, it’s clear that Cheney was pushing CIA for greater disclosure in these negotiations, that he was pissed at Tenet, and some of his precise statements have been revealed already.
What hasn’t been revealed are details his conversation with Condi Rice. I suspect–though it’s just a guess–that Cheney convinced Condi to back off any admission that NSC was to blame for the 16 words. Ultimately, we know that even with Condi blaming Tenet, Cheney was still unsatisfied.
But DOJ doesn’t want to flesh out this picture.
Vice President’s recollection of discussions with Lewis Libby, the White House Communications Director, and the White House Chief of Staff regarding the appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a CIA employee. (Page 23, lines 29-40)
As I explained the other day, the reference to "White House Communications Director" (that is, Dan Bartlett) and the reference to discussions of an "appropriate response to media inquiries about the source of the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a CIA employee" make it clear that this discussion pertains to the meat-grinder note, and Cheney’s intervention to make sure Scottie McClellan exonerated Libby in the same way he had exonerated Rove.
Libby described the events this way in his grand jury apearance.
Q. Did you seek the Vice President’s help to make sure that Andy Card got the message that this is something you’d really like to have happen? A. At some point I did. Q. And what did you do? A. Told him that I thought it was unfair that they had — Scott McClellan had said something about Karl Rove and not something about me since I didn’t talk to Novak either. And — or I shouldn’t say either. Since I was not, I was not the source of the leak to Novak, and told him that I, I thought, you know, it should be fixed. What I can’t remember whether I had this conversation with him the first time I got rejected or the second time. I’m pretty sure I had that conversation with him at some point. You know, it could be that the second time they just did it without his, without his intervening, and the first time they didn’t. I just — I
don’t t recall. Q. Do you recall if the Vice president ever picked up the phone and called back to Card or McClellan and let them know that this was something he wanted to see happen? A. I hope he did. I don’t recall that I ever — and he may have told me that he had, I just don’t recall whether it was the first time and we failed or the second time and we succeeded. I don’t, I don’t remember.
And David Addington described learning from Dan Bartlett that Cheney had made that call.
I had a conversation not too many days [after McClellan exonerated Libby] with Dan Bartlett, who was then the assistant to the President for communications. And by this point, something had been said–I frankly don’t remember what–again, by the press office, and it included Mr. Libby this time. And I made the comment to Mr. Bartlett, you know, I don’t know why you are making these statements about, you know, this case–and I will explain why in a second. But his reaction was, "Well, your boss is the one that wanted us to do it." And then I shut up.
Finally, Scott McClellan describes his understanding of what happened in his book.
That Saturday, October 4, was a relaxed, casual morning for me as I lounged around my single-bedroom, downtown apartment reading the Washington Post and the New York Times. [snip] The call from Andy Card came around 8:30 A.M. "The president and vice president spoke this morning. They want you to give the press the same assurance for Scooter that you gave for Karl. (217)
In short, we have Cheney’s talking points regarding this issue in his own handwriting, and multiple pieces of first-hand testimony describing how Cheney intervened to have Libby exonerated. There is, admittedly, some discrepancy over whether Cheney called Card, Bartlett, or Bush directly.
That’s precisely the kind of discrepancy that Cheney’s FBI interview might clarify. But DOJ claims that–even with all this public information about the incident–the information is still protected from FOIA.
Vice President’s description of his role in resolving disputes about whether to declassify certain information. (Page 25, line 39 – page 26, line 1); Vice President’s description of government deliberations involving senior officials regarding whether to declassify portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate. (Page 26, lines 8-10, 14-17, 24-26)
As I pointed out the other day, DOJ describes two discussions pertaining to declassification, though the first–about Cheney’s "role in resolving disputes about whether to declassify certain information"–shortly precedes the discussion about "deliberations involving senior officials regarding whether to declassify portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate." Now this almost certainly relates to two things. First, to Libby’s claim that Cheney ordered him to leak the NIE to Judy Miller on July 8. Fitzgerald would have been probing when Cheney claimed the NIE had been declassified–and whether it was actually the NIE or other materials (such as the report from Wilson’s trip) and/or Plame’s identity itself.
By the time Fitzgerald did this interview on May 8, 2004, he knew several things that undercut Libby’s claim that the super special leak he made to Judy was the NIE. Fitz knew already that Scooter Libby discussed the NIE with David Sanger on July 2, with Cathie Martin present and taking notes. He knew Cheney had told Cathie Martin to leak the NIE more generally. And he knew that Cheney had had Paul Wolfowitz leak the NIE–and the January 24, 2003 excerpt of it–to the Wall Street Journal.
Q. Do you know if you spoke to the Wall Street Journal prior to July 18th about the NIE contents before the July 18th date came around and made the NIE publicly available? A. I did not. Q. Do you know who did? A. Secretary Wolfowitz did.
(Fitz would later learn that Libby leaked the NIE to Woodward in June, but I don’t think he knew that yet.)
And, in addition to the January 24 document, Fitzgerald knew that there were discussions about leaking the report from Wilson’s trip (material from which ended up in Novak’s column). Cheney even made a reference to "Tenet, Wilson, and memo" on the meat-grinder note.
Q. Now, continue on the document, and I’ll just finish off the shortest piece. There’s handwriting on the left that says, appears to say, "Tenet, Wilson and memo,I1 above the three hole punch. A. Yes, sir. Q. And do you know whose handwriting that is? A. Looks like the Vice President’s.
So by the time Fitz conducted this interview, he knew Libby’s claim that the special leak to Judy was the NIE was problematic, since OVP was leaking the NIE left and right by then and since there was a lot more OVP was leaking.
Then there was the other problem. Libby claims Bush insta-declassified the NIE to leak to Judy (and only Judy), but he admitted that in the repeated discussions of declassifying the NIE during and after leak week, neither Libby nor Cheney ever told others they had already insta-declassified it.
Q. And going up to July 18th, is it fair to say that there were a number of different conversations within the administration about declassifying the NIE? A. Yes sir. Q. And during those conversations did you ever tell any of the other people that in fact the President had already declassified the NIE in your mind? A. No, sir. Q. And in your presence did the Vice President ever tell these other people that you understood that the NIE had already been declassified? A. No, sir. Q. And as far as you know, was the CIA or Director Tenet ever notified that the NIE had been declassified in your mind as of July 8th with regard to those portions concerning uranium? A. No, sir. Q. And were there conversations in which Mr. Hadley discussed declassification of the NIE? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were there conversations where Dr. Rice discussed declassification of the NIE? A. Yes, sir. Q. Were there conversations in which Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff, discussed declassification of the NIE? A. Yes, sir. Q. And during all those conversations it remained unknown to them that in fact you understood that the NIE had already been declassified? A. By the President. Yes, sir. Q. And is it fair to say that on July 10th the Vice President, according to your notes, indicated that he would recommend to the President declassification of the relevant parts of the NIE? A. My recollection is that’s what he was telling Steve Hadley should pass on to Director Tenet, that they wanted to get those portions declassified and then they were declassified. Q. And so in your mind, the Vice President was telling Steve Hadley to tell George Tenet that we, the Office of Vice President, would recommend declassification even though at the time, according to your account, both he and you knew that the NIE had already been declassified? A. Yes, sir. Q. And is it fair to say that in the following conversations during that week there are a number of conversations where people discussed declassification where
you and the Vice President knew that in your mind the President had already authorized you to discuss this with the press? Correct? A. Yes, sir. Q. Was that unusual for you to have the National Security Advisor, Director of Central Intelligence and the White House Chief of Staff, among others, in the dark as to something that you had done regarding declassification?
Fitz is obviously incredulous about this story. It undercuts Libby’s entire story about having been ordered by Cheney to leak the NIE to Judy Miller. Given that this exchange occurred just 45 days before the Cheney interview, it’s highly likely that the questions Fitz asked Cheney about "deliberations" on whether to declassify the NIE probes this bogus story further.
Both aspects of this story–whether the Vice President believed he had the authority to unilaterally and secretly declassify things, and whether it was the NIE or something else he had ordered Libby to leak to Miller–go to the heart of how our government abuses rules on classification and declassification. It’s a story that we, as citizens, need to be able to take on directly.
But DOJ says we can’t get Cheney’s own version of these two incredible stories.Image copyright Getty Images
Plans to get one million more disabled people in work over the next 10 years have been set out by the government.
Ministers say the new strategy will help those with disabilities keep their jobs and progress in their careers.
The new measures include widening the number of people who can issue fitness-to-work notices and additional training for mental health professionals.
Labour's Debbie Abrahams said benefit cuts had already pushed more disabled people towards poverty.
'Tackling injustices'
The pledge comes after ONS figures from June 2017 suggested that disabled people were twice as likely to be unemployed as non-disabled people.
About 80% of non-disabled people are in work compared with just under 50% of disabled people.
Prime Minister Theresa May said a person's life and career "should not be dictated by their disability or health condition".
"Everyone deserves the chance to find a job that's right for them," she added.
"I am committed to tackling the injustices facing disabled people who want to work, so that everyone can go as far as their talents will take them."
The government says in the past four years 600,000 disabled people have found work. However, the disability charity Scope says progress is too slow.
The new strategy includes:
Measures to provide access to personalised support for those with mental health issue
Extending "fit note" certification - which details how a condition affects someone's ability to work - beyond GPs to a wider group of healthcare professionals, including physiotherapists, psychiatrists and senior nurses
Reform statutory sick pay
The 10-year plan builds on a green paper published last year which pledged to halve the so-called disability employment gap.
Employers' attitudes
The government hopes the changes to the fit note system will improve the identification of health conditions and treatments to help workers get back to work quickly.
But some disability activists say the problem lies in employers' attitudes. Mik Scarlet, an inclusion specialist, says he chose to be self-employed after some "disastrous attempts" at getting work.
"Employers have little idea of how beneficial disabled employees can be to a workforce," he said.
"They also don't understand that creating flexible inclusive work systems improves the working environment for all."
Image copyright Getty Images
BBC disability correspondent Nikki Fox said it was not the first time the government had pledged to get more disabled people into work.
However, she said "the employment gap between disabled and non-disabled people has not significantly changed for some years".
Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary, Ms Abrahams, warned the government's plans "hinted at" further cuts.
"The Tories' cuts to social security support are pushing more and more disabled people into poverty," she said.
"The Tories have already hit disabled people who are not fit for work but who may be in the future in the work related activity group.
"I hope they are not going to now target the most disabled people in the support group, as their green paper hinted at."CLOSE A look inside the traffic control tower for the streets of Glendale. Thomas Hawthorne/azcentral
The most important advice: Get there early.
Clemson arrives for practice at Scottsdale Community College in Scottsdale on Dec. 28. 2016. Clemson plays Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl on Dec. 31. (Photo: David Wallace/The Republic)
Up to 80,000 football fans will descend upon Glendale's University of Phoenix Stadium Saturday to watch the Clemson University Tigers and Ohio State University Buckeyes compete for a spot in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
Many fans will board planes or crisscross the nation's highways to make it to the Valley for the game. But their most difficult trek might be the last few miles, as traffic experts predict heavy backups on Loop 101 between Northern Avenue and Camelback Road, and on all of the surrounding surface streets.
That's where Glendale transportation administrator Allan Galicia comes in. He's been working with a team of city officials, law-enforcement agencies and the Arizona Department of Transportation to create a traffic plan that will allow fans to best navigate the freeways and city streets and make it into the stadium before kickoff.
“We've done other events such as the Super Bowl and the College Football Championship, so we're ready for them. We've done it numerous times and — how should I say it? — we've got this.” Glendale transportation administrator Allan Galicia, on the Fiesta Bowl
By noon on Dec. 31, Galicia and his three-person team will be stationed in front of 23 video screens in the back room of a Glendale fire station about 8 miles from University of Phoenix Stadium.
The screens will allow them to zoom in and pan across every square inch of roadway and parking lot surrounding the stadium. If there's a crash, they can call law enforcement on the ground and promptly shift barricades to redirect traffic. If cars back up at a traffic light, they can change the signal timing with a click of a button.
In addition to the video cameras, people positioned atop Gila River Arena will keep watch and report back to Galicia and law enforcement.
"It's almost like in the movies," Galicia said, comparing the operation to a futuristic film.
The Glendale Traffic Management Center operates during all Arizona Cardinals games and other mega-events at the stadium, but the Fiesta Bowl is different. At Cardinals game, the bulk of visitors are season-ticket holders who know how to navigate the parking lots. Instead, they're planning as if all attendees are new to the stadium by installing more signs to help direct traffic, Galicia said.
Allan Galicia, the transportation systems administrator for the city of Glendale, points at screens showing street cameras inside the control room for traffic in Glendale, Ariz., on Dec. 18 2016. (Photo: Thomas Hawthorne/The Republic)
"It can get really crazy," he said.
In addition, he said they're preparing for larger-than-usual crowds, as die-hard fans travel from across the country to watch their teams.
"We've done other events such as the Super Bowl and the College Football Championship, so we're ready for them. We've done it numerous times and — how should I say it? — we've got this," Galicia said, laughing.
He said the best way to ensure a pleasant fan experience is to get to the game early. He said the hours between 1-3 p.m. will see the lightest traffic for people who plan only to attend the game, but visitors are encouraged to arrive even earlier to take advantage of pre-game activities.
A full fan guide with other useful tips is available at FiestaBowl.org. Here's the most important information you need to enjoy the game:
Where:
University of Phoenix Stadium, 1 Cardinals Drive, Glendale
When:
Dec. 31. Gates open at 3 p.m. Kickoff at 5 p.m.
Getting there:
Parking at the stadium: Fans planning to drive and park at University of Phoenix Stadium are encouraged to buy parking passes in advance for $40 at FiestaBowl.org or by calling 480-350-0911. Parking passes will be available at parking-garage entrances on game day, cash only. Directions to the appropriate lot are on the back of the parking pass. Lots will open at 11 a.m. and close one hour after the game. Glendale does not permit parking in neighborhoods near the stadium.
Parking at Westgate: Fans can park at the Westgate Entertainment District, next to the stadium, for free from 9 a.m.-1 p.m., and after 5:15 p.m. From 1 p.m.-5:15 p.m., parking costs $10. Enter from the north off Glendale Avenue via 95th or 93rd avenues. No tailgating is allowed in Westgate lots.
Parking at Tanger Outlet: Fans can park for free at Tanger Outlets, the mall northeast of the stadium, if they arrive between 9 a.m.-1 p.m. From 1 p.m.-5:15 p.m., parking costs $20 at all Tanger lots. No tailgating is allowed in Tanger lots.
Accessible cart services: A free shuttle is available for fans with disabilities and one guest. The golf carts labeled "disabled shuttle" are accessible in any of the parking areas contiguous to the stadium. The only lot north of Maryland Avenue that provides the service is Blue G.
Bicycle parking: Fans using a non-motorized bicycle to get to the game may lock their bike on racks northeast of the stadium along the sidewalk between the Red Preferred and Grey lots.
Tailgating:
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On your own: Tailgating in stadium parking lots is limited to the space directly in front of or behind your vehicle. Fans cannot purchase extra parking passes for tailgating. Alcohol is only allowed in designated tailgating areas. Fans can bring propane or natural-gas grills but not charcoal grills. Glass containers also are prohibited. Private catering or the sale of food or drinks is not allowed. Tailgating is not allowed after the game.
Fiesta Fan Pregame Party: This Fiesta Bowl-sponsored event begins at 11:30 on the Great Lawn, west of the stadium. It is free with a game ticket. Activities include live music, interactive games and pep rallies for both teams. Food and drink (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) are available for purchase.
APS Stadium Club Pregame Party: This event, held in a private area of the Great Lawn, costs $100 and includes an all-you-can-eat buffet and seven drink tickets (non-alcoholic, beer, wine and cocktails). It opens at 11:30 a.m. and features live music and interactive games. Tickets can be purchased by calling 480-350-0911 or at FiestaBowl.org.
Need to know:
Alcohol: Fans cannot bring alcohol into University of Phoenix Stadium. Guests with a valid ID can purchase alcohol inside the stadium until the end of the third quarter.
Re-entry: Fans may not re-enter the building if they leave.
Clear-bag policy: Fans are allowed to bring one clear, plastic, vinyl or PVC tote bag smaller than 12 inches by 12 inches by 6 inches, or a 1 gallon clear, resealable plastic storage bag. In addition, guests are allowed one small clutch bag smaller than 6.5 inches by 4.5 inches. It need not be clear.
Prohibited items: Typical prohibited items — such as firearms, knifes and fireworks — are not allowed in University of Phoenix Stadium. All bags are subject to search upon entry. Other prohibitions include:
External food or beverages (one factory-sealed, non-frozen 500 milliliter bottle of water allowed per person, and food for children under 2).
Signs larger than 3 feet by 2 feet (or any sign with offensive language).
Brooms, poles or sticks.
Cameras with professional photo lenses longer than 8 inches.
Tripods.
Selfie sticks.
Footballs or beach balls.
Laptop computers (tablets permitted).
Laser pointers.
Umbrellas larger than 12 inches long.
Strollers must be checked at the Guest Services Center.
Allan Galicia, the transportation systems administrator for the city of Glendale, points at screens showing street cameras inside the control room for traffic in Glendale, Ariz. on Dec. 18 2016. (Photo: Thomas Hawthorne/The Republic)
Read or Share this story: http://azc.cc/2hvTXTZThe closed-door negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority over the future contours of a Palestinian state, and how much land and settlements Israel will retain, have reportedly come down to a matter of a few percentage points, with both sides agreeing in principle that the majority of Jewish West Bank settlements would be transferred to Israeli sovereignty in a final status deal.
Citing anonymous Israeli, Palestinian and American sources close to the negotiations, Walla News reported on Thursday that Israel is seeking to annex about 10 percent of the West Bank’s land area in a final deal. Meanwhile, the Palestinians are seeking to have Israel annex only around 3% of the West Bank, the report said.
Some 70-80% of Jewish West Bank settlements will be transferred to Israel whether Israel retains 10% or 3% of West Bank land, the report noted. According to a source on the American side, “it is clear” that Israel is “willing in principle to give up” control of 90% of the West Bank.
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According to both Israeli and Palestinian officials cited in the report, the Palestinians have agreed to Israel’s annexation of the Gush Etzion bloc, just south of Jerusalem, but are arguing over the settlements of Efrat and Migdal Oz, which lie east of Route 60, a major north-south road running between Nazareth and Beersheba, through Jerusalem, Hebron and much of the West Bank. Israel is seeking to also retain several of the smaller communities in the immediate area of Ma’ale Adumim, just east of Jerusalem, but the Palestinians have been opposed to such a move, the report said |
what to do in instances of mass terrorist attacks.
Then this week, Ratter reported that a graffiti artist known as VEW created a Star Wars-themed “Anti-ISIS” mural on a wall of the abandoned station to show both antagonism towards ISIS and solidarity with Paris in wake of the recent terrorist attacks.
Thus, despite its abandonment, the Bowery station has not been completely forgotten.
Next, read about 9 other abandoned subway platforms in NYC, 7 abandoned subway stations in NYC, and 20 Abandoned Places in NYC: Asylums, Hospitals, Power Plants, Islands, Forts. Get in touch with the author @sgeier97
abandoned, Bowery Subway StationIn an effort to distance itself further from the troubled MP and his role at the Health Services Union, the government said last night it would legislate to improve the financial disclosure and accountability of unions, increase penalties for breaches of the legislation, ensure future investigations by Fair Work Australia never again take so long, and that the body co-operated with police. "Mr Thomson has provided me with information that is false or misleading in so far as the expenditure of HSU funds on escort services is concerned"... investigator Terry Nassios. Credit:Louie Douvis Mr Thomson, who was recently suspended from the Labor Party, was found by Fair Work Australia to have lied when he denied using his union credit card to procure prostitutes - as first revealed in the Herald. ''I can only conclude that it was indeed Mr Thomson who used his credit card to spend the amount of $5793 for the procurement of escort services,'' Terry Nassios, the director, organisations, research and advice, said in the 1105-page report. Mr Nassios's damning report, the result of a two-year investigation, was released last night by the Senate committee on education, employment and workplace relations.
The report contains damaging allegations against Mr Thomson, who was national secretary of the HSU from 2002 to 2007, when he entered Parliament. Denying he had ever used his HSU credit cards to procure escort services, Mr Thomson had provided ''information that is false or misleading'', the report said. He was found to have provided false or misleading information about the $103,000 in cash withdrawals made during the period he was national secretary. Allegations were also levelled against Mr Thomson that he spent more than $250,000 of HSU funds without authorisation ''to advance his prospects of becoming elected to Parliament'' when contesting the central coast of seat Dobell in 2007. As national secretary, Mr Thomson spent $73,000 on wining and dining. Not all of this was on HSU union business, the report found. Even after he had left the union, Mr Thomson spent another $1425 of HSU funds for his personal benefit.
Mr Nassios examined the six separate occasions credit cards issued to Mr Thomson were spent on prostitutes. ''Mr Thomson claims that these transactions were incurred fraudulently by another person using his credit cards. ''However, the following matters overwhelmingly support an inference that it was Mr Thomson who used his own credit cards to make these transactions,'' he said. For example, $2475 was spent on Sydney Escorts run by Keywed in April 2005. Mr Nassios found Mr Thomson's mobile phone was used twice to call the escort agency on the evening of April 7, 2005. Seven separate transactions were processed by Keywed between April 7 and April 9, 2007 but they were spread between Mr Thomson's two union credit cards, a Diners and a CBA MasterCard.
The report concluded: ''If the transactions were all incurred by another person [as Mr Thomson had suggested], that person must have been able to transact on both cards.'' The report found that ''a signature which bears a strong likeness to Mr Thomson's'' appeared on the receipt and that Mr Thomson's driver's licence details appeared on the back of the receipt. In addition, Mr Thomson's own hotel accounts established that three times he used his HSU-issued credit cards to pay for phone calls from hotel rooms to escort agencies. Mr Thomson said yesterday: ''This whole investigation has been nothing short of a joke. It is unprecedented that an investigative body has such little confidence in its report that it seeks parliamentary privilege as a condition of the report's release.'' Of the 181 contraventions of the Registered Organisations Act that were identified, 156 relate to Mr Thomson.
Only one minor breach related to the present national secretary, Kathy Jackson, five to the national president, Michael Williamson, who has stood aside, and the rest involve a former auditor, Iaan Dick. The investigation found numerous examples of unaccounted for expenditure on ''excessive'' hospitality and travel in ''an organisation that abjectly failed to have adequate governance arrangements in place to protect union members' funds against misuse''. The general manager of Fair Work Australia, Bernadette O'Neill, has referred all breaches to the Federal Court for civil action, which means if the court finds against Mr Thomson, he is not disqualified from sitting in Parliament. The maximum penalty is the imposition of fines. The report has been given to police in Victoria and NSW, which are conducting criminal investigations into the HSU.
Loading Follow the National Times on Twitter: @NationalTimesAUIt's hard to imagine what Morgan Hill is feeling right now. She's not quite sure herself. How can you possibly process the fact you were born, wrapped in a towel, put into a trash bag and left in a dumpster to die - all before you were a day old?
Morgan's parents told her that she was adopted when she was young, but didn’t give details. They knew she wanted to know more, and planned to tell her after high school graduation.
Nothing could’ve prepared her for the story they would tell.
Morgan’s mother, Sandi, tried to find strength to have the conversation she’d been preparing for for years.
“She could barely get it out,” Morgan said. “She was basically already crying before telling me.”
Morgan’s biological mother had hidden her pregnancy, delivered quietly at home and then tried to get rid of the baby so no one would know.
Morgan learned she’d been found in a dumpster, tied up in a trash bag double knotted at the top.
She’d been left to die.
“I honestly didn’t know what to think when she was telling me,” said Morgan. “She had the binder of articles and just had me read through all of them.”
Sandi had kept as many articles as she could throughout the early years of Morgan’s life. She’d done so for this moment.
Morgan Hill had no idea that her life story had dominated Illinois headlines years before.
Morgan read all of them.
She read how a construction worker named Garold Hyatt - known to his friends as Rocky - found her while taking a last load out to the dumpster. He heard a whimper. And then heard it again. The compilation of articles all described the same thing. He moved closer to the sound and then saw a white trash bag twitch. He got nervous and ran to the nearby hospital for help.
Three nurses came running. One of them, Carol Szafranski, opened the bag and saw a healthy, blue-eyed baby girl inside.
The multitude of articles described how nurses named her Mary Grace, how authorities caught her biological mother, who was sitting in jail awaiting a trial, and how her biological father never even knew there was a baby until the mother named him in court.
Until last week, everything Morgan knew about her dramatic first days of life came from newspaper articles.
A young Morgan Hill with her adoptive parents, Tracy and Sandi Hill.
Rescue reunions
In preparation for this story, Morgan and I emailed and talked often on the phone. She mentioned during one of the preliminary conversations that she’d always wanted to find the construction worker and nurses, but she hadn’t had any luck.
I didn’t say anything to Morgan because I didn’t want to get her hopes up, but I knew the moment she mentioned it that I was going to do whatever it took to find the people who’d saved her.
I found a Garold Hyatt in Kentucky, made the call and knew the moment I asked him about baby Mary Grace that I’d found the right man. He started gushing about how he’d never stopped wondering about her. He’d been hoping all these years she’d call.
I told Morgan’s mother, Sandi, I’d found him, and as a surprise for Morgan, she arranged to fly Garold and his wife Norma to Chicago during the same time when we’d be there interviewing Morgan about her story.
Then I found the nurse. So we set that surprise up, too.
While we sat in the family’s living room and interviewed Morgan about her life story, she didn’t show much emotion. She gave all the sad details without even a tear.
One could only assume she was either numb to the fact she was talking about herself as a baby, or the two years she had known the whole story allowed for her to feel less emotion. The rest of us were not so strong.
Although it was obvious she was trying hard not to cry, tears did well and drop when Morgan talked about what she’d say to those who saved her.
“Just, honestly, thank you," she said as tears first brimmed in her eyes and then finally streaked her cheeks. "And I couldn’t say thank you enough for basically saving my life and giving me the chance to live a wonderful, beautiful life with the family I have."
She gave into her emotions, tears finally falling.
We knew at that moment the reunion would be amazing.
Morgan was facing our cameras telling us details of her discovery. We asked her to read an article in hopes she’d be so focused on the words on the page that she wouldn’t notice what was happening behind her.
“The baby, who weighs 6 pounds, 3 ounces and is 20 inches long,” she read, “was named Mary Grace by nurses because they considered her a gift from God.”
Then I asked for the name of the construction worker.
“Garold ‘Rocky’ Hyatt,” she said, very matter-of-factly.
“He just walked in your house,” I said.
As Morgan tried to process what I’d just said, she turned, put her face in her hands and started sobbing immediately.
Her mother gave the official introduction.
“Morgan. I would like you to meet Garold ‘Rocky’ Hyatt and his wife, Norma,” she said, with her own tears streaming.
The two hugged for what must have been several minutes.
“Bless you, baby,” Garold said as Morgan buried her face in his shoulder, eeking out a muffled "thank you."
“It has been my privilege. It has been my blessing. Your mother has done such a wonderful job with you."
“You were just three days old the last time you were in my arms,” he said.
The two sat, and Garold told Morgan her story for the first time.
Morgan learned the dumpster was full and had been scheduled for pickup the next morning. She learned Garold was the last person to go to the dumpster, and just how close she was to not being found.
“The wind was blowing," he said. "It was turning cooler. I just heard a little whimper, and I didn’t know if it was a baby or a cat. I went on further down the middle of the dumpster and I heard it again. And I saw the bag move. And I thought it was a baby. I wasn’t for sure. I was nervous and didn’t hardly know what to do."
Garold described running to the emergency room of the hospital. He said he was so out of breath, the nurses thought he was having a heart attack. It took him three times to slow his words enough to gasp out an understandable. “I think - someone - has placed - a baby - in our dumpster,” he said.
The nurses took off. Found the dumpster. Saw the trash bag. A nurse named Carol Szafranski was the one who picked up and tore open the bag.
Reporter’s note: At this point, Morgan’s mom escorted Carol into the room and Morgan started crying again. She’d never met Carol, although she’d tried finding her. Then Garold and Carol finished Morgan’s story.
“I still remember I opened it up … and I go, ‘It’s a baby! It’s a beautiful baby girl!’ and just scooped you right up," said Carol. "You were just looking at everybody, not a worry, not a care. Just beautiful."
“Not a scratch on you. Just a little bit of a dent on your forehead where a metal stud had laid resting on you,” Garold added.
Carol explained how the nurses had chosen the name Mary Grace.
“We put Grace because you were a baby, we figured by the grace of God you were here with us. And Mary because it was almost all Filipino nurses that day you came in and Mary is the number one name,” she explained.
“[We knew] it wouldn’t be your forever name, but that it would be your forever name to us,” Carol added, tears welling in her eyes, too.
Morgan sat quietly listening. Crying. Wiping tears. She was hearing all of this for the first time, including details she’d never read in any of her articles.
Sandi had kept outfits from when Morgan was a baby. One of the outfits was the one Morgan was wearing when she left the hospital to go into foster care. Carol explained the outfits were made by hospital volunteers and staff, and they had picked out the prettiest for Mary Grace.
The note attached to the hand-made outfit reads: "We received Mary Grace at Bethany on Oct. 18, '95, wearing these booties + the accompanying sweater + blanket."
It was a pink, handmade crocheted gown with a matching blanket and booties. The person who received Mary Grace kept the outfit with this handwritten note. Sandi gave it to Morgan two days before our visit. She’s still processing its significance. Back in time Garold sent us a VHS tape of local coverage of the baby Mary Grace case. This is CBS2 in Chicago’s coverage of the dumpster discovery. You might recognize the man anchoring there at the time: it’s current NBC Nightly News Anchor Lester Holt.
Morgan’s mission
The reason Morgan is speaking out now is because she hopes her story can saves lives.
Every state has a Safe Haven law that allows a new mother to relinquish her healthy baby at a designated place in hopes she won’t resort to abandonment, like what happened to Morgan.
Many states grant anonymity and most protect the mother from prosecution. But the baby must be given to someone on staff at a designated Safe Haven, and they most be handed over by a certain age – and every state is different.
(Infographic by Brandon Twichell)
You can learn more about each state's Safe Haven for Newborn laws here.
Morgan’s adoptive mother worked hard to protect her
“I kept as low a profile as I could so that we didn’t have people inquiring about her, coming to our door, things like that," said Sandi. "I didn’t think that was fair to Morgan."
Sandi says she was the baby’s nanny at first, and she only later learned that the baby’s biological father was considering choosing her to adopt his daughter.
“I got a phone call from the biological father wanting to know if I’d be interested in taking care of Morgan while he was working," she said. "He has another son from a previous marriage. He was an excellent father. He worked a night job. It was very hard for him; he knew he needed help. I was very grateful I was asked and more than happy to help him. It was a real treat."
Sandi had always wanted to be a mother, but at that point in her life she had passed the cutoff age for a public adoption, so she feared she’d never be a mother.
“The biological father sat down with my husband for probably about three hours one day, wanting to know what kind of family we were,” Sandi explained, adding she’d had no knowledge of this conversation. “Did we go to church? Would we be able to afford to have a child in our house? He wanted Morgan to have a good life, I believe, is what he was looking for.”
She remembers how her husband told her.
“I started crying right away. I couldn’t help it,” she said. “I probably cried the next four hours.”
When Sandi found out they were going to be the baby’s new parents, she went immediately to the book store and bought a couple of baby name books. Her husband picked the name Morgan, and she picked the middle name Jayne.
“My main wish is that she is happy,” said Sandi.
Sandi fully supports Morgan’s decision to go public with what Sandi kept private for so many years.
“What Morgan went through in the early part of her life was not necessary. It could’ve been done a lot easier,” she said. “There are so many people like me”.
Morgan Hill and her biological father in 1996 (left) and 2016 (right).
Morgan’s biological father fought for custody after he learned he was the abandoned baby’s father. With so many begging to adopt her and so much news coverage of her discovery, he did so to protect her, then quietly hand-picked the couple who’d been helping him care for Morgan to be her new parents. They told no one. They wanted her to live a normal, private life.
After Morgan learned about her past, she tried to find her biological father. He’d kept the same cell phone all these years out of hope she might someday call; they now get together a couple of times per year and talk on the phone regularly. Morgan is thankful for this relationship, especially since her adoptive father passed away while she was still in high school.
Reporter’s note: After learning she was thrown away as a baby, Morgan wanted to do something to help others. She started reaching out to agencies she found online that helped young mothers know they have options - they don’t have to throw away their babies. She discovered a group in Florida called A Safe Haven for Newborns and shared her story with its founder, Nick Silverio. Since he was in Florida, he put Morgan in touch with a woman he’d worked closely with on Safe Havens in Missouri and Kansas - Debby Howland, who works with the Kansas City Child Abuse Roundtable. Morgan developed a trusting relationship with Debby, who was helping her figure out how to share her story and raise awareness. Before the month of April, like every year, I meet with Debby to discuss how best to cover child abuse issues and prevention. It was at our regular meeting that Debby said she decided it should be me to tell Morgan’s story. It is an honor to be trusted by all involved to tell such an unbelievable story. It was a privilege to tell this story, and an honor to be witness to the beautiful reunions.
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There is much more information about Kansas City Safe Havens for Newborns at mchc.net.March 17, 2017
— When Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott became the seventh person to walk on the moon in 1971, he wore a spacesuit adorned with American flags on both his left shoulder and atop his life support backpack. But as an upcoming auction has now surprisingly revealed, those were not the only two U.S. flags he had on him.
Unbeknownst to even Scott until after he returned to Earth, hidden behind the stars and stripes decorating his Portable Life Support System's Oxygen Purge System (OPS) was a pouch holding smaller U.S. flags in a secret stash.
"According to [NASA] management, a member of the JSC [Johnson Space Center, Houston] Crew Systems Division (CSD) had prepared the flags and secretly stowed them in a beta cloth package on a structural support bracket inside the OPS," wrote Scott in a letter included with the auction of one of the 2.5-by-1.5-inch (6.4 by 3.8 cm) U.S. flags and the pouch in which it flew.
Oxygen Purge System (OPS) bracket with attached beta cloth flag pouch as unknowingly worn by Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott on the moon in July 1971. (RR Auction/NASA/cS)
"This [hidden pouch] was apparently unknown to anybody else until the OPS was disassembled after the mission by some other member of the CSD and the flag package was discovered," wrote Scott.
The identity of the original CSD member who hid the flags, or the person who found them afterward, is unknown.
The flag and the OPS support bracket with its still attached pouch will be offered as separate lots on April 13 as part of a space and aviation theme auction hosted by RR Auction of Boston. The flag is estimated to sell for $15,000 and the OPS bracket and pouch for $30,000 or more.
Although the story behind it was not disclosed at the time, another flag from apparently the same secret package was sold by RR Auction in May 2014 for $27,741.35. That flag had been originally presented by Scott to his father in law, Gen. Issac "Ike" Ott, who he thanked in an inscription "for all your contributions to the success of this flight, with both airplanes and daughters."
Scott was presented with some of the flags and the 7.5 by 4 inch (19 by 10 cm) bracket as mementos of his flight by his management at the same meeting where he was told of their existence. A law passed in 2012 reaffirmed Apollo- era astronauts' title to the items they retained as souvenirs of their missions.
"I was informed that most of the flags were to be held by NASA to be distributed to individuals selected by NASA," Scott wrote in his letter accompanying the upcoming sale. "I presented some of the flags I was given to people who had made significant contributions to Apollo."
Illustrated diagram showing the location of the hidden flags inside astronaut David Scott's OPS assembly. (David Scott/RR Auction)
As for himself, Scott stated that he kept two of the flags, one of which he is now offering for sale.
Scott wore the OPS — and as such carried the flags — on all three of his excursions out onto the lunar surface during the Apollo 15 mission. Attached to the top of his Portable Life Support System (PLSS) backpack, the OPS was worn to supply his spacesuit with oxygen in the case of a failure in the suit or PLSS or if an emergency EVA (extravehicular activity, or spacewalk) had been needed.
In fact, Apollo 15 command module pilot Al Worden used Scott's OPS — complete with the flags still secreted inside — after Scott returned from the surface of the moon for a first-of-its-kind deep-space EVA later in the mission. During that 39-minute spacewalk, Worden retrieved film from the outside of the Apollo 15 service module.
In total, the OPS-carried flags spent more than 12 days in space, including almost 67 hours on the moon. During the 18 hours and 35 minutes they were outside on the surface, they traveled 17 miles (28 km) as Scott walked across the moon and drove the first lunar roving vehicle (LRV).
Mounted display of a small U.S. flag carried by Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott on the moon without his knowledge. (RR Auction)
The hidden flags were not the only secret souvenirs on the Apollo 15 mission. Stamped envelopes, a memorial statue and timepieces were carried on the flight that NASA later labeled as unauthorized. The hidden American flags were not associated with those items, though.
The same RR Auction online auction offering the flag and bracket also includes a number of other items from Scott's personal collection, including Apollo 15-flown lunar surface maps, a mini LRV license plate and a personal preference kit (PPK) bag.
The auction, which will end on April 20 after seven days of bidding, includes nearly 500 items spanning the history of space exploration. Also featured are an arrow-shape decal and command module ID plate flown on Apollo 11, the first moon landing. The two artifacts, which were the mementos of an engineer who helped prepare the spacecraft before and after the mission, were recently featured in an episode of Antiques Roadshow on PBS.
For more information or to bid, see RR Auction's website.Irish Volunteers in German Service – by Adrian Weale. –
This article was kindly supplied to me by Adrian Weale, the author of 'Renegades: Hitler's Englishmen' and is itself derived from Brady and Stringer's court-martial papers in the Public Records Office in London, and from other files in the PRO. The material about O'Neill came from former SS-Standartenfuehrer Karl-Heinz Buhler, who wrote to Adrian a few years ago.
Adrian has kindly let me include this information on my web site.
In the spring of 1941, the Abwehr trawled through 'British' POWs that they held in the hope of finding Irish Republicans who would be prepared to act as the nucleus of an 'Irish Brigade' modeled on Casement's concept from the First World War. In May 1941, about 50 Irishmen were concentrated at a special camp at Friesack where they were to be subjected to propaganda and persuasion. It says much about the mentality of the Irish prisoners - all regular soldiers of the British Army, whether from Ulster or Eire - that they elected a 'Senior British Officer' to represent them. This was initially a Lieutenant Bissell, but subsequently Major John McGrath of the Royal Engineers.
The Irishmen were subjected to intense psychological pressure and eventually, in December 1941, five of them were removed to a safe-house in Berlin. Their names were Brady, Cushing, Walsh, O'Brien and Murphy. Instead of being formed into a military unit, as the Germans had originally envisaged, the five then began training as Abwehr spies; in early 1942, a sixth man, Frank Stringer, also joined this process.
It is worth mentioning at this point, that all of the 'volunteers' had actually discussed the matter with Major McGrath and that at least four of the men (Cushing, Walsh, O'Brien and Murphy) had no intention of genuinely changing their allegiance but were seeking a means of escape. As a result, none of the Irishmen were actually dropped as spies, and both Cushing and Walsh ended up as inmates of Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Brady and Stringer continued to work, on and off, for the Abwehr, but eventually their services were dispensed with and, rather than doing agricultural work as POWs, both opted to join the Waffen-SS. They reported to Sennheim in October 1943 and were posted to 'Jagdverbande Mitte' in March 1944, under the aliases 'Charles Strength Lacy' and 'Willy Lepage'.
Brady certainly took part in operations in Rumania, as well as 'Operation Panzerfaust' - the arrest of Admiral Horthy, whilst Stringer appears to have had a quieter time, working as a cook. In early 1945 both were fighting on the Eastern Front as members of Otto Skorzeny's ad hoc division at Schwedt an der Oder. By this time, Brady was an Unterscharfuehrer. As the war came to an end, Stringer escaped westwards and gave himself up to US forces, who handed him over to the British, whilst Brady, who was wounded, was in an SS hospital. He escaped after the Russians had taken it over and spent more than a year 'on the run' with other Waffen-SS'special forces' soldiers before giving himself up to the British in Berlin. He received a fifteen-year sentence at a court martial in London in 1946.
One other Irishman is reported as having served in the Waffen-SS: 'Patrick O'Neill' was supposedly a doctor in SS-Bewahrungsverbande 500, a penal unit. I have seen no documentary evidence that this was the case but it is quite possible.
Other Irishmen worked for the Germans as spies and radio propaganda broadcasters, but their numbers weren't huge and probably came to less than ten or fifteen.
Contrary to popular supposition, no Irishmen served in the 'British Free Corps'.Oblong Industries has raised $65 million in funding to build technologies that will make collaborative work much easier. Oblong is combining spatial, immersive, and gesture technologies, brought to you by John Underkoffler, who was the science advisor for the Tom Cruise film Minority Report.
Image Credit: Oblong Industries
The Los Angeles company raised the money from Greenspring Associates, Morgan Stanley, Foundry Group, Industry Ventures, and UTIMCO (the investment arm of the University of Texas). The round is a big vote of confidence for the tech company’s growth plans.
The investment will allow Oblong to accelerate product development, launch “market-redefining innovations” faster, and start expansion into new territories. Oblong already has collaboration tools available in the U.S. and Western Europe. Now it plans to take those tools worldwide.
“This is a validation of Oblong’s vision and growth potential,” said Underkoffler, CEO of Oblong Industries, in a statement. “The future of work is coming fast, and we’re proud to be able to offer the immersive, visually rich, and highly capable tools that enable people at all levels to be as creative, collaborative, and productive in the workplace as success in this century requires.”
Oblong makes the Mezzanine product for immersive visual collaboration and data visualization. It does so on an “architectural scale,” meaning it works with your building design and uses its unique “g-speak” technology. G-speak software enables multi-machine, device-agnostic spatial operating environments with simultaneous gesture and touch inputs.
Jim Lim, managing general partner at Greenspring Associates, said in a statement, “Greenspring loves to get behind companies that have shown a genuine ability to produce innovative workplace solutions for the 21st century. Oblong is the clear leader in delivering Infopresence, the immersive collaboration experience essential for all companies that demand sustainably increased workforce productivity.”
Current customers include NASA, PwC, and IBM, along with many dozens of others in the Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000.
Image Credit: Oblong Industries
Roland Reynolds, managing director of Industry Ventures, said in a statement, “Our team is passionate about working with visionary companies at growth stage. Oblong is a spectacular example of the kind of tech leader we love to support — its products and UI-led technologies are defining a big part of the professional future.”
Oblong has established a foothold in government, education, and healthcare, demonstrating the value of immersive, visually-rich, collaborative, and highly capable spatial computing.
Underkoffler was a researcher at the MIT Media Lab. The company has raised $104 million, to date, and it has more than 100 employees. Competitors include Bluescape, Prysm, and Mersive.
Brad Feld, cofounder of Foundry Group, said in a statement, “Oblong is one-of-a-kind. Their technology and products have essentially implemented science fiction — they’ve made sci-fi actionable, but also essential. This stuff is the future of work.”Rachel Bloom has friends, she definitely has friends … friends who really want to appear on her show, that is. Brittany Snow has been added to the cast of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend for its upcoming second season, where she’ll be appearing in a three-episode arc. Her character, Anna, is described as a “hip and cool L.A. chick and beauty entrepreneur who sweeps into town and shakes everything up for Rebecca,” and — for all of you Pitch Perfect enthusiasts out there — she’ll also have a personal musical number. We’re sure her arrival in West Covina will cause absolutely zero continued romantic confusion between Rebecca, Josh, and Greg.
We are so excited to announce that @Brittanysnow is going to be on #CrazyExGirlfriend! pic.twitter.com/tjkXpliLQi — Rachel Bloom (@Racheldoesstuff) August 18, 2016Facebook headquaters. | LPS.1 Facebook tweaks 'Trending Topics' to fight fake news
Facebook is making a series of updates to the platform’s Trending Topics feature, making changes that the social media site says will surface topics that publishers are writing about sooner.
Beginning Wednesday, the topics that appear in Facebook’s Trending Topics box will be calculated algorithmically by looking at the number of publishers posting articles on Facebook about certain topics, instead of relying on the amount of engagement. Facebook’s vice president of product management, Will Cathcart, said that the feature should help with the hoax news articles appearing on the site, a problem for which Facebook has faced criticism.
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“Today’s update may also prevent hoaxes and fake news from appearing in Trending because the updated system identifies groups of articles shared on Facebook instead of relying solely on mentions of a topic,” he wrote in a blog post about the update.
Additionally, headlines from publishers will appear under Trending Topics to provide users with additional information and a news source to find out more. Those headlines, Facebook said, will be “automatically selected based on a combination of factors including the engagement around the article on Facebook, the engagement around the publisher overall, and whether other articles are linking to it.”
Facebook is also rolling out a feature to personalize Trending Topics based on a user’s interests and a user’s geographic region.
“This is designed to help make sure people dont’ miss important topics being discussed on Facebook that might not show up in their News Feed,” Cathcart wrote.
Trending Topics, which appears on the upper right-hand-side of Facebook’s desktop version and within the Search bar on Facebook’s mobile app, has been the subject of controversy at the social media publisher after a former employee told Gizmodo last year that people working on the feature were “suppressing” conservative news. Facing backlash, Facebook laid off its curators and moved to an algorithmic model, which created a host of new problems, including the occasional hoax news story that landed in the Trending box.
Earlier this month, Facebook rolled out a slate of new products aimed at establishing “stronger ties between Facebook and the news industry,” and hired ex-CNN anchor Campbell Brown to lead a team devoted to news partnerships.The decades-old stereotypes of gaming as an environment for antisocial teenage boys and young men living in their parents' basements is vanishing. More than half of Americans, 59%, play video games and the average player is 31 years old, according to 2014 research by the Entertainment Software Association. To reach this coveted affluent millennial audience, more nonendemic brands like phone providers, food companies and consumer packaged goods, are looking to tap the now-mainstream gaming space.
Here are five tips for connecting with gamers.
Don't just slap on a logo
Gaming may be the Wild West for marketers, but simply showing up at an event won't earn points with players. Brands that really want to connect with consumers need to show they understand them.
Credit: Courtesy Curse
When Nestlé sought to leverage this year's PAX East convention, the company parked a food truck outside the Boston venue and gave away more than 3,000 Hot Pockets to attendees waiting in line during the three-day event. The effort built buzz for the brand -- Hot Pockets gained nearly 2,000 Twitter followers and nearly 1,300 YouTube subscribers as fans shared videos and pictures of their warm sandwiches during the cold March weekend.
"It worked out really well because they came with a very authentic plan," said Nathan Lindberg, VP-global sales at Curse, a gaming network that worked with Nestlé on the push. "Anybody can buy a banner ad."
Publishers like Riot Games, which produces the popular League of Legends game, are also very selective about the brands they work with. "Our audience is very smart and the partners struggle to understand how to activate in this industry," said Dustin Beck, VP of e-sports at Riot Games. "It's not going to be a simple media buy."
Related Stories P&G, HTC and More Set Sights on Millennial Gamers
The developer works with Coca-Cola, which made a calculated bet on the gaming realm last year by sponsoring a semiprofessional League of Legends league. The beverage brand saw a gap in the game's league structure, which was only for professionals, and the Challenger Series gave gamers an opportunity to mature into the professional arena. Coca-Cola also matured in the space: It is now a major sponsor of League of Legends' professional league.
Look inside and outside your ranks for gaming talent
More and more brands, like HTC, which sponsors three U.S. e-sports teams, are looking to gamers within their organizations to step up and help navigate the complex gaming landscape. HTC's e-sports project manager Walter Wang is a longtime gamer who helped introduce the company to the gaming space, along with a small group of fellow gamers who run the brand's e-sports initiatives with support from a global team.
"It did take a little bit of coaxing to tell upper management that e-sports was becoming really big," said Mr. Wang. "Happily, I convinced them. … The demographic is also perfect for HTC because they're all tech-savvy millennials."
Coca-Cola also hired a global head of gaming, Matt Wolf, to lead the company's e-sports efforts.
Be choosy and establish boundaries
There are thousands of games for brands to tap into, from PC, console and mobile games to role-playing games and multiplayer online battlefields. Brands need to be as choosy about the games they associate their brands with as they are with TV shows and films.
"Understanding the gaming environment and knowing if your brand is willing to be associated with an M-rated game, those conversations are very key," said Andy Swanson, VP of e-sports and events at the gaming platform Twitch.
Credit: Courtesy Geico
When Geico broke into e-sports this summer by sponsoring a Hearthstone tournament, the insurer was very selective, according to Deric Ortiz, a gaming consultant who works with Geico. A dark, violent game would have sent the wrong message for a company that stands for safety. Blizzard's Hearthstone digital card game was a safe bet because it's fun and kid-friendly, he said.
Keep an eye on message boards
Gamers are passionate and have strong online communities. They might share ideas that marketers wouldn't think of. For example, online fans have called on Coca-Cola to make a Coke bearskin, or player look, during the holidays for League of Legends character Volibear, who resembles a polar bear. (The brand hasn't fulfilled the request yet.)
Throw out the traditional sports-marketing playbook
Professional gaming and traditional sports are similar in terms of their league, team and player structures, but their audiences are incredibly different. Sports marketers entering the gaming space should take what they know about traditional sports and build a new e-sports strategy from the ground up.
"[Brands] can bring a ton of cool activations they've done in traditional sports |
of None) be an example. They’re ready for it.
“Now it’s about me doing the work, doing the heavy lifting and making sure that there’s something a network can get behind, and then hopefully other people can follow suit. We need more of that, more than we can ever know.”
So, is she writing such a drama, featuring a black lesbian protagonist for prime time, this reporter asked.
“Yes, I’m writing something. Yep, yep, yep, I’m working on it,” Waithe said laughing. “I’m working on it, I’m working on it.”
She declined to divulge anything about the character, plot, and setting.
“All that stuff I can’t say. I’ll just say things are looking good and people should stay tuned.”
Waithe previously spoke to The Atlantic about black people in Hollywood having to smile tightly, and forge past with as little anger as possible, the many slings and arrows they experience.
“For the most part I’ve had a really great experience in Hollywood,” Waithe told The Daily Beast. “But I’ve definitely learned when you’re not a white guy here you’ve got to really play chess. You’ve got to navigate it to do certain things. The business was a boys’ club for a long time. Now a lot of ladies are breaking down doors and making moves. There’s a power shift, a paradigm shift, happening. We’re in a transitional phase, like when you come out there’s that ‘uncomfortablity.’
“For a few years we, black people, are in that space of ‘uncomfortability’ in Hollywood. That means we’ve got to really carry ourselves with poise and grace, so that way others can come through. Once the paradigm shifts completely, you won’t need that as much. But I still think we’ve got to be our Barack Obama. That’s totally fine. That’s part of it. That comes with the territory, and I’m honored to carry the torch.”
The Emmys this year were cited as an example of diversity.
“It definitely shifted a lot of inches Sunday night for sure,” said Waithe. “But we still have to keep pushing it. We have to make it our responsibility to make sure writers of color are not only in the room but being heard; that they have a real voice, not being rewritten left and right, not being used as publicity tool, and not being exploited.
“It is their voice, it is their work and they must have the freedom to tell their stories in the ways they want to tell them.
“When you really let voices shine, that’s when magic happens. I’m an example of that. Donald [Glover, Atlanta] is an example of that. Issa Rae [Insecure] too. Michaela [Coel] of Chewing Gum. Barry [Jenkins] and Tarell [Alvin McCraney, of Moonlight], Lin-Manuel [Miranda, of Hamilton]. When people like that want to create, you have to get out of the way.”
‘I Wanted to Celebrate the Beauty in Our Community’
After Waithe left the Emmys stage on Sunday night, she got a high-five from Hamilton star Christopher Jackson—who sang the background to the ‘In Memoriam’ segment; fellow winners Nicole Kidman (Big Little Lies) and Elisabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale) congratulated her; then she danced the night away at the Netflix party with the young cast of Stranger Things: “I picked Millie [Bobby Brown] up and swung her around. I love those kids. It was a phenomenal night.”
It’s rare to hear the extended LGBTQIA acronym in a high-profile awards speech, this reporter said.
“The ‘I’ and the ‘A’ are sometimes left out,” Waithe said. “People have said to me they didn’t know what they mean, and I’m happy to answer them”: intersex and asexual. Those folks are part of our community. I wanted to include them in that moment. We are all ‘othered,’ we are all looked at as different. I wanted to celebrate the beauty in our community and the camaraderie among all of us. And I didn’t want to leave them out.”
Waithe called herself a “queer black girl” in her speech, so this reporter asked if she had a preferred way of defining herself. “‘Queer’ and ‘lesbian’ work,” said Waithe. “I go back and forth between the two. I really am a proud lesbian. I’ve always been a lesbian from day one. I’m a gold star. I’m definitely a ‘proud black lesbian.’ I wouldn’t mind using that.”
On both red carpet and stage Waithe looked gorgeous in her tuxedo. It was made by Jhoanna Alba of ALBA Legacy. “I could not have asked for a better tux,” said Waithe. “That will hang in back of my closet till the end of time and I loved it. I felt like the queen of the night.”
Ansari had asked Waithe to make the speech if they won. “In terms of the queer community, particularly brown people, I shared that award with all of them,” said Waithe. And while she made history herself, she adamantly added that she was “not the first black woman who wrote something funny,” namechecking Susan Fales Hill, Yvette Lee Bowser, Mara Brock Akil, Gina Prince-Bythewood (whom Waithe once worked for), Regina Y. Hicks, and Karin Gist.
“The list goes on and I want to share this with them,” said Waithe. “All the work they have been doing led my path to that stage, and I also share it with other women of color in TV writing rooms and women of color who will eventually be in those rooms.”
As for coming out to a TV audience of millions, Waithe said: “Look, coming out is very difficult. It is not something I ever thought I would do a second time, but I’ve got to say that the second time around is much easier than the first because I survived it.”
In the ‘Thanksgiving’ episode of Master of None, “It was really nice to be able to tell the story from my point of view. I have a lot more perspective and a lot more courage now, a lot more confidence in my skin now. It’s not to how-to guide. I hope it inspires people who have come out. I hope it encourages people who are afraid, to give them courage to come out.
“I think it takes courage on both sides. It was just as scary for my mom as it was for me. We’ve gone on a long journey, and I’m really proud of where we are on our journey now. I hope we can be of hope to some people. With time and patience and some learning and growing, you really can get through to good place.”
Waithe’s mother, Laverne Hall, texted her the night of the awards to tell Waithe how happy and proud she was of her. “I’m proud of the journey we’ve been on,” said Waithe. “We both wear the scars of the trials and tribulations proudly, and we’re really happy that we can be a poster mother-daughter for that time in people’s lives.”
‘I Loved Television, Mimicking It, Watching It’
Waithe grew up with her mother and sister, Lauren, on the South Side of Chicago, from the age of 2 to 12 in her grandmother Tressie’s home. (Her grandmother died before Waithe could tell her that she was gay, but Waithe thinks she probably knew.)
“It was working class,” said Waithe of where she grew up, “’hood adjacent’ but not in it. I didn’t get everything I wanted, but I never wanted for anything. I was a very energetic kid, definitely a ham. I never had aspirations to be an actor, but if someone knew me as a kid they’d tell you, ‘Yeah, the world is her stage.’ I was hyper, definitely exhausting. I loved television, mimicking it, watching it. You’d always find me in front of it, absorbing, studying. I’m glad now to be part of it.”
Growing up, Waithe’s favorite shows were A Different World (“it really spoke to young people—going to college, being smart, being fly”), The Cosby Show, Family Matters and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, alongside more “old-school” offerings, as she describes it, like Mary Tyler Moore, who is a hero of Waithe’s, Maude, Full House, The Golden Girls—and the “guilty pleasure” of Saved by the Bell. “We watched everything, man. My sister and I watched so much television: It influenced me in a big way.”
In Waithe’s predominantly black district of Chicago, her aunt Diane Hall lived nearby, her grandmothers’ neighbors popped by to play cards, and there was a Neighborhood Watch scheme. “It was a great way to grow up. I was definitely raised by a village. I cherish those people who raised me.”
She didn’t miss having her father present. “That's because my parents divorced when I was 2. I hadn’t had it, so I couldn’t miss what I wasn’t aware of. It felt really normal for me. A big reason that I’m proud to be a black woman and admirer is because I was raised by them. I think black women are magic. I honor and cherish them so much, I really do.”
The culture shock for her mother when Waithe came out wasn’t just because she was a lesbian, but because she had “leaned in to my masculine side” ever since she was little.
Back then it was tricky for her mother to have a “tomboy” daughter, today because she “wears a tux to the Emmys and plays with gender roles. It’s new, it’s about educating them in a way they understand.”
For Waithe’s family, “as a black person I already have a target on back,” and being gay added another target, “but I can’t deny who I am and I have to be myself unapologetically, and that does create a bit of a clash. But the more proud I am of who I am, the more my family will have no choice but to embrace it because I embrace it myself.”
Growing up, Waithe asserted her identity with confidence. She never felt comfortable in traditional girls’ clothes. The strange thing about coming out was she had never not been herself.
“But my mother thought, ‘OK, Lena dresses that way. She’ll date a guy eventually.’ I needed to pipe up, really assert myself, say, ‘I’m gay woman and this is how I dress and this is who I am.’ That pushed me to be a proud gay black woman because I had to be proud for my family. That was a journey for me, but it really made me stronger and made me own everything about myself.”
Waithe came out to her mother in a Los Angeles diner in her early twenties. “I’ll never forget it,” Waithe said. “It was not fun. She cried. It was very dramatic. The last thing you want to make your mom do is cry. It’s the worst. I didn’t cry. I stayed really strong. Things were weird for a while, there was a lot of push and pull. Peace and resolution took a few years, for sure.”
Alana is the only girlfriend Waithe has bought home for Thanksgiving dinner, although in the Master of None episode there’s a mini-succession, including both the woman who becomes Denise’s present-day partner as well as an alarming woman based on a real-life ex-girlfriend, called “Nipples and Toes.” Ansari wanted to use the real person’s identity on screen, Waithe said, laughing. “I told him no. I told him I didn’t want to get sued, and I didn’t want him to get sued.”
‘She’s My Partner, My Life Partner, My Better Half, She’s Everything’
Waithe’s ambition was always to be a television writer, and eventually have her own show, which she will have next year when her drama, The Chi, premieres on Showtime.
“The ‘Chi’ (pronounced “shy”) is the nickname for Chicago, the city we’re from,” said Waithe. “The drama will focus on the young black people living on the South Side. I’m extremely excited to see ‘the first show on TV created by Lena Waithe.’ I’m really eager for people to see it. I hope they dig it.”
Her off-camera ascendancy began with an assistant job on the TV series Girlfriends. She worked with Ava DuVernay on the film I Will Follow, and Justin Simien, creator of the movie Dear White People.
As seen in Master of None, Waithe has built an acting career alongside her producing and writing career (beginning with a role in Lisa Kudrow’s The Comeback).
Next year Waithe will appear in Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One—“the king,” she calls Spielberg. Waithe has written another film she would like to film next year, and would like to create something for Kym Whitley, who played her aunt—scene-stealingly—in the ‘Thanksgiving’ episode of Master of None. “She’s an unsung artist in this town,” said Waithe.
Waithe is also hugely admiring of her partner Mayo, a former executive at Paramount and Vimeo (full disclosure, owned by IAC, The Daily Beast’s parent company), now looking for her next professional berth. “She’s a big champion of interesting writers with unique stories to tell,” said Waithe. “She’s one of the soldiers on the front line making sure writers like myself not only have a voice, but that folks get out of the way to let writers’ voices soar.
Waithe and Mayo are not married, “but hopefully soon,” said Waithe. “She’s my partner, my life partner, my better half, she’s everything. ‘Wife’ would only be the tip of the iceberg. She’s phenomenal. She’s my lady.” Do they want children? “We definitely want to have kids, though not for a few more years.”
There is one more mystery. In the Master of None episode, Denise gazes up when high on marijuana upon a Friends-era Jennifer Aniston poster on her bedroom wall. Does Waithe still have a poster of Aniston on her wall?
Waithe laughed heartily. “You know what? I used to have a fly one in my old apartment, but when Alana moved in it got the boot. It somehow got lost in the move. I’ll always have love for Jennifer. I think she’s fly as hell, she’s super-dope.”
Waithe met Aniston briefly at the Critics’ Choice Awards after the first season of Master of None. “She could not have been more lovely, more kind, and beautiful but no, now I’ve got no pictures of Jennifer Aniston anywhere. She’s always in my heart though.”
And who knows, maybe Aniston might end up as one of the love interests of a certain black lesbian lead character on a certain prime-time drama at some point in the future.
Master of None is on Netflix.Electric vehicles are still too expensive and have too many limitations to compete with regular cars, except in a few niche markets. Will that ever change? The answer has everything to do with battery technology. Batteries carrying more charge for a lower price could extend the range of electric cars from today’s 70 miles to hundreds of miles, effectively challenging the internal-combustion motor.
To get there, many experts agree, a major shift in battery technology may be needed. Electric vehicles such as the all-electric Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid from GM, rely on larger versions of the lithium-ion batteries that power smart phones, iPads, and ultrathin laptops. Such gadgets are possible only because lithium-ion batteries have twice the energy density of the nickel–metal hydride batteries used in the brick-size mobile phones and other bulky consumer electronics of the 1980s.
Using lithium-ion batteries, companies like Nissan, which has sold 20,000 Leafs globally (the car is priced at $33,000 in the U.S.), are predicting that they’ve already hit upon the right mix of vehicle range and sticker price to satisfy many commuters who drive limited distances.
The problem, however, is that despite several decades of optimization, lithium-ion batteries are still expensive and limited in performance, and they will probably not get much better. Assembled battery packs for a vehicle like the Volt cost roughly $10,000 and deliver about 40 miles before an internal-combustion engine kicks in to extend the charge. The battery for the Leaf costs about $15,000 (according to estimates from the Department of Energy) and delivers about 70 miles of driving, depending on various conditions. According to an analysis by the National Academy of Sciences, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with a 40-mile electric range are “unlikely” to be cost competitive with conventional cars before 2040, assuming gasoline prices of $4 per gallon.
Estimates of the cost of assembled lithium-ion battery packs vary widely (see “Will Electric Vehicles Finally Succeed?”). The NAS report put the cost at about $625 to $850 per kilowatt-hour of energy; a Volt-like car requires a battery capacity of 16 kilowatts. But the bottom line is that batteries need to get far cheaper and provide far greater range if electric vehicles are ever to become truly popular.
Whether that’s possible with conventional lithium-ion technology is a matter of debate. Though some involved in battery manufacturing say the technology still has room for improvement, the NAS report, for one, notes that although lithium-ion batteries have been getting far cheaper over the last decade, those reductions seem to be leveling off. It concludes that even under optimistic assumptions, lithium-ion batteries are likely to cost around $360 per kilowatt-hour in 2030.
The U.S. Department of Energy, however, has far more ambitious goals for electric-vehicle batteries, aiming to bring the cost down to $125 per kilowatt-hour by 2020. For that, radical new technologies will probably be necessary. As part of its effort to encourage battery innovation, the DOE’s ARPA-E program has funded 10 projects, most of them involving startup companies, to find “game-changing technologies” that will deliver an electric car with a range of 300 to 500 miles.
The department has put $57 million toward efforts to develop a number of very different technologies, including metal-air, lithium-sulfur, and solid-state batteries. Among the funding recipients is Pellion Technologies, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based startup working on magnesium-ion batteries that could provide twice the energy density of lithium-ion ones; another ARPA-E-funded startup, Sion Power in Tucson, Arizona, promises a lithium-sulfur battery that has an energy density three times that of conventional lithium-ion batteries and could power electric vehicles for more than 300 miles.
The ARPA-E program is meant to support high-risk projects, so it’s hard to know whether any of the new battery technologies will succeed. But if the DOE meets its ambitious goals, it will truly change the economics of electric cars. Improving the energy density of batteries has already changed how we communicate. Someday it could change how we commute.Saltzman Gets Another Re-Election Foe—Who's Campaigning on a $15 Minimum Wage
A day before the city's filing deadline, Nick Caleb—an attorney, professor, and increasingly visible activist helping lead a push for a public water trust in Portland—has decided to throw in as a Portland City Council candidate. But despite his deep interest in the city's water politics, he's not running against Nick Fish, the city's sewer and water commissioner.
Instead, Caleb's running against Dan Saltzman—and he's pushing a platform that's aggressively progressive.
His announcement includes a call for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, and goes on to criticize the city's "scandalous" handling of homelessness, demand increased police accountability, and agitate for a more serious run at the city's Superfund cleanup of the Willamette River.
"To improve the health of our communities, I propose that Portland raise the City's minimum wage to $15/hr, so that people who work in Portland can afford to live here," he says in his announcement. "I will work to eliminate homelessness in Portland, beginning with adequate funding of services for veterans, the disabled, seniors, and families in crisis. The city should belong to everyone who lives here, not just Portland’s wealthiest residents."
Caleb, 30, says he decided on Friday to launch what's obviously an uphill fight. He joins KBOO reporter Joe Meyer in taking on Saltzman, the dean of the council up for his fifth term, and both must defy a difficult trend in Portland politics: It's been incredibly hard to defeat incumbents on the council, even when challengers (like in the case of Mary Nolan vs. Amanda Fritz) claim institutional backing.
With the May 20 primary a little more than two months way, Saltzman, despite being unopposed until last week, has been steadily collecting a dominant-if-not-huge pile of campaign cash—largely thanks to developers and property owners and business interests.
"More or less I was kind of hoping that candidates would jump in who would be pushing strong social justice issues," Caleb, whose father was a Klamath Falls prosecutor, told the Mercury's Dirk VanderHart. "No one really seemed to be jumping in against Saltzman."
Caleb's message, especially on the $15 minimum wage, echoes the one Kshama Sawant—a socialist—used to unseat an old-guard incumbent on the Seattle City Council. Sawant, in calling for the minimum wage, allied herself with fast-food protesters and labor interests who've been far more prominent with their effort in Seattle than in Portland.
"Kshama and her people have been successful in basically getting the whole city council to buy in. It is one of those issues that's in the public mind right now," Caleb says. "The idea is to kind of organize around these things and to push and see what happens. If it's something that really lights a fire under people and we're able to sneak in a victory, that's great. I'm going try to win. "
Caleb is planning a press event Friday. His full statement is after the jump.The UK’s Opinion Research Business has released another statistical study of Iraqi casualties since the launching of the American invasion, one that updates, revises, and essentially confirms their earlier estimate of a million-plus dead.
The price of “liberation” is indeed high, but was it worth it? The Iraqis have a simple answer: some 60 percent tell pollsters attacks on U.S. and allied military personnel are justified. So much for being greeted with garlands of flowers and hailed as “liberators.”The Americans have a similar, if less emphatic answer: a recent poll asking if the invasion and subsequent occupation “was or was not worth the number of U.S. military casualties and the financial cost of the war” yields a resounding no, with 59 percent -- up three points.A million dead -- and for what?So that the neoconservatives could stand astride Washington and the world, bellowing threats and beating their chests in the wake of 9/11, braying that everything -- everything -- had changed, especially the basic rules of human decency. Because it was “doable,” as Paul Wolfowitz put it. Because our foreign policy is in large part built around the concept of making the Middle East safe for Israel. And, most of all, because of the sheer hubris of those who thought themselves above the laws of God and man -- who thought they were gods, and let loose American thunderbolts with reckless abandon, with deadly consequences.The response to the last ORB data release was vehement: the U.S. government, which doesn’t even bother counting Iraqi dead and wounded, derided it, and the neoconservative pundits lit into it as “propaganda” and an exaggeration, whilst the more ambitious assailed the methodology of every attempt to measure the vast war crime that the killing fields of Iraq represent.Yet the results of the ORB study have been expanded, to include estimates from rural as well as urban areas. The major criticism of the previous study was that the emphasis on conducting interviews in urban areas skewed the results in the direction of an overestimation: the revised study meets this critique head on, covering all areas of the country except for Karbala and Al Anbar, for safety reasons, and also Irbil -- for political reasons. It seems Kurdish regional government officials weren’t eager for a full accounting of the war dead, for reasons best known to themselves: the interviewers were barred from conducting interviews in the area. The impact of these omissions pushes their estimate downward, and yet the number is astonishing.Think of it: a million plus dead. A full 20 percent of all Iraqi households have endured a death in the family not of natural causes, the great majority of these being Sunnis.In light of this horror, I couldn’t help but think of John McCain’s remarks the other night at the Republican debate, defending his stated contention that we could and probably should stay in Iraq for a hundred years:“We are going to be there for some period of time, but it’s American casualties, not American presence. We’ve got troops right next door in Kuwait. We’ll probably have them there for a long time. We have troops in Bosnia. We’ve had troops in South Korea for some 50 years. By the way, President Eisenhower didn’t bail us out of Korea. But the point is that we need to protect America’s national security interest. It’s not a matter of presence. It’s a matter of casualties.”American, not Iraqi casualties: the latter don’t even figure into McCain’s moral calculus, such as it is.As long as Americans aren’t dying in any great numbers, it’s okay to drive us into bankruptcy, alienate the peoples of the world, and fuel the fires of anti-American terrorism. Since our national security is so often invoked by McCain and his ilk to justify their policy of perpetual war, it needs to be emphasized that the tactics employed by suicide bombers and other terrorist acts have historically been responses to military occupation by a far superior force. Yet McCain looks forward to extending our suzerainty over Iraq for a hundred years. How many more Iraqis will die in the span of Iraq’s American century?McCain is not so much of a maverick that he doesn’t bother looking at the polls: he knows how many Americans think the war wasn’t worth it, and he knows he can’t win unless he confronts this sentiment. So he’s going out there with his line about how “it’s a matter of casualties.” For all his self-promoted concept of himself as some sort of crusading idealist, in this instance at least his cold political calculation is that Americans just care about American dead, and screw the Iraqis.Except it isn’t true. Soldiers are coming home with terrifying tales of the war and the level of violence, which is not declining but visibly rising after a brief lull even as the neocon pundits sing paeans to the surge. The American people are horrified by what Bush and his neocon brain trust have wrought in Iraq, and they aren’t going to be anything but repulsed by this kind of moral blindness, which only takes into account our own costs, both human and material.Not that McCain, whose self-confessed difficulty with economic issues comes as a surprise to no one, cares much about the latter. He grimaced and rolled his eyes during the debate, as Ron Paul laid out the economic consequences of the McCainiac hyper-interventionist foreign policy. In answer to a question about whether we’re better off now than we were eight years ago, the Texas troublemaker averred:“No, no, we’re not better off. We’re worse off, but it’s partially this administration’s fault and it’s the Congress. But it also involves an economic system that we’ve had for a long time and a monetary system that we’ve had and a foreign policy that’s coming to an end and we have to admit this. … We were elected in the year 2000 to have a humble foreign policy and not police the world, and yet what are we doing now? We’re bogged down in another war. We’re bankrupting our country and we have an empire that we’re trying to defend which costs us $1 trillion a year.”It’s coming to an end, and we have to admit this, because the markets are roiling as the prospect of an American super-recession takes shape, and the central bank acts with unprecedented boldness to shore up the shaky foundations of an economy built around artificial bank credit expansion. This, after all, is how states finance wars, and especially wars of choice (i.e. wars of aggression) such as Iraq: the invisible taxation of bank credit expansion, i.e. inflating the money supply. Without the link to gold, or some other commodity or basket of commodities, governments are free to debase their own currencies, and thus destroy the very basis of commerce.The three branches of the federal government are bound by the chains of the Constitution, and yet when gold was separated from the value of the currency the government was “freed” from its bounds, and unchained it went forth -- to make war.Financing wars, especially unpopular wars, is a tricky business: direct taxation is the least desirable option. It might create undue awareness of the war’s real costs. Much better to exact the invisible tax of inflation, which eats into people’s savings and takes its highest toll on those least able to afford it. It’s the most regressive tax of all, yet both political parties support it fulsomely. They’d rather sell the country’s assets off to the Chinese than give up their bipartisan delusions of Washington as the Imperial City, the capital of a rising world empire. Paul’s dark warning that we have “a foreign policy that’s coming to an end and we have to admit this” certainly rings true as the financial markets quiver on the edge of a massive meltdown.Our empire is a bubble that’s about to burst, along with the economic bubble the Federal Reserve lives in mortal fear of. Whether this is punishment from on high, or simply economic “blowback” rebounding from our fiscal and foreign policies, is a matter of taste and disposition. I’ll leave it to the secularists and the faithful to argue it out, and simply note that we’re about to pay the price of our deadly hubris.(Antiwar.com)Children suffering with cancer at El Paso Children's Hospital are getting a new set of wigs.
The wigs were made by Slider Middle School's drama class.
The students designed the wigs using various colors of yarn. Twenty wigs were inspired by fairy-tale princesses and two 1950s movies.
"We really had fun and it is such a good cause," said Marylin Ramirez, a seventh-grade student at
Slider. "I'm glad we got the chance to do it. It really is a cool project."
The idea for the project came from an Australian website that featured hairpieces made out of crocheted beanies and were given to cancer patients, school officials said.
"The beanies are softer for the children," said drama teacher Sonja Kern, who oversaw the project.
Logan Maxwell, a sixth-grade student, said she is glad to be able to do this for the cancer patients.
"I feel like they would be appreciative for the wig and feeling like a princess," Maxwell said.
The students had three weeks to create the wigs, and Kern said they will continue to make the wigs on a yearly basis.
"Giving back to the community is great, especially for children," Kern said.
The wigs will be donated Friday.The Mississippi River has been pretty pissed off lately. And it's because of natural disasters like this that they're building the world's largest water pump in New Orleans.
Advertisement
This pump's 5,000-horsepower diesel engine spins a four-blade propeller 150 times a minute. The result is the movement of 15 Olympic-size-swimming-pools worth of water every minute (that's 150,000 gallons per second). A $500 million investment, the pump is protected by 32-foot-tall, 225-foot-wide steel gates, which reach the river's bottom and are able to withstand a 16-foot storm surge. As if that wasn't enough, a 12-foot-thick concrete slab holds the gates, and that slab has its own support—518 steel pilings, each able to withstand more than 435,000 pounds.
Although it's meant to be completed sometime this year, there's still no word from the Army Corp of Engineers as to when it'll be up and running. [Blue Living Ideas via PopSci]
Monster Machines is all about the most exceptional machines in the world, from massive gadgets of destruction to tiny machines of precision, and everything in between.By Rick Snow – Owner and Operator, Eagle Eye Rare Coins ……
I have written about the problem of overgrading for many years now.
In 1996, I began a service called Photo Seal. In small ways it has helped control the problem within the Flying Eagle and Indian cent collector community, but we are now closing in on 30 years of certified grading.
Over the years we have seen an ever increasing amount of coins being certified with grades that can only be described as overgraded. These coins do not disappear from the market; in fact, they tend to have a multiplying effect. Once graded, they are placed in the marketplace, usually at auction. There they tend to sell for below market prices. The original submitters reap their profit and from then on the coins are traded at a discount, from auction to eBay to dealer’s inventory to eBay again and then back to another auction, never finding a final resting place.
The real problem is that each public sale is a lower data point for the price guide editors.
The grading services – PCGS and NGC, both have a business model of ever-decreasing returns. They are fighting for submissions. The more coins they certify, the less coins there are to submit. This is the law of diminishing returns. If standards remained fixed and equal between grading services and the same standard were applied to coins year after year, soon there would be no reason to resubmit an already certified coin. There would be no incentive to crossover a coin. There would be no incentive to choose one company over another.
To keep coins coming in they have used all types of revenue enhancement strategies to keep coins being graded and regraded. This is business. They walk the line between respect and ruthlessness as in any corporate culture. As a submitter you want the greatest return for your coin. Most dealers would send a coin to whomever they think will give them the highest grade. This increases their profit. I think most collectors just want their coins graded correctly. If a grading service caters to one group and gives out “gift grades” to large submitters, they run the risk of alienating the other group who demand accuracy.
The problem now is that the majority (50% to 75%) of the coins in slabs are overgraded by the standards set by the grading companies in the 1990s. As a collector, you have to acknowledge the problem. There are two choices you can make in adding coins to your collection: buy the coin in the holder or buy the coin regardless of the holder. Your personal attention to quality does not fix the problem of these overgraded coins lowering market prices. It might even make it worse if there are fewer buyers of these coins.
The problem can only be fixed by the increased awareness that auction prices of just any slabbed coin is not the best way to record the market or determine the value of a coin. Auction sales must be judged on the quality of the coin, whether it’s properly graded or not.
An Accurate Price
So, what price is an accurate reflection of the coin being considered?
It used to be that price was a reflection of the dealer-to-dealer market where both buyer and seller had experience and knew how to grade. If two dealers agree on a price of a coin, it can be argued that the coin is correctly graded and correctly priced. There are a multitude of other factors, but the basic premise is there. From there, a reasonable mark-up of 10% to 30% is applied and a retail price, or “ask”, is established. This is what used to be listed in the price guides.
Another way to determine a price is to use auction records. With the advancement of easy-to-reference auction records, this is the way most dealers and collectors determine an average price (the established printed price guides are now an afterthought). Although it seems on the surface a fair way to judge a market, it is, in the face of massive overgrading, a very destructive practice.
To show you the problem, we will look at one grade of one coin and examine how overgrading has hurt the market. The 1877 Indian cent in AU50 condition will do. The proper grade is–and has been for the modern, post-Photograde era–defined as “Some original luster remains. Some marks. Obvious wear.” The image on the previous page is a properly-graded 1877 in AU50. The example is PCGS-graded and PhotoSealed, or (PS). My records show that this coin sold for US$4,500 in 2013.
This next coin is PCGS-graded AU50 that I sold for $3,000 a few months later that is not PhotoSealed. The reason is that I felt it was merely an XF40, not AU. Notice how the lower hair curl is nearly connected to the ribbon? There is no original surface luster remaining. There is obviously a big difference in quality, which is the reason for the big difference in price. Confronted with this simple explanation it is obvious why a collector might want one over the other – quality and price. The $3,000 coin might fit right in a collection where the $4,500 was out of budget. The $4,500 specimen might have the look that the new owner had been looking for for years without luck, assuming price is not the main concern.
I hope this clearly shows the wide differences in similarly-graded coins. The date should not matter. The prices assigned by the seller (in this case, myself) were derived from research into what other examples of the same quality have sold for in the past. I did not use auction records. There is always give-and-take in arriving at a price and buyers should have a say in that process. If the established market for a (PS) AU50 is $4,500, then the price paid by the dealer to acquire it should be in line with that as well. Probably in the $3,750 to $4,000 range. This is a 25% to 12% margin. The non-(PS) coin above is an XF coin in a AU50 holder.
It may have been bought for XF money (about $2,500) because it is obviously not an AU50. To move it out quickly, it is offered at an attractive price for an |
the years among elite surfers by launching himself into the largest, most terrifying waves in California and Hawaii. He knew every break in Big Sur. He had a ruddy, wind-swept face and dulled dark eyes. He stood 6'2" and weighed close to 250 pounds. When he pulled a 4/3-millimeter wet suit over his body, along with a hood and gloves, his paunch was visible. He grabbed his 8'5" surfboard—a “gun” suitable for paddle surfing but too long for this dangerous tow-in scene. At 45 he walked as if in constant pain, as though the cartilage in his knees had been worn away.
This morning Davi was feeling every hour of those 45 years. He’d had a long night snorting speed. The crystal meth sizzling in his bloodstream was fading away, sublimating into a hangover so toxic his saliva tasted like it could strip the paint off a fireplug. He still had enough meth coursing through him to feel the searing high. And he was about to swim into the biggest waves on record at Ghost Tree, arguably the most dangerous surf spot in the world. “What took you so long?” asked Anthony Ruffo, a pro surfer and one of Davi’s closest friends. He and Randy “Flintstone” Reyes had already launched two jet skis into Monterey harbor and rounded the peninsula to Pescadero Point.
Davi drank from a water bottle and worked the muscles in his jaw. He strapped a six-foot leash to his ankle and plunged into the teeming brine. As his wet suit filled with the icy water, Frog started up his jet ski. Lying on his board, Davi grabbed the tow rope and they idled out of the cove. When they passed Pescadero Rocks, Davi saw the swell. It was Ghost Tree like he’d never seen it, a mountain of water. The breaking surf now sounded like an airplane crashing, even from half a mile away.
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The gigantic rollers were no surprise. “There were big buoy readings,” says Don Curry, 48, the legendary Carmel surfer who gave Ghost Tree its name, referring to weather data buoys that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintains far out at sea. “We knew we were going to get a big swell.” According to NOAA records, the buoys indicated 20-footers hundreds of miles out days earlier. A storm had parked in the middle of the Pacific for a week, packing 50 mph winds. The swells that resulted built as they neared the 9,600-foot deep underwater troughs called the Monterey Canyon off the California coast. As the storm blew and the rollers grew in speed and mass, the surfing world took notice. Historic waves were headed into shore, the kind that arrive only once every few years, if that.
The phenomenon is called the trifecta—a perfect storm of waves when surfers follow the same swell from a huge weather system as it surges east across the Pacific, beginning in Hawaii’s North Shore and Waimea Bay, then up to Northern California, and finally to Todos Santos Island off the coast of Baja. The week before the big event, alarms had gone off across Internet bulletin boards, e-mails were sent, and text messages crisscrossed the globe.
By December 3, many of the world’s top big wave surfers had descended on the Cali coast. Locals, like brothers Russell and Tyler Smith, were already here; others, like Don Curry, Greg Long, Mark Healey, and Mike Parsons, also showed up, as did a Santa Cruz contingent of Ghost Tree pioneers like Shane Desmond and Tyler Fox. Carlos Burle flew in from Brazil. Some wave hunters had hopped across from Hawaii; others had come all the way from Australia.
When Davi arrived at Ghost Tree, about 21 waverunners and 15 tow-in surfers were buzzing around trying to capture the madness and glory. Davi was instantly recognized; he was a trailblazer here, one of the first to surf these dangerous swells. Photographers lined the shore, snapping away at the action. Seaweed, sea cucumbers, and forests of feather boa kelp churned in the white water. Davi took his place on the shoulder of the lineup. The swells at Ghost Tree were so large and moved so fast, surfers were towed by jet skis into the waves on special short boards with foot straps. But Davi maintained a lifelong disdain of the tow-in—preferring the purist attitude that surfing was about nothing but the man, the board, and the sea. That’s why he showed up with his longboard rather than the shorter, pointed guns the tow-in surfers were riding.
Davi surveyed the scene. Twenty-footers were rolling in at 19 second intervals, and when the swells arrived in the shallows, the earth pushed them upward another 50 feet into the air. Around now the first foursomes at Pebble Beach were making the turn onto the 18th hole tee box, and they saw what Davi saw from the water: the gargantuan, vertical mug of Ghost Tree in all its thunderous glory.
“I was saying the day before that someone’s going to die on the fourth,” pro surfer Grant Washburn said. “That’s the kind of swell that kills people for sure. It’s that big, it’s that heavy, it’s coming at a scary angle. When you’re near those waves, you’re pretty much aware that they will kill you.”
* * *
By most definitions, Big Wave surfing was the first extreme sport, born one day in 1969. Three massive storms collided over Hawaii, and much of the coastline population was evacuated for fear that the waves would wipe away their homes. Armed with a wooden longboard, Californian Greg Noll spent two hours standing on Makaha Beach staring at the walls of water crashing down with thousands of pounds of force. Finally he marched into the sea and rode a 35-footer, the largest wave ever surfed at that time. “Some of my friends have said it was a death wish wave,” Noll later wrote. “I didn’t think so then, but in retrospect I realize it was probably bordering on the edge.”
Heretofore wave riders avoided breakers greater than 20 feet; they were considered too dangerous to navigate on the era’s primitive surfboards. The idea of seeking out huge waves was new, and it caught on. Every outdoor sport needs an Everest, and surfing now had one. Suddenly, a crew of surf gladiators began to travel the earth in search of that rolling peak, and the sport of big wave surfing was born. It spurred the industry to create new boards and permeated fashion and pop culture, eventually resulting in surf film classics Riding Giants and Point Break.
The scene in the continental U.S. came to the fore in 1975, when Jeff Clark discovered one of the biggest waves on the planet in Half Moon Bay, south of San Francisco, that rose sometimes 70 feet in a symmetrical wave that broke in both directions. These were frigid, rocky, shark-infested waters. Clark paddled a half-mile out and surfed it alone. He named it Mavericks, and it’s still North America’s most famous big wave spot. In 1992, Clark got a call from a local in Monterey named Peter Davi, a 30-year-old commercial fisherman and renowned surfer. A group of hardcore riders had been hearing about Clark’s wave, and they wanted in. Clark agreed to guide them, and Davi, his friend Don Curry, and a gang of Santa Cruz heavies drove up Highway 1 to Half Moon. “In those early days Davi would have people videotape them surfing Mavericks and they’d watch it afterward and study it,” Curry says. “For them it was uncharted territory. I mean, we were surfing into rocks. Who does that?”
The men who sought out the Goliaths of the sea found something spiritual in them. The danger, the immeasurable power of the ocean’s thrust, the adrenaline surge: The big wave offered transcendence. Riding the big wave was like a drug, and mortal notions like jobs and money took a backseat. “To keep your sanity, you have to ride waves, and some of them need to be big,” surfer Dave Kalama once said. “The closer you get to total annihilation, the more real everything becomes.”
The sea claimed its share of the best. In 1994, Hawaiian Mark Foo drowned in an 18-footer on his first attempt at Mavericks. A year later, Donnie Solomon died in a 20-foot wave in Hawaii’s Waimea Bay. Todd Chesser was fished out of 25-foot swells at Alligator Rock in Oahu in 1997. Three years after that, Briece Tarea was killed at Tahiti’s Teahupoo (“Broken Skulls”). But the pull of the big wave still beckoned, and many who’d experienced the high it provided couldn’t resist. “I’ve never thought about surfing these waves as all that dangerous, really,” comments Mavericks founder Clark. “On my worst day out at Mavericks, I’m doing better than my best day onshore. It’s my home.”
Peter Davi’s legendary status was based not on pure skill but rather his love of the sea and his desire to hurl himself into the most intense situations the ocean could muster. He was a peer to the greats in the sport—Clark, Curry, Peter Mel, Johnny Gomes, Laird Hamilton.
Davi grew up in the 1970s on the foggy Monterey peninsula, the grandson of a renowned sea captain who ran 90-foot ships off Cannery Row back when it was still the hard-luck harbor of the John Steinbeck era. “Pete was a real mellow kid,” says Curry, who grew up with Davi. “I moved to Hawaii in 1978, and when I came back in ’81 the kid had become a big man. He had figured out how to have a good time. He was looked up to, and when he went to the North Shore later that year, he fit in with the big intimidator crowd there. That’s where he got a lot of his notoriety.” Davi spent a few years surfing the North Shore’s towering waves. “He was one of the guys who paved the way to Hawaii for us California guys,” says Clark. “He had his spot on Pipeline in the lineup. I mean, you can’t buy your way in there. Pipeline is so heavy. When you can call Pipeline your home, you’ve made it. That was him: Pipeline Pete.”
When Davi returned to California, he chased the Pacific’s biggest swells up and down the coast. He lived for years in the redwood stands of Big Sur with his son, Jake, now a pro surfer, and Jake’s mother, Katrin Winterbotham. He knew the breaks along the fickle beaches of Big Sur probably better than anyone. Even before he was to make a name for himself in Oahu as Pipeline Pete, everyone in the Monterey area knew him. He had the reputation as a hard-working guy with a huge heart and a Sicilian-bred tough-guy edge. “I met Pete at a local spot in Big Sur around 1980,” says Anthony Ruffo. “He was a big Italian dude, real intimidating, and Big Sur was most definitely his spot.”
By the winter of 2007, Davi had moved his family to Pacific Grove. From his hillside house nestled in a grove of oaks, he had a view of Monterey Bay. The house had no TV. Surfaces were covered in driftwood, pieces of jade, arrowheads he found on Pescadero Point, stones from Big Sur. Like his Italian forefathers, Davi made a decent living working netting boats. Five or six nights a week, he’d arrive at the docks at Moss Landing and go out with the crew of a large diesel netting boat. He’d fish all night, and return around 7 a.m. to unload mackerel, herring, and squid. If the swell was good, he was ready to surf by nine.
But there was another side to Davi. He had become a part of a different subculture crystallizing among surfers in California. There is a moth-to-the-flame quality to the thrill of the big wave. “I guess [big wave surfing] is an addiction,” surfer Ken Bradshaw once said. “I have no idea, but it must be like being on drugs. Because when you’re not doing it, it torments and eats away at you.” Many surfers in the late ’90s began to rely on an alternative source for that high. It was a jaw-clenching ride that could be experienced no matter the size of the rolling ocean, within the confines of a smoky living room or a barroom toilet. In the early ’90s crystal meth burned through the surf community like no other, especially along the Highway 1 corridor from San Francisco to Big Sur. “Adrenaline junkies thrive on the rush of the wave,” says surf icon Peter Mel. “After surfing a big wave, you get depressed, and you look for another rush. Drugs are a quick fix. Maybe the drugs fill the hole, because surfing is the best feeling—ever.”
Somewhere along the way, like so many others, Peter Davi began to surf that phantom wave. “We were close when we were kids and I was a hard partyer, too,” Curry says of Davi. “But then we went down different roads back in the early ’90s. I went down the road of sobriety, and Peter went in the other direction.”
Davi straddled his board in the Ghost Tree lineup, watching waverunners tow riders into the massive swells. Pro surfer Anthony “Taz” Tashnick was next to him. Like Davi, Taz was trying to paddle into the waves rather than use the tow-in. He hadn’t surfed Ghost Tree, and Davi was feeding him pointers. A helicopter was now hovering above, the chopper blades punctuating the sound of the crashing waves. When a swell rolled in, it sucked the water out of the shallows, revealing the boulders that lay just beneath the surface. The waverunner engines revved, and some brave soul launched himself into the fury.
A roller approached and Taz prepared to paddle in. “Here it comes!” Davi yelled. “Ten feet in, 10 feet over, you’re going fine. Go! Go! Go!”
Taz stood up, got blinded by mist, and airdropped. Just like that he was pinned by thousands of pounds of water beneath the surface; it was like being locked in an industrial washing machine. “I rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled,” he said of the terrifying ride. Jeff Clark, who was also at Ghost Tree on December 4 and had two 60-footers drop on his head, described the sensation of being trapped in the whitewash beneath the surface: “You just check out. You go to sleep. It’s like falling out of an airplane. What are you going to do about it?” When Taz made it to the surface, he choked and gasped for air. He’d had enough of Ghost Tree. He started to swim in toward the shore, headed straight for his car.
Davi went to the inside of the break and tried to paddle into the overcooked scraps. But it was unsatisfying. He attempted to catch one of the big rollers, but they were moving too quickly. He no longer had the athleticism to paddle into this kind of wave; the swells rolled under him without picking him up. He knew he had to put his principles aside and get a tow. It was the only way. He saw old friend Kelly Sorensen on a waverunner. Sorensen owned a surf shop in town and had sponsored Davi for years, supplying him with boards.
“I wanna get one of those waves,” Davi said.
“OK,” Sorensen replied. “Ride it, Pete.”
They waited, and when Sorensen spotted a swell, he throttled the waverunner. Davi pulled himself up on his board. The wave was big but not gigantic; he rode it, and at the end he tumbled back into the sea. His friends Ruffo and Flintstone passed on a waverunner. Flintstone was driving and Ruffo was sitting behind.
“My turn,” Davi said to Ruffo.
Ruffo jumped off, and Davi climbed on, holding his board. Flintstone drove him back to the lineup.
The meth in Davi’s bloodstream now mingled with adrenaline. He was about to harness the full power of a historic wave—on a board ill-suited for a swell this size and speed. He grabbed hold of the rope behind the waverunner. And then he saw it, rolling in with immeasurable force. A vast wave rose up out of the sea, moving fast and high.
Thirty feet. Forty feet.
Flintstone opened the waverunner’s throttle. Davi launched out of the sea like a water-skier, lifting his linebacker-size body up with all his strength. As he gained his footing, the wave started to break on the outside, generating an unholy roar. Davi released the tow. The board raced along the rising wave, pushing Davi faster and faster. He was moving over 20 mph now, cascading down the face of the wave, the wall of water towering over him. This was it: transcendence. The closer you get to total annihilation, the more real everything becomes. Boulders emerged, and Davi flitted around them with skill. The wave began to collapse on him. Coated in spume, he rode the whole wave, then let himself fall into the white water. The chop was so rough it tore his leash and carried his board away. The clamor still filled his ears, and his heart was pumping wildly. But he’d emerged in relative safety, protected by the boulder field. He was treading water amid some feather boa kelp, about 100 yards off the beach. Flintstone had picked up Ruffo, and the two rode over.
“Hey, Pete,” Ruffo said. “Want a ride in?”
“Nah, I’ve paddled this plenty of times,” Davi said, still breathing hard, his heart still pounding. He must have felt immortal. He waved his friends off and began to swim.
“We never second-guessed it,” Ruffo said. “It was the most natural thing in the world.”
No one ever saw Peter Davi alive again.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Flintstone and Ruffo were headed back into Stillwater Cove. Ruffo noticed what looked like a snorkeler. They slowed to get a look and realized it wasn’t a diver. Ruffo jumped into the sea. He found Peter Davi floating, his face bone white and cold to the touch. He had abrasions on his head. No one had noticed Davi missing.
Onshore a 17-year-old EMT trainee performed CPR until the rescue personnel arrived. Davi was laid on a pier within feet of the ocean. A crowd gathered and watched as a paramedics inserted a femoral IV and pumped Davi’s chest, trying to revive him. All efforts to jump-start his heart failed. He was pronounced dead at 1:28 p.m.
As an ambulance carted him to a Monterey County hospital, the surfers were still out at the lineup, unaware one of their own had been killed. But the word spread. Cell phones rang, and local news reporters and television teams arrived to report on the story of a legendary surfer’s death. Davi’s rise and violent fall mimicked the last wave he’d surfed. “He went out the way he wanted to go out,” said
Sorensen, interviewed on-camera back at his surf shop in town, “in a big wave situation.”
“You can die in a motel with a crack whore, or in a hospital bed when you’re 80, or like this,” says Ruffo, of his friend’s last ride. “This is as it should be. The comforting part is that he’s a 45-year-old legend.”
Four days after Davi’s death, on Saturday, December 8, friends and family crowded into a Pacific Grove Catholic church for a memorial service. Afterward they headed over to the park at Lovers Point. The sun was shining, and the winds were light. One hundred surfers hopped on their boards and paddled out to form a circle just outside the break. They performed a traditional waterman’s send-off, chanting the dead man’s name.
“Davi. Davi. Davi.”
Then they paddled into the breakers, which carried them gently back to shore.
The Monterey County coroner’s report found the primary cause of death was “asphyxia due to ocean drowning” coupled with “blunt force head and chest injuries.” When the toxicology reports were issued, the full story became a little clearer. The coroner reported “acute methamphetamine intoxication may have played a contributing role.” Davi had 0.75 milligrams of crystal meth in his system per liter of blood.
His friends don’t agree on what happened that day at Ghost Tree. Sorensen believes that in the aftermath of riding that big wave, Davi suffered a heart attack. Ruffo believes his leash snagged on rocks during an inshore surge as he paddled in, and the surge pummeled him into rocks, knocking him unconscious. Others think he was caught in ropy tangles of kelp. Don Curry is less ambivalent.
“This is a cautionary tale more than anything else,” he says. “Peter didn’t die surfing Ghost Tree. He died swimming in, and that’s the real tragedy for a surfer. You simply cannot be in a spot like Pescadero Point when you’re fucked up.”
While all the details will never be known, this much is: The next time the NOAA buoy readings signal gigantic rollers headed California’s way and the alarms go off on Internet bulletin boards, the world’s top surfers will gather again at Mavericks and Ghost Tree. They will fly across the globe in search of their next, and possibly their last, big wave.The state of Washington is known for having some of the harshest online gambling laws in the United States.
But these laws go even further than many realize: Washington also considers fantasy sports to be a form of gambling, meaning that players who spend money on their online fantasy sports leagues are technically breaking the law, and could even be charged with a felony under the same laws that criminalize online poker and casino games.
That’s something that many local officials would like to be changed.
With an estimated 500,000 residents in the state playing fantasy sports games, State Senator Pam Roach (R-31st District) says it’s time to reclassify the contests as a game of skill rather than as luck-based gambling.
“Our state sees fantasy football as a game of chance – a felony crime,” Roach said. “Congress has long considered fantasy football to be a game of skill. My bill will change the state’s definition.”
Washington Residents Restricted from Fantasy Sports Sites
Right now, many major online fantasy sports outlets block Washington residents from participating on their sites, including top daily fantasy sites like FanDuel and DraftKings.
Traditional season long leagues on sites like ESPN.com are often open to Washington residents, but they are typically ineligible to win prizes.
The problem is that most states see fantasy sports as a game of skill.
But the Washington State Gambling Commission still sees luck as a big enough factor to classify it as gambling under current state laws.
“There’s always the chance the Seattle Seahawks will come back from two touchdowns down with two minutes left,” said commission chairman Chris Stearns, referring to the Seahawks’ improbable comeback in the NFC Championship game last weekend. “Whereas in most states, the fact that you’ve spent all this time poring over stats and making your own spreadsheets, that’s the skill part, and that weighs most heavily.”
Sports Betting Would Remain Illegal
Under the proposed law, there would still be a prohibition on placing bets on the outcome of real world sporting events.
However, both daily and season-long fantasy sports would be expressly legal, even for real money play.
The bill appears to have better odds than a similar bill that would decriminalize and regulate online poker; the fantasy sports bill has bi-partisan support and has picked up a number of sponsors on both sides of the aisle.
Companion bills have already been introduced in both the House of Representatives and the State Senate.
The legalization effort is supported by the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, an industry group based out of Chicago.
According to the group, more than 41 million people in America and Canada play fantasy sports, and nearly half of them play for real money.
“We think citizens of Washington should be able to play the full array of fantasy sports contests offered in 45 other states and be able to win prizes in free contests offered by major media companies,” said association chairman Peter Schoenke in a statement.
Washington is one of five states in which residents are typically blocked from playing on daily fantasy sports sites.
As we recently reported, momentum is increasing in several of these states to legalize such games: recently, a Montana lawmaker introduced a bill that would allow residents to participate in contests where the entry fee was $100 or less.PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — With a sharply worded letter, PA Governor Tom Wolf warned U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stay out of Pennsylvania when it comes to criminalizing medical marijuana.
“There’s a fair amount of concern about that indeed,” Sven Hosford, spokesperson for the PA Medical Cannabis told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Thursday.
“For a lot of patients, this is the only medicine that works. So for him to go after medical cannabis is kind of flying in the face of science and the facts.”
Here’s the problem.
While many states have legalized medical marijuana, the federal government has not.
That means, unless Congress changes the law, the feds can prosecute anyone who grows, prescribes, or uses medical cannabis.
Hosford says that’s happened in other states without medical marijuana laws.
“Patients have been put in jail. Parents of patients have been put in jail. Veterans have been put in jail. It’s really not a very good situation.”
But Attorney General Sessions says federal law still stands.
“Federal law on marijuana remains in effect in every state. It’s not eviscerated because a state ceases to enforce the law in that state,” says Sessions.
In his letter, Wolf warned Sessions, “If you seek to further disrupt our ability to establish a legal way to deliver relief of medical marijuana to our citizens, I will ask the attorney general of Pennsylvania to take legal action to protect our residents and state sovereignty.”
The governor’s view is shared.
“I don’t think the federal government should have a say in that, especially if the states have already adopted something,” says Jack Durange of Bellevue.
“Why would they charge them with a crime if it’s due to a medical reason? So I think that’s wrong,” adds Liz Cheatham of Verona.
“The United States of America is about states’ rights, and the states should have a say-so in how their state is governed,” notes Dan McBride of Washington.
Pennsylvania will soon award licenses to grow medical marijuana, but some worry the feds may step in to prosecute those who grow, prescribe, and use medical cannabis.
“There certainly is a lot of worry,” says Hosford.
Sessions has zeroed in on medical cannabis.
“I think medical marijuana has been hyped — maybe too much,” says Sessions.
Although 29 states have legalized medical cannabis, it’s still against federal law.
The Obama administration refused to enforce federal anti-marijuana laws against states that had legalized it.
But it may be different under President Trump.
Sessions has threatened to prosecute anyone who uses marijuana, even if it’s legal under state law.
Statements like that led Wolf to send a strong letter to Sessions, warning him, “We do not need the federal government getting in the way of Pennsylvania’s right to deliver them relief through our new medical marijuana program.”
“We stand shoulder to shoulder with the governor,” says Hosford.
Hosford says Wolf and state lawmakers have support from the industry and patients alike.
“He has been an exemplary leader. Every level of state government, in fact, has been in favor of medical cannabis. There is full-throated support in the legislature.”
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Stay Up To Date, Follow KDKA On TwitterActive citizen Mel Kelly discovers how private companies with Conservative connections are benefiting from'reform' of the British welfare state.
Clarification from Our Kingdom, March 2013
Shortly after this piece was published in August 2011, Chris Mould, the Trussell Trust's part-time Executive Chairman and trustee, added a comment that he is a member of the Labour Party. Thereafter, we should have noted this fresh information within the article, which would also have been clearer if it had referred to Noel Atkins a Chairman of the Trustees (he has been succeeded by Sophie Melville) while Chris Mould is its executive chairmen rather than controlling it.
Chris Mould has asked us to note that the Trussell Trust was founded in 1997, and the Trust set up its first food bank to help people in 2000, when Britain was governed by a Labour administration; that the Trussell Trust developed and launched the food bank social franchise in 2004, again under a Labour government; and that the Trust's work is not an initiative related to the Coalition government or a response to recent policy initiatives. "It massively predates all that," he says. We are happy to add these facts.
(May 2013) Trussell have also requested it made clear that they are a registered charity that is not formally affiliated to the Conservative party.
The Saturday before Christmas I spotted a BBC website article about the government instructing Jobcentre staff in Salisbury and Gloucester to give out vouchers for food parcels in a pilot project that would expand across England, Wales and Scotland this Spring.
The vouchers could be redeemed against food parcels from the Trussell Trust, whose director Chris Mould told the BBC:
"Although it has taken two years of campaigning to get to this point, we are delighted that ministers are listening to feedback from the front line of the voluntary sector.
"Their decision means people on the breadline will now get the help they need more easily and that's of course what matters to us in the foodbank network.
"This is about sensible working between a public service and the voluntary sector."
But that’s not the whole story.
I’m not a professional journalist, I’m an analyst programmer, a working mother with 2 daughters, a three hour daily commute — and a sense of curiosity.
The Trussell Trust’s website explains that the food parcels are designed to feed a family of four for three days and solicits contributions of rice, pasta, jam, biscuits, powdered potatoes, tinned fish, pasta sauce – emergency supplies.
The Trussell Trust describes itself as “a Christian charity that does not affiliate itself with any political party”. At the time this article was published, its chairman was Conservative Party councillor and Mayor of Worthing, Neil Atkins. The current chairman, Chris Mould, a member of the Labour Party, splits his time between the Trussell Trust and the Shaftesbury Partnership.
According to its website the Shaftesbury Partnership is a “social business” and a “practice of professionals committed to large scale 21st Century social reform.”
Immediately the word “reform” caught my eye; it pops up in so much government rhetoric.
Co-founder of the Shaftesbury Partnership was Nat Wei, a former McKinsey consultant experienced in both venture philanthropy and venture capital who was appointed the Government’s Chief Adviser on Big Society in May 2010 and made a life peer. He stepped down from the Shaftesbury Partnership and became an Honorary Founding Partner. (On 24 May 2011, Lord Wei stepped down from his Big Society role).
Other people in the Shaftesbury Partnership with links to the Tory Party include “Associate” Dominic Llewellyn (Conservative party candidate in 2010 election) who co-authored for the Tories what has now become the government’s Big Society policies. Dominic is an associate in the Big Society Network – which was also co-founded by Cameron’s big society tzar Nat Wei.
Shaftesbury’s recently departed head of operations Antony Hawkins (he’s off to INSEAD business school) states on his LinkedIn profile that he “developed conservative unemployment and welfare reform policy (“The Work Programme”). Planned the implementation of Conservative welfare policies in the Get Britain Working manifesto”.
Shaftesbury’s Patrick Shine worked for 20 years in financial markets and investment management (specialising in “global fixed income and derivatives”) and was a director of Lazard Brothers Asset Management. Co-founder Andrew Tanswell is out of Ernst & Young and Coopers & Lybrand.
The Shaftesbury Partnership’s aim is to “design our solutions so that they are both scalable and have sustainable business models, maximising the potential for social transformation”.
Their philosophy: “We recognise that fear, or lack of trust, lie at the heart of these social problems; and that strategies to reduce fear and build trust can be much more effective than traditional resource-intensive interventions.”
They claim: “In just over two years our work has led to the creation of four social enterprises and charities in a wide range of sectors including healthcare, youth and community, and job creation.”
One of the charities set up by Shaftesbury’s Nat Wei and Patrick Shine is “Challenge Network”, whose chief executive and co-founder Craig Morley has worked for mining company Rio Tinto and Pampers-to-Pringles consumer-goods giant Proctor & Gamble. The Challenge Network got the lion’s share of David Cameron’s Tory Party Big Society Policy of National Citizens Service, to send English Children to camps this summer at a cost of £1,182 per child.
Tory Mayor of London Boris Johnson also sent funds — a £100,000 grant — the Challenge Network’s way.
Like three of the Shaftesbury Partnership key people, two of the Challenge Network’s co-founders are McKinsey men.
My head was now swimming with Tory party chums.
I took myself back to the simple announcement of job centre staff giving out food vouchers. I wrote to my MP, Brian Donohoe the next day, and asked him to write to the minister in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions to find out more about this voucher for food parcels pilot scheme.
In February the minister, Steve Webb, wrote back. “These vouchers were only intended for those refused crisis loans or waiting on a benefit payment to be made,” he said.
But “crisis loans”, I learned, are small interest-free loans made by the DWP from the social fund to people in financial crisis due to unforeseen circumstances such as deaths, flooding, a child in hospital. They’re used to buy food and/or credits for gas and electric pre-payment metres in winter when social security benefits are unlikely to cover the weekly winter pre-payments required.
While researching crisis loans I stumbled across a coalition government consultation paper issued in February 2011 stating the government’s intention to abolish the social fund, and instead give the money, un-ring-fenced, to English Councils who could refer people to community schemes (citing the Trussell Trust Food Parcel Service) rather than giving people crisis loans.
I had come a full circle. Hadn’t the minister told me that only those refused crisis loans would be given vouchers for food parcels? And here was the government proposing to abolish the social fund...in which case wouldn’t everyone who currently qualifies for a crisis loan get just a voucher for a food parcel in future? How many people would this affect?
In March I wrote again asking my MP to ask Steve Webb how many crisis loans were given out in England in 2010/2011. The minister’s stated in reply, dated 26th of March, that “2,697,000” were given out. I was in absolute shock. The government was advising councils not to give crisis loans, as the DWP currently do, but instead to send perhaps 2.6 million families, each year, to their friends at the Trussell Trust with vouchers for a 3 day family food parcel containing no fresh meat, no fresh milk, no fresh bread or vegetables.
On Saturday 25th June, the BBC Breakfast show reported that rising food prices were prompting rising numbers of people to go the Trussell Trust with food vouchers (50% more in the past few months). The BBC website reported Trussell Trust figures indicating it had fed 41,000 people in 2009-10 and almost 61,500 last year. Director Chris Mould (also Shaftesbury Partnership) told the BBC, “demand could grow to 500,000 by 2015”.
The BBC didn’t mention that rising demand for Trussell’s products had anything to do with the government instructions to jobcentre staff to refer people to Trussell, or that Chris Mould’s predicted nearly ten-fold increase in referrals might be prompted by the coming abolition of crisis loans.
Nor did the BBC spot Trussell’s links to the Tory Party.
And not a squeak about the Trussell Trust going around the country courting churches to set up food banks for which the churches pay the Trussell Trust £1500 in set-up fees plus a “small annual donation” (value unstated) and must use the Trussell Trust Branding.
The BBC did indicate the government’s plans to “reform the broken benefits system”.
Channel 4 also gave the Trussell Trust a 15 minute story on their evening news a few months ago regarding their "charitable works" – with nothing of their Tory Party connections or the coming abolition of crisis loans.
Those shoddy news reports provoked me to go back to the Trussell Trust and Shaftesbury Partnership websites, where I spotted that the Shaftesbury partnership was going to start opening schools by setting up their “New Schools Fund” (NSF).
The team working on the project is — Mark Goodchild, Catherine Steven and Mita Bhattacharyya — is, we’re told, “working on a part time pro bono basis and is looking to secure funding for the start of 2011 to finalise the concept and launch the pilot which would see two new schools created to open in September 2012, before rolling out further funds to support the creation of tens of thousands of new high quality school places across the country."
Is the government really funding the Tory Party's friends the Shaftesbury Partnership to open schools using their "free schools" policy and our taxes?
The answer would appear to be — yes!
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the Little People, in which some characteristics of later American pop culture banshee behaviour can be seen) is typically a threatening and/or menacing figure who causes death and/or destruction (thereby taking on characteristics belonging traditionally more to the The Morrígan than to the banshees).
See also [ edit ]
References [ edit ]
Further reading [ edit ]The Trustees of Evergreen State College heard testimony from students and faculty this week, due to the campus protests of the spring which cast a national spotlight on the school.
Protests began in May when progressive Professor Bret Weinstein objected to an event which would have barred white people from campus for a day.
One student named MacKenzie came forward and offered a statement which should concern administrators and trustees alike.
Here’s part of what she said, via John Sexton of Hot Air:
“If you offer any sort of alternative viewpoint, which I do have, and you’re kind of the enemy,” MacKenzie said. She continued, “I don’t agree with the behavior that has been shown on the campus and unlike what Anne Fischel [a previous speaker] has said, I think it’s important to focus on the way this was handled.” “This behavior has actually been encouraged and because of this I feel like people are becoming more violent and the campus is becoming more of an unsafe place,” she said. “I have been to several meetings to speak. I’ve been told several times that I’m not allowed to speak because I’m white,” she said. “This school seems to focus so much on race that it is actually becoming more racist in a different sort of way. And because I say that—because I choose not to focus on race I have actually been labeled a racist and a white supremacist. If anyone took the time to actually know me, it’s not true at all.”
Watch the video by Badger Pundit:
Professor Bret Weinstein, who actually had to be removed from campus at one point due to concerns about his safety, also made a powerful statement. Weinstein framed his testimony by asking the trustees if they were aware how bad the situation really was.
Here’s part of what he said, via My Northwest:
Do you know that the college descended into literal anarchy. For days the campus was not under control of the state, it was under the control of protesters. There were assaults, there were batteries, there was pressure not to report crimes to the police. People were, by the legal definition I believe, kidnapped and imprisoned. That included faculty members and administrators. Others were hunted on the campus. Lawless bands roamed the campus unimpeded. Police were physically and intentionally blocked by protestors. Police were cruelly, systematically and personally taunted. They were humiliated and forced to stand down by the president. Students that held different opinions were, by the protestors own analysis, stalked, harassed … their names, pictures, addresses, and phone numbers were distributed online … Do you know that although the code of conduct is supposed to protect all of us, that Dr. Bridges decided to selectively suspend it, giving some students license to threaten others.
Watch the video:
It’s great that the school’s trustees are listening to people in this forum but they probably should have intervened much sooner. The damage to Evergreen’s standing has been done.
Follow Mike LaChance on Twitter @MikeLaChance33.
Featured image via YouTube.Resident Evil 7 Meets Its Goal With 4 Million Shipped
While it might’ve taken the better part of its first year on store shelves, this is great news.
Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is easily the best title in the franchise in over a decade, blowing previous hit and miss titles like Revelations and RE6 clear out of the water, and while the game was a success with an initial sales run of 3.5 Million units, it’s nice to see Capcom finally getting near its projected goal of 4 Million units, with that many having shipped worldwide. Now, of course, Shipped is a very different number than sold, but it means that they’re getting within the ballpark of their original goal. It also means that the upcoming Resident Evil 7 Gold Edition, slated for release on December 12th, will probably be enough to push it over the edge.
Hitting this 4 million mark is also a huge achievement for RE as a franchise, as it makes RE7 the sixth highest selling game of the franchise, behind RE5, 6, 4, Director’s Cut and 2 in that order.
It has been a pretty bad year for Capcom overall as far as I can tell – Dead Rising 4 has yet to break 1 million units sold, Marvel vs Capcom: Infinite was met with (in my opinion, rightfully deserved) heavy criticism, and Umbrella Corps. sold so bad that Capcom won’t even include it in its annual earnings reports. For the most part, Capcom seems to be coasting on ports (Resident Evil 6‘s XBO/PS4 port alone sold 1 million units), so like I said, it’s nice to see RE7 get some well-deserved love.
[Source]Saker rant: the Neocons have robbed us all from the peace we wanted so much
I spend all day away from home (and I can attest that driving with a sprained ankle sucks!). As always, music kept me going and today it was the always moving voice of Roger Waters. I have been listening to Waters since I was 10 years old and ever since his emotion-filled music has always accompanied me through the good and the bad.
Today, just as it was getting dark, my player played Water’s beautiful ” The Tide is Turning” and, as always, I had a flashback to the years of the Cold War:
I used to think the world was flat
Rarely threw my hat into the crowd
I felt I had used up my quota of yearning
Used to look in on the children at night
In the glow of their Donald Duck light
And frighten myself with the thought of my little ones burning
But oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
The tide is turning
Satellite buzzing through the endless night
Exclusive to moonshots and world title fights
Jesus Christ imagine what it must be earning
Who is the strongest, who is the best
Who holds the aces, the East or the West
This is the crap our children are learning
But oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
The tide is turning
Oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
Now the satellite’s confused
‘Cos on Saturday night
The airwaves were full of compassion and light
And his silicon heart warmed
To the sight of a billion candles burning
Oo, oo, oo, the tide is turning
Oo, oo, oo, the tide is turning
The tide is turning Billy
I’m not saying that the battle is won
But on Saturday night all those kids in the sun
Wrested technology’s sword from the hand of the
War Lords
Oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
The tide is turning Sylvester
The tide is turning.
“That’s it!”
[Morse Code:]
“Now the past is over but you are not alone
Together we’ll fight Sylvester Stallone
We will not be dragged down in his South China Sea
of macho bullshit and mediocrity
I can attest that by 1991 we were millions, f not not billions, who really, sincerely, believed that we were witnessing the end of this nuclear madness. Were we naive? Maybe. And yet the emotion illustrated in this song, “I’m not saying that the battle is won, But on Saturday night all those kids in the sun, Wrested technology’s sword from the hand of the War Lords, Oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning“, was nevertheless powerful and genuine. And today I find myself having the same thoughts as Waters had in the 1980s: “Used to look in on the children at night, In the glow of their Donald Duck light, And frighten myself with the thought of my little ones burning, Who is the strongest, who is the best, Who holds the aces, the East or the West, This is the crap our children are learning“. And that makes me angry, very angry.
I think that I understand the historical circumstances which resulted in the Cold War but we all, as a single humanity, we *beat* this abomination. Even though it came close several times, “the button” was not depressed, not by the Soviets and not by the Americans. And there even came a time when true “hardcore” military specialists (for example Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov in the Soviet Union) made a official doctrinal statement that a nuclear war was unwinnable.
And now, because of a sad collection of Neocons with absolutely no understanding of any warfare, nuclear or conventional, we are right back again to square one: a nuclear war is possible again.
One could have imagined that having done 9/11 and launched the worldwide GWOT (Global War on Terror), the Neocons would have quenched their thirst for blood, but apparently this was not enough. They had to go on challenging Russia and risk not just a global war, but a nuclear global war.
And now they are openly supporting the three most demonic ideologies on the planet: Daesh Takfirism, Ukro Nazism and Israeli Zionism.
That such a small amount of individuals would have such a fantastic capability for evil is just amazing, and very discouraging.
Make no mistake: absolute evil does exit.
The SakerThe Lumia 730, known internally as "Superman," is a forthcoming successor to the mid-range Lumia 720 from early 2013. Yesterday, the first photos of the device came forward, along with the new firmware, codenamed 'Debian Red.' At the time, the one piece of the puzzle missing came down to specifications. Luckily, we now have some more information to connect the dots.
According to our source of the original photos the Lumia 730 looks to be the ideal mid-range Windows Phone 8.1 device, as the specifications (if accurate) should please most at this price range.
We should caution that these specifications are unofficial and therefore could change.
Lumia 73x "Superman"
4.7-inch (likely FWVGA at 854 x 480, but possibly 720P)
1 GB of RAM
Quad-core processor (unknown speed)
8GB internal storage
Micro SD expansion up to 128 GB
6.1 MP rear camera
5MP front-facing camera
Dual SIM
No dedicated camera button
Weight, unknown (described as "super light")
Although the processor speed is unknown, it is likely Snapdragon 400 with a 1.6 or 1.7 GHz CPU. It seems unlikely that Microsoft would opt for the higher-end Snapdragon 800 in this series due to pricing constraints. Notwithstanding, a user report claims it feels "really smooth" when compared to the Lumia 920.
The 1 GB of RAM, if proven accurate, could make this phone a sleeper hit if it is priced right. In the past, Nokia has preferred 512 MB of RAM for their lower tier phones. As the original Lumia 720 came with 512 MB of RAM, the chances the Lumia 730 would arrive with the same was a distinct possibility. With 1 GB of RAM and a beefier processor, the Lumia 730 could install any app or game on the Windows Phone store, something that 512 MB phones could not.
Adding a dual SIM to this line also gives it a lead for emerging markets, especially in India and China, where dual SIMs are the norm. It is unknown if there is a Lumia 730 (single SIM) and a Lumia 735 (dual SIM), paralleling the Lumia 630 and Lumia 635 series.Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Zimbabwe's day of celebration
Jubilant Zimbabweans have celebrated late into the night after Robert Mugabe resigned as president.
He held power for 37 years and once said "only God" could remove him.
His ally turned rival, former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, is expected to return from neighbouring South Africa and could be appointed as the new president within hours.
Mr Mugabe's shock resignation came in the form of a letter read out by the speaker of parliament.
In it, Mr Mugabe - who had so far resisted pressure from the public, the army and his own party to step aside - said he was resigning to allow a smooth and peaceful transfer of power, and that his decision was voluntary.
The announcement abruptly halted an impeachment hearing that had begun against him on Tuesday.
'I'm so happy'
Lawmakers from the ruling party and opposition roared with glee, and spontaneous scenes of joy erupted in the streets with people dancing, singing, honking car horns and waving flags.
"I'm so happy, wonderful, feeling so much excited, this is the greatest moment for our country," Julian Mtukudzi told the AFP news agency.
"We have been having sleepless nights hoping and waiting and we are so happy. It's over and it's done."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Activist and political candidate Vimbaishe Musvaburi breaks down in tears of joy
Activist and political candidate Vimbaishe Musvaburi broke down in tears of joy speaking to the BBC.
"We are tired of this man, we are so glad he's gone. We don't want him anymore and yes, today, it's victory," she said.
Zimbabwe's next president
The ruling Zanu-PF party says former Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa will succeed Mr Mugabe.
Mr Mnangagwa's sacking earlier this month triggered a political crisis.
It had been seen by many as an attempt to clear the way for Grace Mugabe to succeed her husband as leader and riled the military leadership, who stepped in and put Mr Mugabe under house arrest.
Mr Mugabe, 93, was until his resignation the world's oldest leader.
According to the constitution his successor should be the current Vice-President, Phelekezela Mphoko, a supporter of Grace Mugabe.
But a ZANU-PF official Larry Mavhima told Reuters Mr Mnangagwa is to return home for 11:30 GMT, where he is later expected to be sworn-in.
A city sings
Fergal Keane, BBC Africa editor, Harare
Driving through Harare, the cheers and the blaring of car horns signalled the end of the Mugabe era.
The man who dominated Zimbabwe for so long has already begun to fade into history here. It is a city singing with the noise of joy.
Exactly a week after the military first moved against President Mugabe, I was standing in parliament as legislators debated the motion to impeach him.
Suddenly, there was cheering.
An usher approached the speaker and handed him a letter. He stood to speak and we strained to hear his words. They were muffled but momentous. Robert Mugabe had resigned.
On the floor of the parliament I met jubilant MPs. Some danced. Celebrations spilled into the hallways and out into the street.
Notes of caution
Despite welcoming the news, Zimbabwean opposition and civil society figures have warned that the political culture needs to change.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told the BBC he hoped that Zimbabwe was on a "new trajectory" that would include free and fair elections.
He said Mr Mugabe should be allowed to "go and rest for his last days".
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Morgan Tsvangirai told the BBC he hoped that Zimbabwe was on a "new trajectory"
Prominent Zimbabwean opposition politician David Coltart tweeted: "We have removed a tyrant but not yet a tyranny."
African Union president Alpha Conde said he was "truly delighted" by the news, but expressed regret at the way Mr Mugabe's rule has ended.
"It is a shame that he is leaving through the back door and that he is forsaken by the parliament," he said.
Robert Mugabe - Timeline of a political life
Image copyright AFP Image caption President Mugabe was accused of preparing the presidency for his wife Grace
1924: Born in Kutama
Born in Kutama 1964: Imprisoned by Rhodesian government
Imprisoned by Rhodesian government 1980: Wins post-independence elections
Wins post-independence elections 1996: Marries Grace Marufu
Marries Grace Marufu 2000: Loses referendum, pro-Mugabe militias invade white-owned farms and attack opposition supporters
Loses referendum, pro-Mugabe militias invade white-owned farms and attack opposition supporters 2008: Comes second in first round of elections to Morgan Tsvangirai who pulls out of run-off amid nationwide attacks on his supporters
Comes second in first round of elections to Morgan Tsvangirai who pulls out of run-off amid nationwide attacks on his supporters 2009: Amid economic collapse, swears in Mr Tsvangirai as prime minister, who serves in uneasy government of national unity for four years
Amid economic collapse, swears in Mr Tsvangirai as prime minister, who serves in uneasy government of national unity for four years 2017: Sacks long-time ally Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, paving the way for his wife Grace to succeed him. Army intervenes and forces him to step downIn spring 1957, two weeks before the opening of Henry Purcell’s opera “Dido and Aeneas” at the University of Texas at Austin, Barbara Smith, a 19-year-old mezzo-soprano, received some bad news. She would not be appearing as Dido, a role she had been rehearsing for months.
Ms. Smith was black. The singer cast as Aeneas was white. In the South, then emerging only slowly from strict segregation, this was a problem, even though the two principal characters do not kiss, embrace or even touch.
Joe Chapman, a Democrat in the State Legislature from Ms. Smith’s own district in the pine country of Northeast Texas, had taken the matter up with Logan Wilson, the university’s president. During their conversation, Mr. Chapman had told him that the opera’s casting might be bad publicity for the school, especially since the Legislature was preparing to vote on an appropriations bill.
Three days before the opera was scheduled to open, The Houston Post broke the story, under the headline “Negro Girl Out of UT Opera Cast.” The Daily Texan, the student newspaper, followed with an article the next day. Its reporter asked Mr. Chapman, a former Texas railroad commissioner, if he believed that the Legislature had the right to dictate policy to the university.PART 1 OF 4The moment I knew I liked My Little Pony was when Tabitha delivered this line as Nightmare Moon in the first episode. The line resounded so well that even League of Legends used it as an emote for one of their champions. It wasn't until a lot later that I decided to make a piece for it.This is also partially inspired by Game of Thrones - each noble house has their own sigil and words. I knew this would come together if I made it. I plan to make one for Cadence and Twilight Sparkle too.2. CELESTIA: petercjiang.deviantart.com/art… 3. CADENCE: Coming Soon4. TWILIGHT SPARKLE: Coming SoonIf you guys like what you see, feel free to subscribe for more of my work.This print is now also available on Redbubble as a card, photographic print, or a poster: www.redbubble.com/people/cainv…0 Shares
Everybody knows that retail and institutional investors are usually late to a trade. When they decide to buy, the wise guys are distributing or selling their shares to them and locking in their gains. When they sell, the wise guys are accumulating or buying their shares from them, again locking in their gains.
How do the wise guys pull it off? The answer lies in the combination of reflexive human behavior and the use of high frequency, algorithmic (HFA) trading. With the advance of computer trading on a massive scale, large investment banks and hedge funds, which have huge amounts of cash at their command, are able to manipulate the markets almost at will. They use the speed and efficiency of computer-driven trading to move stocks in the direction they want. They do this by boosting the volume traded in a target company by buying and selling almost the same number of shares at extremely close time intervals. For example, in a buy-then-sell program, they start the trading sequence in a certain stock by buying slightly more shares than they sell at intervals of a few seconds or less. In other words, they are initially net buyers. Note it does not take very much time to establish a huge position in a stock when trades are executed so rapidly. The increase in volume invariably attracts investors, who pile into the same trade thinking there is some positive development at the company. This large influx of net buyers moves the stock higher just like the HFA traders intended. The HFA traders then simply assist the upward momentum they initiated by maintaining their buying and selling at the same level or net neutral while the shares they initially bought increase in value as investors enter the trade at a higher price. At a certain point, the HFA traders are satisfied with their short-term return and become a net seller to late investors, thus locking in their profits and closing out their position. HFA traders can reinforce the head-fake and compound their ultra-short term gain by simultaneously executing the same buy-then-sell routine in the option markets. They would simultaneously manipulate call options on the target stock in the same manner, which effectively turbo-charges the deception. The same sequence of profitable trading in the reverse direction can be realized from short selling. HFA traders can modulate the size and frequency of their wave trades algorithmically to attract investors and, thereby, maximize their return. The algorithms used by HFA traders are variations of simple software routines. (Input the target company; buy price points and volume; and intervals between purchases. Monitor stock price feedback. As the price moves up, scale back purchases and then start selling at a higher price level to collect a quick profit.) HFA traders have perfected algorithms to make these trades automatically. As a result, they can manipulate the market to their advantage any day of the week. By moving their servers adjacent to the exchanges where they trade (a process called collocation), they reduce the time it takes to execute and confirm each trade. The only difficulty is trying to make their gains not appear so obscene that they attract the wrath of the investors who are their victims.
The analogy would be a wave initiated by students at a ballgame. See link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NxLh-3DdaE. The students start the wave just like the investment bankers do at their trading desks. Once the wave starts, it has a life of its own until it peters out. By the time the wave goes one full circle, it takes fewer students to keep it going. The students spent the biggest amount of energy getting the wave started. After the first full cycle, more and more students can sit down and watch the results. The same is true with HFA traders. They get the trade started with assistance of large-scale, high frequency computer trading and a big slug of capital. Once the wave grows and achieves critical mass, they take their profits off the table. In short, HFA traders ‘head-fake’ their way to massive profits and they can do so anytime they want.
The discussion above describes exactly how HFA traders manipulate the market to ‘earn’ huge profits at will using high-speed computer trading, large sums of money, and reflexive human behavior. It is like the elephant in the room that no one can see, except the HFA traders who are hauling in huge profits. The beauty of the strategy is that HFA traders can head-fake and rip-off a few cents from investors on each trade (which is multiplied by huge volume) and will not be noticed. It is the perfect scam, which insidiously undermines and makes a mockery of our capital markets. No wonder HFA computerized trading makes up more than 70% of the daily volume on our equity exchanges. Traders using HFA computerized trading defend the practice under the pretense that it makes for a more efficient market, but in reality, it simply permits them to steal more efficiently from investors every day of the week. They and they alone are served, while all other investors pay higher prices for the shares they purchase on what is supposed to be a fair and open market. In the first quarter of 2010, several large investment banks reported gains every single trading day, which is statistically impossible unless you are cheating. It is so simple a cave man can do it. Such market manipulation is destroying the underpinning of our capital markets. The recent outrage about HFA ‘flash’ trading is just the tip of the iceberg. The far more lucrative and insidious form of HFA trading is the wave, which is high-tech pumping and dumping at its finest. If HFA traders can move a company’s shares in any direction they desire, they can move an entire market in any direction they desire. For example, HFA traders can concentrate on a small group of companies within the 30 stocks that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial average to move the average higher. The broader market indices, like the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ, usually move with the Dow and would go higher as well. The implications are enormous for the integrity of our capital markets.
HFA traders at large investment banks and hedge funds have the means, the methods and a strong incentive to exploit investors and have been doing so for years under the radar. In fact, it would be remarkable if they did not do it because the Securities and Exchange Commission has shown no inclination to investigate and prosecute such practices, which are clearly fraudulent under the provisions (Rule 10b-5) of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act. Market manipulation describes a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market and create artificial, false or misleading appearances with respect to the price of, or market for, a security, commodity or currency. Clearly, the wave conforms to this definition. With the SEC sitting on its hands, the door is wide open. HFA trading is growing exponentially and exchanges are expanding their facilities to make room for HFA traders’ equipment.
There is much talk about the Plunge Protection Team – PPT. The government does not have to enter the market directly to prop it up. They have surrogates at Wall Street investment banks and hedge funds that act as blowout preventers to forestall or mitigate huge drops in the market. In exchange for keeping the market from crashing by use of high frequency computerized trading, Wall Street firms are permitted to keep their huge profits without suffering any legal reprisals. The SEC simply looks the other way. Government officials benefit when the Wall Street firms kick back a small portion of their obscene profits to fund political campaigns.
The aforementioned plunge protection scheme is not foolproof by any means and could backfire at any time. If some unexpected event or series of events should trigger an avalanche of sell orders, market manipulation to the upside would be overwhelmed and rendered useless, causing HFT traders to step aside and withdraw their bids. Because they control over 70% of market volume, the paucity of bid orders would leave the market vulnerable to a precipitous fall. The so-called ‘flash’ crash last May was a preview of what could happen again under such conditions. The result would be severe losses for investors.
Computers and simple software algorithms are replacing and mimicking the old ‘pump and dump’ techniques, which unethical analysts had previously carried out verbally or in writing. In the wake of the dot com bubble, those abuses were exposed for all to see. Now analysts are required to disclose when they have a stake in a company they are touting. One door had closed, but another door opened. High frequency computer traders are faceless and do not have to disclose anything. They can cheat and steal with impunity. No one is watching and no one seems to care. The wise guys always win.
LV
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Related Posts:It was heralded as a groundbreaking move last January, when Alouettes general manager Kavis Reed hired Catherine Raîche as one of his two assistants.
But on Monday, after news broke on social media of her sudden resignation, the Canadian Football League team’s image, already at one of its lowest points following a 3-15 season, appears on the surface to be even more tarnished — especially after the bright 28-year-old admitted in an interview with the Montreal Gazette she wants to remain in football.
“I don’t feel (the Als) are the best option for me right now,” she said. “I don’t want to say anything bad and I want to remain respectful. They gave me my chance. The Wetenhalls (owners Robert and Andrew) approved my hiring or I wouldn’t be here.
“For my own personal growth, I believe this is the best thing.”
Raîche put a promising career in corporate and tax law on hold when she joined the Als in 2015, initially working in a consulting role before being hired on a full-time basis the following year as the co-ordinator of football administration. She was viewed as a strong asset, first by GM Jim Popp, then by Reed when he replaced Popp in December 2016.
A month later Reed, a rookie GM, appointed two assistants — Raîche (football operations) and Joe Mack, a former Winnipeg GM (player personnel). Both appointments raised eyebrows; Raîche for her gender and lack of football experience, Mack for his lack of success while with the Blue Bombers.
While Raîche had numerous responsibilities — she was the liaison for players and coaches on a daily basis, was involved in contracts and tracking of the league’s salary cap — she appears to have been ignored in Reed’s pursuit of a new head coach. Numerous sources have told the Montreal Gazette those interviews, while handled in a professional and business-like manner, are being conducted exclusively by Reed and Mack.
“Professionally, this just wasn’t for me anymore,” she said. “We had different visions on certain things, not to say one’s better than the other. Sometimes you have to be aligned to be able to work well and feel fulfilled professionally. That wasn’t the case.
“Obviously, it was a difficult season. Everybody saw it. It was a tough season. There were challenges. But facing adversity kind of helps you develop your character,” she continued. “I won’t lie and say it was so easy and an amazing year. But (the resignation) isn’t because of the performance of the team. It’s personal.”
Raîche is under contract to the Als until Dec. 31 and said she hasn’t contacted any other CFL organizations. If there’s an opening, her first call will likely be made to the Ottawa Redblacks, an organization full of former Montreal employees, including general manager Marcel Desjardins. Raîche also is believed to be close with Jean-Marc Edme, a former Als scout and now the Redblacks’ director of player personnel, who undoubtedly will sing her praises.
If not Ottawa, Raîche undoubtedly will contact Popp, now the Toronto Argonauts’ GM. She said she’s open to any and all opportunities and, obviously, is amenable to relocating. And if all else fails, she obtained her law degree and was admitted to the Quebec Bar Association in 2012. Not a bad plan B.
The Als are expected to drastically alter their front office, especially when it comes to their scouting department. That branch is now expected to be led by Miles Gorrell, who recently resigned from the Redblacks. Draft co-ordinator and national scout Eric Deslauriers is expected to be demoted, according to a source, who added Philippe Moreau, another national scout, has been fired.
Nonetheless, it’s hard to imagine Raîche wouldn’t have been welcomed back in 2018 by Reed. He didn’t respond to a request for comment and, by late afternoon, the Als hadn’t even issued a press release confirming her resignation, which she submitted last Friday.
“I don’t think we should see my resignation as a confirmation of anything. I did it for personal reasons,” she said. “It had nothing to do with the performance of the team, the players or the coaches. These are things that are normal and occur in pro sports.”
Reed originally was expected to name the new head coach by last Friday. Now he has insisted it will occur before Christmas, meaning he’s quickly running out of time.
Two new names surfaced on Monday, according to a source: Kerry Joseph and Danny Barrett.
Joseph is a former CFL quarterback who played for Saskatchewan when Reed was there as an assistant coach. He’s now the co-offensive co-ordinator and receivers coach at McNeese State. Barrett is a former Roughriders head coach and now the Miami Dolphins’ running backs coach.
It also appears Gary Crowton remains a strong candidate. He was a former Winnipeg OC who has a strong connection to Mack.
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twitter.com/HerbZurkowsky1England's iron core rings out to the pulse of AFX. The music Richard D. James makes is as old as the hills. Actually, scratch that, it's much, much older. When England's hills have slid into the sea; when England's mountains have been reduced to mounds of igneous flakes and sand and are blown away to the corners of the Earth; when England is revealed to be nothing more than 81,000 square miles of bare iron, glowing obscenely hot under the raging summer sun. The pulse of Throbbing Gristle, the Ragga Twins, William Blake, The Fall, Godflesh, CTV, Cabaret Voltaire, Napalm Death, Philip Larkin, Earl Brutus, PJ Harvey, Dizzee Rascal, Daphne Oram, Black Sabbath and the Aphex Twin will sound as clear and loud as a fog horn across still waters on a calm day.
This music has always been with us. We should be celebrating its existence, not wishing it away due to attention deficit disorder.
It might sound naive, but when 'Serge Fenix Rendered 2' rose unexpectedly a month ago - and I'd gotten over the initial rush of marching round Hackney to it, feeling like Mek-Quake, scooping up men, women and children into my gurning maw, shouting, "Big jobs!" between mouthfuls of flesh and bone - I was mildly dismayed to hear the yawns of boredom it seemed to provoke in some quarters.
But how ridiculous and banal to ask for a new "trick" when this sound was discovered; unearthed, not forged or designed.
Imaginary Pedant #1 speaks up: I was an undergraduate in 1992 when Selected Ambient Works 85 - 92 was released and then became a keen supporter of the idea of IDM or Intelligent Dance Music. More than any other act - including Autechre - Aphex Twin made it a dizzying thrill to be a music fan. To hear electronic music evolving and mutating on a weekly basis was a privilege. To hear a key artist of this era now doing essentially the same thing well over two decades later is nothing short of a betrayal.
Imaginary Pedant #2 speaks up: I was a partisan raver in 1992 and Richard D. James was an important part of the cultural fabric that made me believe that we could affect serious change in society rebuilding from the foundation of our culture upwards. But our utopian plan failed to make any headway just as AFX now fails to break radical new ground. I can't help but be disappointed with this new EP.
Imaginary Pedant #3 speaks up: I was born in 1992 and spend a lot of time on the internet. I downloaded a torrent of every track Richard D James has ever recorded, after seeing the 'Come To Daddy' video on YouTube and listened to all of them in order. I even listened to SAW 85-92, Windowlicker and I Care Because You Do twice and can quite categorically state that with this new EP, AFX has released his Tin Machine II. He has jumped the shark. He is worse than David Guetta and Fat Boy Slim combined and should be taken outside and shot without blindfold or cigarette immediately for his crimes against modernism. tbh I only got one track into it and had to stop. tr; dl. [Too repetitive; didn't listen] (ง'-')ง (¬‿¬)
The idea that art is like a shark which needs to keep on moving forward or die is received wisdom worth questioning. Sure, for a rock band cutting their teeth on AC/DC covers, progress is arguably a good idea, but how much does this apply to those few who have imagined, wrought, maintained and defended a unique sonic aesthetic? I'm not so sure. I'd actually suggest that in this case it's often the constant reinvention not the stasis that kills the shark. Just ask Damien Hirst.
Imaginary Taxi Driver #1 speaks up: Oi Kazimir mate! You've ballsed it up bruv. 1818's 'White On White' doesn't really show any tangible progression from the suprematist masterpiece 'Black Square'. You mug!
Imaginary Taxi Driver #2 speaks up: Oi Mark, you plank! The Rothko Chapel doesn't show any noteworthy signs of technical innovation since the Seagram commissions. You're treading water, you clown - sort it!
There is actually a lot to be said for the artist who has created and then maintained a unique vision, if you take genius to be shorthand for clarity of vision and persistence (especially in the face of ridicule, attack or obscurity) as I do. I don't actually believe in the concept of genius but if I did, Aphex Twin would be among the first I'd personally consider for contention. My own personal system for judging these things works like this - if anyone can manage eight years or more of envelope pushing, innovation or curation of a truly individual sound, then they are an indefatigable top tier artist and I will pay them the respect of spending at least two or three days living with their latest release before even starting to form an opinion on it. It kind of staggers me just how many Davids there are out there in search of Goliaths to knock down. I've always been of the opinion that if you're David Bowie; if you're James Brown; if you're Prince; if you're Slayer; if you're Miles Davis; if you're Alice Coltrane and, yeah, if you're Richard D. James, you don't get a free pass you simply get the respect you've earned.
But to what extent is James standing still anyway? When thinking about Aphex Twin and progress, |
’ve come across many divers in the 14 – 16mm range, which gets fairly noticeable during the day. I have to commend them for designing a robust 1000m diver that is wearable as a daily watch. It’s sort of like the watch is hiding a cool secret. The look of the watch is definitely unique, but not so out there that it’s hard to wear. If anything, it’s a very mature looking watch with a somewhat austere demeanor. This isn’t a watch you would see on a teenager or some loud mouth that likes to show off. The watch is technical, architectural and altogether tasteful.
Conclusion
If you are looking for a strong, geometric watch with a practical but attractive look, the Limes Endurance 1000 GMT3 is watch you should consider. If you are looking for a watch with a GMT movement, are enticed by the ability to track 3 time zones, and want a top grade movement to boot, this is a watch to consider. If you ache for a 1000m diver, but have prefer slim, nimble watches, then you might want to take a look at the Limes Endurance 1000 GMT3. And if you are interested in all of the above… you get the point. This watch offers a lot in a neat and tidy package. Sure, the price is a bit higher than what we generally discuss, but it’s certainly in range of other German made watches with similar credentials. What’s most important is that watch isn’t overpriced. You aren’t paying for ad campaigns or endorsements with a Limes watch, just a solid watch that took care to make.
Review unit supplied by Limes Uhren
by Zach WeissThe recent run-up in the market would make it easy to justify selling any stock these days. Yet while panic never helps investors, it's still a good idea to play devil's advocate with our potential investments.
Consider video game developer Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS). Though the gaming sector holds immense potential, at least a few of the 2,205 Motley Fool CAPS members who've weighed in on the company offer reasons to be bearish.
Here at The Motley Fool, we like to consider both the good and bad sides of an investment. Thus, I'm highlighting three of the main bearish arguments on Electronic Arts today. Be sure to read the bullish side as well, then weigh in with your own comments below, or rate Electronic Arts in CAPS.
1. Further weakness
Although Activision Blizzard (Nasdaq: ATVI) recently lifted its outlook, and GameStop (NYSE: GME) highlighted strength in used games, the good news isn't widespread. Electronic Arts disappointed investors when it announced expectations of weak packaged-goods game sales this year. With a lack of conviction in a turnaround, some investors are still hedging on the gaming sector.
2. Difficult shift
Shanda Games (Nasdaq: GAME) was quick to capitalize on the trend of increasing casual online gamers in the U.S. by buying Mochi Media. Electronic Arts is trying to shift toward casual games, too. It's growing its presence on Apple's multiple mobile devices and platforms like Facebook, among other strategies. But with a string of quarterly losses, some investors are growing impatient, suspecting that EA may have missed this boat.
3. Getting outplayed
Shares of Electronic Arts have underperformed higher-rated, four-star gaming peers such as Activision Blizzard and Grand Theft Auto-fueled Take-Two Interactive (Nasdaq: TTWO) over the past year. Even Chinese online gaming company NetEase.com (Nasdaq: NTES) has put on a stronger showing, thanks to World of Warcraft and its focus on the growing Chinese market. Shares of EA have improved in recent months, but some investors still see better opportunities elsewhere.
For details on what CAPS members are saying now about Electronic Arts, just click on over to Motley Fool CAPS and have a look -- or add your own thoughts directly to this story in the comments box below.The pumpkin spice latte, Starbucks’ most iconic and popular seasonal drink, almost didn’t happen. “A number of us thought it was a beverage so dominated by a flavor other than coffee that it didn’t put Starbucks’ coffee in the best light,” says Tim Kern, who recently left Starbucks after 20 years, and who started at Starbucks when it was a regional chain of just six stores.
This year, Starbucks celebrates the tenth anniversary of the drink, which now goes by the “PSL” shorthand, and has its own hashtag on Twitter. The flavor itself is now so popular that incidence of “pumpkin spice”—that distinctive mix of pumpkin, nutmeg and cinnamon—in food served by restaurants increased 234% from 2008 to 2012. It’s everywhere in the US, from air fresheners to tortilla chips, and the drink itself has been copied by Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s and home chefs.
It’s the ease with which this drink can be copied—it’s just pumpkin spice “sauce” and coffee—that had Kern worried when he first encountered the prototype. “It was a great business idea, but it was also easy to imitate—easier to imitate than the taste of a great espresso,” says Kern. “Everyone can put a pumpkin spice syrup in whatever they want.”
Kern’s account of the genesis of the PSL is corroborated by Peter Dukes, who was part of the team that developed the drink. “It wasn’t the natural winner, but there was something there,” he told the Wall Street Journal. Both chocolate caramel and cinnamon spice came out ahead of pumpkin spice flavor, which invites all kinds of counterfactual thinking—what seasonal flavor of M&M’s would Target be proud to have an exclusive on had things gone differently and it wasn’t pumpkin spice?
Pumpkin spice is by now such an institution that it is becoming a year-round phenomenon. Consumers like it because it suggests “native American, locavore, retro-comfort,” said Anton Angelich, a vice president at flavor-extract company Virginia Dare. Starbucks readily admits that there is no actual pumpkin in the PSL, and that’s final. “If we changed the recipe now, we’d have a revolt,” said Dukes.The Bundesvision Song Contest 2015 was the eleventh edition of the annual Bundesvision Song Contest musical event. The contest took place in the state of Bremen, following Revolverheld's victory with the song "Lass uns gehen" (Let's go) in the previous edition.[3][4]
Returning artists [ edit ]
Baden-Württemberg's Glasperlenspiel [de] came fourth in the 2011 contest. Also Lower Saxony's Madsen also came fourth in the 2008 contest.
Participants [ edit ]
Scoreboard [ edit ]
Voting results Hamburg 14 10 4 Brandenburg 50 1 12 5 1 3 8 1 8 6 1 3 1 Saarland 15 12 3 Saxony-Anhalt 13 12 1 Baden-Württemberg 82 3 6 6 4 12 5 3 6 4 2 3 4 3 5 6 10 Saxony 84 8 2 7 5 12 1 4 5 6 8 5 4 4 5 8 Schleswig-Holstein 38 8 12 1 5 2 North Rhine-Westphalia 117 7 5 8 6 7 6 8 12 6 7 7 8 8 7 8 7 Berlin 23 2 1 1 1 2 10 1 1 2 2 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern 10 10 Thuringia 114 6 7 7 8 8 7 6 8 7 8 12 10 5 2 7 6 Bavaria 2 2 Lower Saxony 84 5 4 4 5 4 4 7 5 3 4 5 6 12 8 4 4 Bremen 46 2 1 2 2 3 2 3 3 2 3 7 12 3 1 Hesse 76 4 3 3 3 6 2 5 7 2 1 4 7 6 6 12 5 Rhineland-Palatinate 170 12 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 12 12 10 12 10 10 10 12
References [ edit ]Attorney Gloria Allred introduces Irene McCormack Jackson, the mayor's former director of communications and plaintiff in a sexual harassment lawsuit against the City Of San Diego and its mayor Bob Filner, during a press conference in San Diego, California July 22, 2013. REUTERS/Sam Hodgson
SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - Mayor Bob Filner, facing pressure to resign over allegations of making lewd comments and unwanted advances toward women, was hit on Monday with a sexual harassment lawsuit by a former aide who accused the 70-year-old mayor of asking her to “get naked” and kiss him.
The lawsuit against Filner and the city of San Diego was brought by the mayor’s former director of communications, Irene McCormack Jackson.
The 11-page complaint, filed in San Diego County Superior Court, quotes Filner as telling Jackson last month in her office in City Hall: “When are you going to get naked? Come on and give me a kiss.”
Talk of harassment has dogged Filner, and the mayor recently has acknowledged inappropriate behavior toward female staff members. But Jackson is the first woman to charge publicly that he had harassed her.
“The past six months turned out to be the worst time of my entire working life,” Jackson told a news conference. “I had to work and do my job in an atmosphere where women were viewed by Mayor Filner as sexual objects or stupid idiots. I saw him place his hands where they did not belong on numerous women.”
Filner’s representatives could not immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit. The mayor, a Democrat and former member of Congress, has said he will not step down.
Jackson was hired by Filner in January but currently director of communications for city operations. Her lawsuit also accused Filner of employment discrimination.In the face of kidnappings and extortion from cartels and a lack of reliable protection from the police and military, groups of Mexican citizens are taking matters (and weapons) into their own hands and protecting themselves. In Antúnez, Mexico, the military’s efforts to restore order – or really, to restore the primacy of their own authority – by disarming the vigilantes ended in the deaths of two civilians. The New York Times notes:
Word spread quickly: The army was coming to disarm the vigilante fighters whom residents viewed as conquering heroes after they swept in and drove out a drug gang that had stolen property, extorted money and threatened to kill them. They even had to leave flowers and other offerings at a shrine to the gang’s messianic leader. Farmers locked arms with vigilantes to block the dusty two-lane road leading here. The soldiers demanded to be let in; people begged them to leave. Tempers flared, and rocks were thrown. The soldiers fired into the air, and then, residents said, into a crowd. At least two people were killed on Tuesday, officials and residents said. “He was just a farmer, and now he died for a cause,” one resident, Luis Sánchez, said of Mario Torres, 48, a lime picker who was not part of the vigilante group but was among the two buried on Wednesday as mourners cried out against the government and the soldiers.
The Times notes that following the resistance from citizen in Antúnez, officials appear to have backed down.
Fusion, a new cable network targeting American Latino millennials who speak English, produced a video report back in December interviewing several of these vigilantes talking openly about their peacekeeping efforts. Watch it here, and note the early statistic that the Mexican police solve only about 5 percent of reported crimes.
In one of these towns the vigilantes are led by a community doctor, pushed toward his activism after seeing young girls brought to him after being kidnapped and raped by cartel members. He took a dim view of the Army’s efforts, telling Fusion’s reporter, “They don’t come here to dismantle criminal organizations. Their only mission is to protect federal roads.”
Mexico has extremely strict private gun ownership laws, which is why part of the news coverage seems focused on “disarming” the vigilantes. That the military is unable to even disarm its own law-abiding citizenry (other than the gun laws anyway), and that armed citizens appear to be a better choice to keep cartels at bay (they actually have a stake in the outcome) may indicate an important shift for Mexicans in fighting the violence in their country. The New York Times frets these vigilante leaders may have ties to other criminal gangs, but there’s little to indicate in either their story nor Fusion’s that they are victimizing these communities further or worse than what they had been living under.
A final reminder for people in Austin, Texas, interested in Mexican drug war reporting: Reason’s documentary, America’s Longest War, will be screened tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse Village. Reason's Jacob Sullum will be there! More information here.Sure, it's great to catch reruns of "South Park" on Comedy Central. But what if you could watch any of its 247 episodes whenever you want, for free?
Now you can, thanks to the shows' new partnership with Hulu. On Saturday, July 12 at the Television Critics Academy press tour, the streaming service announced that it will be the exclusive online home for "South Park" starting the same day. Up until the premiere of the show's eighteenth season on September 24, every episode of the animated comedy will be available to watch for free. After Season 18 begins, there will still be some episodes available for free on both Hulu and the show's official site, but only Hulu Plus subscribers will have access to the entire "South Park" library.
"South Park" creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone said at the Television Critics Association press tour on Saturday that they had long admired how Hulu operates.
"We were first trying to figure out how we can rip off their player -- how we can just steal their technology," Stone said. "And then we realized we couldn’t. So we’d better just do it the old way" and strike a deal with the site.
Stone and Parker both said that if "South Park" debuted online now, it might have gotten bigger even sooner. If nothing else, "it would be easier to get it seen," Stone said.
"I can’t imagine if we had had the ability to just launch something as an Internet show and not be censored at all, then 'South Park' probably would have started off, you know, even crazier, because we were definitely holding way back," Parker said." But it made it way more lucrative for us because we slowly got raunchier as we went."Lenders in Denmark are taking unprecedented steps to recoup expenses incurred from the negative interest rates that have followed the Danish central bank’s policy of defending its currency cap against the euro.
In the past week, one lender has announced it will begin charging ordinary customers to hold money in their deposit accounts and at least two other banks have suspended the issuance of some types of mortgage-backed bonds until they get more clarity on how to deal with the situation.
The European Central Bank’s stimulus spree has reverberated across the continent, with Switzerland abandoning the ceiling it had set on the franc’s level against the euro, and Denmark slashing interest rates four times in three weeks to end at minus 0.75%, to weaken its currency DKKEUR, -0.0040% amid speculation it will follow the Swiss and remove its euro cap.
FIH Erhvervsbank on Friday became the first Danish bank to begin charging private retail customers for deposits as a way of managing interest expenses from having excess liquidity invested in instruments with negative rates.
Known as a small corporate lender, FIH Erhvervsbank began attracting retail clients a few years ago by offering high interest rates on deposits held for a longer period. As the Danish central bank’s rate cuts began hurting last month, it stopped offering three-year term deposits and last week decided to gradually close down the remaining term deposits held at three, six or 12 months.
“Paying our customers zero or a positive interest is very bad for profitability,” Chief Financial Officer Palle Nordahl said in a recent phone interview. “If people want to put their money with us in our deposit bank, we at least don’t want to lose money on it.”
An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com
Want news about Europe delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Europe Daily newsletter. Sign up here.Some murder victims are more equal than others. In a worrying precedent for Americans, the Greek government is persecuting the anti-immigration Golden Dawn party, while tolerating its violent enemies. Under the guise of exterminating “Nazism,” the government is exterminating the Greek people—just as the larger European Union officially pursues what can only be called the genocide of the historic European population. But there are signs it’s not working.
Last year, we were told by the Main Stream Media that the Greek Golden Dawn Party was running wild, beating immigrants, and receiving the assistance of the police. [Rise of neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party leads to spate of immigrant attacks in Greece by Alex Spillius, Daily Telegraph, 26 July 2012.] But Golden Dawn became Greece’s third-strongest party, with 18 MPs in the 300-strong Greek parliament after the June 2012 Election. [Greek Golden Dawn member arrested over murder of leftwing hip-hop artist, By Helena Smith, theguardian.com, September 18, 2013]
Reaction was not long in coming. Last year, triple jumper Voula Papachristou was kicked off the Greek Olympic team as retaliation for poking fun at African immigrants and making statements supporting Golden Dawn. [Olympics 2012: Greece kicks triple-jumper Voula Papachristou off team for mocking African immigrants on Twitter by David Sanchirico, New York Daily News, July 25, 2012.]
This past September, 34 year old “anti-fascist rapper” Pavlos Fissas, also known as “Killah P,” was killed—an ironic fate for an “artist” who routinely fantasized about murdering his political opponents. Golden Dawn supporter—not member—Giorgos Roupakias, 45, reportedly confessed to the crime.In a totalitarian crackdown, the Greek government declared the entire Golden Dawn party a criminal organization, and arrested over two dozen of its leaders and members, including party leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos. Michaloliakos remains in jail until his trial.
The U.S. equivalent would be arresting the entire Democratic Party leadership because a Democratic “supporter” murdered a Republican.
Golden Dawn’s poll numbers reportedly dropped from 10.8 to 6.6 percent, following the Fissas murder. [Greece’s Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn Party Branded a Criminal Organization by Athanasios Tsiouras, Atlas Network, November 19, 2013.]
Contrast this with the official reaction when, on November 1, Golden Dawn members Emmanuel Kapelonis, 22, and Giorgos Foundoulis, 27, were murdered in a drive-by shooting in an Athens suburb. The communist group “Militant People's Revolutionary Forces” took credit for the double murder, bragging that it was in retaliation for the Fyssas murder. But there have been no arrests.
While U.S MSM has constantly cited Fyssas by name, all appear to have refused to name the Golden Dawn murder victims. I had to find their names via an Australian outlet. [Greek group claims Golden Dawn killings, SBS, 17 Nov 2013.] Note that, while the U.S. MSM routinely refers to Golden Dawn as “neo-Nazi,” it never seems to refer to its enemies as “communists.” [Two Members of Greek Neo-Nazi Party Killed in Drive-By Shooting, Voice Of America, November 1, 2013]
But in response, the party’s poll numbers received a shot in the arm, back up to 8.8 percent. [Greece's far-right Golden Dawn party gains support after members killed, Reuters/Haaretz, November 16, 2013.] Not surprisingly, this is leading to more MSM kvetching about “fascism.”
While conservative historians like Paul Gottfried will carefully describe the differences between “fascists,” “Nazis,” or different varieties of “conservatives,” Communists regard them as all the same and have been calling them names for 80 years.
Today’s Reds have a richer vocabulary: “racist,” “white nationalist,” “white supremacist,” “xenophobe,” “homophobe,” etc. However, they all mean the same thing.
To communists, there are only two sorts of people on the planet: communists and “fascists.” And every “fascist” is a genocidal racist, who seeks to bring about another Holocaust.
This context has to be kept in mind when reading about Golden Dawn. I have not seen any citation of genocidal Golden Dawn literature or statements, private or public, even by its enemies.
Moreover, Greece has an extremely violent recent political history. The grandfathers of today’s activists were killing each other in a civil war less than seven decades ago: some 158,000 people reportedly died.
However, one thing I do not doubt about the party: It does seek to run all aliens out of the country.
Let’s not beat around the bush. Golden Dawn are a brutal lot. But it is a party in a revolutionary situation, confronted with mass non-white, Third World immigration into the West.
In Greece, an incredible two million immigrants, most of them recently-arrived, illegal, non-white, and Muslim, are leeching off and dispossessing the mere 10.8 million white, 98 percent Orthodox Christian, Greeks. [The CIA World Factbook, last checked on November 22, 2013.]
Greece is one of the main entry points for illegal immigration from Africa and Asia, most of it from across the Turkish frontier. Back in 2010, up to 350 immigrants were crossing the border every day, accounting for about 90 per cent of all illegal immigrants coming into Europe. [Uncontrolled immigration is fuelling Greece's violent street politics. The EU needs to sit up and take notice by Colin Freeman, Telegraph, last updated: September 30th, 2013.]
Some Greek businessmen support the invaders, based on the usual short-sighted Slave Power-type greed. But the most powerful force behind the invasion is the European Union. The EU is actively pushing policies that will result in genocide against all indigenous, European peoples.
The Free Dictionary defines “genocide” as
The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of an entire national, racial, religious, or ethnic group. [“Genocide,” The Free Dictionary, last checked on November 22, 2013.]
So Genocide doesn’t have to involve death camps. It can proceed, as it is already does in the Anglosphere and Europe, by non-violent coercion. Whites are pauperized through confiscatory taxation so they cannot afford to have children of their own, while they involuntarily pay for the invaders’ children and relentless anti-white propaganda.
However, as whites’ numbers decline, the process will end in outright violence, as is occurring in South Africa right now.
Golden Dawn is simply resisting this genocidal process and filling a political vacuum.
Two Greek academic “experts,” Daphne Halikiopoulou and Sofia Vasilopoulou, have written that Golden Dawn arose because of the failure of the rule of law and rising unemployment.
That’s true, but not in the way the authors meant. If the Greek government had upheld the rule of law and deported illegals, Golden Dawn would not have been necessary.
However, the academics refused to consider Golden Dawn has a legitimate grievance. Instead, they justify government repression and hypocritically support “anti-racist and anti-fascist civil society organizations and activities.”
Needless to say, these “civil society organizations” don’t serve as a buffer between citizens and government, but are simply leftist attack dogs against patriotic Greeks[The rise of the Golden Dawn and extremism in Greece can be seen as part of a broader phenomenon of a culture of intolerance, which is maintained and perpetuated through the Greek education system by Daphne Halikiopoulou and Sofia Vasilopoulou, London School of Economics Blog, January 29, 2013.]
Greece matters because this same pattern is playing out across the Western world. In 2010, German Social Democrat economist Thilo Sarrazin wrote the runaway bestseller Germany Abolishes Itself. Sarrazin showed that non-white (predominantly Turkish) immigration was systematically destroying Germany. In response, every tenured Marxist hack from Jürgen Habermas on down set in motion a defamation campaign alleging Sarrazin was a Nazi.
Peter Brimelow coined the phrase “Hitler’s revenge” in his 1995 book Alien Nation to describe how Western nations, repulsed by Nazism, have reacted by abolishing their own identities, so in the end, Hitler is actually achieving his goal of destroying his enemies.
When government refuses to perform its core functions such as protecting the borders and enforcing the laws, the nation has a choice. Citizens can either step in to do the job, or the nation will perish.
Golden Dawn is resisting Hitler’s revenge. It’s resisting the extermination of the Greek people.
And if they want to survive, other Western nations will, one way or another, have to make the same choice – no matter what names they are called.By Dick Morris on June 3, 2015
Published on TheHill.com on June 2, 2015
There’s a new kid in town and Hillary Clinton, to quote the Eagles, is likely saying “I don’t want to hear any more.”
Quinnipiac polling shows that support for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) among likely Democratic primary voters has ballooned from only 4 percent in March to 8 percent in April, and to 15 percent on May 28. Among “very liberal” Democrats, he draws 28 percent.
Clinton remains far ahead, but at 57 percent (down from 61 percent in April), she is nearing the 50 percent mark — the point at which a majority of Democratic primary voters do not want to vote for her.
And on the stump, Sanders is doing well. In Minneapolis on Sunday, he drew thousands and, according to The New York Times, got 240 people in Kensett, Iowa — population 256 — to come to a community center on Saturday.
Hearing footsteps, the county Democratic chairman texted Troy Price, Clinton’s Iowa political director, who replied “objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear.”
The surest evidence that Sanders is closing in on the former secretary of State is that Mother Jones dug up — perhaps with help from her famous “secret police” — a 1972 essay he wrote called “Man — and Woman” that included rape fantasies echoing Fifty Shades of Gray. Chuck Todd even asked the senator about it on “Meet the Press.”
The fact that Sanders is opening up space for himself and other challengers to Clinton is partially because his challenge is based not on her obvious ethical problems but on her questionable fealty to left-wing causes.
What are Democratic true believers to make of her encouragement of the Keystone oil pipeline and of the close contacts between Paul Elliott, a former Clinton aide and a top pro-pipeline lobbyist, and then-Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills, even as the State Department was preparing to approve the project? And what of the Democratic front-runner’s refusal to oppose President Obama’s Trans-Pacific trade treaty and of her past support for the North American Free Trade Agreement?
Sanders is determined to craft a genuine left-wing candidacy that urges higher taxes, single-payer healthcare and opposition to all free trade deals.
In primaries and particularly in caucuses, like Iowa, true believers predominate, and an ideological campaign against Clinton will attract a lot of support.
One can hammer on the former first lady as daily ethics conflicts emerge and her family’s business dealings come close to outright bribery; leftist ideologues will put up with what they must to elect a compatriot president.
But when the ideological bent of their candidate is questioned, and the footprints of her husband’s triangulation become evident in her own policy positions, they will grow restive indeed.
And when Sanders directly challenges her infidelity to liberalism in televised presidential debates, he will win adherents in droves.
The Vermont senator, for his part, only needs to get close. If he demonstrates that Clinton’s candidacy has an element of vulnerability, he can smoke her out of hiding, and make her face the media and the country. There, she will have to answer tough questions that will only make things worse for her.
Once she is no longer the inevitable candidate, her ethical problems will begin to grate on Democratic primary voters, and her poll numbers will slip. Then, doubts about her ability to win in November will erode her standing further.
Will 1968 resurrect itself in 2016? Will the role of Eugene McCarthy that year now be played by Sanders, as he comes closer and closer to beating Clinton, allowing a more electable candidate to emerge? Will the role of Bobby Kennedy, who entered the race late to exploit the front-runner’s vulnerability, be played by Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren? Will the Obama administration, thought by many to be behind the avalanche of exposés on Clinton, encourage a rival candidate?
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Here Comes Bernie Sanders – Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert!In Part 1 I discussed:
– The high line leading to an overly compressed pitch.
– Inverted wingers failing.
– The number ten struggling to create.
In this section I’ll focus on:
– Soldado not doing enough.
– A lack of passing ability in the midfield ’2′.
– No Plan B / ability to change our approach.
Soldado not doing enough
There are two main schools of thought on Roberto Soldado:
1. We’ve bought a dud; he’s not good enough.
2. We’re not playing to his strengths.
I think the truth is somewhere in between. He hasn’t played especially well – and I’ve voiced concerns before about him not doing a great deal other than finishing off chances – but we’ve not found him in the box enough. The question, then, is: is that due to his lack of movement, or is it due to the lack of incisive passes finding him?
I think at times we delay our passes too long. For example, as you can see from this still of the Everton game, Lennon has an opportunity to cross for Soldado – he could cross with his left foot, or the outside of his right, such is the space that he has.
Against Everton, Lennon didn’t play the early pass.
Instead Lennon checks back onto his right, and curls in a cross which leaves Soldado having to create power on his header from a standing start. Effectively, the opportunity is lost.
Here, against Newcastle, Soldado links well with Paulinho and then makes a tremendous run in behind Williamson as Townsend strides forward to get on the end of a fabulous Paulinho pass. Townsend takes on a shot when any kind of accurate cross would surely find Soldado in space.
Soldado gets onto the rebound, but is unable to direct it into the corner.
In this example, though, Soldado should surely do more – Eriksen creates a yard of space on the right and whips in a well-shaped cross. Soldado lurks around the penalty spot, but then fails to make a decisive run, and is caught on his heels somewhat.
Generally speaking, Soldado’s movement in the box is good, and he thrives on finding pockets of space which allow him to take on shots early.
This video gives a good indication of the types of goals he typically scores – he’s a real poacher in the six-yard box, but also scores lots of volleys from a little further out. For me, we need to feed the ball into the box earlier and more frequently, and allow Soldado to develop some faith in the ball coming to him more quickly.
A lack of passing ability in the midfield ’2′
Sandro is probably our best outfield player, and should start nearly every league game for which he is fit. Bold statement, perhaps, but I am such a huge fan of the Brazilian, and I think he adds so much – at both ends of the pitch.
Not only is he a tremendous defensive shield, but his incredible energy means that his proactive pressing wins us the ball high up the pitch. Alongside this, he also frees up his midfield partner to do the same, safe in the knowledge that he is there to mop up if necessary.
It’s not a good idea to use a single game as evidence, but I think a comparison of the first half of the Newcastle game (without Sandro) and the second half (with Sandro) speaks volumes.
1st half defensive dashboard vs Newcastle
2nd half defensive dashboard vs Newcastle
Key
Whilst none of those tackles were Sandro’s, five of the interceptions were – including two of the four in Newcastle’s half. Although viewed as a defensive player, he is critical to getting us playing further forward and on the front foot.
There have been times this season where I’d have liked us to select a passer alongside Sandro. André Villas-Boas used to frequently use the phrase ‘vertical’, referring to the ability to move the ball, directly, towards the opposition goal. Dembélé’ is terrific at dribbling with the ball (he averages 2.4 dribbles per game) and protecting it, and Paulinho is an all-action player who gets up and down the pitch a phenomenal amount, but neither excels at distribution. Both Dembélé’ (91.4%) and Paulinho’s (86.3%) boast decent pass completion stats, but it’s fair to say that both of these players favour moving the ball laterally.
Étienne Capoue is a good passer of the ball, and his return could signal a return to slightly more direct football, but personally I think that using Holtby in a deeper midfield role would offer greater ability to move the ball vertically. Holtby himself has said in the past that he sees himself as an ‘8’, and it would seem logical to me to give him an opportunity alongside Sandro against teams that want to sit back and play on the counter.
No Plan B / ability to change of approach
There’s little doubt that AVB’s pragmatic tactical approach is not for everyone. However, even for those like myself for whom that pragmatism is Not A Bad Thing per se, his absolute rigidity can frustrate.
There have been times when we have played 4-1-4-1 (particularly before Capoue’s injury). There have even been times that we have played 4-3-3. But essentially these formations are slight variations on the 4-2-3-1 that we mostly play.
The only other substantial tactical switch this season has been the switch to 4-4-2 after bringing Jermain Defoe off the bench. AVB tried this against Arsenal, Hull, and Newcastle, and indeed both Soldado and Defoe were on the pitch when Vertonghen’s cross was handled by Elmohamady, leading to Soldado scoring a penalty against Hull. But, frankly, the switch to 4-4-2 has been bizarrely illogical, and the two forwards look ill-suited to playing together. In the Newcastle game we lost momentum almost as soon as Defoe came on (I’m not blaming the player for this, but the change in shape).
AVB could argue that he’s been deprived of the services of Emmanuel Adebayor. Adebayor is still to be re-integrated following the death of his brother; initially he was not in the right mental state, and now he’s presumably not match fit. He has been included on the bench just once. Adebayor is a player who, in theory, should be able to strike up a partnership in a 4-4-2 – he is an unselfish player who looks to link with others as much as he looks to find the net himself, and works hard to drop deep to show for the ball, as well as moving wide to receive the ball in the channels.
But AVB has had the option of using Harry Kane – a player who, like Adebayor, likes to drop deep and link play, and who has impressed when given the chance this season. However, Kane has been used very sparingly, and mostly from the left.
I think there are quite a few things that AVB could try that would not be overly damaging to his and our defensive shape: more direct (long) passing; switching the wingers every now and again; asking one of the centre backs to carry the ball further; dropping Holtby or Sigurdsson deeper to play as one of the midfield ‘2’ when we’re chasing a goal. Simple things that could have a positive effect.
Final thoughts
Firstly, there’s no need to panic. It’s early days for this Spurs team, who are accommodating seven new first team players. There is a need for the new players to settle into English football, for the rest of the squad to get to know their games, for the coaches to fully appreciate their strengths and weaknesses.
We’re pretty dominant when it comes to possession and shots, and it’s hopefully a matter of time before the goals follow. Some tweaks are surely needed though – the fact that Townsend is averaging more shots per game (4.5) than any other Premier League player and that Paulinho (3.3) is not far behind him (he’s 6th in the list) tells me that our midfielders are taking on too many long-range efforts.
It might not please fans, but *more* patience is required from our players in certain circumstances – i.e. there will be times when we need to pass sideways more, and when we even need to pass backwards more. We can’t let the frustration of not |
year, their VORPs are added. A time frame of 1969 to 2009 is used, since VORP data was not thoroughly available before 1969, and players drafted after 2009 have likely not hit their peak performance.
An early draft number indicates that a particular player was a top prospect.
If multiple players were drafted in a particular year, the earliest pick is taken. Undrafted players and players selected using a territorial pick were omitted.
If multiple players were drafted in the same year, the average was taken
Undrafted players were omitted.
Interesting Facts:
In both 1974 and 2008, UCLA sent two All-Star players to the NBA in the same year - ( Bill Walton and Jamaal Wilkes in ‘74, Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love in ‘08).
In 2006, the “Years Spent at UCLA” statistic starts to decline. This can be attributed to the “one-and-done” phenomenon that began from the 2006 rule in which players were required to be at least one year removed from high school before entering the NBA draft. This forced many talented players to spend a year in college before moving on to the NBA.
6 players from UCLA’s 1995 championship team went to the NBA. However, none of those players flourished in the NBA.
Notable Players
Name Draft Year VORP of Best Year Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1969 10.5 Russell Westbrook 2008 8.3 Kevin Love 2008 7.3 Baron Davis 1999 5.2 Reggie Miller 1987 5.2
Name Draft Year All Star Appearances Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1969 19 Russell Westbrook 2008 6 Marques Johnson 1977 5 Gail Goodrich 1965 5 Reggie Miller 1987 5
Name Draft Year Team Normal Powell 2015 Raptors Kevon Looney 2015 Warriors Zach Lavine 2014 Timberwolves Kyle Anderson 2014 Spurs Jordan Adams 2014 Grizzlies
Name Draft Year Pick Trevor Ariza 2004 43 Kevin Love 2008 5 Jrue Holiday 2009 17 Shabazz Muhammad 2013 14 Zach LaVine 2014 13 Kevon Looney 2014 30
Where does Lonzo rank?
This year’s revitalized UCLA basketball showcases at least 2 players expected to be selected in the NBA draft: Lonzo Ball, expected second pick; T.J. Leaf, expected 20th to 22nd pick; and possibly a third player in Ike Anigbogu.
Of the three, Ball is the most likely to someday sit on the pedestal of UCLA greats. While forecasting the trajectory of any NBA prospect is not a trivial task, examining the career of a similar player may proffer some guidance.
College stats of Lonzo Ball vs. Jason Kidd
Ball’s statistics are up to date as of Jan. 29, 2017. Kidd’s statistics are an average of his 2-year college career at Cal.
Vitals of Lonzo Ball (UCLA) vs. Jason Kidd (Cal)
Height Weight Lonzo Ball 6-6 190 lbs Jason Kidd 6-4 205 lbs
Admittedly, similar college production and vitals are insufficient evidence to conclude that Ball will follow Kidd’s footsteps, but the comparison does warrant some attention. If Ball does follow a similar career path as Kidd, then he may end up as one of the most successful NBA players out of UCLA.
VORP of Best Year: Kidd vs. UCLA Greats
The chart above indicates that if Ball’s career is identical to Kidd’s, he could end up as the fourth best player out of UCLA (measured by VORP in a player’s best NBA year).
Data Collection and Discussion of VORPBy Joel D. Joseph Recently, the House of Representatives panicked and caved in to demands from Canada, Mexico and the World Trade Organization gutting the Country of Origin Labeling Act. These are the same members of Congress who want President Barack Obama to “get tough” with Iran and Russia, yet cower when threatened by third-rate powers.
California has a population greater than Canada. Mexico is a drug cartel operating as a country. Every day we allow substandard Mexican delivery trucks to cross our borders and enter into the United States. With regard to our northern neighbor, we have not complained that Canada has imposed confiscatory duties on American dairy products and chicken.
We need to get tough; we should take the gloves off and fight Canada and Mexico on unfair trade. We should also expose the World Trade Organization for what it is: an undemocratic, unfair clique of small countries that love to skewer the United States.
Canada and Mexico filed a complaint with the WTO charging that COOL was a barrier to free trade because it required grocery stores to label meat products with their country of origin. Ninety percent of American consumers want to have the country of origin labels on their meats. If mad cow disease is coming from Canada (which it has), consumers and processors should have the right to know where their beef is coming from.
But what about the real tariff barriers to trade enacted by our northern neighbor? According to Canada’s leading newspaper, the Globe and Mail, the Canadian federal government imposes tariffs that run between 200 per cent and 300 per cent on virtually all dairy and chicken imports including milk, cheese and ice cream. Incredibly, we can’t ship Vermont’s Ben & Jerry’s ice cream or Vermont’s excellent cheddar cheese, milk or butter across the border because it would triple the cost.
Instead of enacting excessive duties, Mexico has established illegal subsidies on many products. Two major industries affected by this are sugar and steel. The U.S. International Trade Commission recently made a determination (by a 5-0 vote) that imports of dumped and subsidized Mexican sugar are materially injuring U.S. sugar producers. According to the antidumping and countervailing duty petitions filed by the U.S. sugar industry, Mexico has systematically dumped subsidized sugar into the U.S. market costing domestic producers an estimated $1 billion this year alone. In 2014, U.S. Department of Commerce made a determination that rebar steel imports from Mexico were unfairly being dumped into the U.S. market threatening the jobs of American workers.
At the same time, Obama said that his new Trans Pacific Partnership would not force the United States to change its laws. The President said recently, “critics warn that parts of this deal would undermine American regulation — food safety, worker safety, even financial regulations. They’re making this stuff up. This is just not true. No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.” Mr. President, your critics are not making this stuff up; our little trade agreement that created the WTO is doing just that.
The World Trade Organization sounds like a legitimate international organization, but it is not. The WTO operates in secret by handpicked delegates from around the world. Cases reviewed by the WTO are determined by “judges” selected for one case even if they have demonstrated conflicts of interest. WTO decisions make a mockery of U.S. and European laws that have been designed to protect the health of consumers and the environment. The WTO is unfair, unethical and undemocratic. It needs to be overhauled.
The United States Senate should keep COOL in force. In fact, the Senate should pass a resolution challenging the validity of the WTO ruling for conflict of interest reasons.
In the event that the Senate passes a bill that guts COOL (like the House bill) and sends it to the president, the president should veto the bill. As the president said, “No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws.” If he is true to his word, the president must veto the COOL amendments.
Joel D. Joseph is chairman of the Made in the USA Foundation and worked on the Country of Origin Labeling Act.
Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call in your inbox or on your iPhone.BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union interior ministers were at odds on Friday over how to handle immigration, with heated discussions between states who want more burden sharing and those who oppose any kind of obligatory relocation.
An EU sign is seen as a migrant rests at the border crossing from Slovenia in Trnovec, Croatia October 19, 2015. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic
“We are looking for compromises but at the moment they are not there,” said Thomas De Maiziere of Germany, which last year took in about 900,000 migrants and refugees.
The ministers disagreed over a proposal by the EU’s current chair Slovakia on reforming the bloc’s asylum system, which collapsed last year as 1.3 million refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa reached Europe and member states quarreled over how to handle the influx.
Overall, the arrivals have decreased from last year but they continue unabated in Italy and tens of thousands of people are still stuck in Greece and Italy, sometimes in dire conditions.
Despite agreeing last year to relocate 160,000 people from Italy and Greece, eastern European countries, including Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, have refused to take any in.
“We cannot pretend that the quotas as we know them now are working,” said Robert Kalinak of Slovakia.
“The 160,000 is only a very small part of the million that came to Europe last year and we only relocated less than 10,000 people. Even those who were for this system were not successful.
We want to come up with a system that would be effective.”
Germany is backed by Sweden, Italy and Malta in pushing for obligatory relocation in the asylum reform. That is precisely what the eastern countries are opposing.
Related Coverage Swiss set to call EU's bluff on immigration curbs
They propose instead to offer more resources to police external borders or take on more responsibility for deportations under what Bratislava dubbed “effective solidarity”.
“We should never leave the frontline member states in coping with this very, very complex situation,” the bloc’s migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said. “Solidarity in all the languages of the EU has the same meaning.”
“Solidarity must be effective in reality, not just in words.”
SECURITY
To regain control over the flows of people into the continent, the EU strengthened its external borders, struck deals with some countries of origin and transit along the migration routes and suspended its Schengen free travel zone.
A year after 130 people were killed in attacks in Paris claimed by Islamic State, the ministers on Friday discussed further enhancing the screening of people at the EU’s external borders by better linking existing databases.
Thousands of Europeans have joined the ranks of the militant group in Syria and Iraq and some have returned to the 28-nation EU, including those involved in the Paris attacks. The bloc fears they are more difficult to spot in the migration wave.
The bloc’s executive European Commission has proposed tightening travel rules for non-EU visitors.
Brussels wants to set up an EU Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) - akin to the U.S. ESTA - and make visitors from outside the EU who have the right to travel to the bloc without a visa pay 5 euros for an online pre-approval.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany, November 9, 2016. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
“There have been people who had been sent by Daesh (Islamic State) in the past, there have been people who came back from Syria and Iraq in the past,” said Julian King, the bloc’s commissioner in charge of security issues.
“The important thing is to make sure that we continue to reinforce our measures... to be as well prepared as we can be to manage that threat.”Chip Somodevilla / Getty A Glock 19 handgun, like the one Jared Lee Loughner allegedly used in a Jan. 8, 2011, shooting spree in Tucson, Ariz.
When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the handgun ban in the nation's capital in 2008, Representative Gabrielle Giffords applauded the ruling, calling gun ownership "an Arizona tradition." That she had co-signed a congressional amicus brief against the ban came as no surprise: she has always been pro-gun, and she represents a state with a history of proud gun ownership and lax gun laws.
So there is at least a touch of irony to the fact that her name is being invoked, following her attempted assassination on Saturday, in calls for tighter gun control. Paul Helmke, head of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, offered prayers for Giffords and decried "easy access to high-powered guns." New York Representative Carolyn McCarthy called the shooting "an illustration of why we must all work together to fight gun violence in America and keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the wrong people." (See one survivor's account of the Tucson massacre.)
Gun-rights supporters see a different moral to the shooting. "It shows more than ever why people need to have the tools of defense," says Charles Heller, founder of the Arizona Citizens Defense League. As for additional gun-control laws, Heller says, "It doesn't need to be any more illegal than it already is to shoot a Congresswoman in the head." (See TIME's photoessay "Mourning the Victims of the Arizona Shooting.")
The real question in Tucson, though, is why the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Jared Lee Loughner, was allowed to buy the murder weapon in the first place. Beyond the clearly delusional nature of online videos ascribed to him, Loughner was suspended last year from Pima Community College apparently because of mental problems. According to the college, he was told he could return only if he obtained "a mental health clearance indicating, in the opinion of a mental health professional, his presence at the College does not present a danger to himself or others." The Army also denied Loughner's application for unspecified reasons. It's unclear what other organizations or agencies might have been aware of Loughner's dangerous mental state. Still, he passed a background check, and late last year legally bought the 9-mm Glock 19 semiautomatic handgun allegedly used in the shootings. (Read "What Motivated Giffords' Shooter?")
As far back as the Gun Control Act of 1968, there have been federal laws against selling weapons to mentally ill individuals. But the Virginia Tech tragedy in 2007, in which the shooter Cho Seung-Hui was able to pass two federal gun background checks even after a state court ruled that he was dangerously mentally ill, highlighted the need for better record-keeping and interagency communication to enforce those laws. (More than 30 people died in the incident.) Saying that unstable individuals are disqualified from buying firearms is meaningless if the national background-check system, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), has no record of their illness. That's why the Brady organization was proud to announce on Friday, just a day before the Tucson shootings, that the number of records of mental illness in the NICS database had more than doubled since Virginia Tech, to more than 1 million records. (See TIME's complete coverage of the Tucson shooting.)
But there's a problem with that: there should be more than 2 million records in that database, if all the states cooperated fully. According to the Brady organization's records, Arizona was not even the worst offender at least the state ramped up its reporting somewhat in the wake of Virginia Tech. But still, Arizona's own estimate is that the state has 121,700 records of disqualifying mental illness that should go into the NICS database. From the beginning of 2008 to October 2010, however, it submitted only 4,465 records. Worse than Arizona were states like Louisiana, which submitted only one record during that time frame, and Nebraska and Pennsylvania, which didn't submit any. (Did violent rhetoric contribute to the Giffords attack?)
The battle over gun control is not often fought in the bureaucracy, however. It's fought in the public square. Saturday's shooting comes after several years of increasingly high-profile appearances by armed Second Amendment supporters at political events. In August 2009, at the height of the health care reform furor, a man showed up at a speech President Obama gave to veterans in Phoenix with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle slung around his shoulder. That same month, a protester outside an Obama town-hall meeting in New Hampshire wore a handgun strapped to his leg and carried a sign that said, "It's time to water the tree of liberty," a reference to Thomas Jefferson, who suggested that particular tree should be watered with blood.
In the end, however, what those protesters demonstrated safely, as it turned out was that they could bring properly licensed weapons to political events without endangering the public. Gun-control advocates may see the Tea Party protesters as the face of provocation, but it's the quiet, grim paranoiacs like Loughner who represent the real danger.
Loughner, according to eyewitnesses, hid his weapon until the moment before he opened fire. But his mental illness had been on display for many to see in the weeks and months before the shooting. So Giffords' gun politics are not relevant at the moment, nor are the larger questions of liberty or societal violence. The most pressing questions now: Who else knew of Loughner's mental illness? What obligations did his college have, and which ones did they fulfill, to report Loughner to other agencies? Most of all: Why is Arizona (along with other states) so far behind in reporting disqualifying mental illness to the federal background-check system? If there is anything that both sides should be able to agree on, it's that unstable individuals should not have access to any kind of weapon, much less the so-called fourth-generation semiautomatic Glock 19 that Loughner bought. This time, the price for bureaucratic torpor was too high.
Read about the link between marijuana and schizophrenia.USB devices in containers
It can be pretty useful to pass USB devices to a container. Be that some measurement equipment in a lab or maybe more commonly, an Android phone or some IoT device that you need to interact with.
Similar to what I wrote recently about GPUs, LXD supports passing USB devices into containers. Again, similarly to the GPU case, what’s actually passed into the container is a Unix character device, in this case, a /dev/bus/usb/ device node.
This restricts USB passthrough to those devices and software which use libusb to interact with them. For devices which use a kernel driver, the module should be installed and loaded on the host, and the resulting character or block device be passed to the container directly.
Note that for this to work, you’ll need LXD 2.5 or higher.
Example (Android debugging)
As an example which quite a lot of people should be able to relate to, lets run a LXD container with the Android debugging tools installed, accessing a USB connected phone.
This would for example allow you to have your app’s build system and CI run inside a container and interact with one or multiple devices connected over USB.
First, plug your phone over USB, make sure it’s unlocked and you have USB debugging enabled:
stgraber@dakara:~$ lsusb Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0451:8041 Texas Instruments, Inc. Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0451:8041 Texas Instruments, Inc. Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 001 Device 021: ID 17ef:6047 Lenovo Bus 001 Device 031: ID 046d:082d Logitech, Inc. HD Pro Webcam C920 Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0451:8043 Texas Instruments, Inc. Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:0a01 Logitech, Inc. USB Headset Bus 001 Device 033: ID 0fce:51da Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0451:8043 Texas Instruments, Inc. Bus 001 Device 002: ID 072f:90cc Advanced Card Systems, Ltd ACR38 SmartCard Reader Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Spot your phone in that list, in my case, that’d be the “Sony Ericsson Mobile” entry.
Now let’s create our container:
stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc launch ubuntu:16.04 c1 Creating c1 Starting c1
And install the Android debugging client:
stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc exec c1 -- apt install android-tools-adb Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following NEW packages will be installed: android-tools-adb 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 68.2 kB of archives. After this operation, 198 kB of additional disk space will be used. Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 android-tools-adb amd64 5.1.1r36+git20160322-0ubuntu3 [68.2 kB] Fetched 68.2 kB in 0s (0 B/s) Selecting previously unselected package android-tools-adb. (Reading database... 25469 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack.../android-tools-adb_5.1.1r36+git20160322-0ubuntu3_amd64.deb... Unpacking android-tools-adb (5.1.1r36+git20160322-0ubuntu3)... Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1)... Setting up android-tools-adb (5.1.1r36+git20160322-0ubuntu3)...
We can now attempt to list Android devices with:
stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc exec c1 -- adb devices * daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 * * daemon started successfully * List of devices attached
Since we’ve not passed any USB device yet, the empty output is expected.
Now, let’s pass the specific device listed in “lsusb” above:
stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc config device add c1 sony usb vendorid=0fce productid=51da Device sony added to c1
And try to list devices again:
stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc exec c1 -- adb devices * daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 * * daemon started successfully * List of devices attached CB5A28TSU6 device
To get a shell, you can then use:
stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc exec c1 -- adb shell * daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 * * daemon started successfully * E5823:/ $
LXD USB devices support hotplug by default. So unplugging the device and plugging it back on the host will have it removed and re-added to the container.
The “productid” property isn’t required, you can set only the “vendorid” so that any device from that vendor will be automatically attached to the container. This can be very convenient when interacting with a number of similar devices or devices which change productid depending on what mode they’re in.
stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc config device remove c1 sony Device sony removed from c1 stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc config device add c1 sony usb vendorid=0fce Device sony added to c1 stgraber@dakara:~$ lxc exec c1 -- adb devices * daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 * * daemon started successfully * List of devices attached CB5A28TSU6 device
The optional “required” property turns off the hotplug behavior, requiring the device be present for the container to be allowed to start.
More details on USB device properties can be found here.
Conclusion
We are surrounded by a variety of odd USB devices, a good number of which come with possibly dodgy software, requiring a specific version of a specific Linux distribution to work. It’s sometimes hard to accommodate those requirements while keeping a clean and safe environment.
LXD USB device passthrough helps a lot in such cases, so long as the USB device uses a libusb based workflow and doesn’t require a specific kernel driver.
If you want to add a device which does use a kernel driver, locate the /dev node it creates, check if it’s a character or block device and pass that to LXD as a unix-char or unix-block type device.
Extra information
The main LXD website is at: https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd
Development happens on Github at: https://github.com/lxc/lxd
Mailing-list support happens on: https://lists.linuxcontainers.org
IRC support happens in: #lxcontainers on irc.freenode.net
Try LXD online: https://linuxcontainers.org/lxd/try-itNarrative?
Oh, you mean a story,
full of blood and guts,
showing the wars
as a man might see them.
They’re full of lies, you know;
only the dead
have seen the truth of war.
And to kill a protagonist
while sometimes done
is a shabby trick;
the living reader
does not truly feel
the weight of death
that is written
in ink on paper.
In any case
a narrative demands
an inspired writer
whose head is full
of stories of war
and not of cotton.
Sick men write
no great narratives
although sometimes
a few lines of free verse
may sneak through;
they’re slippery, those
self-referential post-modern
pieces. You should trust them
as much as you trust
a fine well-written story
of war; which is to say
not at all.
In this session we reached 1936, and Venice fought three interlinked wars: Against Egypt, against India, and against England.
The first war was the result of Kuipy’s desire to get revenge for the Nile Delta War, recover my African enclaves, and push the Venetian border back across the Suez. To accomplish this he built up an army in his Arabian possessions, and attacked in April with a wargoal of five states. Fortunately, the small circle of moly I keep around my gaming chair kept my mind unclouded, and I was able to see the subtle warning signs:
Fortunately, even so subtle and elusive a Power as the Jackal, with its PLOTS SPANNING CENTURIES, cannot move in the world entirely without leaving tracks that the sufficiently wise may note.
There was nothing I could do about his control of the desert weather, but I did manage to move rather a large number of submarines to the Red Sea, where they could in principle interfere with his supply lines. The Jackal’s powers are much reduced by salt water; however, by PLOTS SPANNING CENTURIES it has managed to darken the minds of a particular set of Swedes, so that level-1 submarines are in fact entirely useless in HoI4 (more on this later). If the subs had any effect on the Arabian War I have yet to learn of it. Fortunately I wasn’t relying on them; I should have been so wise in other wars.
One of the Jackal’s special sandstorms, affecting only one side of a front line.
Instead I relied on my small but excellent army. As shown in the sandstorm screenshot above, the numbers of divisions were about equal; eleven on my side, eleven stacks on Kuipy’s – if we assume that those are all one-division stacks and there are no reserves, exactly equal numbers. (This leaves out whatever Kuipy had in Africa; since he failed miserably to break the Suez Line in spite of multiple attacks, those units might as well not have existed.) However, where our lines touched, his crumbled like paper, and I was able to punch two holes in his line and rush my tanks through:
First encirclement of the Arabian War.
Note the different widths and attacks of our divisions. Idhrendur’s converter creates three kinds of division: ‘Advance’, ‘Support’, and ‘Basic’. The Advance has line artillery plus supporting engineers and recon battalions; the support has either line artillery or support battalions, but not both; the basic has neither. How many of each you get depends on your army composition in Vicky. My army converted entirely as Advance divisions; I think I’m facing a Support here, or perhaps even a Basic with some tweaking to make it width twenty. In any case they were quite unable to put up any serious resistance against the glorious advance of the Venetian army; in pretty short order I had another encirclement:
Second encirclement, and ready to push for Yemen.
and once that pocket collapsed it was all over except for another heroic last stand in the southern Arabian mountains.
At this point the obvious next step is to use my complete naval superiority to cross the Red Sea, or alternatively the Med, and invade Egypt proper. I fact my esteemed German allies had done precisely that, but got chucked out again, indicating presumably that Kuipy Had Reserves hidden somewhere on the Dark Continent. However, while I was winning a crushing victory in the Arabian War, I had also got embroiled in the Indochina War, declared by India against my ally Japan. In truth I was rather expecting my participation in that conflict to be symbolic, pro-forma, and quickly over, which is of course exactly how people get involved in land wars in Asia.
Heavy fighting expected on the Persian border.
It turns out, however, that Ragatokk, playing India, is as tactically formidable as ever, whatever the industrial strengths. Taking advantage of some weakness in Gollevainen’s prewar deployment, he was able to encircle a large Japanese force in Indochina, then rapidly advance to the Pacific coast, driving the Japanese pell-mell before him and into their ships. (Gollevainen states that he was able to evacuate a large part of his army, but not all of it.) That still left a Manchurian front, which is still fairly well stalemated; Japan has not been driven off the mainland, but has lost the southern part of its Pacific rim. Nonetheless India was able to redeploy a reasonable army to my entirely undefended Persian front, and start advancing. So instead of invading across the Red Sea, I force-marched my divisions north as fast as they became available, eventually stopping the Indian advance in the Iranian highlands. Conveniently, due to the aforementioned heroic last stand in the Yemen mountains, half a dozen divisions were freed up just as my new Persian front began to advance here and there; rather than fight a grinding attritional struggle through those mountains, I shipped them across the Persian Gulf:
The Persian landing.
Shortly thereafter, the glory of Venetian arms (I’ll allow Germany an assist) was enhanced by another encirclement:
Glorious victory!
At this time, however, the third war started, and went rather more unfortunately for me. England, worried about the fate of Egypt after its disastrous loss in Arabia – neither moly nor cold iron are in fashion, this decade, in Whitehall – accepted the Accursed Republic into its faction, and immediately launched an attack across the Tyrrhenian Sea. This, unfortunately, is where I was relying on those useless subs, my army being already stretched to its limits – who defends everything, defends nothing, as the man said. You would think that fifty of the things, operating in so constrained a body of water as the Tyrrhenian, would at least inconvenience an invasion; the more so when supported by land-based aircraft. Not a bit of it. Baron was able to land at his leisure, and if he had any supply problems they weren’t worth noticing. Instead I scrambled to put together a fighting line at the edge of the Po plain:
Clenching the muscles of the soft underbelly.
Note the futile English attacks on the fortified Po Line in the west; seven divisions holding off twenty. For a while it looked like I would even be able to hold the edge of the mountains, and thus maintain at least my Venetian factories in the fight. In that case, I might have waited for the New World, in its power and its might, to come forth to the rescue, and the liberation, of the Old. (Not to mention completing the conquest of India, and the freeing up of the Imperial Japanese Army to fight in Europe.) Alas, it was not to be:
The Po Line still holds, but both flanks are ruptured and it is in danger of double envelopment.
We are currently negotiating a limited peace in Europe and Africa.
World map, September 1936.
AdvertisementsWe here at The Register recently got the chance to have a look at what appeared to be some most interesting confidential information, from within a large aerospace and defence contractor.
We're most grateful for this. However the way the information came to us, combined with the circumstances of the case, is going to make it difficult for us to proceed with the story without being able to communicate with our source.
We're hoping that he or she is reading this. We'd like to say: please get in touch, using whatever channel may suit: our contact details are here (be aware we've just moved offices). However, given the way the world is today, we'd strongly recommend encrypting your message. You seem like the type who'd be able to manage this without any difficulty. Rest assured we will be decrypting it offline in a secure manner, and the message will not then be uploaded to a popular cloud service, webmailed to someone's mobe etc. We will not reveal your identity without your consent.
And if anyone else with some information that ought to see the light of day happens to be reading this, the same goes for you too.
Our public key can be found below (or here). ®
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negativity our country has accumulated lately. It’s nice to reflect on something positive, especially during the Fourth of July weekend and the days that follow. The timing was impeccable.
I would like to extend my deepest thanks to the man or woman responsible for this vandalism. I appreciate the action you took. Thank you for reminding me that I’m not alone. It took a lot of guts to do what you did – and the fact that you haven’t stepped forward to take credit makes you a hero. It shows everyone that you are more devoted to the message than you are to the spotlight. I encourage you to keep your cover. Don’t give the secular world a reason to call your name; instead, let them call for our God.
I also need to extend a thank-you to some people in Sacramento and Detroit. In February, 10 atheist billboards were defaced in the Golden State and a slew of atheist bus ads were vandalized in Detroit. My dose of honesty this week: I am not happy that vandalism seems to be the only way to get an atheist’s attention. I’m happy that I can count on other Christians to stand up for themselves and for Christians everywhere. It gives me hope."AVAC" redirects here. For the HIV/AIDS research organization, see AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition
An automated vacuum waste collection system, also known as pneumatic refuse collection, or automated vacuum collection (AVAC), transports waste at high speed through underground pneumatic tubes to a collection station where it is compacted and sealed in containers. When the container is full, it is transported away and emptied. The system helps facilitate separation and recycling of waste.[1]
The process begins with the deposit of trash into intake hatches, called portholes, which may be specialized for waste, recycling, or compost. Portholes are located in public areas and on private property where the owner has opted in. The waste is then pulled through an underground pipeline by air pressure difference created by large industrial fans, in response to porthole sensors that indicate when the trash needs to be emptied and help ensure that only one kind of waste material is travelling through the pipe at a time. The pipelines converge on a central processing facility that uses automated software to direct the waste to the proper container, from there to be trucked to its final location, such as a landfill or composting plant.[1]
History [ edit ]
The first system was created in Sweden in the 1960s, designed by the Swedish corporation Envac AB (formerly known as Centralsug AB).[2] The first installation was in 1961 at Sollefteå Hospital. The first vacuum system for household waste, was installed in the new residential district of Ör-Hallonbergen, Sweden in 1965.[3]
Current systems [ edit ]
Pneumatic refuse collection in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Northern Spain
The Envac proprietary system, Envac Automated Waste Collection System, is used in more than 30 countries.[2] Additionally, the Stream AWCS out of Malaysia has installed many systems in South East Asia.
There are close to a thousand systems in operation all over the world[citation needed] - in China, South East Asia, South Korea,[4] the Middle East, the United States, and Europe. Notable examples in Europe were implemented in the Stockholm area in Sweden.[citation needed] and Leganés and Barakaldo in Spain. Another well known, yet rarely seen example is the one used in the utilidors in the Magic Kingdom theme park in Orlando, Florida.[5]
In the U.S., this type of system is installed in several places but Disney World and Roosevelt Island[6] are the best known. A pneumatic refuse collection system on Roosevelt Island, New York City, is said to be the largest in the United States and the only system in the U.S. serving a residential complex in this case nearly 10,000 people.[7][8]
Major cities in which the system is operating include Copenhagen, Barcelona, London, and Stockholm.[citation needed]
Israel [ edit ]
In Israel there are currently 5 systems - 2 operational in Yavne and Ra'anana, and 3 planned in Bat Yam, Tel Aviv and Rishon LeZion.[9] In a techo-economic analysis conducted by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, it was found that the cost of intra-urban treating in pneumatic collection in neighborhoods with multiple units and under funding contractors is 25% lower in comparison to conventional methods, and this is without internalizing the external benefits arising from it (value of time and pollution). It was also found that if the data referred to neighborhoods with higher buildings (with the same number of housing units), the cost of a pneumatic system was even cheaper (at least approximately 20%)[10]
In 2006, Yavne municipality issued a tender for the establishment of a pneumatic evacuation of household waste for the residential project "Green Neighborhood"[11][10] which comprises 4,700 household units in around 200 buildings.[12] In September 2012, the system began operating in residential use.[10] In February 2014, the municipality began replacing the neighborhood's street trash cans with pneumatic cans.[13] Now there are also around 30 waste collection points in public areas - parks, schools and the streets.[10] The system is also planned to be connected to all future neighborhoods and serve 10,660 house units.[14]
In May 2012, Ra'anana municipality approved the residential project "Neve Zemer" which is planned to include around 3,550 housing units in around 235 buildings with a pneumatic evacuation system of household waste.[15][10] As of 2018, the pneumatic evacuation system already became operational.[16]
As of 2015, Bat Yam municipality is currently engaged in planning a tender for construction and operation of pneumatic evacuation system that includes 5,000 residential neighborhood units (approximately 60 high rise buildings) and 2000 hotel rooms.[10] In 2017, the municipality published the tender for the planning, financing, construction, operation and maintenance of the pneumatic evacuation system.[17]
In 2009, Tel Aviv municipality's head of the city's construction and infrastructure manager, Dr. Benny Maor, claimed that in new neighborhoods that are planned in the northwest of the city, there is an intention to install a pneumatic evacuation system. In 2013, the municipality requested the preparation of a plan for a pneumatic evacuation system as a condition for a building permit in part of a development plan of 11,446 square meters land plots located in Rothschild Boulevard and Ahad Ha'am streets.[18]
Planned systems [ edit ]
Europe [ edit ]
A system is planned to be installed in the new Jätkäsaari residential neighbourhood in Helsinki, Finland. All housing cooperatives and other apartment buildings are obliged to join the network. The system envisioned for Jätkäsaari would help facilitate the separation and recycling of waste.
Each building will have a collection point with up to five wastebins or tubes, each for different types of waste and with the capacity to store several parcels of waste. The underground tube network would act in a manner similar to a packet switched telecommunication network, transporting one kind of waste at a time. Once an input bin is filled, or capacity is available, it is transferred to the central collection site combined with the same class of waste.
Similarly in Finland, a new suburban development, being built in the city of Tampere, will be home to 13,000 inhabitants, creating approximately 5,000 jobs along the way. The suburb of Vuores will have a total of 124 collection points and 368 waste inlets. The system's daily collection capacity for dry waste, bio waste, paper and recyclable cardboard comes to a combined total of 13 tonnes.
The MetroTaifun Automatic Waste Collection System[19] was selected for Vuores since it consumes only a third of the energy compared to conventional pneumatic waste collection solutions, and half of the traditional garbage truck and container based collection method. When ready, the system will consist of about 400 waste inlets and 13 km of pipe work. The MetroTaifun automatic waste collection system has initially start to collect waste in the 2012.
In Bergen, Norway, a system designed to cover most of the city center is under the first phase of construction. For several years, pipes have been prepared in the ground during other construction projects. The first part of the system is planned to start operations in the fall of 2015, covering about 3000 households.[20]
North America [ edit ]
A system is planned for a new City Center development in Carmel, Indiana. It would service condominiums, businesses, and a hotel.[21]
In March 2015, the city of Montreal abandoned its $3 million investment in a plan to install an automated vacuum collection system in the Quartier des Spectacles entertainment district.[22][1][2][23][24]
Another installation is planned for Hudson Yards, Manhattan.[25]
Middle East [ edit ]
The world's largest AWCS is now being built in the vicinity of Islam's holiest mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. During the Ramadan and Hajj, 600 tonnes (or 4,500 cubic meters) of waste is generated each day, which puts a heavy demand on those responsible for collecting the waste and litter. In the MetroTaifun Automatic Waste Collection System,[19] the waste is automatically collected from 74 waste feeding points spread out across the area and then transferred via a 20-kilometre pipe network to a central collection point, keeping all the waste collecting activities out of sight and below ground with the central collection point well away from the public areas.
See also [ edit ]Catalonia will soon become the first Spanish region to ban circus acts with live animals. On Tuesday, five of the seven political groups in the regional assembly proposed to extend existing animal protection laws to “circus acts with animals, across the Catalan territory.”
The five groups that put forward the bill had made a campaign promise to the animal rights association Libera, whose president Carlos López expressed satisfaction at the initiative and praised that fact that “once again, the Catalan parliament is leading the fight in defense of animal rights.”
According to López, Catalonia will be the first Spanish region to prohibit the use of animals in circus acts, although 99 municipalities in the region already have a similar ban in place. Across Spain this figure rises to 133.
Josep Rull, a deputy for the ruling CIU Catalan nationalist bloc, explained that these days the presence of circus acts that use animals was “completely residual.” Only one circus in the entire region still has animal acts, and it has not put on a show for over a year and a half. “Society has progressed, and with it levels of animal protection.”
Rull then quoted Gandhi’s famous phrase that “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,” and added that “with proposals like today’s, Catalonia comes closer to the rest of Europe.”
Oriol Amorós, a deputy for the ERC Catalan Republican Left, noted the historical evolution of animal protection in Catalonia, underscoring the ban on bullfighting and the fact that “the Catalan Civil Code is the first one to recognize that animals are not things, but sentient beings that require rights and protection.”
According to Amorós, the ban on circus acts with animals is justified because of “a long list of reports of abuse, since living conditions are much worse than at zoos,” especially since the animals are always travelling around, and ultimately abandoned “once they are no longer in a condition to be exploited.”
Despite the self-congratulatory tone, several representatives noted that there was still some way to go before animal welfare becomes truly universal in the region, highlighting the exceptions granted to the correbous (running of the bulls) and bous embolats (bulls with flammable material attached to their horns), two traditional practices still seen at local fiestas in Catalan towns. Bullfighting, on the other hand, is perceived by many Catalans as a purely Spanish tradition.The Washington Capitals are in search of a backup goalie which will certainly have a trickle down affect throughout Washington’s minor league system. With young goalie prospect Philipp Grubauer set to gain the bulk of the starts for Washington’s AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears, pending unrestricted free agent net minder David Leggio likely won’t be returning to the organization.
“My plan as of now would be to go with Holtby as our No. 1,” new Capitals General Manager Brian MacLellan told CSN Washington, “and then find a backup goaltender.” MacLellan views Grubauer as the number one goalie at the AHL level this season ofr Hershey, although he played very well during his time with at the NHL level last year when former Caps goalie Michal Neuvirth was injured.
Leggio, 29, is one of the top goalies in the American Hockey League (AHL) and will almost certainly earn a two-way contract with an opportunity to see NHL minutes during the upcoming season. He played in 45 games for Hershey this past season, after two dominant seasons with the Rochester Americans, AHL affiliate of the Buffalo Sabres. A return to the Sabres organization could always be a possibility for the Buffalo, New York native.
“I would say it’s probably more likely that we will not be back,” Leggio’s agent Steve Bartlett told The Hockey Writers on Wednesday. “I think it’s pretty clear Grubauer is the guy they’re trying to groom and they’ve got a couple guys up top. David I think wants to be at worst at the number three (goalie) position. I’m sure it’s a good fit all the way around.”
With 45 games played, Leggio appeared in his fewest amount of games in four years, after averaging 59 games with Rochester over the past two seasons. He posted a career high.924 save percentage with the Americans during the 2012-13 campaign. Leggio signed with the Washington Capitals on June 8th last summer.
American Hockey league clubs play 76 games per season and Grubauer should earn a shot to receive the majority of those starts. Capitals goalie prospects Brandon Anderson (ECHL, Reading Royals) and Pheonix Copley (college signing) could become Grubauer’s backup in Hershey or the organization could sign a veteran to till that role like they have in the past, i.e. Danny Sabourin.
Free agents can officially sign new contracts on July 1st, but teams can negotiate with pending UFA’s and RFA’s from June 25th to June 30th. Washington’s unrestricted free agents that impacted Hershey last season include Chay Genoway, Brandon Segal, Julien Brouillette, Tyson Strachan, Joel Rechlicz, Matt Watkins, David Kolomatis and Ryan Stoa.
The Hockey Writers will release a Hershey Bears offseason preview in the coming days.August 8, 2017
Putin Still in Denial over the Loss of Ukraine By Peter Dickinson
When Kremlin proxies in eastern Ukraine declared the foundation of “Malorossia” in mid-July, most people laughed. This bizarre attempt to replace Ukraine with a “Little Russian” vassal state was seen as one more indication of how hopelessly out of touch Russian policymakers are with Ukrainian public opinion. However, at least one man in Moscow failed to see the funny side. Key Putin aide and Ukraine curator Vladislav Surkov called it a way of sparking debate within Ukraine while emphasizing that the Donbas is not fighting to separate from Ukraine but for the country’s future. “Kyiv wants a pro-European utopia,” he commented. “The Donbas responds with Malorossia.”Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced similarly optimistic sentiments during the July G20 summit in Hamburg, where he accused the Ukrainian leadership of “trading in Russophobia” and blamed a handful of Kyiv politicians for driving an artificial wedge between Russia and Ukraine. “I am absolutely convinced the interests of Ukraine and Russia, of the Ukrainian and Russian people, fully match,” he claimed, before accusing the West of preventing Ukraine and Russia from moving closer together “at any cost.”These developments provide insight into Moscow’s apparent delusions over the catastrophic loss of Russian influence in Ukraine since 2014. The Kremlin clings to the idea that a silent majority of pro-Russian Ukrainians lies ready and waiting, poised to take over the reins in Kyiv at the right moment and steer Ukraine back into the Kremlin orbit.Such wishful thinking is nothing new. On the contrary, it is consistent with Moscow’s historic characterization of the Ukrainian independence movement as the work of an extremist minority and their foreign backers. However, the events of the past few years have left Kremlin notions of Slavic solidarity looking more anachronistic than ever. Although Putin refuses to admit it, the sun is setting on centuries of Russian preeminence in Ukraine, and he has only himself to blame.When historians look back at the collapse of Russia-Ukraine relations, they will likely pinpoint the invasion of Crimea as the decisive moment. The 2014 military takeover of Ukraine’s southern peninsula and the subsequent Kremlin-led hybrid war in the east have forced Ukrainians into a fundamental reassessment of their attitudes toward Russia. It has poisoned bilateral ties and transformed what was essentially a trade dispute into the geopolitical divorce of the century.On a personal level, the impact has been particularly painful. Thousands of extended families living on both sides of the border are no longer on speaking terms. Lifelong friendships have fallen victim to the polarization of propaganda. As the conflict has dragged on, rivers of hate have created an entirely new topography, obliterating the blurred borders and casual sense of community that once drew Russians and Ukrainians together as kindred spirits in a wider world.On the national level, survey after survey has reflected a massive shift in Ukrainian public opinion. Formerly solid support for closer ties with Russia has evaporated, while membership of the European Union and NATO have become increasingly appealing. The war has proved a watershed moment in Ukraine’s nation-building experience, forcing Ukrainians to address issues of national identity after decades of post-Soviet ambiguity. Record numbers now self-identify as Ukrainians, with the rising profile of Russian-speaking Ukrainians one of the major social breakthroughs since 2014. Nobody talks about Russian fraternity anymore, except in the most bitterly sarcastic of terms.Many in Moscow will no doubt hope this violent swing in public opinion is reversible. After all, history is full of warring nations that rebuilt ties once the bloodletting stopped. France and Germany fought two world wars in the twentieth century before going on to serve as the twin engines of a united Europe. Britain and America came to blows in the late eighteenth century before eventually returning to the common ground that had once united them. Time will also eventually heal the wounds of the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, but when the relationship does finally resume, it is likely to be on a strikingly different footing.One of the key problems facing the Kremlin in Ukraine is the loss a pro-Russian electorate. Moscow-leaning former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych relied heavily on voters from Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This electorate now finds itself disenfranchised by Putin’s hybrid war. Even if it proves possible to reintegrate Donetsk and Luhansk into the Ukrainian political system, these regions are unlikely to remain as uniformly pro-Russian as they once were. With almost two million internally displaced people currently experiencing different regions of Ukraine for the first time, the post-war political landscape in the Donbas is likely to be far more pluralistic.Generationally, the clock is also ticking against any future Ukrainian return to the Russian orbit. In both business and politics, Ukraine is currently in the hands of the last Soviet generation, many of whom were born in Russia, studied in Moscow, or did their Red Army service alongside Russians. This shared Soviet experience is foreign to the emerging generation of young Ukrainians. For them, the current conflict will serve as the definitive point of reference for all things Russian.Beyond politics, Russia finds itself without many of the levers it traditionally used to maintain its position in Ukraine. The Ukrainian government’s ability to wean the country off its addiction to Russian gas has denied the Kremlin its weapon of choice, while Russia’s own embargo policies have robbed Moscow of the incentives inherent in blossoming bilateral trade. Losing access to Russian markets has been a painful and expensive experience for the Ukrainian economy, but there are signs that the worst is over. Ukrainian exporters are finding new partners in the EU and beyond. As they broaden their economic horizons, they will be in no hurry to return to Russian partners who operate as the business wing of the Kremlin.Russia’s political and economic reach in Ukraine are both in freefall, but the greatest setback for the Kremlin has come in the soft power sphere. Until the outbreak of war in 2014, Russia enjoyed enormous soft power influence in Ukraine. Ukrainians watched Russian TV channels and Russian-made TV serials. They flitted between Russian and Ukrainian websites while favoring Russian email and social media services. The Russian and Ukrainian celebrity worlds functioned as a single entity. Pop stars from both countries would perform on the same concert circuit before starring together in joint New Year gala celebrations. In this sense more than any other, Kremlin assertions that Ukraine was part of a wider “Russian world” were largely accurate.Over the past three years, this situation has changed dramatically. Ukraine has banned Russian TV channels and social media platforms, while Ukrainian channels face severe restrictions on the Russian-made content they can broadcast. Many Kremlin-friendly Russian pop stars are no longer welcome in Ukraine, while Ukrainian stars who choose to continue touring Russian cities risk pariah status at home. None of these bans is absolute, of course. For example, many Ukrainians continue to access Russian social media and Russian TV content through online resources. However, the boundary between Russian and Ukrainian media landscapes is now clearer than ever, while the prevailing mood in Ukraine is encouraging more people to opt for homegrown media.It is not difficult to imagine why Moscow is so reluctant to recognize the decisive decline of Russia’s position in Ukraine. Since assuming the presidency in 1999, Putin has sought to reassert Russia’s superpower status and the regional dominance lost during the 1990s. Losing control over Russia’s most important imperial outpost does not fit into this narrative. Nevertheless, the odds appear stacked against any Russian revival in Ukraine. In the short term, this will mean a continuation of the low-level fighting in eastern Ukraine. In the longer term, the eclipse of Russian domination offers Ukraine the opportunity to reach its true potential as a sovereign nation. Russia may have lost the war of Ukrainian independence, but Ukraine has yet to win.Peter Dickinson is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council and publisher of Business Ukraine and Lviv Today magazines. He tweets @Biz_Ukraine_Mag.Apple has acknowledged the huge iPhone security flaw we tested and reported on two days ago, promising an update for September that will fix the hole that can expose all your private emails, text messages and contacts. But instead of calling a spade a spade and acting as soon as possible, they have decided to minimize the problem:
The minor iPhone security issue, which surfaced this week, is fixed in a software update which will be released in September.
That jewel comes from an Apple spokeswoman, deciding to ignore what ourselves, Wired or the San Francisco Chronicle have classified as a massive security problem. Ms. PR rep: could you please send us your me.com and apple.com passwords so we can demonstrate how easily accessing your mail by clicking a button is not, and will never be, a "minor security issue"? In the meantime, she points out to the user-driven fix, as if that would help the millions who have iPhones and don't read Gizmodo, Wired, SFC, Reuters, or any of the outlets around the web that echoed the news. Not good enough, I'm afraid. [Reuters]The EU Court of Justice has ruled that Bitcoin exchange is exempt from VAT in a landmark ruling.
The news follows a dispute in Sweden over the tax status of Bitcoin, with the Swedish Tax Agency lobbying for the rules to be relaxed and publishing a recommendation that this should occur.
Previously, the VAT landscape in the EU varied between states, with some exempting Bitcoin services such as Finland and Spain and some requiring the currency to adhere to standard tax laws common to fiat currencies.
Now, the exemption will be applied EU-wide, as Bitcoin exchange has now been formally declared VAT-free, Bloomberg writes.
Bitcoin transactions "are exempt from VAT (value-added tax) under the provision concerning transactions relating to currency, bank notes and coins used as legal tender," the court ruled.
Meanwhile, European cryptocurrency community are waiting to see the details of the ruling.
"If the government rules exchange of virtual currencies as tax free, then they would ultimately be de-funding themselves. Why would they do that?" Ken Code of Bitshares Munich said to Cointelegraph. He continued:Recently by Thomas Sowell: Budget Crisis Rhetoric
When I mention that my family used kerosene lamps when I was a small child in the South during the 1930s, that is usually taken as a sign of our poverty, though I never thought of us as poor at the time.
What is ironic is that kerosene lamps were a luxury of the rich in the 19th century, before John D. Rockefeller came along. At the high price of kerosene at that time, an ordinary working man could not afford to stay up at night, burning this expensive fuel for hours at a time.
Rockefeller did not begin his life as rich, by any means. He made a fortune by revolutionizing the petroleum industry. Although we still measure petroleum in barrels, it is actually shipped in railroad tank cars, in ocean-going tankers and in tanker trucks.
That is a legacy of John D. Rockefeller, who saw that shipping oil in barrels was not as economical as shipping whole railroad tank cars full of oil, eliminating all the labor that had to go into shipping the same amount of oil in numerous individual barrels.
That was just one of his cost-cutting innovations. If there was a better way to extract, process and ship petroleum products or more products that could be made from petroleum Rockefeller was on top of it.
Before he came along, gasoline was considered a useless by-product that petroleum refineries often simply dumped into the nearest river. But Rockefeller decided to use it as a fuel in the refining process, which made it valuable, even before automobiles came along.
Today, we tend to think of John D. Rockefeller as just one of those famous rich people. But Rockefeller didn’t just “happen to have money.” How he got rich is the real story and it is a story whose implications reach far beyond that one particular individual.
Before Rockefeller’s innovations reduced the price of kerosene to a fraction of what it had once been, there wasn’t a lot for poor people to do when nightfall came, other than go to bed. But the advent of cheap kerosene added hours of light and activity to each day for people with low or moderate incomes.
It was much the same story with the advent of the automobile, which gave millions of people more range in space, as kerosene (and, later, electricity) gave them more range in terms of hours of daily activity.
Here again, automobiles and electric lights were truly luxuries of the rich when they began. Only after ways were developed to cut their costs drastically were such things brought within the reach of ordinary Americans.
Henry Ford’s mass production methods cut in half the cost of producing the famous Model T Ford in just five years. People who had once lived their entire lives within a narrow radius of a relatively few miles could now go see places they never knew about before. The automobile expanded their horizons.
People today who complain about the automobile’s pollution have no idea how much more pollution there was before the automobile came along. In New York City, for example, the 40,000 horses that were the backbone of the city’s transportation, before the automobile, produced 400 tons of manure per working day, along with 20,000 gallons of urine.
At one time, people like Rockefeller, Edison, Ford and the Wright brothers were regarded as heroes, for having opened vast new possibilities for other human beings. The fact that they got rich doing it was an incidental part of the story.
We still have people revolutionizing our lives. Just think of the computer and the pharmaceutical drugs that have not only lengthened our lives but made them more healthful, so that being 80 years old today is like being 60 years old in times past.
But today we seldom even know the names of those who have made these monumental contributions to human well-being. All we know is that some people have gotten “rich” and that this is to be regarded as some sort of grievance.
Many of the people we honor today are people who are skilled in the rhetoric of grievances and promises of new “rights” at someone else’s expense. But is that what is going to make a better America?
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His Web site is www.tsowell.com. To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
The Best of Thomas SowellNow here’s an interesting concept we don’t see every day! Imagine for a moment that Zootopia is… wait for it… a movie.
…I mean a movie IN Zootopia! As in “within the universe”. The film we saw in theaters being, not an animated film about fictional characters, but, in the world of Zootopia, a crime drama based on a true story. Nick and Judy even give some advice to the actors portraying them from time to time.
Well, this comic by RobertFiddler takes that premise and uses it to tell a sweet story about the actors in question, Genny and Ace, and about overcoming your fears. It’s a great little one-shot comic, and while it centers around OC’s, I honestly would not mind seeing more of the actors who played Nick and Judy. Bravo!UC Irvine students furious over an upcoming “Rally for America” event to be hosted by Milo Yiannopoulos and the UCI College Republicans on Oct. 30 are supporting a petition calling for it to be canceled, saying the event will be “filled with hate and rooted in exploitation of non-white bodies.”
More than 1,000 people have signed the “Stop Milo From Coming To UC Irvine” Change.org petition since it was launched two days ago.
The petition, in particular, bristles at the event planners’ call to “wear your most culturally appropriating, offensive, triggering Halloween costume to the event for a fabulous costume contest” and “bring as much privilege as you can.” The event serves as a rally for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, and is part of Yiannopoulos’ “Dangerous Faggot Tour,” in which he is visiting colleges across the nation to speak on various issues.
“As you can see,” the petition states, “this event will be filled with hate and rooted in exploitation of non-white bodies … it will be a Halloween event in which they are openly supporting hate, dehumanization of POC, cultural appropriation, and bigotry.”
UC Irvine student Bushra Bangee, the Southern California director of the Muslim Student Association West, has also called on her peers to report the event to the UC system’s “intolerance” tracking division, saying it will give the system “databasing proof” of bigotry.
“These reports go straight to [the office of the president of the University of California] and it is important that our allies in administration have proof to be able to show higher up admin that this is an issue that needs to be dealt with on a larger scale,” Bangee wrote on Facebook, a copy of which was obtained by The College Fix.
But UC Irvine College Republicans Chairwoman Ariana Rowlands told The College Fix that the rally allows students to get involved in the political process.
“The speech Milo will be giving on October 30 will be a speech in support of Donald Trump for president and has nothing to do with race, as the petition states,” Rowlands told The College Fix.
“I think it is pitiful that students so desperately wish to remain in their echo chambers of false but comforting information that they would try and exhaust every method available to prevent themselves from hearing opinions that contradict their own,” she continued. “This petition to stop him from speaking is the height of desperation.”
When Yiannopoulos previously spoke on campus during the last school year, he was met with both fervent support and opposition by those in attendance.
Supporters and organizers combated the rowdy protests by handing out pacifiers to the protesters, while protesters spewed insults and hurled obscenities at those in attendance.
As a result, UC Irvine administrators placed sanctions on the UCI College Republicans’ ability to meet and host events, but walked back those sanctions after nationwide uproar.
MORE: The time UC Irvine banned the American flag
MORE: UCI College Republicans vow fight: ‘We will not be silenced’
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IMAGE: ShutterstockAhmedabad: Gujarat model seems to be slowing down on the growth path. In the first year under Anandiben Patel as chief minister in 2014-15, the state has recorded lowest ever growth rate in GSDP (Gross Sate Domestic Product) at 7.7%.This is not it, according to the data recently released by ministry of planning, Gujarat moved out from the list of top 5 states in terms of GSDP growth and is ranked lowly at 10th position in 2014-15 in comparison to other states.According to the data, it is Nitish Kumar ruled Bihar which leads the GSDP growth chart in 2014-15 with growth rate of 15.6%, highest in the country.In 2012-13, Gujarat was at second rank with growth rate of 10.8% when PM Narendra Modi was at helms as chief minister. The GSDP data is based on the prices of 2011-12.The industry experts claim that Gujarat being highly industrialized state depends majorly on industrial output but due to slowdown, the industrial output dipped heavily leading to slower growth.According to estimates as per constant prices, the GSDP growth of Gujarat in 2015-16 stood at mere 6.7%, lowest in last 10 years. This was 7.7% in 2014-15; 8.3% in 2013-14; and 10.8% in 2012-13, according to the data of ministry of planning. The size of the state GSDP in 2015-16 (according to advance estimates) is expected to be Rs 9,84,971 crore.In 2014-15, Gujarat is lagging behind states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and even Delhi."For last two years, the industrial output has suffered owing to slow demand. The capital expenditure has also gone down. Since the industrial component in Gujarat’s GDP is quite large, it has affected growth," said Sunil Parekh, a city-based industrial advisor.However, city-based sociologist and economist Ghanshyam Shah said that only Anandiben Patel-led government cannot be blamed for slow growth because state policies have remained all along indifferent towards social sectors."The kind of industrial policy has been adopted in Gujarat which only promoted big industries can be one of the factors behind the slow paced growth. Because, those industries, which first promised to give employment to locals, but did not fulfill it later, only proved to be capital intensive industries rather than a labour-centric industries,” said Professor Shah.“Besides, the land agitations, which increased in past two years, have made adverse impact on investment. Other states which followed Gujarat model of investment got success, but Gujarat only got investment on paper,” Shah added.From the seventies Japan amassed much of it’s garbage into a landfill used to reclaim land from the sea. By the late 80’s the site was full and work began to turn this landfill into a new part of the metropolis — Odaiba. Before it was heaped full of excess and waste Odaiba used to be series of small rocky crags that housed the cannons which keep the West out of Japan. Of those original islets only two or three remain are filled in with the waste as people threw out the old and bought the new during the long bubble period. Now Odaiba is home to Japan’s technological growth including the Miraikan, dormitories for international exchanges, vast shopping areas, luxury high rises and green acreage. The bridge which connects Tokyo to Odaiba is the Rainbow bridge (pictured here). Odaiba also houses Fuji TV, Japan’s largest TV network (the oddly shaped building below), which should be said helps shape the image of Japan for Japanese people.
(Another post which should have been uploaded while I was on holiday.)
AdvertisementsStory highlights "I hope they arrest these people because they're really violating all of us," Trump said
Legally, Trump can't order anyone to be arrested for disrupting his speech
Kansas City, Missouri (CNN) Donald Trump on Saturday called for protesters who demonstrate at his rallies to be arrested by police.
"I hope they arrest these people because they're really violating all of us," Trump said at a rally here during which dozens of protesters were ejected from the venue by police. "They deserve to be arrested."
During one of more than a dozen interruptions, Trump asked police to arrest the demonstrators, saying he would "file whatever charges you want."
But Trump's call went beyond the protesters in this Kansas City theater, with the Republican front-runner suggesting he would like to institute a practice of arresting protesters who disrupt his rallies.
"Once that's starts happening, we're not going to have any more protesters, folks," Trump said.
Read MoreEmma Knightley, 25, and Kimberley Wildman, 27, went to the group because it was free, while the other groups in the area charged £2.
However, when the organisers learned they were British they were told to leave with their children Imogen, 21 months, and Olivia, 18 months.
The 'Making Links' playgroup in St Neots, Cambs, is run by a local charity and funded by housing associations, the council and the lottery.
The two mothers, both from St Neots, accused the group of discrimination.
Mrs Knightley, a shop worker, said: "The first thing I was asked about was my nationality and when I said I was British I was told we had to leave.
"I felt humiliated. It shouldn't matter what nationality you are we shouldn't be discriminated against. You wouldn't get away with a British-only mum and children's group."
Mrs Wildman, a trainee midwife, said: "Surely if this group is about making links in the community they should let all people in, regardless of race or nationality?
"It's a real shame. I want my children to play with children from other races and integrate in the community because that stops discrimination."
Making Links, which is based at the Priory Centre in St Neots |
music, food, and vendors. The festival coincides with the fireworks show at Sugar House Park that takes place in the evening.[135][136]
Salt Lake City also hosts portions of the Sundance Film Festival. The festival, which is held each year, brings many cultural icons, movie stars, celebrities, and thousands of film buffs to see the largest independent film festival in the United States. The headquarters of the event is in nearby Park City.
Several other film festivals take place in Salt Lake City: FilmQuest, Salty Horror Con & Film, Damn These Heels, and the Voice of the City film festivals. FilmQuest began in 2014 and centers around genres, usually fantasy and science fiction.[137] Salty Horror, which began in 2010, is a competition based horror film festival which showcases general horror, science fiction horror, and physiological thriller horror films.[138] Damn These Heels Film Festival is part of the Utah Film center. It celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2013. The festival focuses on independent, documentary, and foreign feature-length films surrounding LGBTQ issues, ideas, and art.[139][140] Voice of the City is part of the Urban Arts Festival and allows local filmmakers to show their version of Salt Lake.
The 2015 Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival was the first performance festival in Salt Lake City. The 4-day festival included various performances involving music, dance, theatre, spoken word, circus arts, magic, and puppetry.[141][142]
The Living Traditions Festival is a 3-day multicultural arts festival hosted by the Salt Lake City Arts Council. The festival celebrates traditional dance, music, crafts and food from the various contemporary ethnic communities of Salt Lake City.[143] The festival celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2015.[144]
Earth Jam is an annual festival celebrated in Salt Lake's Liberty Park to celebrate Earth Day through music. The free festival hosts speakers, vendors, food, performing art, a Goddess pageant, and children's garden. The music is the heart of the celebration.[145]
The Live Green SLC! Festival aims to showcase sustainable products, ideas, and solutions from renewable technologies for the everyday household.[146] The festival promotes education, sustainability, and accessibility to green and organic products and services.[147]
Craft Lake City DIY (Do-It-Yourself) festival is an artisan festival that promotes the use of science and technology to help local artists produce their crafts such as silk screens, jewelry, and other mediums. The festival promotes education through workshops, galleries, and demonstrations which includes various vendors and food.[148]
The 9th and 9th Street Festival is a neighborhood festival celebration of art, music, crafts, antiques, collectibles and people held annual at the intersection of the streets 900 E and 900 S, which is a neighborhood with shops and restaurants.[149]
Carmelite Festival 2015 live band with the Carmelite Monastery of Salt Lake City seen in back
The Catholic Nuns of Carmelite Monastery hold an annual fair each fall in Holladay, a suburb of Salt Lake City. The festival includes music, food, a live auction, Golf for the Nuns tournament, a prize giveaway, and a 5k Run for the Nuns marathon.[150][151]
The Sri Sri Ganesh Hindu Temple of Utah, in Salt Lake City, has an annual Ganesh Festival called Ganesh Chathurthi.[152] The 10-day festival is devoted to rites of worship of the Hindu God Ganesh. In 2014 the festival was hosted at the Krishna Temple of Salt Lake since the Ganesh temple's exterior was under construction, which made the inner temple inaccessible.[153]
India Fest is hosted by the Krishna Temples of Salt Lake City and Spanish Fork, Utah. The festival includes food, dances, drama and a pageant of the Ramayana.[154] Since 2011 the Krishna Temple of Salt Lake City has held an annual Festival of Colors, similar to the famous festival at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah.[155]
The Great Salt Lake City Yoga Festival is in its fifth year as of 2015. 2015 saw the first Downtown Yoga festival in Salt Lake City. Both festivals are intended to inspire yogis in the community by teaching about yoga, healthy living, raw food, and traditional yoga music.[156][157]
Harts Hearth Clan of Tooele, Utah performing the closing Norse rite, Salt Lake City Pagan Pride Day 2015
The local Pagan community has enjoyed the annual Salt Lake City Pagan Pride Day since 2001. The festival features rituals, workshops, dancers, bards, vendors, and requires only a can of food donation for admission.[158][159][160][161][162][163][164][165][166]
Cosplayers (left) receive steampunk tarot readings at the 2015 Salt City Steamfest in Salt Lake City
Members of the steampunk subculture have an annual 2-day festival called "Steamfest" in Salt Lake City. The Salt City Steamfest hosts various vendors, panels, and cosplayers dressed in the fashion of various punk cultures, mostly around steam, deco, and diesel punk.[167][168]
The Rose Park (a suburb of Salt Lake) Community puts on a festival in the spring. The festival celebrates the community's diversity and includes dancers, music, a 5k run, silent auction and food.[169] Westfest is a festival that celebrates the establishment of West Valley and the suburb's various diverse cultures and community.[170]
Sandy, another suburb of Salt Lake City, holds a Hot Air Balloon Festival at the end of summer. The main event includes several waves of hot air balloons which rise into the sky for an afternoon and evening show. The festival includes food and entertainment.[171]
The suburb of Holladay hosts a Blue Moon Festival in August. The free festival has dancing, live bands, art and food vendors.[172]
Attendees at the 2014 Greek Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah
The Greek Festival, held the weekend after Labor Day, celebrates Utah's Greek heritage and is at the downtown Greek Orthodox Church. The 3-day event includes Greek music, dance groups, cathedral tours, booths and a large buffet. Attendance ranges from 35,000 to 50,000. It celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2015.
The Utah Asian Festival, approaching its 40th anniversary in 2017, celebrates various Asian cultures around Utah and is held in Salt Lake City. Vendors, food, music, and performances representing the cultures of China, Cambodia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Hawaii, and Tibet are all present at the event.[173][174]
The Italian cultural street festival Ferragosto celebrates Italian food and culture from Italian communities in Salt Lake City.[175] Festa Italian is a 2-day festival that highlights regions of Italy with live music, food, wine, beer and entertainment. The proceeds go to local charities.[176]
Other cultural festivals in Salt Lake City include the Peruvian Festival,[177] the Utah Brazilian Festival,[178] the Polynesian Cultural Festival,[179] the Nihon Matsuri Japanese Festival,[180] and the Buddhist Obon Japanese Festival.[181]
Conventions [ edit ]
Salt Lake City is host to a number of conventions that come to the Crossroads of the West. With several large venues, including the Salt Palace and Vivint Smart Home Arena in downtown, Salt Lake is capable of accommodating conventions upwards of 100,000 or more people.
Crowds in the Salt Palace Convention Center at the 2015 Salt Lake Comic Con in Salt Lake City
Salt Lake Comic Con, which started in 2013, has grown to over 100,000 people in just over two years. Because of this, Salt Lake Comic Con started having a second event, FanX (Fan Experience) to give those who were not able to come to the fall Comic Con an opportunity in the spring. The convention broke inaugural records in 2013, hosting the largest crowd of any inaugural comic convention.[182] The second event, FanX of 2014, and the fall event of 2014 both broke attendance records for the event, surpassing 120,000 people.[183] The convention was sued[184][185] by San Diego Comic Con, but won the right to use the trademark of comic con in its name.[186][187] In 2014, Stan Lee called the Salt Lake Comic Con "the greatest comic con in the world".[188] On September 25, 2015 at 6 pm, the Con broke the world record for the most costumed comic book cosplay characters in one location. At 1784 people, this beat the previous record by about 250,[189] surpassing the International Animation CCJOY LAND in Changzhou City, China, which had gathered 1530 people on April 29, 2011.
A My Little Pony convention called Crystal Mountain Pony Con takes place annually downtown, with many cosplayers, vendors, and panels. 2015 saw more than 800 bronies in attendance.[190][191]
Salt Lake hosts its own International Tattoo Convention in the spring. The Salt Lake City International Tattoo Convention brings in various artists from around the United States and world. A select few local shops are allowed to attend, but the highlights of the convention are well-known artists who are booked for the convention.[192][193]
Fantasy Con hosted its first convention, the first of its kind, in Salt Lake City in 2014. After a successful run, the convention reorganized to better serve the needs of the fantasy community. Intended to be annual, it did not host one for 2015 but will have another convention in 2016. 2014 saw over 30,000 attend.[194][195]
2015 saw the first Gaming Convention come to Salt Lake City. The convention included contests, cosplay, panels, and was centered around console, computer, card, and tabletop gaming.[196][197][198]
Events [ edit ]
Although the LDS church holds a large influence, the city is culturally and religiously diverse and the site of many cultural activities.[199]
A major state holiday is Pioneer Day, July 24, the anniversary of the Mormon pioneers' entry into the Salt Lake Valley. It is celebrated each year with a week's worth of activities, including a children parade, a horse parade, the featured Days of '47 Parade (one of the largest parades in the United States), a rodeo, and a large fireworks show at Liberty Park. Fireworks can be legally sold and set off around July 24.
First Night on New Year's Eve, a celebration emphasizing family-friendly entertainment and activities held at Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah, culminates with a fireworks display at midnight.
Beginning in 2004, Salt Lake City has been the host of the international Salt Lake City Marathon. In 2006, Real Madrid and many of the nation's best cyclist had engagements.[200]
Salt Lake City has begun to host its own events in the last few years, most notably the Friday Night Flicks,[201] free movies in the city's parks, as well as the Mayor's health and fitness awareness program, Salt Lake City Gets Fit.[202]
Salt Lake City was host to the 2002 Winter Olympics. At the time of the 2002 Olympics, Salt Lake City was the most populated area to hold a Winter Olympic Games. The event put Salt Lake City in the international spotlight and is regarded by many as one of the most successful Winter Olympics ever.[203]
In February 2002, Torino, Italy was granted an Olympic Sister City relationship with Salt Lake City, which became a Friendship City relationship in October 2003. On January 13, 2007 an agreement was signed, where Salt Lake City and Torino officially became Olympic Sister Cities.[204]
On the third Friday of every month, the Salt Lake Gallery Stroll presents a free evening of visual art; many galleries and other art-related businesses stay open late, allowing enthusiasts to tour various exhibits after hours. Sidewalk artists, street performers and musicians also sometimes participate in these monthly events.
Media [ edit ]
KUTV News Studio in the Wells Fargo Center building in Salt Lake City
Salt Lake City has many diverse media outlets. Most of the major television and radio stations are based in or near the city. The Salt Lake City metropolitan area is ranked as the 31st largest radio[205] and 33rd largest television[206] market in the United States.
Print media include two major daily newspapers, The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret News (previously the Deseret Morning News). Other more specialized publications include Now Salt Lake, Salt Lake City Weekly, Nuestro Mundo of the Spanish-speaking community, QSaltLake and The Pillar for the LBGT community. Other Spanish-language newspapers include El Estandar, Amigo Hispano (online only), and El Observador de Utah, which offers free residential delivery. There are a number of local magazines, such as Wasatch Journal (a quarterly magazine covering Utah's arts, culture, and outdoors), Utah Homes & Garden, Salt Lake Magazine (a bimonthly lifestyle magazine), CATALYST Magazine (a monthly environmental, health, arts and politics magazine), SLUG Magazine, an alternative underground music magazine. Utah Stories is a magazine that covers local issues, primarily focused on the Salt Lake Valley.
KTVX 4 signed on the air as Utah's first television station in 1947 under the experimental callsign W6SIX. KTVX is the oldest TV station in the Mountain Time Zone and the third oldest west of the Mississippi. It is Salt Lake City's current ABC affiliate. KSL-TV 5, the local NBC affiliate, has downtown studios at "Broadcast House" in the Triad Center office complex. KSL is operated by Deseret Media Companies, a company owned by the LDS Church. KUTV 2 is Salt Lake City's CBS affiliate. KSTU 13 is the area's Fox affiliate. KUCW 30 is the CW affiliate and part of a duopoly with KTVX. KJZZ-TV 14 is an independent station owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, and is part of a triopoly with KUTV and St. George-licensed MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYU 12.
Because television and radio stations serve a larger area (usually the entire state of Utah, as well as parts of western Wyoming, southern Idaho, parts of Montana, and eastern Nevada), ratings returns tend to be higher than those in similar-sized cities. Some Salt Lake radio stations are carried on broadcast translator networks throughout the state.
Salt Lake City has become a case of market saturation on the FM dial; one cannot go through more than about two frequencies on an FM radio tuner before encountering another broadcasting station. Several companies, most notably Millcreek Broadcasting and Simmons Media, have constructed broadcast towers on Humpy Peak in the Uinta Mountains to the east. These towers allow frequencies allocated to nearby mountain communities to be boosted by smaller, low-powered FM transmitters along the Wasatch Front.
Main sights [ edit ]
Salt Lake City is the headquarters of the LDS Church and has many LDS-related sites open to visitors. The most popular is Temple Square, which includes the Salt Lake Temple (not open to the general public) and visitors' centers open to the public, free of charge. Temple Square also includes the historic Salt Lake Tabernacle, home of the world-famous Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. The modern LDS Conference Center is located across the street to the north. The Family History Library, the world's largest genealogical library, is just west of Temple Square. It is run by the LDS Church and is open to the public and free of charge. Next to Temple Square is also the Eagle Gate Monument.
In 2004, the Salt Lake City main library received an Institute Honor Award for Architecture by the American Institute of Architects [207] and features a distinctive architectural style. The building's roof serves as a viewpoint for the Salt Lake Valley. The Utah State Capitol Building offers marble floors and a dome similar to the building that houses the U.S. Congress. Other notable historical buildings include the Thomas Kearns Mansion (now the Governor's Mansion), City and County Building, built in 1894, the Kearns Building on Main Street, St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, built in 1874, and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Madeleine, built in 1909.
The Olympic Cauldron Park at Rice-Eccles Stadium, features the Olympic Cauldron from the games, a visitor's center, and the Hoberman Arch. The Olympic Legacy Plaza, at The Gateway, features a dancing fountain set to music and the names of 30,000 Olympic volunteers carved in stone. The Utah Olympic Park, near Park City, features the Olympic ski jumps, as well as bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton runs. Today, the Olympic Park is used for year-round training and competitions. Visitors can watch the various events and even ride a bobsled. The Utah Olympic Oval, in nearby Kearns, was home to the speed skating events and is now open to the public. Other popular Olympic venues include Soldier Hollow, the site of cross-country skiing events, southeast of Salt Lake near Heber City.
Salt Lake City is near several world-class ski and summer resorts, including Snowbird, Alta, Brighton, Solitude, Park City Mountain Resort, and Deer Valley. The resorts cater to millions of visitors each year and offer year-round activities.
Salt Lake City is also home to a few major shopping centers. Trolley Square is an indoor and outdoor mall with many independent art boutiques, restaurants, and national retailers. The buildings housing the shops are renovated trolley barns with cobblestone streets. The Gateway, an outdoor shopping mall, has many national restaurants, clothing retailers, a movie theater, the Clark Planetarium, the Discovery Gateway (formerly The Children's Museum of Utah), a music venue called The Depot, and the Olympic Legacy Plaza. City Creek Center is the city's newest major shopping center and features many high-end retailers not found anywhere else in Utah.
On October 3, 2006, the LDS Church, which owned the ZCMI Center Mall and Crossroads Mall, both on Main Street, announced plans to demolish the malls, a skyscraper, and several other buildings to make way for the $1.5 billion City Creek Center redevelopment. It combined several new office and residential buildings (one of which is the city's third-tallest building) around an outdoor shopping center featuring a stream, fountain, and other outdoor amenities;[208] it opened on March 22, 2012. Sugar House is a neighborhood with a small town main street shopping area and numerous old parks, which will soon be served by the S Line (formerly known as Sugar House Streetcar).
Other attractions in or near Salt Lake City include the Hogle Zoo, Timpanogos Cave National Monument, the Golden Spike National Historic Site (where the world's first transcontinental railroad was joined), the Lagoon (amusement park), the Great Salt Lake, the Bonneville Salt Flats, Gardner Historic Village, one of the largest dinosaur museums in the U.S. at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, and the world's largest man-made excavation at Bingham Canyon Mine.
Sports and recreation [ edit ]
Winter sports, such as skiing and snowboarding, are popular activities in the Wasatch Mountains east of Salt Lake City. Eight ski resorts lie within 50 miles (80 km) of the city. Alta, Brighton, Solitude, and Snowbird all lie directly to the southeast in the Wasatch Mountains, while nearby Park City contains three more resorts. The popularity of the ski resorts has increased nearly 29 percent since the 2002 Winter Olympics.[209] Summer activities such as hiking, camping, rock climbing, mountain biking, and other related outdoor activities are popular in the mountains, as well. The many small reservoirs and rivers in the Wasatch Mountains are popular for boating, fishing, and other water-related activities.
Professional sports [ edit ]
Salt Lake City is home to the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA), who moved from New Orleans in 1979 and play their home games in Vivint Smart Home Arena (formerly known as the Delta Center and later known as EnergySolutions Arena). They are the only team from one of the four top-level professional sports leagues in the state. The franchise has enjoyed steady success, at one point making the playoffs in 22 out of 25 seasons, but has yet to win a championship. Salt Lake City was home to a professional basketball team, the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association (ABA), between 1970–75. They won one championship in the city (in 1971) and enjoyed some of the strongest support of any ABA team, but they folded just months before the ABA–NBA merger, thus preventing them from being absorbed by the NBA. Their success may have had a hand in the decision by the struggling Jazz to relocate to Salt Lake City in 1979.
Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer was founded in 2004, initially playing at Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah before the soccer-specific Rio Tinto Stadium was completed in 2008 in neighboring Sandy.[210] The team won their first MLS championship by defeating the Los Angeles Galaxy at the 2009 MLS Cup. RSL advanced to the finals of the CONCACAF Champions League in 2011 but lost 3–2 on aggregate, and also advanced to the 2013 MLS Cup Final. The city has also played host to several international soccer games.
Utah Warriors is a professional Major League Rugby team that launched its first season in 2018,[211] with Zions Bank Stadium as its home venue.
Arena football expanded into the city in 2006 with the Utah Blaze of the Arena Football League. They recorded the highest average attendance in the league in their first season.[212] After the original AFL folded in 2009, the future of the Blaze was unclear. However, a new league branded as the Arena Football League began play in 2010. The Blaze franchise was restored and is playing in the new league.[213] The Salt Lake Stallions of the AAF are also based in the city.
There are also two minor league teams in the city. The Salt Lake Bees, a Pacific Coast League Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels, play at Smith's Ballpark and were established in 1994 as the Buzz. Their name was changed to the Stingers in 2002 and to the Bees, a historical Salt Lake City baseball team name, in 2006. The Utah Grizzlies hockey team of the ECHL were established in 2005, replacing the previous Grizzlies team that existed from when they relocated from Denver in 1995 to 2005 in the International Hockey League (IHL) and, later, the American Hockey League (AHL). They play at the Maverik Center in neighboring West Valley City.
Amateur sports [ edit ]
Utah lacks a professional football team of its own, and college football is very popular in the state. The University of Utah and Brigham Young University (BYU) both maintain large followings in the city, and the rivalry between the two colleges has a long and storied history. Despite the fact Utah is a secular university, the rivalry is sometimes referred to as the Holy War because of BYU's status as an LDS Church-owned university. Until the 2011–12 season, they both played in the Mountain West Conference of the NCAA's Division I and have played each other 90 times since 1896 (continuously since 1922). The University of Utah was the first school from a BCS non-AQ conference to win two BCS bowl games (and was the first from outside the BCS affiliated conferences to be invited to one) since the system was introduced in 1998. Brigham Young University defeated the University of Michigan in the 1984 Holiday Bowl to win the state's only National Championship in a major sport.
The University of Utah was a part of the controversy surrounding the fairness of the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) of college football. Despite undefeated seasons in both 2004 and 2008, Utah was not invited to participate in the national championship in either season because it was a member of the Mountain West Conference, a BCS non-AQ conference.[214]
The Utah Avalanche, formed in January 2011, were a development rugby league team for the now defunct American National Rugby League.[215] In June 2012, Salt Lake City hosted the IRB Junior World Rugby Trophy, a major international rugby union tournament for under-20 national teams from "second-tier" nations.[216]
Utah became the first state outside Minnesota where bandy exists when Olympic Bandy Club was formed in Salt Lake City.[217] Salt Lake is also home to two roller derby leagues: the Salt City Derby Girls[218] and Wasatch Roller Derby,[219] both of which field travel teams.[220]
Transportation [ edit ]
Roads [ edit ]
The beginning of State Street at the foot of the Utah State Capitol
Salt Lake City lies at the convergence of two cross-country freeways; I-15, which runs north-to-south just west of downtown, and I-80, which connects downtown with Salt Lake City International Airport just to the west and exits to the east through Parley's Canyon. I-215 forms a 270-degree loop around the city. SR-201 extends to the western Salt Lake City suburbs. The Legacy Parkway (SR-67), a controversial and oft-delayed freeway, opened September 2008, heading north from I-215 into Davis County along the east shore of the Great Salt Lake. Travel to and from Davis County is complicated by geography as roads have to squeeze through the narrow opening between the Great Salt Lake to the west and the Wasatch Mountains to the east. Only four roads run between the two counties to carry the load of rush hour traffic from Davis County.
Salt Lake City's surface street system is laid out on a simple grid pattern. Road names are numbered with a north, south, east, or west designation, with the grid originating at the southeast corner of Temple Square downtown. One of the visions of Brigham Young and the early settlers was to create wide, spacious streets, which characterizes downtown. The grid pattern remains fairly intact in the city, except on the East Bench, where geography makes it impossible. The entire Salt Lake Valley is laid out on the same numbered grid system, although it becomes increasingly irregular further into the suburbs. Many streets carry both a name and a grid coordinate. Usually both can be used as an address. US-89 enters the city from the northwest and travels the length of the valley as State Street (with the exception of northern Salt Lake City).
Public transportation [ edit ]
Salt Lake City's mass transit service is operated by the Utah Transit Authority (UTA) and includes a bus system, light rail, and a commuter rail line. Intercity services are provided by Amtrak and various intercity bus lines. These services are all interconnected at the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub (Salt Lake Central Station), a short distance west of the city center. The Brookings Institution in 2011 rated Salt Lake City's mass transit system as the nation's third-best at connecting people to jobs, providing access to 59% of the jobs in the valley.[221]
Transit bus service [ edit ]
UTA's bus system extends throughout the Wasatch Front from Brigham City in the north to Santaquin in the south and as far west as Grantsville, as well as east to Park City. UTA also operates routes to the ski resorts in Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons, as well as Sundance in Provo Canyon, during the ski season (typically November to April). Approximately 60,000 people ride the bus daily, although ridership has reportedly declined since TRAX was constructed.[222]
Light rail [ edit ]
The 44.8-mile (72.1 km)[223] light rail system, called TRAX, has three lines.
The Blue Line, which opened in 1999 and was expanded in 2008, travels from the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub (Salt Lake Central Station), south to Draper. The Red Line, which originally opened in 2001 and was expanded in 2011, runs from the University of Utah, south-west through Salt Lake to the community of Daybreak in South Jordan. A third line, known as the Green Line, opened in 2011 and runs from the Salt Lake City International Airport to West Valley City (via Downtown Salt Lake City), with the extension to the airport having opened in April 2013. The system has 50 stations of which 23 are within the city limits. Daily ridership averaged 60,600 as of the fourth quarter of 2012,[225] making TRAX the ninth most-ridden light rail system in the country.
Commuter rail [ edit ]
The commuter rail system, FrontRunner, opened on April 26, 2008 and extends from the Intermodal Hub north through Davis County to Pleasant View on the northern border of Weber County.[226] Daily ridership on the line averages 7,800, as of the fourth quarter of 2012.[225] An expansion called "FrontRunner South", which extended FrontRunner south to Provo in central Utah County, was completed in December 2012 as part of UTA's FrontLines 2015 project.[227][228] These extensions were made possible by a sales tax hike for road improvements, light rail, and commuter rail approved by voters on November 7, 2006.[229] In addition, a $500 million letter of intent was signed by the Federal Transit Administration for all four of the planned TRAX extensions in addition to the FrontRunner extension to Provo.[230] In March 2018, UTA announced FrontRunner would no longer run from Ogden to Pleasant View beginning in mid-August.[231]
Intercity bus and rail services [ edit ]
Amtrak, the national passenger rail system, provides service to Salt Lake City operating its California Zephyr daily in both directions between Chicago and Emeryville, California. Greyhound Lines serves Salt Lake City as well. Their nine daily buses provide service to Denver, Reno, Las Vegas, and Portland. Both of these stations are at the Salt Lake City Intermodal Hub.
Air transportation [ edit ]
Salt Lake International Airport sits between downtown Salt Lake City and the Great Salt Lake
Salt Lake City International Airport is approximately 4 miles (6 km) west of downtown. Delta Air Lines operates a hub at the airport, serving over 100 non-stop destinations in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, as well as Paris, London and Amsterdam.[232] SkyWest Airlines operates its largest hub at the airport as Delta Connection, and serves 243 cities as Delta Connection and United Express. The airport is served by 4 UTA bus routes, and a UTA operated light rail line (TRAX) opened services on April 14, 2013. A total of 22,029,488 passengers flew through Salt Lake City International Airport in 2007, representing a 2.19% increase over 2006.[233] The airport ranks as the 21st busiest airport in the United States in total passengers, is consistently rated first in the country in on-time arrivals and departures, and has the second-lowest number of cancellations.[234] The airport is currently undergoing a $3.6 billion redesign that is expected to be completed in 2024, resulting in a completely new airport and the demolishment of the old terminals.
There are two general aviation airports nearby; South Valley Regional Airport in West Jordan and Skypark Airport in Woods Cross.
Cycling [ edit ]
Salt Lake City is widely considered a bicycle-friendly city. In 2010, Salt Lake City was designated as a Silver-level Bicycle Friendly Community[235] by the League of American Bicyclists, placing the city in the top 18 bicycling cities in the U.S. with a population of at least 100,000. Many streets in the city have bike lanes, and the city has published a bicycle map.[236] However, off-road biking in the valley has suffered significantly as access to trails and paths has declined with the increase of housing developments and land privatization. In 2012, the Salt Lake Transportation Division launched BikeSLC.com, which consolidates the city's information about bicycle routes, safety, and promotions. The website includes a form for business owners to request bicycle racks to be installed on public property free of charge close to their businesses, a service that has a months-long waiting list.[237]
Salt Lake City was the first city in the United States to use the "Green Shared Lane", also known as a "super sharrow",[238] a 4-foot (1.2 m) wide green band down the middle of a travel lane where adding a dedicated bike lane is unfeasible. Other cities such as Long Beach, California, Oakland, California, and Edina, Minnesota, have since introduced similar designs. These four cities are participating in a study by the Federal Highway Administration to measure the effect of the design on automobile speed and passing distance when overtaking bicycles, crashes between automobiles and bicycles, and whether it encourages more bicycle ridership, along with other metrics.[239]
On September 25, 2010, UTA in partnership with Salt Lake City, the Utah Department of Transportation, the Wasatch Front Regional Council, and the Mayor's Bicycle Advisory Committee, opened a Bicycle Transit Center (BTC) at the Intermodal Hub. The BTC is anticipated to serve multi-modal commuters from TRAX and FrontRunner, as well as providing a secure bicycle parking space for bicycle tourists who want to tour the city on foot or transit.
In April 2013, Salt Lake City launched a bike share program known as GREENbike. The program allows users to pay $5 per day to access bicycles, with the option of purchasing a weekly or annual pass.[240] As of the launch of the program, there were 10 stations in the downtown core.[241] By October 2014, the number of stations had expanded to 20.[242] In addition to the bike sharing program, eighty businesses in the city participate in the Bicycle Benefits program,[243] which provides discounts to customers who arrive by bicycle. The city is also home to the Salt Lake City Bicycle Collective.
As a result of this increasing support, Salt Lake City's on-road bikeway network has grown to encompass 200 lane miles. In July 2014, the city began construction of a protected bicycle lane on a 1.35 miles (2.17 km) segment of 300 South between 300 West and 600 East. The project received significant opposition from business owners and residents along the route because of concerns about the 30% reduction in car parking spaces and disruptions resulting from construction. The construction proceeded in stages, with the last stage completed in late October 2014. The performance of the protected bicycle lane (specifically, its role in encouraging more bicycle ridership) will influence future plans for making the city more bicycle-friendly.[244]
One popular example of the city's cycling and walking routes is the loop around City Creek Canyon on Bonneville Boulevard.[245] The city has designated the road as one lane only (one-way) for motor vehicles, turning the other lane over to two-way cyclists and pedestrians. From the last Monday in May to the last weekend in September, City Creek Canyon Road itself is closed to motor vehicles on odd-numbered days, while bicycles are prohibited on even-numbered days and holidays. Bicycles are allowed every day for the rest of the year.
Sister cities [ edit ]
Salt Lake City has several sister cities/towns,[246][247] including:
See also [ edit ]
Notes [ edit ]
^ Mean monthly maxima and minima (i.e. the expected highest and lowest temperature readings at any point during the year or given month) calculated based on data at said location from 1981 to 2010. ^ The official Salt Lake City climatology station was located in downtown from March 1874 to 30 April 1928 and at Salt Lake City Int'l since 1 May 1928. For further information, see ThreadEx
References [ edit ](CNN) -- An Orthodox Jewish man apparently preparing to pray prompted authorities to divert a Louisville, Kentucky-bound US Airways Express plane Thursday.
FBI spokesman J.J. Klaver said there appeared to be no threat from the man, who was described as wearing something on his head that included leather pieces. The description appeared to match that of tefillin, or phylacteries, which Orthodox Jewish men wear during prayer.
The flight had taken off from New York's LaGuardia Airport, the FBI said, and was diverted to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Transportation Security Administration said it was notified of what it called a disruptive passenger on Flight 3079, operated by Chautauqua Airlines, around 8:30 a.m. ET, and the plane landed without incident at Philadelphia International Airport about 20 minutes later.
US Airways spokesman Morgan Durrant said the diversion was a "security precaution" for the 50-seat ERJ 145.
It was not immediately clear how many passengers were on board. Earlier, Durrant said the flight had been evacuated, but the TSA did not offer any details on whether that had occurred.
TSA and law enforcement officials met the flight, interviewed the passenger and did a security sweep of the plane without finding anything of concern, the agency said.
CNN's Evan Buxbaum contributed to this report.Listen to the radio version of this story
by Rupa Shenoy
On a cloudy day in March 2013, Kimberly Parker, 45, was walking her beloved pair of Golden Retrievers when something went wrong. Her husband Richard told police he found her facedown in the snow outside their two-story East Bridgewater house and called 911. She was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
The hospital and a preliminary autopsy found no obvious cause of death.
Parker’s family immediately suspected Kimberly’s husband, who faces charges of assault to murder Kimberly in December 2011, 15 months before her eventual death. His trial is still pending. The Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Kimberly’s death is under investigation.
Today, Parker’s family still doesn’t know how she died. More than a year later, the state has yet to produce toxicology and autopsy reports that national standards say should have been delivered within 90 days.
Richard Parker’s attorney, Gerald Noonan, denies his client had anything to do with Kimberly’s death. He said the delayed reports are allowing Parker’s sister, Stephanie Deeley, to slander Parker.
“There is absolutely no medical evidence at all to support her allegations,” Noonan said.
And that’s true without a final autopsy report – a fact that leaves Deeley frustrated.
“It’s a terrible burden to live with, to spend everyday wondering if someone took her – and to extend that burden is just unconscionable,” Deeley said.
Kimberly Parker’s family is one of many waiting for answers. As of early May, autopsy reports on 1,121 deaths had been delayed at least three months – the time period after which they’re considered backlogged. The Medical Examiner’s Office said it did not have more detailed information about how long those cases had been waiting for |
Command Prompt or Terminal if you wish to test via a web browser:
ionic serve
Then in your browser navigate to the URL and crack open your JavaScript console. It won't give you a true experience, but you'll get a general idea on if the application is functioning.
Using a Device or Simulator
To test this application on your device or simulator, run the following in your Command Prompt or Terminal:
ionic build android adb install -r platforms/android/ant-build/CordovaApp-debug.apk
The above will get you going on Android. If you wish to track down errors and view the logs, you can use the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) like so:
adb logcat
More information on this can be seen in one of my other tutorials on the topic.
Conclusion
You've just made a lite competitor to established password managers such as 1Password, LastPass and KeePass using Ionic Framework as your foundation and Firebase as your cloud solution. The data stored in the application and in the Firebase cloud is protected with an AES cipher for maximum security.
This project can be forked on GitHub if you wish to see it all put together.Amnesia: Memories gameplay trailer, mini-games screenshots
PS Vita and PC visual novel due out later this month.
Idea Factory International has released a gameplay trailer and new screenshots of its PS Vita and PC girls visual novel game Amnesia: Memories.
The trailer shows how your choices as the heroine affects your relationship parameters with your chosen bachelor, as well as how your characters change personalities based on the world you’ve chosen.
The new screenshots introduce the mini-games offered by the visual novel, including air hockey and rock-paper-scissors. These games are separate from the main story and let you go head to head against the game’s eligible bachelors.
Amnesia: Memories will launch for PS Vita and PC via PlayStation Network in North America and Steam worldwide on August 25, and via PlayStation Network in Europe on August 26.
Read up more on the visual novel here.
Watch the trailer below. View the screenshots at the gallery.Storing bleach for water purification and general cleaning needs
One of the easiest ways to disinfect water is to use 8 drops of bleach per gallon of clear water. For that reason I stock up on bleach when it’s on sale. We always have a few gallons in the laundry cupboard for general use and water purification needs. I haven’t rotated my storage as quickly as I thought I would, and now I need to know if that bleach can still be used. Does bleach go bad? Do you know the self life of bleach?
The active ingredient in liquid bleach is sodium hypochlorite. After time bleach naturally degrades into salt and water in the bottle. The major factor determining the rate of decomposition is temperature. The higher the temperature the faster the active ingredient is lost; older product also decomposes more rapidly. Manufacturers compensate for this by adding more bleach during their summer production. Generally, average storage conditions should stay around 70F.
Another factor is exposure to sunlight. Bleach is sold in opaque bottles because increased light will cause the liquid bleach’s active ingredients to break down.
Depending on its use, bleach is also susceptible to contamination in the laundry room due to exposure to humidity. You should always store bleach in its original container and keep it tightly capped.
– Bleach has a 12-month shelf life beginning with the day of manufacture.
Know the Code
Clorox® has provided their code system to assist in determining the shelf life of their product. An example of their code system (e.g., G18099) on a bleach bottle would be as follows: The first two characters (G1) identify the plant or location of the manufactured product. The third character (8) is the year the product was made or 2008. The fourth, fifth, and sixth characters stand for the day of the year the product was manufactured. For example, it would be the 99 day or April 8th. You only need to use the first six digits to decipher the code. (source)
General Disinfecting
If you are making a disinfecting solution for your counter tops, you should mix a new batch daily. Clorox® Bleach is registered with the EPA as a disinfectant and is very effective if used following these instructions:
Make a standard disinfecting bleach solution using half cup of regular bleach added to 1 gallon of water. This mixture will be exposed to light, which will help it degrade faster. To simplify things you could make a smaller amount with 2 tablespoons mixed in 4 cups water. This can be used over several days for general countertop cleaning. If you are cleaning up after things that are highly likely to spread bacteria, like raw meat, you would want to use a freshly mixed solution every day.
Water disinfecting with liquid bleach
If tap water is clear:
1. Use bleach that does not have an added scent (like lemon).
2. Add 1/8 teaspoon (8 drops) of household liquid bleach to 1 gallon (16 cups) of water.
3. Mix well and wait 30 minutes or more before drinking.
If tap water is cloudy:
1. Use bleach that does not have an added scent (like lemon).
2. Add 1/4 teaspoon (16 drops) of household liquid bleach to 1 gallon (16 cups) of water.
3. Mix well and wait 30 minutes or more before drinking.
Remember that containers may need to be sanitized before using them to store safe water:
1. Use bleach that does not have an added scent (like lemon).
2. Add 1 teaspoon (64 drops) of household liquid bleach to 1 quart (32oz) of water.
3. Pour this into a clean storage container and shake well, making sure that the solution coats the entire inside of the container.
4. Let sit at least 30 seconds, and then pour out solution.
5. Let air dry OR rinse with clean water that has already been made safe, if available.
What about granular calcium hypochlorite?
Some people store pool shock as a viable water purification alternative to bleach. This kind of chlorine is called Calcium Hypochlorite (HTH) (Amazon) vs sodium hypochlorite (SH)
According to the EPA you can use granular calcium hypochlorite to disinfect water. A 1-pound bag of calcium hypochlorite in granular form will treat up to 10,000 gallons of drinking water. (find it at Amazon )
These are the instructions from the EPA website:
Add and dissolve one heaping teaspoon of high-test granular calcium hypochlorite (approximately ¼ ounce) for each two gallons of water. The mixture will produce a stock chlorine solution of approximately 500 milligrams per liter, since the calcium hypochlorite has available chlorine equal to 70 percent of its weight.
To disinfect water, add the chlorine solution in the ratio of one part of chlorine solution to each 100 parts of water to be treated. This is roughly equal to adding 1 pint (16 ounces) of stock chlorine to each 12.5 gallons of water to be disinfected. To remove any objectionable chlorine odor, aerate the disinfected water by pouring it back and forth from one clean container to another.
You can use chlorine tablets to disinfect filtered and settled water. Chlorine tablets containing the necessary dosage for drinking water disinfection can be purchased in a commercially prepared form. These tablets are available from drug, sporting goods stores, and pool supply companies. They should be used as stated in the instructions. When instructions are not available, use one tablet for each quart, or liter, of water to be purified.
However, you should only use calcium hypochlorite if you can verify the quality and strength of the tablets. From the CDC Safe Water Page:
“Chlorine tablets and/or HTH (also named calcium hypochlorite) are widely available in some areas. A number of potential users of the SWS know that these tablets are used to disinfect water. Unfortunately, we have also found that many people have different levels of knowledge regarding appropriate dosing instructions, which is a concern because the tablets vary significantly in strength. In Haiti, a small saran wrap bag of approximately 100 HTH pellets is widely available and inexpensive. However, the pellets vary in size, the quality of the pellets is unknown, and, depending on impurities in the manufacturing process, they can degrade quickly. In other countries, very high strength tablets may be sold which, when added to water for disinfection, leave a strong, unpleasant taste. It is important for users to know the quality and strength of HTH and/or chlorine tablets and understand the appropriate dosing strategy before attempting to use them for drinking water treatment; in most instances, however, this is impossible for users to do. For these reasons a sodium hypochlorite solution is likely to be a better option.”
Direct contact to the calcium hypochlorite powder can be irritating or corrosive. The product is therefore usually pelletted to avoid dust generation and to control exposure during handling or transportation.
STORAGE CONDITIONS: Keep product tightly sealed in original containers. Store product in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area. Store away from combustible or flammable products. Keep product packaging clean and free of all contamination, including, e.g., other pool treatment products, acids, organic materials, nitrogen-containing compounds, dry powder fire extinguishers (containing mono-ammonium phosphate), oxidizers, all corrosive liquids, flammable or combustible materials, etc.
DO NOT STORE AT TEMPERATURES ABOVE: 125 Deg.F Storage above this temperature may result in rapid decomposition, evolution of chlorine gas and heat sufficient to ignite combustible products.
PRODUCT STABILITY AND COMPATIBILITY SHELF LIFE LIMITATIONS: Shelf life (that is, the period of time before the product goes below stated label strength) is determined by storage time and temperatures. Do not store product at temperatures above 125 Deg.F. When stored under moderate temperature conditions, product will maintain stated label strength for approximately two years. Prolonged storage at 95 Deg.F or above will significantly shorten the shelf life. (source)
So here’s the bottom line – yes bleach goes bad.
If Stored Properly the shelf life of Sodium hypochlorite bleach will last for 12 months past the manufacture date.
Calcium hypochlorite (kept in powder form) will last for 24 months past the manufacture date.
Which kind of bleach do you have in storage and why? Leave a comment below.Not to be confused with Slugging
In baseball statistics, slugging percentage (SLG) is a measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats, through the following formula, where AB is the number of at bats for a given player, and 1B, 2B, 3B, and HR are the number of singles, doubles, triples, and home runs, respectively:
S L G = ( 1 B ) + ( 2 × 2 B ) + ( 3 × 3 B ) + ( 4 × H R ) A B {\displaystyle \mathrm {SLG} ={\frac {({\mathit {1B}})+(2\times {\mathit {2B}})+(3\times {\mathit {3B}})+(4\times {\mathit {HR}})}{AB}}}
Unlike batting average, slugging percentage gives more weight to extra-base hits such as doubles and home runs, relative to singles. Walks are specifically excluded from this calculation, as a plate appearance that ends in a walk is not counted as an at bat.
The name is a misnomer, as the statistic is not a percentage but a scale of measure whose computed value is a number from 0 to 4. The statistic gives a double twice the value of a single, a triple three times the value, and a homerun four times.[2]
A slugging percentage is always expressed as a decimal to three decimal places, and is generally spoken as if multiplied by 1000. For example, a slugging percentage of.589 would be spoken as "five eighty nine."
In 2016, the mean average SLG among all batters in Major League Baseball was.417.[3]
Example calculation [ edit ]
For example, in 1920, Babe Ruth played his first season for the New York Yankees. In 458 at bats, Ruth had 172 hits, comprising 73 singles, 36 doubles, 9 triples, and 54 home runs, which brings the total base count to (73 × 1) + (36 × 2) + (9 × 3) + (54 × 4) = 388. His total number of bases (388) divided by his total at-bats (458) is.847 which constitutes his slugging percentage for the season. This also set a record for Ruth which stood until 2001 when Barry Bonds achieved 411 bases in 476 at-bats bringing his slugging percentage to.863, which has been unmatched since.[4]
Significance [ edit ]
Long after it was first invented, slugging percentage gained new significance when baseball analysts realized that it combined with on-base percentage (OBP) to form a very good measure of a player's overall offensive production (in fact, OBP + SLG was originally referred to as "production" by baseball writer and statistician Bill James). A predecessor metric was developed by Branch Rickey in 1954. Rickey, in Life magazine, suggested that combining OBP with what he called "extra base power" (EBP) would give a better indicator of player performance than typical Triple Crown stats. EBP was a predecessor to slugging percentage.[5]
Allen Barra and George Ignatin were early adopters in combining the two modern-day statistics, multiplying them together to form what is now known as "SLOB" (Slugging × On-Base).[6] Bill James applied this principle to his runs created formula several years later (and perhaps independently), essentially multiplying SLOB × At-Bats to create the formula:
RC = ( hits + walks ) × ( total bases ) ( at-bats ) + ( walks ) {\displaystyle {\text{RC}}={\frac {({\text{hits}}+{\text{walks}})\times ({\text{total bases}})}{({\text{at-bats}})+({\text{walks}})}}}
In 1984, Pete Palmer and John Thorn developed perhaps the most widespread means of combining slugging and on-base percentage: On-base plus slugging (OPS), which is a simple addition of the two values. Because it is easy to calculate, OPS has been used with increased frequency in recent years as a shorthand form to evaluate contributions as a batter.
In a 2015 article, Bryan Grosnick made the point that "on base" and "slugging" may not be comparable enough to be simply added together. "On base" has a theoretical maximum of 1.000 whereas "slugging" has a theoretical maximum of 4.000. The actual numbers don't show as big a difference of course, with Grosnick listing.350 as a good "on base" and.430 as a good "slugging." He goes on to say that OPS has the advantages of simplicity and availability and further states, "you'll probably get it 75% right, at least."[7]
Perfect slugging percentage [ edit ]
The maximum numerically possible slugging percentage is 4.000.[2] A number of MLB players (117 through the end of the 2016 season) have momentarily had a 4.000 career slugging percentage by homering in their first major league at-bat. Hundreds of other players have momentarily held a 4.000 percentage for a season by hitting a home run in their first at-bat of the season.
No player has ever retired with a 4.000 slugging percentage, but four players tripled in their only MLB at-bat and therefore share the record of a career slugging percentage of 3.000 (when evaluated without regard to a minimum number of games played or plate appearances). The players are Eric Cammack (2000 Mets), Scott Munninghoff (1980 Phillies), Eduardo Rodríguez (1973 Brewers), and Charlie Lindstrom (1958 White Sox).[8]
See also [ edit ]Ohioans for Concealed Carry felt compelled to bring Reporter, Maria Scali's recent irresponsible behavior to her home station's attention (Fox8, WJW, in Cleveland, Ohio).
Ms. Scali was in Oberlin, Ohio during a recent event where law abiding gun owners were protesting against Oberlin's local law that prohibits guns in city parks, which is in conflict with a state statute that permits people to carry firearms in most public places, including parks. Below is the email sent on September 24th, 2013 by OFCC.
To: General Manager
News Director
Fox8 WJW
Cleveland, Ohio
This letter will call to your attention the unprofessional behavior of
employee Maria Scali, whose recent actions might have endangered a large
group of adults and children.
On September 15, WJW reporter Maria Scali covered a gathering of firearms
rights supporters at a public park in Oberlin, OH. Many attendees were
lawfully carrying handguns holstered on their belts. I was one of the
people openly carrying a pistol in a holster.
After interviewing me, Ms. Scali demonstrated a disappointing lack of
judgment by asking me to unholster, then reholster, my handgun for the
purpose of obtaining a “transition” shot. When I politely refused she
asked why. It was explained to her that the only time a gun is removed
from its holster is for an emergency defensive action or for cleaning.
The issue of safety was explained to her. I further explained to her that
no one at the event would unholster their gun for her. She then asked me
to “at least” unsnap the retainer strap over the gun and again I politely
refused her request.
Despite an explanation and safety warning from myself and others, Ms.
Scali continued to ask people to unholster their guns. This became a major
concern that prompted an announcement to the entire gathering to alert
everyone of the inappropriate request that was being made by the WJW
representative.
Of course, no one at any time unholstered a gun.
Ms. Scali exhibited a startling lack of professionalism by continuing to
ask people, over and over again, to perform a dangerous action after
she had been advised of the reasons for not unholstering a gun and the
quickly verifiable rules of safe gun handling.
No reporter is expected to be an expert on every subject. And certainly
television reporters might strongly feel that a certain image belongs in
their narrative. But when Ms. Scali continued to ask attendees to perform a
dangerous action after she knew the rules, she crossed the lines of
professionalism, common sense, and adult responsibility.
I hope that WJW will consider this incident in a very serious light.
Very truly yours,
Gary Witt
Director
Ohioans for Concealed Carry (OFCC)The New World seems to have made up its mind to live in peace; and our bellicose Nor on ours," replied unanimously all the bellicose invalids.
Servile and fawning as he had been before, he was now as domineering and bellicose.
Also, Bill Totts was a trifle inclined to late hours, and at times, in saloons, to be good-naturedly bellicose with other workmen. Freddie Drummond sat in the auto, quite composed, alongside Catherine Van Vorst; but looking out of Freddie Drummond's eyes was Bill Totts, and somewhere behind those eyes, battling for the control of their mutual body, were Freddie Drummond the sane and conservative sociologist, and Bill Totts, the class-conscious and bellicose union working man.
To have fallen back a step would have been to precipitate an immediate charge; to have rushed forward to meet the other might have had the same result, or it might have put the bellicose one to flight--it all depended upon the young bull's stock of courage.
Twice were members of his band mauled, and one was killed by a huge and bellicose rhinoceros; but the instant the action was over, it was as though it never had occurred.
But he twisted his little black moustache with such a bellicose air and rolled such big, black fierce eyes at Smith that this promise came to noth- ing.
The animal was studying him with bellicose curiosity.
The book shows how words were used to persuade and inform people, became incentives to find ways of expressing the apparently inexpressible, brought the development of ways to control communication, and last, but not least, demonstrated how words put people in such a bellicose frame of mind in the first place.
The bellicose rhetoric we heard yesterday is totally unacceptable," Salam said, warning that "this speech, in light of the impending parliamentary elections, undermines the citizens' trust in the state.Do you live in North Carolina? Did you know that you are a member of the Militia? The Governor of North Carolina recently signed House Bill 250, which updated the laws that govern the Militia of North Carolina.
In North Carolina, the Militia is composed of several bodies. First, the North Carolina National Guard
The North Carolina National Guard, both army and air, Army and Air, shall consist of regularly commissioned, warrant and enlisted personnel between such ages as may be within the age limits established by regulations promulgated by the secretary of the appropriate service and shall be organized, governed, armed, equipped and have such the duties and responsibilities as hereinafter provided. provided in this Chapter.
Second, the Naval Militia
The naval militia shall consist of regularly commissioned, warrant and enlisted personnel between such ages as may be within the age limits established by regulations promulgated by the secretary of the appropriate service and shall be organized, governed, armed, equipped and have such the duties and responsibilities as hereinafter provided. provided in this Chapter.
Third, the “State Defense Militia” which is an organized militia not subject to federal call up.
The State defense militia shall consist of commissioned, warrant and enlisted personnel called, ordered, appointed or enlisted therein by the Governor under the provisions of Article 5 of this Chapter and shall be organized, governed, armed, equipped and have such the duties and responsibilities as hereinafter provided. provided in this Chapter.
Fourth, the “Historic Military Commands” which sound interesting, but I don’t know anything about.
Historic military commands are those historic groups which remain active by meeting at least once a month and which follow military procedures. Only such groups as may be designated by the Governor shall fall within this branch of the militia. Any maximum age limits prescribed by this Chapter shall not be applicable do not apply to members of historic military commands.
And finally, the Unorganized Militia.
The unorganized militia shall consist of all other able‑bodied citizens of the State and of the United States and such all other able‑bodied persons who have or shall declare their intention to become citizens of the United States, who shall be at least 17 years of age, except those who have been convicted of a felony or discharged from any component of the military under other than honorable conditions.
You can see from the quoted paragraph that some changes were made to the law governing the Unorganized Militia. This should tell you that if something else was intended, they could have very easily changed it. Unfortunately for those anti-gun types who dispute that the Militia exists, and that it includes much more than the National Guard, this law confirms that each and every able bodied adult citizens of North Carolina, minus a few exceptions, are members of the Militia. Note carefully that it does not restrict militia membership to men. That means that women are also members of the NC Militia. Yay equality!
The Governor can call the militia if she wants to.
The Governor shall, when ordering out the unorganized militia, designate the number. He The Governor may order them out either by calling for volunteers or by draft. He The Governor may attach them to the several organizations of the North Carolina National Guard, the State defense militia or naval militia, as may be best for the service.
If the unorganized militia is ordered out by draft, the Governor shall designate the persons in each county to make the draft, and prescribe rules and regulations for conducting the same. it.
Every member of the militia ordered out for duty, or who shall volunteer or be drafted, who does not appear at the time and place ordered, shall be liable to such punishment as a court‑martial may determine. determined by a court‑martial.
So if the word goes out and you don’t show up as ordered, you get a Court Martial. The Governor doesn’t need to worry about me. If the State is in such a bad bind that I would be considered more of a help than a hindrance, I’ll show up.
There’s even a section where the State will promote marksmanship.
The Adjutant General is authorized to detail a commissioned officer of the North Carolina National Guard or member of the State defense militia to promote rifle marksmanship among the State defense militia and the unorganized militia of the State. Such The officer or member so detailed shall serve without pay and it shall be his duty the duty of the officer or member to organize and supervise rifle clubs in schools, colleges, universities, clubs and other groups, under such rules and regulations as prescribed by the Adjutant General shall prescribe and in such a manner to that will make them, when duly organized, acceptable for membership in the National Rifle Association. Provided, that such these duties and efforts shall in nowise interfere or conflict with clubs of schools or units operating in R.O.T.C. Reserve Officers’ Training Corps or similar schools under the supervision of armed forces instructors. instructors of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Oh, dear. Does that mean that the State is supposed to offer organized marksmanship training in regular schools throughout the State? And worse, these training clubs should be organized in a way acceptable to the evil NRA?!?! I wonder if they will be promoting Appleseed shoots? Do you think I can convince them to loan me a proper rifle for my training class?Wow - so I'm trying to write this up quickly on my mobile because I wanted to post pictures ASAP. Forgive any typing errors I might make - I'll fix them as soon as I can get to a computer and revise this post.
First off, this came super quickly. Only two days from the day my santa had marked my gift as shipped.
I've never gotten a cool, sampler box like this! And of all things, it's my favorite consumable (well, maybe tied for ice cream).
I'm very excited to try out all of the coffee I got from my santa in my Bean Box. All of the flavors are holiday inspired with notes ranging from the interesting such as breadfruit and strawberry-guava to cozy & comforting such as molasses and roasted chestnuts.
I'm impressed by how freshly these were roasted, which makes a huge difference in extracting a great cup of coffee! My santa definitely honed in and delivered on my love for bean juice.
Thank you for your thoughtful gift. I love that it's a consumable/perishable too because it's hard trying to juggle more items in my life and finding room to fit all of these things that may not add much more meaning. I drink coffee every morning and this is perfect!Get your raw and vegan chocolate to you via this Kickstarter project
Our Chocolate
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Our chocolate might look like your normal block or bar of chocolate, but with it's surprisingly dark and rich chocolate flavour and full bodied character it is in a league of its own. Our signature vegan caramel that we've added to a line of our chocolate bars has delighted our foodie fans.
We're all about loving to share and to make more people happy with this chocolate. And sharing is what we love to do. That's how we started and that is how we intend to continue.
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Abby - Totnes: 'This is the most amazing chocolate ever'
Kara - Cardiff: 'Life changing Devine'
Danielle - London: 'By far the best raw chocolate bar on earth'
Natural Elixir - 'Truly scrumptions'
Richard - Cardiff:'man, your chocolate is absolutely amazing' (repeated it 4 times)
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What we would like to do
Through this Kickstarter project we would like to raise funds and do a few things to further grow:
We already use only vegan, only fair-trade and only organic ingredients. But now we need to rubber stamp that on our packaging. And that costs money. Our first goal will be to achieve this accreditation yardstick.
At the moment we stock 15 different shops and we would like to create a transportation-friendly display for them. We want to do this using recycled materials whilst printing and cutting is done locally. So our second goal in this kickstarter project is to have the design and making of our display packaging set up.
Now here is where it get really interesting, and where we need quite a bit more funds for it, but, we'd like to set up a larger space to make more chocolate and hold chocolate events and chocolate workshops. To invite people to come and enjoy, share and most of all be happy. The aim is also to make a chocolate kitchen mobile, so we can bring it to festivals, parties and people's homes.
We would also open the space for other cool foodie events with a focus on raw and vegan food. At the moment we are making all our Chocolate in our efficient yet cosy domestic kitchen. So to make our dream come true, what do we need in this space:
We are looking at a few shop spaces and would like convert them into a chocolate studio. In this great space we'll install working benches.
Currently we are tempering everything by hand, but we would like to purchase two small tempering machines. Working with raw chocolate and liquid sweeteners is tricky. While working on my own in the chocolate kitchen it is easy, but working with groups makes it challenging. The tempering machines will help to keep the chocolate in temper, and will allow us to talk and work with out it setting to fast.Eel Farming In southwestern Victoria there was a large area covered by small rivers, swamps and wetlands, that in the winter wet season became a huge area of marshes. These marshes were the feeding area for a 1 m-long Australian eel (Anguilla australis occidentalis). In spring the eels moved along the rivers from the sea to their feeding grounds, returning to the sea to breed in autumn. To exploit this abundant seasonal food source, the Aboriginal People constructed an elaborate system of traps and even canals that were on a scale that could be considered to be engineering. Among the sites where these structures were built of stone and still remain are Ettrick (Mainsbridge Weir site), Lake Condah, Toolondo and Mt William. A detailed study of the trap network has been carried out at Lake Condah, the publication they produced is Aboriginal Engineering of the Western Districts of Victoria. The study found many stone races (above ground canals), canals, and stone walls, up 1 m high by 1 m wide made from black volcanic rocks that are common in the area. These walls were often more than 50 m long. Channels had been dug into the basalt bedrock that were up to 1 m deep and extended for up to 300 m. Apertures were built into the walls for the placement of eel pots or eel nets, and traps were built across the stone races and canals. Eel pots were made of bark strips or plaited rushes, they had a hoop of willow at the mouth. They tapered to a narrow exit where the eels could be grabbed as they emerged from the trap. The system of traps were built on a number of levels to take advantage of different water levels in the lake, and were designed to operate whether the water was rising or falling. At Mt William and Toolondo there was a system of water control that connected 2 lakes in 2 different drainage basins that were connected by 400 m-long channels dug out through the low divide between the 2 basins with digging sticks, allowing the water to flow in either direction. The system not only allowed the eels to occupy a larger area, and the channels were places where they were easy to catch, but it was designed in such a way that it coped with extra water during floods and retained water like dams in drought. Later research that included computer simulation concluded that the eel trap systems were in fact part of a huge area of modified land, up to 100 km2, where there were a number of weirs, channels and dams, that were probably a giant aquaculture project, growing eels that were smoked and traded along the trade routs. The oldest dates recorded for the area is at least 8000 years ago. So aquaculture has been practiced in the area for at least 8,000 years. Near a lot of the eel traps were burnt-out hollow trees. Soil samples from the base of these "smoking trees" were found to contain traces of eel fat. Associated with the eel business were permanent or semi-permanent houses, with a stone base. The local Aboriginal People, the Gunditjmara, are unsurprised by the discovery, they say they still use the traps, and still weave the eel traps. It seems no one thought to ask them, they say they have always known that their ancestors were not nomadic. The only thing they didn't know was just how old the traps were. Fish Traps at Brewarrina
Aboriginal shelters - villages among the eel harvesting structures. A number of references in literature, such as the journals of explorers and a number of other people that were written in the 19th century, describe stone structures, as well as structures from other materials or combinations of the various materials, built by the Aboriginal inhabitants at various places around Australia. George Augustus Robinson The country at Kilgower is but slightly elevated above the sea. Kilgower is on the [blank] or Port Fairy River... He... took me to a very fine and large weir and went through, with several other of the natives, the process of taking eels and the particular spot where he himself stood and took them. I measured this weir with a tape, 200 feet, five feet high. It was turned back at each end. The eel pots are placed over the holes and the fisher stands behind the uere.roc or weir and lays hold of the small end of the arrabine or eel pot, And when the eel makes its appearance he bites it on the head and puts it on the lingeer or small stick with a knob at the end, thus or, if near the bank, he throws them out. The fishing is carried on in the rainy season. Arrabeen or eel pot made of bark or plaited rushes with a... round mouth and having a small end to prevent the eel from rapidly getting away. These yere.roc or weirs are built with some attention to the principles of mechanics. Those erected on a rocky bottom have the stocks inserted into a groove made by removing the small stones so as to form a groove. The weir is kept in a strait line. The small stones are laid against the bottom of the stick. The upright sticks are supported by transverse sticks, resting on forked sticks as shown above. These sticks are three, four or five inches in diameter. Some of the smaller weirs are in the form of a segment or circle. The convex side against the current. Robinson 30/4/1841 in Clark, 2000b: 157-158 in the Report to Aboriginal Affairs Victoria). James Dawson - possible first hand description The small fish, 'tarrapatt,' and others of similar description, are caught in a rivulet which runs into Lake Colangulac, near Camperdown, by damming it up with stones, and placing a basket in a gap in the dam. The women and children go up the stream and drive the fish down... Eels are prized by the Aboriginal People as an article of food above all other fish. They are captured in great numbers by building stone barriers across rapid streams, and diverting the current through an opening into a funnel-mouthed basket pipe, three or four feet long, two inches in diameter, and closed at the lower end. When streams extend over marshes in time of flood, clay embankments two or three feet high, and sometimes three to four hundred yards in length, are built across them, and the current is confined to narrow openings in which the pipe baskets were placed...Lake Boloke is the most celebrated place in the Western District for the fine quality and abundance of its eels; and, when the autumn rains induce these fish to leave the lake and go down the river to the sea, the Aboriginal People gather there from great distances. Each tribe has allotted to it a portion of the stream, now known as Salt Creek; and the usual barrier is built by each family...For a month or two the banks of Salt Creek presented the appearance of a village all the way from Turreen Turreen, the outlet of the lake, to its junction with the Hopkins (Dawson, 1881, in the Report to Aboriginal Affairs Victoria). George Augustus Robinson - early site descriptions [Mt William Region] passed several dieks dug by the natives for draining several small lagoons into the large ones for the purpose of catching eels, etc. These channels were from a foot to 18 inches deep and from one to 300 yards in length (Robinson, 8/7/1841 in Clark 2000b in the Report to Aboriginal Affairs Victoria). [near Mt William] At the confluence of this creek with the marsh observed an immense piece of ground trenched and banked...which on inspection I found to be the work of the Aboriginal natives, purposefully constructed for catching eels... These trenches are hundreds of yards in length. I measured in one place in one continuous trepple line for the distance of 500 yards. These treble watercourses led to other ramified and extensive trenches of a most tortuous form. An area of at least 15 acres was thus traced over...These works must have been executed at great cost of labour...the only means of artificial power being the lever...This lever is a stick chisel, sharpened at one end, by which force they threw up clods of soil and thus formed the trenches, smoothing the water channel with their hands. The soil displaced went to form the embankment...This description of work is called by the natives cro.cup.per, i.e. Bennewongham [said so]. The plan or design of these ramifications was extremely perplexing and |
neither endpoint is a good marker of peripheral insulin sensitivity [57]. Overall, these proposed mechanisms suggest that carbohydrate displacement, magnesium and MUFA content of nuts may be contributing factors in facilitating the effect seen on glycemic control. Heterogeneity was not explained by majority of the subgroup analyses, where only two subgroups, follow-up and study design in the categorical subgroup analyses for HbA1c, approached significance. Trials of ≥12 weeks showed a greater lowering-effect of tree nuts on HbA1c than trials of <12 weeks. These results suggest that tree nut consumption over a longer period (from 12 weeks to 24 months among available trials) may lead to greater improvements in glycemic control. Similarly, trials using a parallel design showed a greater lowering-effect of tree nuts on HbA1c than those using a crossover design. The smaller effect of tree nuts in crossover designs may be attributed to carry-over effects [23]. In our meta-analysis, all 5 trials with a crossover design contained a washout period ranging from 1–8 weeks. Since HbA1c reflects mean glycemia for the previous 3 months [58], it is not certain whether this is long enough to diminish any potential carry-over effects. Several limitations exist in the present meta-analysis that complicates the interpretation of our results. First, it is uncertain whether the length of the follow-up period in these trials is enough time for tree nuts to significantly alter glycemic control. HbA1c levels reflect blood glucose levels in the preceding 3 months (∼90 days or 12 weeks) [58], whereas more than half of the trials (54%) were less than 12 weeks in duration. Second, there was evidence of substantial and considerable between study heterogeneity in the overall primary analyses for fasting insulin and HOMA-IR, respectively, which was not explained by any of the a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses. In addition, majority of subgroup analyses were underpowered and it was not possible to assess the effect of other factors that may influence glycemic control (i.e. growing conditions of tree nuts) due to unavailability of data. Third, the majority of the trials (81%) were of poor study quality (MQS<8), however, no effect modification by study quality was found in the subgroup analyses. Fourth, a portion of the trials (27%) did not focus on glycemic control endpoints as their primary outcome. In conclusion, the present systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials shows that a daily median intake of 56 g (∼2 ounces or ∼½ cup) of tree nuts over a median duration of 8 weeks significantly reduces HbA1c and fasting glucose in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Although significant advantages were not seen for fasting insulin and HOMA-IR, the direction of effect favoured tree nuts. The greatest advantages appear to be seen in trials using tree nuts to displace high-glycemic index carbohydrate to affect a low-glycemic load diet. To address the sources of uncertainty in our analyses, there is a need for large, longer, higher quality trials using tree nuts to lower the glycemic load of the diet by displacing high-glycemic index carbohydrates with a specific focus on glycemic endpoints as a primary outcome. The inclusion of such trials in future meta-analyses will help guide the development of nutrition recommendations and health claims, as well as the planning of future trials. Overall, our data support the inclusion of tree nuts as part of a healthy diet for the management of glycemia in individuals with type 2 diabetes.
Supporting Information Figure S1. Cochrane Risk of Bias Graph. Risk of bias graph: review authors’ judgments about each risk of bias item presented as percentages across all included studies (with the exception of Sauder et al. [29]). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s001 (TIFF) Figure S2. Categorical a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses for HbA1c. CHO = carbohydrate; N = number of subjects; MQS = Heyland Methodological Quality Score; SFA = saturated fatty acid. Point estimates for each subgroup level (diamonds) are the pooled effect estimates. The dashed line represents the pooled estimate for the overall (total) analysis. The residual I2 value indicates heterogeneity unexplained by the subgroup. Pairwise between-subgroup mean differences (95%CIs) for nut type were as follows: 0.15 [−0.20, 0.49] (1 vs. 4); 0.18 [−0.18, 0.55] (1 vs. 5); 0.04 [−0.33, 0.40] (1 vs. 6); −0.03 [−0.23, 0.16] (4 vs. 5); 0.11 [−0.09, 0.31] (4 vs. 6); 0.14 [−0.09, 0.37] (5 vs. 6). Absolute intakes represent intakes within the treatment arm. Between arm differences represent the difference between the treatment (T) and control (C) arm (T–C). Within arm differences represent the difference between end (E) and baseline (B) values within the treatment arm (E–B). *Statistically significant between subgroups (P<0.05). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s002 (PDF) Figure S3. Categorical a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses for fasting glucose. CHO = carbohydrate; N = number of subjects; MQS = Heyland Methodological Quality Score; SFA = saturated fatty acid. Point estimates for each subgroup level (diamonds) are the pooled effect estimates. The dashed line represents the pooled estimate for the overall (total) analysis. The residual I2 value indicates heterogeneity unexplained by the subgroup. Pairwise between-subgroup mean differences (95%CIs) for nut type were as follows: −0.81 [−2.41, 0.79] (1 vs. 2); −0.65 [−2.03, 0.73] (1 vs. 3); 0.23 [−0.15, 0.61] (1 vs. 4); 0.73 [−0.14, 1.60] (1 vs. 5); 0.09 [−0.46, 0.64] (1 vs. 6); −0.16 [−2.23, 1.91] (2 vs. 3); −1.04 [−2.64, 0.56] (2 vs. 4); −1.54 [−3.32, 0.23] (2 vs. 5); −0.90 [−2.55, 0.75] (2 vs. 6); −0.88 [−2.25, 0.49] (3 vs. 4); −1.38 [−2.97, 0.20] (3 vs. 5); −0.74 [−2.17, 0.69] (3 vs. 6); −0.50 [−1.37, 0.36] (4 vs. 5); 0.14 [−0.40, 0.68] (4 vs. 6); 0.64 [−0.31, 1.59] (5 vs. 6). Absolute intakes represent intakes within the treatment arm. Between arm differences represent the difference between the treatment (T) and control (C) arm (T–C). Within arm differences represent the difference between end (E) and baseline (B) values within the treatment arm (E–B). *Statistically significant between subgroups (P<0.05). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s003 (PDF) Figure S4. Categorical a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses for fasting insulin. CHO = carbohydrate; N = number of subjects; MQS = Heyland Methodological Quality Score; SFA = saturated fatty acid. Point estimates for each subgroup level (diamonds) are the pooled effect estimates. The dashed line represents the pooled estimate for the overall (total) analysis. The residual I2 value indicates heterogeneity unexplained by the subgroup. Pairwise between-subgroup mean differences (95%CIs) for nut type were as follows: −13.00 [−65.37, 39.37] (1 vs. 2); 6.45 [−38.57, 51.47] (1 vs. 4); 20.81 [−19.98, 61.59] (1 vs. 5); −19.45 [−79.26, 40.36] (2 vs. 4); −31.81 [−90.50, 22.88] (2 vs. 5); −14.36 [−64.34, 35.63] (4 vs. 5). Absolute intakes represent intakes within the treatment arm. Between arm differences represent the difference between the treatment (T) and control (C) arm (T–C). Within arm differences represent the difference between end (E) and baseline (B) values within the treatment arm (E–B). * Statistically significant between subgroups (P<0.05). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s004 (PDF) Figure S5. Categorical a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses for HOMA-IR. CHO = carbohydrate; N = number of subjects; MQS = Heyland Methodological Quality Score; SFA = saturated fatty acid. Point estimates for each subgroup level (diamonds) are the pooled effect estimates. The dashed line represents the pooled estimate for the overall (total) analysis. The residual I2 value indicates heterogeneity unexplained by the subgroup. Absolute intakes represent intakes within the treatment arm. Between arm differences represent the difference between the treatment (T) and control (C) arm (T–C). Within arm differences represent the difference between end (E) and baseline (B) values within the treatment arm (E–B). * Statistically significant between subgroups (P<0.05). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s005 (PDF) Table S1. Search strategy. For all databases, the original search was 23 May 2012; updated searches were performed 14 May 2013 and 6 April 2014. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s006 (DOCX) Table S2. Study Quality Assessment using the Heyland MQS*. HF = high fat diet; LF = low fat diet; MQS = Methodological Quality Score. * The Heyland MQS assigns a score of 0 or 1 or from 0 to 2 over 9 categories of quality related to study design, sampling procedures, and interventions for a total of 13 points. Trials that scored ≥8 were considered to be of higher quality [25]. † Randomization was scored 2 points for being randomized with the methods described, 1 point for being randomized without the methods described, or 0 points for being neither randomized nor having the methods described. Blinding was scored 1 point for being double-blind or 0 points for “other.” Analysis was scored 2 points for being intention-to-treat; all other types of analyses scored 0 points. ‡ Sample selection was scored 1 point for being consecutive eligible or 0 points for being preselected or indeterminate. Sample comparability was scored 1 point for being comparable or 0 points for not being comparable at baseline. Follow-up was scored 1 point for being 100% or 0 points for <100%. § Treatment protocol was scored 1 point for being reproducibly described or 0 points for being poorly described. Co-interventions were scored 2 points for being described and equal, 1 point for being described but unequal or indeterminate, or 0 points for not being described. Treatment crossovers (where participants were switched from the control treatment to the experimental treatment) were scored 2 points for being <10%, 1 point for being >10%, and 0 points for not being described. || Study quality for this study was not assessed since data for this study was limited (the study’s conferences abstract and correspondence with the authors were the only sources of available data). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s007 (DOCX) Table S3. Continuous a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses for HbA1c. BMI = body mass index; CHO = carbohydrate; E = energy; M = males; N = number of subjects; No. = number; SFA = saturated fatty acid. β is the slope derived from subgroup analyses on meta-regression analyses and represents the treatment effect of tree nuts for each subgroup. The residual I2 value indicates heterogeneity unexplained by the subgroup. Absolute intakes represent intakes within the treatment arm. Between arm differences represent the difference between the treatment (T) and control (C) arm (T–C). Within arm differences represent the difference between end (E) and baseline (B) values within the treatment arm (E–B). *Statistically significant between subgroups (P<0.05). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s008 (DOCX) Table S4. Continuous a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses for fasting glucose. BMI = body mass index; CHO = carbohydrate; E = energy; M = males; N = number of subjects; No. = number; SFA = saturated fatty acid. β is the slope derived from subgroup analyses on meta-regression analyses and represents the treatment effect of tree nuts for each subgroup. The residual I2 value indicates heterogeneity unexplained by the subgroup. Absolute intakes represent intakes within the treatment arm. Between arm differences represent the difference between the treatment (T) and control (C) arm (T–C). Within arm differences represent the difference between end (E) and baseline (B) values within the treatment arm (E–B). * Statistically significant between subgroups (P<0.05). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s009 (DOCX) Table S5. Continuous a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses for fasting insulin. BMI = body mass index; CHO = carbohydrate; E = energy; M = males; N = number of subjects; No. = number; SFA = saturated fatty acid. β is the slope derived from subgroup analyses on meta-regression analyses and represents the treatment effect of tree nuts for each subgroup. The residual I2 value indicates heterogeneity unexplained by the subgroup. Absolute intakes represent intakes within the treatment arm. Between arm differences represent the difference between the treatment (T) and control (C) arm (T–C). Within arm differences represent the difference between end (E) and baseline (B) values within the treatment arm (E–B). * Statistically significant between subgroups (P<0.05). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s010 (DOCX) Table S6. Continuous a priori and post-hoc subgroup analyses for HOMA-IR. BMI = body mass index; CHO = carbohydrate; E = energy; N = number of subjects; No. = number; SFA = saturated fatty acid. β is the slope derived from subgroup analyses on meta-regression analyses and represents the treatment effect of tree nuts for each subgroup. The residual I2 value indicates heterogeneity unexplained by the subgroup. Absolute intakes represent intakes within the treatment arm. Between arm differences represent the difference between the treatment (T) and control (C) arm (T–C). Within arm differences represent the difference between end (E) and baseline(B) values within the treatment arm (E–B). * Statistically significant between subgroups (P<0.05). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s011 (DOCX) Checklist S1. CONSORT checklist. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s012 (DOC) Protocol S1. Trial protocol. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103376.s013 (PDF)
Acknowledgments We wish to thank Teruko Kishibe of Li Ka Shing’s International Healthcare Education Centre at St. Michael Hospital for her help in the development of the search strategy.
Author Contributions Conceived and designed the experiments: CWCK DJAJ JLS. Analyzed the data: EV SBM AIC VH AM RJdS JLS. Wrote the paper: EV JLS. Interpretation of the data: EV SBM AIC VH AM VHJ RJdS LAL. Critical revision of the article for important intellectual content: EV CWCK SBM AIC VH AM VHJ LSAA LC LAL RJdS DJAJ JLS. Final approval of the article: EV CWCK SBM AIC VH AM VHJ LSAA LC LAL RJdS DJAJ JLS. Obtaining of funding: CWCK DJAJ JLS. Administrative, technical, or logistic support: SBM VHJ LC LSAA. Collection and assembly of data: EV SBM. Guarantors: CWCK DJAJ JLS.Friday, July 27, 2018
Friday of the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time
Readings for Today
All Saints for Today
“The seed sown on rocky ground is the one who hears the word and receives it at once with joy. But he has no root and lasts only for a time. When some tribulation or persecution comes because of the word, he immediately falls away.” Matthew 13:20-21
Are you a “pop-Christian?” That may be a new word. But it gets at the heart of this particular Christian described above. This passage is one of four types of Christians identified in the Parable of the Sower. There are some who are like seed sown on a path, some like seed sown on rocky ground, some who are like seed sown in thorns, and some like seed sown in rich soil. Each one of these descriptions provide much to think about.
Let’s look at the Christian who is like seed sown on rocky ground, the one who has no roots. Practically speaking, this is the person who could be described as a “pop-Christian.” It’s the person who professes faith in Christ when it’s popular and well accepted by others. When it’s easy and convenient, this person is all in. But as soon as there is some challenge given to the Gospel, to the Word of God, and suddenly following Christ is not popular within the culture, this person is quick to choose the culture over the Truth.
This is a very real phenomenon in our day and age. The culture and the world as a whole are becoming more and more hostile toward the truth of our Christian faith. The world is becoming stronger, more influential, more of a bully, and appears to be winning the battle. This is a problem. And the real problem stems from too many Christians who lack deep roots in their life of faith.
The ideal is to have the Word of God sown deep into our hearts where there is rich soil. When this happens, the Word grows and becomes strong and stable. And in the midst of a cultural or social “storm,” the Christian with deep roots and deep faith will not waver.
Reflect, today, upon whether or not you are absolutely willing to stand with Christ and for the Truth no matter how hard or unpopular it may be. Are you willing to endure the ridicule and misrepresentation the world gives to the Truth? Are you willing to stay strong in your faith in the midst of an increasingly secular society? If you struggle with being a “pop-Christian,” pray that God will sink His roots down deep into your heart so that you will be unwavering no matter the cost.
Lord, I desire that Your Word sink deep into my heart. I desire to stay strong in my faith no matter the cost. Help me to be radical in my faith and in my love in all things. Jesus, I trust in You.
Audio Reflection>>>
More>>>Last month was not just the hottest January on record for Australia – it was also the hottest for any month, smashing peaks that had stood since January 1932.
Figures out this afternoon from the Bureau of Meteorology show Australia’s average daily maximum for January came in at a sizzling 36.92 degrees, 2.28 degrees above the long-term norm and 0.11 degrees more than the previous record.
The mean of daily maximums and minimums came in at 29.68 degrees, 1.77 degrees above normal and 0.27 degrees more than the previous high, also set in January 81 years ago.
There was also little relief from the daily heat, with the average minimum coming in at 20.43 degrees, 1.26 degrees above the norm, and the third highest on record for that measure.
The great heatwave of 2013 set many records - as did the big wet that followed.
January's records add to a lengthening stretch of exceptional warmth for Australia. The September-January period, for instance, is also the hottest on record. Many regions, such as Victoria, have also turned dry during these months, adding to the fire dangers with summer far from over.Kalpetta: Seven girl students of a well-known Muslim orphanage here have been subjected to sexual abuse by a gang of youngsters, according to police. Police has already taken into custody six of the suspects and three more are yet to be nabbed, it is learnt.
The incident came to light when the security of the orphanage found a girl coming out of a nearby shop the other day. After inquiry it was revealed that many girl students of the orphanage were lured by the youngsters into the shop and subjected to sexual abuse for about a year.
Police filed the complaint after the administrator of the institution approached the police seeking action against the youngsters.
The youngsters lured the students of the institution while they went to school. They gave them sweets and forced them to watch porn films before subjecting them to abuse. They were threatened of serious repercussions if they complained, said the complaint by the administrator. The students are from 7th, 8th, 9th standards of the school.
Though only seven students came out with complaints, police suspect that about 30 students were subjected to abuse. Police had sent the students for medical examination on Monday night itself. Wayanad SP Rajpal Meena is monitoring the investigation.
The youngsters taken into custody were being questioned till late night on Monday. More arrests are likely on Tuesday, police said. Confirming the sexual abuse, Mr Meena told this newspaper that police will register a case and the probe has started. “A few are in custody. There are chances more cases would follow,” he added.A 15-year-old has been arrested for posting violent Eminem lyrics on Instagram.
The Fresno Bee reports, the teen has been charged with the felony of making terrorist threats, as well as for disrupting school activity.
The lyrics in question are from Em’s song “I’m Back” that reference the 1999 school shooting at Columbine High School. On the track, he raps:
“I take seven [kids] from [Columbine], stand ’em all in line/ Add an AK-47, a revolver, a nine/ A MAC-11 and it oughta solve the problem of mine/ And that’s a whole school of bullies shot up all at one time/ ’Cause (I’m) Shady, they call me as crazy/ As the world was over this whole Y2K thing.”
The only difference between the teen’s post and Eminem’s words was minor. Instead of writing Em’s lyrics of “I’m Shady,” the teen wrote “I’m just like Shady.” Another red flag that worried authorities was another kid’s comment under this post that read, “Bring me with man. I got some stuff [to] settle.” The 15-year-old’s response was, “Ill text you when…I got a couple idiots’ blocks I could knock off.”
After officials at the kid’s school heard about the post, they quickly called authorities who went to the kid’s home Monday night. There cops found a replica AK-47 Airsoft rifle, a handgun, a.357 Magnum revolver, a 12-gauge shotgun, ammunition and a bulletproof vest that were concealed in the subfloor of a closet, said Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer.
The 15-year-old has reportedly been having a rough time lately. His mother passed away last year, he quit the football team, he broke up with his girlfriend and he wasn’t doing well in school. Dyer said that he saw these factors as warning signs.
“These are really all of the things we look for in individuals that historically have been involved in incidents like Columbine. So we’re very fortunate that this was brought to our attention,” Dyer said. “We have every reason to believe that he was reaching out for help.…The weapons were present. The ammunition was present. Perhaps even the mindset was present to carry out those threats.”
The teen is now in a juvenile detention center, but says that he’s innocent. Claiming that he never posted the lyrics on his Instagram, he’s telling authorities that he was hacked. He and his father are also saying they don’t know about the guns police found in their home.
I’m glad the teen’s school discovered the post before disaster struck. We definitely don’t need anymore tragic school shooting happening. The more schools that can stop situations like this before they happen, the better.Few sights are as instantly recognizable, and few sites speak more fully to American nationalism. Standing on the South Rim in 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt proclaimed it “one of the great sights every American should see.”
It’s true. Every visitor today knows the Grand Canyon as a unique testimony to Earth’s history and an icon of American experience. But visitors may not know why. Probably they don’t know that it was big and annoying long before it was grand and inspiring. Likely, they don’t appreciate that the work of appreciating so strange a scene has been as astonishing as its geological sculpting. Other than a pilgrimage to a sacred site, they may not understand just what they are seeing.
As the National Park Service celebrates its centennial, it’s worth recalling the peculiar way the Grand Canyon became grand and what this has meant. Like American society, our landscapes celebrate individual vision within a collective pluralism. We value many landscapes and have come to protect them in various ways.
“This profitless locality”
The Grand Canyon was one of the first North American natural wonders to be discovered by Europeans. In 1541, a party of the Coronado expedition under Captain García López de Cardenas stood on the South Rim, 138 years before explorers found Niagara Falls, 167 before Yellowstone, and almost 300 before Yosemite. A group scrambled down to the river but failed to reach it, and returned to announce that the buttes were much taller than the great tower of Seville. Then nothing. Some Coronado chroniclers did not even mention this side trip in their accounts.
A Franciscan friar, Francisco Tomas Garcés, tracing tribes up the Colorado, then visited the rim in 1776, discovered the Havasupai tribe, and departed. Fur trappers based in Taos knew of the gorge, which they called the Big Cañon, and shunned it. When they guided exploring parties of U.S. Army Corps of Topographic Engineers, they steered the expeditions away from the canyon, which offered no passage by water or land.
Then in 1857 Lt. Joseph C. Ives led a steamboat up the Colorado River in explicit quest of the Big Cañon. After the steamboat struck a rock and sank near Black Canyon, Ives traveled down Diamond Creek to the inner gorge, briefly touched at the South Rim, and in 1861 penned one of the most infamous proclamations to ever emerge from an American explorer.
The region is, of course, altogether valueless … after entering it there is nothing to do but leave. Ours has been the first, and will doubtless be the last, party of whites to visit this profitless locality.
Eight years later Major John Wesley Powell descended the Colorado River through its gorges, renamed the Big Cañon as the Grand Canyon, and wrote a classic account of the view from the river. In 1882 Captain Clarence Dutton, in the first monograph published by the new U.S. Geological Survey, wrote an equally classic account, this time from the rim.
Something had changed. Mostly it was the advent of geology as a science with broad cultural appeal. The Grand Canyon might be valueless as a corridor of transport, but it was a “wonderland” for the new science. It helped enormously that artists were drawn to landscapes, of which the canyon seemed both unique and operatic. Urged by Powell and Dutton, Thomas Moran and William Henry Holmes transformed a supremely visual scene into paint and ink.
Before Powell and Dutton, the Grand Canyon was a place to avoid. Now it was a marvel to admire. Twenty years later Teddy Roosevelt stepped off a train at the South Rim and added nationalism to the mix by declaring it “a natural wonder … absolutely unparalleled throughout the rest of the world.”
It was an astonishing reversal of perception. The geologic mystery of the canyon is how the south-trending Colorado River made a sudden turn westward to carve its way, cross-grained, through four plateaus. This is also more or less what happened culturally. Intellectuals cut against existing aesthetics to make a place that looked nothing like pastorals or alpine mountains into a compelling spectacle. Unlike most great features, the Grand Canyon is invisible until you stand on its rim. You aren’t drawn to it as to a river’s source or a mountain’s peak. You have to seek it out, and then cope with its visual revelation. It simply and suddenly is.
View from Powell Point, South Rim, Grand Canyon National Park. National Park Service/Wikimedia, CC BY
So it appeared to Western civilization. As Dutton pointed out, the canyon, “while the sublimest thing on earth,” was “a great innovation in our modern ideas of scenery,” and appreciating a scene so alien to European sensibilities demanded the invention of a new aesthetic. It required its own unique canon of appreciation. The Grand Canyon stood alone.
Humans can only mar it
It still does, which makes its role as a portal to the national parks paradoxical. Yet in two ways the canyon has strengthened the national park system in recent decades.
First, it added an appreciation for exposed rock, gorges and earth colors to the traditional focus on the bucolic, the alpine and the green. It made it possible to value the larger setting of the Colorado Plateau, which contained the Grand Canyon but otherwise lay to the margins of American settlement and economy. This region now has the highest density of parks and monuments of any physiographic province in the country.
Second, the Grand Canyon contributed to the rise of postwar environmentalism through debates in the 1960s over proposed dams. The canyon had enough cultural cachet that advocates could argue successfully to preserve it. Slightly upriver, Glen Canyon by contrast lacked that heritage and got dammed.
Yet the Grand Canyon sits awkwardly in modern preservationist thinking. The larger thrust has been to expand beyond geologic monumentalism, typical of early parks, and incorporate living landscapes rich in biodiversity and unique habitats. But the Grand Canyon is a geological monument. If it contained nothing alive within its immense bowl, it would still retain its cultural power. Its scale is so vast that, other than flooding it above the gorge, it’s hard to imagine what people might do to permanently alter it.
Yet it is possible to spoil the canyon experience. What it takes is an obscured sky, or a visually confused viewpoint, or social noise that distracts from the quiet calm of individual vision. The Grand Canyon’s great impact still derives from the sudden shock of seeing it all without filters or foreground. The rim just falls away. The canyon is there, instantly and insistently. That sensation is what must survive for the Grand Canyon to work its cultural alchemy.
Threats to parks are not new, but they have evolved from poaching and dams to the compounding insults of an Anthropocene era. Still, as Roosevelt understood, the Grand Canyon testifies to that most fundamental of all needs. “Leave it as it is…The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.” Keep it, he urged, “for your children, your children’s children, and for all who come after you.” We can do that in spite of climate change, invasive species, a feckless global economy, dysfunctional politics and a national attention span for which sound bites take too long. We can leave it as it is.
Stephen Pyne received funding from the National Park Service to research a fire history of contemporary America, which resulted in the book, Between Two Fires. He also worked seasonally for the NPS from 1967-1981 at Grand Canyon, and for other parks in three subsequent years.
Stephen Pyne, Regents Professor in the School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.The SEK further unwound some of its recent weakness as the Riksbank kept policy unchanged at -0.35% last week. Inflation data and the release of TNS Sifo Prospera survey on inflation expectations will be the market's main focus for the week ahead.
"CPIF inflation is expected to grow 0.8% y/y (0.84% excluding rounding), slightly below the consensus and Riksbank expectations of a 0.9% y/y increase. Excluding the volatile energy component of CPIF, we continue to expect an annual inflation rate of about 1.5%", says Barclays.
Moreover, inflation expectations are expected to remain stable but still hold the recent uptrend. Further policy stimulus is questionable if necessary, given the economy's positive fundamentals and easy monetary conditions.
EUR/SEK is seen downside via options but the risk is to be acknowledged that the Riksbank may have to respond to international developments including additional easing by the ECB.
"As such, one additional cut is not excluded by year-end, which nonetheless does little to alter the view of modest EUR/SEK depreciation. Finally, on the data front, market participants expect Q2 GDP to be confirmed at 1.0% q/q and the unemployment rate to increase slightly, to 7.4%", added Barclays.It’s our third annual Ants In Your Pants episode, as we close out 2017! As always, our lists were culled with much difficulty from all the wonderful films we saw this year, and we only talk about those we saw for the first time which made the biggest impressions on each of us. We have some classics and some little-seen gems that we hope you check out. Thank you for listening to us throughout 2017 and we can’t wait to get started on the 2018 list!
Our shared favorites:
• The Marseille Trilogy: Marius (Korda, 1931), Fanny (Allégret, 1932), César (Pagnol, 1936)
• Dry Summer (Erksan, 1963)
Cole’s favorites:
• The Starfish (Man Ray, 1928)
• Ruggles of Red Gap (McCarey, 1935)
• Rabbit’s Moon (Anger, 1950)
• The Lineup (Siegel, 1958)
• The Hourglass Sanatorium (Has, 1973)
• Bôhachi Bushidô: Code of the Forgotten Eight (Ishii, 1973)
• Fists of the White Lotus (Lo, 1980)
• Paris is Burning (Livingston, 1990)
Ericca’s favorites:
• The Maisie Collection: Volume One and Volume Two (Various, 1939-47)
• ‘I Know Where I’m Going!’ (Powell, Pressburger, 1945)
• The Prowler (Losey, 1951)
• A Star Is Born (Cukor, 1954)
• Mirror (Tarkovsky, 1975)
• Remember My Name (Rudolph, 1978)
• La Cérémonie (Chabrol, 1995)
• The Great Flood (Morrison, 2012)
What you’ll find in this episode: our favorite discoveries of 2017, Ericca issues a formal apology to Ann Sothern, our honorable mentions, and Cole keeps it weird as usual.
– Cole and Ericca
Links:
Austin Film Society
The Criterion Collection
BFI ShopAs of approximately 10 minutes ago, from the date/time of this post, it seems there is either some type of weird IP thing going on from the gateway/data centers, or some type of changes being made, or something has failed somewhere, within the PIA VPN network. I tried other gateways also, same basic results. If you disconnect then reconnect and run a dns leak test from one of the various leak test sites (and have dns leak protection enabled), you get something like this below now (I used the ipleak.net web site where its clear to see).This change happened suddenly with no warning or notification, the IP for me changed while I was still connected. There were no changes on my end for configuration or anything else, just the IP suddenly changed. Things slowed down for a few seconds, so I happen to notice the app I have running that checks the VPN public IP address and for DNS leaks every 30 seconds and it was in an alarm status and showed the 'new' public VPN IP and with further checks it kept coming back with this address, once the IP changed things went back to normal speed.In the below notice the IP address at the top vs the one at the bottom assigned by the gateway. Notice it still says "DNS Address - 1 server" which indicates no DNS leak (because it indicates that the gateway assigned IP is making the queries), however, the IP address at the top is the IP address web sites will see when you visit them (for now at least - the IP at the top belongs to LogicWeb Inc which is something that PIA has used before I think). The difference between the 'new' public VPN IP and that resolved for the DNS are different with the lower IP (162.216.46.117) being the IP assigned by the gateway but the public IP on the internet side of the gateway is different. |
to the call took Torres to “The Hole,” a spot along the banks of Buffalo Bayou near the 1200 block of Commerce, where they beat him. A lot.
They then took him to the city jail where he was deemed too injured for intake. Instead of transporting Torres to a hospital as they had been told to do, the six officers returned him to The Hole and beat him. Again.
At one point, HPD officer Terry W. Denson pushed Torres into the bayou, saying, ““Let’s see if the wetback can swim.” Apparently the drunk and injured Torres couldn’t. His body was found floating in the bayou two days later. It was Mother’s Day.
The Mexican-American community was outraged by the death and Torres’s family demanded justice.
That October, Denson and another officer, Stephen Orlando, were tried on murder charges and an all-white jury found them guilty of negligent homicide, a misdemeanor. Their sentence was one year probation and a $1 dollar fine.
Houston's Mexican-American community's outrage grew. Torres's family and community leaders organized protests against the decision, marching on HPD headquarters.
All six officers then faced federal charges for violating Torres’s civil rights. They were found guilty and given a ten year suspended sentence. Also found guilty of assault, Denson and Orlando were sentenced to nine months in prison.
The Hispanic community's outrage again grew. The family and community protested again. And again. But the case was settled and no further action was taken against the officers.
On the one year anniversary of Torres’s death, a riot broke out during a Cinco de Mayo celebration at Moody Park, on Houston’s north side. Police trying to arrest someone for fighting clashed with an angry crowd of Mexican-Americans. A rare citywide assist call went out for HPD. Officers, some wearing gas masks, tried to control the crowd but the violence and chaos spread into the neighborhood. Dozens of officers were injured; Jack Cato and Phil Archer, news reporters with KPRC Channel 2, were both stabbed repeatedly. By the end of the night, 14 cop cars had been burned, dozens of people were arrested and several nearby stores had been burned and looted.
Joe Campos Torres never got justice but HPD did get an internal affairs division.
The Hole remains visible today from a San Jacinto Street bridge that crosses Buffalo Bayou. The building currently at that site is part of the Harris County Sherrif's department. Hundreds of people walk across it every day as they make their way to the various criminal courts and Harris County jail, most unaware of The Hole or Joe Campos Torres.
The Jennifer Ertman - Elizabeth Pena memorial in T. C. Jester Park. Photo by Olivia Flores Alvarez
The deaths of teenagers Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena shocked the country, both for the viciousness of the crime and the apparent lack of remorse among some of the perpetrators. The girls, 14 and 16 years old respectively, left a party around 11:15 p.m. on June 24, 1993. In order to make their 11:30 p.m. curfew, the two decided to take a shortcut along some railroad tracks and through T. C. Jester Park.
Five members of a local gang, Peter Cantu (18), Efrain Perez (17), Derrick Sean O'Brien (18), Joe Medellin (18) and his brother Venancio Medellin (14), were in the park initiating a new recruit, Raul Villarreal (17). They saw the girls walking past them and captured them. Over the next hour, the girls were repeatedly raped by all six attackers. They were sodomized and beaten before being strangled. The attackers then stomped on the girls' necks and kicked them until they were dead.
After the murders, Cantu and some of the other gang members went to his home where they bragged about the killing to family members. The badly decomposed bodies were found four days later when Cantu's older brother eventually tipped off police as to the location and the attackers.
During the various trials, the defendants showed little, if any, remorse.
The death of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena led to a significant changes in victim's rights. Because of efforts by Ertman's father along with victims advocate Andy Kahan and others, victim's family members are now allowed to view the execution of a convicted killer.
The case affected criminal rights as well. Perez and Villarreal were under 18 at the time of the crime. Despite their ages, they were also given death sentences. That became a heated argument. The Supreme Court eventually decided the action was unconstitutional and the sentences were commuted to life. (Venancio Medellin, also a juvenile, had been given 40 years in prison.)
Joe Medellin was a Mexican citizen. He was given the death penalty but as he had not been allowed contact with the Mexican consulate at the time of his arrest, Mexico as well as several international justice advocates protested. (Mexico doesn't have the death penalty and blocks any death penalty sentences of its citizens by other countries.) Governor Rick Perry declined appeals from Mexico and a stay of execution from the World Court.
O'Brien and Medellín were executed in 2008. Cantu was executed in 2010.
The site of the Ertman - Pena murders remains a bank of White Oak Bayou. The railroad tracks there are still used daily by trains and occasionally by someone looking for a shortcut through the area. A few yards away from the site a memorial has been erected to the two girls. Twin benches, each bearing the name of one of the girls, sit under several oak trees. Plastic flowers, toys, dolls and other tokens of remembrance top both benches.
Photo insert of Clifford X. Philips courtesy of Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Photo of the Alley Theatre by Olivia Flores Alvarez.
Clifford X. Phillips murdered Alley Theatre Managing and Artistic Director Iris Siff in the early hours of January 13, 1982.
The 47 year old Phillips, also known as Abdullah Bashir, had been a security guard with Security Guard Services, Inc. which provided the theater's security. He was fired for reportedly sleeping on the job. A few weeks later, he returned to the theater, entered through an unlocked door and made his way up to Siff's fourth floor office. He strangled Siff, who was 58 at the time, with a telephone cord and left taking her television, fur coat, bag and car.
The Houston Police Department first arrested Phillips's replacement, a Security Guard Services, Inc. employee named Robert Taylor. He was on duty at the time of the murder and HPD discovered he had served time in prison so he seemed a likely candidate. He was released after a few days.
Phillips was arrested in Los Angeles a few weeks later. He said he killed Siff in self-defense when she attacked him during the robbery.
Like Taylor, Phillips had a prison record. He had served time for killing his three-year-old son in 1970. (Philips forced water down the boy's throat and later stuffed his body into a suitcase.) Phillips had also been accused of beating his daughter into a vegetative state.
Despite their easily discovered criminal pasts, both men were hired by Security Guard Services, Inc.
Siff attended the Universidad Autónoma de México before receiving a bachelor's degree in theater from the University of Texas in 1944. She joined the Alley as an actress in 1948, just one year after the company's inception. She was a performer and costumer before she left the Alley to become a fashion coordinator and the director of special services at the Sakowitz department store.
She came back to the Alley in 1964 as founding director Nina Vance's assistant. Then in 1968 she became Managing Director for the theater and worked with architect Ulrich Franzen on the development of the Alley's current building. Vance died in 1980 and Siff became Managing and Artistic Director for the company.
Phillips was sentenced to death for Siff's murder. He was executed in 1993. In his final statement he said: "I want to express my feelings regarding the mishap of the deceased Mrs. Iris Siff. That was a very unfortunate incident and only God knows why it was an unintentional situation that took place."
Siff's family filed a wrongful death suit against Security Guard Services, Inc. and two of its employees; the case was settled out of court in 1984. One factor in the case was the criminal background of both Phillips and Taylor.
One month after Siff's death, Texas Monthly reporter Dick Reavis came to Houston to research the hiring and training practices of security firms in the city. He applied to 11 companies using his real name, age and place of birth along with various versions of a fabricated criminal past and work history. None of them discovered his lies, even though he took several lie detector tests as part of the application process. Six of the companies cleared Reavis for hiring. His article, Scarecrow Cops, detailed the security industry's failure to screen applicants.
Insert photo of Paul Broussard courtesy of Nancy Rodriguez. Photo of 1052 W. Drew by Olivia Flores Alvarez.
Paul Broussard was a 27-year-old banker when he was attacked and killed in the Montrose area in 1991. Just after 2 a.m., Broussard and two friends were walking home after a night at a gay bar. Two vehicles drove up to the trio and one of the passengers asked for directions to a club. When the trio responded, nine teens and a 22-year-old, all from The Woodlands, exited the vehicles and attacked the men. His two friends managed to get away but Broussard was captured, beaten and stabbed.
Broussard lay injured at the site for hours. When EMS did arrive, he was able to talk and told them he wanted to be taken to St. Joseph Medical Center. Although he was badly beaten, had a broken rib and several puncture and stab wounds, the EMS staff decided his transportation was not an emergency but rather a low priority. They drove him to St. Joseph's with no lights or sirens, making what could have been an eight minute drive 40 minutes long instead. At the hospital, Broussard's treatment was further delayed and it was an hour before a doctor attended to him. He later died of internal injuries.
LGTB advocates cited homophobia and anti-gay sentiment as well as fear and misunderstanding of HIV/AIDS as factors in Broussard's medical treatment and the subsequent seemingly lackadaisical police investigation. (Queer advocate Ray Hill said the police had not even secured the site of the crime when he arrived on the scene hours later.)
The case was labeled a hate crime; the attackers admitted that they came to the heavily gay Montrose area to beat up a stranger. Gay advocates rallied and responded not only to the attack but to the delay in medical treatment Broussard received. Several large protests were organized, led by Broussard's mother, Nancy Rodriguez and LGBT advocates and politicos.
Jon Buice, the assailant who stabbed Broussard, turned himself in after prompting by family members. Eventually all of the attackers were arrested. The ten reached plea bargains and never went to trial. Five attackers received probation (two violated the terms of that probation and were sent to prison). Three others received 15-years-and-one-day prison sentences. One received 20 years (but was released after just six years) and Buice received 45 years.
Queer Nation and others deemed the sentences too lenient for the crime.
Broussard's mother was instrumental in keeping media attention and public pressure on the case through the sentencing phase and later parole hearings for each of the attackers. She was among the first family members to testify during the sentencing phase of an assailant in Texas. She successfully protested Buice's parole several times. Buice was released on parole in 2015 after serving 23 years. Ray Hill, who said he had a change of heart about Buice, was there to greet him.
Victims Advocate Andy Kahan was involved with the Paul Broussard case as well as that of Ertman-Pena. See our story HPD Investigating Victims' Crime Advocate Andy Kahan from Houston Press staff writer Craig Malisow on Kahan's alleged misconduct in the parole hearing of Broussard killer Jon Buice.
Earlier this year, Ernie Manouse produced a documentary film about the case, A Murder in Montrose: the Paul Broussard Legacy. In the film, Manouse contends that the Broussard case and the city's reaction to it led to the defeat of Mayor Kathryn Whitmire by Bob Lanier later that year. The case, among others, also led to hate crime legislation being passed in the state.
The site of Paul Broussard's death remains a parking lot for a small office building.There will soon be 65 regional currencies in operation alongside the EU's, but the financial authorities are not worried yet, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
If you live in the Bavarian region of Chiemgau, you can exist for months at a time in a euro-free zone of hills and lakes with a population of half a million people. Restaurants, bakeries, hairdressers and a network of supermarkets will accept the local currency: the Chiemgauer.
Notes are exchanged freely like legal tender. You can even use a debit card. Petrol stations are still a problem, but biofuel outlets are signing up. Dentists are next.
The Chiemgauer is one of 16 regional currencies that have sprung into existence across Germany and Austria since the launch of the euro five years ago. Another 49 regios are in the pipeline. They are outside the control of the political authorities, mostly run by activists, farmers, eco-enthusiasts, anti-globalists, and citizen committees. Some are rural, others circulate like underground money in Berlin and Bremen. Hamburg has two: the Alto and the Hansemark. Italy has its version in the Valchius Valley, in the Alps. The phenomenon, not seen since the Great Depression, has left experts scratching heads at the Bundesbank. The mighty reserve bank, which issues euro notes and coins worth €146bn for a third of the eurozone economy, is relaxed about the risk of monetary anarchy. But it is sufficiently puzzled to publish a 63-page report probing the eruption of this movement.
Entitled "Regional Currencies in Germany, Local Competition for the Euro?", it concludes that the tiny scale of this bizarre Schwundgeld - scrip, or specie - poses no threat to the orderly management of the euro system.
The rise of the regios dates exactly from the abolition of the D-Mark, replaced in turn by a stateless technocrat currency ever further removed from local life.
A pure coincidence, said Prof Gerhard Rösl, author of the Bundesbank paper. "The assumption that this springs from a general scepticism towards the euro is not valid."
Rather, the movement is a rejection of "capitalist globalism", pushed by idealists fighting to save regional cultures. The currencies are "luxury" scrip that flourish most in areas with the lowest unemployment. They offer users a "prestige gain" in their neighbourhoods, and a glow of good feeling.
School teacher Christian Gelleri launched the Chiemgauer, with the help of pupils, as an experiment in January 2003 at a rate of 1:1 against the euro.
Four years later, it spans two districts and is accepted by 550 shops, firms, and companies, including eight supermarkets and four co-operative banks. It has 40 issuing offices, and usage is expanding by 70pc a year. Monthly turnover is still a miniscule €135,000 (£88,000) - or rather C135,000.
"People have taken to it because it is a way of supporting good causes," said Mr Gelleri.
The Chiemgauer is designed to lose 2pc of its value every quarter, generating a profit for the issuing body as shops claim back the euros. Some 60pc of the profit is used for local charities, sports clubs, kindergartens and such.
Shops accepting the money take a loss of up to 5pc, akin to interchange fees paid when credit cards are used. "Merchants pay the cost, but they go along because they don't want to lose business," said Mr Gelleri.
The idea stems from the century-old writings of Silvio Gesell, a German economist who believed that interest and rent charged on capital is pernicious. He argued that usury aggravated economic downturns because the wealthy began to horde cash.
Austria's Tyrolean community of Wörgl launched a scheme based on his theories, in 1932, reputed to have slashed unemployment at the height of the Depression. It was watched by Keynes and Irving Fisher, who saw a fast-depreciating currency as a possible answer to the 1930s "liquidity trap".
"I came to the idea by studying Keynes and Fisher, but for us it is more a way to build regional strength. We're not enemies of Europe," said Mr Gelleri.
The Wörgl experiment was declared illegal by Austria's central bank when a further 200 other communities launched copycat currencies, threatening the authority of the state. Though article 35 of the Bundesbank's founding law forbids the circulation of "quasi-currencies", the experiments are being treated as a harmless eccentricity.
However, they are a remarkable expression of people power, and a subtle threat to the established order. Would they be sprouting with so much energy if the Germans still had the D-Mark in their pockets? One suspects not.Robo-droplets are now swarming together, coalescing into a "liquid that thinks," in the lab of Professor Nikolaus Correll from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
His team announced that they recently created a swarm of 20 of these tiny, ping-pong sized robots. Similar to the shape-shifting metal killers in “The Terminator II,” these basic robotic building blocks have the potential to act as teams, working together in the hundreds to achieve a specific task.
The droplets will become capable of self-assembly and “swarm-intelligent behaviors” – meaning the droplets will recognize patterns, move directed by sensors and be able to adapt their shapes.
"Every living organism is made from a swarm of collaborating cells," Correll explained, noting that there is virtually no limit to what distributed intelligence systems can create.
The team hopes that once this stage is achieved, then the swarms could also be successfully applied to working in water and air.
In 2010, the French university EPFL's Laboratory of Intelligent Systems made some breakthroughs in creating robot swarms that could fly.
The aim was to create robots that could travel in a swarm and rapidly reach victims of catastrophes in spite of difficult or impassable terrain. These robots were inspired by the grasshopper. Like the insect, they have an innovative perching mechanism, can attach to surfaces using sharp prongs and then detach on command.
Large swarms of intelligent robotic droplets could be used for a range of tasks, containing an oil spill or launching into space one by one, only to self-assemble into an essential piece of technology later.
NASA, NSF's Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research program and the U.S. Air Force have given Correll’s research support.
Ultimately, the team intends to give the droplets even more complex behaviors aggregating to assemble parts of a large space telescope or an aircraft.
Correll hopes to produce a high volume of droplets to enable creating ever more complex systems and even colonizing other planets.
Research is underway to further expand Correll’s 2009 MIT work on autonomous sensors and robotic gardeners, while a long-term space habitat is being built by students.
"Perhaps some day, our swarms will colonize space where they will assemble habitats and lush gardens for future space explorers," he said.
His ping-pong robots are not the first breakthrough in swarms designed for space exploration: In 2008, the I-SWARM project announced some progress in robot swarms intended to construct buildings on Mars.
Their robots resemble ant-sized micro-bots designed to work in a team of one hundred, reconfiguring themselves and reassemble into larger robots to complete challenging tasks.
University of Colorado Boulder has built a lab for students making available basic tools so they can contribute towards the research accelerating the college’s innovations in robotics.
Ballet dancer turned defense specialist Allison Barrie has traveled around the world covering the military, terrorism, weapons advancements and life on the front line. You can reach her at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter @Allison_Barrie.When the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works began marking its 70th birthday this year, media specialist Bob Driver dragged an old suitcase into a company director’s office. Opening it, he asked if the contents could finally be shown to the public.
Inside was a 55-year-old model of the A-3, Lockheed’s first try at blending stealth with speed—and a direct predecessor of the triple-sonic A-12 Blackbird. It had been designed by Skunk Works founder Clarence “Kelly” Johnson, and Driver had hidden it away for decades, defying periodic management directives to purge company archives.
The director he approached was Stephen Justice, who runs Advanced Systems Development at Skunk Works. “I treasure that the people here want to protect our history,” says Justice. “Bob recognized the A-3 model as being something special, and important to hold onto.”
Seventy years earlier, Kelly Johnson had stood on a desert lakebed in California and grinned as an XP-80 screamed past him on its maiden flight. Seven months before that, he had walked out of U.S. Army Air Forces General “Hap” Arnold’s office with a contract to design what became the first U.S. jet fighter to see combat. In just 215 days, 23 handpicked engineers built it in a drafty hangar so awash in the fumes from a nearby factory that wags started calling it the Skunk Works.
Justice began canvassing program managers for other artifacts and documents that could be released to honor the anniversary. The objects in this gallery had never before been seen by anyone without a security clearance.
Why so much secrecy? “It takes about one-tenth the time and one-tenth the resources to develop a countermeasure to anything that’s introduced,” Justice says. “To maintain your edge over any threat, you need to protect what your capabilities are. And sometimes you need to protect their existence.”
Today’s Skunk Works employs 3,700 employees at facilities in Palmdale, California, Marietta, Georgia, and Fort Worth, Texas. They are working on over 500 projects, from radar coatings to war games to compact fusion reactors to a Mach 6 spyplane.
Sifting through the archives revealed breathtaking technologies and capabilities. Some were too early for their time; some cost too much; some filled a need that didn’t yet exist. But everywhere, Justice says, “you see clear examples of the creativity and unbounded imaginations of the grandfathers of the Skunk Works.”PoliZette Risk of ‘Mass Exodus’ of Doctors from Medicare New law's success or failure will 'profoundly influence the future of the U.S. health care system’
In what may be the most significant modification to Medicare since the program began in 1966, on Oct. 15, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final rule for implementing the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA). It dramatically changes how Medicare pays doctors for their services.
Does it really matter how doctors get paid? Yes — the success or failure of the new payment system will profoundly influence the future of the U.S. health care system. And while the goals of MACRA are laudable, its implementation carries a number of unknowns and the potential for unintended consequences — for patients and doctors alike.
One recent survey of physicians found nearly 40 percent expect a “mass exodus” from Medicare over MACRA.
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Before MACRA, Medicare used a fee-for-service payment system, reimbursing separately for each individual service provided, without regard to the quality of the care. The new system will reward doctors for providing high-quality, efficient care that leads to better patient outcomes, and penalize those who fail to do so. At least — that’s the idea.
MACRA creates two pathways for physician payment. There’s the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS), which will pay doctors based on how they score on a number of performance metrics relative to their peers. The second pathway will reward doctors who participate in Alternative Payment Models (APMs) meant to promote high-quality, cost-efficient care by incentivizing doctors to work together toward a common purpose: improving patient outcomes while eliminating unnecessary spending.
This sounds good, but all the emphasis on better quality care comes with a trade-off. To assess the quality of care provided by doctors in the MIPS pathway, the physicians will have to report on a number of measures that many feel do nothing to help them improve the care they provide.
Doctors already devote a considerable amount of time reporting on quality measures. A recent analysis found that a typical medical practice currently spends, on average, 785.2 hours a year per physician to track and report quality measures. That’s time away from patient care, and the costs — $40,069 per physician — present a particular hardship for small, independent practices operating on narrow margins. Moreover, three-quarters of the doctors surveyed felt that the measures did nothing to help them improve their care.
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How much MACRA will add to the already considerable administrative burden on physicians remains to be seen. To its credit, CMS has made some effort to minimize the reporting requirements and has allocated funding to help small practices prepare. Still, the impact will likely be substantial.
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The ultimate — and undeniably laudable — goal of the legislation is to base physician payments on the value of the care patients receive, rather than the volume of services provided. And the Obama administration has set a rather aggressive timeline of tying half of all Medicare payments to value through APMs by 2018.
But a cloud lingers over that optimistic horizon: APMs have yet to fulfill their promise.
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), the best known type of APM, accept responsibility for the total costs of care for their patients. If the providers in an ACO can reduce health care spending below an established benchmark, while maintaining quality of care, they can share in the savings. If spending is above the benchmark, they are on the hook for the excess. But after four years, ACOs still haven’t generated the savings that many had hoped for.
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This is cause for real concern. If faced with increased reporting and administrative burdens, declining reimbursements and new payment arrangements that put their income at risk, many doctors — especially independent practitioners — may feel that they simply can’t afford to participate in Medicare any more. One recent survey of physicians found nearly 40-percent expect a “mass exodus” from Medicare over MACRA. Given the predicted shortage of doctors over the next decade and an aging population, this would be disastrous.
MACRA’s goal — to create a payment system that promotes better quality of care for patients and spends taxpayer money wisely — is sound. However, the necessary infrastructure to achieve that goal — meaningful quality measures and viable APMs — is not yet in place.
If MACRA is implemented according to the arbitrary timeline set by the administration, it could force doctors to abandon private practice for salaried positions or leave practice altogether — neither of which would be good for patient care. So, yes, we all should care how doctors get paid.
John S. O’Shea, M.D., is a practicing surgeon and a senior fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Health Policy Studies.104 SHARES Share Tweet
Scott Crossfield and the XLR-99 Rocket Engine Explosion
Scott Crossfield was optimistic. After months of setbacks, the XLR-99 rocket engine was performing perfectly. The numerous delays had held up the development of the North American X-15.
It was the most ambitious rocket engine that North American Aviation had ever built. With an unbelievable thrust of 57,000 pounds, it would make the new plane the fastest manned vehicle in history. Crossfield was completing the last of a series of pre-flight checks; the first big flight was scheduled for the next day.
Cutting the throttle, Crossfield reported there were no malfunctions. Suddenly an immense force slammed him back into his seat. A colossal boom tore through the cockpit as a bright light stabbed into his eyes. The engine had exploded.
To the observers in the field, there was no way to know if Crossfield was still alive. The entire craft was obscured by an immense ball of fire that blazed like the sun. This is because when ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen burn together, the flame is incredibly strong. The heat is unbearable; the light is so intense it’s impossible to look at it without risking injury.
Amazingly, Crossfield was still alive. The X-15’s solid steel frame and fuselage were designed to withstand the punishing rigors of space flight. The front section of the craft had survived the detonation and was keeping the pilot alive. With a sense of calm born from necessity, Crossfield knew his only chance of survival was to stay put and wait for rescue. Opening the canopy would mean certain death.
Within moments, the fire team was on the scene. They doused the craft with torrents of water from an airforce fuel truck, as a single mechanic struggled to open the cockpit. The glowing metal seared his hands as he tried to open the fuselage. The pain was so intense he couldn’t control his reflex to let go. Somehow, he got the cockpit open.
Unwilling to crawl across the searing fuselage, Scott Crossfield instead jumped to the ground, taking the mechanic with him. Together they fled the flames – amazingly, neither of them were seriously injured. The burns on the mechanics hands were minor – his reflexes had saved him from losing his skin.
This hadn’t been the first time Crossfield had survived an engine explosion in the X-15. In one of the earlier test flights, the engine of his plane exploded shortly after landing. He had a moment’s notice when a “fire warning” light flashed. Then a massive jar shook the craft. Alive and intact, Crossfield was shocked to see the explosion had torn apart the fuselage.
Although he took tremendous risks with each flight, Scott Crossfield was no daredevil thrill seeker. True, he was a test pilot flying the fastest planes built to date. But he was also a coldly analytical engineer. His job was to make the X-15 safe for other pilots to fly. To that end, he dedicated his expertise and training.
As an engineer, he performed endless calculations and ran exhaustive simulations. He had a hand in every aspect of the plane’s design and construction.
In the history of aviation, there have been many great pilots and engineers. But there are few who could claim to be both.
Scott Crossfield’s Path to Becoming a Pilot
Crossfield’s experience as a pilot started when he enrolled in the Navy at the second world war. The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor had left the fleet in tatters, and America desperately needed able pilots. So Crossfield was rushed into training. He began his primary training in Seattle and completed it shortly afterward at the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station.
As a student pilot, he’d demonstrated a natural talent for flight. So as soon as he graduated, he was posted to flight and gunnery training officer. He spent most of the next few months in the air, training new airmen. Later, he joined Air Group 51 as their Engineering Officer. They were assigned to the carrier Langley, operating out of Hawaii. They were training for dive bombing missions as part of the planned invasion of Japan.
When Japan surrendered following the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, those plans were scrapped. In 1946, Crossfield returned to complete his studies at the University of Washington. He would spend the next four years there completing his aeronautical engineering degrees. He worked in the Kirsten Wind Tunnel, and there, he tested a variety of aircraft and refined their designs.
He had a rare combination of aeronautical engineering training and practical flight experience. This combination meant he was perfectly suited to his next role.
Scott Crossfield Takes on the Roles of Engineer and Test Pilot
I am an aeronautical engineer, an aerodynamicist and a designer. My flying was only primarily because I felt that it was essential to designing and building better airplanes for pilots to fly. -Scott Crossfield
In 1950, he joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of today’s NASA. While there, he worked as an aeronautical research pilot. The space race between the US and Russia meant that his work was critical.
Flying out of the Edwards Air Force Base, Scott Crossfield quickly gained more experience with rocket planes than any other pilot in the world. The outbreak of the Korean War had left him in charge of all the test programs running at Edwards. Never one to back down from a challenge, Crossfield put a large number of test planes through their paces.
In such a dangerous line of work, it shouldn’t be too surprising that he had a number of close scrapes. The first time he took the Northrop Bantam Skylancer up, the engines cut out at the top of a loop. Nonetheless, he made a perfect dead-stick landing. Walking away from the experience unharmed, he was keen for the next challenge.
Just a few weeks later, he ran into trouble while flying the Douglas Skyrocket. This time, the engines cut out and the windshield iced over. With almost zero visibility, he was able to clear a small section of the windscreen with his sock. He followed the two chase planes down to safety.
1953 was a historic year forCrossfield, as he became the first man to travel at twice the speed of sound. When he took his Skyrocket to 1,291 mph, he became the fastest human in history. It was a speed record he would break in the X-15, reaching Mach 3.
During his time at Edwards, Scott would fly almost all the early X-series planes. With 99 rocket plane flights behind him, he was the perfect candidate for the X-15 program.
Scott Crossfield and the X-15 Rocket
But joining the program would mean leaving NACA and joining North American Aviation, the company tasked with building the world’s fastest aircraft. Starting as a design specialist, Crossfield played a role in designing many of the X-15’s systems, including a large role in the design of the X-15’s controls and its pressure suit system.
I am given a lot more credit and notoriety for the X-15 than I really deserve. The X-15 was a natural extension of the research airplane program in our quest for higher productivity, higher speeds and know-how to get into space. In fact, the X-15, as we saw it, was a prelude to going into space. -Scott Crossfield
The aim of the X-15 was to push every boundary. It had to fly faster and higher than any manned craft had done. The purpose was to gather data – data that would be used to design high-performance aircraft and spacecraft. It was intended to be a stepping stone towards a new generation of craft. And that meant climbing to unreached heights.
Unlike conventional aircraft, the X-15 had to be able to maneuver in space. Control surfaces only work within the atmosphere – in a vacuum, they would be entirely useless.
The solution was reaction controls. These were small rocket thrusters mounted around the plane to steer it. With 2 different steering systems, the controls were more complex than an airplane. Simplifying the controls was a major challenge, but it was essential.
But Crossfield’s contributions were not limited to engineering and design. He was also the first to fly the new plane. His role was to prove the plane was safe for the pilots who would follow him. The testing regime was extremely methodical. Every variable was isolated and examined to refine and perfect the design.
As rocket engines burn their fuel extremely quickly, they must be able to land safely without power. This also means they can’t take off without assistance. To reach its operational altitude of 8.5 miles, the X-15 required the help of a B-52. When attached to its mother ship, it looked like an oversized missile.
To prove the design was safe, the X-15’s first flight was to be made without fuel. But on the first attempt, multiple failures forced Scott to abort for an emergency landing. The windshield iced over, and an auxiliary power unit overheated. The cockpit was flooded with smoke, and visibility was reduced to zero.
The second attempt was much more successful. Scott glided the plane to a safe landing, proving it handled well. The first major hurdle had been overcome. There would be many more before the X-15 was ready. With meticulous planning and careful execution, all of them were overcome.
Crossfield would make the first powered flight of the X-15 on September 17, 1959. Since the X-15’s rocket engines hadn’t been completed, the flight was made using the much weaker XLR-11 engines. But although these engines were weaker than the XLR-99, they still demanded respect.
On his third powered flight, one of the engines exploded in mid-air. Scott was able to nurse his plane back to the ground, but the extreme forces broke its back just behind the cockpit. Crossfield escaped unharmed, and the plane was repaired and returned to service.
On November 15, 1960, Scott made the first flight with the completed XLR-99 engines. During this flight, he would set a new speed record, taking the X-15 to Mach 3. He would earn him the International Harmon Trophy as the world’s outstanding aviator. The award was presented by President Kennedy.
Scott would fly the X-15 two more times before handing it over to the NACA.
Having completed the construction of the plane to spec, North American Aviation’s role was finished. Now test pilots like Neil Armstrong and William J. Knight would push the X-15 to its limits. They would leave the atmosphere and setting the unbroken speed record of Mach 6.72.
Scott Crossfield’s Continued Contributions
Crossfield never flew into space. But his contributions to space flight were far from over. Following the success of the X-15 project, North America Aviation promoted him. He became the new Director of Space and Missile System Testing.
From this position, Scott was responsible for several projects. This included the test and launch procedures for the Saturn booster rocket. He would also work on the Apollo command and service module.
In 1967, Scott moved from North American Aviation to take a Vice President position at Eastern Airlines, the airline Eddie Rickenbacker |
with lots of nudity,etc. =)”
Kidd was bothered by the messages, but she was soon accepted into Rochester’s program, with the understanding that she would split her time between Aslin’s and Jaeger’s labs. So she continued to talk to Jaeger on Facebook, trying to stay on his good side, changing the subject when the tone of his messages turned sexual. “send me your manuscript when it’s ready to take the world in storm,” he wrote to her a few weeks later. “you could read it to me in rachacha [Rochester], while i lie lazily on the couch (you have to pace around occasionally in front of the fire place for the more agited parts if there are any). what a service.”
“He was somebody who was in the field who I didn’t want to upset,” she explains now. “I wasn’t sure what was normal and what wasn’t. The idea that this kind of thing was common was totally believable.”
That spring was the start of Kidd’s decadelong effort—as a doctoral student and, later, as a junior faculty member—first to appease Jaeger, then to isolate herself from his influence, and finally to hold him responsible for years of sexual harassment in UR’s cognitive and brain sciences department, according an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint filed last week.
“Oftentimes you go to an institution, and everyone knows who the serial sexual harasser is, but none of them will say anything.”
Seven current and former professors, including Kidd and Aslin, as well as another former graduate student, have submitted identical EEOC complaints claiming that Jaeger, the University of Rochester, and several administrators violated laws that ban discrimination in the workplace and in federally funded education, and stating their intent to sue if the EEOC does not take up their case. The charges, laid out in a detailed 111-page document, allege that over a span of 10 years Jaeger contributed to a “hostile environment” for some graduate students, postdocs, and professors in the department, causing at least 11 women to actively avoid him and lose out on educational opportunities.
When Aslin and a colleague, Jessica Cantlon, complained to the university about Jaeger’s behavior last year, UR investigated and ultimately cleared him of violations of its harassment and discrimination policy. Yet the EEOC complainants dispute the investigation’s conclusions and say the university has since retaliated against the professors involved.
“The administration has inexplicably failed to defend its most vulnerable citizens—its students—and put future students at risk by failing to act appropriately on their behalf; and it has retaliated against the faculty members whose only motive was to defend these students,” Aslin and Elissa Newport, the former chair of the brain and cognitive sciences department, wrote in a letter delivered to members of the UR Board of Trustees. “The present situation must be viewed as a colossal failure of UR leadership at all levels.”
In a statement, UR spokeswoman Sara Miller said the university had already thoroughly investigated the allegations contained in the EEOC complaint and could not substantiate them. “We are highly confident in the integrity of these investigations—we followed our processes for fair investigations and due process for all involved, interviewing dozens of witnesses whose names were given to us as alleged victims,” Miller said. “No violation of the law or University policy was found.”
Experiences like those that Kidd allege are not uncommon for women in academia, especially those working STEM fields, says Janet Bandows Koster, CEO and executive director of the Association for Women in Science, a professional organization. In a 2015 survey of female scientists, 35 percent of respondents said they had experienced some form of sexual harassment. A separate survey found that among female scientists working in field programs, that number rises to 71 percent.
For women of color, the problem is especially severe, according to research released this summer. In that survey, led by STEM sexual harassment expert Kathryn Clancy, 40 percent of women of color in astronomy reported feeling unsafe in their workplaces because of their sex or gender. Meanwhile, over at BuzzFeed News, reporter Azeen Ghorayshi has been documenting cases of prominent academics who, unlike Jaeger, were found guilty of sexual misconduct by their universities: astronomer Geoff Marcy, Ebola expert Michael Katze, and California Institute of Technology astrophysicist Christian Ott, among others.
Bandows Koster says rates of sexual harassment remain as high as they do because of the rigid hierarchy in university science departments, which requires students to maintain long-term relationships with powerful professors and causes them to fear retaliation. “Who you study with, whose lab you’re in, could make or break your career,” she explains. “Oftentimes you go to an institution, and everyone knows who the serial sexual harasser is, but none of them will say anything.”
In 2007, as Kidd, still an undergraduate, was trying to navigate her relationship with Jaeger, she consulted her mentors and listened when they warned her that there could be exploitative professors at any Ph.D. program she chose. Her undergraduate adviser “convinced me that these things are common and maybe not avoidable,” she says. “The idea was that if it hadn’t been Rochester, it might have been somewhere else.”
“I desperately wanted to show them how capable I was as a scientist.”
She entered the UR later that year. According to the EEOC complaint, as Kidd started her research there, Jaeger began pressuring her to rent a spare room in his apartment. Despite her misgivings, she felt like she couldn’t say no. She ended up living there for a year.
The complaint alleges that Jaeger questioned her repeatedly about her sexual history; asked her to set up dates for him; entered her room without knocking; went through her belongings; showed up where she was socializing; and chastised her for eating, warning her against “spoiling her physique.”
“I was so mentally distraught for that year,” Kidd remembers. One night, sick of feeling like she was under surveillance in her rented room, Kidd sneaked into Aslin’s locked lab. “It was cold, and there was no ability to adjust the temperature, and there was no blanket,” she remembers. She spent the night curled up on a too-small couch, crying, questioning why she had come to Rochester at all. But she felt safer in the lab than she felt in Jaeger’s apartment, and she kept returning, moving her toothbrush and a change of clothes to the office and showering at the university’s gym.
In 2008, convinced that she had wasted a year of her Ph.D. worrying about Jaeger, Kidd made arrangements to move out of the apartment and shift her academic focus, scrapping a year’s worth of work she had completed on two projects. Then she told him she was moving out and leaving his lab.
But for years afterward, Kidd says she was afraid to report her experiences to university authorities or senior faculty in her department—especially because she believed they knew and didn’t care about Jaeger’s behavior. “I wanted a tenure-track position,” she says. “I wanted to run my own lab. I desperately wanted to show them how capable I was as a scientist. I didn’t want to risk everything I put on the line, up to that point, by being any more aggressive with my complaining.”
According to the EEOC complaint, it wasn’t just Kidd: After Jaeger, who did not respond to a request for comment, began teaching at UR in 2007, he became involved in the graduate student social scene and used his position to blur professional and personal lines. He attended weekly student gatherings at a local bar, hosted parties at his house, and planned “lab retreats” in the Adirondacks that allegedly involved hot tubs, drugs, and, once, an accidental overdose, according to the EEOC filing. The complaint claims he became known for using objectifying language about women, flaunting his sexual relationships, and bullying graduate students and postdocs. “He made it clear that students who wanted to excel needed to please him, socially and sometimes sexually,” the complaint alleges, detailing the cases of multiple female students who allegedly avoided taking classes or working on research with Jaeger because they did not want to become targets.
As far as the professors involved in the EEOC complaint are aware, the first formal report filed at UR about Jaeger’s behavior came in 2013, when a Ph.D. student approached Greg DeAngelis, the chair of the brain and cognitive sciences department, to report that several women in the department, including Kidd, had endured “toxic experiences” with Jaeger. Yet, according to the complaint, DeAngelis found that Jaeger had not broken the university’s rules about “harassment.” Jaeger received tenure the following year.
In 2016, Kidd—who had been hired as an assistant professor in 2012—and her colleague Jessica Cantlon approached Aslin with allegations about their own experiences with Jaeger. After conferring with a group of junior faculty concerned about Jaeger, Aslin—the highest-prestige professor of the group, who had formerly served as a UR vice provost and dean—and Cantlon reported the allegations to university administrators.
“If they’re trying to protect a perp, they’re doing a really good job of it.”
The investigation into Jaeger’s behavior took about three months. In her final report, UR investigator Catherine Nearpass concluded that Jaeger had had a sexual relationship with at least one graduate student in the department, as well as a prospective Ph.D. student; that parts of his behavior were inappropriate; and that he “liked to push boundaries with students,” the EEOC complaint alleges. Still, the university ultimately found that Jaeger had not violated the university’s policy against discrimination and harassment, and that there was not enough evidence to conclude he sexually harassed Kidd or any other student in his lab. An appeal was unsuccessful.
Since Nearpass’ final report was issued, the UR professors have alleged not only that the investigative process and its conclusions were flawed, but also that the university and some of its employees have embarked on a “retaliation campaign” against them. In one case, according to their EEOC complaint, department chair DeAngelis announced at a faculty meeting that he had evidence of “manipulation and deception” by faculty members and the “smearing” of Jaeger, thus poisoning the reputations of Aslin, Cantlon, Kidd, and their collaborators. (The complaint notes he later apologized for these comments). The professors also allege that DeAngelis allowed Jaeger to participate in Kidd’s performance review this spring, tried to increase Cantlon’s teaching load to “repay” past maternity leaves, and deviated from normal hiring practices to encourage another involved professor, Ben Hayden, to leave the university. DeAngelis did not respond to a request for comment.
UR believes that the complaints against Jaeger are “largely based on hearsay” and ignore factual evidence, Miller says. “We would be fully prepared to respond to these allegations in a court of law,” she added.
With their EEOC filing, Aslin, Cantlon, Kidd, and the others are pushing the university to revamp its system for investigating sexual harassment complaints, according to the letter to the UR Board of Trustees. “The people that bring these complaints, I now know, have systematically been attacked,” Kidd says. “That’s a whole new level of betrayal.”
“I just don’t understand what the game here is,” Aslin says. “If they’re trying to protect a perp, they’re doing a really good job of it.”
In December, Aslin resigned in protest after more than 30 years of teaching at Rochester. Kidd is seeking to move her lab. Meanwhile, Jaeger remains a full professor, having been promoted in the middle of the investigation last year. He is teaching an undergraduate course this semester.Former President Bill Clinton William (Bill) Jefferson ClintonKasich fundraises off 2020 speculation Inviting Kim Jong Un to Washington Howard Schultz must run as a Democrat for chance in 2020 MORE on Friday ripped Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersSenate Dems seek to turn tables on GOP in climate change fight Bernie Sanders Town Hall finishes third in cable news race, draws 1.4 million viewers Woman to undecided Biden: 'Just say yes' to 2020 bid MORE for his “sneering reference” in Thursday night's debate about Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonREAD: Cohen testimony alleges Trump knew Stone talked with WikiLeaks about DNC emails County GOP in Minnesota shares image comparing Sanders to Hitler Holder: 'Time to make the Electoral College a vestige of the past' MORE’s landslide victories in the South.
“Oh it's just the South. We know how conservative they are,” Clinton said in a mocking tone.
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“Well excuse me, but Democrats need to win Florida and North Carolina not only to get elected, but they are states of the future — highly diverse. And she won a big victory there.”
Bill Clinton’s comments at an event in the Bronx shows Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign intends to use the Sanders comments against him.
Clinton’s wins in the South were built predominantly on support from African-Americans, who are also an influential constituency in New York’s primary on Tuesday.
Bill Clinton also took several jabs at GOP presidential front-runner 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.
The former president celebrated the diversity at the campaign rally and condemned Trump's plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“You could put up all the walls you want in America,” Clinton said. “We’d still be in an interdependent world because of social media.
“There’s no place for us to hide. And this is the model of the future that I want for the young people not just in the United States but all over the world,” he added.
Clinton indirectly referenced the GOP front-runner's proposal to monitor Muslim neighborhoods.
“No one who walked through that door today was asked to check your faith at the door, check your race at the door, and check your politics at the door,” Clinton said. “Everywhere in the world people are working together for inclusive economic opportunities, inclusive social policies, which is a fancy way of saying we love our differences.”
Clinton went on to knock Trump's call for mass deportation and highlighted the need for immigration reform.
“The suggestion by the leading candidate on the other side that he’s going to send everybody home is not only unethical, it’s the dumbest economic idea I’ve ever heard in my life,” Clinton said.500 Startups has announced the close of its fund for Japan, more than 18 months after it was first unveiled. The effort is backed by the Japanese government, which has chipped in as an LP via its Cool Japan Fund. (Yes, that really is the name of the fund, which is aiming to use about $1 billion in public money over its lifecycle.)
Initially U.S.-based 500 Startups targeted a $30 million close, but it has reached a total of $35 million thanks to strong interest from investment partners, so says James Riney, its Japan-based partner who runs the fund. CJF, as the government fund is known, is committing $10 million, but beyond a large check it adds gravitas, too.
“[Cool Japan’s involvement] is symbolic in a way because there been a lot of top down influence in the startup ecosystem in Japan,” Riney told TechCrunch in an interview. “As an outsider coming in, having the government’s investment is a validation.”
In particular, Riney said that 500 Startups will work with CJF to open up opportunities for its portfolio companies further down the line: that chiefly means funding.
“We’ll be sourcing and supporting startups at the seed stage, and inviting CJF to look at later $10 million-$20 millions rounds to give startups the firing power to expand,” Riney said.
“CJF has capital to invest outside of Japan but doesn’t necessary have the network. We’ve been extremely aggressive expanding outside of the U.S.,” he added. “No matter where they want to expand to, we have someone locally who is well connected to help them hit the ground running.”
Other investors in the fund include camera-maker Nikon, Mizuho Bank, Mitsubishi Estate and Japanese social network Mixi.
The 500 Startups Japan fund is looking to co-invest in early-stage deals, offering $100,000-$500,000 checks per round. In some cases, it may stretch to $1 million, Riney said, while around half of the total fund is allocated to follow-on investments. Over the past year, the fund has done 21 deals, and that’s a pace that it is expected to continue with now that the fund is fully closed.
The 500 Startups Japan team
While CPF’s involvement is particularly strategic — and headline-worthy — 500 Startups doesn’t need much help finding partners who operate at later stage investment phases. The U.S. firm has struck up relationships worldwide after making investments in more than 1,500 startups across 60 countries, while, operationally, it has people on the ground in 20 countries.
LPs in its central fund include corporates in places like East Asia and the Middle East, and its sprawling collection of micro-funds for specific makets is too numerous to detail in full. In Asia they include 500 Durians in Southeast Asia, 500 Tuktuks in Thailand, 500 Kimchi in Korea and a less-catchy-named investment vehicle in Vietnam. Riney, for what it’s worth, said he chose ‘500 Startups Japan’ as a more conservative fund name to adhere to Japanese business culture and avoid alienating potential investors.
Despite a nod to the nation’s conservatism, Riney said that startups are beginning to break out in Japan. Our sister site in Japan reported that startup investment in the country’s surpassed JPY 200 billion (around $2 billion) for the first time last year. Riney believes that the ambition to take risk is also changing the mindset of founders and investors, who in the past would push for an exit via IPO as a risk-averse way to ensure a return on investment.
“Historically if you wanted to do a $20 million-$30 million round you didn’t have options and had to do IPO,” he explained. “Now we’re seeing many more later rounds, more companies choosing to stay private and raise a lot more capital so that they can aim for growth — investors are starting to feel more comfortable, too.”
“The Japanese government has gotten more involved in supporting and it has really shown in the investment outlay,” Riney added.
With relatively few investors, and fewer still with links outside of Japan, 500 Startups has a unique position that will likely help it secure significant deal flow. The investment focus is vertical agnostic, Riney said, but he’s keen on industries such as bioinformatics, space, logistics and other areas that have been disrupted globally but not touched on by startups in Japan yet.
“We’re particularly bullish on legacy industries that have been very consumer facing,” he said.
Riney is assisted by a team of five in Japan, which includes former investment banker Yohei Sawayama who serves as the fund’s second partner.Japanese honey bees have a unique defensive trait against the enormous — and sting-proof — giant hornet. They form a ‘‘hot defensive bee ball'', enveloping and overheating the insect, and now a Japanese research team has looked into what happens in their brains when they do so.
That defensive bee ball is probably the strangest method of animal defense you'll hear about today. A cluster of around 500 Japanese honey bees will first pile on the attacking hornet. The bees then vibrate their flight muscles to produce heat, reaching 47°C, a temperature deadly to the hornet, but not the bees.
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Within 30 to 60 minutes, the hornet (and potentially a small number of bees) have perished, but the hive as a whole survives. The European honey bee has none of these defenses, and when those bees are attacked in Japan, their hives are often destroyed.
So, what goes on neurologically when these bees form this ball of death? The researchers extracted insects from a hot defensive bee ball and analyzed their brains. What they found was a marker gene not present in the insect's European cousin. When in the ball, they have different neural activity to that usually seen in bees — but unlike say, locusts, their brain isn't activating specially for the ball. This same neural activity is seen in Japanese honey bees when exposed to higher temperatures, but not in the defensive ball.
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The researchers theorize that this is actually their way of monitoring how hot things get as they try and stop the wasps — because only a couple of degrees hotter, and it's enough to kill the bees, too. Which means Apis cerana japonica needs to be careful to increase the temperature enough to kill the attacker, but not its comrades.
Image by Takahashi on Wikipedia. Video via PopSci.1979 studio album by Wings
Back to the Egg is the seventh and final studio album by the British-American band Wings, released in 1979 on Columbia Records in America, and on Parlophone in the UK. Co-produced by Chris Thomas, the album reflects band leader Paul McCartney's embracing of contemporary musical trends such as new wave and punk, and marked the arrival of new Wings members Laurence Juber and Steve Holley. Back to the Egg adopts a loose conceptual theme around the idea of a working band, and its creation coincided with a period of considerable activity for the group, which included making a return to touring and work on several television and film projects.
Recording for the album began in June 1978 and lasted for almost a year. The sessions took place at Spirit of Ranachan Studios in Scotland, Lympne Castle in Kent, London's Abbey Road Studios, and Replica Studio – the last of which McCartney built as an exact replica of Abbey Road's Studio Two when the latter became unavailable. Wings returned to Abbey Road in March 1979 to complete the album, before filming a series of promotional videos in Lympne and elsewhere, for what became the Back to the Egg TV special.
Back to the Egg received unfavourable reviews from the majority of critics, with Rolling Stone magazine deriding it as "the sorriest grab bag of dreck in recent memory".[1] Although the album charted in the top ten around the world and was certified platinum in the United States, it was viewed as a commercial failure relative to previous Wings releases, particularly in light of the generous financial terms under which McCartney had signed with CBS-owned Columbia Records. Of its singles – "Old Siam, Sir", "Getting Closer" and "Arrow Through Me" – only "Getting Closer" made the top 20 in Britain or America. The song "Rockestra Theme", recorded with a cast of guest musicians from bands such as the Who, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1980.
Wings toured the UK in support of the album, but the planned world tour ended in January 1980, when McCartney was arrested in Japan for possession of marijuana. The group disbanded early the following year. Back to the Egg was reissued in 1993, with bonus tracks, and in 2007 for iTunes, with the addition of Wings' 1979 non-album single "Goodnight Tonight", in its extended form.
Background [ edit ]
Following the release of the album London Town (1978), Wings band leader Paul McCartney hired two session musicians, drummer Steve Holley and lead guitarist Laurence Juber, to replace former members Joe English and Jimmy McCulloch.[2] With the new line-up – Wings' sixth since its formation in 1971[3] – McCartney intended to record a raw rock and roll album and return to touring, for the band's first concerts since their successful Wings Over the World tour of 1975–76.[4] In addition, McCartney hoped to realise his longstanding plan of making a film adaptation of the Rupert the Bear cartoon series,[5] for which he owned the commercial rights,[6] and commissioned English playwright Willy Russell to write a feature film starring Wings.[7][nb 1]
Both Holley and Juber were recruited by Wings co-founder and guitarist Denny Laine,[13] who had appeared as a guest on The David Essex Show in 1977 when Juber was working as a guitarist in the house band.[14] Holley, a neighbour of Laine's, joined Wings in time to appear in the promotional video for London Town's lead single, "With a Little Luck",[15] having turned down a position with Elton John's band.[16] According to Wings biographer Garry McGee, Juber and Holley each received a weekly sum equating to less than one-fifth of that paid to McCartney, his wife Linda (the band's keyboard player) and Laine.[15]
For the new album, Back to the Egg, McCartney decided to collaborate in the studio with producer Chris Thomas,[17] with whom he had begun working on the audio for two films documenting Wings' last world tour: Wings Over the World, a television documentary,[18] and the cinema release Rockshow (1980).[19] Thomas's involvement would mark the first time that Wings had recorded with an outside producer since their 1973 single "Live and Let Die", which George Martin had produced.[20] Due to his recent work with the Pretenders and the Sex Pistols, Thomas brought a punk rock and new wave influence to Wings' sound,[21][22] matching McCartney's desire to reflect contemporary musical trends.[23][24]
Songs [ edit ]
Back to the Egg was influenced just as what I had wanted to do at the time, the direction I felt I hadn't been in for a while...[25] The New Wave thing was happening and... I sort of realized, "Well, so what's wrong with us doing an uptempo [album]?"...was influenced just as what I had wanted to do at the time, the direction I felt I hadn't been in for a while... – Paul McCartney, on his musical influences while making the album
Although London Town had featured a significant level of contribution from Laine as a songwriter,[17][26] all but one of the songs on Back to the Egg are credited to McCartney alone.[27] The album was originally planned around a loose conceptual theme,[28] about which authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter write in their book Eight Arms to Hold You: "The idea was to have a theme of a working band, getting back on the road... or 'back to the egg' (or protective shell) of touring."[23] In the original LP format, the two album sides were labelled with the egg-related titles "Sunny Side Up" and "Over Easy".[29]
"Sunny Side Up" [ edit ]
The album's opening song is "Reception", an instrumental, in which McCartney attempted to capture the effect of turning a radio dial and finding "about four stations at once".[30] The track features a guitar-controlled synthesizer (played by Juber) over a funk-inspired bassline, and spoken voices, including a reading of part of "The Poodle and the Pug", from Vivian Ellis's opera Big Ben (1946).[31] A brief segment from the track "The Broadcast", which appears later on Back to the Egg, is previewed in this opening piece.[30] The next three songs – "Getting Closer", "We're Open Tonight" and "Spin It On" – adhere to the proposed album-wide concept.[23] Writing in Melody Maker in June 1979, Mark Williams interpreted "Reception" as representing a radio being tuned in a car, whereby "the occupant is on his way to a gig, hence 'Getting Closer' [to the venue] and, upon arrival, 'We're Open Tonight'".[32] The notion of live performance is then reflected in the sequencing of what Madinger and Easter term "heavier rock tracks such as 'Spin It On'".[23]
Back to the Egg The Sex Pistols (pictured in concert in 1977), part of the punk and new-wave phenomenon that inspired some songs upon
McCartney had recorded a piano demo for "Getting Closer" in 1974, at which point the song had a slower tempo.[33] Author and Mojo contributor Tom Doyle describes Wings' version as "power-popping" and reminiscent of the English band Squeeze.[34] The mellow "We're Open Tonight" was written at the McCartneys' farm in Campbeltown, Scotland, and was the album's title track until Linda suggested Back to the Egg.[35]
Another song composed in Scotland,[36] the fast-tempo[32] "Spin It On" was an obvious acknowledgment of punk and new wave;[37] author Vincent Benitez terms it "McCartney-esque whimsy on punk steroids".[27] Laine's composition "Again and Again and Again" similarly has "echoes of the Clash", according to McCartney biographer Howard Sounes.[37] This song was originally two separate pieces, which Laine combined on McCartney's recommendation.[36]
Although credited to McCartney alone, "Old Siam, Sir" marked "the most collective band involvement" as regards songwriting, Madinger and Easter suggest.[36] Similar in style to "Spin It On", the song features a keyboard riff written by Linda[36] and a Holly-composed middle eight;[38] in addition, Laine helped McCartney complete the composition,[27] an early version of which the previous incarnation of Wings had demoed in July 1976.[39][nb 2] "Arrow Through Me", a track more in keeping with McCartney's melodic pop style,[41] is a song written from the perspective of a rejected lover.[42] With a musical arrangement that eschews guitar backing for synthesizer, Fender Rhodes piano and horns, Benitez views it as "reminiscent of the techno-pop style of Stevie Wonder".[27]
Opening side two, "Rockestra Theme" was a composition that McCartney had first recorded in 1974, on the same piano demo tape as "Getting Closer".[43] "Rockestra Theme" is an instrumental – except for the shouted line "Why haven't I had any dinner?", which author Robert Rodriguez describes as a "deliberate evocation" of Glenn Miller's 1940 single "Pennsylvania 6-5000".[24] Another rock track,[44] "To You" includes a lyric aimed at a lover who has wronged the singer.[45] The guitar solo on the recording provides an unusual aspect for a Wings song,[44] in that Juber played the part through an Eventide harmonizer while McCartney simultaneously altered the harmonizer's settings from the studio's control room.[46]
McCartney deemed the two gospel-influenced pieces making up "After the Ball/Million Miles" as being of insufficient quality to merit inclusion as separate tracks;[47] "After the Ball" ends with a guitar solo,[47] edited from parts played by McCartney, Laine and Juber, after which "Million Miles" consists of a performance by McCartney alone, on concertina.[48] This is followed by another medley, "Winter Rose/Love Awake", both portions of which McCartney had demoed at Rude Studio, his home studio at Campbeltown, in 1977.[49][nb 3]
"The Broadcast" is another instrumental,[51] designed to give the impression of several radio signals interlaced, and bringing full-circle the concept established in the album's opening track, "Reception".[48] Over a musical backing of piano, mellotron and gizmotron,[48] it features readings taken from the plays The Sport of Kings by Ian Hay and The Little Man by John Galsworthy.[52] As a return to the proposed working-band concept, "So Glad to See You Here", Rodriguez writes, "[evokes] the anticipation of a live act guaranteed to 'knock 'em dead'" and so recalls Wings' 1975–76 show-opening medley "Venus and Mars/Rock Show".[53] During the outro, the band reprise a line from "We're Open Tonight".[45] The album ends with a jazz-inflected[37] ballad, "Baby's Request", which McCartney wrote for American vocal group the Mills Brothers, after seeing them perform in the South of France during the summer of 1978.[48]
Production [ edit ]
The band first rehearsed material for Back to the Egg in London, at the offices of McCartney's company MPL Communications in Soho Square, before carrying out further rehearsals in Scotland, in June 1978.[23] As on his other Wings recordings over 1978–79, Thomas worked with Phil McDonald as his recording engineer, at McCartney's insistence, rather than Bill Price, who was the producer's preferred engineer.[54][nb 4]
Recording and overdubbing [ edit ]
June–July 1978: Spirit of Ranachan Studios [ edit ]
The recording sessions for Back to the Egg began on 29 June 1978 at Spirit of Ranachan Studios[56] – another, larger recording facility on the McCartneys' Campbeltown farm – using equipment loaned from Mickie Most's RAK Studio in London.[57] The basic tracks were recorded with a spontaneity that had been absent in Wings' past work,[35] employing an approach that Juber has described as a "back-to-basics, garage band kind of feel".[21]
Sessions at Spirit of Ranachan lasted until 27 July, during which the band taped and added overdubs to "Arrow Through Me", "Again and Again and Again", "To You", "Winter Rose", "Old Siam, Sir" and "Spin It On".[23] Basic tracks were also completed for "Cage", a song that remained in the proposed running order for the album until early in 1979, "Crawl of the Wild", "Weep for Love", "Ballroom Dancing" and "Maisie".[56] These last three compositions would all appear on solo albums by members of Wings between 1980 and 1982.[58][nb 5]
In addition, the band filmed a promotional video for the London Town single "I've Had Enough" while in Scotland[38][61] and, in early July, recorded demos of twelve pieces intended for the Rupert the Bear film soundtrack.[18] In the case of the latter activity, none of these compositions were revisited for what became Rupert and the Frog Song (1984).[62][nb 6]
September 1978: Lympne Castle [ edit ]
After a break to allow for school summer holidays,[64] recording recommenced on 11 September at Lympne Castle in Kent, using the RAK mobile recording equipment, as before.[23] The choice of location was partly due to the castle's proximity to the McCartneys' property "Waterfall", in Peasmarsh, East Sussex.[65][66] During sessions lasting through to 29 September,[67] the band recorded "We're Open Tonight", "Love Awake", "After the Ball", "Million Miles", "Reception" and "The Broadcast".[23]
Recording took place mainly in the castle's great hall, with Holly's drum kit positioned in the fireplace.[23] McCartney and Juber taped their acoustic guitar parts for "We're Open Tonight" in a stairwell.[36] Excerpted from books found in the library, the readings for "Reception" and "The Broadcast" were overdubbed in the kitchen and performed by the owners of Lympne Castle,[48] Harold and Dierdre Margary.[68]
October–December 1978: Abbey Road Studios [ edit ]
Sessions moved to Abbey Road Studios in London on 3 October.[69] That day, Wings joined with a supergroup of guest musicians, collectively known as "Rockestra",[42] to record the tracks "Rockestra Theme" and "So Glad to See You Here".[69] A camera crew led by Barry Chattington filmed the proceedings,[40] and a 40-minute documentary, titled Rockestra, was later compiled from the footage.[69] Equipment used for this session included 60 microphones, a pair of mixing consoles and a 16-track recording desk.[40] James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders, Hank Marvin of the Shadows, the Who's Pete Townshend, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones and John Bonham, and the Attractions' Bruce Thomas all took part.[69] Also among the line-up was the horn section from Wings' 1975–76 world tour, consisting of Howie Casey, Tony Dorsey, Thaddeus Richard and Steve Howard.[40] Keith Moon was meant to participate, but he had died shortly before the session; Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton were also scheduled to appear.[70]
On 10 October, Wings taped "Getting Closer" at Abbey Road, along with a demo[48] of "Baby's Request".[69] McCartney had intended this recording of "Baby's Request" for the Mills Brothers to use as a guide, but after they asked to be paid for recording the song,[71] he instead included the demo on Back to the Egg.[72] The band then continued with overdubs on these and other songs intermittently through October and November, finishing at Abbey Road on 1 December.[73]
December 1978–February 1979: Replica Studio [ edit ]
Towards the end of the year, Wings also carried out overdubs at the newly built Replica Studio, located at MPL's Soho Square offices.[73] Frustrated at the impending unavailability of Abbey Road's Studio Two[30] – which studio owner and record company EMI needed for its other acts, besides Wings[74] – McCartney had constructed an exact replica of Studio Two in the basement at MPL.[75][nb 7] Among the work done on Back to the Egg at Replica, the band replaced the final twenty seconds of "So Glad to See You Here" with what Madinger and Easter describe as "a reggae-styled coda", containing the "We're Open Tonight" reprise.[77]
Sessions continued there in January and February 1979.[78] During that time, the band recorded a non-album single – the disco-styled "Goodnight Tonight", backed with "Daytime Nighttime Suffering" – as a release to coincide with the airing of the long-delayed[79] Wings Over the World special.[80] While noting that McCartney and Laine's relationship was beginning to unravel at this point, Sounes compares the freshness of these new recordings with the drawn-out sessions for Back to the Egg and writes that the album "was now so overworked it might more aptly have been titled Over-Egged".[81] Impatient at the amount of time being spent in the recording studio, Laine publicly |
, included a variety of materials previously not disclosed. For some unexplained reason, the Dutch officials agreed to keep Israel’s secrets.
For years following the crash, however, residents of the surrounding neighborhoods displayed a uniquely high number of unusual ailments. But when they took to the media their inquiries as to whether the plane’s cargo could have contained health hazards, both the residents and the media were brushed off. Even though Dutch authorities knew what was on that plane, they preferred to lie to their own citizens rather than confront Israel.
Finally, on Oct. 1 of this year, the Dutch daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad reported it had obtained documents confirming that when the El Al flight crashed six years ago it had on board 190 liters of dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP), a chemical used to produce Sarin, the nerve gas used to deadly effect by members of a religious cult on the Tokyo subway system.
The following day a spokesman for El Al, the Israeli national airline, confirmed that “the documentation states that DMMP was on the plane, that it was packed in accordance with the international regulations governing uplift of this material, and the document was signed by the captain stating that everything was in order prior to departure. All of these documents were turned over to the Dutch authorities after the accident.” It was further learned that the chemical in question was ordered by the Israeli biological institute in Nes Zionna. Finally, the jig was up.
PRE-EMPTIVE FACE-SAVING
In an ironic attempt to save face, Israeli Transport Minister Shaul Yahalom ordered the Civil Aviation Authority to reopen its investigation into what the Boeing 747-200 was carrying. Shortly thereafter, Aviv Bushinsky, the spokesman for the office of the Israeli prime minister, stated that the chemical known as DMMP was not used for the manufacturing of nerve gas (which is illegal under all of the international treaties to which Israel is a signatory, but has never ratified), but instead is used in the testing of gas masks.
The Dutch paper said the chemical came from Solkatronic Chemicals Inc., an American company based both in Pennsylvania and at 30 Two Bridges Road, Fairfield, NJ 07004-1530. The newspaper also reported that the amount of DMMP on board the aircraft was enough to produce up to 594 pounds of Sarin, and that three of the four main components needed for Sarin production were on the plane.
Solkatronic vice president John Swanziger told an Israeli newspaper that the chemicals his company sold to the “Israel Institute for Biological Research” were not for testing gas masks and were, in fact, on a special restrictive list, requiring a license from the U.S. Department of Commerce for their sale. The license was provided to the company by the office of Israel’s prime minister prior to shipment.
Swanziger added that after the crash there was a second order which also was filled. The second order, however, was made by an Israeli gas mask manufacturer. He added that Israel was the only country outside the U.S. to which his company had ever sold DMMP, and that at the time he believed that the institute was a civilian rather than a military research facility.
In fact, however, the Israeli government has always regarded the Nes Zionna facility as one of its most closely kept military secrets. Israeli journalist Uzi Mahanimi wrote in the London Times that the plant at Nes Zionna first attracted unwanted scrutiny when the Dutch authorities confirmed that it was the intended destination of the DMMP shipment aboard the El Al plane that crashed. The plant, he wrote, manufactures not only chemical and biological weapons for use in bombs, but more unusual arms as well. It supplied the poison for last year’s assassination attempt by the Mossad, Israel’s equivalent of the CIA, on the life of Khaled Meshal, a Hamas Party leader in Jordan.
Mahanimi also attributed to official military sources a report that Israeli assault aircraft have been equipped to carry chemical and biological weapons manufactured at a top-secret institute near Tel Aviv. Crews of Israel’s F-16 fighters have been trained to mount an active chemical or biological weapon on the aircraft within minutes of receiving the command to attack.
Despite the fact that Israel has accused just about every country it regards as an enemy of developing chemical and biological weapons, it has never acknowledged its own programs to develop weapons of mass destruction. Yet a biologist who once held a senior post in Israeli intelligence told Mahanimi, “There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapon...which is not manufactured at the institute.”
The institute, which covers 70 acres and is about to be expanded by as much as 20 percent, was founded in 1952 as a single building hidden in an orange grove. It is surrounded by a six-foot-high concrete wall topped with sensors that reveal the exact location of any intruder. However, the institute is omitted from all local and aerial survey maps.
The institute answers only to the office of the prime minister (as does Mossad), but professionally is under the direction of “REFAEL” (Rashut Pituach Amtsai Lechima). This is the weapons development authority, the umbrella agency for the weapons development in Israel.
Official publications disguise its more sinister activities, stating vaguely that the institute provides services to the defense ministry as well as chemicals for agriculture and research for civilian companies. When elected members of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament) foreign affairs and defense committee asked to visit the plant, however, they were denied access.
The mayor of Nes Zionna won a temporary injunction freezing the institute’s expansion plans. According to sources, four accidents in the plant have killed at least six workers, but detailed accounts of the accidents have been banned by military censors.
The secrets Israel holds behind the six-foot-high walls surrounding the complex are far darker then anyone can imagine. Professor Marcus Klingberg, who worked in the institute and was jailed some 20 years ago after being convicted of spying for the former Soviet Union, has finally been released, due to his medical condition. Even though it has been more than 20 years since he worked in the institute, his release was under the strictest stipulations. The 80-year-old man is not allowed out of his apartment except for a few hours a day, and he must pay the costs of two guards approved by Israel’s internal security service who are with him around the clock. He is not allowed to use the phone, make contact with the media or talk to anyone except for three approved people, his daughter, his grandson and a friend.
This surveillance is almost as strict as that under which he spent more than 10 years of his imprisonment. He was in a section of the Israeli prison system known as “the Xes.” There the prisoners are known only by a number. Their identities and even the fact that they are imprisoned are considered national secrets.
The fact that none of this detail has been covered in the U.S. mainstream media is testimony to the power of Israel’s U.S. lobby which, it seems, has enabled the Israeli government to get away with anything up to and including murder, over and over again.
So the next time someone shouts, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” Americans might well take a minute to look up. You never know what might be coming down.
Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad case officer, has written two books about his experiences,By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer and The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad’s Secret Agenda.The type of person who would watch a video about Baldur’s Gate that’s just shy of two hours is probably the type of person who thinks the pacing of Baldur’s Gate is perfect.
That being said, I’ve been fascinated by this video from Noah Caldwell-Gervais ( who has done review work for Polygon ) for the past 30 minutes or so, and it has been wonderful to revisit the series on a slow Friday. I don't plan on getting much else done in the next hour as well.
Baldur’s Gate is very much a game of its time, and we know that games of that nature are somewhat locked into that time. Modern role-playing games, even those that claim to follow the lead of Dungeons & Dragons as closely as Baldur’s Gate did so successfully, would be unlikely to adhere so closely to the leveling structure and timing of tabletop RPGs.My sister recently started university and seems to be having a good time. She has friends and made a good effort to meet new people.
The person most surprised at this is probably her.
Weeks prior to starting university she came into my room many times, sometimes at night, to say:
“What if I won’t make friends?”
“What if no one likes me?”
And so on.
The thing is, she’s very friendly and when she wants to be, she has a higher than 50% chance at being funny. When she does finally talk to people, the conversations don’t end in one person on fire and the other in tears. They’re fairly normal.
This, she didn’t believe. Even up to the point when we were saying goodbye, she voiced doubts about making friends and having a good time. Before she walked away, my mum started pointing out people she could talk to as if she planted people in the crowd to make the start of university easier.
Goodbyes were said and she walked away. But she didn’t dart to her right and run upstairs into her room. She joined a group of people and started talking.
Quiet courage
This probably doesn’t seem like a big deal. All she did was say hello and not fall on the floor. She probably doesn’t think it’s a big deal but that doesn’t take away from what happened.
She had a small fear: she’s not going to make friends. It was at the forefront of her mind up until she said hello.
She stepped over this barrier and continued forward despite of the fear hanging around in the back of her head.
Not all courage needs to be loud.
Courage isn’t limited to those who have faced great adversity such as overcoming cancer, giving a speech in front of thousands of people or charging into battle in the front line. Nor is it limited to firefighters, surgeons or police officers. It’s something all of us exhibit.
It involves facing small fears we may have such as talking to new people, asking for help even if you think pride stops you or remaining persistent with something even though you’re not too good.
Since this courage doesn’t demand great attention from others, it’s easy to go unnoticed. Even to the person who exhibits it. It might be dismissed as something too small to be proud of.
Such dismissal might take the form of: “If Mary did [enter grand event here] why should I be proud of talking to a new person?”
Thankfully, there are many examples of quiet courage that we should take time to appreciate. Here are some examples I’ve seen in a few of my own friends.
She used to be overly critical about herself and university grades. Now she practises much more compassion.
He joined a group to help with weight-loss.
She started sharing her work with friends.
She told her business idea to non-friends and admitted it’s something she wants to pursue.
There are more examples of this that can very easily swim around unnoticed and you can probably find examples like this among your own friends. Hopefully, you’ll be able to find it in yourself too.
Why is it important?
It’s remarkably easy to be harsh on ourselves.
If we do something wrong, it’s because of our flawed character. If a friend does the same thing, we don’t subject them to the same criticism. Not just because we don’t want to lose a friend but because that criticism wouldn’t be true.
Noticing and appreciating quiet courage helps remove us from the negative and often exaggerated thoughts we might have of ourselves. Doing so moves us closer to self-compassion and further from self-criticism.
It’s a welcome change noticing a small thing you can be proud of. Even if we aren’t bothered by self-criticism, it’s a good exercise in catching the good in ourselves and other people. If we do find ourselves in tough times, appreciating the good in small things is an unbelievably valuable thing to do.
It’s OK to appreciate our own examples of quiet courage.
You don’t need to scream from the top of our lungs “I spoke to someone new!” every time you make steps to beating social anxiety but you can congratulate yourself. It acts as small encouragement to keep trying. Which is, of course, the best we can do.
But if you do want to scream your encouragements to the world, please do. Just not in my ear.
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A dissident terror group has developed a new bomb making technique as it continues to try and murder police officers.
Detectives revealed today that they believe a bomb left under an officer’s car in Derry’s Culmore area in February featured the same type of pressure plate detonation system as a booby-trap device left for officers lured to a house in the city’s Ballyarnett area in October 2014.
They added that they believe the devices used in the two attacks were built by the same New IRA bombmaker.
As he made a renewed appeal for help in catching the terrorists behind the failed attacks, detective superintendent John McVea said that the most recent attack saw the bomb packed with high explosive.
It did not detonate when the officer drove to work but lay on his driveway for a number of hours before exploding when examined by an ATO.
Supt McVea added: “So unstable was this device, that if a child had touched it as it lay there for a number of hours we would have been dealing with a tragedy. The device contained a substantial amount of high explosives and was designed to detonate via a pressure plate under the wheel.”
The senior officer said that a similar plate detonated device was hidden in a pot, with the plate covered by a mat at a property that officers were lured to with “unsubstantiated reports of a burglary”.
Mr McVea said: “The pressure plate is a crude method of detonation. So not sophisticated, but a very effective means of detonation. The New IRA have access to high explosives - which is concerning.”
DS McVea added that police “believe the New IRA is responsible for both attacks”.
He added: “These types of devices are designed to murder and seriously injure people. If this UVIED [Under Vehicle Improvised Explosive Device] had exploded with our colleague and his young family in the car earlier this year it would have had devastating consequences. I am thankful this was not the case.
“However, I must emphasise that the violent dissident republicans who carried out this attack did indeed intend to kill him and didn’t care that his children or partner could also have been in the vehicle with him at the time.
“I am also relieved that this small group of people, who have nothing to offer the communities they profess to be a part of, were unsuccessful when they tried to lure police into Ballyarnett Village three years ago.
“It is plain to see that they have no regard for the safety of the local community or indeed the wishes of the vast majority of local people who want to live in a safe and peaceful society. They put everyone’s safety at risk as these viable devices were left in residential areas and could have exploded at any time.”
The officer said his team is making an appeal “as we have new information about a light coloured car, understood to be a Toyota Avensis, which we believe was in the area of Ardanlee at 11.00pm on Tuesday 21st February 2017”.
He added: “We have been unable to identify the driver or occupants and I would ask the owner of a car, in the CCTV image to come forward to police or indeed anyone who can provide information about it.”
He said detectives “would like to hear from anyone who saw any unusual vehicles or people acting suspiciously in the Ardanlee area between 5pm on Tuesday, February 21 and 7am on Wednesday 22” as well as “anyone who may have witnessed any suspicious activity or vehicles in the Ballyarnett area of Derry on Sunday 12 October 2014”.
Anyone with information, the police say, should contact detectives at the incident room on 02871379793 the Police general contact number 101 or anonymously via CrimeStoppers on 0800 555 111.Civil rights attorney and television legal analyst Lisa Bloom and her husband, Internet entrepreneur Braden Pollock, were the buyers of the infamous so-called Los Feliz murder house that sold last week for about $2.3 million in a probate sale.
Sitting on a hillside overlooking downtown L.A., the stately Spanish Colonial Revival gained notoriety in 1959, when then-owner Dr. Harold Perelson killed his wife in the master bedroom before taking his own life, according Los Angeles Times archives.
The Spanish Colonial Revival-style estate was designed by architect Harry E. Weiner and built for Harry Schumacher of the Schumacher Distributing Co. in 1925. (Realtor.com) (Realtor.com)
Subsequent owners, a Lincoln Heights couple and their son who later inherited the house, never moved into the home. It eventually fell into disrepair as it sat dormant for more than half a century — becoming a local landmark and an attraction for thrill-seekers in the process.
Despite a grisly past and a definite need for some TLC, the property is not without pedigree, nor a Hollywood connection.
The three-story home was designed by architect Harry E. Weiner and built in 1925 for prominent businessman Harry Schumacher of the Schumacher Distributing Co. Other owners included German filmmaker Frederic Zelnik and his wife, silent film star Lya Mara.
Within the 5,050 square feet of interior space is a formal entry, living and dining rooms, a library/study, four bedrooms and three bathrooms. On the top floor, a ballroom has a rolled ceiling and wrap-around bar.
A three-car garage sits off the street, while another two-car garage is reached by a long drive.
The house originally listed for sale in March for $2.75 million. The exact sale price was $2,289,500.
Nancy Sanborn of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties was the listing agent. Scott Pinkerton of Wish Sotheby’s International repped the buyers.
Bloom, 54, anchored the truTv news series “Lisa Bloom: Open Court” from 2001-09 and has been a legal analyst for “The Today Show” since 2013. She is the only daughter of high-profile civil rights attorney Gloria Allred.
MORE FROM HOT PROPERTYChristian fundamentalists often are as keen to promote the rights of parents as they are to block the rights of women and gays. Congressman Mark Meadows is the Sunday school Bible teacher and former restaurant owner from North Carolina who rallied the Tea Party in shutting down government operations this month. His passion for killing contraceptive access has been on national display. Less known is the fact that Meadows also is spearheading a fight against rights and protections for children. He is the lead sponsor of a “parental rights amendment” that has 64 signers in Congress.
Or consider Scott Lively, the anti-gay preacher who recently announced that he is running for governor of Massachusetts. Lively is known internationally for fanning the sometimes lethal flames of homophobia in Uganda. But his admirers see him as more than a single-issue candidate. According to Tea Party enthusiast Brian Camenker, "He is principled, pro-family, pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, pro-2nd-amendment, pro-religion, pro-parents’ rights, and utterly fearless.”
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Conservatives like Meadows and Lively oppose both national and international protections for children—including compulsory education—which they see as government overreach. Thanks to their advocacy, the United States is one of two nations (out of 196) that has failed to sign the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. (We stand with Somalia!) They also oppose the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities because it “replaces parental rights with the 'best interest of the child' standard.”
Why do parent rights make it onto the Tea Party list along with God, guns, gays and gyno-politics? To answer that question, one needs to look no further than the Bible. Futurist Sara Robinson points out that women in the Bible are actually possessions of men, protected (when they are) by property laws rather than civil rights laws. In this regard, women of the Iron Age fall into the same category with slaves, livestock and children.
Modern Christians like to depict children as the little lambs of Jesus, who is their Good Shepherd. Sunday school teachers sing, “Red and yellow, black and white/They are precious in his sight.” Preachers quote a verse from the book of Matthew which says, “If anyone causes one of these little ones--those who believe in me--to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea”(Matthew 18:6NIV).
But the broader theme of scripture is that a man’s children are his possessions, to be trained, traded and treated as he sees fit, even if it kills them. This concept of the child emerges in the Hebrew Tanakh, beginning with the book of Genesis, and continues into the Christian New Testament. Stories, commandments, legal codes, and theology are built on this premise and make sense only when we understand fatherhood to mean ownership.
Sacrifice your son. Abraham is considered the father of the Great Middle Eastern religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. According to the story, God promises Abraham a son whose offspring will be as numerous as the stars. The boy, Isaac, is born to Abraham and his wife Sarah in their old age, and they treasure him to the point that they even drive off Sarah’s slave, Hagar, who had been used to produce an interim heir. But then God tests Abraham.
“Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.” (Genesis 22:1-12nasv)
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Abraham complies. He lies to his wife, saying he and Isaac will return. Then he deceives Isaac, who has carried the wood for the sacrifice, and then ties him up. At the last minute an angel intervenes. Although Isaac is old enough to hike with enough firewood on his back to consume a human body, at no point does the story suggest that he is an independent person with a right to life or even that his preference matters.
Take my daughters. Lot is a righteous man, apparently the only righteous man living in the evil city Sodom. When two beautiful angels come to stay as his guests, the men of the city surround the house, demanding rape rights. To fulfill his obligations as a host, Lot offers them an alternative: “Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” (Gen 19:8nrsv). As in the story of Isaac, the girls themselves have no say in the matter. Their father has absolute authority over their bodies. (Mind you, in another story they subvert his twisted priorities by getting him drunk and taking turns with him. Lack of consent is the Biblical norm when it comes to sex, but that is another topic.)
Keep this one and you can have the other one, too. Abraham’s grandson Jacob falls in love with a girl named Rachel. But as in so many folkand fairy tales, the sweet and desirable young beauty has an elder sister who is less appealing. In this ancient Hebrew version, Rachel’s father Laban says that Jacob can have Rachel if he tends Laban’s flocks seven years, which he does. Alas, Jacob wakes up the night after the wedding and realizes he has bedded the wrong sister, Leah. He is furious. Laban then says that if Jacob goes through with the week-long ritual of union to Leah, he can have Rachel as well. It’s a deal, if not between gentlemen, at least between men, and Jacob takes it (Genesis 29:15-30nrsv).
Thanks for the slaughter. Jephthah is an impetuous guy. The son of a prostitute, he is driven off by his father’s legitimate sons and heads a band of outlaws until his once high and mighty relatives come groveling. They beg him to lead an army against their enemies, the Ammonites. Jephthah can’t resist pointing out the reversal of fortunes, but accepts the role. In the words of the Bible writer, “the spirit of the Lord comes upon him.” He wins his battles, and in gratitude, Jephthah vows to sacrifice the first being who greets him when he returned home. The unlucky greeter happens to be his only child. Faced with imminent death, she asks for a month in the wilderness to mourn her virginity, and on her return Jephthah follows through with his vow. His filicide is “counted as righteousness” on his part. Note that the assumption in this story is that any living being who might greet him upon his return to the house—wife, servant, child, or sheep—is his to offer up if he sees fit (Judges 11:29-40nrsv).
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A daughter to the victor. Daughters in the Bible rarely are threatened with human sacrifice, but they routinely are given in marriage as their fathers see fit, often in order to cement diplomatic ties or to reward military exploits. In the book of Judges, the chieftain Caleb promises his daughter to any man who manages to conquer the city of Hebron (Judges 1:12-13). As she is handed off, the cagey daughter negotiates some real estate in the deal.
In the Hebrew Bible, premarital sex is regulated legally within a property framework. A used female is damaged goods, and consequently a rapist can be forced to buy the girl he has violated, from her owner—her father. (See “What the Bible Says about Rape and Rape Babies.”) An unmarried female who voluntarily becomes “impure” can be put down, and a married woman who is suspected of adultery can be forced to drink poison. The Bible records an intense focus on bloodlines and genealogies in the cultures from which it emerged, not unlike the elaborate records modern ranchers keep about the breeding of stock. In this context a fertile female is a specific kind of wealth. That said, females aren’t the only children treated as paternal assets.
Pox on your firstborn. Many cultures of the Ancient Near East practiced primogeniture, meaning that firstborn sons had a unique right to inherit the wealth of their fathers. No surprise that firstborns were highly valued. In the Exodus story, God sends a series of plagues on the Egyptians, each time hardening Pharaoh’s heart so he won’t let the Israelite slaves leave. Locusts strip crops, frogs invade houses and rivers turn to blood—all building toward the ultimate plague: The Egyptians wake up one morning to find that the firstborn in each house is dead. As in the other Bible stories I’ve described, these dead children are a means to an end. The moral questions turn not on their own actions or right to life but on a cosmic game being played out between God and adults. The power of God’s chess move lies in what their death costs their parents, including the Pharaoh himself (Exodus 11).
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All’s well that ends well. In the story of Job, Satan and God play out another epic contest. God says, Job is my man. Satan says, If I strip him bare, he will curse you. God says, Go for it. There’s a lot to go for; Job has been blessed with seven sons and three daughters, “seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys, and very many servants.” As the contest proceeds, Job’s vast wealth gets decimated, and a strong wind collapses the roof, crushing his sons and daughters while they party together (Job 1). But all is OK in the end, because God replaces them with seven new sons and three new daughters to go with his new livestock and other riches. (Job 42: 12-13).
Beware the iniquity of grandparents. The Ten Commandments are thought of by Bible believers as the ultimate moral code. Most don’t know that the Bible contains several versions, for example here and here. The most familiar version of the Ten Commandments opens and closes with verses that ensconce children and women, respectively, as extensions of men. In Commandment 10, women get included in a property list (don’t covet your neighbor’s ox or ass or wife...), while in Commandment 1 children are proxies through which God can punish anyone who doesn’t give Jehovah his due:
“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me.” (Exodus 20:5)
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Baby bashing is sweet payback. If God himself is thought to punish children for the sins of their fathers, it should come as no surprise that his followers do the same and fantasize about harming children when they want revenge. After the occupation of Jerusalem, the Psalmist relishes one such fantasy:
O daughter Babylon, you devastator!
Happy shall they be who pay you back
what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones
and dash them against the rock! (Psalms 137:9)
In an ethics class, a passage like this might open a conversation about punishment by proxy—about, say, blood feuds or terrorism or the vengeance instinct itself. In the Bible, though, it simply stands as an expression of anguish penned during a time when collective punishment was so normal that it was essentially invisible. They say a fish has no concept of water because it knows nothing else. So it is with the Bible writers, who seem to have no concept of an alternate world in which women and children have rights of their own to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; a world in which parents nurture their children but don’t own them, in which the personhood and autonomy (and ethical responsibilities) of a child correspond to what that child is able to think, feel and do.
Christian fundamentalists swim in an Iron Age sea. Believing the Bible to be the literally perfect word of God, they sanctify fragments of culture from a time when our ancestors had yet to discover the spinning wheel or the simple lifesaving power of hand-washing. When people make the Bible into a Golden Calf—a practice some call bibliolatry—they lose their ability to think outside the book. Parents—meaning fathers—are elevated to the top of an ancient hierarchy in which position is power and might makes right.
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Oh Jesus. No single Bible story has done more to ensconce this degraded concept of childhood than the story of Jesus himself. The Christ stories draw elements from earlier narratives all the way back to that first image of Isaac on the altar. As understood by many American Christians, Jesus is the ultimate filial sacrifice, the ultimate lamb without blemish, the ultimate target of proxy punishment in a world where two wrongs somehow make a right. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son” (John 3:16).
God gave his child. He gave his. Just like Abraham and Laban and Jephtheh and Lot and Caleb.
The Bible is an imperfect record of our imperfect ancestors struggling to understand what is real and right and how to live in moral community with each other. Until Christians are able to take the Book off its pedestal they will continue to get child protection wrong, and wounded children will continue to pay the price.Last year, when Amazon started making its own TV shows, it ordered up 14 pilots and let Web surfers watch them and vote on them.
Time for a repeat.
This time Amazon is offering 10 new shows, which for the first time include some dramas. But the idea is the same: Amazon will factor in Web surfers’ input as it decides which shows to turn into series.
Amazon has two goals here: Executives at the e-commerce giant really do want to figure out how to make content in a way that makes more sense than the traditional and inefficient way Hollywood and the TV guys go about it today.
And they are happy to get the publicity that the voting generates, too.
All that said, it’s easy to make too much of the role regular people like you, and the data you generate, play in Amazon’s decision-making as it starts to get into the content business. (The same goes for Netflix, which got a year’s jump on its video rival in this arena.)
For starters, while Amazon has an “open submission” process that allows anyone in the world to pitch them stuff, all but one of the shows Amazon has ordered up have been commissioned just like any TV network would: That is, Amazon has hired talent with track records and name recognition, and paid them to make a test TV show.
And while Amazon executives won’t go into detail on its decision-making process, they don’t pretend that their green lights are based solely on viewer input and behavior patterns. That is: Data is good, but data isn’t everything.
Last year this process generated orders for “Alpha House” and “Betas,” two sitcoms that have generated respectful reviews, as well as some kid shows. Here’s Amazon’s description of what it’s showing off this year, which include a show from the guy who brought you “The X Files,” and one starring the Man in Black from “Lost”:Copper Toilet Float Antenna
The main points of this was
to have some fun
while trying to use only off-the-shelf hardware
to make a Wide-bandwidth antenna.
I succeeded on all three points! ** Well except for 'off-the-shelf'. I had to cut some holes and there is one step that is tricky involving drilling a hole lengthwise down a brass screw... but other than that.
Below I give some rough ideas how to make one of your own but I don't give step-by-step construction details.
Note that this thing as currently built isn't rugged enough for permanent outdoor mounting.
A Picture of the overall antenna mounted on an angle bracket.
VSWR data:
These VSWR measurements were made with a HP 8753E Network Analyzer. I took the antenna into work and grabbed the data off the analyzer then plotted it using MS Excel®. I hypothesize that the main reason the VSWR is not so pretty above 2 GHZ is that the cable and BNC connectors are not really good enough. It would be interesting to see what would happen if good quality microwave connectors were used.
Wait a minute! What about Gain!
Sorry, I didn't have the facilities available to make gain measurements. Based on basic antenna principles it has to be at least as good as a dipole antenna. If it weren't for the loss from using off-the-shelf BNC hardware it might even be better at the higher frequencies due to it simulating a flared horn rotated about the vertical axis.
Maybe I can con vince someone at work or somewhere into doing gain measurements for me later.
Even though I don't have gain measurements, I know it does work in real life on a real radio system. Right after I built it, for fun I took it out on a business trip to a military flight-test range where our company was testing one of our new data-link radios with military jets and other aircraft. After the official testing for the day was done at our main ground site, we took the rather sizable and (supposedly) optimized omni-directional antenna we use for testing down off of the mast and replaced it with this thing. One of our other ground network stations on a mountain some miles away was still operating and we compared notes. It worked great! It came out only a few points lower on the linear correlation score. It also survived the ~ 100 watts of power at L-band that the transmitter put into it.
Construction
I am not going to give detailed instructions but here are the basics.
On the left you see a photo of the assembled antenna without the mounting bracket. The ruler gives a size reference. In what follows I will refer to the two copper floats that make up the antenna as the "top float" and the "bottom float" which correspond to the top and bottom floats as shown in this photo. Only the bottom float has to be modified; the top float is used as-is right from the hardware store bin. The bottom float is only'modified' by drilling some holes. The hardware is then attached. The idea was to do as little work as possible and use as much off-the-shelf stuff as possible so I just used prefabbed BNC connectorized cables and didn't roll my own. One end of the BNC cable gets connected to whatever electronic or radio project you want to use with the antenna; the other end gets connected to the BNC panel mount connector that is mounted to the bottom float. This technique eliminates a lot of guesswork about how to best make a feedpoint that keeps the impedance match correct. The use of the off-the-shelf BNC cable and BNC panel mount is probably the main reason the antenna doesn't work better above 2 GHz.
OK, slightly more detailed steps (more detailed pictures below):
Go to the hardware store, find plumbing, find the toilet floats, find the copper version. Buy 3. Why 3? because if you are like me you will almost certainly mess up the first one. They are made of very thin metal and because of their shape are hard to hold in place while drilling.
. Why 3? because if you are like me you will almost certainly mess up the first one. They are made of very thin metal and because of their shape are hard to hold in place while drilling. With floats in hand, wander over to the screw, washer, and nut, department and locate at least 2 brass screws that fit the screw receptacle on the floats. One of them will be used to mount the bottom float to the bracket. The other screw will be modified by drilling a hole length-wise down the end, cut off and soldered to the center pin of the BNC panel mount connector.
Go over to the shelving department and get an angle bracket that looks about the right size and with a hole that will accept the brass screw (or resign yourself to drilling out a hole).
Go back to the |
, and I hope it can be reversed,” he said.The Comeback’s college football Top 50 continues with a look at a team in need of a bounceback season after a tumultuous offseason: Michigan State.
Michigan State is a program in turmoil right now. Between last season’s struggles and player dismissals, it’s hard to see many positives for this program. Its ranking in our Top 50 is solely a testament to Mark Dantonio. The coach built this program into a perennial top team.
After Top 15 finishes in five out of six years (from 2010 to 2015), it seems surreal to imagine that it’s hard to pick out eight wins for this team in 2017. That’s how awful last year was. Faith in Dantonio will earn this team a bit of respect if it can win a few games to start the season, but it will take a near-miracle to earn any real respect.
No. 43 Michigan State Spartans
2016 Record: 3-9, 1-8 Big Ten
Coach: Mark Dantonio (90-42 at Michigan State, 108-59 overall)
Last year in a nutshell
In a nutshell? 2016 was not a good year for the Spartans. The season started a bit iffy with lackluster wins over Furman and Notre Dame. After that, things went downhill fast. Losses to Wisconsin and Indiana sparked a seven-game losing streak. This team clearly had talent and played both Michigan and Ohio State far closer than anyone dreamed, but it felt like this team just lost heart after the Indiana loss.
Michigan State probably should have beaten Indiana and definitely should have beaten Illinois. 2016 should have been bad, but it shouldn’t have been disastrous. The fact that Dantonio couldn’t get his team to perform to its utmost might be the most concerning fact of the entire 2016 debacle for the Spartans.
Recruiting Roundup
247 Sports Composite Ranking: 34th
This shouldn’t be concerning at all. Dantonio does his best work at finding the kids that work best with him, even if they’re not highly-touted. He reached the Playoff with classes not averaging much higher than this. For most top teams, a recruiting class this low would be scary. But it isn’t for Michigan State.
3 Key Stats
9 — Michigan State’s returning starters: Then again, after last season maybe that’s not a bad thing. But for a program that builds so much on each previous year and does best with experienced upperclassmen, that’s a lot of inexperienced new players coming in. 2018 might look good, but the Spartans will need a lot of new names to step up, and fast.
4 — Number of players dismissed this offseason: 2016 was Michigan State’s best class since Dantonio arrived. So far, four of the players from that class were dismissed this offseason. That’s a lot of talent for an already-inexperienced roster to lose. It certainly makes rebuilding the team this season that much harder.
0 — Number of back-to-back unranked seasons for Michigan State under Dantonio: That’s right. Since Dantonio arrived in 2007, the Spartans have ended the year ranked at least once in every two years. Right now, we might think that it will require a miracle for this stat to stay alive, but this is very much a main part of why Dantonio has earned his benefit of the doubt.
Make or Break Games of 2017
Sept. 30 vs Iowa
Record in last 5 meetings: 3-2
Last year’s result: Did not play. Michigan State beat Iowa 16-13 in the Big Ten Championship Game in 2015.
This should be the first questionable game of Michigan State’s season. It will certainly be the first one at home. The Spartans should take care of Bowling Green and Western Michigan. Notre Dame is a question mark themselves this year, so we’ll leave that out of it. But this Week 4 matchup will tell us a lot about what to expect from Michigan State in 2017. Will this team believe that it can win close ones and come through when it gets tough? Or will it collapse like it did last year? Additionally, if Michigan State wins this game, bowl eligibility should be very much within reach. If not, it will be very iffy.
If the Spartans can gel and play like we expect from Dantonio teams, an upset over either Ohio State, Penn State, or Michigan would be huge. But all three of those seem well out of reach this year.
Three Key Players
LJ Scott, RB — Dantonio is infuriatingly consistent in his approach to his offense. He runs on running downs and throws on passing downs. It’s worked for him, but you sometimes have to question his stubbornness when it’s clearly not working (like against Alabama in the Cotton Bowl two years ago). Still, this means that a lot will be riding on junior tailback LJ Scott. First and second downs will be on his shoulder.
The offensive line — Dantonio’s most successful seasons have come when he has had a veteran offensive line playing up to its ability. Which makes sense, given his penchant for a lack of innovation on offense. If your line can make it work even when your play-calling is predictable, then you’ll have success. If the line can’t, then it will be a long season on offense. The line will not at all be experienced this year, so it will take a lot of work in the fall to make an offense that Dantonio can run with success.
Someone on defense — I honestly don’t know who to pick to be the anchor of this defense in 2017, but it’s got to be someone. Demetrius Cooper has the most experience of those returning, but his experience last year wasn’t really always positive. The Spartan defense, once a veritable “no fly zone,” was basically an open runway last year as just about every opponent earned huge chinks through the air. Someone, anyone, has to step up to start to change that, or this inexperienced offense won’t stand a chance. And based on the total lack of experience on defense, it doesn’t look so likely.
Bold predictions
I’m torn between my faith in Dantonio and my honest total lack of faith in this team right now. If I’m going with the former, I’d predict a 9-4 season with a win in a good bowl game. If I’m going with the latter, I’d say that this team will win its first and last two games, while losing all eight in between. I don’t see much of a middle ground. Either Dantonio pulls through and this team wins nine games (and keeps the aforementioned ranked season streak alive), or this team only wins four. Those are the options.
Follow the rest of The Comeback’s Top 50 College Football Countdown leading up to the regular season.During my extreme shopping trip today (which is where I hit three supermarkets before 10.00am like some sort of ninja with a trolley), a couple of people asked me about baking bread & how come it’s so hard/messy/time-consuming (you get the picture). My reply: it’s not (well, it’s not the way I do it).
Firstly, I don’t possess a bread making machine (save your money – buy a pasta machine instead). I make all my bread by hand – I’m not built like a brick shed with muscles & you don’t need to be either. Baking bread is like creating some sort of magic in the kitchen! There really is nothing quite like that heady, warm scent of a freshly baked loaf – especially if you’ve made it yourself. Both my husband & son bake bread – I taught my son this recipe when he was at junior school (which he proudly told his teacher was better than her packet bread mix & refused to make it – she wasn’t impressed!).
Now I’m not disputing that there are some beautiful artisan breads out there which take time, effort & years of experience, but if you just want some good, basic bread to feed your family, then this is for you. It’s cheap, really easy & you get a free mini workout with every batch (“Yay – free stuff!” I hear you say). So, let the floury fun commence!
What you need:
12g fresh yeast (or the equivalent of dried)
500g strong bread flour (I have tried them all & my favourite is Allinson’s), plus a bit extra for dusting your worktop
330ml (approx just over half a pint) lukewarm water (stick your finger in it & it should be the same temperature)
Half a teaspoon of ground sea salt
A little olive/sunflower oil or melted butter – to brush around the inside of your loaf tins
2 loaf tins (standard size) – you can do it free-form too, just dust a baking tray with a little flour
Cling film
Optional ingredients:
2 tablespoons olive/sunflower oil – this is down to individual taste
Seeds/herbs/dried fruit – you can put whatever you like in (my favourite is to mix a teaspoonful of poppy, linseed, sesame & pumpkin seeds together).
How to do it:
Dissolve the yeast in the water, which should go a light muddy colour (give it a good stir with a fork).
Put the flour & sea salt in a large mixing bowl, slowly pour in the yeast water (add the oil at this stage, if using) & stir into the flour until it forms a dough ball & the bowl is clean. Sprinkle a little flour in the bottom of the bowl & set aside for later.
Dust some flour on a clean worktop, place the dough on it & start kneading – here’s your free mini workout! Kneading is simply stretching the dough, making the gluten in the flour flexible & will make your bread rise well. Give it ten minutes, firmly pushing the dough away from you with the heel of your hand, then pulling it back on itself. Once kneaded, it should feel more elastic, so just put it in the floured bowl, brush a bit of oil on some clingfilm & put this on top of the bowl (oiled side down), making sure there are no gaps. Put it on a tray in the airing cupboard or a warm place, where there are no draughts & leave it for about half an hour. This is called proving the dough.
Heat your oven to 220*C. Brush the inside of your tins with a little oil & place on a baking tray.
Take the now risen dough from the airing cupboard (put the oiled cling film to one side) & put onto a floured worktop. To knock out any large air bubbles, I like to throw it on the worktop a couple of times, knead it for a few seconds, then split it into two equal balls. If you’re putting seeds/fruit/etc in, gently stretch it with your hands into a rectangle, sprinkle some seeds on a third, fold it over, sprinkle some more, fold it again, then sprinkle the rest. Fold it gently again to distribute the seeds/fruit in the dough, shape it to fit your loaf tin & pop it in. Repeat with the other dough ball. Cover with the oiled clingfilm & leave for a further half hour to prove again.
Now you’re ready to bake! Remove the clingfilm from the tins – the dough will have risen again & is ready to go into the oven. Put the tray in the middle of the oven & bake for about half an hour.
Once done, it will be golden & risen above the tins, so just tip out onto a wire rack to cool. To test if it’s cooked, give your loaf a tap on the bottom – it will sound hollow if it’s ready. Resist the urge to eat it before it’s cooled a bit! Once cooled, slice it, spread it, dunk it & dip it! Whatever you do, share & enjoy it. As the old Italian saying goes “La vita non e’fatta di solo pane” (“You cannot live on bread alone”) – but you can bake it! A xHere at Transparent Language, we believe in the value of every language, regardless of the number of speakers, the economic value, or otherwise. That’s why we offer 100 languages in Transparent Language Online and continue to add new ones each year. For those interested in learning African languages, we currently offer courses and learning materials in 8 languages!
Afrikaans
Spoken widely in South Africa and Namibia, and to a lesser extent in other southern African countries like Botswana and Zimbabwe, Afrikaans is the native language of more than 7 million people. Believe it or not, the language closely resembles Dutch, as Protestant settlers brought the language to the region in the 17th century. Afrikaans speakers can typically understand a fair amount of spoken Dutch!
A subscription to Transparent Language Online for Afrikaans includes 80+ topical vocabulary lists with native speaker audio, pronunciation practice, typing activities, and a grammar reference.
Amharic
The second most widely spoken Semitic language (behind Arabic), Amharic is the national language of Ethiopia. More than 20 million people speak the language, which is written in an abugida, a writing with letters comprised of a consonant followed by an inherent vowel sound, with other vowel sounds denoted by diacritics.
A subscription to Transparent Language Online for Amharic includes a 7-unit Essentials course, pronunciation practice, typing activities, and a grammar reference.
Hausa
Hausa is considered a lingua franca of western Africa, where it is spoken by more than 40 million people across Niger, Nigeria, Chad, and beyond. The language is used as a trade language throughout the region and, unlike many languages of the region, is quite common in print and broadcast journalism. The BBC, Radio France Internationale, Deutsche Welle, and Voice of America all broadcast in Hausa.
A subscription to Transparent Language Online for Hausa includes 80+ topical vocabulary lists with native speaker audio, pronunciation practice, typing activities, and a grammar reference.
Kituba
Kituba is considered the lingua franca of Central Africa, where it has official status in Republic of the Congo and Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Kikongo-based creole has roughly 5 million speakers. This course was created in partnership with Langscape, a project at the Maryland Language Science Center that aims to make language data available to the public.
Somali
Somali, as you might have guessed, is spoken widely in Somalia, but also throughout other neighboring countries. The language has had its share of writing systems, from the Arabic alphabet to the unique Osmanya alphabet developed for the language in the 1920s. Following a coup in the late 1960s, it was decided that Somali would be written with the Latin alphabet, which is still used today amongst the 15+ million speakers.
A subscription to Transparent Language Online for Somali includes a 10-unit Essentials course, 80+ topical vocabulary lists with native speaker audio, pronunciation practice, typing activities, and a grammar reference.
Swahili
Perhaps the best known African language on our list (thanks, Lion King), Swahili is spoken by an estimated 100+ million Africans as either a first or second language. It is the lingua franca of the eastern African region, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, the DRC, and beyond. A large portion of Swahili vocabulary is borrowed or derived from Arabic, thanks to contact with Arabic speakers along the coastal region. While the language can be written in Arabic script, colonial European powers increasingly used the Latin alphabet to record the language, a practice that remains the norm today.
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Yoruba
Approaching 30 million speakers, Yoruba is spoken in West Africa, particularly in Nigeria and Benin. In part due to the Atlantic slave trade, Yoruba is also considered to be one of the most widely spoken African languages outside of the continent, with vibrant Yoruba communities in Brazil, Cuba, North America, and the Caribbean, among others. In fact, a variation of Yoruba is recognized as the holy language of the Santeria religion of the Caribbean islands. The language is also tonal, like Mandarin or Vietnamese, meaning that different pronunciations of the same spelling can alter the meaning of a word.
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Zulu
It may always fall last alphabetically, but with more than 10 million speakers, Zulu is certainly not least. The vast majority of Zulu speakers live in South Africa, where the language has official status. Like most languages in the region, Zulu was a spoken language until the arrival of missionaries who developed a Latin Script in the 19th century. Since the downfall of Apartheid, the language has experienced a revival of sorts, with TV shows and Zulu radio becoming increasingly popular.
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None close by? Print this info card and bring it to your local librarians to let them know you’re interested, or sign up for the free trial!(Please welcome Jeff Kaye, a psychologist active in the anti-torture movement who works clinically with torture victims at Survivors International in San Francisco – jh)
A Washington Post article by Peter Finn and Joby Warrick has made a big splash, reporting that the Department of Defense had been warned in July 2002 that “torture” would produce “unreliable information” by the Joint Personal Recovery Agency.
Can we conclude from this that JPRA was against the use of coercive interrogation? In a word — no.
JPRA was an enthusiastic proponent of spreading SERE techniques into the operational realm. Even the caveats about the use of torture are supplemented by recommendations of interrogation techniques that amount at least to cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment (outlawed by treaty and domestic law, as much as torture), if not torture itself.
One comes away from the Washington Post article with the impression it was the consequence of a planned leak, probably by JPRA or someone close to the Pentagon, seeking to cover up the JPRA’s complicity in the torture program. For one thing, the revelations from the memo are not new; they were already revealed in the text of the recently released Senate Armed Service Committee report on detainee abuse. And then, consider the portion of the leaked memo, “Operational Issues Pertaining to the Use of Physical/Psychological Coercion in Interrogation,” that the Washington Post did not bother to report.
CONCLUSION: The application of extreme physical and or psychological duress (torture) has some serious operational deficits, most notably, the potential to result in unreliable information. This is not to say that the manipulation of the subject’s environment in an effort to dislocate their expectations and induce emotional responses is not effective. On the contrary, systematic manipulation of the subject’s environment is likely to result in a subject that can be exploited for intelligence information and other national strategic concerns.
“Exploited” for not just “intelligence information,” but “other national strategic concerns”? Hmmm… Perhaps this refers to the attempt to use torture to produce false confessions about supposed links between the perpetrators of 9/11 and Saddam Hussein.
In any case, JPRA, an organization whose supposed purpose is to be “the Department of Defense’s (DoD) executive agent for personnel recovery… responsible for coordinating and advancing joint personnel recovery capabilities,” was deeply implicated as a primary actor in the implementation of the torture program. You wouldn’t know this by reading the Washington Post article, which quotes former JPRA chief of staff, Daniel Baumgartner as saying “the agency ‘sent a lot of cautionary notes’ [to DoD] regarding harsh techniques.
“There is a difference between what we do in training and what the administration wanted the information for,” he said a telephone interview yesterday. “What the administration decided to do or not to do was up to the guys dealing with offensive prisoner operations.... We train our own people for the worst possible outcome... and obviously the United States government does not torture its own people.”
One could contrast this sanguine picture of a passive government bureaucracy meaning to do well with Lt. Col. Baumgartner’s attachment of the JPRA document, Physical Pressures Used In Resistance Training and Against American Prisoners and Detainees (undated), attached to the same memorandum Baumgartner sent to the Office of the Secretary of Defense General Counsel on July 26, 2002, which included the supposed warning memo published by the Washington Post.
In other JPRA materials, techniques designed to achieve these goals [i.e., “establish absolute control, induce dependence to meet needs, elicit compliance, shape cooperation”] include isolation or solitary confinement, induced physical weakness and exhaustion, degradation, conditioning, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, disruption of sleep and biorhythms, and manipulation of diet. Physical Pressures Used In Resistance Training and Against American Prisoners and Detainees. [p. 9, footnote 56]
The Washington Post article failed to note that there were three attachments to the July 26 memo from JPRA to DoD General Counsel. One was the attachment posted by the Washington Post (“Operational Issues”), one was the Physical Pressures document just quoted. The third attachment was a memorandum written by SERE psychologist Jerald Ogrisseg, “Psychological Effects of Resistance Training.”
I’ve written elsewhere on the Ogrisseg memo. In this work, he describes the statistics he gathered that demonstrated that SERE training was almost never harmful to its participants. That is not an accurate conclusion by Ogrisseg, and the published research using experiments on SERE trainees shows dramatic disruption of physiological processes by a majority of recruits undergoing SERE training. A study published in the June 2000 edition of Special Warfare [PDF] noted:
In some cases, the changes noted among the trainees were greater than the changes noted in patients undergoing heart surgery….
Changes in testosterone levels were similarly remarkable: In some cases, testosterone dropped from normal levels to castration levels within eight hours.
The most salient aspect of the Ogrisseg paper lies in the fact that it ostensibly reported that waterboarding under SERE training conditions caused minimal long-term psychological effects. But the SASC report notes that Ogrisseg’s report attributed that fact to “efforts the Air Force SERE program undertook to minimize the risk of temporary psychological effects of resistance training becoming long-term effects…. [mitigating] the risk of turning a “dramatic” experience into a “traumatic” experience.'”
It was Lt. Col. Baumgartner, so favorably quoted by the Washington Post, who forwarded all these memos to DoD, telling DoD’s General Counsel:
“While there is not much empirical data on the long term effects of physical pressures used in SERE schools (which fall well short of causing ‘grave psychological damage’), the psychological staff at the Air Force SERE school makes some interesting observations [] that suggest training techniques can be very effective in producing compliance while not causing any long term damage.” Memo from Lt Col Baumgartner to Office of the Secretary of Defense General Counsel… July 26, 2002
So much for all the warnings Baumgartner says JPRA made!
JPRA Creates Experimental Torture Lab at Guantanamo
Whatever caveats some at JPRA had about SERE methods, and belying the betrayal by Baumgarter in the Washington Post article, by late summer 2002, JPRA was actively soliciting its services again to DoD. For instance, there was this this September 9, 2003 email from Col. Randy Moulton, Commander of JPRA to Col. Mike Okita and a redacted addressee (possibly “Admiral Bird,” whom the text of the email addresses). Note, this was sent approximately two months after the so-called warning by JPRA:
There is a strong synergy between the fundamentals of both missions (resistance training and interrogation). Both rely heavily on environmental conditions, captivity psychology, and situation dominance and control. While I think this probably lies within DHS [Defense Human Intelligence Service, part of DIA] responsibility lines, recent history (to include discussions with DHS, USSOCOM, CIA) shows that no DoD entity has a firm grasp on any comprehensive approach to strategic debriefing/interrogation. Our subject matter experts (and certain Service SERE psychologist) have the most knowledge and depth within DoD on the captivity environment and exploitation. I think that JPRA/JFCOM needs to keep involved for reasons of TTP [Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures]/development and information sharing.
While Moulton said JPRA was not interested in active participation in the interrogations themselves, he apparently saw JPRA’s new mission as one of “advice, assistance and observation” to the interrogation program, i.e., JPRA would brain-trust the operation. Apparently, Lieutenant General Robert Wagner at USFJCOM thought JPRA was overstepping their charter, and Moulton emailed him back, noting that formally Wagner was correct. JPRA was aware of the dangers of “crossing the Rubicon into intel collection.” Moulton continued:
However there will be a need to be engaged in a symbiotic relationship with whatever entity is identified to manage the debriefing/interrogation program…. There may be a compromise position (my gut choice) whereby we could provide/assist in oversight, training, analysis, research, and TTP/development, while leaving actual debriefing/interrogation to those already assigned the responsibility.”
In other words, in many ways and from the very first contact between JPRA and the General Counsel of DoD in December 2001, JPRA tried to position itself as indispensable experts for the torture project being initiated by higher-ups in the Bush Administration. Attempts to paint JPRA as some kind of bureaucratic opponent of the drive towards harsher and harsher interrogation techniques simply does not fit the facts. The appearance of occasional warnings about the effects of torture reflect either a minority opinion within JPRA (a possibility), or a bureaucratic reflex of covering for oneself that is apparent throughout the discussions about implementing the JPRA/SERE program in an operational fashion.
At Guantanamo itself, JPRA/SERE techniques were integral in establishing an experimental regime of harsh interrogation, i.e., torture. JPRA and other Special Operations officers wanted to teach SERE methods to interrogators and the members of the Behavioral Science Consultation Teams (BSCTs), which included psychologists and psychiatrists attached to the intelligence task force.
According to the Levin report, in August 2002, “COL John P. Custer, then-assistant commandant of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona” conducted a review of interrogations operations at Guantanamo. Custer called Guantanamo “America’s ‘Battle Lab'” in the war on terror, and recommended combining FBI and military techniques to extract “information by exploiting the detainee’s vulnerabilities.” The “Battle Lab” label stuck, though some, like Colonel Britt Mallow, of the Criminal Investigative Task Force, objected.
MG Dunlavey and later MG Miller referred to GTMO as a “Battle Lab” meaning that interrogations and other procedures there were to some degree experimental, and their lessons would benefit DOD in other places. While this was logical in terms of learning lessons, I personally objected to the implied philosophy that interrogators should experiment with untested methods, particularly those in which they were not trained.
Later, Dunlavey denied using the term, and Miller testified he couldn’t remember. Even so, within a week of Custer’s report, BSCT members and Gitmo interrogators were flying off to Fort Bragg to attend a training in the use of SERE techniques, run by JPRA and Lt. Col. Louie “Morgan” Banks, then Chief Psychologist for U.S. Special Forces Command. SERE psychologist Gary Percival and two other JPRA instructors, Joseph Witsch and Terrence Russell, taught the course. This training included instruction in disruption of sleep cycles and daily schedules, invasion of male prisoners space by female interrogators, placing prisoners in solitary confinement, use of phobias (“fear of spiders, of the dark or whatever”), hooding, hitting, use of military dogs, etc.
Approximately a week after the end of training, in the latter part of September, one of the JPRA instructors, Joseph Witsch, was having second thoughts, which he expressed in a memo to Col. Moulton and Lt. Col. Baumgartner, as well as leadership at Special Operations Command:
I believe the techniques and tactics that we use in training have applicability. What I am wrestling with is the implications of using these tactics as it relates to current legal constraints, the totally different motivations of the detainees, and the lack of direction of senior leadership within the [U.S. Government] on how to uniformly treat detainees. We are now attempting to educate lower level personnel in DoD and OGAs [other governmental agencies] with concepts and principles that are somewhat foreign to them and while it all sounds good they are not in a position nor do they have the depth of knowledge in these matters to effect change and do it in reasonable safety…. The handling of [Designated Unlawful Combatants] is a screwed up mess and everyone is scrambling to unscrew the mess … If we want a more profound role in this effort we need to sell our capabilities to the top level people in the USG and not spend our time trying to motivate the operators at the lower levels to sway their bosses. This is running the train backwards and that is a slow method to get somewhere. There are a lot of people in the USG intelligence community that still believe in the old paradigm and wonder just what we’re doing in their business.
Implementing the Torture Program
Whether or not anyone heard Witsch’s concerns, or those of others (Banks says that he, too, protested the use of SERE reverse-engineering, but his protest seems questionable, given his organizational role in the Gitmo training), on September 26, a high-level group of administration visitors arrived at Guantanamo, including Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, DoD General Counsel Jim Haynes, CIA General Counsel John Rizzo, and Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Michael Chertoff. One record of their meetings has been handed down in the form of minutes, including presentation by BSCT personnel, and a discussion of “harsh techniques”, sleep deprivation, hiding prisoners from the International Red Cross, including videotaping prisoners and possible use of “truth serum.” The experiment was well under way.
After the administration officials left, the decision was made to get approval for harsher interrogation methods similar to those taught by SERE.
According to MAJ Burney, the BSCT psychiatrist, “by early October there was increasing pressure to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations but nobody was quite willing to define what ‘tougher’ meant…. MAJ Burney added that there was “a lot of pressure to use more coercive techniques” and that if the interrogation policy memo that LTC Phifer had asked him to write did not contain coercive techniques, then it “wasn’t going to go very far.”
On October 25, 2002, General James T. Hill, Commander at SOUTHCOM, forwarded the request to get “tougher” and use the proposed SERE techniques to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. While he worried about the legality of some of the techniques, particularly death threats, he urged the Chiefs to consider that he wanted “to have as many options as possible at my disposal.”
The Joint Chiefs hesitated. They asked for official comment from the different services. The Air Force reported back: “some of these techniques could be construed as ‘torture,’ as that crime is defined by 18 U.S.C. 2340.” The Navy responded more favorably, citing the need for better “counter-resistance techniques,” but asked for “more detailed interagency legal and policy review.” The Marine Corps balked. Some of the techniques (e.g., sensory deprivation, use of dogs, nudity, exposure to cold, 20 hour interrogations) “arguably violate federal law, and would expose our service members to possible prosecution.” The Army also cited “significant legal, policy and practical concerns,” noting the techniques probably violated Bush’s presidential order regarding “humane treatment” of detainees, and wanted more legal review.
Captain Jane Dalton, the Legal Counsel to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified to the SASC that she informed General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of the legal objections by the services. Myers would later say he didn’t remember any objections. Dalton then informed DoD General Counsel William Haynes of the military’s objections. He, too, would later testify that he was unaware of any objections, saw no memos to that effect.
Ultimately, General Myers, apparently at the behest of Haynes (who presumably was acting on behalf of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld) “quashed” Dalton’s review. Asked about dismissing JCS Legal Counsel review of the request for use of SERE/JPRA interrogation techniques at Guantanamo, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stonewalled.
GEN Myers said that he had “no specific recollection” of discussing with CAPT Dalton her efforts to conduct an analysis of the October 11, 2002 GTMO request…. He said that while he “did not dispute” asking her to stop working on her analysis and acknowledged that Joint Staff records indicated that she did stop work on her analysis, he had “no recollection or doing so” and did “not recall anyone suggesting” to him that she stop her review.
Meanwhile, JPRA was already planning their next training exercise for Guantanamo interrogators. Guantanamo got a new commander, Major General Geoffrey Miller, and the battle over the use of interrogation methods shifted to the construction of an interrogation plan for Mohammed al Khatani, with the government obsessed with the need to “break the detainee and establish his role in the attacks of Sept[ember] 11,2001.” Approval for the plan came from the White House (emphasis in original):
A November 14, 2002 email from the GTMO Staff Judge Advocate LTC Diane Beaver to CITF lawyer stated, “[c]oncerning 63 [Khatani] my understanding is that NSC has weighed in and stated that intel on this guy is utmost matter of national security… We are driving forward with support of SOUTHCOM. Not sure anything else needs to be said.”
A great deal more needs to be said, but we will settle with this denouement for the present.
Rumsfeld, upset that action had not been taken on the October GTMO request for harsher techniques thundered, “I need a recommendation.” On November 27, 2002, Haynes notified Rumsfeld that he had received the concurrence of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) General Richard Myers for most of the JPRA/SERE techniques. It’s not clear to what degree the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Council’s August 1, 2002 (Bybee) memo played a role in the approval process. In any case, on December 2, 2002, Rumsfeld signed off on the GTMO interrogation plan. He couldn’t restrain himself from adding one final flourish:
In approving the techniques, the Secretary added a handwritten note at the bottom ofthe memo that questioned one ofthe limitations in the JTF-GTMO request… In reference to “the use of stress positions (like standing) for a maximum of four hours,” the Secretary wrote: “However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?”
At last, the SERE reverse-engineered interrogation program, a hybrid of old CIA KUBARK interrogation strategies, especially the use of sensory deprivation, isolation, and debility, were joined to a haphazard group of SERE-originated techniques of varying levels of brutality, themselves gathered from a wide variety of historically derived torture techniques, from Nazi Germany, to the Soviet GPU, and the interrogation of American airmen by Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean War.
And behind it all was the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. What motivated them? Were the primary actors really Special Forces or CIA, operating through JPRA? Or was it simply a case of a military bureaucracy run amuck, and a White House eager to use any tool at its command to justify policies of aggressive war and perpetuity of power? Hopefully, both investigations and criminal prosecutions of those who planned and implemented the torture program at high levels will bring us some answers.
The greatest obstacle to that lies in the fact that the responsibility for the crimes is spread throughout the Pentagon, intelligence agencies, and the Executive Branch, as high as the President and Vice President of the United States, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a myriad of Cabinet officials and top government attorneys. The powers attached to these offices are formidable, and will seek to protect their own. Only exposure and wide protest over a lack of accountability will bring about the change this country needs, and the justice.
(photograph courtesy of Minneapolis Mike)Mercedes team principal Ross Brawn has tipped Michael Schumacher to pull off a surprise in 2011.
Brawn said: “I think Michael can surprise a few people this year because he’s had a much better preparation.
“He’s now worked with the team for a year, knows all the engineering staff, knows how the team works and he’s had a good winter test.
“I think the experience that perhaps some of the other drivers had with tyres and other things has changed now with different tyres. So I’m quietly confident Michael’s going to make a big impression this year.”
He added: “I think the strengths of Michael are his commitment and determination. Obviously behind that has to be the skill and talent. But his commitment and determination is unchanged from when he won his world championships – in fact, maybe even more determined.”
Brawn also said Nico Rosberg is ready to score his first Grand Prix win:
“Nico came very close to winning a race last year. We were in a much better position in the beginning of the year and we picked up at the end of the year. But certainly at the beginning of the year there was an opportunity for Nico to win a race and I think this year he can win a race.
“I think we need to cross that boundary with Nico, get his first race win behind him, and then I think you’ll see Nico open up an awful lot. I’m very optimistic about the potential of Nico in the future. He |
All Blacks in their own back yard. By a point. With the last kick of the game.
Gary Walsh, Pundit Arena.Google's unilateral change to its privacy policy in March will come under fire from European data protection commissioners within days, sources say.
The controversial changes, in which Google tied together the previously separate data collected under services including its search engine, YouTube and Google+ were announced in January and implemented two months later. While creating a unified privacy policy across all the services, it also in effect amassed the data into a single location.
That attracted widespread criticism – and now the group of 30 data protection commissioners from across the European Union are believed to have determined that Google has breached EU privacy laws.
Now Google might be required to undo the changes – although Auke Haagsma, a lawyer advising the lobby group Icomp, which is critical of Google's policies, said that would be like trying to "unscramble the egg".
Data protection commissioners in a number of countries have varying powers. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) in the UK declined to comment on the decision, but said that generally it can use its powers to force any company that breaks the law in altering its privacy policy to reverse the change. "We can issue an enforcement notice," said a spokesperson.
The internet firm is already being investigated by the European commission's competition arm, which says that the way it orders its search results, uses other sites' content, and controls some elements of advertising is anti-competitive.
The two sides have been locked in negotiations since July. Joaquín Almunia, the EC competition commissioner, warned Google in September that it could face court action if it was not more flexible in the negotiations.
Some German data protection authorities are also considering their response to the news that Google has not destroyed all the data its Street View cars collected when they scanned Wi-Fi networks in houses and businesses adjacent to roads.
The changes to Google's privacy policies had already been described as being possibly in breach of EU law by the justice commissioner, Viviane Reding, in March.
Data protection commissioners, led by the French national agency CNIL, criticised Google at the time for making the change without offering consumers the chance to opt out by remaining with the existing policy. The only choices Google offered users were to move to the new policy, or delete their entire user profile. The CNIL and others wanted them to be offered the option of remaining with the existing segmented profile.
Google said at the time that the changes would simplify the experience of using its services and that it was confident that they respected "all European data protection laws and principles". It said users would benefit because it would be able to tailor search results and advertising more specifically to users.
Google declined to comment.Raynard Jackson, a registered Republican and political consultant, is president and chief executive of Raynard Jackson & Associates, a D.C.-public relations/government affairs firm.
If the most segregated time in the United States is 11 a.m. Sunday mornings, then the most least-diverse time in America is during a period every four years at the end of the summer: the Republican National Convention.
But even more alarming than the lack of blacks as convention attendees, delegates or Mitt Romney staff members is the lack of blacks in the pipeline to be future party operatives.
When I came into the party with George H.W. Bush, there was a pipeline of other African Americans who worked for the Republican National Committee in the headquarters, staffers who worked for Reagan, etc. We are now some of the most experienced operatives in the game; many of us have our own firms or work for corporate America. Unfortunately, we are never consulted on party issues unless there is an overtly black angle or, more typically, someone in the party leadership has done something stupid and they expect us to go on camera to provide cover. Those of us with integrity have never allowed ourselves to be used in such a manner, though, some blacks have.
Today, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus doesn’t appear to have any African Americans in significant decision making positions on his staff. The same can be said for the Senate and House campaign committees. So, where will the next generation of black political operatives come from?
View Photo Gallery: Politicians, delegates and more are at the Republican National Convention in Tampa this week.
If there are no blacks in these pipelines, then the party has made the decision that there will be no blacks in the party’s future. Imagine there were no college football programs; where would the NFL get its players from? Who would provide players for their future?
The Republican line is that the overwhelming majority of blacks will vote for Obama because he is African American. I find this thinking extremely insulting as a black Republican. The reason the majority of blacks will vote for Obama is because Republicans have not given African Americans a reason to vote for Republicans or Romney.
A Wall Street Journal poll earlier this week showed Romney polling at zero percent of the black vote. (A Washingotn Post poll found that 4 percent of black registered voters would choose Romney) How is that even mathematically possible?
I am embarrassed at the lack of diversity at this convention. Have the Republicans not noticed the demographic changes that are taking place in this country? Numerically, there are not enough old, white, balding males to win a national election.
The sad thing is that many of the party leaders agree with me in private conversations, but over the years, they have done absolutely nothing to address this issue. When all is said and done, there has been more said than done when it comes to changing the whiteness of the party.
In the immortal words of the Doobie Brothers: “What a fool believes, no wise man has the power to reason away; what seems to be is always better than nothing at all.”
If the Republican Party think they can continue to have a white strategy for electoral victory, what a fool!
For more from Raynard Jackson go to www.raynardjackson.com
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New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady smiles after beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2017 AFC Championship Game at Gillette Stadium. (Photo11: Geoff Burke, USA TODAY Sports)
HOUSTON — Tom Brady no longer gets a pass on his friendship with Donald Trump.
Not after this weekend, when the country boiled over in rage and indignation at Trump’s decision to turn America’s back on refugees. Not after this season, when Colin Kaepernick was pilloried from coast to coast for trying to draw attention to the shortcomings of our country.
And not when he’s about to command the NFL’s biggest stage.
Brady and the New England Patriots arrive here Monday, a few hours before the Super Bowl “Opening Night.” While the event has turned into a circus – this is where Brady famously got a marriage proposal from a Mexican TV reporter in a wedding dress – he can expect to get some tough questions about Trump.
As well he should.
Trump’s campaign was steeped in racism, bigotry and misogyny, and he has doubled down on his hatred in his first week as president. It’s left Americans across the country angry and frightened, fearful that the ideals that have made this country exceptional for more than 200 years are being abandoned.
Brady might not agree with Trump’s views or his policies, as he seemed to indicate last week during his weekly appearance on WEEI’s “Kirk and Callahan” radio show. His support might have more to do with Trump’s many golf courses than the man himself.
But in refusing to publicly disavow Trump's actions, Brady is giving tacit endorsement to both Trump and the chaos he has created.
“Why does that make such a big deal?” Brady said when his friendship with Trump was raised. “I don’t understand that. … I don’t want to get into it, but just – if you know someone, it doesn’t mean that you agree with everything that they say or do. Right?
“There’s things I don’t believe [in], absolutely. I don’t believe in, you know, there’s a lot of things,” Brady continued. “Not to denounce anything, it’s just that there’s different things that I feel like, you know... I don’t agree with everything. That’s fine, right?”
No, it’s not.
There are plenty of people in the NFL – owners, executives and players – who are Trump supporters. But no one was as public as Brady, who had a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker way back in September 2015.
Brady is not dumb, nor is the four-time Super Bowl champion and NFL’s cover boy oblivious to his image. He knew the hat was going to get noticed, he knew it was going to get coverage and he was fine with it.
It’s only now, when he’s facing questions and criticism, that he thinks the friendship should be off limits. But it doesn't work that way. If you stake out a position, you need to own it. Or if you’ve had a change of heart, explain why.
If Brady needs an example of how that’s done, he can look at Kaepernick.
From the day his national anthem protest became public in August, Kaepernick has been open, available and consistent with his opinion. It has not been a popular one; as the protests spread across the league, the San Francisco 49ers quarterback was portrayed as anti-American, anti-military and anti-police – all of which he denies.
He’s had insults, slurs and worse directed at him. He was blamed for the drop in TV ratings early in the season. One person last week even tried to say Trump’s election was partly the result of Kaepernick’s protests.
It would have been easy for Kaepernick to brush off questions or say he’d rather talk about football, as Brady has done. Instead, he’s been eloquent in detailing his concerns over police brutality in minority communities. He’s sparked conversations and reflection in NFL locker rooms and beyond.
Regardless of whether he was duped into being a prop or is genuinely friends with Trump, Brady inserted himself into the national firestorm. He can’t be surprised that people want to know more. And now expect more.
***
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.From Sean Bell to Oscar Grant to Jordan Davis, there is a long history in this country of black men being presumed guilty because of the color of their skin.
Afraid of Dark, an upcoming documentary, looks to explore the psychosis behind the stereotypes of young African-American males.
Brooklyn filmmaker Mya B., who happens to be a woman, talked to Shadow and Act about the project:
“I wanted to analyze the damaging stereotypes of black men which has led to them being murdered and criminalized. I also wanted black men to receive their glory outside of all the bad things you hear in the media and profile the amazing black men I know and who are in our communities. More importantly I wanted people to never forget those black youth and men who never got justice in death by honoring them in the film to keep them alive in our memories.”
Check out the trailer above and let us know what think.Iraqi security forces lost 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles when the Islamic State jihadist group overran the northern city of Mosul, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said on Sunday.
“In the collapse of Mosul, we lost a lot of weapons,” Abadi said in an interview with Iraqiya state TV. “We lost 2,300 Humvees in Mosul alone.”
While the exact price of the vehicles varies depending on how they are armoured and equipped, it is clearly a hugely expensive loss that has boosted ISIS’ capabilities.
Last year, the State Department approved a possible sale to Iraq of 1,000 Humvees with increased armour, machineguns, grenade launchers, other gear and support that was estimated to cost $579 million.
Clashes began in Mosul, Iraq’s second city, late on June 9, 2014, and Iraqi forces lost it the following day to ISIS, which spearheaded an offensive that overran much of the country’s Sunni Arab heartland.
The militants gained ample arms, ammunition and other equipment when multiple Iraqi divisions fell apart in the country’s north, abandoning gear and shedding uniforms in their haste to flee.
ISIS has used captured Humvees, which were provided to Iraq by the United States, in subsequent fighting, rigging some with explosives for suicide bombings.
Iraqi security forces backed by Shiite militias have regained significant ground from ISIS in Diyala and Salaheddin provinces north of Baghdad.
But that momentum was slashed in mid-May when ISIS overran Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, west of Baghdad, where Iraqi forces had held out against militants for more than a year.
Last Update: Sunday, 31 May 2015 KSA 20:11 - GMT 17:11On the southern coast of Yonaguni, Japan, lie submerged ruins estimated to be around 10,000 years old. The origin of the site is hotly debated - many experts argue that is man-made, while more conservative scientists insist it was carved by natural phenomena.
The unique and awe-inspiring site was discovered in 1995 by a diver who strayed too far off the Okinawa shore and was dumb-struck when he stumbled upon the sunken arrangement of monolithic blocks "as if terraced into the side of a mountain". The structure sparked instant controversy and attracted crowds of diving archaeologists, media and curious hobbyists, none of whom were able to ascertain its identity.
Late in the following year, more serious attempts were made to gather data and map out the structure. The process revealed many surprising findings including what appears to be a massive arch or gateway of huge stone blocks which appeared to fit together perfectly, right angled joins, carvings and what appeared to be stairways, paved streets and crossroads and grand staircases leading to plazas surrounded by pairs of towering features resembling pylons.
As teams of expert divers fanned out from the south coast of Okinawa using grid-search patterns, they found five sub surface archaeological sites near three offshore islands. The locations vary at depths from 100 to only 20 feet.
Proponents of the view that the sites are man-made point out features such as two round holes (about two feet wide) and a straight row of smaller holes that appear to have been an attempt to split off a section of the rock by means of wedges, as in ancient quarries. Professor Masaaki Kimura, a marine seismologist of the University of the Rykyus, also pointed out a number of marks, such as a plus sign and a V shape, that appear to show that human beings worked the stone and could have been made by wedge-like tools called kusabi.
While many of the features seen at Yonaguni are also seen in natural sandstone formations throughout the world, the concentration of so many peculiar formations and 90 degree angles in such a small area seems peculiar.
Natural Formations
Despite the unusual features displayed at Yonaguni, there remains a small group of scientists who have studied the formation and who are adamant that the large blocks formed naturally as a result of tectonic movement and other natural phenomena.
Geologist Robert Schoch of Boston University is one scientists who believes that the structures were naturally formed by acknowledges that they may have been used or modified by humans in the past. He points to the fact that the site lies in an earthquake-prone region and that earthquakes tend to fracture rocks in a regular manner. This is also the view of John Anthony West who believes that the so-called walls are simply natural horizontal 'platforms' which fell into a vertical position when rock below them eroded and the alleged roads are simply channels in the rock.
Other examples of natural formations with flat faces and sharp, straight edges are the basalt columns of the Giant's Causeway and the natural staircase formation on Old Rag Mountain.
Remnants of an Ancient Civilization?
Nevertheless, many scientists are persisting in their search for further evidence of their man-made nature with the belief that the stone structures are the remnants of an old city that must have existed around 10,000 years ago when the sea level was much lower than it is today since it does not appear that the site ‘fell’ into the sea.
One proponent of this view is explorer and researcher Graham Hancock who in his book titled Underworld writes: “It was the submerged structures of Japan that first awakened me to the possibility that an underworld in history, unrecognized by archaeologists, could lie concealed and forgotten beneath the sea” (Hancock 2002).
Hancock draws parallels between Yonaguni and other ruins found beneath the waters of Lake Titicaca and in Dwarka, off the coast of India, which offer further evidence for the existence of a vast underwater world containing structures stretching back to the dimmest chapters of human antiquity.
If the structures at Yonaguni are indeed the remains of an ancient city, one possibility is the prehistoric inhabitants of Japan called the Jomon, who existed from about 12,000 BC to around 300 BC and who developed a sophisticated culture. The Jomon is often compared to pre-Columbian cultures of Pacific Northwest North America because in both regions cultural complexity developed within a primarily hunting-gathering context. Although their society was considered ‘primitive’ by the standards of later times, they were the first culture on Earth to develop pottery, according to mainstream theorists. Examples of this technology date back to the time when many of the submerged structures of Yonaguni would have been above water, and if they were in fact built by human hands, this would have been the time that their construction was underway.
Researchers are continuing to investigate these unique and perplexing underwater worlds with regards to how they relate to our ancient past and to unravel the mysteries surrounding their true origins.
Related Links
The Morien Institute
Japan's Underwater Ruins
The Forgotten Underworld of Japan
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I'm not so sure about spending $10,000 in a fake map, though. [Profiles in History via Uncrate]23rd FIFA World Cup
2026 FIFA World Cup FIFA World Cup United 2026
Copa Mundial de la FIFA Unidos 2026
Coupe du Monde de la FIFA - Unis 2026
Bid logo Tournament details Host countries Canada
Mexico
United States Dates June–July Teams 48 (from 6 confederations) Venue(s) 16 (in 16 host cities) 2022 2030 →
The 2026 FIFA World Cup (Spanish: Copa mundial de la FIFA de 2026; French: Coupe du monde de la FIFA de 2026) will be the 23rd FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international men's football championship contested by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournament will be jointly hosted by 16 cities in three North American countries; 60 matches, including the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and the final, will be hosted by the United States while neighboring Canada and Mexico will each host 10 matches. The tournament will be the first hosted by three nations.[1][2]
The United 2026 bid beat a rival bid by Morocco during a final vote at the 68th FIFA Congress in Moscow. It will be the first World Cup since South Korea/Japan in 2002 that will be hosted by more than one nation. With its past hosting of the 1970 and 1986 tournaments, Mexico will also become the first country to host or co-host three men's World Cups.
The 2026 World Cup will also see the tournament expanded from 32 to 48 teams.[3]
Format [ edit ]
Michel Platini, who was then the UEFA president, had suggested in October 2013 an expansion of the tournament to 40 teams,[4][5] an idea that FIFA president Gianni Infantino also suggested in March 2016.[6] A desire to increase the number of participants in the tournament from the previous 32 team format was announced on October 4, 2016. Four expansion options were considered:[7][8][9][10]
Expand to 40 teams (8 groups of 5 teams) – 88 matches
Expand to 40 teams (10 groups of 4 teams) – 76 matches
Expand to 48 teams (opening 32-team playoff round) – 80 matches
Expand to 48 teams (16 groups of 3 teams) – 80 matches
On January 10, 2017, the FIFA Council voted unanimously to expand to a 48-team tournament.[3]
The tournament will open with a group stage consisting of 16 groups of three teams, with the top two teams progressing from each group to a knockout tournament starting with a round of 32 teams.[11] The number of games played overall will increase from 64 to 80, but the number of games played by finalists remains at seven, the same as with 32 teams, but one group match will be replaced by a knockout match. The tournament will also be completed within 32 days, the same as previous 32-team tournaments.[12]
The European Club Association and its member clubs opposed the proposal for expansion, saying that the number of games was already at an "unacceptable" level and they urged the governing body to reconsider its idea of increasing the number of teams that qualify.[13] They contended that it was a decision taken for political reasons because Infantino would thus satisfy his electorate, rather than for sporting reasons.[14] Liga de Fútbol Profesional president Javier Tebas agreed, affirming the unacceptability of the new format. He told Marca that the football industry is maintained thanks to clubs and leagues, not FIFA, and that Infantino did politics because to be elected he promised more countries in the World Cup; he wanted to keep the electoral promises.[15] German national team coach Joachim Löw warned that expansion, as had occurred for Euro 2016, would dilute the value of the world tournament because players have already reached their physical and mental limit.[16] Another criticism of the new format is that with three-team groups, the risk of collusion between the two teams playing in the last round of the group stage will increase compared with four-team groups (where simultaneous kick-offs have been employed). One suggestion by president Infantino is that group matches that end in draws will be decided by penalty shootouts.[17]
Slot allocation [ edit ]
On March 30, 2017, the Bureau of the FIFA Council (composed of the FIFA president and the presidents of each of the six confederations) proposed a slot allocation for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The recommendation was submitted for the ratification by the FIFA Council.[18][19]
On May 9, 2017, two days before the 67th FIFA Congress, the FIFA Council approved the slot allocation in a meeting in Manama, Bahrain. It includes an intercontinental playoff tournament involving six teams to decide the last two FIFA World Cup berths.[20]
Confederation FIFA eligible members Places in finals
(including hosts) Percentage of members
with places in finals Places before 2026
(excluding hosts,
including half-places) AFC 46 8 17% 4.5 CAF 54 9 17% 5 CONCACAF 35 6 17% 3.5 CONMEBOL 10 6 60% 4.5 OFC 11 1 9% 0.5 UEFA 55 16 29% 13 Playoff – 2 33% – Total 211 48 23% 31 (+ hosts)
The issue of how to allocate automatic host country qualification given that there are multiple host countries has not yet been resolved and will be decided by the FIFA council.[18][20][21] The United bid anticipated all three host countries being awarded automatic places.[22]
The ratification of slot allocation gives OFC a guaranteed berth in the final tournament for the first time in FIFA World Cup history. The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the first tournament in which all six confederations have guaranteed berths.
Playoff tournament [ edit ]
A playoff tournament involving six teams will be held to decide the last two FIFA World Cup berths,[18] consisting of one team per confederation (except for UEFA) and one additional team from the confederation of the host country (i.e. CONCACAF).
Two of the teams will be seeded based on the FIFA World Rankings, and the seeded teams will play for a FIFA World Cup berth against the winners of the first two knockout games involving the four unseeded teams.
The tournament is to be played in the host country(ies) and to be used as a test event for the FIFA World Cup. The existing playoff window of November 2025 has been suggested as a tentative date for the 2026 edition.
Host selection [ edit ]
Map of the World with the six confederations
The FIFA Council went back and forth between 2013 and 2017 on limitations within hosting rotation based on the continental confederations. Originally, it was set that bids to be host would not be allowed from countries belonging to confederations that hosted the two preceding tournaments. It was temporarily changed to only prohibit countries belonging to the confederation that hosted the previous World Cup from bidding to host the following tournament,[23] before the rule was changed back to its prior state of two World Cups. However, the FIFA Council did make an exception to potentially grant eligibility to member associations of the confederation of the second-to-last host of the FIFA World Cup in the event that none of the received bids fulfill the strict technical and financial requirements.[24][25] In March 2017, FIFA president Gianni Infantino confirmed that "Europe (UEFA) and Asia (AFC) are excluded from the bidding following the selection of Russia and Qatar in 2018 and 2022 respectively."[26] Therefore, the 2026 World Cup could be hosted by one of the remaining four confederations: CONCACAF (North America; last hosted in 1994), CAF (Africa; last hosted in 2010), CONMEBOL (South America; last hosted in 2014), or OFC (Oceania, never hosted before), or potentially by UEFA in case no bid from those four met the requirements.
After the selection, the map of world cup hosts stayed like this. Remember that some city locations may be wrong
Co-hosting the FIFA World Cup—which had been banned by FIFA after the 2002 World Cup—was approved for the 2026 World Cup, though not limited to a specific number but instead evaluated on a case-by-case basis. Also by 2026, the FIFA general secretariat, after consultation with the Competitions Committee, will have the power to exclude bidders who do not meet the minimum technical requirements to host the competition.[24]
Canada, Mexico and the United States had all publicly considered bidding for the tournament separately, but the United joint bid was announced on April 10, 2017.
Allowed to vote Banned from voting Voted for United bid Canada/Mexico/United States Voted for Moroccan bid Morocco Voted for neither Sanctioned by FIFA Abstained from voting Not a FIFA member Voting results:
Voting [ edit ]
The voting took place on June 13, 2018, during FIFA's annual congress in Moscow, and it was reopened to all eligible members.[27] The United bid won receiving 134 valid ballots, while the Morocco bid received 65 valid ballots. Upon the selection, Canada becomes the fifth country to host both men's and women's World Cup—the latter was in 2015, Mexico becomes the first country to host three men's World Cups—previously in 1970 and 1986, and the United States becomes the first country to host both men's and women's World Cup twice each—having hosted the 1994 men's and the 1999 and 2003 women's World Cups.
Qualification [ edit ]
The 2026 World Cup's qualification process has yet to be decided. The FIFA Council is expected to decide which hosts, if any, will receive automatic qualifications to the tournament.[18][20][21] The United Bid personnel anticipated that all three host countries would be awarded automatic places.[22]
CAF (Africa): 9 slots
AFC (Asia): 8 slots
UEFA (Europe): 16 slots
CONCACAF (North and Central America and Caribbean): 6 slots
OFC (Oceania): 1 slot
CONMEBOL (South America): 6 slots
Playoff: 2 slots
During the bidding process, there were 49 venues in 43 cities contacted to be part of the bid. 41 cities with 45 venues responded and submitted to be part of the bid (3 venues in 3 cities in Mexico, 8 venues in 6 cities in Canada and 38 venues in 34 cities in the United States). A first round elimination cut 9 venues and 9 cities, then a second round elimination cut an additional 9 venues in 6 cities while 3 venues in 3 cities dropped out due to FIFA’s unwillingness to discuss financial details, reducing the total number to 23 venues, each in their own city or metropolitan area. The 23 candidate cities and venues will be narrowed down to 16 in 2020 or 2021 (3 in Canada, 3 in Mexico, and 10 in the United States):
A denotes a stadium used for previous men's World Cup tournaments (United States and Mexico only) A denotes an indoor stadium with a fixed or retractable roof.
Canada [ edit ]
Mexico [ edit ]
United States [ edit ]
Rejected venues [ edit ]
Controversies [ edit ]
FIFA president Gianni Infantino criticized the U.S. travel ban on several Muslim-majority nations. Infantino said, "When it comes to FIFA competitions, any team, including the supporters and officials of that team, who qualify for a World Cup need to have access to the country, otherwise there is no World Cup. That is obvious."[30]
However, assurances were later given by the government that there would be no such discrimination.[31][32]
U.S. President Donald Trump warned the countries that intended to support the Morocco bid to host the 2026 World Cup, tweeting: "The US has put together a STRONG bid w/ Canada & Mexico for the 2026 World Cup. It would be a shame if countries that we always support were to lobby against the U.S. bid. Why should we be supporting these countries when they don't support us (including at the United Nations)?"[33]
Broadcasting rights [ edit ]
On February 12, 2015, Fox, Telemundo, and Bell Media's rights to the tournament were renewed by FIFA to cover 2026, without accepting any other bids. The New York Times believed that this extension was intended as compensation for the rescheduling of the 2022 World Cup to November–December rather than its traditional June–July scheduling, which falls during the heart of the regular season for several major North American sports leagues (including the National Football League, in which Fox is a major U.S. rightsholder).[36][37][38]Email This Post - Print This Post
By John Helmer, Moscow
If your enemy is waging economic war on you, it’s prudent to camouflage how well your farms and factories are doing. Better the attacker thinks you’re on your last legs, and are too exhausted to fight back. A new report on the Russian economy, published by Jon Hellevig, reveals the folly in the enemy’s calculation.
Who is the audience for this message? US and NATO warfighters against Russia can summon up more will if they think Russia is in retreat than if they must calculate the cost in their own blood and treasure if the Russians strike back. That’s Russian policy on the Syrian front, where professional soldiers are in charge. On the home front, where the civilians call the shots, Hellevig’s message looks like an encouragement for fight-back – the economic policymaker’s equivalent of a no-fly zone for the US and European Union. It’s also a challenge to the Kremlin policy of appeasement.
Hellevig (right), a Finnish lawyer and investment analyst, has been directing businesses in Russia since 1992. His Moscow-based consultancy Awara has published its assessment of Russian economic performance since 2014 with the title, “What Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger.” The maxim was first coined by the `19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He said it in a pep talk for himself. Subsequent readers think of the maxim as an irony. Knowing now what Nietzsche knew about his own prognosis but kept secret at the time, he did too.
Hellevig’s report can be read in full here.
The headline findings aren’t news to the Kremlin. It has been regularly making the claims at President Vladimir Putin’s semi-annual national talk shows; at businessmen’s conventions like the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF); and in Kremlin-funded propaganda -– lowbrow outlets like Russia Today and Sputnik News, and the highbrow Valdai Club. A charter for a brand-new outlet for the claims, the Russian National Convention Bureau, was agreed at the St. Petersburg forum last month. Government promotion of reciprocal trade and inward investment isn’t exceptional for Russia; it is normal practice throughout the world.
The argument of the Hellevig report is that the US and NATO campaign against Russia has failed to do the damage it was aimed to do, and that their propaganda outlets, media and think-tanks are lying to conceal the failure. Small percentage numbers for the decline in Russian GDP and related measures are summed up by Hellevig as “belt-tightening, not much more”. Logically and arithmetically, similarly small numbers in the measurement of the Russian recovery this year ought to mean “belt expanding, not much more.” But like Nietzsche, Hellevig is more optimistic. Here’s what he concludes:
“Industrial Production was down merely 0.6%. A handsome recovery is already on its way with an expected growth of 3 to 4% in 2017. In May the industrial production already soared by a promising 5.3%.”
“Unemployment remained stable all through 2014 – 2016, the hoped-for effect of sanctions causing mass unemployment and social chaos failed to materialize.”
“GDP was down 2.3% in 2014-2016, expected to more than make up for that in 2017 with 2-3% predicted growth.”
“The really devastating news for ‘our Western partners’ (as Putin likes to refer to them) must be – which we are the first to report – the extraordinary decrease in the share of oil & gas revenue in Russia’s GDP.”
“In the years of sanctions, Russia has grown to become an agricultural superpower with the world’s largest wheat exports. Already in the time of the Czars Russia was a big grain exporter, but that was often accompanied with domestic famine. Stalin financed Russia’s industrialization to a large extent by grain exports, but hereby also creating domestic shortages and famine. It is then the first time in Russia’s history when it is under Putin a major grain exporter while ensuring domestic abundance. Russia has made an overall remarkable turnaround in food production and is now virtually self-sufficient.”
“Russia has the lowest level of imports (as a share of the GDP) of all major countries… Russia’s very low levels of imports in the global comparison obviously signifies that Russia produces domestically a much higher share of all that it consumes (and invests), this in turn means that the economy is superbly diversified contrary to the claims of the failed experts and policymakers. In fact, it is the most self-sufficient and diversified economy in the world. Our argument that Russia’s economy is the most diversified in the world is easily proven by World Bank statistics on the share of imports of goods and services as a percentage of the GDP. This is illustrated by Chart 17, which compares the levels of import of Russia with a sample of countries.” Hellevig also urges using his purchasing power parity measure (PPP) of real output and goods flows rather than a nominal measure based on devalued currency exchange rates.
“We predict Russia to push through the 4 trillion level in 2017 and overtake Germany by 2018 to become the world’s fifth biggest economy.”
David Low’s cartoon in the London Evening Standard of October 31, 1939, two months after the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact was signed, and after Poland was invaded. Germany is now tied by the US and NATO to the Ukraine, and the guns are drawn openly. Not even guarded rapprochement between Germany and Russia is possible; there is no significant political support for it among German voters.
Hellevig’s point deserves repeating — the Russian economy is far more diversified than the enemy thinks. Naturally, that makes Russian targets less vulnerable, but doesn’t deter the enemy from intensifying his attack. The enemy isn’t as simple-minded as his own propaganda sounds.
A glance at the way in which the Moscow stock exchange index (MICEX) has been moving in relation to the movement of the Brent marker price for crude oil illustrates how the markets, Russian and international, think. The chart shows positive sentiment for the future of the Russian economy cut its tie to the value of exported energy between November of 2014 and January 2015. Since then the market assessment looks like it has been more aligned with Hellevig than with Washington.
RUSSIAN STOCK MARKET VALUE CROSSED OVER THE OIL EXPORT PRICE AT THE END OF 2014
Key: yellow=MICEX index; blue=Brent oil price. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/INDEXCF:IND
That’s not what the chart lines mean, according to major institutional investors. They believe the crossover occurred when Donald Trump won the presidential election on November 8; the gap between share price and oil price opened on market optimism that he would order the lifting of sanctions and other warfare measures. Once Trump took the oath of office on January 20, and the oil price started to rise, the lines converged.
Key: yellow=MICEX index; blue=Brent oil price. Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/INDEXCF:IND |
zone at a crossroads (again)."
The Spring Meetings will also be attended by former Greek finance chief and current Bank of Greece Governor Yannis Stournaras.Twenty miles north the train slowed, and slowed, and then eased to a hissing stop, and the doors sucked open, and Jack Reacher 13 stepped down to a concrete ramp 14 in front of a grain elevator 15 as big as an apartment house. To his left were four more elevators, all of them bigger than the first, and to his right was an enormous metal shed the size of an airplane hangar. There were vapor lights on poles, set at regular intervals, and they cut cones of yellow in the darkness. There was mist in the nighttime air, like a note on a calendar. The end of summer was coming. Fall was on its way. 16
Only one thing went wrong, and it happened right then. The evening train came through five hours late. The next morning they heard on the AM station that a broken locomotive had caused a jam a hundred miles south. But they didn’t know that at the time. All they heard was the mournful whistle at the distant crossing, and then all they could do was turn and stare, at the long lit cars rumbling past in the middle distance, one after the other, like a vision in a dream, 11 seemingly forever. But eventually the train was gone, and the rails sang for a minute more, and then the tail light was swallowed by the midnight darkness, 12 and they turned back to their task.
Hogs were rooting animals, so they made sure the hole was deep. Which was not a problem either. Their backhoe’s arm was long, and it bit rhythmically, in fluent, articulated 10 seven-foot scoops, the hydraulic rams glinting in the electric light, the engine straining and roaring and pausing, the cab falling and rising, as each bucket-load was dumped aside. When the hole was done they backed the machine up and turned it around and used the front bucket to push Keever into his grave, scraping him, rolling him, covering his body in dirt, until finally it fell over the lip and thumped down into the electric shadows.
They started at midnight, which they thought was safe enough. They were in the middle of ten thousand acres of nothingness, 8 and the only man-made structure their side of any horizon was the railroad track to the east, but midnight was five hours after the evening train and seven hours before the morning train. Therefore, no prying eyes. Their backhoe 9 had four spotlights on a bar above the cab, the same way kids pimped their pick-up trucks, and together the four beams made a wide pool of halogen brightness. Therefore, visibility was not a problem either. They started the hole in the hog pen, which was a permanent disturbance all by itself. Each hog weighed two hundred pounds, and each hog had four feet. The dirt was always chewed up. Nothing to see from the air, not even with a thermal camera. The picture would white out instantly, from the steaming animals themselves, and their steaming piles and pools of waste. Safe enough.
Moving 1 a guy as big as Keever 2 wasn’t easy. It was like trying to wrestle a king-size mattress off a waterbed. 3 So they buried 4 him close to the house. Which 5 made sense anyway. The harvest 6 was still a month away, and a disturbance in a field would show up from the air. And they would use the air, for a guy like Keever. 7 They would use search planes, and helicopters, and maybe even drones.
You start with a participle. I like that. Verb of action. Transitive. We have an action taking place, and an object (corpse, one, large). But we don’t know who is doing the moving. So, covertly, you’re posing a question, right at the beginning, that won’t really be answered till somewhere near the end. Who are these guys? Who is the subject of the verb? The “hermeneutic code” (as Roland Barthes neatly called it) is like a long, serpentine fuse leading to a big barrel of gunpowder somewhere down the road. You just lit it. Expect fireworks.
The first sentence arrived fully formed. And it had to put us right alongside the bad guys, struggling with their midnight task. I didn’t want, for instance: “Keever was a big guy and it was hard to move him.” That’s too flat, too start-from-cold, too declarative. I felt “Moving a guy as big as Keever” was somehow real-time descriptive, a little breathless, as if grunted by a guy occupied with the problem. The sentence had to do two things — launch the action “in medias res,” as they say, and hint at a kind of inarticulate, rural vernacular.
First proper name. Like an inscription on a tombstone. “Keever,” phonologically a close approximation to “Reacher.” A para-rhyme. What you’re saying is: This could happen to Reacher, if he’s not careful. Keever is a big guy, too. And look where that got him! (In with the hogs.) Maybe there is a faint echo of (John) Cheever, the writer, in there too? But more likely it’s Kiefer (Sutherland). You have to bump off the star of “24” in the very first sentence. Before the first sentence. You don’t want any competition.
That’s an academic thinking. The writer says he doesn’t know where it came from. Cheever? Possible, but so far removed from a hog pen at midnight that it’s unlikely. Kiefer? I’m more of a fan of his dad’s. (Who once wrote to me saying he wished he was younger so he could play Reacher in the movies.) “Keever” probably just bubbled up from somewhere in my subconscious. Maybe I just liked the sound…
The leitmotif of sheer size gets bigged up all over again. But you want to know the thing that kills me about this sentence? Try getting “Deep Blue” to write that line! There will come a time when machines will write novels. Maybe it’s already here and cyber-authors are simply masquerading as human beings (I could name names.) But I guarantee IBM or Google are not going to come up with this crazy waterbed image in a million years. Where did that even come from?
I try to respect the physical reality of death and corpses, to some extent. And they’re floppy and hard to move, especially the big ones. I was once in a hotel in California, trying to nudge a waterbed mattress straight, and it felt like the right image. But I agree, machines will never have that kind of crazy free association.
Begin with a burial. How can that miss? It also picks up where the last one, “Personal,” ended: with another burial. So there is a sense of a continuum. But I know you were rereading Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary” at the same time you were writing this book. All those zombies on the rampage. And isn’t there a sense in which Keever just won’t stay buried? Like the ghost of Hamlet’s father, crying out for revenge, he keeps on popping up, despite the best efforts of the bad guys.
Keever was dead before the book began, but in a parallel way he wasn’t. … His fate drove the whole story, we learned some poignant details about him. For a dead guy he ended up a rounded, well-developed character. So in that sense, yes, he refused to stay buried.
It’s like you’ve got two voices going here at the same time. Like a harmony. On the one hand, you’ve adopted the point of view of the farmers, the hog owners, the guys who are doing the killing and the burying. It all “made sense” to them to do exactly what they were doing. Coldly logical (the word “therefore” comes up twice here). Ruthless, of course. It’s the Flaubertian style indirect libre, what James Wood calls the “semi-close” third-person voice. But the way you’re starting a sentence with the beginning of a subordinate clause: that is pure you. That is your voice. One of your syntactic quirks (egalitarian perhaps? No subordinates!). So it’s like you’re letting the reader know that you’re still there. Buried, but irrepressible.
And “Which” at the head of a sentence is an accelerative word — it launches the new thought with pace and momentum. Very valuable. But I have to be careful not to overdo it. It becomes a habit. Two or three in sequence is fine, but those sequences need to be separated.
They are farmers, after all. If only they would stick to the farming. They shouldn’t be using people as fertilizer or hog snacks. Harvest would typically have fairly positive connotations. Not in the works of Lee Child! Admit it — you hate the pastoral. The nomadic warrior is the opposite of the farmer. It’s an opposition that goes back to the shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural homemakers. And “harvest”: It has a weird sort of Stephen King echo to it — what the hell is going to leap up out of the earth? That old Greek myth of the “autochthonous” guys … these are people connected to the earth in some way. Chthonian, subterranean. Which hooks into the very end of the book … The descent into the labyrinth.
I guess one writes what one knows, or at least has sympathy with. And the opposite. It’s not that I particularly dislike farmers (O.K., a bit) but more that I scorn the unexamined assumptions that litter our discourse. Farmers are good and wise? Well, not really. Not always. Farmers have screwed up repeatedly (Dust Bowl, etc.) — they’re as dumb as anyone else. I think that should be pointed out occasionally. The myth of agricultural wisdom.
I almost forgot. You went back and put in the comma in this sentence, didn’t you? The humble comma. You’d think a big, bone-cruncher like Reacher wouldn’t have time for a mere comma, but he notices the little things, doesn’t he?
There was no comma on the first pass, but I wanted it to sound slower, more considered, more ruminative, slightly inarticulate, slightly low-I.Q. Even though no one talks in the first section, I wanted to mirror a halting, slow-witted style of speech. Flaubert!
There is plenty of “nothing” in your work. “Reacher said nothing,” for example — one of your most recurrent phrases. But nothingness: It’s a rarity. This is only the third time in 20 novels that this word has been used (I checked). The first page of “Make Me” and you pull out the nothingness card. And only once in the course of this novel, likewise. What is this word even doing here? A faint allusion to Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness,” perhaps? The pastoral is all about nothingness; the nomadic warrior, on the other hand, is the incarnation of pure being. A higher level of existence. And, without giving it all away, the whole plot is right there, at the very beginning. Like a hologram. The temptation or the dread of nothingness.
It was somewhat declarative — here we have a tiny cast on a gigantic empty stage. I wanted a strong sense of absolutely nothing, with a bright pool of light in the center of it. In the context of the first page (especially considering the way I write, which is not to know the second page yet) it would be bogus to claim much meaning in it, beyond an obligation to tell the reader, O.K., the setting is miles from anywhere in farming country. Information, rather than metaphor. I find it more organic to come back and decide what was metaphor later (and then develop it) rather than decide ahead of time.
You really like this word, don’t you? And the size of it. Maybe Reacher is modeled on a backhoe. But I like the way you really give the machine character and dignity and power. Look at it go! All those beautiful lights. And all the different kinds of work it can do, “straining,” “roaring,” “scraping” and all that. It’s lyrical. Your hymn to tekhne, the love affair between man and machine. The cab “falling and rising” — inanimate and yet so alive. We instinctively feel that we are not done with this backhoe, just yet.
I like machinery, sure. I grew up in a city that made that stuff. [Birmingham, England.] But again, at this point all I wanted was to create a picture of vast, dark emptiness, with a tiny hot spot of light, noise and nefarious activity at its center. You’re the analyst, I’m just a working hack. This is housekeeping — setting the scene for the reader, but through action, so it’s not boring. But yes, it’s a good American word, they don’t have it in England.
Verbal words applied to the machine. The machine speaks more than the anonymous farmers. And look at the description of the train, too. With its “mournful whistle” and the rails that “sang.” It’s like they have real feeling and poetry, which the humans lack. The machine sings the blues. But we are reminded too of the thing that is missing on this first page, something you might reasonably expect: dialogue. There is none. Surprising?
I wanted the sound of the railroad to emphasize the silence and loneliness. No dialogue? Absolutely, and that’s a choice. Lots of writers use dialogue from the top, to make the page look accessible to a bookstore browser. White space is less intimidating than a dense wedge of text. But Reacher is not a talker. I don’t want to give a false impression. But if I do the opening right, I think I’m saying to the reader, don’t worry, you’re in for a fun ride, and there will be plenty of talking later. On the other hand, in the third person, it often feels like dialogue even when there isn’t any. It’s all down to the voice — or voices.
“Like a vision in a dream.” It wasn’t like that — it really was a “vision in a dream,” wasn’t it? Isn’t that how it came to you?
It’s a funny old job, mine. I actually get paid to sit around and daydream. Everything else is just typing.
I notice that not only do these mysterious Keever-killers live in the state of nothing and nowhere, but they have no time in which to do a proper job either. There is a manifest contradiction to do with trains that Agatha Christie, for one, would never have tolerated. Look at your impossible timetable. Your bad guys only get started at midnight. And you have them being disturbed by the train in the middle of their fairly rigorous grave-digging. Yet the train is supposed to leave Somewhere at 7. It’s 5 hours late, so it arrives in Nowhere (i.e., Mother’s Rest) at midnight. Therefore (to use your word) the time it takes them to do the job is exactly… zero. The train takes ages to go by (forever) and yet: It is still “midnight” when it’s gone. It’s like the whole oneiric plot exists in non-time and non-space. Is this Lee Child subtly deconstructing the whole genre and saying to the shrewd reader, it really is all airy nothing?
Sometimes you just have to get it wrong to get it right. I liked the emphasis on “midnight darkness,” for one thing. It just felt right that way. For a clandestine burial. I didn’t want to be a slave to train timetables. And then once it was done, I was reluctant to go back — like Agatha Christie — and finesse it. I like it a little rough and ready. And rely on the readers to get it right for me.
I know it’s not in the text (not until several chapters in). But the folding toothbrush has to be in Reacher’s pocket, right? It’s his most defining possession. Or is it the kind you screw together? Either way, you have actually owned one. Jules Verne said of H. G. Wells: “But, he invents!” Stephen King said something similar about you at Harvard the other day: “You make stuff up!” It seems obvious. But I sometimes wonder, seeing the way you work. Perhaps nothing is invented and everything is true and your wildest imaginings are only (as the empiricists would say) some random permutation of sense data.
It clips together. I have hundreds. People send them to me all the time.
I remember you originally had something to do with dirt here and you changed it to concrete. Is concrete more Reacher? You didn’t want him getting his shoes dirty, right off the bat. He’s a warrior, not a farmer, after all. What’s that phrase in “Shane”? “Sod-buster”? Reacher is more of a head-buster. Here he is in Mother’s Rest getting down off his steel horse: like a knight in disposable chinos and T-shirt.
I wanted to separate Reacher’s initial environment from what we had seen around the bad guys. I needed it to be a clear two-world situation — here are the bad guys, and here is Reacher, different in every way. Yes, he’s a descendant of the ancient knight errant tradition.
Very Don Quixote, with silos in place of windmills. Or rather this used to be “silo” — you’ve changed it to elevator. Don’t you like silos anymore? But more important, I recall that you originally had “bigger than an apartment house.” Now you have “as big as.” Is that downsizing? So everything comes down to sheer size: the lifeless bulk of Keever, the massive presence of Reacher. Even the shed has to be “enormous.” It’s like you’re saying, O.K., now it’s Reacher vs. silos (or elevators) — who will win?
Cervantes was too satirical of the heroic tradition. I never liked sidekicks like Sancho Panza, either. But you’re right, I wanted to echo the opening. Make it more like a refrain. And elevator — it was the sense that there could be machinery at work rather than just a storage facility. Or maybe it was all those syllables. Size, yes, I always want Goliath to win, not David.
I’m hooked all over again. Another reader, desperate to know what happens next. How do you do that? What’s your secret?
It’s all about asking questions and not answering them for ages. Who is Keever? Who are the folks who killed him? And why? Why was he important? Did Reacher see the lights? Is that why he gets off the train? For a first page I thought it did its job. I was happy with it.Having bagged three stages and all but wrapped up victory in the points competition, Peter Sagan has admitted that he already has his eye on the Tour de France's final stage finish on the Champs Elysées. But even if the Slovak misses out in Paris, he’s still set for a nice bonus as he prepares to collect on a pre-race bet made with Team Liquigas president Paolo Zani. Related Articles Tour de France rider galleries: Peter Sagan
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In the days before the race started in Liège, Sagan asked Zani whether he would give him a car if he could win the green jersey in Paris. OK, Zani said, but to claim it you also have to win two stages. With three in the bag, all Sagan now has to do is cross the finishing line in Paris in green to collect the Porsche that Zani put up as an incentive to the Slovak sensation.
“I’m not certain of reaching Paris in the green jersey, but I’ve got a good advantage over André Greipel,” Sagan told Spanish news agency EFE. “There are still five stages left and anything could happen on any of those days.”
Sagan leads Greipel by 102 points ahead of Wednesday’s big Pyrenean stage. Beyond that, there are only two stages where the sprinters are likely to feature. In order to deny Sagan the green jersey, Greipel would have to win both of them and hope that the Liquigas rider does not pick up any points at all, which is very unlikely given Sagan’s staggering performances throughout the race.
Sagan admits that he has been helped in his quest for green by Sky’s focus on the GC, which has left world champion Mark Cavendish isolated in the sprints. He also believes that his rapidly advancing reputation helped him on Monday’s stage into Pau. “I was surprised that the other sprinters’ teams didn’t work to bring back the breakaway, but I was happy to see that. Now I know that the rest of the riders don’t want to fight with me [for the green jersey] any longer,” he said.
But Sagan isn’t allowing any thoughts of complacency to take hold. He has, he insists, still got plenty to learn. “This is the Tour of my dreams, but I know that I’ve still got to improve a lot of things. I’ve got to get used to the fact that everyone will rider against me if I get into a break, as happened the other day when Luis León [Sánchez] won. I made an important mistake because when the Spaniard attacked, he took advantage of the fact I was eating.”
Sagan says that the only barrier between him and victory in the points competition is the Pyrenees. “If I can get through the mountains OK, I can reach Paris in the green jersey. In the time trial I will hold back some energy for the sprint on the final day,” he added.
Win or not in Paris, Sagan looks likely to be driving home in style.A new Valve program will let companies use the HTC Vive virtual reality tracking system for their own hardware. Under the SteamVR Tracking license, product designers can buy sensors like those on the Vive headset and controllers, attach them to their own products, and then track them with the Vive’s base stations. This means that developers could make their own custom motion controllers for the Vive — or, in the long run, that Valve could establish a motion tracking standard for all kinds of objects.
Valve isn’t attaching any licensing fees to its system; an FAQ says "the largest value for our customers and for Valve will come from allowing SteamVR Tracking to proliferate as widely as possible." A third-party company called Triad Semiconductor sells the sensors directly, although Valve is offering a development kit with 40 sensors, circuit boards, and two official Vive base stations. While Valve suggests people could one day build their own versions of these, too, for now the base stations are required for tracking.
There's also a modular reference object that people can use to start building their own projects, seen below. "The reference tracked object comes with a handle that has a few sample buttons on it. Hardware developers can replace that handle with their own device and still use the reference shape for tracking," a Valve spokesperson elaborated. "They can also take the reference tracked object apart and use the tracking board out of it in a shape of their own design."
The kit is free for developers, but in order to participate in the program, each company must send at least one person to a $3,000 training course held in Seattle. The first of these multi-day programs will be held in mid-September, and Valve says that at some point in the future, it hopes to eliminate the in-person training requirement. Companies don’t need their products approved by Valve in order to sell them, although they will need to comply with the terms of the license.
Valve doesn’t give a definitive list of how people will use its tech, but it references tracking for "VR golf clubs," indoor drones, and custom head-mounted displays. The most obvious short-term option is custom peripherals for the HTC Vive itself, whether that’s a controller with custom options for a software program or a more convincing weapon for a VR game. In the longer term, it could be used in any product that needs motion controls or motion capture options.
These products don't necessarily have to be VR-focused
The Vive’s tracking system — which Valve developed and then built into a commercial product with HTC — is different from the camera system used by the Oculus Rift or PlayStation VR. Its two base stations emit lasers that hit the sensors on the Vive headset or any other tracked object, and the SteamVR software uses these to triangulate its location. This means that the base stations don’t need to be attached to a computer, only plugged into a wall.
While it’s strongly associated with the HTC Vive, SteamVR has never been explicitly restricted to that headset, and the Steam platform supports games for the Oculus Rift and OSVR development kit. But this is the first time that Valve has explicitly urged people to start building their own products based on Vive hardware. And as the company’s suggestions show, it doesn’t necessarily need to be related to the Vive — or to virtual reality headsets at all.Popular site JotForm doesn't host music or movies or child pornography, all of which have led US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to seize other Internet domain names without advance warning (sometimes making serious mistakes). JotForm also doesn't create content itself. Instead, it helps customers create online forms that can then be embedded in their websites for easy data collection.
But that didn't spare the site from having its entire business shuttered without warning yesterday as the site's domain name was shut down at the request of the US Secret Service. JotForm's domain name registrar, GoDaddy, redirected the site's nameservers to NS1.SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM—and with that, JotForm.com became unreachable and the site's two million user-created forms all broke.
And it all may have been done without a court order.
When he saw his site was down, JotForm cofounder Aytekin Tank scrambled. He checked in with GoDaddy, which told him that the site had been suspended as part of an ongoing investigation.
GoDaddy has long supported authorities who have concerns about the websites and domains it hosts. In Congressional testimony last year, the company's general counsel Christine Jones noted that "Our staff routinely works with courts and law enforcement from the local to international level to shut down domain names and websites through which infringers and counterfeiters operate. Any time we are notified by a court or a federal or state prosecutor that there is criminally infringing material on our systems, we work rapidly to disable access to that material."
Note the two criteria: a court order or a notification from a prosecutor. That latter category amounts to an unproven allegation—and it's what Tank believes derailed him here. "No, as far as I know, there is no judge order," he told me. "They sent a request to GoDaddy and GoDaddy complied."
But GoDaddy won't say publicly whether the takedown was voluntary or compulsory. When I asked, the company's Director of Network Abuse, Ben Butler, told me that his office complies with "orders from courts, as well as confirmed official requests from law enforcement agencies," but he wouldn't get into specifics in this case.
"We can tell you in general terms, at the specific request of law enforcement, Go Daddy sometimes takes action to prevent further harm being caused by a website hosted on our servers," he added. "This would include things like sites engaged in phishing, malware installation, securities fraud, and so on."
Butler's office acted on whatever request was received and shut down the site's domain, but he did pass the requesting agent's contact info along to JotForm so that the company could work to resolve the issue. According to a copy of an e-mail seen by Ars Technica, GoDaddy told JotForm that "the domain name was suspended as part of an ongoing law enforcement investigation" and that Tank should contact a special agent at the US Secret Service.
Tank, desperate to find out what had happened, called her.
"The agent told me she is busy and she asked for my phone number, and told me they will get back to me within this week," he wrote in an explanation post on Hacker News. "I told them we are a Web service with hundreds of thousands of users, so this is a matter of urgency, and we are ready to cooperate fully. I was ready to shutdown any form they request and provide any information we have about the user. Unfortunately, she told me she needs to look at the case which she can do in a few days. I called her many times again to check about the case, but she seems to be getting irritated with me."
A Secret Service spokesperson had no public comment when reached by Ars Technica, but he promised to look into the episode. No further information was available by publication time.
Caught by a phish-hook?
Though unsure of what the case was even about, Tank suspected a phishing form—something that JotForm has dealt with for quite some time. The company says it runs a Bayesian phishing filter to identity and block accounts being used to harvest various kinds of user information, and that it suspended 65,000 such accounts last year alone.
Such phishing attacks have been ongoing in recent weeks. Perusing the JotForm support forums turns up comments such as this one from the RSA Anti-Fraud Command Center. RSA says that it has "been appointed to assist [South Africa's] Standard Bank in preventing or terminating online activity that targets, or may target Standard Bank’s clients as potential fraud victims" and that "it appears the form service you provide is being used in a phishing attack."
The shutdown of his entire domain, without notice, for something a user had done even after protections were in place against it, seemed hugely unfair to Tank; he made his public case in terms that would also apply to other user-generated sites like YouTube. "We have 2 millions user generated forms," he wrote. "It is not possible for us to manually review all forms. This can happen to any Web site that allows user-generated content."
The first priority for JotForm was restoring some kind of access. Tank decided to migrate everything to jotform.net and make that site live instead. This wouldn't fix anything automatically—existing Javascript that pointed to jotform.com would continue to fail—but site operators who needed the forms could manually tweak their embedding code to point to jotform.net instead. For customers with hundreds of forms, this could take a while.
"When they have suspended jotform.com, and told us that it might take a few days to even take a look into the case, we had to do something to keep our users' forms alive," Tank told me.
"We have 700,000 users and 2,000,000 user-generated forms on our site. So, we had to make jotform.net live and email our users so that their forms will keep working. They have not provided any information about the content they would like us to disable, and we cannot keep 2,000,000 forms down for a few days. They don't seem to care about our concerns or about our customers."
The government also didn't seem to care that a new site with the exact same content was also live on the Internet under a different name; jotform.net remains active.
As for the impact on JotForm's business, Tank doesn't yet know what it will be. "Many users were unhappy and lost trust in us," he added. "We might lose many of our customers. It is hard to say at this point."
Customers blasted the site. "Jotform sucks. Always some sort of problem. I will never again use or recommend Jotform. Already cancelled my subscription and will tell my friend to do so as well," one wrote.
"We are a multimillion dollar Canadian company that has used jotform the last year for customer inquires," said another. "They have been very reliable. However because of what has happened now we will have to implement an internally hosted solution to guarantee this will not happen again and ensure we will not loose [sic] our data. I will now have to question purchasing any more services from US internet related providers."
Numerous commenters blamed the company for using GoDaddy as a registrar. "This is what you get for finically [sic] supporting a domain registrar which has a history of extrajudicial and unjustifiable actions like this," wrote another. "Idiots."
JotForm today moved its domains away from GoDaddy to registrars NameCheap and Hover. Tank still doesn't know why his domain was suspended or when it might be returned; however, a WHOIS search this afternoon revealed that GoDaddy has at last removed the domain from its penalty box.
Not that anyone bothered to tell him this.
"Yes, the site seems to be back now. This made us very happy!" he wrote me by e-mail. "We have been working for the last two days to restore our service for our customers. They have not provided any details. I just found it out from you. Thank you for the great news!"
Update: Secret Service spokesman Brian Leary has confirmed to Ars that, after further investigation, his agency is indeed involved in the JotForm case. The Secret Service has also launched an internal review to "make sure all our policies and procedures were followed" in the matter, he added. He could not comment on any other issues surrounding the case, including whether a court order had been obtained.Justice Michael Kirby and his partner Johan van Vloten. The bride-to-be has been described by sources as ''a real star f----r'' with her own celebrity ambitions. ''If I came out now, it would kill my career and I'm only just starting to get traction,'' one of the ''hunks'' confided in PS at a post Logies party last year. A senior network publicist told PS: ''Sadly in this country if you are a TV Week poster boy or girl, you are committing career suicide by coming out.'' At the recent AACTA awards, film director Stephan Elliott, creator of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, declared he was gay, not that anyone had doubted it. Back in 2008 PS reported on his London civil union ceremony to long-term male partner Wil Bevolley. After the story ran Elliott sent PS a blistering email complaining about being ''outed''. And yet for Justice Michael Kirby it was having an openly gay character on his beloved TV series Number 96, shown above, which gave him and his partner Johan van Vloten positive role models as young men. Kirby has provided a commentary to mark the show's 40th anniversary on a commemorative DVD released this week.
Long-term relationship... Anthony Callea and Tim Campbell. Credit:Paul Rovere But four decades later, celebrities who are outed still face a rocky road, as shown by the likes of the pop star Anthony Callea, inadvertently outed several years ago. Callea is now in a long-term relationship with another celeb, actor Tim Campbell, though it could be argued that neither's career has exactly blossomed since their romance went public. Little Joe empire in crisis mode AFTER tearing up the runways of Paris and Milan and gracing the covers of the world's style bibles, London-born supermodel turned fashion designer Gail Elliott and her dashing Australian husband Joe Coffey were bound to make an impact on Sydney's social radar when they relocated here from New York six years ago. Turning up at Sydney's smartest parties with matching Maltese terriers and co-ordinated designer outfits, they were soon feted as one of this city's most glamorous couples as their burgeoning Little Joe fashion empire grew around them.
But this week the dream came to end. The couple, introduced by mutual friend, the late Michael Hutchence, have gone to ground after their ''baby'', Little Joe, was placed in voluntary administration last Friday. The cracks began to appear in their glittering empire last December, having spent years slavishly building Little Joe and pouring millions of dollars into it. The couple were forced to sell their luxury Bondi Beach apartment two days before Christmas for $7.25 million, $775,000 less than they wanted. In January it emerged Elliott had shut down her Little Joe clothing store in Bondi Beach just six months after opening it. At the time Coffey confidently told reporters the business was in ''a recapitalisation mode''. Last Friday they closed another three stores, two in Melbourne and the other on the Gold Coast.
In a statement issued to PS dated Valentine's Day, Elliott and Coffey said they were ''fully committed to the brand, business and label'', which will continue to operate its flagship Woollahra store, and be stocked in David Jones. Just as other Sydney high-end fashion retailers have been doing it tough, they described the current retail climate as ''volatile''. Yesterday they received the backing of one of Australian fashion's most influential players, David Jones' womenswear buyer David Bush, who told PS: ''Little Joe Woman is a valued member of the David Jones fashion fraternity and we will continue to work with them as they trade through their current challenges. For us it's business as usual.'' The couple were a noticeable absence from Wednesday night's David Jones fashion launch, an event at which they had bathed in the flashbulbs for years, mingling confidently with television personalities, pop stars and Sydney's social glitterati, beguiling the locals with tales of partying at their home in the Hamptons with good mates, including Elliott's bridesmaids, the supermodels Yasmin Le Bon, Cindy Crawford and Helena Christensen. But little did they realise the Hamptons house had been on the market for three years, and had become a crushing financial burden for the couple. Creditors are believed to be owed tens of thousands of dollars. KAK fallout promises to add spice to Logies
KERRI-ANNE KENNERLEY'S extraordinary spray at her former employer Channel Nine last Sunday blew the lid on one of the uglier chapters in Australian commercial television history. KAK, in the business since she was 14 and who has always opted to manage her own career rather than hire an agent, declined to comment further on the controversy to PS this week beyond expressing her desire to ''move forward''. She has told friends her comments comparing Channel Nine with the ill-fated Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia were meant as a ''bit of a |
had argued that under Singapore law, he could not officially change his gender to female because he had not undergone a sex change and did not plan to.
And that could subject him to "inhumane and degrading treatment", as he would not be able to live openly as a woman because his identity documents would show he is male. He would also have to serve his reservist obligations, despite finding his national service (NS) between 2001 and 2004 very distressing.
The Singaporean produced a "legal opinion" by lawyer M. Ravi which painted Singapore as "a comparatively conservative country".
But senior immigration judge George Warr found that the earlier decision made by Judge P.J. White to reject the man's appeal was "not flawed in law".
Judge White, while agreeing that the appellant would be unable to live officially as a woman in Singapore, said there were laws here to protect the person from harassment.
He pointed out that no direct evidence of the Singaporean's friends being abused or assaulted because of gender bias, or of any systematic discrimination against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in general, was presented.
He also noted that there was a possible gradual change in attitudes in Singapore towards the LGBT community, which was "not entirely underground".
As for the man's claim that he would not be able to marry as a female to another woman, Judge White pointed out that "many, if not most, of the countries in the world do not give official recognition to same-sex unions".
Judge White accepted the Singaporean's problems with NS and that the two weeks of reservist training each year would also be "distressing and difficult".
On the other hand, the man had given evidence of how some of his own friends and acquaintances were able to "stick it out" during reservist training.
"It had not, in other words, been so harsh for them as to be unendurable," said Judge White.
He ruled that the man failed to show he was at risk of such a level of harm or prejudice that would entitle him to asylum in Britain.
[email protected] shares many similarities with its fellow Asian mega-cities; including snarling traffic, explosive growth, tasty street food and a multiplicity of cultures. However, Bangkok’s canal-inspired street layout complicates and lengthens daily commutes for its residents in a way that sets it apart from neighboring cities. Yet despite the obvious negatives, its nonsensical street pattern could become Bangkok’s saving grace.
Many articles blame Bangkok’s horrendous traffic and long commutes on the usual culprits, poor planning and rapid growth, but there’s something more unique going on in Bangkok. Dr. Apiwat Ratanawaraha, of the city’s Urban Design and Development Center and a faculty member at Chulalongkorn University’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning, credits the traditional process of inheriting land for the city’s current network of streets. Agricultural land was owned and passed down from generation to generation within families. It was important to give each successive generation access to one of the region’s many canals, because farmers could not easily bring their produce to market without the waterways. This process resulted in increasingly narrow properties as families grew and divided their land among children. As Bangkok grew and farmers converted their agricultural land into housing and businesses, most farmers built small streets or “sois” down the middle of their already narrow properties. This practice maximized profit by allowing development of land on both sides of the new soi, but it also led to modern Bangkok’s inefficient system of roads.
Fast forward to the present-day, and a map of Bangkok reveals a loose web of large highways with a seemingly typical jumble of smaller roads connecting the areas in between. Closer investigation reveals a city made up of large super-blocks with tendril-like lanes that branch into even smaller streets before dead-ending into canals. These canals once served as important transportation corridors, but their significance has faded as the city’s reliance on roads has increased. Many of the waterways have even been paved over. The lanes that fill the super-blocks are often the long, narrow sois that run parallel to one another and connect the main highway to a small number of tributary dead-ends. These sois are no longer the inconsequential creations of entrepreneurial farmers converting land to development. Instead, they are an undeniable cause of constant gridlock, hours-long commutes, and high air pollution.
For an American, this system is reminiscent of sprawling subdivisions purposefully designed to have one entry and exit. The congestion associated with this type of design is well documented in low-density areas of the United States but it becomes even more severe when replicated in dense Bangkok. This unique transportation fabric has many implications for the city — both good and bad — and a better understanding of this idiosyncrasy can allow city leaders to capitalize on its strengths while diminishing its negatives.
Many cities start out with a similarly disorganized and under-developed street network. Usually, as the city grows, the municipal government will add secondary roads and highways to the city. According to Dr. Ratanawaraha, such roads were never adequately built in Bangkok, because the city government has been concerned that using its authority to appropriate land for road development will upset the public. This non-confrontational style of governance means that, as of 2013, the city has carried out only one “land readjustment project” to connect two streets.
Experts recommend that 20 to 25 percent of a city’s land area be devoted to streets for optimal multi-modal transportation. Bangkok’s pattern of development has led to just 10 percent of the city’s area being committed to roadways. This is a very low road density when compared to other world cities – even dense ones such as Tokyo and New York City, which have road densities of 23 and 38 percent respectively. Bangkok’s narrow, disconnected sois will remain that way unless the government changes course and decides to stomach the high financial cost of road-widening and the social cost of upsetting influential landowners who have already invested heavily in their properties. It’s unlikely that a city unwilling to undertake these small challenges will successfully acquire the amount of land it needs to increase its road density to the 20 percent threshold. However, without such a move, Bangkok will never be able to accommodate its residents’ demands for more automobile traffic.
The inability to accommodate cars, however, is only a net negative if one looks at automobiles as the only source of mobility and accessibility. Bangkok could choose to make use of its uniquely Thai street network and non-confrontational governing history to chart a different, non-car-oriented path. If Bangkok decides to diversify its transportation plans, its low density of roads and unwillingness to appropriate land for new road construction could become assets for sustainable development rather than a hindrance to growth.
There would be many positive outcomes of aggressively retrofitting sois for the types of transport they were designed for: bicycles and pedestrians. The preservation of the soi network would mean that, unlike many Asian cities where governments have swept away historic neighborhoods, much of Bangkok would continue to be a collection of small human-scale neighborhoods reminiscent of the medieval European cities idealized in the West. It’s not too late to save these organic mixed-use neighborhoods. The sidewalks are messy and crowded with pedestrians, shopkeepers and even motorcyclists jostling for the limited space, but it’s easy to imagine policies designed to favor pedestrians and sidewalks over drivers could make walking down a soi a positive experience. New policies could even make Bangkok a model for other Asian mega-cities hoping to preserve their cultural heritage in the face of explosive growth and development.
Of course, a city the size of Bangkok cannot rely solely on pedestrians and bicycle activity. The suggested soi retrofitting will have to take place in tandem with the expansion of the city’s elevated and underground rail systems. This is already in the works, with three new Sky Train stations added in the past year and a subway line extension scheduled to open within a year. A master plan with nineteen new rail lines (scheduled to be completed by 2029) is slowly coming to fruition. Completing these lines will make car-free commuting realistic around much of the city. This shift would make it easier to convince policy makers and residents alike to invest in the improved walkability of Bangkok’s existing human-scaled streets instead of the dramatic and costly construction of new auto-oriented infrastructure in the city’s neighborhoods.
Some urban planners, designers and architects in the city are already working to jump-start this transition. The Urban Design and Development Center (UDDC), a Bangkok-based urban planning “Think-and-Do-Tank,” is currently developing a walkability index for the city. The index, based on Walk Score and similar systems, will show which areas of the city have the hallmarks of walkable neighborhoods — mixed-use development, wide sidewalks, street trees, crosswalks — and which areas do not. UDDC then hopes to acquire funding to retrofit intersections in districts with high potential to showcase what a walkable Bangkok could look like. Adding crosswalks, improving sidewalks, incentivizing shade-giving awnings and trees, and providing formal pick-up and drop-off zones for motorcycle taxis are among the strategies UDDC hopes to deploy in the city. The program also has a special emphasis on walkability for health, which reflects the fact that much of its funding comes from the Thai Health Department.
It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. Bangkok’s low street-density and historically non-confrontational municipal government have created an urban environment that simply cannot cope with the current or projected levels of car ownership. Implementing strategies to improve walkability in tandem with the expansion of rail could temper rising automobile use and transform this historic liability into an asset. Success would not only set Bangkok on a more sustainable trajectory, but it would also preserve the city’s human-scaled sois and the cultural capital that thrives along them.by Alice Price-Styles
For a musician whose creativity orbits around its own funk-fuelled planet, spinning out infectious melodies and dreaming up the most liberated of ideas, George Clinton is remarkably down to earth.
Born in North Carolina and raised in New Jersey, Clinton founded the group the Parliaments in 1955, releasing their hit single “(I Wanna) Testify” in 1967. The group went on to evolve into the now iconic acts Funkadelic and Parliament in 1968 and 1970, respectively. The combined creative output from Parliament and Funkadelic in the ’70s is truly staggering, including platinum albums Mothership Connection, One Nation Under a Groove, and Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome, and hit singles such as “Flashlight” and “Aqua Boogie.” The list, of course, could go on and on (and on). It is no exaggeration to say that Clinton’s work has inspired countless other artists, and, he continues to record and collaborate to this day.
In conversation, the man behind the P-Funk juggernaut, arguably one of the most influential movements in music history, is at once open and brilliantly funny. He chuckles heartily and speaks candidly, sharing views and drawing from personal experiences. It was after a show at the New Parish in Oakland that I caught up with George to chat about the Bay Area, tour stories, perspectives and spirituality, and, of course, new music.
There are so many great funk and soul acts from the Bay Area. Which of those groups have inspired you? Do you have any favourite Bay Area groups?
Oh, you know who it is! [laughs] It’s gonna be Sly Stone.
Of course.
Without a doubt. There’s a lot of them from that area over the years, going back to Jefferson Airplane and all the way up to Too Short. But overall? Sly Stone.
Do you remember when you first heard his music?
Sixty-six or something like that. I knew him as a DJ before I knew he put a record out. He was a DJ right there in Oakland.
I didn’t know that.
Oh yeah. Sly Stone, that’s where he was first, as a DJ on KSOL on KDIA.
Did he play parties as well? Did you ever see him DJ?
Nah, I never saw him. But I used to listen to him on the radio, ’cause he talked so much shit! As a matter of fact, on my new album I have out right now I recorded Sly doing “The Nazz.” That was his theme song when he came on the radio.
It’s neat that you remember his theme song. It obviously still sticks out. You tour a lot, it seems like you’re almost constantly on tour.
I live on the road.
Do you have any favourite memories from being on tour or any tour stories?
Oh lots. Lots from when we first got the Mothership and were going to different places like the Oakland Coliseum. That’s a good one right there! We actually did the live album there, it was called the P-Funk Earth Tour. I can remember getting there in the afternoon on the day of the show and watching them set up the spaceship and the big hat. And I fell asleep under the bleachers! [laughs] And when I woke up the show was on. The show was on. Scared the shit out me, I was goin’ be late!
Were you or did you make it?
Oh I made it. Got in the costume and was there just as my turn came on. [chuckles] Bootsy was on when I woke up.
They must have panicked wondering where you were.
Oh they were panicking. Nobody knew where I was at because I got there early afternoon. I just sat down by the bleachers and fell asleep!
That’s brilliant. And the audience would have had no clue. So I interviewed another Bay Area artist Shock G a couple years ago –
Oh, that’s my boy.
Yeah. He talked a little about when you made Sons of the P and said that after he spent time working with you, he felt that his life got better in all regards and that you have a very positive influence on people. Do you have a life philosophy or outlook that you share with others?
Basically, do the best that you can and then funk it! [laughs] That’s basically my philosophy. You know, after you’ve done the best you can, that’s all you can do and that takes so much pressure off of you. You goin’ be alright most of the time like Kendrick Lamar says, “We goin’ be alright.” Whether you like it or not, you goin’ be alright! You can take a lot of the stress off of yourself by just knowing that for a fact that no matter what any moment might feel like at any given time, 99% of the time you going to be alright. And if you know that you don’t worry.
Shock G, oh man, he’s like that himself. He’s one of the few that makes sure the people are taken care of and is concerned that people are getting paid for their samples. Same with Ice Cube. A lot of people don’t know, they just make the record and they don’t know nothing about the business and business form. They don’t care about your relationships with other people, so they don’t care about paying the other people. But Shock G is one of those ones that the paperwork was clear right from the get go.
He cares about musicians. Do you have any spiritual beliefs?
Well I believe in everything; I believe in all people’s beliefs. I understand all people’s points of views and the supreme being that all of them are relating to. I think it’s the same one that we just have a different way of saying or doing it or relating to it. Oh I know we ain’t the only ones in here! I know there’s something else controlling us, ain’t no doubt about that. What it is or who it is, I don’t know or care, you know, I appreciate it, that what we call god or whatever. He is appreciated, or she is appreciated – whatever you want to call it!
Yeah! Your music has influenced and inspired so many and such a range of artists, from funk musicians to hip-hop producers. When you were starting out at the beginning of your career, was building such a body of work something you dreamed of? Was that what you were going for?
Yeah, I mean, when I got started, Smokey Robinson and Berry Gordy were my models and they were turning out shit so fast. That’s what I was trying to do. I was trying to get a crew of people to be like the Miracles with Smokey, like Mickey Stevenson, you know, all the teams. I really did love that concept. And we modelled P-Funk after that, you know with Bootsy and the Horny Horns. More or less. A body of work that goes on and on. And it’s still going on. We got a new record out with Kendrick Lamar and Ice Cube: “Aint That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You.” Matter of fact they did it at Coachella a couple of nights ago.
Were you there?
I was supposed to be, I was invited but I couldn’t make it, I had a show the very next day. I had no idea they wanted to do that, but I saw the show last night and realised they actually did the song and had the video on. Oh it blew my mind. Kendrick did “Alright,” and I had to call him and tell him, “You made me cry with that shit.”
Are you working on anything else at the moment?
Working on the new Parliament album, it’s called Medicated Frog Dogs.
Keep up to speed on the world of George Clinton here : www.georgeclinton.comGillian Anderson is getting back in her pant suit, speaking cynicism to truth, and rekindling the dynamic that launched a trillion ‘shippers. SCULLY IS BACK, NERDS! Meanwhile, the actress who was born in Chicago, raised in England, and then returned to Grand Rapids, Michigan just in time for high school, has been busy chasing villains, both as a steely detective inspector in pursuit of Jamie Dornan’s serial killer in The Fall, and as Dr. Lector’s psychiatrist in Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, which returns to NBC tomorrow, June 4. A few days before her first table read with The X-Files creator Chris Carter and co-star David Duchovny, for what will be an at-least-six-episode reboot of the show that started it all, Anderson and I talked about sexism in Hollywood, Scully the feminist hero, and the men in her life—little green, and otherwise.Leeds United midfielder Ronaldo Vieira has been called up by England for the first time.
Vieira has been included in the provisional squad to represent the Under-20s at the Toulon Tournament held in May and June.
England will head to the south of France for the annual competition next week with an 18-man squad from a mixture of age groups, ranging from this season’s U18s, U19s and U20s, with the Three Lions set to face Angola, Cuba and Japan in their group stage games.
Head coach Neil Dewsnip has made five new call-ups for the trip, who will all be hoping to pick up their first England caps at any level during the prestigious tournament.
Alongside Vieira, the new faces in the group include Leicester City’s Harvey Barnes, Sheffield United’s David Brooks, Daniel Kemp from West Ham United and Manchester City’s Luke Bolton.
England will play their first game on 29th May against Angola in Aubagne before the first-ever international meeting with Cuba takes place in Salon de Provence three days later.
The group stage is rounded off on 4th June when England return to Aubagne for their clash with Japan and hopefully progression to the semi-finals.
England head to Toulon aiming to defend the title too, after Gareth Southgate’s U21s won the competition last June.
The full squad:
Goalkeepers: Ellery Balcombe (Brentford), Ryan Schofield (Huddersfield Town)
Defenders: Ezri Konsa (Charlton Athletic), Cameron Borthwick Jackson (Manchester United), Japhet Tanganga (Tottenham Hotspur), Reece James (Chelsea), Joshua Tymon (Hull City)
Midfielders: Harvey Barnes (Leicester City), David Brooks (Sheffield United), Demetri Mitchell (Manchester United), Sadou Diallo (Manchester City), Tariq Uwakwe (Chelsea), Ronaldo Vieira (Leeds United), Andre Dozzell (Ipswich Town)
Forwards: Elliot Embleton (Sunderland), Daniel Kemp (West Ham United), Luke Bolton (Manchester City), George Hirst (Sheffield Wednesday), Martell Taylor-Crossdale (Chelsea), Ike Ugbo (Chelsea)The Pac-12 is exploring a new conference-controlled model for multimedia rights that would eliminate the need for schools to do deals with third parties such as IMG College or Learfield Sports.
Under the model being studied, Pac-12 schools would take back their multimedia rights as their contracts expire and coordinate with the conference on how to manage and sell those rights. The conference wants to do this because it believes schools could remove the third parties and keep more of the gross revenue from sales, rather than sharing it with rights holders.
If the Pac-12 moves forward with the plan, it could have sweeping ramifications for the schools, the conference and the rights holders, whose ability to exploit those rights is core to their business.
Industry experts, though, question whether a conference-run model could sell as effectively as the Learfields and IMGs of the college world.
{podcast} SBJ Podcast:
College writer Michael Smith and editor Tom Stinson talk about the Pac-12's study and how it could alter the college rights model.
Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott had been floating the idea with athletic directors and presidents for about six months, but the proposal entered a more formal stage on March 14 at the conference’s basketball tournament in Las Vegas. During a Pac-12 board meeting, presidents voted to initiate a six-month moratorium on any new multimedia rights deals or extensions through mid-September.That gives the conference office time to study the feasibility of an in-house model for managing and selling multimedia rights across all 12 campuses. The conference will look at traditional multimedia rights in athletics, as well as campuswide marketing assets.
Scott will oversee the Pac-12 multimedia rights study. The conference has hired Chris Bevilacqua and JMI Sports’ Tom Stultz as consultants. Bevilacqua consulted with the league on its TV contract with ESPN and Fox, and the formation of the conference channels.
Stultz formerly managed multimedia rights for Host Communications and IMG College before joining JMI in 2012. He led JMI’s bid to win Kentucky’s multimedia rights last year, and he has consulted with Arizona State on a plan to market campuswide sponsorship rights.
Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott
By the end of the six months, the conference intends to provide its schools a specific financial model and a long-term forecast on revenue.
Ultimately, sources say, Scott would like to have school and conference rights rolled into one package for the next round of media contract talks with ESPN and Fox, whose 12-year, $3 billion deal with the conference runs through 2023-24.
“We’re always looking for ways to improve the situations of our schools, including new ideas for increasing revenue,” Scott said. “We’ll explore any and all ways to look at the multimedia rights space.”
Cutting out the third parties in favor of a conference-run model fits with Scott’s approach. When the league launched the 3-year-old Pac-12 Networks, Scott opted to have the conference own and operate the channels rather than partner with a media giant like ESPN or Fox, even though to date that model has not proved to be as lucrative as other conferences.
Fox owns 51 percent of the Big Ten Network. ESPN owns all of the SEC Network. Both channels are pumping out much more revenue than the Pac-12 Networks.
While the SEC Network will generate more than $5 million in new revenue for each school in the channel’s first year, and the Big Ten Network is paying out close to $7 million per school annually, the Pac-12 Networks is paying out just under $1 million annually per school. And, industry experts say, the prospects of falling further behind the SEC and Big Ten financially have the Pac-12 intent on finding new sources of revenue.
Skeptics of Scott’s plan wonder if the schools will turn over their multimedia rights to the conference when the conference-owned channels haven’t performed that well financially and the rights holders are more experienced at monetizing the schools’ rights.
Scott has maintained that the conference is more focused on control of its own property over the long haul versus short-term revenue boosts.
“We’ve been big believers in our members ultimately controlling as much of their rights as possible that will benefit them for the long term,” Scott said. “We’ve seen a significant uplift by continuing to bring more rights to the center and, in the long term, our schools want to control their rights and intellectual property as much as possible.”
Scott didn’t want to get into specifics, but it’s clear that the Pac-12’s new multimedia rights model is being considered seriously.
“This is something that would be very disruptive to the model as we know it, but all industries go through periods of change,” said Stultz, who had initial conversations with Scott about a new model last fall. “I’m not sure this is something that could work in every conference, but the Pac-12 is uniquely positioned to do this because it already owns its own media company. There are things they can do that not everybody else can do.”
Outsourcing is such a popular model that only two of the 65 schools in the major conferences manage their own rights — Arizona State and Michigan State. None of the five power conferences have attempted to aggregate their schools’ rights like this before.
Multimedia rights at each school typically include corporate sponsorships, in-venue signage, game-day hospitality, digital rights, publishing and coaches’ endorsements, but don’t usually include shoe/apparel deals, isotonic beverage or pouring rights.
The Pac-12’s model also would include a significant amount of inventory across all 12 campuses for signage and sponsorship. The league already has aggregated rights in the wireless telecommunications and satellite TV categories and sold those deals to AT&T and Dish Network.
How rights holders like IMG College and Learfield will react to the study remains to be seen. They weren’t offering to comment last week. Certainly, the schools would be willing to listen if the rights holders are willing to flatten their margins by increasing their guarantees to the schools. But that can’t happen until after the six-month moratorium.
One other thing is certain: The other four major conferences will be watching the Pac-12’s next move. It’s too early to consider this a lethal blow for the industry leaders, IMG College and Learfield, especially since the Pac-12 is merely studying the concept.
Both companies have deep relationships in the college space, some of which go back 30 years or more. Convincing some athletic directors to break those ties is part of the challenge with implementing an untested model, especially when IMG and Learfield have such lengthy track records. But ultimately it will be Pac-12 presidents who will make the call to move forward or stick with the status quo six months from now.
While IMG College and Learfield have aggressively sought to diversify their businesses, multimedia rights remain their primary source of revenue.
Documents from 2013 related to WME’s acquisition of IMG showed that close to 90 percent of IMG College’s $487 million in revenue came from multimedia rights, while 65 percent of its net income was generated by multimedia. Licensing, ticketing and other business lines represent the rest.0 of 30
G Fiume/Getty Images
We're still over a month away from pitchers and catchers making their way to sunny Arizona or Florida, and the hot stove has cooled considerably, so now seems like the perfect time for an updated look at how all 30 MLB farm system stack up.
A handful of early offseason trades and a pair of winter meetings blockbusters have provided us with plenty of updating to be done since these rankings were last updated following the conclusion of the MiLB season.
We'll likely update and tweak the rankings a few times before the start of the regular season, but the following will serve as a baseline for offseason prospect talks going forward.
The following factors helped determine the rankings of players and teams:Packaging Sculpt Paint Articulation Accessories Final Thoughts She's got great articulation and paint. Because of the hair sculpt, her head doesn’t turn that well, but…it’s a trade-off for such good looking hair. The downside? Well…her trademark top hat is missing. How can you have Zatanna and not have a top hat?!?! A base for posing would’ve been nice too, but…what are you gonna do? Overall Score 3.9 Fabulous Figure Your Rating Readers Rating
1 votes 4.7 Order from Entertainment Earth: CLICK HERE
Ripped from the pages of Justice League Dark, DC Collectibles has conjured up DC Comic’s resident sorceresses, Zatanna!
Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Murphy Anderson back in 1964, Zatanna Zatara’s (yup. That’s actually her last name) first appearance was in comic book form was in the pages of Hawkman #4. To this day, Zatanna is still one of the most under-utilized female characters in the DCU. Yea…she’s one of the main characters in the New 52’s Justice League Dark (which, by the way, is the figure line that she’s associated with), and occasionally pop-ups in other books, Zatanna just doesn’t get the push that she rightfully deserves.
But…we’re here to talk about the figure, so enough of the history lesson.
With its track record being a bit up or down lately, DC Collectibles did justice (get it?!? justice league dark?!?!? Justice?!?! No?!?!? ) to Zatanna this time around. She’s got a nice face sculpt, especially when compared to her fellow Justice League Dark figure, Constantine. Not that there’s anything wrong with Constantine’s face sculpt, per se…it just doesn’t look like him. Or, rather, it’s an even more stylized version of the character. Borderline, manga-esque?
Although I much prefer Zatanna’s pre-New 52 stage-show duds, this is still a pretty decent look for her. At least she still sporting her classic fishnet stockings. Can’t ever go wrong with fishnet stockings.
Zatanna’s got all the articulation that DC Collectibles typically crams into their figures. Her legs even rotate at the top of her
boots, which makes posing her a bit easier. Because of the hair sculpt, her head doesn’t turn that well, but…it’s a trade-off for such good looking hair.
The downside? Well…her trademark top hat is missing. How can you have Zatanna and not have a top hat?!?! And much like Super-Woman figure from DC Collectibles’ Crime Syndicate line, Zatanna is a little bit hard to pose because of the heeled boots. A base would’ve been nice, but…what are you gonna do?
So…what should you do? No brainer here. Get her. She retails for $24.99 and is available now at your local comic book shop.TLDR; In a few lines of Emacs Lisp, you can speed up your Clojure workflow, and it’s easy.
Recently I’ve been experimenting with clojure.tools.namespace and Stuart Sierra’s Reloaded Workflow. If you haven’t read that post, you should add it to your reading list. It’s a smart way of adding a reset button to your REPL session, to ensure a clean environment without having to restart the JVM.
This post isn’t really about that workflow per se, it’s just a good use-case to demonstrate a little Emacs/Clojure/CIDER-fu.
If you adopt that workflow, you’ll find yourself repeatedly typing this into the REPL:
( require 'clojure.tools.namespace.repl ) ( clojure.tools.namespace.repl/refresh )
There are a few ways to save that typing, but a little Emacs Lisp is the most satisfying.
It’s Simple
The easiest way in is to use the function cider-interactive-eval.
( defun cider-namespace-refresh () ( interactive ) ( cider-interactive-eval "(require 'clojure.tools.namespace.repl) (clojure.tools.namespace.repl/refresh)" )) ( define-key clojure-mode-map ( kbd "M-r" ) 'cider-namespace-refresh )
Now M-x cider-namespace-refresh, or simply M-r, will run our Clojure string and hit the reset button. Job done.
It’s Reusable
It doesn’t take much imagination to see how we can re-use this code.
Say this afternoon’s development task means you’re going to be looking at the value of an atom a lot. These few lines put viewing that atom a single keystroke away:
( define-key clojure-mode-map ( kbd "M-r" ) ( lambda () ( interactive ) ( cider-interactive-eval "(require '[clojure.pprint :refer [pprint]]) (pprint @interesting-atom)" )))
That’s a recipe for a function you can set up in a heartbeat, and throw away after a much zippier afternoon.Itanagar: A youth from Arunachal Pradesh was admitted in a Bengaluru hospital “in a racial attack case” and his condition was serious, an Arunachal MLA has alleged following his talks with authorities in the southern city.
Khuadun Khangham, who was working in a restaurant in Bengaluru, was assaulted by miscreants and then thrown out of a moving vehicle on January 7, the MLA from Kanubari said.
The 25-year-old man hailing from Ozakho village under Kanubari sub division of Longding district was admitted at the hospital in a critical condition, said MLA Gabriel Denwang Wangsu. Initially it was presumed to be a hit and run case.
But after investigation, it is emerging that Khangham was thrown out of a running vehicle, Wangsu said quoting the police from Bengaluru. He said it was not any accident but a “murderous attack,racial attack”.
Wangsu said he informed the matter to Delhi Police IGP Robin Hibu, who is from the NE region, requesting him to talk to police authorities in Karnataka, and he did. Wangsu said that according to Karnataka police, it was a case of assault and CCTV footages were being scanned. “The case has been prioritised by the police and a senior police officer visited the patient today,” he added. We have requested the state Chief Minister Khandu to speak to his Karnataka counterpart on the issue, Wangsu said,adding that North East students in Bengaluru would meet the police authorities there.
State DGP Sandeep Goel also informed the matter to the Commissioner of Police in Bengaluru and an ACP level officer was asked to look into the assault case on Khangham, he said.
Wangsu also appealed to the people in the state to extend financial assistance for the treatment of Khangham who belongs to a poor family. (PTI)Man City closing in on Dani Alves deal
The Blues had hoped to sign top targets Benjamin Mendy and Kyle Walker before securing their other options but are close to a deal for the Brazilian
are closing in on a deal for right-back Dani Alves, Goal has learned.
City are targeting four full-backs this summer and it has now emerged that Alves was identified as one of the four top names in April.
RUMOURS: Man City want Ronaldo
The club are also working on deals for first-choice targets Benjamin Mendy, the left-back, and Kyle Walker, the right-back.
Txiki Begiristain, City's director of football, had hoped to conclude deals for Mendy and Walker before signing the Blues' other options, Alves and left-back Ryan Bertrand.
But despite renewed efforts in recent days City are yet to agree on transfer fees with Monaco and Tottenham.
Senior City sources remain confident of signing their top two targets but Alves could now become the club's third signing of the summer, following in the footsteps of Bernardo Silva and Ederson, as talks with Juventus have advanced significantly in the last 48 hours.
Whereas Monaco and Tottenham are keen to make as much money as possible for Mendy and Walker, Juve are thought to be requesting a relatively nominal fee for Alves.
The former man, like Mendy, Walker and Bertrand, is also keen to link up with Pep Guardiola and City sources expect the team to agree personal terms swiftly.
Alves was a key member of Guardiola's dressing room at Barcelona and it is believed the Catalan wants to bring more big personalities to the Etihad Stadium this summer.
Though Guardiola is happy that he has a committed, loyal squad of players under his command, he has identified Aleksandar Kolarov as one of few colourful characters in the squad and believes Alves will bring a lot to his team, both on and off the pitch.
PSG ready to pay Oblak release clause
Guardiola has also stressed the need for City to adopt a winning mentality in almost every area of the club, on the pitch or otherwise, and Alves is also expected to contribute in that regard, given his long and successful career at the top level.
The 34-year-old demonstrated throughout last season that he still has what it takes to play the kind of intelligent, high-intensity football that Guardiola wants from his City full-backs in the coming years.
Those are traits identified in Walker, Mendy and Bertrand, and City will continue working on those deals in the coming days and weeks.
Article continues below
Despite recent reports that some of City's Premier League rivals, such as and, could swoop in and tie up a deal for Mendy, sources close to the Blues' decision makers believe the international has his heart set on a move to the Etihad Stadium.
City are aware that Monaco would be happy to keep the 22-year-old, should they not receive what they regard as a suitable offer, but the Blues are determined to bring him to the club as he has long been identified as one of Guardiola's priority targets.Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities. He fears that his work on the surprisingly negative effects of diversity will become part of the immigration debate, even though he finds that in the long run, people do forge new communities and new ties.
Putnam’s study reveals that immigration and diversity not only reduce social capital between ethnic groups, but also within the groups themselves. Trust, even for members of one’s own race, is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friendships fewer. The problem isn’t ethnic conflict or troubled racial relations, but withdrawal and isolation. Putnam writes: “In colloquial language |
Spoon, They Want My Soul
Valentin Stip, Sigh
TV On The Radio, Seeds
Tycho, Awake
Vessel, Punish, Honey
Mike Weis, Don’t Know, Just Walk
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Notable EPs:
Akin, Ghost Orchid
Boothroyd, Idle Hours
Chrome Sparks, Goddess
Datassette, Cagney XOR Lacey
Lakker, Containing A Thousand and Mountain Divide
Lusine, Arterial
Mace., The Heavens Are Already Theirs
Rival Consoles, Sonne
Best 2014 record that was technically released in 2013 (tie):
Burial, Rival Dealer
The enigmatic Burial has developed an annual tradition of releasing a surprise EP in the dead of winter, usually too late for end-of-year consideration. Rival Dealer snuck onto the Internet in mid-December 2013 and quickly became one of my most-played records. It’s a typically emotional, three-part epic that tells a loose narrative of teen runaways, sexual identity, and learning to love yourself, all filtered through Burial’s rain-drenched, secret back alley-aesthetic. Had I gotten it in time, it easily would have topped last year’s ballot.
Courtney Barnett, The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas
Released in mid-2013, this debut from Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett got some well-deserved attention when it finally saw physical release in the U.S. this year. Barnett’s deadpan drawl, reminiscent of Thee Headcoatees’ Holly Golightly, and the deceptive simplicity of her folky garage rock belies the sharpness of her turns of phrase and wryness of her storytelling. A record that, for all its lazy, shambling atmosphere, has the surprising capability to reenergize those who are tired of guitar rock.
Josh Terry
1. Angel Olsen, Burn Your Fire For No Witness
Far and away the only album I was comfortable with listing as my number one. In a year full of good-to-great albums that lacked obvious excellence, Burn Your Fire For No Witness excels partly on the strength of Angel Olsen’s otherworldly voice but mostly, it succeeds on the emotional resonance of the songs. Featuring tracks ranging from the kinetic romp of “High & Wild” to the ethereal closer “Windows,” the album is wildly diverse and totally mesmerizing.
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2. The War On Drugs, Lost In The Dream
3. Hurray For The Riff Raff, Small Town Heroes
While most folk and Americana acts have flimsy claims to authenticity, New Orleans’ Hurray For The Riff Raff features a frontwoman in Alynda Segarra who literally left her New York City home to hop trains and live a vagabond lifestyle. Settling in the Emerald City, Segarra took up street performances in Bywater, learning the ins and outs of the city’s vibrant folk scene. Now, with her band three albums in, Small Town Heroes is one of the most charming Americana releases in recent memory. With songs as good as “I Know It’s Wrong (But That’s Alright)” and the anti-murder ballad “The Body Electric,” not only are there golden hooks but also a subversion of folk music’s regressive tropes.
4. Isaiah Rashad, Cilvia Demo
This wasn’t the best year for rap as 2012 had big name releases Kendrick Lamar’s Good Kid, M.A.A.D City and 2013, Kanye West’s Yeezus. While arguably the biggest ticket in 2014 was Run The Jewels’ RTJ2, the hip-hop LP I kept coming back to was Cilvia Demo. The debut from the Chattanooga-born TDE member finds him spitting with a precise flow, an amalgamation of Lamar’s ambitious proclivity for narrative with a distinctively southern flair. It’s endlessly listenable, and with singles as strong as “Heavenly Father”, look for Rashad to enter the conversation with his esteemed labelmates.
5. Hiss Golden Messenger, Lateness Of Dancers
6. Strand Of Oaks, Heal
7. Pup, Pup
Perhaps the most fun album of the year, Canadian punks Pup have ignited a much-needed spark into the oversaturated genre of booze-filled punk. From the unrelenting “Guilt Trip,” to the pummeling “Reservoir,” and the janky power-pop of “Mabu,” Pup is a remarkably satisfying debut.
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8. Sharon Van Etten, Are We There
9. Cymbals Eat Guitars, Lose
10. Merchandise, After The End
11. Christopher Denny, If The Roses Don’t Kill Us
Angel Olsen aside, “Arkansas soul” crooner Christopher Denny might have the most mesmerizing voice of 2014.
12. Spoon, They Want My Soul
The most consistent band in rock music returned from another solid album in 2010’s Transference with one of its most fully-formed efforts yet, They Want My Soul. Enlisting Divine Fits’ Alex Fischel for guitars and keyboards, songs like “Do You” and “Inside Out” showed a new side of the band, ranking among the band’s best offerings.
13. The Hotelier, Home, Like Noplace Is There
14. Lydia Loveless, Somewhere Else
15. The Antlers, Familiars
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The next 15:
The Districts, The Districts EP
Ty Segall, Manipulator
Mac DeMarco, Salad Days
Twin Peaks, Wild Onion
Run The Jewels, RTJ2
Mick Jenkins, The Water[s]
Cayetana, Nervous Like Me
Future Islands, Singles
MØ, No Mythologies To Follow
Open Mike Eagle, Dark Comedy
Hamilton Leithauser, Black Hours
Posse, Soft Opening
Wye Oak, Shriek
Chumped, Teenage Retirement
Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, Piñata
Top 5 live shows:
1. The Replacements at Shaky Knees Fest in Atlanta (5/10)
2. Slowdive at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago (7/20)
3. Strand Of Oaks at Schubas in Chicago (8/17)
4. Ty Segall at Thalia Hall in Chicago (9/23)
5. Deer Tick at The Masquerade (Hell) in Atlanta (5/09)
Top 10 songs:
1. Future Islands, “Seasons (Waiting On You)”
2. Isaiah Rashad, “Heavenly Father”
3. PUP, “Guilt Trip”
4. Speedy Ortiz, “American Horror”
5. Vic Mensa, “Down On My Luck”
6. The Districts, “Rocking Chair”
7. Sharon Van Etten, “Tarifa”
8. Spoon, “Inside Out”
9. Merchandise, “Green Lady”
10. Timber Timbre, “Hot Dreams”
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Top 2 music videos:
1. Pup, “Mabu”
2. Vic Mensa, “Down On My Luck”
Kenneth Partridge
1. Spoon, They Want My Soul
2. Little Dragon, Nabuma Rubberband
Like Prince And The Revolution on a minimalist kick, Little Dragon fills its fourth album with spacious and funky electro-soul slow jams. Singer Yukimi Nagano has credited Janet Jackson’s “Any Time, Any Place” with influencing a couple of these tracks, and while delving further into Miss Jackson’s catalog might’ve led to a more well rounded album, 2014 brought few songs lovelier than “Mirror” or “Pretty Girls.” On “Cat Rider,” the group offers a weightier take on the woozy R&B that’s made FKA Twigs a sensation. Highlight “Paris” is an outlying fastie that keeps the party going without killing the cool low-key vibe.
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3. TV On The Radio, Seeds
4. How to Dress Well, What Is This Heart?
5. Total Control, Typical System
Whether Martha Quinn realized it, most of the funny U.K. synth-pop that made its way to MTV in the early ’80s came from punk. No need to remind Total Control. At various points on their third album, these constantly evolving Aussie rockers effectively jack Gary Numan’s “Cars” and pledge allegiance to the Human League. They also leave room for gnarly guitar ragers like “2 Less Jacks” and “Systematic Fuck,” truly a song for these troubled times.
6. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Hypnotic Eye
7. Broken Bells, After The Disco
Turns out that partnership between Danger Mouse and James Mercer was no one-off, and on this set of oldster dance tunes, they put a little pep behind the atmospheric space-rock of their 2010 self-titled debut. On the title track, the Bells prove they’re down with APP—as in the Alan Parsons Project. Dads everywhere ought to feel vindicated.
8. Jessie Ware, Tough Love
9. Broncho, Just Enough Hip To Be A Woman
10. Gardens & Villa, Dunes
The second album from this Santa Barbara band isn’t just the finest use of flute in new wave since Men At Work’s Business As Usual, though that would be enough to recommend it. Recorded in frosty Michigan with noted producer Tim Goldsworthy (LCD Soundsystem, Cut Copy), Dunes is supple synth-pop for summer nights of light grooving and/or deep contemplation.
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11. Chromeo, White Women
12. White Lung, Deep Fantasy
13. Dum Dum Girls, Too True
On their gothiest disc yet, Dee Dee and the girls make big, black, shimmering guitar pop that owes more to Echo And The Bunnymen and Gene Loves Jezebel than it does to those ’60s girl groups that inspired earlier efforts. If only “Lost Boys And Girls Club” were an actual youth organization and not just one of the year’s best singles. The uniforms would be amazing.
14. Warpaint, Warpaint
15. Prince, Art Official Age
10 killer debut albums you might have missed:
Field Mouse, Hold Still Life
Rush Midnight, Rush Midnight
Ballet School, The Dew Lasts An Hour
Liam Bailey, Definitely Now
Color War, It Could Only Be This Way
Dark Blue, Pure Reality
Taylor McFerrin, Early Riser
Amazing Snakeheads, Amphetamine Ballads
White Sea, In Cold Blood
Museum Of Love, Museum Of Love
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5 welcome returns from veteran artists primarily associated with undervalued and/or critically maligned niche genres:
1. Brian Setzer, Rockabilly Riot! All Original
The former Stray Cat and sometime swinger leaves the horn section at home and revisits his ’50s roots, with winning—if totally predicable—results.
2. The Reverend Horton Heat, Rev
Shticky, sure, but incredibly well played and wildly energetic, the latest from America’s punkabilly standard bearers pairs nicely with a shot and a beer.
3. Paul Collins, Feel The Noise
As the self-styled King Of Power Pop, Paul Collins wields no actual power—otherwise, he’d land songs like “I Need My Rock ’N’ Roll” on Top 40 radio, where legions of dudes with Bomp! Records T-shirts swear they belong.
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4. Death Of Samantha, If Memory Serves Us Well
The time is always right for trashy Midwestern garage rock, and with 18 rerecorded versions of their ’80s and ’90s classics, these reunited Cleveland pioneers prove equally timeless.
5. Rancid, …Honor Is All We Know
Around the time of 1998’s excellent Life Won’t Wait, Rancid seemed poised to go the Clash route and transcend the genre-band tag once and for all. Then they thrashed it up on a 2000 self-titled effort and released a couple of duds. …Honor Is All We Know starts with a song called “Back Where I Belong,” and that, like the ellipses in the title, is no accident. Here, Lars, Tim, and Matt return to the poppy Bay Area street punk and rebooted 2 Tone ska of 1995’s …And Out Come The Wolves, a record that deserves some 20th anniversary loving in 2015.
Kyle Fowle
1. Flying Lotus, You’re Dead
An album that reminds me why I listen to music; for that sense of discovery, of hearing something that changes how you think about music, how it’s created and constructed. Flying Lotus is the Miles Davis of his generation, and this is his Bitches Brew.
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2. Run The Jewels, RTJ2
3. Spoon, They Want My Soul
Has there been any band more consistently great for the past 10 or 15 years than Spoon? I don’t think so.
4. Taylor Swift, 1989
Swift goes full pop, and is all the better for it. Great production—that “Welcome To New York” beat that has shades of Cliff Martinez is stellar, and, I mean, “Blank Spaces” is fire—and a handful of catchy, mature, deep tracks. Somehow lives up to (and in some ways, exceeds) the mammoth precedent set by Red.
5. Against Me!, Transgender Dysphoria Blues
Up there with RTJ2 as the most important album of the year. A powerful statement about representation and identity.
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6. FKA Twigs, LP1
7. YG, My Krazy Life
8. St. Vincent, St. Vincent
9. Vince Staples, Shyne Coldchain Vol. 2
In a year where hip-hop mixtapes transcended most major releases, this one from Vince Staples is the best. Takes the intricate, menacing flow he showed on “Hive” last year, couples it with an ear for vivid storytelling, and lays it all over a bevy of killer productions.
10. Andy Stott, Faith In Strangers
11. Cibo Matto, Hotel Valentine
Synth-pop and trip-hop collide on the third album from the reunited Cibo Matto. Hotel Valentine is a collection of pretty, challenging, seductive tracks, and one of the more assured and adventurous releases this year.
12. White Lung, Deep Fantasy
13. A Sunny Day Is Glasgow, Sea When Absent
14. Isaiah Rashad, Clivia: Demo
The other killer rap mixtape from this year. It’s a demo, but Rashad, a Black Hippy associate, arrives fully formed.
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15. Ben Frost, Aurora
Best live show:
The Horseshoe Tavern is a legendary venue in Toronto. I’ve seen a lot of shows there, but none like the one I saw during NXNE, Canada’s answer to SXSW. I initially went to see Perfect Pussy, Swearin’, and Speedy Ortiz. Shortly after I arrived, there were grumblings that a secret set was happening at 2 a.m. At about midnight, while watching Perfect Pussy obliterate the audience, a very tall gentleman stood beside me and started nodding his head along. It was Britt Daniel. And sure enough, at 2 a.m. sharp, Spoon hit the stage and I lost my mind. Britt Daniel and company blew through new material and old hits. “Don’t Make Me A Target” slayed. We all basked in the warm vibes of “The Underdog.” We sang along to “I Turned My Camera On.” It was magical.
10 great tracks:
Against Me!, “Transgender Dysphoria Blues”
Taylor Swift, “Shake It Off”
Grimes, “Go”
Future Islands, “Season (Waiting On You)”
Vince Staples, “Nate”
Run The Jewels, “Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck)”
St. Vincent, “Prince Johnny”
Nicki Minaj, “Lookin Ass”
Spoon, “Inside Out”
Drake, “0 To 100”
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Best use of music on TV:
That six-minute tracking shot from True Detective is brilliant enough visually, but when partially scored by Wu-Tang Clan’s “Clan In Da Front,” it morphs into some truly next-level stuff.
Annual best Beyoncé moment:
The surprise video for “7/11.” Goofy, sexy, inspirational. All hail Queen Bey. Or the “Flawless” remix with Nicki Minaj. It’s a close call.
Worst retail music moment:
The inescapable, department-store vibes of Magic!’s “Rude”
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Best “belt it out in the shower” song:
Sia’s “Chandelier”
Annie Zaleski
1. Beck, Morning Phase
2. Split Single, Fragmented World
I’m a sucker for fuzzy power-pop with gigantic hooks and chugging guitars, and so the debut from this Jason Narducy/Britt Daniel project received many, many spins from me.
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3. Ryan Adams, Ryan Adams
I know this album is polarizing for fans, but I think it contains some of the most focused, memorable songwriting Adams has done in years—from the crunchy Neil Young-isms of “Gimme Something Good” to the reverbed-out “Kim,” which sounds like a lost ’80s British alt-rock 45.
4. Dum Dum Girls, Too True
Going full-on goth-girl-gang was the smartest thing Dee Dee Penny could’ve done for Dum Dum Girls, as the velvety electro and Siouxsie-esque dark-pop vibes suited her latest songs to a tee.
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5. Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness, Andrew McMahon In The Wilderness
The ex-Something Corporate/Jack’s Mannequin piano dude goes solo—and grows up without becoming a softie or forgetting the emotional turmoil that’s always made his music so compelling and relatable.
6. Lydia Loveless, Somewhere Else
Q: What do you get when you cross Neko Case, Bruce Springsteen, and Stevie Nicks? A: Lydia Loveless, whose Somewhere Else balanced despair with roughhewn optimism.
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7. Tori Amos, Unrepentant Geraldines
8. Taylor Swift, 1989
9. Nikki Lane, All Or Nothin’
Frequently called “outlaw country,” Nikki Lane is more precisely a badass, wisecracking singer and tell-it-like-it-is songwriter whose spirit animals are Wanda Jackson and Loretta Lynn on All Or Nothin’.
10. Bob Mould, Beauty & Ruin
11. White Lung, Deep Fantasy
12. Candy Hearts, All The Ways You Let Me Down
Why these Jersey/NY pop-punks aren’t massively huge yet is beyond me; the band’s latest LP is a hybrid of Clueless-era ’90s alt-rock sass and DIY basement show rawness.
13. Cloud Nothings, Here And Nowhere Else
14. U2, Songs Of Innocence
15. “Weird Al” Yankovic, Mandatory Fun
The smartest record released all year, with more cutting (and dead-on) sociological and political commentary than any agit-punk release from 2014.
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The 6 best ’90s rock flashbacks that don’t sound slavishly retro:
Eternal Summers, The Drop Beneath
Mean Creek, Local Losers
Cheatahs, Cheatahs
EMA, The Future’s Void
Gerard Way, Hesitant Alien
La Sera, Hour Of The Dawn
5 seasoned musicians showing the young ’uns how it’s done:
Johnny Marr, Playland
Afghan Whigs, Do To The Beast
Jenny Lewis, The Voyager
Stevie Nicks, 24 Karat Gold: Songs From The Vault
New Pornographers, Brill Bruisers
12 jams I played on repeat in 2014:
Sweet Apple, “Boys In Her Fanclub”
Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, “Uptown Funk!”
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, “Frankie Fell In Love”
Beach Slang, “American Girls and French Kisses”
St. Vincent, “Rattlesnake”
Mary Lambert, “Heart On My Sleeve”
The War On Drugs, “Under The Pressure”
The Hold Steady, “On With The Business”
Ingrid Michaelson, “Girls Chase Boys”
Royksopp & Robyn, “SayIt”
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, “All You Can Carry”
Iggy Azalea featuring Charli XCX, “Fancy”
10 musical disappointments, the album edition:
Sia, 1000 Forms Of Fear
Warpaint, Warpaint
Foo Fighters, Sonic Highways
Neil Finn, Dizzy Heights
Future Islands, Singles
Gaslight Anthem, Get Hurt
Kelis, Food
Damon Albarn, Everyday Robots
Wye Oak, Shriek
The Black Keys, Turn Blue
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Most well-deserved top 10 hit: Paramore, “Ain’t It Fun”
Out of all the songs on the band’s self-titled effort, the early-’90s pop throwback—which boasted a gospel choir and Hayley Williams’ most joyous, unfettered vocal performance yet—had “massive hit” scrawled all over it. Earlier this year, the song finally lived up to its potential, hitting No. 10 on the Billboard singles charts.
Most fairly maligned Top 10 hit: Magic!, “Rude”
Nightmare boyfriends don’t get much more nightmarish than the guy described in the lyrics of Magic!’s No. 1 hit “Rude.” He repeatedly disses the father of his girlfriend—the wise dad didn’t grant the beau permission to marry his daughter—and treats his lady like a mere possession (“Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?”). Almost as egregious: the song’s reggae-lite vibe and whiny, nasally vocals. Where’s Snow when you need him to save the day?
Most welcome trend:
Female artists continue to dominate all corners of music, from indie-electro and Top 40 pop to country and rock ’n’ roll.
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Most disappointing trend:
The feminism wars, where female musicians not named Beyoncé were accused of being too feminist, not feminist enough, not the “correct” kind of feminist, not interested enough in feminism, or ignorant of what feminism should mean. Besides being counterproductive—if not full-on Mean Girls sniping—the F-word wars took up valuable time and energy that could’ve been spent combating music’s continued problem with sexism.
Evan Rytlewski
1. Angel Olsen, Burn Your Fire For No Witness
That voice. Good God, that voice.
2. Cloud Nothings, Here And Nowhere Else
Sometimes I kick myself when I think of all the years of my youth I wasted trying to define myself not by the things I was but by all the things I wasn’t. Then I listen to Cloud Nothings and I get nostalgic for them.
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3. Vince Staples, Shyne Coldchain Vol. 2
4. Warpaint, Warpaint
This one was hard to rank. There were albums with songs I liked better than Warpaint’s dubby, elastic sophomore record this year, but none that held together better as a listening experience. Forged from loose jam sessions and scattered songwriting contributions from all four women in the band, who all tag team vocals, it’s a mysterious Rorschach blot of an album, and I could get lost in it for hours picking out new shapes.
5. Sharon Van Etten, Are We There
When was the last time an indie-rock record tackled a subject as difficult as domestic abuse? Van Etten often sang of emotional subjugation on her previous records, but here she elaborates in terrifying physical detail. “Break my legs so I won’t walk to you / Cut my tongue so I can’t talk to you / Burn my skin so I can’t feel you / Stab my eyes so I can’t see,” she pleads on “Your Love Is Killing Me.” Some of these songs are so painful that I barely know how to process them, or what to do with the sadness they leave me with.
6. Future, Honest
7. Tinashe, Aquarius
In an off year for R&B, this was the clear jewel, a record that announced the arrival of a new star with a sophisticated vocal approach and a clear artistic vision. “2 On” was the record’s club hit, but Tinashe is at her best on the album’s somber, slinky tracks. With all due respect to the dance floor, this is a headphone album.
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8. Dej Loaf, Sell Sole
9. Run The Jewels, RTJ2
10. Rich Gang, The Tour: Part 1
As Young Thug claimed increasing airtime on rap radio this year, the market clamored for a full project from Atlanta’s latest hot commodity. For most of the year all it received, however, were odds and ends mixtapes, mostly scraped together from B-material and leftovers from Young Thug’s 2013 stint on Gucci Mane’s 1017 label. This Rich Gang mixtape with Rich Homie Quan and Cash Money tastemaker Birdman arrived just in the nick of time, then. It’s Thug’s most realized project of the year, complementing his animated raps with refined production suited for a burgeoning A-lister.
11. Leonard Cohen, Popular Problems
12. Lykke Li, I Never Learn
13. Isaiah Rashad, Cilvia: Demo
14. Cymbals Eat Guitars, Lose
15. Lil Herb, Welcome To Fazoland
More albums that mattered:
Jess Williamson, Native State
Against Me!, Transgender Dysphoria Blues
Timothy Bloom, Timothy Bloom
Lydia Loveless, Somewhere Else
Trey Songz, Trigga
Sylvan Esso, Sylvan Esso
Grouper, Ruins
Jeremih/Schlomo, No More EP
Young Scooter, Street Lottery 2
Peewee Longway, The Blue M&M
Field Report, Marigolden
Sun Kil Moon, Benji
Death Blues, Ensemble
Marissa Nadler, July
YG, My Krazy Life
Ace Hood, Starvation 3
The 10 most addictive songs of 2014:
Rae Sremmurd, “No Flex Zone”
Tinashe, “2 On”
Tink ft. Jeremih, “Don’t Tell Nobody”
Katy Perry and Juicy J, “Dark Horse”
Snootie Wild, “Made Me”
Jeremih/Schlomo, “No More”
Young Thug, “Danny Glover”
Bobby Shmurda, “Hot Nigga”
Young Scooter, “Dysfunction”
Vince Staples, “Hands Up”
Looking forward…
With all due respect to the many wonderful albums and mixtapes listed above, for me 2014 was defined nearly as much by the albums that weren’t released as the ones that were. For months big albums by Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar were rumored but never confirmed, looming like absent Great Pumpkins. The inventive R&B singer Jeremih scored the biggest hit of his career with “Don’t Tell ’Em,” but that wasn’t enough to convince Def Jam to grant him a solid album release date. Save for a few standout tracks, Meek Mill largely whiffed his 2012 commercial debut Dreams And Nightmares, but the rapper has regained his stride recently, giving hope that his follow-up Dreams Worth More Than Money could be the classic his debut was meant to be, if and when his label sees fit to finally release it. Meanwhile, the spirited, ridiculously talented Chicago rapper and singer Tink has been absolutely crushing every track she’s touched this year. She’s got an album in the works, and it could introduce the radio to a tremendous new commercial and critical force. New arrivals Bobby Shmurda and Rae Sremmurd are also both due for full length projects, which will test whether they can live up to the excitement of their early tracks. Smart money is on 2013’s breakout lyricist Chance The Rapper releasing a proper commercial debut next year, too. And then there’s Maxwell, the slow-working neo-soul visionary whose best music usually arrives after cruelly long waits. I’ve got to believe he’ll finally release his sequel to 2009’s BLACKsummers’night next year. Some of these albums are bound to disappoint, and some of them won’t even materialize, but if nothing else they’re leaving me a lot to look forward to in 2015.
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Andrea Battleground
1. The Roots, …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin
While …And Then You Shoot Your Cousin is not my favorite Roots album—How I Got Over did great things in my life—it’s definitely the album I kept on repeat the most this year. From the opening Nina Simone excerpt, I was a goner.
2. FKA Twigs, LP1
3. St. Vincent, St. Vincent
4. Hamilton Leithauser, Black Hours
5. Flying Lotus, You’re Dead
“Never Catch Me” is my shit, plain and simple.
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6. Perfume Genius, Too Bright
7. Son Little, Things I Forgot EP
I really hope this guy blows up soon. I’m pretty bummed I missed his Chicago concert this summer.
8. Interpol, El Pintor
9. Curtis Harding, Soul Power
See my comments re: No. 7. They’re even on tour together.
10. Fink, Hard Believer
I happened upon the tail end of a Fink show while in Portland this year and picked up the album afterward. Love it. If you only know that one subdued, sappy version of “This Is The Thing” from that Nicholas Sparks movie, check this band (this guy? I’m confused) out. Also, see them live. It’s intense.
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11. Got A Girl, I Love You But I Must Drive Off This Cliff Now
For whatever reason Got A Girl hasn’t received much attention. (Maybe there’s only room for one delightfully retro musical duo that’s one-half successful actress, who knows?) Anyway, I really liked Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Dan The Automator’s debut album. The inspiration behind the music is clear—Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg’s ’60s output—but they aren’t aping this music so much as taking it and making it their “thing.” Yes, the lyrics are silly, but the groove is so damn smooth.
12. Hozier, Hozier
13. Shabazz Palaces, Lese Majesty
14. Popcaan, Where We From
15. Run The Jewels, RTJ2
The next 5:
16. Leonard Cohen, Popular Problems
17. Gary Clark Jr., Gary Clark Jr. Live
18. Tinashe, Aquarius
19. TV On The Radio, Seeds
20. Alt-J, This Is All Yours
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Favorite songs not included on albums mentioned:
Lykke Li, “No Rest For The Wicked”
Sylvan Esso, “Hey Mami”
Kendrick Lamar, “i”
Mary J. Blige, “Therapy”
Biggest disappointment:
Sia, 1000 Forms Of Fear
As a decade-plus Sia fan—from her work as a vocalist for Zero 7 to her last four solo albums (I still play her 2007 live record, like, a lot)—I was eagerly anticipating a new Sia effort this year, but 1000 Forms Of Fear was just not my thing. I guess that was bound to happen sometime. Postmodern Jukebox’s Sad Clown version of “Chandelier” was fun, though. And if anyone out there knows how I can get my hands on her 1997 debut album, OnlySee, please hit me up.
In case you missed it:
-That duet album Babyface and Toni Braxton released (Love, Marriage, & Divorce) was actually pretty good.
-Your Old Droog is not Nas.
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Eric Thurm
1. Open Mike Eagle, Dark Comedy
This is my favorite album of the year, hands down. Dark Comedy is the crown jewel in a banner year for Los Angeles collective Hellfyre Club. (Milo and Busdriver’s 2014 releases are also excellent). It’s a work interested in fumbling at connection, a deeply personal album clothed in kids’ pop culture references—in particular the Adventure Time ode “Very Much Money (Ice King Dream).” On Dark Comedy, everything is just a little off. The record’s sensibility reflects my own, fractured, swathed in goofy song titles and a verse from man-of-the-year contender Hannibal Buress. But the tricks aren’t the point on Dark Comedy. Eagle’s electric live show at Brooklyn’s soon-to-be defunct Glasslands captured the spirit of the record—a bunch of weirdos coming together in a charged, vibrant setting. Eagle appeared scattered in addition to raw, but really he was just passionate. He had everything under control.
2. Run The Jewels, RTJ2
3. Isaiah Rashad, Cilvia Demo
4. Arca, Xen
5. Angel Olsen, Burn Your Fire For No Witness
6. Vince Staples, Shyne Coldchain, Vol. 2
Vince Staples has had the best year in rap. As a consistent musical statement, Shyne Coldchain, Vol. 2 establishes him as the closest thing rap in 2014 has to AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted-era Ice Cube. And Staples’ Hell Can Wait EP contains two of the best songs of the year in “Hands Up” and “Blue Suede.” If only I could magically combine those two releases, I’d have the best rap album of the year.
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7. Shabazz Palaces, Lese Majesty
8. FKA Twigs, LP1
9. Slackk, Palm Tree Fire
Grime producer Slackk has been a staple of the scene for a while, but his full-length debut blew my mind in one listen. Check it out.
10. St. Vincent, St. Vincent
11. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib, Piñata
The union of the hardest gangster rapper in the game and legendary producer Madlib is a match made in rap heaven. Piñata showcases the full range of Gibbs’ storytelling power, the best technical rhyming around, and the complete lyrical destruction of his former mentor Young Jeezy on “Real,” the best diss track of the year. And that’s without even mentioning Madlib’s hypnotic beats, some of which are so complex that Gibbs has to use several different flows. Technical perfection.
12. The War On Drugs, Lost In The Dream
13. Sylvan Esso, Sylvan Esso
14. Neneh Cherry, Blank Project
15. Chester Watson, Tin Wooki
This one also falls into a “best emerging talent” category. Of the many teenagers who have been rap’s flashes in the pan, Watson might be the one most likely to make it into adulthood artistically intact. Tin Wooki, Watson’s first full release, combines juvenile energy with a surprising level of gravely gravitas—it sounds like a horrifying, nightmarish acid trip in the best way possible. And “Ogre” slays a Madlib beat almost as aggressively as Piñata.
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Best live shows:
1. Open Mike Eagle and Serengeti at Glasslands, Brooklyn
2. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib (this was the first show on their joint tour, before the album was released, and I was the doofus yelling all the words)
3. Schoolboy Q, Isaiah Rashad, and Vince Staples
4. Action Bronson (I saw Bronson two or three times this year, and his stage show didn’t really change but was still enormously entertaining every time.)
Best music city: Chicago
This is a little sentimental, but I moved to New York after living in Chicago for four years, and it’s really brought home how great Chicago is, both as a city in general but also as a music scene. The local rap scene has been exploding for a few years now, and it’s amazing to walk into one of a handful of venues and know you’ll see some great young talent. I miss you already.
Most 2014 event in music: Run The Jewels’ Meow The Jewels project actually getting funded
An Internet crowdsourcing drive that fueled a remix album of cats by middle-aged underground rap legends having a second wind in part because of Adult Swim? You can’t make this stuff up. And the group’s proceeds from the project are going to charity. It’s silly, but what’s not to like?
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Cameron Scheetz
1. Sharon Van Etten, Are We There
2. St. Vincent, St. Vincent
3. The War On Drugs, Lost In The Dream
4. FKA Twigs, LP1
5. Perfume Genius, Too Bright
6. Mac DeMarco, Salad Days
7. Jessie Ware, Tough Love
8. Avey Tare’s Slasher Flicks, Enter The Slasher House
9. Future Islands, Singles
10. Azealia Banks, Broke With Expensive Taste
11. Hundred Waters, The Moon Rang Like A Bell
12. Beck, Morning Phase
13. Sylvan Esso, Sylvan Esso
14. Liars, Mess
15. Spoon, They Want My Soul
Philip Cosores
1. Angel Olsen, Burn Your Fire For No Witness
2. The War On Drugs, Lost In The Dream
Numbers 1 and 2 this year were pretty much a toss-up for me, with The War On Drugs being more ambitious and sonically adventurous in general, and Angel Olsen being more ambitious and sonically adventurous with regard to her previous work. In the end it comes down to which album meant more to me on a deeply personal level, which one I sought comfort in when my heart ached, which album allowed me to connect with strangers, which album helped me heal in ways I previously only hoped I could. Burn Your Fire For No Witness was that album for me, and it might sound a little emotionally heavy to say all that, but its an emotionally heavy album. So, yeah.
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3. La Dispute, Rooms Of The House
Justin Vernon goes to a cabin in Wisconsin and comes up with For Emma, Forever Ago. La Dispute goes to a cabin in Michigan, and they get Rooms Of The House. The two are little alike, besides being examples of the benefits of focus and isolation on art. And whether you want to call La Dispute post-hardcore or screamo or whatever (and these labels result in a lot of people disregarding their music, which is unfortunate), the band really goes beyond easy classification |
watched last night’s Super Bowl.
Although spectators are known to doze off during test cricket, medical experts have warned this might cause undue stress to people enthralled by a game whose highlight was a performance by Coldplay.
In order to prevent Denver Broncos fans being overwhelmed by the comparatively lightning-quick play, cricket authorities are planning several changes to the rules including taking advert breaks between every ball, and asking players to walk rather than run when they get a hit.
In other sports news, Manchester United have pledged to make their playing style slower and less interesting in a bid to attract fans away from the NFL.
Reports from the United States indicate that the Super Bowl halftime show has just entered its second day.FORT WAYNE, Ind. — The Mad Ants, sponsored by Lutheran Health Network, fell to the Sioux Falls Skyforce 106-101 Sunday, December 27th at Allen Co. War Memorial Coliseum in Fort Wayne.
Assigned to the Mad Ants from the Pacers a few hours before the game, Joe Young hit a deep half court shot at the buzzer going into half to give the Mad Ants the 55-50 advantage over the Skyforce. Young helped lead the Mad Ants come back late in the second quarter; he finished the first half with 14 points. CJ Fair and Glenn Robinson III, also on assignment from the Pacers, concluded the first half with 9 points apiece.
The Skyforce pulled ahead early in the third, taking a quick double figured lead, but an offensive attack by Young and Walter Lemon Jr. closed the gap to four with under two minutes left in regulation. The Mad Ants couldn’t complete the comeback, falling by five in the end.
Young led all scorers with 29 points and 5 rebounds. Lemon Jr. followed with 21 points and Fair finished with 15 points and 6 rebounds.
For the Skyforce, Keith Benson finished with 19 points and Jarnell Stokes followed with 18 points and 10 rebounds.
The Mad Ants fall to 9-7 on the season, while the Skyforce move to 11-3.STANISLAUS COUNTY (CBS13) — A Stockton man claims he got severely ill and nearly died after swimming in a popular lake, losing 28 pounds in just one week.
Luis Lopez swam at the Woodward Reservoir Regional Park in rural Stanislaus County.
“I couldn’t move; I couldn’t look around, like I was a zombie,” Lopez said.
Now, there’s no sign of his life-threatening ordeal where he says his fever spiked to 107 degrees.
He says he was hospitalized for days after swimming at the reservoir.
“I couldn’t eat nothing, I was laying there like this,” he said, adding he didn’t think he would survive.
He says his doctors at Kaiser Manteca figured out it was a waterborne bacteria that made him sick—a bacteria so dangerous they’d have to notify the proper authorities.
And yet there were plenty of swimmers in the water on Monday. One mom remained unfazed, even after we told her about Lopez.
“They swallow water every time they swim; they’re fine,” said Nelia Chiley.
“”It’s not safe. They should have it posted everywhere,” Lopez said.
CBS13 found two signs—one on a bulletin board and another by the bathrooms—warning of unusually high bacteria in the water, advising to “swim at your own risk.” It’s not clear when they were posted.
We asked Stanislaus County, who runs the reservoir, why are people still allowed to swim?
The director of the county’s environmental resources and parks and recreation say an investigation will happen if and when they get a report from the Centers For Disease Control or the California Department of Public Health.
Until then, there are no restriction.
A Kaiser spokesman told CBS13 he couldn’t comment on the situation. The CDC did not respond to our request for an interview on Monday.(Image: Scott Barbour/Getty)
It’s a landslide. More than half the 28 countries in the European Union, including Germany and France, have decided to ban their farmers from growing genetically modified crops. Several regions, including Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have also joined the movement.
Environmental groups long opposed to GM crops are delighted with the outcome. “There has never been a clearer signal that GM crops, and the companies that make them are not wanted in Europe,” says Mute Schimpf, of Friends of the Earth Europe. “The technology is not only risky, it’s redundant,” he says. “And people and the governments that represent them are rejecting them outright.”
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Some 19 member states had applied ahead of the deadline of 3 October to take advantage of rules introduced in April permitting individual member states and regions to ban cultivation of GM crops that have been judged by Europe’s regulators as posing no risk to human health or the environment.
Countries seizing the opportunity to opt out include Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Regions within member states have also joined the exodus, including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the UK, and Wallonia in Belgium.
De facto ban
Their decisions will have little impact on farmers on a practical level because there has long been a de facto ban on growing GM crops in most of the countries that are opting out. Only one GM crop has ever been approved and grown in Europe – a type of maize with in-built resistance to a weevil called the European corn borer – but the only farmers to grow it are primarily in Spain where the weevils are a problem.
The opt-out provision has angered countries that want to grow GM crops.
“The opt-out is made to enable anti-technology countries to prevent their farmers from growing it,” says Beat Spath of EuropaBio, a trade association representing biotechnology companies. “But there’s nothing in it at all for pro-technology countries.”
Even if some countries want to grow a new GM crop, anti-GM countries can delay Euro-wide approval of it for years by voting against approving it.
Without a majority vote, any crop already scientifically checked for safety remains in legal limbo until the European Commission approves it by default, but the commission has consistently failed to follow through on this obligation.
Some crops deemed scientifically as safe throughout the EU have been on hold by the union’s bureaucracy for as much as 14 years, says Spath. As a result of the impasse, companies have abandoned even trying to get crops through the system.
Free movement
Despite the enthusiasm with which many countries have embraced the opt-out provision for cultivation, there has been almost unanimous rejection during parliamentary discussions about this proposal so far and by the parliament’s agriculture and environment committees of another proposal – to allow opt outs from imports of GM fodder.
The proposal was put forward earlier this year by the European Commission to introduce an opt-out provision on GM fodder, which is imported mainly from South and North America, where 90 per cent of the soya bean crop is GM.
Farmers around Europe – including in many countries that oppose growing GM crops – depend on the imports for feeding livestock.
If the Parliament votes on 26 October to reject the commission’s proposal for animal feed opt outs, the commission says it has no plan B to resolve the situation.
“It would be very damaging to the open market,” says Helen Ferrier, scientific and regulatory affairs adviser for the UK National Farmers’ Union. “These products move into the EU and move round freely, as do the animals they’re fed to, so it would be very difficult for individual countries to have bans in place that stop movement of products.”
“Countries that are anti-GM also feed their animals GM feed,” says Spath. “It’s ironic that the countries that vote against approval of GM crops still import large amounts of GM ingredients for their animals.”Will Blackmon, right, during his time with the Seahawks. (Elaine Thompson/AP)
The preseason had just ended, and Seattle Seahawks cornerback Will Blackmon and his wife had begun the process of moving into a new house.
Surrounded by boxes, the nine-year NFL veteran began unpacking alongside his wife. He had just finished the last box when his phone rang. It was the Seahawks. He’d been cut.
“It was crazy,” said Blackmon, who said the timing taught him to expect the unexpected and remain fluid in his plans. So, he added, “It’s nothing new.”
Such is life for journeymen, Blackmon has learned.
A former fourth-round pick of Green Bay in 2006, the Boston College product spent four seasons with the Packers, then played portions of the 2010 and 2011 seasons for the Giants, and then played for Jacksonville in 2013 and 2014.
He knew from experience that no NFL teams would call him prior to Week 1, because a vested veteran on a roster at the start of the season has his contract fully guaranteed. If teams sign them after Week 1, the money is not guaranteed for the entire year.
So, for a week, Blackmon trained, and “did the dad thing,” taking his 4-year-old son to preschool and helping his wife and 8-month-old daughter get settled in the house that they decided they would stay in for the year, regardless of his next NFL opportunity.
The opportunity came at 6:30 a.m. this past Monday. Blackmon’s phone rang, and the Redskins – down a nickelback because of injury and short another cornerback because of suspension – wanted him to fly out for a workout and potential signing.
Blackmon packed a bag, headed to the airport and arrived in Ashburn by 9 p.m. He worked out for team officials Tuesday morning, signed his contract that afternoon, and on Sunday will play both on defense and special teams.
The 6-foot, 204-pound Blackmon has only limited knowledge of Washington’s system, but he knows enough.
“My thing I learned over the years is, ‘When in doubt, just play fast,’ ” he said. “They’ve simplified a lot for me so I’m not in there trying to learn a lot of crazy stuff. The game plan is pretty good. I’ve learned the basics, so when my number is called, I’ll be ready to go.”
With starting cornerback Chris Culliver out on suspension, and Justin Rogers (both a backup cornerback and special teams contributor) nursing plantar fasciitis, Blackmon figures to see quite a bit of action. DeAngelo Hall and Bashaud Breeland are expected to start, but Blackmon could join them as the third cornerback.
Blackmon also has the bonus of having played under current Redskins defensive backs coach Perry Fewell while with the Giants.
“I still remember a lot of things in New York, so he’ll say things like, ‘We used to run this like this,’ so I get to carry it over,” Blackmon explained. “Also, some of the terminology is similar to when I was in Seattle. It’s funny, everybody basically runs the same thing. They just say it differently. So, it’s just a matter of being bilingual.”
And Blackmon said although he has never played under special teams coordinator Bill Kotwica, his experience in multiple systems also have helped him quickly understand what is expected of him.
“He’s pleasantly a very bright man. He knows football,” coach Jay Gruden said. “He’s played a lot of football in his day. He’s picked up this system very fast. He’s going to play some, no question about it. How much, I don’t know yet. It just depends on what type of packages they’re in and we’re in at the time.”
Said Blackmon, “I’m just ready to go,” he said. “I know what to prepare for, but I don’t know what their mindset is, but obviously, looking at special teams, sub-packages.”One in 10 species could face extinction by the year 2100 if current climate change impacts continue. This is the result of University of Exeter research, examining studies on the effects of recent climate change on plant and animal species and comparing this with predictions of future declines.
Published in leading journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the study uses the well-established IUCN Red List for linking population declines to extinction risk. The research examines nearly 200 predictions of the future effects of climate change from studies conducted around the world, as well as 130 reports of changes which have already occurred.
The research shows that on average the declines that have already happened match predictions in terms of the relative risk to different species across the world.
Many studies have predicted that future climate change will threaten a range of plants and animals with extinction. Some of these studies have been treated with caution because of uncertainty about how species will respond to climate change. But widely published research showing how animals and plants are already responding to climate change gave the Exeter team the opportunity to check whether the predictions were wide of the mark. By producing the largest review ever of such studies, they show that predictions have, on average, been accurate, or even slightly too cautious.
Lead author Dr Ilya Maclean of the University of Exeter said: "Our study is a wake-up call for action. The many species that are already declining could become extinct if things continue as they are. It is time to stop using the uncertainties as an excuse for not acting. Our research shows that the harmful effects of climate change are already happening and, if anything, exceed predictions."
The study covered a wide range of species in all types of habitat across the globe. The findings confirm that human-induced climate change is now a threat to global biodiversity.
Co-author Dr Robert Wilson, also of the University of Exeter, said: "By looking at such a range of studies from around the world, we found that the impacts of climate change can be felt everywhere, and among all groups of animals and plants. From birds to worms to marine mammals, from high mountain ranges to jungles and to the oceans, scientists seem to have been right that climate change is a real threat to species.
"We need to act now to prevent threatened species from becoming extinct. This means cutting carbon emissions and protecting species from the other threats they face, such as habitat loss and pollution."
Examples of existing responses to climate change:
Decreased ice cover in the Bering Sea reduced the abundance of bivalve molluscs from about 12 to three per square metre over a very short period of time (1999-2001). These shells are the main food source for species higher up the food chain, such as Spectacled Eider.
Climatic warming and droughts are causing severe declines in once-common amphibian species native to Yellowstone National Park in the United States of America. Between 1992-1993 and 2006- 2008, the number of blotched tiger salamander populations fell by nearly half, the number of spotted frog populations by 68 per cent, and the number of chorus frog populations by 75 per cent.
In Antarctica, few animals exist on land, but one of the most abundant, a nematode worm living in the soil in dry, cold valleys experienced a 65 per cent decline between 1993 and 2005 as a result of climate change.
Examples of predicted responses to climate change:
On Tenerife, an endemic plant, the Caňadas rockrose has a 74 to 83 per cent chance of going extinct in the next 100 years as a result of climate change related droughts.
In Madagascar, climate warming is predicted to cause endemic reptiles and amphibians, often found in mountain ranges, to retreat towards the summit of the mounts. With a warming of just two degrees Celsius, well within current projections, three species are predicted to lose all of their habitat.
Birds living in northern Boreal Forests in Europe are expected to decline as a result of global warming. Species such as Dotterel are predicted to decline by 97 per cent by 2100 and species such as Two-barred Crossbill and Pine Grosbeak could lose their entire range within Fenno-Scandia.SwRI and SSL/Peter Rubin
Asteroids ahoy. NASA just announced the destinations for its next low-cost space ventures: the Trojan asteroids that flank Jupiter and the large metallic asteroid 16 Psyche. Both targets will reveal secrets of the early solar system.
The two missions, respectively called Lucy and Psyche, were chosen from five finalists for NASA’s Discovery programme.
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Lucy, scheduled to launch in October 2021, will arrive at a main belt asteroid in 2025, and continue on to Jupiter in 2027. Over the following six years, it will explore six Trojan asteroids, which orbit at the same distance from the sun as Jupiter in gravity wells on either side of the gas giant. The Trojans are thought to be remnants from an earlier period of the solar system’s history, and so could hold clues as to how the planets formed.
Psyche will launch to explore its namesake asteroid in October 2023 and arrive in 2030. 16 Psyche appears to be made mostly of iron and nickel rather than rock, which suggests it might be the core of a small rocky world that survived a collision with another planet or asteroid.
“16 Psyche is the only known object of its kind in the solar system, and this is the only way humans will ever visit a core,” principle investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton at Arizona State University in Tempe said in a statement. “We learn about inner space by visiting outer space.”
Discovery-class missions are relatively cheap – capped at $450 million – and have previously included the Messenger mission to Mercury, the Dawn mission to asteroids Vesta and Ceres, and the InSight Mars lander scheduled to launch in 2018.
“This is what Discovery Program missions are all about – boldly going to places we’ve never been to enable groundbreaking science,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, in a statement.Mad Men, whose first episode aired 10 years ago today, held far more influence over the rest of television when it was on the air than after it left the air.
Think about how few obvious Mad Men clones you’ve seen since the AMC drama ended in 2015. There was a whole spate of sexy ’60s-set dramas in the early 2010s — your Pan Ams (which was kinda entertaining) and your Playboy Clubs (which was not) and even your Magic Citys (which was a TV show). But they all quickly failed, never recapturing whatever magic kept Mad Men on the air for seven seasons and won the show so many Emmys. (In purely mercenary terms, that magic was, “AMC was hell-bent on rebuilding itself into a home for fans of great TV and didn’t mind weathering low ratings for a while.”)
Thus, Mad Men feels less like the start of something now and more like a TV dead end, whereas the influence of its contemporaneous AMC cousin Breaking Bad is apparent all over the schedule, in ways both large and small. We don’t currently live in a world of small, perfectly hewn moments of interpersonal drama, the type favored by Mad Men and its most obvious predecessor, The Sopranos; we live in a world of big, sweeping stories, with slow builds to climaxes drenched in fire and fury.
But I’m ready for a Mad Men renaissance. The elements of Mad Men that other shows have copied — the ’60s setting and the period clothes and sets — are some of the least interesting, most surface-level things about it. But it has so much more to offer its would-be heirs.
Here are three elements of the series I wish today’s television — and I mean literally any show in any setting — would rip off from one of my favorite shows ever.
1) How Mad Men told stories
Most TV shows — even the really great ones — are structured as stories about a long chain of actions and equal but opposite reactions. Character is revealed by how characters react to adversity, how they push back against the forces trying to stop them, whether those are human or otherwise. We get to know Jon Snow on Game of Thrones by how he balances his duties on the Night’s Watch with his need to stop the White Walkers.
There’s nothing wrong with this approach, but Mad Men, though it had its plottier moments, told stories in an inverted fashion. Episodes were often less about “what happens next” and more about “why did that happen?” The characters were presented as mysteries even to themselves, and Mad Men plots typically revolve around the characters’ emotional reactions to situations out of their control. Character isn’t revealed through plot. Plot is revealed through character.
For a classic example, consider the season one episode “Red in the Face.” Don Draper invites his colleague Roger over for dinner, and Roger hits on Don’s wife, Betty. The next day, Don pays an elevator operator to say the elevator’s broken, forcing the men to climb many flights of stairs after a long, boozy lunch with some clients. When they reach the top, Roger throws up in front of the clients, and Don’s revenge is complete.
The way I tell this story makes it sound heavily plotted, like Don is constantly scheming to undermine Roger after Roger hits on Betty. But Mad Men presents the situation almost as a mystery, where you don’t entirely know what Don is up to until the final shot of the episode. The best Mad Men episodes linger on a character’s face and invite you to wonder what the person is thinking or feeling. They’re about the way emotions ripple outward and bump into other people.
While some current dramas follow this basic structure — Halt and Catch Fire and The Handmaid’s Tale come to mind — the majority of TV shows that operate within it are half-hour comedy-drama hybrids, like Girls and Transparent and Atlanta. But for as much as I like those shows, I loved Mad Men’s more ruminative drama, and I’d love to see it come back in a big way.
2) How the show structured its seasons
A season of Mad Men was a puzzle that assembled itself before our eyes, and where every piece mattered.
The show was heavily episodic, in that every episode was a careful gem of a short story, but each season was constructed so that its short stories collapsed in on each other by the end, in a way the audience could rarely predict. Characters would seem to be trapped in destructive cycles until they weren’t, and Don would always find some new way to reinvent himself, only to realize how unhappy he was all over again.
In our current age of binge watching, this kind of structure has been almost completely lost (or, again, shunted off to comedies; Netflix’s BoJack Horseman uses almost exactly the approach described above). There are so many dramas on right now, even dramas I really like, where I couldn’t quite tell you what happened in any given episode, or even any given season, because they’re constructed to simply keep extending their story into the sky.
But there are so many Mad Men episodes that stand alone, and if you’re a Mad Men fan, I’ll bet just saying the names “The Suitcase” or “Shut the Door, Have a Seat” or “Signal 30” will inspire pangs of nostalgia (which is, of course, the pain from an old wound).
We’ve come to think of the basic unit of TV storytelling as the season, but it’s very, very difficult for most TV shows to concentrate only on telling one big serialized story and make it satisfying. Mad Men proves how much room there is within the short-story show, where each piece is beautiful unto itself, but they’re even more beautiful once you see how it contributes to the full picture.
3) How the show used mystery
People don’t really think of Mad Men as a mystery show, but consider one of its most iconic shots: Don, having called an elevator, pauses after the door opens, because he realizes the elevator never came up to his floor. He’s staring into a dark void, and if he had stepped into the elevator without realizing as much, he surely would have fallen to his death. Every episode of Mad Men begins with a man falling, falling, then landing safely in his seat, in command of his universe. The void is always waiting to swallow us whole, and we keep trying to fill it, in order to establish an illusion of control.
Mad Men is far from a religious show — a couple of the characters practice religion, but nobody is deeply faithful — but it’s about that most fundamental religious and philosophical question of them all. When your needs are met, when you have what you think or say you want, why do you still feel so empty inside? Everything the characters on Mad Men used to fill the void ended up being a panacea.
That allowed the series to introduce mystery and uncertainty around its edges, without becoming a mystery show outright. Mad Men traded in the same kinds of mystery and ambiguity that greet us in everyday life, where we don’t always know the motivations of those around us, and sometimes don’t even understand our own motivations. The characters did things, without being conscious of why they were doing them, as they grasped for answers they wouldn’t find.
In this sense, Mad Men avoided having its audience clamor for answers to its mysteries, because viewers understood that the mysteries Don and Peggy and Pete were facing were the same mysteries we all face, every single day. And yet the show was joyous and funny and deeply human, perhaps because it was willing to embrace the void, the piece of all of ourselves that will always be missing, no matter how skillfully we lie to ourselves that we’ve completed the whole.
Mad Men was an existential series, but not unapproachably so, thanks to its ’60s facade. (Maybe that’s the lesson of the ’60s stuff — if you’re going to make a TV show about the existential mysteries at the heart of humanity, be sure to give it a glossy surface.) It was about looking at someone and wondering what they were thinking and feeling, about the moment when you find yourself in the sky, among the clouds, and wonder if you’re soaring or falling.Hey. FYI, my Patron supporters got this podcast a few days early. Support me on Patron to do the same and get audio versions of other articles.
Are you jealous? Ever been jealous? Ever been jealous because some other player in a video game had something cool or useful? Or, even better, have you ever made someone else jealous for the same reason?
Many free to play games –and a few premium– have built their business models around jealousy. In-game or in-app purchases for cosmetic items and customization options rake in a lot of money, and developers go to great lengths to make sure that players see all the cool stuff that their teammates and opponents have acquired. That can lead to spending more money to keep up and stand out. Bungie recently announced, for example, that players will soon be able to spend real money to acquire dance animations and other emotes for their in-game avatars. Will seeing other players break out in an impromptu dance party make you want to pay up so you can join in?
And beyond cosmetic items, do we think differently about people who purchase competitive advantages in the form of coin doublers, more powerful weapons, or something else that we had to grind for? For example, Konami recently announced that they were bringing “base insurance” for Metal Gear Solid V’s competitive game. What are we likely to think of people who spend real money on such insurance to keep from losing their stuff when they’re defeated in an online contest?
Good questions! To get some answers, I talk to researcher Niels van de Ven from Tilburg University in the Netherlands about how envy can drive us to make in-game purchases and microtransactions, as well as what effect such purchases have on what we think of other players. What happens if you pay to win while I grind it out?
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AUDIO CLIPS:T.I. got into a fight. There’s absolutely nothing surprising about that as a news item. T.I. got into a fight with boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Now, my interest is piqued. T.I. got into a fight with boxing champion Floyd Mayweather, Jr. supposedly because Tiny, T.I.’s wife, posted pictures to Instagram after attending Mayweather’s most recent fight. In one photo, Tiny is posing with a group of women behind Mayweather, and in another she’s standing with his daughter. T.I. found the pictures disrespectful — and told Mayweather so. Mayweather’s response to T.I.: “Control your bitch.” Now I’m upset. The idea of two adult men fighting one another in a Fatburger restaurant over Instagram pictures is itself a cause for ridicule. But I won’t lie to you, I find the entire scenario to be a wildly entertaining thought. I’m only human. It becomes less entertaining when realizing the genesis of this fight is seeking control over a woman’s body and her actions. She, in their estimation, is a piece of property. T.I. didn’t like the idea of his property being seen with or possibly belonging to another man. And Mayweather’s response — “control your bitch” — suggests the same understanding of what a woman is.
Given his history of domestic violence, one might wonder what type of “control” Mayweather had in mind (to be fair, I suppose, he did apologize for making this remark about Tiny, though I’m not clear on whether it was for calling her a “bitch” or the control part).
And look, even as I write this, I’m saying to myself “Mychal, stop engaging the celebrity drama. It’s not that deep.” But that’s a cop out. There’s more in this exchange than two sets of overcharged testosterone dressed in new money getting into a punching each other in the face. There’s a question of what drove them there. It may have just been a dick measuring contest, but it was a dick measuring contest with a woman at the center whose existence was reduced to an ornament. In light of this past weekend’s news, it’s more pertinent than ever to discuss these ideas.
Calling it an “idea” is lending it too much credibility. But from our political leaders on down to 22 year-old college students with access to guns, men go about their lives believing they have control over women’s bodies, and then they attempt to exercise that control. Some pass laws restricting access to abortion. Some drag their wives out of casino elevators and punch them into unconsciousness. Some heinously gun down the women they believe owe them more. And some get into fights with other men at Fatburger. They’re symptoms of the same disease.
“The T.I. and Floyd Mayweather fight for patriarchy at Fatburger” doesn’t have the same poetic ring to it as “Rumble in the Jungle” or “Thrilla in Manila,” but that’s exactly what happened. These two got into a fight over who has the right to determine what a woman can and can not do with her own life. One of them offered at advice on how to avoid that situation. But it wasn’t “She’s a human being with autonomy and has the ability to make choices about where and with whom to spend her time. If you have a problem with that, you should maybe examine why you feel entitled to make those decisions for her.” No, it wasn’t that. It was “control your bitch.”
Every few months, we have another conversation about whether or not we still “need” feminism. I don’t know how anyone can look at the statistics on violence against women alone and not see how ridiculous that question is, but it’s even simpler and more depressing. We still need feminism just to remind people that women are human. Amazing how we still don’t get that.
Mychal Denzel Smith is a Knobler Fellow at The Nation Institute.Fresh violence erupted in the Darjeeling hills on Friday night and Saturday (July 8) prompting the state government to call the army back to the streets as Gorkhaland supporters torched a police outpost, a toy train station and clashed with the police at two places.
According to a report in the Indian Express, at least three people were killed in the violence on Saturday.
The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), spearheading the agitation for a separate state carved out of West Bengal, rejected chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s offer of talks.
Banerjee called for peace and said that the government was ready for talks with the hill parties, but peace has to be restored first.
In a statement on Saturday night, the GJM, however, said the doors for talks with Banerjee and the state government are “closed forever”.
It said it was willing to hold talks with the Centre on the issue of Gorkhaland. “If the Centre calls for talks on Gorkhaland, we will go,” it said.
The GJM also said while the Basirhat riots had drawn the attention of national parties, the month-long unrest in Darjeeling had failed to attract them. “We sincerely ask the leaders of the political parties are we in India,” the statement said.
The police burst teargas shells and baton-charged activists of the GJM and the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), who attacked the security personnel at Sonada and Chawkbazar in the hills.
Two columns of the army comprising around 100 personnel were deployed at Sonada and Darjeeling in the wake of fresh violence, defence sources said.
The chief minister said, “The government has shown enough restraint in the interest of the people of the hills.”
She accused the Centre of “deliberate and total non-cooperation” and alleged that it’s refusal to send CRPF personnel, as demanded by the state government, had led to the present situation in the Darjeeling hills, where the indefinite shutdown entered its 24th day.
In New Delhi, Union home ministry sources said 11 companies of paramilitary force personnel were sent to Darjeeling by the Centre, including one company consisting of women.
The West Bengal government has its own security forces like the Eastern Frontier Rifles and the State Armed Police and both have several battalions, they said, adding that it was not deploying these forces and instead blaming the central government.
GNLF spokesperson Neeraj Zimba claimed that a youth, Tashi Bhutia, was shot dead by the security forces last night when he had ventured out to purchase medicines at Sonada. But a police officer said, “We don’t have any report of police firing as of now. We are looking into the incident. We can give you details later.”
Inspector general of police Javed Shamim, when asked about the firing, said, “It will be known only after the inquiry.”
The GJM and other hill parties have lodged a police complaint accusing the force of killing the youth.
“The youth was killed by the police without any reason. His body has bullet injuries. We demand that the policemen involved be punished,” GJM leader Binay Tamang said.
As news of the death spread, hundreds of Gorkhaland supporters came out on the streets and raised slogans against alleged “police atrocities”.
They clashed with the police and set on fire a police outpost at Sonada and the toy train station of the Darjeeling-Himalayan Railways, a UNESCO world heritage site.
A GJM leader claimed that another youth identified as Suraj Sundas was killed in police firing during clashes between the police and protestors at the Chowkbazar area of Darjeeling on Saturday. The police, however, denied the charge.
Tamang claimed that Suraj was caught in the midst of the clashes and was killed when the police fired on the protesters.
The Centre had said yesterday that it was keen to hold tripartite talks with the GJM and the West Bengal government to end the agitation.
With food supply severely hit due to the indefinite strike, the GJM and various NGOs distributed food amongst the people. Barring medicine outlets, all shops, schools and colleges remained closed. Internet services remained suspended for the 21st day.
(With PTI inputs)The Project
A 30-year old Michigan man is organizing a small team of volunteers to rescue a crashed B-25 from Alaska. This June, Patrick Mihalek and his friend Todd Trainor, both from Brighton, are planning to recover a 70-year old North American B-25J Mitchell bomber (USAAF # 44-30733) from her remote crash site in Alaska.
For years this famous World War II era bomber has been nicknamed “Sandbar Mitchell” after she was forced to land on a sandbar in the Tanana River outside of Fairbanks after a double-engine failure shortly after takeoff in 1969.
Using parts from other salvaged B-25’s and hunting for additional parts, the two hope to rebuild her to flying status. She will fly as Sandbar Mitchell under the public trust for the non-profit Warbirds of Glory Museum.
Become part of the Sandbar Mitchell Support team through your donation. As part of the Support Team your donation will bring the remains of Sandbar Mitchell to a Michigan workshop so she can be restored to flying condition.
The Passion
My name is Patrick Mihalek. I have been passionate about aviation since I was a child.
My entire life is about aviation. After college I received my A&P certification and started a small business with a big dream to restore warbirds. For the past five years I have done that. I have worked my way up from nothing. I now travel frequently to maintain warbirds and in my shop I am restoring a 1940 NA-64 Yale for a customer.
I always dreamed about restoring a B-25 Mitchell bomber, but never thought it would actually happen, until now. I have found a B-25J Mitchell bomber that can be recovered from Alaska and restored to flying condition using parts that I have collected over the past few years.
We are two guys from Brighton with proven passion for aviation history and shallow pockets. We cannot do this by ourselves. We need your help to make this succeed.
The Airplane
First let us tell you about the airplane. This plane is nicknamed “Sandbar Mitchell” because she is a B-25J Mitchell bomber that crash-landed on a sandbar in the Tanana River.
After serving her duties with the USAAF from 1944 to 1959, Sandbar Mitchell continued to serve her country as fire-suppression bomber, Tanker #8. Owned by Edgar Thorsrud, she was one of several B-25s used in Alaska in the late 1960’s to help fight forest fires. On June 27th, 1969 she was called into duty to help fight the Manley Hot Springs fires. Shortly after takeoff she experienced double-engine failure. The pilot, Herm Gallaher had very few options, so instead of landing in the river or in the forest he landed gear up on a small sandbar in the middle of the Tanana River.
Herm walked away, but the right wing was damaged and the forward fuselage was wrinkled. After her engines, propellers and wheels were removed, she was abandoned.
Please watch this 4-minute video to learn more about B-25J Sandbar Mitchell and our involvement in the education of our community's youth.
Patrick and Logan forming a piece for a WWII airplane.
Throughout the next 44 years many people visited Sandbar |
more regular inspections. That proposal is not in the Senate bill.
“Industry needs a strong partner at F.D.A. with the right tools and, importantly, the right resources,” said Scott Faber, vice president of the Grocery Manufacturers Association.
Cries of alarm about the legislation have arisen from some small farmers and their advocates, who have argued that the new regulations would be too costly and that F.D.A. inspectors would come barging into their homes. Linn Cohen-Cole, a small-farm advocate from Atlanta, calls the bill “a fascist takeover of the entire food supply.”
The bill’s sponsors in the Senate agreed to allow some exemptions for small farms and facilities, but those provisions are not forceful enough for Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana. In an interview, Mr. Tester promised to offer amendments that were “meant to let state and local laws deal with small producers, and the federal government will deal with the big guys.”
Both industry and consumer advocates have argued against such exemptions, saying that all food needs to be safe and that state and local laws often provide few protections.
No matter how such issues are resolved, consumer and industry advocates have called for some form of the bill to be passed.
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“People understand that eggs can be contaminated, spinach can be contaminated, peanut butter can be contaminated,” said Erik Olson, the deputy director of the Pew Health Group. “And it really is the government’s responsibility to prevent that.”When Apple announced its most recent earnings, the big surprise was the performance of a product which, while once synonymous with the whole company, had become a footnote to many: The Mac.
In fact, Mac sales in the quarter ended Sept. 30 were so strong that the venerable computer brand reached its best market share since 1995, and logged an 18 percent growth in revenue from the same quarter last year.
But, while the size of the quarterly jump was unexpected, nobody who has been paying attention should have been shocked. If you just look around you, at least in the U.S., it’s hard to miss the fact that the Mac has been on the rise for years. Whether at the office, at a coffee shop, a college campus, an airport or a conference, Macs seem to be everywhere today.
And for those of us who were around tech in the late 1990s, that’s pretty remarkable. Back then, the Mac had fallen far behind Windows machines, especially in software, and seemed doomed. People who used them were few and far between, and were viewed as, well, strange. Spotting a Mac in the wild was like spotting a rare bird.
In fact, in July 1997, just days after Steve Jobs became CEO to once again lead the company he co-founded, I wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal that said: “… unless you’re emotionally devoted to the Mac, or are in a particular business or school market where the Mac’s advantages and specialized software make it a compelling choice, I can’t honestly advise you to buy another.”
Now I believe it’s the best line of computers on the market, and I consider one model in particular — the thin, light and rugged MacBook Air — to be the best consumer laptop ever made.
In short, the Macintosh computer, like Apple itself, stands as a stark contradiction to the idea that there are no second acts in American life.
The Mac’s rebound has its limits. Its sales are still dwarfed by those of Windows computers, partly because it’s a premium-priced machine. The least-expensive full-featured Mac, the 11-inch MacBook Air, starts at $899. By contrast, you can get an acceptable, full-featured Windows PC for $300 to $600.
And Apple today isn’t mainly a Mac maker. Its principal product is the iPhone, which accounts for the vast majority of its revenue and profits, and of its public identity.
The Mac is a $24 billion annual business, which is quite large by most standards. But the iPhone was a $102 billion business in fiscal 2014, both up 12 percent from the prior year.
Still, the rebirth of the Mac has been amazing, especially among younger users, tech-savvy people, and influential groups like journalists and public figures. If, like me, you do a lot of public speaking, it’s not unusual to look out over an audience and see rows and rows of glowing Apple icons on the upturned lids of laptops, and only a handful of Windows PCs.
As the computer market has gone through its worst stretch ever, with sales in recent years flat or declining, the Mac has been the exception. Apple says it has gained market share for 33 of the last 34 quarters.
That doesn’t mean that the majority of computers around are Macs. Far from it. But even walking into a room and noticing that, say, a third of the laptops are Macs, is a sight that I, and many others, wouldn’t have thought possible 17 years ago.
Apple reported that, for its fiscal fourth quarter ending Sept. 27, it sold 5.5 million Macs, up from about 4.4 million in the year-ago quarter. Analyst firm IDC says Apple took 6.9 percent of the worldwide PC market, becoming the No. 5 vendor globally. And it reached 13.4 percent of the U.S. market, becoming the third-biggest-selling computer line here. That’s well below Hewlett-Packard, at 28 percent, and Dell, at 24 percent, but a triumph for a computer for which consumers typically spend more than $1,000.
Interestingly, considering its high price, Apple claimed that Mac sales were especially strong in emerging markets.
Contrast that with the situation in December 1997, when CNET reported IDC figures showing that Apple had sunk to eighth place from fifth worldwide, and to ninth place from fifth in the U.S. Worldwide sales had plummeted 31 percent, while the PC market as a whole had risen 16 percent.
“The Mac is still really important to us,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Yes, we care about iPhones and iPads, and the new Apple Watch. But we care about the Mac just as much.”
I attribute the rebirth of the Mac to three main factors: Steve Jobs, the Internet, and blunders by Microsoft.
Jobs saved the Mac in several ways. First, he cut most of the confusing plethora of Mac models, killed non-Mac products like the Newton and printers, and focused on building just one good laptop and desktop for consumers, and one good laptop and desktop for “pro” users, like graphic designers.
Second, he replaced the Mac’s by-then-antiquated operating system with a modern, powerful software platform called OS X, which is still in use. This move allowed the Mac to compete head to head with Windows, which had become polished and powerful.
Third, he drastically overhauled the hardware, introducing the iMac and MacBook lines, which were hits that were widely emulated throughout the industry.
Fourth, he moved the Mac to standard Intel processors, so the computer could gain new power and features from the chip leader’s prodigious research and development.
Fifth, beginning in 2001, he opened the highly successful global chain of Apple retail stores, which showcased the Mac and introduced it to buyers of Apple’s other products. Before that, Macs had often been tucked into the back shelves of computer retailers.
Finally, while preserving its distinctiveness, he made the Mac more compatible with the Windows world. He scrapped the computer’s oddball ports and connectors for standard ones, like USB. He altered the software so it could recognize Windows file extensions. And, once the switch to Intel was made, he introduced Boot Camp, a free feature that allowed Macs to run Windows, to give customers confidence they’d still be able to run some crucial Windows program when they needed it.
The Internet also played a big part in the Mac’s revival. After years of neglect and falling sales, many third-party software vendors had stopped making programs for the Mac and focused exclusively on Windows. But as users turned increasingly to the Web as their main activity on computers, the Mac suddenly became an equal. Apple introduced its own browser, Safari; and Google’s popular Chrome browser, and others, run great on Macs.
Finally, Microsoft helped. In the very beginning of the second Jobs era, it lent Apple money to stay afloat, for complex reasons that included, in part, the belief that the Mac would never be any real threat. Much more importantly, two of its last three versions of Windows — Vista and the current Windows 8 — have proved unpopular with consumers, making the Mac a more attractive alternative. In fact, Windows 8, which works best with costly touchscreens, has helped push the price of the sleekest Windows laptops into Mac territory, erasing some of the Windows PC’s price advantage.
This past quarter of huge gains for the Mac may be a fluke. And the Apple computer will never, I suspect, be the world’s biggest seller. But for years now — well before this last blockbuster quarter — it has been pulling off a resurrection few would have expected in the dark days of the late ’90s.The possibility of a Canadian-based team making the playoffs remains remote with the NHL's regular-season finish line just four weeks away.
This development did not seem likely when the 2015-16 season opened last October, especially after the Calgary Flames, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets qualified for the post-season last spring. And with Connor McDavid joining the team, wasn't it about time the Edmonton Oilers made the playoffs, too?
We know the answer. The Oilers will make it 10 straight years without a post-season appearance. In a similar rebuilding situation, the Toronto Maple Leafs will be absent from the playoffs for the 10th time in 11 seasons.
Meanwhile, the Canadiens fell off a cliff without their star goalie Carey Price. The Canucks also battled injuries and inconsistent play. The Senators, Jets and Flames had wonderful, dramatic finishes to reach the playoffs a year ago, but they failed to build off that momentum in 2015-16.
Impact on bottom line
So what does this all mean, besides dwindling television ratings in Canada for the Stanley Cup playoffs and a long eight weeks before we can watch the Canadian team perform in its opener against the United States at the IIHF World Championship in Russia?
Well, the NHL entry draft will be eventful. Each of the seven Canadian teams could be making selections in the first 10 choices. The Jets have another first-round pick from the Andrew Ladd trade with the Chicago Blackhawks. The Maple Leafs and Flames have conditional first-round selections from the Phil Kessel and Kris Russell trades with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Dallas Stars, respectively.
There also is the NHL's financial bottom line. Hockey-related revenues (HHR), which determine the annual salary-cap threshold, will be severely damaged with no Canadian teams in the playoffs. The league will find out in June where the salary cap will sit for next season, but even if the NHLPA implements the five per cent escalator there won't be much salary-cap relief.
HHR already has been hit hard by the low Canadian dollar. The seven Canadian teams' ticket prices are among the highest in the league, and those inflate for each playoff round, meaning the league will miss out on that extra revenue.
There were 19 home playoff dates in Canada in 2015: 14 in the first round and five in the second round. Zero this time around will be quite a hit to the NHL's coffers, especially when you consider Canadian fans are among the biggest spenders when it comes to team merchandise.
You also can't ignore the fact that realistic playoff hopes for the Canadian teams were extinguished weeks ago. Therefore, any late-season spirit we saw in Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, Montreal and Winnipeg at this time last year, and the financial benefits from full rinks and playoff optimism, also have been snuffed out.
With all this in mind, the timing could not have been better for the revival of the World Cup of Hockey in September, and last week's announcement of outdoor games in Winnipeg and Toronto. These events will help replace some of the lost revenue from the playoff-free spring in Canada's NHL cities.
Party helped ensure last all-American playoffs
This truly is a historic happenstance. The only other time there was no Canadian team in the playoffs was in 1969-70, when the Canadiens and Maple Leafs finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in the six-team East Division.
Toronto checked in with 71 points, a total that would have placed the Maple Leafs in second in the weaker six-team West. Montreal actually tied for fourth with 92 points, but lost on a tiebreaker with the New York Rangers under dodgy circumstances.
The Canadiens had a two-point lead over the Rangers with one game to play. But the Canadiens lost their regular-season finale to the Chicago Blackhawks and the Rangers defeated the Detroit Red Wings.
The first tiebreaker was wins, but both teams had 38 victories. The second tiebreaker was goals scored. The Canadiens had a four-goal advantage entering the final day.
The Rangers, however, took advantage of a Red Wings lineup weakened by a party the night before to celebrate Detroit's clinching of a playoff berth.
The Rangers fired 65 shots on Red Wings goalie Roger Crozier and won 9-5. The Canadiens lost 10-2 to the Blackhawks as Montreal coach Claude Ruel pulled his goalie early to try to make up the two-goal difference. But the move backfired as Chicago ran up the score.
That was a strange and surprising scenario 46 years ago, but is it as unforeseen as each of the seven Canadian teams missing the playoffs in 2015-16? Maybe we shouldn't give up on the Senators, Canadiens or Canucks just yet.Image copyright AFP Image caption Mr Gelman will be remembered both for the quality of his poetry and for his determination in finding out what happened to his disappeared family members
Argentine poet Juan Gelman has died aged 83 in Mexico City. He is considered to be one of the greatest authors in Spanish and was awarded the prestigious Cervantes Prize in 2007.
Mr Gelman, a left-wing activist and a guerrilla in Argentina in the 1960s and 1970s, lived in Mexico for 20 years.
He wrote more than 20 books and regular columns for newspapers.
His son and his pregnant daughter-in-law died after being abducted by the military government in the 1970s.
Juan Gelman The son of Jewish immigrants to Argentina from Ukraine
Published more than 20 books of poetry since 1956, translated into 14 languages
Began his career as a political activist and a campaigning journalist
After fighting as a guerrilla against the military governments of 1976 to 1983, was forced into exile
His ceaseless search for his abducted family members made him a powerful symbol in the struggle for human rights
Official accounts say almost 20,000 people disappeared at the hands of the regime in between 1976 to 1983, but human rights groups say the figure is at least 30,000.
In 1990 Mr Gelman was able to identify his son's remains, discovering that he had been executed and buried in a barrel filled with sand and cement.
He was never able to find the remains of his daughter-in-law Maria Claudia.
But in 2000, he was also able to trace his granddaughter, born before Maria Claudia's presumed murder. The child had been handed over to a pro-government family in Uruguay.
The reunion was one of the most high profile involving disappeared people in Argentina's history - fewer than 600 victims of the 1976-83 "dirty war" have been found.
Correspondents say that Mr Gelman's work celebrates life but is also tempered with social and political commentary, reflecting his own painful experiences with the politics of his country.During a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina tonight, Donald Trump suggested that soldiers stole money during the Iraq War and are “living very well, whoever they may be.”
Trump said that the U.S. should have taken oil from Iraq when the military left. He blasted the pundits who said that Iraq was a sovereign country since the country was “crooked as hell.” He then criticized the idea of bringing money to Iraq to hand out to local leaders.
“How about bringing baskets of money… millions and millions of dollars and handing it out? I wanna know, who were the soldiers that had that job?” Trump said. “Because I think they’re living very well right now, whoever they may be.”
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks later told NBC News that Trump was actually referring to Iraqi soldiers, not American soldiers.
Trump spox Hope Hicks tells me "Mr. Trump was referring to Iraqi soldiers." https://t.co/Mt7nefN462 — Alexandra Jaffe (@ajjaffe) June 15, 2016
Trump has brought this up in the past. The Guardian reported in October that Trump suggested the Afghan and Iraqi government kept money the U.S. brought to their countries for themselves.
“I want to know who are the soldiers carrying suitcases with $50 million?” Trump said at the time. “How stupid are we? I wouldn’t be surprised if those soldiers, if the cash didn’t get there.”
Realized I posted a somewhat incomplete transcription before of Trump in Keene on 9-30-15 pic.twitter.com/cGYH4KlYTq — Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) June 15, 2016
It was reported during the war by The Guardian that the U.S. sent billions to Iraq and then lost track of the money. In March 2013, an auditor’s report to Congress showed that much of the money spent on reconstruction grants were wasted.Scotland's top clubs are to discuss the possibility of being part of a new European regional league set-up.
Proposals are already being discussed by clubs on the Continent and it is believed their Scottish counterparts do not want to be left behind.
The idea will be floated at a reconstruction strategy meeting involving Scotland's three main governing bodies next week.
It is among a number of ideas being considered to improve the game.
European football's governing body, Uefa, is believed to be becoming increasingly concerned by the polarisation across the game between the top clubs and top leagues and is open to change.
The idea of regional leagues involving neighbouring countries and so-called Supra National Cup Tournaments has already been discussed at a recent European Club Association meeting in Switzerland.
Aberdeen, Celtic, Hearts and Rangers are all part of the association and will be part of the domestic discussions next week along with the Scottish Football Association, the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League.
BBC Scotland has learned that the European idea will be discussed - along with reconstruction, cash distribution and a pyramid system - when all parties meet next week.
After a summer of discontent in Scottish football, there is a feeling that radical change is needed to fix the game and move it forward.Bengaluru: Several police complaints were lodged against V.R. Bhat, a prominent member of the right wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), on Monday for posting a derogatory remark against a woman activist on Facebook. The post by Mr Bhat read that the activists like her should be raped by rapists. Such activists should be held by their hair and sexually assaulted to correct their approach towards Hinduism.
It was his apparent reply to Ms Prabha N. Belamangala’s post that a great deal of contributions are made by the lower strata of people towards development of a nation, but the upper strata of certain religious sects take the credit. Ms Belamangala (43) is a social activist and state secretary of Janavignana Samiti, an NGO. After Mr Bhat’s incendiary post, she lodged a complaint with the Chandra Layout police under whose jurisdiction she resides.
Mr Bhat’s post created has a furore on the social media network, and other activists lodged complaints against Mr Bhat at different police stations in different parts of the state. In Nelamangala, the state president of Karnataka Dalita Sangatanegala Okkutta, B.R. Bhaskhar Prasad, filed a police complaint against Mr Bhat. He has suggested that Mr Bhat should be booked under Goonda Act. “We will not stop with this, there are two more police complaints that will be lodged on Tuesday from Mandya and H assan,” Mr Bhaskhar Prasad told Deccan Chronicle.
Immediately after the complaints were registered, Mr Bhat deleted the post. But the complainants had taken the screen shots of his message and decided to pursue the case legally. Mr Bhat also called the activists and apologised to them. Mr Bhat is also a columnist for vernacular newspapers, and has been slapped with Section 66A of the IT Act.by Paul Gottfried
Recently by Paul Gottfried: Russia Scolds America Back
Listening to FOXnews on Sunday evening, January 6, I was impressed by the oceans of venom that greeted the nomination of Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense. At 6:30 PM, the usually sober Brit Hume remarked for the umpteenth time that this "nominee was a strange choice" and one who was clearly unsuited for the position he sought. I then listened to Bill Kristol tell us how shocked he was by Obama's appointment. According to Kristol, the President should have nominated "someone else," including a Democratic feminist who Kristol deemed to be good on "defense needs" (read bending to the will of the Likud coalition in Israel). The other panelists in a discussion group on FOX that followed the evening news deferred to the smirking Weekly Standard editor, who spent about ten minutes dumping on the nominee, without ever taking the grin off his face.
After this display of animosity, we got to see several Israeli dignitaries rage against Hagel as an enemy of the Jewish state. We then beheld the "conservative" Senator from South Carolina Lindsay Graham, indicating that he would never vote for this odious nominee. (John Podhoretz in the New York Post actually referred to the same person as an "ugly choice.") Although, unlike Graham, Hagel was a decorated warrior during the Vietnam War, it seems that Chuck could not meet Graham's exacting patriotic standards. We know that Graham is a special kind of patriot because he predictably supports John McCain, every time that Arizona senator calls for military action somewhere in the Solar System. Like McCain, Graham slams other politicians who, in his judgment, do not back the Israeli government unconditionally at all times.
Fox also gave time to the newly elected "Tea Party" Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz. This rising GOP star expressed his well-rehearsed indignation over Hagel's insufficient belligerence. By now there may be other GOP politicians who are hungering for exposure on FOX as opponents of Hagel. I recall that until this exhibition of "rightwing" disapproval, the same people who are skewing Hagel, namely the neoconservatives and other members of the Rupert Murdoch media empire, were going after him as a homophobe, anti-Semite and overly fervent admirer of the onetime segregationist senator Strom Thurmond. Suddenly the neocon officers and infantry were moving the battle zone from somewhere to the left of the Village Voice into the mainstream GOP camp. But then any slander will do for what Pat Buchanan fittingly describes as the "war party"!
What we're never told during all this staged outrage is that there are probably millions of self-identified rightists who are sick of neoconservative warmongering and slander. Of course they're not the ones invited on to FOX or asked to write for establishment conservative (read neoconservative) publications. As someone who suffered in his career from the same kind of slander from the same group that is assailing the spirited nominee for secretary of defense, I fully sympathize with Hagel's plight. And so do others in the marginalized conservative and libertarian camps, who are truly disgusted by what the neoconservatives have done to the American Right. Their foreign policy is no policy at all. It is a continuing invitation to send armies to wherever our neoconservative media elite decide need democratic reeducation. Had we been listening to such neocon advisees as McCain and Romney, we would be invading every country that the neocons decide to practice nation-building on.
Although Hagel went from supporting to criticizing the Iraqi War, this does not show lack of purpose. He initially deferred to a president from his party but then noticed our blunder in trying to reconstruct a country that didn't want us to occupy it. There were other conservatives and certainly libertarians who believed the same, but GOP operatives and FOX news interpreters would never have allowed us to guess this
Pace Kristol and his gang, Hagel was entirely correct to warn us against American entanglement in Iran. Although one may disagree with his reluctance in the Senate to apply sanctions to Iran, Hagel viewed this with some justification as a gateway to military involvement. It is easy for the neoconservatives, who sit around fattening themselves in DC eateries, to call for sending hapless Americans into overseas conflicts. It is not these armchair warriors who will suffer from the consequences of their ill-conceived adventures. The targets of enemy fire will be the Hagels of this world, not the editors of the Weekly Standard or National Review or the Wall Street Journal. I recall reading an essay in Foreign Policy by Bill Kristol and his pal Robert Kagan calling for a policy of "American greatness." This would be implemented by taking over countries and teaching them our democratic values.
The Best of Paul Gottfried
The Best of Paul GottfriedSailors Kicking Habit, Navy Families, and Youth Must Face Misconceptions About "E-cigs"
By Lt. j.g. Daniel Mongiove, Naval Submarine Base New London Public Affairs
GROTON, Conn. (NNS) -- Electronic cigarettes are having a tremendous, and potentially unsafe, impact on youth as well as current adult smokers hoping to quit, according to health and safety professionals at Naval Submarine Base New London (SUBASE).
Enticing for Youth
"E-cigs," as they are commonly called, as well as personal vaporizers (PVs) are essentially electronic nicotine delivery systems providing battery-powered doses of nicotine and other additives to the user in an aerosol.
"We're seeing a shift in what the view of smoking is becoming," said Lt. Cmdr. Michael Sracic, a medical doctor and the Public Health Department Head at Naval Branch Health Clinic Groton on SUBASE. "It's been called the'renormalization' of smoking behavior, and it's due to public misconception from advertising out there of what this product actually is."
Arguments over the target demographic of the advertising aside, the flavors of electronic cigarettes are very enticing to a youth market said Sracic and "should be a major concern for all of us, especially parents."
Results from a national survey of United States students in grades 6 to 12 found that 44 percent of users of e-cigarettes intended to smoke conventional cigarettes, compared with 22 percent of never users.
"While this survey does not prove that e-cigarette use increases the desire to smoke conventional cigarettes, it does raise concerns that e-cigarettes may be a gateway to nicotine dependence in our youth," said Sracic. "This would greatly push back the efforts from the'smoke free' campaign in the past decade."
Moreover, a study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that an increasing number of calls related to e-cigarette use are being made to United States poison control centers.
The study highlights that from a low of one such call per month to poison control centers in 2010, some 215 calls per month were made 2014. That is an increase from less than one percent to nearly 42 percent of all smoking-related calls received by poison control centers.
"The nicotine in e-cigarette fluid poses a huge potential for accidental ingestion, especially by children," said Sracic. "The typical 5 mL vial of e-cigarette liquid refill may contain a nicotine concentration of 100 mg/vial. The known lethal dose of nicotine is about 10 mg in children. E-cigarettes pose a critical risk in the hands of a child."
Promoted as Helpful to Adults
Of course, beyond the marketing of youth enticing flavors, e-cigs have been promoted as a "safer alternative" and a "helpful tool to quit smoking," notes Sracic.
"There is no evidence that shows these products are safe to use over the long term or provide a physical difference in kicking a smoking addiction," said Sracic.
A recent study published by the University of Rochester and conducted by one of the university's professors of Environmental Medicine in its School of Medicine and Dentistry, suggests that e-cigarettes could be a toxic replacement for tobacco products.
The study purports that inhaled vapors from an e-cig may contain heavy metals and other possible carcinogens from the e-cigarette and its heating element.
While not associated with the study, Sracic urges similar caution.
"Until more is known about the long-term effects of e-cigs, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the American Cancer Association recommend steering clear of these devices," advised Sracic.
Considered Similar by Navy
With so much still unknown about e-cigarettes and their impacts, the Navy and SUBASE view them fairly straightforwardly, points out SUBASE Safety Director Edgar Martinez.
"With regulations responding to studies that have linked cigarette use, smokeless tobacco use, and second-hand smoke to health problems and poor fitness, the Department of Defense and Navy have tightened rules around tobacco use and sales across the service and fleet," noted Martinez. "In the 1990s, the Navy designated that smoking areas be set up away from non-smokers in offices, surface ships, and submarines. And in 2010, the Submarine Force banned smoking in submarines outright."
Today, SECNAVINST 5100.13E, the Navy and Marine Corps Tobacco Policy, outlines the service's do's and don'ts.
"With a few exceptions, such as personal housing units, tobacco use inside facilities is controlled by the tobacco policy," said Martinez. "Currently, the Navy views tobacco products as cigarettes, cigars, tobacco, and smokeless tobacco. But as the FDA is seeking to extend its definition of a tobacco product to include electronic cigarettes, the Navy is treating them similarly."
Thus, SUBASE treats the use of e-cigarettes in its buildings the same as with any other tobacco product, states Martinez. All use of e-cigarettes shall be in designated smoking areas, at least 50 feet away from buildings.
On the waterfront, submarines homeported at SUBASE currently follow guidance from the Submarine Atmosphere Control Manual. At this time, the manual authorizes the use of electronic cigarettes aboard a submarine only in designated areas upon the discretion of the commanding officer.
However, Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic (COMSUBLANT) is soon awaiting an official recommendation from the Submarine Atmosphere Advisory Board (SAAB), according to Capt. Matthew J. Hickey, COMSUBLANT Force Medical Officer.
Materials brought onboard submarines, such as e-cigs, can impact the enclosed atmosphere of a submarine, and the SAAB plays a key role in reviewing and categorizing those materials as well as determining whether on board monitoring or restrictions are needed.
The board is comprised of representatives from undersea medical, toxicological, and occupational health activities with technical consultation from the submarine engineering community.
For Sracic and Martinez, the FDA, DOD, and Navy guidance on tobacco and e-cigarettes all highlight one thing: potential health and safety risks.
"Whether it's a middle-aged chronic smoker trying to quit; a young teen drawn in by flavors and advertising; or a Sailor looking for a supposed'safer alternative,' e-cigarette users have to understand that misconceptions are everywhere," said Sracic. "The choice not to 'vape' may be the best choice of all."
For more information on e-cigarettes visit:
http://www.med.navy.mil/sites/nmcphc/Documents/health-promotion-wellness/tobacco-free-living/Frequent_Questions_about_Electronic_Cigarettes_March_2013.pdf
For more news from Naval Submarine Base New London, visit www.navy.mil/local/subasenlon/.After that tricky diner family reunion scene, the final moments of Once Upon A Time's third season took us to a barn in which a familiar character from Disney's highest grossing film ever materialised and started letting it go all over the hay bales.
Frozen's Elsa will be part of the Once ensemble for season four, but what treatment will the character receive at the hands of Once Upon A Time's creators?
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis assured fans that "this is Elsa from Frozen", not Hans Christian Anderson's Snow Queen. "We really really loved the movie and the benefit of being owned by Disney is that we get to take the toy off the shelf and play with it. Will there be our own elements put to it? Yes. Like we do with Snow White or Peter Pan or Captain Hook, we take our own kind of twist on it but remaining faithful to the actual essence of the character. For us, we felt that Frozen had a way that could slot into our universe that could honour the movie and also make it a part of our world."
How far along are they in the casting process for Elsa? "Today is day two of season four, so we're nowhere" was the first answer, though Horowitz assured fans, "We are starting our search". Time for a round of dream casting in the comments section. Let's start things off with the completely-unobtainable-but-wouldn't-she-be-great Elizabeth Olsen...
Entertainment Weekly
Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.Republican Congressman Amash warns that bill can be applied to U.S. citizens
Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Infowars.com
Monday, November 28, 2011
Controversy over whether or not Americans are exempt from a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act bill, set to be voted on this week by the Senate, which defines the the entirety of the United States as a battleground in the war on terror, has been addressed by Republican Congressman Justin Amash, who warns that the bill does apply to U.S. citizens.
As we previously reported, under the ‘worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial’ provision of S.1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which is set to be up for a vote on the Senate floor this week, the legislation will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who supports the bill.
That provoked concerns that American citizens could be targeted as terrorists and indefinitely detained without trial or charge.
“One section of these provisions, section 1031, would be interpreted as allowing the military to capture and indefinitely detain American citizens on U.S. soil. Section 1031 essentially repeals the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by authorizing the U.S. military to perform law enforcement functions on American soil. That alone should alarm my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, but there are other problems with these provisions that must be resolved,” Colorado Senator Mark Udall said in a speech earlier this month.
Following an ACLU alert on the legislation, some pointed out that the text of the bill actually exempts Americans from being detained under the new “homeland battlefield” designation under the proviso that “the requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.”
However, as Republican Congressman Justin Amash told the The Grand Rapids Press today, the language of the bill is “carefully crafted to mislead the public.”
“Note that it does not preclude U.S. citizens from being detained indefinitely, without charge or trial, it simply makes such detention discretionary,” Amash wrote on his Facebook page.
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
{openx:74}
The controversy over whether or not the text of the bill suggests the legislation applies to U.S. citizens is largely inconsequential given the fact that every piece of anti-terror legislation passed since 9/11 has been used against Americans, both at home and abroad.
The Patriot Act was passed in the name of giving federal authorities the tools to catch terrorists, but it has been used in hundreds of cases against American citizens, often in cases that have no relation whatsoever to terrorism.
Furthermore, as Ron Paul has pointed out, Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who has never been charged with any crime, was the victim of extrajudicial killing because of the same unconstitutional legalese that defines the entire globe as a “battlefield,” where the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens are declared null and void if they are designated as terrorists by the federal government.
Indeed, national intelligence director Dennis Blair openly stated last year that, “Being a U.S. citizen will not spare an American from getting assassinated by military or intelligence operatives.”
Recall that José Padilla, an American citizen, was held without charge for 3 and a half years as an “enemy combatant” and denied a trial in civilian court, after being accused of planning to detonate a “dirty bomb,” an accusation that was enough to keep Padilla in a military brig for over three years yet was never proven.
As far back as December 2002, the Washington Post reported that a “parallel legal system” had been put in place under the auspices of the war on terror, in which terrorism suspects — U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike — may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system.”
The “battlefield” provision of the NDAA is nothing new, it is merely an updating of existing policy that has been applied to American citizens on numerous occasions over the last decade.
The difference is that the danger of American citizens being detained without trial as terrorists on frivolous pretexts is an even greater danger now given that the Department of Homeland Security has characterized behavior such as buying gold, owning guns, using a watch or binoculars, donating to charity, using the telephone or email to find information, using cash, and all manner of mundane behaviors as potential indicators of domestic terrorism.
*********************
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.DieuCure Profile Joined January 2017 France 3108 Posts #2
And this qualifier announces the beginning of the Cure era. I hope there will be more than 40 playersAnd this qualifier announces the beginning of the Cure era.
SlyZBuckler Profile Joined November 2014 6 Posts #3 On December 25 2017 07:19 DieuCure wrote:
I hope there will be more than 40 players
And this qualifier announces the beginning of the Cure era. I hope there will be more than 40 playersAnd this qualifier announces the beginning of the Cure era.
He is getting better.. but he can throw any game... He is |
can often cause patients great anxiety and distress.A man has stabbed and wounded a woman and her three daughters in the French Alps for being scantily dressed, according to local media reports.
The incident took place at a holiday resort in a small village called Lagrand, about sixteen miles from the town of Sisteron.
According to first reports, the alleged perpetrator was not happy with the way his neighbours, in the adjoining chalet were dressed.
The family were having breakfast when the attack took place.
The victims are a girl of eight along with her mother and two sisters. The eight year old is suffering from a punctured lung. The family have been airlifted to a hospital in the nearby town of Gap.
The alleged perpetrator was arrested while trying to flee the scene by car.At the close of the 1977 Major League Baseball season, the Kansas City Royals sat atop their division with 102 wins to just 60 losses. They were led by Hall of Fame 3B George Brett, DH Hal McRae, 20 game winner Dennis Leonard, and outfielder Al Cowens (who finished second to Rod Carew in MVP voting that year). But while they finished well, they were slow to start. On July 9th, they left Minnesota on the way to a three game set in Milwaukee to take on the Brewers. They lost the Friday night contest, 4-3, then won Saturday’s game, 6-0, and entered Sunday’s rubber match a game under.500 and in fifth place, five games behind the league-leading Twins.
They’d lose Sunday’s game, too, by the score of 4-0. And if you were at the ballpark that day, you may have thought the Royals didn’t even bother to show up. No, not because of the score, but because of the uniforms. There were no Royals uniforms on the field that day.
They were stolen the night before.
As reported by the Milwaukee Sentinel the day after the game, the visiting team’s clubhouse at Milwaukee’s County Stadium was raided on Saturday night. The thieves took 52 jerseys (out of 60), 20 gloves, and a bunch of jackets, caps, and shoes. As the Sentinel pointed out, “for some reason, the Royals didn’t lose their pants.” But they had lost their shirts and a bunch of other stuff — and couldn’t cobble together anything which could be reasonably considered a uniform.
By rule, the Royals should not have been able to field a team; Rule 1.1 explicitly states (and then stated) that “no players whose uniform does not conform to that of his teammates shall be permitted to take the field.” That, quite simply, was impossible.
But the league office ruled that the show — or, in this case, ballgame — must go on. So the Brewers equipment manager sent over a few dozen Brewers jerseys. The home-team Brewers wore their white uniforms, while, as seen above, the away-team Royals donned baby blue Brewers tops with random numbers and the wrong names on their backs. Brett, whose jersey wasn’t stolen, donned his familiar “Kansas City” #5, while his teammate, McRae, also wore #5, but with “Brewers” on the front. Two players, outfielder Amos Otis and shortstop Freddy Patek, each wore #2, because that’s what the Brewers had lying around in their size. The Brewers’ starting pitcher Jerry Augustine, wearing #46, gave up a seventh inning single to Royals RF Cowens — also wearing Brewers #46. But they weren’t perfect doppelgangers. Because most of the batting helmets were left behind, Cowens had a “KC” on his helmet (see the KC helmet and Brewers jersey combo here) while Augustine’s cap had the Brewers’ logo on it.
The Kansas City equipment manager, per the Sentinel, estimated the cost of the stolen items to be about $3,500, or $12,000 in today’s dollars, accounting for inflation. The stolen items were never recovered.
Bonus fact : The Royals and Brewers also share a common origin — kind of. In the mid-1910s, the American and National Leagues (which now constitute Major League Baseball) were sued by the Baltimore Terrapins, members of an upstart league called the Federal League. The Terrapins claimed that by restricting players’ ability to re-join MLB teams after leaving to play in the Federal League, the American and National Leagues were violating antitrust laws. In 1922, the Supreme Court ruled that the Majors were exempt from antitrust laws, as baseball is a sport, not a business. But the Court left open the option for Congress to change that via legislation.
After the 1967 season, the Kansas City Athletics moved to Oakland. One of Missouri’s senators, Stuart Symington, was irate, and threatened to bring legislation to the floor removing baseball’s antitrust exemption unless Kansas City was awarded a new team. MLB responded by awarding teams to KC, Seattle, San Diego, and Montreal, to begin in the 1971 season, but Symington was not placated. He pushed for the teams to begin play in 1969, and was ultimately successful. Unfortunately, the Seattle team, the Pilots, wasn’t ready to start play. On Opening Day, their stadium, appropriately named “Sick’s Stadium,” only had 17,000 seats available (out of an expected 30,000), lacked a scoreboard, and had inadequate water pressure. The Pilots fell into bankruptcy at the end of the season and, just a few days before the 1970 season, were purchased by future MLB commissioner Bud Selig. Selig relocated the team to Milwaukee and renamed them the Brewers
From the Archives: Numbers Racket: Baseball’s (and other sports’) market in uniform numbers.
Related: “Ball Four” by Jim Bouton. An absolute classic, must-read book for any baseball fan, which in part, recounts the Seattle Pilots’ only season in existence.
Image via here.An Iranian woman's sunglasses show a reflection of the Dizin ski slope, about 40 km (25 miles) north of Tehran. The resort is a favorite getaway for well-to-do young Tehranians during winter and spring. (REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl)
As the ski season picks up in Iran, it brings plenty of hazards — from frostbite to fraternization. On the slopes of the Elburz mountains outside Tehran, police have been deployed to enforce segregation of male and female skiers, for fear of “immoral offences” being committed. The sexes are strictly separated on the slopes and women are not allowed to ski in the absence of a husband, father or brother.
General Hossein Sajadinia, of the Greater Tehran police force, has promised to crack down on any transgressions. “This year we have sent a number of women officers to learn how to ski so they can carry out their vigilante duties of dealing with women who defy the Islamic hijab and those members of the public who play loud music while mixing with the opposite sex or commit sexual harassment,” he said.
Related:
Iran partially opening up stadiums to women
In Iran’s “Freedom” stadium, there is no true freedom
Read the full story at The Telegraph.Clinton military brass join ranks with Obama campaign
Clinton Secretary of Navy, Air Force to tout Obama's credentials
According to a press release from the Obama campaign Monday morning, the candidate's staff will appear with top military brass today "to discuss why Obama has demonstrated the judgment and has the experience to be Commander In Chief."
"Today, former service secretaries for each of the Armed Forces Clifford Alexander, Jr. (US Army), Richard Danzig (US Navy), and F. Whitten Peters (US Air Force) will host a press conference in Washington, DC to discuss why Obama has demonstrated the judgment and has the experience to be Commander In Chief," the release writes.
Among those attending: "Secretary Clifford Alexander, Jr. (US Army Carter Administration), Secretary Richard Danzig (US Navy Clinton Administration) and Secretary F. Whitten Peters (US Air Force Clinton Administration."
The event will be held at the United Food and Commercial Workers, 1775 K Street, NW - 11th Floor at 1pm today.I was looking over Brenton Sanderson’s TOO article on Mark Rothko (“Mark Rothko, Abstract Expressionism, and the Decline of Western Art“). For Rothko, an artist without any of the skills that are traditionally associated with being a professional artist, it was all about Jewish networking.
Towards the end of 1943, all of the ethnic networking finally began to bear tangible fruit for Rothko. He befriended Peggy Guggenheim, “the most voracious patroness of American avant-garde art”, who had migrated to New York in 1941. Guggenheim’s artistic consultant, Howard Putzel, “convinced her to show Rothko in her Art of This Century gallery, where she had opened in 1942, during the low point of the war.” In January 1945, Guggenheim decided to put on Rothko’s first one-man exhibition at her gallery. In 1948 Rothko invited a coterie of mainly Jewish friends and acquaintances to view his new ‘multiforms’. The [very influential] art critic and historian Harold Rosenberg “remembers finding these works “fantastic,” and called his experience “the most impressive visit to an artist” in his life.”
This is actually quite remarkable. It would be one thing if Rothko was aspiring to be a leading rabbi or the head honcho at the ADL. But he was aspiring to fame and fortune as an historically important artist in the Western canon. He achieved his goal. One of his paintings recently sold for $87 million.
What reminded me of Rothko was a Mondoweiss article, “Pro-Israel literary subculture is poised to champion Shani Boianjiu, as it did Risa Miller.“) Here we find that the budding careers of two pro-Israel writers, Shani Boianjiu and Risa Miller, benefited massively from ethnic networking. The works of Boianjiu and Miller
portray Palestinians negatively. [Their work is] successful less on the literary merits than because they appeal to and have been supported by members of a Jewish-American subculture that is devoted to the promotion of the State of Israel.
Weiss describes Miller’s novel, Welcome to Heavenly Heights:
It is a paean to continuing Jewish dispossession of the Palestinian people, who lurk in the background of this tale as a faceless, senseless, violent, malevolent threat to the American settlers’ charming and heartwarming spiritual quest.
The book “received mostly rave reviews, with very few writers even mentioning the fact that the political realities of the Israeli occupation had been either ignored or had been distorted.”
Boianjiu’s short story recycles Israeli propaganda on the death of the a Palestinian family in the 2006 Gaza invasion, and it portrays Palestinians begging to be shot by Israeli soldiers in order to get media coverage.
The ethnic networking is obvious:
Like Miller, [Boianjiu] is being championed by a Jewish-American woman author who has already achieved considerable success. Miller received the patronage of Elinor Lipman, who if my memory is correct had taught Miller in a writing workshop. [Weiss comments on Lipman’s “oh-so-liberal image.” Since liberalism among Jews in the US is little more than a code word for anti-White attitudes, it illustrates once again the hypocrisy and double standards on ethnonationalism typical of the great majority of American Jews. Jewish ethnonationalism: good; White ethnonationalism: bad.] Boianjiu has been supported by the poet and novelist, Nicole Krauss. Both writers helped their proteges to win prestigious literary awards for novice authors. Miller won the PEN Discovery Award and Boianjiu the National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 prize (for which Krauss was her sponsor; and by the way, Krauss herself gained the attentionof Philip Roth and Joseph Brodsky).
Boianjiu’s story appeared in The New Yorker, a premier literary magazine. It was accompanied by an interview by fiction editor Willing Davidson. The editor-in-chief of The New Yorker is David Remnick, and the magazine is owned by Conde Nast Publications, a subsidiary of Advance Publications, which is a privately held company owned by Si Newhouse. The Columbia Journalism Review provides a long list of publications owned by Advance, including Vanity Fair and 36 other magazines or journals, 60 newspapers (mostly in small-town America), the Discovery cable TV channel, etc.
Jewish media ownership and control is a major arena for Jewish ethnic networking, especially noticeable at high-prestige, influential publications such as The New Yorker. Just as Rothko was successfully promoted to be part of the Western canon of high art, these writers are being promoted not as Israeli writers, but as part of the Western literary canon. Soon to be featured in college courses and made into movies.
Jewish ethnic networking is a critical source of Jewish power, ranging from the the worlds of art, literature and the media discussed here to the rise of the undistinguished Elena Kagan to Supreme Court justice (fueled by Larry Summers who rescued her from her status as an unemployed academic with a non-existent publication record to Dean of the Harvard Law School), to business networks, and the intellectual world. Where would Freud have been without his legion of Jewish backers within the psychoanalytic movement and in the media?
Jewish ethnic networking is the subtext not only of the sacrosanct position of Israel in the US media. It is also the subtext of the rise to dominance of the culture of critique and all that that entails in terms of multiculturalism and non-White immigration. We all accept a certain amount of ethnic networking as normal and natural—Jews are simply better at it than most. The problem comes when this ethnic networking creates an elite that is hostile to the traditional people and culture of the West or results in loyalty to Israel as the Jewish ethnostate at the expense of the best interests of the United States or other Western countries. Such an elite has no legitimacy, moral or otherwise.Update : Latest Raspbian supports CAN Controller MCP251x, you don’t have to add modules like described here.
Please read the new post on how to use CAN Bus with Raspberry Pi.
After several hours trying to find a complete solution to add CAN bus support to my Raspberry Pi, I’m sharing with you what worked for me, by combining different sources and information that I get on the web.
This method uses MCP251x Microchip’s stand-alone controller, connected to SPI bus of the Raspberry Pi, but it should work also for any other CAN controller.
If you meet any problem, please let me know it by comment below or email.
This method is tested with latest Raspbian (3.18.7+), I recommend you to have the same version before proceeding.
I’ll skip Raspbian first installation, if you are not familiar with it, you can use NOOBS setup (version 1.4.0) and follow instructions.
For next steps, you will need :
Raspberry Pi (I’m using Model B) + SD Card Raspbian.
Screen/Keyboard/Mouse/Internet Access
After installing Raspbian, start by updating/upgrading, and rebooting your Raspberry Pi.
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get autoremove sudo reboot
Then download CAN bus modules for latest Raspbian (Thanks to Ifinterface.com!) http://ifinterface.com/page/page3.php?langid=1
If you are using older Raspbian (e.g. 3.12), try to find compatible CAN bus sources here : http://lnxpps.de/rpie/ or here : http://ifinterface.com/page/page3.php?langid=1
Untar in root level (to avoid any permission error), or in /tmp if you want to remove it after rebooting :
cd / sudo tar -xjf ~/rpi-can-3.18.7+.tar.bz2
Register new modules, and reboot :
sudo depmod -a sudo reboot
There is two ways to configure and load your CAN modules :
1 – Doing it directly by command-line :
Start by configuring SPI (copy it as it is, with no spaces) :
sudo modprobe spi-config devices=bus=0:cs=0:modalias=mcp2515:speed=10000000:gpioirq=25:pd=20:pds32-0=16000000:pdu32-4=0x2002:force_release
Explanation : 10MHz SPI clock GPIO 25 for MCP2515 /INT and 16Mhz clock (crystal) – 0x2002 -> IRQF_ONESHOT
Then, load MCP module :
sudo modprobe mcp251x
2 – Doing it in autoload file :
Open your modules config :
sudo nano /etc/modules
Add the following lines :
spi_bcm2835 spi-config devices=\
bus=0:cs=0:modalias=mcp2515:speed=10000000:gpioirq=25:pd=20:pds32-0=16000000:pdu32-4=0x2002:force_release mcp251x
Press CTRL+O to save changes, then press ENTER to confirm file name. Press CTRL+X to quit nano.
Don’t forget to reboot to load your new modules :
sudo reboot
Normally, I say, normally, you are now able to set up a CAN bus link with bitrate value, for example :
ip link set can0 up type can bitrate 250000
If it is not working, here main mistakes I did, and eventually you are doing :
1- SPI module is not installed/enabled
Firstly, check if your SPI is well installed in Raspbian (There is no reason that it isn’t, but check it anyway)
Check your SPI device and module availability with these commands :
ls /sys/bus/spi/devices/ ls /sys/module/spidev/
You need to have (spi0.0 spi0.1), and see also (parameters uevents)
The easy way to enable SPI module it by using Raspi-config interface :
sudo raspi-config
Go to Advanced Options and enable SPI kernel module, and reboot.
Another method is by enabling SPI in Raspi-blacklist, open it :
sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/raspi-blacklist.conf
Then withelist SPI and MCP with # comment :
#blacklist spi-bcm2835
#blacklist mcp251x
CTRL+O, ENTER, CTRL+X.
2- SPI module reference is different from above commands
Shame on me, but some times I used spi-bcm2708 instead of spi-bcm2835…
Take a look to your SPI reference in modules list (search for spi_bcmXXXX) :
ls /sys/module/
3- CAN bus is not connected
You need to connect your Raspberry Pi to physical CAN bus in order to set up can0 interface, otherwise you can’t see it.
Alternative solution is to use virtual CAN bus, it means that you will have internal CAN node in your Raspberry Pi, very helpful for desktop testing.
sudo modprobe vcan sudo ip link add dev vcan0 type vcan sudo ip link set up vcan0
You can now see vcan0 when you display your ifconfig :
ifconfig
Send data (for example send byte “10” to device with identifier 100) :
cansend vcan0 100#01
Helpful Links :
CAN + Raspberry Pi
http://lnxpps.de/rpie/
Raspberry Pi SPI Documentation
http://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/spi/README.md
Raspberry Pi BCM2835 Documentation
http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/bcm2835/
Linux CAN-Utils Documentation
https://github.com/linux-can/can-utils/Here is the second film in our three part World of Death Halloween special. Fantasia Film Festival favorite The Elvis Room stars Bailey Noble (True Blood, Martyrs US), Spencer Locke (Insidious: The Last Key), Keir Gilchrist (It Follows), and Corbin Bernsen (Major League, American Gods) and is the perfect fit for the blood-soaked weekend. Be sure to tune in Monday for Sundance alum Dawn of the Deaf and ring in the holiday right!
Also check out the original novella by Stephen Graham Jones HERE as well as the incredible film score by Jon Natchez, of The War on Drugs HERE.
Happy Halloween Friends and Neighbors! The spirits are alive with us all this season. Speaking of alive, have you seen Elvis lately? He may have been gone for sometime, but someone has been in his room… Oh those urban legends just slay me!
This takes us to our feature of the day. We get to experience a special fright in THE ELVIS ROOM by Andrew Schwarz. When a pair of friends (Bailey Noble and Spencer Locke) enter a hotel for the night, one is far more intent on getting the party started than the other. What could go wrong with taking a little extra medication for the road? Nothing to fear, unless the ramblings of an old traveling salesman (Corbin Bernsen) turn out to be true. Paranoia and dread fill this short as much as the star powered cameos. The Director takes us on a scary trip through a horror hotel that rivals any set in the same ominous space. The cinematography is spot on for the feel of this horror gem. The lighting, music and dutch angles are used so perfectly, you forget that this is a film and really get pulled into the scene. The spirits haunting our heroines’ visit strike fear into the heart of anyone who has considered the history that surrounds those old buildings. Sometimes friends check out, but they never leave. I don’t want to spoil things for you, but I can tell you this, just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you!
Sleep well friends, put the “Do not disturb” sign on your door and whatever you do, don’t make a mess for your housekeeper. Lay some plastic down on the floor, just in case. We have more World of Death for you every week! Until next time, enjoy the room service!
~Eric Breitenbach
World of Death is the web series that fans of independent horror have been waiting for. Featuring short horror films from all over the globe created by the largest variety of talent that a collection has ever been able to boast, WOD provides plenty of blood, guts, screams and laughs for all fans of the macabre. And with episodes averaging around eight minutes in length, WOD is the perfect entertainment for a fan base constantly on the go. Watch it anywhere, at any time, for FREE! New episodes premiere every Monday and Thursday at 10am CST.
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WATCH HEREDuterte eyes close allies, ex-soldiers in Cabinet
Joel Guinto, ABS-CBN News
Posted at 09 May 2016 11:48 PM | Updated as of 10 May 2016 01:29 AM
Jesus Dureza and Presidential frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte
DAVAO CITY – Presidential frontrunner Rodrigo Duterte said Monday he was considering close friends and former military men in his Cabinet, providing the first glimpses at the government that the maverick mayor is forming.
Duterte said he was considering hotelier and former agriculture secretary Carlos Dominguez as his finance or transportation secretary, while former presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza would be taken in for his experience in Mindanao affairs.
His running mate, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, could be named foreign secretary, he said. Cayetano, who is trailing in the vice-presidential count, has three years left in his Senate term and could not be appointed to a government post within a year after the elections.
“He's my boyhood chum and neighbor namin. We grew up together,” Duterte said of Dominguez, owner of the Marco Polo Hotel in this city.
“Pinaka-corrupt ang DOTC (Department of Transportation and Communications) but do not be surprised if almost all others are military people,” he added.
“I want military men and most of them will occupy lower echelons,” he said, as he brought up the name of retired police general Isidro Lapena.
Dureza knows the "entrails of Mindanao," he said, adding his former classmate had an average grade of 94 compared to his 75.
Campaign spokesman Peter Laviña will keep his post, but will be based in Davao, Duterte said. He added that lawyer Salvador Panelo would be his spokesman in the capital.
Campaign manager Leoncio Evasco “will stay beside me,” Duterte said, without giving details.Clock at Indiana University. (Photo: robzand/Flickr)
Try Googling it: “What time is it in Indiana?” You’ll get a first answer—say, 5:52 p.m.—and then you’ll get a second, in smaller text: say, 4:52. What Google won’t tell you at all is that, if it’s summer, there will be places in Indiana where people call it 3:52, because—to this day—their communities decline, in contravention of state law, to observe Daylight Savings Time. In fact, there's really no answering the question of what time it is in Indiana, except in the plural. There is no one time in Indiana. There aren’t even two times. There is a kind of messy plurality of times.
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Don’t get us wrong: Indiana’s the best at a lot of other things that matter. Think college basketball, state fairs, pork tenderloin sandwiches. But when it comes to this one thing—the standardization of time—Indiana is the worst.
The reasons are twofold. First, Indiana’s counties effectively get to pick their time zones, petitioning the Department of Transportation with their decisions. Twelve have picked Central (and of course the 12 aren’t all in the same region), and the other 80 have chosen Eastern. And second, it was only in 2005 that Indiana passed a law requiring everyone to observe Daylight Savings Time, and many Indiana residents report that this law is only just now beginning to be universally enforced.
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"Lunchtime for them is 1 p.m. our time. You’d think it’s two different countries, but really they’re coming from right down the darn road."
The confusion that ensues affects everybody from visitors to the Indianapolis International Airport to the smallest farmer, supplier, shopkeeper, and distributor in the littlest Indiana town. “As far as delivering things,” says Joshua Lichlyter of Huntingburg, Indiana (DuBois County: Eastern Time), “as far as meeting people at a certain time, it can create real chaos.” Lichlyter is one of two employees of Huntingburg’s Veterinary and Poultry Supply, which distributes animal medication and other veterinary necessities to farms in the surrounding counties (Spencer, Warrick, Perry: all Central Time). “If I show up at seven my time and it’s really six your time, it can get darn confusing. It’s a darn lot to keep track of.”
Lichlyter describes checking continually to make sure his cell phone has switched time zones as he crosses county lines to carry out the afternoon’s delivery work—and then checking again to make sure it’s flipped back as he returns to his home base in Huntingburg. He also notes that the store’s practice of closing over the 12-to-one lunch hour often thwarts potential customers coming from other counties. “Lunchtime for them is 1 p.m. our time,” he says. “You’d think it’s two different countries, but really they’re coming from right down the darn road.”
IN THE UNITED STATES, both time zones and Daylight Savings Time have been controversial since their beginnings. Before the rise of the railroads, cities and towns set their own local times. They used the sun; noon was the time when it was highest in the sky. This meant that, with each degree that a person traveled west, 12 p.m. became a slightly different time. But railroads required some standardization, and in 1883 the major railroad companies agreed to synchronize their watches. They divided the country into four standard time zones. Many cities quickly followed suit, passing municipal ordinances that set their own times to match.
The federal government didn’t get involved until World War I, when the Standard Time Act of 1918 both established uniform time zones nationwide and instituted a mandatory new practice—recently implemented in Germany—called Daylight Saving Time. After the war, DST would become optional for each state; it has since again been implemented nationwide, but states can now choose, in their entirety, to opt out. Arizona and Hawaii still do choose not to observe DST. Since the 1960s, though, changing the clocks has basically become a national ritual.
So what makes certain parts of Indiana likely to dissent? The state’s refusal to adopt a single time zone is easier to explain: Much of the state wants to be on Eastern Time, the time zone of Wall Street and of nearby Louisville and Cincinnati, but its western corners are metropolitan areas that draw on neighbors (Chicago and the Evansville tri-state area) who observe Central Time, so it splits the difference.
DST, though, is more complicated. The way that DST messes with time is to take the summer months and dislocate their noons from the sun: The “springing forward” pulls noon an hour (or more, depending on your location) before the sun’s highest point, whereas the “falling back” restores the natural match. This can mean that, come June, if you’re far West in a time zone, the sun won’t reach its highest point until, say, 2:00 p.m. If you’re a farmer, that distortion robs you of good working time. And one of the farming regions that’s farthest west in a U.S. time zone, and so most likely to lose the most agricultural working time to DST, is the Eastern Time part of Indiana.
For Indiana farmers like Laverne Stoll, who plants beans and makes hay in Loogootee while also working part-time at Graber Post Supply in nearby Montgomery, a 2 p.m. solar noon can throw off the whole system. “It can be a certain time on the old Standard Time, and we think we should be putting up hay,” Stoll says, “but the dew’s still on the ground, and it just throws us back and throws off the whole schedule of things.” And it was because of objections like Stoll’s that, through 2005, much of Indiana declined to participate in DST.
By the early 2000s, though, advocates for big agribusiness and other large-scale industry in Indiana had come to see this compromise as unacceptable: Indiana’s patchwork of times was incompatible, they said, with the growth of big business. Such frustration led the Indiana General Assembly to decide, in 2005, to implement DST statewide.
But even that decision has led to further complications. Take, for instance, the plight of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, a massive U.S. Navy base in the southwestern part of the state. After a frenzy of new time-zone-change petitions that attended that 2005 switch (implemented in 2006) to statewide DST, NSWC Crane, which technically touches three counties, suddenly found itself spread over two time zones. It dealt with the split of its own footprint by simply ignoring the time-zone law and operating as if the whole base were on Central. But there were bigger problems to deal with: coordinating with the Eastern Time Indianapolis International Airport, for instance, and handling family life for employees, who were living, raising children, and supporting partners in the surrounding eight counties, most of which had remained on Eastern.
“People at home hated it because they never knew what time it was,” says Pam Ingram, public affairs officer for NSWC Crane, who herself lives in Greene County, which had gone to Eastern Time while NSWC Crane had gone to Central. “My husband and I kept our clocks on Central Time so that we wouldn’t get confused.... If I had left my clocks at home on Eastern, I would never have gotten to work on time again.”
Eventually NSWC Crane helped coordinate a coalition of counties to re-petition and switch back onto Eastern Time. In the meantime, though, NSWC Crane affiliates were variously dismayed and consoled by re-runs of a 2002 episode of the West Wing in which members of President Bartlet’s team are stranded in Indiana after they miss their flight due to time-zone confusion. “There was a line in that episode like, ‘What is this place? Are you in another country?,’” Ingram says. “There it was on national television, and that’s what we lived with every day.”
WHEN THE INDIANA GENERAL Assembly finally decided in 2005 to implement DST statewide, advocates for big business hailed the decision as a major victory for growth. Walmart’s announcement this June that it will build a massive 1.2-million-square-foot fulfillment and distribution facility in Plainfield, says Indiana Chamber of Commerce spokesperson Cameron Carter, shows that standardization leads to investment. “That just does not occur if you are out of sync with the rest of the country in the terms of the fulfillment and supply chain,” Carter says. “It makes no sense for national and multi-national companies to invest in the state if they had had to idiosyncratically accommodate a different method of keeping time.”
So standardization may have its large-scale economic benefits. It’s worth acknowledging, though, that by refusing to standardize, Indiana is also doing something quite quintessentially American. In the U.S. federal system, every state is allowed to be what Justice Louis Brandeis once called a “laboratory of democracy”: it can invent creative strategies for addressing its own challenges. Indiana can do its own weird thing with its clocks. Under this arrangement—wherein each state can choose to be the worst in its own way, without federal intervention—democracy, Brandeis argued, evolves and thrives. From the individual states, the country as a whole reaps a continual harvest of new ideas about how to arrange political and social life.
This isn’t to say that every state ought to adopt time-zone chaos. Even the majority of non-Walmarters in Indiana (small retailers, students, even many farmers) now seem largely pro-standardization, although most express skepticism that the state’s voters will ever get it together to get the times in line. (As Bruce Aigner, co-owner of Aigner’s Hardware & Supply in Boonville, puts it: “Heck, it’s hard enough to get people together to even vote for president, let alone for a time zone.”) It is to say, though, that—as many problems as it may have caused itself—Indiana has done its duty as a laboratory. In this one case, being the worst might not be so bad. Still: It’s a darn lot to keep track of.The face of the medal of the Norwegian Nobel Committee shows Alfred Nobel in a pose slightly different from that of the other medals. The inscription is the same.
The other side of the Nobel Peace Prize medal represents a group of three men forming a fraternal bond.
The inscription reads:
Pro pace et fraternitate gentium
translated “For the peace and brotherhood of men”. “Prix Nobel de la Paix”, the relevant year, and the name of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is engraved on the edge of the medal.
The Nobel Peace Prize Medal was designed by Gustav Vigeland.
Since 2012 the Nobel Medals has been manufactured by Det Norske Myntverket (Mint of Norway) in Kongsberg.
More on the Nobel Medals and the Medal for the Prize in Economic Sciences:
Physics and Chemistry
Physiology or Medicine
Literature
Peace
Economic SciencesLocal baseball fans not deterred from national pastime
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - Baseball fans in Palm Springs were not deterred from the tragedy near our nation's capital to miss out on our national pastime. The Palm Springs Power had a home game Wednesday night and is hosting Republican Night this Friday.
Wednesday morning, a gunman opened fire on members of the Republican congressional baseball team at a practice field in near Washington D.C.
Local party leaders talk unity after shooting at GOP baseball practice
"I think it is tragic what happened and anything happening with any violence, anywhere is just not right. It doesn’t matter who you are," said Denise Petty of Palm Springs.As usual, security guards checked bags of people who came to the game. Most feel safe at Palm Springs Stadium. Copyright 2017 Gulf California Broadcasting. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. John Mauldin slides in for a homerun for the Palm Springs Power.
Copyright 2017 Gulf California Broadcasting. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. John Mauldin slides in for a homerun for the Palm Springs Power.
"I have been coming here for years and have never had a problem," said Jack Triepek, a longtime fan of Palm Springs Power baseball.
Others remain cautious.
"Look at San Bernardino, how far away are we from there? It's too close for comfort," said Patricia Lehow of Palm Desert.This Friday’s game will be Republican Night.
Giffords tweets support following baseball practice shooting
Copyright 2017 Gulf California Broadcasting. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Fans show off their patriotism at Wednesday night's game.
Copyright 2017 Gulf California Broadcasting. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Fans show off their patriotism at Wednesday night's game.
Assemblymember Chad Mayes will be at the game. Power organizers have been in touch with the Palm Springs Police Department to see if added security might be needed, but they expect just another fun night of baseball.
"Misters will be going and beer will be flowing and baseball will be played at a high level on Friday night," said Andrew Starke, president of Palm Springs Power.
Congressman Ruiz talks about GOP baseball practice shooting
There maybe nothing more inherently American than the crack of a bat, in a sport where patriotism and pride are as pinnacle.
"Everybody comes out they are happy they are cheerful everyone stands we pledge allegiance, we sing Take Me Out to the Ball Game, what could be better? What could be more American?" asks Julie Harris of Palm Springs. Copyright 2017 Gulf California Broadcasting. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Palm Springs Power players during the National Anthem at Wednesday night’s game.
Copyright 2017 Gulf California Broadcasting. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Palm Springs Power players during the National Anthem at Wednesday |
u tells him to get the CWCVille Power Rangers- he will be there after he finishes breakfast. Sonichu gets to the mall and meets with Officer Perez- who pretty much sums up what Magi Chan just said one page prior. Wild suddenly shows up.
Back at home, Reginald is at the Sonichu house for no explained reason, and young Robbie decides to ask him about a "seven inch lightning rod". Reginald, being the modest gentleman he is, whips out his penis for Robbie and Cerah to play with it, Robbie declaring he wants to put it in his mouth. Rosechu interupts and rightfully yells at Reginald. The Sneasel makes a sorry excuse that Angelica has not done her womanly duties of sexually pleasing him in over 3 months, and apologizes for exposing himself. Rosechu implies she will aide him in his needs and sends her children off to go watch Family Guy dvds (the perfect show for children). On the bottom of the page is an Axe ad "for that delicious smell".
Once in her room, Rosechu preaches to Reginald about how he should not seek adultery for his urges. Reginald sees the err of his ways and thanks Rosechu for her support. He mentally laments about Rosechu's beauty, her kindness...her body, and lusts for her, knowing she is Sonichu's. He has shown no concern nor worry that Angelica is being held hostage at the mall. Chris takes up a full page with an American flag to inform the readers that Rosechu is indeed faithful to Sonichu, and educates the readers on the dangers of cheating, such as diseases and children born with homosexuality, and how the main Rosechu gals freely express their feminism in the bedroom with their respected men.
Back at the mall, the battle has been fought completely offscreen as Wild and Sonichu talk about the aftermath. Magi Chan mentally informs them that he has found hostages, with Sonichu saying they will need ambulances and transportation for the homeless to go to the soup hotels in CWCVille. They take a moment to discuss how great the mayor is in attending to the people of the town, and go back to their task of finding Slawheel. Sonichu finds her on the next page, and punches her a few times, declaring it a great battle as Slawheel flies away on a Nimbus Cloud with Sonichu flipping her off as she leaves, Slawheel declaring that though she has given up, there are more surprises in store. The Mal-Wart blows up as Sonichu and Wild watch in horror. Magi, who somehow survived, inform them Anglica and Bubbles are dead, along with 350 others (175 innocent, 23 Jerkops, 47 Janekops, and 127 were hypnotized by Slawheel. Three Power Rangers also died valiantly). Sonichu swears on his dead friends that he will get Slawheel for her crimes.
The first part ends on Magi informing Reginald on Angelica's death (she died buying tampons and/or pads as Magi implies), and how the Sneasel should invest in a sex-doll while he partakes in a love quest to replace Angelica. Reginald shows no sorrow for his lost love, as he blames Sonichu for a moment, but now finds himself free to make moves on Rosechu.
Part 2
Sonichu and Rosechu in: Dangers Above
The next episode opens on Wild and Sandy, who are adjusting to live without Simonla around. Sandy leaves for school and Wild tells her to be good and study hard. Sandy slips her earbuds in to listen to her favorite band, Christian and the Hedgehog Boys. Unfortunately, she is so distracted by her music, she walks in front of a speeding car. The driver was texting and driving, but suddenly sees the tragedy he caused. The next page cuts to her funeral as Sonichu and Rosechu pity Wild- losing his wife, and then his daughter. Rosechu attempts to empathize and offer support to Wild. Wild, overcome with grief and anger, lashes out at her, saying she's never lost anything while he has now lost his entire family. Rosechu is in shock of his anger, but Sonichu tells her to shrug it off since he's in grief. He answers his phone during the funeral with a frantic Heather on the other end. The kids got into the cleaners while Heather used the bathroom and all three kids had drank all of the drain cleaner. Sonichu and Rosechu rush to the hospital and learn the fate of their children- Robbie and Christine died from ingesting the cleaner, but Cerah lived since she is the oldest and was not fatally affected (even though shes only a few months older than Christine and all kids were the same size). However, Cerah suffered major brain damage and would need assistance for the rest of her life. Sonichu and Rosechu grieve as two headstones take up the rest of the page for the children.
Later, Sonichu falls under stress with all the medical bills. Rosechu suggests he go get help from the mayor, to which Sonichu says is no use- Chris has been missing for months and is too busy with his video games and The Wallflower to care. Sonichu mentally blames Rosechu for the kids' fates as she left the cleaner out where they could easily get to it, and Rosechu mentally laments that Sonichu doesn't attempt to understand her.
The next scene cuts to a few weeks later as Marvey Blaziken discusses with Wild the legal actions after Sandy's death. The driver was convicted of texting and driving, but since Sandy was witnessed jaywalking at the time of her death, the driver was not convicted of involuntary manslaughter. The driver is only fined for running a stop sign and is put on probation for three months. Wild gains some self-awareness and yells about how terrible the laws are in the town- they have useless things like Dating Education (ironically where Wild met Simonla). Marvey suggests they present the mayor with a petition so he can revew CWCville laws, to which Wild responds in saying that's hopeless- all of Chris's documents are signed with DS consoles. Wild excuses himself to be alone. The next page shows him with a gun, declaring he no longer wants to live and ends his life.
Sonichu drinks at TGI Fridays, verbally lashing out at the bartender to get him his fourth Long Island Iced Tea. Angelica appears to console Sonichu (most likely as a drunk hallucination by Sonichu) as he flirtingly invites her to sit with him. Meanwhile, Rosechu is at home grieving over Cerah's status, as she is tired of having to give Cerah 24/7 assistance, as Cerah lays in bed drooling and urinating. Rosechu thinks about how she dreamt of seeing her daughter walk down the aisle and start a family, but now she is "slow in the mind". Rosechu is angry over having no money to buy shoes and being forced to eat tuna from a can. She has reached her end and smothers Cerah with a pillow, mentally begging for forgiveness from her daughter. Sonichu comes home and is informed of her death. The two parents seem to shrug off their final child's death heartlessly- Rosechu glad he didn't suspect anything, and Sonichu actually relieved with her death. In a big text wall, the couple talk about their true feelings- Sonichu cannot stop blaming her for the kids' death, and Rosechu revealing she never really loved him, and it was foolish they got together just because they looked the same, and she had felt like nothing but a sex object to him and just a prize for him to show to his friends. She agrees to a divorce but declares Sonichu will pay for ruining her life.
The episode ends with a PSA from Chris to the audience about how an act of carelessness can snowball into tragic events. He reminds them all to have safe sex and to know the difference of lust and love.
Reception
Despite an overwhelmingly positive fan response to the new pages, Chris clarified in a rage-filled CWC Blog update that they were the work of a troll[4]. During The Great Rampage 2.0 (when the CWCipedia was hacked for the second and final time), the pages were restored, but the CWCipedia died the next day.
2015
“
I am getting back into the swing of drawing, writing and coloring my pages. The stories resume! And I am not letting too many cooks into this kitchen like I did inadvertently with the haters.
„
—Chris, September 2015.[5]
“
I have been unable to get that routine successfully habitual and set. The reasons are between my Emotions and Mood; I have to be in the right mind set in order to draw and create.
„
—Chris, February 2016, shortly before citing a bunch of tired excuses as to why he wouldn’t work on the comic that he was paid over $1,000 to do.[6]
According to statements made by William Elliott Waterman and his friend, Waterman had commissioned Chris, for $100, to draw Sonichu 11 pages[7][8], as part of a pathetic attempt to get himself unbanned from a video game blog. To that end, Waterman provided a script for Sonichu 11, including a page in which he begged the moderator of the blog to unban him; however, Chris merely used the script for inspiration and heavily revised it to his liking[9].
On 5 September 2015, a set of uncolored development images of Sonichu #11 pages was leaked[10]. They appear to prove that the 2015 pages were in fact new, and not something he had been holding back for an extended time.
Development Images
The glorious, yet brief, resurrection of the comic on 4 September 2015, when Chris uploaded 11 new pages, was accompanied by a donation bucket on his new Etsy account. One day later, a Youtube reviewer named DStecks gave Chris $1,000, thinking that Chris would deliver 100 pages of Sonichu. The donation listing was one of his best-selling items, until Etsy forced him to remove it, apparently because it violated TOS[11].
Despite being paid, Chris only completed a further 16 pages before dropping the project for another two years. Only 27 pages were added in 2015, but in them, the ubiquitous elements of Sonichu - boring and confusing plotlines, inappropriate portrayals of underage characters, walls of expository text and tone-deaf racism - are present and accounted for.
For the next two years, Chris would recycle a set of worn-out excuses for why he didn't feel like doing work he was paid to do. His typical claim of stress evolved to ADD[12], then dementia[13], and he also blamed Lulu for banning him over Sonichu being fanfiction. He last made those comments in April 2017.
2016
Chris discussed the comic with Arthur Spatchcock in early 2016.
Chris: Yeah. And uh, kind of a spoiler, there will be a part in a future story where he-- where pretty much in a dream scenario, he has to swim in a river of essentially pickle brine juice.
Arthur: Oh no.
Chris: And he blows up during the swim.
Arthur: Really? So he's like, he's like deathly allergic to pickles?
Chris: Quite.
Arthur: He better hope he gets an endephrine shot after that.
Chris: Well he's quite, uh, he's quite strong, so he's able to survive it, and at the end of the river is uh, is a healing pond at which he recovers from the allergy fairly quick.
Arthur: Well I guess that will definitely take care of that problem.
Chris: Yep.
Arthur: Now are you going to be introducing any more new characters into the series? Because right now you've already got quite a collection of people already ready to go. But seeing as how previous villains in the series have either been arrested, or, or gone, or dead, or missing, I should say, are you introducing new villains into the series based on the current, you know, issues in your life?
Chris: I would say that's still yet to be determined. But at least I was-- at least I am definitely glad to give Count Graduon a past human form with which to lead into his spirit, and um, very small spoiler, among the uh, people he'll be bringing in uh, the bodies, he finds somebody that looks nearly exactly like he used to, and he brings in-- he becomes one of the Jerkops, so he brings him in and moves his soul from the Metal Sonichu into that body.
Arthur: Now I gotta tell you right now, I definitely want to see more Metal Sonichu.
Chris: Yeah, you'll definitely see Graduon's soul in Metal Sonichu's body, and uh, Skysoar will be employed under Graduon, and he'll make a few more of them.
Arthur: See, what you need in the series, I think to really push the bad guys now, instead of just having Jerkops, you need like, robotic Jerkops, like 2.0.
Chris: Uh, yeah, pretty much, uh...
Arthur: After all, when you have a hero like Sonichu... Sonichu is already pretty powerful, and all of his friends are pretty strong too. You need to start adding that concept of conflict by making the enemies tougher too.
Chris:...Yes, that will be taken under consideration. I already have a few-- I already have a few ideas on my mind, among which. But that is definitely one I could definitely add into, uh, the uh, into the Jerkop and Janekops, there.
Arthur: Because--
Chris: Make 'em-- make 'em a bit cyborg.
Arthur: Yes, you know, it's like, uh, it's like Power Rangers, the original Power Rangers, with Zordon? When they had the Putties, and then they had the Lord Zedd Putties?
Chris: Yeah....Quite. But anyway, yes, I will take all that under great consideration.
2017
After 561 days of stress-fuelled inaction, Chris suddenly resumed work on the comic in May 2017, with a Live Drawing Stream on the 8th, in which he took half an hour to draw the line-art for a single page. The sketch from that session, with three others, were posted to Facebook on the 11th. On the 14th-15th, he recorded more drawing and filmed himself using Photoshop. On the 23rd, he posted twelve fully colored pages to Facebook, finally putting an end to the Christmas special.
Sketches from May 2017
In June 2017, Chris finished more pages and placed them behind a patron-only wall on Patreon, stating that free samples would no longer be available[14]. This move is in marked contrast to what he had advertised on Etsy two years before, when he said, "All completed Past and NEW Pages will be uploaded and Publicly viewable on my Facebook Page." Regardless of his shady business dealings, fans continued throwing money at him, with some leaking the pages to the general public.
After eight years of development, he finished Sonichu 11 on 30 June.
Chris's copy of the book.
In July, he distributed print copies of the book, likely manufactured through Lulu, to people who had pledged at least $20 to his Patreon.[15].
Part of the credits page
The printed edition of the book contains three pages worth of credits to people who had donated/pledged money to his Etsy and Patreon accounts, spanning nearly two years.[16] The first two mentioned are early backers Mister V.B.B. and Daniel Steckly.
Speculation
The ultimate content of future episodes was subject of much speculation. Sonic appears prominently on the cover, making his reappearance no surprise; however, the bizarre way that he returns (apparently "played" by Silvana) seems to be a misguided attempt to avoid copyright infringement by having the blue hedgehog not be the "real" Sonic.
Chris has said that "The reboot will happen in Book 11 with the Clip Show Episode; most questions will be answered and plots revealed."[17] This was pretty incomprehensible, as a reboot is a declaration by a Great Director that previously-established canon is null and void, or at least irrelevant. A clip show, on the other hand, is a TV episode composed mainly of excerpts from previous episodes. Neither of these correspond to answered questions or revealed plots. It's possible that by "Clip Show," Chris meant that Sonichu #11 would contain more backstory, while by "reboot," he meant that the existing "plot" would be clumsily resolved in a couple of pages before establishing a new status quo. In the end, neither of this really happened, the "clip show" instead being a flash-forward followed by a flashback.
Episode 22: "A Sonichu Christmas"
This article or section is oversized.
Help the CWCki by slimming this down.
Take that, separation of church and state! Also: child molestation.
She's addressing Chris.
This episode is not numbered, but as it skips from 21 to 23, this is clearly intended as Episode 22.
In December 2009, in response to requests for a Sonichu Christmas special, Chris began to create a comic adaptation of "A Sonichu and Rosechu Christmas Story," at the same time as he was working on the original prose version of the story. This marks the second time that Chris's prose was adapted into comic form - the short story "Sonichu & Rosechu… The Genesis of the Lovehogs" served as the basis for Episodes 1 and 2 in Sonichu #0. The story contains nothing of substantial value to the overarching plot of Sonichu, instead just depicting the Lovehogs and their hellish offspring partaking in various boring and tedious Christmas activities, with no conflict or general narrative friction whatsoever.
The comic opens to show Sonichu's family in various states of celebration for the Christmas season, with the house decorated for the holiday. For a wintertime scene, the lawn of 14 Brunchland Lane is impossibly green, while a bike is left out along the side of the house awaiting permanent rusting from the events to follow. This is because Chris reused the original 14 Brunchland Lane picture seen in Sonichu #9 with half-assed editing of the clouds and sky to a dark blue color to reflect the nighttime, the removal of Reldnahc running down the road, and the addition of poorly-rendered Christmas lights and a wreath onto the house. Chris believes toddlers can do a lot, as Cerah, Christine and Robbie hang stockings, rehearse for the overtly Christian school play, and help bake cookies. At least one of them appears to be in elementary school, so Chris likely forgot how old they were supposed to be.
While rehearsing for a Christmas pageant at her school, Christine plagiarizes a joke from Family Guy when she ad libs that the Virgin Mary may not really have been a virgin. Sonichu and Robbie are seen to be hanging stockings, and Robbie butchers a quote from A Visit from St. Nicholas. After a long, boring conversation about what toys Robbie wants, the conversation finally ends with Sonichu giving a diabetes-inducing speech about loving his little angelic kids.
Meanwhile Rosechu and Cerah make cookies. Cerah makes a big deal about making a special cookie for a Jewish kid named Kevin in an uncomfortably awkward attempt at sensitivity. The cookie, made in the vague shape of a candle, bears no resemblance to any Jewish symbol. The cookie is vanilla-flavored, in case the kid has some kind of food allergy. Rosechu and Cerah do not consider that anyone other than Jews might have food allergies. Cerah says "I wuv you!" while facing away from her mother and directly at the reader, apparently breaking the fourth wall.
In the living room, Robbie and Cerah notice that it has begun to snow. As they watch, Sonichu and Rosechu discuss the weather forecast and decide to hoard groceries while the roads are still clear. While Sonichu goes to the supermarket, Christine recites Luke 1:45-55 (which Chris types as Luke 1:46.5 - 55) while Rosechu watches and the children stare on with their soulless green eyes.. While this passage is commonly heard in Protestant churches, there's no way that any American public school in the 21st century could get away with anything this overtly religious without fear of legal reprisal. Later, Sonichu returns home with groceries, and is welcomed home woodenly by Rosechu. His trip to the grocery store is not depicted or described in any way, rendering it a pointless plot feature.
The next morning, Sonichu and Rosechu sit in the kitchen drinking coffee. A KCWC announcer details CWCville school closings, and Sonichu expresses his anticipated enjoyment of a day spent with his family, hot "coca" and a warm shower. Rosechu nags him to clear the snow burying their palatial residence, so Sonichu "bundles up for work." The kids wake and greet their father in unsettling unison, to which Sonichu replies with a hearty "good mornint". Noticing that all doors and windows are barred by mounds of snow, Sonichu decides to show off in front of the kids by jumping up the chimney and using his super speed to scatter the snow off of his yard, heedless of the likelihood that the light and fluffy snow he's moving will be blown towards a busy road and possibly cause a tragic accident. Exhausted, he heads back into the house for a shower. Waiting patiently by the bathroom, Rosechu holds a hideous novelty Christmas towel and blesses Sonichu for doing thirty seconds of chores.
To bore us further, we are informed that Robbie plays video games and watches television and reminded that Rosechu is motivated only by her desire to cook and clean. Cerah, meanwhile, plays Call of Duty: World at War with Kevin the Jew. Kevin's character dies and his score is erased (even though Call of Duty doesn't work that way as a game), and when he complains, Cera chides him that he "can't be so attached to a set of pixels." The two fight over the game, and soon after Magi-Chan begins chatting to Cerah telepathically about the incident, exploring her feelings for Kevin despite the fact that she's supposed to be a toddler. Meanwhile, Sonichu and Robbie meet a homeless woman and instead of offering her a place to sleep in their luxury home, they call her a cab to a soup kitchen. Robbie, eager for adulation, announces that he feels embarrassed by his professed enormous reservoir of empathy for the less fortunate.
Blake and Bubbles are approached by Inos, who wishes them a happy Kwanzaa. Blake suddenly remarks furiously that he isn't racist before expressing furious rage at the mere notion of someone thinking he is black, insisting mystifyingly that his fur does not look "skinburn colour." A retroactive flashback informs us that Simonla actually survived the Voltorb attack in Sonichu #10 due to a healing ability that was never referenced before. She is reunited with Wild, her daughter Sandy, and Zapina, who hugs Simonla and calls her "sis."
As they leave the hospital, Sandy's thoughts turn toward the "bad men" in Amish Country and whether or not they celebrate Christmas. Wild immediately checks his smartphone and explains very tersely that the Amish actually celebrate two Christmases, focusing on "family, togetherness and reglion [sic]". Sandy imagines Mao and Alec trading simple building materials on Christmas, before almost orgasming at the thought of raising a barn. Mao and Alec also appreciate the fact that Sean is placated by rocks, for he indeed rocks. Evan is unmentioned. Sandy concludes her fantasy by proclaiming the Amish "weird". The entire segment is, of course, a ham-fisted attempt to remind everyone that Chris rectonned the violent deaths of these men in Sonichu 10 into an exile into Amish country.
Wild and Simonla then take Sandy and Zapina off to Country Cookin' to celebrate. A nunwarranted author's note informs the reader that all Sonichus and Rosechus drive hybrids. Meanwhile, up in the mountains for some reason, Magi-Chan and Silvana Rosechu huddle around a fire, and exchange wooden statements about how they are "fated" to be a couple. Silvana thanks Magi-Chan for all the character development that has occurred off-panel, and asks if he remembers how they first met. Magi-Chan suggests, "at the risk of breaking the fourth wall", they save the story they both know for another time. Silvana then demands they "shut up, make out and mate up" and Magi-Chan expresses his desire to destroy the mountain they are on via violent intercourse.
We then see Punchy decorating his dojo and Angelica "sets a table" (the "table" is the altar of her church, which Chris evidently believes Catholics use as a dining table). No sign of Reginald or Layla though.
At long last, we see Christine performing in the Nativity Play. Suddenly, Christine begins to evolve, and runs off stage in embarrassment. She texts Rosechu about her clothes being destroyed and the great urgency with which she needs new ones. This once again muddies the waters regarding Sonichus and Rosechus and clothing; Christine is practically hysterical over not having any clothes to wear even though she's covered in fur and many of the Electric Hedgehog Pokemon never wear clothing at all. Clothing issues notwithstanding, Rosechu finds the now-adult Christine behind a locked door, and comforts her by sharing in a duet of "I'm Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman". Sonichu suddenly returns with "coat, sandals, socks, panties" before regaling everyone with a pointless, extremely detailed account of his trip home and back. Christine triumphantly returns to the stage and completes her part, despite dwarfing the rest of the cast.
After the play, Cera approaches Kevin and apologizes for killing off his video game character, offering him dreidel cookies as a way of making amends. Kevin calmly explains how Cera's aggressive video game playing has proven "too much for him" and unceremoniously breaks up with her. These characters are supposed to be very young children. Devastated, Cera breaks down into tears and the famously empathetic Robbie comes over to comfort her. Together, they cry for two whole minutes before deciding they're over it. Note that this is one of few occasions in Sonichu where an undesirable situation is not resolved in an artifically cheerful way. Christine scoops up her siblings, Rosechu mentioning how she's gone from "middle child to big sister", and they all head off in their electric car.
Chris shoots down Blake's plans for a threesome.
Later, at the CWCville Shopping Center, all the Sonichus and Rosechus have gathered together around a large Christmas tree to engage in holiday merriment. Angelica reveals that she kicked Reginald out of her house after he "trashed her bed", but plans to apologize to him later. Punchy responds with the news that Layla has left him because she could not get along with the Bananasauros. Simonla asks what has become of Chris since her recovery, at which point Rosechu reveals that in the time since the last issue, Chris has transitioned into a woman and now goes by Christine. Sonichu goes on a spiel about accepting others for their differences and apologizes for past remarks he has made. Wild suggests that the gang should visit Chris to show their support, and the rest agree. Allison Amber makes her sole appearance this issue just to say that she has other plans and can't go with them.
In Virginia, the assorted 'chus show up at Chris' house with a cake. Chris, who is depicted with photographs a la Sonichu 6, accepts their kindness. Blake comments that Chris has a nice rack and then they all pose for a group photo, drawing to a close an episode that has been in the making for eight years.
Episode 23: "Simonchu & Bananafunkle”
Waterman has no self-respect.
In 2017, Chris posted Waterman’s 2015 script for this episode, which the latter had paid Chris $100 to produce. Chris had taken many artistic liberties with the material. Notably, Waterman had included a scene in which he pleaded with the administration of a video game blog to unban him; instead, Chris rewrote the lines to mock Waterman for being “juvenile.” Despite Chris being two years late on delivering, disregarding much of his script, and insulting him in the finished product, Waterman continued to give him money for the comic, donating through Patreon.
Summary
In West Virginia, Simonchu is repeatedly blown up by random underground Voltorbs while hunting for fossils when he receives a text from Simonla inviting him to her house. Simonchu decides to go and visit (taking a fossil and a Razor Claw with him), and we are treated to a flashback in which the retconned ending of Sonichu 10 shows that the Asperpedia 4 were not brutally murdered, but instead deprived of all their possessions by the state and imprisoned on an Amish farm for life in a less gory but still unconstitutional sentancing. Despite Simonla's retconned survival, Wild is shown screaming at a clearly distraught Simonchu, calling him a "murderer" despite nobody being dead, threatening to violently assault him (presumably with the intent to kill) over a murder that no longer took place. This begs the question-why does Simonchu risk death by showing up to Wild's house in person when he's clearly shown to own a perfectly functional iPhone?
Simonchu arrives at Simonla's house, where the latter suffers a fit of sanity and (reasonably) forgives Simonchu for his involvement in her not-murder, as after all, he wasn't the one who blew her up. Suddenly, Sandy returns home, and upon spotting Simonchu seems to immediately forget that her mother's death was retconned and yells at Simonla to "get away from that male". Simonla yells at her to apologize, and the mention of her middle name ("Samantha") inexplicably causes the clearly psychotic Sandy to enter a berserk state in which she breaks the fourth wall in order to threaten to drill the reader's dick off if they even so much as mention a variation on "Samantha".
Sandy refuses to forgive Simonchu for being "one of those trolls", prompting Simonchu to protest that he was against the assassination plot in the first place, to which Sandy screams at him to shut up. A clearly frightened Simonchu tries to stutter out a "Yes Sandy" in affirmation, but unfortunately Sandy is ALSO inexplicably enraged by shorthand variations on her FIRST name, which makes you wonder why Wild and Simonla don't just have Chris legally change it to something else so she doesn't drill someone's dick out at some point in the future.
The situation only escalates when Wild suddenly returns home, due to a Deus ex Machina sense telling him to be where the plot required him to be. Wild immediately pulls out a vine and by the next panel, Simonchu is out cold due to Wild committing the assault he threatened him with. It's only THEN that Simonla yells at her family to stop being idiots for five seconds, remember that her death was completely retconned out, and apologize to Simonchu for assaulting him once he regains conciousness. At no point does Simonla announce an intention to apologize to Simonchu for causing the whole mess by being too lazy to text her husband and daughter about this in advance.
Upon recovery, Simonchu claims that he was abused by the Asperpedia 4 by being trained to fight high level Pokémon and was "mentally dumbed down" by "videos of the seriously mentally challenged". Despite being locked in a cage, he was able to obtain Internet access by stealing someone's phone, getting Simonla's number, and sending her evidence of his plight. Simonla apparently promised to launch a rescue attempt that never took place.
Simonchu then explains that the plot against Simonla's life was a retaliatory strike for Chris's mass murder of hundreds of people in Sonichu #10. He details their plan to kill everyone Sonichu and Rosechu at the mall, which was apparently supposed to involve Sean throwing rocks at people and Alec setting more than one Voltorb. Simonchu explains that his role in the plan was to distract Magi-chan's psychic surveilance by thinking "Kill Simonla" repeatedly, a tactical decision that is comparable to setting off the sprinklers so you can commit arson. During his incarceration, Wild and Sandy visited him for the sole purpose of screaming at him for things that were clearly beyond his ability to control (once again calling him a "murderer" despite nobody dying), presumably because Simonla once again neglected to tell someone about an important thing involving Simonchu.
Wild and Sandy give a standard Chris pseudo-apology and the issue is promptly forgotten about. Simonchu goes on to explain that he moved to West Virginia to dig for fossils until recently, as he felt "banned from Virginia" despite being acquitted of any involvement in a crime and CWCville merely being one city out of many. Wild asks Simonchu for the Razor Claw so he can give it to Reginald so the latter can evolve, while Sandy offers to take Simonchu to the local museum to have the mystery fossil revived.
Thirty minutes later, Wild arrives at Angelica's church and gives her the Razor Claw. We then flash forward four days to December 22nd, 2008. Angelica gives Reginald the Razor Claw, the two have sex (thankfully offscreen for once)), and then promptly fall asleep. Reginald then presumably gains a level in his sleep while holding on to the Razor Claw at night, causing him to suddenly evolve into a Weavile. He then spends five minutes trashing every part of the room save for the section of the bed Angelica is still sleeping in due to some sort of feral rage. Angelica awakes to find Reginald huddled in the corner, now completely coherent and claiming that he's "evolved against his own will" (despite the fact that all he had to do to stop it was not hold on to the Razor Claw at night) and despite Angelica's pleas, he leaves for her safety because he thinks he is now "vicious and more dark than the night", forcing Angelica and her sister nuns to clean up his mess.
Chris then interjects, apologizes for not giving the episode a title yet, and explains that the rest of the episode will be based on a script Waterman gave him in 2015, though Chris states that he has taken creative liberty to add more details to the story.
Back on December 18th, 2008, Simonchu and Sandy arrive at the Museum and give the mystery fossil to an unnamed Rosechu scientist (who Simonchu considers asking out). While they wait for the fossil to be revived, Simonchu expresses an intention to move to CWCville and Sandy explains that despite being less than a few months old she was placed in the fourth grade after what was presumably a basic intelligence test. The scientist Rosechu then returns, announcing that the revived fossil is a new species of Pokémon that has been dubbed the Bananasaur (a Grass/Dragon type) and requests that Simonchu and Sandy breed it to obtain new Bananasaurs for research purposes.
The Bananasaur does not appear to be a normal Pokémon, as Sandy explains that it's not using whatever universal language Pokémon use to talk to one another to communicate. In fact, it appears to speak complete nonsense. At a nearby manga store, Punchy overhears what the Bananasaur is trying to tell Sandy--that he's a fan of Samurai Pizza Cats and AC/DC. Punchy enters the museum and begins to converse with the Bananasauros, who explains that he is the recently reincarnated spirit of someone who was struck by a car while listening to music on his phone while going to play vidya with his friends. Punchy offers the Bananasaur some Pocky, and Simonchu suggests that Punchy be the one to take care of the Bananasuar as nobody else can understand him.
Suddenly, the Bananasaur evolves into a banana-shaped dinosaur thing which Punchy dubs the Bananasauros (clearly meant to be Bananasaurus). Punchy concludes that it must have been a friendship-induced evolution and takes the Bananasauros home. On the way to Punchy's house, the Bananasauros elaborates on his past life, claiming to be the reincarnated spirit of a high school "seinor", skateboarder, and "expert rad gamer" named David Rotgard. David the Bananasauros goes on to claim that he deserves his current fate, as shortly before his death he "cheaded Caitllyn on Henny". The two return home, and while David is happy to see that he can still operate a controller, Layla is upset that Punchy got a pet/adopted a baby/took in a random highschooler without so much as a phone call. Punchy promises to take care of their new friend, but Layla threatens to leave him if it becomes too much for her to handle. Punchy leaves to go play Call of Duty with his new roommate.
On December 22nd, Punchy takes David to the local Pokémon Day Care Center and forces him to have sex with a Ditto in the form of a female Bananasauros, telling him to suck it up. David is clearly traumatized by the whole experience and sorely regrets every life decision he made that resulted in being reincarnated as a banana dragon thing. After the Ditto lays the eggs containing David's children, David requests that he be neutered so he never has to be raped by a Ditto again. Later in the week, Punchy takes David to Nabe's dojo to teach him how to fight. Punchy easily gains the upper hand, until David notices a skateboard propped up against a tree after being thrown through a wall.
David crashes through the wall on a skateboard and begins fighting Punchy again, right after the Sonichu had patched up the holes from their training session a few moments ago. Punchy complains that David "lacks discipline" and is offended that he'd consider bringing a skateboard onto "sacred ground", but fights him anyway. David beats Punchy, as his skateboarding-based fighting style is too unorthodox for Punchy to read, but as he stands over Punchy and gloats, a loose floorboard flings |
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